Fanny returned to London. Partly, the slenderness of her resources gave
her no choice; partly, she had learned all there was to learn, and
would do no good by staying longer at Passy.
She arrived with thirty shillings left out of Mr. Mountjoy's timely
gift. She sought a cheap lodging, and found a room, among people who
seemed respectable, which she could have for four-and-sixpence a week,
with board at a shilling a day. This settled, she hastened to Mr.
Mountjoy's hotel brimful of her news for Mrs. Vimpany.
Everyone knows the disappointment when the one person in the world whom
you want at the moment to see and to talk with proves to be out. Then
the news has to be suppressed; the conclusions, the suspicions, the
guesses have to be postponed; the active brain falls back upon itself.
This disappointment--almost as great as that at Berne--was experienced
by Fanny Mere at the hotel.
Mr. Mountjoy was no longer there.
The landlady of the hotel, who knew Fanny, came out herself and told
her what had happened.
"He was better," she said, "but still weak. They sent him down to
Scotland in Mrs. Vimpany's care. He was to travel by quick or slow
stages, just as he felt able. And I've got the address for you. Here it
is. Oh! and Mrs. Vimpany left a message. Will you, she says, when you
write, send the letter to her and not to him? She says, you know why."
Fanny returned to her lodging profoundly discouraged. She was filled
with this terrible secret that she had discovered. The only man who
could advise at this juncture was Mr. Mountjoy, and he was gone. And
she knew not what had become of her mistress. What could she do? The
responsibility was more than she could bear.
The conversation with the French nurse firmly established one thing in
her mind. The man who was buried in the cemetery of Auteuil with the
name of Lord Harry Norland on a headstone, the man who had lingered so
long with pulmonary disease, was the man whose death she had witnessed.
It was Oxbye the Dane. Of that there could be no doubt. Equally there
was no doubt in her own mind that he had been poisoned by the
doctor--by Mrs. Vimpany's husband--in the presence and, to all
appearance, with the consent and full knowledge of Lord Harry himself.
Then her mistress was in the power of these two men--villains who had
now added murder to their other crimes. As for herself, she was alone,
almost friendless; in a week or two she would be penniless. If she told
her tale, what mischief might she not do? If she was silent, what
mischief might not follow?