‘Take hold of her dressing-gown at the sides. When I say move, raise her gey gently but as fast as you can. Lay her on the blanket softly. Ready? Move!’
On a stretched blanket they carried Millicent Corvill indoors. There Jenny darted into the drawing room, coming back with the folding screen that helped shield its occupants from draughts. With that as a stretcher they carried Millicent upstairs, and with infinite care transferred her to her bed.
By this time Cook, having obeyed orders, had roused up the fire in the kitchen range, and now came halfway upstairs to see what was required of her.
‘Hot pigs,’ said Baird, running down to her, ‘and mebbe tea or hot toddy ‒ get the kettle singing, at any rate.’
‘But what’s ado?’
‘The Lord knows. It looks as if the old mistress was sleepwalking and had a fall outdoors.’
‘Outdoors? In this weather?’
Shocked, Cook hurried away. Baird returned upstairs to help strip the soaked nightclothes off Mrs Corvill. She moaned as they handled her, no matter how gentle they tried to be, and in the end Jenny said, ‘Cut them off her. It’s less hurt to her.’
Hot stone water bottles were brought by Cook, well shielded in flannel to keep them from scorching the skin. Millicent was wrapped in blankets. Now and again her eyes flickered open as she was touched.
‘Jenny?’
‘I’m here, Mother.’
‘Jenny, my darling … Oh, what will you say …’
‘Ssh, ssh, rest now. You’ve had a fall ‒’
‘No, no ‒’
‘Now, Mother, be good. The doctor will be here in a moment.’
Baird noticed that the nursemaid, Wilmot, had come to the door, struggling into her dressing-gown. Wilmot was a notoriously heavy sleeper but at last the hubbub had roused her.
‘What’s happening?’ she muttered to Baird.
‘Never you mind, go and make sure the baby isn’t woken by all this collieshangie.’
Wilmot vanished.
Thirley ushered in Dr Lauder with his hair awry, his nightshirt tucked into his trousers and his greatcoat wrapped round him unfastened. ‘What’s happened? Your coachman knew nothing except that he had to fetch me at once ‒’ He broke off when he saw Jenny. ‘Oh, from what he said, I thought it was you that was injured, Mistress Armstrong.’
‘I found my mother in the drive. Her clothes were soaked, God knows how long she was lying there. I think her right leg is broken.’
‘Go you and sit down. Take some hot tea, with mebbe a little whisky in it.’
‘No, no, I ‒’
‘Go and let me examine my patient, Mrs Armstrong.’
‘Oh … yes …’
With Baird’s hand under her elbow, Jenny went downstairs to the kitchen. Cook had tea made, Baird fetched whisky from the dining room.
The time was then about two in the morning. The comparative quiet and security of the kitchen brought Jenny back to herself. She took a sip of the tea.
Then she paused and frowned. ‘You’d think all the noise would have ‒’
The kitchen door burst open. Wilmot came in, hands outstretched, her face distorted with fear and dismay.
‘Mistress! Mistress!’
‘What, Wilmot?’ Jenny was on her feet, swaying.
‘The bairn ‒ she’s gone!’
The world stood still. Jenny’s vision clouded. Next moment she was being held up by her maid, then helped back towards her chair.
‘No!’ she cried, thrusting off the sheltering arms.
She raced through the hall, up the stairs. She burst into the night nursery. The tiny glow of the nightlight flickered in its shallow glass container. She ran to the crib, threw herself upon it.
The little bedclothes with their frills and tucks were thrown back. The bed was empty.
‘Wilmot! Wilmot!’
The nursemaid came in, already sobbing and crying out in dismay. ‘I never saw she wasna there! I ran out to see what all the noise was for, I just took it she was there ‒’
‘She climbed out, mebbe,’ Thirley suggested, desperately looking about.
They lit all the gas lamps, they brought candles, they searched the house. Heather was not there.
Jenny’s head was whirling. She could feel her heart pounding through every nerve in her body. Her breath seemed to come very shallow and fast, insufficient to keep her alive. She was stifling, she was losing her grip on the world.
Then a sudden thought struck her. All the stifling warmth left her. She was cold, icy cold, shivering with cold.
She looked at the maidservants. ‘Where is young Mrs Corvill?’ she asked.
The women gaped, then looked from one to the other. ‘I suppose … I suppose in her room, mistress.’
Like a flock of swooping birds they ran along the landing. The door of the room occupied by Ned and Lucy, the gardenside bedroom, was closed.
Jenny knocked. No reply.
She was terribly frightened. What could it mean?
Gulping down a sobbing breath, she turned the knob and thrust the door open.
The room was dark. Baird came in holding a candle high. Thirley lit the gas lamp. The bed, turned down by Thirley at eight o’clock, had not been slept in. Everything was in perfect order.
Except that it had no occupant at some ten minutes past two of a winter’s morning.
Jenny felt as if the nightmare would overwhelm her. She was so cold her teeth were chattering. Her maid picked up the ornamental shawl from the back of a chair, wrapped it around her. Jenny clutched it to draw it close, then stopped to look at it.
‘Is anything gone, Baird?’
‘Gone?’
‘Any of Mrs Lucy’s clothes.’
The maid served all three ladies of the Corvill household. Her experienced eye ran over the items on the dressing table. She looked in the big wardrobe.
‘Mrs Lucy’s hairbrush and comb are missing, and a small valise from the bottom of the wardrobe. There’s some underwear and two pairs of shoes I can’t see.’
The mistress and the household staff stared at each other. They all knew what it meant.
‘When did you last see Mrs Lucy?’ Jenny asked.
‘At dinner,’ Thirley said.
‘About ten o’clock, mistress,’ said Baird, from her own standpoint. ‘She went upstairs early. She said the house was dull with everyone except Mrs Corvill away.’
Jenny made a grasp after logic. ‘When did you lock up, Thirley?’
‘About eleven, mistress.’
‘Yes, you had to unbolt the door to let me in. So how ‒?’
‘The side door, Mistress Armstrong! I noticed it when I ran for McKeith. The side door is open.’
Jenny darted out of the bedroom and down the back stairs. The maids all followed her. She didn’t even stop to think how absurd it was. The side door, which opened on to a paved path, was allowing the night breeze to sway the curtains of the lobby.
If you walked round the side of the house on the path, you came to the drive. Lucy must have crept down the servants’ staircase some time after the house was quiet, let herself out, and ‒
And what? Gone where?
Jenny went through to the front of the hall, and up the main staircase. Dr Lauder was coming out of her mother’s bedroom.
‘I’ve given her a sedative. She’ll sleep for five or six hours, I hope. Then we must set that leg but we’ll do that under chloroform, though I wish your mother had a better pulse for it.’
‘Doctor ‒’
‘Try not to worry, Mistress Armstrong. We’ll do all we can ‒’
‘Is Mother asleep already?’
‘Well, drowsing off ‒’
‘Oh, God,’ cried Jenny, and ran past him into the bedroom. She knelt beside her mother’s bed, and gripped her hand.
‘Mother! Mother!’
Millicent half-opened her eyes. Her lips formed her daughter’s name, but almost no sound came out.
Dr Lauder came in, shock
ed at the violence of Jenny’s action. ‘My dear young woman, what on earth ‒’
‘Wake her! Wake her, doctor!’
‘I can’t do that!’
‘You must, you must. She has something to tell me ‒’
‘Don’t be absurd. I’m shamed at you, Mistress Corvill, I never thought you would take the hysterics ‒’
‘Dr Lauder!’ Jenny’s voice was almost a shout. ‘Wake my mother up! My baby is missing, my brother’s wife has left the house in the middle of the night! Mother knows something of it ‒ wake her, wake her!’
But it was no use. The bromide had taken effect. Millicent Corvill could not be roused without stimulants which Dr Lauder refused to apply.
So when the police came an hour later, there was nothing to learn except the information offered by the empty bed and the empty cot.
Their first action was a thorough search of the house and grounds.
‘There’s ower much rain to show traces,’ the sergeant said, troubled and ill at ease in the elegance of the drawing room, ‘but it looks as if a carriage stood for a time down the road a wee bit from the gates. You can see where the horses got impatient and howked wi’ their hooves.’
‘Who was in it?’
‘There’s no way of telling that, Mistress Armstrong.’ He ran a finger round the stiff collar of his uniform jacket. ‘Did the leddy leave a letter of any kind? Leddies usually leave a wee letter or a note when they … if they …’
‘If they run away from home?’ Jenny ended for him.
‘Aye, well, ye see, mistress, we have to think she went o’ her own free will, for of the fact that she packed her wee bag wi’ one or two things.’
‘She could have been forced to do that.’
‘Wi’ no sound being made the while?’ Sergeant Johnson said, shaking his head. ‘Na, na, it’s no likely. She packed the bag herself, the maid didna do it. She did it after she went up to her bed, supposedly. She wouldna have to be quiet about it. Who would think anything of hearing her move about her own room opening and closing drawers? Then sat herself doon, fully dressed, and waited till the house was quiet.’
‘And meanwhile there was a carriage waiting for her outside on the road?’
‘Aye.’ He paused, considering. ‘It’s just the greatest bad luck your train was delayed. If it had been on time, you might have seen the carriage.’ His thought travelled on. ‘I marvel that, if she went of her own free will, she chose a night when you might happen on her.’
‘No ‒ I wasn’t expected back for another two days. But everything in Newcastle was a waste of time so I just packed up and came home.’
He looked at Jenny with anxiety. Her voice was weak with exhaustion. She was sitting in a chair by one of the little occasional tables, an untasted cup of coffee at her hand. She had changed out of the muddied clothes of last night, but she had not bothered to have her hair re-dressed. Her face was white. Out of it her dark eyes stared, seeking answers, looking for help.
The sergeant wasn’t accustomed to dealing with the gentry, nor with women. He cleared his throat. ‘Will your husband be back soon?’
‘I sent a telegraphic message. The reply came half an hour ago. He’s on the train now.’
‘Aha.’ That was no help. The London train wouldn’t be in at Galashiels until early evening. ‘And your brother?’
‘He’s coming from Liverpool.’ Suddenly the great eyes shone with tears. ‘What am I going to tell them when they walk in?’
‘Now, now, Mistress Armstrong, dinna fash yourself. We’ll find the both of them.’ But he didn’t believe it, because he couldn’t understand what had happened. Ladies ran away from their husbands ‒ that was not uncommon. But to hamper yourself with a baby, and someone else’s baby at that …
And yet it couldn’t be two separate events. It was impossible that there could be a runaway wife and a baby abducted by criminals on the same night in the same house. No, the one was connected with the other.
‘Have you any idea where the leddy might have gone?’ he ventured.
Jenny shook her head.
‘Was she … Was there … Excuse the impertinence, mistress, but was there … ye know … a gentleman in the case?’
‘Yes, but he’s in London.’
‘Do ye say so?’ This was the first piece of useful information. ‘She could have gone to London, then.’
‘She’d have gone by train.’
‘Mebbe no. A’body would know her at the station, and she’d want to avoid notice, do ye no think so?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jenny said, putting her hands up to her head as if to force her brain to act. ‘I don’t know. I can’t understand any of it.’
‘Well, I think I’ll go back to the station and send a wee telegraphic inquiry as to whether a lady of the given description got on the train further down the line. And I’ll inquire about the hiring o’ the carriage. See then, it wasna hired in the toon. It must have come from somewhere else, and if it was a post-carriage there’ll be a record of when it was handed over or the horses were changed.’
‘Yes,’ Jenny said, grasping at the idea. ‘Yes, the inns where the horses are changed …’
‘That’s just it. So I’ll away and do that. And Mistress Armstrong ‒?’
‘Yes?’
‘Would you go upstairs wi’ my constable and look at the leddy’s belongings? Because you see, if she went on her own to meet someone, she’d need funds to pay for the carriage and so on. Would you look and see if she’s taken her valuables?’
‘Yes, of course.’ She should have thought of that herself. She made herself pay heed to the sergeant. ‘Anything else?’
‘Would you look and see if any of the baby’s clothes are missing? Ye see, if they are, it means that the leddy might have premeditated the taking of the child.’
‘But Wilmot would have heard her if she moved about collecting clothes in the nursery.’
‘Do ye say so? I thought you told me Wilmot was the last to come down when all the upset was going on about your mother.’
‘Yes.’ Jenny tried to remember what had happened, what had been said. It all whirled in her mind like leaves in the wind. ‘She didn’t know Heather was missing at first. Yet I feel … if someone had been moving about in the room …’
‘No one seems to have heard anything.’
‘My mother,’ Jenny insisted. ‘My mother heard something. Why else was she outside in her night things?’
‘Aye, but your mother is drugged asleep.’
Jenny glanced at the clock. Close to seven. ‘Dr Lauder said she would wake after five or six hours. It could be any time now.’
‘Then go you, mistress, and sit by the bed. The minute she wakes up try to get from her what she knows. It’s gey important. I’ll away, then.’
Leaving matters underway at Gatesmuir, he hurried back to the police station. It was his intention to get word to the Police Commissioner at once. This case was quite beyond his ken, and needed extraordinary measures. Besides, the sergeant knew that if in his uneasiness he made mistakes, his head was likely to roll.
Jenny went upstairs with the constable. A second examination of Lucy’s room revealed that she had taken her jewels. The little japanned cabinet in which she kept them was closed and locked, but opened easily to the constable’s pen-knife to show empty trays.
‘Would that amount to a wheen of money?’ the policeman inquired, his notebook out.
Jenny tried to recall the presents that Ned had given his wife. ‘Pearls, diamond drop earrings, a gold chain with an emerald pendant …’ She enumerated them.
‘Coming to how much in guineas, would you say?’
‘I don’t know. A thousand?’
He drew in a gasping breath. ‘Ach, she could get to the ends o’ the earth wi’ that!’
In the nursery Wilmot was sitting with her apron over her face. When Jenny spoke her name sharply she uncovered red, distorted features, wet with tears.
‘Are any of Hea
ther’s clothes missing?’
‘Not a stitch, Mistress Armstrong.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Am I not! I flew here the minute the police were sent for and looked in every press and drawer. Nothing’s gone except the clothes she … she …’ Wilmot’s face blubbered into silence.
‘Her nightgown and her bara coat, then?’
Wilmot nodded her head, her apron up to her eyes again.
Jenny turned to the constable. ‘Is there anything else we should see to?’
‘No, I’ll just call the man at the gate and ask him to take this information to Mr Johnson. Excuse me, mistress.’
When he had gone Wilmot ran to Jenny, taking her hand in both of hers. ‘Mistress, forgive me! Don’t hate me for sleeping-on! I would gie my life for it not to have happened.’
‘I know, Wilmot.’
‘Say you dinna hate me!’
‘Let go my hand.’
‘Mistress Armstrong, I canna live with myself if you dinna say ‒’
‘Let go, Wilmot, let go ‒ I’ve enough to bear!’
She snatched herself free. Outside she stopped short, hardly knowing what she was supposed to do next. Then she remembered the sergeant’s instructions.
She dragged herself along to Millicent’s bedroom. Baird was in attendance, but nothing needed doing ‒ Millicent slept, the daylight was shut out by the heavy curtains, the lamp was turned low.
‘Go and get some breakfast, Baird. I’ll take over.’
‘I couldn’t eat a morsel ‒’
‘Go all the same ‒’
‘Would you no take a rest yourself, mistress? You’re blanched as a willow wand.’
‘I can’t rest ‒ oh, I can’t rest!’ She felt her control going. She hid her face against her arm.
‘There now, there now,’ murmured Baird, taking her by the shoulders and pulling her close. ‘Greet, lassie, greet and let the tears ease you.’
‘No, I mustn’t ‒ we have to find out ‒’
‘We’ll find out, never you fear. We’ll get back the bairn. Your man will be here in a few hours. Take heart, we’ll help you.’
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