Missing

Missing

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Missing, by Mrs. Humphry Ward
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Missing
Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward
Release Date: July 14, 2004 [eBook #12908]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISSING***
E-text prepared by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Graeme
Mackreth, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders

MISSING
by
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
Author of "Robert Elsmere," "Lady Rose's Daughter," "The Mating of
Lydia," etc.
Frontispiece in Colour by C. Allan Gilbert

[Illustration: _Deeply regret to inform you your husband reported
wounded and missing_]

PART I
MISSING

CHAPTER I
'Shall I set the tea, Miss?'
Miss Cookson turned from the window.
'Yes--bring it up--except the tea of course--they ought to be here at any
time.'
'And Mrs. Weston wants to know what time supper's to be?'
The fair-haired girl speaking was clearly north-country. She
pronounced the 'u' in 'supper,' as though it were the German 'u' in
Suppe.
Miss Cookson shrugged her shoulders.
'Well, they'll settle that.'
The tone was sharp and off-hand. And the maid-servant, as she went
downstairs, decided for the twentieth time that afternoon, that she didn't
like Miss Cookson, and she hoped her sister, Mrs. Sarratt, would be
nicer. Miss Cookson had been poking her nose into everything that
afternoon, fiddling with the rooms and furniture, and interfering with
Mrs. Weston. As if Mrs. Weston didn't know what to order for lodgers,
and how to make them comfortable! As if she hadn't had dozens of
brides and bridegrooms to look after before this!--and if she hadn't
given them all satisfaction, would they ever have sent her all them
picture-postcards which decorated her little parlour downstairs?
All the same, the house-parlourmaid, Milly by name, was a good deal
excited about this particular couple who were now expected. For Mrs.
Weston had told her it had been a 'war wedding,' and the bridegroom
was going off to the front in a week. Milly's own private affairs--in
connection with a good-looking fellow, formerly a gardener at
Bowness, now recently enlisted in one of the Border regiments--had
caused her to take a special interest in the information, and had perhaps

led her to put a bunch of monthly roses on Mrs. Sarratt's dressing-table.
Miss Cookson hadn't bothered herself about flowers. That she might
have done!--instead of fussing over things that didn't concern her--just
for the sake of ordering people about.
When the little red-haired maid had left the room, the lady she disliked
returned to the window, and stood there absorbed in reflections that
were not gay, to judge from the furrowed brow and pinched lips that
accompanied them. Bridget Cookson was about thirty; not precisely
handsome, but at the same time, not ill-looking. Her eyes were large
and striking, and she had masses of dark hair, tightly coiled about her
head as though its owner felt it troublesome and in the way. She was
thin, but rather largely built, and her movements were quick and
decided. Her tweed dress was fashionably cut, but severely without
small ornament of any kind.
She looked out upon a beautiful corner of English Lakeland. The house
in which she stood was built on the side of a little river, which, as she
saw it, came flashing and sparkling out of a lake beyond, lying in broad
strips of light and shade amid green surrounding fells. The sun was
slipping low, and would soon have kindled all the lake into a white fire,
in which its islands would have almost disappeared. But, for the
moment, everything was plain:--the sky, full of light, and filmy grey
cloud, the fells with their mingling of wood and purple crag, the
shallow reach of the river beyond the garden, with a little family of
wild duck floating upon it, and just below her a vivid splash of colour,
a mass of rhododendron in bloom, setting its rose-pink challenge
against the cool greys and greens of the fell.
But Bridget Cookson was not admiring the view. It was not new to her,
and moreover she was not in love with Westmorland at all; and why
Nelly should have chosen this particular spot, to live in, while George
was at the war, she did not understand. She believed there was some
sentimental reason. They had first seen him in the Lakes--just before
the war--when they two girls and their father were staying actually in
this very lodging-house. But sentimental reasons are nothing.
Well, the thing was done. Nelly was married, and in another week,

George would be at the front. Perhaps in