Эрнест Хорнунг - A Bride from The Bush

"The jacket she went away in."

"You are sure it was hers?"

"Yes."

"You could swear to both hat and jacket?"

"Yes."

Granville leapt to his feet.

"Who throw their things into the water"—he asked, in strange excitement, for him—"the people who mean to sink or the people who mean to swim—or the people who mean to stay on the bank?"

Alfred stared at him blankly. Gradually the light dawned upon him that had entered Granville's quicker intelligence in a flash.

"What do you mean?" whispered Alfred; and, in a moment, his voice and his limbs were trembling.

"Nothing very obscure," replied Granville, with a touch of contempt, which, even then, he could not manage to conceal (Alfred's slow perception always had irritated him); "simply this: Gladys has not drowned herself. She was never the girl to do it. She had too much sense and vitality and courage. But she may mean us to think there's an end of her—God knows with what intention. She may have gone off somewhere—God knows where. We must find out—"

He stopped abruptly, and nearly swore: for Alfred was wringing his hand, and weeping like a child.

Granville hated this, but bore it stoically. It was now plain to him that Alfred had been driven very nearly out of his senses: and no wonder—Granville himself could as yet scarcely realise or believe what he had heard. And this outburst was the natural reaction following upon an unnatural mental condition. But was there any ground for hope? Granville was less confident than he appeared when he amended his last words and said:—

"I will find out."

Alfred wrung his hand again. He was calmer now, but terribly shaken and shattered. The weakness that he had been storing up during the past two days had come over him, as it were, in the lump. Granville led him to his room. Alfred had never in his life before known Granville half so good–natured and sympathetic; he blessed him fervently.

"You were her friend," he said, huskily. "She thought no end of you, Gran! You got on so splendidly together, after the first few days; and she was always talking about you. Find her—find her for me, Gran; and God bless you—and forgive her for this trick she has played us!"

Granville did not often feel contrition, or remorse, or shame: but he felt all three just then. He knew rather too well the measure of his own kindness to Gladys. For the first time in his life—and not, perhaps, before it was time—he disliked himself heartily. He felt vaguely that, whatever had happened, he had had something to do with it. He had had more to do with it than he guessed. "I'll do my best—I'll do my best," he promised; and he meant his "best" to be better than that of the smartest detective at Scotland Yard.

He left Alfred, shut himself up alone, and reviewed the situation. An hour's hard thinking led to a rather ingenious interview—one with the girl Bunn. It took place on the stairs, of all places. Granville saw her set foot upon the bottom stair; he immediately sat down upon the top one, produced a newspaper, and blocked the gangway.

"Bunn, you have a sweetheart in Australia. Don't pout and toss your head; it's nothing to be ashamed of—quite the contrary; and it's the fact, I think—eh?"

"Lor', Mr. Granville, what if I have?"

"Well, nothing; only there is something about it in this newspaper—about Australia, I mean; not about you—that's to come. You shall have the newspaper, Bunn; here it is. I thought you'd like it, that's all."

Bunn took the paper, all smiles and blushes.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Granville. And—and I beg your pardon, sir."

"Don't name it, my good girl. But, look here, Bunn; stay one moment, if you don't mind." (She could scarcely help staying, he gave her no chance of passing; besides, he had put her under an obligation.) "Tell me now, Bunn—didn't Mrs. Alfred know something about him? And didn't Mrs. Alfred talk to you a good deal about Australia?"

"That she did, sir. But she didn't know my young man, Mr. Granville. She only got his address from me just as she was going away, sir."

"Ah! she wanted his address before she went away, did she?"

"Yes, sir. She said she would name him in writing to her father, or in speaking to Mr. Barrington, or that, any way, it'd be nice to have it, against ever she went out there again, sir."

"Oh, she gave three reasons all in one, eh? And did she say she'd like to go out again, Bunn?"

"She always said that, sir, between ourselves—'between you and I, Bella,' it used to be. But, time I gave her the address, she went on as if she would like to go, and meant a–going, the very next day."

"Yet she didn't like leaving this, even for a week—eh, Bunn?"

"Lor", no, sir! She spoke as if she was never coming back no more. And she kissed me, Mr. Granville—she did, indeed, sir; though I never named that in the servants' hall. She said there might be a accident, or somethink, and me never see her no more; but that, if ever she went back to Australia, she'd remember my young man, and get him a good billet. Them were her very words. But, oh, Mr. Granville!—oh, sir!—"

"There, there. Don't turn on the waterworks, Bunn. I thought Mrs. Alfred had been cut up about something; but I wasn't sure—that's why I asked you , Bunn; though I think, perhaps, you needn't name this conversation either in the servants' hall, or tell any one else what you have told me. Yes, you may go past now. But—stop a minute, Bunn—here's something else that you needn't name in the servants' hall."

The something else was a half–sovereign.

"It was worth it, too," said Granville, when the girl was gone; "she has given me something to go upon. These half–educated and impulsive people always do let out more to their maids than to any one else."

He went back to Alfred.

"There was something I forgot to ask you. How much money do you suppose Gladys had about her when she went away?"

"I have no idea," said Alfred.

"Do you know how much money you have given her since you have been over—roughly?"

"No; I don't know at all."

"Think, man. Fifty pounds?"

"I should say so. I gave her a note or so whenever it struck me she might want it. She never would ask."

"Do you think she spent much?"

"I really can't tell you, Gran; perhaps not a great deal, considering everything; for, when I was with her, I never would let her shell out. I never knew of her spending much; but she had it by her, in case she wanted it; and that was all I cared about."

And that was all Granville cared about. He ceased his questioning; but he was less ready to leave Alfred alone than he had been before. He had found him sitting in the dark by the open window, and staring blankly into the night. Granville had insisted on lighting the gas: only to see how the room was filled with Gladys's things. In every corner of it some woman's trifle breathed of her. Granville felt instinctively that much of this room, in the present suspense, might turn a better brain than Alfred's, in Alfred's position.

"Look here," said Granville, at last: "I have been thinking. Listen, Alfred."

"Well?" said Alfred absently, still gazing out of window.

"I have got a theory," went on Granville—"no matter what; only it has nothing to say to death or drowning. It is a hopeful theory. I intend to practise it at once: in a day or two it ought to lead me to absolute certainty of one thing, one way or the other. No matter what that one thing is; I have told you what it is not. Now, I shall have to follow out my idea in town; and if I find the truth at all, I shall most likely come across it suddenly, round a corner as it were. So I have been thinking that you may as well be in town too, to be near at hand in case I am successful. If you still have a club, you might hang about there, and talk to men, and read the papers; if not—Why do you shake your head?"