Maitland’s reflections as, in performance of the promise he had
telegraphed, he made his way to the Dovecot were deep and distracted.
The newspapers with which he had littered the railway carriage were left
unread: he had occupation enough in his own thoughts. Men are so made
that they seldom hear even of a death without immediately considering
its effects on their private interests. Now, the death of Richard
Shields affected Maitland’s purposes both favorably and unfavorably. He
had for some time repented of the tacit engagement (tacit as far as the
girl was concerned) which bound him to Margaret. For some time he had
been dimly aware of quite novel emotions in his own heart, and of a
new, rather painful, rather pleasant, kind of interest in another lady.
Maitland, in fact, was becoming more human than he gave himself credit
for, and a sign of his awakening nature was the blush with which he had
greeted, some weeks before, Barton’s casual criticism on Mrs. St. John
Deloraine.
Without any well-defined ideas or hopes, Maitland had felt that his
philanthropic entanglement--it was rather, he said to himself, an
entanglement than an engagement--had become irksome to his fancy.
Now that the unfortunate parent was out of the way, he felt that the
daughter would not be more sorry than himself to revise the relations
in which they stood to each other. Vanity might have prevented some men
from seeing this; but Maitland had not vitality enough for a healthy
conceit. A curious “aloofness” of nature permitted him to stand aside,
and see himself much as a young lady was likely to see him. This
disposition is rare, and not a source of happiness.
On the other hand, his future relations to Margaret formed a puzzle
inextricable. He could not at all imagine how he was to dispose of so
embarrassing a _protégée_. Margaret was becoming too much of a woman to
be left much longer at school; and where was she to be disposed of?
“I might send her to Girton,” he thought; and then, characteristically,
he began to weigh in his mind the comparative educational merits of
Girton and Somerville Hall. About one thing only was he certain: he must
consult his college mentor, Bielby of St. Gatien’s, as soon as might
be. Too long had this Rasselas--occupied, like the famous Prince
of Abyssinia, with _the choice of life_--neglected to resort to his
academic Imlac. In the meantime he could only reflect that Margaret must
remain as a pupil at Miss Marlett’s. The moment would soon be arriving
when some other home, and a chaperon instead of a school-mistress, must
be found for this peculiar object of philanthropy and outdoor relief.
Maitland was sorry he had not left town by the nine o’clock train. The
early dusk began to gather, gray and damp; the train was late, having
made tardy progress through the half-melted snow. He had set out from
Paddington by the half-past ten express, and a glance at the harsh and
crabbed page of Bradshaw will prove to the most sceptical that Maitland
could not reach Tiverton much before six. Half frozen, and in anything
but a happy temper, he engaged a fly, and drove off, along heavy
miserable roads, to the Dovecot.
Arriving at the closed and barred gates of that vestal establishment,
Maitland’s cabman “pulled, and pushed, and kicked, and knocked” for a
considerable time, without manifest effect. Clearly the retainers of
Miss Marlett had secured the position for the night, and expected
no visitors, though Maitland knew that he ought to be expected. “The
bandogs bayed and howled,” as they did round the secret bower of the
Lady of Brauksome; and lights flitted about the windows. When a lantern
at last came flickering up to the gate, the bearer of it stopped to
challenge an apparently unlooked-for and unwelcome stranger.
“Who are you? What do you want?” said a female voice, in a strong
Devonian accent.
“I want Miss Marlett,” answered Maitland.
There was some hesitation. Then the porter appeared to reflect that a
burglar would not arrive in a cab, and that a surreptitious lover would
not ask for the schoolmistress.
The portals were at length unbarred and lugged apart over the gravel,
and Maitland followed the cook (for she was no one less) and the candle
up to the front door. He gave his card, and was ushered into the chamber
reserved for interviews with parents and guardians. The drawing-room had
the air and faint smell of a room very seldom occupied. All the chairs
were so elegantly and cunningly constructed that they tilted up at
intervals, and threw out the unwary male who trusted himself to their
hospitality. Their backs were decorated with antimacassars wrought with
glass beads, and these, in the light of one dip, shone fitfully with
a frosty lustre. On the round table in the middle were volumes of “The
Mothers of England,” “The Grandmothers of the Bible,” Blair “On the
Grave,” and “The Epic of Hades,” the latter copiously and appropriately
illustrated. In addition to these cheerful volumes there were large
tomes of lake and river scenery, with gilt edges and faded magenta
bindings, shrouded from the garish light of day in drab paper covers.
The walls, of a very faint lilac tint, were hung with prize sketches, in
water colors or in pencil, by young ladies who had left. In the former
works of art, distant nature was represented as, on the whole, of a
mauve hue, while the foreground was mainly composed of burnt-umber
rocks, touched up with orange. The shadows in the pencil drawings had an
agreeably brilliant polish, like that which, when conferred on fenders
by Somebody’s Patent Dome-Blacklead, “increases the attractions of
the fireside,” according to the advertisements. Maitland knew all the
blacklead caves, broad-hatted brigands, and pea-green trees. They were
old acquaintances, and as he fidgeted about the room he became very
impatient.
At last the door opened, and Miss Marlett appeared, rustling in silks,
very stiff, and with an air of extreme astonishment.
“Mr. Maitland?” she said, in an interrogative tone.
“Didn’t you expect me? Didn’t you get my telegram?” asked Maitland.
It occurred to him that the storm might have injured the wires, that
his message might never have arrived, and that he might be obliged to
explain everything, and break his bad news in person.
“Yes, certainly. I got _both_ your telegrams. But why have you come
here?”
“Why, to see Margaret Shields, of course, and consult you about her. But
what do you mean by _both_ my telegrams?”
Miss Marlett turned very pale, and sat down with unexpected suddenness.
“Oh, what will become of the poor girl?” she cried, “and what will
become of _me_? It will get talked about. The parents will hear of it,
and I am ruined.”
The unfortunate lady passed her handkerchief over her eyes, to the
extreme discomfiture of Maitland. He could not bear to see a woman cry;
and that Miss Marlett should cry--Miss Marlett, the least melting, as he
had fancied, of her sex--was a circumstance which entirely puzzled and
greatly disconcerted him.
He remained silent, looking at a flower in the pattern of the carpet,
for at least a minute.
“I came here to consult you, Miss Marlett, about what is to become
of the poor girl; but I do not see how the parents of the other young
ladies are concerned. Death is common to all; and Margaret’s father,
though his life was exposed to criticism, cannot be fairly censured
because he has left it And what do you mean, please, by receiving _both_
my telegrams? I only #sent _one_, to the effect that I would leave town
by the 10.30 train, and come straight to you. There must be some mistake
somewhere. Can I see Miss Shields?”
“See Miss Shields! Why, she’s _gone!_ She left this morning with your
friend,” said Miss Marlett, raising a face at once mournful and alarmed,
and looking straight at her visitor.
“She’s _gone!_ She left this morning with my friend!” repeated Maitland.
He felt like a man in a dream.
“You said in your first telegram that you would come for her yourself,
and in your second that you were detained, and that your friend and her
father’s friend, Mr. Lithgow, would call for her by the early train; so
she went with _him_.”
“My friend, Mr. Lithgow! I have no friend, Mr. lithgow,” cried Maitland;
“and I sent no second telegram.”
“Then who _did_ send it, sir, if you please? For I will show you both
telegrams,” cried Miss Marlett, now on her defence; and rising, she left
the room.
While Miss Marlett was absent, in search of the telegrams, Maitland had
time to reflect on the unaccountable change in the situation. What had
become of Margaret? Who had any conceivable interest in removing her
from school at the very moment of her father’s accidental death? And by
what possible circumstances of accident or fraud could two messages from
himself have arrived, when he was certain that he had only sent one?
The records of somnambulism contain no story of a person who despatched
telegrams while walking in his sleep. Then the notion occurred to
Maitland that his original despatch, as he wrote it, might have been
mislaid in the office, and that the imaginative clerk who lost it might
have filled it up from memory, and, like the examinees in the poem,
might
“Have wrote it all by rote,
And never wrote it right.”
But the fluttering approach of such an hypothesis was dispersed by the
recollection that Margaret had actually departed, and (what was worse)
had gone off with “his friend, Mr. Lithgow.” Clearly, no amount of
accident or mistake would account for the appearance of Mr. Lithgow, and
the disappearance of Margaret.
It was characteristic of Maitland that within himself he did not greatly
blame the schoolmistress. He had so little human nature--as he admitted,
on the evidence of his old college tutor--that he was never able to
see things absolutely and entirely from the point of view of his own
interests. His own personality was not elevated enough to command
the whole field of human conduct. He was always making allowances for
people, and never felt able to believe himself absolutely in the
right, and everyone else absolutely in the wrong. Had he owned a more
full-blooded life, he would probably have lost his temper, and “spoken
his mind,” as the saying is, to poor Miss Marlett She certainly should
never have let Margaret go with a stranger, on the authority even of a
telegram from the girl’s guardian.
It struck Maitland, finally, that Miss Marlett was very slow about
finding the despatches. She had been absent quite a quarter of an hour.
At last she returned, pale and trembling, with a telegraphic despatch
in her hand, but not alone. She was accompanied by a blonde and agitated
young lady, in whom Maitland, having seen her before, might have
recognized Miss Janey Harman. But he had no memory for faces, and merely
bowed vaguely.
“This is Miss Harman, whom I think you have seen on other occasions,”
said Miss Marlett, trying to be calm.
Maitland bowed again, and wondered more than ever. It did occur to him,
that the fewer people knew of so delicate a business the better for
Margaret’s sake.
“I have brought Miss Harman here, Mr. Maitland, partly because she is
Miss Shields’ greatest friend” (here Janey sobbed), “but chiefly because
she can prove, to a certain extent, the truth of what I have told you.”
“I never for a moment doubted it, Miss Marlett; but will you kindly let
me compare the two telegrams? This is a most extraordinary affair,
and we ought to lose no time in investigating it, and discovering
its meaning. You and I are responsible, you know, to ourselves, if
unfortunately to no one else, for Margaret’s safety.”
“But I haven’t got the two telegrams!” exclaimed poor Miss Marlett, who
could not live up to the stately tone of Maitland. “I haven’t got them,
or rather, I only have one of them, and I have hunted everywhere, high
and low, for the other.”
Then she offered Maitland a single dispatch, and the flimsy pink paper
fluttered in her shaking hand.
Maitland took it up and read aloud:
“Sent out at 7.45. Received 7.51.
“From Robert Maitland to Miss Marlett.
“The Dovecot, Conisbeare,
“Tiverton.
“I come to-morrow, leaving by 10.30 train.
Do not let Margaret see the newspaper.
Her father dead. Break news.”
“Why, that is my own telegram!” cried Maitland; “but what have you done
with the other you said you received?”
“That is the very one I cannot find, though I had both on the escritoire
in my own room this morning. I cannot believe anyone would touch it. I
did not lock them away, not expecting to have any use for them; but I am
quite sure, the last time I saw them, they were lying there.”
“This is very extraordinary,” said Maitland. “You tell me, Miss Marlett,
that you received two telegrams from me. On the strength of the later
of the two you let your pupil go away with a person of whom you know
nothing, and then you have not even the telegram to show me. How long an
interval was there between the receipt of the two despatches?”
“I got them both at once,” said poor, trembling Miss Marlett, who felt
the weakness of her case. “They were both sent up with the letters this
morning. Were they not, Miss Harman?”
“Yes,” said Janey; “I certainly saw two telegraphic envelopes lying
among your letters at breakfast. I mentioned it to--to poor Margaret,”
she added, with a break in her voice.
“But why were the telegrams not delivered last night?” Maitland asked.
“I have left orders,” Miss Marlett answered, “that only telegrams of
instant importance are to be sent on at once. It costs twelve shillings,
and parents and people are so tiresome, always telegraphing about
nothing in particular, and costing a fortune. These telegrams _were_
very important, of course; but nothing more could have been done about
them if they had arrived last night, than if they came this morning.
I have had a great deal of annoyance and expense,” the schoolmistress
added, “with telegrams that had to be paid for.”
And here most people who live at a distance from telegraph offices, and
are afflicted with careless friends whose touch on the wire is easy and
light, will perhaps sympathize with Miss Marlett.
“You might at least have telegraphed back to ask me to confirm the
instructions, when you read the second despatch,” said Maitland.
He was beginning to take an argumentative interest in the strength
of his own case. It was certainly very strong, and the excuse for the
schoolmistress was weak in proportion.
“But that would have been of no use, as it happens,” Janey put in--an
unexpected and welcome ally to Miss Marlett--“because you must have left
Paddington long before the question could have reached you.”
This was unanswerable, as a matter of fact; and Miss Marlett could not
repress a grateful glance in the direction of her wayward pupil.
“Well,” said Maitland, “it is all very provoking, and very serious. Can
you remember at all how the second message ran, Miss Marlett?”
“Indeed, I know it off by heart; it was directed exactly like that in
your hand, and was dated half an hour later. It ran: ‘Plans altered.
Margaret required in town. My friend and her father’s, Mr. Lithgow,
will call for her soon after mid-day. I noticed there were just twenty
words.”
“And did you also notice the office from which the message was sent
out?”
“No,” said Miss Marlett, shaking her head with an effort at
recollection. “I am afraid I did not notice.”
“That is very unfortunate,” said Maitland, walking vaguely up and down
the room. “Do you think the telegram is absolutely lost?”
“I have looked everywhere, and asked all the maids.”
“When did you see it last, for certain?”
“I laid both despatches on the desk in my room when I went out to make
sure that Margaret had everything comfortable before she started.”
“And where was this Mr. Lithgow then?”
“He was sitting over the fire in my room, trying to warm himself; he
seemed very cold.”
“Clearly, then, Mr. Lithgow is now in possession of the telegram, which
he probably, or rather certainly, sent himself. But how he came to know
anything about the girl, or what possible motive he can have had--”
muttered Maitland to himself. “She has never been in any place, Miss
Marlett, since she came to you, where she could have made the man’s
acquaintance?”
“It is impossible to say whom girls may meet, and how they may manage
it, Mr. Maitland,” said Miss Marlett sadly; when Janey broke in:
“I am _sure_ Margaret never met him here. She was not a girl to have
such a secret, and she could not have acted a part so as to have taken
me in. I saw him first, out of the window. Margaret was very unhappy;
she had been crying. I said, ‘Here’s a gentleman in furs, Margaret; he
must have come for you.’ Then she looked out and said, ‘It is not my
guardian; it is the gentleman whom I saw twice with my father.’”
“What kind of a man was he to look at?”
“He was tall, and dark, and rather good-looking, with a slight black
mustache. He had a fur collar that went up to his eyes almost, and he
was not a young man. He was a gentleman,” said Janey, who flattered
herself that she recognized such persons as bear without reproach that
grand old name--when she saw them.
“Would you know him again if you met him?”
“Anywhere,” said Janey; “and I would know his voice.”
“He wore mourning,” said Miss Marlett, “and he told me he had known
Margaret’s father. I heard him say a few words to her, in a very kind
way, about him. That seemed more comfort to Margaret than anything. ‘He
did not suffer at all, my dear,’ he said. He spoke to her in that way,
as an older man might.”
“Why, how on earth could _he_ know?” cried Maitland. “No one was present
when her poor father died. His body was found in a--,” and Maitland
paused rather awkwardly. There was, perhaps, no necessity for adding to
the public information about the circumstances of Mr. Shields’ decease.
“He was overcome by the cold and snow, I mean, on the night of the great
storm.”
“I have always heard that the death of people made drowsy by snow and
fatigue is as painless as sleep,” said Miss Marlett with some tact.
“I suppose that is what the man must have meant,” Maitland answered.
There was nothing more to be said on either side, and yet he lingered,
trying to think over any circumstance which might lend a clew in the
search for Margaret and of the mysterious Mr. Lithgow.
At last he said “Good-night,” after making the superfluous remark that
it would be as well to let everyone suppose that nothing unusual or
unexpected had happened. In this view Miss Marlett entirely concurred,
for excellent reasons of her own, and now she began to regret that she
had taken Miss Harman into her counsels. But there was no help for it;
and when Maitland rejoined his cabman (who had been refreshed by tea),
a kind of informal treaty of peace was concluded between Janey and the
schoolmistress. After all, it appeared to Miss Marlett (and correctly)
that the epistle from the young officer whom Janey regarded as a brother
was a natural and harmless communication. It chiefly contained accounts
of contemporary regimental sports and pastimes, in which the writer had
distinguished himself, and if it did end “Yours affectionately,”
there was nothing very terrible or inflammatory in that, all things
considered. So the fair owner of the letter received it into her own
keeping, only she was “never to do it again.”
Miss Marlett did not ask Janey to say nothing about Margaret’s
inexplicable adventure. She believed that the girl would have sufficient
sense and good feeling to hold her peace; and if she did not do so of
her own accord, no vows would be likely to bind her. In this favorable
estimate of her pupil’s discretion Miss Marlett was not mistaken.
Janey did not even give herself airs of mystery among the girls, which
was an act of creditable self-denial. The rest of the school never
doubted that, on the death of Miss Shields’ father, she had been removed
by one of her friends. As for Maitland, he was compelled to pass the
night at Tiverton, revolving many memories. He had now the gravest
reason for anxiety about the girl, of whom he was the only friend
and protector, and who was, undeniably, the victim of some plot or
conspiracy. Nothing more practical than seeking the advice of Bielby of
St. Gatien’s occurred to his perplexed imagination.