A FRUITLESS APPEAL
Friday passed without any sign of my father’s return, and when on
Saturday morning we found no letter from him upon the breakfast table,
the vague disquiet of the day before assumed a definite shape. We
looked into one another’s faces, and we were seriously alarmed.
“We shall be sure to hear from him in an hour or two,” Alice said,
holding her cup to her lips with shaking hands. “He must have missed
the post. We shall have a telegram.”
“I hope so,” I answered, fervently. “Nothing can have happened to
him, of course. It is absurd to feel nervous. But it is too bad of
him. He ought to have written. However busy he is, he could have found
a minute or two.”
“I will never let him go away again without leaving us an address of
some sort,” Alice declared. “No doubt he will telegraph soon. Still,
one cannot help feeling uneasy.”
But no telegram arrived. Luncheon time came and passed without a
word. The afternoon dragged on. The last train from London was due
at the nearest railway station--three miles away--at six o’clock. At
eight o’clock he had not returned. More than an hour ago a fly with
luggage from the train had passed our gate and gone on to the Yellow
House. Alice was as white as a sheet, and commenced to cry softly to
herself.
“There is a service to-morrow morning, and no one to help,” she
moaned. “He must be very ill. What had we better do, Kate?”
Do! How was I to know? Action of any sort would have been a relief,
but it was like groping in the dark. He had left no address to
which we could write, and, so far as we knew, he did not belong
to any club nor had he any friends in London. There was no means
of tracing him, not a clue as to the nature of the business which
had called him so suddenly to town. Even granting that he had gone
to see Mr. Berdenstein, to meet him on his arrival in London, it
was hopeless to try and imagine where he might be prosecuting his
search. Mr. Berdenstein had denied that he had met him. Without a
doubt he would deny it again if I went to him. As he had told me
plainly that we were on opposite sides, to look for help from him
was utterly futile. We girls were helpless. Alice, whose instincts
were largely conventional, was feeling chiefly the scandal which
must accrue when his place in the pulpit to-morrow remained empty
and service had to be abandoned. For my part, my anxieties were
deeper. Chance had placed in my hands the threads of a mystery whose
unravelment was threatened with terrible possibilities. I could not
tell what the end of it might be. I scarcely dared to let my mind
dwell upon it at all. I concentrated my thoughts upon the present
dilemma. The first thing to be done was to find my father. There was
only one possible shadow of a clue as to his whereabouts. One man knew
the secret of that letter which had called him up to London. To this
man I resolved that I would go.
But as dusk came on, and I was preparing to start for the Court, I
saw his tall figure crossing the park towards the Yellow House. I did
not hesitate then any more. To see him there would be easier than to
confront him alone at the Court. I threw a cloak over my shoulders and
went bareheaded down the drive. The thing which I was proposing to
myself to do was simple enough in effect, although with my overwrought
nerves it presented itself to me at the time as a somewhat formidable
undertaking. I was going to confront them together. I was going to
pray for their help.
I walked swiftly across the park and through the plantation to the
Yellow House, and after pausing for a moment to regain my breath, I
rang the bell. There was no immediate answer, and save that I could
see through a chink in the drawn curtains a rose-shaded lamp burning
in the drawing room, I should have feared that after all Adelaide
Fortress had not returned. But in a few minutes the trim little
maid-servant opened the door, letting out a flood of light. She
started with surprise to see me standing there, looking no doubt a
little ghost-like with my white, anxious face and uncovered head.
“I want to speak to Mrs. Fortress,” I said. “Is she in?”
The girl hesitated, but I took her assent for granted, and stepped
into the hall. She moved towards the drawing room door. I kept close
by her side, and when she opened it I crossed the threshold.
Bruce Deville was there, sitting in a low chair. To my surprise he
was wearing evening dress, and he had a book in his hand, from which
he appeared to have been reading aloud. At my entrance he rose to his
feet at once with a little exclamation of surprise. Adelaide Fortress,
whose back had been turned to the door, turned sharply round. She too
rose to her feet. A swift look passed between them, which did not
escape me.
“Miss Ffolliot!” she exclaimed. “Why, is anything the matter?” The
little maid had retreated, and closed the door. I advanced a few
steps further into the room. Somehow I became dimly conscious that
their attitude towards me, or my mission, if they had surmised its
purport, was in a certain sense hostile. I looked into the woman’s
eyes, and I was perplexed. Something had come between us. Perhaps it
was my father’s stern words to her, perhaps it was some shadow from
those former days concerning which they certainly had some common
knowledge. But from whatever cause it arose there was certainly a
change. The frank sympathy which seemed to have sprung up between
us on that delightful afternoon was altogether a thing of the past,
almost as though it had never been. She faced me coldly, with
indrawn lips and unfriendly face. I was confused and perplexed;
yet even in that same moment a thought flashed in upon me. She was
wearing a mask. For some reason or other she was putting away her
friendliness. Surely it was the memory of my father’s words.
“It was Mr. Deville I wanted to see,” I said. “I saw him cross the
park on his way here, so I followed. I am in trouble. I wanted to ask
him a question.”
He stood leaning against the broad mantelpiece, his brows contracted,
his face cold and forbidding.
“I am afraid that I cannot help you, Miss Ffolliot,” he said. “I
cannot conceive any way in which I could be of service to you, I am
afraid.”
“You can help me if you will, by answering a single question,” I
interrupted. “You dropped a letter from your pocket on Wednesday
morning, and I returned it to you. Tell me whose handwriting it was!”
There was a little crash upon the floor, and the sound of a
half-uttered exclamation. Adelaide Fortress had dropped a small china
ornament with which she had been playing. She did not even glance
towards the pieces at her feet. She was bending slightly towards me,
her lips half parted, her cheeks pale. Her appearance fascinated me; I
forgot Mr. Deville altogether until the sound of his clear, deep voice
broke the silence.
“I had several letters in my pocket, Miss Ffolliot,” he said,
slowly. “I am not sure that I remember which one it was that you were
good enough to restore to me. In any case, how are you interested
in the writer of any of them? What has it to do with your present
trouble--whatever that may be?”
“I will tell you,” I answered, readily. “On Tuesday morning my father
received a letter, and whatever its contents were, they summoned him
to London. He was to have returned yesterday. He did not come, and he
sent no message. All to-day we have had no word from him. The last
train from London to-night is in, and he has not come. We do not
know where he is, or what has become of him. There are the services
to-morrow, and no one to take them. He must be ill, or in trouble of
some sort, or he would have returned, that is certain. It has made us
terribly anxious.”
“I am very sorry to hear this, Miss Ffolliot,” he said. “If I
could help you I would be glad, but I am afraid I do not quite
see--exactly--”
I raised my eyes to his and looked him in the face. The words seemed
to die away upon his lips. He was not actor enough for his part.
“I will tell you why I came to you for help, Mr. Deville,” I
exclaimed. “The handwriting upon the letter which you dropped was the
same handwriting which summoned my father to London.”
Then, for the first time, some glimmering of the mystery in which
these persons and my father were alike concerned dawned upon me. The
man and the women looked at one another; Bruce Deville walked over to
the window without answering or addressing me. I had, indeed, asked no
direct question. Yet they knew what I wanted. It was the whole truth
which I desired.
I stamped my foot upon the floor. Did they know what my sufferings
were, those two persons, with their pale, puzzled faces and cold
words? I felt myself growing angry.
“Answer me!” I cried. “Who wrote you that letter?”
Still neither the man nor the woman spoke. Their silence maddened
me. I forgot my promise to the man at Naselton Hall. I forgot
everything except my desire to sting them out of that merciless,
unsympathetic silence. So I cried out to them--
“I will tell you who wrote it; it was a man from South America,
and his name is Berdenstein. He is at Naselton Hall. I will go to
him. Perhaps he will tell me what you will not.”
The man stepped forward with outstretched hand. His face was dark with
passionate anger, almost I thought he would have struck me. But the
woman’s was pale as death, and a drop of red blood marked the place
where her teeth met her under lip. Then I saw that the man had known,
but the woman had not.
“If you know so much,” he said, brutally, “you had better go to him
and discover the rest. You will find him very sympathetic. Without a
doubt he will help you!”
“No! No!”
The woman’s negative rang out with a sudden sharp and crisp
distinctness. She rose and came over to my side. She laid her hands
softly upon my shoulders. Her face amazed me, it was so full of
sympathy, and yet so sorrowful. She, too, had received a blow.
“Child,” she said, softly, “you must not be impatient. I believe that
your father is well. I believe that somehow or other he will contrive
to be here in time to take up his duties to-morrow. We could not tell
you--either Mr. Deville or I--where he is, but we know perhaps a
little more than you do. He is in London somewhere seeking for that
person whom you have just mentioned. He will not find him, but he
will not give up searching for him till the last moment. But, child,
whatever you do, avoid that man Berdenstein like a pestilence. Your
father and he are bitter and terrible enemies. Do not dream of going
to him. Do not let your father know that he is near. If fate must have
it so, they will meet. But God forbid!--but God forbid!”
“Who is he, then, this man, this Berdenstein?” I asked her under my
breath. Her words had had a powerful effect upon me. She was terribly
in earnest. I knew that she was speaking for my good. I trusted her. I
could not help it.
She shook her head. Her eyes were full of horror.
“It is not for me to tell you, child. It is one of those things which
God forbid that you may ever know.”
Then there was a silence between us. After all this mystery whose
shadows seemed to surround me was like a far away thing. My
present trouble weighed heaviest upon me. The other was vague,
even though it was terrible. My father’s disappearance was a real
and terrible calamity staring me in the face. It engrossed all my
thoughts. They would tell me nothing, those two. I dared not go to
Berdenstein. Already I was afraid of him. I remembered his smile
when I spoke of my father, and I shuddered. Supposing they had
met. Supposing they had come together face to face in some lonely
house. Perhaps his letter had been a decoy. The man’s face, with its
cruel mouth and sardonic smile, suddenly loomed large in my memory. I
sprang to my feet with a cry of fear. I was terrified with my own
thoughts. Bruce Deville came over to me, and I found him studying my
face with a new expression, the meaning of which I could not fathom.
“If you will come to the window, Miss Ffolliot,” he said, “I think you
will see something which will relieve some part of your anxiety at any
rate.”
I hastened eagerly to his side. Only a few yards away, walking
steadily in the middle of the hard, white road, was a figure in sombre
black. His shoulders were bent, and his pale face downcast. His whole
appearance was that of a weary and dejected wanderer. These things I
realized more completely afterwards; for the present a sense of almost
intolerable relief drowned every other motion. It was my father--he
had returned.
I should have rushed out to him, but Bruce Deville laid his hand very
softly upon my shoulder. I could not have believed that any touch of
his could be so gentle.
“I wish you would take my advice, Miss Ffolliot,” he said. “Take the
path through the plantation home, and don’t let your father see you
leaving here. It would be better, would it not, Adelaide?” he added.
She looked at me.
“Yes, it would be better,” she said. “Do you mind? You will be at home
as soon as he is.”
I could not but admit that the advice was good, bearing in mind my
father’s words when he found me there only a few days before. Yet
it galled me that it should have been offered. What was this secret
shared between these three of which I was ignorant? I declared to
myself that I would know as soon as my father and I were alone
together. I would insist upon all these things being made clear to
me. I would bear it no longer, I was resolved on that. But in the
meantime I was helpless.
“Very well,” I answered; “perhaps you are right, I will go by the
footpath.”
I left the room abruptly. Mr. Deville opened the front door for me,
and hesitated with his cap in his hand. I waved him away.
“I will go alone,” I said. “It is quite light.”
“As you will,” he answered, shortly. “Good-night.”
He turned on his heel and re-entered the room. I crossed the road with
soft footsteps. At the opening of the plantation I paused. My father
was in the road below walking wearily and leaning upon his stick. At
my sudden standstill a twig beneath my feet snapped short. A sudden
change seemed to transform his face. He stopped short and turned
round with the swift, eager movement of a young man. His hand fumbled
for a moment in the pocket of his long clerical coat, and reappeared
clutching something which flashed like steel in the dull light. He
held it at arm’s length, looking eagerly around, peering forward in my
direction, but unable to see me owing to the dark shadows of the trees
beneath which I stood. But I on the other hand could see his every
movement; in the half-light his figure stood out in such marvellous
distinctness against the white road and the low, grey line of sky
beyond. I could see him, and I could see what it was he carried in his
hand. It was a small, shining revolver.
He stood quite still like a man expecting a sudden attack. When
none came and the stillness remained unbroken, the strained, eager
light died slowly out of his face. He appeared rather disappointed
than relieved. Reluctantly he turned around, and with the revolver
still in his hand but hidden beneath the skirts of his coat, made
his way up the white hill towards the Vicarage. He must have walked
quickly, for although I hurried, and my way back was the shorter, he
was already at our gate when I emerged from the plantation. As he
stooped to adjust the fastening I heard him groan, and bending forward
I caught a glimpse of his face. I must have cried out, only my lips
seemed palsied as though I were but a sleeping figure in some terrible
nightmare. His face was like the face of a dead man. He seemed to have
aged by at least a dozen years. As he hastened up the little drive,
his walk, usually so dignified and elastic, became a shamble. It
seemed to me that this was but the wreck of the man who had left us
only a few days before.