Johnny Ludlow Sixth Series Part 15

Entering Caramel Cottage by its side gate, Katrine found Joan seated in the kitchen, slicing kidney beans for dinner. Her father was in his favourite den, the gun-room, Mr. Reste was out. When she left in the morning, neither of them had quitted his respective chamber, an entirely unusual thing.

"How late you are with those beans, Joan!" listlessly observed Katrine.

"The master sent me to the Silver Bear for a bottle of the best brandy, and it hindered me," explained Joan. "They were having a fine noise together when I got back," she added, dropping her voice.

"Who were?" quickly cried Katrine.

"The master and Mr. Reste. Talking sharply at one another, they were, like two savages. I could hear 'em through my deafness. Ben Gibbon was here when I went out, but he'd gone when I came in with the brandy."

What with one thing and another, Katrine felt more uncomfortable than an oyster out of its sh.e.l.l. Mr. Reste came in at dinner-time, and she saw nothing amiss then, except that he and her father were both unusually silent.

Afterwards they went out together, and Katrine hoped that the unpleasantness between them was at an end.

She was standing at the front gate late in the afternoon, looking up and down the solitary road, which was no better than a wide field path, when Tod and I shot out of the dark grove by Caramel's Farm, and made up to her.

"You look hot and tired," she said to us.

"So would you, Miss Barbary, if you had been scouring the fields in search of Don, as we have," answered Tod, who was in a desperate mood.

At that moment Mr. Barbary came swinging round the corner of the short lane that led to the high-road, his guest following him. They nodded to us and went in at the gate.

"You do not happen to have seen anything of our Newfoundland dog to-day, I suppose, Mr. Barbary?" questioned Tod.

"No, I have not," he answered. "My daughter mentioned to me that he had strayed away."

"Strayed away or been stolen," corrected Tod. "The dog was a favourite, and it has put my father out more than you'd believe. He thinks the Standishes may have got him: especially if it is they who were out in the night."

"Shouldn't wonder but they have," said Mr. Barbary.

Standing by in silence, I had been wondering what had come to Mr. Reste.

He leaned against the porch, listening to this, arms folded, brow lowering, face dark, not a bit like his own pleasant self.

"I am about the neighbourhood a good deal; I'll not fail to keep a look-out," said Mr. Barbary, as we were turning away. "He was a fine dog, and might prove a temptation to the Standishes; but I should be inclined to think it more likely that he has strayed to a distance than that they have captured him. They might find a difficulty in concealing a large, powerful dog such as he is."

"Not they; they are deep enough for any wicked action," concluded Tod, as we went onwards.

It was tea-time then at Caramel Cottage, and they sat down to take it.

Mr. Barbary was sociable and talked of this and that; Edgar Reste spoke hardly a word; Katrine busied herself with the teapot and cups. At dusk Ben Gibbon came in, and Katrine was sent to bear Joan company in the kitchen. Brandy and whisky were put upon the table, Joan being called to bring in hot and cold water. They sat drinking, as Katrine supposed, and talking together in covert tones for two hours, when Gibbon left; upon which Katrine was graciously told by her father she might return to the parlour. Her head ached badly, she felt ill at ease, and when supper was over went up to bed. But she could not get to sleep.

About eleven o'clock, as she judged it to be, loud and angry sounds arose. Her father and Mr. Reste had renewed their dispute--whatever its cause might be. By-and-by, when it was at its height, she heard Mr.

Reste dash out at the back door; she heard her father dash after him. In the yard there seemed to be a scuffle, more hot words, and then a sudden silence. Katrine rose and stole to the window to look.

She could not see either of them. But a noise in the kitchen beneath, as if the fire-irons were thrown down, seemed to say they had come back indoors. Another minute and her father came out with a lighted lantern in his hand; she wondered why, as it was moonlight. He crossed the yard and went into the back kitchen, or brewhouse, as it was more often called, and Katrine, hoping the quarrel was over, got into bed again.

Presently the back door was shut with a bang that shook the room, and footsteps were heard ascending the stairs, and afterwards all was quiet until morning.

As on the past morning, so it was on this. When Katrine got downstairs she found that neither her father nor Mr. Reste was up. She breakfasted alone, and set off for the Manor afterwards.

But, as it chanced, she was to have partial holiday that day. Lena complained of a sore throat; she was subject to sore throats; so Miss Barbary was released when the lesson was half over, and returned home.

Going to her room to take her bonnet off, she found Joan busy there.

From the window she saw her father at work at the far end of the garden.

This was Thursday, the day of the projected walk to Church Leet, and very lovely weather. But Mr. Reste had not said anything about it since the Tuesday afternoon.

"Is Mr. Reste gone out, Joan?"

"Mr. Reste is gone, Miss Katrine."

"Gone where?" asked she.

"Gone away; gone back to London," said Joan. Upon which Katrine, staring at the old woman, inquired what she meant.

It appeared that Mr. Barbary had left his chamber close upon Katrine's departure, and sat down to breakfast. When he had finished he called Joan to take the things away. She inquired whether they had not better be left for Mr. Reste. He answered that Mr. Reste was gone. "What, gone away back to London?" Joan cried, in surprise; and her master said, "Yes." "You might just have knocked me down with a feather, Miss Katrine, I was that took to," added Joan now, in relating this. "Never to say good-bye to me, nor anything!"

Katrine, thinking there was somebody else he had not said good-bye to, could hardly speak from amazement. "When did he go, Joan? Since breakfast? Or was he gone when I went out?"

"Well, I don't know," pondered Joan; "it seems all a moither in my head; as if I couldn't put this and that together. I never saw nor heard anything of him at all this morning, and I find his bed has not been slept in, which looks as if he went last night. It's odd, too, that he didn't say he was going, and it's odd he should start off to London at midnight. Your papa is in one of his short tempers, Miss Katrine, and I've not dared to ask him about it."

Katrine, as she listened, felt perfectly bewildered. Why had he taken his departure in this strange manner? What for? What had caused him to do it? Joan had told all she knew, and it was of no use questioning her further.

Mr. Reste's chamber door stood open; Katrine halted at it and looked in.

Why! he seemed to have taken nothing with him! His coats were hanging up; trifles belonging to him lay about on chairs; on the side shelf stood his little portable desk--and she had heard him say that he never travelled without that desk, it went with him wherever he went. Opening a drawer or two, she saw his linen, his neckties, his handkerchiefs.

What was the meaning of it all? Could he have been recalled to London in some desperate hurry? But no letter or summons of any kind had come to Caramel Cottage, so far as she knew, except the letter from Captain Amphlett on Tuesday morning, and that one had not recalled him.

"There be two pairs of his boots in the kitchen," said Joan. "He has took none with him but them he's got on."

"I _must_ ask papa about it," cried the puzzled Katrine.

Mr. Barbary was at the bottom of the garden working away at the celery bed in his shirt sleeves; his coat lay across the cuc.u.mber-frame.

"What brings you home now?" he cried out, looking up as Katrine drew near.

"The little girl is not well. Papa," she added, her voice taking a timid, shrinking tone, she hardly knew why, "Joan says Mr. Reste is gone."

"Well?"

"But why has he left so suddenly, without saying anything about it?"

"He could do so if he pleased. He was at liberty to go or stay."

Katrine could not dispute that. She hardly liked to say more, her father's answers were so curt and cross.

"He must have gone unexpectedly, papa."

"Unexpectedly! Not at all. He has been talking of going all the week."

Katrine paused. "Is he coming back, papa?"

"Not that I know of."