GONE.
It was a lovely morning, and every one was going to walk over to Fifield
church except Laura, who had almost tearfully entreated to be left in
charge of Lally.
“I love her as much as any of you,” she said, “and still I have the
least to do with her.”
So it was settled that Laura should remain at home, and all the rest
proceed along Berrie Down Lane,—up which we walked slowly and
lingeringly in the first chapter in this book—to Fifield.
A large party—for, although the intended festivities had been given up,
and no visitors were invited to Berrie Down Hollow, still, the Dudleys
themselves made a goodly number—eight, including Bessie—who looked pale
and tired when she came into the drawing-room, “dressed in all her
best;” so shrieked Harry Marsden—and ready to go to church.
“Mayn’t I go too?” asked that young gentleman, pulling at Heather’s
dress; “I’d like the walk as well as anybody.”
“Do you think it is only for the sake of the walk we are going to
church, Harry?” asked Agnes, virtuously drawing on her gloves as she
spoke.
“How should I know? Bessie’s likely going for the sake of the young men;
that’s what pa says takes all girls to church,” answered the _enfant
terrible_.
“Well, I daresay Mrs. Dudley will not object to your seeing whether that
is what we go for,” said Bessie. “I will brush your hair and put you to
rights, for you are a perfect scarecrow now.”
And thus it was settled Master Marsden should accompany the party; and
Alick, home for Christmas, had not a chance given him of looking at
Agnes to see how she took Harry’s remark about the object for which
young ladies went to church.
“What had taken her to North Kemms,” he wondered; “whom could the man be
they had met there? what his connection with Bessie?”
These questions Alick stood striving vainly to answer, while Master
Marsden was being brushed and made look respectable by Bessie Ormson.
“I am as good as a mother to you, Harry,” she said.
“I am sure you are; but that’s not saying much,” answered the boy. “Mine
has always a headache, and is constantly telling us not to make a noise.
Noise, indeed! Women can make enough noise themselves, when they want
to.”
“Do not say ‘want to,’ Harry, it is vulgar.”
“No more vulgar than you are,” he replied. “I shall talk as I like. What
is good enough for pa ought to be good enough for you.”
“It is a fortunate thing for both of us that I am not your pa, as you
call him,” Bessie answered, “for I should shake you to death some day.
Now, are you ready, or are you going to keep us waiting all day?”
“You think you look so nice in that bonnet,” Harry sneered, “that you
want to be off like a flash of lightning. You are none so pretty, some
people think, though Harcourt, as my papa says, does imagine there is
nobody like you. Pa says he would not marry you. I heard pa tell ma so,
not a week before I came here.”
“I can’t wonder at that,” Bessie replied; “your papa probably finds he
has married one too many of the family already.”
But this side stroke Master Marsden seemed unable perfectly to
understand; wherefore he asked Bessie what she meant; in reply to which
question he received the information that “children should not ask too
many questions; and that, if he intended going with them to Fifield
church, it was time he got his cap and went downstairs.”
In acknowledgment of all this instruction, Harry, pulling a face at
Bessie, that young lady forthwith unceremoniously marched him off and
gave him in charge of Cuthbert, who grumbled a little over the trust.
Human nature is much the same on Christmas as on any other day in the
week, and every creature in Berrie Down—Heather herself not
excepted—felt Harry Marsden to be a burden and a tax.
Never before—never, Heather thought, had Berrie Down Lane looked so
lovely as it did on that morning when they all paced it side by side.
She had not been out for weeks previously, and the very branches of the
trees seemed to bend and greet her as she passed.
There were few leaves, and there were no wild flowers, yet the banks and
hedgerows looked warm and pleasant, the ivy was trailing over the sward
and twining fresh and green round the roots of the elms and beeches; the
spruce laurel put forth its glossy foliage between the bare boughs of
the thorn, and its bluish-black berries formed a contrast to those of
the holly, red and glowing in the sunshine.
Everything looked fair and lovely to Heather on that Christmas morning.
Arthur had been so kind to her for weeks past, had never grumbled about
Lally’s illness, nor complained concerning the child having occupied too
much of her time and thoughts.
Alick was back amongst them—not much changed by his sojourn in
town—good, and considerate, and helpful as ever. He talked hopefully of
a vacant situation in Messrs. Elser’s office, which he thought Cuthbert
might fill; and Heather’s secret desire for many a day previously had
been that when Cuthbert went forth into the world it might be under
Alick’s auspices.
She did not feel quite so certain of the one boy as of the other; she
did not think that as Cuthbert grew up she could manage him without
Alick’s aid. He was more uncertain in his temper, less to be depended on
in any way, weaker for good, stronger for evil than his brother.
Altogether, Heather desired that Alick should have the supervision of
him; and, behold, there was already a chance of the desire being
gratified.
Then Lally was better; though not yet strong, she was certainly better,
and the girls were well; even Bessie made no complaint, though Heather
thought she looked a trifle pale in her pretty bonnet, made of violet
velvet, which was about the most becoming colour and material possible
to the complexion of that young belle, Miss Ormson.
“What a shame, dear, that Gilbert is not with us,” Heather had
laughingly said the same morning, standing under the misletoe. “Let me
kiss you for him.”
“Kiss me for yourself, Heather,” Bessie answered, colouring up to her
very temples, “but not for him.”
“And why not for him?” asked Heather.
“I will tell you to-morrow, not to-day,” was the reply. “To-morrow,
perhaps.”
And then, irresistibly, there came back to Heather’s mind that passage
in “Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia,” where Elizabeth, repeating the
word “to-morrow,” sighs.
“You look pale, Bessie,” Heather remarked, when they had almost reached
the foot of Berrie Down Lane. “Are you getting tired, dear?”
“I do not feel very well,” Bessie answered; “I think I will go back
again, if you have no objection.”
Immediately, every one offered to return with her, even Harry Marsden,
who, being debarred from throwing stones at the birds, was beginning to
feel weary of the walk.
“I do not mind going to church.” “Let me walk back with you.” “No, I
will go.” “No, you have not been out for ever so long.” “Let
me”—“me”—“me.”
All of which polite offers Bessie declined, saying, “if any one insisted
on returning with her, she should walk on to church.”
“I am not ill,” she finished, “I am only tired; when I get home, I shall
lie down and be as bright by the time you come back as any of you.
Good-bye,—_au revoir_!”—and with that she kissed her hand, and commenced
slowly retracing her steps—Heather turning every now and then to watch
her progress.
The farther the distance between them became, the silenter grew Heather.
She felt a nameless anxiety about Bessie,—an anxiety which she could
neither conquer nor analyze, but which, nevertheless, increased until
when, almost within sight of Fifield church, she remarked to her husband
that she really thought she must return home also.
“I am uneasy about Bessie,” she said; “the girl certainly did not look
well.”
“Pooh!” exclaimed Arthur, “she is only a little tired. It would vex her
if you went home now; I should not think of doing such a thing, I really
should not, Heather.”
And so Heather was persuaded not to follow after Bessie, but go on to
church.
“You will find her well enough on our return,” remarked Arthur; and his
prophecy proved correct, for Bessie met them at the gate looking bright
and happy, and with as rich a colour as she had ever boasted mantling in
her cheeks.
“Hollo! you’ve been painting,” cried out Master Marsden. “Hasn’t she,
Alick? nobody’s face was ever like that, without paint.”
“Harry, I really shall have to write to your mamma if you make such rude
remarks,” said Heather, rebukingly. “And so,” she added, addressing
Bessie, “you do feel quite well again? I felt so uneasy after you left
us that I should have turned, had it not been for Arthur’s
remonstrance.”
“I am glad he did remonstrate,” answered Bessie, “it would have been a
real grief to me if you had come home on my account. I felt a little
tired, that was all, and I am quite rested now.”
So, indeed, it seemed, for never had Bessie been so gay as on that
Christmas afternoon. And she was very sweet too, as well as gay; she
uttered no sharp speeches; she was ready to play at cat’s-cradle with
Leonard, and even refrained from scolding when Harry Marsden, who must
needs take a hand in that scientific game also, tore her lace sleeve to
shreds.
She made herself agreeable to Arthur likewise, talking to him, while
Heather was upstairs, concerning London, and her father’s business, and
her father’s anxieties, and the Squire’s own prospects, as quietly and
sensibly, her cousin subsequently declared, as her mother might have
done.
“And I think, Heather, she must be very fond of her father,” Arthur
informed his wife; “for once when she was speaking about him, and how
hard he worked, and of how little help her brothers were to him, her
voice quite shook, and the tears came into her eyes. I had not given
Bessie credit for so much feeling.”
“She is a dear, sweet girl,” Heather answered. “I am glad she did not
insist, as I feared she might, on sitting up with Lally. She is
completely worn out, I think. Did you notice how pale she turned when
she was bidding us good-night?”
Other people beside Heather had observed this pallor. Mrs. Piggott, who,
making a grievous complaint concerning Priscilla Dobbin’s shortcomings
and habit of always being out of the way when wanted, was silenced by
the sight of Bessie’s wan face, and by Bessie’s entreaty for her not to
be hard on Priscilla.
“She was with me a long time, you know, Mrs. Piggott, to-day,” she said;
“I did not feel very well when I returned this morning, and Prissy put
away my bonnet, and did a few other things for me that I was not
inclined to do for myself.”
“There, there, Miss, don’t say another word, but go away to bed; you
look like a ghost this minute; you have been trying to kill yourself
lately, that is my opinion; but, please God, we will all turn round
now.”
“Where shall we turn to, Mrs. Piggott?” asked Bessie, with a smile, and
then she re-crossed the hall and ascended the stairs to her own room,
only pausing for a moment ere she went, to ask Alick if he would take a
letter up to town for her on the following morning.
“It is to papa, and he will receive it earlier if you post it in London.
Thank you. I will leave it on the hall table to-night. Good-bye, Alick,
good-bye!” and Alick imagined she pressed his hand tighter than ever she
had done before, and that there was a very plaintive tone in her voice
as she uttered that word, “Good-bye.”
Later on in the night, when every one except Lucy Dudley, who sat up
with Lally, was supposed to be in bed, Bessie stole into the nursery,
“to have another peep at her child,” she said.
“You ought to have been asleep long ago,” Lucy remarked, rebukingly; but
Bessie explained she had been writing to her father a very long letter
on an important subject, which Alick was going to take to town with him.
“About your marriage?” Lucy inquired, and Bessie answered, “Yes.”
“If we talk any more, we shall waken Lally,” the girl added.
“Good-night, Lucy—good-night, my bad child—my poor little Lally!”
And stooping, she put her lips to Lally’s hand, which lay outside the
coverlet, and kissed it softly. When she lifted her head, Lucy saw that
her eyes were full of tears.
“Bessie, Bessie, darling, what is the matter?” she whispered, putting
her arms round her cousin’s neck, and striving to detain her; but Bessie
gently disengaged herself from the embrace, and saying, “we shall waken
Lally; there is nothing the matter with me,” left the room—her face
buried in her handkerchief, sobbing, sobbing as she went. Lucy would
have followed her, but Bessie motioned her not to do so. Then, gliding
noiselessly along the passage, she entered her own room, and Agnes heard
the key turned in the lock.
Some hours afterwards, when Heather, as was her custom, came to relieve
the watcher, Lucy expressed her fear that Bessie could not be well. “She
cried so bitterly,” the girl explained.
Hearing this, Mrs. Dudley went to Bessie’s door, and quietly turned the
handle.
Contrary to her expectations, the bolt was not drawn inside, and she
stepped into the apartment.
In the darkness she stood, holding her breath and listening. Bessie was
asleep. Heather heard the regular respiration of what she considered
sound slumber, and felt satisfied.
“I do not imagine she can be ill,” Mrs. Dudley remarked, on her return
to Lucy. “She is sleeping quietly enough now, at all events. Tell me,
dear,” she added, “have you heard any noise at all during the night? I
fancied I caught a sound something like footsteps crunching on the
gravel, and got up to see. Arthur said it was all my fancy. Did you hear
anything?”
“No,” Lucy replied, “nothing whatever. Bessie was downstairs again, you
know, leaving out that letter for Alick to take to town; but she was
very quiet. I do not think you could have heard her.”
“It was my fancy, I suppose,” remarked Heather. “I have felt restless
and nervous all the night long. I was quite glad when four o’clock
struck to get up. Now, go to bed, Lucy, or you will feel ill for want of
sleep.”
“No likelihood of that,” Lucy answered, suppressing a yawn, however, as
she spoke, and went off, leaving mother and child alone.
Sitting there quite alone with her little girl, the restlessness of
which Heather had complained returned upon her with double force. She
tried to read; she fetched her work-basket, and commenced sewing; she
went and stood by the window looking out into the darkness, and longed
for five o’clock, when there would come some sounds of life about the
house. It was a still, cold morning, pitch dark. Not a dog barked—not a
leaf stirred. The silence was almost insupportable, and Heather felt it
to be so, as she left the window and returned to Lally’s side.
Still, the child slept quietly; and now Heather’s thoughts reverted to
Bessie. What could be the matter with the girl? Why had she been crying
the previous night? Why did she so persistently ignore Mr. Harcourt’s
very existence? How did it happen that the time for her marriage seemed
no nearer now than it had done in the summer?
That Mr. Harcourt was a devoted correspondent, Heather knew by the
evidence of her own eyes. Scarcely a morning passed without the post-bag
bringing a long epistle from him to his affianced wife. Bessie’s
acknowledgments of these epistles were despatched at much longer and
more uncertain intervals; but then Bessie did not profess to be a good
correspondent. “She hated letter-writing and letter-writers,” she openly
declared; so that her negligence in this particular proved nothing.
Besides, her time had been much occupied with Lally, and altogether——
As she reached this point in her mental argument, Mrs. Dudley heard a
sound as though a door were being softly opened and closed at the end of
the corridor. With that nervous fear upon her, which seems so often the
advance courier of some disaster, the messenger spurring on to tell us
of the approach of misfortune, Heather went out into the passage and
listened. Yes, there was some one moving stealthily and cautiously in
the direction of the back staircase—a woman, for Mrs. Dudley could hear
the skirt of her dress brushing against the wall as she stole along.
It could not be any of the servants, because they had no business in
that part of the house;—their sleeping-rooms being in the roof, and
access to those apartments only possible by means of the back staircase
which opened out of the front kitchen.
There was a door of communication, however, between the long south
corridor, where the principal bedchambers were situated, and the other
portion of the house; and this door Heather now heard close softly, as
the first had done.
Satisfied that Bessie must be ill and about to seek Mrs. Piggott’s
apartment, Heather hurried after; but when she came to try to open the
door, it resisted all her efforts. As a rule, the key remained on the
side next the main staircase. Now, Heather found it had been removed,
and the door locked from within. Not knowing what all this could mean,
she went back to Lally’s room, took a candle, and, descending into the
hall, made her way along a passage which led in the direction of the
offices. Crossing the front kitchen, she opened the door which led
towards the back staircase, and there on the last step stood Priscilla
Dobbin.
“What are you doing? where are you going?” asked her mistress.
“I was coming down to look at the clock, ma’am,” answered the girl.
“You have just left Miss Ormson’s room—is she ill?”
“No, ma’am, not as I know of. She told me last night to go to her room
when I got up for a letter for Master Alick to take to town.”
“And where is that letter?” asked Mrs. Dudley.
“On the hall table, ma’am, I believe. Miss Bessie left it there herself
after she had wrote it.”
“What made you lock the passage-door after you?”
“Miss Bessie told me to, ma’am.”
Heather could not understand the matter at all. She did not believe that
there was a sentence of truth in the girl’s statement; but what her
object might be in speaking falsely, she was unable to imagine.
“Miss Ormson is awake, then?” she said, at length.
“Yes, ma’am—leastways she was when I saw her.”
Without another word, Mrs. Dudley turned to regain the hall. She wanted
to see if the letter were really on the slab, and then she meant to go
to Bessie’s room and ascertain whether or not Priscilla had spoken
falsely.
The whole thing baffled Heather. But for the locking of the door, she
should have thought nothing more about the matter; but what object
either Bessie or Priscilla could have in thus cutting off immediate
communication between the two parts of the house, she was quite unable
to divine.
There on the slab lay Bessie’s letter—a thick letter, for Heather lifted
and held it in her hand for a moment; then she laid it down again, and
ascended the front staircase, slowly and thoughtfully.
She had not reached the landing, however, before Priscilla was beside
her.
“Ma’am—Mrs. Dudley,” began the girl, “you can turn me out of the house
this moment, if you like. I told you a lie about that letter. I did not
go to Miss Bessie’s room for it. Miss Bessie is gone.”
“Gone!” Heather looked at the girl, and blankly repeated that word after
her.
“Yes, ma’am; and there is a letter for you, please, on the
toilet-table,” at which point in her confession Prissy began to whimper.
“Don’t do that,” said Mrs. Dudley, almost angrily. “Go on before me to
Miss Ormson’s room, and be quiet.”
Thus ordered, Priscilla walked along the passage, and, opening the door
of Bessie’s bedchamber, stood aside to allow Mrs. Dudley to enter.
Heather, as she did so, glanced hurriedly round the apartment. There was
no disorder, no confusion; everything looked precisely as it might have
done, had Bessie been there—only Bessie was not there.
Heather went up to the bed, and put her hand on the sheet. It felt warm,
and she turned to Priscilla, saying, interrogatively—
“She has only just left the house?”
“She went at one o’clock, ma’am.”
“Impossible! I have been in the room myself since four o’clock, and she
was sleeping then.”
“That was me, ma’am; and I was not asleep. I heard you come in—I never
went to sleep all night. I’d have given anything, ma’am, if I might have
told you. I never was so miserable in all my life—and poor Miss Bessie,
she were a-crying dreadful.”
“Where is she gone?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.”
“Who is she gone with?”
“That gentleman as is so sweet on her.”
“You don’t mean Mr. Harcourt?”
“Lor’! no, ma’am; that other what she came back from church to meet
yesterday.”
Utterly bewildered, Heather stood in the middle of the room, confounded
and almost stupified.
Had any one come to her and said Bessie was dead, she could not have
felt more shocked—more grieved. Under her eyes this thing had been going
on—this deception from day to day, and from week to week—and she had
never even suspected its existence. Her very servant had been cognisant
of it; this girl, this false, cheating, untruthful Prissy Dobbin, had
been persuaded by Bessie to conceal the mischief until it was too late
to repair it. And Bessie, too, that bright, gay, affectionate creature,
was but a hypocrite and a deceiver! Mrs. Dudley felt this to be the last
drop in the cup, and, covering her face, wept bitterly.
“Don’t ’ee, ma’am,” implored Priscilla, “don’t ’ee take on so! Read what
Miss Bessie says, mayhap that ’ill tell you where she’s gone. The
gentleman worships the very ground she treads on; and they would have
told you, only something about his father, I don’t rightly know what,
prevented them. Miss Bessie prayed and begged him yesterday to let her
speak to you. He wanted her, right or wrong, to go off with him then,
but she wouldn’t; she said she wouldn’t spoil your Christmas Day, not
for fifty husbands—she did.”
“You were very fond of Miss Bessie?” Mrs. Dudley said, inquiringly.
“Main fond, ma’am,” answered the girl. “I took to her from the day she
talked to me in the field, and give I that harf a crown.”
“Then don’t go chattering about her having gone off with any one,
Prissy. If you are fond of her, show your fondness by keeping silence.”
And with that, Mrs. Dudley, first bidding Prissy stay with Lally, in
case she wakened, went and roused her husband.
“Arthur,” she said, “Bessie is off—she has eloped. What are we to do?”
“Bessie eloped—Bessie off! Heather, you must be dreaming!”
“I wish I were,” answered his wife. “Is there any use in trying to
follow her, do you think?”
“There might be, if we knew where she was gone,” Arthur replied. “What
does she say in her letter?” he added, noticing the paper in his wife’s
hand.
“She does not give a clue,” said Heather. “She merely states she is gone
to be married, and that, whenever her husband allows her, she will write
again.”
“Better call up Alick,” suggested Arthur; and, accordingly, Alick was
called.
“They have four hours’ start,” said the young man, practically, when he
had heard Heather’s story, “and their plans must have been well laid. I
will follow if you like, but I think it is useless. They are in London
by this time.”
“What makes you think they have gone to London?” asked Heather.
“Because it is the only place in which to be lost,” answered the youth.
And the three stood and looked at each other for a few moments in utter
silence.
A great blow had suddenly fallen on them, and they felt stunned with its
force.
That such a thing should have happened there! that they should all have
bidden each other good-night, without a suspicion of coming evil—and
that this should have come to pass before morning!
Heather was the first to speak.
“And Mr. Harcourt, too—what will he say?”
“If he be a wise man, ‘that he is well rid of her,’” answered Arthur.
“She must be a bad girl—a bad, false girl.”
“But, oh! so good to Lally,” said Heather, deprecatingly; “and I do not
think it was of her own free will she went now—I do not—I believe she
was driven to it. Read her letter, Arthur—read how she says she tried to
like Mr. Harcourt, and how her mother forced her on. If I only knew she
were married, I could rest satisfied.”
And so husband and wife talked on, while Alick, standing by, remained
resolutely silent.
He would tell nothing about it; he would say nothing concerning the
stranger they had met at North Kemms; he would not utterly destroy
Heather’s faith, and show her that Bessie had been a deceiver from the
beginning. His heart was yearning after the girl, but he would not speak
a word that could give a clue as to whom she had eloped with.
She had prayed him not to tell Heather, and he would be faithful to his
trust. From him Heather never should know how false this girl had
been—this girl with the lovely face, and the sweet, winning manners,
which had gained her so many friends.
“The matter should be kept quiet;” each attributing different meanings
to that expression, agreed as to the expediency of this course. Arthur
said he would go to town with Alick, and take Bessie’s letter on to her
father.
“Then, Mr. Ormson can do whatever he thinks best,” said the Squire; and
Heather at once went to see that breakfast was got ready for the
brothers before their departure.
“I wonder who the devil she can have picked up,” remarked Squire Dudley,
when his wife left the room; “you never saw anybody hanging about the
place, did you, Alick?”
Very truthfully, Alick answered that he had not; but still in his own
soul he felt satisfied Bessie had gone off with the stranger, who sat in
the same pew with them, and restored Miss Ormson’s prayer-book on that
Sunday when he and his cousin walked across the fields to North Kemms
church, talking as they went.