by Ellen Wood
“He did not give any clue as to where he was going,” added the landlord; “he started away with nothing but his umbrella and what he might have put in his pockets, saying he should walk the first stage of his journey. His portmanteau is up in his bedroom now.”
All this sounded very curious to Mrs. Grape. It was unlike her open, out-speaking husband. She inquired whether it was likely that he had been injured in the fall from the gig and could be lying ill somewhere.
The landlord shook his head in dissent. “He said he was not hurt a bit,” replied he, “and he did not seem to be. He ate a good supper that night and made a famous breakfast in the morning.”
An idea flashed across Mrs. Grape’s mind as she listened. “I think he must have gone off for a ramble about the Welsh mountains,” spoke she. “He was there once when a boy, and often said how much he should like to go there again. In fact he said he should go when he could spare the time.”
“May be so,” assented the landlord. “Them Welsh mountains be pleasant to look upon; but if a mist comes on, or one meets with an awkward pass, or anything of that sort — well, ma’am, let’s hope we shall see him back yet.”
After bringing all the inquiries to an end that she was able to make, Mrs. Grape went home in miserable uncertainty. She did not give up hope; she thought he must be lying ill amongst the Welsh hills, perhaps had caught a fever and lost his senses. As the days and the weeks passed on, a sort of nervous expectancy set in. Tidings of him might come to her any day, living or dead. A sudden knock at the door made her jump; if the postman by some rare chance paid them a visit — for letters were not written in those days by the bushel — it set her trembling. More than once she had hastily risen in the middle of the night, believing she heard a voice calling to her outside the cottage. But tidings of Robert Grape never came.
That was disappearance the first.
In the spring of the following year Mrs. Grape sold her pretty homestead and removed to Worcester. Circumstances had changed with her. Beyond what little means had been, or could be, saved, the children would have nothing to help them on in the world. Tom, thirteen years old now, must have a twelvemonth’s good schooling before being placed at some business. Dolly must learn a trade by which to get her living. In past times, young people who were not specially educated for it, or were of humble birth, did not dream of making themselves into governesses.
“You had better go to the mantua-making, Dolly,” said Mrs. Grape. “It’s nice genteel work.”
Dolly drew a wry face. “I should not make much hand at that, mother.”
“But what else is there? You wouldn’t like the stay-making — —”
“Oh dear, no.”
“Or to serve in a pastry-cook’s shop, or anything of that sort. I should not like to see you in a shop, myself; you are too — too giddy,” added Mrs. Grape, pulling herself up from saying too pretty. “I think it must be the mantua-making, Dolly: you’ll make a good enough hand at it, once you’ve learnt it. Why not?”
II.
The house rented by Mrs. Grape at Worcester was near the London Road. It was semi-detached, and built, like its fellow in rather a peculiar way, as though the architect had found himself cramped for space in width but had plenty of it in depth. It was close to the road, about a yard only of garden ground lying between. The front-door opened into the sitting-room; not a very uncommon case then with houses of its class. It was a fair-sized room, light and pretty, the window being beside the door. Another door, opposite the window, led to the rest of the house: a small back-parlour, a kitchen, three rooms above, with a yard and a strip of garden at the back. It was a comfortable house, at a small rent; and, once Mrs. Grape had disposed her tasty furniture about it to advantage, she tried to feel at home and to put aside her longing to be back under the old roof at Islip.
In the adjoining house dwelt two Quaker ladies named Deavor, an aunt and niece, the latter a year or two older than Dolly. They showed themselves very friendly to the new-comers, as did their respectable old servant-maid, and the two families became intimate neighbours.
Dolly, seventeen now, was placed with Miss Pedley, one of the first dressmakers in the city, as out-door apprentice. She was bound to her for three years, and went to and fro daily. Tom was day-scholar at a gentleman’s school in the neighbourhood.
One Saturday evening in summer, when they had been about three months in their new abode, Mrs. Grape was sitting at the table in the front-room, making up a smart cap for herself. She had never put on mourning for her husband, always cherishing the delusive hope that he would some day return. Tom sat by her, doing his lessons; Dolly was near the open window, nursing a grey kitten. Tom looked as hot as the evening, as he turned over the books before him with a puzzled face. He was a good-looking boy, with soft brown eyes, and a complexion as brilliant as his sister’s.
“I say, mother,” cried he, “I don’t think this Latin will be of much good to me. I shan’t make any hand at it.”
“You will be like me then, Tom, for I’m sure I shall never make much of a hand at dressmaking,” spoke up Dolly. “Miss Pedley sees it too.”
“Be quiet, Dolly; don’t talk nonsense,” said Mrs. Grape. “Let Tom finish his tasks.”
Thus reprimanded, silence ensued again. It grew dusk; candles were lighted and the window was shut down, as the breeze blew them about; but the bright moonlight still streamed in. Presently Dolly left the room to give the kitten its supper. Suddenly, Tom shut up his books with a bang.
“Finished, Tom?”
“Yes, mother.”
He was putting them away when a knock came to the front-door. Tom opened it.
“Halloa, Bill!” said he.
“Halloa, Tom!” responded a boy’s voice. “I’ve come up to ask if you’ll go fishing with me to-morrow.”
“To-morrow!” echoed Tom in surprise. “Why, to-morrow’s Sunday!”
“Bother! I mean Monday. I’m going up to the Weir at Powick: there’s first-rate fishing there. Will you come, Tom?”
Mrs. Grape wondered who the boy was; she knew the voices of some of Tom’s schoolfellows, but did not recognize this one. Tom, standing on the low step outside, had partly closed the door behind him, and she could not see out; but she heard every word as plainly as though the speakers had been in the room.
“I should like to go, but I’m sure I could never get leave from school,” said Tom. “Why, the Midsummer examination comes on the end of next week; our masters just do keep us to it!”
“Stingy old misers! You might take French leave, Tom.”
“Mother would never let me do that,” returned Tom; and he probably made a sign to indicate that his mother was within hearing, as both voices dropped to a lower key; but Mrs. Grape still heard distinctly. “Are you going to take French leave yourself, Bill?” added young Grape. “How else shall you manage to get off?”
“Oh, Monday will be holiday with us; it’s a Saint’s Day. Look here, Tom; you may as well come. Fishing, up at Powick, is rare fun; and I’ve some prime bait.”
“I can’t,” pleaded Tom: “no good thinking about it. You must get one of your own fellows instead.”
“Suppose I must. Well, good-night.”
“Good-night, Bill.”
“I touched you last,” added the strange voice. There was a shout of laughter, the door flew back, Tom’s hand came in to snatch up his cap, which lay on a table near, and he went flying after the other boy.
They had entered upon the fascinating game of “Titch-touch-last.” Mrs. Grape got up, laid her finished cap upon the table, shook the odds and ends of threads from her black gown, and began to put her needles and cotton in the little work-box. While she was doing this, Dolly came in from the kitchen. She looked round the room.
“Why, where’s Tom, mother?”
“Some boy called to speak to him, and they are running about the road at Titch-touch-last. The cap looks nice, does it not, Dolly?”
“Oh, very,” assent
ed Dolly. It was one she had netted for her mother; and the border was spread out in the shape of a fan — the fashion then — and trimmed with yellow gauze ribbon.
The voices of the boys were still heard, but at a distance. Dolly went to the door, and looked out.
“Yes, there the two are,” she cried. “What boy is it, mother?”
“I don’t know,” replied Mrs. Grape. “I did not see him, or recognize his voice. Tom called him ‘Bill.’”
She went also to the door as she spoke, and stood by her daughter on the low broad step. The voices were fainter now, for the lads, in their play, were drawing further off and nearer to the town. Mrs. Grape could see them dodging around each other, now on this side the road, now on that. It was a remarkably light night, the moon, in the cloudless sky, almost dazzlingly bright.
“They’ll make themselves very hot,” she remarked, as she and Dolly withdrew indoors. “What silly things boys are!”
Carrying her cap upstairs, Mrs. Grape then attended to two or three household matters. Half-an-hour had elapsed when she returned to the parlour. Tom had not come in. “How very thoughtless of him!” she cried; “he must know it is his bed-time.”
But neither she nor Dolly felt any uneasiness until the clock struck ten. A shade of it crept over Mrs. Grape then. What could have become of the boy?
Standing once more upon the door-step, they gazed up and down the road. A few stragglers were passing up from the town: more people would be out on a Saturday night than on any other.
“How dost thee this evening, friend Grape?” called out Rachel Deavor, now sitting with her niece at their open parlour window in the moonlight. Mrs. Grape turned to them, and told of Tom’s delinquency. Elizabeth Deavor, a merry girl, came out laughing, and linked her arm within Dolly’s.
“He has run away from thee to take a moonlight ramble,” she said jestingly. “Thee had been treating him to a scolding, maybe.”
“No, I had not,” replied Dolly. “I have such a pretty grey kitten, Elizabeth. One of the girls at Miss Pedley’s gave it to me.”
They stood on, talking in the warm summer night, Mrs. Grape at the window with the elder Quakeress, Dolly at the gate, with the younger, and the time went on. The retiring hour of the two ladies had long passed, but they did not like to leave Mrs. Grape to her uncertainty: she was growing more anxious with every minute. At length the clocks struck half-past eleven, and Mrs. Grape, to the general surprise, burst into tears.
“Nay, nay, now, do not give way,” said Rachel Deavor kindly. “Doubtless he has but gone to the other lad’s home, and is letting the time pass unthinkingly. Boys will be boys.”
“That unaccountable disappearance of my husband makes me more nervous than I should otherwise be,” spoke Mrs. Grape in apology. “It is just a year ago. Am I going to have a second edition of that, in the person of my son?”
“Hush thee now, thee art fanciful; thee should not anticipate evil. It is a pity but thee had recognized the boy who came for thy son; some of us might go to the lad’s house.”
“I wish I had,” sighed Mrs. Grape. “I meant to ask Tom who it was when he came in. Tom called him ‘Bill;’ that is all I know.”
“Here he comes!” exclaimed Dolly, who was now standing outside the gate with Elizabeth Deavor. “He is rushing round the corner, at full speed, mother.”
“Won’t I punish him!” cried Mrs. Grape, in her relieved feelings: and she too went to the gate.
Dolly’s hopeful eagerness had misled her. It was not Tom. But it was one of Tom’s schoolfellows, young Thorn, whom they all knew. He halted to explain that he had been to a boys’ party in the Bath Road, and expected to “catch it” at home for staying so late. Dolly interrupted him to speak of Tom.
“What an odd thing!” cried the lad. “Oh, he’ll come home presently, safe enough. Which of our fellows are named Bill, you ask, Miss Grape? Let’s see. There’s Bill Stroud; and Bill Hardwick — that is, William — —”
“It was neither Stroud nor Hardwick; I should have known the voices of both,” interrupted Mrs. Grape. “This lad cannot, I think, be in your school at all, Thorn: he said his school was to have holiday on Monday because it would be a Saint’s Day.”
“Holiday, because it was a Saint’s Day!” echoed Thorn. “Oh then, he must have been one of the college boys. No other school goes in for holidays on the Saints’ Days but that. The boys have to attend service at college, morning and afternoon, so it’s not a complete holiday: they can get it easily, though, by asking leave.”
“I don’t think Tom knows any of the college boys,” debated Dolly.
“Yes, he does; our school knows some of them,” replied Thorn. “Good-night: I can’t stay. He is sure to turn up presently.”
But Tom Grape did not turn up. At midnight his mother put on her bonnet and shawl and started out to look for him in the now deserted streets of the town. Now and again she would inquire of some late wayfarer whether he had met a boy that night, or perhaps two boys, and described Tom’s appearance; but she could learn nothing. The most feasible idea she could call up, and the most hopeful, was that Tom had really gone home with the other lad and that something must have happened to keep him there; perhaps an accident. Dolly felt sure it must be so. Elizabeth Deavor, running in at breakfast-time next morning to ask for news, laughingly said Tom deserved to be shaken.
But when the morning hours passed and did not bring the truant or any tidings of him, this hope died away. The first thing to be done was to find out who the other boy was, and to question him. Perhaps he had also disappeared!
Getting from young Thorn the address of those of the college boys — three — who, as he chanced to know, bore the Christian name of William, Mrs. Grape went to make inquiries at their houses. She could learn nothing. Each of the three boys disclaimed all knowledge of the affair; their friends corroborating their assertion that they had not been out on the Saturday night. Four more of the King’s scholars were named William, they told her; two of them boarding in the house of the head-master, the Reverend Allen Wheeler.
To this gentleman’s residence, in the College Green, Mrs. Grape next proceeded. It was then evening. The head-master listened courteously to her tale, and became, in his awakened interest, as anxious as she was to find the right boy. Mrs. Grape said she should not know him, but should know his voice. Not one of the three boys, already seen, possessed the voice she had heard.
The two boarders were called into the room, as a mere matter of form; for the master was able to state positively that they were in bed at the hour in question. Neither of them had the voice of the boy who had called for Tom. It was a very clear voice, Mrs. Grape said; she should recognize it instantly.
“Let me see,” said the master, going over mentally the list of the forty King’s scholars: “how many more of you boys are named William, beyond those this lady has seen?”
The boys considered, and said there were two others; William Smith and William Singleton; both called familiarly “Bill” in the school. Each of these boys had a clear, pleasant voice, the master observed; but neither of them had applied for leave for Monday, nor had he heard of any projected fishing expedition to Powick.
To the house of the Singletons next went Mrs. Grape: but the boy’s voice there did not answer to the one she had heard. The Smith family she could not see; they had gone out for the evening: and she dragged herself home, utterly beaten down both in body and spirit.
Another night of anxiety was passed, and then Mrs. Grape returned to Mr. Smith’s and saw “Bill.” But Bill was hoarse as a raven; it was not at all the clear voice she had heard; though he looked desperately frightened at being questioned.
So there it was. Tom Grape was lost. Lost! and no clue remained as to the why and wherefore. He must have gone after his father, said the sympathizing townspeople, full of wonder; and a superstitious feeling crept over Mrs. Grape.
But ere the week was quite over, news came to the desolate home: not of Tom himself
; not of the manner of his disappearance; only of the night it happened. On the Friday evening Mrs. Grape and Dolly were sitting together, when a big boy of sixteen appeared at their door, Master Fred Smith, lugging in his brother Bill.
“He is come to confess, ma’am,” said the elder. “He blurted it all out to me just now, too miserable to keep it in any longer, and I’ve brought him off to you.”
“Oh, tell me, tell me where he is!” implored Mrs. Grape from her fevered lips; as she rose and clasped the boy, Bill, by the arm.
“I don’t know where he is,” answered the boy in trembling earnestness. “I can’t think where; I wish I could. I know no more than the dead.”
“For what have you come here then?”
“To confess that it was I who was with him. You didn’t know my voice on the Monday because I had such a cold,” continued he, laying hold of a chair-back to steady his shaking hands. “I must have caught it playing with Tom that night; we got so hot, both of us. When I heard he had never been home since, couldn’t be found anywhere, I felt frightened to death and didn’t like to say it was me who had been with him.”
“Where did you leave him? Where did you miss him?” questioned the mother, her heart sinking with despair.
“We kept on playing at titch-touch-last; neither of us would give in, each wanted to have the last touch; and we got down past the Bath Road, and on up Sidbury near to the canal bridge. Tom gave me a touch; it was the last; and he rushed through the Commandery gates. I was getting tired then, and a thought came to me that instead of going after him I’d play him a trick and make off home; and I did so, tearing over the bridge as hard as I could tear. And that’s all the truth,” concluded the boy, bursting into tears, “and I never saw Tom again, and have no more to tell though the head-master hoists me for it to-morrow.”