"Who is Mr. Merriman?" asked Laura, appealing to me.
"I have not the least idea," was all I could say in reply.
The Count had finished his fourth tart, and had gone to a side-table to look after his vicious cockatoo.
He turned round to us with the bird perched on his shoulder.
"Mr. Merriman is Sir Percival's solicitor," he said quietly.
Sir Percival's solicitor.
It was a perfectly straightforward answer to Laura's question, and yet, under the circumstances, it was not satisfactory.
If Mr. Merriman had been specially sent for by his client, there would have been nothing very wonderful in his leaving town to obey the summons.
But when a lawyer travels from London to Hampshire without being sent for, and when his arrival at a gentleman's house seriously startles the gentleman himself, it may be safely taken for granted that the legal visitor is the bearer of some very important and very unexpected news—news which may be either very good or very bad, but which cannot, in either case, be of the common everyday kind.
Laura and I sat silent at the table for a quarter of an hour or more, wondering uneasily what had happened, and waiting for the chance of Sir Percival's speedy return.
There were no signs of his return, and we rose to leave the room.
The Count, attentive as usual, advanced from the corner in which he had been feeding his cockatoo, with the bird still perched on his shoulder, and opened the door for us.
Laura and Madame Fosco went out first.
Just as I was on the point of following them he made a sign with his hand, and spoke to me, before I passed him, in the oddest manner.
"Yes," he said, quietly answering the unexpressed idea at that moment in my mind, as if I had plainly confided it to him in so many words—"yes, Miss Halcombe, something HAS happened."
I was on the point of answering,
"I never said so," but the vicious cockatoo ruffled his clipped wings and gave a screech that set all my nerves on edge in an instant, and made me only too glad to get out of the room.
I joined Laura at the foot of the stairs.
The thought in her mind was the same as the thought in mine, which Count Fosco had surprised, and when she spoke her words were almost the echo of his.
She, too, said to me secretly that she was afraid something had happened.
III
June 16th.—I have a few lines more to add to this day's entry before I go to bed to-night.
About two hours after Sir Percival rose from the luncheon-table to receive his solicitor, Mr. Merriman, in the library, I left my room alone to take a walk in the plantations.
Just as I was at the end of the landing the library door opened and the two gentlemen came out.
Thinking it best not to disturb them by appearing on the stairs, I resolved to defer going down till they had crossed the hall.
Although they spoke to each other in guarded tones, their words were pronounced with sufficient distinctness of utterance to reach my ears.
"Make your mind easy, Sir Percival," I heard the lawyer say; "it all rests with Lady Glyde."
I had turned to go back to my own room for a minute or two, but the sound of Laura's name on the lips of a stranger stopped me instantly.
I daresay it was very wrong and very discreditable to listen, but where is the woman, in the whole range of our sex, who can regulate her actions by the abstract principles of honour, when those principles point one way, and when her affections, and the interests which grow out of them, point the other?
I listened—and under similar circumstances I would listen again—yes! with my ear at the keyhole, if I could not possibly manage it in any other way.
"You quite understand, Sir Percival," the lawyer went on. "Lady Glyde is to sign her name in the presence of a witness—or of two witnesses, if you wish to be particularly careful—and is then to put her finger on the seal and say,
'I deliver this as my act and deed.'
If that is done in a week's time the arrangement will be perfectly successful, and the anxiety will be all over.
If not——"
"What do you mean by 'if not'?" asked Sir Percival angrily.
"If the thing must be done it SHALL be done.
I promise you that, Merriman."
"Just so, Sir Percival—just so; but there are two alternatives in all transactions, and we lawyers like to look both of them in the face boldly.
If through any extraordinary circumstance the arrangement should not be made, I think I may be able to get the parties to accept bills at three months.
But how the money is to be raised when the bills fall due——"
"Damn the bills!
The money is only to be got in one way, and in that way, I tell you again, it SHALL be got.
Take a glass of wine, Merriman, before you go."
"Much obliged, Sir Percival, I have not a moment to lose if I am to catch the up-train.
You will let me know as soon as the arrangement is complete? and you will not forget the caution I recommended——"
"Of course I won't.
There's the dog-cart at the door for you.
My groom will get you to the station in no time.
Benjamin, drive like mad! Jump in.
If Mr. Merriman misses the train you lose your place.