CHAPTER XXII.

A RUNAWAY

Bayre felt very nervous over his errand, and when Miss Merriman cried “Come in,” in answer to his knock, he was almost as awkward as Southerley himself would have been, and she gave him a searching look as he crossed the room like a sly schoolboy.

She was sitting near the fire, and the baby, in a state of great glee, was turning out the contents of her work-basket on the rug at her feet. Bayre felt that he was called upon to explain his appearance with promptitude.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” he said, “but I’ve been sent here by--by somebody else--by Southerley, in fact, with a message which I hardly dare to give.”

Before he was half-way through the speech the lady had looked away; and from the expression of her face he could guess that she had an uneasy suspicion as to the nature of his errand.

“Then why give it,” said she, quickly, in a slightly tremulous voice, “if it’s of no use, and if it’s painful to you?”

“Because I must; because I’ve promised. Forgive me if I’m clumsy over it. The fact is the fellow’s lost his head; I think perhaps he knows there’s not much hope for him; I myself have told him there’s not. But he persists in hoping, hoping, or rather he’s got into such a state that he can’t rest till he’s got a definite answer, even if it’s the wrong one. He’s in love with you, head over ears in love, and he wants to know if you could ever care for him.”

Although he knew that she must have guessed what was coming, Miss Merriman pretended to feel surprised. But it was a poor, worried sort of pretence, without either nature or sincerity.

“Why, it’s absurd,” she said quickly. “What does he know of me? I never heard anything so ridiculous.”

And then there was a short pause, during which she sat very still.

“You’re not offended?” said Bayre, gently.

“Offended!” She just got out the word and then broke down into a flood of tears.

Bayre was appalled. To see a woman cry was a dreadful thing at any time; but to feel that he had opened the floodgates himself, and when he ought to have known better, was a thought of unspeakable horror.

“Forgive me,” he said hoarsely. “And don’t, oh, _don’t_! You make me feel a brute, and yet I couldn’t help myself. I’ll tell him--I’ll go and tell him--” He was flying to the door, impelled thereto not only by the woman’s tears but by the yells of the small child, who was on his feet by Miss Merriman’s knee, screaming in sympathy after the manner of his kind.

Miss Merriman recovered herself sufficiently to speak.

“No,” she cried imperiously. “Don’t tell him anything. You’re not to tell him anything. Let him think what he likes until--”

“Until what?”

“Never mind.”

She waved her hand in farewell without looking at him, and Bayre made his way reluctantly enough upstairs, where he found Southerley in waiting on the half-landing.

“No good, of course?” said the big man, trembling like a leaf.

Bayre shook his head.

“Any reason?”

“No. Sorry. I did my best.”

Southerley took it very quietly; he just nodded and went upstairs softly whistling, with his hands in his pockets. Then he went out at once, without seeing either of the others again, and he did not come back until long after they were both in bed.

And he alone of the three made no remark whatever when Susan informed them on the following evening that Miss Merriman had gone away and had taken the child with her.

Repton gave a long whistle.

“Well, I’m blest!” he exclaimed tersely.

Bayre was indignant. Surely he had a right to know where she was taking the child, he who claimed not only to be the infant’s cousin but to have more than a fanciful claim to be its guardian! Miss Merriman was surely carrying a woman’s privileges too far.

“Cousin or no cousin, it’s abominable,” said Repton, indignantly. “We’ve had all the trouble of the journey from Guernsey, all the expense of milk and biscuits, sausage rolls and bananas for the brat, and flowers and sweets for her. And now we’re left in the lurch like this! It’s infamous. I’m hurt in my very tenderest feelings. I shall advertise.”

“What! For the price of the flowers and the bon-bons?” laughed Bayre.

“Of course not. But I have a third share in the proprietorship of that infant. And it may be worth money some day. Besides, I ought to have been consulted.”

All this time Southerley never moved a muscle. But that he was hard hit it was impossible not to see. His eyes looked glassy and his ruddy skin livid.

“Cheer up, old man!” cried Repton, giving him a ferocious thump on the back. “She wasn’t worth troubling about, a woman who could go without a word after that last box from Fuller’s--the one with the gold ribbon and the picture of the two cupids in a basket. Thank goodness, she’ll never be able to look at those two pink cupids without a self-reproachful thought of you and me!”

But even this thought did not appear to have a consoling effect upon Southerley, who shook him off impatiently and went out again without a word.

“Fool!” cried Repton, contemptuously, “to care so much for a woman who didn’t care two pins about him.”

But Bayre, who remembered Miss Merriman’s tears, was less harsh in his judgment.

“I have an idea,” said he, slowly, “that she didn’t _dare_ to care!”

But he would not proffer any solution of this enigmatic remark.

And before the day was out he had something to divert his attention in the shape of a letter from Miss Eden.

A surprising letter it was, and tantalising, too, for it was evidently written in a sort of breathless way, while the writer was at a white heat of emotion, and it told him just enough to make him want to know more.

It was as follows:--

“Dear Mr Bayre,--I got your letter. I have said nothing about it. I think you had better keep the papers yourself for a little while--those, I mean, that you found in the iron box. I will write to you again in a day or two, perhaps. I am afraid this letter is disjointed, but I have had a sort of shock, and I have not got over it yet. Do not be alarmed: we are all well here, or as well as you could expect, remembering the state in which you left us all. The Vazons have not come back and we have heard nothing more of them. We think they must be still in the islands, but they are not at Creux. Nini has come to stay here; she is a trustworthy girl, and I am very glad to have her, for I should not like to be here quite alone.

“Now I am going to tell you something which will surprise you. I have found out who the woman is shut up here. I cannot tell you more now, except this--that she is not here against her will.--Yours sincerely,

“Olwen Eden.”

Bayre was on thorns to know more, and he could not understand why, having told him so much, she could not have trusted him with the whole of the secret. Was it something she did not like to trust to paper? Was it his young wife whom old Mr Bayre was keeping concealed at the _château_? And if so, was she in her right mind?

He wrote at once, begging Olwen to let him know more, but yet expressing himself guardedly, for fear the letter should fall into other hands than hers.

He could not rest for thinking about this, wondering whether his uncle knew of the discovery made by Olwen, and whether, in that case, he would make any difference in his treatment of her.

His anxiety grew as day after day passed and no answer came to his second letter. He could not get another holiday or he would have gone back to Creux without delay. In his distress he thought of writing to Madame Nicolas, his landlady at St Luke’s, to ask whether she had heard anything of old Mr Bayre and his household.

The good woman answered almost by return of post, but the information she had to give was exceedingly vague, and was rather in the nature of gossip than of anything definite.

She had not seen old Monsieur Bayre lately, neither had anyone she knew. But she had heard that he was ill, that there had been changes in his household, and that the young lady had gone away to London and was singing somewhere under the name of Señora Pia, or some such title. As Madame Nicolas did not even mention the Vazons by name, it seemed probable that they had kept quiet and had not made any attempt to turn the tables upon their late master.

This letter, vague as it was, filled Bayre with anxiety and distress. He knew there must be some foundation for this story about Olwen, and it tallied too well with her silence for him to neglect the clue.

“Singing in London under the name of Señora Pia!” This was vague indeed. He seized the newspapers and studied their columns with eager scrutiny. But it was not until the third day after the receipt of this letter that, after having read on the first page of the _Daily Telegraph_ all the names of all the ladies and gentlemen who were advertised in the music publishers’ announcements as singing songs in different parts of England, the name “Signora Beata” attracted his attention and made him decide to set off that very evening on what might be a wild-goose chase after all.

“Signora Beata” was to sing “Those Sweet, Sweet Eyes of Thine” and another ballad with an equally vapid title at the Bromley Institute. And as it was not very far away, Bayre thought it worth while to take the journey on this very slender clue.

The hall was crowded. Bayre got a programme and found that Signora Beata did not appear before the fourth number in the programme. He had to sit through a new loyal song, rendered lustily by the baritone but conspicuous for its loving adhesion to one note. He had to hear a glee, and he had to endure a recitation.

Then came the turn of number four, and it was as much as he could do not to start out of his seat with surprise when Signora Beata appeared and proved to be, not indeed Olwen Eden, but another old friend in the person of Miss Merriman.

She looked magnificent in a dress of cream satin, which showed off her beautiful neck and the exquisite poise of her head to great advantage. She wore no jewels, but half-a-dozen roses of different colours were arranged on the front of her dress, and another was placed upright on one side of her head and worn as an aigrette. Long white suède gloves completed the costume, and Bayre thought that he had never seen so beautiful a woman, and was glad Southerley was not there to have his chains further riveted.

He became quite anxious to hear her sing, and was not in the least surprised at the burst of applause which greeted her as soon as she came to the front of the platform. It seemed to him that if her voice proved to be as superb as her appearance she was wasting herself at Bromley.

But with the first bars of the song came not exactly disenchantment, but a decidedly modified appreciation of the beauty’s art. She had a good voice, not in the first rank, but pleasant to listen to; the weakness of her performance lay in the fact that her voice had not been sufficiently cultivated, and that she was possessed by an overpowering nervousness which, while it rather added to her charm as a woman, decidedly marred her efforts as a singer.

In brief she had, though singing as a “professional,” scarcely got beyond the stage of “gifted amateur.”

But her beauty, her modesty, her statuesque grace, carried all before them, and the audience applauded her as if she had been Patti herself.

Bayre began now to understand that Madame Nicolas had mixed up in her mind what she had heard about one woman with what she had heard about another, and he resolved, now that he was in for it, to run Signora Beata to earth.

He found the rest of the concert tedious, except when the beauty was on the platform, and as soon as her last appearance on the programme was made he slipped out of his seat and went outside to wait for her.

She fled out of the building so quickly and so quietly, however, that he was not able to speak to her, and he got into the same train, but not into the same carriage, and then when he had seen her enter an omnibus he got on the top of the vehicle, determined to track her down.

She alighted finally at that part of London which used to be known as Brompton, but which has since, by the profuse use of the name “Egerton” instead of the older and homelier ones, purged away the Brompton taint and become something far higher in the social scale.

Here Bayre followed the lady into a side street where little cards over the door announced “Apartments,” and at one of these she stopped and proceeded to open it with a latch-key.

Bayre stopped too at the foot of the steps and looked up.

She heard the footsteps stop and looked round quickly. An exclamation broke from her lips.

“You’ve followed me!” she cried.

“Yes--Signora.”

She started, hesitated, then shut the door again and came down the steps.

“Why have you done this?” she said passionately.

“Why have you run away, without a word, with _my_ cousin, my ward, Miss Merriman?”

“Your ward!” She laughed derisively. “Don’t talk nonsense. You know that that is a mere farce. You know well enough that I’m his mother.”

“Yes, and you’re something else,” replied Bayre, coolly. “You’re _my aunt_, Mrs Bartlett Bayre.”

She met his eyes, and then looked down; but she made no attempt to contradict him.

“Come inside,” she said suddenly, “and we can talk better. You must know everything now.”