The dining-room looked very secure and home-like, with its big window and its cheerful table spread for lunch. Joyce’s place faced the window, so that she could see the lawn and the hedge bounding the kitchen garden; and when mother had served her with food, she was left alone to eat it. Presently the gardener and the boot-boy passed the window, each carrying a hedge-stake and looking warlike. There reached her a murmur of voices; the gardener was mumbling something about tramps.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” replied mother’s voice.
Mother came in presently and sat down, but did not eat anything. Joyce asked her why.
“Oh, I shall have some lunch when Joan comes,” answered mother. “I sha’n’t be hungry till then. Will you have some more, my pet?”
When Joyce had finished, they went out again to the wood to meet Joan when she was brought back in custody. Mother walked quite slowly, looking all the time as if she would like to run. Joyce held her hand and sometimes glanced up at her face, so full of wonder and a sort of resentful doubt, as though circumstances were playing an unmannerly trick on her. At the gate they came across the boot-boy.
“I bin all acrost that way,” said the boot-boy, pointing with his stumpy black forefinger, “and then acrost that way, an’ Mister Jenks”—Jenks was the gardener—“’e’ve gone about in rings, ’e ’ave. And there ain’t sign nor token, mum—not a sign there ain’t.”
From beyond him sounded the voice of the gardener, thrashing among the trees. “Miss Joan!” he roared. “Hi! Miss Jo-an! You’re a-frightin’ your ma proper. Where are ye, then?”
“She must be hiding,” said mother. “You must go on looking, Walter. You must go on looking till you find her.”
“Yes, ’m,” said Walter. “If she’s in there, us’ll find her, soon or late.”
He ran off, and presently his voice was joined to Jenks’s, calling Joan—calling, calling, and getting no answer.