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.