CHAPTER VIII.
DISAPPEARANCE OF DULCIE.
Since the reader last saw Dulcie Carlyon she had become chilled and changed in manner, under the influence of Lady Fettercairn's bearing and remarks, to all save Finella. All her natural jollity and espièglerie of way were gone, and every hour that it was possible to do so she spent in the seclusion of her own room, one high up in a square turret of the old house, with windows that opened to a far vista of the Howe of the Mearns, terminated by a glimpse of the German Sea.
Here she was sometimes joined by Finella, who could no longer persuade her to ramble as of old in the grounds, and never again to accompany her in the saddle when she took Fern for a spin along the country roads.
'Are you not sick of crewel work, and embroidering sage birds of shapes that never existed upon brown bath-towels?' asked Finella. 'I know you do it by grandmamma's wish; but what tasteless folly it is.'
'I would rather, as I did at home, knit stockings for the poor,' said Dulcie.
'Better buy than knit them,' responded the heiress, 'and so save one's self a world of trouble.'
It became too evident to Dulcie that the time of her dismissal from Craigengowan was drawing nigh; that it was only delayed by the absence of Shafto in Edinburgh, and she resolved, ere he returned, to get the balance of her little salary and quit the place, as it had now become odious to her.
Dulcie had old Welsh blood in her veins, and more than once had she heard her father, Lewellen Carlyon, whose one ewe-lamb she was, descant on how he could count kith and kin into the remotest past, when his forefathers wandered through the forest of Caerlyon—whence his name—had manned Offa's Dyke, and shared the perils of Owain Glendwr. To speak of such things now, even to Finella, seemed to the girl vain folly, but they were keenly in her heart nevertheless.
And so there came an evening, the last she was to spend under the steep slate roof of Craigengowan.
Lady Fettercairn was going for a drive among the summer roads that were all like leafy tunnels or long avenues of foliage, to visit that famous senator, Lord Maccowkay, who was then at his country house of Middyn Grange, and Finella, perceiving how pale Dulcie was looking, said:
'May Miss Carlyon come with us, grandmamma?'
'Certainly not,' replied Lady Fettercairn, with hauteur and asperity, though Dulcie was within hearing, carrying Snap in his satin-lined basket. 'When is this sort of thing to end, Finella?'
There came a time when the Lady of that Ilk recalled this remark, and many others similar, for just then she did not see certainly where the future was to end.
So the two ladies drove away, and Dulcie, for companionship, though then unaware that it would be for the last time, took tea with the kindly old housekeeper, whom she found busy in her pantry and closets preparing for that social meal; and Dulcie helped her to cut and butter the bread, polish the cups and saucers and old silver spoons, to arrange the brown tea-cakes, crisp biscuits, and luscious Scottish preserves of home manufacture, and all the while a sadness oppressed her, for which she could not account.
This, however, seemed explained when, at dinner that evening, Lady Fettercairn said, while returning a letter to her pocket:
'Shafto returns late to-night—or early to-morrow morning.'
'From where?' asked Finella, though, sooth to say, she cared little where from.
'Edinburgh.'
'And not an hour too soon, I am afraid,' said Lord Fettercairn, with his sandy-grey eyebrows deeply knitted.
No one asked 'why,' so a silence ensued, and a little later in the evening Finella said to Dulcie:
'Why are you so silent to-night?'
'Am I so?'
'Yes—even sad—triste.'
'Sad—you don't mean cross?'
'No, Dulcie dear, you never are cross.'
'I am full of very weary thoughts, and wish to retire, if Lady Fettercairn can spare me,' she added, raising her voice.
'Of course—go,' replied the latter; and Dulcie, painfully conscious that her employer had been more than usually cold, hard, and even bitter to her—all, no doubt, apropos of Shafto's return—bowed and murmured 'good-night,' with a soft and lingering glance at Finella.
Shafto returning! Dulcie was always nervous about his future conduct and her own position, and she could not prepare herself again for dissembling in public and hating in private—for the inevitable meetings at table and elsewhere. Over and above all was the dread that by his intense cunning he might work her mischief—a mischief that to her might prove social ruin.
Dulcie had writhed and winced under all Lady Fettercairn's not always delicately veiled hints as to the social gulf that separated people and people—to wit, Miss Melfort, of Craigengowan, and the paid companion, and of young folks of bad taste and little discretion, who were inclined to step out of their proper sphere; she knew the drift of all this; her heart swelled within her, and now she withdrew with a stern and perhaps rash resolve that took active form on the morrow.
In the corridor before they separated for the night, Finella thought that Dulcie kissed and clasped her with more than usual tenderness and effusion, and became aware that there were tears on the girl's cheek; but this had been too often the case of late to excite remark.
However, she remembered this emotion with some pain at a future time.
In the morning the then small circle of Craigengowan assembled in the charming breakfast-room. Shafto had not come overnight; Lord Fettercairn had not opened his letters, but—though nothing of a politician—was idling over a paper which the butler had cut and aired for him.
Lady Fettercairn glanced at a handsome antique French clock upon the grey marble mantelpiece, and said, with as much irritation as she ever permitted herself to show with reference to Dulcie:
'Not down yet—when she knows that she has to preside at the tea-urn and so forth! Is she giving herself the airs of a lady of—what is the matter?' she exclaimed, as a servant whom she had despatched on an errand of inquiry returned looking somewhat discomposed. 'I hope she is not ill, especially with anything infectious?'
'No, my lady—not ill.'
'Not ill—that is fortunate.'
'No.'
'Where then is she—why not here?'
'She isn't there, my lady.'
'There—where?'
'In her room—nor anywhere in the house.'
Finella remembered the peculiar bearing of Dulcie the previous night, and her tremulous sisterly kiss, with a species of pang, and hurried upstairs to the square turret-room.
'Of course she is interested!' said Lady Fettercairn scoffingly.
'There is always an exuberant vitality—a great flow of animal spirits about Finella,' replied her husband.
'All of which I deem hoydenish and bad form.'
Finella returned, looking pale and scared, to report that Miss Carlyon's bed did not appear to have been slept in last night, that her wardrobe was all tumbled about, leaving evident traces of selections and packing, and that to all appearance she was gone from the house.
'Gone—then I hope it is not with Shafto!' exclaimed Lady Fettercairn, paling at her own idea.
'Scarcely: is he not coming here, as his letter yesterday announces?' said Lord Fettercairn.
'Gone—and in that rude and unceremonious, and certainly most mysterious manner, which through local gossip will find its way in some odious mode into every local paper!' said Lady Fettercairn, while she grimly directed Finella to officiate at the tea-board.
'She is away, poor thing, without a doubt,' said the butler, who was carving at the sideboard; 'and must have left the house by the conservatory door—I found it open this morning.'
'I hope that she has not——' but even Lady Fettercairn, while surmising mentally whether her jewel case was all intact, had not the hardihood to put the cruel suspicion in words.
'It is most annoying,' said the Peer, with his noble mouth full.
'Very—she was so useful too—very—with all her faults,' added Lady Fettercairn, tenderly caressing Snap, who was relegated to a housemaid for his morning bath.
She did not expect an escapade of this sort; the great luxury of the certain dismissal had been denied her; she sank back in her chair for a minute or so, and sniffed languidly at her gold-topped scent-bottle, as if nerving herself to hear something horrible, while the grounds were searched for traces of the fugitive; and she had ideas of having the Swan's Pool and the adjacent stream dragged.
Finella thought she would like to run away too; but with all her wealth it was less easy for an heiress of position to do so than for the poor and nameless companion; and now that Dulcie was gone, Finella felt that the link between herself and Hammersley was cut off.
Apart from that important item in her life, she was deeply sorry, as she had conceived for Dulcie one of those sudden and so-called undying friendships for which, we are told, 'the female heart is specially remarkable.'
Finella felt that the cold and inquiring eyes of Lady Fettercairn were upon her, and knew that, if she would not excite remark and draw reprehension upon herself, breakfast must be partaken of, even though her heart was breaking. So she bathed her eyes, re-smoothed her hair, and took her place at the table with as much composure as she could assume.
'If her flight is not traced—though why we should care to trace it I don't know,' said Lady Fettercairn bitterly, 'and if her body is not found, we may conclude that she has eloped with some low lover. I hope all the grooms, gardeners, gamekeepers, and so forth, are to be seen in their places,' she added; 'and with all her faults, in appearance and style she was a great improvement upon Mrs. Prim, with her iron-grey hair arranged in corkscrew curls on each side of her face.'
Finella thought so too. Lord Fettercairn thought his better half had been latterly too severe upon the poor little companion, but did not venture to say so.