About Peggy Saville Part 14

"Did you go upstairs again?"

"No, ma'am. I had looked there before."

"Esther dear, you go!" cried Mrs Asplin quickly. "Bring her down at once! What in the world is the child doing? It's most extraordinary!"

"She's not given to playing games of hide-and-seek just at dinner-time, is she?" asked Arthur, laughing. "I am never surprised at anything Peggy does. She has some little prank on hand, depend upon it, and will turn up in good time. It's her own fault if she misses her dinner."

"But it's so extraordinary! To-night of all nights, when you have just arrived! I wish the child would come!" replied Mrs Asplin, craning her neck forward to listen to the cries of "Peggy! Peggy!" which came from the upper storey.

The door stood open, and everyone ceased talking to follow Esther's footsteps to and fro, to count the opening and shutting of doors--one, two, three, four, five--to look apprehensively at each other as the messenger returned--alone!

"Mother, she is not there! I've looked everywhere--in every corner--and she has not changed her dress, nor washed, nor anything. The room looks exactly as if she had never gone in; but she did, for we all followed her upstairs. I looked over the wardrobe, and all her dresses are there, and the can of hot water is untouched, and the gas left full up."

"Oh dear, what can have happened?" Mrs Asplin pushed back her chair and stood up, looking anxious and puzzled. "I cannot rest until she is found! I must look myself! Go on with dinner, all of you; I won't be long. Where can the child be hiding herself?"

"Don't worry, mater!" said Arthur kindly. "It's very tiresome of Peggy to disappear at such an inopportune moment, but no harm can have happened to her, you know. It's impossible! As I said before, she has probably some wild prank in her head of which this is a part. I'll give her a lecture when I catch her for spoiling dinner like this, and such an uncommonly good dinner too!" And Arthur smiled in cheery fas.h.i.+on, and tried his best to keep up the failing spirits of the company by chatting away while his hostess was out of the room, as if nothing had happened which was the least unusual or alarming.

When Mrs Asplin returned, however, after a lengthened absence, there was a simultaneous rising from the table to listen to her report.

"She is not in the house! Jane began at the top and I began at the bottom, and we searched every hole and corner. I have looked in the very cupboards and wardrobes! I even searched the cistern-room, but she is not to be found. I don't know what to do next. It seems impossible that she can have disappeared--yet where can she be?"

"Have you looked in the cloak-room to see if any of her outdoor things are missing?"

"I went in, but I never thought of looking at her clothes. Outdoor?

What on earth should take the child out at this hour in the dark and rain?"

"I can't tell you that, dear, but we must think of every possibility.

Esther, you know best what Peggy had in the cloak-room--see if anything is missing. Mellicent, run upstairs and find if any hats or jackets have been taken from their places. If she is not in the house, she must have gone out. It was most thoughtless and foolish to go without asking permission, and at such an hour; but, as Arthur says, there is not much chance of any harm befalling her. Try not to work yourself up into a state of anxiety, dear; we shall soon find your truant for you. Well, Esther, what is it?"

"Her mackintosh has gone, father, and her red tam-o'-shanter, and her snow-shoes. Her peg is next to mine, and there is nothing on it but her check golf cape."

"She has gone out, then! What can it mean?--to-night of all nights, when she was so happy, when Arthur had just arrived, when she promised to be downstairs in ten minutes--"

"It is most extraordinary! It must have been something of great importance, one would say. Does anyone know if Peggy had any special interest on hand at present? Was there any gift which she wished to buy? It does not happen to be anyone's birthday to-morrow, does it?

Yours, Arthur, for instance? No? The birthday of a school-friend, then? She might suddenly have remembered such an occasion, and rushed out to post a letter--"

"But there is no post until to-morrow morning, so she would gain no time by doing that. The postman called at five o'clock, and the letters were on the hall-table waiting for him as usual. I do not know of any work that she had on hand, but the girls have complained that she has spent all her spare time in her room lately, and when I spoke to her about it she said she was writing--"

"Perhaps she is writing a book," suggested Mellicent thoughtfully. "She says she is going to be an auth.o.r.ess when she grows up. I think Robert knew what she was doing. They were always talking together and looking over books, and I heard him say to her, 'Bring me all you have finished, to look over.' I said something to her about printing some photographs for Christmas cards, and she said she could do nothing until after the nineteenth."

"The nineteenth!" echoed the vicar sharply. "That is to-day. We gather from that, then, that Peggy had been busy with work, either by herself or in conjunction with Robert, which had to be completed by to-day.

n.o.body has the least idea of what nature it was? No? Then I shall go to Robert's room and see if there is anything lying about which can give me a clue."

"I'll go with you, sir," said Arthur, who was beginning to look a little anxious and uneasy, as the moments pa.s.sed by and brought no sign of his sister; but, alas, the scattered papers on Rob's table gave no clue to the mystery!

When one is endeavouring to find a reason why a girl should mysteriously disappear from her home, it does not help very much to find a few slips of paper on which are written such items as "Tennyson's Poems, page 26,"

"Selections from British Authors, 203", "Macaulay's Essays, 97,"

etcetera.

Arthur and Mr Asplin looked at one another, puzzled and disappointed, and had no alternative but to return to the dining-room and confess their failure.

"Would not it be a good thing to go up to the Larches, and hear what Robert has to say on the subject?" Arthur asked; and when he was told that Robert was in London he still held to his suggestion.

"For someone else in the house may know about it," he declared. "Rob may have confided in his mother or sister. At the worst we can get his address, and telegraph to him for information, if she has not returned before we get back. She might even have gone to the Larches herself to--to see Rosalind!"

"Peggy doesn't like Rosalind. She never goes to see her if she can help it. I'm quite sure she has not gone there," said Mellicent shrewdly.

"It is more likely she has gone to Fraulein's lodgings to tell her about Arthur. She is fond of Fraulein."

The suggestion was not very brilliant, but it was hailed with eagerness by the listeners as the most probable explanation yet offered.

"Then I'll tell you what we will do. I'll go off to the Larches," cried Arthur, "and one of you fellows can see Fraulein, and find out if Peggy has been there. We must try every place, likely and unlikely. It is better than sitting here doing nothing."

Max frowned and hesitated. "Or--er--or you might go to Fraulein, and I'll take the Larches! It is a long walk for you after your journey,"

he suggested, with a sudden access of politeness, "and there seems more probability that Fraulein may be able to help us. You could go there and back in a short time."

"Just as you like, of course. It is all the same to me," returned Arthur, in a tone which plainly intimated that it was nothing of the sort. Mrs Asplin looked from one to the other of the flushed faces, realising that even in the midst of anxiety the image of beautiful, golden-haired Rosalind had a Will-o'-the-wisp attraction for the two big lads; but her husband saw nothing of what lay behind the commonplace words, and said calmly--

"Very well, then, Max, be off with you as fast as you can go. Find out if Robert has said anything about the work which he has had on hand; find out his address in town, and, if possible, where a telegram would reach him this evening. Arthur will call at Fraulein's lodgings; and, Oswald, you might go with him so far, and walk through the village. Ask at old Mrs Gilpin's shop if Miss Saville has been there, but don't talk about it too much; we don't want to make more fuss than we can help.

Keep your eyes open!"

The three lads departed without further delay; the vicar put on his coat and hat preparatory to searching the garden and the lanes in the immediate neighbourhood, and the womenkind of the household settled down to an hour of painful waiting.

Mrs Asplin lay back in her chair, with her hand to her head, now silent, now breaking out into impetuous lamentations. The fear lest any accident had happened to Peggy paralysed her with dread. Her thoughts went out to far-away India; she imagined the arrival of the ominous cablegram; pictured it carried into the house by a native servant; saw the light die out of two happy faces at the reading of the fatal words.

"Oh, Peggy, Peggy!" she groaned. "Oh, the poor father--the poor mother!

What will I do? What will I do? Oh, Peggy, dearie, come back I come back!"

Esther busied herself looking after a dozen little domestic arrangements, to which no one else seemed capable of attendance, and Mellicent laid her head on her mother's lap, and never ceased crying, except for one brief interval, when she darted upstairs to peep inside the old oak chest, prompted thereto by a sudden reminiscence of the bride of the "Mistletoe Bough." There was no Peggy inside the chest, however; only a few blankets, and a very strong smell of camphor; so Mellicent crept back to her footstool, and cried with redoubled energy.

In the kitchen the fat old cook sat with a hand planted on either knee, and thrilled the other servants with an account of how "a cousin of me own brother-in-law, him that married our Annie, had a child as went a-missing, as fine a girl as you could wish to see from June to January.

Beautiful kerly 'air, for all the world like Miss Mellicent's, and such nice ways with her! Everybody loved that child, gentle and simple.

'Beller,' 'er name was, after her mother. She went out unbeknownst, just as it might be Miss Peggy, and they searched and better searched,"--cook's hands waved up and down, and the heads of the listeners wagged in sympathy--"and never a trace could they find. 'Er father--he's a stone-mason by trade, and getting good money--he knocked off work, and his friends they knocked off too, and they searched the country far and wide. Day and night I tell you they searched, a week on end, and poor Isabeller nearly off her head with grief. I've heard my sister say as she never tasted bite nor sup the whole time, and was wasted to a shadow. Eh, poor soul, it's hard to rare up a child, and have it go out smiling and bonnie, and never see nothink of it again but its bones--for she had fallen into a lime pit, had Beller, and it was nothing but her skeleton as they brought 'ome. There was building going on around there, and she was playing near the pit--childlike--just as it might be Miss Peggy..." Soon and on. The horrors acc.u.mulated with every moment. The housemaid had heard tell of a beautiful little girl, the heiress to a big estate, who had been carried off by strolling gipsies, and never been seen again by her sorrowing relatives; while the waitress hinted darkly that the time might come when it would be a comfort to know force had been employed, for sharper than a serpent's tooth was an ungrateful child, and she always _had_ said that there was something uncanny about that little Miss Saville!

The clock was striking nine o'clock when the first of the messengers came back to report his failure; he was closely followed by a second; and last of all came Max, bringing word that nothing had been seen or heard of Peggy at the Larches; that neither Lord Darcy nor Rosalind had the faintest idea of the nature of the work which had just been completed; and, further, that on this evening Robert was escorting his mother to some entertainment, so that even if sent off at once a telegram could not reach him until a late hour. Mrs Asplin turned her white face from one speaker to the other, and, when the last word was spoken, broke into a paroxysm of helpless weeping.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

THE SECRET CONFESSED.

"Something has happened! Something terrible has happened to the child!

And she was left in our charge. We are responsible. Oh, if any harm has happened to Peggy, however, ever, ever, can I bear to live and send the news to her parents--"

"My dearest, you have done your best; you could not have been kinder or more thoughtful. No blame can attach to you. Remember that Peggy is in higher hands than yours. However far from us she may be, she can never stray out of G.o.d's keeping. It all seems very dark and mysterious, but--"

At this moment a loud rat-tat-tat sounded on the knocker, and with one accord the hearers darted into the hall, and stood panting and gasping, while Arthur threw open the door.

"Telegram, sir!" said a sharp, young voice, and the brown envelope which causes so much agitation in quiet households was thrust forward in a small cold hand. Arthur looked at the address and handed it to the vicar.