A MYSTERY.
Which of the three wore the deepest tint, the darkest blue--the skies,
the hills, or the lake? Each was of a different shade, but all were blue
and beautiful; and on all lay the aspect of complete repose. The two
ladies, in that little garden near the Hotel des Bergues, Rousseau's
Island, as it is called, and which you who have sojourned in Geneva
remember well, looking out over the lake at the solitary boat bearing
away towards the right, noticed that no other object broke the
prospect's stillness. It was scarcely a day for a row on Geneva's lake.
Not a breath of air arose to counteract the vivid heat of the August
sun; hot and shadeless he poured forth his overpowering blaze; and,
lovely as the lake is, favoured by nature and renowned in poetry, it was
more lovely that day to look at than to glide upon.
So thought the gentleman in that solitary boat, our friend Mr. David
Dundyke--or, let us give him the title he had of late aspired to, David
Dundyke, Esquire. He felt, to use his own words, "piping hot;" he sat on
one side of the boat, and the sun burnt his back; he changed to the
other, and it blistered his face; he tried the stern, and the sun seemed
to be all round him. He looked up at the Jura, with a vain longing that
they might be transported from their site to where they could screen him
from his hot tormentor: he turned and gazed at the Alps, and wished he
could see on them a shady place, and that he was in it; but, wherever he
looked and turned, the sun seemed to blind and to scorch him. Some
people, clayey mortals though the best of us are, might have found
poetry, or food for it, in all that lay around; but David Dundyke had no
poetry in his heart, still less in his head. He glanced, with listless,
half-shut eyes, at the two men who were rowing him along; and began to
wonder how any men could be induced to row, that burning day, even to
obtain a portion of the world's idol--money. David Dundyke cared not,
not he, for the scenery around; he never cared for anything in his life
that was not substantial and tangible. What was the common scenery of
nature to him, since it could not add to his wealth or enhance his
importance?--and that was all the matter at _his_ heart. He had never
looked at it all the way from London to Geneva; he did not look at that
around him now. Geneva itself, its lovely surrounding villas, its
picturesque lake, the glorious chain of mountains on either side, even
Mont Blanc in the distance, were as nothing to him. For some days after
his arrival at Geneva, the mountain had remained obstinately enshrouded
in clouds; but one evening that he and his wife were walking outside the
town with Mr. Hardcastle, it was pointed out to him, standing proudly
forth in all its beauty; and he had stared at it with just as much
interest as he would have done at the hill in Greenwich Park covered
with snow. He had seen the lovely colour, the dark, brilliant blue of
the Rhone's waters, as they escaped from the lake to mingle with those
of the thick, turbulent Arve; and he did not care to notice the contrast
in the streams. There were no associations in his mind connected with
that fair azure lake, whence coursed the one; he had no curiosity as to
the never-changing glaciers that were the source of the other.
But, had Mr. Dundyke's soul been wholly given up to poetry and
sentiment, it would have been lost that day in the overpowering heat. He
bore it as long as he could, and then suddenly told the men to bear to
the right and put him on shore. This movement had been observed by Mr.
Hardcastle, from the little island, as you may remember. The men, not
sorry perhaps to be off the lake themselves, inured though they were to
Geneva's August sun, made speedily for a shady place, and landed him.
"Ah! this is pleasant," exclaimed Mr. Dundyke, throwing himself at full
length on the cool and shady grass. "It is quite Heaven, this is, after
that horrid burning lake." The two boatmen laid on their oars and
rested.
"How thirsty it has made me!" he resumed, "I could drink the lake dry.
What a luxury some iced wine would be now! And ice is so cheap and
plentiful up at the hotel yonder. Suppose I send the boat back for Mr.
Hardcastle, and the two women? And tell 'em it's Paradise, sitting here,
in comparison with the hot hotel; and drop in a hint about the iced
wine? He will be sure to take it, and be glad of the excuse. The women
would find it rather of the ratherest for heat, coming across the lake,
but charming when they got here. 'Tain't far, and their complexions are
not of the spoiling sort. Mrs. D.'s ain't of no particular colour at all
just now, except red; and t'other's is like chalk. Oh! let 'em risk it."
Taking out his silver pencil-case (as the men deposed to subsequently)
he tore a leaf from his pocket-book, scribbled a few lines on it, and
folding it, directed it to ---- Hardcastle, Esquire: and it had never
occurred to Mr. Dundyke until that moment, and the fact struck him as a
singular one, that he was ignorant of ---- Hardcastle, Esquire's
Christian name. The men received the note and their orders, and then
prepared to push off.
"We com back when we have give dis; com back for de jontilmans?" asked
the one who spoke English.
"Come back! of course you are to come back," responded the
common-councilman. "How am I to get home, else? But you are to bring the
two ladies and the gentleman, and some ice and some wine; and to look
sharp about it. Take care that the bottles don't get broke in the boat."
The men rowed away, leaving Mr. Dundyke lying there. They made good
speed to the Hotel des Bergues, according to orders, but were told that
neither Mr. nor Mrs. Hardcastle was in. This caused a delay of two good
hours. The boatmen lingered near the door of the hotel, waiting; and at
last one of the waiters bethought himself that the ladies might be on
Rousseau's Island. There they were found, and Mrs. Hardcastle read the
note.
"What do you say?" she asked, tossing it to Mrs. Dundyke. "Shall we go?"
"But where is Mr. Hardcastle, ma'am?"
"Who's to know? He may be gone round to meet your husband. He saw the
probable spot the boat was making for. We may as well go. Perhaps they
are both waiting for us. Waiter," continued Mrs. Hardcastle, in her
customary imperious manner, "let some wine be placed in the boat, and
plenty of ice."
Under cover of umbrellas, the two ladies were rowed across the hot lake
to the place where the men had left Mr. Dundyke. But no trace of that
gentleman could now be seen; and they sat down in the shade to cool
their heated faces, glad of the respite. Mrs. Hardcastle helped herself
to some wine and ice, and Mrs. Dundyke presently took her work out of
her pocket.
"How industrious you are!" exclaimed the idle woman. "What do you say
the embroidery is for? A shirt front?"
Mrs. Dundyke displayed her work. It was for a shirt-front, and the
embroidery was beautiful. She was doing two of them, she said. Her
husband would require them during his shrievalty.
"I'd not take such trouble for my husband, though he were made king
to-morrow," exclaimed Mrs. Hardcastle.
After making that remark she took some more wine, and subsequently
dropped asleep. Mrs. Dundyke, engaged in her labour of love, for she
loved both the work itself and him who was to wear it, let the time slip
on unconsciously. It was only when the afternoon shadows struck on her
view as becoming long, when the sun had changed his place from one part
of the heavens to another, that a vague feeling of alarm stole over her.
"Where _can_ he be? What is the time?"
She spoke aloud. Mrs. Hardcastle started at the words, and stared to see
how the day had gone on. She, Mrs. Hardcastle, was the first to call out
the name of Mr. Dundyke. She called it several times, and she had a
loud, coarse, harsh voice; but only echo answered her. The boatmen woke
up from their slumbers, and shouted in their patois, but there came no
response from Mr. Dundyke. A sickening fear, whose very intensity made
her heart cold, rushed over Mrs. Dundyke. Her hands shook; the red of
her face turned to pallor.
"Why, you never mean to say you are alarmed!" exclaimed Mrs. Hardcastle,
looking at her in surprise.
"No--no, ma'am, not exactly alarmed," returned poor Mrs. Dundyke, half
ashamed to confess to the feeling. But her quivering lips gave the lie
to her words. "I do think it strange he should go away, knowing he had
sent for us. I was quite easy at first, thinking he had gone to sleep
somewhere, overpowered with the heat. There is no danger, I suppose,
that--that--anyone could fall into the water from this spot?"
There was certainly no danger of that: and the boatmen laughed at the
notion, for the bank and the water were at that place nearly on a level.
"A man might walk in if he felt so inclined," observed Mrs. Hardcastle,
jestingly, "but he could scarcely enter it in any other manner. And your
husband is not one to cut short his life for pleasure."
Not he, indeed! Never a man less likely to make his own quietus than
plain practical David Dundyke, with his future aspirations and his
harmless ambition. His wife knew that the Lord Mayor's chair, shining in
the distant vista, would alone have kept him from plunging head foremost
into the most tempting lake that ever bubbled in the sunlight.
"There is no marvel about it," said Mrs. Hardcastle. "The boatmen were
kept two hours at the hotel, remember, before we were found, and Mr.
Dundyke naturally grew tired of waiting, and went away, thinking we
should not come."
"But where can he be?" cried Mrs. Dundyke. "What has he done with
himself?"
"He has gone back by land. There was no other course for him, if he
thought--as he no doubt did think--that the boatman had misunderstood
his orders and would not return."
"But, ma'am, he does not know his way back."
"Not know it! Instinct would tell it him. He has only to keep the lake
on his right, and follow his nose; he would soon be in Geneva."
It was so probable a solution of the mystery, that Mrs. Dundyke had been
unreasonable not to adopt it; indeed she was glad to do it; and they got
into the boat, and were rowed back again, expecting Mr. Dundyke would be
at the hotel. But they did not find him there. And it was nearly five
o'clock then.
"That's nothing," said Mrs. Hardcastle. "The day is so hot he would take
his time walking. My husband has not been in either, it seems. Rely upon
it they have met and are together; they have turned into some cool
cafe."
The ladies went upstairs together, each into her respective chamber: it
has been said that the rooms joined. But that undefined dread, amounting
to a positive agony, weighed still on the spirits of Mrs. Dundyke. She
could not rest. Mrs. Hardcastle was attiring herself for dinner; not so
Mrs. Dundyke; she stood at the door peeping out, hoping to see her
husband appear in the long corridor. While thus looking, there came,
creeping up the stairs, Mr. Hardcastle, stealing along, as it seemed to
Mrs. Dundyke, to shun observation, his boots white, as if he had walked
much in the dusty roads, his face scratched, and one of his fingers
sprained (as she learnt afterwards) and bound up with a handkerchief.
"Oh, sir!" she cried, darting forward in high excitement, "where is he?
where is Mr. Dundyke? What has happened to him?"
Mr. Hardcastle stood for a moment transfixed, and, unless Mrs. Dundyke
was strangely mistaken, his face changed colour. She associated no
suspicion with that pallor _then_; she but thought of her own ill
manners in accosting him so abruptly.
"What of your husband?" he asked, rallying himself. "_I_ don't know
anything of him. Is he not in?"
Mrs. Dundyke explained. Mrs. Hardcastle, hearing their voices, came out
of her room and helped her.
"Is that all?" exclaimed Mr. Hardcastle, when he had listened, and his
tone was one of indifference. "Oh, he will soon be back. If he is not
in, in time for dinner, Mrs. Dundyke, you can go down with us. Don't
alarm yourself."
"But have you not seen him?--not been with him?" urged poor Mrs.
Dundyke.
"I have never seen him since breakfast."
"We thought you might have walked round by the shore to join him, as you
saw this morning where the boat was making for," remarked Mrs.
Hardcastle.
He turned savagely upon her, his eyes glaring like a tiger's.
"No, madam," he said, with concentrated passion, "none save a fool would
undertake such a walk to-day. I have been in the town, executing various
commissions," he added, changing his tone, and addressing Mrs. Dundyke,
"and a pretty accident I had nearly met with: in avoiding a restive
horse on the dusty quays, I slipped down, with my face on some flint
stones."
Mrs. Dundyke would not go down to dinner, but Mrs. Hardcastle fetched
her into her own room afterwards, and ordered tea brought up, and they
were both very kind to her, buoying up her spirits, and laughing at her
fears. Her husband had only lost his way, they urged, and would be home
fast enough by morning--a rare joke they would have with him about
running away, when he did come.
It was eleven o'clock when Mrs. Dundyke wished them good night, and
retired to her chamber, feeling like one more dead than alive. It is
probable that few of us can form any adequate idea of her sensations.
But for that horrible, mysterious dread, which seemed to have come upon
her without sufficient cause, the mere absence of her husband ought not
so very much to have alarmed her. She felt a conviction, sure and
certain, that some dreadful fate had overtaken him; and, in that dread
torture of suspense, she would have given her own life up the next
moment, oh, how willingly, to see him return.
She stood at the open window of her room, leaning far out of it, hoping
to see him come round the corner of the street, (stay, not so much
hoping as _wishing_,) foot-sore and travel-worn, having lost his way and
found it again. She wondered whether anyone was still up, to let him in,
if he did come; if not, she would steal downstairs herself, and work at
the door fastenings until she undid them. It was with great difficulty,
exercising the very utmost self-control, that she stopped where she was,
that she did not go out into the streets, searching for him.
While thus thinking, Mrs. Dundyke became aware that strange sounds were
proceeding from the next room, though not at first had she heeded them.
A fearful quarrel appeared to be taking place between Mr. and Mrs.
Hardcastle, and Mrs. Dundyke drew back and closed her window in tremor.
Its substance she could not hear, did not wish to hear; but wild sobs
and reproaches seemed to come from the lady, and sharp words, not
unmixed with oaths, from the gentleman. Twice Mrs. Dundyke heard her
husband's name mentioned, or her own ("Dundyke"); and the quarrel seemed
to have reference to him. One sentence of Mr. Hardcastle's came
distinctly on her ear, apparently in answer to some threat or reproach;
it was to the effect that Mrs. Hardcastle might leave him as soon as she
pleased; might take her departure then, in the midnight hour. After
awhile the anger appeared to subside, silence supervened, and Mrs.
Dundyke watched through the live-long night. But her husband did not
come.
With the morning Mrs. Hardcastle came to her. She said they had received
letters which must cause them to depart for Genoa, where they found
their remitted money had really been sent.
"But, ma'am," urged poor Mrs. Dundyke, "surely Mr. Hardcastle will not
go and leave me alone in this dreadful uncertainty!"
"He intends to stay until the evening; he will not leave you a moment
earlier than he is obliged. Perhaps your husband will make his
appearance this morning."
In the course of the morning, Mr. Hardcastle went with the two boatmen
to the place where they had landed Mr. Dundyke on the previous day, and
a gentleman named by the proprietor of the hotel accompanied them; but
not the slightest trace of him could be found, though some hours were
spent in exploring. In the evening, by the six o'clock diligence, Mr.
and Mrs. Hardcastle left Geneva, the former handing to Mrs. Dundyke an
order upon the house in London, Hardcastle and Co., for the twenty
pounds he had borrowed of her husband. He regretted, he said, his
inability to furnish her, then, with any funds she might require, but he
had barely sufficient to carry himself and wife to Genoa. If Mrs.
Dundyke approved, he would, with the greatest pleasure, forward from
that city any sum she chose to name; for, being known there, his credit
was unlimited. Mrs. Dundyke declined his offer, with thanks: she
reflected that, if her husband returned, he would have his money with
him; and in the event of his mysterious absence being prolonged, she
might as well write home for money as borrow it from Mr. Hardcastle at
Genoa. She wondered, but did not presume to ask, how he had procured
funds for his own journey, and to discharge his hotel bill, which he
paid before starting.
"Keep up your spirits, Mrs. Dundyke," he cheeringly said as he shook
hands with her at parting. "Depend upon it, your husband will come home,
and bring some good reason for his absence; and if it were not that I am
compelled--compelled by business--to go on to Genoa, I would not leave
you."
She sat down as if some cold shiver had seized upon her heart. It was in
her own room that this farewell was spoken; and in that one moment, as
he released her hand, and his peculiar eyes rested on her in the
parting, and then were lost sight of, it flashed into her mind where she
had seen those eyes before. They were the eyes she had once so shrunk
from at Westerbury; at least, they bore the same expression--Benjamin
Carr's.
Mrs. Dundyke's pulses quickened, and she clasped her hands. For one
single moment a doubt arose to her whether Mr. Hardcastle could be Mr.
Hardcastle--whether he was not an impostor, Benjamin Carr, or any other,
travelling under a false name; and a whole host of trifling incidents,
puzzles to her hitherto, arose to her mind as if in confirmation. But
the doubt did not last. That he was really anybody but the great Mr.
Hardcastle--head, under his uncle, of the great house of Hardcastle and
Co.--she did not believe. As to the resemblance in the eyes to those of
Benjamin Carr, she concluded it must be accidental; and of Benjamin
Carr's features she retained no recollection. She opened the order he
had given her to receive the twenty pounds, and found it was signed "B.
Hardcastle:" no Christian name in full. Mrs. Dundyke dismissed all
doubts from her memory, and continued to believe implicitly in Mr.
Hardcastle.
It was, perhaps, a somewhat curious coincidence--at least, you may deem
it so, as events go on--that on this same evening an English clergyman
should arrive at Geneva, and put up at the hotel. It was the Rev.
Wheeler Prattleton, who was visiting Switzerland in pursuance of his
intentions (as you once heard mention of), accompanied by his eldest
daughter. The strange disappearance of Mr. Dundyke had caused some stir
in the hotel, and the clergyman was told of it.
"It is an uncommon name, papa--Dundyke," observed Miss Prattleton. "Do
you think it can be the Dundykes who are relatives of Mrs. Arkell's?"
"What Dundykes?" returned Mr. Prattleton, his memory on these points not
so retentive as his daughter's. "Has Mrs. Arkell relatives of the name?"
"Oh, papa, you forget. Mrs. Arkell's sister is a Mrs. Dundyke. I have
often heard Travice Arkell speak of her; he calls her Aunt Betsey. They
live in London."
"We will ascertain, Mary," said Mr. Prattleton, his sympathies aroused.
"If this lady should prove to be Mrs. Arkell's sister, we must do all we
can for her."
It was very soon ascertained, for the clergyman at once sent up his
card, and requested an interview with Mrs. Dundyke. Mr. Prattleton threw
himself completely into the affair, and became almost painfully
interested in it. He believed, as did all others, that nothing serious
had occurred, but that from some unaccountable cause Mr. Dundyke
remained absent--perhaps from temporary illness or accident; and every
hour, as the days went on, was his return looked for. Mary Prattleton
had the room vacated by the Hardcastles, Mr. Prattleton had one on the
same floor; and their presence was of the very greatest comfort to poor,
lonely, bereaved Mrs. Dundyke.
"Mary, I cannot tell you how I like her!" Mr. Prattleton impulsively
exclaimed to his daughter. "She is a true lady; but so unobtrusive, so
simple, so humble--there are few like her."
All the means they could think of were put in force to endeavour to
obtain some clue to Mr. Dundyke, and to the circumstances of his
disappearance. Mr. Prattleton took the conduct of the search upon
himself. A Swiss peasant, or very small farmer, a man of known good
character, and on whose word reliance might be placed, came forward and
stated that on the day in question he had seen two gentlemen, whom he
took to be English by their conversation, walking amicably together
_away_ from the lake, and about a mile distant from the spot of Mr.
Dundyke's landing. The description he gave of these tallied with the
persons of the missing man and Mr. Hardcastle. The stouter of the two,
he said, who wore a straw hat and a narrow green ribbon tied round it,
carried a yellow silk handkerchief, and occasionally wiped his face,
which looked very red and hot. The other--a tall, dark man--had a cane
in his hand with a silver top, looking like a dog's head, which cane he
whirled round and round as he walked, after the manner of a child's
rattle. All this agreed exactly. Mr. Dundyke's hat was straw, its ribbon
green and narrow, and the handkerchief, which Mrs. Dundyke had handed
him clean that morning, was yellow, with white spots. And again, that
action of whirling his cane round in the air, was a frequent habit of
Mr. Hardcastle's. The country was scoured in the part where this peasant
had seen them, and also in the direction that they appeared to be going,
but nothing was discovered. Mr. Prattleton reminded Mrs. Dundyke that
there were more yellow silk handkerchiefs in the world than one, that
straw hats and green ribbons were common enough in Geneva, and that many
a gentleman, even of those staying at the hotel, carried a silver-headed
cane, and might twirl it in walking. "Besides," added the clergyman, "if
Mr. Hardcastle had been that day with Mr. Dundyke, what possible motive
could he have for denying it?"
"True; most true," murmured the unhappy lady. She was still unsuspicious
as a child.
One of Mr. Prattleton's first cares had been to write to London, asking
for the number of the notes, forwarded by the house in Fenchurch-street
to Mr. Dundyke. It had of course been lost with him; as also anything
else he might have had in the shape of letters and papers, for they were
all in his pocket-book, and he had it about him. When the answer was
received by Mr. Prattleton, he made inquiries at the different
money-changers, and traced the notes, a twenty-pound and a ten-pound.
They had been changed for French money at Geneva, on the day subsequent
to Mr. Dundyke's disappearance: the halves were in the shop still, and
were shown to the clergyman. The money-changer could not recollect who
had changed them, except that it was an Englishman; he _thought_ a tall
man: but so many English gentlemen came in to change money, he observed,
that it was difficult to recollect them individually.
The finding of these notes certainly darkened the case very much, and
Mr. Prattleton went home with a slow step, thinking how he could break
the news to Mrs. Dundyke. She was sitting in his daughter's room, and he
disclosed the facts as gently as possible.
Mrs. Dundyke did not weep; did not cry aloud: her quiet hands were
pressed more convulsively together in her lap; and that was all.
"If my husband were living, how could anyone else have the notes to
change?" she said. "Oh, Mr. Prattleton, there is no hope! It is as I
have thought from the first: he fell into the lake and was drowned."
"Nay," said the clergyman, "had he been drowned the notes would have
been drowned too. Indeed, I do not think there is even a chance that he
was drowned: had he got into the lake accidentally, (which is next to
impossible, unless he rolled in from the grass,) he could readily have
got out again. But I find that more money was sent him than this thirty
pounds, Mrs. Dundyke. The two halves of a fifty-pound note were sent as
well. Do you know anything of it?"
"Nothing," she answered. "I knew he wrote home for thirty pounds; I knew
of no more."
Mr. Prattleton gave her the letter, received that morning from
Fenchurch-street, and she found it was as the clergyman said. Mr.
Dundyke had written for fifty pounds, as well as the thirty; and it had
been sent in two half notes, the whole of the notes in two separate
letters: three half notes in one letter, and three in the other, and
both letters had been dispatched by the same post. There could be no
reasonable doubt therefore that all the money had been received by Mr.
Dundyke.
"But I cannot trace the fifty," observed Mr. Prattleton, "and I have
been to every money-changer's, and to every other likely place in
Geneva. I went to the bank; I asked here at the hotel, but I can't find
it. What do you want, Mary?"
Mary Prattleton had been for some few minutes trying to move a chest of
drawers; the marble top made them heavy, and she desisted and looked at
her father.
"I wish you would help me push aside these drawers, papa. My needle-book
has fallen behind."
He advanced, and helped her to move the drawers from the wall. A chink,
as of something falling, was heard, and a silver pencil-case rolled
towards the feet of Mrs. Dundyke. She stooped mechanically to pick it
up; and Miss Prattleton, who was stooping for her needle-book, was
startled by a suppressed shriek of terror. It came from Mrs. Dundyke.
"It is my husband's pencil-case! it is my husband's pencil-case!"
"Dear, dear Mrs. Dundyke!" cried the alarmed clergyman, "you should not
let the sight of it agitate you like this."
"You do not understand," she reiterated. "He had it with him on that
fatal morning; he took it out with him. What should bring it back here,
and without him? Where _is_ he?"
Mr. Prattleton stood confounded; not able at first to take in quite the
bearings of the case.
"How do you know he had it? He may have left it in the hotel."
"No, no, he did not. He went straight out from the breakfast-room, and,
not a minute before, I saw him make a note with it on the back of a
letter, and then return the pencil to the case in his pocket-book, where
he always kept it, and put the pocket-book back into his pocket. How
could he have written the note after the men landed him, telling us to
join him there, without it?--he never carried but this one pencil. And
now it is back in this room, and----oh, sir! the scales seem to fall
from my eyes! If I am wrong, may Heaven forgive me for the thought!"
Her hands were raised, her whole frame was trembling; her livid face was
quite drawn with the intensity of fear, of horror. Mr. Prattleton stood
aghast.
"What do you say?" he asked, bending his ear, for the words on her lips
had dropped to a low murmur. "WHAT?"
"_He has surely been murdered by Mr. Hardcastle._"