Fenton's Quest - Mary Elizabeth Braddon (snow like ashes series TXT) 📗

When Gilbert heard of him next, he was clerk to a bookseller in Sydney.

The disentanglement of the Melbourne trading had occupied longer than Gilbert expected; and his exile had been especially dreary to him during the last two months he spent in Australia, from the failure of his English letters. The first two mails after his arrival had brought him letters from Marian and her uncle, and one short note from John Saltram. The mails that followed brought him nothing, and he was inexpressibly alarmed and distressed by this fact. If he could by any possibility have returned to England immediately after the arrival of the first mail which brought him no letter, he would have done so. But his journey would have been wasted had he not remained to complete the work of reorganization he had commenced; so he stayed, sorely against the grain, hoping to get a letter by the next mail.

That came, and with the same dispiriting result to Gilbert Fenton. There was a letter from his sister, it is true; but that was written from Switzerland, where she was travelling with her husband, and brought him no tidings of Marian. He tried to convince himself that if there had been bad news, it must needs have come to him; that the delay was only the result of accident, some mistake of Marian's as to the date of the mail. What more natural than that she should make such a mistake, at a place with such deficient postal arrangements as those which obtained at Lidford? But, argue with himself as he might, this silence of his betrothed was none the less perplexing to him, and he was a prey to perpetual anxiety during the time that elapsed before the sailing of the vessel that was to convey him back to England.

Then came the long monotonous voyage, affording ample leisure for gloomy thoughts, for shapeless fears in the dead watches of the night, when the sea washed drearily against his cabin window, and he lay broad awake counting the hours that must wear themselves out before he could set foot on English ground. As the time of his arrival drew nearer, his mind grew restless and fitful, now full of hope and happy visions of his meeting with Marian, now weighed down by the burden of some unspeakable terror.

The day dawned at last, that sultry summer day, and Gilbert was amongst those eager passengers who quitted the vessel at daybreak.

He went straight from the quay to the railway-station, and the delay of an hour which he had to endure here seemed almost interminable to him. As he paced to and fro the long platform waiting for the London express, he wondered how he had borne all the previous delay, how he had been able to live through that dismal agonizing time. His own patience was a mystery to him now that the ordeal was over.

The express started at last, and he sat quietly in his corner trying to read a newspaper; while his fellow-travellers discussed the state of trade in Liverpool, which seemed from their account to be as desperate and hopeless as the condition of all commerce appears invariably to be whenever commercial matters come under discussion. Gilbert Fenton was not interested in the Liverpool trade at this particular crisis. He knew that he had weathered the storm which had assailed his own fortunes, and that the future lay clear and bright before him.

He did not waste an hour in London, but went straight from one station to another, and was in time to catch a train for Fairleigh, the station nearest to Lidford. It was five o'clock in the afternoon when he arrived at this place, and chartered a fly to take him over to Lidford--a lovely summer afternoon. The sight of the familiar English scenery, looking so exquisite in its summer glory, filled him with a pleasure that was almost akin to pain. He had often walked this road with Marian; and as he drove along he looked eagerly at every distant figure, half hoping to see his darling approach him in the summer sunlight.

Mr. Fenton deposited his carpet-bag at the cosy village inn, where snow-white curtains fluttered gaily at every window in the warm western breeze, and innumerable geraniums made a gaudy blaze of scarlet against the wooden wall. He did not stop here to make any inquiries about those he had come to see. His heart was beating tumultuously in expectation of the meeting that seemed so near. He alighted from the fly, dismissed the driver, and walked rapidly across a field leading by a short cut to the green on which Captain Sedgewick's house stood. This field brought him to the side of the green opposite the Captain's cottage. He stopped for a moment as he came through the little wooden gate, and looked across the grass, where a regiment of geese was marching towards the still pool of willow-shadowed water.

The shutters of the upper rooms were closed, and there was a board above the garden-gate. The cottage was to be let.

Gilbert Fenton's heart gave one great throb, and then seemed to cease beating altogether. He walked across the green slowly, stunned by this unlooked-for blow. Yes, the house was empty. The garden, which he remembered in such exquisite order, had a weedy dilapidated look that seemed like the decay of some considerable time. He rang the bell several times, but there was no answer; and he was turning away from the gate with the stunned confused feeling still upon him, unable to consider what he ought to do next, when he heard himself called by his name, and saw a woman looking at him across the hedge of the neighbouring garden.

"Were you wishing to make any inquiries about the last occupants of Hazel Cottage, sir?" she asked.

"Yes," Gilbert answered huskily, looking at her in an absent unseeing way.

He had seen her often during his visits to the cottage, busy at work in her garden, which was much smaller than the Captain's, but he had never spoken to her before to-day.

She was a maiden lady, who eked out her slender income by letting a part of her miniature abode whenever an opportunity for so doing occurred. The care of this cottage occupied all her days, and formed the delight and glory of her life. It was a little larger than a good-sized doll's house, and furnished with spindle-legged chairs and tables that had been polished to the last extremity of brightness.

"Perhaps you would be so good as to walk into my sitting-room for a few moments, sir," said this lady, opening her garden-gate. "I shall be most happy to afford you any information about your friends."

"You are very good," said Gilbert, following her into the prim little parlour.

He had recovered his self-possession in some degree by this time, telling himself that this desertion of Hazel Cottage involved no more than a change of residence.

"My name is Dodd," said the lady, motioning Mr. Fenton to a chair, "Miss Letitia Dodd. I had the pleasure of seeing you very often during your visits next door. I was not on visiting terms with Captain Sedgewick and Miss Nowell, although we bowed to each other out of doors. I am only a tradesman's daughter--indeed my brother is now carrying on business as a butcher in Fairleigh--and of course I am quite aware of the difference in our positions. I am the last person to intrude myself upon my superiors."

"If you will be so kind as to tell me where they have gone?" Gilbert asked, eager to stop this formal statement of Miss Dodd's social standing.

"Where _they_ have gone!" she repeated. "Dear, dear! Then you do not know----"

"I do not know what?"

"Of Captain Sedgewick's death."

"Good God! My dear old friend! When did he die?"

"At the beginning of the year. It was very sudden--a fit of apoplexy. He was seized in the night, poor dear gentleman, and it was only discovered when the servant went to call him in the morning. He only lived two days after the seizure; and never spoke again."

"And Miss Nowell--what made her leave the cottage? She is still at Lidford, I suppose?"

"O dear no, Mr. Fenton. She went away altogether about a month after the Captain's death."

"Where did she go?"

"I cannot tell you that, I did not even know that she intended leaving Hazel Cottage until the day after she left. When I saw the shutters closed and the board up, you might have knocked me down with a feather. Miss Nowell was so much liked in Lidford, and she had more than one invitation from friends to stay with them for the sake of a change after her uncle's death; but she would not visit anywhere. She stayed quite alone in the cottage, with only the old servant."

"But there must surely be some one in the place who knows where she has gone!" exclaimed Gilbert.

"I think not. The landlord of Hazel Cottage does not know. He is my landlord also, and I was asking him about Miss Nowell when I paid my rent the other day. He said he supposed she had gone away to be married. That has been the general impression, in fact, at Lidford. People made sure that Miss Nowell had left to be married to you."

"I have only just returned from Australia. I have come back to fulfil my engagement to Miss Nowell. Can you suggest no one from whom I am likely to obtain information?"

"There is the family at the Rectory; they knew her very well, and were extremely kind to her after her uncle's death. It might be worth your while to call upon Mr. Marchant."

"Yes, I will call," Gilbert answered; "thanks for the suggestion."

He wished Miss Dodd good-afternoon, and left her standing at the gate of her little garden, watching him with profound interest as he walked away towards the village. There was a pleasing mystery in the affair, to the mind of Miss Dodd.

Gilbert Fenton went at once to the Rectory, although it was now past seven o'clock. He had met Mr. and Mrs. Marchant several times, and had visited them with the Listers.

The Rector was at home, sitting over his solitary glass of port by the open window of his snug dining-room, looking lazily out at a group of sons and daughters playing croquet on the lawn. He was surprised to see Mr. Fenton, but welcomed him with much cordiality.

"I have come to you full of care, Mr. Marchant," Gilbert began; "and the pressing nature of my business must excuse the lateness of my visit."

"There is no occasion for any excuse. I am very glad to see you at this time. Pray help yourself to some wine, there are clean glasses near you; and take some of those strawberries, on which my wife prides herself amazingly. People who live in the country all their days are obliged to give their minds to horticulture. And now, what is this care of yours, Mr. Fenton? Nothing very serious, I hope."

"It is very serious to me at present. I think you know that I am engaged to Miss Nowell."

"Perfectly. I had imagined until this moment that you and she were married. When she left Lidford, I concluded that she had gone to stay with friends of yours, and that the marriage would, in all probability, take place at an early period, without any strict observance of etiquette as to her mourning for her uncle. It was