NO NEWS.
But neither Will nor Tom had any suggestion to make, or knew what to do
in such an emergency. They thought it might be well to write to the
office and ask what was known of him, or to his Liverpool lodgings; and
for themselves, they were anxious to get back to their own homes, their
wives, and their work. Even before the afternoon was out they had so far
exhausted the subject of Harry that they were not unwilling to join
their father in an examination of the Sister to Scythian, and “pass
their opinion” on her, and the high hopes Joscelyn entertained of her.
Joan looked on at this change of sentiment and subject with a half
understanding and half bewilderment. In other family troubles before
this she too had been glad to escape from the monotony of a painful
subject with a half scorn and whole impatience of her mother’s
persistence in it, exactly like the sentiment her brothers showed now.
Only this time her own heart was profoundly engaged; she felt like her
mother, and along with her comprehension of the feeling of “the boys,”
had a perfectly new and bitter sense of their heartlessness, their
stupid indifference, their desire to escape from this one thing which
was more important than anything else in earth or heaven. What was the
Sister to Scythian in comparison with Harry? And they had all allowed
that Harry’s disappearance was a serious matter: they had not deceived
themselves, or made it out to be some “nonsense of mother’s.” This time
they had been obliged to confess there was grave cause for anxiety; and
then they had gone to the stables with the father whom they had been
unanimous in blaming, and had given all their minds to the points of the
horse. Joan had never been given to investigating the feebleness of
human character. She would scarcely have understood the words had they
been suggested to her, or, at least, would have treated them as too
high-flown for ordinary meaning; but for once in a way the wonder was
brought home to her, and she saw and understood it. “The boys” were
sorry about their brother, sorry that such a thing should have occurred;
annoyed that their domestic affairs should thus be thrown open to the
public, and more or less sympathetic with their mother, though not quite
sure that it did not serve her right for making a favourite of her
youngest son; but when they had expressed these feelings, what more were
they to say? They could not go on talking about it for ever; they could
not bring Harry back if they talked till doomsday; and besides, when
once their opinion was expressed and their regrets said, Harry was not a
subject of very great importance to them--whereas the Sister to Scythian
might advance the interests of the family and make the Joscelyn stable
celebrated. And Joan understood it all, she knew it by herself: yet was
angry with a harsh and disappointed pain which all her reason could not
subdue. Mrs. Joscelyn in the parlour, absorbed in that one passion of
anxiety, did not even appreciate this failure of the interest of the
others in what was so great a matter to herself so much as her daughter
did.
“What do the boys say? What do they think we should do?” she asked Joan
a hundred times. “What shall we do? Oh! Joan, what do they think we
should do?”
“They are not thinking anything about it, mother,” Joan said. “They are
off to the stables, looking at that beast. They are more taken up with
her than with Harry. An ill-conditioned brute! I wish, for my part, she
was at the bottom of the sea; but set a horse before the men, and they
think of nothing else--if all the brothers in the world were perishing
before their eyes.”
“Miss Joan,” said a voice behind her, “I am astonished to hear you say
that; you whom I have always taken to be such an excellent judge of a
horse yourself.”
The two women turned upon the new-comer with mingled feelings, half
angry that he had intruded upon them, half excited by a sudden wild hope
that a stranger might have some new light to throw upon a subject which
they had exhausted, for they could not hide their trouble from him. Mrs.
Joscelyn could not speak without an overflow of tears, and even Joan’s
eyes were red, and there was that look of irritation and vexation and
impatience in her face which comes so naturally to a capable person
suddenly set down before a painful difficulty which she can see no way
in her experience of coping with. Selby looked at her with anxious eyes.
Was she angry with him? but, if so, there was a sudden gleam of
expectation in her face too, suddenly looking up at him, as if she had
said within herself, “If help is possible it is here--” which gave him
courage; and he hastened to explain with that look and tone of sympathy
in which strangers so often excel those who ought to be the natural
consolers.
“I see I have come in at a wrong time,” he said. “I knocked, but I
suppose you did not hear. I ought to go away, but I want to stay: for
you are in trouble, and if I could be of any use to you----”
“Mr. Selby is--a true well-wisher,” said Joan, looking with almost
timidity at her mother. She was not given to blushing, but she blushed
now all over her face and her throat, and made such an appeal with her
eyes as those eyes had never made before. “It will be best to tell him,”
she said: “he, maybe, could think of something; and what is the use of
trying to hide it? it will soon be all over the country-side.”
“Indeed I am a well-wisher,” he cried; “if I can do anything, I will do
it with all my heart. If it’s about your brother Harry, I’ve heard
something--” and he looked from Joan to Mrs. Joscelyn with eyes so full
of sympathy that they felt the look as a sick man feels a cool hand laid
upon his hot forehead.
They told him their story with anxious questions as to what he had
heard. He had heard, of course, a great deal more than there was to
hear, that Harry had come to blows with his father, that there had been
a struggle and a fight, and that the young man had been kicked out of
the house. Some added that he lay on the Fells all night, so much
injured was he; and there were whispers of vice on Harry’s part as the
cause of such a violent proceeding, which Selby was too wise to betray
to the poor women. When they had told him all they knew, he sprang up to
his feet and looked at his watch with an air of readiness and capability
which at once gave them hope.
“It is quite clear what must be done,” he said; “you must send somebody
to Liverpool at once, this very night. It’s too late for the mid-day
train, but the night one will do.”
“Send somebody to Liverpool!” Joan’s countenance flushed again while her
mother’s grew pale.
“Oh!” cried Mrs. Joscelyn, “but who can we get to go?” while Joan, who
had never been beyond Carlisle in her life, stood up unconsciously with
such a gasp as catches the breath after a sudden plunge into the sea.
She knew nothing about the world, and she belonged to a generation which
believed that a woman could do nothing out of her own home; but a rush
of blood came to her face, and of tremendous energy to her heart. In the
suggestion there seemed so much hope, although almost as much fear.
“Who will you get to go? Me if you like,” said Selby, with the
benevolent glow of a man who feels himself a sort of good angel to women
in trouble. “I have nothing very particular to do, and I have a pass on
the railway, and I’m used to travelling. I will go to-night, and come
back to-morrow night. You will hear sooner that way than any other way,
and it is far easier to make inquiries personally than by letter--and
far more satisfactory.”
The colour left Joan’s cheek; there was a little falling back of relief,
yet half disappointment, from the sudden alarmed temerity of impulse
that had come upon her. She looked at him with, in the midst of her
trouble, a faint--the very faintest--touch of a smile at one corner of
her mouth. “Aha, my lad! I know what that is for!” Joan said to herself,
swift as lightning; but even the interested motive thus revealed was not
displeasing to her, and the whole suggestion went through her mind like
an arrow on the wind, showing only for a second against the dark
atmosphere of anxiety within.
“Oh, Mr. Selby, how could I ask you to do that for me? How could I ever
repay you for such kindness?” Mrs. Joscelyn cried, wringing her
tremulous hands. There was no complication of ideas in her mind. She was
bewildered by the suggestion, by the offer, by this unexampled effort of
friendship. No one had ever offered her such a service before. To
imagine that it was for the love of Joan that it was offered to her did
not enter her mind. She knew no motive possible, and it filled her with
astonishment--astonishment almost too great for hope. A journey was a
thing which, in her experience, was only undertaken after great
preparations and much thought. To go to-day and return to-morrow was a
proceeding unknown to her. And then why should he, a stranger, not
belonging to her, undertake such a journey for her? and how could she
repay him? She had not even money to pay his expenses if she could have
offered payment, and how was she to make it up to him? In this strait
she turned her eyes anxiously upon Joan, who was standing by, silenced
by an agitation such as had never been seen in her before.
“It is far, far too much trouble,” Joan faltered. “If I could go
myself----”
“You!” cried the mother, upon whom the weakness of her sex and its
incapacity had always been strongly impressed. “Oh, what could you do,
Joan? what can a woman do? They will not even let a woman into these
offices--or so I’ve heard. Oh no, no, not you--and it’s far too much,
far too much, as you say, to ask--”
“You are not asking,” said Selby, beaming. “It is I who am offering to
do it. I should like to do it; it would give me pleasure. You need not
fear I will say anything to hurt his feelings. I will act as if he were
a young brother of my own. As for the travelling it is nothing, and it
will cost me even next to nothing, for I have my pass, being engaged on
the railway. Not that I make much of that--for if it cost me ever so
much I should be all the more glad to do it, Mrs. Joscelyn. To ease your
mind I would do anything,” he said, and this time he glanced at Joan
with a corner of his eye; but with meaning enough to make it very
distinct to her prepared intelligence. And at the corner of Joan’s
mouth, that infinitesimal curve, became for a second almost a dimple.
How could she help seeing through him?--but she was not displeased.
“And if I find any difficulty in tracing him,” said Selby, a little
carried away by his enthusiasm, “I will engage a detective--”
But at this Mrs. Joscelyn threw up her hands with a sudden paleness, and
almost fainted; while Joan looked at him with a sternness that made the
heart of her suitor tremble, as it had done for a moment when he heard
her scolding Bess in the dairy.
“Do you think my brother is a lad that should have the police set after
him?” she said.
“It is not the police,” said Selby mildly; but they were ignorant of all
modern habits in this way, and the suggestion was so great an offence to
them, that it nearly took away all their gratitude and hope in the
proposal he had made. He was prudent enough to say no more about it;
but took Harry’s address at his lodgings and at his office, making
careful note of everything in a way that went to Mrs. Joscelyn’s heart.
Her courage rose as she saw him make these notes. They looked like
something doing, an effort which must come to some result. To-morrow
early this good friend would be on the spot; would see with his eyes and
hear with his ears everything that could be heard or seen; and she could
not doubt that he would bring light out of the darkness. Her tears dried
as she looked at him; the feeble wringing of her hands was stayed--they
clasped each other instead with a tremulous patience and almost
steadiness. Never before had there been a reasonable being like this,
kind and sympathetic and understanding, to stand by her in any of her
troubles; it seemed an almost miraculous goodness to the heart-broken
woman. And Harry must hear reason at the hands of such a man. If he did
so much for her, surely he would do more for Harry. She was comforted
beyond measure by the very sight of him as he stood and took down the
address. And that he should be willing to do so much for _her_, seemed
miraculous to her. She could not think of any other reason for his
kindness.
As for Joan, she was consoled too, partly by gratitude like her
mother’s, but partly also by her insight into Selby’s real motive, which
her mother did not guess. Her brow and her eyes were very grave and
heavy still with anxiety; but the dimple remained at the corner of her
mouth. She saw through him very well; he was not generous or
disinterested, as her mother thought. She knew his motive. And Joan was
not sure yet that it would do him any good notwithstanding her
gratitude. She was by no means free from a little sidelong sense of that
knavery which is common enough in such matters. She meant to accept, as
far as this went, his self-devotion, but she was not sure that the hopes
he was building upon it might not be fallacious hopes, and secretly
entertained in her inmost heart a half-determination to cheat him yet,
and prove him wrong in his reliance upon the services he was going to
render her. But mingled as this process of thought was, it was on the
whole exhilarating. Her heart rose a little. She thought more of herself
as she caught a glimpse of herself in Philip Selby’s eyes, and as her
self-esteem received a sensible stimulus, her hopes increased with it.
The more we think of ourselves the more sure we are that good and not
evil will happen to us. There is nothing more terrible in misfortune
than the depression and sense of demerit which it brings with it. Joan
thought better of herself through the spectacles which Selby provided,
and she could not help feeling an incipient certainty, not altogether
new to her, that with a person possessing such qualities as hers all
must go well.
Fortified by these hopes, the mother and daughter saw Tom and Will
depart with equanimity.
“Well, mother,” Will said, as he shook her by the hand (North-country
people are not given to demonstrations of affection), “I hope you’ll
soon have word of that boy. You needn’t fret: we’ve been in a good many
scrapes, but we’ve always got safe out of them.”
Will was the best fellow of the two. Tom took it altogether more easily.
“Yes, yes, you’ll hear,” he said; “I’m not the least afraid. Harry’s
like the ill-penny that always turns up. There’s nothing that I can see
to fret about.”
Joan nodded to them when they got on their horses with a friendly
satisfaction to be quit of them. She had no ideal to be offended in her
brothers. Mrs. Joscelyn, when her momentary buoyancy of new hope was
over, felt bitterly to the depths of her foolish heart that her sons
were of a very common, selfish grain, such as some years ago it would
have broken her heart to think of. She had been drilled into it, and had
yielded to necessity; but still when something made her observation
clearer she remembered and felt the downfall. The slow coming down of
heart and hope by which a woman arrives at the fact that her child is
not ideal, nor even excellent, nor superior in any way to the coarsest
common _pâte_ of man, is very gradual. Perhaps the greater number do not
reach it at all, but are content to deceive themselves and think all
their offspring right and perfect. But Mrs. Joscelyn was not of this
kind. She could not get over her sons’ indifference. “Another man going
out to bring me news--taking all that trouble--a stranger that is
nothing to us--and my own boys, my own boys caring nothing.” Over this
again the poor soul, faithful in all the devices of self-torment, shed a
few bitter tears.
“Now, mother, you are beginning to fuss again,” said Joan, in a vexed
tone. “Dear, dear, haven’t we trouble enough?” Even she who shared the
real family grief so warmly thought this one of “mother’s fusses,” and
was impatient at her folly. “As if everybody didn’t know that Will and
Tom were just----Will and Tom,” Joan said to herself. That they had
turned out to be so instead of being heroes, did not strike her as a
subject of complaint.
Mr. Selby was gone three days. The mission he had undertaken soon showed
itself to be more difficult than he thought. Harry had gone away without
leaving a trace behind him. He had appeared at the office for an hour or
two quite unexpectedly before his leave had expired, and paid a few
small debts, and taken away some small articles which were in his desk,
disappearing again without a word as to his destination. At his lodgings
Harry had not been seen at all. His portmanteau was there, forlorn in
the dusky lobby of the lodging-house, and the unfortunate hamper, out of
which odours not altogether delightful were proceeding, and which the
mistress of the house implored Mr. Selby to take away with him. He did
not know what to do: finally, but with great secrecy, that his
principals might not be offended, he put a detective on Harry’s track,
such as it was. But there seemed no track, not so much as a circle in
the water or a footprint upon the soil, to show where he had gone. Selby
had gone to Liverpool with great confidence in himself; pleased, for he
had a good heart, to please and console these two women; but also
pleased, for his own part, to show at once how kind and how clever he
was. He had not a doubt that he would succeed and go back triumphant,
and prove himself so superior to all the clowns about, that Joan could
have no further hesitation; and it was in this confidence, being so sure
that the work he had taken up would be prosperous, that he had set out
upon his mission. But when he returned his mind was very different; he
was greatly depressed, not only with the sense that what he had to tell
was unsatisfactory, but that his own prestige would be seriously
impaired. He had left home with the conviction that he would find
everything out and set everything right; that neither would adverse fate
be able to baffle him in the wisdom of his investigations, nor Harry be
able to resist his brotherly-fatherly representations. And when Philip
Selby found nothing but a blank void, in which there was nobody to
persuade and remonstrate with, he felt himself tumble down from the
vantage ground which he had thought so certain. How was he to go back
and say he had failed? His detectives had indeed done their best to buoy
him up with hope; but he was obliged to come back with no news,
presenting a very blank countenance to the anxious looks of the mother
and sister. The first sight of him sent their hearts down, down to the
very depths.
“He is not there, Mrs. Joscelyn; but I hope soon to hear news of him,”
he said deprecating, as if it had been his fault--which was not the
satisfactory position he had hoped to hold in coming back.
And then the fact had to be faced in all its simplicity. Harry had
disappeared. The firm could throw no light on the question. They did not
know where he had gone, nor why he had gone. He had gone honourably,
that was all, had got payment of the salary which was due to him, and
had settled various little debts which he was owing. Nobody knew
anything of larger liabilities, if he had them. He was gone absolutely,
without leaving a trace behind. His employers were surprised by the
inquiries, not giving much importance as yet to the fact that he had
exceeded his time of leave; but they could give no information, and
satisfy no anxiety. He was gone, that was all about it. The whole tale
was written in Selby’s face to the two anxious women who had awaited him
with so much hope.