When Rosaline, her hands lifted in distress, tore away that evening from the Bottomless Shaft, and the tragedy that had been enacted there, and went flying over the Bare Plain towards home, Frank Raynor, recovering from the horror which had well-nigh stunned his faculties, went after her. Two or three times he attempted to say a word to her, but she took no notice of him; only sped the quicker, if that were possible. She never answered; it was as if she did not hear. When they reached the narrow path that branched off to the cottages, there she stopped, and turned towards him.
"We part here. Part for ever.
"Are you going home?" he asked.
"Where else should I go?" she rejoined, in anguish. "Where else can I go?"
"I will see you safe to the door.
"No. No! Good-bye."
And, throwing up her hands, as if to ward him off, she would have sped onwards. But Frank Raynor could not part thus: he had something to say, and detained her, holding her hands tightly. A few hasty words passed between them, and then she was at liberty to go on. He stood watching her until she drew near to her own door, and then turned back on his way across the plain.
In his whole life Francis Raynor had never felt as he was feeling now. An awful weight had settled upon his soul. His friends had been wont to say that no calamity upon earth could bring down Frank's exuberant spirits, or change the lightness of his ways. But something had been found to do it now. Little less agitated was he than Rosaline; the sense of horror upon him was the same as hers.
He was now passing the fatal spot, the Bottomless Shaft; its surrounding hillocks shone out in the moonlight. Frank turned his eyes that way, and stood still to gaze. Of their own accord, and as if some fascination impelled him against his will, his steps moved thitherwards.
With a livid face, and noiseless feet, and a heart that ceased for the moment to beat, he took the first narrow zigzag between two of the mounds. And—but what was it that met his gaze? As he came in view of the Shaft, he saw the figure of a man standing on its brink. The sight was so utterly unexpected, and so unlikely, that Frank stood still, scarcely believing it to be reality. For one blissful moment he lost sight of impossibilities, and did indeed think it must be Josiah Bell.
Only for an instant. The truth returned to his mind in all its wretchedness, together with the recognition of Mr. Blase Pellet. Mr. Blase was gingerly bending forward, but with the utmost caution, and looking down into the pit. As if he were listening for what might be to be heard there: just as the unhappy Rosaline had professed to listen a few minutes before.
Frank had not made any noise; and, even though he had, a strong gust of wind, just then sweeping the mounds, deadened all sound but its own. But, with that subtle instinct that warns us sometimes of a human presence, Blase Pellet turned sharply round, and saw him. Not a word passed. Frank drew silently back—though he knew the man had recognized him—and pursued his way over the Plain.
He guessed how it was. When he and Rosaline had been waiting amidst the mounds for Blase Pellet to pass, Blase had not passed. Blase must have seen them cross over to the spot in the moonlight; and, instead of continuing his route, had stealthily crossed after them and concealed himself in one or other of the narrow zigzags. He must have remained there until now. How much had he seen? How much did he know? If anything had been capable of adding to the weight of perplexity and trouble that had fallen on Frank Raynor, it would be this. He groaned in spirit he pursued his way homeward.
"How late you are, Frank!"
The words, spoken by Edina, met him as he entered. Hearing him come in, she had opened the door of the sitting-room. In the bewildering confusion of his mind, the perplexity as to the future, the sudden shock of the one moment's calamity, which might change the whole current of his future life, Frank Raynor had lost all recollection of the engagement for the evening. The appearance of Edina recalled it to him.
She was in evening dress: though very sober dress. A plain grey silk, its low body and short sleeves trimmed with a little white lace; a gold chain and locket on her neck; and bracelets of not much value. Quite ready, all but her gloves.
"Are—are you going, Edina?"
"Going!" replied Edina. "Of course I am going. You are going also, are you not?"
Frank pushed his hair off his brow. The gay scene at The Mount, and the dreadful scene in which he had just been an actor, struck upon him as being frightfully incongruous. Edina was gazing at him: she detected some curious change in his manner, and she saw that he was looking very pale.
"Is anything the matter, Frank? Are you not well?"
"Oh, I am quite well."
"Surely that poor woman is not dead?"
"What woman?" asked Frank, his wits still wool-gathering. Dr. Raynor, leaving his chair by the parlour-fire, had also come to the door, and was looking on.
"Have you been to see more than one woman?" said Edina. "I meant Molly Janes."
"Oh—ay—yes," returned Frank, passing his hand over his perplexed brow. "She'll be all right in a few days. There's no very serious damage done."
"What has made you so long, then?" questioned the doctor.
"I—did not know it was late," was the only excuse poor Frank could think of, as he turned from the steady gaze of Edina: though he might have urged that plastering up Mrs. Molly's wounds had taken time. And in point of fact he did not, even yet, know whether it was late or early.
"Pray make haste, Frank," said Edina. "You can dress quickly when you like. I did not wish, you know, to be so late as this."
He turned to seek his room. There was no help for it: he must go to this revelry. Edina could not go alone: and, indeed, he had no plea for declining to accompany her. Not until he was taking off his coat did he remember the blow on his shoulder. Frank Raynor, in his mind's grievous trouble, had neither felt the pain left by the blow, nor remembered that he had received one.
Yet it was a pretty severe stroke, and the shoulder on which it fell was stiff and aching. Frank, his coat off, was passing his hand gently over the place, perhaps to ascertain the extent of the damage, when the door was tapped at and then opened by Edina.
"I have brought you a flower for your button-hole, Frank."
It was a hot-house flower, white and beautiful as wax. Dr. Raynor had brought it from a patient's house where he had been in the afternoon, and Edina had kept it until the last moment as a small surprise to Frank. He took it mechanically; thanking her, it is true, but very tamely, his thoughts evidently far away. Edina could only note the change: what had become of Frank's light-heartedness?
"Is anything wrong with your shoulder?"
"It has a bit of a bruise, I think," he carelessly answered, putting the flower down on his dressing-table.
She shut the door, and Frank went on dressing, always mechanically. How many nights, and days, and weeks, and years, would it be before his mind would lose the horror of the recent scene!
"I wish to Heaven that she-demon, Molly Janes, had beenthere!" he cried, stamping his foot on the floor in a sudden access of grief and passion. "But for her vagaries, I should not have been called out this evening, and this frightful calamity would not have happened!"
Edina was ready when he went down, cloaked and shawled, a warm hood over her smooth brown hair. The doctor did not keep a close carriage; such a thing as a fly was not to be had at Trennach; and so they had to walk. Mrs. St. Clare had graciously intimated that she would send her carriage for Miss Raynor if the night turned out a bad one. But the night was bright and fine.
"You will besurenot to sit up for us, papa," said Edina, while Frank was putting on his overcoat. "It is quite uncertain what time we shall return home."
"No, no, child; I shall not sit up."
When they came to the end of the village, Frank turned on to the roadway, at the back of the parsonage. Edina, who was on his arm, asked him why he did so: the Bare Plain was the nearer way.
"But this is less dreary," was his answer. "We shall be there soon enough."
"Nay, I think the Bare Plain far less dreary than the road: especially on such a night as this," said Edina. "Here we are over-shadowed by trees: on the Plain we have the full moonlight."
He said no more: only kept on his way. It did not matter; it would make only about three minutes' difference. Edina stepped out cheerfully; she never made a fuss over trifles. By-and-by, she began to wonder at his silence. It was very unusual.
"Have you a headache, Frank?"
"No. Yes. Just a little."
Edina said nothing to the contradictory answer. Something unusual and unpleasant had decidedly occurred to him.
"How did you bruise your shoulder?" she presently asked.
"Oh—gave it a knock," he said, after the slightest possible pause. "My shoulder's all right, Edina: don't talk about it. Much better than that confounded Molly Janes's bruises are."
And with the sharp words, sounding so strangely from Frank's good-natured lips, Edina gathered the notion that the grievance was in some way connected with Molly Janes; perhaps the damaged shoulder also. Possibly she had turned obstreperous under the young doctor's hands and had shown fight to him as well as to her husband.
The Mount burst upon them in a blaze of light. Plants, festoons, music, brilliancy! As they were entering the chief reception-room, out-door wrappings removed, Edina missed the beautiful white flower: Frank's coat was unadorned.
"Frank! what have you done with your flower?"
His eyes wandered to the flowers decorating the rooms, and then to his button-hole, all in an absent sort of way that surprised Miss Raynor.
"I fear I must have forgotten it, Edina. I wish you had worn it yourself: it would have been more appropriate. How well it would have looked in your hair!"
"Fancy me with flowers in my hair!" laughed Edina. "But, Frank, I think Molly Janes must have scared some of your wits away."
Their greeting to Mrs. St. Clare over, Frank found a seat for Edina, and stood back himself in a corner, behind a remote door. How terribly this scene of worldly excitement contrasted with the one enacted so short a time ago! He was living it, perforce, over again; going through its short-lived action, that had all been over in one or two fatal moments: this, before him, seemed as a dream. The gaily-robed women sweeping past him with light laughter; the gleam of jewels; the pomp and pageantry: all seemed but the shifting scenes of a panorama. Frank could have groaned aloud at the bitter mockery: here life, gay, heedless, joyous: there DEATH; death violent and sudden. Never before, throughout his days, had the solemn responsibilities of this world and of the next so painfully pressed themselves upon him in all their dread reality.
"Oh, Mr. Raynor! I thought you were not coming! Have you been here long?"
The emotional words came from a fair girl in a cloud of white—Daisy St. Clare. Frank's hand went forward to meet the one held out to him: but never a smile crossed his face.
"How long have you been here, Mr. Raynor?"
"How long? I am not sure. Half-an-hour, I think."
"Have you been dancing?"
"Oh no. I have been standing here."
"To hide yourself? I really should not have seen you but that I am looking everywhere for Lydia's card, which she has lost."
He did not answer: his head was throbbing, his heart beating. Daisy thought him very silent.
"I have had my dance with Sir Paul Trellasis," said Daisy, toying with her own card, a blush on her face, and her eyes cast down.
At any other moment Frank would have read the signs, and taken the hint: she was ready to dance withhim. But he never asked her: he did not take the gilded leaves and pencil into his own hands and write down his name as many times as he pleased. He simply stood still, gazing out with vacant eyes and a sad look on his face. Daisy at length glanced up at him.
"Are you ill?" she inquired.
"No; only tired."
"Too tired to dance?" she ventured to ask, after a pause, her pulses quickening a little as she put the suggestive question.
"Yes. I cannot dance to-night, Miss Margaret."
"Oh, but why?"
His breath was coming a little quickly with emotion. Not caused by Daisy, and her hope of dancing; but by that terriblerecollection. Subduing his tones as far as possible, he spoke.
"Pray forgive me, Miss Margaret: I really cannot dance to-night."
And the cold demeanour, the discouraging words, threw a chill upon her heart. What had she done to him, that he should change like this? With a bearing that sought to be proud, but a quivering lip, Margaret turned away.
He caught her eye as she was doing so; caught the expression of her face, and read its bitter disappointment. The next moment he was bending over her, pressing her hand within his.
"Forgive me, Daisy," he whispered, in pleading tones. "Indeed it is not caprice: I—I cannot dance to-night. Go and dance to your heart's content, and let me hide myself here until Miss Raynor is ready to leave you. The kindest thing you can do is to take no further notice of me."
He released her hand as he spoke, and stood back again in his dark corner. Margaret turned away with a sigh. Her pleasure in the evening had flown.
"And he never wished me any good wishes! It might just as well not have been my birthday."
There was commotion next morning at Trennach, especially about the region of the Bare Plain and the cottages in Bleak Row. Josiah Bell had disappeared. Mrs. Bell had sat up half the night waiting for him; then, concluding he had taken too much liquor to be able to find his way home, and had either stayed at the Golden Shaft or found refuge with Andrew Float, she went to bed. Upon making inquiries this morning, this proved not to be the case. Nothing seemed to be known of Josiah Bell. His comrades professed ignorance as to his movements: the Golden Shaft had not taken him in; neither had Andrew Float.
Mrs. Bell rose early. People in a state of exasperation, lose sight of physical weakness: and this exactly expresses Dame Bell's state of mind. It was of course necessary that she should be up, in order to give Bell a proper lecture when he should make his appearance. Whilst dressing, she saw Nancy Tomson's husband outside, apparently starting for Trennach. Throwing a warm shawl over her shoulders, she opened the window.
"Tomson!" she called out. "Tomson!"
The man heard and looked up, his face leaden and his eyes red and inflamed. Last night's potations were not yet slept off.
"What was the reason my husband did not come home?"
Tomson took a few moments to digest the question. Apparently his recollection on the point did not quickly serve him.
"I doan't know," said he. "Didn't Bell come hoam?"
"No, he didn't."
"Baan't he come hoam?"
"No, he has not come. And I think it was a very unfriendly thing of the rest of you not to bring him. You had to come yourselves. Did you leave him at the Golden Shaft?"
"Bell warn't at tha Golden Shaaft," said Tomson.
"Now don't you tell me any of your untruths, Ben Tomson," returned the dame. "Not at the Golden Shaft! Where else was he?"
"I'll take my davy Bell were not weth us at tha Golden Shaaft last evening!" said the man. "He cleared out at dusk."
"But he went back to it later."
"He never did—not as I saw," persisted Tomson; who was always obstinate in maintaining his own opinion.
"Was Andrew Float there?" asked Mrs. Bell.
"Andrew Float? Yes, Float was there."
"Then I know Bell was there too. And don't you talk any more nonsense about it, Ben Tomson. Bell was too bad to get home by himself, and none of you chose to help him home; perhaps you were too bad yourselves to do it. And there he has stayed till now; either at the Golden Shaft, or with Float the miner: and you'd very much oblige me, Tomson, if you'd hunt him up."
She shut the casement, watched Tomson start on his way to Trennach, and, presently, went down to breakfast. Rosaline was getting it ready as usual, looking more dead than alive.
"We'll wait a bit, Rose, to see whether your father comes. Don't put the tea in yet."
Rose was kneeling before the fire at the moment. She turned at the words, a wild look in her eyes, and seemed about to say something; but checked herself.
Half-an-hour passed: Dame Bell growing more angry each minute, and rehearsing a sharper reception for Bell in her mind. At last they sat down to breakfast. Rose could not eat; she seemed ill: but her mother, taken up with the ill-doings of the truant, did not observe her as much as she would otherwise have done. Breakfast was at an end, although Mrs. Bell had lingered over it, when Tomson returned; and with him appeared the tall ungainly form of Float the miner.
"Well?" cried the dame, rising briskly from her chair in expectation, as Tomson raised the latch of the door.
"Well, 'tis as I said," said Tomson. "Bell didn't come back to the Golden Shaaft last night after he cleared out just afore dark. He ain't nowheres about as we can see."
Mrs. Bell looked from one to the other: at Tomson's rather sullen countenance, at Float's good-natured one. She might have thought the men were deceiving her, but she could see no motive for their doing so. Unless, indeed, Bell was lying somewhere in Trennach, so ill after his bout that they did not like to tell her.
"Where is he, then, I should like to know?" she retorted, in reply to Tomson.
"Caan't tell," said Tomson. "None o' they men heve seen him."
"Now this won't do," cried Dame Bell. "You must know where he is. Do you suppose he's lost? Don't stand simpering there on one leg, Andrew Float, but just tell me where he is hiding."
"I'd tell ye if I knew, ma'am," said Andrew, in his meek way. "I'd like to know where he is myself."
"But he was at the Golden Shaft last night: he must have been there," insisted the dame, unable to divest herself of this opinion. "What became of him when the place shut up? What state was he in?"
"No, ma'am, he was not there," said Andrew, mildly, for he never liked contradicting.
"Stuff!" said Mrs. Bell. "There was nowhere else for him to go to. What did you do with him, Andrew Float?"
"I heve done naught with him," rejoined Andrew. "He kep' I and they t'other soes awaiting all the evening for him at the Golden Shaft; but he didn't come back to't."
"I know he was at the Golden Shaft pretty nigh all yesterday," retorted Mrs. Bell, angrily.
"He were," acknowledged Andrew. "He come back after his dinner, and stayed there along o' the rest of us: but he was pewerly silent and glum; we couldna get a word from him. Just as they were a-lighting up, Bell he gets off the settle, and puts on his hat; and when we asked where he was going, he said to do his work. Upon that, one o' they sees—old Perkins, I think it were—wanted to know what work; but Bell wouldn't answer him. He'd be back by-and-by, he said; and went out."
"And he did not go back again?" reiterated Dame Bell.
"No, ma'am, he didn't. Though we aal stayed a bit later than usual on the strength of expecting him."
"It's very strange," said she. "He came home here about seven o'clock, or between that and half-past—I can't be sure as to the exact time. I thought he had come for good; he was three-parts tipsy then, and I advised him to sit down and make himself comfortable. Not a bit would he heed. After standing a minute or so, twirling his stick about, and asking where Rosaline was, and this and the other, he suddenly pushes his hat down over his eyes, and out he goes in a passion—as I could tell by his banging the door. Of course he was going back to the Golden Shaft. There can't be a doubt of it."
"He never came to the Golden Shaft, ma'am," said Float.
"I say," cried Tomson at this juncture, "what's amiss with Rosaline?"
During the above conversation, Rosaline had stood at the dresser, wiping the plates one by one, and keeping her back to the company, so that they did not see her face. But it chanced that Tomson went to the fire to light his pipe, just as Rosaline's work came to an end. As she crossed the kitchen to the staircase, Tomson met her and had full view of her. The man stared after her in surprise: even when she had disappeared up the stairs and shut the door behind her, he still stood staring; for he had never seen in all his life a face to equal it for terror. It was then that he put his question to Mrs. Bell.
"Didn't your wife tell you what it was that frightened her, Ben Tomson?" was the dame's query.
"My wife have said ne'er a word to me since yesterday dinnertime, save to call me a vool," confessed Tomson. "Her temper be up. Rosaline do look bad, though!"
"She heard the Seven Whistlers last night," explained Mrs. Bell. "It did fright her a'most to death.
"What!—they Whistlers here again laast night?" cried Tomson, his eyes opening with consternation.
Dame Bell nodded. "Your wife and me were sitting here, Ben Tomson, waiting for Rosaline to come in, and wondering why Granny Sandon kept her so late. I opened the door to see if I could see her coming across the Plain—or Bell, either, for the matter o' that—and there she was, leaning again' the wall outside with terror. We got her indoors, me and Nancy Tomson, and for some time could make nothing of her; she was too frighted to speak. At last she told us she had heard the Seven Whistlers as she was coming over the Plain."
But now this statement of Mrs. Bell's unconsciously deviated from the strict line of truth. Rosaline had not "told" them that she heard the Seven Whistlers on the Plain. When her mother suddenly accused her of having heard the Whistlers, and was backed in the suggestion by Nancy Tomson, poor Rosaline nodded an affirmative, but she gave it in sheer despair. She could not avow what had really frightened her; and the Seven Whistlers—which she had certainlynotheard—served excellently for an excuse. The two women of course adopted the explanation religiously, and they had no objection to talk about it.
"They Whistlers again!" resumed Tomson, in dismay. "Ross, he's raging just like a bear this morning, threatening us weth law and what not; but hecaan'texpect us to go down and risk our lives while they boding Whistlers be glinting about."
"There, never mind they Whistlers," broke in Mrs. Bell, who sometimes fell into the native dialect. "Where's Bell got to? that's what I want to know."
Of course Tomson could not say. Neither could Float. The latter made the most sensible suggestion the circumstances admitted of—namely, that they should go and search for him. Mrs. Bell urged them to do so at once and to make haste about it. Bell would be found in Trennach fast enough, she said. As he had not taken refuge in Float's the miner's house, he had taken it in somebody else's, and was staying there till he grew sober.
On this day, Wednesday, Trennach was again taking holiday, and laying the blame on the Seven Whistlers. But this state of things could not last. The men knew that; and they now promised the overseer, Ross, whose rage had reached a culminating point, that the morrow should see them at work. One wise old miner avowed an opinion that three days would be enough to "break the spell o' they Whistlers and avert evil."
So the village street was filled with idlers, who really, apart from smoking and drinking, had nothing to do with themselves. It was a little early yet for the Golden Shaft: and when Andrew Float and Tomson arrived amongst them with the account that Josiah Bell had not been seen since the previous evening or been home all night, and that his wife (or as Tomson phrased it in the local vernacular, his woman) couldn't think where he had got to and had put a rod in pickle for him: the men listened. With one accord, they agreed to go and look for Bell: and they set about it heartily, for it gave them something to do.
But Josiah Bell could not be found. The miners' dwellings were searched, perhaps without a single exception, but he had not taken refuge in any one of them. Since quitting the Golden Shaft the previous evening at dusk, as testified to by the men who were there, only two persons, apart from his wife, could remember to have seen him: Blase Pellet, and the Rector of Trennach, the Reverend Thomas Pine. Mr. Pellet, standing at his shop-door for recreation at the twilight hour, had seen Bell pass down the street on his way from the inn, and noticed that he was tolerably far gone in liquor. The clergyman had seen and spoken to Bell a very few minutes later.
Chancing to meet the men on their search this morning, Mr. Pine learnt that Josiah Bell was missing. The clergyman always made himself at home with the men, whether they belonged to his flock or were Wesleyans. He never attempted to interfere in the slightest degree with their form of worship, but he constantly strove by friendly persuasion to lead them away from evil. The Wesleyan minister was obliged to him for it: he himself was lame, and could not be so active as he would have liked. Mr. Pine did much good, no doubt: but this last affair of the Whistlers, and the consequent idleness, had been too strong for him. Latterly Mr. Pine had also been in very indifferent health; the result of many years' hard work, and no holiday. Dr. Raynor had now told him that an entire rest of some months had become essential to him; without it he would inevitably break down. He was a tall, thin, middle-aged man with a worn face. Particularly worn, it looked, as he stood talking to the group of miners this morning.
"I saw Bell last evening myself," observed Mr. Pine. "And I was very sorry to see him as I did, for he could hardly walk straight. I was coming off the Plain and met him there. He had halted, and was gazing about, as if looking for some one: or, perhaps, in doubt—as it struck me—whether he should go on home, or, return whence he had come; which I supposed was from that favourite resort of yours, my men, the Golden Shaft. 'Better go straight home, Bell,' I said to him. 'I'm going that way, sir,' he answered. And he did go that way: for I watched him well on to the Plain."
"Well, we caan't find him nohow, sir," observed Andrew Float. "What time might that have been, sir, please?"
"Time? Something past seven. I should think it likely that Bell lay down somewhere to sleep the liquor off," added the clergyman, preparing to continue his way. "It is not often Bell exceeds as he did yesterday, and therefore it would take more effect upon him." The Bells, it may as well be remarked, were church people.
"Most likely he have faaled down, as tha paarson says; but he's a vool for lying there still," observed the men amongst themselves, as they turned off to pursue the search. Frank Raynor was out on his round this morning, as usual, and paid a visit to Molly Janes, whom he found going on satisfactorily. In passing Mrs. Bell's window, he saw Rosaline: hesitated, and then lifted the latch and went in. He stayed a minute or two talking with her alone, the mother being upstairs: and left her with the one word emphatically repeated: "Remember."
When Tomson went home to his midday meal, he opened Mrs. Bell's door to inform her that there were no tidings of her husband. Dame Bell received the information with incredulity. Much they had searched! she observed to her daughter, as Tomson disappeared: they had just sat themselves down again at the Golden Shaft; that was what they had done. Which accusation was this time a libel. She resolved to go and look after him herself when she had eaten her dinner. As to Rosaline, she did not know what to make of her. The girl looked frightfully ill, did not speak, and every now and then was seized with a fit of trembling.
"Such nonsense, child, to let the Whistlers frighten you into this state!" cried Mrs. Bell, tartly.
Retiring to her room after dinner, she came down by-and-by with her things on. Rosaline looked surprised.
"Where are you going, mother?"
"Into Trennach," said Dame Bell. "There's an old saying, 'If you want a thing done, do it yourself.' I shall find your father, I'll be bound, if he is to be found anywhere."
"You will be so tired, mother."
"Tired! Nonsense. Mind you have tea ready, Rosaline. I shall be sure to bring him back with me; I'm not going to stand any nonsense: and you might make a nice bit of buttered toast; he's fond of it, you know."
Stepping briskly across the Plain, Mrs. Bell went onwards. Nothing induces activity like a little access of temper, and she was boiling over with indignation at her husband. The illness from which she was suffering did not deprive her of exertion: and in truth it was not a serious illness as yet, though it might become so. Symptoms of a slow, inward complaint were manifesting themselves, and Dr. Raynor was doing his best to subdue them. Privately he feared the result; but Dame Bell did not suspect that yet.
Dr. Raynor and his nephew stood in the surgery after their midday dinner, the doctor with his back to the fire, Frank handing some prepared medicines, for delivery, to the boy who waited for them. As the latter went out with his basket, Blase Pellet ran across the road and came in, apron on, but minus his hat.
"Could you oblige us with a small quantity of one or two drugs, sir?" he asked of Dr. Raynor: mentioning those required. "We are out of them, and our traveller won't call before next week. Mr. Float's respects, sir, and he'll be much obliged if you can do it."
"I dare say we can," replied Dr. Raynor. "Just see, Frank, will you?"
As Frank was looking out the drugs, Mr. Pine came in. He was rather fond of running in for a chat with the doctor and Frank at leisure moments. Frank was an especial favourite of his, with his unaffected goodness of heart and his genial nature.
"A fine state of things, is it not!" cried the clergyman, alluding to the idlers in the streets. "Three days of it, we have had now."
"They will be at work to-morrow, I hear," said the doctor.
"Has Bell turned up yet?"
"No. The men have just told me they don't know where to look for him. They have searched everywhere. It seems strange where he can have got to."
Blase Pellet, standing before the table, waiting for the drugs, caught Frank's eye as the last words were spoken. A meaning look shot out from Pellet, and Frank Raynor's gaze fell as he met it. It plainly said, "Youknow where he is:" or it seemed so to Frank's guilty conscience.
"The fellow must have seen all!" thought Frank. "What on earth will come of it?"
Some one pushed back the half-open door, and stepped in with a quick gait and rather a sharp tongue: sharp, at least, this afternoon. Dame Bell: in her Sunday Paisley shawl, and green strings to her bonnet.
"If you please, Dr. Raynor—I beg pardon, gentlefolk"—catching sight of the clergyman—"if you please, doctor, could you give me some little thing to quiet Rosaline's nerves. She heard the Seven Whistlers last night, and they have frightened her out of her senses."
"Heard the Seven Whistlers!" repeated the clergyman, a hearty smile crossing his face.
"She did, sir. And pretty nearly died of it. I'm sure last night I thought she would have died. I'd never have supposed Rosaline could be so foolish. But there; it is so; and to-day she's just like one dazed. Not an atom of colour in her face; cowed down so as hardly to be able to put one foot before the other; and every other minute has a fit of the shivers."
To hear this astounding account of the hitherto gay, light-hearted, and self-contained Rosaline Bell, surprised the surgery not a little. Dr. Raynor naturally asked for further particulars; and Dame Bell plunged into the history of the previous night, and went through with it.
"Yes, gentlefolk, those were her very words—almost all we could get out of her: 'Father heard them and they boded death.' I——"
"But you should have tried to reason her out of such nonsense," interrupted Dr. Raynor.
"Metried!" retorted Dame Bell, resenting the words. "Why, sir, it is what I did do. Me and Nancy Tomson both tried our best; but all she answered was just what I now tell you: 'Father heard the Whistlers, and they boded death.'"
Mr. Blase Pellet, standing with the small packet of drugs in his hand, ready to depart, but apparently unable to tear himself away, glanced up at Frank with the last words, and again momentarily met his eye. A slight shivering passed through Frank—caught perhaps from hearing of Rosaline's shiverings—and he bent his face over a deep drawer, where it could not be seen; as if searching for something missing.
"Well, it is a pity Rosaline should suffer herself to be alarmed by anything of the sort," observed Dr. Raynor; "but I will send her a composing draught. Are you going home now, Mrs. Bell?"
"As soon as I can find my husband, sir. I've come in to look for him. Tomson wanted to persuade me that he and Andrew Float and a lot more of them had been hunting for him all the morning; but I know better. Bell is inside one of their houses, sleeping off the effects of drink."
"The men have just told me they can't find him," said the clergyman. "I know they have been searching."
"There's an old saying, sir, 'If you want a thing well done, do it yourself.' I repeated it to Rose before I came out. Fine searching, I've no doubt it has been!—the best part of it inside the Golden Shaft. I'm going to look him up myself—and if you please, Dr. Raynor, I'll make bold to call in, as I go back, for the physic for Rosaline."
Unbelieving Mrs. Bell departed. Blase Pellet followed her. Dr. Raynor told Frank what to make up for Rosaline, and then he himself went out with Mr. Pine.
A few minutes afterwards, Edina softly opened the surgery-door, and glanced in. She generally came cautiously, not knowing whether patients might be in it or not. But there was only Frank. And Frank had his arms on the desk, and his head resting on them. The attitude certainly told of despondency, and Edina stood in astonishment: it was so unlike the gay-hearted young man.
"Why, Frank! What is the matter?"
He started up, and stared, bewildered, at Edina: as if his thoughts had been far away, and he could not in a moment bring them back again. Edina saw the trouble in his unguarded face, but he smoothed it away instantly.
"You have not seemed yourself since last night, Frank," said she in low tones, as she advanced further into the room. "Something or other has happened, I am sure. Is it anything that I can set right?—or help you in?"
"Now, Edina, don't run away with fancies," rejoined he, as gaily as though he had not a care in the world. "There's nothing at all the matter with me. I suppose I had dropped asleep over the physic. One does not stay out raking till three o'clock in the morning every day, you know."
"You cannot deceive me, Frank," rejoined Edina, her true, thoughtful eyes fixed earnestly upon him. "I—I cannot help fancying that it is in some way connected with Rosaline Bell," she added, lowering her voice. "I hope you are not getting into any entanglement: falling in love with her; or anything of that sort?"
"Not a bit of it," readily answered Frank.
"Well, Frank, if I can do anything to aid you in any way, you have only to ask me; you know that," concluded Edina, perceiving he was not inclined to speak out. "Always remember this, Frank: that in any trouble or perplexity, the best course is to look it straight in the face, freely and fully. Doing so takes away half its sting."
Meanwhile Dame Bell was pursuing her search. But she found that she could not do more than the miners had done towards discovering her husband. Into this house, out of that one, inquiring here, seeking there, went she, but all to no purpose. She was not uneasy, only exasperated: and she gave Mr. Blase Pellet a sharp reprimand upon his venturing to hint that there might exist cause for uneasiness.
The reprimand occurred as she was returning towards home. After her unsuccessful search, she was walking back down the street of Trennach in a state of much inward wonder as to where Bell could be hiding, and had nearly reached Dr. Raynor's, when she saw Float the druggist standing at his shop-door, and crossed over to enlarge upon the mystery to him. Mr. Blase Pellet came forward, as a matter of course, from his place behind the book-counter to assist at the conference.
"Bell is safe to turn up soon," remarked the druggist, who was a peaceable man, after listening to Mrs. Bell for a few minutes in silence.
"Turn up! of course he will turn up," replied the dame. "What's to hinder it? And he will have such a dressing from me that I don't think he'll be for hiding himself again in a hurry."
Upon that, Blase Pellet, partially sheltered behind the burly form of the druggist, spoke.
"Suppose he never does turn up? Suppose he is dead?—or something of that kind."
The suggestion angered Mrs. Bell.
"Are you a heathen, Blase Pellet, to invent such a thought as that?" she demanded in wrath. "What do you suppose Bell's likely to die from?—and where?"
Leaving Mr. Pellet to repent of his rashness, she marched over to Dr. Raynor's for the composing draught promised for Rosaline. And when Mrs. Bell went home with it she fully expected that by that time the truant would have made his appearance there.
But he had not done so. Rosaline had prepared the tea and toast, according to orders, but no Bell was there to partake of it. Nancy Tomson shared it instead. All the rest of the evening Dame Bell was looking out for him; and exchanging suggestions with her neighbours, who kept dropping in. Rosaline scarcely spoke: not at all unless she was spoken to. The same cold, white hue sat on her face, the same involuntary shiver at times momentarily shook her frame. The gossips gazed at her curiously—as a specimen of the fright those dreaded Whistlers had power to inflict.
They sat up again half the night, waiting for Bell, but waiting in vain; and then they went to rest. Mrs. Bell did not sleep as well as usual: she was disturbed with doubts as to where he could be, and by repeated fancyings that she heard his step outside. Once she got up, opened the casement, and looked out; but there was nothing to be seen; nothing except the great Bare Plain lying bleak and silent in the silver moonlight.
When another day dawned upon Trennach, and still Josiah Bell had not returned, his wife's exasperation gave place to real anxiety. She could not even guess what had become of him, or where he could be. Suspicion was unable to turn upon any particular quarter; not a shadow of foundation appeared for it anywhere. Had the man taken refuge in one of the miners' houses, as she had supposed, there he would still be; but there he was not. Had he stretched himself on the Bare Plain to sleep off the stupidity arising from drinking, as suggested by Mr. Pine, there he would have been found. No: the miners' dwellings and the Plain were alike guiltless of harbouring him; and Mrs. Bell was puzzled nearly out of her wits.
It cannot be said that as yet fear of any fatal accident or issue assailed her. The mystery as to where her husband could be was a great mystery, at present utterly unaccountable; but she never supposed that it would not be solved by his reappearance sooner or later. And she would have been quite ready to put down any hint of the kind, as she had put down Mr. Pellet's hint the previous day. Mrs. Bell fully believed that this day would not pass without bringing him home: and she was up with the lark, and down before Rosaline, in anticipation of it.
The miners had returned to their work this morning, and to their usual habits of sobriety: all things were quiet out of doors. The world was going on in its old groove; just as though, but for the absence of Bell, no ill-omened flock of Whistlers had come to raise a commotion in it.
This had been another night of sleeplessness for Rosaline, another prolonged interval of remorse and terror. She had undressed the previous night, and got into bed; and there she lay until morning, living through her fits of despondency, and striving to plan out the future. To stay at Trennach would, she felt, be simply impossible; if she did, she should die of it; she firmly believed that only to pass the Bottomless Shaft again, and look at it, would kill her. Discovery must come, she supposed, sooner or later; but she dared not stay in the place to face it.
Mrs. Bell was a native of Warwickshire. Her sister had married a Cornish man, who kept a shop in Falmouth. His name was John Pellet, and he was cousin to Blase Pellet's father. So that in point of fact there was no relationship between the Bells and Blase, although Blase enlarged upon their "cousinship," and Rosaline admitted it. They were merely connections. Mrs. Pellet had a small business as a milliner: she had no children, and could well attend to it. She and her husband, what with his trade and her work, were very comfortably off. She was fond of Rosaline, and frequently had her at Falmouth. It was to this refuge that Rosaline's thoughts now turned. She determined to go to it without delay. But so many neighbours came in during breakfast, inquiring after Bell, that she found no opportunity to speak of it then.
"Mother," she said, coming into the kitchen after attending to the upstairs rooms, Mrs. Bell having this morning undertaken to put away the breakfast-things: "mother, I think I shall go to Falmouth.
"Go where?" cried Dame Bell, in surprise.
"To Aunt Pellet's."
"Why, what on earth has put that into your head, Rose?" demanded Mrs. Bell, after a prolonged pause of amazement.
Rosaline did not answer immediately. She had caught up the brass ladle, that chanced to lie on the table, and a piece of wash-leather from the knife-box, and was rubbing away at the ladle.
"Aunt will be glad to see me, mother. She always is."
"Glad to see you? What of that? Why do you want to go just now? And what are you polishing up that ladle for?" went on Mrs. Bell, uniting the grievances. "The brasses and tins had a regular cleaning last Saturday, for I gave it 'em myself."
Again Rosaline did not speak. As Mrs. Bell glanced at her, waiting for some rejoinder, she was struck with the girl's extreme pallor, her look of utter misery. Rosaline burst into tears.
"Oh, mother, don't hinder me!" she cried imploringly, dropping the ladle, and raising her hands in supplication. "Ican'tstay here. I must go away."
"You are afraid of hearing the Seven Whistlers again!"
"Let me go, mother; let me go!" piteously sobbed Rosaline. And her mother thought she had never seen any one in so deplorable a state of agitation before.
"Well, well, child, we'll see," said the dame, too much concerned to oppose her. "I wish the Whistlers had been somewhere. It is most unreasonable to let them take hold of your nerves in this way. A bit of an absence will put you all right again, and drive the thought out of your head. You shall go for a week, child, as soon as your father comes home."
"I must go to-day," said Rosaline.
"To-day!"
"Don't keep me, mother," besought Rosaline. "You don't know what it is for me here. These past two nights! have never closed my eyes; no, not for a moment. Let me start at once, mother! Oh, let me go! I shall have brain-fever if I remain."
"Well, I never!" cried Mrs. Bell, other words failing her to express her astonishment. "I never did think you could have put yourself into this unseemly fantigue, child; no, not for all the Whistlers in the air. As to starting off to Falmouth to-day, why, you could not have your things ready."
"They can be ready in half-an-hour," returned Rosaline, eagerly, her lips feverish with excitement. "I have already put them together."
"Well, I'm sure!—taking French leave, in that way, before you knew whether you might go or not! There, there; don't begin to cry and shake again. There's an afternoon train. And—and perhaps your father will be in before that."
"It is the best train I could go by," said Rosaline, turning to hang up the ladle on its hook by the dresser.
"It's not the best; it's the worst," contradicted Dame Bell. "Not but what it may be as well if you do go. I'm ashamed of the neighbours seeing you can be so silly and superstitious. The train does not get into Falmouth till night-time."
"Oh yes, it does," said Rosaline, anxiously: "it gets in quite early enough. Why, mother, I shall be at Aunt Pellet's soon after dark." And she crossed the kitchen with a quicker step than had been seen since that past miserable Tuesday night, and opened the staircase-door.
"And suppose your father doesnotcome home first?" debated Mrs. Bell, not quite pleased with the tacit leave she had given. "How will you reconcile yourself to going away in the uncertainty, Rose?"
Rose did not answer. She only ran up the stairs, shutting the door behind her. "What in the world does ail the child?" exclaimed Dame Bell, considerably put out. "It's my belief the fright has turned her head. Until now she has always laughed at such things."
But Mrs. Bell made no further opposition to the journey. A discerning woman in most kinds of illness, she recognized the fact that change of some sort might be necessary for Rosaline. Still Bell did not return, and still the day went on.
In the afternoon Rosaline was ready to start, with a bandbox and handbag. Nancy Tomson had volunteered to accompany her to the station.
"I might perhaps have managed the walk to the train; I don't know; it's a goodish step there and back," said Dame Bell, as Rosaline stood before her, to say good-bye. "But you see, child, I want to wait in for your father. I shouldn't like him to find an empty house on his return."
Rosaline burst into a fit of sobbing, and laid hold of her mother as if seeking protection from some visible terror. And once again Mrs. Bell was puzzled, and could not make her out at all.
"Oh, mother dear, take care of yourself! And forgive me for all the ill I have ever done. Forgive, forgive me!"
"Goodness bless me, child, there's nothing to forgive that I know of!" testily cried Dame Bell, not accustomed to this sort of sensational leave-taking. "I shall take care of myself; never fear. Mind you take care ofyourself, Rose: those steam railways are risky things to travel by: and give my love to your aunt and my respects to Pellet."
"And we hed better be going," put in Nancy Tomson, who had put on her Sunday cloak and bonnet for the occasion. "They trains don't wait for nobody."
They were in ample time for this one: perhaps Rosaline had taken care of that: arriving, in fact, twenty minutes too soon. Rosaline entered it when it came up, and was steamed away.
In returning, Nancy Tomson saw Frank Raynor. He was on horseback; riding along very leisurely.
"Good-day," said he, nodding to her in passing. "Been out gallivanting?" he added in his light way.
"I heve been a-seeing Rosaline Bell off by one o' they trains, sir," answered the woman. And Frank checked his horse as he heard it and sat as still as a statue.
"Where has she gone to?"
"Off on a maggot to Falmouth. They Whistlers went and give her a prime fright, sir: she heve hardly done shaking yet, and looks as gashly as you please. She heve gone to her aunt's to forget it."
"Oh, to be sure," carelessly assented Frank: and rode on.
A few minutes afterwards, when near Trennach, he met Mrs. St. Clare's carriage; herself, two ladies, and Lydia seated within it. The coachman pulled up by orders. Of course Frank had to do the same.
"Have you been to The Mount, Mr. Raynor?"
"No, I have been across to Pendon," he answered, keeping his hat off; and the breeze took advantage of that to stir the waves of his bright hair.
"This makes two days that we have seen nothing of you," said Mrs. St. Clare. "You have not been near us since Tuesday night."
A faint flush passed over his face. He murmured something about having been very busy himself—concluded they were occupied: but he spoke rather confusedly, not at all with the usual ready manner of Frank Raynor.
"Well, we shall see you this evening, Mr. Raynor. You are coming to dine with us."
Very hastily he declined the invitation. "I cannot come, thank you," he said. "I shall have patients to see, and must stay at home."
"But you must come; you are to come," rejoined Mrs. St. Clare. "I have seen Dr. Raynor, and he has promised that you shall. Finally, Mr. Raynor, you will very much oblige me by doing so."
What further objection could Frank make? None. He gave the required assent, together with a sweeping bow, as the carriage drove on.
"What a bright-looking, handsome man!" exclaimed one of the ladies to Mrs. St. Clare. "I really do not remember, though, to have seen him the night of the ball, as you say I did."
"Oh, he stuck himself in a corner all the night," put in Lydia. "I don't believe he came out of it once, or danced at all."
"He is too good-looking for a doctor. I should tremble for my daughters' hearts."
"Beinga doctor, there is, I hope, no cause for me to tremble for the hearts of mine," haughtily rejoined Mrs. St. Clare. "Not but that he is of fairly good family and expectations: the eldest son of Major Raynor and the heir to Eagles' Nest."
Mrs. St. Clare, unconsciously to herself, was not altogether correct in this statement. But it may pass for the present.
Frank rode home. Dr. Raynor was out; and he went into the parlour to Edina. She sat in the bow window, prosily darning stockings.
"Why did Uncle Hugh promise Mrs. St. Clare that I should dine at The Mount to-night? Do you know, Edina?"
"Because she invited you, I suppose. I saw the carriage at the door and papa standing at it as he talked to them. Don't you care to go?"
"Not this evening—particularly."
"Papa just looked in here afterwards and said would I tell you that you were to dine at The Mount. I thought you were fond of dining there, Frank."
"So I am sometimes. Where is Uncle Hugh?"
"He has been sent for to the parsonage. Mr. Pine is not well."
Again Frank Raynor—and this time sorely against his will—sat at Mrs. St. Clare's brilliant dinner-table. He could see why she had made so great a point of his coming: only one gentleman was present besides himself. In fact, there was only Frank in all Trennach to fall back upon. Dr. Raynor never dined out: the Rector pleaded ill-health. Most of the guests who had been staying in the house had left it this morning after their two nights' sojourn: those remaining—General Sir Arthur Beauchamp, Lady and Miss Beauchamp, and a young married woman, Mrs. Fox—were to leave on the morrow. It fell to Frank's lot to take in Lady Beauchamp: she it was who had expressed doubts as to the stability of young ladies' hearts, if exposed to the attractions of Mr. Raynor. Margaret, as it chanced, sat on Frank's left hand; and Margaret, for the time being, was supremely happy.
"Are you better than you were on Tuesday night, Mr. Raynor?" she took occasion to ask him in a whisper, when a buzz of conversation was going on.
"Better? I was not——" not ill, Frank was about to respond in surprise, and then recollected himself. "Oh, thank you, yes, Margaret. I was rather out of sorts that night."
"Mr. Raynor, what is this story about some man being lost?" asked Mrs. St. Clare, from the head of the table. "One of the miners, we hear, has mysteriously disappeared and cannot be found."
Frank's face flushed hotly, and he would have given the world to avoid the subject. But he could not: and he related the particulars.
"But where is it supposed that he can be, this Josiah Bell?" asked the general. "Where shouldyouthink he is, Mr. Raynor?"
Perhaps no one at the table, with the exception of Margaret, noticed that the young surgeon was somewhat agitated by the topic: that his breath seemed a little laboured as he answered the repeated questions, and that his complexion changed from red to pale. Margaret silently wondered why the disappearance of a miner should so affect him.
"Are there any old pits, used out and abandoned, that the man could have fallen into?" asked the sensible general.
A strangely-vivid flush now on Frank Raynor's face. A marked hesitation in his voice, as he replied.
"Not—not any—that are easy of access, I fancy, Sir Arthur."
"Well, the man must be somewhere, dead or alive. You say it is not at all thought that he would run away."
"Oh no; his friends say he would not be likely to do that."
"He has a very beautiful daughter, has he not?" spoke Lydia to Frank, from the opposite side of the table.
"Yes, she is nice-looking."
"Nice-looking is not the word for it, Mr. Raynor—as we are told," persisted Lydia. "We hear she is strictly, faultlessly beautiful. Fancy that, for the daughter of a common miner!"
Miss St. Clare's tone seemed to savour of mockery—as her tones often did. Frank, straightforward and true-hearted to the core, answered rather warmly.
"The man has come down in life; he was not always a common miner: and Rosaline is superior in all ways to her station. Sheisvery beautiful."
"You seem to know her well."
"Oh, very well," carelessly replied Frank.
"We should not have been likely to hear of the affair at all: of the man's disappearance, or that he had a daughter who was celebrated for her looks; but for mamma's maid," said Lydia, more slightingly; for in truth she considered it a condescension even to speak of such people. "Tabitha has relatives in Trennach: she paid them a visit this morning, heard the news about the missing man, and entertained us with it on her return."
"I should like to see this Rosaline," spoke Lady Beauchamp. "I am a passionate admirer of beauty. You do, by some rare chance, now and again, find it wonderfully developed in a girl of the lower orders."
"Well, it is to be hoped the poor man will be found all right," concluded Sir Arthur.
And, with that, the conversation turned to some other topic—to Frank's intense relief. But Margaret St. Clare still marvelled at the interest he had betrayed: and she was fated to remember it, to her cost, in the time to come.