"What bird?" asked the baron, coming up.
"Dorothy, Sir George. Dorothy has fled."
"Fled; nay it cannot be," returned the baron, stoutly. He had too much faith in Dorothy to believe that.
"They are searching for her now," said Margaret. "n.o.body knows where she is, and Sir Edward has missed her long. I cannot understand it."
"Her clothes are gone. Her riding habit has gone," exclaimed one of the domestics, rushing breathlessly up to the group. "Father Nicholas hath just come in and he says two horses, galloping, pa.s.sed him on the Ashbourne road. One, he thinks might have been a lady, but it was too dark to see distinctly."
This she gasped out in jerks, but her news was intelligible enough, and it threw the whole a.s.sembly at once into a ferment of confusion, amid which could be heard the voice of Sir Edward Stanley exclaiming, in a tone far above the rest of the babel--"That was Dorothy."
"Gone!" exclaimed the baron, aghast. "Nay, search the Hall."
"Out; to your saddles, ye gallant knights," commanded Sir Thomas Stanley, promptly. "Here is a prize worth the capturing. She must be stopped!" and he quickly led the way to the stables, and in a very short s.p.a.ce of time was mounted and urging his steed to the utmost along the Ashbourne road.
Sir George stayed behind; he could not believe that Dorothy had really gone; but when a thorough investigation of the Hall, and the outbuildings also, revealed the fact that she was nowhere there, he was stricken with dismay, and succ.u.mbed, for a time, to a feeling of despair.
"Nicholas," he said, as the worthy father approached to comfort him, "thou art sure that one was a lady?"
"It was dark, Sir George," the priest replied. "I was unsuspicious, and deep in meditation, but I fear it was so."
"Was it my Doll?"
"I cannot say," he replied. "I never saw the face, and did but imperfectly see the form."
The baron sank back, regardless of the ladies who crowded round him, commiserating his ill fortune. He remained silent, with a bowed head and bleeding heart.
All night long the pursuit was kept up. Every lane was searched, every innkeeper was severely catechised, and although in several instances they had the satisfaction of hearing that couples, either on horses or in conveyances, had pa.s.sed, yet when the quarry was hunted down, if it did not turn out to be an inoffensive market gardener and his worthy spouse returning from Derby Christmas market, in almost every other instance the hors.e.m.e.n were the decoys that Manners had so carefully provided.
At last the chase was given up. Dorothy had proved one too many for them, and with mingled feelings her pursuers turned their steeds again towards Haddon, curious to learn if any of the others had been more fortunate than themselves.
The two Stanleys were the last to return, but after having been out in the saddle for more than a whole day, and that upon the right scent, they were obliged to return without having met with success.
The next day was spent in searching the neighbourhood. Every inn and every house was visited, but the night falling, they returned again empty-handed, and very disconsolate.
News came with the next day"s courier, for Dorothy dutifully acquainted her father, in a touching letter, with all the details of the engagement, the elopement, and the marriage. Manners, too, sent a note to the baron, in which he pathetically pleaded Dorothy"s cause. "And sure," the epistle concluded, "so doting a father as you undoubtedly are would not force so loving a daughter to wed against her will. You clearly sought her welfare and, in choosing Sir Edward Stanley, thought you were doing well for her, but it was a sad mistake. I have her undivided love, and even if we are for ever banished from "dear old Haddon," as Doll delights to call it, we shall be happy in each other"s confidence and love; though I confess that Dorothy hath a tender heart and grieves to think how you must regard her. None but myself, she declares, could ever have led her to leave thee. I feel for thee, but I feel for my sweet Doll, too. At thy bidding, whenever given, we will gladly visit thee. Till then--adieu."
"Married!" cried Lady Vernon, aghast, as Sir Thomas Stanley read the letter aloud. She was speechless with rage and could say no more, but her looks betokened the feelings of her heart."
"Married!" echoed Sir Edward, in dismay.
"Aye, married," responded Sir Thomas. "You have lost her, Edward; it is as I said."
"Poor, foolish Dorothy," exclaimed the baron, in a decidedly sympathetic frame of mind. "Poor Doll."
"Poor Dorothy, indeed," retorted Lady Maude, sharply. "Wicked, perverse Dorothy, you mean, Sir George. I shall never look at her again. We must make her undo the marriage bond again, Sir Edward," she continued, turning to the disappointed lover.
Even that rash knight could see the futility of such advice, and he despondently shook his head.
"Nay," he said, "I fear that cannot be easily done."
"Easily done, sir knight," tauntingly replied the dame. "Who talks of ease in a matter like this? It must--it shall be done."
"It cannot be done," replied Sir Thomas, promptly. "Manners will have been too careful to allow of that. We must resign ourselves to the loss; and you, Edward, will have to seek elsewhere for a bride."
""Resign" and "cannot,"" continued Lady Vernon, contemptuously.
"Did"st ever hear the like of it, Margaret?"
But Margaret was mercifully inclined, and by siding with Dorothy she would be supporting her husband. Therefore she could not agree with the angry declamations of her stepmother.
"Poor Dorothy," she exclaimed, "I pity her, but she has done foolishly indeed."
Lady Vernon was astonished; she had counted upon Margaret"s support at least.
"Pity her, indeed!" she scornfully laughed. "She shall have little enough of my pity if ever I clap my eyes on her again," replied Lady Vernon. "She shall never come here again."
"Hush, Maude," interrupted the baron, "I shall settle that."
Lady Vernon had never been spoken to in such a manner since she had wedded Sir George, and she staggered back in surprise as though she had been struck by an invisible hand.
"You will--!" she began, but checked herself. The baron"s brow was forbidding. She had never seen him look so threatening before, and she cowered back in fear and kept a discreet silence.
"I am furious," the baron burst out, with a sudden revulsion of feeling. "To think that my Dorothy should serve me thus! and as she has chosen, so shall it be. She prefers Manners to me, then she shall have him. I disown her, she is none of mine. She shall never return."
Flesh and blood, however, is very human, and, in spite of his stern resolve never to see Dorothy again, the baron"s naturally kind heart soon began to soften, and in a short s.p.a.ce of time his feelings had entirely undergone a change. He longed to clasp his lost darling to his heart again, and tell her she was forgiven, but he was proud, and his pride held him back from declaring his sentiments.
It was not long to be endured. He became anxious. Dorothy was ill. Sir Ronald Bury had sent him word of that in a letter which was calculated to stab the baron to the very heart. He grew restless; his conscience p.r.i.c.ked him day and night, until, unable to bear it any longer, he declared himself.
"Maude," he said, as together they sat in the lonely dining-room, "Dorothy has been a month gone now."
"Yes," she carelessly replied.
"And I hear she is sorely ill."
"Like enough," said Lady Vernon, not unwilling to make the knight suffer a little, for she had not forgiven him yet. "She was ill enough when she went."
"Then," returned the baron, "she shall come back; we cannot do without her."
Lady Vernon turned sharply round to expostulate with her lord, but seeing his forbidding countenance, she desisted, and her silence Sir George tacitly construed as acquiescence.
"I shall send for her this very day," pursued the good old knight, "we must try to forget the past, Maude--for, in good sooth, we have all done amiss--and begin again. We have no Margaret now, and without Doll, gone in such a fashion withal, we were miserable indeed."
"We must have more b.a.l.l.s and feasts," quickly suggested Lady Maude.
"They will heal our wounds."
"b.a.l.l.s and feasts!" repeated the baron. "Nay, we are too old for those now. We should only get Benedict and old De Lacey to come, for, by my halidame, squires and knights won"t come to see us now Meg and Doll are gone, and then, Maude, after all, you know," he continued slyly, "love will have its own way, and you trow full well that folk blamed me enough when I wedded."
Lady Maude blushed. The comments on her marriage with the baron had been by no means what she might have wished, as the remembrance of them was not particularly pleasant to her even now, so she discreetly held her peace.