“Mama,” said Henrietta, with determined patience, “Simon Carrington is waiting for me, with an urgent message, in the Green saloon, so do, pray, tell me—”.

“I am telling you, but if you keep interrupting me I may as well hold my peace,” replied Lady Silverdale, in an offended voice. “And as for Simon Carrington, I forbid you to invite him to dine here, Hetta! I don’t accuse him of aiding and abetting Desford, though it wouldn’t suprise me if he is, but I don’t wish to set eyes on any Carrington!”

“Very well, ma’am. Did James tell Pyworthy that Cherry was in that carriage?”

“He didn’t see Pyworthy,” said Lady Silverdale stiffly. “He saw Grimshaw!”

“And told him that?”

“No, but he knew there was someone in the carriage, for the door was opened from inside it, and he saw Charlie laughing, and saying something, and who else could it have been than—”

“And on this you, and Cardle, and Grimshaw have fabricated the most fantastic Canterbury tale I ever heard! The romances you are so fond of reading, ma’am, are nothing to it!”

“But, Hetta, it is not a Canterbury tale! Where could Charlie have been going to, in that secret way, except to—”

“For heaven’s sake, Mama, don’t say Gretna Green!” begged Henrietta, torn between exasperation and amusement. “Without as much as one cloak-bag between the pair of them! My guess is that Charlie has gone off on some expedition he knows you’d disapprove of; and if he does himself an injury he will be well-served! What is more important is to discover what has become of Cherry! For how long has she been missing?”

“Hours! Both of them!” asserted her ladyship. “And how you can be so heartless as to say that Cherry is more important than your only brother—”

“I don’t believe he’ll come to any harm,” said Henrietta impatiently. “Dr Foston only said that because he knows him too well to think that he would be prudent unless he were frightened into it! But I do fear that Cherry may have met with some accident, and I am going to send out a search-party, to look for her!”

She rose quickly, but was startled by a little scream from her mother. “Charlie?” uttered Lady Silverdale, and sank back against the sofa cushions with one plump hand pressed to her heart.

Sir Charles came impetuously into the room. It was evident from his expression, and from his stammering utterance, that so far from having recovered his temper he was in a towering rage. “I sh-should like to know, m-ma’am, what the dev—deuce—you mean by s-setting the servants to spy on me? By God, I think it beats the Dutch! Don’t you frown at me, Hetta! I’ll say what I dashed well choose! It’s coming to something when a man can’t move two steps out of his house without being followed, and spied on by his own servants, and being scolded by his butler for daring to go out without informing the whole household why he was going out, and where he was going, and when he would come back! There’s no bearing it, and so I warn you, ma’am!”

“Unhappy boy!” said his mother dramatically. “Where is Cherry?”

“How the deuce should I know? And if you mean to give me any more jobations, I’m off! All that grand fussation just because I snatched a kiss! Anyone would think I’d tried to rape the girl!”

“Charles! If you have no respect for my sensibility, have you none for your sister’s?”

“Well, I’m sorry,” he said sulkily. “But it’s enough to make a man go off on the ear when such a riot is kicked up over a mere trifle!”

“I know well that you were not to blame,” said Lady Silverdale, dabbing at her eyes. “You shouldn’t have done it, for you are old enough to know better, but I’ve no doubt you never would have done it had she not invited you to! So we shall say no more about it!”

He flushed darkly. “Oh, yes, we shall say more about it!” he said furiously. “She did not invite me to kiss her! As a matter of fact, she threatened to box my ears if I didn’t let her go, silly little wet-goose! So don’t you ring a peal over her, ma’am, because I won’t have her blamed for what she couldn’t help!”

“Charlie,” interposed Henrietta quietly, “between them, Cardle and Grimshaw put it into my mother’s head that you had eloped with Cherry, so you cannot be surprised to find her in a great deal of agitation! So do try to moderate your language!”

“Eloped with her?” he gasped. “Next you’ll say you thought I was on my way to the Border! In a hired hack, and with a girl I don’t even like above half! If you mean to tell me you thought anything so addle-brained, you must have rats in the garret, Hetta, and that’s all there is to it!”

“Oh, no, I didn’t!” she assured him. “But if you don’t know where she may be I must send the grooms and the gardeners out to search for her immediately.”

“If she was not in that carnage, who was?” suddenly demanded Lady Silverdale. “Do not ask me to believe that it was one of your friends, for I should hope none of them would visit you in that sly fashion! There is some mystery about this, and I am feeling very uneasy. I can feel my palpitations coming on already. Charlie, do not be afraid to confide in me! Have you got into a scrape?”

He drew an audible breath, and said, as one goaded beyond endurance: “Much chance I’ve had of getting into a scrape since I’ve been tied by the heels here! If you must know, it was Pyworthy in the hack, and I went off with him to watch a mill! And if you want me tell you why I sent him to hire a hack, and bring it round to the farm-gate, it was because I knew dashed well what kind of a bobbery there would be if you got wind of it, ma’am!”

Henrietta gave a low chuckle. “I guessed as much!” she said, picking up her hat, and going to the door. “I’ll leave you to make your peace with Mama.”

“Yes, but if you mean to set the men scouring the countryside, I wish you won’t!” he said uneasily. “Dash it, she can’t have come to any harm, and we don’t want to set people talking!”

“Unfortunately, finding Cherry is a matter of considerable urgency,” she replied sweetly. “I have good reason to believe that her father is. coming here to claim her, and is likely to arrive at any moment. Perhaps you would like to relieve me of the task of telling him that she can’t be found?”

“No, I dashed well shouldn’t!” he said fervently. “Hetta, are you bamming me? How do you know he’s coming here? Good God, I thought he was dead!”

“Well, he isn’t. And I know he is coming here, because Simon Carrington rode out from London to warn me of it!”

Lady Silverdale, recovering from the stupefaction which had caused her jaw to drop and her eyes to start alarmingly, shrieked after her daughter’s retreating form: “Don’t dare to bring him in here, Hetta! I can’t and I won’t meet him. Cherry is your responsibility, not mine!”

“Don’t fall into a twitter, Mama!” Henrietta said. “I haven’t the smallest intention of bringing him in here!”

Chapter 14

Henrietta found that Grimshaw was hovering in the wide corridor which led from the hall to the drawing-room, and at once gave him the necessary directions for an organized search for Miss Steane. He received these in a manner which showed her that the cumulative effects of having received a rating from herself and of being rattled off, probably in a most intemperate language, by his raging young master, had been so salutary as to render him, temporarily at least, all eagerness to oblige. He tried to detain her by excusing his own share in the day’s evil happenings, but as he very meanly cast all the blame on to Cardle she had little compunction in cutting short his protestations. She then went quickly to the Green saloon, where she found Simon pacing round the room in a fret of impatience.

“Good God, Hetta, I thought you was never coming!” he exclaimed. “I’ve been feeling like a cat on a hot bakestone!”

“You look like one!” she told him. “I came as soon as I could, but my mother was in such a taking—”

“What, has Charlie indeed eloped with Miss Steane?” he demanded incredulously. “What a hare-brained thing to do!”

“No, of course he hasn’t! He came in a few minutes ago. He went off to watch a prize-fight, and stole out of the house so that my mother should know nothing about it. That’s no matter! But what is more serious is that Cherry has been missing for several hours, and since my mother, egged on by her woman, and by Grimshaw, had it firmly fixed in her head that she had run off with Charlie no one has made the least push to find her. I’ve told Grimshaw to send the men out immediately to search for her, and can only trust that they do find her before her father arrives.”

He blinked at her. “Yes, but—Did she steal out of the house too? What I mean is, queer sort of thing to do, isn’t it? Not telling anyone she was going out. Come to think of it, it ain’t the thing for a girl of her age to jaunter off without leave! I know Griselda never did so—in fact, I’m pretty sure my mother never allowed her to go out walking beyond the grounds without someone to bear her company, even if it was only her abigail.”

“Oh, no, nor did mine! But the case is a little different, Simon! You won’t repeat this, but it seems that there was a—a slight rumpus this morning, owing to my mother’s having found Charlie trying to flirt with Cherry, and—and refining a great deal too much upon it! And I am afraid that what she said to Cherry upset the child so much that she ran out of the house, to—to walk off her agitation, and may have lost her way, or—or met with some accident!”

“Dash it, Hetta, this ain’t the wilds of Yorkshire!” objected Simon. “If she lost her way, anyone could have set her right! And I can’t for the life of me see what sort of an accident she could have met with! Sounds to me as though she’s run away. Seems to make a habit of it!”