Catherine Louisa Pirkis

“ One ray of light breaks through the darkness, and we will follow where it leads. Mr. Warden, will you leave your home here for a time—it is dreary enough, Heaven knows—and with me visit the scenes of your first love and sorrow? Do you feel equal to it? Who knows but what the truth may lie hidden somewhere there. I cannot explain to you the workings of my own mind just now; I must try to think the matter [156] out. At present I can only see Isola’s hatred of you, and Amy’s strong resemblance to her dead mother in impetuosity and vehemence of character. ”

“ Still Frank sobbed on, and Mary, bending over him as a mother would over a sick child, drew his head on to her shoulder, and soothed and comforted him.
Gradually the passion of his grief subsided, and he lay back, with his head on her shoulder, worn out and exhausted.
Then Mrs. Varley gently turned the handle of the door, and entered the room.
“Thank God for this,” she exclaimed. “Mary, don’t move. Frank, dear, she is the one wife out of all the world you should have chosen, and you may well be thankful to have won such an one. God bless you both. I will write to your father to-night.” ”

“ Then Hardcastle placed for him a low easy chair close to the casement, whence he could look right and left upon the mountain panorama, and even catch a glimpse of a turret of his old chateau standing high among the distant rocks.
Mr. Warden gazed long and earnestly upon the magnificent landscape, drinking in every sight and sound, as a dying man might gaze upon some loved scene whose memory he wished to carry with him into eternity. ”

“ Isola was loud and stubborn in her Cevenol patois. Mademoiselle (so she still called my wife) was perfect. What would I? Did I wish to freeze the warm southern blood in her veins, and teach her the cunning and caution of the cold-hearted northerners? Had not Aimée’s father and mother, each in dying, committed their darling to her care, and no power in heaven or earth would induce her to betray the trust. ”

“ Warden read his thoughts, “It is not so near as that Hardcastle,” he said quietly; “but it is not far away. Go at once, I implore you, for days and hours are getting precious to me now. Your doctor will be here before long; the people of the house are good and kind, and I feel at home with them. Go at once, I beg of you; let me not feel I have had my journey here for nothing. Ah! if my young strength would come back to me for one day, how gladly would I set off with you!” ”

“ The men may shout—the waters rush—aye, and her warm, true-hearted lover kneel by her side, and call her by her sweet name, never more will those dark eyes open to the light of day, nor those red lips be unsealed to tell their story of sorrow and wrong! Clasp her tight, and clasp her long, Lord Hardcastle, then yield her up for ever to the shadows, the doubt, the darkness of the grave. ”

“ Not once or twice, but every hour in the day did Lord Hardcastle ask himself the same question. He felt like a man walking in a circle, for ever on the verge of a mystery, but never approaching any nearer than a circle permitted. Become now one of the family at the High Elms, not a look, not a word, not a tone of any one of the household ever escaped his observation. Mrs. Warden’s severe illness had thoroughly incapacitated her for the exertion of receiving visitors, and the family had gradually become all but isolated from their neighbours. ”

“ It is a land of visions here; I have lost control over my own senses;” said Hardcastle, aloud, as he pressed forward to get a nearer view of what seemed to him an illusion. Two figures at such a time, in such a scene of loneliness and solitude! Nearer and nearer he drew. What did he see? Breathless and nerveless he leaned forward deprived alike of speech and power. Mountains, crags and sunlight swam before his eyes and faded away into mist, while the words of Mr. Warden, in the study of Harleyford, [196] rang and echoed in his ears. ”

“ The storm had ceased now; day dawned, the birds carolled and twittered at the casement, and the bright sunshine streamed in through Amy’s rose-coloured curtains, and fell sideways on her pale, grey [114] face. Silent, hopeless, and awe-stricken the father and lover gazed upon their darling; the search is ended now—there she lies in her blue silk dress, all torn and mud-stained; her dark hair unwound and lying round her in long, damp coils; her tiny hands still clasped as though in prayer, and a look of agony and terror in her half-closed eyes. ”

“ Warden would be worse than useless—it would be positively injurious to him, so with another farewell glance at his friend, apparently sleeping quietly in the window seat, he set off on his little mountain pony.
[191] Then it was that the Cevenol scenery burst upon him in all its wild grandeur. It was not one magnificent picture which met his eye, but a hundred or more, for every turn of the steep mountain path brought to view some fresh tableau of startling beauty. But the one thing which struck him most was the solitude, the intense silence which reigned everywhere. ”

“ Warden, slowly recovering himself, enquires, “And what is the advice you have to give, Mr. Hill? let me have that, at any rate.”
“Simply to watch, and to wait, sir; at present, nothing more can be done. We have exhausted every theory, we have followed out every clue, or pretence of one. If there are accomplices in the matter, my presence here puts them on their guard, and as long as I remain nothing will transpire; when I have left, and things have settled down to their usual course, I feel sure some one will betray him or herself unawares. ”

“ Warden soothed his daughter.
“My poor little girl,” he said, “you have been too much tried for one so young. This is the last time we will talk over this sad story, but before we lay it on one side for ever, you must hear one or two things it is only right you should know. Lord Hardcastle has told you no doubt most of what occurred during your absence, and all our grief for your loss, but did he tell you the part he has played throughout; what he has been to me all through our trials; and how it was he who guided us here? Tell me that Amy!” ”

“ No time is lost in setting to work; lanterns are swung on ropes across the river, the men, with Hardcastle at their head, are wading through the swollen waters—hand in hand, throwing ropes, dragging, shouting, lest some poor soul might still be struggling in the dark flood. ”

“ Isola entered heart and soul into my plan. [254] ‘I will go with her,’ she exclaimed. ‘She is too much of a child to be trusted by herself in the world. Where she wanders thither will I go, where she dies there will I die, and there will I be buried.’ I gladly consented to this, as Isola had already once made the journey to England, and would know all the details of the route. My mother, too, was so bright and quick, and her remembrance of the English you taught her so perfect, that I had scarcely any fear of difficulties arising on the road. ”

“ Warden was heartfelt, and Amy’s loss had cast a gloom over the whole county. Not a man or woman in the country side but what would have gone to the other end of the world to have lifted from the sorrowing father and mother this dark cloud of suspense. As for the young lady herself, they would have laid down their lives for her; for her kindly, pleasant ways and pretty queenly airs, [44] had won all hearts. And thus, high and low, rich and poor joined hands with Frank Varley, and searched with a will, working early, and working late—earnest men, at earnest work. ”

“ About an hour before midnight, Frank was joined in his watch by Detective Hill, who at once offered to take sole charge of the case. “No,” said Frank decisively, “as long as there is the shadow of a chance of the shadow of a clue being given I shall remain. Your ears are sharpened by your practice and profession, but mine, Mr. Hill, by something with which your profession has nothing to do.”
“Gentlemen,” said the doctor, as the grey dawn began to struggle through the narrow [80] panes, and light up the poorly furnished room. “It is perfectly useless for either of you to remain. ”

“ And Frank did pull through. Gradually the fever in his brain subsided, and though weak and helpless as a child, the doctor pronounced him out of danger.
But with returning consciousness came back the sense of sorrow and loss, and Mrs. Varley’s heart ached for her son as she saw [119] the look of utter blank misery and despair settle down upon his once bright, happy face. “Get him to talk of his sorrow” had been the doctor’s advice, and gently and gradually his mother had led him on to speak freely of poor Amy and her terrible ending. ”

“ The least sign of penitence would have brought back my old love for my wife, but to die thus, as she had lived, in sin, was the bitterest blow of all.
“My great fear at this time was lest Amy should know, by some means, any part of this terrible story. I endeavoured, and successfully, to confuse her infant mind, by constantly speaking of her mother as her governess, and the thought soon suggested itself to me, that if she had another mother given to her, the recollection of the first would be completely obliterated. ”

“ It is a land of extinct volcanoes; at every turn one is brought face to face with nature under a new aspect. Here some mighty convulsion has upheaved gigantic rocks; there in the valley lie fertile plains watered by gushing mountain torrents; above all tower and frown the fantastic Cevennes, cut and fashioned into all sorts of wonderful shapes, and everywhere reigns a silence and solitude only to be found in the lonely mountain regions. ”

“ Lord Hardcastle had tried unsuccessfully various topics of conversation, feeling the necessity of arousing Mr. Warden from the sadness of his own thoughts.
“Tell me, Mr. Warden,” at length he said, almost despairing of success, “something about Le Puy; it is an unknown land to me. I have never visited that part of France.”
“Le Puy!” exclaimed Mr. Warden, suddenly arousing himself, “Ah, that is a country worth living in! It is a land of variety and beauty, of sunshine and solitude; less terrible than Switzerland, it is, at the same time, [174] more interesting, because more varied. ”

“ CHAPTER II. WHILE the townspeople and country folks read and wondered at the printed handbills, the father and mother of the missing girl wandered about their now desolate home, listless, aimless, well-nigh broken-hearted hearted. The first sharp pang, it is true, was past, and the sorrow had settled down to a dull leaden weight on heart and brain. The servants walked about the house slowly and silently, speaking in subdued voices. Day and night lay old Presto, Amy’s favourite deerhound, at the house door, waiting and listening, and [12] never seeming to eat nor sleep. ”

“ Tall, fair, muscular Frank Varley, the rector’s scapegrace son, the best rider, runner, and rower in the county—the first in all mischief—in all breakneck adventures—and yet more sought after at balls and garden parties, than the richest lord, or the most eligible unmarried baronet—his mother’s darling and pride, and a constant source of anxiety and apprehension to his father. ”

“ Forthwith he departs to organize a body of volunteers once more to scour the whole county—to search commons and through woods—to cut fern and furze from shady hollows and dark corners, where, by any chance, a secret might be hidden. Once more to drag rivers and streams, and search under [43] hedges, and in reed-grown ditches; and finally to question and re-question every man, woman, and child far or near, as to their recollection of the day’s occurrences of the 14th of August.
This was the plan of action Frank had sketched out for himself, and bravely indeed, did he carry it out. ”

“ She broke off suddenly, looking towards the window. “What was that?” she exclaimed, “surely I heard something more than the rain!”
“Yes,” said her husband, trying to steady his nerves, which were almost beyond his control, “it is the bough of the oleander against the glass. How the wind is rising! It is indeed an awful tempest!”
And now Lord Hardcastle and Dr. Hayward came in, drenched to the skin and out of breath with their hurried ride, then the dog, with one prolonged howl, flew past them as they entered. “Something is wrong,” said Hardcastle. “Hey, ‘Presto!’ go, find!” ”

“ It was not without serious thought and anxiety that Lord Hardcastle had undertaken this journey. There could be no doubt that Mr. Warden’s strength had given way very much lately, and it was incurring a heavy responsibility to induce a man at his age, and with his broken health, to go so far on what might prove to be a fool’s errand after all. “But,” reasoned Hardcastle, “he will certainly die if he remain in his own desolate home, brooding over his sorrows. ”

“ Nowhere, alas, can I see any clue to the mystery. Indeed, each day that passes renders it more terrible and difficult. It is impossible she can be dead”—
He pauses abruptly; large drops of perspiration stand out upon his forehead, and his outstretched hand trembles with suppressed emotion. “Had she been lying dead anywhere in the whole land, her body would by this time have been brought to you, or at any rate news of how and where she died.”
“Hush, hush!” breaks in Mr. Warden pitifully, as, pale and tottering, he catches hold of Lord Hardcastle’s arm ”