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

not performed the duties of a parent very punctually hitherto; but I don't mind taking some trouble to find this girl while I am in England, in order that she may not lose her chances with you."

"You need give yourself no trouble on that score. Mr. Fenton has promised to find her for me."

"Indeed! I should like to see this Mr. Fenton."

"You can see him if you please; but you are scarcely likely to get a warm reception in that quarter. Mr. Fenton knows what you have been to your daughter and to me."

"I am not going to fling myself into his arms. I only want to hear all he can tell me about Marian."

"How long do you mean to stay in England?"

"That is entirely dependent upon the result of my visit. I had hoped that if I found you living, which I most earnestly desired might be the case, I should find in you a friend and coadjutor. I am employed in starting a great iron company, which is likely--I may say certain--to result in large gains to all concerned in it; and I fancied I should experience no difficulty in securing your co-operation. There are the prospectuses of the scheme" (he flung a heap of printed papers on the table before his father), "and there is not a line in them that I cannot guarantee on my credit as a man of business. You can look over them at your leisure, or not, as you please. I think you must know that I always had an independent spirit, and would be the last of mankind to degrade myself by any servile attempt to alter your line of conduct towards me."

"Independent spirit! Yes!" cried the old man in a mocking tone; "a son extorts every sixpence he can from his father and mother--ay, Percy, from his weak loving mother; I know who robbed me to send you money--and then, when he can extort no more, boasts of his independence. But that will do. There is no need that we should quarrel. After twenty years' severance, we can afford to let bygones be bygones. I have told you that I am glad to see you. If you come to me with disinterested feelings, that is enough. You may take back your prospectuses. I have nothing to embark in Yankee speculations. If your scheme is a good one, you will find plenty of enterprising spirits willing to join you; if it is a bad one, I daresay you will contrive to find dupes. You can come and see me again when you please. And now good-night. I find this kind of talk rather tiring at my age."

"One word before I leave you," said Percival. "On reflection, I think it will be as well to say nothing about my presence in England to this Mr. Fenton. I shall be more free to hunt for Marian without his co-operation, even supposing he were inclined to give it. You have told me all that he could tell me, I daresay."

"I believe I have."

"Precisely. Therefore no possible good could come of an encounter between him and me, and I shall be glad if you will keep my name dark."

"As you please, though I can see no reason for secrecy in the matter."

"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 amusement. 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 noble 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 noble-hearted and honourable man; a little neglectful or disdainful of conventionalities, wearing his faith in God 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 assured, 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 passion 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 naïveté.

"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