VI.
THE VANISHING GOVERNESS.
The house of Breck was a mansion of tolerable antiquity as mansions went in the islands, and several curious stories had already had time to encrust it, like lichen on an aged wall. But none of them were stranger than the quite up-to-date and literally true story of the vanishing governess.
Richard Craigie, Esq., of Breck, the popular, and more or less respected, laird of the mansion and estate, was a stout grey-bearded gentleman, with a twinkling blue eye, and one of the easiest-going dispositions probably in Europe. His wife, the respected, and more or less popular, mistress of the mansion, was lean and short, and very energetic. Their sons were employed at present like everybody else's sons, and do not concern this narrative. But their two daughters, aged fifteen and fourteen, were at home, and do concern it materially.
It was only towards the end of July that Mrs Craigie thought of having a governess for the two girls during the summer holidays. With a letter in her hand, she bustled into Mr Craigie's smoking-room, and announced that her friend Mrs Armitage, in Kensington, knew a lady who knew a charming and well-educated girl—
"And who does she know?" interrupted her husband.
"Nobody," said Mrs Craigie. "She is the girl."
"Oh!" said the laird. "Now I thought that she would surely know another girl who knows a woman, who knows a man——"
"Richard!" said his wife. "Kindly listen to me!"
It had been her fate to marry a confirmed domestic humourist, but she bore her burden stoically. She told him now simply and firmly that the girl in question required a holiday, and that she proposed to give her one, and in return extract some teaching and supervision for their daughters.
"Have it your own way, my dear. Have it your own way," said he. "It was economy yesterday. It's a governess to-day. Have you forced the safe?"
"Which safe?" demanded the unsuspecting lady.
"At the bank. I've no more money of my own, I can tell you. However, send for your governess—get a couple of them as you're at it!"
The humourist was clearly so pleased with his jest that no further debate was to be apprehended, and his wife went out to write the letter. Mr Craigie lit his sixteenth pipe since breakfast and chewed the cud of his wit very happily.
A fortnight later he returned one evening in the car, bringing Miss Eileen Holland, with her trunk and her brown suit-case.
"My hat, Selina!" said he to his wife, as soon as the girls had led Miss Holland out of hearing, "that's the kind of governess for me! You don't mind my telling her to call me Dick, do you? It slipped out when she was squeezing my hand."
"I don't mind you're being undignified," replied Mrs Craigie in a chilly voice, "but I do wish you wouldn't be vulgar."
As Mr Craigie's chief joys in life were entertaining his daughters and getting a rise out of his wife, and as he also had a very genuine admiration for a pretty face, he was in the seventh heaven of happiness, and remained there for the next three days. Pipe in mouth, he invaded the schoolroom constantly and unseasonably, and reduced his daughters to a state of incoherent giggling by retailing to Miss Holland various ingenious schemes for their corporal punishment, airing humorous fragments of a language he called French, and questioning their instructor on suppositious romantic episodes in her career. He thought Miss Holland hardly laughed as much as she ought; still, she was a fine girl.
At table he kept his wife continually scandalised by his jocularities; such as hoarsely whispering, "I've lost my half of the sixpence, Miss Holland," or repeating, with a thoughtful air, "Under the apple-tree when the moon rises—I must try and not forget the hour!" Miss Holland was even less responsive to these sallies, but he enjoyed them enormously himself, and still maintained she was a fine girl.
Mrs Craigie's opinion of her new acquisition was only freely expressed afterwards, and then she declared that clever though Miss Holland undoubtedly was, and superior though she seemed, she had always suspected that something was a little wrong somewhere. She and Mr Craigie had used considerable influence and persuasion to obtain a passport for her, and why should they have been called upon to do this (by a lady whom Mrs Armitage admitted she had only met twice), simply to give a change of air to a healthy-looking girl? There was something behind that. Besides, Miss Holland was just a trifle too good-looking. That type always had a history.
"My wife was plain Mrs Craigie before the thing happened," observed her husband with a twinkle, "but, dash it, she's been Mrs Solomon ever since!"
It was on the fourth morning of Miss Holland's visit that the telegram came for her. Mr Craigie himself brought it into the schoolroom and delivered it with much facetious mystery. He noticed that it seemed to contain a message of some importance, and that she failed to laugh at all when he offered waggishly to put "him" up for the night. But she simply put it in her pocket and volunteered no explanation. He went away feeling that he had wasted a happy quip.
After lunch Mrs Craigie and the girls were going out in the car, and Miss Holland was to have accompanied them. It was then that she made her only reference to the telegram. She had got a wire, she said, and had a long letter to write, and so begged to be excused. Accordingly the car went off without her.
Not five minutes later Mr Craigie was smoking a pipe and trying to summon up energy to go for a stroll, when Miss Holland entered the smoking-room. He noticed that she had never looked so smiling and charming.
"Oh, Mr Craigie," she said, "I want you to help me. I'm preparing a little surprise!"
"For the girls?"
"For all of you!"
The laird loved a practical jest, and scented happiness at once.
"I'm your man!" said he. "What can I do for you?"
"I'll come down again in half an hour," said she. "And then I want you to help me to carry something."
She gave him a swift bewitching smile that left him entirely helpless, and hurried from the room.
Mr Craigie looked at the clock and decided that he would get his stroll into the half-hour, so he took his stick and sauntered down the drive. On one side of this drive was a line of huddled wind-bent trees, and at the end was a gate opening on the highroad, with the sea close at hand. Just as he got to the gate a stranger appeared upon the road, walking very slowly, and up to that moment concealed by the trees. He was a clergyman, tall, clean-shaved, and with what the laird afterwards described as a "hawky kind of look."
There was no haughtiness whatever about the laird of Breck. He accosted every one he met, and always in the friendliest way.
"A fine day!" said he heartily. "Grand weather for the crops, if we could just get a wee bit more of rain soon."
The clergyman stopped.
"Yes, sir," said he, "it is fine weather."
His manner was polite, but not very hearty, the laird thought. However, he was not easily damped, and proceeded to contribute several more observations, chiefly regarding the weather prospects, and tending to become rapidly humorous. And then he remembered his appointment in the smoking-room.
"Well," said he, "good day to you! I must be moving, I'm afraid."
"Good day," said the stranger courteously, and moved off promptly as he spoke.
"I wonder who will that minister be?" said Mr Craigie to himself as he strolled back. "It's funny I never saw the man before. And I wonder, too, where he was going?"
And then it occurred to him as an odd circumstance that the minister had started to go back again, not to continue as he had been walking.
"That's a funny thing," he thought.
He had hardly got back to his smoking-room when Miss Holland appeared, dressed to go out, in hat and tweed coat, and dragging, of all things, her brown suit-case. It seemed to be heavily laden.
She smiled at him confidentially, as one fellow-conspirator at another.
"Do you mind giving me a hand with this?" said she.
"Hullo!" cried the laird. "What's this—an elopement? Can you not wait till I pack my things too? The minister's in no hurry. I've just been speaking to him."
It struck him that Miss Holland took his jest rather seriously.
"The minister?" said she in rather an odd voice. "You've spoken to him?"
"He was only asking if I had got the licence," winked Mr Craigie.
The curious look passed from her face, and she laughed as pleasantly as he could wish.
"I'll take the bag myself," said the laird. "Oh, it's no weight for me. I used to be rather a dab at throwing the hammer in my day. But where am I to take it?"
"I'll show you," said she.
So out they set, Mr Craigie carrying the suit-case, and Miss Holland in the most delightful humour beside him. He felt he could have carried it for a very long way. She led him through the garden and out into a side lane between the wall and a hedge.
"Just put it down here," she said. "And now I want you to come back for something else, if you don't mind."
"Mind?" said the laird gallantly. "Not me! But I'm wondering what you are driving at."
She only smiled, but from her merry eye he felt sure that some very brilliant jest was afoot, and he joked away pleasantly as they returned to the house.
"Now," she said, "do you mind waiting in the smoking-room for ten minutes or so?"
She went out, and Mr Craigie waited, mystified but happy. He waited for ten minutes; he waited for twenty, he waited for half an hour, and still there was no sign of the fascinating Miss Holland. And then he sent a servant to look for her. Her report gave Mr Craigie the strongest sensation that had stirred that good-natured humourist for many a day. Miss Holland was not in her room, and no more, apparently, were her belongings. The toilette table was stripped, the wardrobe was empty; in fact, the only sign of her was her trunk, strapped and locked.
Moving with exceptional velocity, Mr Craigie made straight for the lane beyond the garden. The brown suit-case had disappeared.
"Well, I'm jiggered!" murmured the baffled humourist.
Very slowly and soberly he returned to the house, lit a fresh pipe, and steadied his nerves with a glass of grog. When Mrs Craigie returned, she found him sufficiently revived to jest again, though in a minor key.
"To think of the girl having the impudence to make me carry her luggage out of the house for her!" said he. "Gad, but it was a clever dodge to get clear with no one suspecting her! Well, anyhow, my reputation is safe again at last, Selina."
"Your reputation!" replied Mrs Craigie in a withering voice. "For what? Not for common-sense anyhow!"
"You're flustered, my dear," said the laird easily. "It's a habit women get into terrible easy. You should learn a lesson from Miss Eileen Holland. Dashed if I ever met a cooler hand in my life!"
"And what do you mean to do about it?" demanded his wife.
"Do?" asked Mr Craigie, mildly surprised. "Well, we might leave the pantry window open at night, so that she can get in again if she's wanting to; or——"
"It's your duty to inform the authorities, Richard!"
"Duty?" repeated the laird, still more surprised. "Fancy me starting to do my duty at my time of life!"
"Anyhow," cried Mrs Craigie, "we've still got her trunk!"
"Ah," said Mr Craigie, happily at last, "so we have! Well, that's all right then."
And with a benign expression the philosopher contentedly lit another pipe.