“WE were just bringing her back. No doubt she has darted in at the side door—she was always a hasty creature—and got into her own room. That’s where ye will find her. I cannot tell you what has come over the monkey. She is just out of what little wits she ever had.”
“I can tell very well what has come over her,” said Mrs. Ogilvie. “She is just wild that I have interfered, which it was my clear duty to do. If she had been heart and soul in the matter it would have been different—but she was never that. These old cats at Rosebank, they thought there was nobody saw it but themselves; but I saw it well enough.”
“In that case,” said Mr. Moubray, “perhaps it would have been better to interfere sooner. I wish you would send some one to see if Effie is really there.”
“Why should I have interfered sooner? If everything had gone well, it was such a match as Effie had no chance of making; but when it turned out that it was a mistake, and the other there breaking his heart, that had always been more suitable, and her with no heart in it——” Mrs. Ogilvie paused for a moment in the satisfaction of triumphant self-vindication. “But if you’re just sentimental and childish and come in my way, you bind her to a bankrupt that she does not care for, because of what you call honour—honour is all very well,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, “for men; but whoever supposes that a bit little creature of a girl——”
“Will ye go and see if Effie is in her room?” said her husband impatiently.
“Ye may just ring the bell, Robert, and send one of the maids to see; what would I do with her? If I said anything it would only make her worse. I am not one of the people that shilly shally. I just act, and am done with it. I’m very glad I put in my letter myself that it might go in the first bag. But if you will take my advice you will just let her be: at this moment she could not bear the sight of me, and I’m not blaming her. I’ve taken it in my own hands, at my own risk, and if she’s angry I’m not surprised. Let her be. She will come to herself by-and-bye, and at the bottom of her heart she will be very well pleased, and then I will ask Ronald Sutherland to his dinner, and then——”
“I wish,” said Mr. Moubray, “you would ease my mind at least by making sure that Effie has really come in. I have a misgiving, which is perhaps foolish: I will go myself if you will let me.”
“No need for that,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, ringing the bell. “George, you will send Margaret to tell Miss Effie—but what am I to tell her? that is just the question. She will not want anything to say to me, and she will perhaps think—— You will say just that her uncle wants her, that will be the best thing to say.”
There was a pause while George departed on his errand: not that Mrs. Ogilvie had nothing to say or was affected by the anxiety of others. It had indeed been a relief to her when her husband informed her that Effie, no doubt, had come in and was in her own room. The stepmother, who had been a little uneasy before, took this for granted with a sigh of relief, and felt that a certain little danger which she had not defined to herself was over.
And now that the alarm was past, and that she had put forth her defence, it seemed better not to dwell upon this subject. Better to let it drop, she said to herself, better to let Effie think that it was over and nothing more to be made of it. Mrs. Ogilvie was a woman without temper and never ill-natured. She was very willing to let it drop. That she should receive her stepdaughter as if nothing had happened was clearly the right way. Therefore, though she had a thousand things now to say, and could have justified her proceedings in volumes, she decided not to do so; for she could also be self-denying when it was expedient so to be.
There was therefore a pause. Mr. Moubray sat with his eyes fixed on the door and a great disquietude in his mind. He was asking himself what, if she appeared, he could do. Must he promise her her lover, as he would promise a child a plaything? must he ignore altogether the not unreasonable reasons which Mrs. Ogilvie had produced in justification of her conduct? They were abhorrent to his mind, as well as to that of Effie, yet from her point of view they were not unreasonable. But if Effie was not there? Mr. Ogilvie said nothing at all, but he walked from one end of the room to another working his shaggy eyebrows. It was evident he was not so tranquil in his mind as he had pretended to be.
Presently Margaret the housemaid appeared, after a modest tap at the door. “Miss Effie is not in her room, mem,” she said.
“Not in her room? are you quite sure? Perhaps she is in the library waiting for her papa; perhaps she is in the nursery with Rory. She may even have gone into the kitchen, to speak a word to old Mary, or to Pirie’s cottage to see if there are any flowers. You will find her somewhere if you look. Quick, quick, and tell her the minister wants her. You are sure, both of you gentlemen, that you saw her come in at the gate?”
“No doubt she came in,” said Mr. Ogilvie with irritation; “where else would she go at this time of night?”
“I am not sure at all,” said Mr. Moubray, rising up, “I never thought so: and here I have been sitting losing time. I will go myself to Pirie’s cottage—and after that——”
“There is nothing to be frightened about,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, rising too; “if she’s not at Pirie’s she will be at Rosebank, or else she will be in one of the cottages, or else—bless me, there are twenty places she may be, and nothing to make a panic about.”
The minister went out in the middle of this speech waving his hand to her as he went away, and she followed him to the door, calling out her consolations across the passage. She met her husband, who was about to follow, as she turned back, and caught his arm with her hands.
“Robert, you’re not in this daft excitement too? Where in the world would she go to, as you say? She’ll just have run somewhere in her pet, not to see me. There can be nothing to be terrified about.”
“You have a way,” cried the husband, “of talking, talking, that a person would fly to the uttermost parts of the airth to get free o’ ye. Let me go! Effie’s young and silly. She may run we know not where, or she may catch a cold to kill her, which is the least of it. Let me go.”
“Sit down in your own chair by your own fireside, and listen to me,” said the wife. “Why should you go on a fool’s errand? one’s enough for that. Did Effie ever give you any real vexation all her life? No, truly, and why should she begin now? She will be taking a walk, or she will be complaining of me to the Miss Dempsters, or something of that innocent kind. Just you let her be. What did she ever do to give you a bad opinion of her? No, no, she’s come out of a good stock, and she’ll come to no harm.”
“There is something in that,” Mr. Ogilvie said. He was not ill disposed to sit down in his own chair by his own fireside and take his ease, and accept the assurance that Effie would come to no harm.
But when she had thus quieted her husband and disposed of him, Mrs. Ogilvie herself stole out in the dark, first to the house door, then through the ghostly shrubberies to the gate, to see if there was any trace visible of the fugitive. She was not so tranquil as she pretended to be. Effie’s look of consternation and horror was still in her eyes, and she had a sense of guilt which she could not shake off. But yet there were so many good reasons for doing what she had done, so many excuses, nay, laudable motives, things that called for immediate action.
“To marry a man you don’t care about, when there is no advantage in it, what a dreadful thing to do. How could I look on and let that little thing make such a sacrifice? and when any person with the least perception could see her heart was not in it. And Ronald, him that she just had a natural bias to, that was just the most suitable match, not a great parti like what we all thought young Dirom, but well enough, and her own kind of person!”
It was thus she justified herself, and from her own point of view the justification was complete. But yet she was not a happy woman as she stood within the shadow of the big laurels, and looked out upon the road, hoping every moment to see a slight shadow flit across the road, and Effie steal in at the open gate. What could the little thing do? As for running away, that was out of the question; and she was so young, knowing nothing. What could she do? It was not possible she should come to any harm.
Mr. Moubray was more anxious still, for it seemed to him that he knew very well what she would do. He walked about all the neighbouring roads, and peeped into the cottages, and frightened the Miss Dempsters by going up to their door, with heavy feet crushing the gravel at that unaccustomed hour, for no reason but just to ask how the old lady was!
“I must be worse than I think or the minister would never have come all this way once-errand to inquire about me,” Miss Dempster said.
“He would just see the light, and he would mind that he had made no inquiries for three days,” said Miss Beenie; but she too was uncomfortable, and felt that there was more in this nocturnal visitation than met the eye.
It did not surprise Mr. Moubray that in all his searches he could find no trace of his little girl. He thought he knew where he would find her—on the platform of the little railway station, ready to get into the train for London. And in the meantime his mind was full of thoughts how to serve her best. He was not like the majority of people who are ready enough to serve others according to what they themselves think best. Uncle John, on the contrary, studied tenderly how he could help Effie in the way she wished.
He paused at the post-office, and sent off a telegram to Fred Dirom, expressed as follows:—“You will receive to-morrow morning a letter from Gilston. E. wishes you to know that it does not express her feeling, that she stands fast whatever may happen.”
When he had sent this he felt a certain tranquillising influence, as if he had propitiated fate, and said to himself that when she heard what he had done, she might perhaps be persuaded to come back. Then the minister went home, put a few things into his old travelling bag, and told his housekeeper that he was going to meet a friend at the train, and that perhaps he might not return that night, or for two or three nights. When he had done this, he made his evening prayer, in which you may be sure his little Effie occupied the first place, and then set off the long half-hour’s walk to the station.
By this time it was late, and the train was due: but neither on the platform, nor in the office, nor among those who stood on the alert to jump into the train, could he find her. He was at last constrained to believe that she was not there. Had she gone further to escape pursuit, to the next station, where there would be nobody to stop her? He upbraided himself deeply for letting the train go without him, after he had watched it plunging away in the darkness, into the echoes of the night. It seemed to thunder along through the great silence of the country, waking a hundred reverberations as he stood there with his bag in his hand, aghast, not knowing what to do. There had been time enough for that poor little pilgrim to push her way to the next stopping place, where she could get in unobserved.
Was this what she had done? He felt as if he had abandoned his little girl, deserted her, left her to take her first step in life unprotected, as he went back. And then, as he neared the village, a flicker of hope returned that she might, when left to herself, have come to a more reasonable conclusion and gone home. He went back to Gilston, walking very softly that his step might not disturb them, if the family were all composed to rest. And for a moment his heart gave a bound of relief when he saw something moving among the laurels within the gate.
But it was only Mrs. Ogilvie, who stole out into the open, with a suppressed cry: “Have you not found her?” “Has she come home?” he asked in the same breath: then in the mutual pang of disappointment they stood for a moment and looked at each other, asking no more.
“I have got Robert to go to his bed,” said Mrs. Ogilvie. “God forgive me, I just deceived him, saying she was at the manse with you—which was what I hoped—for what would have been the use of him wandering about, exposing himself and getting more rheumatism, when there was you and me to do all we could? And, oh! what shall we do, or where can I send now? I am just at my wit’s end. She would not do any harm to herself, oh! never! I cannot think it; and, besides, what would be the use? for she always had it in her power to write to him, and say it was only me.”
Then the minister explained what he had anticipated, and how he had proved mistaken. “The only thing is, she might have gone on to Lamphray thinking it would be quieter, and taken the train there.”
“Lord bless us!” said Mrs. Ogilvie. “If she has done that we can hear nothing till—there is no saying when we may hear.”
And though they were on different sides, and, so to speak, hostile forces, these two people stood together for a moment with but one thought, listening to every little echo, and every rustle, and the cracking of the twigs, and the sound of the burn, all the soft unreckoned noises of a silent night, but Effie’s step or breath was not among them all.