The Blue Diamond Read online

  The girls looked at one another and Mavis made a step forward.

  “Let us look for her,” she said.

  Hilda gave a cry of horror.

  “I am frightened, frightened! Oh, Mavis, Mavis, come home!”

  As Mavis yielded, not reluctantly, in spite of her brave words, a masculine step sounded behind them, there was the unmistakable aroma of a cigar, and Sir Arthur joined them.

  “Oh, I say, this is splendid! I was afraid Gregory had kept me so long that I should not be able to overtake you. Now we will have a stroll round the rose garden before we turn in. Why, Hilda, my dear child, what on earth is the matter?” as the girl with a sob of terror almost threw herself into his arms.

  “Oh, Arthur, Arthur!” she cried, clinging to him as a drowning man clutches his rescuer. “She is there in the shrubbery—Nurse Marston! Take me away! Take me away! I shall die if I see her again!”

  Her agitation was so excessive that Arthur, who had started at the mention of Nurse Marston and looked back, could not release himself, and was obliged to apply himself to the task of consoling and calming her. Presently he and Mavis between them half led, half carried her back to the house. Mavis in the meantime, in the intervals of attempting to soothe Hilda, gave him a short account of what had taken place.

  As soon as they were safely in the hall Hilda burst into a passion of tears.

  “Oh, Arthur, it is dreadful! She—I think she appeared to me because I was the cause of her death! If she had not been nursing me—”

  “Death! Death!” Arthur repeated in as cheerful a tone as he could assume, for as a matter of fact recent occurrences at the Manor were beginning to puzzle him sorely. “Who says Nurse Marston is dead? I should imagine, on the contrary, that if you saw her in the shrubbery to-night she is alive and well.”

  “No, no!” wailed Hilda. “Don’t you understand that it was her spirit we saw? She wants to tell us something. I think it is where she is buried. Perhaps”—with a violent shudder—“the place where she was standing was her grave!”

  “Oh, hush, hush, Hilda!” Mavis said quickly. “I do not think she wanted to speak to us. Why should she have gone away so suddenly if she had? You did not see anything of her, I conclude, Arthur?” she went on, turning to her brother. “It seemed to me that if she turned back she must have met you, for I fancied we heard your footsteps almost directly she disappeared.”

  “Disappeared indeed!” Arthur repeated in a mocking tone. “Do say ‘When she walked away,’ Mavis. Do not tell me that you too believe it was a spirit?”

  “No, I do not think it was,” said Mavis slowly, “It looked to me too solid somehow. I have always fancied a ghost altogether more spiritualized. Besides, though I noticed nothing myself, before we saw her Hilda heard footsteps—”

  “I—I don’t now feel sure that I did,” Hilda interposed. She was recovering her composure somewhat, and a little colour was slowly coming back to her cheeks as she sipped the wine that Arthur had ordered for her.

  “You spoke of it to me, so I think there must have been the sound,” said Mavis. “You certainly had the impression that there was a sound, Hilda.”

  “That settles the question,” Sir Arthur cried, springing to his feet. “Ghosts don’t make any audible sound as they walk, or so I have always been informed. If Nurse Marston, for some reason of her own, is lurking about the shrubbery frightening people we will have her out to-night. Jenkins,” to the butler, who was hovering round at a discreet distance, not averse doubtless to learning what was the cause of the unusual commotion, “tell two of the stable-men to come round, and I will take James too. We will soon learn whether there is anyone in the shrubbery.”

  “Yes, sir,” The old man moved nearer his master. “I—I don’t fancy as you’ll discover anything there, Sir Arthur. Two of the men—one from the stables, and Jones, the second in the hothouses, they saw her—Nurse Marston—two or three nights ago, close to the conservatory, but the moment they were after her she was gone. I don’t suppose we shall get rid of the ghost, Sir Arthur, not until the poor young woman’s fate is known.”

  “Now, Jenkins, don’t you talk such rubbish!” reproved Sir Arthur, calling to James and giving the orders for the other men himself. “Poor young woman, indeed!” he went on as he turned back for a moment. “That is not precisely the epithet I should apply to Miss Mary Marston when I catch her. I suppose she is hiding somewhere near—in her mother’s cottage, I dare say; though she does declare she knows nothing of her, no doubt it is all a part of the plot—and then coming prowling up here to scare people out of their senses. When I do find her I shall be in two minds about prosecuting her. I believe she is liable to it.”

  Old Jenkins shook his head.

  “Ah, Sir Arthur, I misdoubt me if you will never get the opportunity!

  “You old pessimist!” said Sir Arthur, with a laugh, fully persuaded in his own mind that the solution of the mystery that had puzzled them all for so long was at hand. “Well, don’t frighten the ladies. I shall have some news for you when I come back. Mavis, you will look after Hilda, don’t let her alarm herself. I shall be back very soon. Come along, James!—Are the other men outside?”

  The young man hurried away and they heard his voice outside as he issued his orders to the stable-men.

  Mavis turned to Hilda.

  “I think we had better go into the drawing-room.”

  Hilda rose, still shaking, her eyes looking fearfully around.

  “Mavis,” she whispered, as soon as the door was shut behind them, “did you know before that she—that the servants had seen her?”

  “I heard a whisper of it,” Mavis answered reluctantly, “but I attached no importance to it. I thought it was merely an idle tale until to-night. Then—”

  “A–h!” Hilda shuddered. “Don’t speak of it, Mavis!”

  “I must ask you one thing,” Mavis said gravely. “Hilda, what did you mean when you said that you knew why she had come back?”

  There was a silence. Mavis’s eyes were fixed on the other girl’s downcast face.

  At last Hilda raised her head.

  “Didn’t you hear me just now—didn’t I tell you that I knew she had come to show us where she was buried?” she said, her teeth chattering. “I—I am sure she did, Mavis.”

  Mavis’s clear eyes looked searchingly at Hilda’s.

  “Was that what you meant, then? It seemed to me—”

  “Certainly it was what I meant!” Hilda said pettishly. “Really, Mavis—”

  The door opened and Lady Laura came in looking excited. Hilda turned to her with an unusual air of relief, and Mavis said no more; but for the first time, glancing at the fair face before her, a faint distrust of her future sister-in-law crept into the mind.

  Lady Laura carried an open letter in her hand.

  “Oh, my dears, such news! But Hilda, what is the matter?” The traces of the girl’s emotion were still plainly to be seen on her face. “Have you heard—”

  “Oh, Lady Laura, we have seen Nurse Marston in the shrubbery—Mavis and I!” Hilda burst out, disregarding Mavis’s signal to her to be silent.

  Lady Laura stared at her.

  “My dear child, what do you mean?”

  Hilda poured forth the whole story, much to Mavis’s vexation; the girl was anxious that as much as possible the affair should be kept from her mother and Dorothy. It was useless attempting to stop Hilda, however, and she could only keep her closely to the facts.

  To her daughter’s relief Lady Laura did not seem inclined to take the matter seriously.

  “You must have imagined the whole thing, both of you,” she said decidedly, “and I am not altogether surprised. Very often when I am thinking of the affair it gets on my nerves until I am sure I could fancy anything.”

  “Arthur thinks it is Nurse Marston herself—that she is doing it for a trick,” Mavis said doubtfully.

  Lady Laura laughed.

  “Oh, my dear Mavis, how absurd! Do you, o
r does Arthur imagine that a sensible woman like Nurse Marston would wish to play a silly trick of that kind? I should advise you to put the whole thing out of your heads, all of you, and also to give up wandering about outside the house when it is getting dusk. You know how I dislike the idea of it for you, Mavis. I am sure it is positively unsafe. One does not know what suspicious characters may be about. I expect if poor Nurse Marston had been content to stay indoors she would have been safe enough. Now we will say no more about that,” as Hilda, who had been growing more composed, began to tremble. “You have not asked me about my news.”

  “No, I think we were far too excited about our own adventure,” said Mavis. “What is the news? Something pleasant this time, I hope.”

  Lady Laura held up her letter.

  “This is from some one who thinks Hilda is her daughter!”

  “What?” With a cry the girl sprang to her feet. “Oh, Lady Laura, is it true, is it true? Let me see the letter!”

  Lady Laura kept it in her own hands.

  “It is from a Mrs. Leparge. Do you recognize the name, my dear?”

  Hilda’s demonstration ceased.

  “I don’t think so. Is—is it mine, Lady Laura?”

  “I think that very probably it is. Mrs. Leparge writes that her daughter, whose name was Hilda Frances, has disappeared from the school where she was a parlour- boarder. Mrs. Leparge has been away from the country, travelling in New Zealand, and the schoolmistress seems to have decided in her own mind that it was a case of elopement. However, on her return to this country Mrs. Leparge was not inclined to accept this theory, and put the matter into the hands of a private inquiry agent; he naturally had heard of our search for Hilda’s friends, and thought that probably Mrs. Leparge would turn out to be her mother.”

  Hilda sank into a settee and buried her face in her hands.

  “Oh, is she, is she?” she said as she sobbed.

  Lady Laura laid her hand on her shoulder.

  “Try to calm yourself, my dear. We shall soon know, for Mrs. Leparge writes that, too impatient to wait, she is following her letter, and will call upon us to-morrow, in the expectation of finding her daughter. I hope sincerely, for your sake, my child, that she may do so.”

  “Oh, I hope so! I hope so!” Hilda’s voice was choked by her tears.

  Lady Laura, her resentful feelings of the last few weeks momentarily forgotten in her pity, bent over her.

  “There is Arthur!” Mavis exclaimed as she heard the front door open and her brother’s voice in the hall.

  She hurried out.

  “Any news, Arthur, did you find her?”

  He was looking moody and distrait as he handed his hat and coat to Jenkins.

  “There is not a vestige of anybody to be seen about the place. We have been up and down, inside and out, all over the shrubbery, and we are at least pretty certain of one thing—there is nobody there now.”

  “Still, you were a long time before you started,” Mavis said doubtfully, “and it seems to me that she would have had plenty of time to get away before you began your search.”

  “If she was ever there,” Arthur said sceptically. He was feeling cross and tired; his unsuccessful search and the loss of his chat with Hilda, to which he had been looking forward, had made him irritable. “I expect you had been frightening Hilda and yourself by talking about Nurse Marston until you both fancied you saw her. I only hope you won’t let your imagination run away with you in this fashion often, or we shall not be able to get a servant to stay in the place.”

  Mavis coloured a little. It was so seldom Arthur had spoken to her in that tone.

  “There was no fancy about it, Arthur. I was not thinking of Nurse Marston—I had not mentioned her for days—when Hilda called out and I saw her on the path.”

  Her manner impressed her brother. He turned back with his hand on the drawing-room door.

  “You really believe she was there?”

  “I saw her as plainly as I see you now, except that she was farther away,” Mavis said impressively. “She was there, Arthur—and I do not believe in ghosts.”

  “Ghosts! No.” Arthur said impatiently, though his manner was softened. “Well, if that is so, Mavis, we must find her. What on earth her motive can be for dodging about the house like this I can’t think, unless she is out of her mind.”

  “I think she must be,” Mavis conceded, as he opened the door.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “AH, IF I only knew! It may be that it is my own mother coming to see me, and I, her daughter, know nothing about it!”

  “Well, it will soon be settled one way or the other,” remarked Mavis prosaically. “Mrs. Leparge said she would be here early in the morning, and it is nearly eleven now.”

  Hilda turned and caught her hands.

  “Suppose she is not a nice woman, Mavis? suppose she should say that I am her daughter and take me away with her, and it should be all a lie—I should not be able to contradict her.”

  Mavis disengaged herself a little coldly. Since the preceding evening there had been a shade of aloofness in her manner towards Hilda, which so far did not seem to have made itself felt by the other girl.

  “Surely you cannot imagine that Arthur would let her interfere with you in any way without having given him full proofs of her claim?”

  “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 not
hing—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.