Miss Bess stood looking uncertain. Suddenly an idea struck her.
"May I have Baby then?" she asked. "She could hold up the books to me, and that"s about all the help I need, really."
I saw no objection, and Miss Baby trotted off very proud, Miss Bess leading her by the hand.
The nursery seemed very quiet the next half-hour or so, or maybe longer.
I was beginning to wonder when my lady would be coming, and feeling glad that Master Bevil, who had just wakened up from a nice sleep, was looking quite like himself again before she saw him, when suddenly the door burst open and Master Francis looked in. He was not crying, but his face had the strained white look I could not bear to see on it.
"Is there no one here?" he said.
Somehow I didn"t like to question him, grieved though I felt at things going wrong again.
"No," I replied. "Miss Bess is in the schoolroom with----," then it suddenly struck me that my lady might be coming in at any moment, and that it might be better for Master Francis not to be there. "Miss Lally," I went on quickly, "is at her knitting in the attic, if you like to go to her there."
He turned and went. Afterwards he told me that he caught sight of my lady coming along the pa.s.sage as he left the room, and that he hurried upstairs to avoid her. He didn"t find Miss Lally in the attic as he expected, but her knitting was there lying on the floor, thrown down hurriedly, and though she had not forgotten to spread out the clean towel as usual, in her haste she hadn"t noticed that the newly-wound ball of white wool had rolled some distance away from the half-finished boot and the pins.
Afterwards I will tell what happened to Master Francis, up there by himself in the attic.
To make all clear, I may here explain why he had not found Miss Lally in her nook. The book-tidying in the schoolroom had gone on pretty well, but after a bit, though Miss Baby did her best, Miss Bess found the want of some one who could read the t.i.tles, and she ran upstairs to beg Miss Lally to come for a few minutes. The few minutes turned into an hour or more, for the young ladies, just like children as they were, came across some old favourites in their tidying, and began reading out bits here and there to each other. And then to please Miss Baby they made houses and castles of the books on the floor, which she thought a beautiful new game, so that Miss Lally forgot about her knitting, while feeling, so to say, at the back of her mind quite easy about it, thinking she had left it safely lying on the clean cloth.
They were both so much taken up with what they were about, that it never struck them to wonder what Master Francis was doing with himself all the afternoon.
My lady and I meanwhile were having a long talk in the nursery. It had been as I feared, Sir Hulbert having spoken most severely to the boy, and my lady having said some bitter things, which already she was repenting, more especially when I was able to explain that Master Francis had really not been so distinctly disobedient as had seemed the case.
"We must try and put it right again, I suppose," she said rather sadly, as she was leaving the room. "I wish I didn"t take up things so hotly at the time, but I was really frightened as well as angry. Still Sir Hulbert would not have spoken so strongly if it hadn"t been for me."
This was a great deal for my lady to say, and I felt honoured by her confidence. I began to be more hopeful again, and tried to set out the tea rather nicer than usual to cheer them up a little.
CHAPTER XII
LOST
The three young ladies came in together, Miss Baby looking very important, but calling out for her tea.
"It"s quite ready, my dear," I said. "But where"s Master Francis?"
"_I_ don"t know," said Miss Bess. "I haven"t seen him all the afternoon."
I turned to Miss Lally.
"He went up to sit with you, my dear, in the attic," I said.
"I didn"t see him," said Miss Lally, and then she explained how Miss Bess had fetched her down ever so long ago. "I daresay Francie"s in his own room," she went on. "I"ll run up and see, and I"ll look in the attic too, for I left my work lying about."
She ran off.
"Nurse," said Miss Bess, "do you think Francis got a very bad scolding?
You saw him, didn"t you? Did he seem very unhappy?"
"I"m afraid so, my dear, but I think it will come all right again. I"ve seen your mamma since, and she quite sees now that he didn"t really mean to be disobedient."
"I wish you had told mamma that before they spoke to Francis," said Miss Bess, who I must say was rather a Job"s comforter sometimes.
We waited anxiously till we heard Miss Lally"s footsteps returning. She ran in alone, looking rather troubled.
"He"s not there, not in his own room, or the attic, or nowhere, but he must have been in the attic, for my work"s gone."
A great fear came over me. Could the poor boy have run away in his misery at having again angered his uncle and aunt? for the look on his face had been strange, when he glanced in at the nursery door, asking for Miss Lally. Was he meaning perhaps to bid her good-bye before setting off in some wild way? And what she said of the knitting having gone made me still more uneasy. Had he perhaps taken it with him as a remembrance? for of all the queer mixtures of old-fashionedness and childishness that ever I came across, Master Francis was the strangest, though, as I have said, there was a good deal of this in all the children.
I got up at Miss Lally"s words. Master Bevil was asleep, luckily.
"You go on with your tea, my dears, there"s good children," I said. "I must see about Master Francis, he must be somewhere about the house.
He"d never have thought of going out again in such weather," for it was pouring in torrents.
I went downstairs, asking everybody I met if they had seen him, but they all shook their heads, and at last, after searching through the library and the big drawing-rooms, and even more unlikely places, I got so frightened that I made bold to knock at Sir Hulbert"s study door, where he was busy writing, my lady working beside him.
They had been talking of Master Francis just before I went in, and they were far more distressed than annoyed at my news, my lady growing quite pale.
"O Hulbert!" she exclaimed, "if he has run away it is my fault."
"Nonsense, Helen," he said, meaning to cheer her. "The boy has got sense and good feeling, he"d never risk making himself ill again. And where would he run away to? He couldn"t go to sea. But certainly the sooner we find him the better."
He went off to speak to some of the men, while my lady and I, Mrs. Brent and some of the others, started again to search through the house. We did search, looking in really impossible corners, where he couldn"t have squeezed himself in. Then the baby awoke, and I had to go to him, and Miss Bess and Miss Lally took their turn at this melancholy game of hide-and-seek, but it was all no use. The dull gray afternoon darkened into night, the rain still pouring down, and nothing was heard of the missing boy. Sir Hulbert at last left off pretending not to be anxious.
He had his strongest horse put into the dog-cart, and drove away to the town to give notice to the police, stopping on the way at every place where it was the least likely the boy could have been seen.
He didn"t get back till eleven o"clock. My lady and Mrs. Brent and me were waiting up for him, for Master Bevil was sleeping sweetly, and I had put the nursery-maid to watch beside him. The young ladies, poor dears, were in bed too, and, as is happily the way with children, had fallen asleep in spite of their tears and sad distress.
We knew the moment we saw Sir Hulbert that he had no good tidings to give us. His sunburnt face looked almost white, as he came into the hall soaking wet and shook his head.
"I have done everything, Nelly," he said, "everything that can be done, and now we must try to be patient till some news comes. It is impossible, everybody says, that a boy like him, so well known in the neighbourhood too, could disappear without some one seeing him, or that he could remain in hiding for long. It is perfectly extraordinary that we have not found him already, and somehow I can scarcely believe he is doing it on purpose. He has such good feeling, and must know how anxious we should be."
Sir Hulbert was standing by the fire, which my lady had had lighted in the hall, as he spoke. He seemed almost thinking aloud. My lady crept up to him with a look on her face I could not bear to see.
"Hulbert," she said in a low voice, "I said things to him enough to make him doubt our caring at all." And then she broke down into bitter though silent weeping.
We got her to bed with difficulty. There was really no use whatever in sitting up, and who knew what need for strength the next day might bring? Then there were the other poor children to think of. So by midnight the house was all quiet as usual. I was thankful that the wind had fallen, for all through the evening there had been sounds of wailing and sobbing, such as stormy weather always brings at Treluan, enough to make you miserable if there was nothing the matter--the rain pattering against the window like cold tiny hands, tapping and praying to be let in.
Sad as I was, and though I could scarcely have believed it of myself, I had scarcely laid my head down before I too, like the children, fell fast asleep. I was dreaming, a strange confused dream, which I never was able to remember clearly; but it was something about searching in the smugglers" caves for Master Francis, followed by an old man, who I somehow fancied was the miser baronet, Sir David. His hair was snow white, and there was a confusion in my mind of thinking it like Miss Lally"s wool. Anyhow, I had got the idea of whiteness in my head, so that, when something woke me--afterwards I knew it was the sound of my own name--and I opened my eyes to see by the glimmer of the night-light what seemed at first a shining figure by my bed-side, I did not feel surprised. And the first words I said were "white as wool."
"No, no," said Miss Lally, for it was she, in her little night-dress, her fair hair all tumbling over her shoulders, "it isn"t about my wool, nurse, please wake up quite. It"s something so strange--such a queer noise. Please get up and come to my room to see what it is."
Miss Lally"s room was a tiny place at the side of the nursery nearest the tower, though not opening on to the tower stair.
I got up at once and crossed the day nursery with her, lighting a candle on the way. But when we got into her room all was perfectly silent.