"Then who _did_ send it, sir, if you please? For I will show you both telegrams," cried Miss Marlett, now on her defence; and rising, she left the room.
While Miss Marlett was absent, in search of the telegrams, Maitland had time to reflect on the unaccountable change in the situation. What had become of Margaret? Who had any conceivable interest in removing her from school at the very moment of her father"s accidental death? And by what possible circ.u.mstances of accident or fraud could two messages from himself have arrived, when he was certain that he had only sent one?
The records of somnambulism contain no story of a person who despatched telegrams while walking in his sleep. Then the notion occurred to Maitland that his original despatch, as he wrote it, might have been mislaid in the office, and that the imaginative clerk who lost it might have filled it up from memory, and, like the examinees in the poem, might
"Have wrote it all by rote, And never wrote it right."
But the fluttering approach of such an hypothesis was dispersed by the recollection that Margaret had actually departed, and (what was worse) had gone off with "his friend, Mr. Lithgow." Clearly, no amount of accident or mistake would account for the appearance of Mr. Lithgow, and the disappearance of Margaret.
It was characteristic of Maitland that within himself he did not greatly blame the schoolmistress. He had so little human nature--as he admitted, on the evidence of his old college tutor--that he was never able to see things absolutely and entirely from the point of view of his own interests. His own personality was not elevated enough to command the whole field of human conduct. He was always making allowances for people, and never felt able to believe himself absolutely in the right, and everyone else absolutely in the wrong. Had he owned a more full-blooded life, he would probably have lost his temper, and "spoken his mind," as the saying is, to poor Miss Marlett She certainly should never have let Margaret go with a stranger, on the authority even of a telegram from the girl"s guardian.
It struck Maitland, finally, that Miss Marlett was very slow about finding the despatches. She had been absent quite a quarter of an hour.
At last she returned, pale and trembling, with a telegraphic despatch in her hand, but not alone. She was accompanied by a blonde and agitated young lady, in whom Maitland, having seen her before, might have recognized Miss Janey Harman. But he had no memory for faces, and merely bowed vaguely.
"This is Miss Harman, whom I think you have seen on other occasions,"
said Miss Marlett, trying to be calm.
Maitland bowed again, and wondered more than ever. It did occur to him, that the fewer people knew of so delicate a business the better for Margaret"s sake.
"I have brought Miss Harman here, Mr. Maitland, partly because she is Miss Shields" greatest friend" (here Janey sobbed), "but chiefly because she can prove, to a certain extent, the truth of what I have told you."
"I never for a moment doubted it, Miss Marlett; but will you kindly let me compare the two telegrams? This is a most extraordinary affair, and we ought to lose no time in investigating it, and discovering its meaning. You and I are responsible, you know, to ourselves, if unfortunately to no one else, for Margaret"s safety."
"But I haven"t got the two telegrams!" exclaimed poor Miss Marlett, who could not live up to the stately tone of Maitland. "I haven"t got them, or rather, I only have one of them, and I have hunted everywhere, high and low, for the other."
Then she offered Maitland a single dispatch, and the flimsy pink paper fluttered in her shaking hand.
Maitland took it up and read aloud:
"Sent out at 7.45. Received 7.51.
"From Robert Maitland to Miss Marlett.
"The Dovecot, Conisbeare, "Tiverton.
"I come to-morrow, leaving by 10.30 train.
Do not let Margaret see the newspaper.
Her father dead. Break news."
"Why, that is my own telegram!" cried Maitland; "but what have you done with the other you said you received?"
"That is the very one I cannot find, though I had both on the escritoire in my own room this morning. I cannot believe anyone would touch it. I did not lock them away, not expecting to have any use for them; but I am quite sure, the last time I saw them, they were lying there."
"This is very extraordinary," said Maitland. "You tell me, Miss Marlett, that you received two telegrams from me. On the strength of the later of the two you let your pupil go away with a person of whom you know nothing, and then you have not even the telegram to show me. How long an interval was there between the receipt of the two despatches?"
"I got them both at once," said poor, trembling Miss Marlett, who felt the weakness of her case. "They were both sent up with the letters this morning. Were they not, Miss Harman?"
"Yes," said Janey; "I certainly saw two telegraphic envelopes lying among your letters at breakfast. I mentioned it to--to poor Margaret,"
she added, with a break in her voice.
"But why were the telegrams not delivered last night?" Maitland asked.
"I have left orders," Miss Marlett answered, "that only telegrams of instant importance are to be sent on at once. It costs twelve shillings, and parents and people are so tiresome, always telegraphing about nothing in particular, and costing a fortune. These telegrams _were_ very important, of course; but nothing more could have been done about them if they had arrived last night, than if they came this morning.
I have had a great deal of annoyance and expense," the schoolmistress added, "with telegrams that had to be paid for."
And here most people who live at a distance from telegraph offices, and are afflicted with careless friends whose touch on the wire is easy and light, will perhaps sympathize with Miss Marlett.
"You might at least have telegraphed back to ask me to confirm the instructions, when you read the second despatch," said Maitland.
He was beginning to take an argumentative interest in the strength of his own case. It was certainly very strong, and the excuse for the schoolmistress was weak in proportion.
"But that would have been of no use, as it happens," Janey put in--an unexpected and welcome ally to Miss Marlett--"because you must have left Paddington long before the question could have reached you."
This was unanswerable, as a matter of fact; and Miss Marlett could not repress a grateful glance in the direction of her wayward pupil.
"Well," said Maitland, "it is all very provoking, and very serious. Can you remember at all how the second message ran, Miss Marlett?"
"Indeed, I know it off by heart; it was directed exactly like that in your hand, and was dated half an hour later. It ran: "Plans altered.
Margaret required in town. My friend and her father"s, Mr. Lithgow, will call for her soon after mid-day. I noticed there were just twenty words."
"And did you also notice the office from which the message was sent out?"
"No," said Miss Marlett, shaking her head with an effort at recollection. "I am afraid I did not notice."
"That is very unfortunate," said Maitland, walking vaguely up and down the room. "Do you think the telegram is absolutely lost?"
"I have looked everywhere, and asked all the maids."
"When did you see it last, for certain?"
"I laid both despatches on the desk in my room when I went out to make sure that Margaret had everything comfortable before she started."
"And where was this Mr. Lithgow then?"
"He was sitting over the fire in my room, trying to warm himself; he seemed very cold."
"Clearly, then, Mr. Lithgow is now in possession of the telegram, which he probably, or rather certainly, sent himself. But how he came to know anything about the girl, or what possible motive he can have had--"
muttered Maitland to himself. "She has never been in any place, Miss Marlett, since she came to you, where she could have made the man"s acquaintance?"
"It is impossible to say whom girls may meet, and how they may manage it, Mr. Maitland," said Miss Marlett sadly; when Janey broke in:
"I am _sure_ Margaret never met him here. She was not a girl to have such a secret, and she could not have acted a part so as to have taken me in. I saw him first, out of the window. Margaret was very unhappy; she had been crying. I said, "Here"s a gentleman in furs, Margaret; he must have come for you." Then she looked out and said, "It is not my guardian; it is the gentleman whom I saw twice with my father.""
"What kind of a man was he to look at?"
"He was tall, and dark, and rather good-looking, with a slight black mustache. He had a fur collar that went up to his eyes almost, and he was not a young man. He was a gentleman," said Janey, who flattered herself that she recognized such persons as bear without reproach that grand old name--when she saw them.
"Would you know him again if you met him?"
"Anywhere," said Janey; "and I would know his voice."
"He wore mourning," said Miss Marlett, "and he told me he had known Margaret"s father. I heard him say a few words to her, in a very kind way, about him. That seemed more comfort to Margaret than anything. "He did not suffer at all, my dear," he said. He spoke to her in that way, as an older man might."