Much Darker Days | Page 9

Groom.
Then Philippa and I drove to town, Philippa asking me conundrums,
like Nebuchadnezzar.
'There was something I dreamed of. Tell me what it was?' she asked.
But, though better informed than the Wise Men and Soothsayers of old,
I did not gratify her unusual desire.
On reaching town I drove straight to the hotel at which my mother was
staying.
It was one of those highly-priced private hotels in the New Out.
As, however, I had no desire to purchase this place of entertainment,
the exorbitant value set on it by its proprietors did not affect my spirits.
In a few minutes I had told my mother all save two things: the business
of the baby, and the fate which had overtaken Sir Runan.
With these trifling exceptions she knew all.
To fall into Philippa's arms was, to my still active parent, the work of a
moment.
Then Philippa looked at me with an artless wink.

'Basil, my brother, you are really too good.'
Ah, how happy I should have felt could that one dark night's work have
been undone!
CHAPTER VII.
--Rescue And Retire!
HITHERTO I have said little about my mother, and I may even seem to
have regarded that lady in the light of a temporary convenience. My
readers will, however, already have guessed that my mother was no
common character.
Consider for a moment the position which she so readily consented to
occupy.
The trifling details about the sudden decease of Sir Runan and the affair
of the baby, as we have seen, I had thought it better not to name to her.
Matters, therefore, in her opinion, stood thus:--
Philippa was the victim of a baronet's wiles.
When off with the new love, she had promptly returned and passed a
considerable time under the roof of the old love; that is, of myself.
Then I had suddenly arrived with this eligible prospective
daughter-in-law at my mother's high-priced hotel, and I kept insisting
that we should at once migrate, we three, to foreign parts--the more
foreign the better.
I had especially dilated on the charms of the scenery and the salubrity
of the climate in countries where there was no extradition treaty with
England.
Even if there was nothing in these circumstances to arouse the watchful
jealousy of a mother, it must be remembered that, as a chaperon, she

did seem to come a little late in the day.
'As you have lived together so long without me,' some parents would
have observed, 'you can do without me altogether.'
None of these trivial objections occurred to my mother.
She was good-nature itself.
Just returned from a professional tour on the Continent (she was, I
should have said, in the profession herself, and admirably filled the
exigeant part of Stout Lady in a highly respectable exhibition), my
mother at once began to pack up her properties and make ready to
accompany us.
Never was there a more good-humoured chaperon. If one of us entered
the room where she was sitting with the other, she would humorously
give me a push, and observing 'Two is company, young people, three is
none,' would toddle off with all the alacrity that her figure and age
permitted.
I learned from inquiries addressed to the Family Herald
(correspondence column) that the Soudan was then, even as it is now,
the land safest against English law. Spain, in this respect, was reckoned
a bad second.
The very next day I again broached the subject of foreign travel to my
mother. It was already obvious that the frost would not last for ever.
Once the snow melted, once the crushed mass that had been a baronet
was discovered, circumstantial evidence would point to Philippa. True,
there was no one save myself who could positively swear that Philippa
had killed Sir Runan. Again, though I could positively swear it, my
knowledge was only an inference of my own. Philippa herself had
completely forgotten the circumstance. But the suspicions of the
Bearded Woman and of the White Groom were sure to be aroused, and
the Soudan I resolved to seek without an hour's delay.
I reckoned without my hostess.

My mother at first demurred.
'You certainly don't look well, Basil. But why the Soudan?'
'A whim, a sick man's fancy. Perhaps because it is not so very remote
from Old Calabar, the country of Philippa's own father. Mother, tell me,
how do you like her?'
'She is the woman you love, and however shady her antecedents,
however peculiar her style of conversation, she is, she must be,
blameless. To say more, after so short an acquaintance, might savour of
haste and exaggeration.'
A woman's logic!
'Then you will come to the Soudan with us to-morrow?'
'No, my child, further south than Spain I will not go, not this