Lucy felt startled. “Do you mean Mrs. Verner?”
“Why, of course I do,” answered Catherine. “She has been up-stairs all this while, and has dressed herself alone. She must not go. Miss Lucy. She’s looking like a ghost. What will Mr. Verner say to us, if we let her! It may just be her death.”
Lucy clasped her hands in her consternation.
“Catherine, what can we do? We have no influence over her. She would not listen to us for a moment. If we could but find Mr. Verner!”
“He was going round to Mr. Jan’s when my lady drove off. I heard him say it. Miss Lucy, I can’t go after him: she’d find me out: I can’t leave her, or leave the house. But he ought to be got here.”
Did the woman’s words point to the suggestion that Lucy should go? Lucy may have thought it: or, perhaps, she entered on the suggestion of her own accord.
“I will go, Catherine,” she whispered. “I don’t mind it. It is nearly as light as day outside, and I shall soon be at Mr. Jan’s. You go back to Mrs. Verner.”
Feeling that there was not a moment to be lost; feeling that Mrs. Verner ought to be stopped at all hazards for her own sake, Lucy caught up a shawl and a green sun-bonnet of Lady Verner’s that happened to be in the hall, and thus hastily attired, went out. Speeding swiftly along the moonlit road she soon gained Deerham, and turned to the house of Dr. West. A light in the surgery guided her there at once.
But the light was there alone. Nobody was present to reap its benefit or to answer intruders. Lucy knocked pretty loudly on the counter without bringing forth any result. Apparently she was not heard: perhaps from the fact that the sound was drowned in the noise of some fizzing and popping which seemed to be going on in the next room—Jan’s bed-room. Her consideration for Mrs. Verner put ceremony out of the question: in fact, Lucy was not given at the best of times to stand much upon that: and she stepped round the counter, and knocked briskly at the door. Possibly Lionel might be in there with Jan.
Lionel was not there, nor Jan, either. The door was gingerly opened about two inches by Master Cheese, who was enveloped in a great white apron and white oversleeves. His face looked red and confused as it peeped out, like that of one who is caught at some forbidden mischief; and Lucy obtained sight of a perfect mass of vessels, brass, earthenware, glass and other things, with which the room was strewed. In point of fact. Master Cheese, believing he was safe from Jan’s superintendence for some hours, had seized upon the occasion to plunge into his forbidden chemical researches again, and had taken French leave to use Jan’s bed-room for the purpose, the surgery being limited for space.
“What do you want?” cried he roughly, staring at Lucy.
“Is Mr. Verner here?” she asked.
Then Master Cheese knew the voice, and condescended a sort of apology for his abruptness.
“I didn’t know you, Miss Tempest, in that fright of a bonnet,” said he, walking forth and closing the bed-room door behind him. “Mr. Verner’s not here.”
“Do you happen to known where he is?” asked Lucy. “He said he was coming here, an hour ago.”
“So he did come here; and saw Jan, Jan’s gone to the ball. And Miss Deb and Miss Amilly are gone to a party at Heartburg.”
“Is he,” returned Lucy, referring to Jan, and surprised to hear the news, balls not being in Jan’s line.
“I can’t make it out,” remarked Master Cheese. “He and Sir Edmund used to be cronies, I think; so I suppose that has taken him. But I am glad they are all off: it gives me a whole evening to myself. He and Mr. Verner went away together.”
“I wish very much to find Mr. Verner,” said Lucy. “It is of great consequence that I should see him. I suppose—you—could not—go and look for him, Master Cheese?” she added, pleadingly.
“Couldn’t do it,” responded Master Cheese, thinking of his forbidden chemicals. “When Jan’s away I am chief, you know, Miss Tempest. A case of broken leg may be brought in, for anything I can tell.”
Lucy wished him good-night and turned away. She hesitated at the corner of the street, gazing up and down. To start on a search for Lionel, appeared to be about as hopeful a project as that search, renowned in proverb, the looking for a needle in a bottle of hay. The custom in Deerham was, not to light the lamps on a moonlight night, so the street, as Lucy glanced on either side, lay white and quiet; no glare to disturb its peace, save from some shop, not yet closed. Mrs. Duff’s opposite, was among the latter catalogue: and her son, Mr, Dan, appeared to be taking a little tumbling recreation on the flags before the bay window. Lucy crossed over to him.
“Dan,” said she, “do you happen to have seen Mr. Verner pass lately?”
Dan, just then on his head, turned himself upside down, and alighted on his feet, humble and subdued. “Please, miss, I see’d him awhile agone along of Mr, Jan,” was the answer, pulling his hair by way of salutation, “They went that way. Mr. Jan was all in black, he was.”
The boy pointed towards Deerham Court, towards Deerham Hall. There was little doubt that Jan was then on his way to the latter. But the question for Lucy was—where had Lionel gone?
She could not tell: the very speculation upon it was unprofitable, since it could lead to no certainty. Lucy turned homewards, walking quickly.
She had got past the houses, when she discerned before her in the distance, a form which instinct—perhaps some dearer feeling—told her was that of him of whom she was in search. He was walking with a slow, leisurely step towards his home, Lucy’s heart gave a bound—that it did so still at his sight, like it had done in the earlier days, was no fault of hers: heaven knew that she had striven