CHAPTER XIV.
"Gone, and none know it.
How now?--What news, what hopes and steps discovered!"
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: _The Pilgrim_.
When Philip arrived at his lodgings in town it was very late, but he
still found Liancourt waiting the chance of his arrival. The Frenchman
was full of his own schemes and projects. He was a man of high repute
and connections; negotiations for his recall to Paris had been entered
into; he was divided between a Quixotic loyalty and a rational prudence;
he brought his doubts to Vaudemont. Occupied as he was with thoughts of
so important and personal a nature, Philip could yet listen patiently to
his friend, and weigh with him the pros and cons. And after having
mutually agreed that loyalty and prudence would both be best consulted by
waiting a little, to see if the nation, as the Carlists yet fondly
trusted, would soon, after its first fever, offer once more the throne
and the purple to the descendant of St. Louis, Liancourt, as he lighted
his cigar to walk home, said, "A thousand thanks to you, my dear friend:
and how have you enjoyed yourself in your visit? I am not surprised or
jealous that Lilburne did not invite me, as I do not play at cards, and
as I have said some sharp things to him!"
"I fancy I shall have the same disqualifications for another invitation,"
said Vaudemont, with a severe smile. "I may have much to disclose to you
in a few days. At present my news is still unripe. And have you seen
anything of Lilburne? He left us some days since. Is he in London?"
"Yes; I was riding with our friend Henri, who wished to try a new horse
off the stones, a little way into the country yesterday. We went through
------ and H----. Pretty places, those. Do you know them?"
"Yes; I know H----."
"And just at dusk, as we were spurring back to town, whom should I see
walking on the path of the high-road but Lord Lilburne himself! I could
hardly believe my eyes. I stopped, and, after asking him about you, I
could not help expressing my surprise to see him on foot at such a place.
You know the man's sneer. 'A Frenchman so gallant as Monsieur de
Liancourt,' said he, 'need not be surprised at much greater miracles; the
iron moves to the magnet: I have a little adventure here. Pardon me if I
ask you to ride on.' Of course I wished him good day; and a little
farther up the road I saw a dark plain chariot, no coronet, no arms, no
footman only the man on the box, but the beauty of the horses assured me
it must belong to Lilburne. Can you conceive such absurdity in a man of
that age--and a very clever fellow too? Yet, how is it that one does not
ridicule it in Lilburne, as one would in another man between fifty and
sixty?"
"Because one does not ridicule,--one loathes-him."
"No; that's not it. The fact is that one can't fancy Lilburne old. His
manner is young--his eye is young. I never saw any one with so much
vitality. 'The bad heart and the good digestion'--the twin secrets for
wearing well, eh!"
"Where did you meet him--not near H----?"
"Yes; close by. Why? Have you any adventure there too? Nay, forgive
me; it was but a jest. Good night!"
Vaudemont fell into an uneasy reverie: he could not divine exactly why
he should be alarmed; but he was alarmed at Lilburne being in the
neighbourhood of H----. It was the foot of the profane violating the
sanctuary. An undefined thrill shot through him, as his mind coupled
together the associations of Lilburne and Fanny; but there was no ground
for forebodings. Fanny did not stir out alone. An adventure, too--pooh!
Lord Lilburne must be awaiting a willing and voluntary appointment, most
probably from some one of the fair but decorous frailties of London.
Lord Lilburne's more recent conquests were said to be among those of his
own rank; suburbs are useful for such assignations. Any other thought
was too horrible to be contemplated. He glanced to the clock; it was
three in the morning. He would go to H---- early, even before he sought
out Mr. William Smith. With that resolution, and even his hardy frame
worn out by the excitement of the day, he threw himself on his bed and
fell asleep.
He did not wake till near nine, and had just dressed, and hurried over
his abstemious breakfast, when the servant of the house came to tell him
that an old woman, apparently in great agitation, wished to see him. His
head was still full of witnesses and lawsuits; and he was vaguely
expecting some visitor connected with his primary objects, when Sarah
broke into the room. She cast a hurried, suspicious look round her, and
then throwing herself on her knees to him, "Oh!" she cried, "if you have
taken that poor young thing away, God forgive you. Let her come back
again. It shall be all hushed up. Don't ruin her! don't, that's a dear
good gentleman!"
"Speak plainly, woman--what do you mean?" cried Philip, turning pale.
A very few words sufficed for an explanation: Fanny's disappearance the
previous night; the alarm of Sarah at her non-return; the apathy of old
Simon, who did not comprehend what had happened, and quietly went to bed;
the search Sarah had made during half the night; the intelligence she had
picked up, that the policeman, going his rounds, had heard a female
shriek near the school; but that all he could perceive through the mist
was a carriage driving rapidly past him; Sarah's suspicions of Vaudemont
confirmed in the morning, when, entering Fanny's room, she perceived the
poor girl's unfinished letter with his own, the clue to his address that
the letter gave her; all this, ere she well understood what she herself
was talking about,--Vaudemont's alarm seized, and the reflection of a
moment construed: the carriage; Lilburne seen lurking in the
neighbourhood the previous day; the former attempt;--all flashed on him
with an intolerable glare. While Sarah was yet speaking, he rushed from
the house, he flew to Lord Lilburne's in Park Lane; he composed his
manner, he inquired calmly. His lordship had slept from home; he was,
they believed, at Fernside: Fernside! H---- was on the direct way to
that villa. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed since he heard the story
ere he was on the road, with such speed as the promise of a guinea a mile
could extract from the spurs of a young post-boy applied to the flanks of
London post-horses.
