Chapter 38

The Herons were not very much surprised at Ida's flight, but though John and his wife and daughter were anything but sorry to get rid of her, they were rather uncomfortable, and Joseph, who was in the doldrums after his drinking-fit, did not make them more comfortable by assuring them that he was perfectly certain she had committed suicide.

He and his father set out to look for her, but, as Ida had left no clue behind, they could find no trace of her, though they procured the assistance of Scotland Yard, and inserted guarded advertisements in the newspapers. John Heron comforted himself with the reflection that she could have come to no harm or they would have heard of it; and at last it occurred to him, when nearly a fortnight had elapsed, that she might have returned to Herondale, probably to the care of Mr. Wordley, and that he had been too indignant to acquaint the Herons with the fact.

"I think I had better run down to Herondale, Maria, and ascertain if the erring and desperate girl has returned there," he said, one morning after prayers. "Seeing that she left my roof in so unseemly a fashion, with no word of regret or repentance, I do not consider that she has any further claim upon me; but I have a tender heart, and on this occasion I will be generous before I am just."

"I am sure she has no further claim upon us," said Mrs. Heron, with a sniff, "and I hope you will make it plain, John, that on no account can we take her back. We have been put to considerable trouble and expense, and I really think that her going without any fuss is quite providential."

At this moment there came a double knock at the door, and the servant announced that Mr. Wordley was in the drawing-room. Mr. and Mrs. Heron exchanged glances, and both of them turned rather pale; for John Heron had a very vivid recollection of Mr. Wordley's frank and candid manner of expressing himself. But he had to be faced, and the pair went down into the drawing-room with a long-suffering expression on their faces.

Mr. Wordley, however, appeared to be quite cheerful. He shook hands with both of them, and enquired after their health and that of their family quite amiably and pleasantly.

"Most delightful weather, isn't it?" he remarked. "Quite pleasant travelling. You have a remarkably--or--convenient house, Mrs. Heron: charming suburb: will no doubt be quite gay and fashionable when it is--er--more fully developed. You are looking well, Mr. Heron."

Mr. Heron, whatever he may have looked, was feeling anything but well at that moment; for he suspected than the lawyer was only masking his attack, and that he meant to spring upon him presently.

"I enjoy fairly good health, Mr. Wordley, thank you," he said, in his sanctimonious way; "but I have my share of trials and anxieties in this miserable world."

"Oh, don't call it miserable, on a morning like this!" said Mr. Wordley, cheerfully. "My dear sir, there is nothing the matter with the world; it's--er--some of the people in it that try to make it miserable."

While he had been speaking, he had been glancing at the door and listening, as if he had been listening and expecting to hear and see someone else.

"The fact is," he said, "I have come up rather suddenly on rather important business: came up without a moment's delay. _Where is_ Miss Ida? I should like to see her at once, please, if I may!"

The faces of the pair grew sallow, and the corners of John Heron's mouth dropped lower even than usual.

"Ida?" he said, in a hollow voice, as if he were confused. "Where is she? Surely you know, Mr. Wordley?"

"I know? How should I know? I came up to see her: not a moment to spare. Isn't she here? Why do you both stare at me like this?"

"She is not here," said John Heron. "Ida left our house more than a fortnight ago."

Mr. Wordley looked disappointed, and grunted:

"Oh, gone to stay with some friends, I suppose. I'll trouble you to give me their address, Mr. Heron, please."

He rose, as he spoke, as if he meant starting on the moment, but he sank into the chair again as John Heron said in a sepulchral voice:

"I should most willingly do so, Mr. Wordley, but I regret to say I do not know where she is."

"You--don't--know--where--she is!" said Mr. Wordley, anger and amazement struggling for the upper hand. "What the devil I beg your pardon, Mrs. Heron! You must excuse an old man with a short temper and a touch of the gout--but I don't understand you! Why don't you know?"

Mrs. Heron began to sniff, and her worthy husband drew himself up and tried to look dignified, and failed utterly in the attempt.

"Such language--" he began.

"Confound my language, sir!" snapped the old lawyer, his face growing red. "Be good enough to answer my question!"

"Ida left our hospitable roof about a fortnight ago," said Mr. Heron. "She left like a thief in the night--that is to say, morning. I regret to say that she left no message, no word of farewell, behind her. I had occasion to rebuke her on the preceding night, and, following the dictates of an ungodly nature and a perverse pride, she chose to leave the shelter of this roof--"

Mr. Wordley sprang to his feet, his passion rendering him speechless for a moment.

"_You_ rebuke Miss Ida! Are you out of your mind? And pray, what had she done?"

"She had been guilty of attempting to ensnare the affection of my son--" began John Heron.

At this moment the door opened and Joseph appeared. Mr. Wordley looked at him.

"Ensnaring the affections of _this!_" he snorted, with a contempt which caused Mr. Joseph's immediate retreat. "Oh, you _must_ be out of your mind!"

"Her conduct was reprehensible in other ways," stammered John Heron.

"Nonsense!" almost shouted Mr. Wordley. "I don't want to hear any more of such nonsense. Miss Ida's conduct reprehensible! Why, she couldn't conduct herself in any way than that of a high-bred, pure-minded, gentle-hearted girl, if she tried! You have been entertaining an angel unawares, Mr. Heron--there's a bit of Scripture for _you!_--you've had a pearl in your house, and it's been cast before--Bless my soul! I'm losing my temper! But, 'pon my word, there's some excuse for it. You've let that dear child leave your house, you've lost sight of her for over a fortnight, and--and you stand there and snuffle to me about her 'conduct!' Where is she? Oh, of course, you don't know; and you'd stand there like a stuck pig, if I were fool enough to remain here for a week and ask questions. But I want her--I want her at once! I've got important news for her news of the greatest importance--I beg your pardon, my dear madame, for the violence of my language--though I could say a great deal more to this husband of yours if I were alone with him. But it's no use wasting further time. I must find her--I must find her at once."

John Heron was as red as a turkey-cock and gasping like a cod out of water.

"This gross and unseemly attack is only excused by your age--"

"Confound my age!" exclaimed Mr. Wordley. "Let me tell you, sir, your age does not excuse your conduct, which has been that of a heartless and sanctimonious fool. When I gave that dear child into your care, I had misgivings, and they are fully justified. Would to God I had never lost sight of her! The dearest, the sweetest and best--Oh, let me get out, or I shall say something offensive."

As he made for the door, John Heron cleared his throat and stammered:

"I forgive you, sir. You will regret this exhibition of brutal violence, and I shall put up a prayer--"

"Don't you dare to put up any prayer for me!" cried Mr. Wordley. "I should be afraid something would happen to me. I need not ask why she left your house. It's quite evident enough. I've nothing more to say to you."

"One moment," said John Heron, with an attempt at dignity; "perhaps you will be good enough to inform me of the nature of the communication that you have for my cousin Ida."

Mr. Wordley looked as if he were going to choke.

"No, I will not, sir!" he at last responded. "I will tell you nothing--excepting that I hope and trust I may never see your sanctimonious face again. Good-morning! Good-morning, madame!"

He was outside Laburnum Villa with the velocity and force of a whirlwind, and was half-way on his road to the station before he could get his breath or regain his self-possession. Being a lawyer, he, of course, went straight to the police; but he was shrewd enough not to go to Scotland Yard, but to the police station near the terminus; for it seemed to him that it would be easier to trace Ida from that spot.

Fortunately for him, he found an inspector in charge who was both intelligent and zealous. He listened attentively to the detailed statement and description which the lawyer--calm enough now--furnished him, and after considering for a minute or two, during which Mr. Wordley waited in a legal silence, asked:

"Young lady any friends in London, sir?"

Mr. Wordley replied in the negative. "Think she has gone to a situation?"

"No," replied Mr. Wordley; "she left suddenly; and I do not know what situation she could find. She is a lady, and unaccustomed to earning her bread in any way."

"Then she has met with an accident," said the inspector, with an air of conviction.

"God bless my soul, my good man!" exclaimed Mr. Wordley. "What makes you think that?"

"Experience, sir," replied the inspector, calmly. "Have you any idea how many accidents there are in a day in London? I suppose not. You'd be surprised if I told you. What was the date she was missing?"

Mr. Wordley told him, and he turned to a large red book like a ledger.

"As I thought, sir," he said. "'Young lady knocked down by a light van in Goode Street, Minories. Dark hair, light eyes. Height, five feet nine. Age, about twenty-one or two. Name on clothing, "Ida Heron."'"

Mr. Wordley sprang to his feet.

"It is she!" he exclaimed. "Was she much hurt, is--is she alive--where is she? I must go to her at once."

"London Hospital," replied the inspector, succinctly, as he turned to a subordinate. "Call a cab!"

It was not a particularly slow hansom, and it did not take very long to get from the police station to the hospital; but to Mr. Wordley the horse seemed to crawl and the minutes to grow into days. He leapt out of the hansom, and actually ran into the hall.

"You've a patient--Ida Heron"--he panted to the hall porter.

The man turned to his book.

"Yes, sir," he said. "Discharged yesterday."

Mr. Wordley staggered against the glass partition of the porter's box and groaned.

"Can you tell me--?" he began. "Has she left any address? I--I am her solicitor. Excuse my being hurried: I want her particularly."

The porter looked at him sympathetically--everybody is sympathetic at a hospital, from the head physician and that puissant lady, the matron, down to the boy who cleans the brass plate.

"Won't, you sit down, sir," he said, "The young lady was discharged yesterday, and I can't tell you where she's gone, in fact, though I remember her being brought in--run-over case--I like to step upstairs and see the sister of the ward she was in, the Alexandra?"

While he was speaking, and Mr. Wordley was trying to recover command of himself, a slim black-clad figure came down the hall, and pausing before the large tin box provided for contributions, dropped something into it. Mr. Wordley watched her absently; she raised her head, and he sprang forward with "Miss Ida!" on his lips.

Ida uttered a cry and staggered a little; for she was not yet as strong as the girl who used to ride through Herondale, and Mr. Wordley caught her by both hands and supported her.

"Thank God! thank God!" was all he could exclaim for a minute. "My dear child! my dear Miss Ida! Sit down!"

He drew her to one of the long benches and sat down beside her. To his credit, be it stated, that the tears were in his eyes, and for a moment or two he was incapable of speech; indeed, it was Ida who, woman-like, first recovered her self-possession.

"Mr. Wordley! Is it really you? How did you know? how did you find me? I am so glad; oh, so glad!" She choked back the tears that sprang to her eyes and forced a laugh; for again, woman-like, she saw that he was more upset than even she was. He found his voice after awhile, but it was a very husky one.

"My dear girl, my dear Miss Ida," he said, "you are not more glad than I. I have been almost out of my mind for the last few hours. I came to London all in a hurry. Most important news--went to your cousin's--Oh, Lord! what a fool that man is! Heard you had run away--not at all surprised. Should have run away myself long before you did. Came up to London in search of you--just heard you'd gone from here."

"I ought to have gone yesterday," said Ida, "but they let me stay."

"God bless them!" he panted. "But how pale you look--and thin. You've been ill, very ill; and you've been unhappy, and I didn't know it. What a fool I was to let you go! It was all my fault! I ought to have known better than to have trusted you to that sanctimonious idiot. My dear, I've great news for you!"

"Have you?" said Ida, patting his hand soothingly--she had caught something of the gentle, soothing way of the sister and nurses. "Must you tell me now? You are tired and upset." "I must tell you this very minute or I shall burst," said Mr. Wordley. "My dear child, prepare yourself for the most astounding, the most wonderful news. I don't want to startle you, but I don't feel as though I could keep it for another half hour. Do you think I could have a glass of water?"

The porter, still sympathetic, at a sign from Ida, produced the glass of water and discreetly retired.

"Now," said Mr. Wordley, with intense gravity, "prepare to be startled. Be calm, my dear child, as I am; you see I am quite calm!" He was perspiring at every pore, and was mopping his forehead with a huge silk handkerchief. "I have just made a great discovery. You are aware that Herondale, the whole estate, is heavily mortgaged, and that there was a foreclosure; that means that the whole of it would have passed away from you."

Ida sighed.

"Yes, I know," she said, in a low voice.

"Very well, then. I went over to the house the other day to--well, to look out any little thing which I thought you might like to buy at the sale--"

Ida pressed his hand and turned her head away.

"It was a sad business, sad, very sad! and I wandered about the place like a--like a lost spirit. I was almost as fond of it as you are, my dear. After I had been over the house I went into the grounds and found myself in the ruined chapel. Donald and Bess followed me, and Bess--what a sharp little thing she is, bless her!--she began to rout about, and presently she began to dig with her claws in a corner under the ruined window. I was so lost in thought that I stood and watched her in an absent kind of way: but presently I heard her bark and saw her tearing away like mad, as if she had found a rat or a rabbit. I went up to where she was clawing and saw--what do you think--"

Ida shook her head and smiled.

"I don't know; was it a rabbit?"

"No!" responded Mr. Wordley, with suppressed excitement. "It was the top of a tin box--"

"A tin box?" echoed Ida.

"Yes," he said, with an emphatic nod. "I called Jason to bring a spade; but I could scarcely wait, and I found myself clawing like--like one of the dogs, my dear. Jason came and we had that box up and I opened it. And what do you think I found?"

Ida shook her head gently; then she started slightly, as she remembered the night Stafford and she had watched her father coming, in his sleep, from the ruined chapel.

"Something of my father's?"

Mr. Wordley nodded impressively.

"Yes, it was something of your father's. It was a large box, my dear, and it contained--what do you think?"

"Papers?" ventured Ida.

"Securities, my dear Miss Ida, securities for a very large amount! The box was full of them; and a little farther off we found another tin case quite as full. They were securities in some of the best and soundest companies, and they are worth an enormous sum of money!"

Ida stared at him, as if she did not realise the significance of his words.

"An enormous sum of money," he repeated. "All the while--God forgive me!--I was under the impression that your father was letting things slide, and was doing nothing to save the estate and to provide for you, he was speculating and investing; and doing it with a skill and a shrewdness which could not have been surpassed by the most astute and business-like of men. His judgment was almost infallible; he seems scarcely ever to have made a mistake. It was one of those extraordinary cases in which everything a man touches turns to gold. There are mining shares there which I would not have bought at a farthing a piece; but your father bought them, and they've everyone of them, or nearly everyone of them, turned up trumps. Some of them which he bought for a few shillings--gold and diamond shares--are worth hundreds of pounds; hundreds? thousands! My dear," he took her hand and patted it as if he were trying to break the shock to her; "your poor father whom we all regarded as an insolvent book-worm, actually died by far and away the richest man in the county!"

Ida looked at him as if she did not even yet quite understand. She passed her thin hand over her brow and drew a long breath.

"Do you mean--do you mean that I am no longer poor, Mr. Wordley?" she asked.

Mr. Wordley laughed so suddenly and loudly that he quite startled the hall porter in his little glass box.

"My dear child," he said, slowly and impressively, "you are rich, not poor; im-mense-ly rich! I do not myself yet quite know how much you are worth; but you may take it from me that it's a very large sum indeed. Now, you are not going to faint, my dear!" For Ida's eyes had closed and her hands had clasped each other spasmodically.

"No, no," she said in a low voice, "But it is so sudden, so unexpected, that I cannot realise it. It seems to me as if I were lying in the cot upstairs and dreaming. No, I cannot realise that I can go back to Herondale: I suppose I can go back?" she asked, with a sudden piteousness that very nearly brought the tears to Mr. Wordley's eyes.

"Go back, my dear!" he exclaimed. "Of course you can go back! The place belongs to you. Why, I've already given notice that I am going to pay off the mortgages. You will get every inch of the land back; you will be the richest lady in the county--yes, in the whole county! The old glories of the dear old house can be revived; you can queen it there as the Herons of old used to queen it. And everybody will be proud and delighted to see you doing it! As for me, I am ashamed to say that I have almost lost my head over the business, and have behaved like a--well, anything but like a staid and sober old solicitor."

He laughed, and blew his nose, and nodded with a shamefaced joy which affected Ida even more than his wonderful news had done.

"How can I thank you for all your goodness to me," she murmured, a little brokenly.

"Thank me! Don't you attempt to thank me, or I shall break down altogether; for I've been the stupidest and most wooden-headed idiot that ever disgraced a noble profession. I ought to have seen through your father's affectation of miserliness and indifference. Anybody but a silly old numskull would have done so. But, my dear, why are we staying here, why don't we go away at once? You'd like to go back to Herondale by the first train? You must hate the sight of this place, I should think."

"No, no," said Ida, gently. "Yes, I would like to go back to Herondale--ah, yes, as soon as possible. But I should like to see someone before I go--the sister, the nurse, who have been so good to me. You are sure"--she paused and went on shyly, "you are sure there is no mistake, that I have some money, am rich?"

"Rich as Croesus, my dear child," he responded, with a laugh.

She blushed still more deeply.

"Then, have you--have you any money with you, Mr. Wordley? I mean quite a large sum of money?" "Not a very large sum, my dear," he replied, rather puzzled. "About twenty or thirty pounds, perhaps."

Ida's face fell.

"Oh, that is not nearly enough," she murmured.

"Eh?" he asked. "But I've got my cheque-book with me. How much do you want? And, forgive me, my dear Miss Ida, but may I ask what you want it for?"

"Can I have a cheque for five hundred pounds?" Ida asked, timidly.

"Five thousand, fifty thousand, my dear!" he responded, promptly, and with no little pride and satisfaction.

"Five hundred will do--for the present," she said a little nervously. "Perhaps the porter will let you draw it out."

Still puzzled, Mr. Wordley went into the porter's box and took out his cheque-book.

"Make it payable to the hospital--and give it to me, please," said Ida, in a low voice.

The old man's face cleared, and he nodded.

"Of course, of course! God bless you, my dear! I might have known what was in that good, grateful heart of yours. See here, I've made it out for a thousand pounds. That's five hundred for you and five hundred for me--and don't you say a word to stop me; for I'm only too grateful for the idea. It will cool me down; and upon my word, I feel so excited, so above and beyond myself that I want some safety-valve like this, or I should fall to dancing in the hall and so disgrace myself and the noble profession to which I belong."

With the folded cheque in her hand Ida took him up the many stone steps to the Alexandra ward. The gentle-eyed sister, who had parted from her so reluctantly, was naturally surprised to see her return so soon, and accompanied by a fatherly and prosperous old gentleman, who kept close to her as if he were afraid she might be spirited from him.

"I have come back to--to say good-bye again, sister," said Ida, her voice faltering a little, but her eyes beaming as they had not beamed for many a day; "and I want to give you something, something for the hospital--it is from my dear friend here, Mr. Wordley, who has just found me. And I want you not to open it until we have gone--say, for half an hour. And I am going to write to you as I promised; and you can write to me if you will be so kind; for I can give you the address now. It is on the back of the cheque."

She had written it in the porter's box.

"I am going--home. Something has happened. But I will write and tell you; now I can only say"--her voice broke and trembled--"good-bye, again, and thank you with all my heart." She drew the sister to her and kissed her; and Mr. Wordley shook the sister's hand, and blew his nose so loudly that the patients, who had been watching them eagerly, nodded to each other and exchanged significant glances, and there was a suppressed excitement in the ward which found adequate expression when, half an hour afterwards, the sister with flashed cheek and quavering voice made them acquainted with Ida's gift.

"And now," said Mr. Wordley, after he had shaken hands with several of the officials, including the porter, "and now, my dear Miss Ida, for Herondale and--Home! Hi, cab!"