Works of Ellen Wood, page 1135
“Father, I cannot think of any other place he can have got to: we have searched everywhere. Can you?”
“Not I, Joe. Don’t be down-hearted. He’ll turn up; he’ll turn up. Halloa!” broke off the Squire as an idea struck him, “has this barn been searched?”
“He can’t be in there, sir; it’s just a moral impossibility that he could be,” spoke up Mackintosh. “The place was empty, which I can be upon my oath, when I locked it up yesterday afternoon, after getting some corn out; and the key have never been out o’ my trousers’ pocket since. Mr. Joseph, he was inside with me at the time, and knows it.”
Tod nodded assent, and the Squire walked away. As there was no other accessible entrance to the front barn, and the windows were ever so many yards from the ground, they felt that it must be, as the man said, a “moral impossibility.”
The day went on, it was Saturday, remember, and the miserable hours went on, and there came no trace of the child. The Ravine was again searched thoroughly: that is, as thoroughly as its overgrown state permitted. It was like waste of time; for Hugh would not have hidden himself in it; and if he had fallen over the fence he would have been found before from the traces that must have been left in the bushes. The searchers would come in, one after another, now a farm-servant, now one of the police, bringing no news, except of defeat, but hoping some one else had brought it. Every time that Tod looked at the poor mild face of Mrs. Todhetley, always meek and patient, striving ever to hide the anguish that each fresh disappointment brought, I know he felt ready to hang himself. It was getting dusk when Maria Lease came up with a piece of straw hat that she had found in the withy walk. But both Mrs. Todhetley and Hannah, upon looking at it, decided that the straw was of finer grain than Hugh’s.
That afternoon they dragged the pond, but there was nothing found in it. We could get no traces anywhere. No one had seen him, no one heard of him. From the moment when I had watched him into the fold-yard gate, it seemed that he had altogether vanished from above ground. Since then all scent of him was missing. It was very strange: just as though the boy had been spirited away.
Sunday morning rose. As lovely a Sunday as ever this world saw, but all sad for us. Tod had flung himself back in the pater’s easy-chair, pretty near done over. Two nights, and he had not been to bed. In spite of his faith in Alfred Arne’s denial, he had chosen to watch him away in the night from Timberdale; and he saw the man steal off in the darkness on foot and alone. The incessant hunting about was bringing its reaction on Tod, and the fatigue of body and mind began to show itself. But as to giving in, he’d never do that, and would be as likely as not to walk and worry himself into a fever.
The day was warm and beautiful; the glass-doors stood open to the sweet summer air. Light fleecy clouds floated over the blue sky, the sun shone on the green grass of the lawn and sparkled amidst the leaves of the great mulberry-tree. Butterflies flitted past in pairs, chasing each other; bees sent forth their hum as they sipped the honey-dew from the flowers; the birds sang their love-songs on the boughs: all seemed happiness outside, as if to mock our care within.
Tod lay back with his eyes closed: I sat on the arm of the old red sofa. The bells of North Crabb Church rang out for morning service. It was rather a cracked old peal, but on great occasions the ringers assembled and did their best. The Bishop of Worcester was coming over to-day to preach a charity sermon: and North Crabb never had anything greater than that. Tod opened his eyes and listened in silence.
“Tod, do you know what it puts me in mind of?”
“Don’t bother. It’s because of the bishop, I suppose.”
“I don’t mean the bells. It’s like the old fable, told of in ‘The Mistletoe Bough,’ enacted in real life. If there were any deep chest about the premises — —”
“Hold your peace, Johnny! — unless you want to drive me mad. If we come upon the child like that, I’ll — I’ll — —”
I think he was going to say shoot himself, or something of that sort, for he was given to random speech when put to it. But at that moment Lena ran in dressed for church, in her white frock and straw hat with blue ribbons. She threw her hands on Tod’s knee and burst out crying.
“Joe, I don’t want to go to church; I want Hugh.”
Quite a spasm of pain shot across his face, but he was very tender with her. In all my life I had never seen Tod so gentle as he had been at moments during the last two days.
“Don’t cry, pretty one,” he said, pushing the fair curls from her face. “Go to church like a good little girl; perhaps we shall have found him by the time you come home.”
“Hannah says he’s lying dead somewhere.”
“Hannah’s nothing but a wicked woman,” savagely answered Tod. “Don’t you mind her.”
But Lena would not be pacified, and kept on sobbing and crying, “I want Hugh; I want Hugh.”
Mrs. Todhetley, who had come in then, drew her away and sat down with the child on her knee, talking to her in low, soothing tones.
“Lena, dear, you know I wish you to go with Hannah to church this morning. And you will put papa’s money into the plate. See: it is a golden sovereign. Hannah must carry it, and you shall put it in.”
“Oh, mamma! will Hugh never come home again? Will he die?”
“Hush, Lena,” she said, as Tod bit his lip and gave his hair a dash backwards. “Shall I tell you something that sounds like a pretty story?”
Lena was always ready for a story, pretty or ugly, and her blue eyes were lifted to her mother’s brightly through the tears. At that moment she looked wonderfully like the portrait on the wall.
“Just now, dear, I was in my room upstairs, feeling very, very unhappy; I’m not sure but I was sobbing nearly as much as you were just now. ‘He will never come back,’ I said to myself; ‘he is lost to us for ever.’ At that moment those sweet bells broke out, calling people to Heaven’s service, and I don’t know why, Lena, but they seemed to whisper a great comfort to me. They seemed to say that God was over us all, and saw our trouble, and would heal it in His good time.”
Lena stared a little, digesting what she could of the words. The tears were nowhere.
“Will He send Hugh back?”
“I can’t tell, darling. He can take care of Hugh, and bless him, and keep him, wherever he may be, and I know He will. If He should have taken him to heaven above the blue sky — oh then, Hugh must be very happy. He will be with the angels. He will see Jesus face to face; and you know how He loved little children. The bells seemed to say all this to me as I listened to them, Lena.”
Lena went off contented: we saw her skipping along by Hannah’s side, who had on a new purple gown and staring red and green trimmings to her bonnet. Children are as changeable as a chameleon, sobbing one minute, laughing the next. Tod was standing now with his back to the window, and Mrs. Todhetley sat by the table, her long thin fingers supporting her cheek; very meek, very, very patient. Tod was thinking so as he glanced at her.
“How you must hate me for this!” he said.
“Oh, Joseph! Hate you?”
“The thing is all my fault. A great deal has been my fault for a long while; all the unpleasantness and the misunderstanding.”
She got up and took his hand timidly, as if she feared he might think it too great a liberty. “If you can only understand me for the future, Joseph; understand how I wish and try to make things pleasant to you, I shall be fully repaid: to you most especially in all the house, after your father. I have ever striven and prayed for it.”
He answered nothing for the moment; his face was working a little, and he gave her fingers a grip that must have caused pain.
“If the worst comes of this, and Hugh never is amongst us again, I will go over the seas in the wake of the villain Arne,” he said in a low, firm tone, “and spare you the sight of me.”
Tears began to trickle down her face. “Joseph, my dear — if you will let me call you so — this shall draw us near to each other, as we never might have been drawn without it. You shall not hear a word of reproach from us, or any word but love; there shall never be a thought of reproach in my heart. I have had a great deal of sorrow in my life, Joseph, and have learnt patiently to bear, leaving all things to Heaven.”
“And if Hugh is dead?”
“What I said to Lena, I meant,” she softly whispered. “If God has taken him he is with the angels, far happier than he could be in this world of care, though his lot were of the brightest.”
The tears were running down her cheeks as she went out of the room. Tod stood still as a stone.
“She is made of gold,” I whispered.
“No, Johnny. Of something better.”
The sound of the bells died away. None of us went to church; in the present excitement it would have been a farce. The Squire had gone riding about the roads, sending his groom the opposite way. He telegraphed to the police at Worcester; saying, in the message, that these country officers were no better than dummies; and openly lamented at home that it had not happened at Dyke Manor, within the range of old Jones the constable.
Tod disappeared with the last sound of the bells. Just as the pater’s head was full of the brick-fields, his was of the Ravine; that he had gone off to beat it again I was sure. In a trouble such as this you want incessantly to be up and doing. Lena and Hannah came back from church, the child calling for Hugh: she wanted to tell him about the gentleman who had preached in big white sleeves and pretty frills on his wrists.
Two o’clock was the Sunday dinner-hour. Tod came in when it was striking. He looked dead-beat as he sat down to carve in his father’s place. The sirloin of beef was as good as usual, but only Lena seemed to think so. The little gobbler ate two servings, and a heap of raspberry pie and cream.
How it happened, I don’t know. I was just as anxious as any of them, and yet, in sitting under the mulberry-tree, I fell fast asleep, never waking till five. Mrs. Todhetley, always finding excuses for us, said it was worry and want of proper rest. She was sitting close to the window, her head leaning against it. The Squire had not come home. Tod was somewhere about, she did not know where.
I found him in the yard. Luke Mackintosh was harnessing the pony to the gig, Tod helping him in a state of excitement. Some man had come in with a tale that a tribe of gipsies was discovered, encamped beyond the brick-fields, who seemed to have been there for a week past. Tod jumped to the conclusion that Hugh was concealed with them, and was about to go off in search.
“Will you come with me, Johnny? Luke must remain in case the Squire rides in.”
“Of course I will. I’ll run and tell Mrs. Todhetley.”
“Stay where you are, you stupid muff. To excite her hopes, in the uncertainty, would be cruel. Get up.”
Tod need not have talked about excited hopes. He was just three parts mad. Fancy his great strong hands shaking as he took the reins! The pony dashed off in a fright with the cut he gave it, and brought us cleverly against the post of the gate, breaking the near shaft. Over that, but for the delay, Tod would have been cool as an orange.
“The phaeton now, single horse,” he called out to Mackintosh.
“Yes, sir. Bob, or Blister?”
Tod stamped his foot in a passion. “As if it mattered! Blister; he is the more fiery of the two.”
“I must get the harness,” said Mackintosh. “It is in the yellow barn.”
Mackintosh went round on the run to gain the front barn; the harness, least used, was kept there, hung on the walls. Tod unharnessed the pony, left me to lead him to the stable, and went after the man. In his state of impatience and his strength, he could have done the work of ten men. He met Mackintosh coming out of the barn, without the harness, but with a white face. Since he saw the ghost’s light on Friday night the man had been scared at shadows.
“There’s sum’at in there, master,” said he, his teeth chattering.
“What?” roared Tod, in desperate anger.
“There is, master. It’s like a faint tapping.”
Tod dashed in, controlling his hands, lest they might take French leave and strike Luke for a coward. He was seeking the proper set of harness, when a knocking, faint and irregular, smote his ear. Tod turned to look, and thought it came from the staircase-door. He went forward and opened it.
Lying at the foot of the stairs was Hugh. Hugh! Low, and weak, and faint, there he lay, his blue eyes only half opened, and his pretty curls mingling with the dust.
“Hugh! is it you, my darling?”
Tod’s gasp was like a great cry. Hugh put up his little feeble hand, and a smile parted his lips.
“Yes, it’s me, Joe.”
The riddle is easily solved. When sent back by me, Hugh saw Hannah in the fold-yard; she was, in point of fact, looking after him. In his fear, he stole round to hide in the shrubbery, and thence got to the front of the house, and ran away down the road. Seeing the front barn-door open, for it was when Luke Mackintosh was getting the corn, Hugh slipped in and hid behind the door. Luke went out with the first lot of corn, and the senseless child, hearing Tod’s voice outside, got into the place leading to the stairs, and shut the door. Luke, talking to Tod, who had stepped inside the barn, saw the door was shut and slipped the big outside bolt, never remembering that it was not he who had shut it. Poor little Hugh, when their voices had died away, ran upstairs to get to the upper granary, and found its door fastened. And there the child was shut up beyond reach of call and hearing. The skylight in the roof, miles, as it seemed, above him, had its ventilator open. He had called and called; but his voice must have been lost amidst the space of the barn. It was too weak to disturb a rat now.
Tod took him up in his arms, tenderly as if he had been a new-born baby that he was hushing to the rest of death.
“Were you frightened, child?”
“I was till I heard the church-bells,” whispered Hugh. “I don’t know how long it was — oh, a great while — and I had ate the biscuit Johnny gave me and been asleep. I was not frightened then, Joe; I thought they’d come to me when church was over.”
I met the procession. What the dirty object might be in Tod’s arms was quite a mystery at first. Tod’s eyes were dropping tears upon it, and his breath seemed laboured. Luke brought up the rear a few yards behind, looking as if he’d never find his senses again.
“Oh, Tod! will he get over it?”
“Yes. Please God.”
“Is he injured?”
“No, no. Get out of my way, Johnny. Go to the mother now, if you like. Tell her he has only been shut up in the barn and I’m coming in with him. The dirt’s nothing: it was on him before.”
Just as meek and gentle she stood as ever, the tears rolling down her face, and a quiet joy in it. Tod brought him in, laying him across her knee as she sat on the sofa.
“There,” he said. “He’ll be all right when he has been washed and had something to eat.”
“God bless you, Joseph!” she whispered.
Tod could say no more. He bent to kiss Hugh; lifted his face, and kissed the mother. And then he went rushing out with a burst of emotion.
OUR VISIT.
I.
We went down from Oxford together, I and Tod and William Whitney; accompanying Miss Deveen and Helen and Anna Whitney, who had been there for a few days. Miss Deveen’s carriage was waiting at the Paddington Station; they got into it with Tod, and William and I followed in a cab with the luggage. Miss Deveen had invited us all to stay with her.
Miss Cattledon, the companion, with her tall, thin figure, her pinched-in waist and her creaking stays, stood ready to receive us when we reached the house. Miss Deveen held out her hand.
“How have you been, Jemima? Taking care of yourself, I hope?”
“Quite well, thank you, Miss Deveen; and very glad to see you at home again,” returned Cattledon. “This is my niece, Janet Carey.”
A slight, small girl, with smooth brown hair and a quiet face that looked as if it had just come out of some wasting illness, was hiding herself behind Cattledon. Miss Deveen said a few pleasant words of welcome, and took her hand. The girl looked as shy and frightened as though we had all been a pack of gorillas.
“Thank you, ma’am; you are very kind,” she said in a tremble; and her voice, I noticed, was low and pleasant. I like nice voices, whether in man or woman.
“It wants but half-an-hour to dinner-time,” said Miss Deveen, untying the strings of her bonnet. “Miss Cattledon, will you show these young friends of ours the rooms you have appropriated to them.”
My room and Tod’s — two beds in it — was on the second floor; Helen and Anna had the best company room below, near Miss Deveen’s; Bill had a little one lower still, half-way up the first flight of stairs. Miss Cattledon’s room, we found out, was next to ours, and her niece slept with her.
Tod threw himself full length on his counterpane — tired out, he said. Certain matters had not gone very smoothly for him at Oxford, and the smart remained.
“You’ll be late, Tod,” I said when I was ready.
“Plenty of time, Johnny. I don’t suppose I shall keep dinner waiting.”
Miss Deveen stood at the door of the blue room when I went down: that pretty sitting-room, exclusively hers, that I remembered so well. She had on a purple silk gown, with studs of pale yellow topaz in its white lace front, studs every whit as beautiful as the emeralds made free with by Sophie Chalk.
“Come in here, Johnny.”
She was beginning to talk to me as we stood by the fire, when some one was heard to enter the inner room; Miss Deveen’s bed-chamber, which opened from this room as well as from the landing. She crossed over into it, and I heard Cattledon’s voice.
“It is so very kind of you, Miss Deveen, to have allowed me to bring my niece here! Under the circumstances — with such a cloud upon her — —”
“She is quite welcome,” interrupted Miss Deveen’s voice.
“Yes, I know that; I know it: and I could not go down without thanking you. I have told Lettice to take some tea up to her while we dine. She can come to the drawing-room afterwards if you have no objection.”
