CHAPTER IV.
A MYSTERY
Which of the three wore the deepest tint, the darkest blue—the skies, the hills, or the lake? Each was of a different shade, but all were blue and beautiful; and on all lay the aspect of complete repose. The two ladies, in that little garden near the Hôtel des Bergues, Rousseau's Island, as it is called, and which you who have sojourned in Geneva remember well, looking out over the lake at the solitary boat bearing away towards the right, noticed that no other object broke the prospect's stillness. It was scarcely a day for a row on Geneva's lake. Not a breath of air arose to counteract the vivid heat of the August sun; hot and shadeless he poured forth his overpowering blaze; and, lovely as the lake is, favoured by nature and renowned in poetry, it was more lovely that day to look at than to glide upon.
So thought the gentleman in that solitary boat, our friend Mr. David Dundyke—or, let us give him the title he had of late aspired to, David Dundyke, Esquire. He felt, to use his own words, "piping hot;" he sat on one side of the boat, and the sun burnt his back; he changed to the other, and it blistered his face; he tried the stern, and the sun seemed to be all round him. He looked up at the Jura, with a vain longing that they might be transported from their site to where they could screen him from his hot tormentor: he turned and gazed at the Alps, and wished he could see on them a shady place, and that he was in it; but, wherever he looked and turned, the sun seemed to blind and to scorch him. Some people, clayey mortals though the best of us are, might have found poetry, or food for it, in all that lay around; but David Dundyke had no poetry in his heart, still less in his head. He glanced, with listless, half-shut eyes, at the two men who were rowing him along; and began to wonder how any men could be induced to row, that burning day, even to obtain a portion of the world's idol—money. David Dundyke cared not, not he, for the scenery around; he never cared for anything in his life that was not substantial and tangible. What was the common scenery of nature to him, since it could not add to his wealth or enhance his importance?—and that was all the matter at his heart. He had never looked at it all the way from London to Geneva; he did not look at that around him now. Geneva itself, its lovely surrounding villas, its picturesque lake, the glorious chain of mountains on either side, even Mont Blanc in the distance, were as nothing to him. For some days after his arrival at Geneva, the mountain had remained obstinately enshrouded in clouds; but one evening that he and his wife were walking outside the town with Mr. Hardcastle, it was pointed out to him, standing proudly forth in all its beauty; and he had stared at it with just as much interest as he would have done at the hill in Greenwich Park covered with snow. He had seen the lovely colour, the dark, brilliant blue of the Rhone's waters, as they escaped from the lake to mingle with those of the thick, turbulent Arve; and he did not care to notice the contrast in the streams. There were no associations in his mind connected with that fair azure lake, whence coursed the one; he had no curiosity as to the never-changing glaciers that were the source of the other.
But, had Mr. Dundyke's soul been wholly given up to poetry and sentiment, it would have been lost that day in the overpowering heat. He bore it as long as he could, and then suddenly told the men to bear to the right and put him on shore. This movement had been observed by Mr. Hardcastle, from the little island, as you may remember. The men, not sorry perhaps to be off the lake themselves, inured though they were to Geneva's August sun, made speedily for a shady place, and landed him.
"Ah! this is pleasant," exclaimed Mr. Dundyke, throwing himself at full length on the cool and shady grass. "It is quite Heaven, this is, after that horrid burning lake." The two boatmen laid on their oars and rested.
"How thirsty it has made me!" he resumed, "I could drink the lake dry. What a luxury some iced wine would be now! And ice is so cheap and plentiful up at the hotel yonder. Suppose I send the boat back for Mr. Hardcastle, and the two women? And tell 'em it's Paradise, sitting here, in comparison with the hot hotel; and drop in a hint about the iced wine? He will be sure to take it, and be glad of the excuse. The women would find it rather of the ratherest for heat, coming across the lake, but charming when they got here. 'Tain't far, and their complexions are not of the spoiling sort. Mrs. D.'s ain't of no particular colour at all just now, except red; and t'other's is like chalk. Oh! let 'em risk it."
Taking out his silver pencil-case (as the men deposed to subsequently) he tore a leaf from his pocket-book, scribbled a few lines on it, and folding it, directed it to – Hardcastle, Esquire: and it had never occurred to Mr. Dundyke until that moment, and the fact struck him as a singular one, that he was ignorant of – Hardcastle, Esquire's Christian name. The men received the note and their orders, and then prepared to push off.
"We com back when we have give dis; com back for de jontilmans?" asked the one who spoke English.
"Come back! of course you are to come back," responded the common-councilman. "How am I to get home, else? But you are to bring the two ladies and the gentleman, and some ice and some wine; and to look sharp about it. Take care that the bottles don't get broke in the boat."
The men rowed away, leaving Mr. Dundyke lying there. They made good speed to the Hôtel des Bergues, according to orders, but were told that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Hardcastle was in. This caused a delay of two good hours. The boatmen lingered near the door of the hotel, waiting; and at last one of the waiters bethought himself that the ladies might be on Rousseau's Island. There they were found, and Mrs. Hardcastle read the note.
"What do you say?" she asked, tossing it to Mrs. Dundyke. "Shall we go?"
"But where is Mr. Hardcastle, ma'am?"
"Who's to know? He may be gone round to meet your husband. He saw the probable spot the boat was making for. We may as well go. Perhaps they are both waiting for us. Waiter," continued Mrs. Hardcastle, in her customary imperious manner, "let some wine be placed in the boat, and plenty of ice."
Under cover of umbrellas, the two ladies were rowed across the hot lake to the place where the men had left Mr. Dundyke. But no trace of that gentleman could now be seen; and they sat down in the shade to cool their heated faces, glad of the respite. Mrs. Hardcastle helped herself to some wine and ice, and Mrs. Dundyke presently took her work out of her pocket.
"How industrious you are!" exclaimed the idle woman. "What do you say the embroidery is for? A shirt front?"
Mrs. Dundyke displayed her work. It was for a shirt-front, and the embroidery was beautiful. She was doing two of them, she said. Her husband would require them during his shrievalty.
"I'd not take such trouble for my husband, though he were made king to-morrow," exclaimed Mrs. Hardcastle.
After making that remark she took some more wine, and subsequently dropped asleep. Mrs. Dundyke, engaged in her labour of love, for she loved both the work itself and him who was to wear it, let the time slip on unconsciously. It was only when the afternoon shadows struck on her view as becoming long, when the sun had changed his place from one part of the heavens to another, that a vague feeling of alarm stole over her.
"Where can he be? What is the time?"
She spoke aloud. Mrs. Hardcastle started at the words, and stared to see how the day had gone on. She, Mrs. Hardcastle, was the first to call out the name of Mr. Dundyke. She called it several times, and she had a loud, coarse, harsh voice; but only echo answered her. The boatmen woke up from their slumbers, and shouted in their patois, but there came no response from Mr. Dundyke. A sickening fear, whose very intensity made her heart cold, rushed over Mrs. Dundyke. Her hands shook; the red of her face turned to pallor.
"Why, you never mean to say you are alarmed!" exclaimed Mrs. Hardcastle, looking at her in surprise.
"No—no, ma'am, not exactly alarmed," returned poor Mrs. Dundyke, half ashamed to confess to the feeling. But her quivering lips gave the lie to her words. "I do think it strange he should go away, knowing he had sent for us. I was quite easy at first, thinking he had gone to sleep somewhere, overpowered with the heat. There is no danger, I suppose, that—that—anyone could fall into the water from this spot?"
There was certainly no danger of that: and the boatmen laughed at the notion, for the bank and the water were at that place nearly on a level.
"A man might walk in if he felt so inclined," observed Mrs. Hardcastle, jestingly, "but he could scarcely enter it in any other manner. And your husband is not one to cut short his life for pleasure."
Not he, indeed! Never a man less likely to make his own quietus than plain practical David Dundyke, with his future aspirations and his harmless ambition. His wife knew that the Lord Mayor's chair, shining in the distant vista, would alone have kept him from plunging head foremost into the most tempting lake that ever bubbled in the sunlight.
"There is no marvel about it," said Mrs. Hardcastle. "The boatmen were kept two hours at the hotel, remember, before we were found, and Mr. Dundyke naturally grew tired of waiting, and went away, thinking we should not come."
"But where can he be?" cried Mrs. Dundyke. "What has he done with himself?"
"He has gone back by land. There was no other course for him, if he thought—as he no doubt did think—that the boatman had misunderstood his orders and would not return."
"But, ma'am, he does not know his way back."
"Not know it! Instinct would tell it him. He has only to keep the lake on his right, and follow his nose; he would soon be in Geneva."
It was so probable a solution of the mystery, that Mrs. Dundyke had been unreasonable not to adopt it; indeed she was glad to do it; and they got into the boat, and were rowed back again, expecting Mr. Dundyke would be at the hotel. But they did not find him there. And it was nearly five o'clock then.
"That's nothing," said Mrs. Hardcastle. "The day is so hot he would take his time walking. My husband has not been in either, it seems. Rely upon it they have met and are together; they have turned into some cool café."
The ladies went upstairs together, each into her respective chamber: it has been said that the rooms joined. But that undefined dread, amounting to a positive agony, weighed still on the spirits of Mrs. Dundyke. She could not rest. Mrs. Hardcastle was attiring herself for dinner; not so Mrs. Dundyke; she stood at the door peeping out, hoping to see her husband appear in the long corridor. While thus looking, there came, creeping up the stairs, Mr. Hardcastle, stealing along, as it seemed to Mrs. Dundyke, to shun observation, his boots white, as if he had walked much in the dusty roads, his face scratched, and one of his fingers sprained (as she learnt afterwards) and bound up with a handkerchief.
"Oh, sir!" she cried, darting forward in high excitement, "where is he? where is Mr. Dundyke? What has happened to him?"
Mr. Hardcastle stood for a moment transfixed, and, unless Mrs. Dundyke was strangely mistaken, his face changed colour. She associated no suspicion with that pallor then; she but thought of her own ill manners in accosting him so abruptly.
"What of your husband?" he asked, rallying himself. "I don't know anything of him. Is he not in?"
Mrs. Dundyke explained. Mrs. Hardcastle, hearing their voices, came out of her room and helped her.
"Is that all?" exclaimed Mr. Hardcastle, when he had listened, and his tone was one of indifference. "Oh, he will soon be back. If he is not in, in time for dinner, Mrs. Dundyke, you can go down with us. Don't alarm yourself."
"But have you not seen him?—not been with him?" urged poor Mrs. Dundyke.
"I have never seen him since breakfast."
"We thought you might have walked round by the shore to join him, as you saw this morning where the boat was making for," remarked Mrs. Hardcastle.
He turned savagely upon her, his eyes glaring like a tiger's.
"No, madam," he said, with concentrated passion, "none save a fool would undertake such a walk to-day. I have been in the town, executing various commissions," he added, changing his tone, and addressing Mrs. Dundyke, "and a pretty accident I had nearly met with: in avoiding a restive horse on the dusty quays, I slipped down, with my face on some flint stones."
Mrs. Dundyke would not go down to dinner, but Mrs. Hardcastle fetched her into her own room afterwards, and ordered tea brought up, and they were both very kind to her, buoying up her spirits, and laughing at her fears. Her husband had only lost his way, they urged, and would be home fast enough by morning—a rare joke they would have with him about running away, when he did come.
It was eleven o'clock when Mrs. Dundyke wished them good night, and retired to her chamber, feeling like one more dead than alive. It is probable that few of us can form any adequate idea of her sensations. But for that horrible, mysterious dread, which seemed to have come upon her without sufficient cause, the mere absence of her husband ought not so very much to have alarmed her. She felt a conviction, sure and certain, that some dreadful fate had overtaken him; and, in that dread torture of suspense, she would have given her own life up the next moment, oh, how willingly, to see him return.
She stood at the open window of her room, leaning far out of it, hoping to see him come round the corner of the street, (stay, not so much hoping as wishing,) foot-sore and travel-worn, having lost his way and found it again. She wondered whether anyone was still up, to let him in, if he did come; if not, she would steal downstairs herself, and work at the door fastenings until she undid them. It was with great difficulty, exercising the very utmost self-control, that she stopped where she was, that she did not go out into the streets, searching for him.
While thus thinking, Mrs. Dundyke became aware that strange sounds were proceeding from the next room, though not at first had she heeded them. A fearful quarrel appeared to be taking place between Mr. and Mrs. Hardcastle, and Mrs. Dundyke drew back and closed her window in tremor. Its substance she could not hear, did not wish to hear; but wild sobs and reproaches seemed to come from the lady, and sharp words, not unmixed with oaths, from the gentleman. Twice Mrs. Dundyke heard her husband's name mentioned, or her own ("Dundyke"); and the quarrel seemed to have reference to him. One sentence of Mr. Hardcastle's came distinctly on her ear, apparently in answer to some threat or reproach; it was to the effect that Mrs. Hardcastle might leave him as soon as she pleased; might take her departure then, in the midnight hour. After awhile the anger appeared to subside, silence supervened, and Mrs. Dundyke watched through the live-long night. But her husband did not come.
With the morning Mrs. Hardcastle came to her. She said they had received letters which must cause them to depart for Genoa, where they found their remitted money had really been sent.
"But, ma'am," urged poor Mrs. Dundyke, "surely Mr. Hardcastle will not go and leave me alone in this dreadful uncertainty!"
"He intends to stay until the evening; he will not leave you a moment earlier than he is obliged. Perhaps your husband will make his appearance this morning."
In the course of the morning, Mr. Hardcastle went with the two boatmen to the place where they had landed Mr. Dundyke on the previous day, and a gentleman named by the proprietor of the hotel accompanied them; but not the slightest trace of him could be found, though some hours were spent in exploring. In the evening, by the six o'clock diligence, Mr. and Mrs. Hardcastle left Geneva, the former handing to Mrs. Dundyke an order upon the house in London, Hardcastle and Co., for the twenty pounds he had borrowed of her husband. He regretted, he said, his inability to furnish her, then, with any funds she might require, but he had barely sufficient to carry himself and wife to Genoa. If Mrs. Dundyke approved, he would, with the greatest pleasure, forward from that city any sum she chose to name; for, being known there, his credit was unlimited. Mrs. Dundyke declined his offer, with thanks: she reflected that, if her husband returned, he would have his money with him; and in the event of his mysterious absence being prolonged, she might as well write home for money as borrow it from Mr. Hardcastle at Genoa. She wondered, but did not presume to ask, how he had procured funds for his own journey, and to discharge his hotel bill, which he paid before starting.
"Keep up your spirits, Mrs. Dundyke," he cheeringly said as he shook hands with her at parting. "Depend upon it, your husband will come home, and bring some good reason for his absence; and if it were not that I am compelled—compelled by business—to go on to Genoa, I would not leave you."
She sat down as if some cold shiver had seized upon her heart. It was in her own room that this farewell was spoken; and in that one moment, as he released her hand, and his peculiar eyes rested on her in the parting, and then were lost sight of, it flashed into her mind where she had seen those eyes before. They were the eyes she had once so shrunk from at Westerbury; at least, they bore the same expression—Benjamin Carr's.
Mrs. Dundyke's pulses quickened, and she clasped her hands. For one single moment a doubt arose to her whether Mr. Hardcastle could be Mr. Hardcastle—whether he was not an impostor, Benjamin Carr, or any other, travelling under a false name; and a whole host of trifling incidents, puzzles to her hitherto, arose to her mind as if in confirmation. But the doubt did not last. That he was really anybody but the great Mr. Hardcastle—head, under his uncle, of the great house of Hardcastle and Co.—she did not believe. As to the resemblance in the eyes to those of Benjamin Carr, she concluded it must be accidental; and of Benjamin Carr's features she retained no recollection. She opened the order he had given her to receive the twenty pounds, and found it was signed "B. Hardcastle:" no Christian name in full. Mrs. Dundyke dismissed all doubts from her memory, and continued to believe implicitly in Mr. Hardcastle.
It was, perhaps, a somewhat curious coincidence—at least, you may deem it so, as events go on—that on this same evening an English clergyman should arrive at Geneva, and put up at the hotel. It was the Rev. Wheeler Prattleton, who was visiting Switzerland in pursuance of his intentions (as you once heard mention of), accompanied by his eldest daughter. The strange disappearance of Mr. Dundyke had caused some stir in the hotel, and the clergyman was told of it.
"It is an uncommon name, papa—Dundyke," observed Miss Prattleton. "Do you think it can be the Dundykes who are relatives of Mrs. Arkell's?"
"What Dundykes?" returned Mr. Prattleton, his memory on these points not so retentive as his daughter's. "Has Mrs. Arkell relatives of the name?"
"Oh, papa, you forget. Mrs. Arkell's sister is a Mrs. Dundyke. I have often heard Travice Arkell speak of her; he calls her Aunt Betsey. They live in London."
"We will ascertain, Mary," said Mr. Prattleton, his sympathies aroused. "If this lady should prove to be Mrs. Arkell's sister, we must do all we can for her."
It was very soon ascertained, for the clergyman at once sent up his card, and requested an interview with Mrs. Dundyke. Mr. Prattleton threw himself completely into the affair, and became almost painfully interested in it. He believed, as did all others, that nothing serious had occurred, but that from some unaccountable cause Mr. Dundyke remained absent—perhaps from temporary illness or accident; and every hour, as the days went on, was his return looked for. Mary Prattleton had the room vacated by the Hardcastles, Mr. Prattleton had one on the same floor; and their presence was of the very greatest comfort to poor, lonely, bereaved Mrs. Dundyke.
"Mary, I cannot tell you how I like her!" Mr. Prattleton impulsively exclaimed to his daughter. "She is a true lady; but so unobtrusive, so simple, so humble—there are few like her."
All the means they could think of were put in force to endeavour to obtain some clue to Mr. Dundyke, and to the circumstances of his disappearance. Mr. Prattleton took the conduct of the search upon himself. A Swiss peasant, or very small farmer, a man of known good character, and on whose word reliance might be placed, came forward and stated that on the day in question he had seen two gentlemen, whom he took to be English by their conversation, walking amicably together away from the lake, and about a mile distant from the spot of Mr. Dundyke's landing. The description he gave of these tallied with the persons of the missing man and Mr. Hardcastle. The stouter of the two, he said, who wore a straw hat and a narrow green ribbon tied round it, carried a yellow silk handkerchief, and occasionally wiped his face, which looked very red and hot. The other—a tall, dark man—had a cane in his hand with a silver top, looking like a dog's head, which cane he whirled round and round as he walked, after the manner of a child's rattle. All this agreed exactly. Mr. Dundyke's hat was straw, its ribbon green and narrow, and the handkerchief, which Mrs. Dundyke had handed him clean that morning, was yellow, with white spots. And again, that action of whirling his cane round in the air, was a frequent habit of Mr. Hardcastle's. The country was scoured in the part where this peasant had seen them, and also in the direction that they appeared to be going, but nothing was discovered. Mr. Prattleton reminded Mrs. Dundyke that there were more yellow silk handkerchiefs in the world than one, that straw hats and green ribbons were common enough in Geneva, and that many a gentleman, even of those staying at the hotel, carried a silver-headed cane, and might twirl it in walking. "Besides," added the clergyman, "if Mr. Hardcastle had been that day with Mr. Dundyke, what possible motive could he have for denying it?"
"True; most true," murmured the unhappy lady. She was still unsuspicious as a child.
One of Mr. Prattleton's first cares had been to write to London, asking for the number of the notes, forwarded by the house in Fenchurch-street to Mr. Dundyke. It had of course been lost with him; as also anything else he might have had in the shape of letters and papers, for they were all in his pocket-book, and he had it about him. When the answer was received by Mr. Prattleton, he made inquiries at the different money-changers, and traced the notes, a twenty-pound and a ten-pound. They had been changed for French money at Geneva, on the day subsequent to Mr. Dundyke's disappearance: the halves were in the shop still, and were shown to the clergyman. The money-changer could not recollect who had changed them, except that it was an Englishman; he thought a tall man: but so many English gentlemen came in to change money, he observed, that it was difficult to recollect them individually.
The finding of these notes certainly darkened the case very much, and Mr. Prattleton went home with a slow step, thinking how he could break the news to Mrs. Dundyke. She was sitting in his daughter's room, and he disclosed the facts as gently as possible.
Mrs. Dundyke did not weep; did not cry aloud: her quiet hands were pressed more convulsively together in her lap; and that was all.
"If my husband were living, how could anyone else have the notes to change?" she said. "Oh, Mr. Prattleton, there is no hope! It is as I have thought from the first: he fell into the lake and was drowned."
"Nay," said the clergyman, "had he been drowned the notes would have been drowned too. Indeed, I do not think there is even a chance that he was drowned: had he got into the lake accidentally, (which is next to impossible, unless he rolled in from the grass,) he could readily have got out again. But I find that more money was sent him than this thirty pounds, Mrs. Dundyke. The two halves of a fifty-pound note were sent as well. Do you know anything of it?"
"Nothing," she answered. "I knew he wrote home for thirty pounds; I knew of no more."
Mr. Prattleton gave her the letter, received that morning from Fenchurch-street, and she found it was as the clergyman said. Mr. Dundyke had written for fifty pounds, as well as the thirty; and it had been sent in two half notes, the whole of the notes in two separate letters: three half notes in one letter, and three in the other, and both letters had been dispatched by the same post. There could be no reasonable doubt therefore that all the money had been received by Mr. Dundyke.
"But I cannot trace the fifty," observed Mr. Prattleton, "and I have been to every money-changer's, and to every other likely place in Geneva. I went to the bank; I asked here at the hotel, but I can't find it. What do you want, Mary?"
Mary Prattleton had been for some few minutes trying to move a chest of drawers; the marble top made them heavy, and she desisted and looked at her father.
"I wish you would help me push aside these drawers, papa. My needle-book has fallen behind."
He advanced, and helped her to move the drawers from the wall. A chink, as of something falling, was heard, and a silver pencil-case rolled towards the feet of Mrs. Dundyke. She stooped mechanically to pick it up; and Miss Prattleton, who was stooping for her needle-book, was startled by a suppressed shriek of terror. It came from Mrs. Dundyke.
"It is my husband's pencil-case! it is my husband's pencil-case!"
"Dear, dear Mrs. Dundyke!" cried the alarmed clergyman, "you should not let the sight of it agitate you like this."
"You do not understand," she reiterated. "He had it with him on that fatal morning; he took it out with him. What should bring it back here, and without him? Where is he?"
Mr. Prattleton stood confounded; not able at first to take in quite the bearings of the case.
"How do you know he had it? He may have left it in the hotel."
"No, no, he did not. He went straight out from the breakfast-room, and, not a minute before, I saw him make a note with it on the back of a letter, and then return the pencil to the case in his pocket-book, where he always kept it, and put the pocket-book back into his pocket. How could he have written the note after the men landed him, telling us to join him there, without it?—he never carried but this one pencil. And now it is back in this room, and–oh, sir! the scales seem to fall from my eyes! If I am wrong, may Heaven forgive me for the thought!"
Her hands were raised, her whole frame was trembling; her livid face was quite drawn with the intensity of fear, of horror. Mr. Prattleton stood aghast.
"What do you say?" he asked, bending his ear, for the words on her lips had dropped to a low murmur. "What?"
"He has surely been murdered by Mr. Hardcastle."