DISAPPEARANCE OF DULCIE.
Since the reader last saw Dulcie Carlyon she had become chilled and
changed in manner, under the influence of Lady Fettercairn's bearing
and remarks, to all save Finella. All her natural jollity and
espièglerie of way were gone, and every hour that it was possible to
do so she spent in the seclusion of her own room, one high up in a
square turret of the old house, with windows that opened to a far
vista of the Howe of the Mearns, terminated by a glimpse of the
German Sea.
Here she was sometimes joined by Finella, who could no longer
persuade her to ramble as of old in the grounds, and never again to
accompany her in the saddle when she took Fern for a spin along the
country roads.
'Are you not sick of crewel work, and embroidering sage birds of
shapes that never existed upon brown bath-towels?' asked Finella. 'I
know you do it by grandmamma's wish; but what tasteless folly it is.'
'I would rather, as I did at home, knit stockings for the poor,' said
Dulcie.
'Better buy than knit them,' responded the heiress, 'and so save
one's self a world of trouble.'
It became too evident to Dulcie that the time of her dismissal from
Craigengowan was drawing nigh; that it was only delayed by the
absence of Shafto in Edinburgh, and she resolved, ere he returned, to
get the balance of her little salary and quit the place, as it had
now become odious to her.
Dulcie had old Welsh blood in her veins, and more than once had she
heard her father, Lewellen Carlyon, whose one ewe-lamb she was,
descant on how he could count kith and kin into the remotest past,
when his forefathers wandered through the forest of Caerlyon--whence
his name--had manned Offa's Dyke, and shared the perils of Owain
Glendwr. To speak of such things now, even to Finella, seemed to the
girl vain folly, but they were keenly in her heart nevertheless.
And so there came an evening, the last she was to spend under the
steep slate roof of Craigengowan.
Lady Fettercairn was going for a drive among the summer roads that
were all like leafy tunnels or long avenues of foliage, to visit that
famous senator, Lord Maccowkay, who was then at his country house of
Middyn Grange, and Finella, perceiving how pale Dulcie was looking,
said:
'May Miss Carlyon come with us, grandmamma?'
'Certainly not,' replied Lady Fettercairn, with hauteur and asperity,
though Dulcie was within hearing, carrying Snap in his satin-lined
basket. 'When is this sort of thing to end, Finella?'
There came a time when the Lady of that Ilk recalled this remark, and
many others similar, for just then she did not see certainly where
the future was to end.
So the two ladies drove away, and Dulcie, for companionship, though
then unaware that it would be for the last time, took tea with the
kindly old housekeeper, whom she found busy in her pantry and closets
preparing for that social meal; and Dulcie helped her to cut and
butter the bread, polish the cups and saucers and old silver spoons,
to arrange the brown tea-cakes, crisp biscuits, and luscious Scottish
preserves of home manufacture, and all the while a sadness oppressed
her, for which she could not account.
This, however, seemed explained when, at dinner that evening, Lady
Fettercairn said, while returning a letter to her pocket:
'Shafto returns late to-night--or early to-morrow morning.'
'From where?' asked Finella, though, sooth to say, she cared little
where from.
'Edinburgh.'
'And not an hour too soon, I am afraid,' said Lord Fettercairn, with
his sandy-grey eyebrows deeply knitted.
No one asked 'why,' so a silence ensued, and a little later in the
evening Finella said to Dulcie:
'Why are you so silent to-night?'
'Am I so?'
'Yes--even sad--_triste_.'
'Sad--you don't mean cross?'
'No, Dulcie dear, you never are cross.'
'I am full of very weary thoughts, and wish to retire, if Lady
Fettercairn can spare me,' she added, raising her voice.
'Of course--go,' replied the latter; and Dulcie, painfully conscious
that her employer had been more than usually cold, hard, and even
bitter to her--all, no doubt, _apropos_ of Shafto's return--bowed and
murmured 'good-night,' with a soft and lingering glance at Finella.
Shafto returning! Dulcie was always nervous about his future conduct
and her own position, and she could not prepare herself again for
dissembling in public and hating in private--for the inevitable
meetings at table and elsewhere. Over and above all was the dread
that by his intense cunning he might work her mischief--a mischief
that to her might prove social ruin.
Dulcie had writhed and winced under all Lady Fettercairn's not always
delicately veiled hints as to the social gulf that separated people
and people--to wit, Miss Melfort, of Craigengowan, and the paid
companion, and of young folks of bad taste and little discretion, who
were inclined to step out of their proper sphere; she knew the drift
of all this; her heart swelled within her, and now she withdrew with
a stern and perhaps rash resolve that took active form on the morrow.
In the corridor before they separated for the night, Finella thought
that Dulcie kissed and clasped her with more than usual tenderness
and effusion, and became aware that there were tears on the girl's
cheek; but this had been too often the case of late to excite remark.
However, she remembered this emotion with some pain at a future time.
In the morning the then small circle of Craigengowan assembled in the
charming breakfast-room. Shafto had not come overnight; Lord
Fettercairn had not opened his letters, but--though nothing of a
politician--was idling over a paper which the butler had cut and
aired for him.
Lady Fettercairn glanced at a handsome antique French clock upon the
grey marble mantelpiece, and said, with as much irritation as she
ever permitted herself to show with reference to Dulcie:
'Not down yet--when she knows that she has to preside at the tea-urn
and so forth! Is she giving herself the airs of a lady of--what is
the matter?' she exclaimed, as a servant whom she had despatched on
an errand of inquiry returned looking somewhat discomposed. 'I hope
she is not ill, especially with anything infectious?'
'No, my lady--not ill.'
'Not ill--that is fortunate.'
'No.'
'Where then is she--why not here?'
'She isn't there, my lady.'
'There--where?'
'In her room--nor anywhere in the house.'
Finella remembered the peculiar bearing of Dulcie the previous night,
and her tremulous sisterly kiss, with a species of pang, and hurried
upstairs to the square turret-room.
'Of course she is interested!' said Lady Fettercairn scoffingly.
'There is always an exuberant vitality--a great flow of animal
spirits about Finella,' replied her husband.
'All of which I deem hoydenish and bad form.'
Finella returned, looking pale and scared, to report that Miss
Carlyon's bed did not appear to have been slept in last night, that
her wardrobe was all tumbled about, leaving evident traces of
selections and packing, and that to all appearance she was gone from
the house.
'Gone--then I hope it is not with Shafto!' exclaimed Lady
Fettercairn, paling at her own idea.
'Scarcely: is he not coming here, as his letter yesterday announces?'
said Lord Fettercairn.
'Gone--and in that rude and unceremonious, and certainly most
mysterious manner, which through local gossip will find its way in
some odious mode into every local paper!' said Lady Fettercairn,
while she grimly directed Finella to officiate at the tea-board.
'She is away, poor thing, without a doubt,' said the butler, who was
carving at the sideboard; 'and must have left the house by the
conservatory door--I found it open this morning.'
'I hope that she has not----' but even Lady Fettercairn, while
surmising mentally whether her jewel case was all intact, had not the
hardihood to put the cruel suspicion in words.
'It is most annoying,' said the Peer, with his noble mouth full.
'Very--she was so useful too--very--with all her faults,' added Lady
Fettercairn, tenderly caressing Snap, who was relegated to a
housemaid for his morning bath.
She did not expect an escapade of this sort; the great luxury of the
certain dismissal had been denied her; she sank back in her chair for
a minute or so, and sniffed languidly at her gold-topped
scent-bottle, as if nerving herself to hear something horrible, while
the grounds were searched for traces of the fugitive; and she had
ideas of having the Swan's Pool and the adjacent stream dragged.
Finella thought she would like to run away too; but with all her
wealth it was less easy for an heiress of position to do so than for
the poor and nameless companion; and now that Dulcie was gone,
Finella felt that the link between herself and Hammersley was cut off.
Apart from that important item in her life, she was deeply sorry, as
she had conceived for Dulcie one of those sudden and so-called
undying friendships for which, we are told, 'the female heart is
specially remarkable.'
Finella felt that the cold and inquiring eyes of Lady Fettercairn
were upon her, and knew that, if she would not excite remark and draw
reprehension upon herself, breakfast must be partaken of, even though
her heart was breaking. So she bathed her eyes, re-smoothed her
hair, and took her place at the table with as much composure as she
could assume.
'If her flight is not traced--though why we should care to trace it I
don't know,' said Lady Fettercairn bitterly, 'and if her body is not
found, we may conclude that she has eloped with some low lover. I
hope all the grooms, gardeners, gamekeepers, and so forth, are to be
seen in their places,' she added; 'and with all her faults, in
appearance and style she was a great improvement upon Mrs. Prim, with
her iron-grey hair arranged in corkscrew curls on each side of her
face.'
Finella thought so too. Lord Fettercairn thought his better half had
been latterly too severe upon the poor little companion, but did not
venture to say so.