An Open Verdict · II

CHAPTER I.

‘DEATH BRINGS COOL NIGHT AFTER LIFE’S SULTRY DAY.’

Monday morning was bleak and cold. There was neither frost nor snow, but a driving rain that beat fiercely upon all the southern windows of the Water House, and obscured the view of river and village, church tower and moorland.

At nine o’clock Beatrix was still sleeping. Bella, to whom necessity had given the habit of early rising, was dressed and out of her room before eight, and found herself at a loss for occupation. There was a cheery fire in Miss Harefield’s sitting-room, and the breakfast was laid—a snug round table bright with pretty china and quaint old silver, with an old blue and red Oriental bowl of hothouse flowers in the centre. How different from the Scratchell table, with its tumbled week-old cloth, which was like an enlarged copy of Mercator’s Chart of the World, done in tea and coffee—its odds and ends of crockery, all cracked—for what pottery that ever the potter moulded could withstand the destructiveness of the young Scratchells?—the battered old Britannia teapot, stale quartern loaf, scanty remnant of salt butter, and inadequate dish of pale-faced rashers, the distribution of which half-cured pig gave rise to much ill-will and recrimination among Mr. Scratchell’s olive branches!

At home Bella would have had to help in the preparation of the morning meal, and to assist her overworked mother in the struggle to preserve peace and order while it was being eaten. Here she had nothing to do but to sit and watch the logs burning, and listen to the clock ticking and the rain lashing the windows, while she waited for Beatrix.

This state of existence, placid though it was as compared with the turmoil of home, soon began to pall upon Bella, who was of an essentially active temper. She went to the window and looked out, but could see only dim shapes of mountain and moor through the blinding rain. She thought of Cyril Culverhouse, who was going his rounds already, perhaps, in the cold and rain, or teaching damp children in a windy schoolroom. She thought of her poor mother, whose much-tried spirit was doubtless being exercised by the teakettle’s obstinate persistence in not boiling, and of her father, who was most likely making himself an affliction to everybody with his well-known Monday morning temper.

To-morrow would be Christmas Day. This afternoon Miss Harefield’s presents, and Bella’s poor little offerings were to be sent to the Scratchells. Bella wondered whether her father would be mollified in temper as evening wore round so far as to allow of egg-flip or snapdragon—those luxuries for which the young Scratchells always pleaded, but wherewith they were but seldom gratified. Yet, by and by, when going down the bill of life, they would look back fondly upon this and childhood, and, softened by distance, the rare and scanty pleasures of these early days would seem to them sweeter than anything which a prosperous later life could yield.

The clock struck the quarter after nine, and still Bella sat looking at the fire, with the breakfast table undisturbed. Even the urn had left off hissing. Beatrix was not generally so late. The two girls had been accustomed to sit down together at eight, for in Miss Scales’ moral code late hours were sinful, and a nine o’clock breakfast was the first stage in a downward career.

Bella’s patience was exhausted. She went to Beatrix’s door and knocked. No answer. She knocked louder, and called, and still there was no answer. She was beginning to feel uneasy, when she saw the young woman who waited on Miss Harefield coming along the corridor.

‘Is your mistress up, Mary? Have you done her hair?’

‘No, miss. I went at half-past seven, as usual, but she was sleeping so sound I didn’t like to wake her. I know she has had bad nights lately, and I thought the sleep would do her good. I’ve been on the listen for her bell ever since.’

‘And she has not rung?’

Bella went in without another word. Beatrix was sleeping profoundly.

‘Don’t wake her, miss,’ said the maid, looking in at the door. ‘She’s been wanting sleep all along. Mr. Namby says so. Let her have her sleep out.’

‘Very well,’ assented Bella. ‘I’ll go and have my breakfast. I’m quite exhausted with waiting.’

Bella sat down to her lonely breakfast, presently, profound silence reigning in the house, and a dulness as of the grave. She began to think that, after all, wealth was not an unqualified blessing. Here was the heiress to one of the finest estates in Yorkshire, with innumerable acres in Lincolnshire to boot, leading an existence so joyless and monotonous that even one week of it was too much for Miss Scratchell. And yonder at the Park the wife of a millionaire was hastening her descent to the grave by vain cares and needless economies. The rich people did not seem, according to Bella’s small experience, to get value for their money.

She was still sitting at breakfast when she was surprised by a visit from the butler.

‘Oh, if you please, ma’am,’ he began, with a serious air, ‘Mrs. Peters and I are rather anxious about Mr. Harefield. We really don’t feel to know what we ought to do—the circumstances are altogether out of the way. I don’t want to do more than my duty as a faithful servant—and I shouldn’t feel satisfied if I was to do less.’

‘But what is wrong?’ asked Bella, puzzled and scared by this circumlocution, and now perceiving the round rubicund visage of the housekeeper looking in at the door. ‘Is Mr. Harefield ill?’

‘No, Miss Scratched, it isn’t that—but we cannot find him.’

‘You can’t find him?’

‘No, ma’am. He isn’t in his bedroom, and what’s more, his bed wasn’t slept in last night. He isn’t in the library or the dining-room, and those three rooms are the only ones he ever uses. His habits, as you know, ma’am, are as regular as clockwork, as far as regards meals and so on. He takes his breakfast at nine o’clock, and goes from his breakfast to his library. He never left home in his life without letting me know beforehand. But he didn’t sleep in this house last night, and he’s not to be found in this house this morning.’

‘He may have gone away last night with that strange gentleman,’ suggested Bella.

‘No, ma’am, that he didn’t, for I let the foreign gentleman out, and locked the door after him.’

‘Have you searched the house? Mr. Harefield may have fallen down in a fit somewhere. It’s too dreadful to think of.’

Bella led the way downstairs, followed by the two scared servants. Her heart was beating fast, agitated by nameless fears; but even in the midst of her fear she felt a kind of elation, a sense of new importance. Some great event was going to happen. This slow old ship, the Water House, was entering stormy seas, and she was at the helm.