Annie Haynes Premium Collection – 8 Murder Mysteries in One Volume. Annie Haynes
“He might imagine she had,” said Hilda hopelessly. “Yet they might be forged or something of that kind, might they not? I am very ignorant, Mavis, but the mere thought of this interview frightens me.”
“Don’t think of it then,” Mavis advised. “Let us talk of something else. What do you think of the very palest shade of blush pink for the gown I am to wear at the Tenants’ Ball?”
Hilda threw a quick glance at her betokening anything but amiability, but she made no comment as she dried her eyes and came to the table where Mavis was idly turning over fashion papers.
“Pink is your colour, there is no doubt, and if you had it veiled with some of Lady Laura’s exquisite lace—Mavis, there is a carriage!”
Mavis sprang up.
“Come along,” she cried as she swept both Hilda and the fashion-papers into the conservatory. “You know mother and Arthur want to see her first.”
It was a quiet-looking, middle-aged woman, in a widow’s conventional garb, who rose when Lady Laura and her son entered.
Lady Laura glanced searchingly at the somewhat worn features, at the pale, red-rimmed eyes and weak-looking mouth. Certainly if this were Hilda’s mother she in no wise resembled her daughter, she decided.
“You, I am sure you understood that I could not remain away, Lady Laura,” she began, dashing straight into her subject without offering any preliminary greeting whatever. “The agents I employed wanted me to wait to send photographs, to ask for them from you, but I could not. I felt that I must come straight off as soon as I heard of the poor child’s whereabouts without telling them anything about it. She will remember her mother when she sees her, I said.”
“Still, I am sure you will recognize that we must ask you a few questions before we allow you to see her,” Lady Laura said courteously. Checking her son with a look as he was about to speak, she invited her visitor to sit down and then went on more slowly, “Will you tell me some of your reasons for thinking that Hilda is your daughter?”
“The name, the description, everything tallies,” the other said excitedly. “Lady Laura, you are not going to tell me that she is not my child after all, that I have been deceiving myself with false hopes?”
“No; on the contrary,” Lady Laura said with polite interest, “I think all the probabilities point to Hilda being your daughter. But will you tell me a little of the circumstance under which you lost her?”
Mrs. Leparge passed her handkerchief over her dry lips.
“I can only tell you the facts of the case as they were related to me by the schoolmistress in whose charge I left her, for you must understand that I was abroad; it has been so dreadful to me that I have known nothing—that I have had to rely upon others for everything. She—Miss Chesterton—told me that before Hilda’s disappearance, though unknown to her at the time, it had been a matter of common talk that some man staying at one of the big hotels on the front—did I tell you she was at Brighton?—was always watching for Hilda and following her about when they were out for their walks; they called him ‘The Unknown’ and joked about him, as schoolgirls will. But when—when she went away they remembered it.”
“Surely they had the man traced?” Arthur interposed, his face looking hot and wrathful. “Though I do not for one moment believe that this is—”
“They made inquiries at once,” Mrs. Leparge went on. “He had been known at the hotel as Mr. James Duncan, and his only address given in the books was West Kensington. No such name appears in the directory, and the hotel authorities admit having some reason to believe it to be assumed, but they speak of him as a man apparently possessed of great wealth, and I am convinced that he decoyed my poor darling away.”
“What a dreadful thing!” said Lady Laura, shuddering. “I wonder there was not more said about it in the papers.”
“Oh, Miss Chesterton was like all schoolmistresses!” said Mrs. Leparge impatiently. “She thought first of the credit of the school—my poor Hilda came distinctly second. Lady Laura, when may I see her? You do not realize my anxiety or you would not delay our meeting.”
“One more question,” said Lady Laura, detaining her as she would have risen. “When did this happen? When did your daughter leave her school?”
“On the 29th of May. She was missing when the names were called in the evening, and has never been heard of since.”
“And it was the 6th of June when we found Hilda in the park, was it not, Arthur?” said Lady Laura, turning to her son. “That would leave a week unaccounted for, but still it seems probable.”
Sir Arthur’s face was very gloomy; the prospect of discovering Hilda’s relatives in such circumstances was by no means a pleasing one to him. Moreover, he had taken a somewhat unreasonable dislike to Mrs. Leparge, and did not feel inclined to welcome her as a possible mother-in-law. A sudden thought struck him.
“I should like to show you something first.” He crossed the room and drew aside the curtain that at present concealed the Elaine. “Is that your daughter?” he asked, pointing to the central figure.
Mrs. Leparge put up her lorgnette and surveyed it critically.
“I think it is,” she said in an uncertain tone. “It is her colouring exactly, and the features are a good deal alike, but this looks older and so very sad, and Hilda was always bright and lively. Besides, you must remember, Sir Arthur, that I have not seen her for two years. She was sixteen when I placed her with Miss Chesterton to complete her education, as I was summoned abroad on important business connected with my husband’s estate. Poor darling, I little thought what a home-coming mine would be! If that is all—”
“The age is about the same, though Hilda has always thought she was nineteen,” Lady Laura said with a glance at her son, “but I think now, Arthur—”
She beckoned Mrs. Leparge to the glass doors leading into the conservatory. Inside, on the tessellated pavement, Hilda was standing with her back to them.
Mrs. Leparge looked at her for a moment.
“Oh, her hair is just the same shade as my sister Cecile’s!” She opened the door in spite of Lady Laura’s warning gesture. “Hilda, my darling Hilda!” she cried.
At the first sound of her name Hilda turned quickly, and then stood still, her hand on her heart, her breath coming and going in long palpitating gasps. As Mrs. Leparge hurried towards her she looked at her with frightened eyes, the pupils dilated by emotion.
“Are—are you my mother?” she asked faintly.
Mrs. Leparge, who had hastened forward at first with an air of assured confidence, now appeared to hesitate, her steps faltered, and, as Hilda stood waiting in an attitude of intense expectation, with a low moan Mrs. Leparge dropped into one of the seats.
“Oh, no, no, no! It is not my Hilda—it is a stranger! Oh, my child, my child, where are you?”
Startled, shocked apparently, Hilda did not move forward, but stood motionless, statue-like in her white dress, save that her lips were moving inaudibly.
Sir Arthur hurried to her.
“Hilda, I—”
Lady Laura turned to Mrs. Leparge, disappointment in every line of her face, in every inflection of her voice.
“Do I understand that you have made a mistake— that this is not your daughter?”
Mrs. Leparge’s slight form was still shaking with sobs.
“Ah, no, no! Yet she is so like, so like!” drying her eyes. “No wonder my agent made the mistake! You must forgive me, Lady Laura, for all the trouble I have given you.”
She moved as if to turn away; but Hilda, who had been listening as if frozen into stillness, taking absolutely no notice of Arthur’s attempts at consolation, now walked towards