Chapter XIII · LOST.

Refreshed by a deep and dreamless sleep, after her hands had been folded in prayer for assistance and guidance, Mary rose, inspired by a hope that ere the new day was past, she should have come to the end of her chief doubt and difficulty; but she had to count several weary hours until the time would be suitable for her to call on a person of Lady Wetherall's position.

The smart and bustling little Mrs. Long Primer suggested that Mary should take an omnibus so far as this or that point, changing here and changing there, as a matter of economy. However, Mary became so bewildered by the strange names and the infinite number of changes to be made, that she preferred going by cab; but before setting out she met with a terrible shock.

Mrs. Primer suggested some little change in her travelling costume, which Mary had forgotten all about; but she had the required alteration in her trunk.

"And that, I forgot to say, has gone before you to Lady Wetherall's, my dear," said Mrs. Primer, rubbing her hands over each other and smiling with pleasure.

"Before me—how?"

"Her ladyship's own man came for it this morning early, and left her compliments, with the message that you were to follow as soon as you chose."

"It is impossible—it is incredible!"

"Lor, Miss. How?"

"Lady Wetherall knows nothing about me, and nothing of my being in London. She never even heard a word of me!" said Mary, becoming very excited as she hurried to the passage and saw that her property was indeed gone.

"What can it mean?" asked Mrs. Primer, growing pale.

"The man must have been a robber."

"A robbery in my 'ouse, Miss Lennox—take care what you say, ma'am!" exclaimed Mrs. Primer, growing red, while all the quilling of her cap quivered with her anger.

"By Jingo, it looks very like it, missus," said Tom Gubbs, the guard, who had overheard these remarks, as he was about to depart for the mid-day train; "it's a regular do, Mrs. Primer, and has been done by one of the fellows as was a loafing and listening about the platform at the Terminus yesterday—perhaps it's the cabby himself, for all we know or may ever know, that's away with the young lady's box, and she'll never see it again on this side o' time."

Mary was dreadfully harassed by this loss. The trunk—apart from a few little family relics—contained all she possessed in the world, and what she was totally without the means of replacing. She seemed so crushed that Mrs. Primer, in pity, felt the necessity of saying something.

"Her ladyship may have sent for it, after all. Might not your friend in Scotland have written to say that you were about to visit her?"

"Yes. But how were either of them to know that I was here?"

"It is impossible to say. The telegraph tells things wonderful now-a-days."

"And then she would have sent her carriage for me," said Mary, wearily and dreamily.

"If she has one."

"She must; for I have heard that she is very wealthy."

Tom Gubbs was off by this time to give information to the police, while Mary, unable longer to delay, procured a cab and set out for Piccadilly; but not before her kind landlady—whose prevailing idea was that people should eat under all circumstances, whether of joy or grief—had forced her to partake of a little luncheon, and followed her to the door with the warmest wishes for her success.

Mrs. Primer's little ones were all dead, and the good-hearted woman having known much of sorrow in her time, felt a genuine interest in Mary and sympathy for her. She seemed so gentle, so thankful for any kindness, so unsuspecting and truthful; and yet withal, as a stranger utterly ignorant of London and its ways, most helpless.

She awaited her return with considerable impatience, and calculating that she might be away at the furthest about three hours, put off the usual time of tea (her most important meal, if it could be called such), that they might have it cosily together, with a pleasant chat about Lady Wetherall's house and establishment; what manner of woman her ladyship was; how she dressed; what her two little girls were like, and so forth.

She wondered if Mary would ever come to see her after she was fairly established in one of those great mansions in Piccadilly. Mrs. Primer hoped she might, for the young lady didn't look in the least proud; but the idea of herself returning the visit, and being admitted by a huge footman, all calves and whiskers, never entered the timid little woman's head.

The summer afternoon wore drowsily on, and the shadows began to deepen and then to darken in the gloomy brick streets and alleys off the Strand. The clock of St. Clement's struck six, and Mary had now been absent four hours. Mrs. Primer could wait no longer. She took her tea alone, but left the pot to simmer on the hob, beside some hot muffins, for she was certain the poor young lady would return harassed and weary.

Another hour passed without her appearing. Still Mrs. Primer did not feel alarmed; she knew that great folks dined very late, almost in the middle of the night, she had even heard; and what could be more likely than Lady Wetherall keeping her visitor to dinner. So she looked forward with real pleasure to a description of the marvels thereof.

Eight, and then nine, were duly chimed in succession from the church tower, and still Mary was absent; and when ten o'clock and darkness came together, Mrs. Long Primer began to feel a real anxiety mingled with alarm. She knew the snares and pitfalls that beset the steps of the unwary in London, and more particularly would one so beautiful as Mary Lennox be subjected to peril; for she was an orphan, and utterly friendless and unknown. Mrs. Primer knew from an article she had lately read in the Times, that many more than a thousand beings disappeared in the streets yearly, being literally lost beyond all human ken; and dreadful stories of abductions and robberies, of concealed traps that opened over the river in the floors of nefarious dens and mysterious houses, recurred to her memory, for the slow rolling current of the mighty Thames hides many a terrible crime.

A sudden terror seized her: that the man who had stolen the trunk that morning might have got some deeper plot in hand; that Mary might not have been taken to Piccadilly at all; that some wicked woman might personate Lady Wetherall, and lure her away to where she might never be heard of again.

Midnight came, and still the girl was absent; and then the good woman's anxiety of heart amounted almost to an agony, but she knew not what to do, or where, or to whom to go. Despite her fears of rheumatism and toothache, with a shawl over her head, she remained long at an open window, watching and listening. Twice or thrice a cab dashed along Howard Street, and then her heart leaped with hope; but, as it turned into the Strand, the hope, like the sound of its wheels, died away.

The noises without became less and less. The gaslights in the adjacent houses had all been turned off; silence and deeper darkness seemed to be settling all around her. Miss de Montmorencie and the light comedy man, who were always late, had both returned long ago, and it became evident that the lost lady would not return until the morrow—if she ever returned at all!

Then another vague terror, that she might be held somehow responsible, personally, for this disappearance, occurred to Mrs. Long Primer, and added greatly to her perturbation of spirit.

At last she closed the window with a sigh, and was about to retire to bed, when suddenly, about two in the morning, a hansom cab dashed up to the door, and there was such a vehement use made of the brass knocker that the whole house resounded like a drum.

Mrs. Primer sprang again to the window, and a cry of alarm escaped her on beholding a night-policeman, flashing his bull's-eye on her brass plate, while alighting from the vehicle. And then the conviction came over her that some terrible catastrophe must have occurred to Mary Lennox!

She must have been robbed, maltreated, or ridden over at least!