Lettice

She turned to look for Lettice, with some vague idea of seeking her confidence on the subject. Lettice was sitting quietly at a little distance, with a book open before her. Mrs Morison was crossing the room to sit down beside her, when a ring at the bell made them all start. Not that rings at the bell are so uncommon an occurrence in a London house, but it was getting late, no visitor was expected, and the ring had a decided and slightly authoritative sound.

“It is like Auriol’s ring,” said Mr Morison; and the words were scarcely out of his mouth when the door was thrown open, and Mr Auriol was announced.

Every one jumped up. For a few minutes there was a bustle of surprise and welcome, questions asked and answered, so that Lettice’s quiet greeting passed among the rest, without any one specially remarking it. She was inexpressibly thankful when it was over, and in her heart grateful to Godfrey for making this first meeting under the so strangely altered circumstances pass so easily.

“I have only just got back,” he said when the hubbub had subsided, and Mrs Morrison had rung for fresh tea. “I came on here as soon as I had changed my clothes. I have been travelling all day. That last place where I was at is so frightfully out of the way, but I stayed a night at the Winthrops’.”

He spoke faster than usual, and it was not difficult for any one used to him to detect some underlying excitement Lettice, at least, did so, and sympathised in it, as for the first time it struck her that this meeting was for him, too, difficult and trying. She said nothing, but when her aunt exclaimed, “Travelling all to-day? Dear me! You must be tired,” she murmured gently, “Yes, indeed;” and Godfrey caught her words, faint as they were, and looked pleased.

“I was so anxious to hear if – if you had heard anything more,” he said; and though he did not name Arthur, every one knew that was what he meant.

“Nothing more,” said Mr Morison, for the last letter, bearing date now nearly a fortnight ago, had been communicated to Mr Auriol. “I must have a long talk with you about it all, Auriol. I think it is about time to be doing something more energetic, and yet we have all agreed in feeling very reluctant to making any ‘to-do’ that could possibly be avoided.”

“Oh yes,” said Nina fervently, clasping her hands.

Mr Auriol sat silent for a moment or two. Then he looked up and said —

“You have no idea, I suppose, who it is that posts his letters for him?”

Mr Morison looked a little bewildered.

“They are all posted in London, I think you told me?” added Mr Auriol.

“To be sure,” said Mr Morison. “Yes. I have once or twice wondered who does it, unless it is himself? No, by-the-by, he has distinctly said he is not in London. I have thought of it, but not very much. I fancied it so hopeless to get any clue in that way.”

“But it must be some one in his confidence, some one, I should almost say, whom he had a claim on,” said Godfrey. “For there is a certain amount of risk in doing it; the person might be blamed for having taken any part in it. Is there no one any of you have ever heard of who would be likely to agree to do Arthur a service of the kind?” He looked round, but his glance seemed to rest on Lettice. No one spoke.

“You must all think it over,” he said. “It’s only a suggestion, but something may come of it.” And soon after, allowing that he was very tired, he said “Good night,” and went away.

Lettice, in the quiet of her own room, realised how kindly and considerately he had behaved. His matter-of-fact manner had been the greatest relief, and nothing that he could have said could have been so full of tact and delicacy as his saying nothing.

“I do believe,” thought the girl, her impulsive nature aglow again, “I do believe he hurried out here to-night as much for my sake as on account of his anxiety. He knew his coming in that sudden unlooked-for way would carry off the awkwardness. It is very generous of him.” Then her thoughts reverted to what he had suggested. Did she know any one standing in such a position to Arthur? She sat long thinking, asking herself the question, when suddenly, by that curious process by which it sometimes seems as if the machinery of our brain obeyed our orders unconsciously to ourselves – there dashed into her memory a name, a sentence she had heard Arthur utter. The name was “Dawson,” and as she repeated it to herself, she seemed to hear her brother’s voice saying thoughtfully —

“Yes, I do believe there’s one person in the world who’d do anything for me. It’s that fellow Dawson. I’ve told you about him, Lettice?” Yes, he had told her about him, though he probably had forgotten doing so, just as she, till this moment, had forgotten having heard it. Now, by slow degrees, it came back to her. Dawson had been a young servant in Mr Downe’s service, and by a fall from a ladder had broken his leg. Being naturally delicate, this accident had altogether ruined his health; he was pronounced incurably lame, and Arthur had done his utmost to help and comfort the poor boy. I do not know that Lettice remembered all these details so clearly, but they were the facts, and she recalled enough to make her sure that Dawson was worth looking up. She knew he had been living at the little town near to which was Mr Downe’s “cramming” establishment; she felt almost sure his home was there. In any case, it was more than probable he would there be heard of; and surely, surely it was worth trying!

Whatever were Lettice Morison’s faults and failings, want of courage and determination were not among them. Her plans were soon made.

It was but little sleep that fell to her share that night.

“I must go alone,” she said to herself. “If I have discovered Arthur’s secret I have no right to share it with any other till I know what he himself wishes. Besides, it is I who am to blame for his having been driven away; it is I who should bring him back.”

She quickly made her arrangements. For the second time in the course of but a few weeks, she wrote a note for Nina to find after she should have left – a note to some extent explaining what she was about.

“I think I have got a clue, dearest Nina,” she said. “But I must follow it up alone. Do not be the least uneasy about me. I shall probably be back in a few hours; if not, I will telegraph in the course of the day.”

This was about all that Nina had to show to her uncle, when at breakfast-time that morning she rushed downstairs with the tidings of Lettice’s disappearance. Mr Morison looked, and was, terribly put out. For the first time, his patience seemed about to desert him.

“It is really too bad,” he said. “What have I done or left undone that Lettice should meet me with so little confidence? It is all nonsense about her being the only person who could act, if indeed there is anything to act about. It is too bad!” And then, catching sight of the excessive distress in Nina’s gentle face, his kind heart smote him for adding to it.

“After all,” he said, more cheerfully than he felt, “I do not know that there is anything to be really uneasy about I quite expect her back by luncheon. We let her off too easily the last time, eh, Nina? Poor child! What a child she is, to do things in this silly, ill-considered way!”

They went in to breakfast, and Nina tried to follow her uncle’s example, and to believe that there was nothing to be seriously alarmed about. But neither Mr nor Mrs Morison eat anything, and seemed eager to leave the table, in order, no doubt, to discuss what steps to take.

“Dear me,” thought poor Nina, her eyes filling with tears, “what trouble, from first to last, we have caused them!”

Just as the mockery of a breakfast was over – Miss Branksome and the younger children had had theirs earlier – and the three were rising from the table, there came, as the evening before, a short, sharp, authoritative ring at the door-bell.

“That sounds like Auriol again,” said Mr Morison, smiling at his own fancifulness, “though of course it can’t be at this time of the morning.” But he was mistaken. It was Mr Auriol. In he hurried, not waiting for the footman to announce him, a bright, eager expression on his face, an opened envelope in his hand.

“Good news!” he cried. “I have a letter from Arthur, giving an address to which I may write, if I have good news for him. I could not rest till I told you of it, so I rushed up here at once. Will you give me a cup of tea, Mrs Morison? The letter was to be private unless I could guarantee all of you feeling – as I know you do about it, Lettice especially. It all hangs on her, but I know she will be only too ready. Where is she – not down yet?”

The three others looked at each other – for a moment forgetting their own trouble in honest reluctance to chill poor Godfrey’s evident delight. Nina was the first to speak.

“Oh!” she said, and the exclamation came from the very bottom of her heart, “if Lettice had but waited till breakfast-time!”

He looked up in bewildered amazement. Then all had to be told, and Lettice’s letter shown. Godfrey bit his lips till it made Nina nervous to watch him, as he read it.

“What is the meaning of it? Is it my fault again? Have I frightened her away?” he said almost piteously.

At which, of course, they all exclaimed, though he seemed hardly convinced by what they said. Then he told them about Arthur’s letter. It had been drawn forth by the terrible home-sickness which had began to prey upon him, and by the necessity of his coming to a decision about binding himself to his present employer for a considerable time. He gave no particulars as to where he was, or how employed, but spoke of his misery at being without any tidings of all at home, and how at last the idea had come to him of confiding in Godfrey. “I trust you implicitly, even though you are my guardian,” he said naïvely, “not to speak of this letter, not to endeavour to find me, unless you are assured that they all want me to come back; that they will not be, Lettice especially, ashamed of me; that Lettice will not insist on my trying again when I know I should again fail. All depends on Lettice.”

Then he gave the address to which Mr Auriol was to write, but entreated him not to let the person living at that address be blamed, or fall into any trouble on his account. “He has been a faithful friend,” Arthur wrote; “but for him I could not have written home at all.”

“Who is it?” asked Mr Morison.

“I have no idea,” said Godfrey. “I saw no necessity for inquiring. I meant just to write, and to ask his sisters to do so,” he went on. “I felt sure they, Miss Morison especially, would know how to write so as to bring him back at once. But now – there is no use writing till we know where she is, and what she is doing; and yet,” he glanced at the envelope, “he will be already wondering at my silence. This letter has been following me about for more than a week.”

“Mr Auriol,” said Nina suddenly, “do you remember what you asked us last night? To try to think of any one whom Arthur may have employed to post his letters. That may have put something in Lettice’s head; she may have thought of some one. I have a vague idea of some young man, some boy, living near Mr Downe’s, whom Arthur was kind to.”

“This may be he,” said Mr Auriol. “The letter is to be sent under cover to ‘T. Dawson,’ in a village near Fretcham, where Mr Downe’s is.”

“I believe that is where she has gone. She must have remembered it,” said Mr Morison. “What shall we do?”

“I shall start at once,” said Godfrey. ”‘T. Dawson,’ whoever he is, will not be so startled by me as by any one else, as he has sent on this letter to me. And of course there will be no treachery to Arthur in his telling me if Miss Morison has been there.”

“Perhaps it is the best thing to do,” said Mr Morison, “though I would gladly have gone myself.”

“And I do so hope you will bring Lettice back with you,” said Nina.

And almost before they had realised his apparition among them, he was gone.

“Another long miserable day of waiting for telegrams,” said poor Nina piteously. And then determining to follow sensible Miss Branksome’s advice, she went in search of her, to beg her to suggest some employment to make the time of suspense pass more quickly.

“Give me some piece of hard work, please. A very difficult German translation might do, or a piece of very fine old lace to mend.” And poor Miss Branksome was cudgelling her brains as to what to propose, when Mrs Morison’s voice, calling Nina, interrupted them.

“Nina, I want you,” said her aunt. “Will you help me to write some notes and to attend to several little things I want done quickly? For I have just had a word from Philip Dexter. He has come back, and is to be here at luncheon, and I should not like to be busy the first time he comes after so long.”

Thus occupation was found both for Nina’s fingers and thoughts.