The next day was spent in a wearisome stage-coach, over a rough jolting road. Ellen's companions did nothing to make her way pleasant, but she sweetened theirs with her sugar-plums. Somewhat mollified, perhaps, after that, Miss Margaret condescended to enter into conversation with her, and Ellen underwent a thorough cross-examination as to all her own and her parents' affairs, past, present, and future, and likewise as to all that could be known of her yesterday's friend, till she was heartily worried and out of patience.
It was just five o'clock when they reached her stopping-place. Ellen knew of no particular house to go to; so Mrs. Dunscombe set her down at the door of the principal inn of the town, called the "Star" of Thirlwall.
The driver smacked his whip, and away went the stage again, and she was left standing alone beside her trunk before the piazza of the inn, watching Timmins, who was looking back at her out of the stage window, nodding and waving good-bye.
CHAPTER IX
Gadsby. Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London?
2nd Car. Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee.
—King Henry IV.
Ellen had been whirled along over the roads for so many hours—the rattle of the stage-coach had filled her ears for so long—that now, suddenly still and quiet, she felt half stunned. She stood with a kind of dreamy feeling, looking after the departing stage-coach. In it there were three people whose faces she knew, and she could not count a fourth within many a mile. One of those was a friend, too, as the fluttering handkerchief of poor Miss Timmins gave token still. Yet Ellen did not wish herself back in the coach, although she continued to stand and gaze after it as it rattled off at a great rate down the little street, its huge body lumbering up and down every now and then, reminding her of sundry uncomfortable jolts; till the horses making a sudden turn to the right, it disappeared round a corner. Still for a minute Ellen watched the whirling cloud of dust it had left behind; but then the feeling of strangeness and loneliness came over her, and her heart sank. She cast a look up and down the street. The afternoon was lovely; the slant beams of the setting sun came back from gilded windows, and the houses and chimney-tops of the little town were in a glow; but she saw nothing bright anywhere—in all the glory of the setting sun the little town looked strange and miserable. There was no sign of her having been expected; nobody was waiting to meet her. What was to be done next? Ellen had not the slightest idea.
Her heart growing fainter and fainter, she turned again to the inn. A tall, awkward young countryman, with a cap set on one side of his head, was busying himself with sweeping the floor of the piazza, but in a very leisurely manner; and between every two strokes of his broom he was casting long looks at Ellen, evidently wondering who she was and what she could want there. Ellen saw it, and hoped he would ask her in words, for she could not answer his looks of curiosity, but she was disappointed. As he reached the end of the piazza, and gave his broom two or three knocks against the edge of the boards to clear it of dust, he indulged himself with one good long finishing look at Ellen, and then she saw he was going to take himself and his broom into the house. So in despair she ran up the two or three low steps of the piazza and presented herself before him. He stopped short.
"Will you please to tell me, sir," said poor Ellen, "if Miss Emerson is here?"
"Miss Emerson?" said he; "what Miss Emerson?"
"I don't know, sir; Miss Emerson that lives not far from Thirlwall." Eyeing Ellen from head to foot, the man then trailed his broom into the house. Ellen followed him.
"Mr. Forbes!" said he, "Mr. Forbes! do you know anything of Miss Emerson?"
"What Miss Emerson?" said another man, with a big red face and a big round body, showing himself in a doorway which he nearly filled.
"Miss Emerson that lives a little way out of town."
"Miss Fortune Emerson? yes, I know her. What of her?"
"Has she been here to-day?"
"Here? what, in town? No, not as I've seen or heard. Why, who wants her?"
"This little girl."
And the man with the broom stepping back, disclosed Ellen to the view of the red-faced landlord. He advanced a step or two towards her.
"What do you want with Miss Fortune, little one?" said he.
"I expected she would meet me here, sir," said Ellen.
"Where have you come from?"
"From New York."
"The stage set her down just now," put in the other man.
"And you thought Miss Fortune would meet you, did you?"
"Yes, sir; she was to meet me and take me home."
"Take you home? Are you going to Miss Fortune's home?"
"Yes, sir."
"Why, you don't belong to her any way, do you?"
"No, sir," said Ellen, "but she's my aunt."
"She's your what?"
"My aunt, sir; my father's sister."
"Your father's sister! You ben't the daughter of Morgan Montgomery, be you?"
"Yes, I am," said Ellen, half-smiling.
"And you are come to make a visit to Miss Fortune, eh?"
"Yes," said Ellen, smiling no longer.
"And Miss Fortune ha'n't come up to meet you; that's real shabby of her; and how to get you down there to-night, I am sure it is more than I can tell." And he shouted, "Wife!"
"What's the matter, Mr. Forbes?" said a fat landlady, appearing in the doorway, which she filled near as well as her husband would have done.
"Look here," said Mr. Forbes, "here's Morgan Montgomery's daughter come to pay a visit to her aunt, Fortune Emerson. Don't you think she'll be glad to see her?"
Mr. Forbes put this question with rather a curious look at his wife. She didn't answer him. She only looked at Ellen, looked grave, and gave a queer little nod of her head, which meant, Ellen could not make out what.
"Now, what's to be done?" continued Mr. Forbes. "Miss Fortune was to have come up to meet her, but she ain't here, and I don't know how in the world I can take the child down there to-night. The horses are both out to plough, you know; and besides, the tire is come off that waggon wheel. I couldn't possibly use it. And then it's a great question in my mind what Miss Fortune would say to me. I should get paid, I s'pose?"
"Yes, you'd get paid," said his wife, with another little shake of her head; "but whether it would be the kind of pay you'd like, I don't know."
"Well, what's to be done, wife? Keep the child over night, and send word down yonder?"
"No," said Mrs. Forbes, "I'll tell you. I think I saw Van Brunt go by two or three hours ago with the ox-cart, and I guess he's somewhere up town yet; I ha'n't seen him go back. He can take the child home with him. Sam!" shouted Mrs. Forbes; "Sam! here!—Sam, run up street directly, and see if you see Mr. Van Brunt's ox-cart standing anywhere—I dare say he's at Mr. Miller's, or may be at Mr. Hammersley's the blacksmith—and ask him to stop here before he goes home. Now hurry! and don't run over him and then come back and tell me he ain't in town."
Mrs. Forbes herself followed Sam to the door, and cast an exploring look in every direction.
"I don't see no signs of him—up nor down," said she, returning to Ellen; "but I'm pretty sure he ain't gone home. Come in here; come in here, dear, and make yourself comfortable; it'll be a while yet maybe afore Mr.