The very thought of serving her god strengthened her. She crept nearer, but the window was too high. Her glance around discovered some bricks piled against one wall and, the fear of detection spurring her on, she trotted back and forth carrying one heavy brick at a time, until three were piled below the casement. They were a bit wobbly, but it was the best she could do. She stepped up, crouching, then slowly straightened.
An involuntary gasp of horror escaped her. Mr. Monty was slumped in a chair. He looked dead, but he was tied hand and foot and one does not tie a dead man, so she supposed he must have been struck on the head. At a table to one side, the two men she had thought to be his friends sat with a half-full wine bottle between them, their flushed faces and another empty bottle on the floor testifying to their state. Even as she gazed, petrified, the taller of the pair glanced to the window, lurched to his feet, and with an oath stumbled towards her. Sick with terror, she tried to run, but her legs had turned to water and would not stir. The slurred voice, just above her, snarled a profanity. She sank against the wall, eyes half closed, waiting in a helpless panic to be seized and dragged into that horrid room. Dimly, she saw a large hand thrusting at her. She felt sick, and the bright afternoon grew dim. A coarse voice snarled, “Blasted damned wind!” The window was slammed shut, the lower edge of the frame brushing her curls.
He had not seen her! By some miracle she was still free! She clapped her hands over her mouth to muffle her terrified sobs, and collapsed to the ground, a small, crumpled heap, weeping softly, and whispering fervent prayers of gratitude for her narrow escape.
It was several moments before she was sufficiently recovered to think coherently, but gradually her numbed mind began to function again. What it was all about, she did not know, but those two men were bad. They had tied up poor Mr. Monty, and it looked as if they had hurt him, besides. He might be, as Mrs. Arabella was fond of remarking, a “heathen savage,” but he had never done anything savage that she’d seen. His voice on the few occasions he’d spoken to her had been gruff, but kind, and Major Craig thought the world of him. He had very nice eyes, that Major Craig … not that he was a patch on Mr. Dev for looks, but eyes were important. And that was another thing: those men had said something about Mr. Dev dying. Soon, they’d said. Perhaps that was why the Indian was tied up. So he couldn’t go and help Mr. Dev. Her blood ran cold with the fear that a plot existed to murder the only person who had ever really befriended her. If that was so, she must get away quick, and warn him!
The window was tight closed, the curtains drawn, but if there was anyone else in the cottage she would be in full view if she ran across the lawn to the mare. Shivering with fear, she tried to be as brave as Mr. Dev would want her to be. Perhaps, even if they saw her, she could climb onto Molly-My-Lass and be away in time. How fast the Clydesdale could run, she had no idea, but an animal so big simply had to be powerful and would likely be a fine goer.
And so, a very young lady gathered up her sadly tested courage and made a wild dart across the open space of the lawn. She reached the hedge and trees that shielded the cottage from the meadow in a flash, and with no enraged shouts following. With a hand over her madly pounding heart, she paused to catch her breath, only to utter a moan of despair. Molly-My-Lass was gone!
* * *
“I cannot understand it!” Yolande exclaimed distractedly. She turned to Mrs. Drummond, who was brushing a disgusted Socrates. It crossed her mind that the General might not care to see the dog standing upon the piano bench while being groomed, but it was a thought that did not linger, her main concentration being upon the missing child.
“I understand it perfectly well,” said Mrs. Drummond, with the condescension of superior wisdom. “The child went to see her friend, is all. She is lonely here, Yolande, and it is but natural for her to want to be with her own kind, and to grieve when forcibly removed from her natural environment. Far be it from me to criticize, but it was wrong of Devenish to abduct the child so thoughtlessly. His besetting sin, alas! I could have told him no good would come of it, but he would not have attended me—or anyone else, for that matter!”
Sorting the wheat from the chaff, Yolande decided that her aunt was very likely in the right of it, at least in so far as Josie’s destination was concerned. It was foolish to indulge this frightening sense of something being very wrong. After all, what could happen to a little girl at Steep Drummond? “I’ll go down there,” she murmured.
Astonished, Mrs. Drummond glanced up. “To the MacFarlane cottage?” she asked, in the tone she might have employed if told the minister had run naked through the village. “Good gracious, why?” There is no call for you to so demean yourself. Besides, I heard the MacFarlane girl has contracted measles. Send one of the footmen.”
“Send a footman where?” enquired General Drummond, wandering at that moment into the music room.
“Down to the gardener’s house,” supplied Arabella, casting a wide smile at her father-in-law. “If you can credit it, dear sir, Yolande was about to go!”
“Josie has wandered off, Grandpapa,” Yolande explained. “I thought I would go and see if she is there. In fact, since Aunt Arabella tells me little Maisie is ill, I’ve no doubt that is where I shall find her.”
“Very likely,” he said, rather pleased to discover his granddaughter was speaking to him in a friendly way and that she had not held a grudge because he’d forbidden those two rapscallion cousins to call on her. “I’ll go with you.”
“Oh, in that case,” purred Arabella, “nothing could be more proper.”
The General escorted his granddaughter to the door, and turned back to fix his son’s widow with a minatory eye. “How glad I am that we hae your approval, ma’am,” he said cuttingly. “Tis an emotion I canna returrrn however; not while yon beastie distributes his fleas over my pianoforte! Be sae good as tae remove the wee currr tae the barrn whar he belongs!”
He ignored Mrs. Drummond’s flustered protestations that Socrates would not be caught dead with a nasty flea on him and, ushering Yolande from the room, growled his thanks for providing an excuse to escape that “absurd female! You must, however,” he admonished as they started into the gardens, “impress upon little Miss Storm that she should not wander off like this. If the child’s to become an abigail, m’dear, she must learn proper behaviour.”
But when they reached the gardener’s cottage, it was to discover that Josie had not visited that establishment since the day Maisie had been caught at the summer house “tea party.”
Her eyes dark shadows against her tired, pale face, Mrs. MacFarlane said, “The wee lassie is nae lost, I hope?”
Losing some of her own colour, Yolande turned a frightened glance to her grandfather. He patted her hand and said bracingly, “Wandered off, merely. I fancy she’s lonely here, poor mite.”
“I’m sorry for that,” Mrs. MacFarlane said. “Wherever can she hae got to? I—” And, as if suddenly becoming aware that she kept her illustrious guests standing on the step, she flushed darkly and stepped back, gesturing for them to enter. “Ye’re more than—than welcome tae come inside,” she stammered. “Unless ye’ve nae had the measles.”
The General nodded. “We both have, I thank you.” He stepped over the threshold immediately dwarfing the small, immaculate parlour, and, when Yolande had seated herself on the ornate red sofa, followed suit, and enquired as to Maisie’s condition.
Mrs. MacFarlane, who had perched on the very edge of a straight-backed cane chair, sighed. “Och, but she’s awful bad, puir bairn.” Her eyes distressed, she added brokenly, “I never saw her in such a waeful state.”
“I am so sorry, ma’am,” Yolande sympathized with her customary warm-heartedness. “She’s a truly delightful little girl. Can we help? You’ve had the doctor out, I—”
Mrs. MacFarlane sprang up again and backed away, an expression almost of frenzy on her face. “I dinna wish … your aid.…” she gasped out. “We none of us—want nothing frae ye!”
Fr
om the corner of her eye, Yolande saw the General’s whiskers bristle alarmingly. Not glancing at him, she placed a gently restraining hand on his arm. “I quite understand, ma’am,” she said. “You likely wish us at Jericho, so we will take ourselves off and ask only that, if you should see Miss Storm, you will send word up to the house.”
“Aye.” Mrs. Macfarlane’s lip trembled. “I will, that. I—I’m sorry, Miss Yolande. It’s not— I dinna mean— I’m a mite fashed, y’ken.”
“Of course you are. Any mother would be.” Yolande stood, her grandfather at once, almost protectively, standing beside her. “Measles is a wretched illness, and we—”
“Aye! If it be measles!” And with a sudden resumption of her former hostility, this strange little woman said fiercely, “I pray to the good Lord it is nae something worse. Heaven only knows what may be brought intae the district when we’re infested with foreigners and heathens! Ye’ll mind that MacFarlane can read, sir? He told me he’d read somewhere that red men are awful subject tae—” Her eyes all but starting from her head, she gripped and wrung her hands and whispered, awfully, “tae—the smallpox!”
“Good God!” the General exploded. “What utter balderdash!”
“Dear ma’am!” cried Yolande, “I beg you will not so distress yourself! If Major Tyndale thought his man to be ill, he would have called in a doctor at once, I do assure you! And certainly you would have been warned if—”
“Oh, aye!” the woman interposed shrilly. “Warned we should hae been! Mark my words, miss, that savage and his foreign master will bring death and destruction doon upon us all! If little Miss Storm is missing, he’s likely responsible! And if my bairn should dee—” She passed a distracted hand across her brow, darted to the door and, swinging it open, regarded her astonished callers more wildly than ever.
Yolande thought, “She is mad, or near it, poor creature!” and as she passed the woman, murmured a compassionate, “God bless you, poor soul!”
Her only answer was the door, slamming behind them.
“’Pon my soul!” gasped the General, unnerved. “You’ve more charity than I, m’dear! Perkins told me distinctly this morning he had examined the bairn and she’s only a verra mild case of measles! The woman must be fair daft!”
“Listen,” said Yolande, pausing as they started down the path.
From behind that closed door came the sound of weeping so intense and so laced with despair that she hesitated, directing an anxious gaze up at her grandfather.
He drew her hand firmly through his arm. “Let her be!” he commanded. “No telling what she might do next! I’ll have to speak with MacFarlane, poor devil. His wife is plainly ready for Bedlam! A sad thing for so young a woman.”
“Young?” Yolande said uncertainly. “Why, I’d thought … that is, she looks to be forty at least, no?”
“She looks it, poor lass. But, no. She’s a decade younger, to say the least of it.”
“Good heavens! I can scarcely believe— Grandpapa, has she been ill?”
“Not that I’m aware. Fey, perhaps. She was a strange little girl, I mind, full of odd fancies. But she was pretty enough. I recall her at the castle when old Tyndale was alive. A bonnie wee lass she was, but—”
“At the castle?” Yolande intervened, breathlessly. “She lived there, sir?”
“Aye. With her parents. Her mama was abigail to poor Esme Devenish, and her father a groom or a gardener, or some such.” He caught Yolande’s arm as she turned back. “Hey! Hey, my lass. You’ll nae disturb the woman the noo?”
“But I must! I must! She might know something that could be of help to Cr— I mean, to Devenish!”
Watching her, frowning a little, the old gentleman growled, “She doesnae. She was a wee lassie—maybe six or seven at most—when it happened.”
“Old enough to have some recollection, then,” she persisted stubbornly. “I can remember things that happened when I was six—can not you?”
“I’ve my work cut oot to recall what happened yesterday,” he said with a grin and, becoming very English again, added, “You’ll do well to let the lady alone now, Yolande. She has her hands full and her poor mind is obviously hovering on the brink. Besides, I’ll own I’m becoming a touch concerned for our own missing young lady.”
“Oh, my goodness! How could I have forgotten Josie!”
“Hmmmn,” said the General. “I wonder, indeed! Come, m’dear. We’ll send the grooms out seeking her, can we find any. The place was empty as a drum when I looked in a wee bit ago. The rascals were up to no good, I’ll be bound. They’d best be about their business now, or there’ll be much explaining to be done!”
When they reached the stables, however, it was to find them far from deserted, grooms and stablehands milling about, and an air of exultation very apparent.
“Here comes the guv’nor!” the head groom proclaimed, as the General and Yolande crossed the yard. “All’s bowman, sir! We found her.”
“Oh, thank heaven!” gasped Yolande, not until that moment realizing just how worried she had been.
“That saucy rascal!” the General exclaimed. “Good work! Who found her?”
“It was Graham, sir. He was fair beside himself! Thought he should’ve kept a closer eye on her.”
The General nodded. “Commendable. Where was she?”
“Halfway to Tarbolton, by what I gather.”
“Tarbolton! The devil you say! What did she want up there?”
The groom shrugged. “Who knows what goes on in their minds, sir? Such as they have!”
“Oh, come now, Laing!” Yolande protested. “Females are not completely blockheaded, you know!”
“I’ll not deny that, miss,” he allowed with a chuckle. “Though she was blockheaded enough to be frisking about in the stream that runs alongside Mr. Willoughby’s east field.”
“Good heavens! Whatever possessed her? The wind is quite chill today, and this is no weather for a swim. Oh, I do hope she has not taken a chill.”
“Tush, child,” the General said reassuringly. “Do I know anything of the matter, she’s being thoroughly pampered and cossetted. And after all, we must not forget her background. I doubt she was even slightly remorseful, eh Laing?”
The groom laughed. “Not the slightest, sir.”
“A sound night’s sleep, snug under her blankets, and she’ll be good as new. She should be spanked, but I’ll own she’s lots of spirit. Strong as a horse, too, don’t you agree, Laing?”
Yolande, who had always thought Laing to be a sensible man, began to wonder if she had rated him too high, for at this he gave another shout of laughter, so hearty that the General stared at him in surprise.
“That’s a good one, sir! And glad I am that you’re not angered. It’s a bit of luck it was Graham who came up with her. Eyes like a hawk has Graham, else he’d never have noticed her nose sticking through the branches.”
The General’s jaw dropped in a most undignified fashion. “Her … nose?” he echoed faintly.
“Sticking … through the branches…?” gasped Yolande.
“Aye, miss. Chewing them leaves like she’d not ate for a week, Graham said, or—”
Having recovered itself, General Drummond’s jaw began to chomp alarmingly. “Are ye gone puir daft, mon?” he exploded. “What a’God’s name are ye babbling?”
Yolande asked urgently, “Of whom are you speaking, Laing?”
Paling, the groom faltered, “Why—why, Molly-My-Lass, of course, miss. Wasn’t that—”
“Molly … My … Lass!” The General’s lung power made Yolande jump. “Why, you bacon-brained gapeseed! You let my prize mare wander off and stand about in a cold stream all day? Dammitall! That’s what I get for allowing a Londoner at my cattle! Of all the—” He glanced, fuming, at Yolande, and closed his lips, his whiskers continuing to vibrate like reeds in a high wind.
Her hopes dashed, Yolande seized her chance and explained, “We were speaking of Miss Josie. She seems to have wandered off,
also. Is Molly all right?”
“Quite all right, miss.” And with a cautious look at the fiery old gentleman, Laing ventured, “As the General said, we’ve pampered her and she’s warm and—”
“I was not speaking of a horse, blast your impudence!” howled Drummond. “If you but had the brains you were born with—”
“Sir!” Yolande cried, tugging at his sleeve urgently. “Sir! We must do as you suggested and send the grooms out to search! It is starting to rain, and if Josie is trying to reach Devenish at the castle, the poor child will still be walking after dark.”
“That curst boy!” the General raged, quite willing to turn his anger from Laing, who really was an excellent head groom. “He should never have brought the lassie here in the first place. A fine bog we’ll be in, does she come to grief! Well, talking pays no toll. Turn oot the men, Laing, and set ’em tae the west road. But—do you stay with the mare!”
Laing knuckled his brow respectfully. “I’ll set the men out, right enough, sir. But I don’t think Miss Josie took the west road. Two of the stablehands rode that way while we were looking for Molly. They went clear to the Pass, and would certainly have seen the little girl.”
“Unless she did not want to be seen,” argued Yolande. “If she was running away again. She adores Dev, you know, Grandpapa.”
“Lord knows why,” he grunted. “You’re right, though. Saddle up Crusher for me Laing. Yolande, I’ll change my clothes and be off. Never worry, lass. We’ll find her.”
“I’m going with you. Please, Grandpapa! I feel responsible. I could not bear to just sit here and wait.”
The Noblest Frailty Page 27
