She found herself a good deal shaken, and walked fast because thus her limbs did not tremble so much, while the glaring September afternoon made her miss the parasol she had left in the carriage, and find little comfort in the shadeless erection on her head. It was much further than she had walked for a long time past, and she had begun to think she had parted with a good deal of her strength before the Compton woods grew more defined, or the church tower came any nearer.
Though the lane to the Reynolds' colony was not full in her way, she was glad to sit down in the shade to speak to old Betty, who did not comport herself according to either extreme common to parents in literature.
"So Fanny, she be in the 'firmary, be her? I'm sure as 'twas very good of the young Squire and you, my lady; and I'm sorry her's bin and give you so much trouble."
Everybody was harvesting but the old woman, who had the inevitable bad leg. All men and beasts were either in the fields or at the races, and Rosamond, uncertain whether her patient was not in a dying state, rejoiced in her recent acquisition of a pony carriage, and speeding home with renewed energy, roused her 'parson's man' from tea in his cottage, and ordered him off to take Betty Reynolds to see her daughter without loss of time.
Then at length she opened her own gate and walked in at the drawing-room window. Terry started up from the sofa, and Anne from a chair by his side, exclaiming at her appearance, and asking if there had been any accident.
"Not to any of us, but to a poor woman whom I have been taking to the Infirmary," she said, sinking into a low chair. "Where's Julius?"
"He went to see old George Willett," said Anne. "The poor old man has just heard of the death of his daughter at Wil'sbro'."
"And you came to sit with this boy, you good creature. How are you, master?"
"Oh, better, thanks," he said, with a weary stretch. "How done up you look, Rose! How did you come?"
"I walked from Wil'sbro'."
"Walked!" echoed both her hearers.
"Walked! I liked my two legs better than the four of the horse that brought me there, though 'twasn't his fault, poor beast, but the brute of a driver, whom we'll have up before the magistrate. I've got the name; doing his best to dislocate every bone in the poor thing's body. Well, and I hope baby didn't disturb you?"
"Baby has been wonderfully quiet. Julius went to see after her once, but she was out."
"I'll go and see the young woman, and then come and tell my story."
But Rosamond came back almost instantly, exclaiming, "Emma must have taken the baby to the Hall. I wish she would be more careful. The sun is getting low, and there's a fog rising."
"She had not been there when I came down an hour ago," said Anne; "at least, not with Mrs. Poynsett. They may have had her in the housekeeper's room. I had better go and hasten her home."
Julius came in shortly after, but before he had heard the tale of Fanny Reynolds, Anne had returned to say that neither child nor nurse had been at the Hall, nor passed the large gate that morning. It was growing rather alarming. The other servants said Emma had taken the baby out as usual in the morning, but had not returned to dinner, and they too had supposed her at the Hall. None of the dependants of the Hall in the cottages round knew anything of her, but at last Dilemma Hornblower imparted that she had seen my lady's baby's green cloak atop of a tax-cart going towards Wil'sbro'.
Now Emma had undesirable relations, and Rosamond had taken her in spite of warning that her uncle was the keeper of the 'Three Pigeons.' The young parents stood looking at one another, and Rosamond faintly said, "If that girl has taken her to the races!"
"I'm more afraid of that fever in Water Lane," said Julius. "I have a great mind to take the pony carriage and see that the girl does not take her there."
"Oh! I sent it with Betty Reynolds," cried Rosamond in an agony.
"At that moment the Hall carriage came dashing up, and as Raymond saw the three standing in the road, he called to the coachman to stop, for he and his friend were now within, and Cecil leaning back, looking much tired. Raymond's eager question was what Rosamond had done with her charge.
"Left her at the Infirmary;-but, oh! you've not seen baby?"
"Seen-seen what! your baby?" asked Raymond, as if he thought Rosamond's senses astray, while his bachelor friend was ready to laugh at a young mother's alarms, all the more when Julius answered, "It is too true; the baby and her nurse have not been seen here since ten o'clock; and we are seriously afraid the girl may have been beguiled to those races. There is a report of the child's cloak having been seen on a tax-cart."
"Then it was so," exclaimed Cecil, starting forward. "I saw a baby's mantle of that peculiar green, and it struck me that some farmer's wife had been aping little Julia's."
"Where? When?" cried Rosamond.
"They passed us, trying to find a place. I did not show it to you for you were talking to those gentlemen."
"Did you see it, Brown?" asked Julius, going towards the coachman. "Our baby and nurse, I mean."
"I can't tell about Miss Charnock, sir," said the coachman, "but I did think I remarked two young females with young Gadley in a tax-cart. I would not be alarmed, sir, nor my lady," he added, with the freedom of a confidential servant, who, like all the household, adored Lady Rosamond. "It was a giddy thing in the young woman to have done; and no place to take the young lady to. But there-there were more infants there than a man could count, and it stands to reason they come to no harm."
"The most sensible thing that has been said yet," muttered the friend; but Rosamond was by no means pacified. "Gadley's cart! They'll go to that horrid public-house in Water Lane where there's typhus and diphtheria and everything; and there's this fog-and that girl will never wrap her up. Oh! why did I ever go?"
"My dear Rose," said Julius, trying to speak with masculine composure, "this is nonsense. Depend upon it, Emma is only anxious to get her home."
"I don't know, I don't know! If she could take her to the races, she would be capable of taking her anywhere! They all go and drink at that beer-shop, and catch-Julius, the pony carriage! Oh! it's gone!"
"Yes," said Julius in explanation. "She sent Betty Reynolds into Wil'sbro' in it."
"Get in, Rosamond," cried Cecil, "we will drive back till we find her."
But this was more than a good coachman could permit for his horses' sake, and Brown declared they must be fed and rested before the ball. Cecil was ready to give up the ball, but still they could not be taken back at once; and Rosamond had by this time turned as if setting her face to walk at once to the race-ground until she found her child, when Raymond said, "Rose! would you be afraid to trust to King Coal and me? I would put him in at once and drive you till you find Julia."
"Oh! Raymond, how good you are!"
The coachman, glad of this solution, only waited to pick up Anne, and hurried on his horses, while the bachelor friend could not help grunting a little, and observing that it was plain there was only one child in the family, and that he would take any bet 'it' was at home all right long before Poynsett reached the parsonage.
"Maybe so," said Raymond, "but I would do anything rather than leave her mother in the distress you take so easily."
"Besides, there's every chance of her being taken to that low public-house," said Cecil. "One that Mr. Poynsett would not allow our servants to go to during the bazaar, though it is close to the town-hall, and all the others did."
"Let us hope that early influence may prevent contamination," solemnly said the friend.
Cecil turned from him. "I still hope she may be at home," she said; "it is getting very chill and foggy. Raymond, I hope you may not have to go."
"You must lie down and get thoroughly rested," he said, as he helped her out; and only waiting to equip himself for the evening dance, he hurried to the stables to expedite the harnessing of the powerful and fiery steed which had as yet been only experimentally driven by himself and the coachman.