Orridge--but I kept it down. 'Mrs. Jazeph,' I said, 'this is language that I am not accustomed to, and that I certainly never expected to hear from your lips. Why you should take it on yourself to defend Mrs. Frankland for treating us both with contempt, and to contradict me for resenting it, I neither know nor care to know. But I must tell you, in plain words, that I will be spoken to by every person in my employment, from my housekeeper to my scullery-maid, with respect. I would have given warning on the spot to any other servant in this house who had behaved to me as you have behaved.' She tried to interrupt me there, but I would not allow her. 'No;' I said, 'you are not to speak to me just yet; you are to hear me out. Any other servant, I tell you again, should have left this place to-morrow morning; but I will be more than just to you. I will give you the benefit of your five years' good conduct in my service. I will leave you the rest of the night to get cool, and to reflect on what has passed between us; and I will not expect you to make the proper apologies to me until the morning You see, Mr. Orridge, I was determined to act justly and kindly; I was ready to make allowances--and what do you think she said in return? 'I am willing to make any apologies, ma'am, for offending you,' she said, 'without the delay of a single minute; but, whether it is to-night, or whether it is to-morrow morning, I cannot stand by silent when I hear Mrs. Frankland charged with acting unkindly, uncivilly, or improperly toward me or toward anyone.' 'Do you tell me that deliberately, Mrs. Jazeph?' I asked. 'I tell it you sincerely, ma'am,' she answered; 'and I am very sorry to be obliged to do so.' 'Pray don't trouble yourself to be sorry,' I said, 'for you may consider yourself no longer in my service. I will order the steward to pay you the usual month's wages instead of the month's warning the first thing to-morrow; and I beg that you will leave the house as soon as you conveniently can afterward.' 'I will leave to-morrow, ma'am,' says she, 'but without troubling the steward. I beg respectfully, and with many thanks for your past kindness, to decline taking a month's money which I have not earned by a month's service.' And thereupon she courtesies and goes out. That is, word for word, what passed between us, Mr. Orridge. Explain the woman's conduct in your own way, if you can. I say that it is utterly incomprehensible, unless you agree with me that she was not in her right senses when she came back to this house last night."
The doctor began to think, after what he had just heard, that Mrs. Frankland's suspicions in relation to the new nurse were not quite so unfounded as he had been at first disposed to consider them. He wisely refrained, however, from complicating matters by giving utterance to what he thought; and, after answering Mrs. Norbury in a few vaguely polite words, endeavored to soothe her irritation against Mr. and Mrs. Frankland by assuring her that he came as the bearer of apologies from both husband and wife, for the apparent want of courtesy and consideration in their conduct which circumstances had made inevitable. The offended lady, however, absolutely refused to be propitiated. She rose up, and waved her hand with an air of great dignity.
"I cannot hear a word more from you, Mr. Orridge," she said; "I cannot receive any apologies which are made indirectly. If Mr. Frankland chooses to call, and if Mrs. Frankland condescends to write to me, I am willing to think no more of the matter. Under any other circumstances, I must be allowed to keep my present opinions both of the lady and the gentleman. Don't say another word, and be so kind as to excuse me if I leave you, and go up to the nursery to see how the child is getting on. I am delighted to hear that you think her so much better. Pray call again to-morrow or next day, if you conveniently can. Good-morning!"
Half amused at Mrs. Norbury, half displeased at the curt tone she adopted toward him, Mr. Orridge remained for a minute or two alone in the breakfast-parlor, feeling rather undecided about what he should do next. He was, by this time, almost as much interested in solving the mystery of Mrs. Jazeph's extraordinary conduct as Mrs. Frankland herself; and he felt unwilling, on all accounts, to go back to the Tiger's Head, and merely repeat what Mrs. Norbury had told him, without being able to complete the narrative by informing Mr. and Mrs. Frankland of the direction that the housekeeper had taken on leaving her situation. After some pondering, he determined to question the footman, under the pretense of desiring to know if his gig was at the door. The man having answered the bell, and having reported the gig to be ready, Mr. Orridge, while crossing the hall, asked him carelessly if he knew at what time in the morning Mrs. Jazeph had left her place.
"About ten o'clock, Sir," answered the footman. "When the carrier came by from the village, on his way to the station for the eleven o'clock train."
"Oh! I suppose he took her boxes?" said Mr. Orridge.
"And he took her, too, Sir," said the man, with a grin. "She had to ride, for once in her life, at any rate, in a carrier's cart."
On getting back to West Winston, the doctor stopped at the station to collect further particulars, before he returned to the Tiger's Head. No trains, either up or down, happened to be due just at that time. The station-master was reading the newspaper, and the porter was gardening on the slope of the embankment.
"Is the train at eleven in the morning an up-train or a down-train?" asked Mr. Orridge, addressing the porter.
"A down-train."
"Did many people go by it?"
The porter repeated the names of some of the inhabitants of West Winston.
"Were there no passengers but passengers from the town?" inquired the doctor.
"Yes, Sir. I think there was one stranger--a lady."
"Did the station-master issue the tickets for that train?"
"Yes, Sir."
Mr. Orridge went on to the station-master.
"Do you remember giving a ticket this morning, by the eleven o'clock down-train, to a lady traveling alone?"
The station-master pondered. "I have issued tickets, up and down, to half-a-dozen ladies to-day," he answered, doubtfully.
"Yes, but I am speaking only of the eleven o'clock train," said Mr. Orridge. "Try if you can't remember?"
"Remember? Stop! I do remember; I know who you mean. A lady who seemed rather flurried, and who put a question to me that I am not often asked at this station. She had her veil down, I recollect, and she got here for the eleven o'clock train. Crouch, the carrier, brought her trunk into the office."
"That is the woman. Where did she take her ticket for?"
"For Exeter."
"You said she asked you a question?"
"Yes: a question about what coaches met the rail at Exeter to take travelers into Cornwall. I told her we were rather too far off here to have the correct time-table, and recommended her to apply for information to the Devonshire people when she got to the end of her journey. She seemed a timid, helpless kind of woman to travel alone. Anything wrong in connection with her, Sir?"
"Oh, no! nothing," said Mr. Orridge, leaving the stationmaster and hastening back to his gig again.
When he drew up, a few minutes afterward, at the door of the Tiger's Head, he jumped out of his vehicle with the confident air of a man who has done all that could be expected of him. It was easy to face Mrs. Frankland with the unsatisfactory news of Mrs. Jazeph's departure, now that he could add, on the best authority, the important supplementary information that she had gone to Cornwall.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
A PLOT AGAINST THE SECRET.
TOWARD the close of the evening, on the day after Mr. Orridge's interview with Mrs. Norbury, the Druid fast coach, running through Cornwall as far as Truro, set down three inside passengers at the door of the booking-office on arriving at its destination. Two of these passengers were an old gentleman and his daughter; the third was Mrs.