The First R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK ®. R. Austin Freeman
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relieved me of her sketching appliances with pretended indignation, and crossed into the meadow, leaving me to pursue my way alone; and when I presently looked back, she was setting up her easel and stool, gravely assisted by Freddy.
My “round,” though not a long one, took up more time than I had anticipated, and it was already past the luncheon hour when I passed the place where I had left Miss Haldean. She was gone, as I had expected, and I hurried homewards, anxious to be as nearly punctual as possible. When I entered the dining-room, I found Mrs. Haldean and our hostess seated at the table, and both looked up at me expectantly.
“Have you seen Lucy?” the former inquired.
“No,” I answered. “Hasn’t she come back? I expected to find her here. She had left the wood when I passed just now.”
Mrs. Haldean knitted her brows anxiously. “It is very strange,” she said, “and very thoughtless of her. Freddy will be famished.”
I hurried over my lunch, for two fresh messages had come in from outlying hamlets, effectually dispelling my visions of a quiet afternoon; and as the minutes passed without bringing any signs of the absentees, Mrs. Haldean became more and more restless and anxious. At length her suspense became unbearable; she rose suddenly, announcing her intention of cycling up the road to look for the defaulters, but as she was moving towards the door, it burst open, and Lucy Haldean staggered into the room.
Her appearance filled us with alarm. She was deadly pale, breathless, and wild-eyed; her dress was draggled and torn, and she trembled from head to foot.
“Good God, Lucy!” gasped Mrs. Haldean. “What has happened? And where is Freddy?” she added in a sterner tone.
“He is lost!” replied Miss Haldean in a faint voice, and with a catch in her breath. “He strayed away while I was painting. I have searched the wood through, and called to him, and looked in all the meadows. Oh! Where can he have gone?” Her sketching “kit,” with which she was loaded, slipped from her grasp and rattled on to the floor, and she buried her face in her hands and sobbed hysterically.
“And you have dared to come back without him?” exclaimed Mrs. Haldean.
“I was getting exhausted. I came back for help,” was the faint reply.
“Of course she was exhausted,” said Mrs. Hanshaw. “Come, Lucy: come, Mabel; don’t make mountains out of molehills. The little man is safe enough. We shall find him presently, or he will come home by himself. Come and have some food, Lucy.”
Miss Haldean shook her head. “I can’t, Mrs. Hanshaw—really I can’t,” she said; and, seeing that she was in a state of utter exhaustion, I poured out a glass of wine and made her drink it.
Mrs. Haldean darted from the room, and returned immediately, putting on her hat. “You have got to come with me and show me where you lost him,” she said.
“She can’t do that, you know,” I said rather brusquely. “She will have to lie down for the present. But I know the place, and will cycle up with you.”
“Very well,” replied Mrs. Haldean, “that will do. What time was it,” she asked, turning to her niece, “when you lost the child? And which way—”
She paused abruptly, and I looked at her in surprise. She had suddenly turned ashen and ghastly; her face had set like a mask of stone, with parted lips and staring eyes that were fixed in horror on her niece.
There was a deathly silence for a few seconds. Then, in a terrible voice, she demanded: “What is that on your dress, Lucy?” And, after a pause, her voice rose into a shriek. “What have you done to my boy?”
I glanced in astonishment at the dazed and terrified girl, and then I saw what her aunt had seen—a good-sized blood-stain halfway down the front of her skirt, and another smaller one on her right sleeve. The girl herself looked down at the sinister patch of red and then up at her aunt. “It looks like—like blood,” she stammered. “Yes, it is—I think—of course it is. He struck his nose—and it bled—”
“Come,” interrupted Mrs. Haldean, “let us go,” and she rushed from the room, leaving me to follow.
I lifted Miss Haldean, who was half fainting with fatigue and agitation, on to the sofa, and, whispering a few words of encouragement into her ear, turned to Mrs. Hanshaw.
“I can’t stay with Mrs. Haldean,” I said. “There are two visits to be made at Rebworth. Will you send the dogcart up the road with somebody to take my place?”
“Yes,” she answered. “I will send Giles, or come myself if Lucy is fit to be left.”
I ran to the stables for my bicycle, and as I pedalled out into the road I could see Mrs. Haldean already far ahead, driving her machine at frantic speed. I followed at a rapid pace, but it was not until we approached the commencement of the wood, when she slowed down somewhat, that I overtook her.
“This is the place,” I said, as we reached the spot where I had parted from Miss Haldean. We dismounted and wheeled our bicycles through the gate, and laying them down beside the hedge, crossed the meadow and entered the wood.
It was a terrible experience, and one that I shall never forget—the white-faced, distracted woman, tramping in her flimsy house-shoes over the rough ground, bursting through the bushes, regardless of the thorny branches that dragged at skin and hair and dainty clothing, and sending forth from time to time a tremulous cry, so dreadfully pathetic in its mingling of terror and coaxing softness, that a lump rose in my throat, and I could barely keep my self-control.
“Freddy! Freddy-boy! Mummy’s here, darling!” The wailing cry sounded through the leafy solitude; but no answer came save the whir of wings or the chatter of startled birds. But even more shocking than that terrible cry—more disturbing and eloquent with dreadful suggestion—was the way in which she peered, furtively, but with fearful expectation, among the roots of the bushes, or halted to gaze upon every molehill and hummock, every depression or disturbance of the ground.
So we stumbled on for a while, with never a word spoken, until we came to a beaten track or footpath leading across the wood. Here I paused to examine the footprints, of which several were visible in the soft earth, though none seemed very recent; but, proceeding a little way down the track, I perceived, crossing it, a set of fresh imprints, which I recognized at once as Miss Haldean’s. She was wearing, as I knew, a pair of brown golf-boots, with rubber pads in the leather soles, and the prints made by them were unmistakable.
“Miss Haldean crossed the path here,” I said, pointing to the footprints.
“Don’t speak of her before me!” exclaimed Mrs. Haldean; but she gazed eagerly at the footprints, nevertheless, and immediately plunged into the wood to follow the tracks.
“You are very unjust to your niece, Mrs. Haldean,” I ventured to protest.
She halted, and faced me with an angry frown.
“You don’t understand!” she exclaimed. “You don’t know, perhaps, that if my poor child is really dead, Lucy Haldean will be a rich woman, and may marry tomorrow if she chooses?”
“I did not know that,” I answered, “but if I had, I should have said the same.”
“Of course you would,” she retorted bitterly. “A pretty face can muddle any man’s judgment.”
She turned away abruptly to resume her pursuit, and I followed in silence. The trail which we were following zigzagged through the thickest part of the wood, but its devious windings eventually brought us out on to an open space on the farther side. Here we at once perceived traces of another kind. A litter of dirty rags, pieces of paper, scraps of stale bread, bones and feathers, with hoof-marks, wheel ruts, and the ashes of a large wood fire, pointed clearly to a gypsy encampment recently broken up. I laid my hand on the heap of ashes, and found it still warm, and on scattering it with my foot a layer of glowing cinders appeared at the bottom.
“These people