_From Miss Garth to Mr. Pendril._
"Westmoreland House, Kensington,
"September 23d, 1846.
"MY DEAR SIR--I write these lines in such misery of mind as no words can
describe. Magdalen has deserted us. At an early hour this morning she
secretly left the house, and she has not been heard of since.
"I would come and speak to you personally; but I dare not leave Norah. I
must try to control myself; I must try to write.
"Nothing happened yesterday to prepare me or to prepare Norah for this
last--I had almost said, this worst--of all our afflictions. The only
alteration we either of us noticed in the unhappy girl was an alteration
for the better when we parted for the night. She kissed me, which she
has not done latterly; and she burst out crying when she embraced her
sister next. We had so little suspicion of the truth that we thought
these signs of renewed tenderness and affection a promise of better
things for the future.
"This morning, when her sister went into her room, it was empty, and
a note in her handwriting, addressed to Norah, was lying on the
dressing-table. I cannot prevail on Norah to part with the note; I can
only send you the inclosed copy of it. You will see that it affords no
clew to the direction she has taken.
"Knowing the value of time, in this dreadful emergency, I examined her
room, and (with my sister's help) questioned the servants immediately on
the news of her absence reaching me. Her wardrobe was empty; and all her
boxes but one, which she has evidently taken away with her, are empty,
too. We are of opinion that she has privately turned her dresses and
jewelry into money; that she had the one trunk she took with her removed
from the house yesterday; and that she left us this morning on foot.
The answers given by one of the servants are so unsatisfactory that we
believe the woman has been bribed to assist her; and has managed all
those arrangements for her flight which she could not have safely
undertaken by herself.
"Of the immediate object with which she has left us, I entertain no
doubt.
"I have reasons (which I can tell you at a fitter time) for feeling
assured that she has gone away with the intention of trying her
fortune on the stage. She has in her possession the card of an actor
by profession, who superintended an amateur theatrical performance at
Clifton, in which she took part; and to him she has gone to help her.
I saw the card at the time, and I know the actor's name to be Huxtable.
The address I cannot call to mind quite so correctly; but I am almost
sure it was at some theatrical place in Bow Street, Covent Garden. Let
me entreat you not to lose a moment in sending to make the necessary
inquiries; the first trace of her will, I firmly believe, be found at
that address.
"If we had nothing worse to dread than her attempting to go on the
stage, I should not feel the distress and dismay which now overpower me.
Hundreds of other girls have acted as recklessly as she has acted, and
have not ended ill after all. But my fears for Magdalen do not begin and
end with the risk she is running at present.
"There has been something weighing on her mind ever since we left
Combe-Raven--weighing far more heavily for the last six weeks than at
first. Until the period when Francis Clare left England, I am persuaded
she was secretly sustained by the hope that he would contrive to see her
again. From the day when she knew that the measures you had taken for
preventing this had succeeded; from the day when she was assured that
the ship had really taken him away, nothing has roused, nothing has
interested her. She has given herself up, more and more hopelessly, to
her own brooding thoughts; thoughts which I believe first entered
her mind on the day when the utter ruin of the prospects on which her
marriage depended was made known to her. She has formed some desperate
project of contesting the possession of her father's fortune with
Michael Vanstone; and the stage career which she has gone away to try is
nothing more than a means of freeing herself from all home dependence,
and of enabling her to run what mad risks she pleases, in perfect
security from all home control. What it costs me to write of her in
these terms, I must leave you to imagine. The time has gone by when
any consideration of distress to my own feelings can weigh with me.
Whatever I can say which will open your eyes to the real danger, and
strengthen your conviction of the instant necessity of averting it, I
say in despite of myself, without hesitation and without reserve.
"One word more, and I have done.
"The last time you were so good as to come to this house, do you
remember how Magdalen embarrassed and distressed us by questioning
you about her right to bear her father's name? Do you remember her
persisting in her inquiries, until she had forced you to acknowledge
that, legally speaking, she and her sister had No Name? I venture to
remind you of this, because you have the affairs of hundreds of clients
to think of, and you might well have forgotten the circumstance.
Whatever natural reluctance she might otherwise have had to deceiving
us, and degrading herself, by the use of an assumed name, that
conversation with you is certain to have removed. We must discover her
by personal description--we can trace her in no other way.
"I can think of nothing more to guide your decision in our deplorable
emergency. For God's sake, let no expense and no efforts be spared. My
letter ought to reach you by ten o'clock this morning, at the latest.
Let me have one line in answer, to say you will act instantly for
the best. My only hope of quieting Norah is to show her a word of
encouragement from your pen. Believe me, dear sir, yours sincerely and
obliged,
"HARRIET GARTH."