by Annie Haynes
“Oh, I will stay, nurse! I dare say Minnie is busy with the cloaks.”
She drew nearer the bed and looked at the fair pale face, at the cloud of golden hair spreading over the pillows.
“How lovely she is,” she said with involuntary admiration.
“She is pretty,” Nurse Marston admitted, with a kind of grudging reservation.
“Is she unconscious?” Mavis went on. “Does she hear anything we say?”
“It is impossible to tell how much she understands,” the nurse said repressively. “She lies for the most part in this kind of stupor, and I must ask you not to talk before her, Miss Mavis. It might do harm.”
“Oh, I am so sorry! “ Mavis exclaimed penitently. “It was very thoughtless of me. You will be afraid now to trust me with her.”
“Well, I am rather anxious to speak to her ladyship, so if you really don’t mind staying a few minutes I shall be very grateful to you, Miss Mavis.”
“Oh, that will be all right!” Mavis tiptoed across the soft carpet to the nurse’s big easy-chair. “Don’t hurry yourself at all on my account, nurse,” she added pleasantly. “Just tell me, is there anything I ought to give her?”
Nurse Marston considered a little.
“There’s her draught, but that is not for half an hour, and I shall be back in plenty of time for that. No, there is nothing now, thank you, Miss Mavis—only just to give an eye to her every now and then.”
“I see.” And Mavis settled herself comfortably in her chair. “Tell mother not to stay up gossiping too long,” she said lightly as, with a half-reluctant backward glance, the nurse left the room.
Mavis’s glance lingered a while on the straight white figure lying so still and motionless in the big bed, then her thoughts wandered to Garth, and the little smile which certain memories of the evening evoked was still lingering round her lips when a weak voice spoke from the bed.
“Who is there? Who are you?”
Mavis sprang to her feet and hurried to the bedside, starting as she met the gaze of a brilliant pair of blue eyes.
“Who are you?” the soft voice went on insistently.
“I am Mavis Hargreave. You saw me last night. Don’t you remember now?”
The girl pressed her hand over her forehead. “I —I think I have seen you somewhere,” she said perplexedly. “But I don’t remember. Where am I?”
Moved by a sudden impulse of pity, Mavis took one of the slim trembling hands in hers and held it tenderly.
“You are at Hargreave Manor—we found you in the park last night.”
The girl tossed restlessly about.
“I don’t seem to remember anything,” she said, her mouth trembling pitifully. “But I think you are being very good to me, and I thank you very much.” Her fingers closed on Mavis’s and her eyelids drooped.
Mavis glanced across the room longingly at the bell. She was uncertain how this interval of consciousness should be treated and felt anxious to summon Nurse Marston back to her duties, but the hold on her hand detained her. She stooped over the invalid gently.
“Hilda—may I call you Hilda?—will you let me go for one moment? I want to call some one who will know just what you ought to have now.”
The weak clasp did not slacken.
“No—I want you—to stay with me,” the invalid said wilfully. “It—Where was I last night?”
Mavis was uncertain how far the question should be answered; her eyes sought the clock as she hesitated. Already the nurse had been away twenty minutes. Surely she would soon be back now?
“I—When do you mean?” she parried.
Big tears came into the blue eyes.
“Ah, why will you not tell me? I cannot remember, try as I will. All I can recall is a sort of medley, like a bad dream—trouble—and I was all alone—and darkness and difficulties all around me.”
There was a low tap at the door, but Mavis was too much interested to notice it.
“Then out of all that was vague and indefinite,” the girl continued, “one face seemed to shape itself, looking down at me with pity—a man’s face—and I was borne away into light and warmth.”
“My brother Arthur found you in the park and carried you to the carriage,” Mavis returned prosaically. “We were very glad we heard you; it might have killed you to stay there all night.”
The knock at the door was repeated, and a voice called: “Nurse!”
Mavis recognized her mother’s voice and tried to draw her hand away.
“It is my mother,” she said.” I must speak to her.”
But the other girl still clung to her.
“You must not go,” she said. “I am not strong enough to see anyone else to-night—indeed, I am not. Promise you will not let anyone come in.”
Chapter Five
WITH A jerk Mavis freed herself.
“Indeed I must—”
At the same moment the door opened and Lady Laura looked into the room.
“I have been waiting for you for quite a quarter of an hour, nurse,” she said in a distinctly aggrieved tone. “If anything prevented your coming you ought at least to have sent me word. I told my daughter—Mavis! You are here still! Where is Nurse?” glancing round in surprise.
“I don’t know. She left to come to you, mother. She —Hilda is better; she has been talking to me.”
Lady Laura stepped up to the bedside and smiled reassuringly into the eyes raised imploringly to her.
“I am so glad you are better, my dear,” she said in a cheery, comfortable fashion. “But you ought to have something now. Mavis, give me that glass. Ah, that is right!” with a confidence born of experience as the girl swallowed a few drops of the champagne. “Now if you can get some sleep, my dear, I think it will be the best thing for you. What is this you say about Nurse Marston, Mavis—that she left here to come to me? Poor thing, she must have gone into the wrong room, and I dare say is abusing me for keeping her from her patient all this time!” with a laugh. She rang the bell. “Oh, Minnie! Find Nurse Marston and tell her that I am here, and ask her to come up. She must have gone into some other room.”
Minnie looked puzzled.
“I showed her the small library myself, my lady. I had been helping Lady Davenant with her cloak. I came out as Nurse Marston passed and I went as far as the bend in the passage with her and pointed out the door.”
“Then she must have mistaken you,” Lady Laura decided easily, “and you will find her in one of the adjoining rooms. Be as quick as you can, Minnie.”
“Yes, my lady,” and the girl hurried off.
Lady Laura turned to Mavis.
“Now, Mavis, it is time you were in bed, or you will lose your beauty sleep. Come, I will stay with Hilda”—and she smiled at the girl—“until Nurse Marston comes.”
Mavis glanced at Hilda’s white face, at the suspiciously bright eyes in which there lay no shadow of sleep, and then, moved by some sudden impulse, she leaned over and kissed the girl.
“Good night, dear, and sleep well!”
Outside in the passage she encountered Minnie.
“Oh, Miss Mavis, has the nurse come back?” she began excitedly. “I can’t find her anywhere. She isn’t anywhere downstairs, as far as I can see.”
Mavis looked perplexed for a moment, then her face brightened up.
“I dare say she is in her room. Perhaps she is not well.” She tapped at the door, which was left ajar, but there was no response, and a glance was sufficient to show them that the room was untenanted.
Minnie looked troubled.
“I can’t think where she can be, Miss Mavis. I have been everywhere downstairs except in the billiard-room and the smoking-room, and not a sign of her can I find. If her lady—”
The door of the invalid’s room opened noiselessly, and Lady Laura herself looked out.
“Is Nurse there? I want to—”
“My lady, I can’t find her anywhere!” Minnie burst out.
But signing to her to be silent
, Lady Laura came into the passage.
“What do you say, Minnie—you cannot find her? Have you looked in the morning-room? She has probably turned in there in mistake for the small library.’’
“I have been in all those rooms, my lady, and she isn’t there. I can’t think where she can have got to. And she was that anxious to speak to you, my lady! ‘‘
For a moment Lady Laura looked vaguely disturbed, then she smiled at Minnie’s evident perturbation.
“Well, I don’t suppose she is lost, Minnie,’’ she said cheerfully. “Probably she did not feel well, and is sitting down quietly somewhere; but I think I will just go down and speak to Mrs. Parkyns, and look into the rooms myself, and I think we must turn you into a nurse for the time being, Minnie. Be sure you let me know as soon as Nurse Marston comes back.’’
“Yes, my lady.’’ But the girl still looked uneasy and worried.
Mavis followed Lady Laura and tucked her hand under her arm.
“I am coming with you, mother dear. Yes, really you must let me,” as Lady Laura began to remonstrate. “Indeed, I could not sleep until we have found the nurse and heard what she has to say. Isn’t Hilda perfectly lovely, mother? Much prettier than we thought her last night.”
“She is very beautiful,” Lady Laura said abstractedly. “I fancy that Nurse Marston wished to speak to me about her. Perhaps she has discovered some clue to her identity. Ah, here is Parkyns!” as that functionary appeared, looking portly and important in her rich black silk. “Well, Parkyns, have you seen anything of Nurse Marston yet?”
“No, my lady,” the housekeeper replied with dignity. “Where the young woman can have put herself I can’t imagine. We have looked all over the bottom part of the house ourselves, me and Mr. Jenkins, as soon as Minnie said she couldn’t be found, and one of the maids has been upstairs. It really doesn’t seem as if she could be in the house.”
Lady Laura felt bewildered.
“It is impossible that she can have gone out at this time of night without telling anyone!” she exclaimed. “You are sure she is not downstairs, you say, Parkyns?”
“Quite sure, my lady! Leastways, we have been in every room except the smoking-room. Sir Arthur is there.”
Lady Laura pondered a moment; then she turned down the passage leading to the smoking-room and opened the door. Sir Arthur was lying back on the lounge, his feet on a chair and his head thrown back as he lazily watched the rings of smoke curling up to the ceiling from his cigar.
He sprang up in surprise when he saw his mother, with Mavis clinging to her arm and Mrs. Parkyns bringing up the rear.
“Why, mother, what is it? What has happened? Has there been a change for the worse?”
“No, no! Nothing of that kind,” Lady Laura said quickly, with an indefinable feeling of unrest as she noted the trend his anxiety had taken. “It is only that—have you by any chance seen Nurse Marston?”
Arthur stared.
“Seen Nurse Marston? My dear mother, no! Why, what do you mean? Is she lost?”
“Oh, no!” Lady Laura said helplessly. “Only we can’t find her.”
Arthur laughed.
“Seems much about the same thing, doesn’t it? How does it come about? Has she left her patient?”
“She was to come to me—” Lady Laura began.
“She left me with Hilda,” Mavis interjected, “and said she should not be away long.”
“She was particularly anxious to see her ladyship, Sir Arthur,” Parkyns added. “Sent Minnie down to me to get a letter to her ladyship before dinner, she did. We can’t see daylight in the matter, me and Mr. Jenkins can’t.”
Arthur looked from one to the other in utter amazement as they mentioned further particulars; the story appeared to him improbable in the extreme, and he was inclined to ridicule it.
“Oh, well, she can’t be far off, that’s certain!” he cried in a tone of raillery as he turned to accompany them. “We must have a general search. She wouldn’t be likely to take offence at anything and go home in a hurry, I suppose?”
Jenkins joined them now, lamp in hand.
“I have been in some of the rooms as are not in general use, Sir Arthur,” he said apologetically, “thinking the young woman might have got in there by mistake, though it don’t seem likely. But, begging your pardon, I couldn’t help hearing what you were saying to her ladyship, Sir Arthur, and I can answer for it the nurse hasn’t gone home, nor nothing of that sort, for all the doors are fastened same as I did them myself before dinner, as her ladyship bade me, all except the big doors, that is to say, and them I fastened as soon as the company was gone, and I was in the hall myself with James seeing after the coats and things till then. No, she is in the house, Sir Arthur, you may take it from me.”
“Oh, well, then she will soon be found,” Arthur decided cheerfully. “One of us will go in search of her one way and one another. It will be a regular hide-and-seek business. I really think that there ought to be some sort of prize for the one that finds, what do you say to that, mother?”
Lady Laura did not echo his laugh; her face was unwontedly pale, her dark eyes looked frightened.
“I do not know what to think,” she said unsteadily. “I don’t feel quite comfortable about it really, Arthur!”
“No more do I, my lady,” chimed in Parkyns obsequiously. “If the young woman has been taken ill, or—”
“Well, we will soon find her,” concluded Arthur, to whom the affair appeared rather a joke. “Here is Dorothy in time to join the search”—as the girl, her white peignoir thrown hastily on and her long fair hair floating over her shoulders, came to the top of the staircase, drawing back hastily as she saw the little group below—“or do you bring us news of the runaway, Dorothy?” he went on, raising his voice.
“What runaway?” Dorothy asked. “I don’t know what you mean. I thought I heard Aunt Laura’s voice and nobody came when I rang. I was so frightened by that shriek that when I heard people moving I came to see what it was all about.”
“What shriek? What did you hear?” asked Arthur rapidly, while Lady Laura and Mavis turned pale, and Parkyns, with a murmured “Heaven save us!” threw up her hands.
Dorothy was not inclined to explain.
“Oh, it was nothing! I dare say I fancied it,” she murmured as Arthur put his foot on the stairs and she quickened her steps down the corridor. “It—it was silly of me to be frightened, that’s all.”
“One moment, dear,” and, putting her son back with one hand, Lady Laura hurried after the girl. “Wait a moment, Dorothy. What was it you heard exactly, and when?”
Arthur and Mavis were following their mother, and Mrs. Parkyns was pantingly bringing up the rear.
“It was just after I came upstairs, Aunt Laura. You know I was a little early, and I was alone, sitting before my glass thinking over different things, when I heard a cry—a sort of muffled, choking scream, that was all—but it made me feel just a little nervous. I waited some time, thinking that Mavis would be sure to come in on her way up for a chat; but she did not, and at last I rang for Celestine; and then, as she did not answer and I could hear that you were moving about and talking—I heard you speak, Aunt Laura—I came out just to see if there was anything wrong. What is it really?”
“We cannot find Nurse Marston,” Lady Laura continued in reply to Dorothy’s question. “Arthur, I cannot understand it,” as her son joined them and Dorothy entered her room. “What could it have been that Dorothy heard?”
“Where is Dorothy sleeping?” Arthur answered her question by another and his face was grave.
“Over—over the small library,” Lady Laura said, with a quiver in her usually clear, full tones. “Arthur, you do not think that any harm has happened to her—to Nurse Marston?”
“In the house? Not likely!” Arthur said reassuringly. “I was thinking—I suppose nobody knows whether Nurse Marston was subject to fits”—raising his voice—“or anything of that kind? I have heard they go off with a s
cream.”
“If she had been, Sir Arthur, she would hardly have been fit for her work at the hospital, I should say,” Mrs. Parkyns submitted respectfully.
“Didn’t Garth tell us she had severed her connexion with the hospital?” Sir Arthur demanded. “Ah”—as his mother made a gesture of assent—“you may depend upon it that accounts for it! She has had an attack somewhere or other, and is hors de combat for the time being. Garth ought not to have sent us such a person, I think.”
“Arthur,” interposed Mavis, looking by no means reassured by this easy fashion of disposing of things, “supposing that Nurse Marston did have a fit while she was waiting for mother, where is she now? Minnie and Parkyns have looked through all the rooms.”
For a moment Arthur was nonplussed.
“It seems to me she must have been trying to avoid them,” he decided at last. “It is a queer sort of business altogether. I shall go down to the small library and take a good look round myself.”
“That will be no use,” Lady Laura said decidedly.” My dear Arthur, do you forget that I sat waiting for her in that room for more than a quarter of an hour before I made any inquiry at all? Wherever she may be, it is assuredly not there. I did think it was possible that she had lost her way, but—”
“We will go through to the bottom part of the house,” Sir Arthur said after an almost imperceptible pause, “and as soon as we have thoroughly satisfied ourselves that she is not in any one room the door shall be locked. Come, Jenkins! Mother, you and the girls had better go to bed. I will bring you word as soon as we find her.”
“My dear, do you think it would be possible for me to rest until we know something more definite?” Lady Laura asked reproachfully. “I am coming with you now.”
The green baize door leading to the kitchen part of the house was standing open; contrary to rule, and close to it the servants were assembled in quite a crowd, looking bewildered and mystified as they gossiped over Nurse Marston’s disappearance. For once their presence there passed without rebuke from Mrs. Parkyns, whose nerves were, as she phrased it, “quite overset” for the time being.
“Has anyone seen anything of Nurse Marston?” Sir Arthur demanded, pausing.
