For Jane Chesney on entering had sunk down quietly on the chair nearest the door; disappointment was pressing heavily upon her heart. Laura turned to her in her wonder, and Jane rose and came forward.
“I have had so fruitless a journey,” she said. “Mrs. West, the lady I went to call on, was at Ramsgate, but I saw her husband. They have heard nothing whatever of Clarice. I am sure she will never be found now.”
“I should turn the world topsy-turvy but what I’d find her,” cried impetuous Laura. “She can’t be lost, you know! Such a thing could not happen in these days.”
Jane shook her head in silence. All the likely places she and her father could think of had been turned “topsy-turvy” in one sense, but they had not found Clarice.
“I am sure it was quite a weight upon papa’s mind at the last,” murmured Jane. “Did he talk much of her?” she continued, lifting her eyes to Lady Oakburn.
The countess replied almost eagerly. That some mystery was attaching to one of the earl’s daughters she knew, for in the time of her residence in the house as governess, chance words relating to the Lady Clarice had been dropped in her hearing. But she had heard nothing further. After her marriage she inquired about her of the earl, but he had passed the question over lightly, as if not caring to speak of the subject. This she now told Jane.
“But—do you mean to say, Lady Oakburn, that papa did not acquaint you with the particulars?” asked Jane in some surprise.
“He never did. I am sure he did not like to speak of the subject.”
“I wonder that he did not,” said Jane.
“I don’t wonder at it at all,” dissented Laura. “I don’t like to speak of it. Would you believe, Lady Oakburn, that I have never once spoken of it to my husband? He has not the least idea that we ever had another sister.”
“But why do you not speak of it to him?” returned Lady Oakburn.
“I don’t know,” mused Laura. “I cannot bear to speak of Clarice to any one. It does not sound nice to confess to a sister who went out as a governess in disobedience, and does not come home again. I say I can’t explain the feeling, but there it is within me, very strong. I daresay papa felt the same; we were much alike, he and I. It will be time enough to tell my husband about Clarice when she is found.”
“Did she go in disobedience?” asked Lady Oakburn.
“Yes,” said Laura. “It was very wilful of her. I don’t mind talking of it to you, Lady Oakburn, as you know something of it, and we are upon the subject. For a long, long while papa would not so much as allow her name to be mentioned in the house. By the way, Jane,” she continued, “do you know, a thought has struck me more than once—you remember that scrap of a letter that I brought to you when you first came back to South Wennock?”
“Do I remember it!” repeated Jane. “I am looking at it often. It puzzles me more than I care to say.”
“Well, what has struck me is, that perhaps—it is just possible—papa in his anger opened that letter, although it was addressed to you, and tore it up as soon as opened.”
“No,” said Jane. “So unable was I to find any solution of the matter, that I, like you, fancied it possible papa had opened it, and I wrote to him from South Wennock and put the question.”
“And he said he had not?”
“He wrote to me by return of post. He had never seen or heard of any such letter.”
“Then I think I remember the circumstance—that is, your letter coming to him,” interposed the countess, looking at Jane. “He was reading a letter from you one morning at breakfast, when he grew a little excited, a little angry, and called out he should like to know what Jane could mean. Lucy asked what it was, and he answered that Jane had been writing to know if he had opened one of Clarice’s letters: as if he would have opened any thing from her at that time, he added: he would not have touched one with the end of his stick. I recollect the words quite well,” continued Lady Oakburn. “And I know I longed to inquire what the trouble was, regarding Lady Clarice, but I did not like to.”
Jane sighed. “I feel—I begin to feel that we shall never find Clarice.”
“Then that’s nonsense,” returned Laura. “She is sure to be found, dead or alive.”
“Dead or alive,” repeated Jane, in a low tone. “Yes—perhaps she will. But it will not be alive.”
Laura liked the sunny points of life better than the shady ones, and rarely took a dark view of anything. These unpleasant forebodings sounded as “nonsense” in her ears. Jane turned to Lady Oakburn and related to her the whole history of Clarice from beginning to end. It impressed Lady Oakburn very greatly; she thought she had never heard of anything so singular as this prolonged disappearance.
In telling the story, Jane made a passing allusion to the dream relating to Clarice, which had so disturbed her. Laura, who was put-