Caught in a Trap Part 15

All the ladies eagerly proffered help, but they were headed by Lady Inskip, who exclaimed--

"Here's my darling child Carry, who is so anxious, and will be so glad to go:" a dozen fair hands also held up gorgeous little silver-topped vinaigrettes.

The doctor looked upon them all reflectively.

"Humph!" he said, sententiously, "I don't think any of you will do. I shall take Miss Pringle here; she's undertaken the case, and she may as well complete the cure."

The campaigner looked fearfully disgusted. She turned to Pringle, B.A., and said, as if speaking confidentially to them, but for the express benefit of the doctor and Lizzie, as she spoke so that all might hear her--

"Of course I would not like to interfere with a medical man, Mr Pringle; but do you think it is quite correct for a young girl like your sister to go off in that way with a young man without any chaperone?"

"No indeed, Lady Inskip--no, indeed, Lady Inskip. Of course you know best; ah! and ah! Lizzie--"

"Bless my soul!" said the doctor, excitedly, "I don't see why Miss Lizzie cannot go just as properly as your daughter, my lady! It's all nonsense, and she shall go!" And the doctor, without asking anybody's leave or license, at once handed Lizzie into the pony carriage by the side of Tom. Getting in himself, and telling the campaigner cordially "Good-day, my lady! good-day," he drove off triumphantly, although slowly, out from the glade, in and out of the trees, on to the road, and so slowly homeward to The Poplars, with our wounded hero lying back in Lizzie's arm--a very different plight to the gallant turn-out in which Tom had set out so hopefully in the morning for Lady Inskip's _fete champetre_.

The campaigner was certainly defeated to some extent, but she was not discomfited. Oh! dear, no. She had secured one of her birds--Pringle-- at all events, for he was as devoted as she could wish to Laura; and as for the other, although he had been brought down, winged is the word--so unfortunately by the young imp, still, all was not lost there yet--she had only to act, and it would run hard, so she thought, if she did not succeed in throwing on one side "that artful little minx."

She now bethought herself of her company. The day was far spent, and she was not going to let the whole thing break up in such an unsatisfactory manner. She was too knowing for that; consequently she threw cold water on the manifest sympathy for Tom.

"Pooh!" she said, "it's not much. The doctor said he would be well in a day or two, it's only a mere scratch!"

Of course several joined in with her, and followed suit. When Lieutenant Harrowby ventured to suggest that it "must be very painful, you know, ba-iey Jo-ve!" he was caught up at once by the choleric Captain Curry Cuc.u.mber, "Nice soldier you are, my fine fellow! to think so much of a mere flea-bite--a mere flea-bite. By Jingo! when I was at Rhamdaghur--" And he was going to retail some of his East-Indian reminiscences, when he was adroitly stopped by the campaigner's suggesting that they should return to the festal board, which all thereupon did, sitting down again with much gusto to the remnants of the feast.

The evening waxed on, and then they packed up, and sallied homewards.

It is wonderful what a little break the absence or injury of one makes in a large party. The proverb, "out of sight, out of mind," is true enough, although it contradicts that other veracious proverb, which tells us that "absence makes the heart grow fonder!"

Pringle and the young officers finished the evening very agreeably with the Inskip girls at their residence, the former not agitating himself much about his sister, "of whom," the campaigner observed, "she was sure Doctor Jolly would take every care, notwithstanding his rudeness to her!" So everything went well with Lady Inskip, and the pic-nic was voted a success, although Captain Curry Cuc.u.mber dubbed her "an infernal old harridan, by Jingo!" and wished he had had her "out at Rhamdaghur, by Gad!" and he would have taught her how to "insult an army-man, by Jingo!" in taking no notice of him, while she "could pamper a civilian, by Gad!"--alluding, we very much fear, to the Revd. Herbert Pringle, to whom the campaigner had been really very ingratiating. If only that accident had not happened, who knows what other success might not have fallen to her share! But Lady Inskip had the satisfaction that night of boxing Mortimer's ears.

As the pony carriage drove very slowly, it was evening, nearly night, by the time Tom and his companions arrived at The Poplars: the house was wrapped in gloomy silence.

The doctor jumped down quickly, and Lizzie after him, when she took the opportunity of saying to him, quickly, "I will wait here, doctor, until you come out, and do tell me then how he is!" She wished Tom good-bye, and walked on, apparently home to the parsonage, but she waited at the corner, and peeped back to see him carried in; after which she shrunk into the shades again to the garden-gate of The Poplars, and waited patiently for the doctor to come out.

The dowager, herself, answered the gate, outstripping "Garge" in getting there first. The doctor, having rapidly explained matters, and told her not to be alarmed, she spoke up at once sharply to the point.

"Here's a pretty kettle of fis.h.!.+" she said. "I'm a woman, Doctor Jolly; but I'm not a fool, and you won't find me crying like an idiot!"

Whereupon the orders were given to George, who looked on with stolid wonder and grief, and between them they carried Tom into the house and laid him on his bed, where the doctor saw him tranquilly composed, and told him cheerily he would be all right to-morrow.

"Here's a pretty kettle of fis.h.!.+" said the dowager, half to herself, in a muttering tone. "Here's Thomas wounded, and Susan gone away, one doesn't know where!"

"What! Susan gone?" enquired the doctor anxiously.

"Drat it all, man! It doesn't matter. I was only bothering about her being out in the garden so late; that's all!"

"Bless my soul!" said the doctor, quieting down--"you nearly frightened me to death! But I must see about Tom now!"--and there the conversation about the missing girl dropped.

The old lady had but just discovered the absence of the girl, and Miss Kingscott had disclaimed any knowledge as to her whereabouts. The fright of the dowager, however, about Tom, made her forget the other trouble for a time, particularly as Susan had often before stopped out late in the garden. She would not be really alarmed about her daughter till the morning.

Now, she was in a fearful state of anxiety about Tom, although she tried, with the dogged obstinacy of her nature, to affect indifference; but she was heartily glad when Doctor Jolly said he would do very well, and that he would come the first thing in the morning to see him.

It was night now, quite late; and the bright harvest moon was s.h.i.+ning down out of a clear blue sky with all its August fulness, marking out every feature of the landscape with all that clearness of outline and vivid contrast of brilliant, blueish light and dark shadow which only moonlight gives.

Not a breath stirred the summer night. The tall, melancholy poplars around the Hartshorne's house looked even more dismal by night than by day, with their ungainly shapes sharply defined against the sky, and their shadows more gloomy and eerie than those of the other trees; yet still Lizzie leant against the gate and waited, Heaven knows how anxiously! for Doctor Jolly's re-appearance.

The poor little thing had now been there, outside the gate, for more than two hours; as the doctor had been long engaged hearing about Susan's disappearance, which he also made light of, besides seeing to Tom's comfort and arrangements when they had lifted him into his bed and undressed him--for he was nearly helpless now.

He at length came out, however; and he had no sooner got out of the gate than Lizzie, who was eagerly watching for him, clutched his arm, and outspoke her dreadful anxiety, "Oh! doctor, dear doctor, is there any hope? He looked so pale and helpless, and--and--he will die! He will die!"

Her little wistful face looked up with such distressing enquiry into his jovial, weather-beaten countenance, that Doctor Jolly felt his eyes grow very hazy, and blew his nose vigorously.

"Certainly, my dear, certainly! That is, there is plenty of hope, Miss Lizzie. Bless my soul! plenty of hope. You see, we've extracted all the shot (Lizzie shuddered), and he's a strong and hearty young fellow, and he'll be round again before we know where we are."

"Thank you, doctor," Lizzie said, pressing his arm: the doctor felt that her simple words expressed more then than a hundred sentences might have done from others.

The doctor saw her home, and cheered her up wonderfully, so that she actually laughed before she quitted him at the parsonage gate. They seemed to have a secret understanding about the wounded hero, although neither had expressed it in words. Indeed, Doctor Jolly had been so much taken up in soothing his companion, that he quite forgot to mention anything about Susan's being missed. And all the time, the hours were gliding by, and the chances for her recovery were becoming more and more indefinite.

Verily! a very pretty kettle of fish.

Volume 2, Chapter II.

AT HAVRE AND LONDON.

Late on the evening of the day after the marriage in London, Markworth and his charge--lately his "sister," now _Madame sa femme_--arrived at the half-seaport town, half-fas.h.i.+onable watering place of _Havre-de-Grace_, at the mouth of the slowly running Seine, tawny as the yellow Tiber.

Susan had not been brought to the Continent without serious prior deliberation.

Markworth, in the first place, wished to avoid observation at the present time; and he was so well-known in London, that he thought it would be folly to remain there any longer than necessary; and, in the second place, he wanted to secure a quiet retreat wherein to lodge Susan.

He determined, of course, to keep his hold on her until her friends were a.s.sured of the marriage; and as she might be traced, and he, perhaps, arrested for abducting the girl, before he was able to lay a legal claim to her inheritance, the best plan for him to pursue was to "go across the water," as he expressed it, for awhile--as, indeed, a good many other gentlemen, who have sympathising friends amongst the trading interests of the great city of Babylon-the-Less have done, and annually do still.

What place so convenient, he thought, as Havre? So to Havre he accordingly ran over the next day, and in that pleasant little town he sat down awhile, to consider what his next movement should be, as he had to study each move carefully. He had plenty of money for present expenses; he had "the goose;" the only thing now to do was to get the "golden eggs." As he had gone so far, he certainly was not going to be baulked now, he thought. And his chances must have been good, or that cautious old Jew, Solomonson, would not have "backed him." He had only got to play his cards properly, and look about him awhile. That was all! Yes, that was all.

He could not have chosen a more convenient and comfortable place in France, all things considered, for his purpose.

Perhaps, an exceptional reader--I say "exceptional" advisedly--may have stopped at Havre after crossing over from Southampton--stopped a sufficient time to learn and know the place, for the generality of travellers who adopt this route to Paris, usually go on straight to their destination without breaking their journey at this picturesque old town, which is a sort of "half-way house" on the direct road. If so, the "exceptional reader" will bear me out in my observations on the subject and place.

Havre is like Liverpool and Boulogne rolled into one harmonious or inharmonious whole. It has all the s.h.i.+pping and maritime population-- although perhaps the latter are more gaily dressed--of the great entrepot on the Mersey, with all the thorough Gallic attributes of a French watering place.

Down in the town, Havre proper, it is all trade and bustle as befits a great commercial port; up amidst the heights of Ingouville, it is fas.h.i.+onable and fantastic, with its trim white terraces and green, gay Venetian blinds, and its lovely view of the bay beyond. Havre is really not considered half as much as it ought to be, and forms a much more enjoyable spot for a holiday than many of these fearfully uneventful and racketty fas.h.i.+onable resorts, which are generally patronised by English tourists on the Continent.

Liverpool it is like, with its muddy Seine--like the other river that runs between Birkenhead and its sister city--and its bustling streets and quays. Liverpool, with a touch of Ratcliffe Highway, on account of the parrots and foreign birds, mostly South American, that you see troops of sailors marching about with, besides the strong touch of the military element which one more frequently observes by the side of Tower Hill, than in the parallel city of trade in Lancas.h.i.+re. A French Liverpool, very Frenchified, and jovial and gay, with that foreign dash of sprightliness and _insouciance_ which is never seen in England.

Here Markworth hired lodgings, in the _Rue Montmartre_, of a stout, middle-aged Frenchwoman and her little husband: the latter being a _marchand_ of something or the other; and by no means the "better half"

of the two.

Susan was as pleased as a child with the novelty of everything around her; and if she had been changed for the better at The Poplars, the change was twice as noticeable now that she had shut out from her all the past with its a.s.sociations.

Every little item in her new life tended to increase the improvement in her mental organisation; besides which Markworth was kind and attentive to her, even more so than he had been before.