Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

Nobody's Disappearance

Not resting satisfied with the endeavours he had made to recover
his lost charge, Mr Meagles addressed a letter of remonstrance,
breathing nothing but goodwill, not only to her, but to Miss Wade
too. No answer coming to these epistles, or to another written to
the stubborn girl by the hand of her late young mistress, which
might have melted her if anything could (all three letters were
returned weeks afterwards as having been refused at the house-
door), he deputed Mrs Meagles to make the experiment of a personal
interview. That worthy lady being unable to obtain one, and being
steadfastly denied admission, Mr Meagles besought Arthur to essay
once more what he could do. All that came of his compliance was,
his discovery that the empty house was left in charge of the old
woman, that Miss Wade was gone, that the waifs and strays of
furniture were gone, and that the old woman would accept any number
of half-crowns and thank the donor kindly, but had no information
whatever to exchange for those coins, beyond constantly offering
for perusal a memorandum relative to fixtures, which the house-
agent's young man had left in the hall.

Unwilling, even under this discomfiture, to resign the ingrate and
leave her hopeless, in case of her better dispositions obtaining
the mastery over the darker side of her character, Mr Meagles, for
six successive days, published a discreetly covert advertisement in
the morning papers, to the effect that if a certain young person
who had lately left home without reflection, would at any time
apply to his address at Twickenham, everything would be as it had
been before, and no reproaches need be apprehended. The unexpected
consequences of this notification suggested to the dismayed Mr
Meagles for the first time that some hundreds of young persons must
be leaving their homes without reflection every day; for shoals of
wrong young people came down to Twickenham, who, not finding
themselves received with enthusiasm, generally demanded
compensation by way of damages, in addition to coach-hire there and
back. Nor were these the only uninvited clients whom the
advertisement produced. The swarm of begging-letter writers, who
would seem to be always watching eagerly for any hook, however
small, to hang a letter upon, wrote to say that having seen the
advertisement, they were induced to apply with confidence for
various sums, ranging from ten shillings to fifty pounds: not
because they knew anything about the young person, but because they
felt that to part with those donations would greatly relieve the
advertiser's mind. Several projectors, likewise, availed
themselves of the same opportunity to correspond with Mr Meagles;