"WHERE'S GWEN?"
Not for long are the companion and curate permitted to carry on the
confidential dialogue, in which they had become interested. Too
disagreeably soon is it interrupted by a third personage appearing upon
the scene. Miss Linton has at length succeeded in dragging herself out
of the embrace of the somnolent divinity, and enters the breakfast room,
supported by her French _femme de chambre_.
Graciously saluting Mr. Musgrave, she moves towards the table's head,
where an antique silver urn sends up its curling steam--flanked by tea
and coffee pot, with contents already prepared for pouring into their
respectively shaped cups. Taking her seat, she asks:
"Where's Gwen?"
"Not down yet," meekly responds Miss Lees; "at least, I haven't seen
anything of her."
"Ah! she beats us all to-day," remarks the ancient toast of Cheltenham,
"in being late," she adds, with a laugh at her little _jeu d'esprit_.
"Usually such an early riser, too. I don't remember having ever been up
before her. Well, I suppose she's fatigued, poor thing!--quite done up.
No wonder, after dancing so much, and with everybody."
"Not everybody, aunt!" says her companion, with a significant emphasis
on the everybody. "There was one gentleman she never danced with all the
night. Wasn't it a little strange?" This in a whisper, and aside.
"Ah! true. You mean Captain Ryecroft?"
"Yes."
"It was a little strange. I observed it myself. She seemed distant with
him, and he with her. Have you any idea of the reason, Nelly?"
"Not in the least. Only I fancy something must have come between them."
"The usual thing; lovers' tiff, I suppose. Ah, I've seen a great many of
them in my time. How silly men and women are--when they're in love! Are
they not, Mr. Musgrave?"
The curate answers in the affirmative, but somewhat confusedly, and
blushing, as he imagines it may be a thrust at himself.
"Of the two," proceeds the garrulous spinster, "men are the most foolish
under such circumstances. No!" she exclaims, contradicting
herself--"when I think of it, no. I've seen ladies, high-born, and with
titles, half beside themselves about Beau Brummel, distractedly
quarrelling as to which should dance with him! Beau Brummel, who ended
his days in a low lodging-house! Ha! ha! ha!"
There is a _soupcon_ of spleen in the tone of Miss Linton's laughter, as
though she had herself once felt the fascinations of the redoubtable
dandy.
"What could be more ridiculous?" she goes on. "When one looks back upon
it, the very extreme of absurdity. Well," taking hold of the
_cafetiere_, and filling her cup, "it's time for that young lady to be
downstairs. If she hasn't been lying awake ever since the people went
off, she should be well rested by this. Bless me," glancing at the
ormolu dial over the mantel, "it's after eleven, Clarisse," to the
_femme de chambre_, still in attendance; "tell Miss Wynn's maid to say
to her mistress we're waiting breakfast. _Veet, tray veet!_" she
concludes, with a pronunciation and accent anything but Parisian.
Off trips the French demoiselle, and upstairs; almost instantly
returning down them, Miss Wynn's maid along, with a report which
startles the trio at the breakfast table. It is the English damsel who
delivers it in the vernacular.
"Miss Gwen isn't in her room; nor hasn't been all the night long."
Miss Linton is in the act of removing the top from a guinea-fowl's egg,
as the maid makes the announcement. Were it a bomb bursting between her
fingers, the surprise could not be more sudden or complete.
Dropping egg and cup, in stark astonishment, she demands:
"What do you mean, Gibbons?"
Gibbons is the girl's name.
"Oh, ma'am! just what I've said."
"Say it again. I can't believe my ears."
"That Miss Gwen hasn't slept in her room."
"And where has she slept?"
"The goodness only knows."
"But you ought to know. You're her maid--you undressed her."
"I did not, I am sorry to say," stammered out the girl, confused and
self-accused; "very sorry I didn't."
"And why didn't you, Gibbons? Explain that."
Thus brought to book, the peccant Gibbons confesses to what has occurred
in all its details. No use concealing aught--it must come out anyhow.
"And you're quite sure she has not slept in her room?" interrogates Miss
Linton, as yet unable to realize a circumstance so strange and
unexpected.
"Oh, yes, ma'am. The bed hasn't been lied upon by anybody--neither
sheets or coverlet disturbed. And there's her nightdress over the chair,
just as I laid it out for her."
"Very strange," exclaims Miss Linton; "positively alarming."
For all, the old lady is not alarmed yet--at least, not to any great
degree. Llangorren Court is a "house of many mansions," and can boast of
a half-score spare bedrooms. And she, now its mistress, is a creature of
many caprices. Just possible she has indulged in one after the
dancing--entered the first sleeping apartment that chanced in her way,
flung herself on a bed or sofa in her ball dress, fallen asleep, and is
there still slumbering.
"Search them all!" commands Miss Linton, addressing a variety of
domestics, whom the ringing of bells has brought around her.
They scatter off in different directions, Miss Lees along with them.
"It's very extraordinary. Don't you think so?"
This to the curate, the only one remaining in the room with her.
"I do, decidedly. Surely no harm has happened her. I trust not. How
could there?"
"True, how? Still, I'm a little apprehensive, and won't feel satisfied
till I see her. How my heart does palpitate, to be sure!"
She lays her spread palm over the cardiac region, with an expression
less of pain, than the affectation of it.
"Well, Eleanor," she calls out to the companion, re-entering the room
with Gibbons behind. "What news?"
"Not any, aunt."
"And you really think she hasn't slept in her room?"
"Almost sure she hasn't. The bed, as Gibbons told you, has never been
touched, nor the sofa. Besides, the dress she wore last night isn't
there."
"Nor anywhere else, ma'am," puts in the maid; about such matters
specially intelligent. "As you know, 'twas the sky-blue silk, with
blonde lace over-skirt, and flower-de-loose on it. I've looked
everywhere, and can't find a thing she had on--not so much as a ribbon!"
The other searchers are now returning in rapid succession, all with a
similar tale. No word of the missing one--neither sign nor trace of her.
At length the alarm is serious and real, reaching fever height. Bells
ring, and servants are sent in every direction. They go rushing about,
no longer confining their search to the sleeping apartments, but
extending it to rooms where only lumber has place--to cellars almost
unexplored, garrets long unvisited, everywhere. Closet and cupboard
doors are drawn open, screens dashed aside, and panels parted, with keen
glances sent through the chinks. Just as in the baronial castle, and on
that same night when young Lovel lost his "own fair bride."
And while searching for their young mistress, the domestics of
Llangorren Court have the romantic tale in their minds. Not one of them
but knows the fine old song of the "Mistletoe Bough." Male and
female--all have heard it sung in that same house, at every
Christmas-tide, under the "kissing bush," where the pale green branch
and its waxen berries were conspicuous.
It needs not the mystic memory to stimulate them to zealous exertions.
Respect for their young mistress--with many of them almost adoration--is
enough; and they search as if for sister, wife, or child, according to
their feelings and attachments.
In vain--all in vain. Though certain that no "old oak chest" inside the
walls of Llangorren Court encloses a form destined to become a skeleton,
they cannot find Gwen Wynn. Dead or living, she is not in the house.