Chapter Thirty.
Puzzled.
Old Margery Danby, the housekeeper at Primrose Croft, was more thoroughly trustworthy than Mr Roberts had supposed, not only in will—for which he gave her full credit—but in capacity, which he had doubted. Born in the first year of Henry the Seventh, Margery had heard stirring tales in her childhood from parents who had lived through the Wars of the Roses, and she too well remembered Kett’s rebellion and the enclosure riots in King Edward’s days, not to know that “speech is silvern, but silence is golden.” The quiet, observant old woman knew perfectly well that something was “in the wind.” It was not her master’s wont to look back, and say, “Farewell, Margery!” before he mounted his horse on a Tuesday morning for his weekly visit to the cloth-works; and it was still less usual for Gertrude to remark, “Good-morrow, good Margery!” before she went out for a walk with Jack. Mistress Grena, too, had called her into her own room the night before, and told her she had thought for some time of making her a little present, as a recognition of her long care and fidelity, and had given her two royals—the older name for half-sovereigns. Margery silently “put two and two together,” and the result was to convince her that something was about to happen. Nor did she suffer from any serious doubts as to what it was. She superintended the preparation of supper on that eventful day with a settled conviction that nobody would be at home to eat it; and when the hours passed away, and nobody returned, the excitement of Cicely the chamber-maid, and Dick the scullion-boy, was not in the least shared by her. Moreover, she had seen with some amusement Mr Bastian’s approach and subsequent retreat, and she expected to see him again ere long. When the bell rang the next morning about eight o’clock, Margery went to answer it herself, and found herself confronting the gentleman she had anticipated.
“Christ save all here!” said the priest, in reply to Margery’s reverential curtsey. “Is your master within, good woman?”
“No, Father, an’t like you.”
“No? He is not wont to go forth thus early. Mistress Grena?”
“No, Sir, nor Mistress Gertrude neither.”
The priest lifted his eyebrows. “All hence! whither be they gone?”
“An’ it please you, Sir, I know not.”
“That is strange. Went they together?”
“No, Sir, separate.”
“Said they nought touching their absence?”
“Not to me, Father.”
“Have you no fantasy at all whither they went?”
“I took it, Sir, that my master went to the works, as he is wont of a Tuesday; and I thought Mistress Grena was a-visiting some friend. Touching Mistress Gertrude I can say nought.”
“She went not forth alone, surely?”
“She took Jack withal, Sir—none else.”
The conviction was slowly growing in Mr Bastian’s mind that the wave of that feathery tail had deprived him of the only means of communication which he was ever likely to have with Gertrude Roberts. “The sly minx!” he said to himself. Then aloud to Margery, “Do I take you rightly that all they departed yesterday, and have not yet returned?”
“That is sooth, Father.”
Margery stood holding the door, with a calm, stolid face, which looked as if an earthquake would neither astonish nor excite her. Mr Bastian took another arrow from his quiver, one which he generally found to do considerable execution.
“Woman,” he said sternly, “you know more than you have told me!”
“Father, with all reverence, I know no more than you.”
Her eyes met his with no appearance of insincerity.
“Send Osmund to me,” he said, walking into the house, and laying down his hat and stick on the settle in the hall.
“Sir, under your good pleasure, Osmund went with Mistress.”
“And turned not again?”
“He hath not come back here, Sir.”
“Then they have taken flight!” cried the priest in a passion. “Margery Danby, as you fear the judgment of the Church, and value her favour, I bid you tell me whither they are gone.”
“Sir, even for holy Church’s favour, I cannot say that which I know not.”
“On your soul’s salvation, do you not know it?” he said solemnly.
“On my soul’s salvation, Sir, I know it not.”
The priest strode up and down the hall more than once. Then he came and faced Margery, who was now standing beside the wide fireplace in the hall.
“Have you any guess whither your master may be gone, or the gentlewomen?”
“I’ve guessed a many things since yester-even, Sir,” answered Margery quietly, “but which is right and which is wrong I can’t tell.”
“When Mistress Collenwood and Mistress Pandora went hence secretly in the night-time, knew you thereof, beforehand?”
“Surely no, Father.”
“Had you any ado with their departing?”
“The first thing I knew or guessed thereof, Father, was the next morrow, when I came into the hall and saw them not.”
Mr Bastian felt baffled on every side. That his prey had eluded him just in time to escape the trap he meant to lay for them, was manifest. What his next step was to be, was not equally clear.
“Well!” he said at last with a disappointed air, “if you know nought, ’tis plain you can tell nought. I must essay to find some that can.”
“I have told you all I know, Father,” was the calm answer. But Margery did not say that she had told all she thought, nor that if she had known more she would have revealed it.
Mr Bastian took up his hat and stick, pausing for a moment at the door to ask, “Is that black beast come back?”
“Jack is not returned, Sir,” answered the housekeeper.
It was with a mingled sense of relief and uneasiness on that point that the priest took the road through the village. That Jack was out of the way was a delicious relief. But suppose Jack should spring suddenly on him out of some hedge, or on turning a corner? Out of the way might turn out to be all the more surely in it.
Undisturbed, however, by any vision of a black face and a feathery tail, Mr Bastian reached Roger Hall’s door. Nell opened it, and unwillingly admitted that her master was at home, Mr Bastian being so early that Roger had not yet left his house for the works. Roger received him in his little parlour, to which Christie had not yet been carried.
“Hall, are you aware of your master’s flight?”
Roger Hall opened his eyes in genuine amazement.
“No, Sir! Is he gone, then?”
“He never returned home after leaving the works yesterday.”
Roger’s face expressed nothing but honest concern for his master’s welfare. “He left the works scarce past three of the clock,” said he, “and took the road toward Primrose Croft. God grant none ill hath befallen him!”
“Nought o’ the sort,” said the priest bluntly. “The gentlewomen be gone belike, and Osmund with them. ’Tis a concerted plan, not a doubt thereof: and smelleth of the fire (implies heretical opinions), or I mistake greatly. Knew you nought thereof? Have a care how you make answer!”
“Father, you have right well amazed me but to hear it. Most surely I knew nought, saving only that when I returned home yestre’en, my little maid told me Mistress Grena had been so good as to visit her, and had brought her a cake and a posy of flowers from the garden. But if Osmund were with her or no, that did I not hear.”
“Was Mistress Grena wont to visit your daughter?”
“By times, Father: not very often.”
As all his neighbours must be aware of Mistress Grena’s visit, Roger thought it the wisest plan to be perfectly frank on that point.
“Ask at Christabel if she wist whether Osmund came withal.”
Roger made the inquiry, and returned with the information that Christabel did not know. From her couch she could only see the horse’s ears, and had not noticed who was with it.
“’Tis strange matter,” said the priest severely, “that a gentleman of means and station, with his sister, and daughter, and servant, could disappear thus utterly, and none know thereof!”
“It is, Father, in very deed,” replied Roger sympathisingly.
“I pray you, Hall, make full inquiry at the works, and give me to wit if aught be known thereof. Remember, you are somewhat under a cloud from your near kinship to Alice Benden, and diligence in this matter may do you a good turn with holy Church.”
“Sir, I will make inquiry at the works,” was the answer, which did not convey Roger’s intention to make no use of the inquiries that could damage his master, nor his settled conviction that no information was to be had.
The only person at all likely to know more than himself was the cashier at the works, since he lived between Cranbrook and Primrose Croft, and Roger carefully timed his inquiries so as not to include him. The result was what he expected—no one could tell him anything. He quickly and diligently communicated this interesting fact to the priest’s servant, his master not being at home; and Mr Bastian was more puzzled than ever. The nine days’ wonder gradually died down. On the Thursday evening Mr Justice Roberts came home, and was met by the news of his brother’s disappearance, with his family. He was so astonished that he sat open-mouthed, knife and spoon in hand, while his favourite dish of broiled fowl grew cold, until he had heard all that Martha had to tell him. Supper was no sooner over, than off he set to Primrose Croft.
“Well, Madge, old woman!” said he to the old housekeeper, who had once been his nurse, “this is strange matter, surely! Is all true that Martha tells me? Be all they gone, and none wist how nor whither?”
“Come in, and sit you down by the fire, Master Anthony,” said Margery, in whose heart was a very soft spot for her sometime nursling, “and I’ll tell you all I know. Here’s the master’s keys, they’ll maybe be safer in your hands than mine; he didn’t leave ’em wi’ me, but I went round the house and picked ’em all up, and locked everything away from them prying maids and that young jackanapes of a Dickon. Some he must ha’ took with him; but he’s left the key of the old press, look you, and that label hanging from it.”
The Justice looked at the label, and saw his own name written in his brother’s writing.
“Ha! maybe he would have me open the press and search for somewhat. Let us go to his closet, Madge. Thou canst tell me the rest there, while I see what this meaneth.”
“There’s scarce any rest to tell, Mr Anthony; only they are all gone—Master, and Mistress Grena, and Mistress Gertrude, and Osmund, and bay Philbert, and the black mare, and old Jack.”
“What, Jack gone belike! Dear heart alive! Why, Madge, that hath little look of coming again.”
“It hasn’t, Mr Anthony; and one of Mistress Gertrude’s boxes, that she keeps her gems in, lieth open and empty in her chamber.”
The Justice whistled softly as he fitted the key in the lock.