CHAPTER 18 #2
He had stopped walking at an amazingly fortunate moment. Claudia turned her head, and then she uttered a wordless exclamation and pulled on his hand.
“What is that?” she said, pointing. And as they drew closer to a white streamer caught on a lower branch of a tree, she cried out joyfully. “It is Lizzie’s hair ribbon. She did come this way.”
He disentangled it and pressed it to his mouth, closing his eyes very tightly as he did so.
“Thank God,” she said. “Oh, thank God. She is not at the bottom of the lake.”
He opened his eyes and they gazed bleakly at each other. They had both been harboring the same fear ever since seeing Bewcastle and Hallmere diving in.
“Lizzie!” he called into the woods.
“Lizzie!” she called.
There was no answer. And how could they know which way she had gone? How could they go after her without themselves getting lost? But there was, of course, no question of standing still—and no thought of going back to recruit more help, especially from Kit or Sydnam, who would know the woods.
They pressed onward, stopping frequently to call Lizzie’s name.
And finally there was a rustling among the trees ahead and then a joyful woofing—and there came Horace, all wiggling rear end and wagging tail and lolling tongue.
“Horace!” Claudia went down onto her knees to hug him, and he licked her face. “Where is she? Why have you left her? Take us to her this minute.”
At first it seemed that he wanted to do nothing more than jump up against her skirt and play, but she wagged a stern finger at him and then took the ribbon from Joseph’s hand and waved it under the dog’s nose.
“Find her, Horace. Take us to her,” she commanded.
And he turned with a bark as if this were the best game of the afternoon, and went racing off through the trees. Joseph took Claudia by the hand again, and they went hurrying after him.
There was a little building—a gamekeeper’s hut—not far ahead. It looked to be in good repair. The door was ajar. Horace rushed inside.
Joseph stepped up to the door, almost afraid to hope.
Claudia clung to his hand and pressed against his side as he pushed the door wider and peered inside.
It was dark, but there was just enough light to see that the place was decently furnished and that on a narrow bed against one wall his daughter was curled up asleep, Horace panting and grinning at her feet.
Joseph turned his head, grasped Claudia about the waist, drew her tightly against him, and wept into the hollow between her neck and shoulder. She clung to him.
And for the merest moment as he drew free, they gazed deeply into each other’s eyes and his wet mouth touched hers.
And then he was inside the hut and kneeling on the floor beside the bed and touching his trembling hand to Lizzie’s head, moving the hair gently from her face.
If she had been sleeping, she was sleeping no longer.
Her eyes were tightly shut. She was sucking on her fist. Her shoulders were hunched and tense.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured.
“Papa?” She lowered her fist and inhaled. “Papa?”
“Yes,” he said. “We have found you, Miss Martin and I. You are quite safe again.”
“Papa?”
She wailed then, a high keening sound, and launched herself at him until she had a death grip about his neck. He picked her up and turned to sit with her cradled on his lap. He reached up without thought and drew Claudia down to sit beside them. She stroked Lizzie’s legs.
“You are safe,” she said.
“Miss Thompson took Molly and some others for a walk,” Lizzie said in a fast, breathless voice.
“They asked me to go but I said no, but then I wished I had said yes because you had gone to the house, Papa, and Miss Martin had gone for a walk. I thought Horace and I could catch up. I thought you would be proud of me. I thought Miss Martin would be proud of me. But Horace could not find them. And then there was a bridge and then I fell down and did not know which way to go and then there were the trees and Horace ran away and I tried to be brave and I thought about witches but I knew there were none, and then Horace came back and we came here but I did not know who lived here or if they would be kind or cruel and when you came I thought it was them and perhaps they would eat me alive though I know that is silly and—”
“Sweetheart.” He kissed her cheek and rocked her back and forth while she sucked on her fist again—something she had not done to his knowledge since she was four or five. “There are only Miss Martin and I here with you.”
“But how very, very brave you were, Lizzie,” Claudia said, “to venture off on your own and then not to panic when you got lost. We will certainly have to train Horace more before you try any such thing again, but I am enormously proud of you anyway.”
“I am always proud of you,” Joseph said. “But especially today. My little girl is growing up and becoming independent.”
She had stopped sucking her fist. She snuggled against him and yawned hugely. She had had so much fresh air and exercise today that it was no wonder she was exhausted—even apart from the terrible fright she had had.
He continued to rock her as he used to do when she was a baby and small child. He tipped back his head and closed his eyes. He could feel tears pooling in them again—and then one spilling over to trickle down his cheek.
He felt a feather-light touch to the same cheek and opened his eyes to see Claudia brushing the backs of her fingers across it to dry the tear.
They gazed at each other, and it seemed to him that he could see past her eyes into her mind, into her deepest self, into her soul. And he rested there.
“I love you,” he said, intending to speak aloud though no sound passed his lips.
She read his lips anyway. She drew back an inch or two, her chin lifted a fraction, and her own lips pressed together into an almost-stern line.
But her eyes did not change. Her eyes could not change.
They were the window through the armor she tried to don.
Her eyes answered him though the rest of her denied what they said.
I love you too.
“We had better get Lizzie back to the picnic,” he said, “and set everyone’s minds at rest. Everyone will still be searching for her.”
“For me?” Lizzie said. “They are searching for me?”
“Everyone has fallen in love with you, sweetheart,” he said, kissing her cheek again and getting to his feet with her in his arms. “And I must say I cannot blame them.”
It was obvious to him as soon as they stepped outside the hut and Claudia shut the door behind them that there was a faint path leading from it.
The hut was furnished and clean and comfortable.
It made sense that it was used often and that the user or users would have worn a path, probably from the driveway.
They followed it and sure enough, in no time at all, it seemed, they were back on the driveway, within sight of the bridge.
Claudia went a little way ahead of him across the bridge and waved her arms and called out to a few groups of people who were in sight. It was obvious they read her message. The search was over—Lizzie had been found.
By the time they approached the lake, everyone was waiting expectantly for them and Lizzie was half asleep. Horace bounded ahead, panting and woofing.
They received a hero’s welcome. Everyone wanted to touch Lizzie, to ask if she had taken any harm, to ask what had happened, to explain how they had searched and searched and almost given up hope.
“Your arms must be tired from carrying her, Attingsborough,” Rosthorn said. “Let me take her from you. Come, chérie.”
“No,” Joseph said, tightening his hold. “Thank you, but she is fine where she is.”
“She really ought to be taken back to Lindsey Hall immediately,” Wilma said. “Such a fuss, and it has threatened to ruin this splendid picnic. You really ought to have been doing your duty, Miss Martin, and keeping an eye on the girl instead of going walking with your betters.”
“Wilma,” Neville said, “stuff it, will you?”
“Well, really!” she said. “I demand an apol—”
“This is absolutely not the time for cruelty and recriminations,” Gwen said. “Be quiet, Wilma.”
“But it really ought to be said,” Portia added, “that it is disrespectful to Lady Redfield and Lady Ravensberg to have brought charity pupils to mingle with such a gathering and then to have left them to the chaperonage of someone else. And a blind charity girl is the outside of enough. We really ought—”
“Lizzie Pickford,” Joseph said in a firm, clear voice to an attentive audience that consisted of his father and mother, his sister, his betrothed, and numerous relatives, acquaintances, and strangers, “is my daughter. And I love her more than life itself.”
He felt Claudia’s hand on his arm. He lowered his head to kiss Lizzie’s upturned face. He felt Neville’s hand grasp his shoulder and squeeze hard.
And then he became aware of an awful silence that overlaid the sounds of children at play.