Fenton's Quest Part 21

"It is not a question of secrecy, but only of prudential reserve."

"It may be as you wish," answered the old man, carelessly. "Good-night."

He shook hands with his son, who departed without having broken bread in his father's house, a little dashed by the coldness of his reception, but not entirely without hope that some profit might arise to him out of this connection in the future.

"The girl must be found," he said to himself. "I am convinced there has been a great fortune made in that dingy hole. Better that it should go to her than to a stranger. I'm very sorry she's married; but if this Holbrook is the adventurer I suppose him, the marriage may come to nothing. Yes; I must find her. A father returned from foreign lands is rather a romantic notion--the sort of notion a girl is pretty sure to take kindly to."

CHAPTER XV.

ON THE TRACK.

Gilbert Fenton saw no more of his friend John Saltram after that Sunday evening which they had spent together in Cavendish-square. He called upon Mrs. Branston before the week was ended, and was so fortunate as to find that lady alone; Mrs. Pallinson having gone on a shopping expedition in her kinswoman's dashing brougham.

The pretty little widow received Gilbert very graciously; but there was a slight shade of melancholy in her manner, a pensiveness which softened and refined her, Gilbert thought. Nor was it long before she allowed him to discover the cause of her sadness. After a little conventional talk upon indifferent subjects, she began to speak of John Saltram.

"Have you seen much of your friend Mr. Saltram since Sunday?" she asked, with that vain endeavour to speak carelessly with which a woman generally betrays her real feeling.

"I have not seen him at all since Sunday. He told me he was going back to Oxford--or the neighbourhood of Oxford, I believe--almost immediately; and I have not troubled myself to hunt him up at his chambers."

"Gone back already!" Mrs. Branston exclaimed, with a disappointed petulant look that was half-childish, half-womanly. "I cannot imagine what charm he finds in a dull village on the banks of the river. He has confessed that the place is the dreariest and most obscure in the world, and that he has neither shooting nor any other kind of amus.e.m.e.nt. There must be some mysterious attraction, Mr. Fenton. I think your friend is a good deal changed of late. Haven't you found him so?"

"No, Mrs. Branston, I cannot say that I have discovered any marked alteration in him since my return from Australia. John Saltram was always wayward and fitful. He may have been a little more so lately, perhaps, but that is all."

"You have a very high opinion of him, I suppose?"

"He is very dear to me. We were something more than friends in the ordinary acceptation of the word. Do you remember the story of those two n.o.ble young Venetians who inscribed upon their shield _Fraires, non amici?_ Saltram and I have been brothers rather than friends."

"And you think him a good man?" Adela asked anxiously.

"Most decidedly; I have reason to think so. I believe him to be a n.o.ble-hearted and honourable man; a little neglectful or disdainful of conventionalities, wearing his faith in G.o.d and his more sacred feelings anywhere than upon his sleeve; but a man who cannot fail to come right in the long-run."

"I am so glad to hear you say that. I have known Mr. Saltram some time, as you may have heard and like him very much. But my cousin Mrs.

Pallinson has quite an aversion to him, and speaks against him with such a positive air at times, that I have been almost inclined to think she must be right. I am very inexperienced in the ways of the world, and am naturally disposed to lean a little upon the opinions of others."

"But don't you think there may be a reason for Mrs. Pallinson's dislike of my friend?"

Adela Branston blushed at this question, and then laughed a little.

"I think I know what you mean," she said. "Yes, it is just possible that Mrs. Pallinson may be jealously disposed towards any acquaintance of mine, on account of that paragon of perfection, her son Theobald. I have not been so blind as not to see her views in that quarter. But be a.s.sured, Mr. Fenton, that whatever may happen to me, I shall never become Mrs. Theobald Pallinson."

"I hope not. I am quite ready to acknowledge Mr. Pallinson's merits and accomplishments, but I do not think him worthy of you."

"It is rather awful, isn't it, for me to speak of marriage at all within a few months of my husband's death? But when a woman has money, people will not allow her to forget that she is a widow for ever so short a time. But it is quite a question if I shall ever marry again. I have very little doubt that real happiness is most likely to be found in a wise avoidance of all the perils and perplexities of that foolish pa.s.sion which we read of in novels, if one could only be wise; don't you think so, Mr. Fenton?"

"My own experience inclines me to agree with you, Mrs. Branston," Gilbert answered, smiling at the little woman's navete.

"Your own experience has been unfortunate, then? I wish I were worthy of your confidence. Mr. Saltram told me some time ago that you were engaged to a very charming young lady."

"The young lady in question has jilted me."

"Indeed! And you are very angry with her, of course?"

"I loved her too well to be angry with her. I reserve my indignation for the scoundrel who stole her from me."

"It is very generous of you to make excuses for the lady," Mrs. Branston said; and would fain have talked longer of this subject, but Gilbert concluded his visit at this juncture, not caring to discuss his troubles with the sympathetic widow.

He left the great gloomy gorgeous house in Cavendish square more than ever convinced of Adela Branston's affection for his friend, more than ever puzzled by John Saltram's indifference to so advantageous an alliance.

Within a few days of this visit Gilbert Fenton left London. He had devoted himself unflinchingly to his business since his return to England, and had so planned and organized his affairs as to be able now to absent himself for some little time from the City. He was going upon what most men would have called a fool's errand--his quest of Marian's husband; but he was going with a steady purpose in his breast--a determination never to abandon the search till it should result in success. He might have to suspend it from time to time, should he determine to continue his commercial career; but the purpose would be nevertheless the ruling influence of his life.

He had but one clue for his guidance in setting out upon this voyage of discovery. Miss Long had told him that the newly-married couple were to go to some farm-house in Hampshire which had been lent to Mr. Holbrook by a friend. It was in Hampshire, therefore, that Gilbert resolved to make his first inquiries. He told himself that success was merely a question of time and patience. The business of tracing these people, who were not to be found by any public inquiry, would be slow and wearisome no doubt.

He was prepared for that. He was prepared for a thousand failures and disappointments before he alighted on the one place in which Mr.

Holbrook's name must needs be known, the town or village nearest to the farm-house that had been lent to him. And even if, after unheard-of trouble and perseverance on his part, he should find the place he wanted, it was quite possible that Marian and her husband would have gone elsewhere, and his quest would have to begin afresh. But he fancied that he could hardly fail to obtain some information as to their plan of life, if he could find the place where they had stayed after their marriage.

His own scheme of action was simple enough. He had only to travel from place to place, making careful inquiries at post-offices and in all likely quarters at every stage of his journey. He went straight to Winchester, having a fancy for the quiet old city and the fair pastoral scenery surrounding it, and thinking that Mr. Holbrook's borrowed retreat might possibly be in this neighbourhood. The business proved even slower and more tedious than he had supposed; there were so many farms round about Winchester, so many places which seemed likely enough, and to which he went, only to find that no person of the name of Holbrook had ever been heard of by the inhabitants.

He made his head-quarters in the cathedral city for nearly a week, and explored the country round, in a radius of thirty miles, without the faintest success. It was fine autumn weather, calm and clear, the foliage still upon the trees, in all its glory of gold and brown, with patches of green lingering here and there in sheltered places. The country was very beautiful, and Gilbert Fenton's work would have been pleasant enough if the elements of peace had been in his breast. But they were not. Bitter regrets for all he had lost, uneasy fears and wild imaginings about the fate of her whom he still loved with a fond useless pa.s.sion,--these and other gloomy thoughts haunted him day by flay, clouding the calm loveliness of the scenes on which he looked, until all outer things seemed to take their colour from his own mind. He had loved Marian Nowell as it is not given to many men to love; and with the loss of her, it seemed to him as if the very springs of his life were broken. All the machinery of his existence was loosened and out of gear, and he could scarcely have borne the dreary burden of his days, had it not been for that one feverish hope of finding the man who had wronged him.

The week ended without bringing him in the smallest degree nearer the chance of success. Happily for himself, he had not expected to succeed in a week. On leaving Winchester, he started on a kind of vagabond tour through the county, on a horse which he hired in the cathedral city, and which carried him from twenty to thirty miles a day. This mode of travelling enabled him to explore obscure villages and out-of-the-way places that lay off the line of railway. Everywhere he made the same inquiries, everywhere with the same result. Another week came to an end.

He had made his voyage of discovery through more than half of the county, as his pocket-map told him, and was still no nearer success than when he left London.

He spent his Sunday at a comfortable inn in a quiet little town, where there was a curious old church, and a fine peal of bells that seemed to him to be ringing all day long. It was a dull rainy day. He went to church in the morning, and in the afternoon stood at the coffee-room window watching the townspeople going by to their devotions in an absent unseeing way, and thinking of his own troubles; pausing, just a little, now and then, from that egotistical brooding to wonder how these people endured the dull monotonous round of their lives, and what crosses and disappointments they had to suffer in their small obscure way.

The inn was very empty, and the landlord waited upon Mr. Fenton in person at his dinner. Gilbert had the coffee-room all to himself, and it looked comfortable enough when the curtains were drawn, the lamps lighted, and the small dinner-table wheeled in front of a blazing fire.

"I have been thinking over what you were asking me last night, sir," the host of the White Swan began, while Gilbert was eating his fish; "and though I can't say that I ever heard the name of Holbrook, I fancy I may have seen the lady and gentleman you are looking for."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Gilbert eagerly, pushing away his plate, and turning full on the landlord.

"I hope you won't let me spoil your dinner, sir; I know that sole's fresh. I'm a pretty good judge of those things, and choose every bit of fish that's cooked in this house. But as I was saying, sir, with regard to this lady and gentleman, I think you said that the people you are looking for were strangers to this part of the country, and were occupying a farm-house that had been lent to them."

"Precisely."

"Well, sir, I remember some time in the early part of the year, I think it must have been about March----"

"Yes, the people I am looking for would have arrived in March."

"Indeed, sir! That makes it seem likely. I remember a lady and gentleman coming here from the railway station--we've got a station close by our town, as you know, sir, I daresay. They wanted a fly to take them and their luggage on somewhere--I can't for the life of me remember the name of the place--but it was a ten-mile drive, and it was a farm--_that_ I could swear to--Something Farm. If it had been a place I'd known, I think I should have remembered the name."

"Can I see the man who drove them?" Gilbert asked quickly.

"The young man that drove them, sir, has left me, and has left these parts a month come next Tuesday. Where he has gone is more than I can tell you. He was very good with horses; but he turned out badly, cheated me up hill and down dale, as you may say--though what hills and dales have got to do with it is more than I can tell--and I was obliged to get rid of him."

"That's provoking. But if the people I want are anywhere within ten miles of this place, I don't suppose I should be long finding them. Yet the mere fact of two strangers coming here, and going on to some place called a farm, seems very slight ground to go upon. The month certainly corresponds with the time at which Mr. and Mrs. Holbrook came to Hampshire. Did you take any particular notice of them?"