A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE.
Tom hurried wildly through his boyish toilet and rushed into the
dining-room, expecting to find the breakfast party round the table.
He pulled himself up with an astonished whistle, for the room stood
empty, the table unspread, the fire unlit, while everything wore that
indescribable air of desertion and neglect which rooms seem to bear
each morning till human life has again passed through them with the new
day.
“Something must have gone wrong with my ticker,” was Tom’s natural
conclusion. But no, the watch was honestly at work, having now advanced
to a quarter to nine. Besides, the daylight of the February morning
assured him that it could not be much earlier.
“Clementina has ‘slept in’ herself,” he decided, “and everything will
go wrong together.”
By way of making a move in the right direction, he went into the hall
and performed vigorously on a little gong which stood there. Clementina
usually did this twice—a wakening peal and a breakfast peal, with an
interval of half an hour. To warn everybody that things were not going
on us usual, Tom promptly repeated his performance.
It did not bring Clementina upon the scene, dishevelled and in deep
self-humiliation. The first appearance was Miss Latimer, who came
downstairs, her usual prim self, saying—
“What is the matter? I have been up for a while, but I had forgotten to
wind my watch, and the house was so quiet that I thought I had mistaken
the time, and in hope Mrs. Challoner is resting I did not wish to rouse
her.”
“I don’t think Clementina can be up herself,” said Tom.
Miss Latimer glanced round the dining-room.
“Perhaps she is ill,” she said. “She looked rather pale last night. She
seems a very sympathetic person.”
Miss Latimer called down the kitchen stair, but there was no answer
save that the cat came forward, mewing in the appealing fashion common
to cats when they feel themselves unfairly deprived of human society.
“Clementina must be still in her room,” said the old lady, and she
bustled up to the topmost storey, Tom following at her heels.
One or two vigorous knocks produced no effect, so they tried the door.
It was locked, and the key was evidently not in the lock on either side.
Miss Latimer and Tom looked at each other aghast.
“We must go downstairs at once and set the house going,” decided the
old lady, “and we must not make any noise nor fuss till we have seen
Mrs. Challoner.”
As they passed downstairs, Lucy came out of her room, with the white,
deeply graven face which tells of restless vigil. After a sleepless
night she had slept heavily towards morning, and had only awakened with
the sound of Tom’s gong.
“We are all rather behind-hand,” Miss Latimer said, “and something is
the matter with Clementina.” That was the utmost she would say until
she and Tom had lit the fires.
They found time to exchange a few whispered cogitations as they bustled
about in the kitchen, into which they would not allow Lucy to intrude.
“I don’t believe Clementina is in her room,” said Miss Latimer, “and I
hope not, for it means something bad if she is.”
“I do believe she has got frightened over our talk last night and has
run away!” Tom remarked. “Who would have thought she would make tracks
like this?”
“Where can she be?” asked Miss Latimer. “I remember Lucy saying she was
so sorry for her because she knew nobody here, and didn’t seem inclined
to make friends.”
“I hope she hasn’t committed suicide,” said Tom.
“Why should she commit suicide?” asked Miss Latimer quite sharply. It
was her own fear.
“People do sometimes, though nobody knows why,” Tom said. And he went
and took a nervous peep into the cellar and scullery, which revealed
nothing worse than the general air of desertion which hung over all the
premises.
Of course, such a development could not be long concealed from the
mistress of the house. As soon as Lucy had drunk a cup of tea and
a faint shade of colour had come into her face, they told her that
Clementina was nowhere to be found. Lucy was not flurried nor worried
as she would have been a few weeks before. At present her soul had
withdrawn into that sacred pavilion of sorrow where the petty clash of
common troubles scarcely sounds. If things had gone wrong with Charlie,
why wonder that everything else went wrong? Rather it seemed natural
and just what might be expected!
It was useless to call in outside aid till they had thoroughly explored
the house. They went carefully through every room and closet, leaving
Clementina’s locked chamber till last, as it had to be broken into,
though its door offered very little resistance to Tom’s strong young
arm.
Miss Latimer was right. The room was empty! The bed had not been slept
in. Clementina’s box stood in its accustomed place. It was locked, but
the key was left in the lock.
Lucy opened a little hanging cupboard.
“She has gone away in all her best clothes,” she said. But why had she
gone? And where?
“Is anything missing?” asked Miss Latimer.
Of course that could not be ascertained in a moment. Lucy felt little
misgiving on this matter.
“Whatever this means,” she said, “we know that Clementina comes of
respectable folk—Mrs. Bray’s Rachel answers for that.”
It was now impossible for Lucy to go to her class. It was equally
necessary that Tom should present himself at the office, though
he hoped that, when “the governors” heard about the sad news of
yesterday and the trial of to-day, they might speedily release him. He
undertook to conduct little Hugh to the Kindergarten, and to convey
Mrs. Challoner’s excuses to the Institute, which last commission he
accomplished with such simple directness that Lucy presently received
a kindly hand-delivered note from the Principal, bidding her not to
return to her duties till she felt fully equal to them—they would
secure a satisfactory proxy.
The two ladies’ investigations had bewildering results—quite of a piece
with the bedroom key being taken away, and the keys left in the trunk.
The tiny store of household silver was safe, and Lucy, running her eye
over other household gods, missed nothing. The domestic arrangements
had apparently been in good order until very near the end. But such
movements as Clementina must have made during the previous day were
most unaccountable. She had put butter among the loaf sugar, and had
placed the saucepans on the dresser shelves! There was not a single
potato in the house, though the day before she had asked for money
to buy a week’s supply. The nice clean damask tablecloth and napkins
which had been used at supper the night before were found crumpled
up and thrust away with the blacking brushes. The bellows was in the
bread-basket!
“One would think she had gone out of her mind!” ejaculated Miss
Latimer. And then a thought flashed upon her. She paused. She would not
at once give it utterance.
Tom got back, breathless, by noon. The principals of the firm were
shocked to hear of the uncertainty of their young partner’s fate, and
deeply sympathetic with the poor wife, who might so well be “widow.”
They bade Tom give her all the help he could, and come to them for any
service they might be able to render. On his way back Tom had looked in
at Mr. Somerset’s lodgings to bid him not fail them, for they were in
new trouble. He could only get a word or two with Mr. Somerset then,
for there was fresh affliction there too, though it was but simple
affliction. Mr. Somerset’s old landlord had passed quietly away in the
night.
Tom found Lucy and Miss Latimer wrapped in big aprons, with dresses
tucked up, busily getting things into their accustomed routine. His
appearance reminded them of the expediency of dinner—a necessity which
women are too apt to forget for themselves. Mrs. Challoner commissioned
him to go and “order” some steak, but Tom said he should bring it, to
make sure of it, and armed himself with a black leather bag.
The butcher greeted him cheerily.
“Fine morning, sir. There, that’s a capital cut, just what Mrs.
Challoner will like. Take it yourself, did you say, sir? Well, as you
please.” And then the butcher gave his head a knowing wag, and said,
“Guess there’s trouble with that servant of yours? I reckoned there
would be. She was a queer one, that. A little off her chump, I should
say.”
“She’s run away,” said Tom, “but what did you ever see queer about her?”
The butcher laughed.
“I thought at first that she was a real old sort. Prime cut, as one
might say. And when she used to be a little faddy, I thought it was
just her particular goodness. She was always ready enough to pass the
time of day, and her and me were good friends—though I do remember she
did once ask me why I came knocking at her kitchen door and running
away, but I was busy that day, and let it pass as, maybe, her sort of
joke. But about a week ago, she asked me why I made faces at her; and
my missus spoke quite sharp to her, telling her not to put such stories
about. But last night, sir, I thought it was turning serious. For she
came into the shop and said I was a-putting poison on the meat—she
believed I had rubbed lucifer matches on it. I wasn’t here at the time,
and my missus was glad to say anything to pacify her, thinking she’d
been drinking—though she doesn’t look one of that sort.”
Tom stood aghast! Here, then, when and where nobody had thought of
looking for it, the whole mystery stood explained. Clementina was the
demented person who had sent the blank letter and the black-edged
letter. She had imagined the runaway knocks, and what else? Might not
the smashed china and the escaped gas be traced to the doings of the
same wild hand?
“If I were in your place,” went on the butcher, “I should be thankful
she has taken herself away. It’s my belief she is mad. There’s many a
one who, in the end, kills somebody, who has shown no more signs of it
beforehand. It ought to be somebody’s public duty to look after such
before they do mischief, if there’s nobody of their own that cares
enough for them to keep them out of harm’s way.”
Tom went home full of this news. It was very astonishing to Lucy, but
Miss Latimer was in a measure prepared for it, as she owned the idea
had already crossed her mind, though she little expected it would have
such swift corroboration.
Lucy’s first thought was an immense thankfulness that Hugh’s life had
been preserved from all risks; her second, a remembrance of the child’s
instinctive shrinking from Clementina; her third, a wave of pity for
this disordered mind, for there could be no lingering doubt that Dr.
Ivery’s diagnosis was correct.
“If she is insane,” said Lucy, “it is no blame of hers. We must think
only of what has become of her, and of how we should act on her behalf.
Knowing of her through Rachel, and hearing of her as a lonely woman
with no near relatives, I don’t know with whom to communicate, except
Rachel. Rachel may know something more. We must telegraph to her at
Bath.”
Rachel’s answer came quickly.
“Astonished. Gillespie, brother lives at Inverslain, Sutherland.
Relations in Hull, address unknown. My mistress very ill.”
There did not seem much help there. Presently Tom, glancing round the
dining-room, exclaimed—
“I do miss something! I miss the railway time-table which Mrs. Grant
left behind her. It was on the mantelshelf last night. Clementina has
taken it with her. She has gone somewhere by train!”
“Let us hope she has gone straight back to her own village,” said Miss
Latimer.
“We must at once telegraph to the brother,” insisted Lucy. “‘Gillespie,
Inverslain,’ does not seem much of an address to Londoners; but I
daresay it is a little place, and that he is known there.”
“There’s no Inverslain on any railway line,” Tom discovered, busily
turning over an old “Bradshaw.” Thereupon Lucy gave him a sovereign and
despatched him to the post office to discover how a sufficiently lucid
message could best reach a remote Highland hamlet, bidding him not
grudge any charge which might be made for porterage.
He brought her back her change, having had to make a liberal deduction
from the sovereign, since “Inverslain” was reported to be a tiny
Highland “clachan,” twelve miles from any telegraph office.
Tom had also bought an evening paper, and had privately scanned its
columns with great care to see whether they might contain any item
which could possibly refer to the hapless Clementina. He found none.
But he found something he did not expect, to wit, a paragraph relating
the finding of the spar and sail of the absentee _Slains Castle_. The
sad suggestion had now become public property.
Mr. Somerset had arrived in Pelham Street while Tom was at the
telegraph office. He and the two ladies discussed the conversation
which had gone on the evening before, and the probabilities of
Clementina having taken alarm at Tom’s idle suggestion that some of the
“professors” of “clairvoyance” should have a chance to cover themselves
with glory by discovering the origin of the mysteries. Of course, the
Highland woman’s own faith in second-sight and prenatural powers would
make such an idea very terrible to her, since she knew the mysteries
were of her own making.
“But if she be mad, could she realise this?” asked Lucy.
“Oh, dear, yes,” said Mr. Somerset. “You must remember that madness
seldom attacks the whole of the brain at once. Generally it leaves part
in perfect working order for awhile, so that those in ignorance of the
peculiar groove taken by the disease might long remain unwitting of it.
Generally, of course, the malady slowly increases its conquest, though
its progress may be very slow, and maybe occasionally arrested at
special stages. It is quite probable that Clementina may not remember
all she has done, and also that she may believe her actions to have
been quite intelligible and praiseworthy. Dr. Ivery explained all this
to me yesterday, when we had little idea where the trouble lay.”
They were sitting dismally enough taking their tea when a telegram
arrived. It was far too soon for it to be a possible response to Lucy’s
message to Inverslain. It was addressed to “Mrs. Challoner,” and by the
sudden flash of light and life across her face, the watchers could see
that a wild hope sprung up within her that it might concern the great
anxiety and sorrow which she was holding in such resolute silence. But
no. The light and life died out. Yet she said with a sigh of relief,
“Let us be thankful for this,” and handed the telegram to Mr. Somerset
who read aloud—
“‘Clementina Gillespie here. Very unwell. Will write to-morrow about
box and wages.—Micklewrath, Dock Street, Hull.’”
“Then she is safe with those relations of whom Rachel telegraphed,”
said Miss Latimer, drawing a long breath. “At any rate, the terrible
responsibility is removed from us.”
Lucy had already risen from the table and gone to her desk.
“I must now write an explanatory note to the people at Inverslain and
tell where their sister is,” she said. “It will still be in time to
catch the night mail, so it will follow hard after the telegram.”
“She is thinking of the relatives’ anxiety and distress; these Hull
people are thinking only of a ‘box’ and ‘wages,’” whispered Tom aside
to Mr. Somerset.
“Well,” whispered Mr. Somerset, “what would you have? It’s hard that
everybody is not like her, that’s all. We would not wish her to be as
so many are.”
“It is so good of the Institute people to let me stay away awhile,”
said Lucy. “How could I have gone there to-morrow with nobody at home
to do anything for us? Now I shall be free to do my own work till I
can get some arrangement made.”
She did not speak of relief from labour because of the aching yearning
of her heart. That would not have kept her from work. She would have
asked, “Why should it?” If Charlie were really gone, then her toil was
more needed than ever, and if she stopped it to mourn for him, when
would she begin again, for when would she cease to mourn? When would
she be able to draw a line and say, “Henceforth I can endure”? No,
her endurance must begin at once. She did not feel this in herself as
strength, she thought rather this was a weakness that dared not pause
lest it should never be able to recommence!
“We will go on together, my dear,” Miss Latimer assured her. “We women,
who have known the great common bond of working for our bread, will
surely stand by each other.”
“I wish Charlie was here to thank you,” she answered. Her face was
calm and her voice was sweet, but no tears nor lamentations could have
conveyed such an impression of agony.
“I know now how the martyrs smiled on the rack,” said Tom, as he walked
home with Mr. Somerset.
“I never thought that I should wish to see a woman cry,” answered
that gentleman, “but I am sure that tears would be a blessing to Mrs.
Challoner now.”
(_To be continued._)
[Illustration]
USEFUL CANTATAS AND OPERETTAS FOR GIRLS.
Once upon a time, at the midnight hour, it is supposed that the
denizens of the doll’s house, including the lady doll, “Lady Angelina
de Montmorency,” the gentleman doll, “Lord Jennings,” the Vivandière,
little Bo-peep, the wooden Soldier, and Mr. Noah, all woke up and
aired their experiences and grievances in song and speeches of a merry
character, which were at once taken down by Mr. W. Yardley and Mr.
Cotsford Dick, and transmitted to posterity under the title of “Our
Toys” (J. Williams), libretto, 6d., and vocal score, 1s. 6d.
This is really a very amusing “fairy vision in one peep,” and likely to
suit any brothers home from school as well as big and little sisters.
Here is a specimen of its wit, treating of the wooden Soldier—
“His wooden stand which bore him well
Was broken in a fight,
And so he like a soldier fell,
As he couldn’t stand upright.
They laid the vet’ran on the shelf,
Secure from further knocks,
And he’s got his company all to himself,
For he is the last of the box.”
The dressing of the characters of this airy little piece might be very
bright and effective, and not difficult to manage at all.
A musical play for young girls, easily acted in a room, is “Elsa’s
Fairy,” by Myles B. Foster (Boosey, 1s.). Pleasant singable solos
are interspersed with as attractive choruses, No. 1, in nine-eight
time, being especially pretty. The prose part has a little plot of
interest to small girls, and the pianoforte accompaniments and pleasing
interludes are simple and good, making the whole a very useful little
piece indeed. Ordinary dress only is required.
“A Spring Morning,” composed of a three-part chorus, trio, soprano
solo, chorus, and a chorus “Epilogue” is a most artistic short idyll,
by A. E. Horrocks (J. Williams), well calculated to suit sweet and
refined voices for drawing-room performance. Little power is required,
but all must be gracefully rendered, and a result may be secured which
is happy in the extreme. The introduction prepares our minds suitably
for the words of May Byron (May Gillington of yore), whose name,
together with that of another of our best versifiers, Helen Marion
Burnside, is a guarantee of all that is good for girls to sing or read.
The choral dances (in 1s. book) of “Prince Sprite,” a fairy operetta,
by Florence A. Marshall, makes a remarkably bright, cheery suite,
consisting of melodious minuet, waltzes, and galop, in two-part
choruses.
The plot of “Thyra” is laid on the sea-coast of Norway, amidst
fisher-girls and spirits of good and spirits of evil. It is a
more intricate operetta-cantata in one act, by Algernon H. Lindo
(Willcocks), and it boasts of duettinos, trio, and recitatives of an
operatic description, in addition to solos and choruses. Then there
are two cantatas treating of fairy folk (both with two-part choruses),
namely, “A Woodland Dream,” by J. A. Moonie (2s., Novello), which is
exceedingly pretty throughout, with a very pleasing opening chorus and
epilogue, elegant little dances and nice accompaniments, which can
also be had for a small orchestra. This admits of the assistance of
numbers of fays, gnomes, and fairies, who have nothing much to do but
to look pretty; only two soprano soloists and one mezzo or contralto
are required.
The other one is “In Dreamland,” by Clement Locknane (Houghton, 2s.
6d.), the opening chorus also being especially melodious; soloists,
three soprani and one mezzo. It has dances, too, and orchestral parts.
A more ambitious cantata, requiring eight soloists, is “The Marsh
King’s Daughter” (Cocks, 2s. 6d.); the words adapted poetically from
Hans Andersen’s tale by May Gillington, set to music of a suitable and
romantic character by Angelo Mascheroni. This is a very interesting
little composition indeed, and well worth working at thoroughly by
older girls. It is full of abundant possibilities of pleasing an
audience.
A cantata by Arthur Page, called “The Snow Queen” (Forsyth), is very
clearly printed and prettily bound for 1s. 6d. only. This is much
easier and for much younger girls; the libretto, by Bernard Page, is
suggested by another story of Hans Andersen’s, and the characters are
two children, Gerda and Kay, the Snow Queen, White Rose, Red Rose,
and chorus of Snowflakes and Roses, all pretty and simple to dress
effectively. These choruses are so bright and lively. We could weave
long stories of the plots and descriptive music of these recent little
works, but space only permits of our pointing out some of the best,
which any girls wanting to find a special kind for performance, could
ask to look at and try over from their music-sellers.
MARY AUGUSTA SALMOND.
THREE GIRL-CHUMS, AND THEIR LIFE IN LONDON ROOMS.
BY FLORENCE SOPHIE DAVSON.