“Till now thy soul hath been all glad and gay,
Bid it arise and look on grief to-day.”
ADELAIDE PROCTOR.
THERE was a Guild at St. Kenelm’s which was considered by the promoters
to be superior to the Girls’ Friendly Society, and which comprised about
a dozen young women, who attended classes held by Sister Beata, and
occasional modest entertainments given by Lady Flight.
One of these was to take place the day before Miss Prescott’s garden
party. It was to be given at Carrara, the very pretty grounds on the top
of the cliff, belonging to Captain Henderson, the managing partner in the
extensive marble works of Mr. White, who lived at Rocca Marina, in the
Riviera. Mrs. Henderson had resided in Mr. Flight’s parish, and been a
member of his congregation, and while he was absent for a day or two she
had put her garden at the service of the Guild of St. Milburga’s for the
day.
Of course Vera and Paula were delighted to assist; but Thekla was too
young for the amusements of grown-up maidens, and was much better pleased
to help her two elder sisters in preparations for the next day, placing
tennis nets, arranging croquet hoops, mustering chairs by the verandah,
and adorning tables with flowers. Agatha’s assistance was heartily
given, as making it her own concern, and, for that reason above all
others, it was a happy day, though a very tiring one, to Magdalen, in
spite of the sultry atmosphere and the sight of lurid-looking clouds over
the moors, which did not augur well for the next day’s weather, and
caused all the arrangement of chairs and rugs to be prudently broken up
and deposited under the verandah.
This was done, and the evening meal had been taken, and Thekla had gone
to bed before some flashes of lightning made the two sisters wish to see
the other pair at home, especially as Vera was much afraid of lightning,
and Paula apt to be made quite ill by it.
The storm rolled on, bringing violent gusts of wind and hail, though not
at the very nearest, and such a hurricane of wind and rain ensued that
the two watchers concluded that the two girls must have been housed for
the night by some of the friends at Rock Quay, and it was near midnight,
when just as they had gone to their rooms, a carriage was heard ascending
the hill, and they had reached the door before Paulina sprang out with
the cry, “Is she come home?” Then at sight of the blank faces of dismay,
she seized hold of Agatha’s hands and began to sob. Mr. Flight had
stepped out of the car at the same moment, and answered the incoherent
questions and exclamations.
“Young Delrio offered to take photographs of the party, and that was the
last time she was seen.”
“Yes,” sobbed Paula, “Sister Mena saw her there. We were trying to get
up croquet, and then I missed her. I tried to find her when the
lightning began, but I could not find her anywhere, though I looked in
all the summer-houses!”
“At Mrs. Henderson’s? or Miss Mohun’s? or the Sisters’?” asked Magdalen,
catching alarm from each denial. “She might have gone home with one of
the girls.”
“She would be wild in such a storm,” said Agatha, “and not know what she
was about.”
“Sister Beata and I have gone to each house,” said Mr. Flight.
“When did you say you saw her last?”
“I saw her when we were grouped,” said Paula; “Sister Mena, when she was
helping him to put up his photos.”
“The strange thing is,” said Mr. Flight, “though no doubt it will be
explained, that Delrio is missing too.”
“Hubert Delrio!” exclaimed Agatha. “Impossible! He must have taken her
into the church to be out of the storm.”
“We have tried,” said the clergyman. And as the round of suggestions
began to be despairingly reiterated, he said, hesitating, “Miss Mohun
told me that she thought she had seen a boat, Captain Henderson’s, she
believed, in the cave with some one rocking in it; and certainly that
little boat was there, when on the hope, if it can be called a hope, I
ran down the steps to look.”
“Would it not have been put into the boathouse out of the rain?” said
Agatha.
“The gardener was gone home, out of reach round the point, but we shall
know to-morrow.”
“He thinks they may have rowed out and been caught in the storm,” cried
Paula, bursting into fresh weeping; and Magdalen saw the conjecture
confirmed by Mr. Flight’s countenance.
“I am afraid it is the least distressing—the least unsatisfactory idea,”
said he, in much agitation. “I thought Mr. Delrio an excellent young
man; and she,” indicating his companion, “tells me you know him and his
family well.”
“Oh, yes,” said Agatha and Magdalen in one breath. “We have known his
father all our lives. Nothing can be more respectable.”
“And Hubert is as steady and good as possible,” continued Agatha. “His
mother used to come to Mrs. Best and praise him, till we were quite tired
of his name; I am sure he is all right.”
“Or I should be much deceived in him,” said the clergyman.
Yet there was an idea in Paulina’s mind. Could Vera have poured out such
an exaggerated tale of oppression and unhappiness as to have induced her
old playfellow to carry her off to his mother at Filsted? She had given
some such hint to Mr. Flight on the way; but he had not seemed to hear or
attend, and he was now promising to let the sisters know as soon as
possible in the morning whether anything had been discovered, and to
telegraph to Filsted and to the office in London if he should see
occasion.
Then he drove off, in what would have been almost daylight but for the
pelting of the storm; and after a vain attempt to make Paula swallow some
nourishment, Magdalen thought it kinder to let Agatha carry her off to
bed, and then she confessed, what really gave a certain hope, that the
pair had been in the habit of murmuring against “sister” so much that,
considering poor Vera’s propensity to strong language, it was quite
possible that Hubert might think her cruelly oppressed, and for a freak
carry her off to his mother to be consoled.
Agatha tried to believe it, for the sake of hushing the exhausted Paula,
who almost went into hysterics, as she laughed at the notion of
to-morrow’s telegram that Vera was safe at Filsted; and then allowed
herself to be calmed enough to sleep, while Agatha revolved the notion,
but found herself unable seriously to believe, that sufficient grievance
could be brought against sister to induce any man in his senses to take
such a step. But then Paula had inferred that he was a lover, and Agatha
did not know of what lovers might be capable, and she could not but blame
herself for not having given more importance to the semi-confidences of
her sisters on the first day of her arrival. It was all misery; and the
two poor girls could find no solace in the morning, save in talking to
Magdalen, though that involved the confession of all the murmurs against
her, the distrust of her kindness, and the explanation of the interviews,
which, as far as Paula had ever witnessed them, were absolutely harmless,
the only pity being in their concealment.
Magdalen was manifestly as wretched as they, or even more so, being
convinced of her own shortcoming in not having won the affection or
confidence that would have made all open between them. She could not
understand why Hubert Delrio should not have been made known to her.
“We thought,” said Paula, “we thought you might not think him
enough—enough—of a gentleman for your sort of society.”
“I think you might have trusted me to know what was due to an old
friend,” said Magdalen “but, oh, I ought to have made you feel that we
could think together.”
“Perhaps,” said Agatha, “there was a little consciousness on poor dear
Vera’s part that she did not want you to know the terms she was on.”
They had tried only to let Thekla know that they were much alarmed
because Vera had gone out in a boat and not returned. It was observable
that, on the principle that where there is life there is hope, Paula
clung to the notion that Vera’s having fled to Filsted; while the two
elder sisters, perhaps because they better knew what such a flight might
seem to others, would almost have preferred to suppose there had been a
fatal accident in the midst of youthful, innocent sport.
The two were lingering sadly over their uneaten breakfast, talking more
freely when they had sent Thekla to feed her pets, when Mr. Flight came
up on his bicycle; but it was plain at the first moment that he had no
good news.
Nothing had been heard. It only appeared that one of the young gardeners
at Carrara had taken Captain Henderson’s boat without leave, to fetch one
of the girls, but on entering the cove had found the boathouse locked.
He had moored the boat to a stake for want of the ring that secured it
within. When the storm threatened he ran down to recover it, but it was
gone, and he had concluded that the gardeners had put it into the
boathouse. It now appeared that they had not seen it, and were very
angry at its having been meddled with. An oar had drifted up with the
morning tide, and had been recognised as belonging to the boat; but such
a gale was blowing that it was impossible to put out to sea or make any
search round the coast. Words could hardly describe the distress of Mr.
Flight or of his ladies at not having better looked after the young girl;
Sister Beata for never having thoroughly attended to the matter; and
Sister Mena for having accepted confidences which, if she had only
guessed it, told her more than there really was to be known. Both these
two were inclined to the elopement idea, partly because it was the least
shocking, and partly because they had looked at Vera’s grievances through
her own spectacles, and partly from their unlimited notions of young
men’s wickedness. Their vicar was not of the same opinion, knowing
Hubert better, and besides having found his work, his orders to his
subordinates, and the belongings at the lodgings in a state that showed
that whatever he had done had been unpremeditated. Sending off notes to
stop the garden party was a sort of occupation, broken by many signs,
much listening, and much sorrowful discussion, not quite vain, since it
made Paulina more one with Magdalen than ever before. Poor old Mr.
Delrio arrived in the afternoon, a thin, grey-haired and bearded old man,
who could only make it too certain that Paula’s theory of the innocent
flight to Filsted was impossible. Moreover, he was as certain as a
father could be, intimate with, and therefore confident of, his eldest
son, that though Hubert might indulge in a little lively flirtation, it
could never be otherwise than perfectly harmless. In the terrible
suspense and restlessness, he went vibrating about in the torrents of
moorland rain between Rock Quay and the Goyle, on the watch for telegrams
from the office in London or his wife at home, or for the discovery of
anything from the sea, or searching in his son’s lodgings, where nothing
was found that did not show him to have been a pure-hearted young man,
devoted to his art, and fond of poetry. Sundry compositions were in the
blotting-book, one, indeed, to Vera’s name, under the supposition (a
wrong one) {100} that it meant “true,” but mostly rough copies of a poem
about the Saints Julitta and her child Cyriac. Hope sank as another
stormy day rose; and still the poor old artist lingered in hopes of news
by some returning craft which might have picked up the derelict. His
chief comfort was in walking about between the showers with Magdalen, as
an old friend, and trying to think of the two as innocent creatures,
engulfed like mayflies in the stream.
Sister Mena came over, wanting to join Paula in bewailing entreaties; but
Paula, in youthful hard-hearted wilfulness, declared that it was
impossible to see her; and it fell to Magdalen to try to discuss the
grief with her.
It turned out that Mr. Flight had spoken severely to her and to the far
less implicated Sister Beata, declaring his confidence in them destroyed,
so that they had begun to consider of throwing up their work in his
parish. “And it was all my fault,” said Mena; “Sister Beata really knew
nothing, or hardly anything of what Vera told me.”
“Indeed, I can quite understand that you had hardly experience enough to
know that it might be wiser not to encourage what was not quite open.”
“But I thought,—I thought you—”
“That I was unkind and unsympathising.”
“Oh, you never could have been—”
“Indeed I never meant to be, but I am afraid it seemed so to my young
sisters. I can quite see how you thought you were acting kindly.”
“Oh, that is so good of you.”
“And perhaps I, being only an elder sister, you would not feel that I was
the only authority the poor girls have to look to; and that it would have
been kinder to help them to be content with me.”
“I did not know what you could be,” said Mena, greatly soothed and
surprised by her caresses.
“We often do go on in ignorance, and get on a wrong tack; but you know
God pardons our mistakes, and I do believe that you will be wiser for all
this sorrow, and better able to rise to your work. I am sure, however it
ends, that is the reason that such blows are sent to us.”
Mena went back sorrowful and chastened, but tenderly hopeful. If Miss
Prescott could forgive, surely Mr. Flight could, and One still greater.