Mildred Arkell Volume Ii Part 10

Although he did think that the name given in to the hotel at first was not so long as Hardcastle, but he was not quite sure; it had not been written down, only the number of the room they occupied. Monsieur and Madame had very much resented being put up on the third floor. It was the only room then vacant in all the hotel, and at first Madame said she would not take it, she would go to another hotel; but she was tired, and stopped, and the luggage, too, had been all brought in. Afterwards, when Madame was settled in it, she did not care to change. In what name were Monsieur's letters addressed--Hardcastle? Ma foi, yes, for all he knew; but Monsieur's letters stopped at the post-office, as did those of three parts of the company in the hotel, and Monsieur went for them himself.

Money? Well, Monsieur did seem short of money at times; but he had plenty at others, and he had paid up liberally at last. Other gentlemen sometimes ran short, when their remittances were delayed.

There was not a word in this that could tell really against Mr.

Hardcastle. The host evidently spoke in all good faith; and Mr.

Prattleton began to look upon Mrs. Dund.y.k.e's suspicions as the morbid fancies of a woman in trouble. He put another question to the landlord--what was his private opinion of this singular disappearance of Mr. Dund.y.k.e?

The landlord shook his head; he had had but one opinion upon the point for some days past. The poor gentleman, there was not the least doubt, had in some way got into the lake and been drowned. But the notes in his pocket-book? urged the clergyman--the money that had been changed at the money-changer's? Well, the fact must be, the host supposed, that his pocket-book was left upon the gra.s.s, or had floated on the water, and some thief had come across it and appropriated the contents.

Mr. Prattleton, after due reflection, became convinced that this must have been the case; and for the pencil-case, he believed that Mrs.

Dund.y.k.e was in error in supposing her husband took it out with him.

Mrs. Dund.y.k.e was not so easily satisfied. She urged the strange fact of Mr. Hardcastle's appearance when he returned that day: his scratched face, his dusty clothes, his altogether disordered look, his sneaking up the stairs as if he did not want to be seen. But upon inquiry it was found that a gentleman, whose appearance tallied with the person of Mr.

Hardcastle, did so fall on the dusty flint stones, in trying to avoid a restive horse, and his face was scratched and his hand hurt in consequence; and, as Mr. Prattleton observed, he really might be trying to avoid observation in coming up the hotel stairs, not caring to be met in that untidy state. The pencil-case was next shown to the boatmen; but they could not say whether it was the one the gentleman had written the note with. They were tired with the row in the hot sun, and did not take particular notice. One of them was certain that, whatever pencil the gentleman had used, he took it from his pocket; and he saw him tear the leaf out of the pocket-book to write upon.

Altogether it amounted to just this--that while Mr. Hardcastle _might_ be guilty, he probably was innocent. Mr. Prattleton inclined to the latter belief; and as the days went on, Mrs. Dund.y.k.e inclined to it also. The points fraught with suspicion began to lose their dark hue, and when there arrived a stranger at the hotel, who happened to know that old Mr. Hardcastle's nephew was travelling on the continent, and was much inclined to spend money faster than he got it, though otherwise honourable, Mrs. Dund.y.k.e's suspicions faded, and she reproached herself for having entertained them.

But nothing further could be heard of Mr. Dund.y.k.e; nothing further was heard, and it became useless to linger on in Geneva. That he was in Geneva's lake, she never doubted, and the place became hateful to her.

She travelled towards home in company with Mr. Prattleton and his daughter. At Paris they parted; they remaining in it for a few days, she proceeding to London direct, which she reached in safety. Poor Mrs.

Dund.y.k.e! As she sat alone in the dark cab which was to take her to her now solitary home at Brixton, she perhaps felt the loss, the dreadful circ.u.mstances of it altogether, more keenly than she had felt them yet.

She sat with dry eyes, but a throbbing brain, feeling that life for her had ended; that she was left in a world whose happiness had died out.

It was a very pretty white villa, with a lawn before it, and encircled by carriage drive, with double gates. As the man drove in at one, and stopped before the entrance, and the door was thrown open to the light of the hall, Mrs. Dund.y.k.e became aware that some gentleman was standing there, behind the servant.

"Who is that, John?" she whispered.

"It's a stranger, ma'am; a gentleman who has just called. He seemed so surprised when I said you had not returned yet; but you drove up at the moment. And master, ma'am?"

Mrs. Dund.y.k.e did not answer. The servants knew that something was amiss; but she had not courage to explain then; in fact, she could scarcely suppress her emotion sufficiently to speak with composure. The stranger came forward to meet her, and she recognised the gentleman who had a.s.sisted them in Gren.o.ble, and had given his name as Robert Carr.

"You see I have availed myself of your invitation to call," he said. "It is curious I should happen to come to-night when you are only returning.

I fancied you did not intend to remain away so long. But where is Mr.

Dund.y.k.e?"

She turned with him into one of the sitting-rooms--an elegant room of good proportions. The chandelier was lighted; a handsome china tea-service, interspersed with articles of silver, stood on the table; cold meats and other good things were ready; and altogether it was a complete picture of home comfort, of easy competency. The thought that _he_, who had been the many years partner of her life, would never come back to this again, combined with the home question of the Rev. Mr.

Carr, struck out of her what little composure she had retained, and Mrs.

Dund.y.k.e sank down in an easy chair, and burst into a storm of sobs.

To say that the young clergyman stood in consternation, would be saying little. He was not used to scenes, did not like them; and he felt inwardly uncomfortable, not knowing what he ought to say or do.

"Pray, forgive me," she murmured, when she had recovered sufficiently to speak. "You asked after my husband. He is lost--he is gone. He will never come home again."

"Lost!" repeated Robert Carr.

Mrs. Dund.y.k.e told her tale, and the young man listened in utter astonishment. He had never heard of such a thing in all his life; had never imagined anything so strange. It seemed that he could not be tired of asking questions--of hazarding conjectures. He _wished_ he had been there, he said; he was sure that the search _he_ would have inst.i.tuted would have found him, dead or alive. And it was a somewhat remarkable fact that everybody, forthwith destined to hear the story, said the same. So p.r.o.ne are we to under-rate the exertions of other people, and over-rate our own.

But simple, courteous Mrs. Dund.y.k.e, could not forget the duties of hospitality amid her great sorrow. She went upstairs for a minute to take off her travelling things, and then quietly made tea for Robert Carr, asking him questions about himself as he drank it.

He had come straight to London from Gren.o.ble, on business connected with an a.s.sistant ministry he expected to get in November, and then went to Holland. He had been back in London now about a week, but should soon be returning to Holland, as his wife was not in good health.

"His wife!" Mrs. Dund.y.k.e repeated in surprise. She thought he looked too young to have a wife.

Robert Carr laughed. He had a wife and two children, he said; he had married young.

Mrs. Dund.y.k.e told him that she thought they were connected--in fact, she knew they were, for old Mrs. Dund.y.k.e used to say so. "I do not quite remember how she made it out," continued Mrs. Dund.y.k.e; "I think she was a cousin in the second degree to the Miss Hughes's of Westerbury. They were----"

Mrs. Dund.y.k.e stopped short. None were more considerate than she of the feelings of others; and it suddenly struck her that the young clergyman before her, a gentleman himself, might not like to be reminded of these things.

"They were dressmakers, if you speak of my mother's sisters," he quietly said; "I have heard her say so. She was a lady herself in mind and manners; but her family were quite inferior."

Mrs. Dund.y.k.e did not feel her way altogether clear. She remembered hearing of the elopement; she remembered certain unpleasant subsequent rumours--that Martha Ann Hughes remained with Mr. Carr in Holland, although the ceremony of marriage had not pa.s.sed between them. Always charitably judging, she supposed now that they must have been married at some subsequent period; and this, their eldest son, called himself Robert _Carr_. But it was not a topic that she felt comfortable in pursuing.

"You say that your mother is dead?" she resumed.

"She has been dead about five years. We are three of us: I; my brother Thomas, who was born two years after me; and my sister, Mary Augusta, who is several years younger. There were two other girls between my brother and Mary, but they died."

"Mr. Carr is in business in Rotterdam?"

"Yes; partner in a merchant's house there. He has saved money, and is well off."

Mrs. Dund.y.k.e faintly smiled; she was glad for a moment to make a semblance of forgetting her own woes. "Those random young men often make the most sober ones when they settle down. Your father was wild in his young days."

"Was he? I'm sure I don't know. You should see him now: a regular steady-going old Dutchman, fat and taciturn, who smokes his afternoons away in the summer-house. He has not been very well of late years; and I tell him he ought to spend his hours of recreation in taking exercise, not in sitting still and smoking."

"Does he keep up any intercourse with his relatives in Westerbury?"

asked Mrs. Dund.y.k.e, for she had heard through Mildred Arkell that Westerbury never heard anything of its renegade son, Robert Carr, and did not know or care whether he was dead or alive--in fact, had forgotten all remembrance of him.

"Not any--not the least. I fancy my father and mother must have had some disagreement with their home friends, for they never spoke of them. I remember, when I was a little boy, my mother getting news of the death of a sister; but how it came to her I'm sure I don't know."

"She had two sisters, and she had a brother," said Mrs. Dund.y.k.e. "I heard that Mary died. Are the other sister and the brother living?"

"I really do not know. If we had possessed no relatives in the world, we could not have lived more completely isolated from them. I believe my grandfather is living, and in Westerbury--at least, I have not heard of his death."

"Have you lived entirely in Rotterdam?" she asked, her interest very much awakened, she scarcely knew why, for this young man. Perhaps it took its rise in the faint, sad thought, which _would_ keep arising in spite of herself, that a terrible blow might be in future store for him, of whose possible existence he was evidently in utter ignorance.

"Our home has been in Rotterdam, but I and my brother have been educated in England. We were with a clergyman for some years in London, and then went to Cambridge. It would not have done for me to preach with a foreign accent," he added, with a smile.

"But you speak with a perfect accent," said Mrs. Dund.y.k.e; "as well as if you had never been out of England. Do you speak Dutch?"

"As a native; in fact, I suppose it may be said that I _am_ a native.

Dutch, English, German, and French--we speak them all well."

Poor Mrs. Dund.y.k.e heaved a bitter sigh. The words brought to her remembrance what her husband had said about their rubbing on with "we"

and "no;" but she would not let it go on again to emotion. She observed the same delicate look on this young man that had struck her at Gren.o.ble; and he coughed rather frequently, always putting his hand to his chest at the time, as if the cough gave him pain.

"Will you let me ask you if you are very strong?" she said. "I do not think you look so."

"I was strong," he replied, "no one more so, until I met with a hurt. In riding one day at Cambridge, the horse threw me, and kicked me here,"

touching his chest. "Since then, I have had a cough, more or less, and am sometimes in slight pain. My father despatched me on that tour, when I met you, with a view of making me strong."