The Complete Works. George Eliot

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СКАЧАТЬ looked anxiously in the place where Tina kept her hat and cloak; they were not there, so that she had had at least the presence of mind to put them on. Still the good woman felt greatly alarmed, and hastened away to tell Mr. Gilfil, who, she knew, was in his study.

      ‘Mr. Gilfil,’ she said, as soon as she had closed the door behind her, ‘my mind misgives me dreadful about Miss Sarti.’

      ‘What is it?’ said poor Maynard, with a horrible fear that Caterina had betrayed something about the dagger.

      ‘She’s not in her room, an’ her bed’s not been slept in this night, an’ her hat an’ cloak’s gone.’

      For a minute or two Mr. Gilfil was unable to speak. He felt sure the worst had come: Caterina had destroyed herself. The strong man suddenly looked so ill and helpless that Mrs. Sharp began to be frightened at the effect of her abruptness.

      ‘O, sir, I’m grieved to my heart to shock you so; but I didn’t know who else to go to.’

      ‘No, no, you were quite right.’

      He gathered some strength from his very despair. It was all over, and he had nothing now to do but to suffer and to help the suffering. He went on in a firmer voice—‘Be sure not to breathe a word about it to any one. We must not alarm Lady Cheverel and Sir Christopher. Miss Sarti may be only walking in the garden. She was terribly excited by what she saw yesterday, and perhaps was unable to lie down from restlessness. Just go quietly through the empty rooms, and see whether she is in the house. I will go and look for her in the grounds.’

      He went down, and, to avoid giving any alarm in the house, walked at once towards the Mosslands in search of Mr. Bates, whom he met returning from his breakfast. To the gardener he confided his fear about Caterina, assigning as a reason for this fear the probability that the shock she had undergone yesterday had unhinged her mind, and begging him to send men in search of her through the gardens and park, and inquire if she had been seen at the lodges; and if she were not found or heard of in this way, to lose no time in dragging the waters round the Manor.

      ‘God forbid it should be so, Bates, but we shall be the easier for having searched everywhere.’

      ‘Troost to mae, troost to mae, Mr. Gilfil. Eh! but I’d ha’ worked for day-wage all the rest o’ my life, rether than anythin’ should ha’ happened to her.’

      The good gardener, in deep distress, strode away to the stables that he might send the grooms on horseback through the park.

      Mr. Gilfil’s next thought was to search the Rookery: she might be haunting the scene of Captain Wybrow’s death. He went hastily over every mound, looked round every large tree, and followed every winding of the walks. In reality he had little hope of finding her there; but the bare possibility fenced off for a time the fatal conviction that Caterina’s body would be found in the water. When the Rookery had been searched in vain, he walked fast to the border of the little stream that bounded one side of the grounds. The stream was almost everywhere hidden among trees, and there was one place where it was broader and deeper than elsewhere—she would be more likely to come to that spot than to the pool. He hurried along with strained eyes, his imagination continually creating what he dreaded to see.

      There is something white behind that overhanging bough. His knees tremble under him. He seems to see part of her dress caught on a branch, and her dear dead face upturned. O God, give strength to thy creature, on whom thou hast laid this great agony! He is nearly up to the bough, and the white object is moving. It is a waterfowl, that spreads its wings and flies away screaming. He hardly knows whether it is a relief or a disappointment that she is not there. The conviction that she is dead presses its cold weight upon him none the less heavily.

      As he reached the great pool in front of the Manor, he saw Mr. Bates, with a group of men already there, preparing for the dreadful search which could only displace his vague despair by a definite horror; for the gardener, in his restless anxiety, had been unable to defer this until other means of search had proved vain. The pool was not now laughing with sparkles among the water-lilies. It looked black and cruel under the sombre sky, as if its cold depths held relentlessly all the murdered hope and joy of Maynard Gilfil’s life.

      Thoughts of the sad consequences for others as well as himself were crowding on his mind. The blinds and shutters were all closed in front of the Manor, and it was not likely that Sir Christopher would be aware of anything that was passing outside; but Mr. Gilfil felt that Caterina’s disappearance could not long be concealed from him. The coroner’s inquest would be held shortly; she would be inquired for, and then it would be inevitable that the Baronet should know all.

      Chapter XVIII.

      Table of Contents

      At twelve o’clock, when all search and inquiry had been in vain, and the coroner was expected every moment, Mr. Gilfil could no longer defer the hard duty of revealing this fresh calamity to Sir Christopher, who must otherwise have it discovered to him abruptly.

      The Baronet was seated in his dressing-room, where the dark window-curtains were drawn so as to admit only a sombre light. It was the first time Mr. Gilfil had had an interview with him this morning, and he was struck to see how a single day and night of grief had aged the fine old man. The lines in his brow and about his mouth were deepened; his complexion looked dull and withered; there was a swollen ridge under his eyes; and the eyes themselves, which used to cast so keen a glance on the present, had the vacant expression which tells that vision is no longer a sense, but a memory.

      He held out his hand to Maynard, who pressed it, and sat down beside him in silence. Sir Christopher’s heart began to swell at this unspoken sympathy; the tears would rise, would roll in great drops down his cheeks. The first tears he had shed since boyhood were for Anthony.

      Maynard felt as if his tongue were glued to the roof of his mouth. He could not speak first: he must wait until Sir Christopher said something which might lead on to the cruel words that must be spoken.

      At last the Baronet mastered himself enough to say, ‘I’m very weak, Maynard—God help me! I didn’t think anything would unman me in this way; but I’d built everything on that lad. Perhaps I’ve been wrong in not forgiving my sister. She lost one of her sons a little while ago. I’ve been too proud and obstinate.’

      ‘We can hardly learn humility and tenderness enough except by suffering,’ said Maynard; ‘and God sees we are in need of suffering, for it is falling more and more heavily on us. We have a new trouble this morning.’

      ‘Tina?’ said Sir Christopher, looking up anxiously—‘is Tina ill?’

      ‘I am in dreadful uncertainty about her. She was very much agitated yesterday—and with her delicate health—I am afraid to think what turn the agitation may have taken.’

      ‘Is she delirious, poor dear little one?’

      ‘God only knows how she is. We are unable to find her. When Mrs. Sharp went up to her room this morning, it was empty. She had not been in bed. Her hat and cloak were gone. I have had search made for her everywhere—in the house and garden, in the park, and—in the water. No one has seen her since Martha went up to light her fire at seven o’clock in the evening.’

      While Mr. Gilfil was speaking, Sir Christopher’s eyes, which were eagerly turned on him, recovered some of their old keenness, and some sudden painful emotion, as at a new thought, СКАЧАТЬ