A Little World

“At Norwood, I expect,” said Harry. “But, may I ask, who are you?”

“Me! – me!” she exclaimed, passionately. “I am the woman who has been his slave through life – the woman he drove mad, and then kept hidden away that he might marry money. I’m mad, I know, but only sometimes – only sometimes. And now – and now, he has robbed me of my child – his child! – no, no! my child – my own darling; and they try to cheat me; they say it is dead. But no, it could not die; it is well and happy, and,” she continued, in an undertone, “I have half maddened him. I was here this morning and told him I would have my little one. I would not leave him, but he contrived to evade me.” Then, catching Harry’s wrist, she whispered a few words in his ear which made him turn pale with horror.

“Nonsense! No, no! not so bad as that,” he said, hoarsely.

“Yes, yes, I fear it is. Take me with you now – at once.”

Harry stood for a moment thinking, and half confused, at times, too, doubting the wisdom of taking such a companion; then, evidently having formed his plans, he said hurriedly, “Come then!” and in a few minutes they had secured a cab, and were rattling over London Bridge.

A train due in five minutes, but it seemed to them five hours before it came. Off at last, though; and very soon after leaving the station their footsteps were crunching over the gravel sweep that led to the front door of Richard Pellet’s place, when, as soon almost as they reached the porch, the door flew open, and a burst of warm light greeted them, their approach having been heralded by a bell from the lodge.

“Mr Pellet in?” said Harry to one of the gentlemen in drab and coach-lace.

“Not been gone out ten minutes, sir.”

“Do you know where to?” said Harry.

The gentleman in coach-lace looked at his fellow, and then back at Harry, to answer —

“Station, sir; carriage not come back yet. Came ’ome and had early dinner, and ordered carriage at five.”

“No idea where he is gone?” said Harry, anxiously.

The gentleman in coach-lace looked at his fellow once again, before answering, while Ellen whispered to Harry, as she tightly clutched his arm, “Ask him again – again,” but there was no need.

“Paris, I think, sir,” said the man. “I shouldn’t tell any one, sir; but it can’t be wrong to tell you. Glad to see you here again, sir. Like dinner d’reckly?”

“No, no,” said Harry, hesitating. “Did you notice anything particular? – but what makes you say Paris?”

“Because he told me to look what times trains run from London Bridge to Newhaven, sir; and what time the Dieppe boat started. His hand shook so, sir, he couldn’t find out for himself.”

“Was he ill? Did you see anything particular in him?” said Harry, anxiously.

“Didn’t seem himself at all, sir; and did nothing hardly at dinner but drink wine, sir.”

“There, there!” whispered Mrs Richard, “I told you so; he is wild, and you must stop him, or he will – ”

Harry shuddered, and turned away to snatch his portmonnaie from his pocket and count its contents.

“You had better stay here,” he said.

“No, no! I must go with you. I want – I want to be with you. If anything were to happen – if he committed any rash act, I should feel that his blood was upon my head. Come!” she said, eagerly, and with a strange look in her eyes. “Come! there is no time to lose. I want – I want to be on the way.”

By consulting Bradshaw, Harry found that they might reach Newhaven before the boat started; perhaps catch the very train by which Richard Pellet travelled, though the probability was that they would find him to have an hour’s start of them, but by a slow train – that is, if he had gone at all, which Harry was sometimes disposed to doubt. But then he had taken luggage, and had written a direction, so the man said; and in corroboration he brought a blotting-pad, and part of a book of adhesive luggage labels, one of which was written upon; but, perhaps from want of legibility, smeared hastily over. But there, plain enough to read, was the address – “R. Pellet, Hotel Laroche, R – .”

That was all. Where would “R” be? Some Rue in Paris, Harry thought; when his eyes fell upon the blotting-pad – one that had hardly been used, but upon which, in reverse, he could now make out the same address, left by another label that had been blotted upon it. “R. Pellet” was perfectly plain; and then, with a little puzzling, he made out the rest, – “Hotel Laroche, Rouen.”

“Can we have the brougham?” said Harry, for he was now satisfied.

“D’reckly, sir,” answered the man. But “d’reckly” proved to be a full half-hour afterwards, when, just as Harry was about to set off on foot for the station, the brougham came round to the door, and they stepped in.

“Station – quick!” said Harry.

The man drove quickly; but they were only in time to see one train glide away through the darkness, leaving them waiting impatiently for the next.

Fortunately for the travellers, the trains succeeded each other very rapidly, and getting out at London Bridge, they had just time to cross over and reach the express as the last bell rang, hurrying into a carriage and giving vent to a sigh of relief as they felt it glide away into the outer darkness.

Gazing out of the window at the lamps here and there dimly seen through the fog that hung over them, Harry’s companion sat without speaking a word. Harry had ventured one or two remarks, but she had only made an impatient gesture with her hand, and, out of respect for her evident anxiety, he remained silent, and sat pondering over the probable termination of his expedition. It had been so hurried and excited an affair, that he had not before had time to think calmly: neither was a rapid express train upon the Brighton railway a desirable place for quiet meditation.

However, as they rushed along, he tried to link together the incidents that had led to what now seemed like a wild and foolish chase. What would his stepfather say to him for hunting him in this fashion, and for bringing with him this woman? But then her dark suspicion that he was wild with rage, and meditated self-destruction, joined to the accounts he had heard at Norwood of his strange unsettled state, which seemed to tend to the same conclusion, satisfied him upon the whole that he had done right in coming. It was evident that his companion had spoken the truth, and was connected with his stepfather in some way, from the clerk having pointed her out as the lady with whom his employer had gone out that morning.

“It must be right,” muttered Harry; and then his thoughts strayed away for awhile to Duplex Street, and he found himself forming plans for the future, in which Patty Pellet occupied a very prominent place.

His train of thought was interrupted by his companion uttering a moan, as though in deep distress; but, thinking it better not to intrude, he leaned back in his place, and the rest of the journey was performed in silence.

Newhaven at last, with the keen breeze blowing off the sea. Night black as Erebus, and the glimmering lamps looking down upon half-thawed snow lying here and there in patches. No fog visible, every wreath of vapour being chased away by the brisk breeze; but an utterly desolate aspect of misery everywhere, which made the warm glow of the great new-looking hotel-rooms pleasant by contrast.

“Boat, sir? half-an-hour, sir. Just time for refreshments, sir. Stout grey gentleman, sir, by last train? Not here, sir. Yes, sir, quite sure; must have known if one had come; perhaps gone to the little hotel in the town. Time to go and get back before the boat started? Should think not, sir; leastwise shouldn’t like to try.”

So said the waiter; and Harry and his companion started out into the dark night to search waiting-room, wharf, and steamer, deck and cabin, for him of whom they were in quest.

Volume Three – Chapter Twenty Three.

The End of a Journey

“Perhaps, after all, he has not come,” said Harry to his silent companion, for no word left her lips; she only restlessly led him from place to place, pressing his arm with her hand when she wished him to speak to porter or guard. Once he heard her mutter a few words – “To escape and hide – taken her there;” but she made no reply to his remark.

They had searched the waiting-rooms of the station and hotel, paced up and down the wharf, boarded the steamer, and examined every labelled berth, but there was no sign of either Richard Pellet or his luggage. Then they returned to the pier, and watched in the direction that would be taken by any one coming from the little hotel in the town, till a blinding storm of wind-borne snow would have made Harry lead his companion into shelter, but she seemed not to pay the slightest heed to the weather, as she gazed incessantly here and there, trying to catch a glimpse of the missing man.

The mooring cables creaked and groaned as the steamer rose and fell upon the swell in the little harbour, the water rushing fiercely past, black and angry, save where it broke and glistened now and again upon the bows of a boat, or upon the piles and piers around, while the snow fell fitfully in great soft pats, whirled here and there, each flake darting from its fellow when they passed the lamps, which flickered and danced as the squalls penetrated every nook and cranny. Now the platform and pier would be white, but in a few moments a black patch would break out here, another there, growing rapidly larger, till, once more, all would be a wet, slippery, blackened sheet, upon whose surface the rays of the lamps flickered and blinked.

A bitter night – cold, dark, and dreary; the men about, clad in oilskin wrappers, which glistened with the wet that streamed down them as the snow melted. Nearly every one carried a lanthorn to swing about as a signal to guide his steps amongst the railway trucks. Dark clouds floated by, to halt now and then, and send shimmering down what seemed a winding-sheet of snow. Then would come a moaning gust of wind, sweeping the heavier clouds away, to leave the heavens but little lighter. The few passengers bound for Dieppe hurried across the pier, and made the best of their way on board to secure their berths, perhaps with no very pleasant anticipations of the coming night, and, saving for here and there a railway official with a lanthorn, scarcely a soul was to be seen as Harry and his companion still kept watch in the direction of the town.

The time had nearly expired, so nearly, that if Richard Pellet were to take his departure by that steamer, he must be there within the next five minutes, while upon their once more going on board, and questioning the steward respecting the advent of a short, stout, grey gentleman, that functionary, evidently put somewhat out of temper by the weather, and the poor array of passengers, incontinently cursed the stout gentleman, and turned his back upon the querists, who made their way back over the slippery deck, crossed the gangway, and again began to pace up and down upon the landing-stage.

If Richard Pellet had come down, which Harry now very much doubted, he must, as the waiter had suggested, have gone into the town, and Harry now repented that he had not at once hurried on there, and made inquiries. For, though he kept scouting the idea as absurd, and telling himself that his stepfather had some other reason for coming down here, his imagination was full of horrors suggested by his memory of destroyed directions and cards, and of men who had sought hotels in remote places to do some deed which should only produce an inquest on the body of a man unknown, unrecognised, unclaimed, so that the memory of the horror might soon pass away, and relatives only know that one of their family was missing.

His fears must though, he felt, be groundless, for Richard Pellet, wealthy, prosperous, was not the man to make an end of his life; but then he might not after all be prosperous; his affairs might be in a hopeless state of confusion; and now this strange connection with the woman at his side might have urged him to flight or the commission of the crime at which she had hinted.

But might not the woman be deceiving him? A glance, though, at the anxious, pallid face at his side, showed him plainly enough that even if she believed not the words she had uttered, she was moved by some strong impulse to overtake his stepfather; and, after all, what she had whispered might be true.

At last he determined to speak – to question her; but it was in vain, for he could obtain no answer. In fact, she had, in her eagerness to overtake the man whom she believed to have her child, forgotten the ruse that she had used to set Harry in search of his stepfather. It was the half insane prompting of her fevered brain; but as soon as her object was effected, it was entirely forgotten – crushed out of her memory by the intense desire to overtake him. Richard Pellet and her child: there seemed room for nothing else in her thoughts; and once only had she spoken to Harry during the last quarter of an hour of their watch, and then only to inquire whether there was any other boat, and when answered in the negative, she relapsed into her former silence.

The night darker than ever, a star now and then appearing, but only to be directly blotted out by some dense cloud; whenever a light patch of sky was visible low down on the horizon, the interlacing rigging and masts of the few vessels about could be seen rocking to and fro, while the steamer lights rose and fell in a way that betokened rough weather in the Channel. In the intervals of the squalls, too, would be heard the long, low roar of the sea, breaking upon the beach below the chalk cliffs that towered away to the west, or round by the sandy bay by Seaford. Waves rose, too, and washed with a heavy dash against the pier at the harbour entrance; and more than once Harry had heard it hinted that the steamer would not put to sea in such weather.

But the hints were from those ill-informed: the steamer was bound for Dieppe that night, and as Harry and his companion stood by the gangway, looking down upon the vessel’s deck, the paddles began to revolve, and Harry thought she had started, and that he had come, after all, on an errand of folly – such an one as a little forethought would have stayed him from attempting. But the boat was not yet off: the movement had only been to ease the strain upon the cables stretched on to the landing-place, for, as if eager to set off, the vessel had been tugging at them, until one threatened to part.

Another squall, and a fall of snow, during which the last bell rang, and a man shouted to Harry to know if he were going on board.