MISSING.
“Well, Phil, what do you think of your sister-in-law? Isn’t she an
amusing child?”
“She is amusing, but she’s not a child--or at any rate, she’s a woman
as well.”
“No, Phil, I swear to you I feel like a showman, or old Barlow in
‘Sandford and Merton,’ or a benevolent uncle taking a small kid to the
Zoo--like anything but a husband. Now, do we look like a married
couple?”
“Not a bit. How funny! It was only this morning that it struck me you
looked like a kind elder brother taking his little sister out on a
half-holiday. Helene was hanging on your arm and looking up into your
face, and chattering hard the whole time.”
“Of course. She’s nothing but a child. She has been nowhere, seen
nothing, heard nothing, and her mother has done all she could to keep
her a baby. Everything is new and interesting to her, and life is a
nice new game. I keep thinking of that absurd story of the wife of
some literary man who chose a house because ‘the garden would be so
lovely for her and Percy to play in.’ I’m certain Helene would be
attracted by a good lot of bushes. She’d think they would be so
convenient for hide-and-seek.”
“I’m glad the more obvious literary parallel hasn’t occurred to you,”
said Philippa severely.
“More obvious even than that? Oh, I know! David Cop----”
“If you say it, I shall throw this book at you. She is a dear little
thing, Usk, and you don’t appreciate her a bit.”
“I know she’s a dear little thing, and I’m awfully fond of her. And no
doubt it’s most excellent for her to be firmly convinced that I know
everything. Plenty of men would give their ears for their wives to
think so. But it’s horribly embarrassing for me when she looks up at
me just like a child and asks some perfectly impossible question.”
“No, not like a child. A child is never satisfied if you can’t answer
it. ‘Don’t you know? Why don’t you know? Does anybody know? Then _why_
don’t you know?’ You used to go on like that yourself; I can remember
it quite well. But when Helene finds she has asked a question you
can’t answer, she’s dreadfully afflicted, and looks round to make sure
that Fred and I haven’t noticed.”
“Poor little girl! But really, Phil, we get on perfectly well, and
she’s continually assuring me that she was never so happy in her
life.”
“Yes; but I am in constant terror that her eyes will be opened. I
always try to draw her in when you and I are talking. Don’t you see
how it is? You consult me about what you are going to do, but you tell
her about it when it’s all settled. And she has a right to be
consulted.”
“Oh, nonsense! I don’t want her to worry herself. She’s a dear little
comrade as it is, and I believe I’d rather she remained a child, after
all. She--she’s so awfully contented and satisfied now, you know.”
Philippa nodded her head sagely. “That’s just it. You think that as a
woman she would demand more from you. But she is a woman in the way
she loves you, Usk. I can see that.”
“My dear Phil, you are most penetrating and far-sighted, I don’t
doubt, but after all, I’m Helene’s husband, and I may be allowed to
know her better than you do. Look at her now, tormenting old Fred with
a catechism on vine-growing. She’s only a child, vividly interested in
everything, and devoted to me just because I’ve been kind to her--as
if I could help it. I suppose she’ll grow up some day, but I’m not
going to turn her into a little old woman before the time.”
Philippa rose and looked over the carved wooden railing that
safeguarded the balcony, for the house stood on a precipitous
hillside. Up the winding path her husband and Helene were slowly
climbing, with a pleasant murmur of voices, after visiting the
vineyard which occupied a more gradual slope below. Far in the
distance could be seen the blue of the Mediterranean, with a
wilderness of hills between, some bare and rugged, others cultivated
almost to the summit. The native house in which the Mansfields had
taken refuge from the heat and possible fever of the Palestinian
lowlands where their work lay was situated on the western slope of
Mount Lebanon.
“They won’t be here for a minute,” said Philippa hastily. “Usk, tell
me quickly--I’m most frightfully anxious--is it because you are still
in love with Félicia that you can’t care properly for Helene?”
Usk laughed. “You’ve quite determined that I’m a brute to Helene. No,
Phil, I can’t say that I feel the very slightest envy of King Michael.
If Félicia was cruel, she was kind too. As I was not to love her, she
left me nothing to do but hate her. No, I don’t mean that exactly. You
know, don’t you?”
“And now she has probably had her wish, and been a queen, for two
days. It doesn’t seem at all fair or moral. Even Becky Sharp never
quite succeeded in getting what she wanted. But she’s out of your way,
and I’m glad of it. Poor little Helene must ‘dree her ain weird,’ I
suppose, as you won’t listen to what I say about her.”
“A telegram!” cried Helene, running up the steps at the end of the
balcony. “We met the servant coming from Beyrout with the letters, and
he had this for you, Usk. What can it be?”
“What can it be?” echoed Usk, as he tore open the envelope. “I say!”
his tone changed. “Just listen: ‘Your uncle has disappeared. Meet me
immediately at Novigrad, _viâ_ Trieste.--Ernestine.’ What does it
mean?”
“Uncle Cyril disappeared!” gasped Philippa.
“They’ve murdered him at last!” cried Mansfield. “Don’t stand staring,
Usk; they shall pay for it! We’ll track them to the world’s end.”
“It doesn’t say he’s dead,” suggested Helene, very pale. “Perhaps it’s
brigands, and they are holding him to ransom.”
“Well, at any rate, we must find him,” said Mansfield. “If we go down
to Beyrout to-night, we can catch the steamer to-morrow morning, Usk.”
“No, no,” said Usk, recovering himself. “You must stay here. We can’t
leave the girls alone. Besides, there’s your work.”
“Hang the work!” cried Mansfield. “The girls will look after one
another.”
“No,” said Helene, very quietly, but with white determination, “I am
going with Usk.”
“Nonsense, Lenchen! I can’t take you. You’ll stay with Phil and the
baby.”
“I am going with you,” repeated Helene. “Or if you refuse to let me
come with you, I shall follow you by the next steamer, and Phil will
help me, because she knows I am right in going.”
“She is, indeed, Usk,” said Philippa. “With you to take care of her,
what reason is there why she shouldn’t go?”
“Why, dozens! It’s simply preposterous. I shall be rushing about into
all sorts of places, where I couldn’t take a lady. You don’t know how
rough things are in Illyria.”
“I can live upon black bread and goats’ milk,” said Helene calmly,
“and you couldn’t.”
“But I can’t trail about a whole procession of servants. Everything
may depend upon following up a clue quickly.”
“Then we will leave some of them behind. I promised mamma I would
never travel without Hannele and Jakob--she was afraid of my becoming
English and independent, so she made me promise not to go about
unattended,” explained Helene rather piteously to Philippa--“so we
must take them; but with your William besides, we can manage quite
well.”
“Now you know you only want William because his name is the same as
the groom’s in ‘Mademoiselle Mathilde,’” said Usk unkindly.
“No,” said Helene, with dignity. “It is because it is not suitable for
my husband to have no attendant while I have two.”
“And look here, Usk,” said Mansfield; “you can establish your wife and
the servants comfortably at some safe centre while you go off and
follow up clues. It’ll be much better for her to have some one with
her.”
“That is not what I want,” objected Helene--“to be left safe and
comfortable while Usk goes into danger. I want to go with him and
help.”
“Oh, but you don’t want to be in the way, Lenchen,” said Philippa,
speaking with the authority of a whole year of matrimonial experience.
“You will do as Usk thinks best, I know, and he’ll take you with him
wherever he can, won’t you, Usk?”
“Rather!” said Usk forgivingly, and Helene brushed away a threatening
tear or two, and smiled up at him.
“Because, you see,” Philippa went on, “this is such an awful thing
that we must none of us think about ourselves at all, only about Uncle
Cyril and how to find him. We had better settle that you are to
telegraph for Fred the moment you want him, Usk. I don’t think he
ought to leave Palestine until you see what there is to be done, for I
know the Chevalier Goldberg considers his presence here very
important.”
“I hate being made a part of a plot and not seeing how it works,” said
Mansfield gloomily. “If you wire I’ll come like a shot, Usk. Which is
the quickest way?”
“To land in Dardania and cross the mountains, if the steamers fit. Why
does Aunt Ernestine tell me to come round by Trieste, I wonder?”
“Because she has reason to distrust Dardania, probably. It’s quite
possible that our friend the Dowager Princess has allies there still.”
“You are puzzling Helene,” said Usk. “She doesn’t know all the ins and
outs of the family differences.”
“Oh, I know that Cousin Ottilie was very angry about Aunt Ernestine’s
marriage, and said horrid things about the dear Count,” said Helene;
and then the subject dropped, as Philippa suggested that it was time
to pack.
Five days later Usk and Helene, with their diminished retinue, were
landing at Trieste, after eagerly seizing upon the papers brought out
by the boats which boarded the steamer outside the harbour. When they
left Beyrout, no news had arrived concerning the disappearance of
Count Mortimer beyond the Queen’s telegram, but in these European
papers it was the sensation of the hour. The circumstances appeared
equally simple and perplexing. The Count, with his secretary and
valet, had left the Pannonian railway at its termination on the
eastern border of the Illyrian Provinces, and, like other travellers,
hired a carriage to convey him across the debatable land which was
owned by Roum, partially occupied by Pannonia, and unceasingly coveted
both by Dardania and Mœsia. The Roumi Government had refused
persistently, and from its own point of view wisely, to allow any
railway to be built across this strip of territory, but there was a
carriage road, kept in good order by Pannonian military engineers,
which connected the Pannonian railway system on the western border
with that of Mœsia on the east. Quitting Novigrad in Illyria, the
party had arrived safely at a posting-station bearing the uneuphonious
name of Klotsch, situated near the point at which the main road into
Dardania crossed, almost at right angles, that which joined the two
railways. Here, while the horses were changed, the travellers alighted
for dinner, only to find when the meal was over that their driver had
got drunk. The landlord volunteered to provide another, but he had to
be sought for in the village, and Count Mortimer, who was obviously
impatient at the delay, decided to walk on with his secretary, and
allow the carriage, with the valet and the luggage, to overtake him.
It was a long light summer evening, and he was anxious to reach the
Mœsian frontier that night. The carriage started about a quarter of
an hour later, but the driver and the valet were astonished to find
that they did not come up with the walkers, although the horses were
fresh and the road good. In ever-increasing astonishment they drove
the whole way to the customs-station on the Mœsian border without
meeting any one, and learned there that Count Mortimer and his
companion had not arrived. The valet became immediately very much
excited, and demanded a force of gendarmes from the Pannonian
frontier-post, in order to go back and make a thorough search on both
sides of the road for his master, who, he declared, must have been
waylaid and murdered. The officer in charge of the post received the
demand with contempt and some resentment, for the road was regarded as
particularly safe, but the valet’s earnestness, and his declaration
that he believed his master had enemies who would stick at nothing to
get him out of the way, induced him to send a patrol with torches to
search the roadsides as far as Klotsch. Messengers were also sent
along the road which led into the Dardanian highlands, to inquire
whether the two men had taken the wrong turning and gone that way by
mistake; but neither at the one country-seat which stood in the
neighbourhood, nor in any of the poor hamlets along the road, had
anything been seen of them. The country-house belonged to Prince
Valerian Pelenko, a cousin of the Prince of Dardania, and he himself,
travelling to “Europe,” had passed through Klotsch with his attendants
shortly after the carriage had started. He had not met it, for it
would have passed the cross-road before his carriage turned into the
main highway, and most certainly he had not met the missing men, for
his attendants would have been sure to report at the posting-station
the astonishing sight of two “European” gentlemen walking unattended
along the road. Extraordinary as it seemed, there was no doubt that
Count Mortimer and his secretary had disappeared as completely as
though they had not been, and that the disappearance had taken place
on the high road and almost in broad daylight. There were no signs of
a struggle, and tentative suggestions of a landslip, or a fall over a
steep place on the edge of the road, were scouted at once, for there
was absolutely not the slightest indication of either. The English
papers, taking up Count Mortimer’s cause with a vigour they had seldom
displayed during his career, were drawing parallels between his
disappearance and that of the unfortunate Mr Benjamin Bathurst in the
early years of the nineteenth century, and hinting that as similar
influences were in all probability at work, the fate of the one was
likely to remain, like that of the other, an unsolved mystery. The
Neustrian, Scythian, and Roumi papers, relying on the known antipathy
of their respective Governments to the Pannonian occupation of the
Illyrian Provinces, were urgent and eloquent in their representations
that Pannonia had now conclusively proved herself unfitted to
discharge her duties, since she could not even protect travellers on
the high road. The Pannonian papers, unable to deny the facts, took
refuge in the assertion that Count Mortimer’s disappearance was purely
voluntary. For reasons of his own he had made up his mind to vanish,
and he had done so, and who could be held responsible for the doings
of a man whose pride it had always been to baffle and astonish the
rest of Europe? This was the state of things at present. Queen
Ernestine, in the deepest grief and anxiety, was at Novigrad, where
Lord Caerleon had joined her as fast as steam could bring him from
England, and they were making a comprehensive search throughout the
whole district, aided by the best detectives that money could procure.
“It looks hopeless!” said Usk despondently to Helene, as they walked
up the quay at Trieste. “One almost wonders---- Now then, where are
you going to?” The words were addressed to a loutish youth, apparently
a dockyard loafer of the usual type, who had lurched up against him;
but as the man withdrew with a surly apology, Usk found a piece of
paper in his hand. Guessing that it contained some secret information,
he unfolded one of the newspapers he had bought, as if to look at the
page again, and laid the paper against it. “Look here, Helene!” he
said.
Helene glanced quickly at the scrap of writing.
“When you leave Trieste this afternoon, watch out for me. I shall be
fooling around at the depot with a camera, and I don’t want to have
you seem to know me. Get into talk with me the way you would with a
stranger, for I must speak to you.--Hicks.”
“This gentleman is some English peer of your acquaintance?” said
Helene, looking respectfully at the signature.
Usk smothered a laugh. “Not exactly,” he said. “He’s the American
newspaper man you’ve heard so much about, and a real good fellow. If
you’ll excuse me, Nell, I’ll light a cigar.”
“A long way round!” said Helene, as he twisted the paper into a roll,
and striking a match, set light to it, instead of lighting the cigar
with the match.
“If you mean a roundabout way, my child, why not say so? Don’t you see
that Hicks evidently expects us to be watched? I daren’t leave that
paper lying about, or even tear it up. Now will you keep your eyes
open this afternoon, and express innocent wonder if you see a long
scraggy fellow, with a thin grey beard, taking snap-shots? That’ll
give us an opportunity to get into conversation.”
Helene promised to be on the watch, and very soon after they reached
the station she pulled Usk’s sleeve. “Do look at that gentleman taking
photographs,” she said, with admirable innocence. “It must be so
interesting to be able to do it! All these quaint costumes----”
“They’re nothing to what you’ll see in the Balkans,” said Usk. “What a
pity we didn’t think of bringing a kodak. But we might send for one,
of course. Would you mind allowing my wife to see how your camera
works?” he asked of the photographer, who had been listening with a
twinkle in his eye while pretending to focus an Albanian group on the
opposite platform.
“Why, certainly,” was the hearty response. “You hold it this way, and
you put your eye here---- But if we move away a step or so, we won’t
be so crowded. I have a whole-souled admiration for your manner of
meeting me, sir,” added Mr Hicks, in a lower tone, as he exhibited the
camera and appeared to be describing its mechanism. “And this is the
little Princess?”
“No,” said Helene. “It is Lady Usk.”
“Is that so?” asked Mr Hicks slowly, manipulating a screw. “Well, I
incline to think Lord Usk has struck ile.”
“I don’t know English quite well yet,” said Helene apologetically.
“I guess your husband has found the pay-streak, then.”
“I’m afraid there must be a great many words I don’t know. I must look
them out.”
“Mr Hicks wants me to understand that I’ve married a treasure,
Lenchen. Does that satisfy you? Well, Hicks, what’s the plan of
campaign?”
“Why, just this, sir. There are the Queen and your father turning the
Illyrian Provinces upside down, and a whole army of detectives
figuring around. But those that took on this big risk mean to see it
through, and they will pour out the dollars like water to keep truth
at the bottom of her well. They know just who’s on their trail, and
they have covered their tracks. I have concluded to work back of them,
instead of in front, which is high-toned, but renders a man more
liable to sudden death than appeals to me. I am working up the
Illyrian Provinces with typewriter and camera, _sabe_? on behalf of a
monster tourist agency in the States that’s set on exploiting them,
and you may bet your last red cent my eyes will be open for any
suspicious circumstances. I’d like to fix up a code for communicating
with you----”
“Oh, please,” said Helene, “pardon my interrupting you, but I have
just seen my cousin, the Princess of Dardania, getting out of the
train at the end of the platform, and I thought from what Usk
said----”
With great dexterity Mr Hicks withdrew himself behind a pile of
luggage. “You’re real smart, Lady Usk. If her Royal Highness had seen
us together, it would have been just about the meanest trick fate
could have played us. Coming off the cars from Illyria, was she? Now
what’s she been doing way down there? She was at Nice yet when we quit
it before the wedding. You don’t think she saw us, do you?”
“No, I’m sure she didn’t, but she is coming this way.”
“Helene, you’ll have to face her,” said Usk. “I must arrange things
with Hicks. If I establish you on this seat, with a bodyguard of
servants in the background, while I go and see about the luggage, you
won’t move away till I come back, will you? and you’ll try to keep her
in talk?”
“But there is no need to see about the luggage,” Helene called after
him, as he hurried away; “the railway officials look after that, or
you can send one of the servants.” But he was already out of earshot,
and Helene rose to meet the Princess, who swept towards her with
outstretched hands, making her feel incredibly young and small.
“Why, my little Lenchen!” cried Princess Ottilie; “do I find you
alone? What has happened to the Fairy Prince--fairy peer I should say,
should I not?”
“Usk is gone to look after the luggage,” said Helene.
“The ruling passion of the Englishman on his travels! And are you
tired of one another yet, my romantic Lenchen?”
“I am certainly not tired of him, Cousin Ottilie.”
“What freezing coldness, little one! But I forgot that you had married
into a romantic family. The Mortimers and their wives are always
absurdly attached to one another. It is quite
_bürgerlich_--middle-class, I suppose your new relations would call
it.”
“If it is middle-class to be fond of one’s husband, then I am
middle-class,” said Helene.
“You--the descendant of Charlemagne! And you are allowing your husband
to drag you into exile already? Where are you going with this
wonderful luggage which needs so much looking after?”
“Can you ask, Cousin Ottilie? Of course we are going to Novigrad, to
help look for the dear Count.”
“To help look for----? Oh, Count Mortimer!” the Princess broke into a
soft peal of laughter. “My darling Lenchen, you must forgive me. It
really did not occur to me whom you meant. Has it never struck any of
you that Count Mortimer might prefer not to be looked for?”
“How could it? What can you mean?”
The Princess drew a letter from her pocket. “Of course Lord Usk won’t
believe me,” she said, “but I should really like to save you two from
taking a journey into the wilds for no reason at all.”
“Cousin Ottilie! why shouldn’t Usk believe you?” cried Helene, aghast.
“My dear child, he is prejudiced, of course,” but the Princess seemed
a little confused, and unfolded the letter quickly, as though to
forestall further questioning. “This is from my husband’s cousin,
Valerian Pelenko. I have just been paying a flying visit to
Dardania--to see the new baby, not to stay; Emilia and I agree better
apart--and I wrote to ask whether I might spend a night at his house
near Klotsch on the journey. Here is what he says: ‘Pray consider my
house as your own, as often and as long as you like. I am sorry to be
away. By the bye, I had a curious _rencontre_ just as I was leaving
home. Do you remember the man Mortimer, who made rather a
laughing-stock of himself at Ludwigsbad two or three years ago by
aspiring to your particular favour? Naturally you will remember him;
he found your cousin Ernestine of Thracia less hard-hearted than
yourself, I recollect. Well, as I was driving towards Klotsch, before
we turned into the Novigrad road, we met another carriage, and in it I
saw Count Mortimer and a lady, with whom he seemed to be on excellent
terms----’”
“Oh, it must be a mistake!” cried Helene. “Why, Aunt Ernestine was at
Molzau, at Michael’s wedding.”
“My dear Lenchen, let me entreat you not to make that remark to your
husband when you tell him this, or he will set you down for ever as a
fool. Valerian goes on: ‘There were servants and luggage, and all the
necessaries for a long journey, apparently. Doubtless your friend was
bound, by way of Dardania, for the Ionian Isles, or some similar
region of delight, where a spot or two may yet be found destitute of
the moral code, as I once heard an Englishman say of the East
generally. Happy he! What are your plans for the autumn? I am too late
for Ludwigsbad this year, alas!’ That is all that concerns the Count,”
said the Princess, folding the letter, as Helene sat dumb. “And here
is your husband, come to sweep you into the train with the rest of the
luggage, I suppose. How do you do, Lord Usk? So delightful to get this
short glimpse of little Lenchen! She really looks younger than ever
since you married her.”
Helene was still speechless as the Princess bade her an affectionate
farewell, and gave her hand to Usk that he might lead her to her
carriage. When he returned to warn Helene that their train was coming
in, she turned an ashy face to him.
“Oh, Nym, I must tell you. She says such things----”
“Wait until we’re in the train,” said Usk; and it was only when they
were moving out of the station that he turned to her with, “Well, what
is it, Nell?”
“She says that the dear Count went away of his own accord, with--with
a lady, and that he doesn’t want to be found.”
“Not content with kidnapping him, they try to take away his character,
do they?” said Usk savagely. “She wants to hurt Aunt Ernestine, do you
see, Nell? We won’t tell her if we can help it. Of course you don’t
believe the story?”
“Of course not. But it is so dreadful that people should say such
things about him, when we know how good he is, how----” Helene’s voice
failed.
“Well, we know that no one will believe it who knows anything of him.
She must have thought you very young, and ready to believe anything,
mustn’t she? Poor little Nell!” He put his arm round her, and drew her
close to him, regardless of the fact that the guard might appear at
any moment.
“But how terrible that she should say such things, when she knows they
are not true! Our own cousin, Nym!”
“Oh, well, you see, she has a grudge against him.”
“But why? What has he done?”
“Well, she wishes it to be understood that he proposed to her at
Ludwigsbad a year or two back, and she refused him. That sort of thing
generally makes a woman pursue a man with implacable hatred, doesn’t
it? What do you say?”
“Why, I should have thought just the opposite--that she would be as
kind to him as possible, and fearfully sorry that he should love her
in vain.”
“So should I. And we think, all of us--mind, he has never said a word
on the subject--that she--well, that it was the other way about.”
“That she proposed to him, and he refused her? Oh, Nym!”
“And he married Aunt Ernestine. That’s where the sting comes in, you
see. Why, what’s the matter, Nell?” for Helene was crying.
“I never thought people could be so wicked,” she murmured at last.
“Ah, you’ll find worse things done than that,” said Usk sagely. “Now
do you see why Hicks thinks the Princess is mixed up in whatever has
happened?”
“But what could she have done?”
“He’s quite certain there has been foul play, and he thinks the most
likely thing is that they have hired a band of brigands to carry him
off into the hills. You see, the district is a sort of No Man’s Land,
and the brigands may have come from any part of the Balkans. They may
even have taken him down into the Roumi territory to the south, where
an army couldn’t find him. But Hicks doesn’t believe it’s as bad as
that,” quickly. “He thinks it’s much more likely they have got him
somewhere in the Dardanian mountains.”
“And does he hope to find him?”
“He’s going to try. By the bye, he is to get a camera for us, and send
us hints on photography from time to time, and we have arranged a code
with the technical words. So cheer up, Nell. We’ll outwit them yet.”