Man and Wife, Wilkie Collins [best ebook reader android .TXT] 📗

incompetent to solve. There was no choice but to wait until an opportunity offered of reporting what had happened to Geoffrey himself.

After the lapse of half an hour, the sound of some approaching vehicle⁠—the first sound of the sort that he had heard⁠—attracted Arnold’s attention. He started up, and saw the pony-chaise approaching him along the road from the station. Sir Patrick, this time, was compelled to drive himself⁠—Duncan was not with him. On discovering Arnold, he stopped the pony.

“So! so!” said the old gentleman. “You have heard all about it, I see? You understand that this is to be a secret from everybody, till further notice? Very good, Has anything happened since you have been here?”

“Nothing. Have you made any discoveries, Sir Patrick?”

“None. I got to the station before the train. No signs of Miss Silvester anywhere. I have left Duncan on the watch⁠—with orders not to stir till the last train has passed tonight.”

“I don’t think she will turn up at the station,” said Arnold. “I fancy she has gone back to Craig Fernie.”

“Quite possible. I am now on my way to Craig Fernie, to make inquiries about her. I don’t know how long I may be detained, or what it may lead to. If you see Blanche before I do tell her I have instructed the stationmaster to let me know (if Miss Silvester does take the railway) what place she books for. Thanks to that arrangement, we shan’t have to wait for news till Duncan can telegraph that he has seen her to her journey’s end. In the meantime, you understand what you are wanted to do here?”

“Blanche has explained everything to me.”

“Stick to your post, and make good use of your eyes. You were accustomed to that, you know, when you were at sea. It’s no great hardship to pass a few hours in this delicious summer air. I see you have contracted the vile modern habit of smoking⁠—that will be occupation enough to amuse you, no doubt! Keep the roads in view; and, if she does come your way, don’t attempt to stop her⁠—you can’t do that. Speak to her (quite innocently, mind!), by way of getting time enough to notice the face of the man who is driving her, and the name (if there is one) on his cart. Do that, and you will do enough. Pah! how that cigar poisons the air! What will have become of your stomach when you get to my age?”

“I shan’t complain, Sir Patrick, if I can eat as good a dinner as you do.”

“That reminds me! I met somebody I knew at the station. Hester Dethridge has left her place, and gone to London by the train. We may feed at Windygates⁠—we have done with dining now. It has been a final quarrel this time between the mistress and the cook. I have given Hester my address in London, and told her to let me know before she decides on another place. A woman who can’t talk, and a woman who can cook, is simply a woman who has arrived at absolute perfection. Such a treasure shall not go out of the family, if I can help it. Did you notice the Bechamel sauce at lunch? Pooh! a young man who smokes cigars doesn’t know the difference between Bechamel sauce and melted butter. Good afternoon! good afternoon!”

He slackened the reins, and away he went to Craig Fernie. Counting by years, the pony was twenty, and the pony’s driver was seventy. Counting by vivacity and spirit, two of the most youthful characters in Scotland had got together that afternoon in the same chaise.

An hour more wore itself slowly out; and nothing had passed Arnold on the crossroads but a few stray foot-passengers, a heavy wagon, and a gig with an old woman in it. He rose again from the heather, weary of inaction, and resolved to walk backward and forward, within view of his post, for a change. At the second turn, when his face happened to be set toward the open heath, he noticed another foot-passenger⁠—apparently a man⁠—far away in the empty distance. Was the person coming toward him?

He advanced a little. The stranger was doubtless advancing too, so rapidly did his figure now reveal itself, beyond all doubt, as the figure of a man. A few minutes more and Arnold fancied he recognized it. Yet a little longer, and he was quite sure. There was no mistaking the lithe strength and grace of that man, and the smooth easy swiftness with which he covered his ground. It was the hero of the coming footrace. It was Geoffrey on his way back to Windygates House.

Arnold hurried forward to meet him. Geoffrey stood still, poising himself on his stick, and let the other come up.

“Have you heard what has happened at the house?” asked Arnold.

He instinctively checked the next question as it rose to his lips. There was a settled defiance in the expression of Geoffrey’s face, which Arnold was quite at a loss to understand. He looked like a man who had made up his mind to confront anything that could happen, and to contradict anybody who spoke to him.

“Something seems to have annoyed you?” said Arnold.

“What’s up at the house?” returned Geoffrey, with his loudest voice and his hardest look.

“Miss Silvester has been at the house.”

“Who saw her?”

“Nobody but Blanche.”

“Well?”

“Well, she was miserably weak and ill, so ill that she fainted, poor thing, in the library. Blanche brought her to.”

“And what then?”

“We were all at lunch at the time. Blanche left the library, to speak privately to her uncle. When she went back Miss Silvester was gone, and nothing has been seen of her since.”

“A row at the house?”

“Nobody knows of it at the house, except Blanche⁠—”

“And you? And how many besides?”

“And Sir Patrick. Nobody else.”

“Nobody else? Anything more?”

Arnold remembered his promise to keep the investigation then on foot a secret from everybody. Geoffrey’s manner made him⁠—unconsciously to himself⁠—readier than he might otherwise have been