"Ah!" Mary replied; "then I have hope. Wherever he is, he is in his senses. Now, Toft!" – she looked hard at the man-"think again! Surely since he had this in his mind last night he must have let something drop? Some word?"
The man shook his head. "Not that I heard, Miss," he said.
Mary sighed. But Mrs. Toft was less patient. She exploded. "You gaby!" she cried. "Where's your senses? It's to you we're looking, and a poor stick you are in time of trouble! I couldn't have believed it! Find your tongue, Toft, say something! You knew the Master down to his shoe leather. Let's hear what you do think! He couldn't walk far! He couldn't walk a mile without help. Where is he? Where do you think he is?"
Toft's answer silenced them. If one of the mute, staring figures on the walls-that watched as from the boxes of a theatre the living actors-had stepped down, it would hardly have affected them more deeply. The man sat down on the bed, covered his face with his hands, and rocking himself to and fro broke into a passion of weeping. "The poor Master!" he cried between his sobs. "The poor Master!"
Quickly at that Mary's feelings underwent a change. As if she had stood already beside her uncle's grave, sorrow took the place of perplexity. His past kindness dragged at her heart-strings. She forgot that she had never been able to love him, she forgot that behind the man whom she had known she had been ever conscious of another being, vague, shifting, inhuman. She remembered only the help he had given, the home he had offered, the rare hours of sympathy. "Don't, Toft, don't!" she cried, tears in her voice. She touched the man on the shoulder. "Don't give up hope!"
As for Mrs. Toft, surprise silenced her. When she found her voice, "Well," she said, looking round her with a sort of pride, "who'll say after this that Toft's a hard man? Why, if the Master was lying on that bed ready for burial-and we're some way off that, the Lord be thanked! – he couldn't carry on more! But there, let's look now, and weep afterwards! Pull yourself together, Toft, or who's the young lady to depend on? If you take my advice, Miss," she continued, "we'll get out of this room. It always did give me the fantods with them Egyptians staring at me from the walls, and to-day it's worse than a hearse! Now downstairs-"
"You are quite right, Mrs. Toft," Mary said. "We'll go downstairs." She shared to the full Mrs. Toft's distaste for the room. "We're doing no good here, and your husband can follow us when he is himself again. Petch should be back by this time, and we ought to arrange what is to be done outside."
Toft made no demur, and they went down. They found the keeper waiting in the hall. He had made no discovery, and Mary, to whom Toft's breakdown had given fresh energy, took things into her own hands. She gave Petch his orders. He must get together a dozen men, and search the park and every place within a mile of the Gatehouse. He must report by messenger every two hours to the house, and in the meantime he must send a man on horseback to the town for Dr. Pepper.
"And Mr. Basset?" Mrs. Toft murmured.
"I will write a note to Mr. Basset," Mary said, "and the man must send it by post-horses from the Audley Arms. I will write it now." She sat down in the library, cold as the room was, and scrawled three lines, telling Basset that her uncle had disappeared during the night, and that, ill as he was, she feared the worst.
Then, when Petch had gone to get his men together-a task which would take time as there were no farms at hand-she and Mrs. Toft searched the house room by room, while Etruria and her father went again through the outbuildings. But the quest was as fruitless as the former search had been.
Mary had known many unhappy days in Paris, days of anxiety, of loneliness, of apprehension, when she had doubted where she would lodge or what she would eat for her next meal. Now she had a source of strength in her engagement and her love, which should have been inexhaustible. But she never forgot the misery of this day, nor ever looked back on it without a shudder. Probably there were moments when she sat down, when she took a tasty meal, when she sought Mrs. Toft in her warm kitchen or talked with Etruria before her own fire. But as she remembered the day, she spent the long hours gazing across the wintry park; now catching a glimpse of the line of beaters as it appeared for a moment crossing a glade, now watching the approach of the messenger who came to tell her that they had found nothing; or again straining her eyes for the arrival of Dr. Pepper, who, had she known it, was at the deathbed of an old patient, ten miles on the farther side of Riddsley.
Now and again a hailstorm swept across the park, and Mrs. Toft came out and scolded her into shelter; or a farmer, whose men had been borrowed, "happened that way," and after a gruff question touched his hat and went off to join the searchers. Once a distant cry seemed to herald a discovery, and she tried to steady her leaping pulses. But nothing came of it except some minutes of anxiety. And once her waiting ear caught the clang of the bell that hung in the hall and she flew through the house to the front door, only to learn that the visitor was the carrier who three times a week called for letters on his way to town. The dreary house with its open doors, its cold draughts, its unusual aspect, the hurried meals, the furtive glances, the hours of suspense and fear-these stamped the day for ever on Mary's memory: as sometimes an hour of loneliness prints itself on the mind of a child who all his life long hears with distaste the clash of wedding bells.
At length the wintry day with its gusts of snow began to draw in. Before four Petch sent in to say that he had beaten the park and also the gardens at the Great House, but had found nothing. Half his men were now searching the slope on either side of the Riddsley road. With the other half he was going to explore, while the light lasted, the fringe of the Chase towards Brown Heath.
That left Mary face to face with the night; with the long hours of darkness, which inaction must render infinitely worse than those of the day. She had visions of the windswept park, the sullen ponds, the frozen moorland; they spread before her fraught with some brooding terror. She had never much marked, she had seldom felt the loneliness of the house. Now it pressed itself upon her, isolated her, menaced her. It made the thought of the night, that lay before her, almost unbearable.
CHAPTER XXVII
A FOOTSTEP IN THE HALL
Mrs. Toft bringing in candles, and looking grave enough herself, noticed the girl's pale face and chid her gently. "I don't believe that you've sat down this blessed day, Miss!" she said. "Nor no more than looked at good food. But tea you shall have and sit down to it, or my name's not Anne Toft! Fretting's no manner of use, and fasting's a poor stick to beat trouble with!"
"But, Mrs. Toft," Mary said, her face piteous, "it's the thought that he may be lying out there, helpless and dying, while we sit here-"
"Steady, Miss! Giving way does no good, and too much mind's worse than none. If he's out there he's gone, poor gentleman, long ago. And Dr. Pepper'll say the same. It's not in reason he should be alive if he's in the open. And, God knows, if he's under cover it's little better."
"But then if he is alive!" Mary cried. "Think of another night!"
"Ay, I know," Mrs. Toft said. "And hard it is! But you've been a model all this blessed day, and it's no time to break down now. Where that dratted doctor is, beats me, though he could do no more than we've done! But there, Mr. Basset will be with us to-morrow, and he'll find the poor gentleman dead or alive! There's some as are more to look at than the Squire, but there's few I'd put before him at a pinch!"
"Where's Toft?" Mary asked.
"He went to join Petch two hours ago," Mrs. Toft explained. "And there again, take Toft. He's a good husband, but there's no one would say he was a man to wear his heart outside. But you saw how hard he took it? I don't know," Mrs. Toft continued thoughtfully, "as I've seen Toft shed a tear these twenty years-no, nor twice since we went to church!"
"You don't think," Mary asked, "that he knows more than he has told us?"
The question took Mrs. Toft aback. "Why, Miss," she said, "you don't mean as you think he was putting on this morning?"
"No," Mary answered. "But is it possible that he knows the worst and does not tell us?"
"And why shouldn't he tell us? It would be strange if he wouldn't tell his own wife? And you that's Mr. Audley's nearest!"
"It's all so strange," Mary pleaded. "My uncle is gone. Where has he gone?"
Mrs. Toft did not answer the question. She could not. And there came an interruption. "That's Petch's voice," she said. "They're back."
The men trooped into the hall. They advanced to the door of the parlor, Petch leading, a man whom Mary did not know next to him, after these a couple of farmers and Toft, in the background a blur of faces vaguely seen.
"We've found something, Miss," Petch said. "At least Tom has. But I'm not sure it lightens things much. He was going home by the Yew Tree Walk and pretty close to the iron gate, when what should he see lying in the middle of the walk but this!"
Petch held out a silver flask.
"It's the Master's, sure enough," Mrs. Toft said.
"Ay," Petch answered. "But the odd thing is, I searched that place before noon, a'most inch by inch, looking for footprints, and I went over it again when we were beating the Yew Tree Walk this afternoon, and I'm danged if that flask was there then!"
"I don't think as you could ha' missed it, Mr. Petch," the finder said, "it was that bright and plain!"
"But isn't the grass long there?" Mary asked. She had already as much mystery as she could bear and wanted no addition to it.
"Not that long," said Tom.
"No, not that long, the lad's right," Petch added. "I warrant I must have seen it."
"That you must, Mr. Petch," a lad in the background said. "I was next man, and I wondered when you'd ha' done that bit."
"But I don't understand," Mary answered. "If it was not there, this morning-"
"I don't understand neither, lady," the keeper rejoined. "But it is on my mind that there's foul play!"
"Oh, but," Mary protested, "who-why should any one hurt my uncle?"
"I can't say as to that," Petch replied, darkly. "I don't know anybody as would. But there's the flask, and flasks don't travel without hands. If he took it out of the house with him-"
"May he not have dropped it-this afternoon?" Mary suggested. "Suppose he wandered that way after you passed?"
The keeper shook his head. "If he had passed that way this afternoon it isn't one but six pairs of eyes would ha' seen him."
There was a murmur of assent. The searchers were keenly enjoying the drama, taking in every change that appeared on the girl's face. They were men into whose lives not much of drama entered.
"But I cannot think that what you say is likely!" Mary protested. She had held her own stoutly through the day, but now with the eyes of all these men upon her she grew bewildered. The rows of faces, the bashful hands twisting caps, the blurred white of smocked frocks-grew and multiplied and became misty. She had to grasp the table to steady herself.
Mrs. Toft saw how it was, and came to the rescue. "What's Toft say about it?" she asked.
"Ay, to be sure, missus," Petch agreed. "I dunno as he's said anything yet."
"I don't think the Master could have passed and not been seen," Toft replied. His tone was low, and in the middle of his speech he shivered. "But I'm not saying that the flask wasn't there this morning. It's a small thing."
"It couldn't have been overlooked, Mr. Toft," the keeper replied firmly. "I speak as I know!"
Again Mrs. Toft intervened. "I'm sure nobody would ha' laid a hand on the Master!" she said. "Nobody in these parts and nobody foreign, as I can fancy. I've no doubt at all the poor gentleman awoke with some maggot in his brain and wandered off, not knowing. The question is, what can we do? The young lady's had a sad day, and it's time she was left to herself."
"There's nothing we can do now," Petch said flatly. "It stands to reason if we've found nothing in the daylight we'll find nothing in the dark. We'll be back at eight in the morning. Whether we'd ought to let his lordship know-"
"Sho!" said Mrs. Toft with scorn. "What's he in it, I'd like to know? But there, you've said what you come to say and it's time we left the young lady to herself."
Mary raised her head. "One moment," she said. "I want to thank you all for what you've done. And for what Petch says about the flask, he's right to speak out, but I can't think any one would touch my uncle. Only-can we do nothing? Nothing more? Nothing at all? If we don't find him to-night-" She broke off, overcome by her feelings.
"I'm afraid not, Miss," Petch said gently. "We'd all be willing, but we don't know where to look. I own I'm fair beat. Still Tom and I'll stay an hour or two with Toft in case of anything happening. Good-night, Miss. You're very welcome, I'm sure."
The others murmured their sympathy as they trooped out into the darkness. Mrs. Toft bustled away for the tea, and Mary was left alone.
Suspense lay heavy on her. She felt that she ought to be doing something and she did not know what to do. Dr. Pepper did not come, the Tofts were but servants. They could not take the onus, they could not share her burden; and Toft was a broken reed. Meanwhile time pressed. Hours, nay, minutes might make all the difference between life and death.
When Etruria came in with Mary's tea she found her mistress bending over the fire in an attitude of painful depression, and she said a few words, trying to impart to her something of her own patience. That patience was a fine thing in Etruria because it was natural. But Mary was of sterner stuff. She had a more lively imagination, and she could not be blind to the issues, or to the value of every moment that passed. Even while she listened to Etruria she saw with the eyes of fancy a hollow amid a clump of trees not far from a pool that she knew. In summer it was a pleasant dell, clothed with mosses and ferns and the flowers of the bog-bean; in winter a dank, sombre hollow. There she saw her uncle lie, amid the decaying leaves, the mud, the rank grass; and the vision was too much for her. What if he were really lying there, while she sat here by the fire? Sat here in this home which he-he had given her, amid the comforts which he had provided!
The thought was horrible, and she turned fiercely on the comforter. "Don't!" she cried. "You don't think! You don't understand! We can't go through the night like this! They must go on looking! Fetch your father! And bring Petch! Bring them here!" she cried.
Etruria went, alarmed by her excitement, but almost as quickly she came back. Toft had gone out with Petch and the other man. They would not be long.
Mary cried out on them, but could do no more than walk the room, and after a time Etruria coaxed her to sit down and eat; and tea and food restored her balance. Still, as she sat and ate she listened-she listened always. And Etruria, taught by experience, let her be and said nothing.
At last, "How long they are!" Mary cried. "What are they doing? Are they never-"
She stopped. The footsteps of two men coming through the hall had reached her ears, and she recognized the tread of one-recognized it with a rush of relief so great, of thankfulness so overwhelming that she was startled and might well have been more than startled, had she been free to think of anything but the lost man. It was Basset's step, and she knew it-she would have known it, she felt, among a hundred! He had come! An instant later he stood in the doorway, booted and travel-stained, his whip in his hand, just as he had dropped from the saddle-and with a face grave indeed, but calm and confident. He seemed to her to bring relief, help, comfort, safety, all in one!
"Oh!" she cried. "You are here! How-how good of you!"
"Not good at all," he answered, advancing to the table and quietly taking off his gloves. "Your messenger met me half-way to Blore. I was coming into Riddsley to a meeting. I had only to ride on. Of course I came."
"But the meeting?" she asked fearfully. Was he only come to go again?
"D-n the meeting!" he answered, moved to anger by the girl's pale face. "Will you give me a cup of tea, Toft? I will hear Miss Audley's account first. Keep Petch and the other man. We shall want them. In twenty minutes I'll talk to you. That will do."
Ah, with what gratitude, with what infinite relief, did Mary hear his tone of authority! He watched Toft out of the room and, alone with her, he looked at her. He saw that her hand shook as she filled the teapot, that her lips quivered, that she tried to speak and could not. And he felt an infinite love and pity, though he drove both out of his voice when he spoke. "Yes, tea first," he said coolly, as he took off his riding coat. "I've had a long journey. You must take another cup with me. You can leave things to me now. Yes, two lumps, please, and not too strong." He knocked together the logs, and warmed his hands, stooping over the fire with his back to her. Then he took his place at the table, and when he had drunk half a cup of tea, "Now," he said, "will you tell me the story from the beginning. And take time. More haste, less speed, you know."
With a calmness that surprised herself, Mary told the tale. She described the first alarm, the hunt through the house, the discoveries in the bedroom, Toft's breakdown, last of all the search through the park and the finding of the flask.
He listened gravely, asking a question now and then. When she had done, "What of Toft?" he inquired. "Not been very active, has he? Not given you much help?"
"No! But how did you guess?" she asked in surprise.
"I'm afraid that Toft knows more than he has told you. For the rest," he looked at her kindly, "I want you to give up the hope of finding your uncle alive. I have none. But I think I can promise you that there has been no suffering. If it turns out as I imagine, he was dead before he was missed. What the doctor expected has happened. That is all."
"I don't understand," she said.
"And I don't want to say more until I know for certain. May I ring for Toft?" She nodded. He rang, and after a pause, during which he stood, silent and waiting, the servant came in. He shot a swift glance at them, and dropped his eyes.
"Tell Petch and the other man to be ready to start with us in five minutes," Basset said. "Let them fetch a hurdle, and do you put a mattress on it. I suppose-you made sure he was dead, Toft, before you left him?"
The man flinched before the sudden question, but he showed less emotion than Mary. Perhaps he had expected it. After a pause, during which Basset did not take his eyes from him, "I made sure," he said in a low voice. "As God sees me, I did! But if you think I raised a hand to him-"
"I don't!" Basset said sternly. "I don't think so badly of you as that. But nothing but frankness can save you now. Is he in the Great House?"
Toft opened his mouth, but he seemed unable to speak. He nodded.
"What about the flask?"
"I dropped it," the man muttered. He turned a shade paler. "I could not bear to think he was lying there. I thought it would lead the search-that way, and they would find him."
"I see. That's enough now. Be ready to start at once."
The man went out. "Good heavens!" Mary cried. She was horror-stricken. "And he has known it all this time! Do you think that he-he had any part-"
"Oh no. He was alone with Mr. Audley when he collapsed, and he lost his head. They were together in the Great House-it was a difficult position-and he did not see his way to explain. He may have seen some advantage in gaining time-I don't know. The first thing to be done is to bring your uncle home. I will see to that. You have borne up nobly-you have done your part. Do you go to bed now."
Something in his tone, and in his thought for her, brought old times to Mary's mind and the blood to her pale cheek. She did not say no, but she would not go to bed. She made Etruria come to her, and the two girls sat in the parlor listening and waiting, moving only when it was necessary to snuff the candles. It was a grim vigil. An hour passed, two hours. At length they caught the first distant murmur, the tread of men who moved slowly and heavily under a burden-there are few who have not at one time or another heard that sound. Little by little the shuffling feet, the subdued orders, the jar of a stumbling bearer, drew nearer, became more clear. A gust of wind swept through the hall, and moaned upwards through the ancient house. The candles on the table flickered. And still the two sat spell-bound, clasping cold hands, as the unseen procession passed over the threshold, and for the last time John Audley came home to sleep amid his books-heedless now of right or claim, or rank or blood.
* * * * *
A few minutes later Basset entered the parlor. His face betrayed his fatigue, and his first act was to go to the sideboard and drink a glass of wine. Mary saw that his hand shook as he raised the glass, and gratitude for what he had done for her brought the tears to her eyes. He stood a moment, leaning in utter weariness against the wall-he had ridden far that day. And Mary had been no woman if she had not drawn comparisons.
Opportunity had served him, and had not served the other. Nor, had her betrothed been here, could he have helped her in this pinch. He could not have taken Basset's place, nor with all the will in the world could he have done what Basset had done.
That was plain. Yet deep down in her there stirred a faint resentment, a complaint hardly acknowledged. Audley was not here, but he might have been. It was his doing that she had not told her uncle, and that John Audley had passed away in ignorance. It was his doing that in her trouble she had had to lean on the other. It was not the first time during the long hours of the day that the thought had come to her; and though she had put it away, as she put it away now, the opening flower of love is delicate-the showers pass but leave their mark.
When Etruria had slipped out, and left them, Basset came forward, and warmed himself at the fire. "Perhaps it is as well you did not go to bed," he said. "You can go now with an easy mind. It was as I thought-he lay on the stairs of the Great House and he had been dead many hours. Dr. Pepper will tell us more to-morrow, but I have no doubt that he died of syncope brought on by exertion. Toft had tried to give him brandy."
Shocked and grieved, yet sensible of relief, she was silent for a time. She had known John Audley less than a year, but he had been good to her in his way and she sorrowed for him. But at least she was freed from the nightmare which had ridden her all day. Or was she? "May I know what took him there?" she asked in a low voice. "And Toft?"
"He believed that there were papers in the Great House, which would prove his claim. It was an obsession. He asked me more than once to go with him and search for them, and I refused. He fell back on Toft. They had begun to search-so Toft tells me-when Mr. Audley was taken ill. Before he could get him down the stairs, the end came. He sank down and died."
With a shudder Mary pictured the scene in the empty house. She saw the light of the lantern fall on the huddled group, as the panic-stricken servant strove to pour brandy between the lips of the dying man; and truly she was thankful that in this strait she had Basset to support her, to assist her, to advise her! "It is very dreadful," she said. "I do not wonder that Toft gave way. But had he-had my uncle-any right to be there?"
"In his opinion, yes. And if the papers were there, they were his papers, the house was his, all was his. In my opinion he was wrong. But if he believed anything, he believed that he was justified in what he did."
"I am glad of that!"
"There must be an inquest, I am afraid," Basset continued. "One or two will know, and one or two more will guess what Mr. Audley's errand was. But Lord Audley will have nothing to gain by moving in it. And if only for your sake-but you must go to bed. Etruria is waiting in the hall. I will send her to you. Good-night."
She stood up. She wished to thank him, she longed to say something, anything, which would convey to him what his coming had been to her. But she could not find words, she was tongue-tied. And Etruria came in.