Mount Royal: A Novel. Volume 3 of 3

"What's the fatigue of lolling in a railway carriage? Confound it, you've made me spoil the cheque!" muttered Leonard, tearing the oblong slip of coloured paper across and across, impatiently.

"How your hand shakes! Have you been writing all the morning?"

"Yes – all the morning," absently, turning over the leaves of his cheque-book.

"But you have been out – your boots are all over mud."

"Yes, I meant to have an hour or so at the birds. I got as far as Willapark, and then remembered that Clayton wanted the money for the tradesmen to-day. One must stick to one's pay-day, don't you know, when one has made a rule."

"Of course. Oh, there are the new Quarterlies!" said Christabel, seeing a package on the table. "Do you mind my opening them here?"

"No; as long as you hold your tongue, and don't disturb me when I'm at figures."

This was not a very gracious permission to remain, but Christabel seated herself quietly by the fire, and began to explore the two treasuries of wisdom which the day's post had brought. Leonard's study looked into the stable-yard, a spacious quadrangle, with long ranges of doors and windows, saddle rooms, harness rooms, loose boxes, coachmen's and groom's quarters – a little colony complete in itself. From his open window the Squire could give his orders, interrogate his coachman as to his consumption of forage, have an ailing horse paraded before him, bully an underling, and bestow praise or blame all round, as it suited his humour. Here, too, were the kennels of the dogs, whose company Mr. Tregonell liked a little better than that of his fellow-men.

Leonard sat with his head bent over the table, writing, Christabel in her chair by the fire turning the leaves of her book in the rapture of a first skimming. They sat thus for about an hour, and then both looked up with a startled air, at the sound of wheels.

It was the dog-cart that was being driven into the yard, Mr. Hamleigh's servant sitting behind, walled in by a portmanteau and a Gladstone bag. Leonard opened the window, and looked out.

"What's up?" he asked "Has your master changed his mind?"

The valet alighted, and came across the yard to the window.

"We haven't seen Mr. Hamleigh, Sir. There must have been some mistake, I think. We waited at the gate for nearly an hour, and then Baker said we'd better come back, as we must have missed Mr. Hamleigh, somehow, and he might be here waiting for us to take him to Launceston."

"Baker's a fool. How could you miss him if he went to the Kieve? There's only one way out of that place – or only one way that Mr. Hamleigh could find. Did you inquire if he went to the Kieve?"

"Yes, Sir. Baker went into the farmhouse, and they told him that a gentleman had come with his gun and a dog, and had asked for the key, and had gone to the Kieve alone. They were not certain as to whether he'd come back or not, but he hadn't taken the key back to the house. He might have put it into his pocket, and forgotten all about it, don't you see, Sir, after he'd let himself out of the gate. That's what Baker said; and he might have come back here."

"Perhaps he has come back," answered Leonard, carelessly. "You'd better inquire."

"I don't think he can have returned," said Christabel, standing near the window, very pale.

"How do you know?" asked Leonard, savagely. "You've been sitting here for the last hour poring over that book."

"I think I should have heard – I think I should have known," faltered Christabel, with her heart beating strangely.

There was a mystery in the return of the carriage which seemed like the beginning of woe and horror – like the ripening of that strange vague sense of trouble which had oppressed her for the last few hours.

"You would have heard – you would have known," echoed her husband, with brutal mockery – "by instinct, by second sight, by animal magnetism, I suppose. You are just the sort of woman to believe in that kind of rot."

The valet had gone across the yard on his way round to the offices of the house. Christabel made no reply to her husband's sneering speech, but went straight to the hall, and rang for the butler.

"Have you – has any one seen Mr. Hamleigh come back to the house?" she asked.

"No, ma'am."

"Inquire, if you please, of every one. Make quite sure that he has not returned, and then let three or four men, with Nicholls at their head, go down to St. Nectan's Kieve and look for him. I'm afraid there has been an accident."

"I hope not, ma'am," answered the butler, who had known Christabel from her babyhood, who had looked on, a pleased spectator, at Mr. Hamleigh's wooing, and whose heart was melted with tenderest compassion to-day at the sight of her pallid face, and eyes made large with terror. "It's a dangerous kind of place for a stranger to go clambering about with a gun, but not for one that knows every stone of it, as Mr. Hamleigh do."

"Send, and at once, please. I do not think Mr. Hamleigh, having arranged for the dog-cart to meet him, would forget his appointment."

"There's no knowing, ma'am. Some gentlemen are so wrapt up in their sport."

Christabel sat down in the hall, and waited while Daniel, the butler, made his inquiries. No one had seen Mr. Hamleigh come in, and everybody was ready to aver on oath if necessary that he had not returned. So Nicholls, the chief coachman, a man of gumption and of much renown in the household, as a person whose natural sharpness had been improved by the large responsibilities involved in a well-filled stable, was brought to receive his orders from Mrs. Tregonell. Daniel admired the calm gravity with which she gave the man his instructions, despite her colourless cheek and the look of pain in every feature of her face.

"You will take two or three of the stablemen with you, and go as fast as you can to the Kieve. You had better go in the light cart, and it would be as well to take a mattress, and some pillows. If – if there should have been an accident those might be useful. Mr. Hamleigh left the house early this morning with his gun to go to the Kieve, and he was to have met the dog-cart at eleven. Baker waited at the gate till twelve – but perhaps you have heard."

"Yes, ma'am, Baker told me. It's strange – but Mr. Hamleigh may have overlooked the time if he had good sport. Do you know which of the dogs he took with him?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

"Because I rather thought it was Sambo. Sambo was always a favourite of Mr. Hamleigh's, though he's getting rather too old for his work now. If it was Sambo the dog must have run away and left him, for he was back about the yard before ten o'clock. He'd been hurt somehow, for there was blood upon one of his feet. Master had the red setter with him this morning, when he went for his stroll, but I believe it must have been Sambo that Mr. Hamleigh took. There was only one of the lads about the yard when he left, for it was breakfast time, and the little guffin didn't notice."

"But if all the other dogs are in their kennels – "

"They aren't, ma'am, don't you see. The two gentlemen took a couple of 'em to Bodmin in the break – and I don't know which. Sambo may have been with them – and may have got tired of it and come home. He's not a dog to appreciate that kind of thing."

"Go at once, if you please, Nicholls. You know what to do."

"Yes, ma'am."

Nicholls went his way, and the gong began to sound for luncheon. Mr. Tregonell, who rarely honoured the family with his presence at the mid-day meal, came out of his den to-day in answer to the summons, and found his wife in the hall.

"I suppose you are coming in to luncheon," he said to her, in an angry aside. "You need not look so scared. Your old lover is safe enough, I daresay."

"I am not coming to luncheon," she answered, looking at him with pale contempt. "If you are not a little more careful of your words I may never break bread with you again."

The gong went on with its discordant clamour, and Jessie Bridgeman came out of the drawing-room with the younger Miss Vandeleur. Poor Dopsy was shut in her own room, with a headache. She had been indulging herself with the feminine luxury of a good cry. Disappointment, wounded vanity, humiliation, and a very real penchant for the man who had despised her attractions were the mingled elements in her cup of woe.

The nurse came down the broad oak staircase, baby Leonard toddling by her side, and making two laborious jumps at each shallow step – one on – one off. Christabel met him, picked him up in her arms, and carried him back to the nursery, where she ordered his dinner to be brought. He was a little inclined to resist this change of plan at the first, but was soon kissed into pleasantness, and then the nurse was despatched to the servants' hall, and Christabel had her boy to herself, and ministered to him and amused him for the space of an hour despite an aching heart. Then, when the nurse came back, Mrs. Tregonell went to her own room, and sat at the window watching the avenue by which the men must drive back to the house.

They did not come back till just when the gloom of the sunless day was deepening into starless night. Christabel ran down to the lobby that opened into the stable yard, and stood in the doorway waiting for Nicholls to come to her; but if he saw her, he pretended not to see her, and went straight to the house by another way, and asked to speak to Mr. Tregonell.

Christabel saw him hurry across the yard to that other door, and knew that her fears were realized. Evil of some kind had befallen. She went straight to her husband's study, certain that she would meet Nicholls there.

Leonard was standing by the fireplace, listening, while Nicholls stood a little way from the door, relating the result of his search, in a low agitated voice.

"Was he quite dead when you found him?" asked Leonard, when the man paused in his narration.

Christabel stood just within the doorway, half hidden in the obscurity of the room, where there was no light but that of the low fire. The door had been left ajar by Nicholls, and neither he nor his master was aware of her presence.

"Yes, Sir. Dr. Blake said he must have been dead some hours."

"Had the gun burst?"

"No, Sir. It must have gone off somehow. Perhaps the trigger caught in the hand-rail when he was crossing the wooden bridge – and yet that seemed hardly possible – for he was lying on the big stone at the other side of the bridge, with his face downwards close to the water."