"I could get that anywhere where there is an English Embassy. Let me
see, we had better take Gorham, I think."
Gorham was Miss Rawson's maid, a middle-aged, superior woman,
attached to her mistress, and fond of Rona. "We will not tell anyone
our destination until we are safely off," went on Miss Rawson;
"Gorham must be told that we shall be away for a month, at least, but
the servants here must be left under the impression that we return
without fail on Tuesday evening. I will even order the dinner for
that night before I go, and tell cook that I expect a gentleman to
dine with us. Then if he does hear that we are away, and makes
inquiries, his suspicions will be lulled."
Upon consulting the time-table, they found that all Was easy. By
driving to Weybridge they could catch a 5.56 train, reaching Waterloo
at 6.49, in plenty of time to dine comfortably and catch the 9 p.m.
boat train, by which means they would arrive in Paris at five o'clock
next morning.
Miss Rawson had a cousin--one Mrs. Townsend, known in the family as
Cousin Sophy--who lived in Kensington and was in feeble health. Aunt
Bee unblushingly told her household that she had news that this good
lady was suddenly taken worse, and that she must go at once. As she
did not like to leave Miss Rona at home alone, she should take her;
and as they must put up at an hotel, she should also take Gorham. As
they should probably stay only a night, or perhaps two, she wished
nothing said in the village of their absence; and, as the Squire was
known to dislike Sunday traveling, she wished Jones to drive the
luggage cart out by the back way and go along the lane, and not by
the high road, that the village might not be scandalized.
"I don't think," said the newly fledged conspirator, "that he will
suspect us of bolting, after my asking him to dinner like that. Was
it not a good thought of mine to say we were engaged to-day and
Monday? Conspiracy comes terribly easy when once one tries it!
Cheer up, darling, we shall get off with no trouble at all. And on
Tuesday afternoon I will dispatch a telegram to him, saying that I am
sorry to have been suddenly called away. Mercifully, I have a
balance of several hundred pounds in the bank just now, which I have
been saving up to buy furniture with when Denzil and you turn me out!
We shall do admirably."
Rona flung her arms about her neck. "I think it is too much," she
said, in a choked voice. "Let me go--let me disappear! Why should
you lavish money, time, health, on me? Who am I? Nobody knows. And
I have done nothing but harm. I have made them both unhappy. Give
me ten pounds and let me go away and hide, and earn my own
living--ah, let me!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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