Christina Part 28

"Of course you can't," Cicely said impatiently. "I should as soon believe I was a thief myself, as believe Christina to be one. Don't imagine I doubt her. I never doubted her for a moment. Only--I wish she hadn't gone away; and I wish I knew where she had gone."

Rupert's face grew grave.

"Has she any friends or relations to whom she would be likely to go?"

"I am afraid not. You know she was rather a waif and stray, when I first engaged her as Baba's nurse. You were doubtful then about my wisdom in taking her with practically no references. But she has been invaluable with Baba; and I have learnt to care for her, too. She is such a dear soul!"

"A restful soul," Rupert said dreamily; and, as Cicely stared at him in surprise, a little look of embarra.s.sment crossed his face. "I saw her at Graystone, when I went to call upon Baba," he said, trying to speak lightly, because of the surprise in Cicely's glance; "she seemed to be just the sort of restful, cheery nurse you would want for a child."

"Yes," Cicely answered, wondering why Rupert's first dreamy words "a restful soul," seemed to have no connection with the latter part of his sentence.

"She suits Baba admirably. The poor baby is utterly woebegone without her. Baba calls Christina her pretty lady; and she has been crying her small heart out over her loss."

"Miss Moore went away on Christmas night, you say?"

"Yes; two nights ago. She took nothing with her in the way of luggage.

She must have walked to the station. She went to Hansley. We have discovered that much, and she sat all night in the waiting-room, because there was no train till the early morning."

"Then you know to what place she booked?" Rupert questioned.

"She booked to Torne Junction; beyond there we cannot trace her.

Cousin Arthur ramped all yesterday, and talked a great deal of bombastic nonsense. To-day, to my great relief, he and Cousin Ellen departed. But he still threatens the police. I am only hoping he may let the police question lapse for a day or two; he is very busy hunting down a derelict brother-in-law."

"My dear Cicely, what do you mean--a derelict brother-in-law?"

"I know nothing about the poor thing," Cicely spread out her hands, and laughed. "Cousin Arthur takes it for granted that I have his family history at my finger ends, and I can't remember that John ever told me whether Cousin Arthur ever had a brother-in-law. But the dear old man throws out mysterious hints about the derelict, who has evidently done something terrible, and he sighs and groans over his poor sister, the derelict's wife, but I don't know what has happened to either the sister or her husband. Meanwhile----"

"Meanwhile, we have no right to let a young girl like Miss Moore lose herself or get into difficulties, if we can possibly prevent it,"

Rupert said. "Her running away was an undoubted blunder, but it is our business to find her, and try to set things straight. The difficulty is to know where to begin to look for her. Scotland Yard suggests itself as the place to which in common sense one should apply for help."

"I don't want publicity and fuss if it can be avoided," Cicely said doubtfully. "Cousin Arthur's rigid sense of justice, makes him declare with unwavering obstinacy that it is a case for the police, the whole police, and nothing but the police. But being an ordinary silly, fluffy, little woman, I have the ordinary woman's horror of the law."

"You are so entirely typical of the silly, fluffy woman," Rupert said drily, but looking at his cousin with affectionate, laughing eyes.

"However, without bringing the majesty of the law to bear upon the theft, or rather supposed theft--for I don't myself believe in it--there is no reason why Scotland Yard should not help us to find Miss Moore. Perhaps I can induce Sir Arthur to hold his hand for the present about the accusation against her. He must be amenable to----"

The sentence was broken off short, as the door opened, and a footman entered and handed a telegram to his mistress.

"For Cousin Arthur," she said, glancing from the orange-coloured envelope to Rupert. "I wonder whether I had better just open it, or have it re-telegraphed straight on to him?"

"Open it, I should think," Rupert answered carelessly; "it may be some trivial matter which you can answer," and acting upon his words, Cicely drew out the pink paper from its orange cover, and read the lines written upon it; read them slowly, and with a puzzled frown, that changed suddenly to an expression of delight.

"What an extraordinary coincidence. You need not wait, James. I will send the answer down to the telegraph boy in a few minutes. Look at this, Rupert," she went on, as the footman left the room. "Isn't it extraordinary that this telegram should have come in the very middle of our conversation?"

Rupert took the flimsy paper from her hand, and as he read the words, his cousin saw an extraordinary change flash over his face--a dusky colour mounted to his forehead, a strange brightness leapt to his eyes; and, having read the words to himself, he read them aloud--

"Come here at once. Wire to post office, Graystone; and any train shall be met. Christina Moore with me. Have made important discovery.--MARGARET STANFORTH."

"At last," he murmured under his breath, as with curious deliberation he folded up the telegram, and handed it back to Cicely. "At last I have found her."

The low-spoken words reached Cicely's ears, and she stared at her cousin's transformed face, saying almost involuntarily--

"But--Rupert--I can't understand. Are you really so pleased to have found Christina?"

Rupert looked at her with a sudden confusion in his glance.

"Did I speak my thoughts aloud?" he said; "look here, Cicely, I am afraid I was not thinking of Miss Moore at that moment, though I am glad, very glad, to hear she is safe. And she is in such good hands, too," he added softly, the light in his eyes making Cicely realise all at once that there was a Rupert she had never known, besides the Rupert who had always been so steadfast a rock upon which to lean.

"It isn't fair to have said so much, and not to say more," he added quickly. "This lady who telegraphs--Margaret Stanforth--is--a friend of mine, a most n.o.ble and dear friend. I--had lost sight of her, and--I am glad to know where she is." Although the words were bald to the point of coldness, Cicely saw that the usually self-controlled man was deeply stirred by an emotion that almost overmastered him, and she tactfully refrained from directly answering his words, saying only--

"I am very glad Christina is in such good hands. I must telegraph this message on to Cousin Arthur at once. It is evidently most important."

"Evidently," Rupert replied absently, but he roused himself to re-write the telegram for Cicely; and, only when it had been despatched, did he turn to her and say--

"I wonder whether it would be wrong of me to take advantage of the information this telegram has given me; whether I might go to Graystone, too?"

"But, you see, there is no actual address on the message," Cicely answered, her quicker woman's wit having discovered the omission.

"Graystone post office is mentioned, but it is obvious that for some reason the lady's own address has been left out. I--don't feel that I can give any advice when I know none of the circ.u.mstances, but--it seems like taking an unfair advantage to--to act on this telegram, which you are not supposed to have seen at all."

"And some fools in this world declare a woman has no sense of honour,"

Rupert exclaimed with a short laugh. "You can give me points about honour, that's certain. Of course, you are right," he laughed again, a rueful, rather bitter little laugh. "I can't go and hunt her out on the strength of a telegram I was never meant to see. But, my G.o.d! it is hard to keep away." He turned from Cicely, and, putting his arms upon the mantelpiece, leant his head upon them for a moment--only for a moment--then he straightened himself, and said quietly--

"After all, I have got to forget this telegram, ignore it, and make myself feel that things are 'as they were.'"

"I am so sorry, Rupert," Cicely said gently, answering the look on his face rather than his actual speech. "Is there nothing anybody can do for you?"

"You dear and kind little person," he answered. "No, there is nothing.

Mrs. Stanforth is my friend, the best friend man ever had, and if, just now, she finds it best that there should be silence between us, I am ready to accept her decision. Only silence is--the very devil," he ended, with again a rueful laugh.

That telegram to Sir Arthur Congreve would have been despatched on the previous day, but for Margaret's sudden and startling collapse during her conversation with Christina. The girl's mention of the pendant which she a.s.serted had been given her by her mother; and, the sight of the pendant itself, had produced in the elder woman a terrible excitement, which had ended in her sinking back amongst her pillows in a dead faint. The words she had spoken before she became unconscious, had seemed to Christina like the incoherent ramblings of a delirious person, and in the alarm caused by Margaret's unconsciousness, she had set them aside, and to all intents and purposes forgotten them.

Indeed, so little importance had she attached to them, that when Dr.

Fergusson came to see his patient, Christina only accounted for Margaret's sudden collapse, by the long and interesting conversation in which they had been engaged, and she added in accents of self-reproach--

"I think I ought not to have come here at all, and certainly I ought not to have shown her how upset and frightened I was."

"Your coming, and even the telling of your story, ought not to be enough to account for Mrs. Stanforth's collapsing in this way," the doctor answered, a puzzled look in his eyes. "She is such a singularly sane, well-balanced woman, that one feels there must have been something quite unusual to account for her fainting so suddenly. As far as you know, she had no shock?"

"No; none," Christina replied. "I mean, I know of no shock. I was just sitting by her bed, telling her about Sir Arthur and his accusation, and she was very much interested, and asked if I had the pendant with me. And directly she saw it, she got quite white, and she said something I could not understand, about the initials over the emerald; and then, all at once, she dropped back and was unconscious in a few seconds."

Fergusson looked keenly at the speaker.

"Mrs. Stanforth had never seen this pendant before?"

"No; never," it was Christina's turn to look puzzled. "I had never seen her until the day she came out to the gate to ask me to fetch a doctor. To all intents and purposes she and I are strangers."