Everything favoured her. The flight was not discovered until nearly
three-quarters of an hour after Clarissa had eloped with her baby down that
darksome stair. Mrs. Brobson, luxuriating in tea, toast, and gossip
before the nursery fire, and relieved not a little by the absence of her
one-year-old charge, had been unconscious of the progress of time. It was
only when the little clock upon the chimney-piece chimed the half-hour
after six, that she began to wonder about the baby.
"His mar's had him longer than ever," she said; "you'd better go and fetch
him, Liza. She'll be wanting to dress for dinner, I dessay. I suppose she's
going down to dinner to-night, though there is something up."
"She didn't go down to breakfast, nor yet to lunch," said Eliza, who had
her information fresh and fresh from one of the footmen; "and Mr. Granger's
been a-walking up and down the droring-room as if he was a-doing of it for
a wager, William Baker says. Mr. Fairfax come this morning, and didn't stop
above a quarter of a hour; but William was outside the droring-room door
all the time, and there was no loud talking, nor quarrelling, nor nothink."
"That Fairfax is a villain," replied Mrs. Brobson. "I don't forget the
day he kissed baby in Arden Park. I never see any good come of a single
gentleman kissing a lady's baby, voluntary. It isn't their nature to do it,
unless they've a hankering after the mar.
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