‘Where’s Micky?’ inquired Kitty the next morning when Jane came into the dining-room with the teapot and the grim announcement that breakfast was quite ready, and the young ladies had better come to table.
‘He’s a very naughty, dirty boy,’ said Jane, as though that was a sufficient answer to Kitty’s question.
‘He hasn’t had much time to be naughty yet, poor Micky!’ said Kitty, in an aggrieved voice.
The twins always expected the offences of yesterday to be buried in oblivion.
Jane did not see fit to notice the remark, and, when the door had closed behind her, Kitty returned to her wonder.
‘Do you suppose Micky’s been playing that his soap-dish is a ship in a storm as he did the other day, and that Jane won’t let him come down to breakfast?’
The guess was a fairly likely one, for the game to which Kitty alluded involved such a free dispersal[168] of bath-water all over the floor that Jane was quite likely to consider it both naughty and dirty though, as Micky had pointed out, you could not well play with cleaner things than soap and water.
‘I don’t know, and don’t care,’ said Emmeline, shortly.
She had wakened up that morning in a very bad temper.
‘It’s rather horrid of you, then,’ said Kitty, reproachfully; ‘specially as there are eggs, and Micky didn’t have much tea last night or any supper, I don’t suppose. I think I’ll go up and see what’s happening to him. I don’t care if Jane does catch me.’
Emmeline did not trouble to make any objection, and Kitty departed on her quest. A moment later she returned with the news that it was all right; Micky was not in his room.
‘I expect he’s just out climbing trees somewhere, and will be in to breakfast directly,’ she surmised cheerfully, as she attacked her eggshell with energy.
But the minutes passed on, and no Micky appeared. By the time they had almost got through even the bread-and-jam stage of breakfast Emmeline was becoming rather anxious. It was so unlike Micky to show such indifference to his meals.
[169]
‘Isn’t he in yet?’ asked Jane, coming into the dining-room abruptly, and looking more worried than stern this time.
‘No, I suppose he must be in the wood somewhere, too far off to hear the bell,’ said Emmeline, more frightened by Jane’s manner than she had been before.
‘It’s the strangest thing where he can be,’ said Jane. ‘He was sleeping as peaceful as could be when I unlocked the door before starting to church yesterday evening, but when I went to call him this morning the bed was empty, and he was nowhere to be seen. He must have dressed and gone out without washing or anything, for the jug was still standing in the basin as I put it back last night. Not that there’s anything strange in that, for it’s just like his ways, but it is odd he isn’t in yet.’
‘I’ll just go out and see if I can find him,’ said Emmeline, rising from the table as she hastily swallowed a last mouthful of bread and jam.
‘I’ve been and looked all round the garden.’ said Jane; ‘and Alice went some little way into the wood, but she couldn’t see him anywhere. I can’t think what can have come to him.’
‘Oh, I expect he’ll turn up soon,’ said Emmeline, trying hard to feel confident.
‘We’ll hope so, Miss Emmeline,’ said Jane, gloomily.
[170]
Kitty’s round honest face was looking rather scared.
‘Do you think anything can have happened to Micky?’ she asked anxiously, as Jane went out of the room.
‘Oh no. I expect he’s in the wood somewhere with Diamond Jubilee, and has just lost count of time,’ said Emmeline, with determined cheerfulness. ‘Very likely we shall find them both in the Feudal Castle.’
Accordingly they put on their hats and, going out into the wood, made their way towards the Feudal Castle. As they walked they kept shouting ‘Micky!’ ‘Cooee!’ at the tops of their voices, but there was never the faintest response.
‘Well, I don’t suppose they can hear us if they’re right inside the Feudal Castle,’ said Emmeline, hoarse, but still reassuring.
But when they reached the Feudal Castle neither Micky nor Diamond Jubilee was there; what was more, the uneaten biscuit, which was still lying among the newspapers just as Emmeline had dropped it, seemed to show that they never had been there since yesterday evening.
Even Emmeline’s courage gave way at that point.
‘Wherever can he be?’ she exclaimed, almost tearfully. She might have said ‘they,’ but it was[171] odd how very little Diamond Jubilee seemed to matter just then.
‘I do believe that Diamond Jubilee’s at the bottom of it somehow,’ remarked Kitty, who was beginning to feel very miserable indeed.
Emmeline had all along had an uneasy suspicion that he might be, but she did not like to hear her own secret fear put into words by Kitty.
‘I don’t suppose it’s a bit more poor Diamond Jubilee’s fault than Micky’s,’ she snapped. ‘Most likely they’re both climbing trees somewhere a little farther on in the wood, and if they are it will have been Micky’s idea, not Diamond Jubilee’s. Come along.’
They left the Feudal Castle and continued their walk towards the Chudstone edge of the wood.
‘We shall be late for Miss Miller,’ remarked Emmeline; ‘but, really, we can’t trouble about lessons at such a crisis.’
That word ‘crisis’ afforded some little comfort to Emmeline for a moment; Aunt Grace had used it yesterday, and it sounded delightfully grown-up.
They went right to the end of the wood, cooeeying all the way, but with no more success than before, after which there was clearly nothing to be done but to turn and go back home again. They did so, feeling too tired and too much out of heart even to cooee this time, or to make any[172] fresh conjectures as to what could have become of Micky. That silent walk home seemed to drag on a weary while, but it was over at last. No sooner had they opened the garden-door than they caught sight of Miss Miller, Jane, Cook, and Alice, all standing in a row on the gravel path near the back-yard door, and all evidently keeping an anxious look-out for the children’s return. Perhaps the fact that the entire work of the household should be at a standstill while it waited for tidings brought home to Emmeline more than anything else how very serious the state of affairs was.
‘Well, haven’t you found him?’ called out Cook, as the two girls approached.
‘Of course they haven’t! Do you think they’ve got him hidden in their pockets?’ snapped Jane. Worry of mind was making her more short-tempered even than usual.
‘No, we haven’t found him, and we’ve been right to the Chudstone end of the wood to look for him,’ said Emmeline, in a voice of utter discouragement, while big tears rolled down Kitty’s cheeks.
‘Don’t cry, Kitty dear,’ said Miss Miller, soothingly; ‘Micky can’t be very far off’; but, in spite of her cheering words, the governess’s face was very anxious. She herself had just returned from looking for Micky in the village, where[173] nothing had been heard or seen of him. ‘I wonder if we ought to wire to Miss Bolton,’ she added, in a lower voice.
‘I don’t see that there’s any call for that,’ said Jane, grumpily. ‘She’d only be worried to death between thinking she ought to come back here and not liking to leave Miss King. Besides, as likely as not Master Micky’s only hiding somewhere near about for fun, for a more mischieful boy I never did see.’
‘Well, perhaps it would be best not to telegraph just yet, at all events,’ said Miss Miller, rather stiffly—she thought Jane apt to presume on her privileges as an old servant—‘but one step I’m sure we ought to take is to give notice at Chudstone Police-Station that the child’s missing. Then they’ll telephone on to the other police-stations in the neighbourhood. I think that will be far more effective than going out to look for him, for as we don’t know in the least which way to go, we might be wandering about the whole day without getting any nearer finding him. I’ll just bicycle over to Chudstone now. While I’m gone you can be reading to Kitty the next story in the Greek history,’ she added to Emmeline, with an idea of diverting their attention.
‘Oh, Miss Miller,’ broke in Kitty, with a fresh outbreak of tears, ‘people just can’t do Greek[174] history when their twins are lost! Do let us go and look for him in the wood just once more!’
Miss Miller did not think the search likely to be any more successful than before, but she had not the heart to refuse. ‘Well, you may go then,’ she said, kindly, ‘but don’t go outside the wood, and come back as soon as it’s eleven o’clock by Emmeline’s watch, even if you haven’t found him.’
Five minutes later Miss Miller had set out on her bicycle for Chudstone, and the two girls and Punch had begun another expedition through the woods. It had been a brilliant idea of Kitty’s to include Punch in the party. ‘In all the stories of children getting lost there’s always a gallant Newfoundland who rescues them,’ she had remarked. To be sure Punch was about as much like a gallant Newfoundland as the Feudal Castle was like a castle, but that was a detail.
‘I expect Punch’ll scent Micky out long before the police could find him,’ said Kitty, almost cheering up again as she and Emmeline climbed the railings dividing the wood from the road. ‘What shall we do supposing he tracks him out of the wood?’ she went on as Emmeline kept silence, feeling too miserable to answer. ‘For we promised Miss Miller not to go outside.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Emmeline impatiently. ‘There’ll be time enough to think of that when he does track him out.’
[175]
There certainly was time enough. Punch’s behaviour in the wood was most disappointing. It was in vain that they urged him to ‘go find Micky, like a good dog.’ He only stood stock still, wagging his tail apologetically, and staring up at them with a worried expression in his wistful brown eyes. It was so impossible to make him realise that for the first time in his life he was expected to take the lead in a walk, that at last, in despair, they had to give up trying to do. After that Punch trotted along happily a few feet behind them, except once when he raised their hopes cruelly by sniffing the ground violently and then rushing away among the bushes, only to come back a minute or two later with the rather crestfallen look he always had after wild and unsuccessful pursuits. It was only too plain that it had been a hunting expedition, not a rescue one.
‘Oh, Punch, you aren’t nearly so much good as a story dog!’ complained poor Kitty, ‘how can you think about hunting rabbits when Uncle Micky’s lost?’
It was nearer twelve than eleven o’clock when the two girls came home again, after a weary and futile search, but Miss Miller did not say a word of reproach to them. She herself had not been waiting for them long, for, though her ride to Chudstone and back had only taken about half-an-hour,[176] she had since been out again looking for Micky here, there and everywhere. One or other of the servants too, had been constantly going off to some place where it had suddenly struck them that the boy might possibly be, but, so far, everybody’s searching had been equally in vain. Micky might have disappeared from off the face of the earth for all the trace of him that they could find.
‘Come up to the schoolroom and rest,’ said Miss Miller, kindly. ‘I won’t bother you with any real lessons to-day, but I’ll read some “Marmion” aloud to you.’
They were just reading ‘Marmion’ for their literature. As a rule they were thrilled by it, but this morning neither Emmeline nor Kitty took in much of what they read. Sitting still only made them realise their trouble the more vividly, and Kitty was on the verge of breaking into a howl when Jane came in to ask Miss Miller if she might speak to her al............