Henry Wood - Johnny Ludlow, Fifth Series

An aspect of semi-courtesy was outwardly maintained in the intercourse of home life. Lavinia was a gentlewoman; she had not spoken unpleasant things to the captain’s face, or hinted that he was a weight upon the housekeeping pocket; whilst he, as yet, was quite officiously civil to her. But there was no love lost between them; and Lavinia could not divest her mind of an undercurrent of conviction that he was, in some way or other, a man to be dreaded.

Thus Captain Fennel (as he was mostly called), being domiciled with the estimable ladies in the Petite Maison Rouge, grew to be considered one of the English colony of Sainteville, and was received as such. As nobody knew aught against him, nobody thought anything. Major Smith had not spoken of antecedents, neither had Miss Preen; the Carimons, who were in the secret, never spoke ill of any one: and as the captain could assume pleasing manners at will, he became fairly well liked by his country-people in a passing sort of way.

Lavinia Preen sat one day upon the low edge of the pier, her back to the sun and the sea. She had called in at the little shoe-shop on the port, just as you turn out of the Rue Tessin, and had left her parasol there. The sun was not then out in the grey sky, and she did not miss it. Now that the sun was shining, and the grey canopy above had become blue, she said to herself that she had been stupid. It was September weather, so the sun was not unbearable.

Lavinia Preen was thinner; the thraldom of the past three months had made her so. Now and then it would cross her mind to leave the Petite Maison Rouge to its married inmates; but for Nancy’s sake she hesitated. Nancy had made the one love of her life, and Nancy had loved her in return. Now, the love was chiefly given to the new tie she had formed; Lavinia was second in every respect.

“They go their way now, and I have to go mine,” sighed Lavinia, as she sat this morning on the pier. “Even my walks have to be solitary.”

A cloud came sailing up and the sun went in again. Lavinia rose; she walked onwards till she came to the end of the pier, where she again sat down. The next moment, chancing to look the way she had come, she saw a lady and gentleman advancing arm-in-arm.

“Oh, they are on the pier, are they!” mentally spoke Lavinia. For it was Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Fennel.

Nancy sat down beside her. “It is a long walk!” cried she, drawing a quick breath or two. “Lavinia, what do you think we have just heard?”

“How can I tell?” returned the elder sister.

“You know those queer people, an old English aunt and three nieces, who took Madame Gibon’s rooms in the Rue Ménar? They have all disappeared and have paid nobody,” continued Nancy. “Charley Palliser told us just how; he was laughing like anything over it.”

“I never thought they looked like people to be trusted,” remarked Lavinia. “Dear me! here’s the sun coming out again.”

“Where is your parasol?”

Lavinia recounted her negligence in having left it at the shoe-mart. Captain Fennel had brought out a small silk umbrella; he turned from the end of the pier, where he stood looking out to sea, opened the umbrella, and offered it.

“It is not much larger than a good-sized parasol,” remarked he. “Pray take it, Miss Lavinia.”

Lavinia did so after a moment’s imperceptible hesitation, and thanked him. She hated to be under the slightest obligation to him, but the sun was now full in her eyes, and might make her head ache.

The pleasant smell of a cigar caused them to look up. A youngish man, rather remarkably tall, with a shepherd’s plaid across his broad shoulders, was striding up the pier. He sat down near Miss Preen, and she glanced round at him. Appearing to think that she looked at his cigar, he immediately threw it into the sea behind him.

“Oh, I am sorry you did that,” said Lavinia, speaking impulsively. “I like the smell of a cigar.”

“Oh, thank you; thank you very much,” he answered. “I had nearly smoked it out.”

Voice and manner were alike pleasant and easy, and Lavinia spoke again—some trivial remark about the fine expanse of sea; upon which they drifted into conversation. We are reserved enough with strangers at home, we Islanders, as the world knows, but most of us are less ungracious abroad.

“Sainteville seems a clean, healthy place,” remarked the new-comer.

“Very,” said Miss Lavinia. “Do you know it well?”

“I never saw it before to-day,” he replied. “I have come here from Douai to meet a friend, having two or three days to spare.”

“Douai is a fine town,” remarked Captain Fennel, turning to speak, for he was still looking out over the sea, and had his opera-glasses in his hand. “I spent a week there not long ago.”

“Douai!” exclaimed Nancy. “That’s the place where the great Law Courts are, is it not? Don’t you remember the man last year, Lavinia, who committed some dreadful crime, and was taken up to Douai to be tried at the Assizes there?”

“We have a great case coming on there as soon as the Courts meet,” said the stranger, who seemed a talkative man; “and that’s what I am at Douai for. A case of extensive swindling.”

“You are a lawyer, I presume?” said Miss Preen.

The stranger nodded. “Being the only one of our London firm who can speak French readily, and we are four of us in it, I had to come over and watch this affair and wait for the trial. For the young fellow is an Englishman, I am sorry to say, and his people, worthy and well-to-do merchants, are nearly mad over it.”

“But did he commit it in England?” cried Miss Preen.

“Oh no; in France, within the arrondissement of the Douai Courts. He is in prison there. I dare say you get some swindling in a petty way even at Sainteville,” added the speaker.

“That we do,” put in Nancy. “An English family of ladies ran away only yesterday, owing twenty pounds at least, it is said.”

“Ah,” said the stranger, with a smile. “I think the ladies are sometimes more clever at that game than the men. By the way,” he went on briskly, “do you know a Mr. Dangerfield at Sainteville?”

“No,” replied Lavinia.

“He is staying here, I believe, or has been.”

“Not that I know of,” said Lavinia. “I never heard his name.”

“Changed it again, probably,” carelessly observed the young man.

“Is Dangerfield not his true name, then?”

“Just as much as it is mine, madam. His real name is Fennel; but he has found it convenient to drop that on occasion.”

Now it was a curious fact that Nancy did not hear the name which the stranger had given as the true one. Her attention was diverted by some men who were working at the mud in the harbour, for it was low water, and who were loudly disputing together. Nancy had moved to the side of the pier to look down at them.

“Is he a swindler, that Mr. Dangerfield?” asked she, half-turning her head to speak. But the stranger did not answer.

As to Lavinia, the avowal had struck her speechless. She glanced at Captain Fennel. He had his back to them, and stood immovable, apparently unconcerned, possibly not having heard. A thought struck her—and frightened her.

“Do you know that Mr. Dangerfield yourself?” she asked the stranger, in a tone of indifference.

“No, I do not,” he said; “but there’s a man coming over in yonder boat who does.”

He pointed over his shoulder at the sea as he spoke. Lavinia glanced quickly in the same direction.

“In yonder boat?” she repeated vaguely.

“I mean the London boat, which is on its way here, and will get in this evening,” he explained.

“Oh, of course,” said Lavinia, as if her wits had been wool-gathering.

The young man took out his watch and looked at it. Then he rose, lifted his hat, and, with a general good-morning, walked quickly down the pier.