Annie Haynes Premium Collection – 8 Murder Mysteries in One Volume. Annie Haynes
my child, you are not my Hilda! Where can she be, poor unhappy darling, I dare not think!”
Hilda caught her hands.
“Oh, look—look carefully!” she cried. “Do be quite, quite sure. I want my mother so badly, so very badly. Oh, shall I never know—will it always be like this?”
“Hilda dear,” Mavis began, while Arthur endeavoured unsuccessfully to draw the girl away.
Mrs. Leparge’s whole face quivered as Hilda clung to her.
“I wish you were my child,” she said as she took the girl in her arms. “There! There, dear, you have lost your mother and I have lost my daughter; we ought to be able to comfort one another.” She drew her to one of the garden seats and looked at the others. “She is overcome and disappointed, poor girl!” she said pitifully. “She can hardly realize that she has not found her mother; yet her disappointment can hardly be so great as mine. I think perhaps if I talk to her for a little while she will realize that. Won’t you, dear? You see, my little daughter—”
Already Hilda seemed quieter and rested more calmly in Mrs. Leparge’s arms. Lady Laura motioned Arthur and Mavis to the other end of the conservatory.
“She will be better in a few minutes,” she whispered. ‘Poor girl, it is upsetting for her!”
They stood in a little group by the door, while Mrs. Leparge still held Hilda closely and talked to her in low, caressing tones. The purport of her words did not reach them, but they saw that Hilda was gradually becoming quieter, and that though her face was pale her manner was more composed when Mrs. Leparge rose.
Mavis went softly towards them.
“Remember, it must be done and without delay,” she heard the widow say impressively, as she bent forward and kissed Hilda.
The words and the tone alike struck Mavis as a little odd.
“What is that you are recommending Hilda to do, Mrs. Leparge?” she asked in some curiosity.
The widow turned; for one instant Mavis fancied that she detected a shade of discomposure in her manner.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Hargreave. I had no idea you were there. I was just telling this poor child that she must make up her mind to cease fretting and trying to find out what is evidently concealed from her for some wise purpose and be very thankful that she has found so kind a home. She will make herself ill if she goes on this way, and that will not mend matters. Now, my dear, I must say good-bye. I hope that good news will come to us both soon.”
Hilda suffered, rather than responded to, her embrace; there was an odd passivity about her whole manner; her eyes looked dazed and her colour had for the nonce deserted her.
Mrs. Leparge glanced back longingly as she walked up the conservatory with Lady Laura.
“Poor girl! I really do not know what to say to you, Lady Laura, or how to apologize for the trouble I have caused you. I can see now that I did wrong in coming myself instead of leaving things to the inquiry office, but I can only plead a mother’s anxiety for her only child, which I am sure you can understand and sympathize with.”
“I can indeed,” Lady Laura responded as she allowed her visitor to precede her through the drawing-room door. “It does seem strange that there should be two cases so much alike.”
“Yes, does it not? But I am beginning to be terribly afraid that my own daughter is with that man, James Duncan, as he called himself. It makes me shiver when I think of her and what her fate might be.”
Mavis sat down beside Hilda.
“What was she saying to you, Hilda? It did not sound like that sort of advice, I fancied.”
Hilda looked at her with dazed, bewildered eyes.
“I—I hardly know,” she said hesitatingly. “The usual sort of thing, I think—that I ought not to fret, but to be patient and wait till it is Heaven’s will to restore me to my friends. She meant to be very kind, I am sure; but she does not understand—nobody understands how terrible it is to have only the black darkness behind one.”
“What particular bent has your mind taken this morning, may I ask?” said Arthur, seating himself beside Hilda.
Hilda did not move when he laid his hand over hers; her eyes still looked listlessly in front of her.
“I do not think I shall ever find my mother; I do not think I shall ever recover my memory,” she said hopelessly in a low monotonous tone. “Arthur, you must let me go away now. I will—”
“You will stay here,” Sir Arthur interrupted. “What did Dr. Grieve tell you the other day? It is only a matter of time, and then you will be restored to your mother and your friends. Do not talk of going away, Hilda. What should I do without you?” He raised her cold hand to his lips as he spoke.
It was the first open caress on which he had ventured in his mother’s presence, and that lady frowned.
“As for finding Hilda’s mother,” she said shortly, “I am inclined to think that she has no near relatives; it is inconceivable that if she had, some inquiry about her should not have been made before now, as Mrs. Leparge says.”
“At any rate,” Mavis interposed,” I do not think that Hilda has had any loss in discovering that Mrs. Leparge is not related to her. I took a dislike to her at once.”
“To Mrs. Leparge!” Lady Laura echoed in surprise. “Oh, Mavis, my dear, how absurd! I thought her particularly charming.”
“I did not!” Mavis maintained stoutly. “I did not like her face one little bit; and she had such a curious sidelong way of looking at one. Never once did she meet a glance fully. Didn’t you notice it?”
“No, I did not!” replied Lady Laura tartly. “I think you are becoming very fanciful, Mavis. You should try to cure yourself of it, child; it is a very bad habit. I was feeling too sorry for the poor woman’s disappointment to criticize her. Poor thing, it is too terrible for her, after being so hopeful.”
Mavis was not to be disposed of so easily, and her brown eyes looked mutinous.
“Mrs. Leparge’s eyes were quite dry, though she put her handkerchief to them so much. I noticed them,” she said sceptically. “And I thought the way she was talking to Hilda was rather a curious one. Still it doesn’t matter; we shall not be likely to see any more of her in future.”
“No; but it is very wrong to allow oneself to be prejudiced against people by absurdities like that—things that probably exist only in your own imagination,” Lady Laura said severely.
Poor lady, she was feeling distinctly out of gear with the whole world this morning. Her hope had been that with Hilda’s belongings some barrier to her marriage with Sir Arthur might have been discovered, and, disappointed of this, it was a relief to vent her vexation upon some one.
“Garth says that that sort of thing is an instinct given us for our protection!” Mavis retorted. “He says that he has known of cases in which it has proved—”
Sir Arthur burst into a brotherly laugh.
“Oh, Garth says!” he mimicked. “But Garth is not quite such an authority to all of us as he is to you, my dear Mavis.”
Chapter XVI
“Well, it is about as queer a go as I ever heard of. I can’t see daylight in it at all yet, but one thing I am clear about, that there’s more in the affair than meets the eye—a great deal! Some of us will be surprised before we hear the last of it, I’m thinking!” Superintendent Stokes stroked his chin thoughtfully as he looked up at the Manor House. “I just wonder if it was her or not?”
Lost