"Yes," sobbed Paula, "Sister Mena saw her there. We were trying to get up croquet, and then I missed her. I tried to find her when the lightning began, but I could not find her anywhere, though I looked in all the summer-houses!"
"At Mrs. Henderson"s? or Miss Mohun"s? or the Sisters"?" asked Magdalen, catching alarm from each denial. "She might have gone home with one of the girls."
"She would be wild in such a storm," said Agatha, "and not know what she was about."
"Sister Beata and I have gone to each house," said Mr. Flight.
"When did you say you saw her last?"
"I saw her when we were grouped," said Paula; "Sister Mena, when she was helping him to put up his photos."
"The strange thing is," said Mr. Flight, "though no doubt it will be explained, that Delrio is missing too."
"Hubert Delrio!" exclaimed Agatha. "Impossible! He must have taken her into the church to be out of the storm."
"We have tried," said the clergyman. And as the round of suggestions began to be despairingly reiterated, he said, hesitating, "Miss Mohun told me that she thought she had seen a boat, Captain Henderson"s, she believed, in the cave with some one rocking in it; and certainly that little boat was there, when on the hope, if it can be called a hope, I ran down the steps to look."
"Would it not have been put into the boathouse out of the rain?" said Agatha.
"The gardener was gone home, out of reach round the point, but we shall know to-morrow."
"He thinks they may have rowed out and been caught in the storm,"
cried Paula, bursting into fresh weeping; and Magdalen saw the conjecture confirmed by Mr. Flight"s countenance.
"I am afraid it is the least distressing--the least unsatisfactory idea," said he, in much agitation. "I thought Mr. Delrio an excellent young man; and she," indicating his companion, "tells me you know him and his family well."
"Oh, yes," said Agatha and Magdalen in one breath. "We have known his father all our lives. Nothing can be more respectable."
"And Hubert is as steady and good as possible," continued Agatha.
"His mother used to come to Mrs. Best and praise him, till we were quite tired of his name; I am sure he is all right."
"Or I should be much deceived in him," said the clergyman.
Yet there was an idea in Paulina"s mind. Could Vera have poured out such an exaggerated tale of oppression and unhappiness as to have induced her old playfellow to carry her off to his mother at Filsted?
She had given some such hint to Mr. Flight on the way; but he had not seemed to hear or attend, and he was now promising to let the sisters know as soon as possible in the morning whether anything had been discovered, and to telegraph to Filsted and to the office in London if he should see occasion.
Then he drove off, in what would have been almost daylight but for the pelting of the storm; and after a vain attempt to make Paula swallow some nourishment, Magdalen thought it kinder to let Agatha carry her off to bed, and then she confessed, what really gave a certain hope, that the pair had been in the habit of murmuring against "sister" so much that, considering poor Vera"s propensity to strong language, it was quite possible that Hubert might think her cruelly oppressed, and for a freak carry her off to his mother to be consoled.
Agatha tried to believe it, for the sake of hushing the exhausted Paula, who almost went into hysterics, as she laughed at the notion of to-morrow"s telegram that Vera was safe at Filsted; and then allowed herself to be calmed enough to sleep, while Agatha revolved the notion, but found herself unable seriously to believe, that sufficient grievance could be brought against sister to induce any man in his senses to take such a step. But then Paula had inferred that he was a lover, and Agatha did not know of what lovers might be capable, and she could not but blame herself for not having given more importance to the semi-confidences of her sisters on the first day of her arrival. It was all misery; and the two poor girls could find no solace in the morning, save in talking to Magdalen, though that involved the confession of all the murmurs against her, the distrust of her kindness, and the explanation of the interviews, which, as far as Paula had ever witnessed them, were absolutely harmless, the only pity being in their concealment.
Magdalen was manifestly as wretched as they, or even more so, being convinced of her own shortcoming in not having won the affection or confidence that would have made all open between them. She could not understand why Hubert Delrio should not have been made known to her.
"We thought," said Paula, "we thought you might not think him enough- -enough--of a gentleman for your sort of society."
"I think you might have trusted me to know what was due to an old friend," said Magdalen "but, oh, I ought to have made you feel that we could think together."
"Perhaps," said Agatha, "there was a little consciousness on poor dear Vera"s part that she did not want you to know the terms she was on."
They had tried only to let Thekla know that they were much alarmed because Vera had gone out in a boat and not returned. It was observable that, on the principle that where there is life there is hope, Paula clung to the notion that Vera"s having fled to Filsted; while the two elder sisters, perhaps because they better knew what such a flight might seem to others, would almost have preferred to suppose there had been a fatal accident in the midst of youthful, innocent sport.
The two were lingering sadly over their uneaten breakfast, talking more freely when they had sent Thekla to feed her pets, when Mr.
Flight came up on his bicycle; but it was plain at the first moment that he had no good news.
Nothing had been heard. It only appeared that one of the young gardeners at Carrara had taken Captain Henderson"s boat without leave, to fetch one of the girls, but on entering the cove had found the boathouse locked. He had moored the boat to a stake for want of the ring that secured it within. When the storm threatened he ran down to recover it, but it was gone, and he had concluded that the gardeners had put it into the boathouse. It now appeared that they had not seen it, and were very angry at its having been meddled with.
An oar had drifted up with the morning tide, and had been recognised as belonging to the boat; but such a gale was blowing that it was impossible to put out to sea or make any search round the coast.
Words could hardly describe the distress of Mr. Flight or of his ladies at not having better looked after the young girl; Sister Beata for never having thoroughly attended to the matter; and Sister Mena for having accepted confidences which, if she had only guessed it, told her more than there really was to be known. Both these two were inclined to the elopement idea, partly because it was the least shocking, and partly because they had looked at Vera"s grievances through her own spectacles, and partly from their unlimited notions of young men"s wickedness. Their vicar was not of the same opinion, knowing Hubert better, and besides having found his work, his orders to his subordinates, and the belongings at the lodgings in a state that showed that whatever he had done had been unpremeditated.
Sending off notes to stop the garden party was a sort of occupation, broken by many signs, much listening, and much sorrowful discussion, not quite vain, since it made Paulina more one with Magdalen than ever before. Poor old Mr. Delrio arrived in the afternoon, a thin, grey-haired and bearded old man, who could only make it too certain that Paula"s theory of the innocent flight to Filsted was impossible.
Moreover, he was as certain as a father could be, intimate with, and therefore confident of, his eldest son, that though Hubert might indulge in a little lively flirtation, it could never be otherwise than perfectly harmless. In the terrible suspense and restlessness, he went vibrating about in the torrents of moorland rain between Rock Quay and the Goyle, on the watch for telegrams from the office in London or his wife at home, or for the discovery of anything from the sea, or searching in his son"s lodgings, where nothing was found that did not show him to have been a pure-hearted young man, devoted to his art, and fond of poetry. Sundry compositions were in the blotting-book, one, indeed, to Vera"s name, under the supposition (a wrong one) {100} that it meant "true," but mostly rough copies of a poem about the Saints Julitta and her child Cyriac. Hope sank as another stormy day rose; and still the poor old artist lingered in hopes of news by some returning craft which might have picked up the derelict. His chief comfort was in walking about between the showers with Magdalen, as an old friend, and trying to think of the two as innocent creatures, engulfed like mayflies in the stream.
Sister Mena came over, wanting to join Paula in bewailing entreaties; but Paula, in youthful hard-hearted wilfulness, declared that it was impossible to see her; and it fell to Magdalen to try to discuss the grief with her.
It turned out that Mr. Flight had spoken severely to her and to the far less implicated Sister Beata, declaring his confidence in them destroyed, so that they had begun to consider of throwing up their work in his parish. "And it was all my fault," said Mena; "Sister Beata really knew nothing, or hardly anything of what Vera told me."
"Indeed, I can quite understand that you had hardly experience enough to know that it might be wiser not to encourage what was not quite open."
"But I thought,--I thought you--"
"That I was unkind and unsympathising."
"Oh, you never could have been--"
"Indeed I never meant to be, but I am afraid it seemed so to my young sisters. I can quite see how you thought you were acting kindly."
"Oh, that is so good of you."
"And perhaps I, being only an elder sister, you would not feel that I was the only authority the poor girls have to look to; and that it would have been kinder to help them to be content with me."
"I did not know what you could be," said Mena, greatly soothed and surprised by her caresses.
"We often do go on in ignorance, and get on a wrong tack; but you know G.o.d pardons our mistakes, and I do believe that you will be wiser for all this sorrow, and better able to rise to your work. I am sure, however it ends, that is the reason that such blows are sent to us."
Mena went back sorrowful and chastened, but tenderly hopeful. If Miss Prescott could forgive, surely Mr. Flight could, and One still greater.
CHAPTER XI--ADRIFT
"She splashed, and she dashed, and she turned herself round, And heartily wished herself safe on the ground."
JANE TAYLOR.
And where were the missing pair?
Vera had lingered about, fancying she was helping to pack the photographic apparatus, while the others dispersed. Presently, seeing no one near, Hubert Delrio said, in a gentle diffident voice, "It would be a great pleasure to me if I might ask you to listen to the verses on St. Cyriac and his mother that the design brought with it."
"I should love it better than anything," said Vera, highly flattered.