Disappeared From Her Home: A Novel

by Catherine Louisa Pirkis

CHAPTER V.

DR. HAYWARD’S report of Mr. and Mrs. Warden’s health was far from satisfactory. “The lady,” he said, in reply to Lord Hardcastle’s enquiries, was undoubtedly suffering from small-pox, which in her weak state of health, had taken strong hold of her. As to Mr. Warden, he could not be sure; he feared some disease was latent in his system; he was altogether below par, and the anxiety and grief he had gone through had completely undermined his constitution—

“Do what you can for them, while you can, my dear, young friend,” he added (he had known Hardcastle from his boyhood), “and spare them, as far as possible, the details of this sad business.”

So Lord Hardcastle had sent for his portmanteau, and a few favourite books, and begged of Mrs. Nesbitt a room in some quiet corner of the house, “A room, if you please, with cool, quiet colouring, no reds, or blues, or yellows, to flash out from the walls, and some soft thick carpet on the floor,” he had said, his wonted fastidiousness once more asserting itself. But he was more than repaid for any temporary inconvenience he might suffer, by the look of grateful thanks which crossed Mr. Warden’s careworn face, and his warm pressure of the hand, as he thanked his young friend for his kind unselfishness in thus voluntarily sharing the dreariness and desolation of their home. Dreary it was, indeed, to one who had known it in the old days. No light footsteps on the stairs, or sudden opening of doors, and a bright young voice pouring forth a flood of question, answer, and exclamation in a breath; no croquet, nor tennis balls here and there on the lawn, nor galloping of pony’s feet up the long steep avenue. A silence as of death appeared to have fallen upon the house, and the father and mother, stricken and weary, looked in each other’s pale faces and wondered “could this be the home of a month ago?”

And as Lord Hardcastle began to grow accustomed to the routine and family life of the household, two thoughts gradually forced themselves into his mind, which he felt would lead him somewhere, although utterly at a loss to imagine where.

Thrown as he was daily into close and intimate relations with Mr. and Mrs. Warden, he could not help reflecting on the strangeness of the fact, that neither in appearance, disposition, nor manner, did Amy in the slightest degree resemble either parent. The more closely he observed them, the more the dissimilarity became apparent.

The second fact which forced itself upon his notice, related solely to Mrs. Warden. Sincere as her grief for her daughter’s loss undoubtedly was, it soon became apparent to Lord Hardcastle, that it was nevertheless simply a reflected sorrow, that is to say, it struck her through her husband; she grieved for his loss, more than for her own, and was broken-hearted because she saw that grief was slowly killing him day by day. No one but a very close observer would have noted these things, and Lord Hardcastle was a very close observer, and more than that, a logical one. He did not believe in the possibility of sudden and disconnected facts occurring in the human world any more than in the world of nature. “There is a reason for these things, although at present it eludes me,” he would say to himself time after time. Long after midnight might the shaded lamp be seen burning from his bedroom window, and could any one have lifted the curtain, they would have seen Hardcastle, with head resting on his hands, and elbows on the table, no books before him, nor any pretence of writing materials, but a whole world of thought evidently passing and repassing through his brain.

Meantime enquiries were set on foot on all sides as to the girl Williams. Frank Varley had ascertained from the station master at Dunwich, that a young girl, veiled and exceedingly well dressed, had left by the first train on that morning—

“I should not have noticed any number of ladies at any other time, sir,” said the man, “but it is quite the exception for any but work people or business men to travel up by the 5.9 a.m. train.”

Varley had farther ascertained from the guard, that the lady had travelled first class, and had seemed very faint and tired. Arriving at the Midland Station, his work suddenly and unexpectedly became very easy to him. The officials there at once informed him of a lady having been taken alarmingly ill on alighting from the early morning train. The porter who told him, said that he himself had fetched a cab for her, and, scarcely conscious, she had given some address at Hackney, where she wished to be driven, but the name of the street had entirely slipped his memory.