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11
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ONE OF GOD'S HEROINES
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No. I was quite right when I told poor Phoebe that her sad case was not without alleviation. I was still more sure of the truth of my words when I saw with what care Miss Locke had prepared the invalid's meal, and how gently she helped to place her in a proper position. There was evidently no want of love between the sisters; only on one side the love was more self-sacrificing and unselfish than the other. It needed only a look at Susan Locke's spare form and thin, careworn face to tell me that she was wearing herself out in her sister's service. Phoebe looked in her face and broke into a harsh laugh, to poor Susan's great alarm.
'What do you think Miss Garston has been saying, Susan? That we must be a comfort to each other. Fancy my being a comfort to you! You poor thing, when I am the plague and burden of your life,' And she laughed again, in a way that was scarcely mirthful.
'Nay, Phoebe, you have no need to say such things,' returned her sister sadly; but she was probably used to this sort of speeches. 'I am bound to take care of you and Kitty, who are all I have left in the world. It is not that I find it hard, but that you might make it easier by looking a little cheered sometimes.'
Phoebe took this gentle rebuke somewhat scornfully.
'Cheered! The woman actually says cheered, when I am already on the border-land of the place of torment. Was I not as good as dead and buried three years ago? And did not father always tell us that hell begins in this world for the wicked?'
'Ay, that was father's notion; and I was never clever enough to argue with him. But you are not wicked, my woman, only a bit tiresome and perverse and wanting in faith.' And Miss Locke, who was used to these wild moods, patted her sister's shoulder, and bade her drink her tea before it got cold, in a sensible matter-of-fact way, that was not without its influence on the wayward creature; for she did not refuse the comforting draught.
I took my leave soon after this, after promising to repeat my visit on the next evening. Phoebe bade me good-bye rather coldly, but I took no notice of her contrary mood. Miss Locke followed me out of the room, and asked me anxiously what I thought of her sister.
'It is difficult to judge,' I returned, hesitating a little. 'You must remember this is only my second visit, and I have not made much way with her. She is in a state of bodily and mental discomfort very painful to witness. If I am not mistaken, she is driving herself half-crazy with introspection and self-will. You must not give way to this morbid desire to increase her own wretchedness. She needs firmness as well as kindness.'
Miss Locke looked at me wistfully a moment.
'What am I to do? She would fret herself into a fever if I crossed her whims. Directly you have left the house she will be asking for that wire blind again, though it would do her poor eyes good to see the thrushes feeding on the lawn, and there is the little robin that comes to us every winter and taps at the window for crumbs; but she would shut them all out,--birds, and sunshine, and flowers.'
'Just as she would shut out her Father's love, if she could; but it is all round her, and no inward or outward darkness can hinder that. Miss Locke, you must be very firm. You must not move the flowers or replace the blind on any pretext whatever. She must be comforted in spite of herself. She reminds me of some passionate child who breaks all its toys because some wish has been denied. We are sorry for the child's disappointment, but a wise parent would inflict punishment for the fit of passion.'
Miss Locke sighed; her mouth twitched with repressed emotion. She was evidently an affectionate, reticent woman, who found it difficult to express her feelings.
'I am keeping you standing all this time,' she said apologetically, 'and I might have asked you to sit down a minute in our little kitchen. Let me pour you out a cup of tea, Miss Garston. Kitty and I were just going to begin.'
I accepted this offer, as I thought Miss Locke evidently wanted to speak to me. She seemed pleased at my acquiescence, and told Kitty to stay with her aunt Phoebe a few minutes.
'I have baked a nice hot cake with currants in it, Kitty,' she said persuasively, 'and you shall have your share, hot and buttered, if you will be patient and wait a little.'
'She is a good little thing,' I observed, as the child reluctantly withdrew to her dreary post, after a longing look at the table, while Miss Locke placed a rocking-chair with a faded green cushion by the fire, and opened the oven door to inspect the cake. 'It is dull work for the little creature to be so much in the sick-room. It is hardly a wholesome atmosphere for a child.'
Miss Locke shook her head as though she endorsed this opinion.
'What am I to do?' she returned sorrowfully. 'Kitty is young, but she has to bear our burdens. I spare her all I can; but when I am at my dressmaking Phoebe cannot be left alone, and she has learned to be quiet and handy, and can do all sorts of things for Phoebe. I know it is not good for her living alone with us, but the Lord has ordered the child's life as well as ours,' she finished reverently.
'We must see what can be done for Kitty,' was my answer. 'She can be free to play while I am with your sister. I sent her out with her new skipping-rope this evening. What brought her back so soon?'
'It was the singing,' returned Miss Locke, smiling. 'The street door was just ajar, and Kitty crept in and curled herself up on the mat. It sounded so beautiful, you see; for Kitty and I only hear singing at church, and it is not often I can get there, with Phoebe wanting me; so it did us both good, you may be sure of that.'
I could not but be pleased at this simple tribute of praise, but something else struck me more, the unobtrusive goodness and self-denial of Susan Locke. What a life hers must be! I hinted at this as gently as I could.
'Ay, Phoebe has always been a care to me,' she sighed. 'She was never as strong and hearty as other girls, and she wanted her own way, and fretted when she could not get it. Father spoiled her, and mother gave in to her more than she did to me; and when trouble came all along of Robert Owen, and he used her cruel, just flinging her aside when he saw some one he fancied more than Phoebe, and driving her mad with spite and jealousy, then she let herself go, as it were. She was never religious, not to speak of, all the time she kept company with Robert, so when her hopes of him came to an end she had nothing to support her. It needs plenty of faith to make us bear our troubles patiently.'
'And then her health failed.'
'Yes; and mother died, and father followed her within six months, and Phoebe could not be with them, and she took on about that; she has had a deal of trouble, and that is why I cannot find it in my heart to be hard on her; she was that fond of Robert, though he was a worthless sort of fellow, that, as the saying is, she worshipped the ground he walked on. Ah, Phoebe was bonnie-looking then, though she was never over-strong, and had not much colour; but he need not have called her a sickly ill-tempered wench when he threw her over and married Nancy. It was a cruel way to serve a woman that loved him as Phoebe did.'
'She has certainly had her share of trouble. How long ago did this happen to your sister?'
'It must be five years since Robert and Nancy were married. Phoebe was never the same woman since then, though her health did not fail for a year or more afterwards; Mr. Hamilton always says she has had a good riddance of Robert. He never thought much of him, and he has told me that it is far better that Phoebe never had a chance of marrying him, for she would have been a sad burden to any man; and she would not have had you to nurse her.' And Miss Locke's careworn face brightened. 'That is just what I tell myself, when I am out of heart about her; the Lord knew Robert would have been a cruel husband to her,--for he is not too kind to Nancy,--and so He kept Phoebe away from him. Phoebe is not one to bear unkindness,--it just maddens her,--and we have all spoilt her.'
'Just so, and she knows her power over you. I am afraid she gives you a great deal to bear, Miss Locke.'
'I never mind it from her,' she answered simply. 'She is all I have in the world except Kitty, and I am thinking what I can do for her from morning to night; that is the best and the worst of my work, one need never stop thinking for it. Sometimes, when I am tired, or things have gone wrong with my customers, or I am a bit behindhand with the rent, I wish I could talk it over with her; it would ease me somehow; but I never do give way to the feeling, for it would only fret and worry her.'
'You are wrong,' I returned warmly. 'Mr. Hamilton would tell you so if you asked him. Any worry, any outside trouble, would be better for Phoebe than this unhealthy feeding on herself. Take my advice, Miss Locke, talk about yourself and your own troubles. Phoebe is fond of you, it will rouse her to enter more into your life.'
Miss Locke shook her head, and the tears came into her mild hazel eyes.
'There is One who knows it all. I'll not be troubling my poor Phoebe,' she said, and her hands trembled a little. Kitty came in at this moment and said her aunt Phoebe wanted her, so we were obliged to break off the conversation.
I thought about it all rather sadly as I sat by my solitary fire that evening with Tinker's head on my lap. He had taken to me, and I always found him waiting for my return; but it was less of Phoebe than of Susan I was thinking. I was so absorbed in my reflections that Uncle Max's voice outside quite startled me.
'May I come in, Ursula?' he said, thrusting in his head. 'I have been at the choir-practice, so I thought I would call as I passed.'
Of course I gave him a warm welcome, and he drew his chair to the opposite side of the fire, and declared he felt very comfortable: then he asked me why I was looking grave, and if I were tired of my solitude. I disclaimed this indignantly, and gave him a sketch of my day's work, ending with my talk to Susan Locke.
He seemed interested, and listened attentively.
'It is such a sad case, Max,--poor Phoebe's, I mean,--but I am almost as sorry for her sister. Susan Locke is such a good woman.'
'You would say so if you knew all, Ursula, but Miss Locke would never tell you herself. When Phoebe's illness came on, and Hamilton told them that she might not get well for a year or two, or perhaps longer, Susan broke off her own engagement to stay with her sister. Her father was just dead, and the child Kitty had to live with them.'
'Miss Locke engaged!' I exclaimed, in some surprise, for it had never struck me that the homely middle-aged woman had this sort of experience in her life.
Max looked amused.
'In that class they do not always choose youth and beauty. Certainly Susan Locke was neither young nor handsome, but she was a neat-looking body, only she has aged of late. Do you want to know all about it? Well, she was engaged to a man named Duncan: he was a widower with three or four children; he had the all-sorts shop down the village, only he moved last year. He was a respectable man and had a comfortable little business, and I daresay he thought Miss Locke would make a good mother to his children. She told me all about it, poor thing! She would have liked to marry Duncan; she was fond of him, and thought he would have made her a steady husband; but with Phoebe on her hands she could not do her duty to him or the children. ' "And there is Kitty; and he has enough of his own; and a sickly body like Phoebe would hinder the comfort of the house, and I have promised mother to take care of her." And then she asked my opinion. Well, I could not but own that with the shop and the house to mind, and five children, counting Kitty, and a bedridden invalid, her hands would be over-weighted with work and worry. ' "I think so too," she answered, as quietly as possible, "and I have no right to burden Duncan. I am sure he will listen to reason when I tell him Phoebe is against our marrying." And she never said another word about it. But Duncan came to me about six months afterwards and asked me to put up his banns. ' "I wanted Susan Locke," he said, in a shamefaced manner, "but that sister of hers hinders our marrying; so, as I must think of the children, I have got Janet Sharpe to promise me. She is a good, steady lass, and Susan speaks well of her."'
Uncle Max had told his story without interruption. I listened to it with almost painful interest.
With what quiet self-denial this homely woman had put aside her own hopes of happiness for the sake of the sickly creature dependent on her! She had owned her affection for Duncan with the utmost simplicity; but in her unselfishness she refused to burden him with her responsibilities. If she married him she must do her duty by him and his children, and she felt that Phoebe would be a drag on her strength and time.
'She is a good woman, Uncle Max,' I observed, when he had finished. 'She is working herself to death, and Phoebe never gives her a word of comfort.'
'How can you expect it?' he replied quietly. 'You cannot draw comfort out of empty wells, and poor Phoebe's heart is like a broken cistern, holding nothing.'
'But surely you talk to her, Uncle Max?'
'I have tried to do so,' he answered sadly; 'but for the last year she has refused to see me, and Hamilton has advised me to keep away. If I cross the threshold it is to see Miss Locke. I thought it was a whim at first, and I sent Tudor in my stead; but she was so rude to him, and lashed herself into such a fury against us clerics, that he came back looking quite scared, and asked why I had sent him to a mad woman.'
'She was angry with me to-day.' And I told him about the blind.
'That is right, Ursula,' he said encouragingly. 'You have made a good beginning: the singing may do more to soften her strange nature than all our preaching. You will be a comfort to Miss Locke, at any rate.' And then he stopped, and looked at me rather wistfully, as though he longed to tell me something but could not make up his mind to do it 'You will be a comfort to us all if you go on in this way,' he continued; and then he surprised me by asking if I had not yet seen the ladies from Gladwyn.
The question struck me as rather irrelevant, but I took care not to say so as I answered in the negative.
'You have been here nearly a week; they might have risked a call by this time,' he returned, knitting his brows as though something perplexed him; but I broke in on his reflections rather impatiently.
'I declare, Max, you have quite piqued my curiosity about these people; some mystery seems to attach to Gladwyn. I shall expect to see something very wonderful.'
'Then you will be disappointed,' he returned quietly, not a bit offended by my petulance. 'I cannot help wishing you to make acquaintance with them, as they are such intimate friends of mine, and I think it will be a mutual benefit.'
Then, as I made no reply to this, he went on, still more mildly: 'I confess I should like your opinion of them. I have a great reliance in your intuition and common sense; and you are so deliciously frank and outspoken, Ursula, that I shall soon know what you think. Well, I must not stay gossiping here. Your company is very charming, my dear, but I have letters to write before bedtime. You will see our friends in church on Sunday. I hear Miss Elizabeth comes home to-morrow; she is the lively one,--not quite of the Merry Pecksniff order, but still a bright, chatty lady.
"From morning till night It is Betty's delight To chatter and talk without stopping."
'You know the rest, Ursula, my dear. By the bye,' opening the door, and looking cautiously into the passage, 'I wonder whom the Bartons are entertaining in the kitchen to-night? I hear a masculine voice.'
'It is only Mr. Hamilton,' I returned indifferently. 'I heard him come in half an hour ago; he is giving Nathaniel a lesson in mathematics.'
'To be sure. What a good fellow he is!' in an enthusiastic tone. 'Well, good-night, child: do not sit up late.' And he vanished.
I am afraid I disregarded this injunction, for I wanted to write to my poor Jill--who was never absent from my mind--and Lesbia; and I was loath to leave the fireside, and too much excited for sleep.
When I had finished my letters I still sat on gazing into the bright caverns of coal, and thinking over Susan Locke's history.
'How many good people there are in the world!' I said, half aloud; but I almost jumped out of my chair at the sound of a deep, angry voice on the other side of the door.
'It is a thriftless, wasteful sort of thing burning the candle at both ends. Women have very little common sense, after all.'
I extinguished the lamp hastily, for of course Mr. Hamilton's growl was meant for me, though it was addressed to Nathaniel. I heard him close the door a moment afterwards, and Nathaniel crept back into the kitchen. I woke rather tired the next day, and owned he was right, for I found my duties somewhat irksome that morning. The feeling did not pass off, and I actually discovered that I was dreading my visit to Phoebe, only of course I scouted it as nonsense.
Miss Locke was out, and Kitty opened the door. Her demure little face brightened when she saw me, and especially when I placed a large brown-paper parcel in her arms, of that oblong shape dear to all doll-loving children, and bade her take it into the kitchen.
'It is too dark and cold for you to play outside, Kitty,' I observed, 'so perhaps you will make the acquaintance of the blue-eyed baby I have brought you; when Aunt Susan comes in, you can ask her for some pieces to dress her in, for her paper robe is rather cold.'
Kitty's eyes grew wide with surprise and delight as she ran off with her treasure; the baby-doll would be a playmate for the lonely child, and solace those weary hours in the sick-room. I would rather have brought her a kitten, but I felt instinctively that no animal would be tolerated by the invalid.
It was somewhat dark when I entered the room, but one glance showed me that my directions had been obeyed; the window was unshaded, and the flowers were in their place.
Phoebe was lying watching the fire. I saw at once that she was in a better mood. The few questions I put to her were answered quietly and to the point, and there was no excitement or exaggeration in her manner.
I did not talk much. After a minute or two I sat down by the uncurtained window and began to sing as usual. I commenced with a simple ballad, but very soon my songs merged into hymns. It began to be a pleasure to me to sing in that room. I had a strange feeling as though my voice were keeping the evil spirits away. I thought of the shepherd-boy who played before Saul and refreshed the king's tormented mind; and now and then an unuttered prayer would rise to my lips that in this way I might be able to comfort the sad soul that truly Satan had bound.
When my voice grew a little weary, I rose softly and took down the old brown sampler, as I wished to replace it by a little picture I had brought with me.
It was a sacred photograph of the Crucifixion, in a simple Oxford frame, and had always been a great favourite with me; it was less painful in its details than other delineations of this subject: the face of the divine sufferer wore an expression of tender pity. Beneath the cross the Blessed Virgin and St. John stood with clasped hands,--adopted love and most sacred responsibility,--receiving sanction and benediction.
I had scarcely hung it on the nail before Phoebe's querulous voice remonstrated with me.
'Why can you not leave well alone, Miss Garston? I was thanking you in my heart for the music, but you have just driven it away. I cannot have that picture before my eyes; it is too painful.'
'You will not find it so,' I replied quietly; 'it is a little present I have brought you. My dead brother bought it for me when he was a boy at school, and it is one of the things I most prize. He is dead, you know, and that makes it doubly dear to me. That is why I want you to have it, because I have so much and you so little.'
My speech moved her a little, for her great eyes softened as she looked at me.
'So you have been in trouble, too,' she said softly. 'And yet you can sing like a bird that has lost its way and finds itself nearly at the gate of Paradise.'
'Shall I tell you about my trouble?' I returned, sitting down by the bed. It wrung my heart to talk of Charlie, but I knew the history of his suffering and patience would teach Phoebe a valuable lesson.
An hour passed by unheeded, and when I had finished I exclaimed at the lateness of the hour.
'Ay, you have tired yourself; you look quite pale,' was her answer; 'but you have made me forget myself for the first time in my life.' She stopped, and then with more effort continued, 'Come again to-morrow, and I will tell you my trouble; it is worse than yours, and has made me the crazy creature you see. Yes, I will tell you all about it'; but, half crying, as though she had little hope of contesting my will, 'You will not leave that picture to make my heart ache more than, it does now?'
'My poor Phoebe,' I said, kissing her, 'when your heart once aches for the thought of another's sorrow your healing will have begun. Let that picture say to you what no one has said to you before, "that all your life you have been an idolater, that you have worshipped only yourself and one other--"' 'Whom? What do you mean? Have you heard of Robert?' she asked excitedly.
'To-morrow is Sunday,' I returned, touching her softly. 'I am going to church in the morning, and I shall not be here until evening; but we shall have time then for a long talk, and you shall tell me everything.' And then, without waiting for an answer, I left the room. It was late indeed. Miss Locke had long returned, and was busying herself over her sister's supper; she held up her finger to me smiling as I passed, and I peeped in.
Kitty was lying on the rug, fast asleep, with the doll in her arms.
'I found them like this when I came in,' whispered Miss Locke; 'she must have been listening to the music and fallen asleep. How late you have stopped with Phoebe! it is nearly eight o'clock!'
'I do not think the time has been wasted,' I answered cheerfully, as I bade her good-night and stepped out into the darkness. Is time ever wasted, I wonder, when we stop in our daily work to give one of these weak ones a cup of cold water? It is not for me to answer; only our recording angel knows how some such little deed of kindness may brighten some dim struggling life that seems over-full of pain.
|
{
"id": "16080"
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|
12
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A MISSED VOCATION
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It was pleasant to wake to bright sunshine the next morning, and to hear the sparrows twittering in the ivy.
It had been my intention to set apart Sunday as much as possible as a day of rest and refreshment. Of course I could not expect always to control the various appeals for my help or to be free from my patients, but by management I hoped to secure the greater part of the day for myself.
I had told Peggy not to expect me at the cottage until the afternoon; everything was in such order that there was no necessity for me to forgo the morning service. My promise to Phoebe Locke would keep me a prisoner for the evening, but I determined that her sister and Kitty should be set free to go to church, so my loss would be their gain.
I thought of Jill as I dressed myself. She had often owned to me that the Sundays at Hyde Park Gate were not to her taste. Visitors thronged the house in the afternoon; Sara discussed her week's amusements with her friends or yawned over a novel; the morning's sermon was followed as a matter of course by a gay luncheon party. 'What does it mean, Ursula?' Jill would say, opening her big black eyes as widely as possible: 'I do not understand. Mr. Erskine has been telling us that we ought to renounce the world and our own wills, and not to follow the multitude to do foolishness, and all the afternoon mother and Sara having been talking about dresses for the fancy-ball. Is there one religion for church and another for home? Do we fold it up and put it away with our prayer-books in the little book-cupboard that father locks so carefully?' finished Jill, with girlish scorn.
Poor Jill! she had a wide, generous nature, with great capabilities, but she was growing up in a chilling atmosphere. Young girls are terribly honest; they dig down to the very root of things; they drag off the swathing cloths from the mummy face of conventionality. What does it mean? they ask. Is there truth anywhere? Endless shams surround them; people listen to sermons, then they shake off the dust of the holy place carefully from the very hem of their garments; their religion, as Jill expressed it, is left beside their prayer-books. Ah! if one could but see clearly, with eyes purged from every remnant of earthliness,--see as the angels do,--the thick fog of unrisen and unprayed prayers clinging to the rafters of every empty church, we might well shudder in the clogging heavy atmosphere.
Jill had not more religion than many other girls, but she wanted to be true; the inconsistency of human nature baffled and perplexed her; she was not more ready to renounce the world than Sara was, but she wished to know the inner meaning of things, and in this I longed to help her. I could not help thinking of her tenderly and pitifully as I walked down the road leading to the little Norman church. I was early, and the building was nearly empty when I entered the porch; but it was quiet and restful to sit there and review the past week, and watch the sunshine lighting up the red brick walls and touching the rood-screen, while a faint purple gleam fell on the chancel pavement.
Two ladies entered the seat before me, and I looked at them a little curiously.
They were both very handsomely dressed, but it was not their fashionable appearance that attracted me. I had caught sight of a most beautiful and striking face belonging to one of them that somehow riveted my attention.
The lady was apparently very young, and had a tall graceful figure, and strange colourless hair that looked as though it ought to have been golden, only the gloss had faded out of it; but it was lovely hair, fine and soft as a baby's.
As she rose she slightly turned round, and our eyes met for a moment; they were large, melancholy eyes, and the face, beautiful as it was, was very worn and thin, and absolutely without colour. I could see her profile plainly all through the service, but the dull impassive expression of the countenance that she had turned upon me gave me a sensation of pain; she looked like a person who had experienced some great trouble or undergone some terrible illness. I could not make up my mind which it could be.
The other lady was much older, and had no claims to beauty. I could see her face plainly, for she looked round once or twice as though she were expecting some one.
She must have been over thirty, and had rather a singular face; it was thin, dark-complexioned, and very sallow; she was a stylish-looking woman, but her appearance did not interest me. To my surprise, just as the service commenced, Mr. Hamilton came in and joined them. So these must be the ladies from Gladwyn, I thought. That beautiful pale girl must be his sister Gladys, and the other one Miss Darrell.
I tried to keep my attention to my own devotions, but every now and then my eyes would stray to the lovely face before me. Mr. Hamilton's behaviour was irreproachable. I could hear his voice following all the responses, and he sang the hymns very heartily.
I think he knew I was behind him, for he handed me a hymn-book, with a slight smile, when I was offering to share mine with a young woman. Miss Darrell gave me a curiously penetrating look when she came out that did not quite please me, but the girl who followed her did not seem to notice my presence. I sat still in my place for a minute, as I did not wish to encounter them in the porch. I had lingered so long that the congregation had quite dispersed when I got out, but, to my surprise, I could see the three walking very slowly down the road. Could they have been waiting for me? I wondered; but I dismissed this idea as absurd.
But I could not forget the face that had so interested me; and when I encountered Uncle Max on his way to the children's service I questioned him at once about the two ladies.
'Yes, you are right, Ursula,' he said, a little absently. 'The one with fair hair was Miss Gladys: her cousin, Miss Darrell, sat by Hamilton.'
'But you never told me how beautiful she was,' I replied, in rather an injured voice. 'She has a perfect face, only it is so worn and unhappy-looking.'
'You must not keep me,' observed Max hurriedly; 'Miss Darrell wants to speak to me before service.' And he rushed off, leaving me standing in the middle of the path rather wondering at his abruptness, for the bell had not commenced.
A little farther on, I came face to face with Miss Darrell; she was walking with Mr. Tudor, and seemed talking to him with much animation.
She bowed slightly, as he took off his hat to me, in a graceful well-bred manner, but her face prepossessed me even less than it had done in the morning. She had keen, dark eyes like Mr. Hamilton's, only they somehow repelled me. I was somewhat quick with my likes and dislikes, as I had proved by the dislike I had taken to Mr. Hamilton. This feeling was wearing off, and I was no longer so strongly prejudiced against him. I might even find Miss Darrell less repelling when I spoke to her. She was evidently a gentlewoman; her movements were quiet and graceful, and she had a good carriage.
I was somewhat surprised on reaching the cottage to find Mr. Hamilton sitting by my patient. He had Janie on his knee, and seemed as though he had been there for some time, but he rose at once when he saw me.
'I was waiting for you, Miss Garston,' he said quietly. 'I wanted to give you some directions about Mrs. Marshall'; and when he had finished, he said, a little abruptly-- 'What made you so long coming out of church this morning? I was waiting to introduce my sister and cousin to you, but you were determined to disappoint me.'
I was a little confused by this.
'Did you recognise me?' I asked, rather tamely.
'No,--not in that smart bonnet,' was the unexpected reply. 'I did not identify the wearer with the village nurse until I heard your voice in the Te Deum: you can hardly disguise your voice, Miss Garston: my cousin Etta pricked up her ears when she heard it.' And then, as I made no answer, he picked up his hat with rather an amused air and wished me good-bye.
I was rather offended at the mention of my bonnet; the little gray wing that relieved its sombre black trimmings could hardly be called smart,--a word I abhorred,--but he probably said it to tease me.
'Ay, the doctor has been telling us you have a voice like a skylark,' observed Elspeth, 'but I have been thinking it must be more like an angel's voice, my bairn, since you mostly use it to sing the Lord's praises, and to cheer the sick folk round you: that is more than a skylark does.'
So he had been praising my voice. What an odd man!
I stayed at the cottage about two hours, and read a little to the children and Elspeth, and then I started for the Lockes'.
Kitty clapped her hands when she heard she was to go to church with her aunt Susan. I found out afterwards the child had always gone alone.
Phoebe was evidently expecting me, for her eyes were fixed on the door as I entered, and the same shadowy smile I had seen once before swept over her wan features when she saw me. She seemed ready and eager to talk, but I adhered to my usual programme. I was rather afraid that our conversation would excite her, so I wanted to quiet her first. I sang a few of my favourite hymns, and then read the evening psalms. She heard me somewhat reluctantly, but when I had finished her face cleared, and without any preamble she commenced her story.
I never remember that recital without pain. It positively wrung my heart to listen to her. I had heard the outline of her sad story from her sister's lips, but it had lacked colour; it had been a simple statement of facts, and no more.
But now Phoebe's passionate words seemed to clothe it with power; the very sight of the ghastly and almost distracted face on the pillow gave a miserable pathos to the story. It was in vain to check excitement while the unhappy creature poured out the history of her wrongs: the old old story, of a credulous woman's heart being trampled upon and tortured by an unworthy lover, was enacted again before me.
'I just worshipped the ground he walked on, and he threw me aside like a broken toy,' she said over and over again. 'And the worst of it is that, villain as he is, I cannot unlove him, though I am that mad with him sometimes that I could almost murder him.'
'Love is strong as death, and jealousy is cruel as the grave,' I muttered, half to myself, but she overheard me.
'Ay, that is just true,' she returned eagerly: 'there are times when I hate Robert and Nancy and would like to haunt them. Did I not tell you, Miss Garston, that hell had begun with me already? I was never a good woman,--never, not even when I was happy and Robert loved me. I was just full of him, and wanted nothing else in heaven and earth; and when the trouble came, and father and mother died, and I lay here like a log,--only a log has not got a living heart in it,--I seemed to go mad with the anger and unhappiness, and I felt "the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched."'
I stooped over and wiped her poor lips and poor head, for she was fearfully exhausted, and then in a perfect passion of pity closed her face between my hands and bade God bless her.
'What do you mean?' she said, staring at me; but her voice trembled. 'Haven't I been telling you how wicked I am? Do you think that is a reason for His blessing me?'
'I think His blessing has always been with you, my poor Phoebe, like the sunlight that you try to shut out from your windows. You hide yourself in your own darkness, and pretend that the all-embracing love is not for you. Well may you call your present existence a tomb; but you must not wrong your Almighty Father. Not He, but you yourself have walled yourself up with your own sinful hands, and then you wonder at the weight that lies upon your heart.'
'Can I forget my trouble when I am not able to move?' she said bitterly. And it was sad to see how her hands beat upon the bedclothes. But I held them in mine. They were icy cold. The action seemed to calm her frenzy.
'You cannot forget,' I returned quietly; 'but all this time, all these weary years, you might have learned to forgive Robert.'
'Nay, I will have nothing to do with forgiving,' was the hard answer.
'And yet you say you love him, Phoebe. Why, the very devils would laugh at such a notion of love.'
'Didn't I say I both loved and hated him?' very fiercely.
'Speak the truth, and say you hate him, and God forgive you your sin. But it is a greater one than Robert has committed against you.'
'How dare you say such things to me, Miss Garston?' trying to free her hands; but still I held them fast. 'You will make me hate you next. I am not a pleasant-tempered woman.'
'If you do, I will promise you forgiveness beforehand. Why, you poor creature, do you think I could ever be hard on you?'
The fierce light in her eyes softened. 'Nay, I did not mean what I said; but you excite me with your talk. How can you know what I feel about these things? You cannot put yourself in my place.'
'The heart knoweth its own bitterness, Phoebe; and it may be that in your place I should fail utterly in patience; but if we will not lie still under His hand, and learn the lesson He would fain teach us, it may be that fresh trials may be sent to humble us.'
'Do you think things could be much worse with me?' becoming excited again; but I stroked her hand, and begged her gently to let me finish my speech.
'Phoebe, as you lie there on your cross, the whole Church throughout the world is praying for you Sunday after Sunday when the prayer goes up for those who are desolate and oppressed. And who so desolate and oppressed as you?'
'True, most true,' she murmured.
'You are cradled in the supplications of the faithful. A thousand hearts are hearing your sorrows, and yet you say impiously that you are on the border-land of hell; but no, you will never go there. There are too many marks of His love upon you. All this suffering has more meaning than that.'
It is impossible to describe the look she gave me; astonishment, incredulity, and something like dawning hope were blended in it; but she remained silent.
'You have missed your vocation, that is true. You were set apart here to do most divine work; but you have failed over it. Still, you may be forgiven. How many prayers you might have prayed for Robert! You might have been an invisible shield between him and temptation. There is so much power in the prayers of unselfish love. This room, which you describe as a tomb, or an antechamber of hell, might have been an inner sanctuary, from which blessings might flow out over the whole neighbourhood. Silent lessons of patience might have been preached here. Your sister's weary hands might have been strengthened. You could have mutually consoled each other; and now--' I paused, for here conscience completed the sentence. I saw a tear steal under her eyelid, and then course slowly down her face.
'I have made Susan miserable, I know that; and she is never impatient with me if I am ever so cross with her. Ah, I deserve my punishment, for I have been a selfish, hateful creature all my life. I do think sometimes that an evil spirit lives in me.'
'There is One who can cast it out; but you must ask Him, Phoebe. Such a few words will do: "Lord help me!" Now we have talked enough, and Susan will be coming back from church. I mean to sing you the evening hymn, and then I must go.' And, almost before I had finished the last line, Phoebe, exhausted with emotion, had sunk into a refreshing sleep, and I crept softly out of the room to watch for Susan's return.
I felt strangely weary as I walked home. It was almost as though I had witnessed a human soul struggling in the grasp of some evil spirit. It was the first time I had ever ministered to mental disease. Never before had I realised what self-will, unchastened by sorrow and untaught by religion, can bring a woman to. Once or twice that evening I had doubted whether the brain were really unhinged; but I had come to the conclusion that it was only excess of morbid excitement.
My way home led me past the vicarage. Just as I was in sight of it, two figures came out of the gate and waited to let me pass. One of them was the churchwarden, Mr. Townsend, and the other was Mr. Hamilton. It was impossible to avoid recognition in the bright moonlight; but I was rather amazed when I heard Mr. Hamilton bid Mr. Townsend good-night, and a moment after he overtook me.
'You are out late to-night, Miss Garston. Do you always mean to play truant from evening service?'
I told him how I had spent my time, but I suppose my voice betrayed inward fatigue, for he said, rather kindly,-- 'This sort of work does not suit you; you are looking quite pale this evening. You must not let your feelings exhaust you. I am sorry for Phoebe myself, but she is a very tiresome patient. Do you think you have made any impression on her?'
He seemed rather astonished when I briefly mentioned the subject of our talk.
'Did she tell you about herself? Come, you have made great progress. Let her get rid of some of the poison that seems to choke her, and then there will be some chance of doing her good. She has taken a great fancy to you, that is evident; and, if you will allow me to say so, I think you are just the person to influence her.'
'It is a very difficult piece of work,' I returned; but he changed the subject so abruptly that I felt convinced that he knew how utterly jaded I was. He told me a humorous anecdote about a child that made me laugh, and when we reached the gate of the cottage he bade me, rather peremptorily, put away all worrying thoughts and to go to bed, which piece of advice I followed as meekly as possible, after first reading a passage out of my favourite _Thomas à Kempis_; but I thought of Phoebe all the time I was reading it: 'The cross, therefore, is always ready, and everywhere waits for thee. Thou canst not escape it wheresoever thou runnest; for wheresoever thou goest, thou carriest thyself with thee and shalt ever find thyself.... If thou bear the cross cheerfully, it will bear thee, and lead thee to the desired end, namely, where there shall be an end of suffering, though here there shall not be. If thou bear it unwillingly, thou makest for thyself a (new) burden, and increasest thy load, and yet, notwithstanding, thou must bear it.'
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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13
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LADY BETTY
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The next evening I was refused admittance to Phoebe's room. Miss Locke met me at the door, looking more depressed than usual, and asked me to follow her into the kitchen, where we found Kitty in the rocking-chair by the hearth, dressing her new doll.
'It is just as she treated the vicar and Mr. Tudor,' she observed disconsolately. 'I don't quite know what ails her to-day; she had a beautiful night, and slept like a baby, and when I took her breakfast to her she put her arms round my neck and asked me to kiss her,--a thing she has not done for a year or more; and she went on for a long time about how bad she had been to me, and wanting me to forgive her and make it up with her.'
'Well?' I demanded, rather impatiently, as Susan wiped her patient eyes and took up her sewing.
'Well, poor lamb! I told her I would forgive her anything and everything if she would only let me go on with my work, for I had Mrs. Druce's mourning to finish; but she would not let me stir for a long time, and cried so bitterly--though she says she never can cry--that I thought of sending for you or Dr. Hamilton. But she cried more when I mentioned you, and said, No, she would not see you; you had left her more miserable than she was before: and she made me promise to send you away if you came this evening, which I am loath to do after all your kindness to her.'
'I have brought her some fresh flowers this evening,' was my reply. 'Do not distress yourself, Miss Locke; we must expect Phoebe to be contrary sometimes.' And the words came to my mind, "And ofttimes it casteth him into the fire, and oft into the water." 'You have discharged your duty, but I am not going just yet. Let me help you with that work. I am very fond of sewing, and that is a nice easy piece. Shall you mind if I sing to you and Kitty a little?'
I need not have asked the question when I saw the fretted look pass from Miss Locke's face.
'It is the greatest pleasure Kitty and I have, next to going to church,' she said humbly. 'Your voice does sound so sweet; it soothes like a lullaby. It is my belief,' speaking under her breath so that the child should not hear her, 'that she is just trying to punish herself by sending you away.'
I thought perhaps this might be the case, for who could understand all the perversities of a diseased mind? But if Phoebe's will was strong for evil, mine was stronger still to overcome her for her own good. I was determined on two things: first, that I would not leave the house without seeing her; and, secondly, that nothing should induce me to stay with her after this reception. She must be disciplined to civility at all costs. Max had been wrong to yield to her sick whims.
I must have sung for a long time, to judge by the amount of work I contrived to do, and if I had sung like a whole nestful of skylarks I could not have pleased my audience more. I was sorry to set Miss Locke's tears flowing, because it hindered her work; tears are such a simple luxury, but poor folk cannot always afford to indulge in them.
I had just commenced that beautiful song, 'Waft her, angels, through the air,' when the impatient thumping of a stick on the floor arrested me; it came from Phoebe's room.
'I will go to her,' I said, waving Miss Locke back and picking up my flowers. 'Do not look so scared: she means those knocks for me.' And I was right in my surmise. I found her lying very quietly, with the traces of tears still on her face; she addressed me quite gently.
'Do not sing any more, please; I cannot bear it; it makes my heart ache too much to-night.'
'Very well,' I returned cheerfully. 'I will just mend your fire, for it is getting low, and put these flowers in water, and then I will bid you good-night.'
'You are vexed with me for being rude,' she said, almost timidly. 'I told Susan to send you away, because I could not bear any more talk. You made me so unhappy yesterday, Miss Garston.'
I was cruel enough to tell her that I was glad to hear it, and I must have looked as though I meant it.
'Oh, don't,' she said, shrinking as though I had dealt her a blow. 'I want you to unsay those words: they pierce me like thorns. Please tell me you did not mean them.'
'How can I know to what you are alluding?' I replied, in rather an unsympathetic tone; but I did not intend to be soft with her to-day: she had treated me badly and must repent her ingratitude. 'I certainly meant every word I said yesterday,' To my great surprise, she burst into tears, and repeated word for word a fragment of a sentence that I had said.
'It haunts me, Miss Garston, and frightens me somehow. I have been saying it over and over in my dreams,--that is what upset me so to-day: "if we will not lie still under His hand,"--yes, you said that, knowing I have never lain still for a moment,--"and if we will not learn the lesson He would fain teach us, it may be that fresh trials may be sent to humble us."'
Pity kept me silent for a moment, but I knew that I must not shirk my work.
'I am sorry if the truth pains you, Phoebe, but it is no less the truth. How am I to look at you and think that God has finished His work?'
She put up both her hands and motioned me away with almost a face of horror, but I took no notice. I arranged the flowers and tended the fire, and then offered her some cooling drink, which she did not refuse, and then I bade her good-night.
'What!' she exclaimed, 'are you going to leave me like that, and not a word to soothe me, after making me so unhappy? Think of the long night I have to go through.'
'Never mind the length of the night, if only you can hear His voice in the darkness. You wanted to send me away, Phoebe; well, and to-morrow I shall not come; I shall stay at home and rest myself. You can send me away, and little harm will happen; but take care you do not send Him away.' And I left the room.
When I told Miss Locke that I was not coming the next evening she looked frightened. 'Has my poor Phoebe offended you so badly, then?' she asked tremulously.
'I am not offended at all,' I replied; 'but Phoebe has need to learn all sorts of painful lessons. I shall have all the warmer welcome on Wednesday, after leaving her to herself a little.' But Miss Locke only shook her head at this.
The next day was so lovely that I promised myself the indulgence of a long country walk; there was a pretty village about two miles from Heathfield that I longed to see again. But my little plan was frustrated, for just as I was starting I heard Tinker bark furiously; a moment afterwards there was a rush and scuffle, followed by a shriek in a girlish treble; in another moment I had seized my umbrella and flown to the door. There was a fight going on between Tinker and a large black retriever, and a little lady in brown was wandering round them, helplessly wringing her hands, and crying, 'Oh, Nap! poor Nap!'
I took her for a child the first moment, she was so very small. 'Do not be frightened, my dear,' I said soothingly, 'I will make Tinker behave himself.' And a well-aimed blow from my umbrella made him draw off growling. In another moment I had him by the collar, and by dint of threats and coaxing contrived to shut him up in the kitchen. He was not a quarrelsome dog generally, but, as I heard afterwards, Nap was an old antagonist; they had once fallen out about Peter, and had never been friends since.
I found the little brown girl sitting in the porch with her arms round the retriever's neck; she was kissing his black face, and begging him to forget the insult he had received from that horrid Barton dog.
'Poor old Tinker is not horrid at all, I assure you,' I said, laughing; 'he is a dear fellow, and I am already very fond of him.'
'But he nearly killed Nap,' she returned, with a little frown; 'he is worse than a savage, for he has no notion of hospitality. Nap and I came to call,' rising with an air of great dignity. 'I suppose you are Miss Garston. I am Lady Betty.'
I had never heard of such a person in Heathfield; but of course Uncle Max would enlighten me. As I looked at her more closely I saw my mistake in thinking she was a child; little brown thing as she was, she was fully grown up, and, though not in the least pretty, had a bright piquant face, a _nest retroussé_, and a pair of mischievous eyes.
She was dressed rather extravagantly in a brown velvet walking-dress, with an absurd little hat, that would have fitted a child, on the top of her dark wavy hair; she only wanted a touch of red about her to look like a magnified robin-redbreast.
'Well,' she said impatiently, as I hesitated a moment in my surprise, 'I have told you we have come for a call, Nap and I; but if you are going out--' 'Oh, that is not the least consequence,' I returned, waking up to a sense of my duty. 'I am very pleased to see you and Nap; but you must not stop any longer in this cold porch; the wind is rather cutting. There is a nice fire in my parlour.' And I led the way in.
I was rather puzzled about Nap, for I seemed to recognise his sleek head and mild brown eyes; and yet where could I have seen him? He trotted in contentedly after his mistress, and stretched himself out on the rug Tinker's fashion; but Lady Betty, instead of seating herself, began to walk round the room and inspect my books and china, making remarks upon everything in a brisk voice, and questioning me in rather an inquisitive manner about sundry things that attracted her notice; but, to my great surprise and relief, she passed Charlie's picture without remark or comment--only I saw her glancing at it now and then from under her long lashes. This mystified me a little; but I thought her whole behaviour a little peculiar. I had never before seen callers on their first visit perambulating the room like polar bears, or throwing out curious feelers everywhere. As a rule, they sat up stiffly enough and discussed the weather.
Lady Betty was evidently a character; most likely she prided herself on being unlike other people. I was just beginning to wish that she would sit down and let me question her in my turn, when she suddenly put up her eye-glasses and burst into a most musical little laugh.
'Oh, do come here, Miss Garston; this is too amusing! There goes her majesty Gladys of Gladwyn, accompanied by her prime minister. Don't they look as though they were walking in the Row? --heads up--everything in perfect trim! They are coming to call--yes! --no! --They are going to the Cockaignes first. What an escape! my dear creature, if they come here I shall fly to Mrs. Barton. The prime minister's airs will be too much for my gravity.'
I gave her a very divided attention, for I was watching Miss Hamilton and her companion with much interest. I could see that Miss Darrell was chatting volubly; but Miss Hamilton's face looked as grave and impassive as it had looked on Sunday. When they had passed out of sight I turned to Lady Betty rather eagerly; she had dropped her eye-glasses, but an amused smile still played round her lips. ' _La belle cousine_ is improving the occasion as usual. Poor Gladys, how bored she looks! but there is no escape for her this afternoon, for the prime minister has her in tow. I wonder from what text she is preaching? Ezekiel's dry bones, I should think, from her majesty's face.'
'Do you know the Hamiltons of Gladwyn very intimately?' I asked innocently; but I grew rather out of patience when Lady Betty first lifted her eye-glass and stared at me, with the air of a non-comprehending kitten, and then buried her face in a very fluffy little muff in a fit of uncontrolled merriment.
I was provoked by this, and determined not to say a word. So presently she came out of her muff and asked me, with mirthful eyes, for whom I took her.
'You are Lady Betty, I understood,' was my stiff response.
'Yes, of course; every one calls me that, except the vicar, who will address me as Miss Elizabeth. I never will answer to that name; I hate it so. The servants up at Gladwyn never dare to use it. I would get Etta to dismiss them if they did. Is it not a shame that people should not have a voice in the matter of their name,--that helpless infants should be abandoned to the tender mercies of some old fogey of a sponsor? Miss Garston, if I were ever to hear you address me by that name it would be the death-warrant to our friendship.'
'Let me know who you really are first, and then I will promise not to offend your peculiar prejudice.'
'Dear me!' she answered pettishly, 'you talk just like Giles. He often laughs at me and makes himself very unpleasant. But then, as I often tell him, philanthropists are not pleasant people with whom to live; a man with a hobby is always odious. Well, Miss Garston, if you will be so prying, my name is Elizabeth Grant Hamilton; only from a baby I have been called Lady Betty.'
'I shall remember,' I replied quietly, for really the little thing seemed quite ruffled. This was evidently more than a whim on her part. 'It would have seemed to me a liberty to use a family pet name. But of course if you wish me to do so--' 'I do wish it,' rather peremptorily. 'That is partly why Mr. Cunliffe and I are not good friends,--that, and other reasons.'
'Oh, I am sorry you do not like Uncle Max,' I said, rather impulsively; but she drew herself up after the manner of an aggrieved pigeon. She was rather like a bright-eyed bird, with her fluffy hair and quick movements.
'Oh, I like him well enough, but I do not understand him. Men are not easy to understand. He is quiet, but he is disappointing. We must not expect perfection in this world,' finished the little lady sententiously.
'I have never met any one half as good as Uncle Max,' was my warm retort. 'He is the most unselfish of men.'
'Unselfish men make mistakes sometimes,' she returned drily. 'Giles and he are great friends. He is up at Gladwyn a great deal; so is Mr. Tudor. Mr. Tudor is not a finished character, but he has good points, and one can tolerate him. There, how vexing, we were just beginning to talk comfortably, and I see the shadow of her majesty's gown at the gate. Come, Nap, we must fly to Mrs. Barton's for refuge. _Au revoir_, Miss Garston.' And, kissing her little gloved hand, this strangest of Lady Betties vanished, followed by the obedient Nap.
My pulses quickened a little at the prospect of seeing the beautiful face of Gladys Hamilton in my little room; but it was not she who entered first, but Miss Darrell, whose sharp incisive glance had taken in every detail of my surroundings before her faultlessly-gloved hand had released mine; and even when I turned to greet Miss Hamilton, her peculiar and somewhat toneless voice claimed my attention.
'How very fortunate,' she began, seating herself with elaborate caution with her back to the light. 'We hardly hoped to find you at home, Miss Garston. My cousin Giles informed us how much engaged you were. We have been so interested in what Mr. Cunliffe told us about it. It is such a romantic scheme, and, as I am a very romantic person, you may be sure of my sympathy. Gladys, dear, is this not a charming room? Positively you have so altered and beautified it that I can hardly believe it is the same room. I told a friend of ours, Mrs. Saunders, that it would never suit her, as it was such a shabby little place.'
'It is very nice,' returned Miss Hamilton quietly. 'I hope,' fixing her large, beautiful eyes on me, 'that you are comfortable here? We thought perhaps you might be a little dull.'
'I have no time to be dull,' I returned, smiling, but Miss Darrell interrupted me.
'No, of course not; busy people are never dull. I told you so, Gladys, as we walked up the road. Depend upon it, I said, Miss Garston will hardly have a minute to give to our idle chatter. She will be wanting to get to her sick people, and wish us at Hanover. Still, as my cousin Giles said, we must do the right thing and call, though I am sure you are not a conventional person; neither am I. Oh, we are quite kindred souls here.'
I tried to receive this speech in good part, but I certainly protested inwardly against the notion that Miss Darrell and I would ever be kindred souls. I felt an instinctive repugnance to her voice; its want of tone jarred on me; and all the time she talked, her hard, bright eyes seemed to dart restlessly from Miss Hamilton to me. I felt sure that nothing could escape their scrutiny; but now and then, when one looked at her in return, she seemed to veil them most curiously under the long curling lashes.
She was rather an elegant-looking woman, but her face was decidedly plain. She had thin lips and rather a square jaw, and her sallow complexion lacked colour. One could not guess her age exactly, but she might have been three-or four-and-thirty. I heard her spoken of afterwards as a very interesting-looking person; certainly her figure was fine, and she knew how to dress herself,--a very useful art when women have no claim to beauty.
Miss Darrell's voluble tongue seemed to touch on every subject. Miss Hamilton sat perfectly silent, and I had not a chance of addressing her. Once, when I looked at her, I could see her eyes were fixed on my darling's picture. She was gazing at it with an air of absorbed melancholy: her lips were firmly closed, and her hands lay folded in her lap.
'That is the picture of my twin-brother,' I said softly, to arouse her.
To my surprise, she turned paler than ever, and her lips quivered.
'Your twin brother, yes; and you have lost him?' But here Miss Darrell chimed in again: 'How very interesting! What a blessing photography is, to be sure? Do you take well, Miss Garston? They make me a perfect fright. I tell my cousins that nothing on earth will induce me to try another sitting. Why should I endure such a martyrdom, if it be not to give pleasure to my friends?'
To my surprise, Miss Hamilton's voice interrupted her: it was a little like her step-brother's voice, and had a slight hesitation that was not in the least unpleasant. She spoke rather slowly: at least it seemed so by comparison with Miss Darrell's quick sentences.
'Etta, we have not done what Giles told us. We hope you will come and dine with us to-morrow. Miss Garston, without any ceremony.'
'Dear me, how careless of me!' broke in Miss Darrell, but her forehead contracted a little, as though her cousin's speech annoyed her. 'Giles gave the message to me, but we were talking so fast that I quite forgot it. My cousin will have it that you are dull, and our society may cheer you up. I do not hold with Giles. I think you are far too superior a person to be afraid of a little solitude; strong-minded people like you are generally fond of their own society; but all the same I hope you do not mean to be quite a recluse.'
'We dine at seven, but I hope you will come as much earlier as you like,' interposed Miss Hamilton. 'No one will be with us but Mr. Tudor.'
'You forget Mr. Cunliffe, Gladys,' observed Miss Darrell, in rather a sharp voice. 'I am sure I do not know what the poor man has done to offend you; but ever since last summer--' But here Miss Hamilton rose with a gesture that was almost queenly, and her impassive face looked graver than ever.
'I did not know you had invited Mr. Cunliffe, Etta, or I should certainly have mentioned him. Good-bye, Miss Garston: we shall look for you soon after six.'
There was something wistful in her expression; it seemed as though she wanted me to come, and yet I was a complete stranger to her. I felt very reluctant to dine at Gladwyn, but that look overruled me.
'I will try to come early,' was my answer, and then I drew back to let them pass.
Miss Darrell bade me good-bye a little stiffly; something had evidently put her out. As they went down the narrow garden path I could see she was speaking to Miss Hamilton rather angrily, but Miss Hamilton seemed to take no notice.
What did it all mean? I wondered; and then I suddenly bethought myself of my other visitor. I had wholly forgotten her existence in my interest in her beautiful sister. What could have become of Lady Betty?
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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14
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LADY BETTY LEAVES HER MUFF
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This question was speedily answered.
The gate had scarcely closed behind my visitors when I heard a gay little laugh behind me, and Lady Betty tripped across the passage and took possession of the easy-chair in the friendliest way.
'Now we can have a chat and be cosy all by ourselves,' she said, with childish glee; and then she stopped and looked at me, and her rosy little mouth began to pout, and a sort of baby frown came to her forehead.
'You don't seem pleased to see me again. Shall I go away? Are you busy, or tired, or is there anything the matter?' asked Lady Betty, in an extremely fractious voice.
'There is nothing the matter, and I am delighted to see you, and'--with a sudden inspiration--'if you will be good enough to stay and have tea with me I will ask Mrs. Barton to send in one of her excellent tea-cakes.'
This was evidently what Lady Betty wanted, for she nodded and took off her hat, and began to unbutton her long tan-coloured gloves in a cool, business-like way that amused me. I ran across to the kitchen, and gave Mrs. Barton a _carte blanche_ for a sumptuous tea, and when I returned I found Lady Betty quite divested of her walking-apparel, and patting her dark fluffy hair to reduce it to some degree of smoothness. She had a pretty little head, and it was covered by a mass of short curly hair that nothing would reduce to order.
'This is just what I like,' she said promptly. 'When Giles told us about you, and I made up my mind to call, I hoped you would ask me to stay. I do dislike stiffness and conventionality excessively. I hope you mean to be friends with us, Miss Garston, for I have taken rather a fancy to you, in spite of your grave looks. Dear me! do you always look so grave?'
'Oh no,' I returned, laughing.
'That is right,' with an approving nod; 'you look ever so much nicer and younger when you smile. Well, what did the prime minister say? Was she very gushing and sympathetic? Did she patronise you in a ladylike way, and pat you on the head metaphorically, until you felt ready to box her ears? Ah! I know _la belle cousine's_ little ways.'
This was so exact a description of my conversation with Miss Darrell that I laughed in a rather guilty fashion. Lady Betty clapped her hands delightfully.
'Oh, I have found you out. You are not a bit solemn, really, only you put on the airs of a sister of mercy. So you don't like Etta; you need not be afraid of telling me so; she is the greatest humbug in the world, only Giles is so foolish as to believe in her. I call her a humbug because she pretends to be what she is not; she is really a most prosaic sort of person, and she wants to make people believe that she is a soft romantic body.'
'You are not very charitable in your estimate of your cousin, Lady Betty,' 'Then she should not lead Gladys such a life. Poor dear majesty, to be ruled by her prime minister! I should like to see Etta try to dictate to me. Why, I should laugh in her face. She would not attempt it again. I can't think how it is,' looking a little grave, 'that she has Gladys so completely under her thumb. Gladys is too proud to own that she is afraid of her, but all the same she never dares to act in opposition to Etta.'
Lady Betty's confidence was rather embarrassing, but I hardly knew how to check it. I began to think the household at Gladwyn must be a very queer one. Uncle Max had already hinted at a want of harmony between Mr. Hamilton and his step-sisters, and Miss Darrell seemed hardly a favourite with him, although he was too kind-hearted to say so openly.
'Has your cousin lived long with you?' I ventured to ask.
'Oh yes; ever since Gladys and I were little things; before mamma died. Auntie lived with us too: poor auntie, we were very fond of her, but she was a sad invalid; she died about three years ago. Etta has managed everything ever since.'
'Do you mean that Miss Darrell is housekeeper? I should have thought that would have been your sister's place.'
'Oh, Gladys is called the mistress of her house, but none of the servants go to her for orders. If she gives any, Etta is sure to countermand them,' 'It is partly Gladys's fault,' went on Lady Betty, in her frank outspoken way. 'She tried for a little while to manage things; but either she was a terribly bad housekeeper, or Etta undermined her influence in the house; everything went wrong, and Giles got so angry,--men do, you know, when the dear creatures' comforts are invaded: so there was a great fuss, and Gladys gave it up; and now the prime minister manages the finances, and gives out stores, and, though I hate to say it, things never went more smoothly than they do now. Giles is scarcely ever vexed.'
I am ashamed to say how much I was interested in Lady Betty's childish talk, and yet I knew it was wrong not to check her. What would Miss Hamilton say if she were to hear of our conversation? Jill was rather a reckless talker, but she was nothing compared with this daring little creature. Lady Betty told me afterwards, when we were better acquainted, that it had amused her so to see how widely I could open my eyes when I was surprised. I believe she did it out of pure mischief.
Our talk was happily interrupted by the appearance of Mrs. Barton and the tea-tray, which at once turned Lady Betty's thoughts into a new channel.
There was so much to do. First she must help to arrange the table, and, as no one else could cut such thin bread-and-butter, she must try her hand at that. Then Nap must have his tea before we touched ours; and when at last we did sit down she was praising the cake, and jumping up for the kettle, and waiting upon me 'because I was a dear good thing, and waited on poor people,' and coaxing me to take this or that as though I were her guest, and every now and then she paused to say 'how nice and cosy it was,' and how she was enjoying herself, and how glad she felt to miss that stupid dinner at Gladwyn, where no one talked but Giles and Etta, and Gladys sat as though she were half asleep, until she, Lady Betty, felt inclined to pinch them all.
We were approaching the dangerous subject again, but I warded it off by asking how she and her sister employed their time.
She made a little face at me, as though the question bothered her. 'Oh, I do things, and Gladys--does things,' rather lucidly.
'Well, but what things, may I ask?'
'Why do you want to know?' was the unexpected retort. 'I don't question you, do I? Giles says women are dreadfully curious.'
'I think you are dreadfully mysterious; but, as you are evidently ashamed of your occupations, I will withdraw my question.'
'I do believe you are cross, Miss Garston: you are not a saint, after all, though Giles says you sing like a cherub: I don't know where he ever heard one, but that is his affair. Well, as you choose to get pettish over it, I will be amiable, and tell you what we do. Etta says we waste our time dreadfully, but as it is our time and not hers, it is none of her business.'
I thought it prudent to remain silent, so she wrinkled her brows and looked perplexed.
'Gladys--let me see what Gladys does: well, she used to teach in the schools, but she does not teach now; she says the infants make her head ache; that is why she has dropped the Sunday-school. Now Etta has her class. Then there was the mothers' meeting; well, I never knew why she gave that up,--I wonder if she knows herself,--but Etta has got it. And she has left off singing at the penny readings and village entertainments; Etta would have replaced her there, only she has no voice. I think she works a little for the poor people at the East End of London, but she does it in her own room, because Etta laughs at her and calls her 'Madam Charity.' Gladys hates that. She takes long walks, and sketches a little, and reads a good deal; and--there, that is all I know of her majesty's doings.'
Poor Miss Hamilton! it certainly did not sound much of a life.
'And about yourself, Lady Betty?'
'Oh, Lady Betty is here, there, and everywhere,' mimicking me in a droll way. 'Lady Betty walks a little, talks a little, plays a little, and dances when she gets a chance. At present, lawn-tennis is a great object in her life; last winter, swimming in Brill's bath and riding from Hove to Kemp Town or across the Brighton Downs were her hobbies. In the summer a gardening craze seized her, and just now she is in an idle mood. What does it matter? a short life and a merry one,--eh, Miss Garston?'
I would not expostulate with this civilised little heathen, for she was evidently bent on provoking a lecture, and I determined to disappoint her. We had sat so long over our tea that the room was quite dark, and I rose to kindle the lamp. Lady Betty, as usual, was anxious to assist me, and went to the window to lower the blind. The next moment I heard an exclamation of annoyance, and as she came back to the table her little brown face was all aglow with some suppressed irritation.
'What is the matter, Lady Betty?' I asked, in some surprise.
'It is that provoking Etta again,' she began. 'She has guessed where I am, and has sent for me, the meddlesome old--' But here a tap at our room door stopped her outburst.
As Lady Betty made no response, I said, 'Come in,' and immediately a respectable-looking woman appeared in the doorway.
She looked like a superior lady's-maid, and had a plain face much marked by the smallpox, and rather dull light-coloured eyes.
'Well, Leah,' demanded Lady Betty, rather sulkily, 'what is your business with Miss Garston?'
'My business is with you, Lady Betty,' returned the woman good-humouredly. 'Master came in just now and asked where you were; I think he told Miss Darrell that it was too late for you to be out walking: so Miss Darrell said she believed you were at the White Cottage, for she saw your muff lying on Miss Garston's table; so she told me to step up here, as it was too dark for you to walk alone, and I was to tell you that they would be waiting dinner.'
'It is just like her interference,' muttered Lady Betty. 'But I suppose there would be a pretty fuss if I let the dinner spoil. Help me on with my jacket, Leah; as you have come when no one wanted you, you had better make yourself useful.'
She spoke with the peremptoriness of a spoiled child, but the woman smiled pleasantly and did as she was bid. She seemed a civil sort of person, evidently an old family servant. Something had struck me in her speech. Miss Darrell had seen Lady Betty's muff, and knew of her presence in the cottage, and yet she had made no remark on the subject; this seemed strange, but would she not wonder still more at my silence?
'Lady Betty,' I said hastily, as this occurred to me, 'your cousin will think it odd that I never spoke of you this afternoon; but you ran out of the room so quickly, and then I forgot all about it.'
'Oh, Etta will know I was only playing at hide-and-seek. Most likely she will think I bound you to secrecy. What a goose I was to leave my muff behind me,--the very one Etta gave me, too! why, she would see a pin; nothing escapes her: does it, Leah?'
'Not much, Lady Betty: she has fine eyes for dust, I tell her. The new housemaid had better be careful with her room. Now, ma'am, if you are ready?'
'Good-bye, Miss Garston; we shall meet to-morrow,' returned Lady Betty, standing on tiptoe to kiss me, and as they went out I heard her say in quite a friendly manner to Leah, as though she had already forgotten her grievance,-- 'Is not Miss Garston nice, Leah? She has got such a kind face.' But I did not hear Leah's reply.
I had not seen the last of my visitors, for about an hour afterwards, as I was finishing a long chatty letter to Jill, there was the sharp click of the gate again, and Uncle Max came in.
'Are you busy, Ursula?' he said apologetically, as I looked up in some surprise. 'I only called in as I was passing. I am going on to the Myers's: old Mr. Myers is ill and wants to see me.' But for all that Max drew his accustomed chair to the fire, and looked at the blazing pine-knot a little dreamily.
'You keep good fires,' was his next remark. 'It is very cold to-night: there is a touch of frost in the air; Tudor was saying so just now. So you have had the ladies from Gladwyn here this afternoon?'
'How do you know that?' I asked, in a sharp pouncing voice, for I was keeping that bit of news for a tidbit.
'Oh, I met them,' he returned absently, 'and they told me that you were to dine with them to-morrow. I call that nice and friendly, asking you without ceremony. What time shall you be ready, Ursula? for of course I shall not let you go alone the first time.'
I was glad to hear this, for, though I was not a shy person, my first visit to Gladwyn would be a little formidable; so I told him briefly that I would be ready by half-past six, as they wished me to go early, and it would never do to be formal on my side. And then I gave him an account of Lady Betty's visit, but it did not seem to interest him much: in fact, I do not believe that he listened very attentively.
'She is an odd little being,' he said, rather absently, 'and prides herself on being as unconventional as possible. They have spoiled her among them, Hamilton especially, but her droll ways amuse him. She has sulked with me lately because I will not give in to her absurd fad about Lady Betty. I tell her that she ought not to be ashamed of her baptismal name; the angels will call her by it one day.'
'She is very amusing. I think I shall like her, Max; but Miss Darrell does not please me. She is far too gushing and talkative for my taste; she patronised and repressed me in the same breath. If there is anything I dislike, it is to be patted on the head by a stranger.'
'Miss Hamilton did not pat you on the head, I suppose.'
'Miss Hamilton! Oh dear, no; she is of another calibre. I have quite fallen in love with her: her face is perfect, only rather too pale, and her manners are so gentle, and yet she has plenty of dignity; she reminds me of Clytie, only her expression is not so contented and restful: she looks far too melancholy for a girl of her age.'
'Pshaw!' he said, rather impatiently, but I noticed he looked uncomfortable. 'What can have put such ideas in your head? --you have only seen her twice: you could not expect her to smile in church.'
Max seemed so thoroughly put out by my remark that I thought it better to qualify my speech. 'Most likely Miss Darrell had been nagging at her.'
His face cleared up directly. 'Depend upon it, that was the reason she looked so grave,' he said, with an air of relief. 'Miss Darrell can say ill-tempered things sometimes. Miss Hamilton is never as lively as Miss Elizabeth; she is always quiet and thoughtful; some girls are like that, they are not sparkling and frothy.'
I let him think that I accepted this statement as gospel, but in my heart I thought I had never seen a sadder face than that of Gladys Hamilton; to me it looked absolutely joyless, as though some strange blight had fallen on her youth. I kept these thoughts to myself, like a wise woman, and when Max looked at me rather searchingly, as though he expected a verbal assent, I said, 'Yes, you are right, some girls are like that,' and left him to glean my meaning out of this parrot-like sentence.
I could make nothing of Max this evening: he seemed restless and ill at ease; now and then he fell into a brown study and roused himself with difficulty. I was almost glad when he took his leave at last, for I had a feeling somehow--and a curious feeling it was--that we were talking at cross-purposes, and that our speeches seemed to be lost hopelessly in a mental fog; the cipher to our meaning seemed missing.
But he bade me good-night as affectionately as though I had done him a world of good: and when he had gone I sat down to my piano and sang all my old favourite songs, until the lateness of the hour warned me to extinguish my lamp and retire to bed.
I was just sinking into a sweet sleep when I heard Nathaniel's voice bidding some one good-night, and in another moment I could hear firm quick footsteps down the gravel walk, followed by Nap's joyous bark.
Mr. Hamilton had been in the house all the time I had been amusing myself. I do not know why the idea annoyed me so. 'How I wish he would keep away sometimes!' I thought fretfully. 'He will think I am practising for to-morrow: I will not sing if they press me to do so.' And with this ill-natured resolve I fell asleep.
My dinner-engagement obliged me to go to Phoebe quite early in the afternoon. Miss Locke looked surprised as she opened the door, but she greeted me with a pleased smile.
'Phoebe will hardly be looking for you yet,' she said, leading the way into the kitchen in the evident expectation of a chat; 'she did finely yesterday in spite of her missing you; when I went in to her in the morning she quite took my breath away by asking if there were not an easier chair in the house for you to use. " 'Deed and there is, Phoebe, woman," said I, quite pleased, for the poor thing is far too uncomfortable herself to look after other people's comforts, and it was such a new thing to hear her speak like that: so I fetched father's big elbow-chair with a cushion or two and his little wooden footstool, and there it stands ready for you this afternoon.'
'That was very thoughtful of Phoebe,' was my reply.
'Well, now, I thought you would be pleased, though it is only a trifle. But that is not all. Widow Drayton was sitting with me last afternoon, when all at once she puts up her finger and says, "Hark! Is not that your Kitty's voice?" And so I stole out into the passage to listen. And there, to be sure, was Kitty singing most beautifully some of the hymns you sang to Phoebe; and if she could not make out all the words she just went on with the tune, like a little bird, and Phoebe lay and listened to her, and all the time--as I could see through the crack of the door--her eyes were fixed on the picture you gave her, and I said to myself, "Phoebe, woman, this is as it should be. You may yet learn wisdom out of the lips of babes and sucklings."'
'I am very glad to hear all this, Miss Locke,' I returned cheerfully. 'Kitty will be able to take my place sometimes. She will be a valuable little ally. Now, as my time is limited, I will go to Phoebe.'
I was much struck by the changed expression on Phoebe's face as soon as I had entered the room. She certainly looked very ill, and when I questioned her avowed she had suffered a good deal of pain in the night; but the wild hard look had left her eyes. There was intense depression, but that was all.
She evidently enjoyed the singing as much as ever: and I took care to sing my best. When I had finished I produced a story that I thought suitable, and began to read to her. She listened for about half an hour before she showed a symptom of weariness. At the first sign I stopped.
'Will you do something to please me in return?' I asked, when she had thanked me very civilly. 'I want you to go on with this book by yourself now. I know what you are going to say--that you never read--that it makes your head ache and tires you. But, if you care to please me, you will waive all these objections, and we can talk over the story to-morrow.' Then I told her about my invitation for this evening, and about the beautiful Miss Hamilton, whose sweet face had interested me. And when we had chatted quite comfortably for a little while I rose to take my leave.
Of course she could not let me go without one sharp little word.
'You have been kinder to me to-day,' she said, pausing slightly. 'I suppose that is because I let you take your own way with me.'
'Every one likes his own way,' I said lightly. 'If I have been kinder to you, as you say, possibly it is because you have deserved kindness more.' And I smiled at her and patted the thin hand, as though she were a child, and so 'went on my way rejoicing,' as they say in the good old Book.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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15
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UP AT GLADWYN
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Uncle Max had never been famous for punctuality. He was slightly Bohemian in his habits, and rather given to desultory bachelor ways; but his domestic timekeeper, Mrs. Drabble, ruled him most despotically in the matter of meals, and it was amusing to see how she kept him and Mr. Tudor in order: neither of them ventured to keep the dinner waiting, for fear of the housekeeper's black looks; such an offence they knew would be expiated by cold fish and burnt-up steaks. Uncle Max might invite the bishop to dine, but if his lordship chose to be late Mrs. Drabble would take no pains to keep her dinner hot.
'If gentlemen like to shilly-shally with their food, they must take things as they find them,' she would say; and if her master ever ventured to remonstrate with her, she took care that he should suffer for it for a week.
'We must humour Mother Drabble,' Mr. Tudor would say good-humouredly. 'Every one has a crotchet, and, after all, she is a worthy little woman, and makes us very comfortable. I never knew what good cooking meant until I came to the vicarage.' And indeed Mrs. Drabble's custards and flaky crust were famed in the village. Miss Darrell had once begged very humbly that her cook Parker might take a lesson from her, but Mrs. Drabble refused point-blank.
'There were those who liked to teach others, and plenty of them, but she was one who minded her own business and kept her own recipes. If Miss Darrell wanted a custard made she was willing to do it for her and welcome, but she wanted no gossiping prying cooks about her kitchen.'
As I knew Max's peculiarity, I was somewhat surprised when, long before the appointed time, Mrs. Barton came up and told me that Mr. Cunliffe was in the parlour. I had commenced my toilet in rather a leisurely fashion, but now I made haste to join him, and ran downstairs as quickly as possible, carrying my fur-lined cloak over my arm.
'You look very nice, my dear,' he said, in quite fatherly fashion. 'Have I ever seen that gown before?'
The gown in point had been given to me by Lesbia, and had been made in Paris: it was one of those thin black materials that make up into a charming demi-toilette, and was a favourite gown with me.
I always remember the speech Lesbia made as she showed it to me. 'When you put on this gown, Ursula, you must think of the poor little woman who hoped to have been your sister.' This was one of the pretty little speeches that she often made. Poor dear Lesbia! she always did things so gracefully. In Charlie's lifetime I had thought her cold and frivolous, for she had not then folded up her butterfly wings; but even then she was always doing kind little things.
It was a dark night, neither moon nor stars to be seen, and after we had passed the church the darkness seemed to envelop us, and I could barely distinguish the path. Max seemed quite oblivious of this fact, for he would persist in pointing out invisible objects of interest. I was told of the wide stretch of country that lay on the right, and how freshly the soft breezes blew over the downs.
'There is the asylum, Ursula,' he observed cheerfully, waving his hand towards the black outline. 'Now we are passing Colonel Maberley's house, and here is Gladwyn. I wish you could have seen it by daylight.'
I wished so too, for on entering the shrubbery the darkness seemed to swallow us up bodily, and the heavy oak door might have belonged to a prison. The sharp clang of the bell made me shiver, and Dante's lines came into my mind rather inopportunely, 'All ye who enter here, leave hope behind.' But as soon as the door opened the scene was changed like magic; the long hall was deliciously warm and light: it looked almost like a corridor, with its dark marble figures holding sconces, and small carved tables between them.
'I will wait for you here, Ursula,' whispered Uncle Max; and I went off in charge of the same maid that I had seen before. Lady Betty had called her Leah, and as I followed her upstairs I thought of that tender-eyed Leah who had been an unloved wife.
Leah was very civil, but I thought her manner bordered on familiarity: perhaps she had lived long in the family, and was treated more as a friend than a servant. She was an exceedingly plain young woman, and her light eyes had a curious lack of expression in them, and yet, like Miss Darrell's, they seemed able to see everything.
Seeing me glance round the room,--it was a large, handsomely furnished bedroom, with a small dressing-room attached to it,--she said, 'This is Miss Darrell's room. Mrs. Darrell used to occupy it, and Miss Etta slept in the dressing-room, but ever since her mother's death she has had both rooms.'
'Indeed,' was my brief reply: but I could not help thinking that Miss Darrell had very pleasant and roomy quarters. There were evidences of luxury everywhere, from the bevelled glass of the walnut-wood wardrobe to the silver-mounted dressing-case and ivory brushes on the toilet-table. A pale embroidered tea-gown lay across the couch, and a book that looked very much like a French novel was thrown beside it. Miss Darrell was evidently a Sybarite in her tastes.
Uncle Max was waiting for me at the foot of the stairs, and took me into the drawing-room at once.
To our surprise, we found Miss Hamilton there alone. The room was only dimly lighted, and she was sitting in a large carved chair beside the fire with an open book in her lap.
I wonder if Max noticed how like a picture she looked. She was dressed very simply in a soft creamy cashmere, and her fair hair was piled up on her head in regal fashion: the smooth plaits seemed to crown her; a little knot of red berries that had been carelessly fastened against her throat was the only colour about her; but she looked more like Clytie than ever, and again I told myself that I had never seen a sweeter face.
She greeted me with gentle warmth, but she hardly looked at Max; her white lids dropped over her eyes whenever he addressed her, and when she answered him she seemed to speak in a more measured voice than usual. Max too appeared extremely nervous; instead of sitting down, he stood upon the bear-skin rug and fidgeted with some tiny Chinese ornaments on the mantelpiece. Neither of them appeared at ease: was it possible that they were not friends?
'You are not often to be found in solitude, Miss Hamilton,' observed Max; and it struck me his voice was a little peculiar. 'I do not think I have ever seen you sitting alone in this room before.'
'No,' she answered quickly, and then she went on in rather a hesitating manner: 'Etta and Lady Betty have been shopping in Brighton, and they came back by a late train, and now Etta is shut up with Giles in his study. Some letters that came by this morning's post had to be answered.'
'Miss Darrell is Hamilton's secretary, is she not?'
'She writes a good many of his letters. Giles is rather idle about correspondence, and she helps him with his business and accounts. Etta is an extremely busy person.'
'Miss Hamilton used to be busy too,' returned Max quietly. 'I always considered you an example to our ladies. I lost one of my best workers when I lost you.'
A painful colour came into Miss Hamilton's face.
'Oh no,' she protested, rather feebly. 'Etta is far cleverer than I at parish work. Teaching does not make her head ache.'
'Yours used not to ache last summer,' persisted Uncle Max, but she did not seem to hear him. She had turned to me, and there was almost an appealing look in her beautiful eyes, as though she were begging me to talk.
'Oh, do you know, Miss Garston,' she said nervously, 'that Giles was very nearly sending for you last night? He was with Mrs. Blagrove's little girl until five this morning; the poor little creature died at half-past four, and he told us that he thought half a dozen times of sending for you.'
'I wish he had done so. I should have been so glad to help.'
'Yes, he knew that, but he said it would have been such a shame rousing you out of your warm bed; and he had not the heart to do it. So he stopped on himself; there was really nothing to be done, but the parents were in such a miserable state that he did not like to leave them. He was so tired this afternoon that he dropped asleep instead of writing his letters: that is why Etta has to do them.'
'Who is talking about Etta?' observed Miss Darrell, coming in at that moment, with a quick rustle of her silk skirt, looking as well-dressed, self-possessed, and full of assurance as ever. 'Why are you good people sitting in the dark? Thornton would have lighted the candles if you had rung, Gladys; but I suppose you forgot, and were dreaming over the fire as usual. Miss Garston, I suppose I ought to apologise for being late, but we are such busy people here; every moment is of value; and though Gladys asked you to come early, I never thought you would be so good as to do so. Friendly people are scarce, are they not, Mr. Cunliffe? By the bye,' holding up a taper finger loaded with sparkling rings, 'I have a scolding in store for you. Why did you not examine my class as usual last Sunday? --the children tell me you never came near them.'
'I had so little time that I asked Tudor to take the classes for me,' he returned quickly, but he was looking at Miss Hamilton as he spoke. 'I am always sure of the children in that class: they have been so thoroughly well taught that there is very little need for me to interfere.'
'It would encourage their teachers if you were to do so,' returned Miss Darrell, smiling graciously. She evidently appropriated the praise to herself, but I am sure Uncle Max was not thinking of her when he spoke. Just then Lady Betty came into the room, followed by Mr. Tudor.
Lady Betty looked almost pretty to-night. She wore a dark ruby velveteen that exactly suited her brown skin; her fluffy hair was tolerably smooth, and she had a bright colour. She came and sat down beside me at once.
'Oh, I am so vexed that we are so late! but it was all Etta's fault: she would look in at every shop-window, and so of course we lost the proper train.'
'What does the child say?' asked Miss Darrell good-humouredly. She seemed in excellent spirits this evening; but how silent Miss Hamilton had become since her entrance! 'Of course poor Etta is blamed; she always is if anything goes wrong in the house; Etta is the family scapegoat. But who was it, I wonder, who wanted another turn on the pier? Not Etta, certainly.'
'Just as though those few minutes would have mattered; and I did want another look at the sea,' returned Lady Betty pettishly; 'but no, you preferred those stupid shops. That is why I hate to go into Brighton with you.' But Miss Darrell only laughed at this flimsy display of wrath.
Just then Mr. Tudor had taken the other vacant chair beside me. 'How is the village nurse?' he asked, in his bright way. I certainly liked Mr. Tudor, he had such a pleasant, friendly way with him, and on his part he seemed always glad to see me. If I had ever talked slang, I might have said that we chummed together famously. He was a year younger than myself, and I took advantage of this to give him advice in an elder-sisterly fashion.
'You must take care that the clergy do not spoil the village nurse,' observed Miss Darrell, who had overheard him, and this time the taper finger was uplifted against Mr. Tudor.
'Oh, there is no fear of that,' he returned manfully; 'Miss Garston is too sensible to allow herself to be spoiled; but it is quite right that we all should make much of her.'
'We will ask Giles if he agrees with this,' replied Miss Darrell, in a funny voice, and at that moment Mr. Hamilton entered the room.
I do not know why I thought he looked nicer that evening: one thing, I had never seen him in evening dress, and it suited him better than his rough tweed; he was quieter and less abrupt in manner, more dignified and less peremptory, but he certainly looked very tired.
He accosted me rather gravely, I thought, though he said that he was glad to see me at Gladwyn. His first remark after this was to complain of the lateness of the dinner.
'Parker is not very punctual this evening, Etta,' he observed, looking at his watch.
'I think it was our fault, Giles,' returned his cousin plaintively. 'We kept Thornton such a long time in the study, and no doubt that is the cause of the delay. Parker is seldom a minute behindhand; punctuality is her chief point, as Mrs. Edmonstone told me when I engaged her. You see,' turning to Uncle Max, 'we are such a regular household that the least deviation in our nature quite throws us into confusion. I am so sorry, Giles, I am, indeed; but will you ring for Thornton, and that will remind him of his duty?'
Miss Darrell's submissive speech evidently disarmed Mr. Hamilton, and deprived him of his Englishman's right to grumble to his womankind: so he said, quite amiably, that they would wait for Parker's pleasure a little longer, and then relapsed into silence.
The next moment I saw him looking at me with rather an odd expression; it was as though he were regarding a stranger whom he had not seen before; I suppose the term 'taking stock' would explain my meaning. Just then dinner was announced, and he gave me his arm.
The dining-room was very large and lofty, and was furnished in dark oak. A circular seat with velvet cushions ran round the deep bay-window. A small oval table stood before it. Dark ruby curtains closed in the bay.
My first speech to Mr. Hamilton was to regret that he had not sent for me the previous night.
'Oh no,' he said pleasantly. 'I am quite glad now that your rest was not disturbed.' And then he went on looking at me with the same queer expression that his face had worn before.
'Do you know, Miss Garston, your remark quite startled me? Somehow I do not seem to recognise my nurse to-night. When I came into the drawing-room just now I thought there was a strange young lady sitting by Tudor.'
Of course I was curious to know what he meant; but he positively refused to enlighten me, and went on speaking about his poor little patient.
'She was an only child; but nothing could have saved her. The Blagroves are well-to-do people,--Brighton shopkeepers,--so they hardly come under the category of your patients. Miss Garston, you call yourself a servant of the poor, do you not?'
'I should not refuse to help any one who really needed it,' was my reply. 'But, of course, if people can afford to hire service I should think my labour thrown away on them.'
'Ah! just so. But now and then we meet with a case where hirelings can give no comfort. With the Blagroves, for example, there was nothing to be done but just to watch the child's feeble life ebb away. A miracle only could have saved her; but all the same it was impossible to go away and leave them. They were young people, and had never seen death before.'
I was surprised to hear him speak with so much feeling. And I liked that expression 'servant of the poor.' It sounded to me as though he had at last grasped my meaning, and that I had nothing more to fear from his sarcasm.
I wondered what had wrought such a sudden change in him, for I had only worked such a few days. Certainly it would make things far easier if I could secure him as an ally; and I began to hope that we should go on more smoothly in the future.
Mr. Hamilton was evidently a man whom it would take long to know. His was by no means a character easy to read. One would be sure to be startled by new developments and curious contradictions. I had known him only for ten days; but then we had met constantly in that short time. I had seen him hard in manner and soft in speech, cool, critical, and disparaging, at one moment satirical and provoking, the next full of thoughtfulness and readiness to help. No wonder I found it difficult to comprehend him.
When we had finished discussing the Blagroves, Mr. Hamilton turned his attention to his other guests, and tried to promote the general conversation: this left me at liberty to make my own observations.
Miss Hamilton sat at the top of the table facing her brother, and Uncle Max and Mr. Tudor were beside her; but she did not speak to either of them unless they addressed her, and her replies seemed to be very brief. If I had been less interested in her I might have accused her of want of animation, for it is hardly playing the _rôle_ of a hostess to look beautiful and be chary of words and smiles.
It was impossible to attribute her silence to absence of mind, for she followed with grave attention every word that was spoken; but for some inexplicable reason she had withdrawn into herself. Uncle Max left her to herself after a time, and began to talk politics with Mr. Hamilton, and Mr. Tudor was soon compelled to follow his example.
Poor Mr. Tudor! I rather pitied him, for his other neighbour, Lady Betty, had turned suddenly very sulky, and I had my surmises that Miss Darrell had said something to affront her; for she made snapping little answers when any one spoke to her, and, though they laughed at her, and nobody seemed to mind, most likely they thought it prudent to give her time to recover herself.
Miss Darrell's radiant good-humour was a strange contrast to her two cousins' silence. She threw herself gallantly into the breach, and talked fast and well on every topic broached by the gentlemen. She was evidently clever and well read, and had dabbled in literature and politics.
Her energy and vivacity were almost fatiguing. She seemed able to keep up two or three conversations at once. The lowest whisper did not escape her ear; if Mr. Hamilton spoke to me, I saw her watchful eye on us, and she joined in at once with a sprightly word or two; the next moment she was answering Uncle Max, who had at last hazarded a remark to his silent neighbour. Miss Hamilton had no time to reply; her cousin's laugh and ready word were before her.
I found the same thing happen when Mr. Tudor addressed me: before he had finished his sentence she had challenged the attention of the table.
'Giles,' she said good-humouredly, 'do you know what Mr. Tudor said in the drawing-room just now, that it was the bounden duty of the Heathfield folk to spoil and make much of Miss Garston?'
Both Mr. Tudor and I looked confused at this audacious speech, but he tried to defend himself as well as he could.
'No, no, Miss Darrell, that was not quite what I said; the whole style of the sentence is too laboured to belong to me: "bounden duty,"--no, it does not sound like me at all.'
'We need not quarrel about terms,' she persisted; 'your meaning was just the same. Come, Mr. Tudor, you cannot unsay your own words, that it was right for you all to make much of Miss Garston.'
I thought this was spoken in the worst possible taste, and I am sure Mr. Hamilton thought so too, for he smiled slightly and said, 'Nonsense, Etta! you let your tongue run away with you. I daresay that was not Tudor's meaning at all; he is the most matter-of-fact fellow I know, and could not coin a compliment to save his life. Besides which, I expect he has found out by this time that it would be rather difficult to spoil Miss Garston. That cuts both ways, eh!' looking at me rather mischievously.
'Oh, if all the gentlemen are in conspiracy to defend Miss Garston, I will say no more,' returned Miss Darrell, with a shrug, but she did not say it quite pleasantly. 'Gladys dear, I think we had better retire before I am quite crushed: Giles's frown has quite flattened me out. Miss Garston, if you are ready,' making me a mocking little courtesy; but Miss Hamilton waited for me at the door and linked her arm in mine, taking possession of me in a graceful way that evidently pleased Max, for he looked at us smiling.
'Come into the conservatory, Gladys,' whispered Lady Betty in her sister's ear. 'Etta has a cold coming on, and will be afraid of following us.'
The conservatory led out of the drawing-room, and was lighted by coloured lamps that gave a pretty effect; it was full of choice flowers, and two or three cane chairs filled up the centre. It was not so warm as the drawing-room, certainly, but it was pleasant to sit there in the dim perfumed atmosphere and peep through the open window at the firelight. Miss Darrell followed us to the window with a discontented air.
'I hope you are not going to stay there many minutes, Gladys: you will certainly give yourself and Miss Garston a bad cold if you do. There is something wrong with the warming-apparatus, and Giles says it will be some days before it will be properly warmed. I thought I told you so this morning.'
'I do not think Miss Garston will take cold, Etta, and it is very pleasant here'; but, though Miss Darrell retreated from the window, I think we all felt as much constrained as though she had joined us, for not a word could escape her ears if she chose to listen.
But this fact did not seem to daunt Lady Betty for long, for she soon began chattering volubly to us both.
'I am not so cross now as I was,' she said frankly. 'I am afraid I was very rude to Mr. Tudor at dinner; but what could I do when Etta was so impertinent? No, she is not there, Gladys; she has gone out of the room, looking as cross as possible. But what do you think she said to me?'
'Never mind telling us what she said, dear,' returned Miss Hamilton soothingly.
'Oh, but I want to tell Miss Garston: she looks dreadfully curious, and I do not like her to think me cross for nothing. I am not like that, am I, Gladys? Well, just before we went in to dinner, she begged me in a whisper not to talk quite so much to Mr. Tudor as I had done last time. Now, what do you want, Leah?' pulling herself up rather abruptly.
'I have only brought you some shawls, Lady Betty, as Miss Darrell says the conservatory is so cold. She has told Thornton to mention to his master when he takes in the coffee that Miss Gladys is sitting here, and she hopes he will forbid it.'
'You can take away the shawls, Leah,' returned Miss Hamilton quietly, but there was a scornful look on her pale face as she spoke. 'We are not going to remain here, since Miss Darrell is so anxious about our health. Shall we come in, Miss Garston? Perhaps it is a trifle chilly here.' And, seeing how the wind blew, and that Miss Darrell was determined to have her way in the matter, I acquiesced silently; but I was not a bit surprised to see Lady Betty stamp her little foot as she followed us.
Miss Darrell was lying back on a velvet lounge, and welcomed us with a provoking smile.
'I thought the threat of telling Giles would bring you in, Gladys,' she said, laughing. 'What a foolish child you are to be so reckless of your health! Every one knows Gladys is delicate,' she went on, turning to me; 'everything gives her cold. Giles has been obliged to forbid her attending evening service this winter: you were terribly rebellious about it, were you not, my dear? but of course Giles had his way. No one in this house ventures to disobey him.'
Miss Hamilton did not answer: she was standing looking into the fire, and her lips were set firmly as though nothing would make her unclose them.
'Oh, do sit down,' continued her cousin pettishly; 'it gives one such an uncomfortable feeling when a tall person stands like a statue before one.' And as Miss Hamilton quietly seated herself, she went on, 'Don't you think religious people are far more self-willed than worldly ones, Miss Garston? I daresay you are self-willed yourself. Gladys made as much fuss about giving up evening service as though her salvation depended on her going twice or three times a day. "What is to prevent you reading the service in your own room?" I used to say to her. "It cannot be your duty to disobey your brother and make yourself ill."'
'The illness lay in your own imagination, Etta,' observed Miss Hamilton coldly. 'Giles would never have found out my chest was delicate if you had not told him so.'
Miss Darrell gave her favourite little shrug, and inspected her rings.
'See what thanks I get for my cousinly care,' she said good-humouredly. 'I suppose, Gladys, you were vexed with me for telling him that you were working yourself to death,--that the close air of the schoolroom made your head ache, and that so much singing was too much for your strength.'
'If you please, Etta, we will talk about some other subject; my health, or want of health, will not interest Miss Garston.' She spoke with dignity, and then, turning to me with a winning smile, 'Giles has told me about your singing. Will you be good enough to sing something to us? It would be a great pleasure: both Lady Betty and I are so fond of music.'
'Miss Garston looks very tired, Gladys; it is almost selfish to ask her,' observed Miss Darrell softly; and then I knew that Miss Hamilton's request did not please her.
I had vowed to myself that no amount of pressing should induce me to sing that evening, but I could not have refused that gentle solicitation. As I unbuttoned my gloves and took my place at the grand piano, I determined that I would sing anything and everything that Miss Hamilton wished; Miss Darrell should not silence me; and with this resolve hot on me I commenced the opening bars of 'The Lost Chord,' and before I had finished the song Miss Hamilton had crept into the corner beside me, and remained there as motionless as though my singing had turned her into stone.
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{
"id": "16080"
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16
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GLADYS
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I do not know how the majority of people feel when they sing, but with me the love of music was almost a passion. I could forget my audience in a moment, and would be scarcely aware if the room were empty or crowded.
For example, on this evening I had no idea that the gentlemen had entered the room, and the first intimation of the fact was conveyed to me by hearing a 'Bravo!' uttered by Mr. Hamilton under his breath.
'But you must not leave off,' he went on, quite earnestly. 'I want you to treat us as you treat poor Phoebe Locke, and sing one song after another until you are tired.'
I was about to refuse this request very civilly but decidedly, for I had no notion of obeying such an arbitrary command, when Miss Hamilton touched my arm.
'Oh, do please go on singing as Giles says: it is such a pleasure to hear you.' And after this I could no longer refuse.
So I sang one song after another, chiefly from memory, and sometimes I could hear a soft clapping of hands, and sometimes there was breathless silence, and a curious feeling came over me as I sang. I thought that the only person to whom I was singing was Miss Hamilton, and that I was pleading with her to tell me the reason of her sadness, and why there was such a weary, hopeless look in her eyes, when the world was so young with her and the God-given gift of beauty was hers.
I was singing as though she and I were alone in the room, when Max suddenly whispered in my ear, 'That will do, Ursula,' and as soon as the verse concluded I left off. But before I could rise Miss Darrell was beside us.
'Oh, thank you so much, Miss Garston; you are very amiable to sing so long. Giles was certainly loud in your praises, but I was hardly prepared for such a treat. Why, Gladys dear, have you been crying? What an impressionable child you are! Miss Garston has not contrived to draw tears from my eyes.'
But, without making any reply, Miss Hamilton quietly left the room. Were her eyes wet, I wonder? Was that why Max stopped me? Did he want to shield her from her cousin's sharp scrutiny? If so, he failed.
'It is such a pity Gladys is so foolishly sensitive,' she went on, addressing Uncle Max: 'natures of this sort are quite unfit for the stern duties of life. I am quite uneasy about her sometimes, am I not, Giles? Her spirits are so uneven, and she has so little strength. Parochial work nearly killed her, Mr. Cunliffe. You said yourself how ill she looked in the summer.'
'True; but I never thought the work hurt her,' replied Max, rather bluntly. 'I think it was a mistake for Miss Hamilton to give up all her duties; occupation is good for every one.'
'That is my opinion,' observed Mr. Hamilton. 'Etta is always making a fuss about Gladys's health, but I tell her there is not the least reason for alarm; many people not otherwise delicate take cold easily. It is true I advised her to give up evening service for a few weeks until she got stronger.'
'Indeed!' And here Max looked a little perplexed. 'I thought you told me, Miss Darrell, that your cousin found our service too long and wearisome, and this was the reason she stayed away.'
'Oh no; you must have misunderstood me,' returned Miss Darrell, flushing a little. 'Gladys may have said she liked a shorter sermon in the evening, but that was hardly her reason for staying away; at least--' 'Of course not. What nonsense you talk, Etta!' observed Mr. Hamilton impatiently. 'You know what a trouble I had to coax Gladys to stay at home; she was rather obstinate about it,--as girls are,--but I asked her as a special favour to myself to remain.'
Max's face cleared up surprisingly, and as Miss Hamilton at that moment re-entered the room, he accosted her almost eagerly.
'Miss Hamilton, we have been talking about you in your absence; your brother and I have been agreeing that it is really a great pity that you should have given up all your parish duties; it is a little hard on us all, is it not, Tudor? Your brother declares occupation will do you good. Now, I am sure your cousin will not have the slightest objection to give up your old class, and she can take Miss Matthews's, and then I shall have two good workers instead of one.'
For an instant Miss Hamilton hesitated; her face relaxed, and she looked at Max a little wistfully; but Miss Darrell interposed in her sprightly way: 'Do as you like, Gladys dear. Mr. Cunliffe will be too glad of your help, I am sure, as he sees how much you wish it. We all think you are fretting after your old scholars; home duties are not exciting enough, and even Giles notices how dull you are. Oh, you shall have my class with pleasure; anything to see you happy, love. Shall we make the exchange to-morrow?'
'No, thank you, Etta; I think things had better be as they are.' And Miss Hamilton walked away proudly, and spoke to Mr. Tudor; the sudden brightness in her face had dimmed, and I was near enough to see that her hand trembled.
'There, you see,' observed Miss Darrell complacently. 'I have done my best to persuade her in public and private to amuse herself and not give way to her feelings of lassitude. "Do a little, but not much," I have often said to her; but with Gladys it must be all or none.'
'Ursula, do you know how late it is?' asked Max, coming up to me. He looked suddenly very tired, and I saw at once that he wished me to go: so I made my adieux as quickly as possible, and in a few minutes we had left the house, accompanied by Mr. Tudor.
Uncle Max was very quiet all the way home. I had expected him to be full of questions as to how I had enjoyed my evening, but his only remark was to ask if I were very tired, and then he left me to Mr. Tudor.
'Well, how do you like the folks up at Gladwyn?' demanded Mr. Tudor. 'Lady Betty was not in the best of humours to-night, and hardly deigned to speak to me; but I am sure you must have admired Miss Hamilton.'
'I like both of them,' was my temperate reply: 'you must not be hard on poor little Lady Betty. Miss Darrell had been lecturing her, and that made her cross.'
'So I supposed,' was the prompt answer. 'Well, what did you think of the Dare-all,--as the vicar calls her sometimes? is she not like a pleasant edition of Tupper's _Proverbial Philosophy_,--verbose and full of long sentences? How many words did she coin to-night, do you think?'
There was a little scorn in the young man's voice. Miss Darrell was evidently not a favourite in the vicarage, yet most people would have called her elegant and well-mannered, and, if she had no beauty, she was not bad-looking. She was so exceedingly well made up, and her style of dress was so suitable to her face, that I was not surprised to hear afterwards from Lady Betty that many people thought her cousin Etta handsome. Now when Mr. Tudor made this spiteful little speech I felt rather pleased, for my dislike to Miss Darrell had increased rather than diminished by the evening's experiences; under her smooth speeches there lurked an antagonistic spirit; something had prejudiced her against me even at our first meeting; I was convinced that she did not like me, and would not encourage my visit to Gladwyn. Mr. Tudor and I talked a good deal about Lady Betty; he described her as most whimsical and sound-hearted, half-child and half-woman, with a touch of the brownie; her brother often called her Brownie, or little Nix, to tease her. She was very fond of her sister, he went on to say, but there was not much companionship between them. Miss Hamilton was very intellectual, and read a good deal, and Lady Betty never read anything but novels; they all made a pet of her,--even Mr. Hamilton, who was not much given to pets,--but she was hardly an influence in the house.
'She has not backbone enough,' he finished, 'and the Dare-all rules them all with a rod of iron--"cased in velvet."'
Uncle Max listened to all this in silence, and as they parted with me at the gate of the White Cottage he only said 'Good-night, Ursula,' in a depressed voice. He was evidently rather cast down about something; perhaps Miss Hamilton's decision had disappointed him; she had been his favourite worker, and had helped him greatly; he seemed to feel it hard that she should withdraw her services so suddenly. How wistfully she had looked at him as he pleaded with her! it was the first time I had seen her look at him of her own accord, and yet she had denied his request,--very firmly and gently.
'I must be friends with her, and then perhaps she will tell me all about it some day,' I thought; for I was convinced that there was more than met the eye; but it was some time before I could banish these perplexing thoughts.
I saw a good deal of Lady Betty during the next week or two. I met her frequently on my way to the Lockes', and she would walk with me to the gate, and two or three times she made her appearance at the Marshall's'; 'for it's no use calling at the White Cottage of an afternoon,' she would say disconsolately, 'for you are never at home, you inhospitable creature.'
'Why, do you think I live here, Lady Betty!' I returned, smiling. 'Do you know I am becoming a most punctual person? I am always back at the White Cottage by five, and sometimes a little earlier, and I shall always be pleased if you will come in and have tea with me.'
'I should like it of all things,' replied Lady Betty, with a sigh; 'and I will come sometimes, you will see if I don't. But I know Etta will make a fuss; she always does if I stay out after dark; and it is dark at four now. That is why I pop in here to see you, because Etta is always busy in the mornings and never takes any notice of what we do.'
'But surely Miss Darrell will not object to your coming to see me?' I asked, somewhat piqued at this.
'Oh dear, no,' returned Lady Betty, jumbling her words as though she found my question embarrassing. 'Etta never objects openly to anything we do, only she throws stumbling-blocks in our way. I do not know why I have got it into my head that she would not like Gladys or me to come here without her, but it is there all the same,--the idea, I mean; it was something she said the other night to Mrs. Maberley that gave me this impression. Mrs. Maberley wanted to call on you, because she said you were Mr. Cunliffe's niece, and people ought to take notice of you. And Etta said, "Oh dear, yes; and it was a very kind thought on Mrs. Maberley's part, and Mr. Cunliffe would think it so. That was why Giles had invited you to Gladwyn. But there was no hurry, and you evidently were not prepared to enter into society. You had rather strong-minded views on this subject, and she was not quite sure whether Giles was wise to encourage the intimacy with his sisters."'
'Miss Darrell said this to Mrs. Maberley?'
'Yes. Was it not horrid of Etta? I felt so cross. And Mrs. Maberley is such an old dear: only rather old-fashioned in her notions about girls. So Etta's speech rather frightened her, I could see. Of course she has not called yet? I am almost inclined to tell Giles about it.'
'Indeed, I hope you will do nothing of the kind, Lady Betty. I am sorry Miss Darrell does not like me; but I do not see that it matters so very much what people think of us.'
'Yes; but when Etta takes a dislike to people she tries to prevent us from knowing them: that is the provoking part of it. She is so dreadfully jealous, and I expect it was your singing that gave umbrage. Etta is not at all accomplished; she never cared much for Gladys to sing, because she had such a sweet voice, and it put her in the background. Ah! I know how mean it sounds, but it is just the truth about Etta. And if I were to drop in for five-o'clock tea, as you say, Leah would be sure to make her appearance and say I was wanted at Gladwyn.'
I found Lady Betty's confidential speeches rather embarrassing, and when I knew her a little better I took her to task rather seriously for her want of reticence. But she only pouted, and said, 'When one looks at you, Miss Garston, one cannot help telling you things: they all tumble out without one's will. That is what Gladys means when she says you have a sympathetic face. I wish you would get her to talk to you.'
As Lady Betty persisted in haunting the Marshalls' cottage, I determined to make her useful. So I set her to read to Elspeth, or to give sewing-lessons to Peggy, or to amuse the younger children, while I was engaged with my patient; and I soon found that she was a most helpful little body.
Mr. Hamilton found her sitting in the kitchen one day surrounded by the children. She was telling them a story. The baby was sucking her thumb contentedly on her lap. Poor Mary was worse that day, and I had begged Lady Betty to keep the little ones quiet.
Mr. Hamilton came into the sick-room looking very much pleased. 'I only wish you could make Lady Betty a useful member of society, Miss Garston,' he said, with one of the rare smiles that always lit up his dark face so pleasantly. 'She is a good little thing, but she wants ballast. As a rule, young ladies are terribly idle.'
I had called up at Gladwyn a few days after we had dined there, but, to my great disappointment, I did not see Miss Hamilton. Miss Darrell was alone, so my visit was as brief as possible.
She told me at once that her cousins had gone over to Brighton for an afternoon's shopping, and that Mr. Hamilton had run up to London for a few hours. And then she commenced plying me with questions in a ladylike way about my work and my past life, but in such a skilful manner that it was almost impossible to avoid answering. She was so sure that I must be dull, living all alone. Oh, of course I was too good and unselfish to say so, but all the same I must be miserably dull. What could have put such a singular idea in my head, she wondered. When young ladies did this sort of thing there was generally some painful reason: they were unhappy at home, or they had had some disastrous love-affair. Of course--laughing a little affectedly--she had no intention of hinting at such a reason in my case; any one could see at a glance that I was not that sort of person; I was far too sensible and matter-of-fact: gentlemen would be quite afraid of me, I was so strong-minded. But all the same she pleaded guilty to a feeling of natural curiosity why such an idea had come into my head.
When I had warded off this successfully,--for I declined to enlighten Miss Darrell on this subject,--she flew off at a tangent to Aunt Philippa.
'It was such a pity when relations did not entirely harmonise. An aunt could never replace a mother. Ah! she knew that too well: and when there were daughters--and she had heard from Mr. Cunliffe that my cousin Sara was excessively pretty and charming--no doubt there would be natural misunderstandings and jealousies. In spite of all my goodness, I was only human. Of course she understood perfectly how it all happened, and she felt very sorry for me.'
I disclaimed the notion of any family disagreement with some warmth, but I do not think she believed me. She had evidently got it into her head that I was a strong-minded young woman with an uncertain temper, who could not live peaceably at home. No doubt she had hinted this to Mrs. Maberley and other ladies. She would make this the excuse for discouraging any degree of intimacy with her cousins. I should not be asked very often to Gladwyn if it depended on Miss Darrell; but Mr. Hamilton had a will of his own, and if he chose me as a companion for his sisters, Miss Darrell would find it difficult to exclude me.
One could see at a glance that Mr. Hamilton was master in his own house. Miss Darrell seemed perfectly submissive to him. There was something almost obsequious in her manner to him. She watched his looks anxiously, and, though she coaxed and flattered him, she did not seem quite certain how he would take her speeches.
'We are a strange household; don't you think so, Miss Garston?' she observed presently. 'Giles is our lord and master. None of us poor women dare to contradict him. When dear mamma was alive, she had a great deal of influence over him. He was very fond of her. Her death made a great difference in the house.'
'It must have been a great trouble to you, Miss Darrell.'
'Yes, indeed. I was almost broken-hearted. She had been the dearest and most indulgent of mothers; but Giles was very good to me. Gladys and Lady Betty were very devoted to her; perhaps you have heard them speak of Aunt Margaret. Ah! I forgot, you have only seen Gladys twice.' And here she looked at me rather sharply, but I nodded acquiescence. 'Gladys was always a favourite with her.'
'Miss Hamilton must be a general favourite,' I replied, a little unguardedly.
'Ah! I suppose you think her handsome,' in rather a forced manner: 'many people say she is too pale, and rather too statuesque, for their taste.'
'In my opinion she is very beautiful,' I replied quickly, 'I told Uncle Max the other day that I thought her face almost perfect.'
'And what did he say?' she asked, rather eagerly. 'Did he agree with you?' But I was obliged to confess that I had forgotten his answer.
'I know Mr. Cunliffe thinks Gladys cold,' she went on. 'He is too kind-hearted to say so; but I know he feels hurt at her desertion of her post. It was a strange whim on her part to give up all her parish work. I am afraid it was a little bit of temper. Gladys has a temper, though you may not think so. She is very firm, and does not brook the least interference on my part. Poor dear! if it were not wrong, I should say she was a little jealous of my influence with Giles, because he likes me to do things for him; but how am I to help doing what he asks me, when I owe the very bread I eat to his kindness?'
Miss Darrell was poor and dependent then. This piece of news surprised me. I thought of the glittering rings and silver-mounted dressing-case and all the luxurious appliances in her toilet, and wondered if Mr. Hamilton had paid for them.
Miss Darrell seemed to read my thoughts in a most wonderful way.
'Poor mother left very little except personal jewellery. Yes, I owe everything to Giles's generosity. He is good enough to say that I earn my allowance,--and indeed I am never idle; but,' interrupting herself, 'I do not want to talk of myself; I am a very insignificant person,--just Giles's housekeeper; Gladys is mistress of the house. I only wanted you to explain to Mr. Cunliffe that I am not to blame for Gladys's strange whim. Let me explain a little. She was looking very ill and overworked, and I begged Giles to lecture her. I told him that there was no need for Gladys to do quite so much; in fact, she was putting herself a little too forward in the parish, considering how young she was, and the vicar an unmarried man. So Giles and I gave her a word. I am sure he spoke most gently, and I was very careful indeed in only giving her a hint that people, and even Mr. Cunliffe, might misconstrue such devotion. I never saw Gladys in such a passion; and the next day she had flung everything up. She told the vicar that the schoolroom made her head ache, and that her throat was delicate, and she could not sing. Poor Mr. Cunliffe was in such despair that I was obliged to offer my services. It is far too much for me; but what can I do? the parish must not suffer for Gladys's wilfulness. Now if you could only explain things a little to Mr. Cunliffe; he looked so hurt the other night when Gladys refused to take her old class. No wonder he misses her, for she used to teach the children splendidly; but if he knew it was only a little temper on Gladys's part he would look over it and be friends with her again. But you must have noticed yourself, Miss Garston, how little he had to say to her.'
I had found it impossible to check Miss Darrell's loquacity or to edge in a single word; but as soon as her breath failed I rose to take my leave, and she did not seek to detain me.
'You will explain this to Mr. Cunliffe, for Gladys's sake,' she said, holding my hand. 'I do want him to think well of her, and I can see his good opinion is shaken.'
But to this I made no audible reply; but, as I shook off the dust of Gladwyn, I told myself that Uncle Max should not hear Miss Darrell's version from my lips. She wished to make me a tool in her hands; but her breach of confidence had a very different result from what she expected. Miss Darrell's words had cleared up a perplexity in my mind: I could read between the lines, and I fully exonerated Miss Hamilton.
The following afternoon I had a most unexpected pleasure. When I came back to the cottage after my day's work Mrs. Barton met me at the door and told me that Miss Hamilton was in the parlour.
I had thought she meant Lady Betty; but, to my surprise, I found Miss Hamilton seated by the fire. A pleased smile came to her face as I greeted her most warmly. She must have seen how glad I was; but she shrank back rather nervously when I begged her to take off her furred mantle and stay to tea.
She was not sure that she could remain. Lady Betty was alone, as Giles and Etta were dining at the Maberleys'. She had been asked, and had refused; but Etta had taken in her work, as Mrs. Maberley had wanted them to go early. Perhaps she had better not stay, as it would not be kind to Lady Betty. But I soon overruled this objection. I told Miss Hamilton that I saw Lady Betty frequently, but that she herself had never called since her first visit, and that now I could not let her go.
I think she wanted me to press her; she was arguing against her own wishes, it was easy to see that. By and by she asked me in a low voice if I were sure to be alone, or if I expected any visitors; and when I had assured her decidedly that no one but Uncle Max ever came to see me, and that I knew he was engaged this evening, her last scruple seemed to vanish, and she settled herself quite comfortably for a chat. We talked for a little while on indifferent subjects. She told me about the neighbourhood and the people who lived in the large houses by the church, and about her brother's work in the parish, and how if rich people sent for him he always kept them waiting while he went to the poor ones.
'Giles calls himself the poor people's doctor: he attends them for nothing. He cannot always refuse rich people if they will have him, but he generally sends them to Dr. Ramsbotham. You see, he never takes money for his services, and as people know this, they are ashamed to send for him; and yet they want him because he is so clever. Giles is so fond of his profession; he is always regretting that he had a fortune left him, for he says it would have been far pleasanter to make one. Giles never did care for money; he is ready to fling it away to any one who asks him.'
Miss Hamilton kept up this desultory talk all tea-time. She spoke with great animation about her brother, and I could hardly believe it was the same girl who had sat so silently at the head of the table that evening at Gladwyn. The sad abstracted look had left her face. It seemed as though for a little while she was determined to forget her troubles.
When Mrs. Barton had taken away the tea-tray, she asked me, with the same wistful look in her eyes, to sing to her if I were not tired, and I complied at once.
I sang for nearly half an hour, and then I returned to the fireside. I saw that Miss Hamilton put up her hand to shield her face from the light; but I took no notice, and after a little while she began to talk.
'I never heard any singing like yours, Miss Garston; it is a great gift. There is something different in your voice from any one else's: it seems to touch one's heart.'
'If my singing always makes you sad, Miss Hamilton, it is a very dubious gift.'
'Ah, but it is a pleasant sadness,' she replied quickly. 'I feel as though some kind friend were sympathising with me when you sing: it tells me too that, like myself, you have known trouble.'
I sighed as I looked at Charlie's picture. Her eyes followed my glance, and I saw again that tremulous motion of her hands.
'Yes, I know,' she said hurriedly; but her beautiful eyes were full of tears. 'I have always been so sorry for you. You must feel so lonely without him.'
The intense sympathy with which she said these few words seemed to break down my reserve. In a moment I had forgotten that we were strangers, as I told her about my love for Charlie, and the dear old life at the rectory.
It was impossible to doubt the interest with which she listened to me. If I paused for an instant, she begged me very gently to tell her more about myself; she was so sorry for me; but it did her good to hear me.
When I spoke of the life at Hyde Park Gate, and told her how little I was fitted for that sort of existence, she put down her shielding hand, and looked at me with strange wistfulness.
'No, you are too real, too much in earnest, to be satisfied with that sort of life. Mr. Cunliffe used to tell us so. And I seemed to understand it all before I saw you. I always felt as though I knew you, even before we met. I hope,' hesitating a little, 'that we shall see a great deal of you. I know Giles wishes it.'
'You cannot come here too often, Miss Hamilton. It will always be such a pleasure to me to see you.'
'Oh, I did not mean that,' she returned nervously. 'I may not be able to come here,--that is, not alone; there are reasons, and you must not expect me; but I hope you will come to Gladwyn whenever you have an hour to spare. Giles said so the other day. I think he meant you to be friends with us. You must not mind,' getting still more nervous, 'if Etta is a little odd sometimes. Her moods vary, and she does not always make people feel as though they were welcome; but it is only her manner, so you must not mind it.'
'Oh no; I shall hope to come and see you and Lady Betty some time.'
'And,' she went on hurriedly, 'if there is anything that I can do to help you, I hope you will tell me so. Perhaps I cannot visit the people; but there are other things,--needlework, or a little money. Oh, I have so much spare time, and it will be such a pleasure.'
'Oh yes; you shall help me,' I returned cheerfully, for she was looking so extremely nervous that I wanted to reassure her; but we were prevented from saying any more on this subject, for just then we heard the click of the little gate, and the next moment Uncle Max walked into the room.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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17
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'WHY NOT TRUST ME, MAX?'
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Max looked very discomposed when he saw Miss Hamilton; he shook hands with her gravely, and sat down without saying a word. I wondered if it were my fancy, or if Miss Hamilton had really grown perceptibly paler since his entrance.
'What does this mean, Uncle Max?' I asked gaily, for this sort of oppressive silence did not suit me at all. 'I understood that you and Mr. Tudor were dining at the Glynns' to-night.'
'Lawrence has gone without me,' he replied. 'I had a headache, and so I sent an excuse; but, as it got better, I thought I would come up and see how you were getting on.'
'A headache, Uncle Max!' looking at him rather anxiously, for I had never heard him complain of any ailment before. I had been dissatisfied with his appearance ever since I had come to Heathfield; he had looked worn and thin for some time, but to-night he looked wretched.
'Oh, it is nothing,' he returned quickly. 'Miss Hamilton, I hardly expected to find you here with Ursula. I thought you were all going to the Maberleys'.'
'Etta and Giles have gone,' she replied quietly. 'I ought not to be here, as Lady Betty is alone at Gladwyn; but Miss Garston persuaded me to remain; but it is getting late. I must be going,' rising as she spoke.
'There is not the slightest need for you to hurry,' observed Max; 'it is not so very late, and I will walk up with you to Gladwyn.'
'Indeed, I hope you will do nothing of the kind,' she said hurriedly. 'Miss Garston, will you please tell him that there is no need, no need at all? indeed, I would much rather not.'
Miss Hamilton had lost all her repose of manner; she looked as nervous and shy as any school-girl when Max announced his intention of escorting her; and yet how could any gentleman have allowed her to go down those dark roads alone?
Perhaps Max thought she was unreasonable, for there was a touch of satire in his voice as he answered her: 'I certainly owe it to my conscience to see you safe home. What would Hamilton say if I allowed you to go alone? --Ursula,' turning to me with an odd look, 'it is a fine starlight night; suppose you put on your hat,--a run will do you good,--and relieve Miss Hamilton's mind.'
'Yes, do come,' observed Miss Hamilton, in a relieved voice; but, as she spoke, her lovely eyes seemed appealing to him, and begging him not to be angry with her; but he frowned slightly, and turned aside and took up a book. How was it those two contrived to misunderstand each other so often? Max looked even more hurt than he had done at Gladwyn.
I was not surprised to find that when I left the room Miss Hamilton followed me, but I was hardly prepared to hear her say in a troubled voice,-- 'Oh, how unfortunate I am! I would not have had this happen for worlds. Etta will--oh, what am I saying? --I am afraid Mr. Cunliffe is offended with me because I did not wish him to go home with me--but,' a little proudly and resentfully, 'he is too old a friend to misunderstand me, so he need not have said that.'
'I think Uncle Max is not well to-night,' I replied soothingly. 'I never heard him speak in that tone before; he is always so careful not to hurt people's feelings.'
'Yes, I know,' stifling a sigh; 'it is more my fault than his; he is looking wretchedly ill; and--and I think he is a little offended with me about other things; it is impossible to explain, and so he misjudges me.'
'Why do you not try to make things a little clearer?' I asked. 'Could you not say a word to him as we walk home? Uncle Max is so good that I cannot bear him to be vexed about anything, and I know he is disappointed that you will not work in the school.'
'Yes, I know; but you do not understand,' she returned gently. 'I should like to speak to him, if I dared, but I think my courage will fail; it is not so easy as you think.' And then as we went downstairs she took my arm, and I could feel that her hand was very cold. 'I wish he had not asked you to come: it shows he is hurt with me; but all the same I should have asked you myself.'
Uncle Max took up his felt hat directly he saw us, and followed us silently into the entry; he did not speak as we went down the little garden together; and as we turned into the road leading to the vicarage it was Miss Hamilton who spoke first. She was still holding my arm, perhaps that gave her courage, and she looked across at Max, who was walking on my other side.
'Mr. Cunliffe, I am so sorry you were hurt with me the other night, when Etta spoke about the schools. I am not giving up work for my own pleasure; I loved it far too much; but there are reasons,' I heard Max give a quick, impatient sigh in the darkness.
'So you always say, Miss Hamilton; you remember we have talked of this before. I have thought it my duty more than once to remonstrate with you about giving up your work, but one seems to talk in the dark; somehow you have never given me any very definite reasons,--headaches,--well, as though I did not know you well enough to be sure you are the last person to think of ailments.'
'Yes, but one's friends are over-careful; but still you are right; it is not only that. Mr. Cunliffe, I wish you would believe that I have good and sufficient reasons for what I do, even if I cannot explain them. It makes one unhappy to be misunderstood by one's clergyman, and,' hesitating a moment, 'and one's friends,' 'Friends are not left so completely in the dark,' was the pointed answer. 'It is no use, Miss Hamilton. I find it impossible to understand you. I have no right to be hurt. No, of course not, no right at all,'--and here Max laughed unsteadily,--'but still, as a clergyman, I thought it could not be wrong to remonstrate when my best worker deserted her post.'
There was no response to this, only Miss Hamilton's hand lay a little heavily on my arm, as though she were tired. I though it best to be silent. No word of mine was needed. I could tell from Max's voice and manner how bitterly he was hurt.
But when he next spoke it was on a different subject.
'I must beg your pardon, Miss Hamilton, for having wronged you in my thoughts about something else. I find your brother has forbidden you to attend evening service for the present. And no doubt he is right; but your cousin gave me to understand that you stayed away for a very different reason.'
'What did Etta tell you?' she asked quickly. But before he could answer a dark figure seemed to emerge rather suddenly from the roadside. Miss Hamilton dropped my arm at once. 'Is that you, Leah? Have my brother and Miss Darrell returned from Maplehurst?' And I detected an anxious note in her voice.
'Yes, ma'am,' returned Leah civilly; 'and Miss Darrell seemed anxious at your being out so late, because you would take cold, and master begged you would wrap up and walk very fast.'
'Oh, I shall take no harm,' returned Miss Hamilton impatiently. 'Good-night, Miss Garston, and thank you for a very happy evening. Good-night, Mr. Cunliffe, and thank you, too. There is no need to come any farther: Leah will take care of me.' And she waved her hand and moved away in the darkness.
'What a bugbear that woman is!' I observed, rather irritably, as we retraced our steps in the direction of the Man and Plough, the little inn that stood at the junction of the four roads. Everything looked dark and eerie in the faint starlight. Our footsteps seemed to strike sharply against the hard, white road; there was a suspicion of frost in the air. When Max spoke, which was not for some minutes, he merely remarked that we should have a cold Christmas, and then he asked me if I would dine with him at the vicarage on Christmas Day. He and Mr. Tudor would be alone.
'Christmas will be here in less than a fortnight, Ursula,' he went on, rather absently, but I knew he was not thinking of what he was saying. And when we reached the White Cottage he followed me into the parlour, sat down before the fire, and stretched out his hands to the blaze, as though he were very cold.
I stood and watched him for a moment, and then I could bear it no longer.
'Oh, Max!' I exclaimed, 'I wish you would tell me what makes you look so wretchedly ill to-night. Even Miss Hamilton noticed it. I am sure there is something the matter.'
'Nonsense, child! What should be the matter?' But Max turned his face away as he spoke. 'I told you that I had a headache; but that is nothing to make a fuss about. Mrs. Drabble shall make me a good strong cup of tea when I get home.'
Max's manner was just a trifle testy, but I was not going to be repelled after this fashion. On the contrary, I put my hand on his shoulder and obliged him to look at me.
'It is not only a headache. You are unhappy about something; as though I do not see that. Max, you know we have always been like brother and sister, and I want you to tell me what has grieved you.'
That touched him, as I knew it would, for he had dearly loved his sister.
'I wish your mother were here now,' he returned, in a moved voice. 'I wish poor Emmie were here: there were not many women like her. One could have trusted her with anything.'
'I think I am to be trusted too, Max.'
'Yes, yes, you are like her, Ursula. You have got just the same quiet way. Your voice always reminds me of hers. She was a dear, good sister to me, more like a mother than a sister. I think if she had lived she would have been a great comfort to me now, Ursula.'
'I know I am not so good as my mother, but I should like to be a comfort to you in her place.'
I suppose Max's ear detected the suppressed pain in my voice, for as he looked at me his manner changed; the old affectionate smile came to his lips, and he put his hands lightly on me, as though to keep me near him. 'You have been a comfort to me, my dear. You and I have always understood each other. I think you are as good as gold, Ursula.'
'Then why not trust me, Max? Why not tell me what makes you so unhappy?'
'Little she-bear,' he said, still smiling, 'you must not begin to growl at me after this fashion, because I am somewhat hipped and want a change. There is no need to be anxious about me. A man in my position must have his own and other people's difficulties to bear. No, no, my dear, you have a wise head, but you are too young to take my burdens on your shoulders. What should you know about an old bachelor's worries?'
'An old bachelor,' I returned indignantly, 'when you know you are young and handsome, Max! How can you talk such nonsense?'
I could see he was amused at this.
'You must not expect me to believe that; a man is no judge of his own looks: but I never thought much about such things myself. I detest the notion of a handsome parson. There, we will dismiss the subject of your humble servant. I want to ask you a favour, Ursula.' And then I knew that all my coaxing had been in vain, and that he did not mean to tell me what troubled him and made him look so pinched and worn.
But, in spite of this preface, he kept me waiting for a long time, while he sat silently looking into the fire and stroking his brown beard.
'Ursula,' he began at last, still gazing into the red cavern of coals, as though he saw visions there, 'I want you and Miss Hamilton to be great friends. I am sure that she has taken to you, and she likes few people, and it will be very good for her to be with you.'
Max's speech took me somewhat by surprise. I had not expected him to mention Miss Hamilton's name.
'She is not happy,' he went on, 'and she is more lonely than other girls of her age. Miss Elizabeth is a nice bright little thing, but, as Lawrence says, she wants ballast; she is a child compared to Gladys,--Miss Hamilton, I mean.' And here Max stammered a little nervously.
'No, you are right, she is not happy,' I returned quietly; 'she gives me the impression that she has known some great trouble.'
'Every one has his troubles,' he replied evasively. 'Most people indulge in the luxury of a private skeleton. Now I have often thought that Miss Hamilton and her sister would have been far happier without Miss Darrell; she has rather a peculiar temper, and I have often fancied that she has misrepresented things. It is always difficult to understand women, even the best of them,' with a smothered sigh, 'but I confess Miss Darrell is rather a problem to me.'
'I am not surprised to hear you say that,' I returned quickly: 'you are just the sort of man, Max, to be hoodwinked by any designing person. I am less charitable than you, and women are sharper in these matters. I have already found out that Miss Darrell makes Miss Hamilton miserable.'
'Gently, gently, Ursula,' in quite a shocked voice; 'there is no need to put things quite so strongly: you are rather hasty, my dear. Miss Darrell may be a little too managing, and perhaps jealous and exacting; but I think she is very fond of her cousins.'
'Indeed!' rather drily, for I did not agree with Max in the least; he was always ready to believe the best of every one.
'Hamilton, too, is really devoted to his sisters, but they do not understand him. I believe Miss Hamilton is very proud of her brother, but she does not confide in him. He has often told me, in quite a pained way, how reserved they are with him. I believe Miss Darrell is far more his _confidante_ than his sisters.'
'No doubt,' I returned, quite convinced in my own mind that this was the case.
'So you must see yourself how much Miss Hamilton needs a friend,' he went on hurriedly. 'I want you to be very good to her, Ursula; perhaps you may think it a little strange if I say that I think it will be as much your duty to befriend Miss Hamilton as to minister to Phoebe Locke.'
'I wonder who is speaking strongly now, Max.'
'But if it be the truth,' he pleaded, a little anxiously.
'You need not fear,' was my answer: 'if Miss Hamilton requires my friendship, I am very willing to bestow it. I will be as good to her as I know how to be, Max. Is it likely I should refuse the first favour you have ever asked me?' And, as he thanked me rather gravely, I felt that he was very much in earnest about this. He went away after this, but I think I had succeeded in cheering him, for he looked more like himself as he bade me good-night; but after he had gone I sat for a long time, reflecting over our talk.
I felt perplexed and a little saddened by what had passed. Max had not denied that he was unhappy, but he had refused to confide in me. Was his unhappiness connected in any way with Miss Hamilton? This question baffled me; it was impossible for me to answer it.
I could not understand his manner to her. He was perfectly kind and gentle to her, as he was to all women, but he was also reserved and distant; in spite of their long acquaintance, for he had visited at Gladwyn for years, there was no familiarity between them. Miss Hamilton, on her part, seemed to avoid him, and yet I was sure she both respected and liked him. There was some strange barrier between them that hindered all free communication. Max was certainly not like himself when Miss Hamilton was present; and on her side she seemed to freeze and become unapproachable the moment he appeared. But this was not the only thing that perplexed me. The whole atmosphere of Gladwyn was oppressive. I had a subtile feeling of discomfort whenever Miss Darrell was in the room; her voice seemed to have a curious magnetic effect on one; its tuneless vibrations seemed to irritate me; if she spoke loudly, her voice was rather shrill and unpleasant. She knew this, and carefully modulated it. I used to wonder over its smoothness and fluency.
And there was another thing that struck me. Mr. Hamilton seemed fond of his step-sisters, but he treated them with reserve; the frank jokes that pass between brothers and sisters, the pleasant raillery, the blunt speeches, the interchange of confidential looks, were missing in the family circle at Gladwyn. Mr. Hamilton behaved with old-fashioned courtesy to his sisters; he was watchful over their comfort, but he was certainly a little stiff and constrained in his manner to them: he seemed to unbend more freely to his cousin than to them; he had scolded her good-humouredly once or twice, after quite a brotherly fashion, and she had taken his rebukes in a way that showed they understood each other. I grew tired at last of trying to adjust my ideas on the subject of the Hamilton family. I was rather provoked to find how they had begun to absorb my interest. 'Never mind, I have promised Uncle Max to be good to her,' was my last waking thought that night, 'and I am determined to keep my word.' And I fell asleep, and dreamt that I was trying to save Miss Hamilton from drowning, and that all the time Miss Darrell was standing on the shore, laughing and pelting us with stones, and when a larger one than usual struck me, I awoke.
I wondered if it were accident or design that brought Miss Darrell across my path the next day. I had just left the Lockes' cottage, feeling somewhat tired and depressed: Phoebe had been in one of her contrary moods, and had given me a good deal of trouble, but the evil spirit had been quieted at last, and I had taken my leave after reprimanding her severely for her rudeness. I was just closing the garden gate, when Miss Darrell came up to me in the dusk, holding out her hand with her tingling little laugh.
'How odd that we should have met just here! I hardly knew you, Miss Garston, in that long cloak, you looked so like a Sister of Charity. I think you are very wise to adopt a uniform.'
'Thank you, but I have hardly adopted one,' I returned, folding the fur edges of my cloak closer to me, for it was a bitterly cold evening. 'Are you going home, Miss Darrell? because you have passed the turning that leads to Gladwyn.'
'Oh, I do not mind a longer round,' was the careless answer. 'I am very hardy, and a walk never hurts me. If it were Gladys, now--by the bye, have you seen my cousin Giles to-day?'
'No,' I returned, wondering a little at her question.
'You are lucky to have escaped him,' with another laugh. 'Dear, dear, how angry Giles was last night, to be sure, when we came home and found Gladys out! he was far too angry to say much to her; he only asked her if she had taken leave of her senses, and that some people--I do not know whom he meant--ought to be ashamed of themselves.'
'Indeed!' somewhat sarcastically, for I confess this speech made me feel rather cross. I wondered if Mr. Hamilton could really have said it. I determined that I would ask him on the first opportunity.
'It was a very injudicious proceeding,' went on Miss Darrell smoothly. 'Gladys was to blame, of course; but still, if you remember, I told you how delicate she was, and how we dreaded night air for her: young people are so careless of their health, but of course, as Giles said, we thought she would be safe with you. You see, Giles looks upon you in the character of nurse, Miss Garston, and forgets you are young too. "Depend upon it, they have forgotten the time," I said to him: "when two girls are chattering their secrets to each other, they are not likely to remember anything so sublunary." You should have seen Giles's expression of lordly disgust when I said that.'
'I should rather have heard Mr. Hamilton's answer.'
'Don't be too sure of that,' returned Miss Darrell, in a mocking voice that somehow recalled my dream. 'I am afraid it would not please you. Giles is no flatterer. He said he thought you would have been far too sensible for that sort of nonsense, but that one never knew, and that it was not only young and pretty girls like Gladys who could be romantic, and for all your staid looks you were not Methuselah: rather a dubious speech, Miss Garston.'
'True!' far too dubious to be entirely palatable to my feminine pride; but I was careful not to hint this to Miss Darrell, and she went on in the same light jesting way.
'It is terribly hard to satisfy Giles, he is so critical; he sets impossible standards for people, and then sneers if they do not reach them. He had conceived rather a high opinion of you, Miss Garston. He told me one day that he would be glad for you to be intimate with his sisters, as they would only learn good from you, and that he hoped that I would encourage your visits. I trust that he has not changed his opinion since then; but Giles is so odd when people disappoint him. I said last night that we would invite you for to-morrow, and then you and Gladys could finish your talk; but he was as cross as possible, and begged that I would invite no one for Thursday, as he was very busy, and Gladys must find another opportunity for her talk. There, how I am chattering on! --and perhaps I ought not to have said all that; but I thought you would wonder at our want of neighbourliness, and of course we cannot expect you to understand Giles's odd temper: it is a great pity he has got this idea in his head.'
'What idea, Miss Darrell?'
'Dear, dear, how sharp you are! how you take me up! Of course it is only Giles's ill temper: he cannot really think you wanting in ballast.'
'Oh, I understand now. Please go on.'
'But I have no more to say,' rather bewildered by my abruptness. 'Of course we shall see you soon, when all this has blown over. If you like, I will tell Giles I have seen you.'
'Please tell Mr. Hamilton nothing. I will speak to him myself. Good-night, Miss Darrell; I am rather cold and tired after my day's work. I do not in the least expect that Miss Hamilton has taken any harm.' And I made my escape. I do not know what Miss Darrell thought of me, but she walked on rather thoughtfully; as for me, I felt tingling all over with irritation. If Mr. Hamilton had dared to imply these things of me, I should hardly be able to keep my promise to Uncle Max, for I would certainly decline to visit at Gladwyn.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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18
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MISS HAMILTON'S LITTLE SCHOLAR
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Miss Darrell's innuendoes were not to be borne with any degree of patience. Mr. Hamilton's opinion might be nothing to me,--how often I repeated that! --but all the same I owed it to my dignity to seek an explanation with him.
The opportunity came the very next day.
He called to speak to me about a new patient, a little cripple boy who had broken his arm; the father was a labourer, and there were ten children, and the mother took in washing. 'Poor Robin has not much chance of good nursing,' he went on; 'Mrs. Bell is not a bad mother, as mothers go, but she is overworked and overburdened; she has a good bit of difficulty in keeping her husband out of the alehouse. Good heavens! what lives these women lead! it is to be hoped that it will be made up to them in another world: no washing-tubs and ale-houses there, no bruised bodies and souls, eh, Miss Garston?'
Mr. Hamilton was talking in his usual fashion; he had taken the arm-chair I had offered him, and seemed in no hurry to leave it, although his dinner-hour was approaching. When he had given me full directions about Robin, and I had promised to go to him directly after my breakfast the next morning, I said to him in quite a careless manner that I hoped Miss Hamilton was well and had sustained no ill effects from her visit to me.
'Oh no: she is better than usual. I think you roused her and did her good. Gladys mopes too much at home. All the same,' in a tolerant tone, 'you ought not to have kept her so late; as Etta very wisely remarked, it was no good for her to stay in on Sundays and remain out a couple of hours later another night; you see, Gladys takes cold so easily.'
'I hear you were very much inclined to blame the village nurse, Mr. Hamilton.'
'Who? --I?' looking at me in a little surprise. 'I do not remember that I said anything very dreadful. Etta was in a fuss, as usual; you managing women like to make a fuss sometimes: she sent off Leah, and wanted me to lecture Gladys for her imprudence; but I was not inclined to be bothered, and said it was Gladys's affair if she chose to make herself ill, but all the same she ought to be ashamed of such skittishness at her age. I don't believe Gladys knew I was joking; that is the worst of her, she never sees a joke; Etta does, though, for she burst out laughing when my lady walked off to bed in rather a dignified manner. I hope you are not easily offended too, Miss Garston?'
'Oh dear, no,' I returned coolly, 'only I should be sorry if you had in any way changed your opinion of my steadiness. Miss Darrell hinted that you were vexed with me for keeping your sister, and thought that I was to blame.'
Mr. Hamilton looked so bewildered at this that I exonerated him from that moment.
'What nonsense has that girl been talking?' he said, rather irritated. 'I always tell her that tongue of hers will lead her into trouble; I know she talked plenty of rubbish that night. When she said it was a pity that you and Gladys were always chattering secrets, I told her that though you were not a Methuselah, you were hardly the sort of person to indulge in that sort of sentimentality, that I could answer for your good sense in that, and that Etta need not be so hard on a pretty young girl like Gladys. That was not accusing you of want of steadiness.'
'No, thank you. I am so glad that I know what you really said.'
'Indeed, I was not aware that my good or bad opinion mattered to Miss Garston: you have certainly never given me the impression that you mind very much what I say or think.'
Was Mr. Hamilton cross? He looked quite moody all at once; his face wore that hard disagreeable look that I so disliked. He had been so pleasant in his manners ever since that evening at Gladwyn that I was rather sorry that this agreeable state of things should be disturbed. He was evidently not to blame for Miss Darrell's misrepresentations, so I hastened with much policy to throw oil on the troubled waters.
'I do not know why you should say that. It ought not to be a matter of indifference what people think of us.'
'Ought it not? Would you like to know my opinion of you after nearly a month of acquaintance? Let me warn you, I have entirely changed my opinion since our stormy interview in Cunliffe's study.'
I do not know what there was in Mr. Hamilton's look and manner that made me say hastily,-- 'Oh no, I would rather not know, and I hope you will not tell me. I am quite sure you do not misconstrue my motives now.'
'You may be quite sure of that,' rather grimly, as though my last speech displeased him. 'It is difficult not to think you older than you are, you are so terribly sensible and matter-of-fact. How can Gladys get on with you, I wonder? Do you put a moral extinguisher on all her romance?'
'I am not quite so matter-of-fact as you make out, Mr. Hamilton.'
He shot an odd sort of glance at me. 'When you sing, one can believe that; there is nothing prosaic in a nestful of larks. Poor Phoebe, I do believe you are doing her good: she looks far more human already. By the bye, when are you coming to sing to us again? I told Etta that I was engaged on Thursday, and she declared it was our only free day until Christmas.'
'I shall be too busy to come till after then,' I replied quietly, for I did not wish him to think that I was ready to jump at any invitation to Gladwyn. He seemed rather disconcerted at my coldness.
'Why, it is more than ten days to Christmas! I hope you do not mean to be stiff and unneighbourly, Miss Garston. I am afraid,' with a decidedly quizzical look, 'that pride is a serious defect of yours.'
'Perhaps so; but, you see, I do not wish to be different from my neighbours,' I replied quietly; but my speech was received by Mr. Hamilton with a hearty laugh.
'Oh yes, you are right: we are a proud lot,' he observed, as he rose to take leave. 'Well, Miss Garston, after Christmas is over, we shall hope to see you for an evening; but any afternoon you are free they will be glad to see you. Etta makes excellent tea. What a craze five-o'clock tea is with you women! I have protested against it in vain: the girls are in majority against me.' With this speech he took himself off. I was much relieved at this peaceable ending to our interview. Now he was gone I could scarcely believe that I had ventured on a joke with the formidable Mr. Hamilton, a joke which he had taken in excellent part. I began to feel less in awe of him: he certainly knew how to shake hands heartily, and I could recapitulate Lady Betty's criticism on myself and apply it to him, for when Mr. Hamilton smiled he looked quite a different man,--years younger, and much better looking. Well, I was glad that he had such a good opinion of my common sense.
My hands were likely to be full of business until after Christmas. Mrs. Marshall was growing gradually weaker, and Mr. Hamilton was doubtful whether she would last to see the New Year in. Her husband would be home on Christmas Eve; his work at Lewes would be finished by then, and he hoped to find work nearer home. Poor Mary told me this with tears in her eyes; her one prayer was that she might be spared to see Andrew again. 'He has been a good husband to me, and has kept out of the public-house for the sake of his wife and the children, and I cannot die easy until I have said good-bye to him,' finished the poor woman; but when I repeated this to Mr. Hamilton he shook his head. 'A few hours may take her off any day,' he said; 'it is only a wonder that she has lasted so long. I believe she is keeping herself alive by the sheer force of her longing to see her husband. Women are strange creatures, Miss Garston.'
My new patient was likely to give me plenty of occupation. I found the poor little fellow, looking very forlorn and dull, lying in a dark corner of a large chilly garret, which was evidently shared by two or three brothers.
Mrs. Bell, who had left her washing-tub to accompany me upstairs, stood drying her arms on her apron, and talking in a high-pitched querulous voice. 'No one can say I have not been unfortunate this year,' she grumbled. 'There's Bell, he gets worse and worse. I fetched him myself out of the Man and Plough last Saturday night, where he was drinking the money that was to buy the children bread. "Do you call yourself a man or a brute?" I says, but in my opinions it's wronging the poor bruteses to compare them with such as him. "Work!" says he; "why don't you work yourself?" when I am at that wash-tub from morning till night.'
'And now poor Robin is adding to your trouble, Mrs. Bell,' I observed, with a pitying look at the child's white face and large wistful eyes.
'Ay, he has gone and done it now,' she returned, with a touch of motherly feeling; 'it was a slide those bad boys had made, and Robbie came down on it with his crutch under him. He is always in trouble, is Robbie, has had more illnesses than all the children put together; there is nothing Robin can't take: whooping-cough,--why, he nearly whooped himself to death; measles and scarlet fever,--why, he was as nearly gone as possible, the doctor said. He has always been puny and weakly from a baby. But there's Bell, now, makes more of a fuss over Rob than over the others; if there is anything that will keep him away from the Man and Plough, it is Rob asking him to take him out somewhere.'
'Ay, father's promised to sit with me this evening,' observed Robin, in a faint little treble.
'Then we must make the room comfortable for father,' I said quickly. 'Mrs. Bell, I must not hinder you any more; but if you could spare one of the girls to help me tidy up a little.'
'Ay, Sally can come,' she returned; 'the place does look like a piggery. You see, Tom and Ned and Willie sleep here along of Robin, and boys know naught about keeping a place tidy; Sally reds it up towards evening. But there, doctor said Robbie must have a fire, and I've clean forgotten it: I will send up Sally with some sticks and a lump or two of coal.'
Mrs. Bell was not a bad sort of woman, certainly, but, like many of her class, she was not a good manager; and when a woman has ten children, and a husband rather too fond of the Man and Plough, and is obliged to stand at her washing-tub for hours every day, one cannot expect to find the house in perfect order.
We had soon a bright little fire burning, which gave quite a cheery aspect to the large bare attic; the sloping roof and small window did not seem to matter so much. With Sally's help I moved Robin's little bed to a lighter part of the room, where the roof did not slope so much, and where the wintry sunlight could reach him. Robin seemed much pleased with this change of position, and when I had washed and made him comfortable he declared that he felt 'first-rate.'
I had so much to do for my patient that I was obliged to let Sally tidy up the room in her usual scrambling way. The child had been sadly neglected by that time, and he was getting faint. I had to prepare some arrow-root for his dinner, and then hurry off to the Marshalls' before I had my own. I was obliged to omit my visit to Phoebe that day, and divide my time between Mrs. Marshall and Robin. When I had given Robin his tea, and had put a chair by the fire for father, I went off, feeling that I could leave him more comfortably. The eldest boy, Tom, a big, strapping lad of fourteen, who went to work, had promised to keep the other boys quiet, 'that the little chap might not be disturbed,' and as Robin again declared that he felt first-rate, if it weren't for his arm, I hoped that he might be able to sleep.
'Father stopped with me ever so long, until the boys came to bed,' were Robin's first words the next morning; 'and doctor came, and said we looked quite snug, and he is going to send father some books to read, and some papers, and father said he was more comfortable than downstairs, as I did not mind his pipe, and Tom has hung my linnet there,' pointing to the window, 'and if you open the cage, miss, you will see him hop all over the bedclothes, and chirp in the beautifullest way.'
We had a great deal of cleaning to do that day. I shall never forget Lady Betty's face when she came upstairs and saw me down on my knees at work in my corner of the room; for Sally was little, and the room was large, and I was obliged to go to her assistance.
'Good gracious, Miss Garston!' she said, in quite a shocked voice, 'you do not mean to tell me that you consider it your duty to scrub floors?'
'Well, no,' I returned, laughing, for really her consternation was ludicrous, 'I should consider it a waste of strength, generally; but we never know what comes in a day's work. Sally is so little that I am obliged to help her.'
'Why can't Mrs. Bell do it?' asked Lady Betty indignantly.
'Mrs. Bell has hardly time to cook the children's dinner. Please don't look so shocked. I don't often scrub floors, and I have nearly finished now. What have you brought in that basket, little Red Riding-Hood?' for in her little crimson hood-like bonnet she did not look so unlike Red Riding-Hood.
'Oh, Giles asked Gladys to send some things for poor little Robin, and she packed them herself. There is a jar of beef-tea, and some jelly, and some new-laid eggs, and sponge-cakes, and a roll or two; and Gladys hopes you will let her know what Robin wants, for he used to be her little scholar, and she is so interested in him.'
Of course I knew Lady Betty would chatter about me when she returned home, but I was rather vexed when Mr. Hamilton took me to task the next morning and gave me quite a lecture on the subject; he made me promise at last that I would never do anything of the kind again. I hardly know what made me so submissive. I think it was his threat of keeping any more patients from me, and then he seemed so thoroughly put out.
'It is such folly wearing yourself out like this, Miss Garston,' he said angrily. 'I wonder why women never will learn common sense. If you work under me I will thank you to obey my directions, and I do not choose my nurse to waste her time and strength in scrubbing floors. Yes, Robin boy, I am very angry with nurse; but there is no occasion for you to cry about it; and--why, good heavens! if you are not crying too, Miss Garston! Of course; there, I told you so; you have just knocked yourself up.'
His tone so aggravated me that I plucked up a little spirit.
'I am not a bit knocked up,'--and, in rather a choky voice, 'I am not crying; I never cry before people; only I am a little tired. I was up all last night with Mrs. Marshall, and you talk so much.'
'Oh, very well,' rather huffily; but he was in a bad humour that day. 'I won't talk any more to you. But I should like to know one thing: when are you going home?'
'In another hour; my head aches, rather, and I think I shall lie down.'
'Of course your head aches; but there, you have given me a promise, so I will not say any more. Try what a good nap will do. I am going round by the Lockes', and I shall tell Phoebe not to expect you this afternoon. It won't hurt her to miss you sometimes; it will teach her to value her blessings more, and people cannot sing when they have a headache.' And he walked off without waiting for me to thank him for his thoughtfulness. What did he mean by saying that I was crying, the ridiculous man, just because there were tears in my eyes? I certainly could not fancy myself crying because Mr. Hamilton scolded me!
I had a refreshing nap, and kept my dinner waiting, but I must own I was a little touched when Mrs. Barton produced a bottle of champagne which she said Mr. Hamilton had brought in his pocket and had desired that I was to have some directly I woke. 'And I was to tell you, with his compliments, that his sister Gladys would sit with Robin all the afternoon, and that Lady Betty was at the Marshalls', and he was going again himself, and Phoebe Locke was better, and he hoped you would not stir out again to-day.'
How very kind and thoughtful of Mr. Hamilton! He had sent his sisters to look after my patients, that I might be able to enjoy my rest with a quiet conscience. I was sorry that he should think that I was so easily knocked up; but it was not over-fatigue, nor yet his scolding, that had brought the tears to my eyes. To-day was the second anniversary of Charlie's death, and through that long, wakeful night, as I sat beside poor Mary's bed, I was recalling the bitter hours when my darling went down deeper into the place of shadows,--when he fought away his young life, while Lesbia and I wept and prayed beside him. No wonder a word unnerved me; but I could not tell Mr. Hamilton this.
When we met the next day he asked me, rather curtly, if the headache had gone; but when I thanked him, somewhat shyly, for the medicine he had sent, he got rather red, and interrupted me with unusual abruptness.
'You have nothing for which to thank me,' he said, in quite a repellent tone. 'I am glad you obeyed orders and stopped at home; I was afraid you might be contumacious, as usual,'--which was rather ungracious of him, after the promise he had extracted from me.
I questioned Robin about Miss Hamilton's visit; she had remained with the boy some hours, reading to him and amusing him, and, in Robin's favourite language, 'getting on first-rate; only, just as I was drinking my mugful of tea, parson comes, and Miss Hamilton she says she will be late, and gets up in a hurry, and--' 'Wait a minute, Robin: do you mean Mr. Cunliffe or Mr. Tudor?'
'Oh, the vicar, to be sure; and he seemed finely surprised to see Miss Hamilton there. "So you've come to see your old scholar," he says, smiling, and Miss Hamilton says, "Yes; but she must go now," and she drops her glove, and parson looks for it, but it was too dark, and for all his groping it could not be found. "I must just go without it," says Miss Hamilton; "but I have got my muff, and it does not matter," and she says good-bye, and goes away. Parson found it, though,' went on Robin garrulously. 'When Sally lighted the candle he spies it at once, and puts it in his pocket. "Miss Hamilton will be fine and glad when you tell her it is found," I says to parson; but he just looks at me in an odd sort of way, and says, "Yes, Robin, certainly." --'And you won't forget to give it to her, to-morrow, sir?' but he did not seem to hear me. "Good-night, my man," he said. "So Miss Hamilton did not think you were too old to be kissed." And he kissed me just in the same place as she did. What did you say, miss?'
'I did not say anything, Robin.'
'Didn't you, miss? I thought I heard you say "poor man," or something like that. Is not Miss Hamilton beautiful? I think she is almost as beautiful as my picture of the Virgin Mary. I asked parson if he did not think so, and he said yes. Do you think she will come again soon?'
'We shall see, Robbie dear.' But, as I spoke, something told me that we should not see Miss Hamilton there again.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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19
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THE PICTURE IN GLADYS'S ROOM
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The days flew rapidly by, and I was almost too busy to heed them as they passed. Each morning I woke with fresh energy to my day's work; the hours were so full of interest and varied employment that my evening rest came all too soon. I grew so fond of my patients, especially of poor little Robin, that I never left them willingly; and the knowledge that I was necessary to them, that they looked to me for relief and comfort, seemed to fill my life with sweetness.
As I said to myself daily, no one need complain that one's existence is objectless, or altogether desolate, as long as there are sick bodies and sick souls to which one can minister. For 'Give, and it shall be given unto you,' is the Divine command, and sympathy and help bestowed on our suffering fellow-creatures shall be repaid into our bosoms a hundredfold. I was right in my surmise: Miss Hamilton did not again visit her little scholar; but Lady Betty came almost daily, and was a great help in amusing the child. I was with him for an hour in the morning, and again in the late afternoon; but Mrs. Marshall took up the greater part of my time; she was growing more feeble every day, and needed my constant care. Unless it were absolutely necessary, I was unwilling to sacrifice my night's rest, or to draw too largely on my stock of strength; but I had fallen into the habit, during the last week or two, of going down to the cottage in the evening about eight or nine, and settling her comfortably for the night. I found these late visits were a great boon to her, and seemed to break the length of the long winter night, and so I did not regret my added trouble. Poor Phoebe had to be content with an hour snatched from the busier portion of the day; but she was beginning to occupy herself now. I kept her constantly supplied with books; and Miss Locke assured me that she read them with avidity; her poor famished mind, deprived for so many years of its natural aliment, fastened almost greedily on the nourishment provided for it. From the moment I induced her to open a book her appetite for reading returned, and she occupied herself in this manner for hours.
She never spoke to her sister about what she read, but when Kitty and she were alone she would keep the child entranced for an hour together by the stories she told her out of Miss Garston's books.
'Sometimes Kitty sings to her, and sometimes they have a rare talk,' Miss Locke would say. 'I am often too busy to do more than look in for five minutes or so, to see how they are getting on. Phoebe grumbles far less; it is wonderful to hear her say, sometimes, that she did not know it was bedtime, when I go in to fetch the lamp. Reading? ay, she is always reading; but she sleeps a deal, too.'
I used to look round Phoebe's room with satisfaction now; it had quite lost its stiff, angular look. A dark crimson foot-quilt lay on the bed, a stand of green growing ferns was on the table, and two or three books were always placed beside her.
Some gay china figures that I had hunted out of the glass cupboard in the parlour enlivened the mantelpiece, and a simple landscape, with sheep feeding in a sunny field, hung opposite the bed. Some pretty cretonne curtains had replaced the dingy dark ones. Phoebe herself had a soft fleecy gray shawl drawn over her thin shoulders. Mr. Hamilton again and again commented on her improved appearance, but I always listened rather silently; the evil spirit that had taken possession of Phoebe had not finally left her; 'and why could not we cast it out?' used to come to my lips sometimes as I looked at her; but all the same I knew the Master-hand was needed for that.
Christmas Day fell this year on a Tuesday. On Sunday afternoon I had finished my rounds and was returning home to tea, when, as I was passing the Marshalls' cottage, Peggy ran after me bareheaded to say her father had just arrived, and would I come in for a moment, as mother seemed a little faint, and granny was frightened.
I hastened back with the child; for, of course, in poor Mary's state the least shock might prove fatal. I found Marshall stooping over the bed and supporting his wife with clumsy fondness, with the tears rolling clown his weather-beaten face.
'I'm 'most 'feard she's gone, missis,' he said hoarsely. 'Poor lass, I took her too sudden, and she had not the strength of the little un there.'
I bade him lay her down gently, and then applied the necessary remedies, and, to my great relief, my patient presently revived. It was touching to see the weak hand trying to feel for her husband; as it came into contact with the rough coat-sleeve, a smile came upon the death-like face.
'It is Andrew himself,' she whispered; 'I feared it was naught but a dream, mother; it is Andrew's own self, and he is looking well and hearty. Ay, lad,' with a loving look at him, 'I could not have died in peace till I had seen you again; and now God's will be done, for He has been good to me and granted me my heart's desire.'
Poor Marshall looked weary and travel-stained, so I beckoned Peggy out of the room, and with her help there was soon a comfortable meal on the table,--part of the meat-pie that was left from the children's dinner, a round or two of hot toast, and a cup of smoking coffee.
The poor man looked a little bewildered when he saw these preparations for his comfort, and he wiped his eyes again with his rough coat-sleeve.
'I have been so long without wife or child that I can't make it out to see them all flocking round me again. There is Tim a man almost. Well, I have been tramping it since five this morning, and I am nearly ready to drop; so thank you kindly, missis, and with your leave I will fall to.'
When I returned to Mary I found her looking wonderfully revived and cheerful.
'Isn't it grand to think that the Lord has let me have my own way about seeing Andrew?' she said, with a smile: 'he will be here now, poor lad, to see the last of me and look after the children. Now, you must not let me keep you, Miss Garston, for Andrew is that handy he can nurse as well as mother there before she lost her eyesight. I have been a deal of trouble to you, and now you must go home and rest.'
I was glad to be set at liberty, for I hoped that I might be in time to attend evening service; but just as I had finished tea, and was trying to think that I was not so very tired, and that it would not be wiser to stay at home, the outer door unlatched, and the next moment there was a quick tap at the parlour door, and Lady Betty bustled in, looking very rosy from the cold.
'Oh, I can't stop a moment,' she said breathlessly; 'I have given Etta the slip, and in five minutes she will be looking for me; but I took it in my head to ask you to go and see Gladys. She is in her room with a cold, and looks dreadfully dull, and I know it will do her so much good if you will go and talk to her. Giles is out, and every one else, so no one will disturb you: so do go, there's a good soul.' And actually before I could answer, the impetuous little creature had shut the door in my face, and I could hear her running down the garden path.
I had not seen Miss Hamilton since the evening Uncle Max discovered us together, and I could not resist the temptation of finding her alone. Lady Betty had said she was in her room, and looked dreadfully dull. I had promised Max to be good to her, so of course it was my duty to go and cheer her up. I made this so plain to my conscience that in five minutes more I was on the road to Gladwyn, and before the church bells had stopped ringing I had entered the dark shrubberies, and was looking at the closed windows, wondering which of them belonged to Miss Hamilton's room.
I was agreeably surprised when a pretty-looking maid admitted me. I had taken a strange dislike to Leah, and the man who had waited upon us at dinner that evening had a dark, unprepossessing face; but this girl looked bright and cheerful, and took my message to Miss Hamilton at once without a moment's hesitation. She returned almost immediately. Miss Hamilton was in her room, but she would be very glad to see me, and the girl looked glad too as she led the way to the turret-room. Miss Hamilton was standing on the threshold, and met me with outstretched hands; she looked ill and worn, and had a soft white shawl drawn closely round her as though she were chilly, but her eyes brightened at the sight of me.
'This is good of you, Miss Garston; I never expected such a pleasure. That will do, Chatty; you can close the door.' And, still holding my hand, she drew me into the room. It was a pretty room, but furnished far more simply than Miss Darrell's. The deep bay-window formed a recess large enough to hold the dressing-table and a chair or two, and was half-hidden by the blue cretonne curtains; besides this there were two more windows. Miss Hamilton had been sitting in a low cushioned chair by the fire; a small table with a lamp and some books was beside her; a Persian kitten lay on the white rug. On a stand beside a chair was a large, beautifully-painted photograph in a carved frame; the folding doors were open, and a vase of flowers stood before it.
'What has put this benevolent idea into your head?' she asked, as she drew forward a comfortable wicker chair with a soft padded seat. 'I thought I had a long, dull evening before me, with no resource but my own thoughts, for I was tired of reading. I could scarcely believe Chatty when she said that you were in the drawing-room.'
I told Miss Hamilton of Lady Betty's visit, and she laughed quite merrily.
'Good little Betty! She is always trying to give me pleasure. She wanted to stay with me herself, only Etta said it was no use for two people to stop away from church. They have all gone, even Thornton and Leah. I believe only Parker and Chatty are in the house.'
'Is Chatty the housemaid?'
'No, the under-housemaid; but Catherine's father is ill, so she has gone to nurse him--' 'And Leah--who is Leah? I mean what is her capacity in the household?' as Miss Hamilton looked rather surprised at my question.
'She used to be Aunt Margaret's attendant, and now she is Etta's maid,--at least, we call her so,--but she makes herself useful in many ways. She is rather a superior person, and well educated, but I like Chatty to wait on me best; she is such a simple, honest little soul. I know people say servants have not much feeling, but I am sure Chatty would do anything for me and Lady Betty.'
'And you think Leah would not?' I asked, rather stupidly.
'I did not say so, did I?' she answered quickly. 'We always look upon Leah as Etta's servant. She was devoted to her old mistress, and of course that makes Etta care for her so much. To me she is not a pleasant person. Etta has spoiled her, and she gives herself airs, and takes too much upon herself. Do you know'--with an amused smile--'Lady Betty and I think that Etta is rather afraid of her? She never ventures to find fault with her, and once or twice Lady Betty has heard Leah scolding Etta when something has put her out. I should not care to be scolded by my maid: should you, Miss Garston?'
'No,' I returned, rather absently, for, unperceived by Miss Hamilton, my attention was arrested by the photograph. It was the portrait of a young man, and something in the face seemed familiar to me.
The next moment I was caught. A distressed look crossed Miss Hamilton's face, and she made a sudden movement, as though she would close the photograph; but on second thoughts she handed it to me.
'Should you like to see it more closely? It is a photograph of my twin-brother, Eric. They think--yes, they are afraid that he is dead.'
Her lips had turned quite white as she spoke, and in my surprise, for I never knew there had been another brother, I did not answer, but only bent over the picture.
It was the face of a young man about nineteen or twenty,--a beautiful face, that strangely resembled his sister's; the large blue-gray eyes were like hers, but the fair budding moustache scarcely hid the weak, irresolute mouth. Here the resemblance stopped, for Miss Hamilton's firm lips and finely-curved chin showed no lack of power; but in her brother's face--attractive as it was--there were clearly signs of vacillation.
'Well, what do you think of it?' she asked, with a quick catch of her breath.
'It is a beautiful face,' I returned, rather hesitating. 'Very striking, too. One could not easily forget it; and it is strangely like you: but--' 'Yes, I know,'--taking it out of my hand and closing the carved panels,--'but you think it weak. Oh yes, we cannot all be strong alike. Our Creator has ordained that, and it is for us to be merciful. Poor Eric! He would be three-and-twenty now. He was just twenty when that was taken.'
'And he is dead?'
'They say so. They think he is drowned; but we have no real proof, and we cannot be sure of it. He is alive in my dreams. That is the best of not really knowing,' she went on, in a sad voice: 'one can go on praying for him, for, perhaps, after all, he may one day come back; not from the dead,--oh no, I do not believe that for a moment; but if he be alive--' her eyes dilating and her manner full of excitement.
I pressed her to tell me about him, adding softly that I could feel for her more than any one else, as I had lost my own twin-brother. But she looked kindly at me and shook her head.
'Not to-night, I do not feel well enough, and it always makes me so ill and excited to speak about it, and we should not have time. Perhaps some day, when I get more used to you. Oh yes, some day, perhaps.'
'Indeed, I do not wish to intrude upon your trouble, Miss Hamilton,' I returned, colouring at this repulse. But she took my hand and pressed it gently.
'You must not be hurt with me. I have never spoken to any one about Eric. Mr. Cunliffe knows. But he--he--is different, and he was very kind to me. I must always be grateful.' The tears came into her eyes, and she hurried on: 'I should like you to know, only I am such a coward. I am so sure of your sympathy, you seem already such a friend. Why do you call me Miss Hamilton? I am younger than you. I should like to hear you say Gladys. Miss Hamilton seems so stiff from you, and for years I have thought of you as Ursula.'
'You mean that Uncle Max has often talked of me?'
'Oh yes,' with an involuntary sigh, 'of you and your brother. He was always so fond of you both. He used to say very often that he wished that I knew you; that you were so good, so unlike other people; that you bore your trouble so beautifully.'
'I bore my trouble well! Oh, Miss Hamilton, it is impossible that he could have said that, when he knew how rebellious I was.' But here I could say no more.
'Don't cry, Ursula,' she said, very sweetly; 'you are not rebellious now. Oh, I used to be so sorry for you; you little thought at that dreadful time, when you were so lonely and desolate, that a girl whom you had never seen, and perhaps of whom you had never heard, was praying for you with all her heart. That is what I mean by saying that I have known you for a long time.'
By mutual impulse we bent forward and kissed each other,--a quiet lingering kiss that spoke of full understanding and sympathy. I had promised Uncle Max to be good to this girl, to do all I could to help her, but I did not know as I gave that promise how my heart would cleave to her, and that in time I should grow to love her with that rare friendship that is described in Holy Writ as 'passing the love of women.' We were silent for a little while, and then by some sudden impulse I began to speak of Max; I told her that I felt a little anxious about him, that he did not seem quite well or quite happy.
'I have thought so myself,' she returned, very quietly.
'Max is so good that I cannot bear to see him unhappy,--he is so unselfish, so full of thought for other people, so earnest in his work, so conscientious and self-denying.'
'True,' she replied, taking up a little toy screen that lay in her lap and shielding her face from the flame: 'he is all that. If any one deserves to be happy, it is your uncle.'
I was glad to hear her say this, but her voice was a little constrained.
'He seems very far from happy just now,' was my answer: 'he looks worn and thin, as though he were overworking himself. I asked him the other night what ailed him. Are you cold, Miss Hamilton? I thought you shivered just now.'
'No, no,' she returned, a little impatiently: 'you were speaking of your uncle.'
'Yes. I could not get him to tell me what was the matter; he began to joke: you know his way; men are so tiresome sometimes.'
'It is not always easy to understand them,' she said, turning away her face: 'perhaps they do not wish to be understood. It must be a great comfort to Mr. Cunliffe to have you so near him. I have thought lately that he has seemed a little lonely.'
'But he comes here very often,' I said, rather quickly; 'he need not be dull, with so many friends.'
To my surprise, Miss Hamilton's fair face flushed almost painfully.
'He does not come so often as he used; perhaps he finds us a little too quiet. I am sorry for Giles's sake--oh yes, I do not mean that,' as I looked at her rather reproachfully. 'Of course we all like Mr. Cunliffe.'
I was about to reply to this, when Miss Hamilton suddenly grew a little restless, and the next moment the door-bell sounded.
I rose at once. 'They have come back from church. I will bid you good-bye now.' And, as I expected, she made no effort to keep me.
'You will come again,' she said, kissing me affectionately. 'I have so enjoyed our little talk; you have done me good, indeed you have, Ursula,' watching me from the threshold. I knew I could not escape my fate, so I walked downstairs as coolly as I could, and encountered them all in the hall. Miss Darrell gave a little shriek when she saw me.
'Dear me, Miss Garston, how you startled me! Who would have thought of finding you here on Sunday evening, when all good people are at church!' but here Mr. Hamilton put her aside with little ceremony: he really seemed as though he were glad to see me.
'You came to sit with Gladys: it was very kind and thoughtful of you. Poor girl, she seemed rather dull, but now you have cheered her up.'
'Perhaps Miss Garston will extend her cheering influence, Giles,' observed Miss Darrell in her most staccato manner, 'and remain to supper. Leah will see her home.'
'I am going to perform that office myself, Etta. Will you stay?' looking at me in a friendly manner.
'Not to-night,' I returned hurriedly; 'and, indeed, I can very well walk alone.' But Mr. Hamilton settled that question by putting on his greatcoat.
'Oh, of course Giles will walk with you: how could he do less?' replied Miss Darrell, with a scarcely perceptible sneer. 'You have timed your visit so well that he will be just back to supper. So you have been sitting with dear Gladys? I wonder how you knew she had a cold: private information, I suppose. I should hardly have thought Gladys was well enough to see visitors, she was so feverish when I left her; but that stupid Chatty makes such mistakes.'
'Miss Hamilton was not at all feverish, I assure you. My visit has done her no harm.' And I turned to Lady Betty, who stood on tiptoe to kiss me and breathed a 'thank you' into my ear; but Miss Darrell could not forbear from a parting fling as she bade me good-night.
'We shall wait supper for you, Giles,' she said rather pointedly; but Mr. Hamilton took no notice; he only bade me be careful, as it was rather slippery by the gate, and then he began telling me about the sermon, and, strangely enough, he endorsed my opinion of Max.
'I tell him he must have a change after Christmas; he looks knocked up, and a trifle thin. It will not hurt Tudor to work a little harder; you may tell Cunliffe I say so. Halloo! I think you had better take my arm, Miss Garston; it is confoundedly dark and slippery.' But I declined this, as I was tolerably sure-footed.
Mr. Hamilton seemed in excellent spirits, and talked well and with great animation, as though he were bent on amusing me; he was a clever man, and had a store of useful information which he did not always care to produce. I never heard him talk better than on this occasion: there were flashes of wit and brilliancy that surprised me: I was almost sorry when I reached the cottage.
'Good-night, Miss Garston, and thank you again for your deed of charity,' he said quite heartily, and as though he meant it. Really, I never liked Mr. Hamilton so much before; but then he had never shown himself so genial. I saw Lady Betty the next morning, and asked her after Miss Hamilton, but I almost regretted my question when the naughty little thing treated me to one of her usual confidences: there was no inducing her to hold her tongue when she was in the humour for chatting.
'Oh, it was such fun!' she said, her eyes dancing with mischief. 'Etta was so cross when you were gone; she declared it was a conspiracy between us three, and that you only wanted Giles to walk home with you. No, I did not mean to repeat that, so please don't look so angry. Etta did not really think so, but she will say these things about people. I tell Gladys Etta wants Giles herself. She scolded Chatty for being so stupid, and said if Leah had been at home she would have shown more sense; and then she went up to Gladys's room in a nice temper, but Gladys would not listen, said she was tired, and ordered Etta out of the room. When Gladys is like that Etta can do nothing with her, so she sulked until Giles came home, and then began teasing him about his gallantry, and wondering how he enjoyed his walk, and you know her way.'
'Lady Betty, I am busy; besides which, I do not wish to hear any more of your cousin's improving conversation.'
'Oh, there is nothing more to tell,' she returned triumphantly. 'Giles silenced her so completely that she did not dare to open her lips again. Oh, she is properly frightened of Giles when he is in one of his moods. He told her that he disliked observations of this sort, that in his opinion they were both undignified and vulgar, especially when they related to a person whom he so much respected as Miss Garston. "And allow me to remark," he continued, looking at poor little me rather fiercely, as though I were in fault too, "that I shall consider it an honour if Miss Garston bestows her friendship on any member of my household. I am very glad she seems to like Gladys, and I only hope she will do the poor girl good and come every day if she likes, and that is all I mean to say on the subject." But I think he said quite enough; don't you, Miss Garston?' finished naughty Lady Betty, looking up at me with such innocent eyes that I could not have scolded her any more than I could have scolded a kitten.
But if only Lady Betty could learn to hold her tongue--!
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{
"id": "16080"
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20
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ERIC
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That afternoon I had rather an adventure. I was just walking up the hill on my way to the post-office, when a handsome carriage came round the corner by the church rather sharply, and the same moment a little dog crossing the road in the dusk seemed to be under the horses' feet.
That was my first impression. My next was that the coachman was trying to pull up his horses. There was a sudden howl, the horses kicked and plunged, some one in the carriage shrieked, and then the little dog was in my arms, and even in the dim light I could feel one poor little leg was broken.
The horses were quieted with difficulty, and the footman got down and went to the carriage window.
'It is poor little Flossie, ma'am,' he said, touching his hat: 'she must have got out into the road and recognised the carriage, for she was under the horses' feet. This lady got her out somehow.' And indeed I had no idea how I had managed it. One of the horses had reared, and his front hoof almost touched me as I snatched up Flossie. I suppose it was a risky thing to do, for I never liked the remembrance afterwards, and I do not believe I could have done it again.
'Oh dear! oh dear!' observed a pleasant voice, 'do let me thank the lady. Stand aside, Williams.' And a pretty old lady with white hair looked out at me.
'I am afraid the poor dog's leg is broken,' I observed, as the little animal lay in my arms uttering short barks of pain. 'Happily your man pulled up in time, or it must have been killed.'
'Oh dear! oh dear! what will the colonel say to such carelessness?' exclaimed the old lady. 'He's so fond of Flossie, and makes such a fuss with her. And Mr. Hamilton has gone to Brighton, or I would have sent Flossie in for him to attend to her.'
'Will you let me see what I can do, Mrs. Maberley?' I said, for I had recognised the pretty old lady at once. 'I am the village nurse, Miss Garston, and I think I can bind up poor Flossie's leg.'
'Miss Garston!' in quite a different voice; it seemed to have grown rather formal. 'Oh, I am so much obliged to you, but I am ashamed to give you the trouble; only for poor Flossie's sake,' hesitating, 'will you come into the carriage and let me drive you to Maplehurst?' And to this I readily consented. I could never bear to see an animal in pain, and the little creature, a beautiful brown-and-white spaniel, was already licking my hand confidingly.
I could see Mrs. Maberley was embarrassed by my presence, for she talked in rather a nervous manner about it being Christmas Eve, and how busy the young ladies were decorating the church.
'I wanted to speak to Miss Darrell for a moment,' she went on, 'and I found her and Lady Betty putting up wreaths in the chancel, and that good-looking Mr. Tudor was helping them. I was so sorry poor dear Gladys was not there; but Miss Darrell says her cold is so much better that she is downstairs again. I am afraid she is very delicate and takes after her poor mother.'
'I saw Miss Hamilton yesterday, and I certainly thought she looked very ill.'
'So Miss Darrell told me. What a good, unselfish little creature she is, Miss Garston! I do not know what Mr. Hamilton and his sisters would do without her. Ah, here we are at Maplehurst, and Tracy is looking out for us. Tracy, is the colonel at home? No, I am thankful to hear it. Poor little Flossie has met with an accident, and this lady has saved her life, but she tells me her leg is broken. Now, Miss Garston, will you believe it that I am such a coward that I could not be of the least assistance? Tracy, take Miss Garston into the morning room, and do your best to help her.' And Mrs. Maberley trotted away as fast as she could, while Tracy ushered me into a bright snug-looking room and asked me very civilly what she could do for me.
Tracy was a handy, sensible woman, and in a few minutes I had managed, with her help, to strap up poor Flossie's leg in the most successful manner.
'I am sure, ma'am, Mr. Hamilton couldn't have done better himself,' observed Tracy, looking at me with respectful admiration, while I petted Flossie, who was now lying comfortably in her basket, trying to lick her bandages. 'I must go and tell my mistress that it is done, for she will be fretting herself ill over poor Flossie.'
I expect Tracy sounded my praises, for when Mrs. Maberley entered the room in her pretty cap with gray ribbons there was not a trace of formality in her manner as she thanked me with tears in her eyes for my kindness to Flossie.
'To think of a young creature being so clever!' she said, folding her soft dimpled hands together. 'My dear, the colonel will be so grateful to you: he dotes on Flossie. You must stay and have tea with me, and then he can thank you himself. No, I shall take no refusal. Tracy, tell Marvel to bring up the tea-tray at once. My dear,' turning to me, when Tracy had left the room, 'I am almost ashamed to look you in the face when I remember how long you have been in Heathfield and that I have never called on you; but Etta told me that you did not care to have visitors.'
'Yes, I know, Mrs. Maberley; but that is quite a mistake,' I returned, somewhat eagerly, for I had fallen in love with the pretty old lady, and her tall, aristocratic colonel with his white moustache and grand military carriage, and had watched them with much interest from my place in church. She was such a dainty old lady, like a piece of Dresden china, with her pink cheeks and white curls and old-fashioned shoe-buckles; and she had such beautiful little hands, plump and soft as a baby's, which she seemed to regard with innocent pride, for she was always settling the lace ruffles round her wrists and pinching them up with careful fingers.
'Dear, dear! I thought Etta told me,' she began rather nervously.
'Miss Darrell makes mistakes, like other people,' I answered, smiling. 'I shall be very pleased to know my neighbours; it is quite true that I am not often at home, and just now I am very busy, but all the same I do not mean to shut myself out from society. One owes a duty to one's neighbours.'
'My dear Miss Garston, I am quite pleased to hear you talk so sensibly. I was afraid from what Etta said that you were a little eccentric and strong-minded, and I have such a dislike to that in young people; young ladies are so terribly independent at the present day, in my opinion, and I know the colonel thinks the same. They are sadly deficient in good manners and reverence. That is why I am so fond of the Hamilton girls: they are perfect young gentlewomen; they never talk slang or slip-shod English, and they know how to respect gray hairs. The colonel is devoted to Gladys: I tell him he is as fond of her as though she were his own daughter.'
'I think every one must be fond of Miss Hamilton.'
'Yes, poor darling! and she is much to be pitied,' returned Mrs. Maberley, with a sigh. 'Oh, here comes Marvel with the tea. Now, Miss Garston, my dear, take off that bonnet and jacket: I like people to look as though they were at home. Marvel, draw up that chair to the fire, and give Miss Garston a table to herself, and put the muffins where she can reach them; there, now I think we look comfortable: young people always look nicer without their bonnets; it was a pity to hide your pretty smooth hair. Now tell me a little about yourself. I am sure Etta is wrong: you do not look in the least strong-minded. Tracy said it was wonderful how such slender little fingers could ever do hospital work. She has fallen in love with you, my dear; and Tracy has plenty of penetration. I never can understand why she does not take to Etta; and Etta is so good to her; but there, we all have our prejudices.'
As soon as Mrs. Maberley's ripple of talk had died away, I told her a little about my work, and how much I liked my life at Heathfield, and then I spoke of my great interest in Gladys Hamilton.
It was really very pleasant sitting in this warm, softly-lighted room and talking to this charming, kind-hearted old lady. Christmas Eve was not so dull, after all, as I had expected; it was nice to feel that I was making a new friend,--that the little service I had rendered Mrs. Maberley had broken down the barrier between us and overcome her prejudice. I knew that Miss Darrell had set her against me, and that for some reason of her own she wished to prevent her calling upon me.
Did Miss Darrell dislike my coming to Heathfield? Was she afraid of finding me in her way? Was she at all desirous of making my stay irksome to me? These were some of the questions I was continually asking myself.
I noticed that Mrs. Maberley sighed and shook her head when I spoke of Miss Hamilton. As I warmed to my subject, and praised her beauty and gentleness and intelligence, she sighed still more.
'Yes, she is a dear girl, a dear good girl; but she has never been the same since Eric went. Does she talk to you about Eric, Miss Garston? Etta says she talks of nothing else to her.'
I opened my eyes rather widely at this statement, for I could not forget what Miss Hamilton had said to me that night: 'I have never spoken to any one about Eric.' Was it likely that she would choose Miss Darrell for a _confidante_? But I kept my incredulity to myself, and simply related to Mrs. Maberley the circumstance that I had seen the photograph by accident the previous evening, and only knew then that Miss Hamilton had had a twin-brother.
'How very singular!' she observed, putting down her tea-cup in a hurry. 'I should have thought every one in the place would have spoken about the young man, he was such a favourite; and it was no use Mr. Hamilton trying to keep it a secret. Why, the postmaster's wife told me before Eric had been gone twenty-four hours, and then I went to Mr. Cunliffe. Why, child, do you mean your uncle has never told you about it?'
'Oh no, Uncle Max never repeats anything; he would be the last person from whom I should hear it.'
'And yet he was up at Gladwyn every day,--ay, twice a day; and people said--But what an old gossip I am! Well, about poor Eric, there can be no harm in your knowing what all the world knows, even Marvel and Tracy; it is a very sore subject with poor Mr. Hamilton, and no one dares to mention Eric's name to him; but, as Etta says, Gladys can never hold her tongue about him when they two are alone together.' I certainly held mine at that moment. I began to wonder what Miss Darrell would say next.
'So you have seen his picture, Miss Garston, my dear: well, now, is it not a beautiful face? --not sufficiently manly, as the colonel says; but then, poor fellow, he had not a strong character. Still, it was a lovely sight to see them together: our gardens join, you know, and often and often, as I have sat under our beech, I have seen Gladys and Eric walking up and down the little avenue, with his arm round her, and their two heads shining like gold, and she would be talking to him and smiling in his face, until it made me quite young to see them.'
'Wait a moment, Mrs. Maberley, please. I am deeply interested; but would Gladys--would Miss Hamilton like me to know all this?'
'To be sure she would,--though perhaps she would not care for the pain of telling it herself; but it would be better for you to hear it from me than from Mrs. Barton, or Mrs. Drabble, or any other gossiping person that takes it into her head to tell you, for you could not be much longer at Heathfield without hearing of it, when, as I say, every Jack and Tom in the village knows it,--though how it all got about is more than I can say. I tell the colonel, Leah must have had a hand in it: I know it was she who told Tracy.'
I saw by this time that Mrs. Maberley had quite made up her mind to tell me the story herself; she was garrulous, like many other old ladies, and perhaps she enjoyed a little gossip about her neighbours, so I only essayed one other feeble protest.
'I hope Mr. Hamilton will not mind--' but she answered me quite briskly,-- 'Well, poor fellow, he knows by this time people will talk; I daresay he thinks Mr. Cunliffe has told you. Now, I do not want to blame Mr. Hamilton; he is a great favourite of mine ever since he cured the colonel's gout, and I would not be hard on him for worlds; but I have always been afraid that he did not rightly understand Eric; the brothers were so different. Mr. Hamilton is very hard-working and rather matter-of-fact, and Eric was quite different, more like a girl, dreamy and enthusiastic and terribly idle, and then he fancied himself an artist. Mr. Hamilton could not bear that.'
'Why not? An artist's is a very good profession.'
'Yes, but he did not believe in his talent; and then Eric was intended for the law; his brother had sent him to Oxford, but he would not work, and he was extravagant, and got into debt,--and, oh yes, there was no end of trouble. I do not know how it was,' went on Mrs. Maberley, 'but Eric always seemed in the wrong. Etta used to take his part,--which was very good of her, as Eric could not bear her and treated her most rudely. Mr. Hamilton used to complain that Gladys encouraged him in his idleness; he sometimes came in here of an evening looking quite miserable, poor fellow, and would say that his sisters and Eric were leagued against him; that but for Etta he would be at his wits' end what to do. Eric would not obey him; he simply defied his authority; he was growing more idle every day, and when he remonstrated with him, Gladys took his part. Oh dear, I am afraid they were all very wretched.'
'You think Mr. Hamilton did not understand his young brother.'
'Well, perhaps not. You see, Mr. Hamilton had not the same temptations; he was always steady and hard-working from a boy, and never cared much about his own comfort. As for getting into debt, why, he would have considered it wicked to do so. I know the colonel thought once or twice that he was a little hard on Eric. I remember his saying once 'that boys will be boys, and that all are not good alike, and that he must not use the curb too much.' It was a pity, certainly, that Mr. Hamilton was so angry about his painting. I daresay it was only a temporary craze. I am afraid, though, Eric must have behaved very badly. I know he struck his elder brother once. Anyhow, things went on from bad to worse; and one day a dreadful thing happened. A cheque of some value, I have forgotten the particulars, was stolen from Mr. Hamilton's desk, and the next day Eric disappeared.'
'Was he accused of taking it?'
'To be sure. Leah saw him with her own eyes. You must ask Mr. Cunliffe about all that; my memory is apt to be treacherous about details. I know Leah saw him with his hand in his brother's desk, and though Eric vowed it was only to put a letter there,--a very impertinent letter that he had written to his brother,--still the cheque was gone, and, as they heard afterwards, cashed by a very fair young man at some London Bank; and the next morning, after some terrible quarrel, during which Gladys fainted, poor girl, Eric disappeared, and the very next thing they heard of him, about three weeks afterwards, was that his watch and a pocket-book belonging to him had been picked up on the Brighton beach close to Hove.'
'Do you mean that this is all they have ever heard of him?'
'Yes. I believe Mr. Hamilton employed every means of ascertaining his fate. For some months he refused to believe that he was dead. I am not sure if Gladys believes it now. But Etta did from the first. "He was weak and reckless enough for anything," she has often said to me. Of course it is very terrible, and one cannot bear to think of it, but when a young man has lost his character he has not much pleasure in his life.'
'I do not think Miss Hamilton really believes that he is dead.'
'Perhaps not, poor darling. But Mr. Hamilton has no doubt on the subject, my dear Miss Garston. He is much to be pitied: he has never been the same man since Eric went. I am afraid that he repents of his harshness to the poor boy. He told the colonel once that he wished he had tried milder treatment.'
'One can understand Mr. Hamilton's feelings so well. You are right, Mrs. Maberley: he is much to be pitied.'
'Yes, and, to make matters worse, Gladys was very ill, and refused to see or speak to him in her illness. I believe the breach is healed between them now; but she is not all that a sister ought to be to him.'
'Perhaps Miss Darrell usurps her place,' I replied a little incautiously, but I saw my mistake at once. Mrs. Maberley was evidently a devout believer in Miss Darrell's merits.
'Oh, my dear, you must not say such things. Mr. Hamilton has told me over and over again that he does not know how he would have got through that miserable time but for his cousin Etta's kindness. She did everything for him, and nursed Gladys in her illness. I am sure she would have died but for Etta. Dear me! Flossie looks restless. I do believe she hears her master's step outside. --Yes, Flossie, that is his knock. --But I wonder whom he is bringing in with him.' And Mrs. Maberley straightened herself and smoothed the folds of her satin gown, and tried to look as usual, though there were tears in her bright eyes and her hands were a little tremulous. I do not know why I felt so sure that it would be Mr. Hamilton, but I was not at all surprised when he followed the tall old colonel into the room. But he certainly looked astonished when he saw me.
'Miss Garston!' he ejaculated, darting one of his keen looks at me. But when he had shaken hands he sat down by Mrs. Maberley somewhat silently.
I was rather sorry to see Mr. Hamilton, for our talk had unsettled me and made me feel nervous in his presence. I was afraid he would read something from our faces. And I certainly saw him look at me more than once, as though something had aroused his suspicion. For the first time I was unwilling to encounter one of those straight glances. I felt guilty, as though I must avoid his eyes, but all the more I felt he was watching me.
I was anxious to put a stop to this uncomfortable state of things, but I could not silence Mrs. Maberley, who was relating to her husband the story of poor Flossie's accident. My presence of mind and skill were so much lauded, and the colonel said so many civil things, that I felt myself getting hotter every moment.
Mr. Hamilton came at last to my relief.
'I think Miss Garston resembles me in one thing, colonel. She hates to be thanked for doing her duty. You will drive her away if you say any more about Flossie. Oh, I thought so,' as I stretched out my hand for my hat: 'I thought I interpreted that look aright. Well, I must be going too. I only brought him back safe to you, Mrs. Maberley. --By the bye, colonel, I shall tell Gladys that you have never asked after her.'
'My sweetheart, Gladys! To be sure I have not. Well, how is she, my dear fellow?'
'As obstinate as ever, colonel. Came downstairs to-day, and declares she will go to early service to-morrow, because it will be Christmas Day, and she has never missed yet. Women are kittle cattle to manage. Now, Miss Garston, if you are ready, I will see you a little on your way.'
I knew it was no good to remonstrate, so I held my peace, Mrs. Maberley kissed me quite affectionately, and begged me to come whenever I had an hour to spare.
'I wish I had known you before, my dear. But there, we all make mistakes sometimes.' And she patted me on the shoulder. 'Edbrooke, will you see them out? He will be your friend for ever, after your goodness to Flossie: won't you, Edbrooke?'
I never felt so afraid of Mr. Hamilton before. I was wondering what I should say to him, and hoping that he had not noticed my nervousness, when he startled me excessively by saying,-- 'What makes you look so odd this evening? You are not a bit yourself, Miss Garston. Come! I shall expect you to confess. Mrs. Maberley is an old friend of mine, and I am very much attached to her. I should like to know what you and she have been talking about?'
It was too dark for Mr. Hamilton to see my face, so I answered a little flippantly,-- 'I daresay you would like to know. Women are certainly not much more curious than men, after all.'
'Oh, as to that, I am not a bit curious,' was the contradictory answer. 'But all the same I intend to know. So you may as well make a clean breast of it.'
'But--but you have no right to be so inquisitive, Mr. Hamilton.'
'Again I say I am not inquisitive, but I mean to know this. Mrs. Maberley had been crying. I could see the tears in her eyes. You looked inclined to cry too, Miss Garston. Now,'--after a moment's hesitation, as though he found speech rather difficult,--'I know the dear old lady has only one fault. She is rather too fond of gossiping about her neighbours, though she does it in the kindest manner. May I ask if her talk this evening at all related to a family not a hundred miles away from Maplehurst?'
His voice sounded hard and satirical in the darkness. 'I wish you would not ask me such a question, Mr. Hamilton,' I returned, much distressed. 'It was not my fault: I did not wish--' But he interrupted me.
'Of course; I knew it. When am I ever deceived by a face or manner? Not by yours, certainly. So my good old friend told you about that miserable affair. I wish she had held her tongue a little longer. I wish--' But I burst out, full of remorse,-- 'Oh, Mr. Hamilton, I am so sorry! I have no right to know, but indeed I was hardly to blame.'
'Who says you are to blame?' he returned, so harshly that I remained silent: 'it is no fault of yours if people will not be silent. But all the same I am sorry that you know; your opinion of me is quite changed now, eh? You think me a hard-hearted taskmaster of a brother. Well, it does not matter: Gladys would have made you believe that in time.'
His voice was so full of concentrated bitterness that I longed to say something consoling; in his own fashion he had been kind to me, and I did not wish to misjudge him.
'I know your sister Gladys sufficiently to be sure that she will never act ungenerously by her brother,' I returned hotly. 'Mr. Hamilton, you need not say such things: it is not for me to judge.'
'But all the same you will judge,' he replied moodily. 'Oh, I know how you good women cling together: you know nothing of a man's nature; you cannot estimate his difficulties; because he has not got your sweet nature, because he cannot bear insolence patiently--Oh,' with an abruptness that was almost rude but for the concealed pain in his voice, 'I am not going to excuse myself to you: why should I? I have only to account to my Maker and my own conscience,' And he was actually walking off in the darkness, for we were now in sight of the parlour window, but I called him back so earnestly that he could not refuse to obey.
'Mr. Hamilton, pray do not leave me like this; it makes me unhappy. Do you know it is Christmas Eve?'
'Well, what of that?' with a short laugh.
'People ought not to quarrel and be disagreeable to each other on Christmas Eve.'
'I am afraid, Miss Garston, that I do feel intensely disagreeable this evening.'
'Yes, but you must try and forgive me all the same. I could not quite help myself; but indeed I do not mean to judge you or any one, and I should like you to shake hands.'
'There, then,' with a decidedly hearty grasp; and then, without releasing me, 'So you don't think so very badly of me, after all?'
'I am very sorry for you,' was my prudent answer; 'I think you have had a great deal to bear. Good-night, Mr. Hamilton.'
'Wait a minute; you have not answered my question. You must not have it all your own way. I repeat, has Mrs. Maberley given you a very bad impression of my character?'
'Certainly not; oh, she spoke most kindly; I should not have been afraid if you had heard the whole of our conversation.'
'I wish I had heard it.'
'She made me feel very sorry for you all. Oh, what trouble there is in the world, Mr. Hamilton! It does seem so blind and foolish to sit in judgment on other people! how can we know their trials and temptations?'
'That is spoken like a sensible woman. Try to keep a good opinion of us, Miss Garston: we shall be the better for your friendship. Well, so we are friends again, and this little misunderstanding is healed: so much the better; I should hate to quarrel with you. Now run in out of the cold.'
I hastened to obey him, but he stood at the gate until I had entered the house; his voice and manner had quite changed during the last few minutes, and had become strangely gentle, reminding me of his sister Gladys's voice. What a singular man he was! --and yet I felt sorry for him. 'I wonder if he is really to blame!' I thought, as I opened the parlour door.
The lamp was alight; the fire burnt ruddily; Tinker was stretched on the rug as usual, but something else was on the rug too.
A girlish figure in a dark tweed gown was huddled up before the grate; a head, with short thick locks of hair tossing roughly on her neck, turned quickly at my entrance.
'Jill!'
'Yes, it is I, Ursie dear! Oh, you darling bear, what a time you have been!' Two strong arms pulled me down in the usual fashion, and a hot cheek was pressed lovingly against mine.
'Oh, Jill, Jill, what does this mean?' I exclaimed, in utter amazement; but for a long time Jill only laughed and hugged me, and there was no getting an answer to my question.
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"id": "16080"
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21
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'I RAN AWAY, THEN!'
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'Now, Jill,' I demanded, at last, taking her by the shoulders, 'I insist on knowing what this means.' And when I spoke in that tone Jill always obeyed me at once.
So she shook her untidy mane, and looked at me with eyes that were brimful of fun and naughtiness.
'Very well, Ursie dear, if you will know, you shall; but first sit down in that cosy-looking chair, and I will put my elbows in your lap, in the dear old fashion, and then we can talk nicely. What a snug little room this is! it looked just delicious when I came in, and Mrs. Barton made me such a nice cup of tea, and then I went upstairs to look at your bedroom, and there was a beautiful fire there, and Mrs. Barton says you always have one: so you are not so poor and miserable, after all.'
'I am not at all poor, thank you; and I work so hard that I think I deserve to be warm and comfortable. And when people live alone, a fire is a nice, cheerful companion. But this is not answering my question, Jocelyn.'
Now Jill hated me to call her Jocelyn, so she made a face at me, and said, in rather a grumpy voice, 'Well, I ran away, then!'
'Ran away from Hyde Park Gate! Were you mad, Jill?'
'Oh dear, no,--not from Hyde Park Gate. Did you not get my letter? Oh, I remember, I forgot to post it: it is in my blotting-case now. Then you did not know that Sara has scarlatina?'
'No, indeed; but I am very sorry to hear it.'
'Oh, she is nearly well now; but no one knows how she caught it. There was a terrible fuss when Dr. Armstrong pronounced it scarlatina. Mamma made father take lodgings at Brighton at once, and Fräulein and I were packed off there at a minute's notice. You can fancy what my life has been for the last ten days, mewed up in a dull, ugly parlour with that old cat.'
'My poor, dear Jill! But why did you not write to me, and I would have come over at once?'
'So I did write, twice, and I do believe that horrid creature never posted my letters,--I daresay they are in her pocket now,--and I could not get out by myself until to-day. Now just think, Ursula, what sort of a Christmas Day I was likely to have; and then you never came to me, and I got desperate; so when Fräulein said she had one of her headaches,' and here Jill made a comical grimace, 'I just made up my mind to take French leave, and spend Christmas Day with you, and here I am; and scold me if you dare, and I will hug you to death.' And, indeed, Jill's powerful young arms were quite capable of fulfilling her threat.
'It is not for me to scold you,' I replied quietly; 'but I am afraid you will get into trouble for this piece of recklessness. Think how frightened poor Fräulein will be when she misses you.'
'Poor Fräulein, indeed! a deceitful creature like that. Why, Ursula, what do you think? I just peeped into her room to be sure that she was safe and it was all dark: she was not there at all. Oh, oh, my lady, I said to myself, so that is your little game, is it? And, just to be certain, I rang at the bell at 37 Brunswick Place, where the Schumackers live, and asked the servant if Fräulein Hennig was still there, and when I heard that she was having tea I nearly laughed in his face. What do you think of that for an instructress of youth,--getting up the excuse of a headache, and leaving me over those stupid lessons, while she paid a visit on her own account? Does she not deserve a thorough good fright as a punishment?'
'I think Aunt Philippa ought to be undeceived. I have never trusted Fräulein Hennig since you told me she shut herself up in her bedroom to read novels. Jill, my dear, you have acted very wrongly, and I am afraid we shall all get into trouble over this school-girl trick of yours. I must think what is best to be done under the circumstances.'
'You may think as much as you like,' returned Jill obstinately, 'but I have come to spend my Christmas Day with you, and nothing will induce me to go back to Fräulein: I shall murder her if I do. Now, Ursie darling,' in a coaxing voice, 'do be nice, and make much of me. You can't think how delicious it is to see your face again; it is such a dear face, and I like it ever so much better than Sara's and Lesbia's.'
I was unable to reply to this flattering speech, for Jill suddenly put up her hand--I noticed it was a little inky--and said, 'Hark, there is some one coming up to the door?' and for the moment we both believed that it was Fräulein; but, to Jill's immense relief, it was only Mr. Tudor, with a great bough of holly in his hand.
'We have just finished at the church, and I have brought you this, Miss Garston,' he began, and then he stopped, and said, 'Miss Jocelyn here!' in a tone of extreme surprise, and Jill got up rather awkwardly and shook hands with him. I could see that she felt shy and uncomfortable. I was very pleased to see Mr. Tudor, for I knew he would help us in this emergency. Jill was such a child, in spite of her womanly proportions, that I was sure that her escapade would not seriously shock him; he was young enough himself to have a fellow-feeling for her; and I was not wrong. Mr. Tudor looked decidedly amused when I told him Jill had taken French leave. He tried to look grave until I had finished, but the effort was too much for him, and he burst out laughing.
Jill, who was looking very sulky, was so charmed by his merriment that she began to laugh too, and we were all as cheerful as possible until I called them to order, and asked Mr. Tudor if he would send off a telegram at once.
'A telegram! Oh, Ursula!' And Jill's dimples disappeared like magic.
'My dear, Fräulein would not have a moment's sleep to-night if she did not know you were safe. Do not be afraid, Jill: we will spend our Christmas Day together, in spite of all the Fräuleins in the world.' And then I wrote off the telegram, and a short note, and gave them to Mr. Tudor. The telegram was necessarily brief: 'Jocelyn safe with me. Will not return until Thursday. Write to explain.'
The note was more explanatory.
I apologised profusely to Fräulein for her pupil's naughtiness, but begged her to say nothing to her mother, as I would communicate myself with Aunt Philippa and let her know what had happened. Under the circumstances I thought it better to keep Jocelyn with me over Christmas Day, until I heard from Aunt Philippa. But she might depend on my bringing her back myself.
'It is far too polite,' growled Jill, who had been reading the letter over my shoulder. 'How can you cringe so to that creature?'
'I consider it a masterpiece of diplomacy,' observed Mr. Tudor, as I handed it for his inspection. 'Civil words pay best in the long-run; and you know it was very naughty to run away, Miss Jocelyn.'
'It was nothing of the kind,' returned Jill rebelliously. 'And I would do it again to-morrow. I am more than sixteen; I am not a child now, and I have a right to come and see Ursula if I like.' And Jill threw back her head, and the colour came into her face, and she looked so handsome that I was not surprised to see Mr. Tudor regard her attentively. I never saw a face so capable of varying expression as Jill's.
Jill declared she was glad when Mr. Tudor was gone. But I think she liked him very well on the whole; and, indeed, no one could dislike such a bright, kind-hearted fellow. As soon as he had left the house I had to call a council. It was quite certain my bed would not hold Jill; so, at Mrs. Barton's suggestion, some spare mattresses were dragged in my room and a bed made up on the floor. Jill voted this delicious; nothing could have pleased her more, and she was so talkative and excited that I had the greatest trouble in coaxing her to be quiet and let me go to sleep: in fact, I had to feign sleep to make her hold her tongue.
But I was much too restless to sleep, and once when I crept out of bed to replenish the fire I stood still for a moment to look at Jill.
She was sleeping as placidly as an infant in its cradle, her short black locks pushed back from her face, and one arm stretched on the coverlet. I was surprised to see how fine Jill's face really was. The ugly duckling, as Uncle Brian called her, was fast changing into a swan. At present she was too big and undeveloped for grace; her awkward manners and angularities made people think her rough and uncouth. 'I expect she will eclipse Sara's commonplace prettiness some day; but, poor child, no one understands her,' I sighed, and as I tucked her up more warmly, with a kiss, Jill's sleepy arms found their way to my neck and held me there. 'Is not it delicious, Ursie dear?' she murmured drowsily.
I was glad to see that Miss Hamilton was at the early service. She looked pale and delicate, but there was a brighter look upon her face when she nodded to me in the porch. Her brother was putting her into a fly, and Miss Darrell and Lady Betty followed.
I was rather surprised to see him close the door after them and step back into the porch. And the next moment he joined us.
'Well, Miss Garston,' holding out his hand, with a friendly smile, 'you see Gladys contrived to have her way. A happy Christmas to you! But I see you are not alone,' looking rather inquisitively at Jill, who looked very big and shy as usual.
'I think you have heard of my cousin Jocelyn?' I returned, without entering into any further particulars. I should have been sorry for Jill's escapade to reach Mr. Hamilton's ears. But he shook hands with her at once, and said, very pleasantly, that he had heard of her from Mr. Cunliffe. And then, after a few more words, we parted.
Mr. Hamilton was unusually genial this morning. There was nothing in his manner to recall our stormy interview on the previous evening. Perhaps he wished to efface the recollection from my memory, for there was something significant in his smile, as though we perfectly understood each other.
I had lain awake for a long time thinking over Mrs. Maberley's talk and that uncomfortable walk from Maplehurst. Mr. Hamilton's voice and words haunted me; the suppressed irritation and pain that almost mastered him, and how he had flung away from me in the darkness.
I was glad to remember that I had called him back and spoken a conciliatory word. No doubt he had been to blame. I could imagine him hard and bitter to a fault. But he had suffered; there were lines upon his face that had been traced by no common experience. No, it was not for me to judge him. As he said, what could I know of a man's nature? And I was still more glad when I saw Mr. Hamilton in the church porch, and knew that the day's harmony was not disturbed, and that there was peace between us. His bright, satisfied smile made me feel more cheerful.
'What a strange-looking man!' observed Jill, in rather a grumbling voice, as we walked up the hill. 'Is that Mr. Hamilton? I thought he was young; but he is quite old, Ursula.'
'No, dear, not more than three-or four-and-thirty, Uncle Max says.'
'Well, I call that old,' returned Jill, with the obstinacy of sixteen. 'He is an old bachelor, too, for of course nobody wants to marry him; he is too ugly.'
'Oh, Jill, how absurd you are! Mr. Hamilton is not ugly at all. You will soon get used to his face. It is only rather peculiar.' And I quite meant what I said, for I had got used to it myself.
'Humph!' observed Jill significantly. But she did not explain the meaning of her satirical smile, and I proceeded to call her attention to the hoar-frost that lay on the cottage roof, and the beauty of the clear winter sky. 'It is a glorious Christmas morning,' I finished.
We had a very merry breakfast, for Jill was almost wild with spirits, and then we went to church again. Gladys was in her usual place, and looked round at me with a smile as I entered. When the service was over, I went to the Marshalls', accompanied by Jill, who announced her intention of not letting me out of her sight, for I had to preside over the children's Christmas dinner, and to look after my patient. We visited Robin next, and then went on to the Lockes', and Jill sat open-eyed and breathless in a corner of the room as I sang carols to Phoebe in the twilight.
She rose reluctantly when I put my hand on her shoulder and told her that we must hurry back to the cottage to make ourselves smart for the evening. Jill seldom troubled her head about such sublunary affairs as dress.
'I shall be obliged to wear my old tweed,' she said contentedly. 'I have only to smooth my hair, and then I shall be ready.' And she grumbled not a little when I insisted on arranging a beautiful spray of holly as a breast-knot, and twisting some very handsome coral beads that Charlie had given me round her neck. Jill always looked better for a touch of warm colour: the dark-red berries just suited her brown skin. 'You will do better now,' I said, pushing her away gently, 'so you need not pout and hunch your shoulders. Have I not told you that it is your duty to make the best of yourself? --we cannot be all handsome, but we need not offend our neighbours' eyes.' But, as usual, Jill turned a deaf ear to my philosophy.
The study looked very cosy when we entered it, and Uncle Max gave us a warm welcome. To be sure, he shook his head at Jill, and told her that he was afraid she was a naughty girl, but both he and Mr. Tudor prudently refrained from teasing her on the subject of her escapade. On the contrary, they treated her with profound respect, as though she were a grown-up, sensible young lady, and this answered with Jill. She grew bright and animated, forgot her shyness, and talked in her quaint racy manner. I could see that Mr. Tudor was much taken with her. She was so different from the stereotyped young lady; her cleverness and originality amused him; and I am sure Uncle Max was equally surprised and pleased.
I could see Max was making strenuous efforts to be cheerful, but every now and then he relapsed into gravity. After dinner I drew him aside a moment to speak to him about Jill: to my relief, he promised to be the bearer of a letter to Aunt Philippa.
'I want to go up to town for a day or two,' he said, 'and I may as well do this business for you. How happy the child looks, Ursula! I wish you could keep her a little longer. She is very much improved. I had no idea that there was so much in her; she will be far more attractive than Sara when she has developed a moderate amount of vanity.' And I fully endorsed this opinion.
We went home early, for I could see Max was very tired, but both he and Mr. Tudor insisted on escorting us. It was a beautiful starlight night, clear and frosty: our footsteps rang crisply on the ground: not a breath of wind stirred the skeleton branches that stretched above our heads: a solemn peacefulness seemed to close us round. Jill's mirthful laugh quite startled the echoes. She and Mr. Tudor were following very slowly. Once or twice we stood still and waited for them, but Mr. Tudor was in the middle of some amusing story, and so they took no notice of us.
I told Max about my visit to Mrs. Maberley, and of the conversation that had taken place between us. I thought he started a little when I mentioned Eric Hamilton's name.
'What a pity!' he said quietly. 'I had hoped she would have told you herself. I was waiting for her to do so.'
'But, Max, surely you might have told me?'
'Who? --I? I should not have presumed. You must remember that I was in Hamilton's confidence, and,' after a moment's hesitation, 'in hers too. Ursula,' with a sudden passionate inflexion in his voice, 'you have no idea how she loved that poor boy, and how she suffered: it nearly killed her. Now you know why I say that she is lonely and wants a friend.' 'But she has you, Max,' I exclaimed involuntarily, for I knew what he must have been to them in their trouble; Max could be as tender as a woman; but he started aside as though I had struck him; and his voice was quite changed as he answered me.
'You mistake, Ursula. I was only her clergyman: if she confided in me it was because she could not do otherwise; she is naturally reserved. She would find it easier to be open with you.'
'I do not think so, Max. I--But what does it matter what I think? There is one question I want to ask: do you think Mr. Hamilton was at all to blame?'
'I am Hamilton's friend,' he returned, in a tone that made me regret that I had asked the question, and then he stood still and waited for the others to join us. Indeed, he did not speak again, except to wish us good-night.
'It is the loveliest Christmas Day I have ever spent,' cried Jill, flinging herself on me, and she was no light weight. 'I do like Mr. Tudor so; he is nicer than any one I know, more like a nice funny boy than a man, only he tells me he can be grave sometimes. What was the matter with Mr. Cunliffe? --he looks tired and worried and not inclined to laugh.' And so Jill chattered on without waiting for my answers, talking in the very fulness of her young heart, until I pretended again to be asleep, and then she consented to be quiet.
I saw Max for a few minutes the next day when he came to fetch my letter. He looked more like himself, only there was still a tired expression about his eyes; but he talked very cheerfully of what he should do during the few days he intended to remain in town.
I made him promise to be very diplomatic with Aunt Philippa, and he most certainly kept his word, for the next morning I received a letter that surprised us both, and that drove Jill nearly frantic with joy.
Aunt Philippa's letter was very long and rambling. She began by expressing herself as deeply shocked and grieved at Jocelyn's behaviour, which was both dishonourable and unlady-like, and had given her father great pain. 'Dear old dad! I don't believe it,' observed Jill, pursing her lips at this.
Aunt Philippa regretted that she could no longer trust her young daughter,--she was sure Sara would never have behaved so at her age,--and she felt much wounded by Jocelyn's defiant action. At the same time, she was equally deceived in Fräulein Hennig, she was certainly more to blame than Jocelyn. Mr. Cunliffe had told her things that greatly surprised her. Uncle Brian was very angry, and insisted that she should be dismissed. Under these distressing circumstances, and as it would not be safe for Jocelyn to come back to Hyde Park Gate until the rooms had been properly disinfected, she must beg me as a favour to herself and Uncle Brian to keep Jocelyn with me until they went to Hastings. Mr. Cunliffe knew of a finishing governess, a Miss Gillespie, who was most highly recommended as a well-principled and thoroughly cultured person, only she would not be at liberty for three or four weeks. As I reached this point of Aunt Philippa's letter, I was obliged to lay it down to prevent myself from being strangled.
'Well, Jill, there is no need to hug me to death: it is Uncle Max that you have to thank, and not me.'
'Yes, but you see it would never do to hug him, for he is not a bit my uncle, so I am doing it by deputy,' observed Jill recklessly. 'Oh, Ursula, what a darling you are! and what a dear fellow he is! To think of my staying here three or four weeks! You will let me help you nurse people, won't you?' very coaxingly.
'We will see about that presently; but, Jill, you have never opened your mother's letter. Now, as it is perfectly impossible that you can sleep on the floor for weeks, and as I do not intend to keep such a chatterbox in my room, I am going to see what Mrs. Barton advises.' And leaving Jill to digest Aunt Philippa's scolding as well as she could, I went in search of the little widow.
I found, to my relief, that there was another room in the cottage, though it could not boast of much furniture beyond a bed and wash-stand: so, after a little consideration, I started off to the vicarage to hold a consultation with Mrs. Drabble.
The upshot of our talk was so satisfactory, and Mrs. Barton and Nathaniel worked so well in my service, that when bedtime came Jill found herself the possessor of quite a snug room. There were curtains up at the window, and strips of carpet on the floor. A dressing-table had been improvised out of a deal packing-case, and covered with clean dimity. Jill's travelling-box stood in one corner, and on the wall there was a row of neat pegs for Jill's dresses. Jill exclaimed at the clean trim look of the room, but I am sure she regretted her bed on the floor. She came down presently in her scarlet dressing-gown to give me a final hug and reiterate her petition for work.
'Mamma has talked a lot of rubbish about my keeping up my studies and practising two hours a day, and she means to disinfect my books and send them down, but I have made up my mind that I will not open one. I am going to enjoy myself, and nurse sick people, and do real work, instead of grinding away at that stupid German.' And Jill set her little white teeth, and looked determined, so I thought it best not to contradict her.
'I am so glad Uncle Max thought of Miss Gillespie, dear.'
'Who is she? I hate her already. I expect she is only an Anglicised Fräulein,' observed Jill, with a vixenish look.
'You are quite wrong. Miss Gillespie is Scotch, and she is very nice and good, and pretty too, for I have often heard Uncle Max talk of her. Her father was Max's great friend, and at his death the daughters were obliged to go out in the world. Miss Gillespie is the eldest. No, she is not very young,--nearly forty, I believe,--but she is so nice-looking; she was engaged to a clergyman, but he died, and they had been engaged so many years, and so now she will not marry. She is very cheerful, however, and all her pupils love her, and I am sure you will be happy with her, Jill.'
Jill would not quite allow this, but the next day she recurred to the subject, and asked me a good many questions about Miss Gillespie, and when I told her that it was settled that Miss Gillespie should join them at Hastings she really looked quite pleased; but nothing would induce her to open the case of books Aunt Philippa had sent down, and when I told Uncle Max he only laughed.
'Let her be as idle as she likes. She is over-educated now, and knows far more than most girls of her age. Take her about with you, and make her useful.' And I followed this advice implicitly, but for a different reason,--there was no keeping Mr. Tudor out of the house; so when I was engaged, and Jill could not be with me, I took advantage of a general invitation that Miss Hamilton had given me, and sent her up to Gladwyn.
They were all very kind to her, and she seemed to amuse Miss Darrell, but after a time Mr. Tudor began going there too, and then indeed I should have been at my wits' end, only Mrs. Maberley came to my rescue. She took a fancy to Jill, and Jill reciprocated it, and presently she and Lady Betty began to spend most of their idle hours at Maplehurst.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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22
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'THEY HAVE BLACKENED HIS MEMORY FALSELY'
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I loved having Jill with me, but I could not deny to myself or other people that I found her a great responsibility. In the first place, I had so little leisure to devote to her, for just after Christmas I was unusually busy. Poor Mrs. Marshall died on the eve of the New Year, and both Mr. Hamilton and I feared that Elspeth would soon follow her.
A hard frost had set in, and granny's feeble strength seemed to succumb under the pressure of the severe cold; she had taken to her bed, and lay there growing weaker every day. Poor Mary had died very peacefully, with her hand in her husband's. I had been with her all day, and I did not leave until it was all over.
Jill was as good as gold, and helped me with Elspeth and the children, and she always spent an hour or two with Robin; but by and by she began asking to go up to Gladwyn of her own accord, or proposing to have tea with Mrs. Maberley.
'Of course I would prefer to stop with you, Ursie dear,' she said affectionately; 'I would rather talk to you than to any one else; but then, you see, you are never at home, and when you do come in, poor darling, you are so tired that you are only fit for a nap.' And I could not deny that this was the truth. After my hard day's work I was not always disposed for Jill's lively chatter, and yet her bright face was a very pleasant sight for tired eyes.
I used to question her sometimes about her visits to Gladwyn, and she was always ready to talk of what had passed in the day. She and Lady Betty had struck up quite a friendship: this rather surprised me, as they were utterly dissimilar, and had different tastes and pursuits. Jill was far superior in intelligence and intellectual power; she had wider sympathies, too; and though Lady Betty had a fund of originality, and was fresh and _naïve_; I could hardly understand Jill's fancy for her, until Jill said one day, 'I do like that dear Lady Betty, she is such a crisp little piece of human goods; no one has properly unfolded her, or tested her good qualities; she is quite new and fresh, a novelty in girls. One never knows what she will say or do next: it is that that fascinates me, I believe; because,' went on Jill, and her great eyes grew bright and puzzled, 'it is not that she is clever; one gets to the bottom of her at once; there is not enough depth to drown you.'
Jill did not take so readily to Gladys; she admired her, even liked her, but frankly owned that she found her depressing. 'If I talk to her long, I get a sort of ache over me,' she observed, in her graphic way. 'It is not that she looks dreadfully unhappy, but that there is no happiness in her face. Do you know what I mean? for I am apt to be vague. It rests me to look at you, Ursula; there is something quiet and comfortable in your expression; now, Miss Hamilton looks as though she had lost something she values, or never had it, and must go on looking for it, like that poor ghost lady who wanted to find her lost pearl.'
Jill never could be induced to say much in Mr. Hamilton's favour, though he was very civil to her and paid her a great deal of attention. 'Oh, him!' she would say contemptuously, if I ever hazarded an observation: 'I never take much notice of odd-looking, ugly men: they may be clever, but they are not in my line. Mr. Hamilton stares too much for my taste, and I don't believe he is kind to his sisters; they are half afraid of him.' And nothing would induce her to alter her opinion.
But Miss Darrell thoroughly amused her. Jill's shrewd, honest eyes were hardly in fault there: she used to narrate with glee any little fact she could glean about 'the lady with two faces,' as she used to call her.
'Oh, she is a deep one,' Jill would say. 'I could not understand her at first. I thought she was just bright and talkative and good-natured, and I thought it nice to sit and listen to her, and she was very kind, and petted me a good deal, and I did not find her out at first.'
'Find her out! what do you mean, Jill?' I asked innocently.
'Why, that she is not good-natured a bit, really,' with a sagacious nod of her head. 'She keeps a stock of smiles for Cousin Giles and any chance visitor. She is not half so nice and charming when Miss Hamilton and Lady Betty are alone with her. Oh, I heard her one day, when I was in the conservatory with Lady Betty. Lady Betty held up her finger and said, 'Hush!' and there she was talking in such a disagreeable, sneering voice to Miss Hamilton, only I stopped my ears and would not listen. And now she has got used to me she says unpleasant little things before my face, and then when "dear Cousin Giles" comes in'--and here Jill looked wicked--'she is all sweetness and amiability, quite charming, in fact. Now, that is what I hate, for a person to wear two faces, and have different voices: it shows they are not true.'
'Well, perhaps you are right, dear'; for, without being uncharitable to Miss Darrell, I wished to put Jill on her guard a little.
'I don't like the way she talks about you,' went on Jill indignantly. 'She always begins when we are alone; not exactly saying things so much as implying them.'
'Indeed! What sort of things?' I asked carelessly.
'Oh, she is always hinting that it is rather odd for you to be living alone; she calls you deliciously unconventional and strong-minded, but I know what she means by that. Then she is so curious: she is always trying to find out how often Mr. Cunliffe or Mr. Tudor comes to see you, or if you go to the vicarage; and she said one day that she thought you preferred gentlemen's society to ladies', as they could never induce you to come up to Gladwyn, but of course you saw plenty of her cousin Giles in the village.'
I felt my cheeks burn at this unwarrantable accusation, but Jill begged me not to disturb myself.
'She won't make those sort of speeches to me again,' she said calmly. 'She had a piece of my mind then that will last her for a long time.'
'I hope you were not rude, Jill?'
'Oh no! I only flew into a passion, and asked her how she dared to imply such a thing? --that my cousin Ursula was the best and the dearest woman in the world, and that no one else could hold a candle to her. "Ursula care for gentlemen's society!" I exclaimed: "why, at Hyde Park Gate we never could get her to remain in the drawing-room when those stupid officers were there: she never would talk to any of them, except old Colonel Trevanion, who is nearly blind! You do not understand Ursula: she is a perfect saint: she is the simplest, most unselfish, grandest-hearted creature; and you make out that she is a silly flirt like Sara." And then I had to hold my tongue, though I was as red as a turkey-cock, for there was Mr. Hamilton staring at us both, and asking if I were in my senses, and why I was quarrelling about my cousin, for of course my voice was as gruff and cross as possible.'
'Oh, Jill!' I exclaimed, much distressed, 'how could you say such absurd things? --you know I never like you to talk in this exaggerated fashion. A saint, indeed! A pretty sort of saint Mr. Hamilton must think me!' for it nettled me to think that he had ever heard Jill's ridiculous nonsense.
'Wait a moment, till I have finished: you are not too saintly to be cross sometimes. I will tell him that, if you like. Well, when he said this about quarrelling, Miss Darrell gave him one of her sweet smiles. ' "Nonsense, Giles, as though I mind what this dear foolish child says; she is indulging in a panegyric on her cousin's virtues, because I said she was a little masculine and strong-minded and rather looked down upon us poor women. I have pressed her over and over again to spend an evening with us, but she always puts us off. I am afraid we Gladwyn ladies are not to her taste." ' "Don't be silly, Etta. Have I not told you poor old Elspeth is dying? --Miss Garston will not leave her, you may be sure of that." And then Mr. Hamilton said to me in quite a nice way,--oh, I did not dislike him so much that evening,--"I daresay you misunderstand Etta. I assure you we all think most highly of your cousin, and she will always be a welcome guest here, and I hope you will induce her to come soon." Wasn't it nice of him? Dear Etta did not dare to say another word.'
'Very nice, Jill; but indeed I do not want to hear any more of Miss Darrell's speeches.' And I got up hastily and opened the piano to put a stop to the conversation. Jill was always pleased when I would sing to her, but somehow my voice was not quite in order that evening.
The next day Jill surprised me very much by asking me if I knew that Miss Hamilton was going to Bournemouth for the rest of the winter.
'Mrs. Maberley has invited her, and Mr. Hamilton thinks it will do her so much good: they are going early next week. She wants to see you, Ursula; she says you have not met since Christmas. Could you go this afternoon? Miss Darrell will be out.'
I considered for a moment, and then said yes, I would certainly go up to Gladwyn. It made me feel a little dull to think Miss Hamilton was going away; we had not exchanged a word since that Sunday evening, but I had thought of her so much since then. My patients had engrossed my time, but hardly my thoughts. Poor Elspeth was slowly dying, and I had to be constantly with her. Marshall had not yet resumed work, but he was in poor spirits from the loss of his wife, and could hardly be a comfort to the poor creature. I put off my visit to Phoebe until the evening, and walked up to Gladwyn with Jill; she and Lady Betty were going for a walk, and were to have tea with the Maberleys. I learned afterwards that Mr. Tudor met them quite accidentally about three miles from Heathfield, and had accompanied them to Maplehurst, where he made himself so pleasant to the old lady that he was pressed to remain. Oh, Mr. Tudor, I am afraid you are not quite so artless as you look! I began to wish Aunt Philippa would soon recall Jill.
I found Miss Hamilton alone, and she seemed very glad to see me; her fair face quite flushed with pleasure when she saw me enter the drawing-room.
'I was afraid it was some stupid visitor,' she said frankly, 'when I heard the door-bell ring. Did it trouble you to come? How tired you look! there, you shall take Giles's chair,' putting me with gentle force in a big blue-velvet chair that always stood by the fire; and then she took off my wraps and unfastened my gloves, and made me feel how glad she was to wait on me.
'You are going away,' I said, rather lugubriously, for I felt all at once how I should miss her. She looked a little better and brighter, I thought, or was it only temporary excitement?
'Yes,' she returned seriously, but not sadly, 'I think it will be better. I am almost glad to go away, except that I shall not see you,' looking at me affectionately.
'Oh, if you wish to go,' for I was so relieved to hear her say this.
'It is not that I wish it, exactly, but that I feel it will be better: things are so uncomfortable just now, more than usual, I think. Etta seems always worrying herself and me; sometimes I fancy that she wants to get rid of me, that I am too troublesome,' with a faint smile. 'She worries about my health and want of spirits. I suppose I am rather a depressing element in the house, and, as I get rather tired of all this fuss, I think it will be better to leave it behind for a little.'
'That sounds as though you were driven away from home, Miss Hamilton.'
'Miss Hamilton!' reproachfully; 'that is naughty, Ursula. I do not call you Miss Garston.'
'Gladys, then.'
'Perhaps my restlessness is driving me away,' she returned sadly. 'I do feel so restless without my work. I never minded Etta's fussiness so much. I daresay she means it kindly, but it harasses me. I am one of those reserved people who do not find it easy to talk of their feelings, bodily or mental, except to a chosen few. You are one,--perhaps not the only one.'
'Of course not,' for she hesitated. 'You do not suppose that I laid such flattering unction to my soul?'
'Oh, but I could tell you anything,' she returned seriously. 'You seem to draw out one's thoughts while one is thinking them. Yes, I am sorry to leave you even for a few weeks; but, for many reasons, Giles is right, and the change will be good for me.'
'If you will only come back looking better and brighter I will gladly let you go.'
'I do not promise you that,' she answered quickly, 'unless you remove the pressure of a very heavy burden; but I shall be quieter and more at peace, and I am very fond of Colonel and Mrs. Maberley: they are dear people, and they spoil me dreadfully.'
'I am thankful some one spoils you, Gladys.'
She smiled at that.
'Uncle Max is still away,' I observed, after a brief silence. 'He went to Torquay to see an invalid friend, and he is still there. Mr. Tudor does not expect him back until the end of next week.'
'Yes, I know,' she returned, in a low voice; 'but we shall be at Bournemouth before then. Will you bid him good-bye for me, Ursula, and say that I hope his visit has rested and refreshed him? He was not very well, you told me.'
'No, but he is better now: he writes very cheerfully. Gladys, when you come back you will be stronger, I hope. I really do hope you will resume your work then; it will be far better for you to do so.'
'You cannot judge,' she said gently. 'I am afraid that I shall be unable to do that.' And somehow her manner closed the subject; but I was determined to make her speak on another subject.
'I want to tell you something that I think you ought to know,' I began, rather abruptly. 'Mrs. Maberley spoke to me about your brother Eric.'
'Ursula!'
'I could not let you go away and not know this: it did not seem honest. It has troubled me a great deal. Mrs. Maberley would tell me, and she told it so nicely; and Mr. Hamilton is aware that I know, and I am afraid he is not pleased about it.'
She put up her hands to her face for a moment, with a gesture full of distress.
'I meant to tell you myself,' she said, in a stifled voice, 'but not now; not until I felt stronger.'
'And now you will not have that pain, Gladys. I think you ought to be relieved that some one else has told me.' But she shook her head.
'How do I know what they said? And Giles is aware of it, you say. Oh, Ursula, for pity's sake, tell me, has he talked to you about Eric?'
'No, no, not in the way you mean: he only said that we must not judge or misjudge other people. He seemed afraid that I should misjudge him.'
'Oh, I am thankful to know that. I could not bear to have the poor boy discussed between you two. Giles would have made you believe everything, he has such a way with him, and you would not know any better. Oh, Ursula,' in a piteous voice, 'you must not listen to them; they are all so hard on my poor darling. Faulty as he was, he was innocent of the crime laid to his charge; they have accused him falsely. Eric never took that cheque.'
I could see she was strongly agitated. Her delicate throat swelled with emotion, and she took hold of my hands and held them tightly, and her large blue-gray eyes were fixed on my face with such a beseeching expression that I could have promised to believe anything. And yet she was right. Mr. Hamilton had a way with him that influenced people strongly; he could speak with a power and authority that seemed to dominate one in spite of one's self. It has always appeared to me that we poor women are easily silenced and subjugated by a strong masculine will. It is difficult to assert a timid individuality in the presence of a regnant force.
I answered her as gently as I could. 'Dear Gladys, you will make yourself ill. Will it give you any relief to speak out? I will listen to anything you have to say.'
She drew a deep breath, and the colour ebbed back into her face.
'Perhaps it may be a relief: I am weary of silence,--of trying to bear it alone; and other things are wearing me out. Etta is not so far wrong, after all.' And then she stopped, and looked at me wistfully, and her lips trembled. 'Ursula, you are a nurse; you go about comforting sick bodies and sick minds. If I am ill,--one must be ill sometimes,--will you promise to come and take care of me, in spite of all Etta may do or say?'
I hesitated for a moment, for it seemed to me impossible to give an unconditional promise, but she continued reproachfully, 'You cannot have the heart to refuse! I wanted to ask you this before. You would not, surely, leave me to eat out my heart in this loneliness! If you knew what it is to have Etta with one at such times! an east wind would be more merciful and comforting. I know I am expressing myself far too strongly, but all this excites me. Do promise me this, Ursula. Giles will not hinder you coming: he appreciates you thoroughly: it will only be Etta who may try to oppose you.'
Gladys was right; I had not the heart to refuse: so I gave her the required promise, and she grew calmed at once.
'Now that is settled, I can breathe more freely,' she said presently. 'I am afraid I am growing fanciful, but lately I have had such a horror of being ill. Giles would be kind, I know,--he is always kind in illness,--but he lets Etta influence him. Ursula, she influenced him and turned him against my poor boy; with all Giles's faults,--and he can be very hard and stern and unforgiving,--I am sure that of his own accord he would never have been so harsh to Eric.'
'But Mrs. Maberley told me that Miss Darrell took your brother Eric's part.'
'Yes, I know, she believes in Etta, and so does Giles; but she is not true; she has a dangerous way of implying blame when she is apparently praising a person: have you never noticed this? Giles was always more angry with Eric after Etta had been into the study to intercede for him. If she would only have let him alone; but that is not Etta's way: she must make or mar people's lives.'
There was a concentrated bitterness in Gladys's voice, and her face grew stern.
'There was no love between them. Eric detested Etta, and on her side I know she disliked him. Eric never would tell me the reason; he was always hinting that he had found her out, and that she knew it, and that in consequence she wanted to get rid of him; but I thought it was all fancy on the poor boy's part, and I used to laugh at him. I wish I had not laughed now, for there was doubtless truth in what he said.'
'You were very fond of him, Gladys?' I asked softly, and as I spoke her face changed, and its expression grew soft and loving in a moment.
'Love him? he was everything to me: he was my twin, you know,--and so beautiful. Oh, I never saw a man's face so beautiful as his; he had such bright ways, too, and such a ringing laugh,--I wake up sometimes and fancy I hear it; and then came his whistle and light footstep springing up the stairs; but it is only a part of my dream.' She sighed, and went on: 'He was so fond of me, and used to tell me everything, and he was never cross to me, however put out and miserable he was; and I know they made him very miserable. Giles was so strict with him, and would not give him any liberty, and when Eric rebelled he was cruel to him.'
'Oh, not cruel, surely!' I could not help the involuntary exclamation. I thought Gladys looked at me a little strangely before she answered: 'It seemed cruel to us; he was very harsh,--oh, terribly harsh; but I think--nay, I am sure--he has repented of his hardness. I was slow to forgive him: perhaps it would be more true to say I have not wholly forgiven him yet; but I know now that he has suffered, that he would undo a great deal of the past if he could, and this makes me more merciful. Sometimes in my heart I feel quite sorry for Giles.'
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{
"id": "16080"
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23
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THE MYSTERY AT GLADWYN
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Just then Leah entered the room to replenish the fire, and Gladys dropped my hand hastily and took up a screen.
'When my brother comes in we will have tea, Leah,' she said quickly. 'Where is Thornton, that he does not come in to do this?'
'I was passing through the hall, and I thought I would have a look at the fire, ma'am,' observed Leah, as she stooped to throw on a log. As she did so, I saw her take a furtive look at us both,--it gave me an unpleasant feeling,--and a moment afterwards she said in a soft, civil voice,-- 'There is no reason why Thornton should not bring tea now, if you like, ma'am. Master never cares to be waited for, and most likely he will be late this afternoon. I can walk home with Miss Garston when she is ready. I am sure my mistress would spare me.'
'We will see about that presently, Leah; when I want Thornton I will ring for him.' Gladys spoke somewhat haughtily, and Leah left the room without another word; but I was sorry and troubled in my very heart to see Gladys motion me to be silent, and then go quickly to the door and open it and stand there for a moment. Her colour was a little heightened when she came back to her seat.
'She has gone now, but we must be careful and not speak loudly. I hate myself for being so suspicious, but I have found out that some of our conversations have been retailed to Etta. I am afraid Leah listens at the door. She came in just now to interrupt our talk: it is Thornton's place to put coals on the drawing-room fire.'
I felt an uncomfortable sensation creeping over me.
'Do you think she even heard us just now?'
'I fear so; and now Etta will know we have been talking about Eric. Oh, I am glad I am going away! it gets too unbearable. Ursula, I shall write to you, and you must answer me. Think what a comfort your letters will be to me; I shall be able to depend on what you say. Lady Betty is so careless, she knows what Etta is, and yet she will leave her letters about, and more than once they have not reached me. I am afraid that Leah is a little unscrupulous in such matters.'
I was aghast as I listened to her, but she changed the subject quickly.
'What were we talking about? Oh, I said Giles was hard; and so he was; but Eric was faulty too.
'He was very idle; he would not work, and he thought of nothing but his painting. Giles always says I encouraged him in his idleness; but this is hardly the truth. I used to try and coax him to open his books, but he had got this craze for painting, and he spent hours at his easel. I thought it was a great pity that Giles forced him to take up law; if he had talent it was surely better for him to be an artist; but Giles and Etta persisted in ignoring his talent. They called his pictures daubs, and ridiculed his artistic notions.'
'Do you really believe that he would have worked successfully as an artist?'
'It is difficult for me to judge. Eric was so young, and had had little training, and then he only painted in a desultory way: as I have told you, he was very idle. I think if Giles had been more fatherly with him, and had remonstrated with him more gently, and showed him the sense and fitness of things, Eric would have been reasonable; but Etta made so much mischief between them that things only got worse and worse. Eric was extravagant; he never managed money well, and he got into debt, and that made Giles furious, and when Eric lost his temper--for he was very hot and soon got into a passion--Giles's coolness and hard sneering speeches nearly drove Eric wild. He came to me one day in the garden looking as white as a sheet,--that was the day before the cheque was missed,--and told me, in a conscience-stricken voice, that it was all up between him and Giles, he had got into a passion and struck Giles across the face. ' "I don't know why he did not knock me down," cried the poor lad. "I deserved it, for I saw him wince with the pain; but he only took me by the shoulder--you know how strong Giles is--and turned me out of the room without saying a word, and there was the mark of my hand across his cheek. I feel like Cain, I do indeed, Gladys, 'For he that hateth his brother is a murderer'; and I hate Giles." And the poor boy--he was only twenty, Ursula--put his head down on my shoulder and sobbed like a child. If only Giles could have seen him then!'
'Do you know what passed between them?'
'Yes; I heard a little from both of them. Some of Eric's bills had been opened accidentally by Giles. Etta had told Giles that they were his, and he had called Eric to account. And then it seems that Eric's affairs were mixed up with another young man's, Edgar Brown, a very wild young fellow, with whom Giles had forbidden Eric to associate. They had been school-fellows, and Giles knew his father, Dr. Brown, and disliked him much; and it seems that Eric had promised to break with him, and had not kept his promise; and when Giles called him mean and dishonourable, Eric had forgotten himself, and struck Giles. ' "It is all over between us, I tell you, Gladys," the poor boy kept saying. "Giles says he shall take me away from Oxford, and I am to be put in an attorney's office: he declares I shall ruin him. I cannot stop here to be tormented and bullied, and I will never go near old Armstrong: why, the life would be worse than a convict's. I shall just go and enlist, and then there is a chance of getting rid of this miserable life." But I did not take much notice of this speech, for I knew Eric had no wish to enter the army; and certainly he would never do such a rash thing as enlist: he always declared he would as soon be a shoeblack. What does that look mean, Ursula?' for I was glancing uneasily at the door. Was it my fancy, or did I really hear the faint rustle of a dress on the tessellated pavement of the hall? In another moment Gladys understood, and her voice dropped into a whisper.
'Come closer to me. I mean to tell you all in spite of them. I will be as quick as I can, or Giles will be here.
'I never saw Eric in such a state as he was that day. He seemed nearly beside himself: nothing I could say seemed to give him any comfort. He shut himself up in his room and refused to eat. He would not admit me for a long time, but when he at last opened the door I saw that his table was strewn with papers, and a letter directed to Giles lay beside them.
'We sat down and had a long talk. He told me that he had got into more difficulties than even Giles suspected. He had been led away by Edgar Brown. I brought him all the money I had, which was little enough, and promised him my next quarter's allowance. I remember he spoke again of enlisting, and said that any life, however hard, would be preferable to the present one. He could not stay here and be slandered by Etta and bullied by Giles. He seemed very unhappy, and once he put down his head upon his arms and groaned. It was just then that I heard a slight movement outside the door, and opened it just in time to see Leah gliding round the corner. Ursula, she had heard every word that my poor boy had said, and it is Leah's evidence that has helped to criminate him.'
'Yes, I see. But did you not put your brother on his guard?'
'No,' she returned sadly, 'I made the grievous mistake of keeping Leah's eavesdropping to myself. I thought Eric had enough to trouble him, without adding to his discomfort. I would give much now to have done otherwise.
'I stayed up late with him, and did not leave him until he had promised to go to bed. Giles was still in the study when I went to my room, but he came up shortly afterwards, for I could hear his footsteps distinctly passing my door. He must have passed Leah in the passage, for I heard him say, "You are up late to-night, Leah," but her answer escaped me.
'I can tell you no more on my own evidence; but Eric's account, which I believe as surely as I am holding your hand now, is this: 'He heard Giles come up to bed, and a sudden impulse prompted him to go down to the study and place his letter on Giles's desk. It was a very wild, foolish letter, written under strong excitement. I saw it afterwards, and felt that it had better not have been written. Among other things, he informed Giles that he would sooner destroy himself than go into Armstrong's office, and that he (Giles) had made his life so bitter to him that he thought he might as well do it: oh, Ursula, of course it was wrong of him, but indeed he had had terrible provocation. He had made up his mind to put this letter on Giles's desk before he slept: so he slipped off his boots, that I might not hear him pass my door, and crept down to the study. He had his chamber candlestick, as he feared that he might have some difficulty with the fastenings, for he had heard Giles put up the chain and bell. All our doors on that floor have chains and bells; it is one of Giles's fads. To his great surprise, the door was ajar, and when he put down the candle on the table he had a passing fancy that the thick curtains that were drawn over one of the windows moved slightly, as though from a draught of air. He blamed himself afterwards that he had not gone up to the window and examined it, but in his perturbed mood he did not take much notice; but he was certainly startled when he turned round to see Leah, in her dark dressing-gown, standing in the threshold watching him with a queer look in her eyes. There was something in her expression that made him feel uneasy. ' "I thought it was thieves," she said, and now she looked not at him, but across at the curtain. "What are you doing with master's papers, Mr. Eric?" ' "Mind your own business," returned Eric sulkily: "do you think I am going to account to you for my actions?" And he took up his candlestick and marched off.'
'And he left that woman in possession?'
'Yes,' returned Gladys in a peculiar tone, and then she hurried on: 'The next morning Giles missed a cheque for a large amount that he had received the previous night and placed in one of the compartments of his desk, and in its place he found Eric's letter. Do you notice the discrepancy here? Eric vowed to me that he had placed the letter on the desk, that he never dreamt of opening it, that he always believed Giles kept it locked, that if Giles had been careless and left the key in it he knew nothing about it. His business to the study was to put his letter where Giles would be likely to find it on entering the room. Ursula, how did that letter get into the desk?
'We were all summoned to the study when the cheque was missed. Etta fetched me. She said very little, and looked unusually pale. Giles was in a terrible state of anger, she informed me, and Leah was speaking to him.
'Alas! she had been speaking to some purpose. I found Eric almost dumb with fury. Giles had refused to believe his assertion of innocence, and he had no proof. Leah's statement had been overwhelming, and bore the outward stamp of veracity.
'She told her master that, thinking she heard a noise, and being fearful of thieves, she had crept down in her dressing-gown to the study, and, to her horror, had seen Mr. Eric with his hand in his brother's desk, and she could take her oath that he put some paper or other in his pocket. She had not liked to disturb her master, not knowing that there was money in the case.
'Ursula, I cannot tell you any more that passed. That woman had effectually blackened my poor boy's honour. No one believed his word, though he swore that he was innocent. I heard high words pass between the brothers. I know Giles called Eric a liar and a thief, and Eric rushed at him like a madman, and then I fainted. When I recovered I found Lady Betty crying over me and Leah rubbing my hands. No one else was there. Eric had dashed up to his room, and Giles and Etta were in the drawing-room. I told Leah to go out of my sight, for I hated her; and I felt I did hate her. And when she left us alone I managed, with Lady Betty's help, to crawl up to Eric's room. But, though we heard him raging about it, he would not admit us. So I went and lay down on my bed and slept from sheer grief and exhaustion.
'When I woke from that stupor,--for it was more stupor than sleep,--it was late in the afternoon. I shall always believe the wine Leah gave me was drugged. How I wish I had dashed the glass away from my lips! But I was weak, and she had compelled me to drink it.
'Lady Betty was still sitting by me. She seemed half frightened by my long sleep. She said Eric had come in and had kissed me, but very lightly, so as not to disturb me. And she thought there were tears in his eyes as he went out. Ursula, I have never seen him since. He left the house almost immediately afterwards, but no one saw him go. By some strange oversight Giles's telegram to the London Bank to stop the cheque did not reach them in time. And yet Etta went herself to the telegraph-office. As you may have perhaps heard, a tall fair young man, with a light moustache, cashed the cheque early in the afternoon. Yes, I know, Ursula, the circumstantial evidence is rather strong just here. I am quite aware that it was possible for Eric after leaving our house to be in London at the time mentioned, but no one can prove that it was Eric.
'Edgar Brown is tall and fair, and there are plenty of young men answering to that description; and I maintain, and shall maintain to my dying day,--and I am sure Mr. Cunliffe agrees with me,--that it was not Eric who presented that cheque. The clerk told Giles that the young man had a scar across his cheek and a slight cut, though he was decidedly good-looking. But Giles refused to believe this. He says the clerk made a mistake about the last.
'The next morning I received a letter from Eric, written at the Ship Hotel, Brighton, containing the exact particulars that I have given, and reiterating in the most solemn way that he was perfectly innocent of the shameful crime laid to his charge. ' "You will believe me, Gladys, I know," he went on. "You will not let my enemies blacken my memory if you can help it. If I could only be on the spot to clear up the mystery; for there is a mystery about the cheque. But I have sworn never to cross the threshold of Gladwyn again until this insult is wiped out and Giles believes in my innocence. If we never meet again, my sweet sister, you will know I loved you as well as I could love anything; but I was never good and unselfish like you. And I fear--I greatly fear--that I shall never weather through this." That was all. The letter ended abruptly.
'The following afternoon a messenger from the Ship asked to see Mr. Hamilton; and after Giles had been closeted with him for a few minutes he came out, looking white and scared, with Eric's watch and scarf in his hands. The man had told him the young gentleman had gone out and had not returned, and they had been found on the beach, at the extreme end of Hove, and they feared something had happened to him. He had ordered dinner at a certain time, but he had not made his appearance. The next morning they had heard reports in the town that caused them to institute inquiries. A letter in the pocket of the coat, directed to Eric Hamilton, Gladwyn, Heathfield, enabled them to communicate with his relatives. And they had lost no time in doing so. I never saw Giles so terribly upset. He looked as though he had received a blow. He went to Brighton at once, and afterwards to London, and employed every means to set our fears at rest, for a horrible suspicion that he had really made away with himself was in all our minds.
'I was far too ill to notice all that went on. A fever seemed about me, and I could not eat or sleep. I think I should have done neither, that my poor brain must have given way under the shock of my apprehensions, but for Mr. Cunliffe.
'He was a true friend,--a good Samaritan. He bound up my wounds and poured in oil and wine of divinest charity. He did not believe that Eric was guilty of either dishonesty or self-destruction. In his own mind he was inclined to believe that he wished us to think him dead. It was all a mystery; but we must wait and pray; and in time he managed to instil a faint hope into my mind that this might be so.
'Etta was rather kind to me just then. She looked ill and worried, and seemed taken up with Giles. It was well that he should have some one to look after his comforts, for there was a breach between us that seemed as though it would never be healed. I saw that he was irritable and miserable,--that the thought of Eric robbed him of all peace. But I could make no effort to console him, for I felt as though my heart was breaking. I--' And here she hid her face in her hands, and I could see she was weeping, and I begged her earnestly to say no more, that I quite understood, and she might be sure of my sympathy with her and Eric. She kissed me gratefully, and said, 'Yes, I know. I am glad to have told you all this. Now you understand why I am so grateful to Mr. Cunliffe, why I am so sorry'--and here her lips quivered--'if I disappoint him. I feel as though he has given me back Eric from the dead. It is true I doubt sometimes, when I am ill or gloomy, but generally my faith is strong enough to withstand Etta's incredulity.'
'Does Miss Darrell believe that he is dead?'
'Yes; and she is so angry if any one doubts the fact. I don't know why she hates the poor boy so: even Mr. Cunliffe has reproved her for her want of charity. I think she fears Mr. Cunliffe more than any one, even Giles: she is always so careful what she says before him.'
'Gladys, I think I hear your brother's voice in the hall, and your cheeks are quite wet: he will wonder what we have been talking about.'
'I will ring for Thornton, and the tea: he shall find me clearing the table. Don't offer to help me, Ursula.' And I sat still obediently, watching her slow, graceful movements about the room in the firelight: her fair hair shone like a halo of gold, and the dark ruby gown she wore gathered richer and deeper tints. That beautiful, sad face, how I should miss it!
It was some little time before Mr. Hamilton entered the room. Thornton had lighted the candles and arranged the tea-tray, and Gladys had placed herself at the table.
He testified no surprise at seeing me, but walked to the fire, after greeting me, and warmed himself.
'They told me you were here,' he said abruptly: 'I was at the cottage just now. Have you not had your tea? Why, it is quite late, Gladys, and I want to take Miss Garston away.'
'Is there anything the matter, Mr. Hamilton?' for I was beginning to understand his manner better now.
'Oh, I have some business for you, that is all,--another patient; but I will not tell you about it yet: you must have a good meal before you go out into the cold. I shall ring the bell for some more bread-and-butter; I know you dined early; and this hot cake will do you no good.' And, as I saw he meant to be obeyed, I tried to do justice to the delicious brown bread and butter; but our conversation had taken away my appetite.
He stood over me rather like a sentinel until I had finished.
'Now, then, I may as well tell you. Susan Locke is ill,--acute pneumonia. I have just been down to see her, and I am afraid it is a sharp attack. Well, if you are ready, we may as well be going; the neighbour who is with her seems a poor sort of body. They sent for you, but Mrs. Barton said you were with Elspeth, and when Kitty went there you were nowhere to be found.'
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{
"id": "16080"
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24
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WEEPING MAY ENDURE FOR A NIGHT
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I could not suppress an exclamation when Mr. Hamilton mentioned the name.
Susan Locke! Poor, simple, loving-hearted Susan! What would become of Phoebe if she died?
Mr. Hamilton seemed to read my thoughts.
'Yes,' he said, looking at me attentively, 'I knew you would be sorry; Miss Locke was a great favourite of yours. Poor woman! it is a sad business. I am afraid she is very ill: they ought to have sent for me before. Now, if you are ready, we will start at once.'
'I will not keep you another minute. Good-bye, Ursula.' And Gladys kissed me, and quietly followed us to the door. It was snowing fast, and the ground was already white with the fallen flakes. Mr. Hamilton put up his umbrella, and stood waiting for me under the shrubs, but a sudden impulse made me linger.
Gladys was still standing in the porch; her fair hair shone like a halo in the soft lamplight, her eyes were fixed on the falling snow. I had said good-bye to her so hastily: I ran back, and kissed her again.
'I wish you were not going, Gladys; I shall miss you so.'
'It is nice to hear that,' she returned gently. 'I shall remember those words, Ursula. Write to me often; your letters will be my only comfort. There, Giles is looking impatient; do not keep him waiting, dear.' And she drew back, and a moment afterwards I heard the door shut behind us.
Mr. Hamilton did not speak as I joined him, and I thought that our walk would be a silent one, until he said presently, in rather a peculiar tone,-- 'Well, Miss Garston, I suppose I ought to congratulate you for succeeding where I have failed.' Of course I knew what he meant, but I pretended to misunderstand him, and he went on,-- 'You have won my sister's heart. Gladys cares for few people, but she seems very fond of you.'
'The feeling is reciprocated, I can assure you.'
'I am glad to know that,' he returned heartily. 'I only wish you could teach Gladys to be like other girls; she is too young and too pretty to take such grave views of life; it is unnatural at her age. One disappointment, however bitter, ought not to cloud her whole existence. Try to make her see things in a more reasonable light. Gladys is as good as gold. Of course I know that she is a fine creature; but it is not like a Christian to mourn over the inevitable in this undisciplined way.'
He spoke with great feeling, and with a gentleness that surprised me. I felt sure then of his affection for his young sister; I wished Gladys could have heard him speak in this fatherly manner. But, in spite of my sympathy, it was difficult for me to answer him. I felt that this was a subject that I could not discuss with Mr. Hamilton, and yet he seemed to wish me to speak.
'You must give her time to recover herself,' I said, rather lamely. 'Gladys is very sensitive; she is more delicately organised than most people; her feelings are unusually deep. She has had a severe shock; it will not be easy to comfort her.'
'No, I suppose not,' with a sigh; 'her faith has suffered shipwreck; but you must try to win her back to peace. Oh, you have much to do at Gladwyn, as well as other places. I want you to feel at home with us, Miss Garston. Some of us have our faults, we want knowing; but you must try and like us better, and then you will not find us ungrateful.'
He stopped rather abruptly, as though he expected an answer, but I only stammered out that he was very kind, and that I hoped when Gladys returned from Bournemouth that I should often see her.
'Oh, to be sure,' he returned hastily. 'I forgot that her absence would make a difference. You do not like poor Etta: I have noticed that. Well, perhaps she is a little fussy and managing; but she is a kind-hearted creature, and very good to us all. I do not know what I should have done without her; my sisters do not understand me, they are never at their ease with me. I feel this a trouble; I want to be good to them; but there always seems a barrier that one cannot break down. I suppose,' with intense bitterness, 'they lay the blame of that poor boy's death at my door, as though I would not give my right hand to have him back again.'
'Oh no, Mr. Hamilton,' I exclaimed, shocked to hear him speak in this way, 'things are not so bad as that. I know Gladys would be more to you if she could.' But he turned upon me almost fiercely.
'Do not tell me that,' he said harshly, 'for I cannot believe you. Gladys cared more for Eric's little finger than the whole of us put together; she looks upon me as his destroyer, as a hard taskmaster who oppressed him and drove him out of his home. Oh, you want to contradict me; you would tell me how gentle Gladys is, and how submissive. No, she is never angry, but her looks and words are cold as this frozen snow; she has not kissed me of her own accord since Eric left us. I sometimes think it is painful for her to live under my roof.'
'Mr. Hamilton!'
'Well, what now?' in the same repellent tone.
'You are wrong; you are unjust. Gladys does not feel like that; she has tried to forgive you in her heart for any past mistake; she sees you regret much that has passed, and she is no longer bitter against you. I wish you would believe this. I wish you could understand that she, too, longs to break down the barrier. Perhaps I ought not to say it, but I think Miss Darrell keeps you apart from your sisters.'
'What, Etta!' in an astonished tone. 'Why, she is always making excuses for Gladys's coldness. Come, Miss Garston, I cannot have you misunderstand my poor little cousin in this way. You have no idea how faithful and devoted she is. She has actually refused a most advantageous offer of marriage to remain with us. She told me this in confidence; the girls do not know it: perhaps I ought not to have repeated it; but you undervalue Etta. Few women would sacrifice themselves so entirely for their belongings.'
'No, indeed,' was my reply to this; but I secretly marvelled at this piece of intelligence, and there was no time to ask any questions, for we had reached the cottage, and the next minute I was standing by Susan Locke's bedside.
There was no need to tell me that poor Susan was in danger; the inflammation ran high; the flushed face, the difficult breathing, the strength and fulness of the rapid pulse, filled me with grave forebodings. Mr. Hamilton remained with me some time, and when he took his leave he promised to come again as early as possible in the morning.
'I will stay altogether if you wish it,' he said kindly, 'if you feel the least uneasiness at being alone.' But I disclaimed all fear on this score. I only begged him to remain with the patient a few minutes while I spoke to Phoebe, and he agreed to this.
It was late; but I knew she would not be asleep. How could she sleep, poor soul, with this fresh stroke threatening her? As I opened the door I heard her calling to me in a voice broken with sobs.
'Oh, Miss Garston, I have been longing for you to come to me; you have been here for hours. I have been lying listening to your footsteps overhead. Do you know, the suspense is killing me?'
'Yes, I am so sorry for you, Phoebe: it is hard to bear, is it not? But I could not leave your sister. We are doing all we can to ease her sufferings, but she is very very ill.'
'Do you think that I do not know that? She is dying! My only sister is dying!' And here her tears burst out again. 'Ah, Miss Garston, those dreadful words are coming true, after all.'
'What words, my poor Phoebe?' And I knelt down by her side and smoothed the hair from her damp forehead.
'Oh, you know what I mean. I have repeated them before; they haunt me day and night, and you refused to take them back. "If we will not lie still under His hand, and learn the lesson He would teach us, fresh trials may be sent to humble us,"--fresh trials; and, oh, my God, Susan is dying!'
'You must not say that to her nurse, Phoebe; you must try and strengthen my hands: indeed, all hope is not lost: the inflammation is very high, but who knows if your prayers may not save her?'
'My prayers! my prayers!' covering her face while the tears trickled through her wasted fingers; 'as though God would listen to me who have been a rebel all my life.'
'Ah, but you are not rebellious now: you have fought against Him all these years, but now all His waves and billows have gone over your head, and you cannot breast them alone.'
'No, and I have deserved it all. I do try to pray, Miss Garston, I do indeed, but the words will not come. I can only say over and over again, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee," and then I stop and my heart seems breaking.'
'Well, and what can be better than that cry of your poor despairing heart to your Father! Do you think that He will not have pity on His suffering child? Be generous in your penitence, Phoebe, and trust yourself and Susan in His hands.'
'Ah, but you do not know all,' she continued, fixing her miserable eyes on me. 'I have not been good to Susan: I have let her sacrifice her life for me, and have taken it all as a matter of course. I made her bear all my bad tempers and never gave her a good word. She was too tired,--ah, she was often tired,--and then she took this chill, and I made her wait on me all the same. She told me she was ill and in great pain, and I kept her standing for a long time; and I would not bid her good-night when she went away; and I heard her sigh as she closed the door, and I called her back and she did not hear me; and now--' But here hysterical sobs checked her utterance.
'Yes, but you are sorry now, and Susan has forgiven you. I think she wanted to send you a message, but she is in too great pain to speak. I heard her say, "Poor Phoebe," but I begged her not to make the effort; you see she is thinking of you still.'
'My poor Susan! But she must not miss you; I am wicked and selfish to keep you like this. Go to her, Miss Garston!' And I was thankful to be dismissed.
My heart was full when I re-entered the sick-room. Mr. Hamilton looked rather scrutinising as he rose to give me his place.
'Your thoughts must be here,' he said meaningly. 'Forgive me, if I give you that hint: do not forget Providence is watching over that other room. One duty at a time, Miss Garston.' And, though I coloured at this wholesome rebuke, I knew he was correct.
'Yes, he is right,' I thought, as I stood listening to poor Susan's oppressed and difficult breathing: 'the Divine Teacher is beside His child. It is not for us to question this discipline or plead for an easier lesson.' But none the less did the fervent petition rise from my heart that the angel of death might not be suffered to enter this house.
The night wore on, but, alas! there was no improvement. When Mr. Hamilton came through the snow the next morning he looked grave and dissatisfied, and then he asked me if I wanted any help; but I shook my head. 'Mrs. Martin is in the house: she will look after Phoebe and Kitty.'
When he had gone, I wrote a little note and gave it to Kitty: 'I cannot leave Susan for a minute, she is so very ill. Mr. Hamilton can see no improvement. He is coming again at mid-day. She suffers very much; but we will not give up hope, you and I;' and I bade Kitty carry it to her aunt.
When Mr. Hamilton returned, he brought a little covered basket with him, and bade me rather peremptorily take my luncheon while he watched beside the patient.
This act of thoughtfulness touched me. I wondered who had packed the basket: there was the wing of a chicken, some delicate slices of tongue, a roll, and some jelly. A little note lay at the bottom: 'Giles has asked me to provide a tempting luncheon: he says you have had a sad night with poor Miss Locke, and are looking very tired. Poor Ursula! you are spending all your strength on other people.
'In another half-hour I shall leave Gladwyn. I think I am glad to go, things are so miserable here, and one loses patience sometimes. I wish I could know poor Susan Locke's fate before I go; but Giles seems to have little hope. Take care of yourself for my sake, Ursula. I have grown to love you very dearly. ' --Your affectionate friend, 'Gladys.'
Mr. Hamilton came again early in the evening, and I took the opportunity of paying Phoebe another visit.
She was lying with her eyes closed, and looked very ill and exhausted,--alarmingly so, I thought: her emotion had nearly spent itself, and she was now passive and waiting for the worst.
'Let me know when it happens,' she whispered. 'I have no hope now, but I will try and bear it.' And she drew my hands to her lips and kissed them: 'they have touched Susan, they are doing my work, they are blessed hands to me.' And then she seemed unable to bear more.
When Mr. Hamilton paid his final visit he announced his intention of remaining in the house. 'There will be a change one way or another before long, and I shall not leave you by yourself to-night,' he said quietly; and in my heart I was not sorry to hear this. He told me that there was a good fire downstairs, and that he meant to take possession of a very comfortable arm-chair, but that he wanted to remain in the sick-room for half an hour or so.
I fancied that his professional eyes had already detected some change. Presently he walked away to the fireplace and stood looking down into the flames in rather an absent way.
I could not help looking at him once or twice, he seemed so absorbed in thought; his dark face looked rigid, his lips firmly closed, and his forehead slightly puckered.
More than once I had puzzled myself over a fancied resemblance of Mr. Hamilton to some picture I had seen. All at once I remembered the subject. It was the picture of a young Christian sleeping peacefully just before he was called to his combat with wild beasts in the amphitheatre: the keeper was even then opening the door: the lions were waiting for their prey. The face was boyish, but still Mr. Hamilton reminded me of him. And there was a picture of St. Augustine sitting with his mother Monica, that reminded me of Mr. Hamilton too. I had called him plain, and Jill thought him positively ugly, but, after all, there was something noble in his expression, a power that made itself felt.
Just then the lines of his face relaxed and softened; he half smiled, looked up, and our eyes met. I was terribly abashed at the thought that he should find me watching him; but, to my surprise, his face brightened, and he roused himself and crossed the room.
'I was dreaming, I think, but you woke me. Are you very tired? Shall I take your place?' But before I could reply his manner changed, and he stooped over the bed, and then looked at me with a smile.
'I thought so. The breathing is certainly less difficult: the inflammation is diminishing. I see signs of improvement.'
'Thank God!' was my answer to this, and before long this hope was verified: the pain and difficulty of breathing were certainly less intense, the danger was subsiding.
Mr. Hamilton went downstairs soon after this, and I settled to my solitary night-watch, but it was no longer dreary: every hour I felt more assured that Susan Locke would be restored to her sister.
Once or twice during the night I crept into Phoebe's room to gladden her heart with the glad news, but she was sleeping heavily and I would not disturb her. 'Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,' I said to myself, as I sat down by Susan's bedside. I was very weary, but a strange tumult of thoughts seemed surging through my brain, and I was unable to control them. Gladys's pale face and tear-filled eyes rose perpetually before me: her low, passionate tones vibrated in my ear. 'They have accused him falsely,' I seemed to hear her say: 'Eric never took that cheque.'
What a mystery in that quiet household! No wonder there was something unrestful in the atmosphere of Gladwyn,--that one felt oppressed and ill at ease in that house.
Fragments of my conversation with Mr. Hamilton came unbidden to my memory. How strange that that proud, reserved man should have spoken so to me, that he had suffered his heart's bitterness to overflow in words to me, who was almost a stranger: 'They lay the blame of that poor boy's death at my door, as though I would not give my right hand to have him back again.' Oh, if Gladys had only heard the tone in which he said this, she must have believed and have been sorry for him.
'They are too hard upon him,' I said to myself. 'If he has been stern and injudicious with his poor young brother, he has long ago repented of his hardness. He is very good to them all, but they will not try to understand him: it is not right of Gladys to treat him as a stranger. I am sorry for them all, but I begin to feel that Mr. Hamilton is not the only one to blame.'
I wished I could have told him this, but I knew the words would never get themselves spoken. I might be sorry for him in my heart, but I could never tell him so, never assure him of my true sympathy. I was far too much in awe of him: there are some men one would never venture to pity.
But all the same I longed to do him some secret service; he had been kind to me, and had helped me much in my work. If I could only succeed in bringing him and Gladys nearer together, if I could make them understand each other, I felt I would have spared no pains or trouble to do so.
If he were not so infatuated on the subject of his cousin's merits, I thought scornfully, I should be no more sanguine about my success; but Miss Darrell had hoodwinked him completely. As long as he believed in all she chose to tell him, Gladys would never be in her proper place.
As soon as it was light I heard Mr. Hamilton stirring in the room below. He came up for a moment to tell me that he was going home to breakfast; he looked quite fresh and brisk, and declared that he had had a capital night's sleep.
'I am going to find some one to take your place while you go home and have a good seven hours' rest,' he said, in his decided way. 'I suppose you are aware that you have not slept for forty-eight hours? Kitty is going to make you some tea.' And with this he took himself off.
I went into Phoebe's room presently. Kitty told me that she was awake at last. As soon as she saw me she put up her hands as though to ward off my approach.
'Wait a moment,' she said huskily. 'You need not tell me; I know what you have come to say; I have no longer a sister: Susan is a saint in heaven.'
For a moment I hesitated, afraid to speak. She had nerved herself to bear the worst, and I feared the revulsion of feeling would be too great. As I stood there silently looking down at her drawn, haggard face, I felt she would not have had strength to bear a fresh trial. If Susan had died Phoebe would not have long survived her.
'You are wrong,' I said, very gently. 'I have no bad news for you this morning. The inflammation has diminished. Susan breathes more easily: each breath is no longer acute agony.'
'Do you mean that she is better?' staring at me incredulously.
'Most certainly she is better. The danger is over; but we must be very careful, for she will be ill for some time yet. Yes, indeed, Phoebe, you may believe me. Do you think I would deceive you? God has heard your prayers, and Susan is spared to you.'
I never saw a human countenance so transformed as Phoebe's was that moment; every feature seemed to quiver with ecstasy; she could not speak, only she folded her hands as though in prayer. Presently she looked up, and said, as simply as a child,-- 'Oh, I am so happy! I never thought I should be happy again. You may leave me now, Miss Garston, for I want to thank God, for the first time in my life. I feel as though I must love Him now for giving Susan back to me.' And then again she begged me to leave her.
Mr. Hamilton did not forget me. I had just put the sick-room in order when a respectable young woman made her appearance. She told me that her name was Carron, that she was a married woman and a friend of Miss Locke's, and she would willingly take my place until evening.
I was thankful to accept this timely offer of help, and went home and enjoyed a deep dreamless sleep for some hours. When I woke it was evening. Jill was standing by my bedside with a tray in her hands. The room was bright with firelight. Jill's big eyes looked at me affectionately.
'How you have slept, Ursie dear! just like a baby! I have been in and out half-a-dozen times; but no, you never stirred. I told Mr. Hamilton so, when he inquired an hour ago. Now, you are to drink this coffee, and when you are quite awake I will give you his message.'
'I am quite awake now,' I returned, rubbing my eyes vigorously.
'Well, then, let me see. Oh, Miss Locke is going on well, and Mrs. Carron will stop with her until eight o'clock. Phoebe has been ill, and they sent for him; but it was only faintness and palpitation, and she is better now. He has been to see Elspeth, and she is poorly; but there is no need for you to trouble about her. Miss Darrell is sending her broth and jelly, and Peggy waits on her very nicely. Lady Betty and I went to see her to-day, and she was as comfortable and cheery as possible, and told us that she felt like a lady in that big bed downstairs. Mr. Hamilton says she will not die just yet, but one of these days she will go off as quietly as a baby. She asked after you, Ursie, and sent you a power of love, and I hope it will do you good.'
'And what have you been doing with yourself all day, Jill?' I asked, rather anxiously.
'Oh, lots of things,' tossing back her thick locks. 'Let me see. Lady Betty came to fetch me for a walk, and we met Mr. Tudor. He is all alone, poor man, and very dull without Mr. Cunliffe; he told us so: so Lady Betty brought him back to lunch. And Miss Darrell was so cross, and told poor Lady Betty that she was very forward to do such a thing; they had such a quarrel in the drawing-room about it. Mr. Tudor came in and found Lady Betty crying, so he made us come out in the garden, and we played a new sort of Aunt Sally. Mr. Tudor stuck up an old hat of Mr. Hamilton's,--at least we found out it was not an old one after all,--and we snowballed it, and Mr. Hamilton came out and helped us. After tea, we all told ghost-stories round the fire. Miss Darrell does not like them, so she went up to her room. Mr. Tudor had to see a sick man, but he came back to dinner; but I would not stay, for I thought you would be waking, Ursie, so Mr. Hamilton brought me home.'
'Jill!' I asked desperately, 'have they not written for you to join them at Hastings yet? I begin to think you have been idle long enough.'
'Had you not better go to sleep again, Ursie dear?' returned Jill, marching off with my tray. But she made a little face at me as she went out of the door. 'I shall get into trouble over this,' I thought. 'I really must write to Aunt Philippa.' But I was spared the necessity, for the very next day Jill came to me at Miss Locke's to tell me, with a very long face, that her mother had written to say that Miss Gillespie was coming the following week, and Jill was to pack up and join them at Hastings the very next day.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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25
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'THERE IS NO ONE LIKE DONALD'
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Mrs. Carron very kindly took my place that I might be with Jill that last evening, and we spent it in Jill's favourite fashion, talking in the firelight.
She was a little quiet and subdued, full of regret at leaving me, and more affectionate than ever.
'I have never been so happy in my life,' she said, in rather a melancholy voice. 'When I get to Hastings, my visit here will seem like a dream, it has been so nice, somehow; you are such a dear old thing, Ursula, and I am so fond of Lady Betty, I shall ask mother to invite her in the holidays.'
'And there is no one else you will regret, Jill?' I asked, anxious to sound her on one point.
'Oh yes; I am sorry to bid good-bye to Mr. Tudor. He has been such fun lately. I really do think he is quite the nicest young man I know.'
'Do you know many young men, my dear?' was my apparently innocent remark; but Jill was not deceived by this smooth speech.
'Of course I do,' in a scornful voice; 'they come to see Sara, and I hate them so, flimsy stuck-up creatures, with their white ties and absurd little moustaches. Each one is more stupid and vapid than the other. And Sara must think so too; for she smiles on them all alike.'
'You are terribly hard on the young men of your generation, Jill; I daresay I should think them very harmless and pleasant.' But she shook her head vigorously.
'Why cannot they be natural, and say good-natured things, like Mr. Tudor? He is real, and not make-believe, pretending that he is too bored to live at all. One would think there was no truth anywhere, nothing but tinsel and sham, to listen to them. That is why I like Mr. Tudor: he has the ring of the true metal about him. Even Miss Darrell agrees with me there.'
'Do you discuss Mr. Tudor with Miss Darrell?'
'Why not?' opening her eyes widely. 'I like to talk about my friends, and I feel Mr. Tudor is a real friend. She was so interested,--really interested, I mean, without any humbug,--at least, pretence,' for here I held up my finger at Jill. 'She wanted to know if you liked him too, and I said, "Oh yes, so much; he was a great favourite of yours," and she seemed pleased to hear it.'
'You silly child! I wish you would leave me and my likes and dislikes out of your conversations with Miss Darrell.'
'Well, do you know, I try to do so, because I know how you hate her,--at least, dislike her: that is a more ladylike term,--you are so horribly particular, Ursula; but somehow your name always gets in, and I never know how, and there is no keeping you out. Sometimes she makes me dreadfully angry about you, and sometimes she says nice things; but there, we will not talk about the double-faced lady to-night. I understand her less than ever.'
We glided into more serious subjects after this. I made Jill promise to be more patient with her life, and work from a greater sense of duty, and I begged her most earnestly to fight against discontent, and exorcise this youthful demon of hers, and again she promised to do her best.
'I feel better about things, somehow: you have done me good, Ursie; you always do. I must make mother understand that I am nearly a woman, and that I do not intend to waste my time any longer dreaming childish dreams. I suppose mother is really fond of me, though she does find fault with me continually, and is always praising Sara.' Jill went on talking in this way for some time, and then we went upstairs together.
I was rather provoked to find Mr. Tudor at the station the next morning. I suppose my steady look abashed him, for he muttered something about Smith's bookstall, as though I should be deceived by such a flimsy excuse. After all, Mr. Tudor was not better than other young men; in spite of Jill's praises, he was capable of this mild subterfuge to get his own way.
Jill was so honestly and childishly pleased to see him that I ought to have been disarmed. She went off with him to the bookstall, while I looked after her luggage, and they stood there chattering and laughing until I joined them, and then Mr. Tudor grew suddenly quiet.
As the train came up, I heard him ask Jill how long they were to stay at Hastings, and if they would be at Hyde Park Gate before Easter.
'I shall be up in town then,' he remarked carelessly, 'to see some of my people.'
'Oh yes, and you must come and see us,' she returned cheerfully. 'Good-bye, Mr. Tudor. I am so sorry to leave Heathfield.'
But, after all, Jill's last look was for me: as she leaned out of the carriage, waving her hand, she did not even glance at the young man who was standing silent and gloomy beside me. I felt rather sorry for the poor boy, as he turned away quite sadly.
'I must go down to the schools: good-bye, Miss Garston,' he said hurriedly. One would have thought he had to make up for lost time, as he strode through the station and up the long road. Had Jill really taken his fancy, I wondered? had her big eyes and quaint speeches bewitched him? Mr. Tudor was a gentleman, and we all liked him; but what would Uncle Brian and Aunt Philippa say if a needy, good-looking young curate were suddenly to present himself as a lover for their daughter Jocelyn? Why, Jill would be rich some day,--poor Ralph was dead, and she and Sara would be co-heiresses. Her parents would expect her to make a grand match.
I shook my head gravely over poor Lawrence's prospects as I took my way slowly up the hill. I was rather glad when his broad shoulders were out of sight; I should be sorry if any disappointment were to cloud his cheery nature.
I missed Jill a great deal at first, but in my heart I was not sorry to get rid of the responsibility; a lively girl of sixteen, with strong individuality and marked precocity, is likely to be a formidable charge; but Mrs. Barton lamented her absence in no measured terms.
'It seems so dull without Miss Jocelyn,' she said, the first evening. 'She was such a lively young lady, and made us all cheerful. Why, she would run in and out the kitchen a dozen times a day, to feed the chickens, or pet the cat, or watch me knead the bread. She and Nathaniel got on famously together, and often I have found her helping him with the books, and laughing so merrily when he made a mistake. I used to think Nathaniel did it on purpose sometimes, just for the fun of it.'
Yes, we all missed Jill, and I for one loved the girl dearly. It made me quite happy one day when she wrote a long letter, telling me that she was delighted with her new governess.
'Miss Gillespie is as nice as possible,' she wrote. 'I already feel quite fond of her; my lessons are as interesting now as they used to be dull with Fräulein. She knows a great deal, and is not ashamed to confess when she is ignorant of anything; she says right out that she cannot answer my questions, and proposes that we should study it together. I quite enjoy our walks and talks, for she takes so much interest in all I tell her. She is a little dull and sad sometimes, as though she were thinking of past troubles; but I like to feel that I can cheer her up and do her good. Mother and Sara are delighted with her; she plays so beautifully, and they say that she is such a gentlewoman. When we come downstairs in the evening she will not allow me to creep into a corner; she makes me join in the conversation, and coaxes me to play my pieces; and she tries to prevent mother making horrid little remarks on my awkwardness. ' "It will all come right, Mrs. Garston," I heard her say one day. "It is far wiser not to notice it: young girls are so sensitive, and Jocelyn is keenly alive to her shortcomings." And mother actually nodded assent to this, and the next moment she called me up, and said how much I had improved in my playing, and that Colonel Ferguson had told her that I had been exceedingly well taught.
'By the bye, I am quite sure that Colonel Ferguson intends to be my brother-in-law: he is always here in the evening, and yesterday he sent Sara such a magnificent bouquet.'
Jill's chatty letters were always amusing. She had prepared me beforehand, so I was not surprised at receiving a voluminous letter from Aunt Philippa a few days afterwards, informing me of Sara's engagement to Colonel Ferguson.
'Your uncle and I are delighted with the match,' she wrote. 'Colonel Ferguson belongs to a very good old family, and he has private property. Your uncle says that he is a very intelligent man, and is much respected in the regiment.
'Mrs. Fullerton thinks it is a pity for Sara to marry a widower; but I call that nonsense; he is a young-looking man for his age, and every one thinks him so handsome. Sara, poor darling, is as happy as possible. I believe that they are to be married soon after Easter, as he wants to get some salmon fishing in Norway: so we shall come up to Hyde Park Gate early next week, and see about the trousseau, for there is no time to be lost.'
Sara added a few words in her pretty girlish handwriting.
'I wonder if you will be very much surprised by mamma's letter, Ursula dear. We all thought he liked Lesbia, but no, he says that was entirely a mistake on our part, he never really thought of her at all.
'Of course I am very happy. I think there is no one like Donald in the world. I cannot imagine why such a wise, clever man should fall in love with a silly little body like me. I suppose I must please him in some way, for, really, he seems dreadfully in love.
'You must come to my wedding, Ursula, and I must choose your dress for you; of course father will pay for it, but I promise you it shall be pretty, and suitable to your complexion. I mean to have eight bridesmaids. Jocelyn will be one, of course, and I shall get that tall, fair Grace Underley to act as a foil to her bigness. I shall not ask poor Lesbia to be one; it would be too trying for her, and I know you will not care about it; but you must come for a week, and see all my pretty things, and help poor mamma, for she has only Jocelyn: so remember you are to keep yourself disengaged the week after Easter.'
I wrote back that same evening warm congratulations to Sara and Aunt Philippa, and promised to come when Sara wanted me. A gay wedding was not to my taste, but I knew I owed this duty to them: they had been kind to me in their own fashion and according to their lights, and I would not fail them. Easter would fall late this year,--in the middle of April: there were still three months before Sara would be married, and most likely by that time I should need a few days' rest and change.
The next morning I heard from Lesbia. It was a kind, sad little letter; she told me she was glad about Sara's engagement, and as they were still at Hastings she and her mother had called at Warrior Square, and had found Sara and her _fiancé_ together.
'I think it has improved Sara already,' it went on; 'she was looking exceedingly pretty, and in good spirits, and she seemed very proud of her tall, grave-looking soldier. Mother and I always liked Colonel Ferguson. He and Sara are complete contrasts; I think her brightness and good-humour, as well as her beauty, have attracted him, for he is honestly in love! I liked the quiet, deferential way in which he treated her. I am sure he will make a kind husband. Mrs. Garston looked as happy as possible. I did not see Jocelyn; she was out riding with her father.
'We are going down to dear Rutherford in March, but I have promised Sara to come up for the wedding. Don't sigh, Ursula: it is all in the day's work, and one has to do trying things sometimes.
'I have come to think that perhaps dear Charlie is better off where he is. He was so enthusiastic and so true that life must have disappointed him. Perhaps I should have disappointed him too; but no, I should have loved him too well to do that.
'I shall love to be at Rutherford during the spring. Everything will remind me of those sweet spring days two years ago. Oh, those walks and rides, and the evening when we listened to the nightingale and he told me that he loved me! I remember the very patch of grass where I stood. There was a little clump of alders, and I can see how he looked then. Oh, Ursula, these memories are very sad, but they are sweet, too; for Charlie is our Charlie still, is he not?'
'Poor Lesbia!' I sighed, as I folded up her letter and prepared for my day's work. 'It must be hard for her to witness Sara's happiness, when her own life is so clouded. Her heart is still true to Charlie; but she is so young, and life is so long. I trust that better things are in store for her.'
Miss Locke was recovering very slowly. Years of anxiety and hard work had overtaxed her strength sorely. Mr. Hamilton used to shake his head over her tardy progress, and tell her that she was a very unsatisfactory patient, and that he had expected to cure her long before this.
'If it were not for you and my dear Miss Garston, I should never be lying here now,' she returned gratefully. 'I must have died; you know that, doctor; and even now, in spite of all the good things you send me, I am so weary and fit for nothing I feel as though I should never sit up again.'
'Oh, we shall have you up before long,' he returned cheerfully. 'You are only rather slow about it. You are not troubling about your work or anything else, I hope, because the rent is paid, and there is plenty in the cupboard for Phoebe and Kitty.'
'I know you have paid the rent, and I shall never be grateful enough to you, doctor; for what should I have done, with this long illness making me behindhand with everything? I am afraid Miss Garston puts her hand in her pocket sometimes. I hope the Lord will bless you both for your goodness to two helpless women. Ay, and he will bless you, doctor!'
'I am sure I hope so,' he returned, in a good-humoured tone, shaking her hand. 'There! mind what your nurse says, and keep yourself easy: you will find Phoebe a different person when you see her next.'
I was afraid Phoebe would find her sister much changed when they met. Miss Locke had greatly aged since her illness; her hair was much grayer, and her face was sunken, and I doubted whether she would ever be the same woman again. Mr. Hamilton and I had already discussed the sisters' future.
'I am afraid they will be terribly pinched,' he said once. 'Miss Locke is suffering now from years of overwork. She will never be able to work as hard as she has done. And she has to provide for that child Kitty, as well as for poor Phoebe.'
'We must think what is to be done,' I replied. 'Miss Locke is a very good manager: she is careful and thrifty. A little will go a long way with her.'
Mr. Hamilton said no more on the subject just then, but a few days afterwards he told me that he intended to buy the cottage. He had a good deal of house-property in Heathfield, and a cottage more or less did not matter to him.
'They shall live in it rent-free, and I will take care of the repairs. There will be no need for Miss Locke to work so hard then. She is a good woman, and I thoroughly respect her. Of course I know she is a favourite of yours, Miss Garston, but you must not think that influences me.'
'As though I should imagine such a thing!' I returned, in quite an affronted tone. But Mr. Hamilton only laughed.
'You are such an insignificant person, you see,' he went on mischievously. 'You are of so little use to your generation. People do not benefit by your example, or defer to your opinion. There is no St. Ursula in the calendar.' Now what did he mean by all this rigmarole? But he only laughed again in a provoking way, and went out.
I had had both the sisters on my hands. Those hours of fearful suspense had told on Phoebe, and for a week or two we were very anxious about her.
I kept the extent of her illness from Susan, and she never knew that Mr. Hamilton visited her daily. Strange to say, Phoebe gave us little trouble. She bore her bodily sufferings with surprising patience, and even made light of them; and she would thank me most gratefully when I waited on her.
I was never long in her room. There was no reading or singing now. Nothing would induce her to keep me from Susan. She used to beg me to go back to Susan and leave her to Kitty. I never forgot Susan's look of astonishment when I told her this.
'Somehow, it doesn't sound like Phoebe,' she said, looking at me a little wistfully. 'Are you sure you understand her, Miss Garston? --that something has not put her out? She has often sulked with me like that.'
'Oh, Phoebe never sulks now,' I returned, smiling at this view of the case. 'She is not like the same woman, Susan. She thinks of other people now.' Miss Locke heard me silently, but I saw that she was still incredulous. She was not sanguine enough to hope for a miracle; and surely only a miracle could change Phoebe's sullen and morbid nature.
The sisters were longing to meet, but the helplessness of the one and the long-protracted weakness of the other kept them long apart, though only a short flight of stairs divided them.
At last I thought we might venture to bring Susan into Phoebe's room.
The weather was less severe, and Susan seemed a little stronger, so Kitty and I hurried ourselves in preparation for a festive tea in Phoebe's room.
She watched us with unconcealed interest as we spread the tea-cloth, and arranged the best china, and then placed an easy-chair by her bedside.
The room really looked very bright and cosy. A little gray kitten that I had brought Kitty was asleep on the quilt; Phoebe had taken a great fancy to the pretty, playful little creature, and it was always with her; Kitty's large wax doll was lying with its curly head on her pillow.
Susan trembled very much as she entered the room, leaning heavily on my arm. Phoebe lay quite motionless, watching her as she walked slowly towards the bed, then her face suddenly grew pitiful, and she held out her arms.
'Oh, how ill you look, my poor Susan, and so old and gray! but what does it matter, so that I have got my Susan back? If you had died, I should have died too; God never meant to punish me like that.' And she stroked and kissed her face as though she were a child, and for a little while the two sisters mingled their tears together.
Susan was too weak for much emotion, so I placed her comfortably in her easy-chair, and bade her look at Phoebe without troubling to talk; but her heart was too full for silence.
'Why, my woman,' she burst out, 'you look real bonnie! I do believe your face has got a bit of colour in it, and you remind me of the old Phoebe; nay,' as Phoebe laughed at this, 'I never thought to hear you laugh again, my dearie.'
'It is with the pleasure of seeing you,' returned Phoebe. 'If you only knew what I suffered while you lay ill! "there is no improvement," they said, and Miss Garston looked at me so pityingly; and if you had died and never spoken to me again,--and I had refused to bid you good-night,--you remember, Susan! oh, I think my heart would have broken if you had gone away and left me like that.'
'Nay, I should have thought nothing about it, but that it was just Phoebe's way. Do you mean that you fretted about that, lass? Oh,' turning to me, for Phoebe was crying bitterly over the recollection, 'I would not believe you, Miss Garston, when you said Phoebe was changed, for I said to myself, "Surely she will be up to her old tricks again soon"; but now I see you are right. Nay, never fret, my bonnie woman, for I loved you when you were as tiresome and cross-grained as possible. I think I cannot help loving yon,' finished Susan simply, as she took her sister's hand.
That was a happy evening that we spent in Phoebe's room. When tea was over we read a few chapters, Kitty and I, and then I sang some of Phoebe's favourite songs. When I had finished, I looked at them: Phoebe had fallen asleep with Susan's hand still in hers: there was a look of peaceful rest on the worn gray face that made me whisper to Miss Locke,-- 'The evil spirit is cast out at last, Susan.'
'Ay,' returned Susan quietly. 'She is clothed and in her right mind, and I doubt not sitting at the feet of Him who has called her. I have got my Phoebe back again, thank God, as I have not seen her for many a long year.'
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{
"id": "16080"
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26
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I HEAR ABOUT CAPTAIN HAMILTON
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It was now more than five weeks since Gladys had left us, but during that time I had heard from her frequently.
Her letters were deeply interesting. She wrote freely, pouring out her thoughts on every subject without reserve. Somehow I felt, as I read them, that those letters gave as much pleasure to the writer as to the recipient; and I found afterwards that this was the case. Her consciousness of my sympathy with her made her open her heart more freely to me than to any other person. She delighted in telling me of the books she read, in describing the various effects of nature. Her descriptions were so powerful and graphic that they quite surprised me. She made me feel as though I were walking through the fir woods beside her, or standing on the sea-shore watching the white-crested waves rolling in and breaking into foam at our feet. A sort of dewy freshness seemed to stamp the pages. Gladys loved nature with all her heart; she revelled in the solemn grandeur of those woods, in the breadth and freedom of the ocean; it seemed to harmonise with her varying moods.
'I feel a different creature already,' she wrote when she had been away a fortnight. 'Without owning myself happy (but happiness, active or negative, will never come to me again), still I am calmer and more at peace,--away from the oppressive influences that surrounded me at home.
'I have made up my mind that the atmosphere of Gladwyn is fatal to my soul's health. I seem to wither up like some sensitive plant in that blighting air; half-truths, misunderstandings, and jealousies have corroded our home peace. I am better away from it all, for here I can own myself ill and miserable, and no one blames or misapprehends my meaning: there are no harsh judgments under the guise of pity.
'These dear people are so truly charitable, they think no evil of a poor girl who is faithful to a brother's memory: they are patient with my sad moods, they leave me free to follow out my wishes. I wander about as I will, I sketch or read, I sit idle; no one blames me; they are as good to me as you would be in their place.
'I shall stay away as long as possible, until I feel strong enough to take up my life again. You will not be vexed with me, my dear Ursula: you know how I have suffered; you of all others will sympathise with me. Think of the relief it is to wake up in the morning and feel that no jarring influences will be at work that day; that no eyes will pry into my secret sorrow, or seek to penetrate my very thoughts; that I may look and speak as I like; that my words will not be twisted to serve other people's purposes. Forgive me if I speak harshly, but indeed you do not know all yet. Your last letter made me a little sad, you speak so much of Giles. Do you really think I am hard upon him? The idea is painful to me.
'I like you to think well of him. He is a good man. I have always thoroughly respected him, but there is no sympathy between us. Of course it is more Etta's fault than his: she has usurped my place, and Giles no longer needs me. Perhaps I am not kind to him, not sisterly or soft in my manners; but he treats me too much as a child. He never asks my opinion on any subject. We live under his protection, and he never grudges us money; he is generous in that way; but he never enters into our thoughts. Lady Betty and I lead our own lives.
'You ask me why I do not write to him, my dear Ursula. Such a thought would never enter my head. Write to Giles! What should I say to him? How would such a letter ever get itself written? Do you suppose he would care for me as a correspondent? I should like you to ask him that question, if you dared. Giles's face would be a study. I fancy I write that letter,--a marvellous composition of commonplace nothings. "My dear brother, I think you will like to hear our Bournemouth news," etc. I can imagine him tossing it aside as he opens his other letters: "Gladys has actually written to me. I suppose she wants another cheque. See what she says, Etta. You may read it aloud, if you like, while I finish my breakfast." Now do not look incredulous. I once saw Lady Betty's letter treated in this way, and all her poor little sentences pulled to pieces in Etta's usual fashion. No, thank you, I will not write to Giles. I write to Lady Betty sometimes, but not often: that is why she comes to you for news. We are a queer household, Ursula. I am very fond of my dear little Lady Betty, but somehow I have never enjoyed writing to her since Etta one day handed to her one of my letters opened by mistake. Lady Betty has fancied the mistake has occurred more than once.'
I put down this letter with a sigh; it was the only painful one I had received from Gladys. My remark about her writing to her brother had evidently upset her, but after this she did not speak much about Gladwyn, and by tacit consent we spoke little about any of her people except Lady Betty. When I mentioned Mr. Hamilton I did so casually, and only with reference to my own work. He was so mixed up with my daily life, I came so continually into contact with him, that it was impossible to avoid his name.
Gladys understood this, for she once replied,-- 'I am really and honestly glad that you and Giles work so well together. He will be a good friend to you, I know, for when he forms a favourable opinion of a person he is slow to change it, and Giles is one who, with all his faults, will go through fire and water for his friends. I like to hear of him in this way, for you always put him in the best light, and though you may not believe it after all my hard speeches, I am sufficiently proud of my brother to wish him to be properly appreciated.' And after this I mentioned him less reluctantly.
Max came back about ten days after Jill had left us. I found him waiting for me one evening when I got back to the cottage. As usual, he greeted me most affectionately, only he laughed when I made him turn to the light that I might see how he looked.
'Well, what is your opinion, Ursula, my dear? I hope you have noticed the gray hairs in my beard. I saw them there this morning.'
'You are rather tanned by the cold winds. I suppose Torquay has done you good; but your eyes have not lost their tired look, Max: you are not a bit rested.'
'I believe I want more work: too much rest would kill me with ennui,' stretching out his arms with a sort of weary gesture. 'I walked a great deal at Torquay; I was out in the air all day; but it did not seem to be what I wanted: I was terribly bored. Tudor is glad to get me back. The fellow actually seems dull. Have you any idea what has gone wrong with him, Ursula?' But I prudently turned a deaf ear to this question, and he did not follow it up; and a moment afterwards he mentioned that he had been at Gladwyn, and that Miss Darrell had given him a good account of Miss Hamilton.
'I had no idea that she was away until this afternoon. Her departure was rather sudden, was it not?'
I think he was glad when I gave him Gladys's message; but he looked rather grave when I told him how much she was enjoying her freedom.
'She seems a different creature; those Maberleys are so good to her; they pet her, and yet leave her uncontrolled to follow her own wishes. I am more at rest about her there.'
'A girl ought to be happy in her own home,' he returned, somewhat moodily. 'I think Miss Hamilton has indulged her sadness long enough. Perhaps there are other reasons for her being better. I suppose she has not heard--?' And here he stopped rather awkwardly.
'Do you mean whether she has heard anything of Eric? Oh no, Max.'
'No, I was not meaning that,' looking at me rather astonished. 'Of course we know the poor boy is dead. I was only wondering if she had had an Indian letter lately. Well, it is none of my affair, and I cannot wait to hear more now. Good-night, little she-bear; I am off.' And he actually was off, in spite of my calling him quite loudly in the porch, for I wanted him to tell me what he meant. Had Gladys any special correspondent in India? I wondered if I might venture to question Lady Betty.
As it very often happens, she played quite innocently into my hands, for the very next day she came to tell me that she had had a letter from Gladys.
'It was a very short one,' she grumbled. 'Only she had an Indian letter to answer, and that took up her time, so that was a pretty good excuse for once.'
'Has Gladys any special friend in India?'
'Only Claude! --I mean our cousin, Claude Hamilton. Have you not often heard us talk of him? How strange! Why, he used to stay with us for months at a time, and he and Gladys were great friends: they correspond. He is Captain Hamilton now; his regiment was ordered to India just at the time poor dear Eric disappeared; he was awfully shocked about that, I remember. Etta wrote and told him all about it; he was a great favourite of hers. We none of us thought him handsome except Etta; he was a nice-looking fellow, but nothing else.'
'And you and Gladys are fond of him?'
'Oh yes.' But here Lady Betty looked a little queer.
'Gladys writes to him most: she has always been his correspondent. Now and then I get a letter written to me. You see, he has no one else belonging to him, now his mother is dead. Aunt Agnes died about two years ago, and he never had brothers or sisters, so he adopted us.'
'Uncle Max knew him, of course?'
'To be sure. Mr. Cunliffe knew all our people. Claude was a favourite of his, too. I think every one liked him; he was so straightforward, and never did anything mean. I think he will make a splendid officer; he has had fever lately, and we rather expect he is coming home on sick-leave. Etta hopes so.'
'Gladys has never spoken of her cousin to me.'
'That is because you two are always talking about other things,--poor Eric, for example. Gladys likes to talk about Claude, of course: he is her own cousin.' And Lady Betty's manner was just a little defiant, as though I had accused Gladys of some indiscretion. I heard her mutter, 'They find plenty of fault with her about that,' but I took no notice. I had satisfied my curiosity, and I knew now why Max fancied an Indian letter would raise Gladys's spirits; but all the same he might have spoken out. Max had no business to be so mysterious with me.
I heard Captain Hamilton's name again shortly afterwards. I was calling at Gladwyn one afternoon. I was loath to do so in Gladys's absence, but I dared not discontinue my visits entirely, for fear of Miss Darrell's remarks. To my surprise, I found her _tête-à-tête_ with Uncle Max. She welcomed me with a great show of cordiality; but before I had been five minutes in the room I found out that my visit was inopportune, though Max seemed unfeignedly pleased to see me, and she had repeated his words in almost parrot-like fashion. 'Oh yes, I am so glad to see you, Miss Garston! it is so good of you to call when dear Gladys is away! Of course I know she is the attraction: we all know that, do we not?' smiling sweetly upon me. 'She has been away more than five weeks now,--dear, dear! how time flies! --really five weeks, and this is your first call.'
'You know how Miss Locke's illness has engrossed me,' I remonstrated. 'I never pretend to mere conventional calls.'
'No, indeed. You have a code of your own, have you not? Your niece is fortunate, Mr. Cunliffe. She makes her own laws, while we poor inferior mortals are obliged to conform to the world's dictates. I wish I were strong-minded like you. It must be such a pleasure to be free and despise _les convenances_. People are so artificial, are they not?'
'Ursula is not artificial, at any rate,' returned Max, with a benevolent glance. It had struck me as I entered the room that he looked rather bored and ill at ease, but Miss Darrell was in high spirits, and looked almost handsome. I never saw her better dressed.
'No, indeed. Miss Garston is almost too frank; not that that is a fault. Oh yes, Miss Locke's illness has been a tedious affair: even Giles got weary of it, and used to grumble at having to go every day. Of course, seeing Giles once or twice a day, you heard all our news, so we did not expect you to toil up here: that would have been unnecessary trouble after your hard work.'
Miss Darrell spoke quite civilly, and I do not know why her speech rankled and made me reply, rather quickly,-- 'Nurses do not gossip with the doctor, Miss Darrell. Mr. Hamilton has told me no news, I assure you. Gladys's letters tell me far more.'
I was angry with myself when I said this, for why need I have answered her at all or taken notice of her remark? and, above all, why need I have mentioned Gladys's name? Miss Darrell's colour rose in a moment.
'Dear me! I am glad to hear dear Gladys writes to you. She does not honour us. Lady Betty gets a note sometimes, but Giles and I are never favoured with a word. Giles feels terribly hurt about it sometimes, but I tell him it is only Gladys's way. Girls are careless sometimes. Of course she does not mean to slight him.'
'Of course not,' rather gravely from Max.
'All the same it is very neglectful on Gladys's part. If you are a real friend, Miss Garston, you will tell her what a mistake it is,--really a fatal mistake, though I do not dare to tell her so. I see Giles's look of disappointment when the post brings him nothing but dry business letters. He is so anxious about her health. He let her go so willingly, and yet not one word of recognition for her own, I may say her only, brother.'
Max was looking so exceedingly grave by this time that I longed to change the subject. I would say a word in defence of Gladys when we were alone, he and I. It would be worse than useless to speak before Miss Darrell. She would twist my words before my face. I never said a word in Gladys's behalf that she did not make me repent it.
The next moment, however, she had started on a different tack.
'Oh, do you know, Mr. Cunliffe,' she said carelessly, as she crossed the hearth-rug to ring the bell, 'we have heard again from Captain Hamilton?'
Max raised his head quickly. 'Indeed! I hope he is quite well. By the bye, I remember you told me he had a touch of fever; but I trust he has got the better of that.'
'We hope so,' in a very impressive tone; 'but it was a sharp attack, and no doubt home-sickness and worry of mind accelerated the mischief. Poor Claude! I fear he has suffered much; not that he says so himself: he is far too proud to complain. But he is likely to come home on sick-leave; next mail will settle the question, but I believe we may expect him about the end of July.'
'Indeed! That is good news for all of you'; but the poker that Max had taken up fell with a little crash among the fire-irons. Miss Darrell gave a faint scream, and then laughed at her foolish nervousness.
'It was very clumsy on my part,' stammered Max. Could it be my fancy, or had he turned suddenly pale, as though something had startled him too?
'Oh no, it was only my poor nerves,' replied Miss Darrell, with her brightest smile. 'What was I saying? Oh yes, I remember now,--about Claude: he wrote to Gladys to ask if he might come, and she said yes. Ah, here comes tea, and I believe I heard Giles's ring at the bell.'
I cannot tell which of the two revealed it to me,--whether it was the sudden pallor on Max's face, or the curious watchful look that I detected in Miss Darrell's eyes: it was only there for a moment, but it reminded me of the look with which a cat eyes the mouse she has just drawn within her claws. I saw it all then with a quick flash of intuition. I had partly guessed it before, but now I was sure of it.
My poor Max, so brave and cheery and patient! But she should not torment him any longer in my presence. If he had to suffer,--and the cause of that suffering was still a mystery to me,--she should not spy out his weakness. He had turned his face aside with a quick look of pain as he spoke, and the next moment I had mounted the breach and was begging Miss Darrell to assist me in the case of a poor family,--old hospital acquaintances of mine, who were emigrating to New Zealand.
My importunity seemed to surprise her. My sudden loquacity was an interruption; but I would not be repressed or silenced. I took the chair beside her, and made her look at me. I fixed her wandering attention and pressed her until she grew irritable with impatience. I saw Max was recovering himself: by and by he gave a forced laugh.
'You will have to give in, Miss Darrell. Ursula always gets her own way. How much do you want, child? You must be merciful to a poor vicar. Will that satisfy you?' offering me a sovereign, and Miss Darrell, after a moment's hesitation, produced the same sum from her purse.
I took her money coolly, but I would not resign the reins of the conversation any more into her hands. When Mr. Hamilton entered the room he stopped and looked at me with visible astonishment: he had never heard me so fluent before; but somehow my eloquence died a natural death after his entrance. I was still a little shy with Mr. Hamilton.
His manner was unusually genial this afternoon. I was sure he was delighted to see us both there again. He spoke to Max in a jesting tone, and then looked benignly at his cousin, who was superintending the tea-table. She certainly looked uncommonly well that day; her dress of dark maroon cashmere and velvet fitted her fine figure exquisitely; her white, well-shaped hands were, as usual, loaded with brilliant rings. She was a woman who needed ornaments: they would have looked lavish on any one else, they suited her admirably. Once I caught her looking with marked disfavour on my black serge dress: the pearl hoop that had been my mother's keeper was my sole adornment. I daresay she thought me extremely dowdy. I once heard her say, in a pointed manner, that 'her cousin Giles liked to see his women-folk well dressed; he was very fastidious on that point, and exceedingly hard to please.'
Mr. Hamilton seemed in the best of humours. I do not think that he remarked how very quiet Max was all tea-time. He pressed us to remain to dinner, and wanted to send off a message to the vicarage; but we were neither of us to be persuaded, though Miss Darrell joined her entreaties to her cousin's.
I was anxious to leave the house as quickly as possible, and I knew by instinct what Max's feelings must be. I could not enjoy Mr. Hamilton's conversation, amusing as it was. I wanted to be alone with Max; I felt I could keep silence with him no longer. But we could not get rid of Mr. Hamilton; as we rose to take our departure he coolly announced his intention of walking with us.
'The Tylcotes have sent for me again,' he said casually. 'I may as well walk down with you now.' He looked at me as he spoke, but I am afraid my manner disappointed him. For once Mr. Hamilton was decidedly _de trop_. I am sure he must have noticed my hesitation, but it made no difference to his purpose. I had found out by this time that when Mr. Hamilton had made up his mind to do a certain thing, other people's moods did not influence him in the least. He half smiled as he went out to put on his greatcoat, and, as though he intended to punish me for my want of courtesy, he talked to Max the whole time; not that I minded it in the least, only it was just his lordly way.
To my great relief, however, he left us as soon as we reached the vicarage, so I wished him good-night quite amiably, and of course Max walked on with me to the cottage.
He was actually leaving me at the gate without a word except 'Good-night, Ursula,' but I laid my hand on his arm.
'You must come in, Max. I want to speak to you.'
'Not to-night, my dear,' he returned hurriedly. 'I have business letters to write before dinner.'
'They must wait, then,' I replied decidedly, 'for I certainly do not intend to let you leave me just yet. Don't be stubborn, Max, for you know I always get my own way. Come in. I want to tell you why Gladys never writes to her brother.' And he followed me into the house without a word.
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{
"id": "16080"
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27
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MAX OPENS HIS HEART
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But I did not at once join Max in the parlour, though he was evidently expecting me to do so: instead of that, I ran upstairs to take off my walking-things. It would be better to leave him alone a few minutes. When I returned he was leaning back in the easy-chair, with his hands clasped behind his head, evidently absorbed in thought. I was struck by his expression: it was that of a man who was nerving himself to bear some great trouble; there was a quiet, hopeless look on his face that touched me exceedingly. I took the chair opposite him, and waited for him to speak. He did not change his attitude when he saw me, but he looked at me gravely, and said, 'Well, Ursula?' but there was no interest in his tone.
Of course I knew what he meant, but I let that pass, and something seemed to choke my voice as I tried to answer him: 'Never mind that now: we will come to that presently. I want to tell you that I know it now, Max. I guessed a little of it before, but now I am sure of it.'
I had roused him effectually. A sort of dusky red came to his face as he sat up and looked at me. He did not ask me what I meant: we understood each other in a moment. He only sighed heavily, and said, 'I have never told you anything, Ursula, have I?' but his manner testified no displeasure. He would never have spoken a word to me of his own accord, and yet my sympathy would be a relief to him. I knew Max's nature so well: he was a shy, reticent man; he could not speak easily of his own feelings unless the ice were broken for him.
'Max,' I pleaded, and the tears came into my eyes, 'if my dear mother were living you would have told her all without reserve.'
'I should not have needed to tell her: she would have guessed it, Ursula. Poor Emmie! I never could keep anything from her. I have often told you you are like her: you reminded me of her this afternoon.'
'Then you must make me your _confidante_ in her stead. Do not refuse me again, Max: I have asked this before. In spite of our strange relationship, we are still like brother and sister. You know how quickly I guessed Charlie's secret: surely you can speak to me, who am her friend, of your affection for Gladys.'
I saw him shrink a little at that, and his honest brown eyes were full of pain.
'My affection for Gladys,' he repeated, in a low voice. 'You are very frank, Ursula; but somehow I do not seem to mind it. I never care for Miss Darrell to speak to me on the subject, although she has been so kind; in fact, no one could have been kinder. We can only act up to our own natures: it is certainly not her fault, but only my misfortune, that her sympathy jars on me.'
Max's words gave me acute pain.
'Surely you have not chosen Miss Darrell for your _confidante_, Max?'
'I have chosen no one,' he returned, with gentle rebuke at my vehemence. 'Circumstances made Miss Darrell acquainted with my unlucky attachment. She did all she could to help me, and out of common gratitude I could not refuse to listen to her well-meant efforts to comfort me.'
I remained silent from sheer dismay. Things were far worse than I had imagined. I began to lose hope from the moment I heard Miss Darrell had been mixed up in the affair; the thought sickened me. I could hardly bear to hear Max speak; and yet how was I to help him unless he made me acquainted with the real state of the case?
'I suppose I had better tell you all from the beginning,' he said, rather dejectedly; 'that is, as far as I know myself, for I can hardly tell you when I began to love Gladys. I call her Gladys to myself,' with a faint smile, 'and it comes naturally to me. I ought to have said Miss Hamilton.'
'But not to me, Max,' I returned eagerly.
'What does it matter what I call her? She will never take the only name I want to give her!' was the melancholy reply to this. 'I only know one thing, Ursula, that for three years--ay, and longer than that--she has been the one woman in the world to me, and that as long as she and I live no other woman shall ever cross the threshold of the vicarage as its mistress.'
'Has it gone so deep as that, my poor Max?'
'Yes,' he returned briefly. 'But we need not enter into that part of the subject; a man had best keep his own counsel in such matters. I want to tell you bare facts, Ursula; we may as well leave feelings alone. If you can help me to understand one or two points that are still misty to my comprehension, you will do me good service.'
'I will try my very best for you both.'
'Thank you, but we cannot both be helped in the same way; our paths do not lie together. Miss Hamilton has refused to become my wife.'
'Oh, Max! not refused, surely.' This was another blow,--that he should have tried and failed,--that Gladys with her own lips should have refused him; but perhaps he had written to her, and there was some misunderstanding; but when I hinted this to Max he shook his head.
'We cannot misunderstand a person's words. Oh yes, I spoke to her, and she answered me; but I must not tell you things in this desultory fashion, or you will never understand. I have told you that I do not know when my attachment to Miss Hamilton commenced. It was gradual and imperceptible at first,--very real, no doubt, but it had not mastered my reason. I always admired her: how could I help it?' with some emotion. 'Even you, who are not her lover, have owned to me that she is a beautiful creature. I suppose her beauty attracted me first, until I saw the sweetness and unselfishness of her nature, and from that moment I lost my heart.
'The full consciousness came to me at the time of their trouble about Eric. I had been fond of the poor fellow, for his own sake as well as hers, but I never disguised his faults from her. I often told her that I feared for Eric's future; he had no ballast, it wanted a moral earthquake to steady him, and it was no wonder that his caprices and extravagant moods angered his brother. She used to be half offended with me for my plain speaking, but she was too gentle to resent it, and she would beg me to use my influence with Hamilton to entreat him not to be so hard on Eric.
'When the blow came, I was always up at Gladwyn once, sometimes twice, a day. They all wanted me; it was my duty to be their consoler. I am glad to remember now that I was some comfort to her.'
'Wait a moment, Max; I must ask you something. Do you believe that Eric was guilty?'
'I am almost sorry that you have put that question,' he returned reluctantly. 'I never would tell her what I thought. It was all a mystery. Eric might have been tempted; it was not for me to say. She could see I was doubtful. I told her that, whether he were sinned against or sinning, our only thought should be to bring him back and reconcile him to his brother. "God will prove his innocence if he be blackened falsely," I said to her; and, strange to say, she forgave me my doubts.'
'Oh, Max, I see what you think.'
'How can I help it,' he replied, 'knowing Eric's character so well? he was so weak and impulsive, so easily led astray, and then he was under bad influences. You will have heard Edgar Brown's name. He was a wild, dissipated fellow, and Hamilton had a right to forbid the acquaintance; both he and I knew that Edgar had low propensities, and was always lounging about public-houses with a set of loafers like himself. He has got worse since then, and has nearly broken his mother's heart. Do you think any man with a sense of responsibility would permit a youth of Eric's age to have such a friend? Yet this was a standing grievance with Eric, and I am sorry to say his sister took Edgar's part. Of course she knew no better: innocence is credulous, and Edgar was a sprightly, good-looking fellow, the sort that women never fail to pet.'
'Yes, I see. Eric was certainly to blame in this.'
'He was faulty on many more points. I am afraid, Ursula you have been somewhat biassed by Miss Hamilton. You must remember that she idolised Eric,--that she was blind to many of his faults; she made excuses for him whenever it was possible to do so, but with all her weak partiality she could not deny that he was thriftless, idle, and extravagant, that he defied his brother's authority, that he even forgot himself so far as to use bad language in his presence. I believe, once, he even struck him; only Hamilton declared he had been drinking, so he merely turned him out of the room.'
I looked at Max sadly. 'This may be all true; but I cannot believe that he took that cheque.'
'The circumstantial evidence against him is very strong,' he replied quietly. 'You do not know what power a sudden temptation has over these weak natures: he was hard pressed, remember that; he had gambling debts, thanks to Edgar. Fancy gambling debts at twenty! I have tried to take Miss Hamilton's view of the case, but I cannot bring myself to believe in his innocence. Most likely he repented the moment he had done it, poor boy. Eric was no hardened sinner. I sometimes fear--at least, the terrible thought has crossed my mind, and I know Hamilton has had it too--that in his despair he might have made away with himself.'
'Oh, Max, this is too horrible!' And I shuddered as I thought of the beautiful young face so like Gladys's, with its bright frank look that seemed to appeal to one's heart.
'Well, well, we need not speak of it; but it was a sad time for all of us; and yet in some ways it was a happy time to me. It was such a comfort to feel that I was necessary to them all; that they looked for me daily; that they could not do without me. I used to be with Hamilton every evening; and when Gladys was very ill they sent for me, because they said no one knew how to soothe her so well.
'Do you wonder, Ursula, that, seeing her in her weakness and sorrow, she grew daily into my life, that my one thought was how I could help and comfort her?
'She was very gentle and submissive, and followed my advice in everything. When I told her that only work could cure her sore heart, she did not contradict me: in a little while I had to check her feverish activity. She had overwhelmed herself with duties; she managed our mothers' meetings with Miss Darrell's help, taught in our schools, and helped train the choir. I had allotted her a district, and she worked it admirably. She was my right hand in everything; all the poor people worshipped her.'
'Yes, Max,' for he paused, as though overwhelmed with some bitter-sweet recollection.
'I loved her more each day, but I respected her sorrow, and tried to hide my feelings from her. It was more than a year after Eric's disappearance before I ventured to speak, and then it was by Hamilton's advice that I did so. He had set his heart on the match. He told me more than once that he would rather have me as a brother-in-law than any other man.
'I thought I had prepared her sufficiently, but it seems that she was very much, startled by my proposal. Her trouble had so engrossed her that she had been perfectly blind to my meaning. It was all in vain, Ursula, for she did not love me,--at least not in the right way. She told me so with tears, accusing herself of unkindness. She liked, most certainly she liked me, but perhaps she knew me too well.
'She was so unhappy at the thought of giving me pain, so sweet and gentle in her efforts to console me and heal the wound she had inflicted, that I could not lose hope. She told me that, though she had trusted me entirely as her friend, she had never thought of me as her lover, and the idea was strange to her. This thought gave me courage, and I begged that I might be allowed to speak to her again at some future time.
'She wanted to refuse, and said hurriedly that she never intended to marry. But I took these words as meaning nothing. A girl will tell you this and believe it as she says it. I suppose I pressed her hard to leave me this margin of hope, for after reflecting a few minutes she looked at me gravely and said it should be as I wished. In a year's time I might speak to her again, and she would know her own mind.
'I pleaded for a shorter ordeal, though secretly I was overjoyed at this crumb of consolation vouchsafed to me. But she was inexorable, though perfectly gentle in her manner. ' "I wish you had set your heart on some one else, Mr. Cunliffe," she said, with a melancholy smile, "for I can give you so little satisfaction. I feel so confused and weary, as though life afforded me no pleasure. But, indeed, I do all you tell me, and I mean to go on with my work."
'I was glad to hear her say this, for at least I should have the happiness of seeing her every day. ' "In a year's time," she went on, "my heart may feel a little less heavy, and I shall have had opportunity to reflect over your words. I cannot tell you what my answer may be, but if you are wise you will not hope. If you do not come to me then, I shall know that you have changed, and shall not blame you in the least. You are free to choose any one else. I have so little encouragement to give you that I shall not expect you to submit to this ordeal." But I think her firmness was a little shaken, and she looked at me rather timidly when I thanked her very quietly and said that at the time appointed I would speak to her again. I supposed she had not realised the strength of my feelings.
'Ursula, I was by no means hopeless. And as the months passed on my hopes grew.
'I saw her daily, and after the first awkwardness had passed we were good friends. But her manner changed insensibly. She was less frank with me; at times she was almost shy. I saw her change colour when I looked at her. She was quiet in my presence, and yet my coming pleased her. I thought it would be well with me when the time came for renewing my suit; but it seems that I was a blind fool.
'I had put down the exact date, May 7. It was last year, Ursula. I meant to adhere to the very day and hour; but before February closed my hopes had suffered eclipse.
'All at once Miss Hamilton's manner became cold and constrained, as you see it now. Her soft shyness, that had been so favourable a sign, disappeared entirely. She avoided me on every occasion. She seemed to fear to be alone with me a moment. Her nervousness was so visible and so distressing that I often left her in anger. A barrier--vague, and yet substantial--seemed built up between us.
'She began to neglect her work, and then to make excuses. She was overdone, and suffered from headache. The school-work tired her. You have heard it all, Ursula: I need not repeat it.
'One by one she dropped her duties. The parish knew her no more. She certainly looked ill. Her melancholy increased. Something was evidently preying on her mind.
'One day Miss Darrell spoke to me. She had been very kind, and had fed my hopes all this time. But now she was the bearer of bad news.
'She came to me in the study, while I was waiting for Hamilton. She looked very pale and discomposed, and asked if she might speak to me. She was very unhappy about me, but she did not think it right to let it go on. Gladys wanted me to know. And then it all came out.
'It could never be as I wished. Miss Hamilton had been trying all this time to like me, and once or twice she thought she had succeeded, but the feeling had never lasted for many days. I was not the right person. This was the substance of Miss Darrell's explanation. ' "You know Gladys," she went on, "how sensitive and affectionate her nature is; how she hates to inflict pain. She is working herself up into a fever at the thought that you will speak to her again. ' "It was too terrible last time, Etta," she said to me, bursting into tears. "I cannot endure it again. How am I to tell him about Claude?" ' "About Claude!" I almost shouted. Miss Darrell looked frightened at my violence. She shrank back, and turned still paler. I noticed her hands trembled. ' "Oh, have you not noticed?" she returned feebly. "Oh, what a cruel task this is! and you are so good,--so good." ' "Tell me what you mean!" I replied angrily, for I felt so savage at that moment that a word of sympathy was more than I could bear. You would not have known me at that moment, Ursula. I am not easily roused, as you know, but the blow was too sudden. I must have forgotten myself to have spoken to Miss Darrell in that tone. When I looked at her, her mouth was quivering like a frightened child's, and there were tears in her eyes. ' "I scarcely know that it is you," she faltered. "Are men all like that when their wills are crossed? It is not my fault that you are hurt in this way. And it is not Gladys's either. She has tried--I am sure she has tried her hardest--to bring herself to accede to your wishes. But a woman cannot always regulate her own heart." ' "You have mentioned Captain Hamilton's name," I returned coldly, for her words seemed only to aggravate and widen the sore. "Perhaps you will kindly explain what he has to do with the matter?"
'She hesitated, and looked at me in a pleading manner. I saw that she did not wish to speak; but for once I was inexorable. ' "I must rely upon your honour, then, not to repeat my words either to Giles or Gladys. Your doing so would bring Gladys into trouble; and, after all, there is nothing definitely settled." I nodded assent to this, and she went on rather reluctantly: "Claude was always fond of Gladys, but we never knew how much he admired her until he went away. They are only half-cousins. Gladys's father was step-brother to Claude's. Giles has always been averse to cousins marrying, but we thought this would make a difference." ' "They are engaged, then?" I asked, in a loud voice, that seemed to startle Miss Darrell. ' "Oh no, no," she returned eagerly; "there is no engagement at all. Claude writes to her, and she answers him, and I think he is making way with her: she has owned as much to me. Gladys is not one to talk of her feelings, especially on this subject; but it is easy to see how absorbed she is in those Indian letters; she is always brighter and more like herself when she has heard from Claude." ' "I am to deduce from all this that you believe Captain Hamilton has a better chance of winning her affections than I?"
'Again she hesitated, then drew a foreign letter slowly from her pocket. "I think I must read you a sentence from his last letter: he often writes to me as well as to Gladys. Yes, here it is: 'Your last letter has been a great comfort to me, my dear Etta: it was more than a poor fellow had a right to expect. I do believe that this long absence has served my purpose, and the scratch I got at Singapore. Girls are curious creatures; one never can tell how to tackle them, and my special cousin knows how to keep one at a distance, but I begin to feel I am making way at last. She wrote to me very sweetly last mail. I carry that letter everywhere; there was a sweetness about it that gave me hope. If I can get leave,--though heaven knows when that will be,--I mean to come home and carry the breach boldly. I shall first show her my wound and my medal, and then throw myself at her pretty little feet. Gladys--' No, I must not read any more; you see how it is, Mr. Cunliffe?" ' "Yes, I see how it is," I returned slowly. "Forgive me if I have been impatient or unmindful of your kindness." And then I took up my hat and left the room, and it was weeks before I set foot in Gladwyn again.'
'Oh, Max! my poor Max!' I returned, stroking his hand softly. He did not take it away: he only looked at me with his kind smile.
'That was Emmie's way,--her favourite little caress. Wait a moment, Ursula, my dear; I am going out for a breath of air,' And he stood in the porch for a few minutes, looking up at the winter sky seamed with stars, and then came back to me quietly, and waited for me to speak.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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28
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CROSSING THE RIVER
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Max waited for me to speak, but I had no words ready for the occasion. My silence seemed to perplex him.
'You have heard everything now, Ursula.'
'Yes, I suppose so. I am very sorry for you, Max; you have suffered cruelly. And this only happened last year?'
'Last February.'
'It is very strange,--very mysterious. I do not seem to understand it. I cannot find the clue to all this.'
'There is no clue needed,' he returned impatiently. 'Miss Hamilton is in love with her cousin, and is sorry for my disappointment.'
'I do not believe it,' I replied bluntly. And yet, as I said this, Gladys's conduct seemed to me perfectly inexplicable. It was just possible that Max's statement, after all, might be correct,--that she did not love him well enough to marry him: and this would account for her nervousness and constraint in his presence: a sensitive girl like Gladys would never be at her ease under such circumstances. But she had promised not to withdraw her friendship: why had she then given up her work and made herself a stranger to his dearest interest? I had seen her struggle with herself when he had begged her to resume her class. A brightness had come to her eyes, her manner had become warm and animated, as though the stirring of new life were in her veins, and then she had refused him very gently, and a certain dimness and blight had crept over her. I had wondered then at her.
No, I could not bring myself to believe that she was indifferent to Max. He was so good, so worthy of her. And yet--and yet, do we women always choose the best? Perhaps, as Max said, she knew him too well for him to influence her fancy. Captain Hamilton's scars and medals might cast a glamour over her. Gladys was very impulsive and enthusiastic; perhaps Max was too quiet and gentle to take her heart by storm.
I had plenty of time for these reflections, for Max sat moodily silent after my blunt remark, but at last he said,-- 'I am afraid I believe it, Ursula, and that is more to the purpose. Miss Darrell has dispelled my last hope.'
'You mean that Captain Hamilton's return speaks badly for your chances?'
'I have no chances,' very gloomily. 'I am out of the running. Miss Hamilton's message--for I suppose it was a message--was my final answer. She did not wish me to speak to her again.'
'Are you sure that she sent that message?'
'Am I sure that I am sitting here?' he answered, rather irritably. 'What have you got in your head, Ursula, my dear? You must not let personal dislike influence your better judgment. Perhaps Miss Darrell is not to my taste; I think her sometimes officious and wanting in delicacy; but I do not doubt her for a moment.'
'That is a pity,' I returned drily, 'for she is certainly not true; but all you men swear by her.' For I felt--heaven forgive me! --almost a hatred of this woman, unreasonable as it seemed; but women have these instincts sometimes, and Max had warned me against Miss Darrell from the first.
'I will be frank with you,' I continued, more quietly. 'I do not read between the lines: in other words, I do not understand Gladys's behaviour. It may be as you say; I do not wish to delude you with false hopes, my poor Max; Gladys may care more for Captain Hamilton than she does for you; but it seems to me that you acted wrongly on one point; you meant it for the best; but you ought to have spoken to Gladys yourself.'
'I wonder that you should say that, Ursula,' he returned, in rather a hurt voice. 'I may be weak about Miss Hamilton, but I am hardly as weak as that. Do you think me capable of persecuting the woman I love?'
'It would not be persecution,' I replied firmly, for I was determined to speak my mind on this point. 'Miss Darrell may have misconstrued her meaning: the truth loses by repetition: she may have added to or diminished her words. A third person should never be mixed up in a love affair: trouble always comes of it. I think you were wrong, Max: you let yourself be managed by Miss Darrell. She has nothing to do with you or Gladys.'
'I could not help it if she came to me.'
'True, she thrust herself in between you. Well, it is too late to speak of that now. If you will take my advice, Max,' for the thought had come upon me like a flash of inspiration, 'you will go down to Bournemouth and speak to Gladys, keeping your own counsel and telling no one of your intention.'
I saw Max stare at me as though he thought I had lost my senses, and then a sudden light came into his eyes.
'You will go down to Bournemouth,' I went on, 'and the Maberleys will be glad to see you; you are an old friend, and they will ask no questions and think no ill. You will have no difficulty in seeing Gladys alone. Speak to her promptly and frankly; ask her what her behaviour has meant, and if she really prefers her cousin. If you must know the worst, it will be better to know it now, and from her own lips. Do go, Max, like a brave man.' But even before I finished speaking, the light had died out of his eyes, and his manner had resumed its old sadness.
'No, Ursula; you mean well, but it will not do. I cannot persecute her in this way. Captain Hamilton is coming home in July: she has given him permission to come. I will wait for that. I shall very soon see how matters stand between them. I shall only need to see her with him; probably I shall not speak to her at all.'
I could have wrung my hands over Max's obstinacy and quixotism: he carried his generosity to a fault. Few men would be so patient and forbearing.
How could he stand aside hopelessly and let another man win his prize? But perhaps he considered it was already won. I pleaded with him again. I even went so far as to contradict my theory about a third person, and offered to sound Gladys about her cousin; but he silenced me peremptorily.
'Promise me that you will do nothing of the kind; give me your word of honour, Ursula, that you will respect my confidence. Good heavens! if I thought that you would betray me, and to her of all people, I should indeed bitterly repent my trust in you.'
Max was so agitated, he spoke so angrily, that I hastened to soothe him. Of course his confidence was sacred; how could he think such things of me? I was not like Miss--. But here I pulled myself up. He might be as blind and foolish as he liked, he might commit suicide and I would not hinder him; he should enjoy his misery in his own way. And more to that effect.
'Now I have made you cross, little she-bear,' he said, laying his hand on mine, 'and you have been so patient and have given my woes such a comfortable hearing. You frightened me for a moment, for I know how quick and impulsive you can be. No, no, my dear. I hold you to your own words: a third person must not be mixed up in a love affair; it only brings trouble.'
'You have proved the truth of my words,' I remarked coolly. 'Very well, I suppose I must forgive you; only never do it again, on your peril: you know I am to be trusted.'
'To be sure; you are as true as steel, Ursula.'
'Very well, then: in that case you have nothing to fear. I will be wise and wary for your sake, and guard your honour sacredly as my own; if I can give you a gleam of hope, I will. Anyhow, I shall watch.'
'Thank you, dear. And now we will not talk any more about it; now you know why I wanted you to be her friend. I am glad to think she is so fond of you.' But I would not let him change the subject just yet.
'Max,' I said, detaining him, for he rose to go, 'all this is dreadfully hard for you. Shall you go away--if--if--this happens?'
'No,' he returned quietly; 'it is they who will go away. Captain Hamilton cannot leave his regiment: he is far too fond of an active life. It will be dreary enough, God knows, but it will not be harder than the life I have led these twelve months, trying to win her back to her work and to put myself in the background. It has worn me out, Ursula. I could not stand that sort of thing much longer. It is a relief to me that she is away.'
'Yes, I can understand this.'
'It makes one think, after all, that the extreme party have something in their argument in favour of the celibacy of the clergy. Not that I hold with them, for all that; but all this sort of thing takes the heart out of a man, and comes between him and his work. I should be a better priest if I were a happier man, Ursula.'
'I doubt that, Max.' And the tears rose to my eyes, for I knew how good he was, and what a friend to his people.
'My dear, I differ from you. I believe there is no work like happy work,--work done by a heart at leisure from itself; but of course we clergy and laity must take what heaven sends us.' And then he held out his hands to me, and I suppose he saw how unhappy I was for his sake.
'Don't fret about me, my dear little Ursula,' he said kindly. 'The back gets fitted for the burden, and by this time I have grown accustomed to my pain; it will all be right some day: I shall not be blamed up there for loving her.' And he left me with a smile.
I passed a miserable evening thinking of Max. Next to Charlie, he had been my closest friend from girlhood; I had been accustomed to look to him for advice in all my difficulties, to rely upon his counsel. I knew that people who were comparatively strangers to him thought he was almost too easy-going, and a little weak from excess of good-nature. He was too tolerant of other folk's failings; they said he preached mercy where severity would be more bracing and wholesome; and no doubt they thought that he judged himself as leniently; but they did not know Max.
I never knew a man harder to himself. Charitable to others, he had no self-pity; selfish aims were impossible to him. He who could not endure to witness even a child or an animal suffer, would have plucked out his right eye or parted with his right hand, in gospel phrase, if by doing so he could witness to the truth or spare pain to a weaker human being. It was this knowledge of his inner life that made Max so priestly in my eyes. I knew he was pure enough and strong enough to meet even Gladys's demands. Nothing but a modern Bayard would ever satisfy her fastidious taste; she would not look on a man's stature, or on his outward beauty; such things would seem paltry to her; but he who aspired to be her lord and master must be worthy of all reverence and must have won his spurs: so much had I learnt from my friendship with Gladys.
I pondered over Max's words, and tried to piece the fragments of our conversation with recollections of my talks with Gladys. I recalled much that had passed. I endeavoured to find the clue to her downcast, troubled looks, her quenched and listless manner. I felt dimly that some strange misunderstanding wrapped these two in a close fog. What had brought about this chill, murky atmosphere, in which they failed to recognise each other's meaning? This was the mystery: lives had often been shipwrecked from these miserable misunderstandings, for want of a word. I felt completely baffled, and before the evening was over I could have cried with the sense of utter failure and bewilderment. If Max's chivalrous scruples had not tied my hands, I would have gone to Gladys boldly and asked her what it all meant; I would have challenged her truth; I would have compelled her to answer me; but I dared not break my promise. By letter and in the spirit I would respect Max's wishes.
But I resolved to watch: no eyes should be so vigilant as mine. I was determined, that nothing should escape my scrutiny; at least I was in possession of certain facts that would help me in finding the clue I wanted. I knew now that Max loved Gladys and had tried to win her: that he had nearly done so was also evident. What had wrought that sudden change? Had Captain Hamilton's brilliant successes really dazzled her fancy and blinded her to Max's quiet unobtrusive virtues? Did she really and truly prefer her cousin? This was what I had to find out, and here Max could not help me.
There was one thing I was glad to know,--that Mr. Hamilton favoured Max's suit. At least I should not be working against him. I do not know why, but the thought of doing so would have pained me: I no longer wished to array myself for war against Mr. Hamilton; my enmity had died a natural death for want of fuel.
I felt grateful to him for his kindness to Max; no doubt he had a fellow-feeling with him. That dear old gossip, Mrs. Maberley, had told me something about Mr. Hamilton on my second visit that had made me feel very sorry for him. Max knew about it, of course; he had said a word to me once on the subject, but it was not Max's way to gossip about his neighbours; he once said, laughing, that he left all the choice bits of scandal to his good old friend at Maplehurst.
It was from Mrs. Maberley that I heard all about Mr. Hamilton's disappointment, and why he had not married. When he was about eight-and-twenty he had been engaged to a young widow.
'She was a beautiful creature, my dear,' observed the old lady; 'the colonel said he had never seen a handsomer woman. She was an Irish beauty, and had those wonderful gray eyes and dark eyelashes that make you wonder what colour they are, and she had the sweetest smile possible; any man would have been bewitched by it. I never saw a young man more in love than Giles: when he came here he could talk of nothing but Mrs. Carrick: her name was Ella, I remember. Well, it went on for some months, and he was preparing for the wedding,--there was to be a nursery got ready, for she had one little boy, and Giles already doted on the child,--when all at once there came a letter from his lady-love; and a very pretty letter it was. Giles must forgive her, it said, she was utterly wretched at the thought of the pain she was giving him, but she was mistaken in the strength of her attachment. She had come to the conclusion that they would not be happy together, that in fact she preferred some one else.
'She did not mention that this other lover was richer than Giles and had a title, but of course he found out that this was the case. The fickle Irish beauty had caught the fancy of an elderly English nobleman with a large family of grown-up sons and daughters. My dear, it was a very heartless piece of work: it changed Giles completely. He never spoke about it to any one, but if ever a man was heart-broken, Giles was: he was never the same after that; it made him hard and bitter; he is always railing against women, or saying disagreeable home-truths about them. And of course Mrs. Carrick, or rather Lady Howe, is to blame for that. Oh, my dear, she may deck herself with diamonds, as they say she does, and call herself happy,--which she is not, with a gouty, ill-tempered old husband who is jealous of her,--but I'll be bound she thinks of Giles sometimes with regret, and scorns herself for her folly.'
Poor Mr. Hamilton! And this had all happened about six or seven years ago. No wonder he looked stern and said bitter things. He was not naturally sweet-tempered, like Max; such a misfortune would sour him.
'All well,' I said to myself, as I went up to bed, 'it is perfectly true what Longfellow says, "Into each life some rain must fall, some days must be dark and dreary"; but it is strange that they both have suffered. It is a good thing, perhaps, that such an experience is never likely to happen to me. There is some consolation to be deduced even from my want of beauty: no man will fall in love with me and then play me false.' And with that a curious feeling came over me, a sudden inexplicable sense of want and loneliness, something I could not define, that took no definite shape and had no similitude, and yet haunted me with a sense of ill; but the next moment I was struggling fiercely with the unknown and unwelcome guest.
'For shame!' I said to myself; 'this is weakness and pure selfishness, mere sentimental feverishness; this is not like the strong-minded young person Miss Darrell calls me. What if loneliness be appointed me? --we must each have our cross. Perhaps, as life goes on and I grow older, it may be a little hard to bear at times, but my loneliness would be better than the sort of pain Mr. Hamilton and Max have endured.' And as I thought this, a sudden conviction came to me that I could not have borne a like fate, a dim instinct that told me that I should suffer keenly and long,--that it would be better, far better, that the deepest instincts of my woman's nature should never be roused than be kindled only to die away into ashes, as many women's affections have been suffered to die. 'Anything but that,' I said to myself, with a sudden thrill of pain that surprised me with its intensity.
All this time through the long cold weeks Elspeth had been slowly dying. Quietly and gradually the blind woman's strength had ebbed and lessened, until early in March we knew she could not last much longer.
She suffered no pain, and uttered no complaint. She lay peacefully propped up with pillows on the bed where Mary Marshall had breathed her last, and her pale wrinkled face grew almost as white as the cap-border that encircled it.
At the commencement of her illness I was unable to be much with her. Susan and Phoebe Locke had thoroughly engrossed me, and a hurried visit morning and evening to give Peggy orders was all that was possible under the circumstances; but I saw that she was well cared for and comfortable, and Peggy was very good to her and kept the children out of the room.
'Ah, my bairn, I am dying like a lady,' she said to me one day, 'and it is good to be here on poor Mary's bed. See the fine clean sheets that Peggy has put me on, and the grand quilt that keeps my feet warm! Sometimes I could cry with the comfort of it all; and there is the broth and the jelly always ready; and what can a poor old body want more?'
When Susan was convalescent I spent more time with Elspeth. I knew she loved to have me beside her, and to listen to the chapters and Psalms I read to her. She would ask me to sing sometimes, and often we would sit and talk of the days that seemed so 'few and evil' in the light of advancing immortality.
'Ay, dearie,' she would say, 'it is not much to look back upon except in an angel's sight,--a poor old woman's life, who worked and struggled to keep her master and children from clemming. I used to think it hard sometimes that I could not get to church on Sunday morning,--for I was aye a woman for church,--but I had to stand at my wash-tub often until late on Saturday night. "After a day's charing, rinsing out the children's bits of things, and ironing them too, how is a poor tired body like me to get religion?" I would say sometimes when I was fairly moithered with it all. But, Miss Garston, my dear, I'm glad, as I lie here, to know that I never neglected the children God had given me; and so He took care of all that; He knew when I was too tired to put up a prayer that it was not for the want of loving Him.'
'No, indeed, Elspeth. I often think we ought not to be too hard on poor people.'
'That's true,' brightening up visibly. 'He is no severe taskmaster demanding bricks out of stubble; He knows poor labouring people are often tired, and out of heart. I used to say to my master sometimes, "Ah well, we must leave all that for heaven; we shall have a fine rest there, and plenty of time to sing our hymns and talk to the Lord Jesus. He was a labouring man too, and He will know all about it." I often comforted my master like that.'
Elspeth's quaint talk interested me greatly. I grew to love her dearly, and I liked to feel that she was fond of me in return. I could have sat by her contentedly for hours, holding her hard work-worn hand and listening to her gentle flow of talk with its Scriptural phrases and simple realistic thoughts. It was like washing some pilgrim's feet at a feast to listen to Elspeth.
One evening she told me that she had been thinking of me.
'I wanted to know what you were like, my bairn,' she said, with her pretty Scotch accent; 'and the doctor came in as I was turning it over in my mind, so I made bold to ask him to describe you. I thought he was a long time answering, and at last he said, "What put that into your head, granny?" as if he were a little bit taken aback by the question. ' "Well, doctor," I returned, "we all of us like to see the faces of those we love; and I am all in the dark. That dear young lady is doing the Lord's work with all her might, and she has a voice that makes me think of heaven, and the choirs of angels, and the golden harps, and maybe her face is as beautiful as her voice." ' "Oh no," he says quite sharply to that, "she is not beautiful at all: indeed, I am not sure that most people would not think her plain."
'I suppose I was an old ninny, but I did not like to hear him say this, my bairn, for I knew it could not be the truth; but he went on after a minute,-- '"It is not easy to describe the face of a person one knows so well. I find it difficult to answer your question. Miss Garston has such a true face, one seems to trust it in a minute: it is the face of an honest kindly woman who will never do you any harm;" and then I saw what he meant. Why, bairn, the angels have this sort of beauty, and it lasts the longest; that is the sort of face they have there.'
I heard all this silently, and was thankful that Elspeth's blind eyes could not see the burning flush of mortification that rose to my face. The dear garrulous old body, how could she have put such a question to Mr. Hamilton? and yet how kindly he had answered! A sudden recollection of Irish dark-gray eyes with black lashes came to my mind; I knew Mr. Hamilton was a connoisseur of beauty. I had often heard him describe people, and point out their physical defects with the keenest criticism; he was singularly fastidious on this point; but, in spite of my humiliation, I was glad to know that he had spoken so gently. He had told the truth simply, that was all: at least he had owned I was true; I must content myself with this tribute to my honesty.
But it was some days before I could recall Elspeth's words without a sensation of prickly heat: it is strange how painfully these little pin-pricks to our vanity affect us. I was angry with myself for remembering them, and yet they rankled, in spite of Elspeth's quaint and homely consolation. Alas! I was not better than my fellows: Ursula Garston was not the strong-minded woman that Miss Darrell called her.
But when I next met Mr. Hamilton I had other thoughts to engross me, for Elspeth was dying, and we were standing together by her bedside. I had not sent for Mr. Hamilton, for I knew that he could do nothing more for her; but he had met one of the children in the village, and on hearing the end was approaching had come at once to render me any help in his power. Perhaps he thought I should like to have him there.
Elspeth's pinched wrinkled face brightened as she heard his voice. 'Ay, doctor, I am glad to know you are there; you have been naught but kind to me all these years, and now, thanks to this bairn, I am dying like a lady. The Lord bless you both! and He will,--He will!' with feeble earnestness.
I bent down and kissed her cold cheek. 'Never mind us, Elspeth: only tell us that all is well with you. You are not afraid, dear granny?'
'What's to fear, my bairn, with the Lord holding my hand? --and He will not let go; ah no, He will never let go! Ay, I have come to the dark river, but it will not do more than wet my feet. I'll be carried over, for I am old and weak,--old and weak, my dearie.' These were her last words, and half an hour afterwards the change came, and Elspeth's sightless eyes were opened to the light of immortality.
That night I took up a little worn copy of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ that I had had from childhood, and opened it at a favourite passage, where Christian and his companion are talking with the shining ones as they went up towards the Celestial city, and I thought of Elspeth as I read it. 'You are going now,' said they, 'to the paradise of God, wherein you shall see the Tree of Life, and eat of the never-failing fruit thereof; and when you come there you shall have white robes given you, and your walk and talk shall be every day with the King, even all the days of eternity. There you shall not see again such things as you saw when you were in the lower regions, upon the earth, to wit, sorrow, sickness, and death, for the former things are passed away.... 'And the men asked, "What must we do in that holy place?" To whom it was answered, "You must then receive the comfort of your toil, and have joy for all your sorrow."' I thought of Elspeth's last words, 'Old and weak,--old and weak, my dearie.' Surely they had come true: those aged feet had barely touched the cold water. Gently and tenderly she had been carried across to the green pastures and still waters in the paradise of God.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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29
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MISS DARRELL HAS A HEADACHE
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I began to feel that Gladys had been away a long time, and to wish for her return. I was much disappointed, then, on receiving a letter from her about a fortnight after Elspeth's death, telling me that Colonel Maberley had made up his mind to spend Easter in Paris, and that she had promised to accompany them.
'I shall be sorry to be so long without your companionship,' she wrote. 'I miss you more than I can say; but I am sure that it is far better for me to remain away as long as possible: the change is certainly doing me good. I am quite strong and well: they spoil me dreadfully, but I think this sort of treatment suits me best.'
It was a long letter, and seemed to be written in a more cheerful mood than usual. There was a charming description of a trip they had taken, with little graceful touches of humour here and there.
I handed the letter silently to Max when he called the next day. I thought that it would be no harm to show it to him. He took it to the window, and was so busy reading it that I had half finished a letter I was writing to Jill before he at last laid it down on my desk.
'Thank you for letting me see it,' he said quietly: 'it has been a great pleasure. Somehow, as I read it, it seemed as though the old Gladys Hamilton had written it,--not the one we know now. Indeed, she seems much better.'
'Yes, and we must make up our minds to do without her,' I answered, with a sigh.
'And we shall do so most willingly,' he returned, with a sort of tacit rebuke to my selfishness, 'if we know the change is benefiting her.' And then, with a change of tone, 'What a beautiful handwriting hers is, Ursula! --so firm and clear, so characteristic of the writer. Does she often write you such long, interesting letters? You are much to be envied, my dear. Well, well, the day's work is waiting for me.' And with that he went off, without saying another word.
My next visitor was Mr. Hamilton. He came to tell me of an accident case. A young labourer had fallen off a scaffolding, and a compound fracture of the right arm had been the result. He was also badly shaken and bruised, and was altogether in a miserable plight.
I promised, of course, to go to him at once; but he told me that there was no immediate hurry; he had attended to the arm and left him very comfortable, and he would do well for the next hour or two; and, as Mr. Hamilton seemed inclined to linger for a little chat, I could not refuse to oblige him.
'It is just as well that this piece of work has come to me,' I said presently, 'for I was feeling terribly idle. Since Elspeth's death I have not had a single case, and have employed my leisure in writing long letters to my relations and taking country rambles with Tinker.'
'That is right,' he returned heartily. 'I am sure we worked you far too hard at one time.'
'It did not hurt me, and I should not care to be idle for long. --Yes, I have heard from Gladys,' for his eyes fell on the open letter that lay beside us. 'I am rather disappointed that I shall not see her before I go away.'
'Are you going away, then?' he asked, very quickly, and I thought the news did not seem to please him.
'Not for three weeks. I hope my patient will be getting on by that time, and will be able to spare me: at any rate, I can give his mother a lesson or two. You know my cousin is to be married, and I have promised to help Aunt Philippa.'
'How long do you think you will be away?' he demanded, with a touch of his old abruptness.
'For a fortnight. I could not arrange for less. Sara is making such a point of it.'
'A whole fortnight! I am afraid you are terribly idle, after all, Miss Garston. You are growing tired of this humdrum place. You are yearning for "the leeks and cucumbers of Egypt,"' with a grim smile.
'You are wrong,' I returned, with more earnestness than the occasion warranted. 'I feel a strange reluctance to re-enter Vanity Fair. The splendours of a gay wedding are not to my taste. Sara tells me that her reception after the ceremony will be attended by about two hundred guests. To me the idea is simply barbarous. I expect I shall be heartily glad to get back to Heathfield.'
I was surprised to see how pleased Mr. Hamilton looked at this speech. I had been thinking of my work and my quiet little parlour, not of Gladwyn, when I spoke; but he seemed to accept it as a personal compliment.
'I assure you that we shall welcome you back most gladly,' he returned. 'The place will not seem like itself without our busy village nurse. Well, you have worked hard enough for six months: you deserve a holiday. I should like to see you in your butterfly garb, Miss Garston. I fancy, however, that I should not recognise you.'
With a sudden pang I remembered Elspeth's words. He does not think that such home attire will become me. I thought he preferred me in my usual nun's garb of black serge.
'Oh,' I said, petulantly and foolishly, 'I must own that I shall look rather like a crow dressed up in peacock's feathers in the grand gown Sara has chosen for me'; but I was a little taken aback, and felt inclined to laugh, when he asked me, with an air of interest, what it was like in colour and material.
'Sara wished it to be red plush,' I replied demurely; 'but I refused to wear it; so she has waived that in favour of a dark green velvet. I think it is absolutely wicked to make Uncle Brian pay for such a dress; but it seems that Sara will get her own way, so I must put up with all they choose to give me.'
'That is hardly spoken graciously. If your uncle be rich, why should he not please himself in buying you a velvet gown? I think the fair bride-elect has good taste. You will look very well in dark-green velvet: light tints would not suit you at all; red would be too gay.'
He spoke with such gravity and decision that I thought it best not to contradict him. I even repressed my inclination to laugh: if he liked to be dogmatic on the subject of my dress, I would not hinder him. The next moment, however, he dismissed the matter.
'I agree with you in disliking gay weddings. The idea is singularly repugnant to me. Because two people elect to join hands for the journey of life, is there any adequate reason why all their idle acquaintances should accompany them with cymbals and prancings and all sorts of fooleries just at the most solemn moment of their life?'
'I suppose they wish to express their sympathy,' I returned.
'Sympathy should wear a quieter garb. These folks come to church to show their fine feathers and make a fuss; they do not care a jot for the solemnity of the service; and yet to me it is as awful in its way as the burial service. "Till death us do part,"--can any one, man or woman, say these words lightly and not bring down a doom upon himself?' He spoke with suppressed excitement, walking up and down the room: one could see how strongly he felt his words. Was he thinking of Mrs. Carrick? I wondered. He gave a slight shudder, as though some unwelcome thought obtruded itself, and then he turned to me with a forced smile.
'I am boring you, I am afraid. I get horribly excited over the shams of conventionality. What were we talking about? Oh, I remember: Gladys's letter. Yes, she has written to Lady Betty, but not such a volume as that,' glancing at the closely written sheets. 'You are her chief correspondent, I believe; but she told us her plans. For my part, I am glad that she should enjoy this trip to Paris. Really, the Maberleys are most kind. I sent her a cheque to add to her amusements, for of course all girls like shopping.'
How generous he was to his sisters! with all his faults of manner, he seemed to grudge them nothing. But all the same I knew Gladys would have valued a few kind words from him far more than the cheque; but perhaps he had written to her as well. But he seemed rather surprised when I asked him the question.
'Oh no; I never write to my sisters: they would not care for a letter from me. Etta offered to enclose it in a letter she had just finished to Gladys, so that saved all trouble. By the bye, Miss Garston, I hope you will come up to Gladwyn one evening before you leave Heathfield. I do not see why we are to be deserted in this fashion.'
Neither did I, if he put it in this way: reluctant as I was to spend an evening there in Gladys's absence, it certainly was not quite kind either to him or to Lady Betty to refuse. He seemed to anticipate a refusal, however, for he said hastily,-- 'Never mind answering me now. Etta shall write to you in proper form, and you shall fix your own evening. Now I have hindered you sufficiently, so I will take my leave,'--which he did, but I heard him some time afterwards talking to Nathaniel in the porch.
A few days after this I received a civil little note from Miss Darrell, pressing me to spend a long evening with them, and begging me to bring my prettiest songs.
I made the rather lame excuse that I was much engaged with my new patient, and fixed the latest day that I could,--the very last evening before I was to leave for London. Mr. Hamilton met me a few hours afterwards, and asked me rather drily what my numerous engagements could be.
'You are the most unsociable of your sex,' he added, when I had no answer to make to this. 'I shall take care that you are properly punished, for neither Cunliffe nor Tudor shall be asked to meet you. Etta was sure you would like one or both to come, but I put my veto on it at once.'
'Then you were very disagreeable,' I returned laughingly. 'I wanted Uncle Max very much.' But he only shook his head at me good-humouredly, and scolded me for my want of amiability.
I determined, when the evening came, that he should not find fault with me in any way. I was rather in holiday mood; my patient was going on well, and his mother was a neat, capable body, and might be trusted to look after him. No other cases had come to me, and I might leave Heathfield with a clear conscience. Uncle Max would miss me, but an old college friend was coming to stay at the vicarage, so I could be better spared. I had seen a great deal of Mr. Tudor lately. I often met him in the village, and he always turned back and walked with me: he met me on this occasion, and walked to the gates of Gladwyn. Indeed, he detained me for some minutes in the road, trying to extract particulars about the wedding.
'Miss Jocelyn is to be bridesmaid, then?' describing a circle with his stick in the dust.
'Yes. Poor Sara is afraid that she will be quite overshadowed by Jill's bigness; she has made her promise not to stand quite close. They have got a match for her. Grace Underley is as tall as Jill, and very fair. Sara calls them her night and morning bridesmaids.'
'I think I shall be in London on the fourteenth. I thought, Miss Garston, that there was a prejudice to weddings in May.'
'Yes; but Sara laughs at the idea, and Colonel Ferguson says it is all nonsense. I did not know you were coming to town so soon.'
'Some of my people will be up then,' he said absently. 'Perhaps I shall have a peep at you all; but of course'--rather hastily--'I shall not call at Hyde Park Gate until the wedding is over.'
I wished he would not call then. What was the good of feeding his boyish fancy? it would soon die a natural death, if he would only be wise. Poor Mr. Tudor! I began to be afraid that he was very much in earnest after all: there was a grave expression on his face as he turned away. Perhaps he knew, as I did, that our big awkward Jill would develop into a splendid woman; that one of these days Jocelyn Garston would be far more admired than her sister; that the ugly duckling would soon change into a swan. There were times even now when Jill looked positively handsome, if only her short black locks would grow, and if she would leave off hunching her shoulders.
'I should like Lawrence Tudor to have my Jill, if he were only rich; but there is no hope for him now, poor fellow!' I said to myself, as I walked up the gravel walk towards the house.
Gladwyn looked its best this evening. The shady little lawns that surrounded the house looked cool and inviting; the birds were singing merrily from the avenue of young oaks; the air was sweet with the scent of May-blossoms and wall-flowers: great bunches of them were placed in the hall.
Thornton, who admitted me, said that Leah would be waiting for me in the blue room, as Miss Darrell's room was called; so I went up at once.
I was passing through the dressing-room, when I saw the bedroom door was half opened, and a voice--I scarcely recognised it as Miss Darrell's, it was so different from her usual low, toneless voice--exclaimed angrily, 'You forget yourself strangely, Leah! one would think you were the mistress and I the maid, to hear you speaking to me.'
'I can't help that, Miss Etta,' returned the woman insolently. 'If you are not more punctual in your payments I will go to the master myself and tell him.' But here I knocked sharply at the door to warn them of my presence, and Leah ceased abruptly, while Miss Darrell bade me enter.
She tried to meet me as usual, but her face was flushed, and she looked at me uneasily, as though she feared that I had overheard Leah's speech. I thought Leah looked sullen and stolid as she waited upon me. It was a most forbidding face. I was glad when Miss Darrell dismissed her on some slight pretext.
'Leah is in a bad temper this evening,' she observed, examining the clasp of a handsome bracelet as she spoke. I noticed then that she had beautiful arms, as well as finely-shaped hands, and the emerald-eyed snake showed to advantage. 'She is a most invaluable person, but she can take liberties sometimes. Perhaps you heard me scolding her; but I consider she was decidedly in the wrong.'
'She does not look very good-tempered,' was my reply.
Miss Darrell still looked flushed and perturbed; but she took up her fan and vinaigrette, and proposed that we should join Lady Betty in the drawing-room. Leah was in the hall. As we passed her she addressed Miss Darrell.
'If you can spare me a moment, ma'am, I should like to speak to you,' she said, quite civilly; but I thought her manner a little menacing.
'Will not another time do, Leah?' returned her mistress in a worried tone; but the next moment she begged me to go in without her.
Lady Betty was sitting by the open window with Nap beside her. I thought the poor little girl looked dull and lonely. She gave an exclamation of pleasure at seeing me, and ran towards me with outstretched hands. She looked like a child in her little white gown and blue ribbons, with her short curly hair.
'I am so glad to see you, Miss Garston! I thought Etta would keep you, I have been alone all the afternoon: Etta never sits with me now. How I wish Gladys would come back! I have no one to speak to, and I miss her horribly.'
'Poor Lady Betty!'
'You would say so, if you knew how horrid it all was. Just now, as I was sitting alone, I felt like a poor little princess shut up in an enchanted tower. Giles is the magician, and Etta is the wicked witch. I was making up quite a story about it.'
'Why have you not been to see me lately, Lady Betty?'
'Oh, how silly you are to ask me such a question!' she returned pettishly. 'You had better ask Witch Etta. Now you pretend to look surprised. She won't let me come--there!'
'My dear child, surely you need not consult your cousin.'
'Of course not,' wrinkling her forehead; 'but then, you see, Witch Etta consults me: she makes a point of finding out all my little plans and nipping them in the bud. She says she really cannot allow me to go so often to the White Cottage; Mr. Cunliffe and Mr. Tudor are always there, and it is not proper. She is always hinting that I want to meet Mr. Tudor, and it is no good telling her that I never think of such a thing.' Lady Betty was half crying. A more innocent, harmless little soul never breathed; she had not a spice of coquetry in her nature. I felt indignant at such an accusation.
'It is all nonsense, Lady Betty,' I returned sharply. 'Mr. Tudor has not called at the cottage more than once since Jill left me, and then Uncle Max sent him. When I first came to Heathfield he was very kind in doing me little services, and he dropped in two or three times when Jill was with me; but indeed he has never been a constant visitor. When we meet it is at the vicarage or in the street.'
'You would never convince Etta of that,' replied Lady Betty disconsolately. 'She has even told Giles how often Mr. Tudor goes to the cottage, and she has got it into her head that I am always trying to meet him there. It is such an odious idea, only worthy of Etta herself!' went on the little girl indignantly. 'If I could only make her hold her tongue to Giles!'
'I would not trouble about it if I were you, dear. No one who knows you would believe it. Such an idea would never occur to Mr. Tudor; he is an honest, simple young fellow, who is not ashamed to respect women in the good old-fashioned way.'
'Oh yes, I like him, and so does Jill; but I wish he were a thousand miles off, and then Etta would give me a little peace. How angry Gladys would be if she knew it! But I don't mean to trouble her about my small worries, poor darling.'
I had never heard Lady Betty speak with such womanly dignity. She was so often childish and whimsical that one never expected her to be grave and responsible like other people. She kissed me presently, and said I had done her good, and would I always believe in her in spite of Etta, for she was not the giddy little creature that Etta made her out to be; she was sure Giles would think more of her but for Etta's mischief-making.
Mr. Hamilton came in after this, and sat down by us, but Miss Darrell did not make her appearance until the gong sounded, and then she hurried in with a breathless apology. I do not know what made me watch her so closely all dinner-time. She took very little part in the conversation, seemed absent and thoughtful, and started nervously when Mr. Hamilton spoke to her. He told her once that she looked pale and tired, and she said then that the evening was close, and that her head ached. I wondered then if the headache had made her eyes so heavy, or if she had been crying.
Mr. Hamilton was a little quiet, too, through dinner, but listened with great interest when Lady Betty and I talked about the approaching wedding. I had to satisfy her curiosity on many points,--the bride's and bridesmaids' dresses, and the programme for the day.
The details did not seem to bore Mr. Hamilton. His face never once wore its cynical expression; but when we returned to the drawing-room, and Lady Betty wanted to continue the subject, he took her quietly by the shoulders and marched her off to Miss Darrell.
'Make the child hold her tongue, Etta,' he said good-humouredly. 'I want to coax Miss Garston to sing to us.' And then he came to me with the smile I liked best to see on his face, and held out his hand.
I was quite willing to oblige him, and he kept me hard at work for nearly an hour, first asking me if I were tired, and then begging for one more song; and sometimes I thought of Gladys as I sang, and sometimes of Max, and once of Mrs. Carrick, with her wonderful gray eyes, and her false fair face.
When I had finished I saw Mr. Hamilton looking at me rather strangely.
'Why do you sing such sad songs?' he asked, in a low voice, as though he did not wish to be overheard; but he need not have been afraid: Miss Darrell was evidently taking no notice of any one just then. She was lying back in her chair with her eyes closed, and I noticed afterwards that her forehead was lined like an old woman's.
'I like melancholy songs,' was my reply, and I fingered the notes a little nervously, for his look was rather too keen just then, and I had been thinking of Mrs. Carrick.
'But you are not melancholy,' he persisted. 'There is no weak sentimentality in your nature. Just now there was a passion in your voice that startled me, as though you were drawing from some secret well.' He paused, and then went on, half playfully,-- 'If I were like the Hebrew steward, and asked you to let down your pitcher and give me a draught, I wonder what you would answer?'
'That would depend on circumstances. You would find it difficult to persuade me that you were thirsty, or needed anything that I could give.'
'Would it be so difficult as all that?' he returned thoughtfully. 'I thought we were better friends; that you had penetrated beneath the upper crust; that in spite of my faults you trusted me a little.'
His earnestness troubled me. I hardly knew what he meant.
'Of course we are friends,' I answered hastily. 'I can trust you more than a little.' And I would have risen from my seat, but he put his hand gently on my sleeve.
'Wait a moment. You are going away, and I may not have another opportunity. I want to tell you something. You have done me good; you have taught me that women can be trusted, after all. I thank you most heartily for that lesson.'
'I do not know what you mean,' I faltered; but I felt a singular pleasure at these words. 'I have done nothing. It is you that have been good to me.'
'Pshaw!' impatiently. 'I thought you more sensible than to say that. Now, I want you,' his voice softening again, 'to try and think better of me; not to judge by appearances, or to take other people's judgments, but to be as true and charitable to me as you are to others. Promise me this before you go, Miss Garston.'
I do not know why the tears started to my eyes. I could hardly answer him.
'Will you try to do this?' he persisted, stooping over me.
'Yes,' was my scarcely audible answer, but he was satisfied with that monosyllable. He walked away after that, and joined Lady Betty. Miss Darrell had not moved; she still lay back on the cushions, and I thought her face looked drawn and old. When I spoke to her, for it was getting late, she roused herself with difficulty.
'My head is very bad, and I shall have to go to bed, after all,' she said, giving me her hand. 'I am afraid your beautiful singing has been thrown away on me, for I was half asleep. I thought I heard you and Giles talking by the piano, but I was not sure.'
Mr. Hamilton walked home with me. He had resumed his usual manner; he told me he had had a letter that day that would oblige him to go to Edinburgh for a week or so.
'I think I shall take the night mail to-morrow evening, though it will give me a busy day: so, after all, I shall not miss you, Miss Garston.' And after a little more talk about the business that had summoned him, we reached the White Cottage and he bade me good-bye.
'I hope you will have a pleasant holiday. Take care of yourself, for all our sakes.' And with that he left me.
It was long before I slept that night. I felt confused and feverish, as though I were on the brink of some discovery that would overwhelm and alarm me. I could not understand myself or Mr. Hamilton. His words presented an enigma. I felt troubled by them, and yet not unhappy.
Had Miss Darrell overheard him? I wondered. I felt, if she had done so, her manner would have been different. She seemed jealous of her cousin, and always monopolised his words and looks. He had never spoken to me a dozen words in her presence that she had not tried to interrupt us. Had she really been asleep? These doubts kept recurring to me. Just before I fell asleep a remembrance of Leah's sullen face came between me and my dreams. Her insolent voice rang in my ears. What had she meant by her words? Why had Miss Darrell submitted to her impertinence? Was she afraid of Leah, as Gladys said? I began to feel weary of all these mysteries.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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30
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WITH TIMBRELS AND DANCES
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Aunt Philippa and Sara came to meet me at Victoria. They both seemed unfeignedly glad to see me.
Aunt Philippa was certainly a kind-hearted woman. Her faults were those that were engendered by too much prosperity. Overmuch ease and luxury had made her lymphatic and indolent. Except for Ralph's death, she had never known sorrow. Care had not yet traced a single line on her smooth forehead; it looked as open and unfurrowed as a child's. Contentment and a comfortable self-complacency were written on her comely face. Just now it beamed with motherly welcome. Somehow, I never felt so fond of Aunt Philippa as I did at that moment when she leaned over the carriage with outstretched hands.
'My dear, how well you are looking! Five years younger. --Does she not look well, Sara?'
Sara nodded and smiled, and made room for me to pass her, and then gave orders that my luggage should be intrusted to the maid, who would convey it in a cab to Hyde Park Gate.
'If you do not mind, Ursula, we are going round the Park for a little,' observed Sara, with a pretty blush.
Her mother laughed: 'Colonel Ferguson is riding in the Row, and will be looking out for us. He is coming this evening, as usual, but Sara thinks four-and-twenty hours too long to wait.'
'Oh, mother, how can you talk so?' returned Sara bashfully. 'You know Donald asked us to meet him, and he would be so disappointed. And it is such a lovely afternoon,--if Ursula does not mind.'
'On the contrary, I shall like it very much,' I returned, moved by curiosity to see Colonel Ferguson again. I had never seen him by daylight, and, though we had often met at the evening receptions, we had not exchanged a dozen words.
I thought Sara was looking prettier than ever. A sort of radiance seemed to surround her. Youth and beauty, perfect health, a light heart, and satisfied affections,--these were the gifts of the gods that had been showered upon her. Would those bright, smiling eyes ever shed tears? I wondered. Would any sorrow drive away that light, careless gaiety? I hoped not. It was pleasant to see any one so happy. And then I thought of Lesbia and Gladys, and sighed.
'You do not look at all tired, Ursie,' observed Sara affectionately, laying her little gloved hand on mine. 'She looks quite nice and fresh: does she not, mother? --I was so afraid that you would have come up in your nurse's livery, as Jocelyn calls it,--black serge, and a horrid dowdy bonnet.'
'Oh no; I knew better than that,' I returned, with a complacent glance at my handsome black silk, one of Uncle Brian's presents. I had the comfortable conviction that even Sara could not find fault with my bonnet and mantle. I had made a careful toilet purposely, for I knew what importance they attached to such things. Sara's little speech rewarded me, as well as Aunt Philippa's approving look.
'It has not done her any harm,' I heard her observe, _sotto voce_. 'She certainly looks younger.'
I took advantage of a pause in Sara's chatter to ask after Jill. Aunt Philippa answered me, for Sara was bowing towards a passing carriage.
'Oh, poor child, she wanted to come with us to meet you, but it was Professor Hugel's afternoon. He teaches her German literature, you know. I was anxious for her not to miss his lesson, and she was very good about it. She is coming down to afternoon tea, and of course we shall see her in the evening.'
'Poor dear Jocelyn! she was longing to come, I know. You and Miss Gillespie are terribly severe,' observed Sara, with a light laugh. She was so free and gay herself that she rather pitied her young sister, condemned to the daily grind of lessons and hard work.
'Nonsense, Sara!' returned her mother sharply. 'We are not severe at all. Jocelyn knows that it is all for her good if Miss Gillespie keeps her to her task. My dear Ursula, we are all charmed with Miss Gillespie,--even Sara, though she pretends to call her strict and old-fashioned. She is a most amiable, ladylike woman, and Jocelyn is perfectly happy with her.
'I am very pleased with Jocelyn,' she went on. 'You have done her good, Ursula, and both her father and I are very grateful to you. She is not nearly so wayward and self-willed. She takes great pains with her lessons, and is most industrious. She is not so awkward, either, and Miss Gillespie thinks it will be a good plan if I take her out with me driving sometimes when Sara is married. I shall only have Jocelyn then,' finished Aunt Philippa, with a regretful look at her daughter. I was much interested in all they had to tell me, but I was not sorry when we entered the Park and the stream of talk died away.
I almost felt as though I were in a dream, as the moving kaleidoscope of horses and carriages and foot-passengers passed before my eyes.
Yesterday at this time I was sitting in poor Robert Lambert's whitewashed attic, listening to the sparrows that were twittering under the eaves. When I had left the cottage I had walked down country roads, meeting nothing but a donkey-cart and two tramps.
Now the sunshine was playing on the rhododendrons and on the green leaves of the trees in Hyde Park. A brass band had struck up in the distance. The riders were cantering up and down the Row, to the admiration of the well-dressed crowds that sauntered under the trees or lingered by the railings. Carriages were passing and repassing. A four-in-hand drove past us, followed by a tandem. Beautiful young faces smiled out of the carriages. A few of them looked weary and careworn. Now and then under the smart bonnet one saw the pinched weazened face of old age,--dowagers in big fur capes looking out with their dim hungry eyes on the follies of Vanity Fair. One wondered at the set senile smile on these old faces; they had fed on husks all their lives, and the food had failed to nourish them; their strength had failed over the battle of life, but they still refused to leave the field of their former triumphs. Everywhere in these fashionable crowds one sees these pale meagre faces that belong to a past age. They wear gorgeous velvets, jewels, feathers, paint: like Jezebel, they would look out of the window curiously to the last. How one longs to take them gently out of the crowd, to wash their poor cheeks, and lead them to some quiet home, where they may shut their tired eyes in peace! 'What is the world to you?' one would say to them. 'You have done all your tasks,--well or badly; leave the arena to the young and the strong; it is no place for you; come home and rest, before the dark angel finds you in your tinsel and gewgaws.' Would they listen to me, I wonder?
Sara's soft dimples came into play presently. A pretty blush rose to her face. A tall man with a bronzed handsome face and iron-gray moustache had detached himself from the other riders, and was cantering towards the carriage that was now drawn up near the entrance: in another moment he had checked his horse with some difficulty.
'I have been looking out for you the last three-quarters of an hour,' he said, addressing Sara. 'I could not see the carriage anywhere. --Miss Garston, we have met before, but I think we hardly know each other,' looking at me with some degree of interest. Sara's cousin was no longer indifferent to him.
I answered him as civilly as I could, but I could see his attention wandered to his young _fiancée_, and he soon rode round to her side of the carriage. It was evident, as Lesbia said, that the colonel was honestly in love with Sara. She looked very young beside him, but there must have been something very winning in her sweet looks and words to the man who had known trouble and had laid a young wife and child to rest in an Indian grave.
Before the evening was over I felt I liked Colonel Ferguson immensely, and thought far more of Sara for being his choice; there was an air of frankness and _bonhomie_ about him that won one's heart; he was sensible and practical. In spite of his fondness for Sara, he would keep her in order: one could see that. I heard him rebuke her very gently that first evening for some extravagance she was planning. They were standing apart from the others on the balcony, but I was near the open window, and I heard him say distinctly, in a grave voice,-- 'I am very sorry to disappoint you, but I must ask you to give up this idea, my darling; it would not be right in our position: surely you must see that.'
'No, Donald, I do not see it a bit,' she answered quickly.
'Then will you be satisfied with my seeing it, and give it up for my sake, dear?'
I knew when they came back into the room that he had got his way. Sara was smiling as happily as usual: her disappointment had not gone very deep. Her future husband would have very little trouble with her. She was neither self-willed nor selfish. She wanted to be happy herself and make other people happy; she would be easily guided.
When we left the Park Colonel Ferguson rode off to his club, and we drove home rather quickly. There were some visitors waiting for Sara in the drawing-room, so I went up to my old room to take off my bonnet. Martha would unpack my boxes, Aunt Philippa told me, as she gave me another kiss in the hall.
I had not been there for five minutes when I heard flying footsteps down the passage, and the next moment Jill's strong arms had taken me by the shoulders and turned me round.
'Now, Jill, I don't mean to be strangled as usual'; but she left me no breath for more.
'Oh, my dear, precious old bear, this is too good to be true! I nearly cried with joy this morning at the idea of seeing you in your old room and knowing you will be here a whole fortnight. I declare, after all, Sara is very nice to get married.'
No, Jill was not changed; she was as real and big and demonstrative as usual, but somehow she looked nicer.
'You must be quick,' she continued, 'for father has come in, and Clayton has taken in the tea. We must go down directly; but I want you to see Miss Gillespie first.' And Jill looked proud and eager as she led me down the passage.
The schoolroom was still the same dull back room that Aunt Philippa thought so conducive to her young daughter's studies, but it certainly looked more cheerful this evening.
The window was opened. There was a window-box full of gay flowers. A great bowl of my favourite wall-flowers was on the table, and another vase, with trails of laburnum and lilac, was on Jill's little table. The fresh air and sunshine and the sweet scent of the flowers had quite transformed the dingy room. There was new cretonne on the old sofa, a handsome cloth on the centre-table, and a new easy-chair.
Miss Gillespie was sitting by the window, reading. She had an interesting face and rather sad gray eyes, but her manner was decidedly prepossessing.
She looked at her pupil with affection. Evidently Jill's abruptness and awkwardness were not misunderstood by her.
'I want you two to like each other,' Jill had said, without a pretence of introduction; and we had both laughed and extended our hands.
'I seem to know you already, Miss Garston,' she said, in a pleasant voice. 'Jocelyn talks about you so much that you cannot be a stranger to me. --Do you know your father has come in, dear?' turning to Jill.
'Yes, and I must take my cousin downstairs. Good-bye for the present, Gypsy.'
Miss Gillespie smiled again when she saw my astonishment at Jill's familiarity.
'Jocelyn thinks my name too long, and has abbreviated it to Gypsy. Mrs. Garston was terribly shocked at first, but I told her that it did not matter in the least: in fact, I like it.'
'She is such a dear old thing!' burst out Jill, as we left the schoolroom and proceeded downstairs arm in arm. 'I never think of her as my governess; she is just a kind friend who helps me with my lessons and walks with me. We do have such cosy times together. Does not the schoolroom look nice, Ursie?'
'Very nice indeed, my dear.'
'So I think; but Sara says it is horrid: she has made mother promise to give me her room directly she is married. Sara has a beautiful piano there, and a book-case, and all sorts of pretty things. It is a lovely room, you know, and looks out over the Park. Mother thinks it too nice and pretty for a schoolroom; but I am to call it my study and keep it tidy. And Gypsy is to have the old schoolroom for herself: so we are both pleased. It is nice for her to have a room of her own, where she can be alone.'
'Your mother is very kind to you, Jill.'
'Awfully kind--I mean very kind: Gypsy does so dislike that expression. Do you know, I think you two are rather alike in that? Gypsy is very unhappy sometimes, though. I have found her crying more than once when I have left her long alone; only mother does not know, and I don't mean to tell her, because she thinks people ought always to be cheerful. It was so sad that clergyman dying,--the one she was to marry; his name was Maurice Compton. I saw the name in one of her books: "Lilian Gillespie, from her devoted friend, Maurice Compton."'
'My dear Jill, how long are you going to keep me standing in the hall? Clayton will find us here directly.'
'Yes, I know'; but Jill showed no intention of moving; the prospect of cold tea did not trouble her; 'but I want to tell you something before you go in. Mother is certainly kinder to me than she ever has been; she says I am to drive with her very often, and that she shall take me to see picture-galleries. And father is going to buy a horse for me, because he says I ride so well that I may go out with him, as a rule, instead of with a master; and--' 'You shall tell me all that presently,' I returned, 'for I am too tired to stand on this mat any longer. Are you coming, Jill? or shall I go in without you?' but of course I knew she would follow me.
The room seemed full when we entered. Aunt Philippa was at the tea-table; Sara was flitting about the room from one guest to another. Uncle Brian, who was standing on the hearth-rug, put out his hand to me.
'I am glad to see you back again, Ursula,' looking at me with his cool, penetrating glance. Uncle Brian was never demonstrative. 'I think the work suits you, to judge by your looks. Take that chair by your aunt, child, and she will give you some tea.' And accordingly I placed myself under Aunt Philippa's wing, while Jill and a boy-officer with a budding moustache waited on me.
The rest of the evening passed very pleasantly. I had a long conversation with Miss Gillespie in the inner drawing-room while Sara and Jill played duets: of course our subject was Jill. Miss Gillespie spoke most warmly of her excellent abilities and fine development of character. 'She will be a very striking woman,' she finished, when the last chords were played and a soft clapping of hands succeeded. 'Whether she will be a happy one is more doubtful: she must not be thwarted too much, and she must have room to expand. Jocelyn wants space and sunshine.'
I thought these remarks very sensible; they taught me that Miss Gillespie had grasped the true idea of Jill's character. There was nothing little about Jill: she never did things by halves: she either loved or hated. She was truthful to a fault. There was a massive freedom and simplicity about her that would guide her safely through the world's pitfalls. 'Space and sunshine,' that was all Jill needed to bring her to maturity and fruition. Some girls may be trusted to educate themselves. Jill was one of these.
The next morning Sara took possession of me. A great honour was to be vouchsafed me: I was to be treated to a private view of the trousseau and wedding-presents.
I had exhausted my vocabulary of admiring epithets, and sat in eloquent silence, long before Sara had finished her display. It was like the picture of Pandora opening her box, to see the pretty creature opening the big, carved wardrobe to show me the layers of delicate embroidered raiment, muslin and laces and jewels, curious trinkets and wonderful gifts worthy of the Arabian Nights. There were two rooms full of treasures that had been laid at her feet, and no doubt, like Pandora, Sara had the rainbow-tinted hope lying amid the bridal gifts.
'This is Donald's present,' she said, smiling, showing me a diamond spray. 'I am to wear it on Thursday: it is the loveliest present of all,--though mother has given me that beautiful pearl necklace.'
'Wait a moment, Sara,' I said, detaining her as she closed the morocco case: 'tell me, do you not feel like a princess in fairy-land, with all this glitter round you? Does it all seem real, somehow?'
'Donald is real, anyhow,' she returned, with a charming blush. 'Nothing would be real without him. Oh, Ursula, it is nice to be so happy! I always have been happier than other girls.' And something like a tear stole to her pretty eyes.
'Now you must see your own dress,' she continued, brushing off the tiny tear-drop, with a laugh at her own sentimentality. 'What do you think of that? Is that not charming taste?'
'It is far too good for me,' I returned seriously. 'How could Uncle Brain buy that for me? It is beautiful; it is perfect, and just my taste.' And then I could say no more, for Sara had placed her hands across my lips to silence me.
'Then you must wear it, dear. Father and mother wanted to give you something nice, because you were so good to Jocelyn, and I knew you had a fancy for a velvet gown. Is not that yellowish lace charming, Ursula? and the bonnet harmonises so well! Your bouquet is to be cream-coloured, too, with just a tea-rose or so. You will look quite pretty in it, Ursula dear. Do you know Donald liked the look of you so yesterday? he said you looked so strong and sensible; he called you an interesting woman.'
I hastened to change the subject, for it recalled certain words that I vainly tried to forget. It was a relief when visitors were announced and Sara left me to go down to the drawing-room. I was glad to be alone for a few minutes. Aunt Philippa came up soon afterwards with a bevy of friends, and I escaped to my own room until luncheon-time.
I grew a little weary of the bustle by and by, and yet I was pleased and interested too; the excitement was infectious; one smiled to see so many happy faces; and then there was so much to do, every one was pressed into the service. Jill shut up her books with a bang; her piano remained closed. She and Miss Gillespie were answering notes, unpacking presents, running to and fro with messages; people came all day long; they talked in corners on the balcony, in Uncle Brian's study; no room was held sacred.
A cargo of flowers arrived presently; the hall and drawing-room were to be transformed into bowers. It must rain roses as well as sunshine on the young princess. Sara's bright face appeared every now and then among the workers; a little court surrounded her; sometimes Colonel Ferguson's bronzed face looked over her shoulders.
'That is very pretty, Ursula. I see you have caught the right idea. Jocelyn dear, you are overfilling that basket, and some of the stalks are showing. Miss Gillespie will put it right for you. Come, Grace, shall we go upstairs?'
Sara nodded and smiled at us as she led the way to the upper regions. Pandora was for ever opening her box in those days: she was never weary of fingering her silks and satins.
'Now she has gone, let us rest a little,' Jill exclaimed, letting her arms fall to her side. 'Are you not tired of it all, Ursie dear? I get so giddy that I keep rubbing my eyes. I never knew weddings meant all this fuss. Why cannot people do things more quietly? If I ever get married I shall just put on my bonnet and walk to the nearest church with father. What is the use of all this nonsense? It is like decking the victim for the sacrifice, to see all these roses and green leaves. Supposing we have a band of music to drown her groans while she is dressing,' finished Jill rebelliously, as she contemplated her flower-basket with dissatisfied eyes.
Jill's speech recalled Mr. Hamilton's words most vividly: 'Because two people elect to join hands for the journey of life, is there any adequate reason why all their idle acquaintances should accompany them with cymbals and prancings, and all sorts of fooleries, just at the most solemn moment of life?' and again, '"Till death us do part,"--can any one, man or woman, say those words lightly and not bring down a doom upon himself?'
Could I ever forget how solemnly he had said this? After all, Mr. Hamilton was right, and I think Jill was right too.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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31
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WEDDING-CHIMES
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When we had finished the flowers and brought in Aunt Philippa to see the effect, I left the others and went up to my room. I had been busy since the early morning, and felt I had fairly earned a little rest.
The room that was still called mine had a side-window looking over the Park. Down below carriages were passing and repassing; a detachment of hussars trotted past; people were pouring out from the Albert Hall,--some afternoon concert was just over; the children were playing as usual on the grass; the soft evening shadows were creeping up between the trees; the sky was blue and cloudless. May was wearing her choicest smiles on the eve of Sara's wedding-day.
Martha, the schoolroom maid, had brought me a cup of tea; the rest of the family were crowded in Uncle Brian's study; the dining-room was already in the hands of Gunter's assistants; the long drawing-room and inner drawing-room were sweet with roses and baskets of costly hot-house flowers; a bank of rhododendrons was under the hall window; the house was full of sunshine, flowers, and the ripple of laughter. I could hear the laughter through the closed door. Sara's musical tinkle rang out whenever the door opened. I had fallen into a sort of waking dream, when something white and golden passed between me and the sunlight; a light kiss was dropped on my drowsy eyelids, and there was Lesbia smiling at me.
She looked so cool and fair in her white gown, with a tiny bouquet of delicious tea-roses in her hand, her golden hair shining under her little lace bonnet. I thought she looked more than ever like Charlie's white lily, only now there was a touch of colour on her face.
'Oh, Ursie dear, I am so pleased to see you!' she said gently, laying the flowers on my lap. 'Clayton told me that every one else was in Mr. Garston's study, so I begged to run up here. We only came up from Rutherford this morning, and we have been so busy ever since. I was afraid you were asleep, for I knocked at the door without getting any answer; but no, your eyes were wide open; so you were only dreaming.'
'I believe I was very tired, they have kept me running about all day. Take this low chair by the window, dear, and tell me all about yourself. Do you know it is six months since we met? There must be so much to say on both sides. But, first, how is Mrs. Fullerton? and is it Rutherford that has given you those pretty roses, Lesbia?' But the roses I meant were certainly not on my lap.
She answered literally and seriously, in her usual way: 'Yes, they are from Rutherford: I cut them myself, in spite of Patrick's grumbling. Mother is very well, Ursula; I am sure the country agrees with her. We have been there since March, and these two months have been the happiest to me since dear Charlie died.'
'You need not tell me that,' I returned, with a satisfied look at the sweet face. 'Health has returned to you; you are no longer languid and weary; your eyes are bright, your voice has a stronger tone in it.'
'Is it wrong?' she answered quickly. 'I do not forget, I shall never forget, but the pain seems soothed somehow. When I wake up in the bed where I slept as a child, I hear the birds singing, and I do not say to myself, "Here is another long weary day to get through." On the contrary, I jump up and dress myself as quickly as I can, for I love to be out among the dews; everything is so sweet and still in the early morning; there is such freshness in the air.'
'And these early walks are good for you.'
'Oh, I never leave the grounds. I just saunter about with Flo and Rover. When breakfast is ready I have a bouquet to lay beside mother's plate. Dear, good mother! do you know she cannot say enough in praise of Rutherford, now she sees the breakfasts I eat? I think she would be reconciled to any place if she saw me enjoy my food: at the Albert Hall Mansions I never felt hungry; I was always too tired to eat.'
'I knew Mrs. Fullerton would never repent her sacrifice.'
'No, indeed; mother and I have never been so cosy in our lives. She sits in the verandah and laughs over my quarrels with Patrick: he is quite as cross-grained as ever, dear old fellow, but there is nothing that he will not do for me. We are making a rose-garden now. Do you remember that sunny corner by the terrace and sundial? --dear Charlie always wanted me to have a rose-garden there. We have trellis-work arches and a little arbour. Patrick and Hawkins are doing the work, but I fancy they cannot get on without me.'
She stopped with a little laugh at her own conceit, and then went on: 'And I am so busy in other ways, Ursula. Every Monday I go to the mothers' meeting with Mrs. Trevor, and I have some of the old women at the almshouses besides,--I am so fond of those old women,--and I have just begun afternoons for tennis; people like these, and they come from such a distance. Mr. Manners declares the Rutherford Thursdays will soon be known all over the country.'
'Bravo, Lesbia! you are taking your position nobly, my dear; this is just what Charlie wanted to see you,--a brave sweet woman who would not let sorrow and disappointment spoil her own and other people's lives.' Then, as she blushed with pleasure at my words, I said carelessly, 'Do you often see Mr. Manners?'
'Oh yes,' she returned without hesitation,--'on my Thursdays, and at church, and at the vicarage: we are always meeting somewhere. He was Charlie's friend, you know, and he is so nice and sympathising, and tells me so much about their school life and college life together. He was so fond of Charlie, and the undergraduates used to call them Damon and Pythias.'
'To be sure: Charlie was always talking about Harcourt. He has grown very handsome, I have heard.'
'Mother says so: he is certainly good-looking,' she answered simply; 'and then he is so kind. I feel almost ashamed at troubling him so much with our business and commissions, but he never seems to mind any amount of trouble. I have never met any one so unselfish.'
I turned away my head to hide a smile. Lesbia was quite serious. She was too much absorbed in the memory of Charlie to read the secret of Harcourt Manners's unselfishness: the kindly attentions of the young man, his solicitude and sympathy, had not yet awakened a suspicion of the truth.
One day Lesbia's eyes would be opened, and she would be shocked and surprised to find the hold that Charlie's friend had got over her heart. Very likely she would dismiss him and lock herself up in her room and cry for hours; probably she would persist for some weeks in making herself and him exceedingly unhappy. But it would be all no use; the tie of sympathy would be too strong; he would have made himself too necessary to her. One day she would have to yield, and find her life's happiness in thus yielding. Charlie's white lily was too fair to be left to wither alone, and I knew Harcourt Manners would be worthy to win the prize.
I could see it all before it happened, while Lesbia talked in her serious way of Mr. Manners's unselfishness. Presently, however, she changed the subject, and began questioning me eagerly about my work; and just then Jill joined us, and placed herself on the floor at my feet, with the firm intention, evidently, of listening to our remarks.
The conversation drifted round to Gladwyn presently. I could see Lesbia was a little curious about these friends of mine that I had mentioned casually in my letters.
'I can't quite make out the relationship,' she said, in a puzzled tone. 'You are always talking about this Gladys. Is she really so beautiful and fascinating? And who is Miss Darrell?'
'You had better ask me,' interrupted Jill, quite rudely, 'for Ursula is so absurdly infatuated about the whole family; she thinks them all quite perfect, with the exception of the double-faced lady, Miss Darrell; but they are very ordinary,--quite ordinary people, I assure you.'
'Now, Jill, we do not want any of your impertinence. Lesbia would rather hear my description of my friends.'
'On the contrary, she would prefer the opinion of an unprejudiced person,' persisted Jill, with a voluble eloquence that took away my breath. 'Listen to me, Lesbia. This Mr. Hamilton that Ursula is always talking about'--how I longed to box Jill's pretty little ears! she had lovely ears, pink and shell-like, hidden under her black locks--'is an ugly, disagreeable-looking man.'
'Oh!' from Lesbia, in rather a disappointed tone.
'He is quite old,--about five-and-thirty, they say,--and he has a long smooth-shaven face like a Jesuit. I don't recollect seeing a Jesuit, though; but he is very like one all the same. He has dark eyes that stare somehow and seem to put you down, and he has a way of laughing at you civilly that makes you wild; and Ursula believes in him, and is quite meek in his presence, just because he is a doctor and orders her about.'
'My dear Lesbia, I hope you are taking Jill's measure with a grain of salt. Mr. Hamilton is not disagreeable, and he never orders me about.'
Jill shook her head at me, and went on: 'Then there is the double-faced lady--but never mind her; we both hate her.'
'You mean Miss Darrell, Mr. Hamilton's cousin?'
'Yes, Witch Etta, as Lady Betty calls her. She is a dark-eyed, slim piece of elegance, utterly dependent on her clothes for beauty; she dresses perfectly, and makes herself out a good-looking woman, but she is not really good-looking; and she is always talking, and her talk is exciting, because there is always something behind her words, something mildly suggestive of volcanoes, or something equally pleasant and enlivening. If she smiles, for instance, one seems to think one must find out the meaning of that.'
'Who has taught you all this, Jill?' asked Lesbia, bewildered by this sarcasm.
'My mother-wit,' returned Jill, utterly unabashed. 'Well, then there is Gladys. Ah, now we are coming to the saddest part. Once upon a time there was a beautiful maiden, really a lovely creature,--oh, I grant you that, Ursula,--but she fell under the power of some wicked magician, male or female,--some folks say Witch Etta,--who changed her into a snow-maiden or an ice-maiden. If she were only alive, this Gladys would be most lovely and bewitching; but, you see, she is only a poor snow-maiden, very white and cold. If she gives you her hand, it quite freezes you; her kiss turns you to ice too; her smile is congealing. Ursula tries to thaw her sometimes, but it does no good. She is only Gladys, the snow-maiden.'
I was too angry with Jill to say a word. Lesbia looked more mystified than ever.
'If she be so cold and sad, how can Ursula be so fond of her?' she demanded, in her practical way. But Jill took no notice, but rattled on: 'Little brown Betsy--I beg her pardon--Lady Betty, is the best of all: she is really human. Gladys is only half alive. Lady Betty laughs and talks and pouts; she wrinkles up like an old woman when she is cross, and has lovely dimples when she smiles. She is not pretty, but she is quaint, and interesting, and childlike. I am very fond of Lady Betty,' finished Jill, with a benevolent nod.
I proceeded to annotate Jill's mischievous remarks with much severity. I left Mr. Hamilton alone, with the exception of a brief sentence; I assured Lesbia that he was not ugly, but only peculiar-looking, and that he was an intellectual, earnest-minded man who had known much trouble. Jill made a wry face, but did not dare to contradict me.
'As for his sister Gladys,' I went on, 'she is simply a most beautiful girl, whose health has failed a little from a great shock'; here Jill and Lesbia both looked curious, but I showed no intention of enlightening them. 'She is a little too sad and quiet for Jill's taste,' I continued, 'and she is also somewhat reserved in manner, but when she likes a person thoroughly she is charming.'
I went on a little longer in this strain, until I had thoroughly vindicated my favourite from Jill's aspersion.
'You are very fond of her, Ursula: your eyes soften as you talk of her. I should like to see this wonderful Gladys.'
'You must see her one day,' I rejoined; and then the gong sounded, and Lesbia jumped up in a fright, because she said she would keep her mother waiting, and Jill hurried off to her room to dress.
We had what Jill called a picnic dinner in Uncle Brian's study. Every one enjoyed it but Clayton, who seemed rather put out by the disorganised state of the house, and who was always getting helplessly wedged in between the escritoire and the table. We would have much rather waited on ourselves, and we wished Mrs. Martin had forgone the usual number of courses. When it was over we all went into the long drawing-room, and Jill played soft snatches of Chopin, while Sara and Colonel Ferguson whispered together on the dark balcony.
Mrs. Fullerton and Lesbia joined us later on, and then Colonel Ferguson took his leave. I thought Sara looked a little quiet and subdued when she joined us; her gay chatter had died away, her eyes were a little plaintive. When we had said good-night, and Jill and I were passing down the corridor hand in hand, we could hear voices from Aunt Philippa's room. Through the half-opened door I caught a glimpse of Sara: she was kneeling by her mother's chair, with her head on Aunt Philippa's shoulder. Was she bidding a tearful regret to her old happy life? I wondered; was she looking forward with natural shrinking and a little fear to the new responsibility that awaited her on the morrow? It was the mother who was talking; one could imagine how her heart would yearn over her child to-night,--what fond prayers would be uttered for the girl. Aunt Philippa was a loving mother: worldliness had not touched the ingrained warmth of her nature.
I am glad to remember how brightly the sun shone on Sara's wedding-day. There was not a cloud in the sky. When I woke, the birds were singing in Hyde Park, and Jill in her white wrapper was looking at me with bright, excited eyes.
'It is such a lovely morning!' she exclaimed rapturously. 'Actually Sara is asleep! Fancy sleeping under such circumstances! She and mother are going to have breakfast together in the schoolroom. Do be quick and dress, Ursula; father is always so early, you know.'
Uncle Brian was reading his paper as usual when I entered the study. Miss Gillespie was pouring out coffee. Jill was fidgeting about the room, until her father called her to order, and then she sat down to the table. I do not think any of us enjoyed our breakfast. Uncle Brian certainly looked dull; Jill was too excited to eat; poor Miss Gillespie had tears in her eyes; she poured out tea and coffee with cold shaking hands. 'Lilian Gillespie, from her devoted friend Maurice Compton,' came into my head: no wonder the thought of marriage-bells and bridal finery made her sad. I am afraid I should have shut myself up in my own room, and refused to mingle with the crowd, under these circumstances. I quite understood the feeling of sympathy that made Jill stoop down and kiss the smooth brown hair as she passed the governess's chair: it was a sort of affectionate homage to misfortune patiently borne.
I went up to the schoolroom when breakfast was over. Aunt Philippa looked as though she had not slept: there was a jaded look about her eyes. Sara, on the contrary, looked fresh and smiling; she was just going to put herself in her maid's hands; but she tripped back in her pretty muslin dressing-gown and rose-coloured ribbons to kiss me and ask me to look after Jill's toilet.
'Every one is so busy, and mother and Draper will be attending to me. Do, please, Ursie dear, see that she puts on her bonnet straight.' And of course I promised to do my best.
As it happened, Jill was very tractable and obedient. I think her beautiful bridesmaid's dress rather impressed her. I saw a look of awe in her eyes as she regarded herself, and then she dropped a mocking courtesy to her own image.
'I am Jocelyn to-day, remember that, Ursula. I don't look a bit like Jill. Jocelyn Adelaide Garston, bridesmaid.'
'You look charming, Jill--I mean Jocelyn.'
'Oh, how horrid it sounds from your lips, Ursie! I like my own funny little name best from you. Now come and let me finish you.' And Jill, in spite of her fine dress, would persist in waiting on me. She was very voluble in her expression of admiration when I had finished, but I did not seem to recognise 'Nurse Ursula' in the elegantly-dressed woman that I saw reflected in the pier-glass. 'Fine feathers make fine birds,' I said to myself.
I think we all agreed that Sara looked lovely. Lesbia, who joined us in the drawing-room, contemplated her with tears in her eyes.
'You look like a picture, Sara,' she whispered,--'like a fairy queen,--in all that whiteness.' Sara dimpled and blushed. Of course she knew how pretty she was, and how people liked to look at her; but I am sure she was thinking of Donald, as her eyes rested on her bridal bouquet. Dearly as she loved all this finery and consequence, there was a soft, thoughtful expression in her eyes that was quite new to them, and that I loved to see.
We went to church presently, and Lesbia and I, standing side by side, heard the beautiful, awful service. 'Till death us do part.' Oh, what words to say to any man! Surely false lips would grow paralysed over them!
A most curious thing happened just then. I had raised my eyes, when they suddenly encountered Mr. Hamilton's. A sort of shock crossed me. Why was he here? How had he come? How strange! how very strange! The next moment he had disappeared from my view: probably he had withdrawn behind a pillar that he might not attract my notice. I could almost have believed that it was an illusion and fancied resemblance, only I had never seen a face like Mr. Hamilton's.
The momentary glimpse had distracted me, and I heard the remainder of the service rather absently; then the pealing notes of the wedding-march resounded through the church; we all stood waiting until Sara had signed her name, and had come out of the vestry leaning on her husband's arm.
I was under Major Egerton's care. The crowd round the door was so great that it was with the greatest difficulty that he could pilot me to the carriage. Lesbia was following us with another officer, whose name I did not know. As we took our seats I distinctly saw Mr. Hamilton cross the road. He was walking quietly down Hyde Park. As we passed he turned and took off his hat. I thought it was a strange thing that he should be in the neighbourhood on Sara's wedding-day, and that he should have deigned to play the part of a spectator after his severe strictures on gay weddings. I supposed his business in Edinburgh was finished, and he had an idle day or two on his hands. I half expected him to call the next day, for I had given him my address; but he did not come, and I heard from Mr. Tudor afterwards that he had gone on to Folkestone.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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32
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A FIERY ORDEAL
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It is a hackneyed truism, and, like other axioms, profoundly true, that wedding-festivities are invariably followed by a sense of blank dulness.
It is like the early morning after a ball, when the last guests have left the house: the lights flicker in the dawn, the empty rooms want sweeping and furnishing to be fit for habitation. Yawns, weariness, satiety, drive the jaded entertainers to their resting-places. Every one knows how tawdry the ball-dress looks in the clear morning light. The diamonds cease to flash, the flowers are withered, the game is played out.
Something of this languor and vacuum is felt when the bride and bridegroom have driven away amid the typical shower of rice. The smiles seem quenched, somehow; mother and sisters shed tears; a sense of loss pervades the house; the bridal finery is heaped up in the empty room; one little glove is on the table, another has fallen to the floor. All sorts of girlish trinkets that have been forgotten lie unheeded in corners.
I know we all thought that evening would never end, and I quite understood why Jill hovered near her mother's chair, listening to her conversation with Mrs. Fullerton. Every now and then Aunt Philippa broke down and shed a few quiet tears. I heard her mention Ralph's name once. 'Poor boy! how proud he would have been of his sister!' Uncle Brian heard it too, for I saw him wince at the sound of his son's name; but Jill stroked her mother's hand, and said, quite naturally, 'Most likely Ralph knows all about it, mamma, and of course he is glad that Sara is so happy.'
Our pretty light-hearted Sara. I had no idea that I should miss her so much! Indeed, we all missed her: it seemed to me now that I had undervalued her. True, she had not been a congenial companion to me in my dark days; but even then I had wronged her. Why should I have expected her to grope among the shadows with me, instead of following her into the sunshine? Sara could not act contrary to her nature. Sad things depressed her. She wanted to cause every one to be happy.
Her feelings were far deeper than I had imagined them to be. I liked the way she spoke to Jill when she was bidding good-bye to us all.
'Jocelyn dear, promise me that you will be good to mother. She has no one but you now to study her little ways and make her comfortable, and she is not as young as she was, and things tire her.' Of course Jill promised with tears in her eyes, and Sara went away smiling and radiant. Jill was already trying to redeem her promise, as she hovered like a tall slim shadow behind her mother's chair in the twilight.
'Come and sit down, Jocelyn, my dear,' observed Aunt Philippa at last, in her motherly voice. When I looked again, Jill's black locks were bobbing on her mother's lap, and the three seemed all talking together.
There was very little rest for any one during the next few days. Sara's marriage had brought sundry relations from their country homes up to town, and there was open house kept for all. Jill went sight-seeing with the young people. Aunt Philippa drove some of the elder ladies to the Academy, to the Grosvenor Gallery, to the Park, and other places.
Every day there were luncheon-parties, tea-parties, dinner-parties; the long drawing-room seemed full every evening. Jill put on one or other of her pretty new gowns, and played her pieces industriously; there was no stealing away in corners now. There were round games for the young people; now and then they went to the theatre or opera: no wonder Jill was too tired and excited to open her lesson-books. My fortnight's visit extended itself to three weeks. Aunt Philippa could not spare me; she said I was much too useful to her and Uncle Brian. I wrote to Mrs. Barton and also to Lady Betty, and I begged the latter to inform her brother that I could not leave my relations just yet.
Lady Betty wrote back at once. She had given my message, she said, but Giles had not seemed half pleased with it. She thought he was going away somewhere, she did not know where; but he had told her to say that there were no fresh cases, and that Robert Lambert was going on all right, and that as I seemed enjoying myself so much it was a pity not to take a longer holiday while I was about it, and he sent his kind regards; and that was all. I suppose I ought to have been satisfied, but it struck me that there was a flavour of sarcasm about Mr. Hamilton's message.
But he was right; I was enjoying myself. Lesbia was still in town, and I saw her every day. My acquaintance with Miss Gillespie grew to intimacy, and I think we mutually enjoyed each other's society. Aunt Philippa seemed to turn to me naturally for help and comfort, and her constant 'Ursula, my dear, will you do this for me?' gave me a real feeling of pleasure; and then there was Jill to pet and praise at every odd moment.
One day we were all called upon to admire Sara's new signature, 'Sara Ferguson,' written in bold, girlish characters. 'Donald is looking over my shoulder as I write it, dear mamma,' Sara wrote, in a long postscript. 'Are husbands always so impertinent? Donald pretends that it is part of his duty to see that I dot my _i_'s and cross my _t_'s: he will talk such nonsense. There, he has gone off laughing, and I may end comfortably by telling you that he spoils me dreadfully and is so good to me, and that I am happier than I deserve to be, and your very loving child, Sara.'
'Poor darling! she always did make her own sunshine,' murmured Aunt Philippa fondly.
Now, that afternoon who should call upon us but Mr. Tudor? Jill was out, as usual, riding with two of her cousins and Uncle Brian; they had gone off to Kew or Richmond for the afternoon; but Aunt Philippa, who had been dozing in her easy-chair by the window, welcomed the young man very kindly, and made him promise to stay to dinner.
Mr. Tudor tried not to look too much pleased as he accepted the invitation. A sort of blush crossed his honest face as he turned to me: he had two or three messages to deliver, he said. Mr. Cunliffe had given him one, and Mrs. Barton, and Lady Betty. She, Lady Betty, wanted me to know that Miss Darrell was going to Brighton for a week or ten days, and that she hoped I should come home before then.
I heard, too, that Mr. Hamilton had gone to Folkestone, and that he had tried to induce Uncle Max to go with him. 'But it is no use telling him he wants a change,' finished Mr. Tudor, with a sigh; 'he is bent on wearing himself out for other people.'
Mr. Tudor and I chatted on for the remainder of the afternoon. I had taken him out on the balcony: there were an awning and some chairs, and we could sit there in comparative privacy looking down on the passers-by. Aunt Philippa was nodding again: we could hear her regular breathing behind us: poor woman! she was worn out with bustle and gaiety. I was thankful that a grand horticultural _fête_ kept all the aunts and cousins away, with the exception of the two who were riding with Jill.
Clayton brought us out some tea presently, and we found plenty of topics for conversation.
All at once I stopped in the middle of a conversation.
'Mr. Tudor, have my eyes deceived me, or was that Leah?'
'Who? --what Leah? I do not know whom you mean!' he returned, rather stupidly, staring in another direction. There was a cavalcade coming up the road,--a tall slim girl, on a chestnut mare, riding on in front with a young man, another girl and an elderly man with a gray moustache following them, a groom bringing up the rear.
Of course it was Jill, smiling and waving towards the balcony; she could not see Mr. Tudor under the awning, but she had caught sight of my silk dress. Jill looked very well on horseback: people always turned round to watch her. She had a good seat, and rode gracefully; the dark habit suited her; she braided her unmanageable locks into an invisible net that kept them tidy.
'Is that Miss Jocelyn?' asked Lawrence, almost in a voice of awe. The young curate grew very red as Jill rode under the balcony and nodded to him in a friendly manner.
'There is Mr. Tudor,' we heard her say. 'Be quick and lift me off my horse, Clarence.' But she had slipped to the ground before her cousin could touch her, and had run indoors.
Mr. Tudor went into the room at once, but I sat still for a moment. Why had I asked him? Of course it was Leah. I could see her strange light-coloured eyes glancing up in my direction. What was she doing in London? I wondered. She was dressed well, evidently in her mistress's cast-off clothes, for she wore a handsome silk dress and mantle. Had they quarrelled and parted? I felt instinctively that it would be a good day for Gladwyn if Leah ever shook off its dust from her feet. Gladys regarded her as a spy and informer, and she had evidently an unwholesome influence over her mistress.
We separated soon after this to dress for dinner, and Mr. Tudor went to his hotel. I was rather sorry when I came downstairs to find that Jill had made rather a careless toilet. She wore the flimsy Indian muslin gown that I thought so unbecoming to her style, with a string of gold beads of curious Florentine work round her neck. She looked so different from the graceful young Amazon who had ridden up an hour ago that I felt provoked, and was not surprised to hear the old sharp tone in Aunt Philippa's voice: 'My dear Jocelyn, why have you put on that old gown? Surely your new cream-coloured dress with coffee lace would have been more suitable. What was Draper thinking about?'
'I was in too great a hurry; I did not wait for Draper,' returned Jill candidly. 'Draper was dreadfully cross about it, but I ran away from her. What does it matter, mamma? They have all seen my cream-coloured dress, except--' But here Jill laughed: the naughty child meant Mr. Tudor.
'I am afraid there is not time to change it now; but I am very much vexed about it,' returned Aunt Philippa, in a loud whisper. 'You are really looking your worst to-night.' But Jill only laughed again, and asked her cousin Clarence when he took her down to dinner if it were not a very pretty gown.
'I don't know much about gowns,' drawled the young man,--Mr. Tudor and I were following them: 'it looks rather flimsy and washed out. If I were you I would wear something more substantial. You see, you are so big, Jocelyn; your habit suits you better.'
We heard Jill laughing in a shrill fashion at this dubious compliment, and presently she and Mr. Tudor, who sat next to her, were talking as happily as possible. I do not believe he noticed her unbecoming gown: his face had lighted up, and he was full of animation. Poor Lawrence! he was five-and-twenty, and yet the presence of this girl of sixteen was more to him than all the young-ladyhood of Heathfield. Even charming little Lady Betty was beaten out of the field by Jill's dark eyes and sprightly tongue.
It was a very pleasant evening, and we were all enjoying ourselves: no one imagined anything could or would happen; life is just like that: we should just take up our candlesticks, we thought, and march off to bed when Aunt Philippa gave the signal. No one could have imagined that there would be a moment's deadly peril for one of the party,--an additional thanksgiving for a life preserved that night.
And then no one seemed to know how it happened; people never do see, somehow.
There was music going on. Agatha Chudleigh--the Chudleighs were Aunt Philippa's belongings--was playing the piano, and her brother Clarence was accompanying her on the violoncello. There was a little group round the piano. Jill was beating time, standing with her back to a small inlaid table with a lamp on it. Mr. Tudor was beside her. Jill made a backward movement in her forgetfulness and enthusiasm. The next moment the music stopped with a crash. There was a cry of horror, the lamp seemed falling, glass smashed, liquid fire was pouring down Jill's unfortunate dress. If Mr. Tudor had not caught it, they said afterwards, with all that lace drapery, the room must have been in flames; but he had jerked it back in its place, and, snatching up a bear-skin rug that lay under the piano, had wrapped it round Jill. He was so strong and prompt, there was not a moment lost.
We had all crowded round in a moment, but no one dared to interfere with Mr. Tudor. We could hear Aunt Philippa sobbing with terror. Clarence Chudleigh extinguished the lamp, some one else flung an Indian blanket and a striped rug at Jill's feet. For one instant I could see the girl's face, white and rigid as a statue, as the young man's powerful arms enveloped her. Then the danger was over, and Jill was standing among us unhurt, with her muslin gown hanging in blackened shreds, and with bruises on her round white arms from the rough grip that had saved her life.
One instant's delay, and the fiery fluid must have covered her from head to foot; if Lawrence had not caught the falling lamp, if he had lost one moment in smothering the lighted gown, she must have perished in agony before our eyes; but he was strong as a young Hercules, and, half suffocated and bruised as she was, Jill knew from what he had saved her.
As the scorched bear-skin dropped to the floor, Lawrence picked up the Indian blanket and flung it over Jill's tattered gown. 'Go up to your room, Miss Jocelyn,' he whispered: 'you are all right now.' And she obeyed without a word. Miss Gillespie and I followed. I think Aunt Philippa was faint or had palpitations, for I heard Uncle Brian calling loudly to some one to open the windows. Jill was hysterical as soon as she reached her room. She was quite unnerved, and clung to me, shaking with sobs, while Miss Gillespie mixed some sal-volatile. I could not help crying a little with her from joy and thankfulness; but we got her quiet after a time, and took off the poor gown, and Jill showed us her bruises, and cheered up when we told her how brave and quiet she had been; and then she sat for some minutes with her face hidden in my lap, while I stroked her hair silently and thanked God in my heart for sparing our Jill.
Miss Gillespie had gone downstairs to carry a good report to Aunt Philippa. Directly she had gone, Jill jumped up, still shaking a little, and went to her wardrobe.
'I must go downstairs,' she said, a little feverishly. 'I have never thanked Mr. Tudor for saving my life. Help me to be quick, Ursie dear, for I feel so queer and tottery.' And nothing I could say would prevail on her to remain quietly in her room. While I was arguing with her, she had dragged out her ruby velveteen and was trying to fasten it with her trembling fingers.
'Oh, you are obstinate, Jill: you ought to be good on this night of all nights.' But she made no answer to this, and, seeing her bent on her own way, I brought her a brooch, and would have smoothed her hair, but she pushed me away.
'It does not matter how I look. I am only going down for a few minutes. He is going away, and I want to say good-night to him, and thank him.' And Jill walked downstairs rather unsteadily.
Mr. Tudor was just crossing the hall. When he saw Jill, he hurried up to her at once.
'Miss Jocelyn, this is very imprudent. You ought to have gone to bed: you are not fit to be up after such a shock,' looking at her pale face and swollen eyes with evident emotion.
Jill looked at him gently and seriously, and held out her hands to him quite simply.
'I could not go to bed without thanking you, I am not quite so selfish and thoughtless. You have saved my life: do you think I shall ever forget that?'
Poor Lawrence! the excitement, the terror, and the relief were too much for him; and there was Jill holding his hands and looking up in his face, with her great eyes full of tears. It was not very wonderful that for a moment he forgot himself.
'I could not help doing it,' he returned. 'What would have become of me if you had died? I could not have borne it.'
Jill drew her hands away, and her face looked a little paler in the moonlight. The young man's excited voice, his strange words, must have told her the truth. No, she was not too young to understand; her head drooped, and she turned away as she answered him,-- 'I shall always be grateful. Good-night, Mr. Tudor: I must go to my mother. Come, Ursula.'
She did not look back as we walked across the hall, though poor Lawrence stood quite still watching us. Why had the foolish boy said that? Why had he forgotten his position and her youth? Why had he hinted that her life was necessary to his happiness? Would Jill ever forget those words, or the look that accompanied them? I felt almost angry with Lawrence as I followed Jill into the room.
Jill need never have doubted her mother's love. Aunt Philippa had been too faint and ill to follow her daughter to her room, but her face was quite beautiful with maternal tenderness as she folded the girl in her arms. Not even her father, who especially petted Jill, showed more affection for her that night.
'Oh, Jocelyn, my darling, are you quite sure that you are unhurt? Miss Gillespie says you were only frightened and a little bruised; but I wanted to see for myself. Mr. Tudor will not let us thank him, but we shall be grateful to him all our lives, my pet. What would your poor father and I have done without you?'
Jill hid her face like a baby on her mother's bosom: she was crying quietly. Her interview with Mr. Tudor had certainly upset her. Uncle Brian put his hand in her rough locks. 'Never mind, my little girl: it is now over; you must go to bed and forget it,'--which was certainly very good advice. I coaxed Aunt Philippa to let her go, and promised to remain with her until she was asleep. She was very quiet, and hardly said a word as I helped her to undress, but as I sat down by the bedside she drew my head down beside hers on the pillow.
'Don't think I am not grateful because I do not talk about it, Ursie dear,' she whispered. 'I hope to be better all my life for what has happened to-night.' But as Jill lay, with wide, solemn eyes, in the moonlight, I wondered what thoughts were coursing through her mind. Was she looking upon her life preserved as a life dedicated, regarding herself as set apart for higher work and nobler uses? or was her gratitude to her young preserver mixed with deeper and more mysterious feelings? I could not tell, but from that night I noticed a regular change in Jill: she became less girlish and fanciful, a new sort of womanliness developed itself, her high spirits were tempered with softness. Uncle Brian was right when he said a few days afterwards 'that his little girl was growing a woman.'
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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33
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JACK POYNTER
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My conscience felt decidedly uneasy that night: in spite of all argument to the contrary, I could not shake off the conviction that it was my duty to speak to Aunt Philippa. I ought to warn her of the growing intimacy between the young people. She and Uncle Brian ought to know that Mr. Tudor was not quite so harmless as he looked.
It made me very unhappy to act the traitor to this honest, simple young fellow. I would rather have taken his hand and bidden him God-speed with his wooing. If I had been Uncle Brian I would have welcomed him heartily as a suitor for Jill. True, she was absurdly young,--only sixteen,--but I would have said to him, 'If you are in earnest, if you really love this girl, and are willing to wait for her, go about your business for three years, and then come and try your chance with her. If she likes you she shall have you. I am quite aware you are poor,--that you are a curate on a hundred and fifty a year; but you are well connected and a gentleman, and as guileless as a young Nathaniel. I could not desire a better husband for my daughter.'
But it was not likely that Uncle Brian would be so quixotic. And I knew that Aunt Philippa was rather ambitious for her children, and it had been a great disappointment to her that Sara had refused a young baronet. So it was with the guilty feelings of a culprit that I entered the morning-room the next morning and asked Aunt Philippa if I might have a few minutes' conversation with her.
To my relief, she treated the whole matter very coolly, and with a mixture of shrewdness and common sense that quite surprised me.
She assured me that it was not of the least consequence. Young creatures like Jocelyn must pass through this sort of experiences. She was certainly rather young for such an experiment, but it would do her no harm. On the contrary, a little stimulus of gratified vanity might be extremely beneficial in its after-effects. She was somewhat backward and childish for her age. She would have more self-respect at finding herself the object of masculine admiration.
'Depend upon it, it will do her a great deal of good,' went on Aunt Philippa placidly. 'She will try now in earnest to break herself off her little _gaucheries_. As for Mr. Tudor, do not distress yourself about him. He is young enough to have half-a-dozen butterfly fancies before he settles down seriously.'
'I remember,' she continued, 'that during Sara's first season we had rather a trouble about a young barrister. He was a handsome fellow, but terribly poor, and your uncle told me privately that he must not be encouraged. Well, Sara got it into her head that she was in love with him, and, in spite of all I could say to her by way of warning, she would promise him dances, and, in fact, they did a good bit of flirting together. So I told your uncle that we had better leave town earlier that year. We went into Yorkshire, paying visits, and then to Scotland. Sara had never been there before, and we took care that she should have a thoroughly enjoyable trip. My dear, before three months were over she had forgotten Henry Brabazon's existence. It was just a girlish sentimentality; nothing more. When we got back to town we made Mr. Brabazon understand that his attentions were displeasing to your uncle, and before the next season he was engaged to a rich young widow. I do not believe Sara ever missed him.'
I listened to all this in silence. I was much relieved to find that Aunt Philippa was not disposed to blame me for Lawrence Tudor's infatuation. She told me that she was not the least afraid of his influence, and should not discourage his visits. Jocelyn would never see him alone, and it was not likely that she would be staying at Heathfield again. I thought it useless to say any more. I had satisfied my conscience, and might now safely wash my hands of all responsibility. If the thought crossed my mind that Jill was very different from Sara,--that her will was stronger and her affections more tenacious,--there was no need to give it utterance. Sixteen was hardly the age for a serious love-affair, and I might well be content to leave Jill in her mother's care.
Now and then a doubt of Aunt Philippa's wisdom came to me,--on the last evening, for instance, when I was speaking to Jill about Heathfield, and when I rather incautiously mentioned Lawrence Tudor's name.
I recollected then that Jill had never once spoken of him since the night of the accident. It had dropped completely out of our conversation. I forget what I said then, but it was something about my seeing him at Heathfield.
We were standing together on the balcony, and as I spoke Jill stooped suddenly to look at a little flower-girl who was offering her wares on the pavement below. For a moment she did not answer. But I could see her cheek and even her little ear was flushed.
'Oh yes, you will see him,' she returned presently. 'What a little mite of a child! Look, Ursula. Please remember us to him, and--and we hope he is quite well.' And Jill walked away from me rather abruptly, saying she must ask her mother for some pence. It was then that a doubt of Aunt Philippa's policy crossed my mind; Jill was so different from other girls; and Lawrence Tudor had saved her life.
I had other things to occupy my mind just then,--a fresh anxiety that I could share with no one, and which effectually spoiled the last few days of my London visit.
The sight of Leah had somewhat disturbed me. It had brought back memories of the perplexities and mysteries of Gladwyn. Strange to say, I saw her again the very next day.
Mr. Tudor was calling at the door to inquire after Jill: he had his bag in his hand, and was on his way to the station. I was just going out to call on Lesbia, and we walked a few yards together. Just as I was bidding him good-bye, two women passed us: as I looked at them casually, I saw Leah's flickering light-coloured eyes; she was looking in my direction, but, though I nodded to her, she did not appear to recognise me. The other woman was a stranger.
I was sitting alone on the balcony that afternoon. Aunt Philippa and Jill and Miss Gillespie were driving. I took advantage of their absence and the unusual quiet of the house to finish a book in which I was much interested.
I was very fond of this balcony seat: the awning protected me from the hot June sun, and the flower-boxes at my feet were sweet with mignonette. I could see without being seen, and the cool glimpses of the green Park were pleasant on this hot afternoon.
The adjoining house was unoccupied: it was therefore with feelings of discomfort that I heard the sound of workmen moving about the premises, and by and by the smell of fresh paint made me put down my book with suppressed annoyance.
A house-painter was standing very near me, painting the outside sashes of the window: he had his back turned to me, and was whistling to himself in the careless way peculiar to his class. It was a clear, sweet whistling, and I listened to it with pleasure.
A sudden noise in the street caused him to look round, and then he saw me, and stopped whistling.
Where had I seen that face? It seemed familiar to me. Of whom did that young house-painter remind me? Could I have seen him at St. Thomas's Hospital? Was it some patient whose name I had forgotten during my year's nursing? I had had more than one house-painter on my list.
I was tormented by the idea that I ought to recognise the face before me, and yet recognition eluded me. I felt baffled and perplexed by some subtile fancied resemblance. As for the young painter himself, he looked at me quietly for a moment, as though I were a stranger, touched his cap, and went on painting. When he had finished his job, he went inside, and I heard him whistling again as he moved about the empty room.
It was a beautiful face: the features were very clearly cut and defined, like--Good heavens! I had it now: it reminded me of Gladys Hamilton's. The next moment I was holding the balcony railing as though I were giddy; it was like Gladys, but it was still more like the closed picture in Gladys's room. I pressed my hands on my eyelids as with a strong effort I recalled her brother Eric's face, and the next moment the young painter had come to the window again, and I was looking at him between my fingers.
The resemblance could not be my fancy; those were Eric's eyes looking at me. It was the same face, only older and less boyish-looking. The fair moustache was fully grown; the face was altogether more manly and full of character. It must be he; I must go and speak to him; but as I rose, my limbs trembling with excitement, he moved away, and his whistle seemed to die in the distance.
It was nearly six o'clock, and there was no time to be lost. I ran upstairs and put on my bonnet and mantle. I thought that Clayton looked at me in some surprise,--I was leaving the house without gloves; but I did not wait for any explanation: the men would be leaving off work. The door was open, and I quickly found my way to the drawing-room, but, to my chagrin, it was empty, and an elderly man with gray hair came out of a back room with a basket of carpenter's tools and looked at me inquiringly.
'There is a workman here that I want to find,' I said breathlessly,--'the one that was painting the window-frames just now,--a tall, fair young man.'
'Oh, you'll be meaning Jack Poynter,' he returned civilly; 'he and his mate have just gone.'
'It cannot be the one I mean,' I answered, somewhat perplexed at this. 'He was very young, not more than three-or four-and-twenty, good-looking, with a fair moustache, and he was whistling while he worked.'
'Ay, that's Jack Poynter,' returned the man, taking off his paper cap and rubbing up his bristly gray hair. 'We call Jack "The Blackbird" among us; he is a famous whistler, is Jack.'
'Oh, but that is not his name,' I persisted, in a distressed voice. 'Why do you call him Jack Poynter?'
'That is what he calls himself,' returned the man drily. Evidently he thought my remarks a little odd. 'Folks mostly calls themselves by their own names; among his mates he is known as "The Whistler," or "The Blackbird," or "Gentleman Jack."'
'Well, never mind about his name,' I replied impatiently. 'I want to speak to him. Where does he live? Will you kindly give me his address?'
'You would be welcome to it if I knew it, but "Gentleman Jack" keeps himself dark. None of us know where he lives. I believe it used to be down Holloway; but he has moved lately.'
'I wish you would tell me what you know about him,' I pleaded. 'It is not idle curiosity, believe me, but I think I shall be able to do him a service.'
'I suppose you know something of his belongings,' returned the man with a shrewd glance. 'Now that is what me and my mates say. We would none of us be surprised if "Gentleman Jack" has respectable folk belonging to him. He has not quite our ways. He is a cut above us, and clips his words like the gentlefolk do. But he is an industrious young fellow, and does not give himself airs.'
'Could you not find out for me where he lives?'
'Well, for the matter of that, you might ask him yourself, miss; he will be here again to-morrow morning, and I am off to Watford on a job. Jack is not at work regularly in these parts. He is doing a turn for a mate of his who is down with a touch of colic. He is working at Bayswater mostly, and he will be here to-morrow morning.'
'You are sure of that?'
'Oh yes. Tom Handley won't be fit for work for a spell yet. He will be here sharp enough, and then you can question him yourself.' And, bidding me a civil good-evening, the man took up his tools and went heavily downstairs, evidently expecting me to follow him. I went back and stole up quietly to my room. Aunt Philippa and Jill had returned from their drive. I could hear their voices as I passed the drawing-room; but I wanted to be alone to think over this strange occurrence.
My pulses were beating high with excitement. Not for one moment did I doubt that I had really seen Eric in the flesh. Gladys's intuition was right: her brother was not dead. I felt that this assurance alone would make her happy.
If she were only at Heathfield, or even at Bournemouth, I would telegraph for her to come; I could word the message so that she would have hastened to me at once; but Paris was too far; too much time would be lost.
Uncle Max, too, had been called to Norwich to attend a cousin's death-bed: I had had a note from him that very morning, so I could not have the benefit of his advice and assistance. I knew that I dared not summon Mr. Hamilton: the brothers had parted in ill blood, with bitter words and looks. Eric looked on his step-brother as his worst enemy. All these years he had been hiding himself from him. I dared not run the risk of bringing them together. I could not make a _confidante_ of Aunt Philippa or Uncle Brian. They had old-fashioned views, and would have at once stigmatised Eric as a worthless fellow. Circumstantial evidence was so strong against him that few would have believed in his innocence. Even Uncle Max condemned him, and in my own heart there lurked a secret doubt whether Gladys had not deceived herself.
No, my only course would be to speak to him myself, to implore him for Gladys's sake to listen to me. My best plan would be to rise as early as possible the next morning, and to be on the balcony by six o'clock. I should see the men come in to their work, and should have no difficulty in making my way to them. The household was not an early one, especially in the season. I should have the house to myself for an hour or so.
Of course my future movements were uncertain. I must speak to Eric first, and induce him to reopen communications with his family. I would tell him how his brother grieved over his supposed death, how changed he was; and he should hear, too, of Gladys's failing health and spirits. I should not be wanting in eloquence on that subject. If he loved Gladys he would not refuse to listen to me.
After a time I tried to set aside these thoughts, and to occupy myself with dressing for the evening. We had a dinner-party that night. Mrs. Fullerton and Lesbia were to be of the party. They were going down to Rutherford the next day, so I should have to bid them good-bye.
The evening was very tedious and wearisome to me: my head ached, and the glitter of lights and the sound of many voices seemed to bewilder me. Lesbia came up after dinner to ask if I were not well, I was so pale and quiet. We sat out on the balcony together in the starlight for a little while, until Mrs. Fullerton called Lesbia in. I would gladly have remained there alone, drinking in the freshness of the night dews, but Jill came out and began chattering to me, until I went back with her into the room.
There was very little sleep for me that night. When at last I fell into a dose, I was tormented by a succession of miserable dreams. I was following a supposed Eric down long country roads in the darkness. Something seemed always to retard me: my feet were weighted with lead, invisible hands were pulling me back. I heard him whistling in the distance, then I stumbled, and a black bog engulfed me, and I woke with a stifled cry.
I woke to the knowledge that the sun was streaming in at my windows, and that some sound like a falling plank had roused me from my uneasy slumbers. It must be past six o'clock, I thought; surely the men must be at work. Yes, I could hear their voices; and the next moment I had jumped out of bed, and was dressing myself with all possible haste.
It was nearly seven when I crept down into the drawing-room to reconnoitre the adjoining house. As I unfastened the window I heard the same sweet whistling that had arrested my attention yesterday.
Without a moment's hesitation I walked out on the balcony. The young painter looked round in some surprise at the sound of my footsteps, and touched his cap with a half-smile.
'It is a beautiful morning,' I began nervously, for I wanted to make him speak. 'Have you been at work long?'
'Ever since six o'clock,' he returned, and I think he was a little surprised at hearing himself addressed. 'We work early these light mornings.' And then he took up his brush and went on painting.
I watched him for a minute or two without a word. How was I to proceed? My presence seemed to puzzle him. Perhaps he wondered why a lady should take such interest in his work. I saw him glance at me uneasily.
'Will you let me speak to you?' I said, in a very low voice, and as he came towards me, rather unwillingly, I continued: 'I know the men call you Jack Poynter, but that is not your name. You are Eric Hamilton; no, do not be frightened: I am Gladys's friend, and I will not injure you.'
I had broken off abruptly, for I was alarmed at the effect of my words. The young painter's face had become ashen pale, and the brush had fallen out of his shaking hand. The next moment a fierce, angry light had come to his eyes.
'What do you mean? who are you?' he demanded, in a trembling voice, but even at the moment's agitation I noticed he spoke with the refined intonation of a gentleman. 'I know nothing of what you say: you must take me for another man. I am Jack Poynter.'
'Oh, Mr. Hamilton,' I implored, stretching out my hands across the balcony, 'do not treat me as an enemy. I am a friend, who only means well. For Gladys's sake listen to me a moment.'
'I will hear nothing!' he stammered angrily. 'I will not be hindered in my work any longer. Excuse me if I am rude to a lady, but you take me for another man.' And before I could say another word he had stepped through the open window.
I could have wrung my hands in despair. He had denied his own identity at the very moment when his paleness and terror had proved it to me without doubt. 'You take me for another man,' he had said; and yet I could have sworn in a court of justice that he was Eric Hamilton; not only his face, but his voice; his manner, told me he was Gladys's brother.
But he should not elude me like this, and I hurried downstairs, determined to find my way into the empty house and confront him again. The fastenings of the hall door gave me a little difficulty. I was afraid Clayton would hear me, but I found myself outside at last, and in another minute I was in the deserted drawing-room.
Alas! Eric was not there: only his paint-pot and brush lay on the balcony outside. Surely he could not have escaped me in these few minutes; he must be in one of the other rooms. At the top of the stairs I encountered a young workman, and began questioning him at once.
'Well, this is a queer start,' he observed, in some perplexity. 'I saw Jack only this moment: he wanted his jacket, for he said he had a summons somewhere. I noticed he was palish, and seemed all of a shake, but he did not answer when I called out to him.'
'Do you mean he has gone?' I asked, feeling ready to cry with disappointment.
'Yes, he has gone right enough; but he'll be back presently, by the time the governor comes round. I wonder what's up with Jack; he looked mighty queer, as though the peelers were after him; in an awful funk, I should say.'
'Will you do me a favour, my man?' and as I spoke a shining half-crown changed hands rather quietly. 'I want to speak to your friend Jack Poynter very particularly, but I am quite sure that he wishes to avoid me. If he comes back, will you write a word on a slip of paper and throw it on to the balcony of 64? --Just the words "At work now" will do, or any direction that will find him. I am very much in earnest over this.'
The man looked at me and then at the half-crown. He had a good-humoured, stupid-looking face, but was young enough to like an unusual job.
'It will be worth more than that to you to bring me face to face with Jack Poynter, or to give me any news of him,' I continued. 'You do not know where he lives, for example?'
'No: we are none of us his mates, except Fowler and Dunn, and they don't know where he lodges: "Gentleman Jack" keeps himself close. But he'll be here sure enough by and by, and then I will let you know,' and with this I was obliged to be content. I was terribly vexed with myself. I felt I had managed badly. I ought to have confronted him in the empty house, where he could not have escaped me so easily. Would he come back again? As I recalled his terrified expression, his agitated words, I doubted whether he would put himself within my reach. I was so worried and miserable that I was obliged to own myself ill and to beg that I might be left in quiet. I had to endure a good deal of petting from Jill, who would keep coming into my room to see how my poor head was. Happily, one of my windows commanded an uncovered corner of the balcony. I could see without going down if any scrap of paper lay there. It was not until evening that I caught sight of an envelope lying on one of the seats.
I rang my bell and begged Draper to bring it to me at once. She thought it had fluttered out of my window, and went down smilingly to fulfil my behest.
It was a blank envelope, closely fastened, and I waited until Draper was out of the room to open it: the slip of paper was inside.
'Jack has not been here all day,' was scrawled on it, 'and the governor is precious angry. I doubt Jack has got into some trouble or other. --Your obedient servant, Joe Muggins.'
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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34
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I COMMUNICATE WITH JOE MUGGINS
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Of course I knew it would be so; Eric had escaped me; but I could not help feeling very down-hearted over the disappointment of all my hopes.
I longed so much to comfort Gladys, to bring back peace and unity to that troubled household. I had nourished the secret hope, too, that I might benefit Mr. Hamilton without his knowledge, and so return some of his many kindnesses to me. I knew--none better--how sincerely he had mourned over the supposed fate of his young brother, how truly he lamented his past harshness. If I could have brought back their young wanderer, if I could have said to them, 'If he has done wrong he is sorry for his fault; take him back to your hearts,' would not Mr. Hamilton have been the first to hold out his hand to the prodigal? Here there was no father; it must be the elder brother who would order the fatted calf to be killed.
I had forgotten Miss Darrell. The sudden thought of her was like a dash of cold water to me. Would she have welcomed Eric? There again was the miserable complication!
All the next day I watched and fretted. The following evening Clayton told me, with rather a supercilious air, that a workman calling himself Joe Muggins wanted to speak to me. 'He did not know your name, ma'am, but he described the lady he wanted, so I knew it was you. He said you had asked him a question about a man named Jack Poynter.'
'Oh, it is all right, thank you, Clayton,' I returned quickly, and I went out into the hall.
Joe Muggins looked decidedly nervous. He was in his working dress, having, as he said, 'come straight to me, without waiting to clean himself.'
'I made so bold, miss,' went on Joe, 'because you seemed anxious about Jack, and I would not lose time. Well, Jack has been and given the governor the sack,--says he has colic too; but we know that is a sham. My mate saw him in Lisson Grove last night. He was walking along, his hands in his pockets, when Ned pounces on him. "What are you up to, Jack?" he says. "Why haven't you turned up at our place? The governor's in a precious wax, I can tell you. They want him to put on more men, as there's a press for time." --"Well, I am not coming there any more," says Jack, looking as black as possible. "The work doesn't suit my complaint, and I have written to tell Page so." And he stuck to that, and Ned could not get another word out of him: but he says he is shamming, and is not ill a bit. It is my belief, and Ned's too, that he has got into some trouble with the governor.'
'No, I am sure you are wrong,' I returned, with a sigh; 'but I am very much obliged to you for the trouble you have taken. If you hear anything more about Jack Poynter, or can find out where he lives, will you communicate with me at this address?' And I handed Joe my card and a half-sovereign.
'Yes, I'll do it, sure and certain,' he replied, with alacrity. 'Some of us will come across him again, one of these days, and we will follow him for a bit. You may trust me for that, miss. We will find him, sure enough.' And then I thanked him, and bade him good-night.
There was only one thing now that I could do before taking counsel with Gladys, and that was to advertise in some of the London papers. I wrote out some of these advertisements that evening: 'Jack Poynter is earnestly requested to communicate with Ursula G. He may possibly hear of something to his advantage.' And I gave the address of an old lawyer who managed my business, writing a note to Mr. Berkeley at the same time, begging him to forward any answer to Ursula G. Another advertisement was of a different character: 'For Gladys's sake, please write to me, or give me a chance of speaking to you. An unknown but most sincere friend, U. G.' The third advertisement was still more pressing: 'Jack Poynter's friends believe him dead, and are in great trouble: he is entreated to undeceive them. One word to the old address will be a comfort to his poor sister.'
As soon as I had despatched these advertisements to the paper offices, I sat down and wrote to Gladys. It was not my intention to tell her about Eric, but I must say some word to her that would induce her to come home. I told her that I was going back to Heathfield the following afternoon, and that I was beginning to feel impatient for her return.
'I cannot do without you any longer, my dear Gladys,' I wrote. 'There is so much that I want to talk to you about, and that I cannot write. I have heard something that has greatly excited me, and that makes me think that your view of the case is right, and that your brother Eric is alive. Of course we must not be too sanguine, but I begin to have hopes that you may see him again.'
More than this I did not venture to say, but I knew that these few words would make Gladys set her face homeward: she would not rest until she asked me my meaning. As I gave Clayton the letter I felt convinced that before a week was over Gladys would find her way to Heathfield.
I had to give all my attention to Jill after this; but, though she hung about me in her old affectionate way, I felt that I should leave her far happier than she had ever been before, and she did not deny this, only begged me to come and see them sometimes.
'You know I can't do without you, you darling bear,' she finished, with one of her old hugs.
I was still more touched by Aunt Philippa's regret at parting with me; she said so many kind things; and, to my surprise, Uncle Brian relaxed from his usual coldness, and quite warmed into demonstration.
'Come to us as often as you can, Ursula,' he said. 'Your aunt and I will be only too pleased to see you.' And then he asked me, a little anxiously, if I found my small income sufficient for my needs.
I assured him that my wants were so few, and Mrs. Barton was so economical, that but for my poorer neighbours I could hardly use it all.
'Well, well,' he returned, putting a handsome cheque in my hands, 'you can always draw on me when you feel disposed. I suppose you like pretty things as much as other girls.' And he would not let me even thank him for his generosity.
Aunt Philippa only smiled when I showed her the cheque.
'My dear, your uncle likes to do it, and you must not be too proud to accept his gifts: you may need it some day. We have only two daughters: as it is, Jocelyn will be far too rich. I do not like the idea that Harley's child should want anything.' And she kissed me with tears in her eyes.
Dear Aunt Philippa! she had grown quite motherly during those three weeks.
It was a lovely June afternoon: when I started from Victoria there was a scent of hay in the air. Jill had brought with her to the station a great basketful of roses and narcissus and heliotrope, and had put it on the seat beside me that its fragrance might refresh me.
I felt a strange sort of excitement and pleasure at the thought of returning home. Mrs. Barton would be glad to get me back, I knew. Uncle Max would not be at the station to meet me, for he had written to say that he was still detained at Norwich. His cousin was dead, and had left him her little property,--some six or seven hundred a year. There were some valuable books and antiquities, and some old silver besides. He was the only near relation, and business connected with the property would oblige him to remain for another week or ten days. I was rather sorry to hear this, for Heathfield was not the same without Uncle Max.
But not even Uncle Max's absence could damp me, I felt so light-hearted. 'I hope I am not fey,' I said to myself, with a little thrill of excitement and expectation as the familiar station came in view. Never since Charlie's death had I felt so cheerful and full of life.
Nathaniel was on the platform to look after my luggage, so I walked up the hill quietly, with my basket of flowers. As I passed the vicarage, Mr. Tudor came out and walked with me to the gate of the White Cottage. I had a dim suspicion that he had been watching for me.
Of course he asked after the family at Hyde Park Gate, and was most particular in his inquiries after Aunt Philippa. Just at the last he mentioned Jill.
'I hope your cousin Jocelyn is well,--I mean none the worse for her accident,' he said, turning very red.
'Oh no,' I returned carelessly; 'nothing hurts Jill. She was riding in the Park the next morning as though nothing had happened.'
'I remember you told me so, when I called to inquire,' was his answer. 'It was a nasty accident, and might have upset her nerves; but she is very strong and courageous.'
'She has great reason to be grateful to you,' I returned, for I felt very sorry for him. He was hoping that she had sent him some message; she would surely desire to be remembered to him. When I repeated Jill's abrupt little speech his face cleared, and he looked quite bright.
'There is Mrs. Barton looking out for you: I must not keep you at the gate talking,' he said cheerfully. 'Besides, I see Leah Bates coming down from Gladwyn, and I want to speak to her.' And he ran off in his boyish fashion.
I was glad to escape Leah, so I went quickly up the garden-path. The little widow was waiting for me in the porch, her face beaming with welcome. Tinker rushed out of the kitchen as soon as he heard my voice, and gambolled round us with awkward demonstrations of joy that nearly upset us, and Joe the black cat came and rubbed himself against my gown, with tail erect and loud purring.
The little parlour looked snug and inviting. The fireplace was decorated with fir cones and tiny boughs covered with silvery lichen. A great pot of mignonette perfumed the room with its sweetness. Charlie's face seemed to greet me with grave sweet smiles. I seemed to hear his voice, 'Welcome home, Ursula.'
'Oh, I am so glad to be home!' I said, as I went upstairs to my pretty bedroom.
When I had finished my unpacking, and had had tea, I sat down in my easy-chair, with a book that Miss Gillespie had lent me. Tinker laid his head in my lap, and we both disposed ourselves for an idle, luxurious evening. The bees were still humming about the honeysuckles; one great brown fellow had buried himself in one of my crimson roses; the birds were twittering in the acacia-tree, chirping their good-night to each other; the sun was setting behind the limes in a glory of pink and golden clouds, and a mingled scent of roses, mignonette, and hay seemed to pervade the atmosphere.
I laid down my book and fell into a waking dream; my thoughts seemed to take bird-flights into all sorts of strange places; the summer sounds and scents seemed to lull me into infinite content. Now I heard a drowsy cluck-cluck from the poultry-yard,--Dame Partlet remonstrating with her lord; then a faint moo from the field where pretty brown-eyed Daisy was chewing the cud; down below they were singing in the little dissenting chapel; sweet shrill voices reached me every now and then. I could hear Nathaniel chanting in a deep bass, as he worked in the back-yard, 'All people that on earth do dwell,'--the dear homely Old Hundredth. It was no wonder that a light, very light, footstep on the gravel outside did not rouse me. The door behind me opened, and Tinker turned his head lazily, and his tail began to flop heavier against the floor. The next moment two soft arms were round my neck.
'Gladys,--oh, Gladys!' and for the moment I could say no more, in my delight and surprise at seeing the dear beautiful face again.
'I wanted to surprise you, Ursula dear,' she said, laughing and kissing me. 'How still and quiet you and Tinker were! I believe you were both asleep. When I heard you were coming home I planned with Lady Betty that I would creep down to the cottage and take you unawares. I made Mrs. Barton promise not to betray me.'
'When did you come back?' I asked, bewildered. 'Why did you not write and tell me you were coming?'
'Oh, it was decided all in a hurry. The Maberleys heard that their daughter, Mrs. Egerton, would arrive in England this week, a whole month before they expected her, so they have gone down to Southampton, and left me to find my way home alone. I arrived last night, much to Giles's astonishment. You know Dora is their only surviving child, and she has been in India the last five years. She is bringing her two boys home.'
'Last night. Then you did not get my letter?'
'No; but it will follow me. How good you have been to write so often, Ursula! I have quite lived on your letters.'
'Let me see how you look,' was my answer to this; and indeed I thought she had never looked more beautiful. There was a lovely colour in her face, and she seemed bright and animated, though I could not deny that she was still very thin.
'You have not grown fatter,' I went on, pretending to grumble; 'you are still too transparent, in my opinion; but Jill's snow-maiden has a little life in her.'
'Does Jill call me that?' she returned, in some surprise. 'Oh, I am quite well: even Giles says so. He declares he is glad to have me back, and poor little Lady Betty quite cried with joy. It was nice, after all, coming home.'
'I am so glad to hear you say that.'
'Etta is away, you know: that makes the difference. Gladwyn never seemed so homelike before. By the bye, Ursula, Giles has sent you a message; he--no, we all three, want you to spend a long evening with us to-morrow. He has been called away to Brighton, and will not be back until mid-day; but we all three agreed that it would be so nice if you came early in the afternoon, and we would have tea in the little oak avenue. Etta never cares about these _al fresco_ meals, she is so afraid of spiders and caterpillars; but Lady Betty and I delight in it.'
I wish Jill could have heard Gladys talk in this bright, natural way. I am sure she would not have recognised her snow-maiden. There was no weary constraint in her manner to-night, no heavy pressure of unnatural care on her young brow: she seemed too happy to see me again to think of herself at all.
When we had talked a little more I began to approach the subject of Eric very gradually. At my first word her cheek paled, and the old wistfulness came to her eyes.
'What of Eric?' she asked quickly. 'You look a little strange, Ursula. Do not be afraid of speaking his name: he is never out of my thoughts, waking or sleeping.'
I told her that I knew this, but that I had something very singular to narrate, which I feared might excite and disappoint her, but that I could assure her of the certainty that he was alive and well.
She clasped her hands almost convulsively together, and looked at me imploringly. 'Only tell me that, and I can bear everything else,' she exclaimed.
But as she listened her face grew paler and paler, and presently she burst into tears, and sobbed so violently that I was alarmed.
'It is nothing,--nothing but joy,' she gasped out at length. 'I could not hear you say that you had seen him, my own Eric, and not be overcome. Oh, Ursula, if I had only been with you!' And she hid her face on my shoulder, and for a little while I could say no more.
When she was calmed I finished all that I had to tell, and read her the advertisements, but they seemed to frighten her.
'How dreadful if Etta or Giles should see them!' she said nervously. 'Etta is so clever, she finds out everything. I would not have her read one of them for worlds. Why did you put your name, Ursula? --it is so uncommon.'
'No one will connect me with Jack Poynter. I did not think there would be any risk,' I replied soothingly. 'I put "for Gladys's sake" in the _Daily Telegraph_. You see, we must try to attract his notice.'
'Giles never takes in the _Daily Telegraph_. We have the _Times_ and the _Standard_, and the _Morning Post_ for Etta. Which did you put in the _Standard_?'
I repeated the advertisement: 'Jack Poynter's friends believe him dead, and are in great trouble: he is entreated to undeceive them. One word to the old address will be a comfort to his poor sister.'
'That will do,' she answered, in a relieved tone. 'Etta cannot read between the lines there. Oh, Ursula, do you think that Eric will see them?'
I assured her that there was no doubt on the subject. All the better class of workmen had access to some club or society, where they saw the leading papers. I thought the _Daily Telegraph_ the most likely to meet his eyes, and should continue to insert an advertisement from time to time. 'We must be patient and wait a little,' I continued. 'Even if our appeals do not reach him, there is every probability that Joe Muggins or one of the other workmen will come across him. We want to find out where Jack Poynter lives. I mean to write to Joe in a few days, and offer him a handsome sum if he can tell me his address.'
'That will be the best plan; but, oh, Ursula, how am I to be patient? To think of my dear boy becoming a common workman! he is poor, then; he wants money. I feel as though I cannot rest, as though I must go to London and look for him myself.'
Gladys looked so excited and feverish that I almost repented my confidence. I did all I could to soothe her.
'Surely, dear, it is not so difficult to wait a little, knowing him to be alive and well, as it was to bear that long suspense.'
'Oh, but I never believed him to be dead,' she answered quickly. 'I was very anxious, very unhappy, about him, often miserable, but in my dreams he was always full of life. When I woke up I said to myself, "They are wrong; Eric is in the world somewhere; I shall see him again."'
'Just so; and now with my own eyes I have seen him, evidently in perfect health and in good spirits.'
'Ah, but that troubles me a little,' she returned, and her beautiful mouth began to quiver like an unhappy child's. 'How can Eric, my Eric who loved me so, be so light-hearted, knowing that all these years I have been mourning for him? I remember how he used,' she went on plaintively, 'to whistle over his work, and how Giles used to listen to him. Sometimes they kept up a duet together, but Eric's note was the sweeter.'
'We must be careful not to misjudge him even in this,' was my answer: 'how do you know, Gladys, that he has not assured himself that you are all well, and, as far as he knows, happy? Or perhaps his heart was very heavy in spite of his whistling. A young man does not show his feelings like a girl.'
'No doubt you are right,' she replied, sighing, and then she turned her head away, and I could see the old tremulous movement of her hands. 'Ursula,' she said, in a very low voice, 'have you told Mr. Cunliffe about this?'
'Uncle Max!' I exclaimed, concealing my astonishment at hearing her mention his name of her own accord. 'No; indeed, he is away from home: we have not met for the last three weeks. Would you wish me to tell him, Gladys?'
She pondered over my question, and I could see the curves of her throat trembling. Her voice was not so clear when she answered me: 'He might have helped us. He is kind and wise, and I trusted him once. But perhaps it will be hardly safe to tell him: he might insist on Giles knowing, and then everything would be lost.'
'What do you mean?' I asked hastily. 'Surely Mr. Hamilton ought to know that his brother is alive.'
'Yes, but not now--not until I have seen him. Ursula, you are very good; you are my greatest comfort; but indeed you must be guided in this by me. You do not know Giles as I do. He is beginning to influence you in spite of yourself. If Giles knows, Etta will know, and then we are lost.'
Her tone troubled me: it was the old keynote of suppressed hopeless pain: it somehow recalled to me the image of some helpless innocent bird struggling in a fowler's net. Her eyes looked at me with almost agonised entreaty.
'If Etta knows, we should be lost,' she repeated drearily.
'She shall not know, then,' I returned, pretending cheerfulness, though I was inwardly dismayed. 'You and I will watch and wait, Gladys. Do not be so cast down, dear. Remember it is never so dark as just before the dawn.'
'No,' she replied, with a faint smile, 'you are right there; but it is growing dark in earnest, Ursula, and I must go home, or Leah will be coming in search of me.'
'Very well; I will walk with you,' I replied; and in five minutes more we had left the cottage.
We walked almost in silence, for who could tell if eaves-droppers might not lurk in the dark hedgerows? I know this feeling was strong in both our minds.
At the gate of Gladwyn we kissed each other and parted.
'I am happier, Ursula,' she whispered. 'You must not think I am ungrateful for the news you have given me, only it has made me restless.'
'Hush! there is some one coming down the shrubbery,' I returned, dropping her hand, and going quickly into the road. As I did so, I heard Leah's smooth voice address Gladys: 'You were so, late, ma'am, that I thought I had better step down to the cottage, for fear you might be waiting for me.'
'It is all right, Leah,' was Gladys's answer. 'Miss Garston walked back with me. Thank you for your thoughtfulness.' And then I heard their footsteps dying away in the distance.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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35
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NIGHTINGALES AND ROSES
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I was very busy the next morning. I went round to the Marshalls' cottage to see Peggy, and then I paid Phoebe a long visit, and afterwards I went to Robert Stokes.
They seemed all glad to welcome me back, especially Phoebe, who lay and looked at me as though she never wished to lose sight of me again.
When I had left her room I sat a little while with Susan. She still looked delicate, but at my first pitying word she stopped me.
'Please don't say that, Miss Garston. If you knew how I thank God for that illness! it has opened poor Phoebe's heart to me as nothing else could have opened it.'
'She does indeed seem a different creature,' I returned, full of thankfulness to hear this.
'Different,--nay, that is not the word: the heart of a little child has come back to her. It rests me now, if I am ever so tired, to go into her room. It is always "Sit down, Susan, my woman, and talk to me a bit," or she will beg me to do something for her, just as though she were asking a favour. I read the Bible to her now morning and evening, and Kitty sings her sweet hymns to us. It is more like home now, with Phoebe to smile a welcome whenever she sees me. I do not miss father and mother half so much now.'
'If you only knew how happy it makes me to hear you say all this, Miss Locke!'
'Nay, but I am thinking we owe much of our comfort to you,' she answered simply. 'You worked upon her feelings first, and then Providence sent that sharp message to her. And we have to be grateful to the doctor, too. What do you think, Miss Garston? He is our landlord now, and he won't take a farthing of rent from us. He says we are doing him a kindness by living in the house, and that he only wished his other tenants took as much care of his property; but of course I know what that means.' And here Susan's thin hands shook a little. 'The doctor is just a man whose right hand does not know what his left hand does; he is just heaping us with benefits, and making us ashamed with his kindness.'
'You are a great favourite of his,' I answered, smiling, as I took my leave; but Susan answered solemnly,-- 'It won't be forgotten in his account, Miss Garston. The measure running over will surely be returned to him, and not only to him.' And here she looked at me meaningly, and pressed my hand. Poor Susan! she had grown very fond of her nurse.
As I walked up to Gladwyn that afternoon I felt a pleasant sense of excitement, a sort of holiday feeling, that was novel to me. Miss Darrell was away, and Gladys and Lady Betty would be at their ease. We might look and talk as we liked, no one would find fault with us.
I was pleased, too, at the thought of seeing Mr. Hamilton again. I was in the mood to be gay: perhaps the summer sunshine infected me, for who could be dull on such a day? There was not a cloud in the sky, the birds were singing, the rooks were cawing among the elms, the very sparrows had a jaunty look and cheeped busily in the ivy. As I approached Gladwyn, I saw Mr. Hamilton leaning on the gate: he looked as though he had been standing there some time.
'Were you watching for me?' I asked, rather thoughtlessly, as he threw the gate open with a smile and shook hands with me. I had asked the question quite innocently and casually; but the next moment I felt hot and ashamed. Why had I supposed such a thing? Why should Mr. Hamilton be watching for me?
He did not seem to notice my confusion: he looked very glad to see me. I think he was in a gay mood too.
'Yes, I was looking for you. You are a little late, do you know that? I was just meditating whether I should walk down the road to meet you. Come and take a turn with me on this shady little lawn. Gladys and Lady Betty are arranging the tea-table, and are not quite ready for us.'
He led the way to the little lawn in front of the house. Gladwyn was surrounded with charming lawns: the avenue of young oaks was at the back. We could catch glimpses of Lady Betty's white gown as she flitted backward and forward. The front window of Mr. Hamilton's study was before us.
'Well,' he said, looking at me brightly, 'we are all glad to welcome Nurse Ursula back: the three weeks have seemed very long somehow.'
'Have you any more cases ready for me?' I returned, trying to appear at my usual ease with him. It seemed ridiculous, but I was certainly rather shy with Mr. Hamilton this afternoon. He looked different somehow.
'If I have, you will not know them to-day. I am not going to talk business to you this afternoon. Tell me about your visit: have you enjoyed yourself? But I need not ask: your looks answer for you.'
'I have most certainly enjoyed myself. Aunt Philippa was so kind: indeed, they were all good to me. Did you hear of Jill's accident, Mr. Hamilton? No. I must tell you about it, and of Mr. Tudor's presence of mind.' And I narrated the whole circumstance.
'It was a marvellous escape,' he returned thoughtfully. 'Poor child! she might have fared badly. Well, Miss Garston, the green velvet gown was very becoming.'
I looked up quickly, but there was no mockery in Mr. Hamilton's smile. He was regarding me kindly, though his tone was a little teasing.
'I saw you in the church,' I returned quietly.
'Yes, I suppose there is a kind of magnetism in a fixed glance. I was looking at you, trying to identify Nurse Ursula with the elegantly-dressed woman before me, and somehow failing, when your eyes encountered mine. Their serious disapproval most certainly recalled Nurse Ursula with a vengeance.'
He was laughing at me now, but I determined to satisfy my curiosity.
'I was so surprised to see you there,' I replied seriously: 'you were so strong in your denunciations of gay weddings that your presence as a spectator at one quite startled me. Why were you there, Mr. Hamilton?'
'Do you want to know, really?' still in a teasing tone.
'Of course one always likes an answer to a question.'
'You shall have it, Miss Garston. I came to see that velvet gown.'
'Nonsense!'
'May I ask why?'
'Well, it is nonsense; as though you came for such an absurd purpose!' But, though I answered Mr. Hamilton in this brusque fashion, I was aware that my heart was beating rather more quickly than usual. Did he really mean that he had come to see me? Could such a thing be possible? I began to wish I had never put that question.
'I either came to see the gown or the wearer: upon my honour I hardly know which. Perhaps you can tell me?' But if he expected an answer to that he did not get it: I was only meditating how I could break off this _téte-à-téte_ without too much awkwardness. No, I did not recognise Mr. Hamilton a bit this afternoon: he had never talked to me after this fashion before. I was not sure that I liked it.
'After all, I am not certain that I do not like you best in that gray one, especially after I have picked you some roses to wear with it: something sober and quiet seems to suit Nurse Ursula better.'
'Mr. Hamilton, if you please, I do not want to talk any more about my gown.'
'What shall we talk about, then? Shall I--' And then he looked at my face and checked himself. His teasing mood, or whatever it was, changed. Perhaps he saw my embarrassment, for his manner became all at once very gentle. He said we must go in search of the roses; and then he began to talk to me about Gladys,--how much brighter she looked, but still thin, oh, far too thin,--and was I not glad to have her back again? and all the time he talked he was looking at me, as though he wanted to find out the reason of something that perplexed him.
'He will think that I am not glad to be home again, that all this gaiety has spoiled me for my work,' I thought, with some vexation; but no effort of my part would overcome this sudden shyness, and I was much relieved when we turned the corner of the house and encountered Lady Betty coming in search of us.
'Of course we saw you on the little lawn,' she said eagerly, 'but we were too busy arranging the table. Tea is ready now. Where are you going, Giles? Oh, don't pick any more roses: we have plenty for Ursula.'
'But if I wish Miss Garston to wear some of my picking, what then, Elizabeth?' he asked, in a laughing tone, and Lady Betty tossed her head in reply and led me away; but a moment afterwards he followed us with the roses, and mollified the wilful little soul by asking Ladybird--his pet name for her--to fasten them in my dress. Both the sisters wore white gowns. I thought Gladys looked like a queen in hers, as she moved slowly under the oak-trees to meet us, the sun shining on her fair hair. As I looked at her lovely face and figure, I thought it was no wonder that she was poor Max's Lady of Delight. Who could help admiring her?
She met me quite naturally, although her brother was beside us.
'Have we kept you waiting too long? I thought you would not mind putting up with Giles's society for a little while. Oh, Thornton was so stupid; I suppose he did not approve of the trouble, for he would forget everything we asked him to bring.'
'This is quite a feast, Gladys,' observed Mr. Hamilton gaily. And indeed it was a pretty picture when we were all seated: a pleasant breeze stirred the leaves over our head, the rooks cawed and circled round us, Nap laid himself at his master's feet, and a little gray kitten came gingerly over the grass, followed by some tame pigeons.
There was a basket of roses on the table, and great piles of strawberries and cherries. Gladys poured out the tea in purple cups bordered with gold. Mr. Hamilton held out a beautiful china plate for my inspection. 'This belonged to Gladys's mother,' he said: 'we are only allowed to use it on high days and holidays. Etta was unfortunate enough to break a saucer once: we have never seen the tea-set since.'
I saw Gladys colour, but she said nothing: only naughty Lady Betty whispered in my ear, 'She did it on purpose. I saw her throw it down because she was angry with Gladys.' But, happily, Mr. Hamilton was deaf to this.
I hardly know what we talked about, but we were all very happy. Gladys, as usual, was rather quiet, but I noticed that she spoke freely to her brother, without any constraint of manner, and that he seemed pleased and interested in all she said; and Lady Betty chatted as merrily as possible.
When tea was over we all strolled about the garden, down the long asphalt walk that skirted the meadow, where a little brown cow was feeding, down to the gardener's cottage and the kitchen-garden, and to the poultry-yard, where Lady Betty reigned supreme. Then we sat down on the terrace by the conservatory, and Mr. Hamilton threw himself down on the grass and played with Nap, as he talked to us.
I could see Leah sewing at her mistress's window, but the sight did not disturb me in the least. Yes, I must be fey, I thought. I could find no reason for the sudden feeling of contentment and well-being that possessed me; in all my life I had never felt happier than I did that evening; and yet I was more silent than usual. Mr. Hamilton talked more to his sisters than to me, but his manner was strangely gentle when he addressed me. I was conscious all that evening that he was watching me, and that my reserve did not displease him. Once, when he had been called away on business, and Lady Betty had tripped after him, Gladys said, with a half-sigh,-- 'How young and well Giles looks to-day! He seems so much happier. I wish we could always be like this. I am sure if it were not for Etta we should understand each other better.'
I assented to this, and Gladys went on: 'I wonder if you have ever heard Mrs. Carrick's name, Ursula?'
What a strange question! I flushed a little as I told her that her old friend Mrs. Maberley had put me in possession of all the family secrets. 'Quite against my will, I assure you,' I added; for I always had a lurking consciousness that I had no right to know Mr. Hamilton's affairs.
'Well, it does not matter. I daresay Giles will tell you all about it himself some day. You and he seem great friends, Ursula; and indeed--indeed I am glad to know it. Poor Giles! Why should you not be kind to him?'
What in the world could Gladys mean?
'I was only a child,' she went on; 'but of course I remember Ella. She was very beautiful and fascinating, and she bewitched us all. She had such lovely eyes, and such a sweet laugh; and she was so full of fun, and so high-spirited and charming altogether. Giles was very different in those days; but he reminds me of his old self this evening.'
I made no answer. I seemed to have no words ready, and I was glad when Gladys rather abruptly changed the subject. Leah was crossing the field towards the cottage with a basket of eggs on her arm. As we looked after her, Gladys said quickly-- 'Your talk last night seems like a dream. This morning I asked myself, could it be true--really true--that you saw Eric? I have hardly slept, Ursula. Indeed, I do not mean to be impatient; but how am I to bear this restlessness?'
'It is certainly very hard.'
'Oh, so hard! But for Eric's sake I must be patient. I saw the advertisement this morning in the _Standard_. Lady Betty read it aloud to us at breakfast-time; but Giles took no notice. I wished that we dared to tell Mr. Cunliffe about it; he might employ a detective: but I am so afraid of Etta.'
'I think we may safely wait a little,' I returned. 'I have faith in Joe Muggins: a five-pound note may do our work without fear of publicity.'
'If you hear any news, if you can find out where he lives, remember that I must be the first to see him: Giles shall be told, but not until I have spoken to Eric.'
'Do you think that you will be able to persuade him to come home?'
'I shall not try to persuade him,' she returned proudly. 'I know Eric too well for that. Nothing will induce him to cross the threshold of Gladwyn until his innocence is established, until Giles has apologised for the slur he has thrown upon his character.'
'I am afraid Mr. Hamilton will never do that.'
'Then there will be no possibility of reconciliation with Eric, Ursula. If Eric does not come home, if things remain as they are, I have made up my mind to leave Giles's roof. I cannot any longer be separated from Eric: if he be poor I will be poor too: it will not hurt me to work; nothing will hurt me after the life I have been leading these three years.' And the old troubled look came back to Gladys's face. Lady Betty joined us, and our talk ceased, and soon afterwards we went up into the turret-room to prepare for dinner.
After dinner Lady Betty proposed that we should go down the road a little to hear the nightingales; but Mr. Hamilton informed her with a smile that he had a nightingale on the premises, and, turning to me, he asked me if I were in the mood to give them all pleasure, and if I would sing to them until they told me to stop.
I was rather dubious on this latter point, for how could I know, I asked him, laughing, that they might not keep me singing until midnight?
'You ought to have more faith in our humanity,' he returned, with much solemnity, as he opened the piano. Gladys crept into her old seat by me, but Mr. Hamilton placed himself in an easy-chair at some little distance. As the room grew dusk, and the moonlight threw strange silvery gleams here and there, I could see him leaning back with his arms crossed under his head, and wondered if he were asleep, he was so still and motionless.
How I thanked God in my heart for that gift of song, a more precious gift to me than even beauty would have been! As usual, I forgot everything, myself, Gladys, Mr. Hamilton; I seemed to sing with the joyousness of a bird that is only conscious of life and freedom and sunshine.
I would sing no melancholy songs that night,--no love-sick adieux, no effusions of lachrymose sentimentality,--only sweet old Scotch and English ballads, favourites of Charlie's; then grander melodies, 'Let the bright seraphim,' and 'Waft her, angels, through the air.' As I finished the last I was conscious that Mr. Hamilton was standing beside me; the next moment he laid his hand on mine.
'That will do. You must not tire yourself: even the nightingales must leave off singing sometimes; thank you so much. No! that sounds cold and conventional. I will not thank you. You were very happy singing, were you not?'
I could not see his face, but he was so close,--so close to me in the moonlight, and there was something in his voice that brought the old shyness back.
I was trying to answer, when we heard the front door open and some one speaking to Parker. Was that Miss Darrell's voice? Mr. Hamilton heard it, for he moved away, and Gladys gave a half-stifled exclamation as he opened the door and confronted his cousin.
'Where are you all?' she asked, in a laughing voice. 'You look like bats or ghosts in the moonlight. No lights, and past ten o'clock! that is Gladys's romantic idea, I suppose. What a dear fanciful child it is! Lady Betty, come and kiss me! Oh, I am so glad to be home again!'
'Good-evening, Miss Darrell.'
'Good gracious! is that you, Miss Garston? I never dreamt of seeing you here to-night; and you were hiding behind that great piano. Giles, do, for pity's sake, light those candles, and let me see some of your faces.'
But Mr. Hamilton seemed to take no notice of her request.
'What brought you back so soon, Etta?' he asked; and it struck me that he was not so pleased to see his cousin as usual. 'I thought you intended to remain another week.'
'Oh, but I wanted to see Gladys, after these months of absence. I thought it would be unkind to remain away any longer. Besides, I was not enjoying myself,--not a bit. Mrs. Cameron grows deafer every day, and it was very _triste_ and miserable.'
'How did you know I was at home, Etta?' asked Gladys, in her clear voice.
Miss Darrell hesitated a moment: 'A little bird informed me of the fact. You did not wish me to remain in ignorance of your return, did you? It sounds rather like it, does it not, Giles? Well, if you must be inquisitive, Leah was writing to me about my dresses for the cleaner, and she mentioned casually that "master had gone to the station to meet Miss Gladys."'
'I see; but you need not have hurried home on my account.'
'Dear me! what a cousinly speech! That is the return one gets for being a little more affectionate than usual. Giles,'--with decided impatience,--'why don't you light those candles? You know how I hate darkness; and there is Miss Garston standing like a gray nun in the moonlight.'
'It is so late that I must put on my bonnet,' I replied quickly; for I was bent on making my escape before the candles were lighted. Never had I dreaded Miss Darrell's cold scrutiny as I did that night.
Gladys followed me rather wearily.
'Well it has been very pleasant, but our holiday has been brief,' she said, with a sigh; and then she laid her cheek against mine, and it felt very soft and cold. With a sudden rush of tenderness I drew it down and kissed it again and again.
'Don't let the hope go out of your voice, Gladys: it will all come right by and by. Only be strong and patient, my darling.'
'I am strong when I am near you, but not when I am alone,' she answered, with a slight shiver; and then we heard Lady Betty's voice calling her, and she left me reluctantly.
I thought she would come back, so I did not hurry myself; but presently I got tired of waiting, and walked to the head of the staircase.
As I looked down on the lighted hall I saw Mr. Hamilton standing with folded arms, as though he had been waiting there some time; at the sound of my footstep he looked up quickly and eagerly, and our eyes met, and then I knew,--I knew!
'Come, Ursula,' he said, with a sort of impatience, holding out his hand; and somehow, without delay or hesitation, just as though his strong will was drawing me, I went down slowly and put my hand in his, and it seemed as though there was nothing more to be said.
I saw his face light up; he was about to speak, when Miss Darrell swept up to us noiselessly with a hard metallic smile on her face.
'Do you know, Miss Garston, Lady Betty tells me that the nightingales are singing so charmingly; she and I are just going down the road to listen to them, if you can put up with our company for part of the way.'
Giles--I called him Giles in my heart that night, for something told me we belonged to each other--said nothing, but his face clouded, and we went out together.
No one heard the nightingales, but only Lady Betty commented on that fact. Miss Darrell was talking too volubly to hear her. She clung to my side pertinaciously, almost affectionately; she wanted to hear all about the wedding; she plied me with questions about Sara, and Jill, and Mr. Tudor. All the way up the hill she talked until we passed the church and the vicarage, until we were at the gate of the White Cottage, and then she stopped with an affected laugh.
'Dear me, I have actually walked the whole way; how tired I am! --and no wonder, for there is eleven chiming from the church tower. For shame, to keep us all up so late, Miss Garston!'
'I will not detain you,' I returned, with secret exasperation.
Mr. Hamilton had not spoken once the whole way, only walked silently beside me; but as he set open the gate and wished me good-night, his clasp of my hand gave me the assurance that I needed.
'Never mind: he will come to-morrow and tell me all about it,' I said to myself as I walked up the narrow garden-path between the rows of sleeping flowers. If I lingered in the porch to watch a certain tall figure disappear into the darkness, no one knew it, for the stars tell no tales.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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36
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BREAKERS AHEAD
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It was well that the stars, those bright-eyed spectators of a sleeping world, tell no tales of us poor humans, or they might have whispered the fact that the reasonable sober-minded Ursula Garston was holding foolish vigil that night until the gray dawn drove her away to seek a brief rest.
But how could I sleep? --how could any woman sleep when such a revelation had been vouchsafed her? --when a certain look, and those two words, 'Come, Ursula,' still haunted me,--that strange brief wooing, that was hardly wooing, and yet meant unutterable things, that silent acceptance, that simple yielding, when I put my hand in his, Giles's, and saw the quick look of joy in his eyes?
Ah, the veil had fallen from my eyes at last: for the first time I realised how all these weeks he had been drawing me closer to himself, how his strong will had subjugated mine. My dislike of him had been brief; he had awakened my interest first, then attracted my sympathy, and finally won my respect and friendship, until I had grown to love him in spite of myself. Strange to say, I had lost all fear of him; as I sat holding communion with myself that night, I felt that I should never be afraid of him again. 'Perfect love casteth out fear': is not that what the apostle tells us? It was true, I thought, for now I did not seem to be afraid either of Mr. Hamilton's strange stern nature, of the sadness of his past life, or of the mysteries and misunderstandings of that troubled household. It seemed to me I feared nothing,--not even my own want of beauty, that had once been a trial to me; for if Giles loved me how could such minor evils affect me?
Yes, as I sat there under the solemn starlight, with the jasmine sprays cooling my hot cheek and the soft night breeze fanning me, I owned, and was not ashamed to own, in my woman's heart, and with all the truth of which I was capable, that this was the man whom my soul delighted to honour; not faultless, not free from blame, full of flaws and imperfections, but still a strong grand man, intensely human in his sympathies, one who loved his fellows, and who did his life's work in true knightly fashion, running full tilt against prejudices and the shams of conventionality.
Often during the night I thought of my mother, and how she had told me, laughing, that my father had never really asked her to marry him.
'I don't know how we were engaged, Ursula,' she once said, when we were talking about Charlie and Lesbia in the twilight; 'we were at a ball,--Lady Fitzherbert's,--and of course being a clergyman he did not dance, but he took me into the conservatory and gave me a flower: I think it was a rose. There were people all round us, and neither he nor I could tell how it was done, but when he put me into the carriage I knew we were somehow promised to each other, and when he came the next day he called me Amy, and kissed me in the most quite matter-of-fact way. I often laugh and tell him that he took it all, for granted.'
'Giles will come to-morrow,' I said to myself, as the first pale gleam came over the eastern sky, 'and then I shall know all about it.' And I fell asleep happily, and dreamt of Charlie, and I thought he was pelting me with roses in the old vicarage garden. ' "And the evening and the morning were the first day,"' were my waking words when I opened my eyes; for in the inward as well as the outward creation, in hearts as well as worlds, all things become new under the grace of such miracle. I was not the same woman that I had been yesterday, neither should I ever be the same again. I seemed as though I were in accord with all the harmonies of nature. 'And surely God saw that it was good,' ought to be written upon all true and faithful earthly attachments. I was expecting Mr. Hamilton, and yet it gave me a sort of shock when I saw him coming up the road: he was walking very fast, with his head bent, but his face was set in the direction of the cottage.
I sat down by the window and took out some work, but my hands trembled so that I was compelled to lay it aside. It was not that I was afraid of what he might say to me, for my heart had its welcome ready, but natural womanly timidity caused the slight fluttering of my pulses.
The moments seemed long before I heard the click of the gate, before the firm regular footsteps crunched the gravel walk; then came his knock at my door, and I rose to greet him. But the moment I saw his face a sudden anxiety seized me. What had happened? What made him look so pale and embarrassed, so strangely unlike himself? This was not the greeting I expected. This was not how we ought to meet on this morning of all mornings.
As he shook hands with me quickly and rather nervously, he seemed to avoid my eyes. He walked to the window, picked a spray of jasmine, and began pulling it to pieces, all the time he talked. As for me, I sat down again and took up my work: he should not see that I felt his coldness, that he had disappointed me.
'I have come very early, I am afraid,' he began, 'but I thought I ought to let you know. Mrs. Hanbury's little girl, the lame one, Jessie, has got badly burnt,--some carelessness or other; but they are an ignorant set, and the child will need your care.'
'I will go at once. Where do they live?' But somehow as I asked the question I felt as though my voice had lost all tone and sounded like Miss Darrell's.
He told me, and then gave me the necessary instructions. 'Janet Coombe, a servant at the Man and Plough, is ill too, and they sent up for me this morning; it seems a touch of low fever,--nothing really infectious, though; but the men from the soap-works are having their bean-feast, and all the folks are too busy to pay Janet much attention.'
'I will see about her,' I returned. 'Are those the only cases, Mr. Hamilton?' He looked round at me then, as though my quiet matter-of-fact answer had surprised him, and for a moment he surveyed me gravely and wistfully; then he seemed to rouse himself with an effort.
'Yes, those are the only cases at present. Thank you, I shall be much obliged if you will attend to them. Little Jessie is a very delicate child: things may go hardly with her.' Then he stopped, picked another spray of jasmine, and pulled off the little starry flowers remorselessly.
'Miss Garston, I want to say something: I feel I owe you some sort of explanation. I wish to tell you that I have only myself to blame. I have thought it all over, and I have come to the conclusion that it is no fault of yours that I misunderstood you. It is your nature to be kind. You did not wish to mislead me.'
'I am not aware that I ever mislead people,' I returned, rather proudly, for I could not help feeling a little indignant: Mr. Hamilton was certainly not treating me well.
'No, of course not,' looking excessively pained. 'I know you too well to accuse you of that. If I misunderstood you, if I imagined things, it was my own fault,--mine solely. I would not blame you for worlds.'
'I am glad of that, Mr. Hamilton,' in rather an icy tone.
'No, you could not have told me: I ought to have found it out for myself. Do you mind if I go away now? I do not feel quite myself, and I would rather talk of this again another time. Perhaps you will tell me all about it then.' And he actually took up his hat and shook hands with me again. Somehow his touch made me shiver when I remembered the long hand-clasp of the previous night,--only ten or eleven hours ago; and yet this strange change had been worked in him.
I let him go, though it nearly broke my heart to see him look so careworn and miserable. My woman's pride was up in arms, though for very pity and love I could have called him back and begged him to tell me in plain English and without reservation what he meant by his vague words. Once I rose and went to the door, the latch was in my hand, but I sat down again and watched him quietly until he was out of sight. I would wait, I said to myself; I would rather wait until he came to his senses; and then I laughed a little angrily, though the tears were in my eyes. It was vexatious, it was bitterly disappointing, it was laying on my shoulders a fresh burden of responsibility and anxiety. The happiness that a quarter of an hour ago seemed within my reach had vanished and left me worried and perplexed. And yet, in spite of the pain Mr. Hamilton had inflicted, I did not for one moment lose hope or courage.
Something had gone wrong, that was evident. The perfect understanding that had been between us last night seemed ruthlessly disturbed and perhaps broken. Could this be Miss Darrell's work? Had she made mischief between us? I wondered what part of my conduct or actions she had misrepresented to her cousin. It was this uncertainty that tormented me: how could I refute mere intangible shadows?
Strange to say, I never doubted his love for a moment. If such a doubt had entered my mind I should have been miserable indeed; but no such thought fretted me. I was only hurt that he could have brought himself to believe anything against me, that he should have listened to her false sophistry and not have asked for my explanation; but, as I remembered that love was prone to jealousy and not above suspicion, I soon forgave him in my heart.
Ah well, we must both suffer, I thought; for he certainly looked very unhappy, fagged, and weary, as though he had not slept. If he had told me what was wrong I would have found some comfort for him; but under such circumstances any woman must be dumb.
He had made me understand that he did not intend to ask me to marry him, at least just yet; that for some reason best known to himself he wished for no further explanation with me. Well, I could wait until he was ready to speak; he need not fear that I should embarrass him. 'Men are strange creatures,' I thought, as I rose, feeling tired in every limb, to put on my bonnet; but, cast down and perplexed as I was, I would not own for a minute that I was really miserable. My faith in Mr. Hamilton was too strong for that; one day things would be right between us; one day he would see the truth and know it, and there would be no cloud before his eyes. I went rather sadly about my duties that day, but I was determined that no one else should suffer for my unhappiness, so I exerted myself to be cheerful with my patients, and the hard work did me good.
I was tired when I reached home, and I spent rather a dreary evening: it was impossible to settle to my book. I could not help remembering how I had called this a new day. As I prayed for Mr. Hamilton that night, I could not help shedding a few tears; he was so strong, all the power was in his hands; he might have saved me from this trouble. Then I remembered that we were both unhappy together, and this thought calmed me; for the same cloud was covering us both, and I wondered which of us would see the sunshine first.
I do not wish to speak much of my feelings at this time: the old adage, that 'the course of true love never runs smooth,' was true, alas, in my case; but I was too proud to complain, and I tried not to fret overmuch. Most women have known troubled days, when the current seems against them and the waves run high; their strength fails and they seem to sink in deep waters. Many a poor soul has suffered shipwreck in the very sight of the haven where it would fain be, for man and woman too are 'born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.'
Sometimes my pain was very great; but I would not succumb to it. I worked harder than ever to combat my restlessness. My worst time was in the evening, when I came home weary and dispirited. We seemed so near, and yet so strangely apart, and it was hard at such times to keep to my old faith in Mr. Hamilton and acquit him of unkindness.
'Why does he not tell me what he means? Do I deserve this silence?' I would say to myself. Then I remembered his promise that he would speak to me again about these things, and I resolved to be brave and patient.
I was longing to see Gladys, but she did not come for more than ten days. And, alas! I could not go up to Gladwyn to seek her. This was the first bitter fruit of our estrangement,--that it separated me from Gladys.
Lady Betty had gone away the very next day to pay a two months' visit to an old school-fellow in Cornwall: so Gladys would be utterly alone. Uncle Max was still in Norwich, detained by most vexatious lawyer's business: so that I had not even the solace of his companionship. If it had not been for Mr. Tudor, I should have been quite desolate. But I was always meeting him in the village, and his cheery greeting was a cordial to me. He always walked back with me, talking in his eager, boyish way. And I had sometimes quite a trouble to get rid of him. He would stand for a quarter of an hour at a time leaning over the gate and chatting with me. By a sort of tacit consent, he never offered to come in, neither did I invite him. We were both too much afraid of Miss Darrell's comments.
In all those ten days I only saw Mr. Hamilton once, for on Sunday his seat in church had been vacant.
I was dressing little Jessie's burns one morning, and talking to her cheerfully all the time, for she was a nervous little creature, when I heard his footstep outside. And the next instant he was standing beside us.
His curt 'Good-morning; how is the patient, nurse?' braced my faltering nerves in a moment, and enabled me to answer him without embarrassment. He had his grave professional air, and looked hard and impenetrable. I had reason afterwards to think that this sternness of manner was assumed for my benefit, for once, when I was preparing some lint for him, I looked up inadvertently and saw that he was watching me with an expression that was at once sad and wistful.
He turned away at once, when he saw I noticed him, and I left the room as quickly as I could, for I felt the tears rising to my eyes. I had to sit down a moment in the porch to recover myself. That look, so sad and yearning, had quite upset me. If I had not known before, past all doubt, that Mr. Hamilton loved me, I must have known it then.
We met more frequently after this. Janet Coombe was dangerously ill, and Mr. Hamilton saw her two or three times a day. And, of course, I was often there when he came.
He dropped his sternness of manner after a time, but he was never otherwise than grave with me. The long, unrestrained talks, the friendly looks, the keen interest shown in my daily pursuits, were now things of the past. A few professional inquiries, directions about the treatment, now and then a brief order to me, too peremptory to be a compliment, not to over-tire myself, or to go home to rest,--this was all our intercourse. And yet, in spite of his guarded looks and words, I was often triumphant, even happy.
Outwardly, and to all appearance, I was left alone, but I knew that it was far otherwise in reality. I was most strictly watched. Nothing escaped his scrutiny. At the first sign of fatigue he was ready to take my place, or find help for me. Mrs. Saunders, the mistress of the Man and Plough, told me more than once that the doctor had been most particular in telling her to look after me. Nor was this all.
Once or twice, when I had been singing in the summer twilight, I had risen suddenly to lower a blind or admit Tinker, and had seen a tall, dark figure moving away behind the laurel bushes, and knew that it was Mr. Hamilton returning from some late visit and lingering in the dusky road to listen to me.
After I had discovered this for the third time, I began to think he came on purpose to hear me. My heart beat happily at the thought. In spite of his displeasure with me, he could not keep away from the cottage.
After this I sang every evening regularly for an hour, and always in the gloaming: it became my one pleasure, for I knew I was singing to him. Now and then I was rewarded by a sight of his shadow. More than once I saw him clearly in the moonlight. When I closed my piano, I used to whisper 'Good-night, Giles,' and go to bed almost happy. It was a little hard to meet him the next morning in Janet's room and answer his dry matter-of-fact questions. Sometimes I had to turn away to hide a smile.
Gladys's first visit was very disappointing. But everything was disappointing in those days. She had her old harassed look, and seemed worried and miserable, and for once I had no heart to cheer her, only I held her close, very close, feeling that she was dearer to me than ever.
She looked in my face rather inquiringly as she disengaged herself, and then smiled faintly.
'I could not come before, Ursula; and you have never been to see me,' a little reproachfully, 'though I looked for you every afternoon. I have no Lady Betty, you know, and things have been worse than ever. I cannot think what has come to Etta. She is always spiteful and sneering when Giles is not by. And as for Giles, I do not know what is the matter with him.'
'How do you mean?' I faltered, hunting in my work basket for some silk that was lying close to my hand.
'That is more than I can say,' she returned pointedly. 'Have you and Giles had a quarrel, Ursula? I thought that evening that you were the best of friends, and that--' But here she hesitated, and her lovely eyes seemed to ask for my confidence; but I could not speak even to Gladys of such things, so I only answered, in a business-like tone,-- 'It is true that your brother does not seem as friendly with me just now; but I do not know how I have offended him. He has rather a peculiar temper, as you have often told me: most likely I have gone against some of his prejudices.' I felt I was answering Gladys in rather a reckless fashion, but I could not bear even the touch of her sympathy on such a wound. She looked much distressed at my reply.
'Oh no, you never offend Giles. He thinks far too much of you to let any difference of opinion come between you. I see you do not wish me to ask you, Ursula; but I must say one thing. If you want Giles to tell you why he is hurt or distant with you,--why his manner is different, I mean,--ask him plainly what Etta has been saying to him about you.'
I felt myself turning rather pale. 'Are you sure that Miss Darrell has been talking about me, Gladys?'
'I have not heard her do so,' was the somewhat disappointing reply, for I had hoped then that she had heard something. 'But I was quite as sure of the fact as though my ears convicted her. I have only circumstantial evidence again to offer you, but to my mind it is conclusive. You parted friends that evening with Giles. Correct me if I am wrong.'
'Oh no; you are quite right. Your brother and I had no word of disagreement.'
'No; he left the house radiant. When he returned, which was not for an hour,--for he and Etta were out all that time in the garden, and they sent Lady Betty in to finish her packing,--he was looking worried and miserable, and shut himself up in his study. Since then he has been in one of his taciturn, unsociable moods: nothing pleases him. He takes no notice of us. Even Etta is scolded, but she bears it good-humouredly and takes her revenge on me afterwards. A pleasant state of things, Ursula!'
'Very,' I returned, sighing, for I thought this piece of evidence conclusive enough.
'Now you will be good,' she went on, in a coaxing voice, 'and you will ask Giles, like a reasonable woman, what Etta has been saying to him?'
'Indeed, I shall do no such thing,' I answered. And my cheek began to flush. 'If your brother is ungenerous enough to condemn me unheard, I shall certainly not interfere with his notions of justice. Do not trouble yourself about it, Gladys. It will come right some day. And indeed it does not matter so much to me, except it keeps us apart.'
Now why, when I spoke so haughtily and disagreeably, and told this little fib, did Gladys suddenly take me in her arms and kiss me most sorrowfully and tenderly?
'One after another!' she sighed. 'Oh, it is hard, Ursula!' But I would not let her talk any more about it, for I was afraid I was breaking down and might make a goose of myself: so I spoke of Eric, and told her that I had written to Joe Muggins without success, and soon turned her thoughts into another channel.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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37
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'I CLAIM THAT PROMISE, URSULA'
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It was soon after this that Uncle Max came home.
I met Mr. Tudor in the village one morning, and he told me with great glee that they had just received a telegram telling them that he was on his way, and an hour after his arrival he came down to the cottage.
Directly I heard his 'Well, little woman, how has the world treated you in my absence?' I felt quite cheered, and told my little fib without effort: 'Very well indeed, thank you, Max.'
It is really a psychological puzzle to me why women who are otherwise strictly true and honourable in their dealings and abhor the very name of falsehood are much addicted to this sort of fibbing under certain circumstances; for instance, the number of white lies that I actually told at that time was something fabulous, yet the sin of hypocrisy did not lie very heavily on my soul.
When I assured Uncle Max with a smiling face that things were well with me, his only answer was to take my chin in his hand and turn my face quietly to the light.
'Are you quite sure you are speaking the truth? You look rather thin; and why are your eyes so serious, little she bear?'
'It is such hot weather,' I returned, wincing under his kindly scrutiny. 'And we--that is, I have had anxious work lately. I wrote to you about poor Janet Coombe. It is a miracle that she has pulled through this illness.'
'Yes, indeed: I met Hamilton just now on his way to her, and he declared her recovery was owing to your nursing; but we will take that with a grain of salt, Ursula: we both know how devoted Hamilton is to his patients.'
'He has saved her life,' was my reply, and for a moment my eyes grew dim at the remembrance of the untiring patience with which he had watched beside the poor girl. It was in the sick-room that I first learned to know him,--when metaphorically I sat at his feet, and he taught me lessons of patience and tenderness that I should never forget until my life's end.
When we had talked about this a little while, Max asked me rather abruptly when Captain Hamilton was expected. The question startled me, for I had almost forgotten his existence.
'I do not know,' I returned uneasily, for I was afraid Max would think I had been remiss. 'Lady Betty is away, and I have only seen Gladys twice since my return, and each time I forgot to ask her.'
'Only twice, and you have been at home more than three weeks,' observed Max, in a dissatisfied voice.
'I have been so engaged,' I replied quickly, 'and you know how seldom Gladys comes to the cottage. Max, do you know you have been here a quarter of an hour, and I have never congratulated you on your good fortune! I was so glad to hear Mrs. Trevor left you that money.'
'I did not need it,' he returned, rather gloomily. 'I had quite sufficient for my own wants. I do not think that I am particularly mercenary, Ursula: the books and antiquities were more to my taste.'
Max was certainly not in the best of spirits, but I did all I could to cheer him. I told him of Gladys's improved looks, and how much her change had benefited her, but he listened rather silently. I saw he was bent on learning Captain Hamilton's movements, and reproached myself that I had not questioned Gladys. I was determined that I would speak to her about her cousin the next time we met.
Max went away soon after this; he was rather tired with his journey, he said; but the next morning I received a note from him asking me to dine with him the following evening, as he had seen so little of me lately, and he wanted to hear all about the wedding.
Of course I was too glad to accept this invitation,--I always liked to go to the vicarage,--and this evening proved especially pleasant.
Max roused himself for my benefit, and Mr. Tudor seemed in excellent spirits, and we joked Uncle Max a great deal about his fortune, and after dinner we made a pilgrimage through the house, to see what new furniture was needed.
Max accompanied us, looking very bored, and entered a mild protest to most of our remarks. He certainly agreed to a new carpet for the study and a more comfortable chair, but he turned a perfectly deaf ear when Mr. Tudor proposed that the drawing-room should be refurnished.
'It is such a pretty room, Mr. Cunliffe,' he remonstrated; 'and it will be ready by the time you want to get married. Mother Drabble's arrangement of chairs and tables is simply hideous. I was quite ashamed when Mrs. Maberley and her daughter called the other day.'
'Nonsense, Lawrence!' returned Max, rather sharply. 'What do two bachelors want with a drawing-room at all? You and Ursula may talk as much as you like, but I do not mean to throw away good money on such nonsense. We will have a new book-case and writing-table, and fit up the little gray room as your study--and, well, perhaps I may buy a new carpet, but nothing more.' And we were obliged to be content with this.
Max brought out a couple of wicker chairs on the terrace presently, and proposed that we should have our coffee out of doors. Mr. Tudor grumbled a little, because he had a letter to write; but I was not sorry when he left me alone with Max. I really liked Mr. Tudor, but we were neither of us in the mood for his good-natured chatter.
'I think old Lawrence is very much improved,' observed Max, as we watched his retreating figure. 'His sermons have more ballast, and he is altogether grown. I begin to have hopes of him now.'
'He is older, of course,' I remarked oracularly, wondering what Max would say if he knew the truth. 'Well, Max, did you go up to Gladwyn last night?'
'Yes,' he returned, with a quick sigh, 'and Hamilton made me stay to dinner. I have found out about Captain Hamilton. He cannot get leave just yet, and they do not expect him until the end of November.'
'I am sorry to hear that. Do you not wish that you had taken my advice now, and gone down to Bournemouth?' But a most emphatic 'No' on Max's part was my answer to this.
'I am very thankful I did nothing of the kind,' he returned, a little irritably. 'You meant well, Ursula, but it would have been a mistake.'
'Hamilton told me about his cousin,' he went on; 'but his sister was in the room. She coloured very much and looked embarrassed directly Claude's name was mentioned.'
'That was because Miss Darrell was there.' But I should have been wiser and, held my tongue.
'You are wrong again,' he returned calmly. 'Miss Darrell was dining at the Maberleys', and never came in until I was going.'
'How very strange!' was my comment to this.
'Not stranger than Miss Hamilton's manner the whole evening, I never felt more puzzled. When I came in she was alone. Hamilton did not follow me for five minutes. She came across the room to meet me, with one of her old smiles, and I thought she really seemed glad to see me; but afterwards she was quite different. Her manner changed and grew listless. She did not try to entertain me; she left me to talk to her brother. I don't think she looks well, Ursula. Hamilton asked her once if her head ached, and if she felt tired, and she answered that her head was rather bad. I thought she looked extremely delicate.'
'Oh, Gladys is never a robust woman. She is almost always pale.'
'It is not that,' he returned decidedly. 'I consider she looked very ill. I don't believe the change has done her the least good. There is something on her mind: no doubt she is longing for her cousin.'
I thought it well to remain silent, though Max's account made me anxious. If only I could have spoken to him about Eric! Most likely Gladys was fretting because there was no news from Joe Muggins. She was certainly not fit for any fresh anxiety. I felt my banishment from Gladwyn acutely. If Gladys were ill or dispirited, she would need me more than any one.
I think both Max and I were sorry when Mr. Tudor came back and interrupted our conversation. He carried me off presently to show me some improvements in the kitchen-garden; but Max was too lazy to join us, and we had quite a confidential talk, walking up and down between the apple-trees. Mr. Tudor told me that, after all, he was becoming fond of his profession, and that the old women did not bore him quite so much. When we returned, Max was not on the lawn, but a few minutes afterwards he appeared at the study window.
'I was just speaking to Hamilton,' he said. 'He came while you were in the kitchen-garden, but he was in a hurry and could not wait. By the bye, he told me that I was not to let you sit out there any longer, as the dews are so heavy. So come in, my dear.'
I obeyed Max without a word. He had been here, and I had missed him! Everything was flat after that.
I took my leave early, feeling as though all my merriment had suddenly dried up. How would he have met me? I wondered. Would Max have noticed anything different? 'How long will this state of things go on?' I thought, as I bade Max good-bye in the porch.
I waited for some days for Gladys to come to me, and then I wrote to her just a few lines, begging her to have tea with me the following afternoon; but two or three hours afterwards Chatty brought me a note.
'Do not think me unkind, Ursula,' she wrote, 'if I say that it is better for us not to meet just now. I have twice been on my way to you, and Etta has prevented my coming each time. My life just now is unendurable. Giles notices nothing. I sometimes think Etta must be possessed, to treat me as she does: I can see no reason for it. I hope I am not getting ill, but I do not seem as though I could rouse myself to contend with her. I do not sleep well, and my head pains me. If I get worse, I must speak to Giles: I cannot be ill in this place.'
Gladys's letter made me very anxious. There was a tone about it that seemed as though her nerves were giving way. The heat was intense, and most likely anxiety about Eric was disturbing her night's rest. Want of sleep would be serious to Gladys's highly-strung organisation. I was determined to speak to Mr. Hamilton, or go myself to Gladwyn.
My fears were still further aroused when Sunday came and Gladys was not in her usual place. After service Miss Darrell was speaking to some friends in the porch. As I passed Mr. Hamilton I paused for a moment, to question him: 'Why was Gladys not at church? Why did she never come to see me now?'
'We might ask you that same question, I think,' he returned, rather pointedly. 'Gladys is not well: she spoke to me yesterday about herself, and I was obliged to give her a sleeping-draught. She was not awake when we left the house.'
'I will come and see her,' I replied quickly, for Miss Darrell was bearing down upon us, and I am sure she heard my last words; and as I walked home I determined to go up to Gladwyn that very evening while the family were at church.
I thought I had timed my visit well, and was much exasperated when Miss Darrell opened the door to me.
'I saw you coming,' she said, in her smooth voice, 'and so I thought I would save Leah the trouble. She is the only servant at home, and I sent her upstairs to see if Gladys wanted anything. I hope you do not expect to see Gladys to-night, Miss Garston?'
'I most certainly expect it,' was my reply. 'I have given up the evening service, hearing that she was ill.'
'It is too kind of you; but I am sorry that I could not allow it for a moment. Giles was telling me an hour ago that he could not think what ailed Gladys: he was afraid of some nervous illness for her unless she were kept quiet. I could not take the responsibility of disobeying Giles.'
'I will take the responsibility on myself,' I returned coolly. 'You forget that I am a nurse, Miss Darrell. I shall do Gladys no harm.'
'Excuse me if I must be the judge of that,' she returned, and her thin lips closed in an inflexible curve: 'in my cousin's absence I could not allow any one to go near Gladys. Leah is with her now trying to induce her to take her sleeping-draught.'
I looked at Miss Darrell, and wondered if I could defy her to her face, or whether I had better wait until I could speak to Mr. Hamilton. If Gladys were really taking her sleeping-draught, my presence in her room might excite her. If I could only know if she were telling me the truth!
My doubts were answered by Leah's entrance. Miss Darrell addressed her eagerly: 'Have you given Miss Gladys the draught, Leah?'
'Yes, ma'am, and she seems nicely inclined to sleep. She heard Miss Garston's voice, and sent me down with her love, and she is sorry not to be able to see her to-night.'
I thought it better to take my leave after this, hoping for better success next time. I watched anxiously for Mr. Hamilton the next day, but unfortunately I missed him. When I arrived at Janet's he had just left the house, and I did not meet him in the village. I was growing desperate at hearing no news of Gladys, and had determined to go up boldly to Gladwyn that very evening, when I saw Chatty coming in the direction of the cottage. She looked very nicely dressed, and her round face broke into dimples as she told me that Miss Darrell had sent her to the station, and that she meant to call in and have a chat with Mrs. Hathaway on her way, as she need not hurry back.
Jem Hathaway was pretty Chatty's sweetheart. I knew him well. He was a blacksmith, and lived with his mother in the little stone-coloured cottage that faced the green. He was an honest, steady young fellow, a great friend of Nathaniel, and Mrs. Barton often told me that she considered Chatty a lucky girl to have Jem for a sweetheart.
'And if you please, ma'am,' went on Chatty, looking round-eyed and serious, 'my mistress said that I was to give you this.' And she produced a slip of paper with a pencilled message. I knew Chatty always called Gladys her mistress: so I opened the paper eagerly: 'Why did you go away on Sunday evening without seeing me? I implored Leah to bring you up when I heard your voice talking to Etta, and when the door closed I turned quite sick with disappointment. Ursula, I must see you; they shall not keep you from me. Come up this evening at half-past seven, while they are at dinner. Chatty will let you in.'
'Very well: tell your mistress I will come,' I observed; and Chatty dropped a rustic courtesy, and said, 'Thank you, ma'am; that will do my mistress good,' and tripped on her way.
I went back into my parlour, feeling worried and excited. Gladys had sent for me, and I must go; but the idea of slipping into the house in this surreptitious way was singularly repugnant to me. I would rather have chosen a time when I knew Mr. Hamilton would be absent; but in that case I might find it impossible to obtain admittance to Gladys's room. No, I must put my own feelings aside, and follow her directions. But, in spite of this resolve, I found it impossible to settle to anything until the time came for keeping my appointment.
I arrived at Gladwyn just as the half-hour was chiming from the church clock. As I walked quickly through the shrubbery I glanced nervously up at the windows. Happily, the dining-room was at the back of the house, but Leah might be sewing in her mistress's room and see me. As this alarming thought occurred to my mind, I walked still more rapidly, but before I could raise my hand to the bell the door opened noiselessly, and Chatty's smiling face welcomed me.
'I was watching for you,' she whispered. 'Leah is in the housekeeper's room, and master and Miss Darrell are at dinner. You can go up to my mistress at once.'
I needed no further invitation. As I passed the dining-room door I could hear Miss Darrell's little tinkling laugh and Mr. Hamilton's deep voice answering her. The next moment Thornton came out of the room, and I had only time to whisk round the corner. I confess this narrow escape very much alarmed me, and my heart beat a little quickly as I tapped at Gladys's door; then, as I heard her weak 'Come in,' I entered.
The room was full of some pungent scent, hot and unrefreshing. Some one had moved the dressing-table, and Gladys lay on a couch in the circular window, within the curtained enclosure. I always thought it the prettiest window in the house. It looked full on the oak avenue, and on the elms, where the rooks had built their nests. There was a glimpse of the white road, too, and the blue smoke from the chimneys of Maplehurst was plainly visible.
The evening sunshine was streaming full on Gladys's pale face, and my first action after kissing her was to lower the blind. I was glad of the excuse for turning away a moment, for her appearance gave me quite a shock.
She looked as though she had been ill for weeks. Her face looked dark and sunken, and the blue lines were painfully visible round her temples. Her forehead was contracted, as though with severe pain, and her eyes were heavy and feverish. When she raised her languid eyelids and looked at me, a sudden fear contracted my heart.
'Ursula, thank God you have come!'
'We must always thank Him, dearest, whatever happens,' I returned, as I knelt down by her and took her burning hand in mine. 'And now you must tell me what is wrong with you, and why I find you like this.'
'I do not know,' she whispered, almost clinging to me. And it struck me then that she was frightened about herself. 'As I told Giles, I feel very ill. The heat tries me, and my head always aches,--such a dull, miserable pain; and, most of all, I cannot sleep, and all sorts of horrid thoughts come to me. Sometimes in the night, when I am quite alone, I feel as though I were light-headed and should lose my senses. Oh, Ursula, if this goes on, what will become of me?'
'We will talk about that presently. Tell me, have you ever been ill in this way before?'
'Yes, last summer, only not so bad. But I had the pain and the sleeplessness then. Giles was so good to me. He said I wanted change, and he took a little cottage at Westgate-on-Sea and sent me down with Lady Betty and Chatty, and I soon got all right.'
'So I thought. And now--' 'Oh, it is different this time,' she replied nervously. 'I did not have dreadful thoughts then, or feel frightened, as I do now. Ursula, I know I am very ill. If you leave me to Etta and Leah, I shall get worse. I have sent for you to-night to remind you of your promise.'
'What promise?' I faltered. But of course I knew what she meant. A sense of wretchedness had been slowly growing on me as she talked. If it should come to that,--that I must remain under his roof! I felt a tingling sense of shame and humiliation at the bare idea.
'Of your solemn promise, most solemnly uttered,' she repeated, 'that if I were ill you would come and nurse me. I claim that promise, Ursula.'
'Is it absolutely necessary that I should come?' I asked, in a distressed voice, for all at once life seemed too difficult to me. How had I deserved this fresh pain!
In a moment her manner grew more excited.
'Necessary! If you leave me to Etta's tender mercies I shall die. But no--no! you could not be so cruel. They are making me take those horrid draughts now, and I know she gives me too much. I get so confused, but it is not sleep. My one terror is that I shall say things I do not mean, about--well, never mind that. And then she will say that my brain is queer. She has hinted it already, when I was excited at your going away. There is nothing too cruel for her to say to me. She hates me, and I do not know why.'
'Hush! I cannot have you talk so much,' for her excitement alarmed me. 'Remember, I am your nurse now,--a very strict one, too, as you will find. Yes, I will keep my promise. I will not leave you, darling.'
'You promise that? You will not go away to-night?'
'I shall not leave you until you are well again,' I returned, with forced cheerfulness. But if she knew how keenly I felt my cruel position, how sick and trembling I was at heart! What would he think of me? No, I must not go into that. Gladys had asked this sacrifice of me. She had thrown herself on my compassion. I would not forsake her. 'God knows my integrity and innocence of intention. I will not be afraid to do my duty to this suffering human creature,' I said to myself. And with this my courage revived, and I felt that strength would be given me for all that I had to do.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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38
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IN THE TURRET-ROOM
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My promise to stay with Gladys soothed her at once, and she lay back on her pillows and closed her aching eyes contentedly, while I sat down and wrote a hasty note to Mrs. Barton.
When I had finished it, I said quietly that I was going downstairs in search of her brother; and when she looked a little frightened at this, I made her understand, in as few words as possible, that it was necessary for me to obtain his sanction, both as doctor and master of the house, and then we should have nothing to fear from Miss Darrell. And when I had said this she let me go more willingly.
My errand was not a pleasant one, and I felt very sorry for myself as I walked slowly downstairs hoping that I should find Mr. Hamilton alone in his study; but they must have lingered longer than usual over dessert, for before I reached the hall the dining-room door opened, and they came out together; and Miss Darrell paused for a moment under the hall lamp.
She was very much overdressed, as usual, in an _eau de Nile_ gown, trimmed with costly lace: her gold bangles jangled as she fanned herself.
'Come out into the garden, Giles,' she said, with a ladylike yawn; 'it is so hot indoors. I thought you said that you expected Mr. Cunliffe.'
'Perhaps he will be here by and by,' returned Mr. Hamilton; and then he looked up and saw me.
'Miss Garston!' he ejaculated, as though he could scarcely believe his eyes, and Miss Darrell broke into an angry little laugh; but I took no notice of her. I determined to speak out boldly what I had to say.
'Mr. Hamilton,' I said quickly, 'I have seen Gladys. I am quite shocked at her appearance: she certainly looks very ill. If you will allow me, I should like to remain and nurse her.'
'But you must allow no such thing, Giles,' interfered his cousin sharply. 'I have always nursed poor dear Gladys myself, and no one understands her as I do.'
'Gladys sent for me just now,' I went on firmly, without taking any notice of this speech, 'to beg me to remain with her. She has set her heart on my nursing her, and she reminded me of my promise.'
'What promise?' he asked, rather harshly; but I noticed that he looked disturbed and ill at ease.
'Some months ago, just before Gladys went to Bournemouth, she asked me to make her a promise, that if she were ever ill in this house I would give up my work and come and nurse her. She was perfectly well then,--at least, in her ordinary health,--and I saw no harm in giving her the promise. She claims from me now the fulfilment.'
'Very extraordinary,' observed Miss Darrell, in a sneering voice. 'But then dear Gladys was always a little odd and romantic. You remember I warned you some time ago, Giles, that if we were not careful and firm--' 'Pshaw!' was the impatient answer, and I continued pleadingly,-- 'Gladys seems to me in a weak, nervous state, and I do not think it would be wise to thwart her in this. Sick people must be humoured sometimes. I think you could trust me to watch over her most carefully.'
'Giles, I will not answer for the consequences if Miss Garston nurses Gladys,' interposed Miss Darrell eagerly. 'You have no idea how she excites her. They talk, and have mysteries together, and Gladys is always more low-spirited when she has seen Miss Garston. You know I have only dear Gladys's interest at heart, and in a serious nervous illness like this--' But he interrupted her.
'Etta, this is no affair of yours: you can leave me, if you please, to make arrangements for my sister. I am very much obliged to you, Miss Garston, for offering to nurse Gladys, but there was no need of all this explanation; you might have known, I think, that I was not likely to refuse.'
He spoke coldly, and his face looked dark and inflexible, but I could see he was watching me. I am sure I perplexed and baffled him that night: as I thanked him warmly for his consent, he checked me almost irritably: 'Nonsense! the thanks are on our side, as we shall reap the benefit of your services. What shall you do about your other patients, may I ask?'
'I will tell you,' I returned, not a bit daunted either by his irritability or sternness. In my heart I knew that he was glad that I had asked this favour of him. Oh, I understood him too well to be afraid of his moods now!
'I must ask you to help me,' I went on. 'Will you kindly send that note to Mrs. Barton. It is to beg her to furnish me with all I need.'
'Thornton shall take it at once,' he returned promptly.
'Thank you. Now about my poor people. Little Jessie still needs care, and Janet will be an invalid for some time. I do not wish them to miss me.'
His face softened; a half-smile came to his lips. 'There is only one village nurse,' he said dubiously.
'True, but I think I can find an excellent substitute. Do you remember my speaking to you of a young nurse at St. Thomas's who was obliged to leave from ill health? She is better now, only not fit for hospital work. I am thinking of writing to her, and asking her to occupy my rooms at the cottage for a week or two until Gladys is better. Change of air will do Miss Watson good, and it will not hurt her to look after Janet and little Jessie.'
Mr. Hamilton looked pleased at this suggestion,--'an excellent idea,' and, as though by an afterthought, 'a very kind one. I did not wish to add to your burdens, but Janet Coombe is hardly out of the wood yet.'
Miss Darrell tittered scornfully. As I glanced at her, I saw she was dragging her gold bangles over her arm until there was a red line on the flesh. Her eyes looked dark and glittering, but she was obliged to suppress her anger.
'Janet Coombe is only a poor servant. The work is not so attractive to Miss Garston, I should think,' she said, in a tone so suggestive that the blood rushed to my face. Women know how to stab sometimes. Happily, Mr. Hamilton's common sense came to my aid. I quieted down directly at the first sound of his voice.
'What makes you so uncharitable, Etta? We all know our village nurse too well to believe that insinuation. If Gladys be only nursed with half the tenderness that was shown to Janet, I shall be quite content to leave her under Miss Garston's care.' Then, turning to me, with something of his old cordial manner, 'Well, it is all settled, is it not, that you remain here to-night? Is there anything else you wish to say to me?'
'Only one thing,' I replied quietly. 'Will you kindly give orders that Gladys's little maid, Chatty, waits upon the sick-room? Leah seems to have taken that office upon herself lately, and Gladys has a great dislike to her.'
'Really, this passes everything!' exclaimed Miss Darrell angrily. 'What has my poor Leah done, to be set aside in this way?'
'She is your maid, is she not, Etta?'
'Yes; but, Giles--' 'And Chatty always waits on my sisters. It is certainly not Leah's business to wait on the turret-room.'
'Leah,' raising his voice a little, as Leah came downstairs with a tray of linen, 'I want to speak to you a moment. Miss Garston has undertaken to nurse my sister, and all her orders are to be carried out. Chatty is to attend to the sick-room for the future; there is no need for you to neglect your mistress.'
'Very well, sir,' replied the woman civilly; but he did not see the look she gave me. I had made an enemy of Leah from that moment: neither she nor her mistress would ever forgive me that slight.
'If Miss Garston has no more orders to give me,' observed Miss Darrell, with ill-concealed temper, 'I may as well go, for I am rather tired of this, Giles.' And she followed Leah, and we could hear them whispering in the little passage leading to the housekeeper's room.
'You must not mind Etta's little show of temper,' remarked Mr. Hamilton apologetically. 'She is rather put out because Gladys prefers your nursing. Between ourselves, she is a little too fussy to suit a nervous invalid; but she is kind-hearted and means well. I was rather sorry for her just now, but I know how to bring her round.'
'I am no favourite with Miss Darrell,' I returned, wondering secretly at his blind infatuation for his cousin.
'No; it is easy to see that you do not understand each other. Etta was not quite fair to you just now. That is why I spoke so decidedly. I will have no interference with the sick-room: you will have to account to me, but to no one else.'
I did not venture to raise my eyes. I was so afraid they might betray me. How could I repent my trust in such a man? I felt I could wait cheerfully for years, until he chose to break down the barrier between us.
I bade him good-night, after this, and hurried back to Gladys. I had no idea that he was following me. As I closed the door, I said, in quite a gay tone,-- 'Well, darling, I always told you your brother was your best friend, and he has proved the truth of my words. I knew we could trust him--' But a knock at the door interrupted me. I felt rather confused when he entered, for I knew I must have been overheard; but he took no notice, and went straight up to Gladys.
'You see, it is to be as you wished,' he said pleasantly, 'and Miss Garston has installed herself here as your nurse. Is your mind easier now, you foolish child?'
'Oh yes, Giles, and I am so much obliged to you; it is so good of you to allow it.'
'Humph! I don't see the goodness much; but never mind that now: you must promise me to do all Miss Garston tells you, and get well as soon as you can. Make up your mind, my dear, that you will try and overcome all these nervous fancies.'
'Yes, Giles,' very faintly.
'You have let yourself get rather too low, and so it will be hard work to pull you up again; but we mean to do it between us, eh, Miss Garston?'
I told him that I hoped Gladys would soon be better.
'Oh yes; but Rome was not built in a day,' patting her hand: 'we want a little time and patience, that is all.' And he was leaving the room, when her languid voice recalled him: 'I mean to be good, and give as little trouble as possible,--and--and--I should like you to kiss me, Giles.'
I saw a dusky flush come to his face as he stooped and kissed her. I knew it was the first time that she had ever voluntarily kissed him since Eric's loss.
'Good-night, my dear,' he said, very gently; but he did not look at me as he left the room.
I put Gladys to bed after this, with Chatty's help. She was very faint and exhausted, and I sat down in the moonlight to watch her. My thoughts were busy enough. There would be little sleep for me that night, I knew. It was so strange for me to be under that roof,--so strange and so sweet that I should be serving him and his; and then I thought of Uncle Max, and how troubled he would be to hear of Gladys's illness, and I determined to write to him the next day.
I was rather startled later on, when most of the household had retired to rest, to hear a gentle tap at the door.
Of course it was Mr. Hamilton, and I went into the passage, half closing the door behind me.
'Is she asleep?' he asked anxiously, as he noticed this action.
'No, not asleep, but quite drowsy. I have given her the draught as you wished, but it is singular how she objects to it. She says it only confuses her head, and gives her nightmare.'
'We must quiet her by some means,' he returned; and I saw by the light of the lamp he carried that his face looked rather grave. 'Perhaps you did not know that Etta and I were up with her last night. She was in a condition that bordered on delirium.'
'No; I certainly did not know that.'
'She may be better to-night,' he returned quickly: 'her mind is more at rest. Poor child! I cannot understand what has brought on this state of disordered nerves.'
'Nor I.' 'It is very sad altogether. It is a great relief to me to know you are with her. I must have had a professional nurse, for Etta's fussiness was driving her crazy. Now, Miss Garston,' in a business-like tone, 'I want to know how they have provided for your comfort. Where do you sleep to-night?'
I could not suppress a smile, for I knew that there had been no provision made for my accommodation: the whole household had metaphorically washed their hands of me.
'I shall rest very well on the couch,' I returned, unwilling to disturb him.
'Good heavens!' he exclaimed, looking excessively displeased. 'Do you mean that Lady Betty's room has not been got ready for you? I told Leah myself, as Chatty was in the sick-room; and she certainly understood me. This shall be looked into to-morrow. Leah will find I am not to be disobeyed with impunity. I thought Lady Betty's room would do so well for you, as there is a door of communication, and if you left it open you could hear Gladys in a moment.'
'Never mind to-night,' I returned cheerfully. 'I am quite fresh, and shall not need much sleep. No doubt the room will be ready for me to-morrow.'
'Well, I suppose it is too late to disturb them now; but I feel very much ashamed of our inhospitality.' Then, in rather an embarrassed voice, 'I am afraid I must have seemed rather ungracious in my manner downstairs, but I am really very grateful to you.'
This was too much for me. 'Please don't talk of being grateful to me, Mr. Hamilton,' I returned, rather too impulsively. 'You do not know how glad I am to do anything for you--all.' The word 'all' was added as though by an afterthought, and came in a little awkwardly.
There was a sudden gleam in Mr. Hamilton's eyes; he seemed about to speak; impetuous words were on his tongue, then he checked himself.
'Thank you. Good-night, Nurse Ursula,' he said, very kindly, and I went back to Gladys, feeling happier than I had felt since that afternoon when he had given me the roses.
Gladys was quieter that night; she slept fitfully and uneasily, and moaned a little as though she were conscious of pain, but there was no alarming excitement.
Early the next morning I heard them preparing Lady Betty's room, and once when I went into the passage in search of Chatty I met Leah coming out with a dusting-brush: she looked very sullen, and took no notice of my greeting. Chatty helped me arrange my goods and chattels: as we worked together she told me confidentially that master had been scolding Leah, and had told her she ought to be ashamed of herself, and when Miss Darrell had taken her part he had been angry with her too. 'Thornton says Miss Darrell has been crying, and has not eaten a mouthful of breakfast,' went on Chatty; but I silenced these imprudent communications. It was quite evident that I was a bone of contention in the household, and that Mr. Hamilton would have some difficulty in subduing Leah's contumacy.
I wrote to Ellen Watson that morning, and soon received a rapturous acceptance of my invitation. She would be delighted to come to the cottage and to look after my poor people.
'I am very much stronger,' she wrote, 'but I must not go back to the hospital for two months: a breath of country air will be delicious, and it is so good of you, my dear Miss Garston, to think of me. I am sure Mrs. Barton will make me comfortable, and I will do all I can for poor Janet Coombe and that dear little burnt child.'
I showed Mr. Hamilton the letter, and while he was reading it Chatty brought me word that Uncle Max was waiting to speak to me.
'If you like to go down to him I will wait here until you come back,' he said; and I was too glad to avail myself of this offer, for Gladys seemed more suffering and restless than usual. I found Max walking up and down the drawing-room. As he came forward to meet me his face looked quite old and haggard.
'I am glad you have not kept me waiting, Ursula. I sent up that message in spite of Leah's telling me that you never left the sick-room.'
'Leah is wrong,' I replied coolly. 'Mr. Hamilton insists on my going in the garden for at least half an hour daily, while Chatty takes my place. I cannot stay long, Max, but all the same I am glad you sent for me.'
'I felt I must see you,' he returned, rather huskily. 'Letters are so unsatisfactory; but it was good of you to write, always so kind and thoughtful, my dear.' He paused for a moment as though to recover himself. 'She is very ill, Ursula?'
'Very ill.'
'How gravely you speak! Are things worse than you told me? You do not mean to tell me there is absolute danger?'
'Oh no; certainly not; but it is very sad to see her in such a state. Her nerves have quite broken down; all these three years have told on her, and there seems some fresh trouble on her mind!'
'God forbid!' he returned quickly.
'Ay, God forbid, for He alone knows what is burdening the mind of this young creature: she is too weak to throw off her nervous fancies. She blames herself for harbouring such gloomy thoughts, and it distresses her not to be able to control them. The night is her worst time. If we could only conquer this sleeplessness! I have sad work with her sometimes.'
I spared Max further particulars: he was harassed and anxious enough. I would not harrow up his feelings by telling him how often that feeble, piteous voice roused me from my light slumbers; how, hurrying to her bedside, I would find Gladys bathed in tears, and cold and trembling in every limb, and how she would cling to me, pouring out an incoherent account of some vague shadowy terror that was on her.
There were other things I could have told him: how in that semi-delirium his name, as well as Etta's, was perpetually on her lips, uttered in a tone sometimes tender, but more often reproachful, sometimes in a very anguish of regret. Now I understood why she dreaded Etta's presence in her room: she feared betraying herself to those keen ears. Often after one of these outbursts she would strive to collect her scattered faculties.
'Have I been talking nonsense, Ursula?' she would ask, in a tremulous voice. 'I have been dreaming, I think, and the pain in my head confuses me so: do not let me talk so much.' But I always succeeded in soothing her.
If I read her secret, it was safe with me. I must know more before I could help either her or him. If she would only get well enough for me to talk to her, I knew what to say; and I did all I could to console Max. But I could not easily allay his anxiety or my own; it was impossible to conceal from him that she was in a precarious state, and that unless the power of sleep returned to her there was danger of actual brain-fever; in her morbid condition one knew not what to fear. Perfect quiet, patience, and tenderness were the only means to be employed. As I moved about the cool, dark room, where no uneasy lights and shadows fretted her weakened eyes, I could not help remembering the comfortless glare and the hot, pungent scents that Miss Darrell had left behind her. Most likely she had rustled over the matting in her silk gown, and her hard, metallic voice had rasped the invalid's nerves. Doubtless there was hope for her now in her brother's skilful treatment, and when I told Max so he went away a little comforted.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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39
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WHITEFOOT IS SADDLED
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After the first day or so the strangeness and novelty of my position wore off, and I settled down to my work in the sick-room.
Chatty waited upon us very nicely; but Miss Darrell never came near us. Once a day a formal message was brought by Chatty asking after the invalid. I used to think this somewhat unnecessary, as Mr. Hamilton could report his sister's progress at breakfast-time.
When I encountered Miss Darrell on my way to the garden I always accosted her with marked civility; her manner would be a little repelling in return, and she would answer me very coldly. In spite of her outward politeness, I think she was a little afraid of me at that time. I always felt that a concealed sneer lay under her words. She made it clearly understood that she considered that I had forced myself into the house for my own purposes. Under these conditions I thought it better to avoid these encounters as much as possible.
I saw Uncle Max two or three times. He had timed his visits purposely that he might join me in my stroll in the garden. We had made the arrangement to meet in this way daily. Max's society and sympathy would have been a refreshment to me, but we were obliged to discontinue the practice. Max never appeared without Miss Darrell following a few minutes afterwards. She would come out of the house, brisk and smiling, in _grande toilette_,--to take a turn in the shrubberies, as she said. Max would look at me and very soon take his leave. At last he told me dejectedly that we might as well give it up, as Miss Darrell was determined that he should not speak to me alone: so after that I contrived to send him daily notes by Chatty, who was always delighted to do an errand in the village.
'I can't think what makes Miss Darrell so curious, ma'am,' the girl once said to me. 'She asks me every day if I have been down to the vicarage. She did it while master was by the other afternoon, and he told her quite sharply that it was no affair of hers.'
'Never mind that, Chatty.'
'Oh, but I am afraid she means mischief, ma'am,' persisted Chatty, who had a great dislike to Miss Darrell, which she showed by being somewhat pert to her, 'for she said in such a queer tone to master, "There, I told you so: now you will believe me," and master looked as though he were not pleased.'
As I strolled round the garden in Nap's company I often saw Leah sitting sewing at her mistress's window: she would put down her work and watch me until I was out of sight. I felt the woman hated me, and this surveillance was very unpleasant to me. I never felt quite free until I reached the kitchen-garden.
Mr. Hamilton visited his sister's room regularly three times a day. He never stayed long: he would satisfy himself about her condition, say a few cheerful words to her, and that was all.
His manner to me was grave and professional. Now and then, when he had given his directions, he would ask me if there were anything he could do for me, and if I were comfortable: and yet, in spite of his reserve and guarded looks and words, I felt an atmosphere of protection and comfort surrounding me that I had not known since Charlie's death.
Every day I had proofs of his thought for me. The flowers and fruits that were sent into the sick-room were for me as well as Gladys. I was often touched to see how some taste of mine had been remembered and gratified: sometimes Chatty would tell me that master had given orders that such a thing should be provided for Miss Garston; and in many other ways he made me feel that I was not forgotten.
For some days Gladys continued very ill; she slept fitfully and uneasily, waking in terror from some dream that escaped her memory. I used to hear her moaning, and be beside her before she opened her eyes. 'It is only a nightmare,' I would say to her as she clung to me like a frightened child; but it was not always easy to banish the grisly phantoms of a diseased and overwrought imagination. The morbid condition of her mind was aggravated and increased by physical weakness; at the least exertion she had fainting-fits that alarmed us.
She told me more than once that a sense of sin oppressed her; she must be more wicked than other people, or she thought Providence would not permit her to be so unhappy. Sometimes she blamed herself with influencing Eric wrongly: she ought not to have taken his part against his brother. ' "He that hateth his brother is a murderer." Ursula, there were times, I am sure, when I hated Giles.' And with this thought upon her she would beg him to forgive her when he next came into the room.
He never seemed surprised at these exaggerated expressions of penitence: he treated it all as part of her malady.
'Very well, I will forgive you, my dear,' he would say, feeling her pulse. 'Have you taken your medicine, Gladys?'
'Oh, but, Giles, I do feel so wretched about it all! Are you sure that you really and truly forgive me?'
'Quite sure,' he returned, smiling at her. 'Now you must shut your eyes, like a good child, and go to sleep.' But, though she tried to obey him, I could see she was not satisfied: tears rolled down her cheeks from under her closed eyelids.
'What is it, my darling?' I asked, kissing her. 'Do you feel more ill than usual?'
'No, no; it is only this sense of sin. Oh, Ursula, how nice it would be to die, and never do anything wrong again!' And so she went on bemoaning herself.
I had thought it better to move her into Lady Betty's room. It was a large square room opening out of the turret-room, and very light and airy. I had a little bed put up for my use, so that I could hear her every movement. I told Mr. Hamilton that I could not feel easy to have her out of my sight; and he quite agreed with me.
In the daytime we carried her into the turret-room. The little recess formed by the circular window made a charming sitting-room, and just held Gladys's couch and an easy-chair and a little round table with a basket of hot-house flowers on it. Mr. Hamilton declared that we looked very cosy when he first found us there.
In the cool of the evening, when Gladys could bear the blind raised, it was very pleasant to sit there looking down on the little oak avenue, where the girls had set their tea-table that afternoon: we could watch the rooks cawing and circling about the elms. Sometimes Mr. Hamilton would pass with Nap at his heels and look up at us with a smile. Once a great bunch of roses all wet with dew came flying through the open window and fell on Gladys's muslin gown. 'Did Giles throw them? Will you thank him, Ursula?' she said, raising them in her thin fingers. 'How cool and delicious they are?' But when I looked out Mr. Hamilton was not to be seen.
Lady Betty wrote very piteous letters begging to be recalled, which Mr. Hamilton answered very kindly but firmly. He told her that Gladys required perfect quiet, that if she came home she would not be allowed to be with her; and when Lady Betty heard that I was nursing her she grew a little more content.
Gladys was always more restless and suffering towards evening; 'her bad thoughts,' as she called them, came out like bats in the darkness. I tried the experiment of singing to her one evening, and I found, to my delight, that my voice had a soothing influence: after this I always sang to her after she was in bed: I used to take up my station by the window and sing softly one song after another, until she was quiet and drowsy.
As I sang I always saw a dark shadow, moving slowly under the oak-trees, pacing slowly up and down; sometimes it approached the house and stood motionless under the window, but I never took any notice.
'Thank you, dear Ursula,' Gladys would say when I at last ceased; 'I feel more comfortable now.' And after a time I would hear her regular breathing and know she was asleep. I shall never forget the relief with which I watched her first natural sleep: she had had a restless night, as usual, but towards morning she had fallen into a quiet, refreshing sleep, which had lasted for three hours.
I had finished my breakfast when I heard her stirring, and hurried in to her; to my delight, she spoke to me quite naturally, without a trace of nervousness: 'I have had such a lovely sleep, Ursula, and without any bad dreams. I feel so refreshed.'
'I am so glad to hear it, dear,' I replied; and, overjoyed at this good news, I went out into the passage to find Chatty, for I wanted Mr. Hamilton to know at once of this improvement. He had been very anxious the previous night, and had talked of consulting with an old friend of his who knew Gladys's constitution.
On the threshold I encountered Miss Darrell.
'Were you looking for any one?' she asked coldly.
'Yes, for Chatty. I want Mr. Hamilton to know that Gladys has had three hours' sleep, and has awakened refreshed and without any nervous feelings. Will you be kind enough to tell him?'
'Oh, certainly: not that I attach much importance to such a transient improvement. Gladys's case is far too serious for me to be so sanguine. I believe you have not nursed these nervous patients before. If Giles had taken my advice he would have had a person trained to this special work.'
'Gladys's case does not require that sort of nurse,' I replied quickly. 'Excuse me, Miss Darrell, but I am anxious that Mr. Hamilton should know of his sister's improvement before he goes out. Chatty told me that they had sent for him from Abbey Farm.'
'Yes, I believe so,' she replied carelessly. 'Don't trouble yourself Miss Garston: I am quite as anxious as yourself that Giles's mind should be put at rest. He has had worry enough, poor fellow.'
I was rather surprised and disappointed when, ten minutes afterwards, I heard the hall door close, and, hurrying to a window, I saw Mr. Hamilton walking very quickly in the direction of Maplehurst. A moment afterwards Chatty brought me a message from him. He had been called off suddenly, and might not be back for hours. If I wanted him, Atkinson was to take one of the horses. He would probably be at Abbey Farm or at Gunter's Cottages in the Croft.
This message rather puzzled me. After turning it over in my mind, I went in search of Miss Darrell. I found her in the conservatory gathering some flowers.
'Did you give my message to Mr. Hamilton?' I asked, rather abruptly. I thought she hesitated and seemed a little confused.
'What message? Oh, I remember,--about Gladys. No, I just missed him: he had gone out. But it is of no consequence, is it? I will tell him when he comes home.'
I would not trust myself to reply. She must have purposely loitered on her way downstairs, hoping to annoy me. He would spend an anxious day, for I knew he was very uncomfortable about Gladys: perhaps he would write to Dr. Townsend. It was no use speaking to Miss Darrell: she was only too ready to thwart me on all occasions. I would take the matter into my own hands. I went down to the stables and found Atkinson, and asked him to ride over to Abbey Farm and take a note to his master.
'I hope Miss Gladys is not worse, ma'am,' he said civilly, looking rather alarmed at his errand; but when I had satisfied him on this point he promised to find him as quickly as possible.
'There is only Whitefoot in the stable,' he said. 'Master has both the browns out: Norris was to pick him up in the village. But he is quite fresh, and will do the job easily.' I wrote my note while Whitefoot was being saddled, and then went back to the house. Miss Darrell looked at me suspiciously.
'I thought I heard voices in the stable-yard,' she said; and I at once told her what I had done.
For the first time she seemed utterly confounded.
'You told Atkinson to saddle Whitefoot and go all these miles just to carry that ridiculous message! I wonder what Giles will say,' she observed indignantly. 'All these years that I have managed his house I should never have thought of taking such a liberty.'
This was hard to bear, but I answered her with seeming coolness: 'If Mr. Hamilton thinks I am wrong, he will tell me so. In this house I am only accountable to him.' And I walked away with much dignity.
But I knew I had been right when I saw Mr. Hamilton's face that evening, for he did not return until seven o'clock. He came up at once, and beckoned me into Lady Betty's room.
'Thank you for your thoughtfulness, Miss Garston,' he said gratefully. 'You have spared me a wretchedly anxious day. A bad accident case at Abbey Farm called me off, and I had only time to get my things ready, and I was obliged to see the colonel first. If you had not sent me that note I should have written to Dr. Townsend. But why did not Chatty bring me a message before I went?'
I explained that I had given the message to Miss Darrell.
'That is very strange,' he observed thoughtfully. 'Thornton was helping me in the hall when I saw Etta watering her flower-stand. Well, never mind; she shall have her lecture presently. Now let us go to Gladys.'
Of course his first look at her told him she was better, and he went downstairs contentedly to eat his dinner. After this Gladys made slow but steady progress: she gained a little more strength; the habit of sleep returned to her; her nights were no longer seasons of terror, leaving her dejected and exhausted. Insensibly her thoughts became more hopeful; she spoke of other things besides her own feelings, and no longer refused to yield to my efforts to cheer her.
I watched my opportunity, and one evening, as we were sitting by the window looking out at a crescent moon that hung like a silver bow behind the oak-trees, I remarked, with assumed carelessness, that Uncle Max had called earlier that day. There was a perceptible start on Gladys's part, and she caught her breath for an instant.
'Do you mean that Mr. Cunliffe often comes?' she asked, in a low voice, and turning her long neck aside with a quick movement that concealed her face.
'Oh yes, every day. I do not believe that he has missed more than once, and then he sent Mr. Tudor. You see your friends have been anxious about you, Gladys. I wrote to Max often to tell him exactly what progress you were making.'
'It was very kind of him to be so anxious,' she answered slowly, and with manifest effort. I thought it best to say no more just then, but to leave her to digest these few words. That night was the best she had yet passed, and in the morning I was struck by the improvement in her appearance; she looked calmer and more cheerful.
Towards mid-day I noticed that she grew a little abstracted, and when Uncle Max's bell rang, she looked at me, and a tinge of colour came to her face.
'Should you not like to go down and speak to Mr. Cunliffe?' she said timidly. 'I must not keep you such a prisoner, Ursula.' But when I returned indifferently that another day would do as well, and that I had nothing special to say to him, I noticed that she looked disappointed. As I never mentioned Miss Darrell's name to her, I could not explain my real reason for declining to go down. I was rather surprised when she continued in an embarrassed tone, as though speech had grown difficult to her,--she often hesitated in this fashion when anything disturbed her,-- 'I am rather sorry that Etta always sees him alone: one never knows what she may say to him. I have begun to distrust her in most things.'
'I do not think that it matters much what she says to him,' I returned briskly; for it would never do to leave her anxious on this point. 'You know I have provided an antidote in the shape of daily notes.'
'Surely you do not write every day,' taking her fan from the table with a trembling hand. 'What can you have to say to Mr. Cunliffe about me?' And I could see she waited for my answer with suppressed eagerness.
'Oh, he likes to know how you slept,' I returned carelessly, 'and if you are quieter and more cheerful. Uncle Max has such sympathy with people who are ill; he is very kind-hearted.'
'Oh yes; I never knew any one more so,' she replied gently; but I detected a yearning tone in her voice, as though she was longing for his sympathy then. We did not say any more, but I thought she was a trifle restless that afternoon, and yet she looked happier; she spoke once or twice, as though she were tired of remaining upstairs.
'I think I am stronger. Does Giles consider it necessary for me to stop up here?' she asked, once. 'If it were not for Etta I should like to be in the drawing-room. But no, that would be an end to our peace.' And here she looked a little excited. 'But if Giles would let me have a drive.'
I promised to speak to him on the subject of the drive, for I was sure that he would hail the proposition most gladly as a sign of returning health; but I told her that in my opinion it would be better for her to remain quietly in these two pleasant rooms until she was stronger and more fit to endure the little daily annoyances that are so trying to a nervous invalid.
'When that time comes you will have to part with your nurse,' I went on, in a joking tone. But I was grieved to see that at the first hint of my leaving her she clung to me with the old alarm visible in her manner.
'You must not say that! I cannot part with you, Ursula!' she exclaimed vehemently. 'If you go, you must take me with you.' And it was some time before she would let herself be laughed out of her anxious thoughts.
When I revolved all these things in my mind,--her prolonged delicacy and painful sensitiveness, her aversion to her cousin, and her evident dread of the future,--I felt that the time had come to seek a more complete understanding on a point that still perplexed me: I must come to the bottom of this singular change in her manner to Max. I must know without doubt and reserve the real state of her feeling with regard to him and her cousin Claude. If, as I had grown to think during these weeks of illness, one of these two men, and not Eric, was the chief cause of her melancholy, I must know which of these two had so agitated her young life. But in my own mind I never doubted which it was.
This was the difficult task I had set myself, and I felt that it would not be easy to approach the subject. Gladys was exceedingly reserved, even with me; it had cost her an effort to speak to me of Eric, and she had never once mentioned her cousin Captain Hamilton's name.
A woman like Gladys would be extremely reticent on the subject of lovers: the deeper her feelings, the more she would conceal them. Unlike other girls, I never heard her speak in the light jesting way with which others mention a love-affair. She once told me that she considered it far too sacred and serious to be used as a topic of general conversation. 'People do not know what they are talking about when they say such things,' she said, in a moved voice: 'there is no reverence, and little reticence, nowadays. Girls talk of falling in love, or men felling in love with them, as lightly as they would speak of going to a ball. They do not consider the responsibility, the awfulness, of such an election, being chosen out of a whole worldful of women to be the light and life of a man's home. Oh, it hurts me to hear some girls talk!' she finished, with a slight shudder.
Knowing the purity and uprightness of this girl's nature, I confess I hesitated long in intruding myself into that inner sanctuary that she guarded so carefully; but for Max's sake--poor Max, who grew more tired-looking and haggard every day--I felt it would be cruel to hesitate longer.
So one evening, when we were sitting quietly together enjoying the cool evening air, I took Gladys's thin hand in mine and asked her if she felt well enough for me to talk to her about something that had long troubled me, and that I feared speaking to her about, dreading lest I should displease her. I thought she looked a little apprehensive at my seriousness, but she replied very sweetly, and the tears came into her beautiful eyes as she spoke, that nothing I could say or do could displease her; that I was so true a friend to her that it would be impossible for her to take offence.
'I am glad of that, Gladys dear,' I returned quietly; 'for I have long wanted courage to ask you a question. What is the real reason of your estrangement from Max?' and then, growing bolder, I whispered in her ear, as she shrank from me, 'I do not ask what are your feelings to him, for I think I have guessed them,--unless, indeed, I am wrong, and you prefer your cousin Captain Hamilton.' I almost feared that I had been too abrupt and awkward when I saw her sudden paleness: she began to tremble like a leaf until I mentioned Captain Hamilton's name, and then she turned to me with a look of mingled astonishment and indignation.
'Claude? Are you out of your senses, Ursula? Who has put such an idea into your head?'
I remembered Uncle Max's injunctions to secrecy, and felt I must be careful.
'I thought that it could not be Captain Hamilton,' I returned, rather lamely: 'you have never mentioned his name to me.' But she interrupted me in a tone of poignant distress, and there was a sudden trouble in her eyes, brought there by my mention of Claude.
'Oh, this is dreadful!' she exclaimed: 'you come to me and talk about Claude, knowing all the time that I have never breathed his name to you. Who has spoken it, then? How could such a thought arise in your mind? It must be Etta, and we are undone,--undone!'
'My darling, you must not excite yourself about a mere mistake,' I returned, anxious to soothe her. 'I cannot tell you how it came into my head; that is my little secret, Gladys, my dear: if you agitate yourself at a word we shall never understand each other. I want you to trust me as you would trust a dear sister,--we are sisters in heart, Gladys,'--but here I blushed over my words and wished them unuttered,--'and to tell me exactly what has passed between you and Max.'
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{
"id": "16080"
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40
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THE TALK IN THE GLOAMING
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I heard Gladys repeat my words softly under her breath,--she seemed to say them in a sort of dream,--'what has passed between you and Max.' And then she looked at me a little pitifully, and her lip quivered. 'Oh, if I dared to speak! but to you of all persons,--what would you think of me? Could it be right? --and I have never opened my lips to any one on that subject of my own accord; if Lady Betty knows, it is because Etta told her. Oh, it was wrong--cruel of Giles to let her worm the truth out of him!'
'If Lady Betty and Miss Darrell know, you might surely trust me,--your friend,' I returned. 'Gladys, you know how I honour reticence in such matters; I am the last person to force an unwilling confidence; but there are reasons--no, I cannot explain myself; you must trust me implicitly or not at all. I do not think you will ever repent that trust; and for your own sake as well as mine I implore you to confide in me.' For a moment she looked at me with wide, troubled eyes, then she ceased to hesitate.
'What is it you want to know?' she asked, in a low voice.
'Everything, all that has passed between you and my poor Max, who always seems so terribly unhappy. Is it not you who have to answer for that unhappiness?'
A pained expression crossed her face.
'It is true that I made him unhappy once, but that is long ago; and men are not like us: they get over things. Oh, I must explain it to you, or you will not understand. Do not be hard upon me: I have been sorely punished,' she sighed; and for a few moments there was silence between us. I had no wish to hurry her. I knew her well: she was long in giving her confidence, but when once she gave it, it would be lavishly, generously, and without stint, just as she would give her love, for Gladys was one of those rare creatures who could do nothing meanly or by halves.
Presently she began to speak of her own accord: 'You know how good Mr. Cunliffe was to me in my trouble; at least you can guess, though you can never really know it. When I was most forlorn and miserable I used to feel less wretched and hopeless when he was beside me; in every possible way he strengthened and braced me for my daily life; he roused me from my state of selfish despondency, put work into my hands, and encouraged me to persevere. If it had not been for his help and sympathy, I never could have lived through those bitter days when all around me believed that my darling Eric had died a coward's death.'
'Do not speak of Eric to-night, dearest,' I observed, alarmed at her excessive paleness as she uttered his name.
'No,' with a faint smile at my anxious tone; 'we are talking about some one else this evening. Ursula, you may imagine how grateful I was,--how I grew to look upon him as my best friend, how I learned to confide in him as though he were a wise elder brother.'
'A brother! --oh, Gladys!'
'It was the truth,' she went on mournfully: 'no other thought entered my mind, and you may conceive the shock when one morning he came to me, pale and agitated, and asked me if I could love him well enough to marry him.
'How I recall that morning! It was May, and I had just come in from the garden, laden with pink and white May blossoms, and long trails of laburnum, and there he was waiting for me in the drawing-room. Every one was out, and he was alone.
'I fancied he looked different,--rather nervous and excited,--but I never guessed the reason until he began to speak, and then I thought I should have broken my heart to hear him,--that I must give him pain who had been so good to me. Oh, Ursula! I had never had such cruel work to do as that.
'But I must be true to him as well as myself: this was my one thought. I did not love him well enough to be his wife; he had not touched my heart in that way; and, as I believed at that time that I could never care sufficiently for any man to wish to marry him, I felt that I dared not let him deceive himself with any future hopes.'
'You were quite right, my darling. Do not look so miserable. Max would only honour you the more for your truthfulness.'
'Yes, but he knew me better than I knew myself,' she whispered. 'When he begged to speak to me again I wanted to refuse, but he would not let me. He asked me--and there were tears in his eyes--not to be so hard on him, to let him judge for us both in this one thing. He pressed me so, and he looked so unhappy, that I gave way at last, and said that in a year's time he might speak again. I remember telling him, as he thanked me very gratefully, that I should not consider him bound in any way; that I had so little hope to give him that I had no right to hold him to anything; if he did not come to me when a year had expired, I should know that he had changed. There was a gleam in his eyes as I said this that made me feel for the first time the strength and purpose of a man's will. I grew timid and embarrassed all at once, and a strange feeling came over me. Was I, after all, so certain that I should never love him? I could only breathe freely when he left me.'
'Yes, dear, I understand,' I returned soothingly, for she had covered her face with her hands, as though overpowered with some recollection.
'Ursula,' she whispered, 'he was right. I had never thought of such things. I did not know my own feelings. Before three months were over, I knew I could give him the answer he wanted. I regretted the year's delay; but for shame, I would have made him understand how it was with me.'
'Could you not have given a sign that your feelings were altered, Gladys? it would have been generous and kind of you to have ended his suspense.'
'I tried, but it was not easy; but he must have noticed the change in me. If I were shy and embarrassed with him it was because I cared for him so much. It used to make me happy only to see him; if he did not speak to me, I was quite content to know he was in the room. I used to treasure up his looks and words and hoard them in my memory; it did not seem to me that any other man could compare with him. You have often laughed at my hero-worship, but I made a hero of him.'
I was so glad to hear her say this of my dear Max that tears of joy came to my eyes, but I would not interrupt her by a word: she should tell her story in her own way.
'Etta had spoken to me long before this. One day when we were sitting over our work together, and I was thinking happily about Max--Mr. Cunliffe, I mean.'
'Oh, call him Max to me,' I burst out, but she drew herself up with gentle dignity.
'It was a mistake: you should not have noticed it. I could never call him that now.' Poor dear! she had no idea how often she had called him Max in her feverish wanderings. 'Well, we were sitting together,--for Etta was nice to me just then, and I did not avoid her company as I do now,--when she startled me by bursting into tears and reproaching me for not having told her about Mr. Cunliffe's offer, and leaving her to hear it from Giles; and then she said how disappointed they all were at my refusal, and was I really sure that I could not marry him?
'I was not so much on my guard then as I am now, and, though I blamed Etta for much of the home unhappiness, I did not know all that I have learned since. You have no idea, either, how fascinating and persuasive she can be: her influence over Giles proves that. Well, little by little she drew from me that I was not so indifferent to Mr. Cunliffe as she supposed, and that in a few months' time he would speak to me again.
'She seemed very kind about it, and said over and over again how glad she was to hear this; and when I begged her not to hint at my changed feelings to Giles, she agreed at once, and I will do her the justice to own that she has kept her word in this. Giles has not an idea of the truth.'
'Nevertheless, I wish you had kept your own counsel, Gladys.'
'You could not wish it more than I do; but indeed I said very little. I think my manner told her more than my words, for I cannot remember really saying anything tangible. I knew she plied me with questions, and when I did not answer them she laughed and said that she knew.
'I have paid dearly for my want of caution, for I have been in bondage ever since. My tacit admission that I cared for Mr. Cunliffe has given Etta a cruel hold over me; my thoughts do not seem my own. She knows how to wound me: one word from her makes me shrink into myself. Sometimes I think she takes a pleasure in my secret misery,--that she was only acting a part when she pretended to sympathise with me. Oh, what a weak fool I have been, Ursula, to put myself in the power of such a woman!'
'Poor Gladys!' I said, kissing her; and she dashed away her indignant tear, and hurried on.
'Oh, let me finish all the miserable story. There is not much to say, but that little is humiliating. It was soon after this that I noticed a change in Mr. Cunliffe's manner. Scarcely perceptible at first, it became daily more marked. He came less often, and when he came he scarcely spoke to me. It was then that Etta began to torment me, and, under the garb of kindness, to say things that I could not bear. She asked me if Mr. Cunliffe were not a little distant in his manners to me. She did not wish to distress me, but there certainly was a change in him. No, I must not trouble myself, but people were talking. When a vicar was young and unmarried, and as fascinating as Mr. Cunliffe, people would talk.
'What did they say? Ah, that was no matter, surely. Well, if I would press her, two or three busybodies had hinted that a certain young lady, who should be nameless, was rather too eager in her pursuit of the vicar. ' "Such nonsense, Gladys, my dear," she went on, as I remained dumb and sick at heart at such an imputation. "Of course I told them it was only your enthusiasm for good works. 'She meets him in her district and at the mothers' meeting; and what can be the harm of that?' I said to them. 'And of course she cannot refuse to sing at the penny readings and people's entertainments when she knows that she gives such pleasure to the poor people, and it is rather hard that she should be accused of wanting to display her fine voice.' Oh, you may be sure that I took your part. Of course it is a pity folks should believe such things, but I hope I made them properly ashamed of themselves."
'You may imagine how uneasy these innuendoes made me. You know my sensitiveness, and how prone I am to exaggerate things. It seemed to me that more lay behind the margin of her words; and I was not wrong.
'In a little while there were other things hinted to me, but very gently. Ah, she was kind enough to me in those days. Did I not think that I was a little too imprudent and unreserved in my manner to Mr. Cunliffe? She hated to make me uncomfortable, and of course I was so innocent that I meant no harm; but men were peculiar, especially a man like Mr. Cunliffe: she was afraid he might notice my want of self-control. ' "You do not see yourself, Gladys," she said, once; "a child would find out that you are over head and ears in love with him. Perhaps it would not matter so much under other circumstances, but I confess I am a little uneasy. His manner was very cold and strange last night: he seemed afraid to trust himself alone with you. Do be careful, my dear. Suppose, after all, his feelings are changed, and that he fears to tell you so?"
'Ursula, can you not understand the slow torture of these days and weeks, the first insidious doubts, the increasing fears, that seemed to be corroborated day by day? Yes, it was not my fancy; Etta was right; he was certainly changed; he no longer loved me.
'In desperation I acted upon her advice, and resigned my parish work. It seemed to me that I was parting with the last shred of my happiness when I did so. I made weak health my excuse, and indeed I was far from well; but I had the anguish of seeing the unspoken reproach in Mr. Cunliffe's eyes: he thought me cowardly, vacillating; he was disappointed in me.
'It was the end of April by this time, and in a week or two the day would come when he would have to speak to me again. Would you believe it? --but no, you could not dream that I was so utterly mad and foolish,--but in spite of all this wretchedness I still hoped. The day came and passed, and he never came near me, and the next day, and the next; and then I knew that Etta was right,--his love for me was gone.'
'You believed this, Gladys?' but I dared not say more: my promise to Max fettered me.
'How could I doubt it?' she returned, looking at me with dry, miserable eyes; and I seemed to realise then all her pain and humiliation. 'His not coming to me at the appointed time was to be a sign between us that he had changed his mind. Did I not tell him so with my own lips? did I not say to him that he was free as air, and that no possible blame could attach itself to him if he failed to come? Do you suppose that I did not mean those words?'
'Could you not have given him the benefit of a doubt?' I returned. 'Perhaps your manner too was changed and made him lose hope: the resignation of all your work in the parish must have discouraged him, surely.'
'Still, he would have come to me and told me so,' she replied quickly. 'He is not weak or wanting in moral courage: if he had not changed to me he would have come.
'I have never had hope since that day,' she went on mournfully. 'He is very kind to me,--very; but it is only the kindness of a friend. He tries to hide from me how much he is disappointed in me, how I have failed to come up to his standard; but of course I see it. But for Etta I should have resumed my work. You were present when he nearly persuaded me to do so; I was longing then to please him; I think it would be a consolation to me if I could do something, however humble, to help him; but Etta always prevents me from doing so. She has taken all my work, and I do not think she wants to give it up, and she makes me ready to sink through the floor with the things she says. I dare not open my lips to Mr. Cunliffe in her presence; she always says afterwards how anxious I looked, or how he must have noticed my agitation: if I ever came down to see you, Ursula, she used to declare angrily that I only went in the hope of meeting him. She thinks nothing of telling me that I am so weak that she must protect me in spite of myself, and sometimes she implies that he sees it all and pities me, and that he has hinted as much to her. Oh, Ursula, what is the matter?' for I had pushed away my chair and was walking up and down the room, unable to endure my irritated feelings. She had suffered all this ignominy and prolonged torture under which her nerves had given way, and now Max's ridiculous scruples hindered me from giving her a word of comfort. Why could I not say to her, 'You are wrong: you have been deceived; Max has never swerved for one instant from his love to you?' And yet I must not say it.
'I cannot sit down! I cannot bear it!' I exclaimed recklessly, quite forgetting how necessary it was to keep her quiet; but she put out her hand to me with such a beautiful sad smile.
'Yes, you must sit down and listen to what I have to say: I will not have you so disturbed about this miserable affair, dear. The pain is better now; one cannot suffer in that way forever. I do not regret that I have learned to love Max, even though that love is to bring me unhappiness in this world. He is worthy of all I can give him, and one day in the better life what is wrong will be put right; I always tell myself this when I hear people's lives are disappointed: my illness has taught me this.'
I did not trust myself to reply, and then all at once a thought came to me: 'Gladys, when I mentioned Captain Hamilton's name just now--I mean at the commencement of our conversation--why did you seem so troubled? He is nothing to you, and yet the very mention of his name excited you. This perplexes me.'
She hesitated for a moment, as though she feared to answer: 'I know I can trust you, Ursula; but will it be right to do so? I mean, for other people's sake. But, still, if Etta be talking about him--' She paused, and seemed absorbed in some puzzling problem.
'You write to him very often,' I hazarded at last, for she did not seem willing to speak.
'Who told you that?' she returned quickly. 'Claude is my cousin,--at least step-cousin,--but we are very intimate; there can be no harm in writing to him.'
'No, of course not: but if people misconstrue your correspondence?'
'I cannot help that,' rather despondently; 'and I do not see that it matters now; but still I will tell you, Ursula. Claude is in love with Lady Betty.'
'With Lady Betty?'
'Yes, and Giles does not know. Etta did not for a long time, but she found out about it, and since then poor Lady Betty has had no peace. You see the poor children consider themselves engaged, but Lady Betty will not let Claude speak to Giles until he has promotion. She has got an idea that he would not allow of the engagement; it sounds wrong, I feel that; but in our unhappy household things are wrong.'
'And Miss Darrell knows?'
'Yes; but we never could tell how she found it out: Claude corresponds with me, and Lady Betty only puts in an occasional letter; she is so dreadfully frightened, poor little thing! For fear her secret should be discovered. We think that Etta must have opened one of my letters; anyhow, she knows all there is to know, and she holds her knowledge as a rod over the poor child. She has promised to keep her counsel and not tell Giles; but when she is in one of her tempers she threatens to speak to him. Then she is always hinting things before him just to tease or punish Lady Betty, but happily he takes no notice. When you said what you did I was afraid she had made up her mind to keep silence no longer.'
'Why do you think your brother would object to Captain Hamilton?' I asked, trying to conceal my relief at her words.
'He would object to the long concealment,' she returned gravely. 'But from the first I wanted Lady Betty to be open about it; but nothing would induce her to let Claude write to him. Our only plan now is to wait for Claude to speak to him when he arrives in November. Nothing need be said about the past: Claude has been wounded, and will get promotion, and Giles thinks well of him.'
She seemed a little weary by this time, and our talk had lasted long enough; but there was still one thing I must ask her.
'Gladys, you said you trusted me just now. I am going to put that trust to the proof. All that has passed between us is sacred, and shall never cross my lips. On my womanly honour I can promise you that; but I make one reservation,--what you have just told me about Captain Hamilton.'
She looked at me with an expression of incredulous alarm.
'What can you mean, Ursula? Surely not to repeat a single word about Claude?'
'I only mean to mention to one person, with whom the knowledge will be as safe as it will be with me, that Lady Betty is engaged to your cousin Claude.'
'You will tell Mr. Cunliffe,' she replied, becoming very pale again. 'I forbid it, Ursula!' But I hindered all further remonstrance on her part, by throwing my arms round her and begging her with tears in my eyes, and with all the earnestness of which I was capable, to trust me as I would trust her in such a case.
'Listen to me,' I continued imploringly. 'Have I ever failed or disappointed you? have I ever been untrue to you in word or deed? Do you think I am a woman who would betray the sacred confidence of another woman?'
'No, of course not; but--' Here my hand resolutely closed her lips.
'Then say to me, "I trust you, Ursula, as I would trust my own soul. I know no word would pass your lips that if I were standing by you I should wish unuttered." Say this to me, Gladys, and I shall know you love me.'
She trembled, and turned still paler.
'Why need he know it? What can he have to do with Lady Betty?' she said irresolutely.
'Leave that to me,' was my firm answer: 'I am waiting for you to say those words, Gladys.' Then she put down her head on my shoulder, weeping bitterly.
'Yes, yes, I will trust you. In the whole world I have only you, Ursula, and you have been good to me.' And, as I soothed and comforted her, she clung to me like a tired child.
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{
"id": "16080"
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41
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'AT FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING'
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I passed a wakeful and anxious night, pondering over this strange recital that seemed to me to corroborate Max's account. I had no doubt in my own mind as to the treachery that had alienated these two hearts. I knew too well the subtle power of the smooth false tongue that had done this mischief; but the motive for all this evil-doing baffled me. 'What is her reason for trying to separate them?' I asked myself, but always fruitlessly. 'Why does she dislike this poor girl, who has never harmed her? Why does she render her life miserable? It is she who has sown discord between Mr. Hamilton and myself. Ah, I know that well, but I am powerless to free either him or myself at present. Still, one can detect a motive for that. She has always disliked me, and she is jealous of her position. If Mr. Hamilton married she could not remain in his house; no wife could brook such interference. She knows this, and it is her interest to prevent him from marrying. All this is clear enough; but in the case of poor Gladys?' But here again was the old tangle and perplexity.
I was not surprised that Gladys slept little that night: no doubt agitating thoughts kept her restless. Towards morning she grew quieter, and sank into a heavy sleep that I knew would last for two or three hours. I had counted on this, and had laid my plan accordingly.
I must see Uncle Max at once, and she must not know that I had seen him. In her weak state any suspense must be avoided. The few words that I might permit myself to say to him must be spoken without her knowledge.
I knew that in the summer Max was a very early riser. He would often be at work in his garden by six, and now and then he would start for a long country walk,--'just to see Dame Earth put the finishing-touches to her toilet,' he would say. But five had not struck when I slipped into Chatty's room half dressed. The girl looked at me with round sleepy eyes as I called her in a low voice.
'Chatty, it is very early, not quite five, but I want you to get up and dress yourself as quietly as you can and come into the turret-room. I am going out, and I do not want to wake anybody, and you understand the fastenings of the front door. I am afraid I should only bungle at them.'
'You are going out, ma'am!' in an astonished voice. Chatty was thoroughly awake now.
'Yes, I am sorry to disturb you, but I do not want Miss Gladys to miss me. I shall not be long, but it is some business that I must do.' And then I crept back to the turret-room.
Leah slept in a little room at the end of the passage, and I was very unwilling that any unusual sound should reach her ears. Chatty seemed to share this feeling, for when she joined me presently she was carrying her shoes in her hands. 'I can't help making a noise,' she said apologetically; 'and so I crept down the passage in my stockings. If you are ready, ma'am, I will come and let you out.'
I stood by, rather nervously, as Chatty manipulated the intricate fastenings. I asked her to replace them as soon as I had gone, and to come down in about half an hour and open the door leading to the garden. 'I will return that way, and they will only think I have taken an early stroll,' I observed. I was rather sorry to resort to this small subterfuge before Chatty, but the girl had implicit trust in me, and evidently thought no harm; she only smiled and nodded; and as I lingered for a moment on the gravel path I heard the bolt shoot into its place.
It was only half-past five, and I walked on leisurely. I had not been farther than the garden for three weeks, and the sudden sense of freedom and space was exhilarating.
It was a lovely morning. A dewy freshness seemed on everything; the birds were singing deliciously; the red curtains were drawn across the windows of the Man and Plough; a few white geese waddled slowly across the green; some brown speckled hens were feeding under the horse-trough; a goat browsing by the roadside looked up, quite startled, as I passed him, and butted slowly at me in a reflective manner. There was a scent of sweet-brier, of tall perfumy lilies and spicy carnations from the gardens. I looked at the windows of the houses I passed, but the blinds were drawn, and the bees and the flowers were the only waking things there. The village seemed asleep, until I turned the corner, and there, coming out of the vicarage gate, was Uncle Max himself. He was walking along slowly, with his old felt hat in his hand, reading his little Greek Testament as he walked, and the morning sun shining on his uncovered head and his brown beard.
He did not see me until I was close to him, and then he started, and an expression of fear crossed his face.
'Ursula, my dear, were you coming to the vicarage? Nothing is wrong, I hope?' looking at me anxiously.
'Wrong! what should be wrong on such a morning?' I returned playfully. 'Is it not delicious? The air is like champagne; only champagne never had the scent of those flowers in it. The world is just a big dewy bouquet. It is good only to be alive on such a morning.'
Max put his Greek Testament in his pocket and regarded me dubiously.
'Were you not coming to meet me, then? It is not a quarter to six yet. Rather early for an aimless stroll, is it not, my dear?'
'Oh yes, I was coming to meet you,' I returned carelessly. 'I thought you would be at work in the garden. Max, you are eying me suspiciously: you think I have something important to tell you. Now you must not be disappointed; I have very little to say, and I cannot answer questions; but there is one thing, I have found out all you wish to know about Captain Hamilton.'
It was sad to see the quick change in his face,--the sudden cloud that crossed it at the mention of the man whom he regarded as his rival. He did not speak; not a question came from his lips; but he listened as though my next word might be the death-warrant to his hopes.
'Max, do not look like that: there is no cause for fear. It is a great secret, and you must never speak of it, even to me,--but Lady Betty is engaged to her cousin Claude.'
For a moment he stared at me incredulously. 'Impossible! you must have been deceived,' I heard him mutter.
'On the contrary, I leave other people to be duped,' was my somewhat cool answer. 'You need not doubt my news: Gladys is my informant: only, as I have just told you, it is a great secret. Mr. Hamilton is not to know yet, and Gladys writes most of the letters. Poor little Lady Betty is in constant terror that she will be found out, and they are waiting until Captain Hamilton has promotion and comes home in November.'
He had not lost one word that I said: as he stood there, bareheaded, in the morning sunshine that was tingeing his beard with gold, I heard his low, fervent 'Thank God! then it was not that;' but when he turned to me his face was radiant, his eyes bright and vivid; there was renewed hope and energy in his aspect.
'Ursula, you have come like the dove with the olive-branch. Is this really true? It was good of you to come and tell me this.'
'I do not see the goodness, Max.'
'Well, perhaps not; but you have made me your debtor. I like to owe this to you,--my first gleam of hope. Now, you must tell me one thing. Does Miss Darrell know of this engagement?'
'She does.'
'Stop a moment: I feel myself getting confused here. I am to ask no questions: you can tell me nothing more. But I must make this clear to myself: How long has she known, Ursula? a day? a week?'
'Suppose you substitute the word months,' I observed scornfully. 'I know no dates, but Miss Darrell has most certainly been acquainted with her cousin's engagement for months.'
'Oh, this is worse than I thought,' he returned, in a troubled tone. 'This is almost too terrible to believe. She has known all I suffered on that man's account, and yet she never undeceived me. Can women be so cruel? Why did she not come to me and say frankly, "I have made a mistake; I have unintentionally misled you: it is Lady Betty, not Gladys, who is in love with her cousin"? Good heavens! to leave me in this ignorance, and never to say the word that would put me out of my misery!'
I was silent, though silence was a torture to me. Even, now the extent of Miss Darrell's duplicity had not clearly dawned on him. He complained that she had left him to suffer through ignorance of the truth; but the idea had not yet entered his mind that possibly she had deceived him from the first. 'Oh, the stupidity and slowness of these honourable men where a woman is concerned!' I groaned to myself; but my promise to Gladys kept me silent.
'It was too bad of her, was it not?' he said, appealing to me for sympathy; but I turned a deaf ear to this.
'Max, confess that you were wrong not to have taken my advice and gone down to Bournemouth: you might have spared yourself months of suspense.'
'Do you mean--' And then he reddened and stroked his beard nervously; but I finished his sentence for him: he should not escape what I had to say to him.
'It is so much easier to come to an understanding face to face; but you would not take my advice, and the opportunity is gone. Gladys is in the turret-room: you could not gain admittance to her without difficulty: what you have to say must be said by letter; but you might trust that letter to me, Max.'
He understood me in a moment. I could see the quick look of joy in his eyes. I had not betrayed Gladys, I had adhered strictly to my word that I would only speak of Lady Betty's engagement; and with his usual delicacy Max had put no awkward questions to me: he had respected my scruples, and kept his burning curiosity to himself. But he would not have been a man if he had not read some deeper meaning under my silence: he told me afterwards that the happy look in my eyes told him the truth.
So he merely said very quietly, 'You were right, and I was wrong, Ursula: I own my fault. But I will write now: I owe Miss Hamilton some explanation. When the letter is ready, how am I to put it into your hands?'
'Oh,' I answered in a matter-of-fact way, as though we were speaking of some ordinary note, and it was not an offer of marriage from a penitent lover, 'when you have finished talking to Miss Darrell,--you will enjoy her conversation, I am sure, Max; it will be both pleasant and profitable,--you might mention casually that there was something you wanted to say to your niece Ursula, and would she kindly ask that young person to step down to you for a minute? and then, you see, that little bit of business will be done.'
'Yes, I see; but--' but here Max hesitated--'but the answer, Ursula?'
'Oh, the answer!' in an off-hand manner; 'you must not be looking for that yet. My patient must not be hurried or flurried: you must give her plenty of time. In a day or two--well, perhaps, I might find an early stroll conducive to my health; these mornings are so beautiful; and--Nonsense, Max! I would do more than this for you'; for quiet, undemonstrative Max had actually taken my hand and lifted it to his lips in token of his gratitude.
After this we walked back in the direction of Gladwyn, and nothing more was said about the letter. We listened to the rooks cawing from the elms, and we stood and watched a lark rising from the long meadow before Maplehurst and singing as though its little throat would burst with its concentrated ecstasy of song; and when I asked Max if he did not think the world more beautiful than usual that morning, he smiled, and suddenly quoted Tennyson's lines, in a voice musical with happiness: 'All the land in flowery squares, Beneath a broad and equal-flowing wind, Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud Drew downward; but all else of heaven was pure Up to the sun, and May from verge to verge, And May with me from heel to heel.'
'Yes, but, Max, it is July now. The air is too mellow for spring. Your quotation is not quite apt.'
'Oh, you are realistic; but it fits well enough. Do you not remember how the poem goes on?
"The garden stretches southward. In the midst A cedar spread its dark-green layers of shrub. The garden-glasses shone, and momently The twinkling laurel scattered silver lights."
I always think of Gladwyn when I read that description.'
I laughed mischievously: 'I am sorry to leave you just as you are in a poetical vein; but I must positively go in. Good-bye, Max,' I felt I had lingered a little too long when I saw the blinds raised in Mr. Hamilton's study. But apparently the room was empty. I sauntered past it leisurely, and walked down the asphalt path. On my return I picked one or two roses, wet with dew. As I raised my head from gathering them I saw Leah standing at the side door watching me.
'Oh, it was you,' she grumbled. 'I thought one of those girls had left the door unlocked. A pretty piece of carelessness that would have been to reach the master's ears! You are out early, ma'am.'
I was somewhat surprised at these remarks, for Leah had made a point of always passing me in sullen silence since I had refused her admittance into the sick-room. Her manner was hardly civil now, but I thought it best to answer her pleasantly.
'Yes, Leah, I have taken my stroll early. It was very warm last night, and I did not sleep well. There is nothing so refreshing as a morning walk after a bad night. I am going to take these roses to Miss Gladys.' But she tossed her head and muttered something about people being mighty pleasant all of a sudden. And, seeing her in this mood, I walked away. She was a bad-tempered, coarse-natured woman, and I could not understand why Mr. Hamilton seemed so blind to her defects. 'I suppose he never sees her; that is one reason,' I thought, as I carried up my roses.
Gladys was still asleep. I had finished my breakfast, and had helped Chatty arrange the turret-room for the day, when I heard the long-drawn sigh that often preluded Gladys's waking. I hastened to her side, and found her leaning on her elbow looking at my roses.
'They used to grow in the vicarage garden,' she said wistfully. 'Dark crimson ones like these. I have been dreaming.' And then she stopped and flung herself back wearily on her pillow. 'Why must one ever wake from such dreams?' she finished, with the old hopeless ring in her voice.
'What was the dream, dear?' I asked, smoothing her hair caressingly. It was fine, soft hair, like an infant's, and its pale gold tint, without much colour or gloss, always reminded me of baby hair. I have heard people find fault with it. But when it was unbound and streaming in wavy masses over her shoulders it was singularly beautiful. She used to laugh sometimes at my admiration of her straw-coloured tresses, or lint-white locks, as she called them. But indeed there was no tint that quite described the colour of Gladys's hair.
'Oh, I was walking in some fool's paradise or other. There were roses in it like these. Well, another blue day is dawning, Ursula, and has to be lived through somehow. Will you help me to get up now?' But, though she tried after this to talk as usual, I could see the old restlessness was on her. A sort of feverish reaction had set in. She could settle to nothing, take pleasure in nothing; and I was not surprised that Mr. Hamilton grumbled a little when he paid his morning visit.
'How is this? You are not quite so comfortable to-day, Gladys,' he asked, in a dissatisfied tone. 'Is your head aching again?'
She reluctantly pleaded guilty to the headache. Not that it was much, she assured him; but I interrupted her.
'The fact is, she sat up too late last night, and I let her talk too much and over-exert herself.' For I saw he was determined to come to the bottom of this.
'I think the nurse was to blame there,' he returned, darting a quick, uneasy look at me. I knew what he was thinking: Miss Darrell's speech, that Miss Garston always excited Gladys, must have come into his mind.
'If the nurse deserves blame she will take it meekly,' I replied. 'I know I was wrong to let her talk so much. I must enforce extra quiet to-day.' And then he said no more. I do not think he found it easy to give me the scolding that I deserved. And, after all, I had owned my fault.
I had just gone out in the passage an hour later, to carry away a bowl of carnations that Gladys found too strong in the room, when I heard Uncle Max's voice in the hall. The front door was open, and he had entered without ringing. I was glad of this. The door of the turret-room was closed, and Gladys would not hear his voice. I should manage to slip down without her noticing the fact.
So I busied myself in Lady Betty's room until I heard the drawing-room door open and close again, and I knew Miss Darrell was coming in search of me. I went out to meet her, with Gladys's empty luncheon-tray in my hands. I thought she looked rather cross and put out, as though her interview with Uncle Max had disappointed her.
'Mr. Cunliffe is in the drawing-room, and he would like to speak to you for a moment.' she said, in a voice that showed me how unwilling she was to bring me the message. 'I told him that you never cared to be disturbed in the morning, as you were so busy; but he was peremptory.'
'I am never too busy to see Uncle Max: he knows that,' I returned quickly. 'Will you kindly allow me a few moments alone with him?' for she was actually preparing to follow me, but after this request she retired sulkily into her own room.
I found Max standing in the middle of the room, looking anxiously towards the door: the moment it closed behind me he put a thick white envelope in my hand.
'There it is, Ursula,' he said nervously: 'will you give it to her as soon as possible? I have been literally on thorns the last quarter of an hour. Miss Darrell would not take any of my hints that I wished to see you: so I was obliged at last to say that I could not wait another moment, and that I must ask her to fetch you at once.'
'Poor Max! I can imagine your feelings; but I have it safe here,' tapping my apron pocket. 'But you must not go just yet.' And I beckoned him across the room to the window that overlooked a stiff prickly shrub.
He looked at me in some surprise. 'We are alone, Ursula.'
'Yes, I know: but the walls have ears in this house: one is never safe near the conservatory: there are too many doors. Tell me, Max, how have you got on with Miss Darrell this morning?'
'I was praying hard for patience all the time,' he replied, half laughing. 'It was maddening to see her sitting there so cool and crisp in her yellow tea-gown--well, what garment was it?' as I uttered a dissenting ejaculation: 'something flimsy and aesthetic. I thought her smooth sentences would never stop.'
'Did she notice any change in your manner to her?'
'I am afraid so, for I saw her look at me quite uneasily more than once. I could not conceal that I was terribly bored. I have no wish to be discourteous to a lady, especially to one of my own church workers; but after what has passed I find it very difficult to forgive her.'
This was strong language on Max's part. I could see that as a woman he could hardly tolerate her, but he could not bring himself to condemn her even to me. He hardly knew yet what he had to forgive: neither he nor Gladys had any real idea of the treachery that had separated them.
Max would not stay many minutes, he was so afraid of Miss Darrell coming into the room again. I did rather an imprudent thing after that. Max was going to the Maberleys', for the colonel was seriously ill, so I begged him to go the garden way, and I kept him for a moment under the window of the turret-room.
I saw him glance up eagerly, almost hungrily, but the blinds were partially down, and there was only a white curtain flapping in the summer breeze.
But an unerring instinct told me that the sound of Max's voice would be a strong cordial to the invalid, it was so long since she had heard or seen him. As we sauntered under the oak-trees I knew Gladys would be watching us.
On my return to the room I found her sitting bolt upright in her arm-chair, grasping the arms; there were two spots of colour on her cheeks; she looked nervous and excited.
'I saw you walking with him, Ursula; he looked up, but I am glad he could not see me. Did--did he send me any message?' in a faltering voice.
'Yes, he sent you this.' And I placed the thick packet on her lap. 'Miss Hamilton,'--yes, it was her own name: he had written it. I saw her look at it, first incredulously, then with dawning hope in her eyes; but before her trembling hands could break the old-fashioned seal with which he had sealed it I had noiselessly left the room.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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42
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DOWN THE PEMBERLEY ROAD
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Three-quarters of an hour had elapsed before I ventured into the room again; but at the first sound of my footsteps Gladys looked up, and called to me in a voice changed and broken with happiness.
'Ursula, dear Ursula, come here.' And as I knelt down beside her and put my arms round her she laid her cheek against my shoulder: it was wet with tears.
'Ursula, I am so happy. Do you know that he loves me, that he has loved me all through these years? You must not see what he says; it is only for my eyes; it is too sweet and sacred to be repeated; but I never dreamt that any one could care for me like that.'
I kissed her without speaking; there seemed a lump in my throat just then. I did not often repine, but the yearning sense of pain was strong on me. When would this cruel silence between me and Giles be broken? But Gladys, wrapt in her own blissful thoughts, did not notice my emotion.
'He says that there is much that he can only tell me by word of mouth, and that he dare not trust to a letter explanations for his silence, and much that I shall have to tell him in return; for we shall need each other's help in making everything clear.
'He seems to reproach himself bitterly, and asks my pardon over and over again for misunderstanding me so. He says my giving up my work was the first blow to his hopes, and then he had been told that I cared for my cousin Claude. He believed until this morning that I was in love with him; and it was your going to him--oh, my darling! how good you have been to me and him! --that gave him courage to write this letter, Ursula.' And here she cried a little. 'Was it Etta who told him this falsehood about, Claude? How could she he so wicked and cruel?'
'Do not think about her to-day, my dearest,' I returned soothingly. 'Her punishment will be great some day. We will not sit in judgment on her just now. She cannot touch your happiness again, thank heaven!'
'No,' with a sigh; 'but, as Max says, it is difficult to forgive the person who is the chief source of all our trouble. He did say that, and then he reproached himself again for uncharitableness, and added that he ought to have known me better.
'He does not seem quite certain yet that I can care for him, and he begs for just one word to put him out of his suspense, to tell him if I can ever love him well enough to be his wife. I don't want him to wait long for my answer, Ursula: he has suffered too much already. I think I could write a few words that would satisfy him, if I could only trust Chatty to take them.'
'You had better wait until to-morrow morning and intrust your letter to the "five-o'clock carrier."' And as my meaning dawned on her her doubtful expression changed into a smile. 'Do wait, Gladys,' I continued coaxingly. 'It is very selfish of me, perhaps, but I should like to give that letter to Max.'
'You may have your wish, then, for I was half afraid of sending it by Chatty. I have grown so nervous, Ursula, that I start at a shadow. I can trust you better than myself. Well, I will write it, and then it will be safe in your hands.'
I went away again after this, and left her alone in the quiet shady room. I fought rather a battle with myself as I paced up and down Lady Betty's spacious chamber. Why need I think of my own troubles? why could I not keep down this pain? I would think only of Gladys's and of my dear Max's happiness, and I dashed away hot tears that would keep blinding me as I remembered the chilly greeting of the morning. And yet once--but no; I would not recall that bitter-sweet memory. I left Gladys alone for an hour: when I went back she was leaning wearily against the cushions of her chair, the closely-written sheets still open on her lap, as though she needed the evidence of sight and touch to remind her that it was not part of her dream.
'Have you written your letter, Gladys?'
'Yes,' with a blush; 'but it is very short, only a few words. He will understand that I am weak and cannot exert myself much. Will you read it, Ursula, and tell me if it will do?'
I thought it better to set her mind at rest, so I took it without demur. The pretty, clear handwriting was rather tremulous: he would be sorry to see that.
'My dear Mr. Cunliffe,'--it said,--'Your letter has made me very happy. I wish I could answer it as it ought to be answered; but I know you will not misunderstand the reason why I say so little.
'I have been very ill, and am still very weak, and my hand trembles too much when I try to write; but I am not ungrateful for all the kind things you say; it makes me very happy to know you feel like that, even though I do not deserve it.
'You must not blame yourself so much for misunderstanding me: we have both been deceived; I know that now. It was wrong of me to give up my work; but Etta told me that people were saying unkind things of me, and I was a coward and listened to her: so you see I was to blame too.
'I have not answered your question yet, but I think I will do so by signing myself, 'Yours, always and for ever, 'Gladys.'
'Will he understand that, Ursula?'
'Surely, dear; the end is plain enough: you belong to Max now.'
'I like to know that,' she returned simply. 'Oh, the rest of feeling that he will take care of me now! it is too good to talk about. But I hope I am sufficiently thankful.' And Gladys's lovely eyes were full of solemn feeling as she spoke.
I thought she wanted to be quiet,--it was difficult for her to realise her happiness at once,--so I told her that I had some letters to write, and carried my desk into the next room, but she followed me after a time, and we had a long talk about Max.
When Mr. Hamilton came up in the evening he noticed the improvement in Gladys's appearance.
'You are better to-night, my dear.'
'Oh yes, so much better,' looking up in his face with a smile. 'Giles, do you think it would hurt me to have a drive to-morrow? I am so tired of these two rooms. A drive alone with Ursula would be delicious. We could go down the Redstone lanes towards Pemberley: one always has a whiff of sea-air there over the downs.'
Gladys's request surprised me quite as much as it did Mr. Hamilton. She had proposed it in all innocence; no idea of encountering Max entered her head for a moment; Gladys's simplicity would be incapable of laying plans of this sort. Her new-born happiness made her anxious to lay aside her invalid habits; she wanted to be strong, to resume daily life, to breathe the fresh outer air.
As for Mr. Hamilton, he did not try to conceal his pleasure.
'I see we shall soon lose our patient, nurse,' he said, with one of his old droll looks. 'She is anxious to make herself independent of us. --Oh, you shall go, by all means. I will go round to the stable and tell Atkinson myself. It is an excellent idea, Gladys.'
'I am so glad you do not object. I am so much stronger this evening, and I have wanted to go out for days; but, Giles,'--touching his arm gently,--'you will make Etta understand that I want to go alone with Ursula.'
'Certainly, my dear.' He would not cross her whim; she might have her way if she liked; but the slight frown on his face showed that he was not pleased at this allusion to Miss Darrell. He thought Gladys was almost morbidly prejudiced against her cousin; but he prudently refrained from telling her so, and Gladys went to bed happy.
I had taken the precaution of asking Chatty to wake me the next morning. I had slept little the previous night, and was afraid that I might oversleep myself in consequence. It was rather a trial when her touch roused me out of a delicious dream; but one glance at Gladys's pale face made me ashamed of my indolence. I dressed myself as quickly as I could, and then looked at my little clock. Chatty had been better than her word: it had not struck five yet.
Max would not be out for another hour, I thought, but all the same I might as well take advantage of the morning freshness: so I summoned Chatty to let me out as noiselessly as possible, and then I stole through the shrubberies, breaking a silver-spangled cobweb or two and feeling the wet beads of dew on my face.
I walked slowly down the road, drinking deep draughts of the pure morning air. I had some thoughts of sitting down in the churchyard until I saw some sign of life in the vicarage; but as I turned the corner I heard a gate swing back on its hinges, and there was Max standing bareheaded in the road, as though he had come out to reconnoitre; but directly he caught sight of me two or three strides seemed to bring him to my side.
'Have you brought it?' he asked breathlessly.
'Yes, Max.' And I put the letter in his outstretched hand; and then, without looking at him, I turned quietly and retraced my steps. I would not wait with him while he read it; he should be alone, with only the sunshine round him and the birds singing their joyous melodies in his ear. No doubt he would join his _Te Deum_ with theirs. Happy Max, who had won his Lady of Delight!
But I had not quite crossed the green when I heard his footsteps behind me, and turned to meet him.
'Ursula, you naughty child! why have you run away without waiting to congratulate me? And yet I'll be bound you knew the contents of this letter.'
'Yes, Max, and from my heart I wish you and Gladys every happiness.'
'Good little Ursula! Oh yes, we shall be happy.' And the satisfaction in Max's brown eyes was pleasant to see. 'She will need all the care and tenderness that I can give her. We must make her forget all these sad years. Do you think that she will be content at the old vicarage, Ursula?' But as he asked the question there was no doubt--no doubt at all--on his face.
'I think she will be content anywhere with you, Max. Gladys loves you dearly.'
'Ah,' he said humbly, 'I know it now, I am sure of it; but I wish I deserved my blessing. All these years I have known her goodness. She used to show me all that was in her heart with the simplicity of a child. Such sweet frankness! such noble unselfishness! was it a wonder that I loved her? If I were only more worthy to be her husband!'
I liked Max to say this: there was nothing unmanly or strained in this humility. The man who loves can never think himself worthy of the woman he worships: his very affection casts a glamour over her. When I told Max that I thought his wife would be a happy woman, he only smiled and said that he hoped so too. He had not the faintest idea what a hero he was in our eyes; he would not have believed me if I had told him.
Max said very little to me after that: happiness made him reticent. Only, just as he was leaving me, I said carelessly, 'Max, do you ever go to Pemberley?'
'Oh yes, sometimes, when the Calverleys are at the Hall,' he returned, rather absently.
'Pemberley is a very pretty place,' I went on, stopping to pick a little piece of sweet-brier that attracted me by its sweetness: 'it is very pleasant to walk there through the Redstone lanes. There is a fine view over the down, and at four o'clock, for example--' 'What about four o'clock?' he demanded: and now there was a little excitement in his manner.
'Well, if you should by chance be in one of the Redstone lanes about then, you might possibly see an open barouche with two ladies in it.'
'Ursula, you are a darling!' And Max seized my wrists so vigorously that he hurt me. 'Four--did you say four o'clock?'
'It was very wrong of me to say anything about it. Gladys would be shocked at my making an appointment. I believe you are demoralising me, Max; but I do not mean to tell her.' And then, after a few more eager questions on Max's part, he reluctantly let me go.
I had plenty to tell Gladys when she woke that morning, but I prudently kept part of our conversation to myself. She wanted to know how Max looked when he got her letter. Did he seem happy? had he sent her any message? And when I had satisfied her on these points she had a hundred other questions to ask. 'I am engaged to him, and yet we cannot speak to each other,' she finished, a little mournfully.
I turned her thoughts at last by speaking about the promised drive. We decided she should put on her pretty gray dress and bonnet to do honour to the day. 'It is a fête-day, Gladys,' I said cheerfully, 'and we must be as gay as possible.' And she agreed to this.
At the appointed time we heard the horses coming round from the stables, and Mr. Hamilton came upstairs himself to fetch his sister. Chatty had told me privately that Miss Darrell had been very cross all day. She had wanted the carriage for herself that afternoon, and had spoken quite angrily to Mr. Hamilton about it; but he had told her rather coldly that she must give up her wishes for once. Thornton heard master say that he was surprised at her selfishness: he had thought she would be glad that Miss Gladys should have a drive. 'Miss Darrell looked as black as possible, Thornton said, ma'am,' continued Chatty; 'but she did not dare argue with master; he always has the best of it with her.'
As we drove off, I saw Miss Darrell watching us from the study window: evidently her bad temper had not evaporated, for she had not taken the trouble to come out in the hall to speak to Gladys, and yet they had not met for a month. Gladys did not see her: she was smiling at her brother, who was waving a good-bye from the open door. My heart smote me a little as I looked at him. Would he think me very deceitful, I wondered, for giving Max that clue? but after a moment I abandoned these thoughts and gave myself up to the afternoon's enjoyment.
The air was delicious, the summer heat tempered by cool breezes that seemed to come straight from the sea. Gladys lay back luxuriously among the cushions, watching the flicker of green leaves over our heads, or the soft shadows that lurked in the distant meadows, or admiring the picturesque groups of cattle under some wide-spreading tree.
We had nearly reached Pemberley, the white roofs of the cottages were gleaming through a belt of firs, when I at last caught sight of Max. He was half hidden by some blackberry-bushes. I think he was sitting on a stile resting himself; but when he heard the carriage-wheels he came slowly towards us and put up his hand as a sign that Atkinson should pull up.
I shall never forget the sudden illumination that lit up Gladys's face when she saw him: a lovely colour tinged her cheeks as their eyes met, and she put out her little gray-gloved hand to touch his. I opened the carriage door and slipped down into the road.
'The horses can stand in the shade a little while, Atkinson,' I said carelessly: 'I want to get some of those poppies, if the stile be not very high.' I knew he would be watching me and looking after Whitefoot, who was often a little fidgety, and would take the vicar's appearance on the Pemberley road as a matter of course.
I was a long time gathering those poppies. Once I peeped through the hedge. I could see two heads very close together. Max's arms were on the carriage; the little gray-gloved hands were not to be seen; the sunshine was shining on Gladys's fair hair and Max's beard. Were they speaking at all? Could Atkinson have heard one of those low tones? And then I went on with my poppies.
It was more than a quarter of an hour when I climbed over the stile again, laden with scarlet poppies and pale-coloured convolvuli. Gladys saw me first. 'Here is Ursula,' I heard her say; and Max moved away reluctantly.
'I do not see why we should not drive you back to Heathfield, Max,' I remarked coolly; and, as neither of them had any objection to raise, we soon made room for Max.
There was very little said by any of us during the drive home; only Gladys pressed my hand in token of gratitude; her eyes were shining with happiness. As Max looked at the pale, sweet face opposite to him his heart must have swelled with pride and joy: nothing could come between those two now; henceforth they would belong to each other for time and eternity.
Max asked us to put him down at the Three Firs; he had to call at 'The Gowans,' he said. 'In two or three days--I cannot wait longer,' he said, in a meaning tone, as he bade good-bye to Gladys. She blushed and smiled in answer.
'What does Max mean?' I asked, as we left him behind us in the road.
'It is only that he wishes to speak to Giles,' she returned shyly. 'I asked him to wait a day or two until I felt better; but he does not wish to delay it; he says Giles has always wanted it so, but that he has long lost hope about it.'
'I don't see why Max need have waited an hour,' was my reply; but there was no time for Gladys to answer me, for we were turning in at the gate, and there were Mr. Hamilton and Miss Darrell walking up and down the lawn watching for us.
Mr. Hamilton came towards us at once, and gave his hand to Gladys.
'I need not ask how you have enjoyed your drive,' he said, looking at her bright face with evident satisfaction.
'Oh, it has been lovely!' she returned, with such unwonted animation that Miss Darrell stared at her. 'How do you do, Etta? It is long since we have met. --Giles, if you will give me your arm, I think I will go upstairs at once, for I am certainly a little tired. --Come, Ursula.'
'We met Mr. Cunliffe in the Pemberley Road, and drove him back,' I observed carelessly, when Miss Darrell was out of hearing. I thought it better to allude to Max in case Atkinson mentioned it to one of the servants.
'You should have brought him in to dinner,' was Mr. Hamilton's only comment. 'By the bye, Miss Garston, when do you intend to honour us with your company downstairs? Your patient is convalescent now.'
'I have just awoke to that fact,' was my reply, 'and I have told Mrs. Barton that she will soon see me back at the White Cottage. Miss Watson leaves next Tuesday: I think Gladys could spare me by then.'
Gladys shook her head. 'I shall never willingly spare you, Ursula; but of course I shall have no right to trespass on your time.'
'No, of course not,' returned her brother sharply; 'Miss Garston has been too good to us already: we cannot expect her to sacrifice herself any longer. We will say Tuesday, then. You will come downstairs on Sunday, Gladys?'
'Yes,' with a faint sigh.
'We need not talk about my going yet, when Gladys is tired,' I returned, feeling inclined to scold Mr. Hamilton for his want of tact. Tuesday, and it was Wednesday now,--not quite a week more; but, looking up, I saw Mr. Hamilton regarding me so strangely, and yet so sorrowfully, that my brief irritability vanished. He was sorry that I was going; he seemed about to speak; his lips unclosed, then a sudden frown of recollection crossed his brow, and with a curt good-night he left us.
'What is the matter with Giles?' asked Gladys, rather wearily: I could see she was very tired by this time. 'Have you and he quarrelled, Ursula?'
'Not to my knowledge,' I replied quietly, turning away, that she should not see my burning cheeks. 'There is Chatty bringing the tea: are you not glad, dear?' And I busied myself in clearing the table.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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43
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'CONSPIRACY CORNER'
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Gladys went to bed very early that night: her long drive had disposed her for sleep. The summer twilight was only creeping over the western sky when I closed her door and went out into the passage: the evening was only half over, and a fit of restlessness induced me to seek the garden.
The moon was just rising behind the little avenue, and the soft rush of summer air that met me as I stepped through the open door had the breath of a thousand flowers on it. Mr. Hamilton was shut safely in his study; I was aware of that fact, as I had heard him tell Gladys that night that he had a medical article to write that he was anxious to finish. Miss Darrell would be reading novels in the drawing-room; there was no fear of meeting any one; but some instinct--for we have no word in our human language to express the divine impetus that sways our inward promptings--induced me to take refuge in the dark asphalt path that skirted the meadow and led to Atkinson's cottage and the kitchen-garden.
I was unhappy,--in a mood that savoured of misanthropy; my fate was growing cross-grained, enigmatical. Mr. Hamilton's frown had struck cold to my heart; I was beginning to lose patience (to lose hope was impossible),--to ask myself why he remained silent.
'If he has anything against me,--and his manner tells me that he has,--why does he not treat me with frankness?' I thought. 'He calls himself my friend, and yet he reposes no trust in me. He breaks my heart with his changed looks and coldness, and yet he gives me no reason for his injustice. I would not treat my enemy so, and yet all the time I feel he loves me.' And as I paced under the dark hanging shrubs I felt there was nothing morbid or untrue in those lines, that 'to be wroth with one that we love does work like madness on the brain,' and that I was growing angry with Mr. Hamilton.
I had just reached a dark angle where the path dips a little, when I was startled by hearing voices close to me. There was a seat screened by some laurel-bushes that went by the name of 'Conspiracy Corner,' dating back from the time when Gladys and Eric were children and had once hidden some fireworks among the bushes. It was there that Claude Hamilton had proposed to Lady Betty, when Gladys had found them, and the two young creatures had appealed to her to help them. The seat was so hidden and secluded by shrubs that you could pass without seeing its occupants, unless a little bit of fluttering drapery or the gleam of some gold chain or locket caught one's eye. I remembered once being very much startled when Lady Betty popped out suddenly on me as I passed.
I was just retracing my steps, with a sense of annoyance at finding my privacy invaded, when a sentence in Leah's voice attracted my attention: 'I tell you he was driving with them this afternoon: I heard Miss Garston tell the master so. It is no good you fretting and worrying yourself, Miss Etta, to prevent those two coming together. I've always warned you that the vicar cares more for her little finger than he does for all your fine airs and graces.'
I stood as though rooted to the spot, incapable of moving a step.
'You are a cruel, false woman!' returned another voice, which I recognised as Miss Darrell's, though it was broken with angry sobs. 'You say that to vex me and make me wretched because you are in a bad temper. You are an ungrateful creature, Leah, after all my kindness; and it was you yourself who told me that he was getting tired of Gladys's whims and vagaries.'
'I can't remember what I told you,' replied the woman sullenly. 'There are no fools like old ones, they say, and you need not believe everything as though it is gospel truth. There is not a man in the world worth all this worry. Why don't you give it up, Miss Etta? Do you think Mr. Cunliffe will ever give you a thought? I would be too proud, if I were a lady, to fling myself under a man's feet. Do you think he would like your crooked ways about Mr. Eric?'
'Hush, Leah! for pity's sake, hush! What makes you so cruel to me to-night?'
'Well now, look here, Miss Etta; I am not going to be hushed up when I choose to speak; and who is to hear us, I should like to know? only it is your guilty conscience that is always starting at shadows. I mean to speak to you pretty plainly, for I am getting sick of the whole business. You are playing fast and loose with me about that money. Are you going to give it me or not?'
I drew a step nearer. Leah had mentioned Eric's name. Was it not my duty,--my bounden duty,--for Gladys's sake, for all their sakes, to hear what this woman had to say? Would it be dishonourable to listen when so much was at stake? Already I had been startled by a revelation that turned me cold with horror. Miss Darrell was Gladys's rival,--her deadly, secret rival,--and not one of us, not even Max, guessed at this unhealthy and morbid passion. That such a woman should love my pure-minded, honourable Max! I recoiled at the mere idea.
'You are so impatient, Leah,' returned the other reproachfully. 'You know it is not easy for me to get the money. Giles was complaining the other day that so much was spent in the housekeeping; he never thought me extravagant before, but he seemed to say that my personal expenses were rather lavish. "You have twice as many gowns as Gladys," he said: "and, though I do not grudge you things, I think you ought to keep within your allowance."'
'I can't help all that, Miss Etta,' and I could tell by the voice that the woman meant to be insolent. 'A promise is a promise, and must be kept, and poor Bob must not suffer from your procrastinating ways. You are far too slippery and shifty, Miss Etta; but I tell you that money I must and will have before this week is over, if I have to go to master myself about it.'
'You had better go to him, then,' with rising temper. 'I don't quite know what Giles will say about retaining you in his service when he knows you have a brother at Millbank. A servant with a convict-brother is not considered generally desirable in a house.' But Leah broke in upon this sneering speech in sudden fury: even in my disgust at this scene I could not but marvel at Miss Darrell's recklessness in rousing the evil spirit in this woman.
'You to talk of my poor Bob being in Millbank, who ought to be there yourself!' she cried, in a voice hoarse and low with passion. 'Are you out of your senses, Miss Etta, to taunt me with poor Bob's troubles? What is to prevent me from going to master now and saying to him--' 'Oh, hush, Leah! please forgive me; but you made me so angry.'
'From saying to him,' persisted Leah remorselessly, "'You are all of you wrong about Mr. Eric. You have hunted the poor boy out of the house, and driven him crazy among you; and if he has drowned himself, as folk believe, his death lies at Miss Etta's door. It was she who stole the cheque. I saw her take it with my own eyes, only she begged me on her knees not to betray her; and just then Mr. Eric came in with his letter, and the devil entered into me to cast the suspicion on him."'
'Leah,' in a voice of deadly terror, 'for God's sake be silent! if any one should hear us! There was a crackling just now in the bushes. Leah, you were good to my mother: how can you be so cruel to me?'
'It is no use your whining to me, Miss Etta,' returned the same hard, dogged voice; 'Bob must have that money. When I promised to keep your disgraceful secret,--when I stood by and helped you ruin that poor boy, and Bob cashed your cheque,--I named my price. I wanted to keep Bob out of mischief, but his bad companions were too much for him. Now are you going to get that money for me or not?'
'I dare not ask Giles for more,' replied Miss Darrell, and I could hear she was crying. 'I gave you half the housekeeping money last week and the week before. If Giles looks at my accounts I am undone.'
'And there was that cheque that you were to send Miss Gladys when she was at Bournemouth, and for which she sent that pretty message of thanks,' interposed Leah, with a sneer. 'Shall I tell master where that has gone, Miss Etta? And you to speak of my poor Bob because he is at Millbank!'
'Leah, you are killing me,' renewed Miss Darrell. 'I might as well die as go on living like this. You are always threatening to turn against me, and I give you money whenever you ask me. You shall have my gold bracelet with the emerald star. It was my mother's and it will fetch a good deal. I cannot get more from Giles now. He is not like himself just now, and I dare not make him angry.'
'Oh, you have tried your hand there, Miss Etta. No, I am not asking you, so you need not tell me any lies. I knew all about it when you sent me up to Hyde Park Gate to spy on my young lady. I have worked willingly for you there. I've hated Miss Garston ever since I set eyes on her. She is a sharp one, I tell you that, Miss Etta. She means to bring these two together, and she will do it in spite of you.'
'I wish I were dead!' moaned Miss Darrell.
But I did not dare to linger another moment. My heart was beating so loudly that I feared it would betray me. The faint stir of the bushes turned me sick, for I thought they might be moving from their seat. Not for worlds would I have confronted them alone in that dark asphalt walk. My fears were absurd, but I felt as though Leah were capable of strangling me. Granted that this terror was unreasonable and childish, I knew I could not breathe freely until I was within reach of Mr. Hamilton. As I crept down the path the sensation of a nightmare haunted me. I felt as though my feet were weighted with lead. My face was cold and damp, and I drew my breath painfully. I almost felt as though I must hide myself in the shrubbery until the faintness passed off; but I shook off my weakness as I remembered that I might be shut out of the house if I allowed them to go in first. As I emerged from the dark overhanging trees I grew calmer and walked on more quickly. I dared not cross the open lawn, for fear I might be seen, but took the most secluded route through the oak avenue. If they should perceive me walking down the terrace towards the conservatory they would only think that I had just left the house. I could see no signs of them, however, and gained the open door safely.
Even in my state of terror I had made my plan, and without giving myself a moment to recover my self-possession I knocked at the study door, and, at Mr. Hamilton's rather impatient 'Come in,' entered it with the same sort of feeling that one would enter an ark of refuge.
He laid down his pen in some surprise when he saw me, and then rose quickly from his seat.
'You are ill; you have come to tell me so,' in an anxious voice. 'Don't try to speak this moment: sit down--my--Miss Garston'; but I caught his arm nervously as he seemed about to leave me.
'Don't go away: I must speak to you. I am not ill: only I have had a turn. You may give me some water'; for there was a bottle and glass on the table. He obeyed me at once, and watched me as I tried to take it; but my hand trembled too much: the next moment he had put it to my lips, and had wiped the moisture gently from my forehead.
'It is only faintness; it will pass off directly,' he said quietly. 'I will not leave you; but I have some sal volatile in that cupboard, and I think you will be the better for it.' And he mixed me some, and stood by me without speaking until the colour came back to my face. 'You are better now, Ursula--I mean,' biting his lips--'well, never mind. Do you feel a little less shaky?'
'Yes, thank you. I did not mean to be so foolish, but it was dark, and I got frightened and nervous; and oh, Mr. Hamilton, I must not lose time, or they will be coming in.'
'Who will be coming in?' he asked, rather bewildered at this. 'There is no one out, is there?'
'Yes, Miss Darrell and Leah. I heard them talking in "Conspiracy Corner"; you know that seat in the asphalt walk?'
'Well?' regarding me with an astonished air.
'Mr. Hamilton, I am better now. I am not frightened any longer now I am with you. Will you please call Leah when she comes in from the garden? I want to speak to her in your presence. I have a most serious charge to make against her and against your cousin Miss Darrell. It relates,' and here I felt my lips getting white again,--'it relates to your brother Eric.'
He started, and an expression of pain crossed his face,--a sudden look of fear, as though he dreaded what I might have to tell him; but the next moment he was thinking only of me.
'You shall speak to Leah to-morrow,' he said gently; 'it is late now,--nearly ten o'clock,--and you are ill, and had better go to bed and rest yourself. I can wait until to-morrow,' taking my cold hand.
But I would not be silenced. I implored him earnestly to do this for me,--to summon Leah into the study, but not to let Miss Darrell know.
'I suppose you think you could not sleep until you had relieved your mind,' he said, looking at me attentively. 'Well, they are coming in now. Leah is fastening the door. Finish that sal volatile while I fetch her.'
I took it at a draught. But Mr. Hamilton's kindness had been my best restorative: I was no longer faint or miserable: he had cheered and comforted me.
I heard Leah's voice approaching the study door with perfect calmness.
'Miss Etta has gone up to bed, sir,' I heard her say; 'she has a headache: that is what makes her eyes so weak.'
'I should have said myself that she was crying,' returned Mr. Hamilton drily. 'Come in here a moment, Leah; I want to speak to you.'
She did not see me until the door was closed behind her, and then I saw her glance at me uneasily. Mr. Hamilton had evidently not prepared her for my presence in the study.
'Did you or Miss Garston wish to speak to me, sir?' she asked, with a veiled insolence of manner that she had shown to me lately; but I could see that no suspicion of the truth had dawned on her.
'It is I who wish to speak to you, Leah,' I returned severely; 'and I have asked your master to send for you that I might speak in his presence. Mr. Hamilton, I am going to repeat the conversation that I have just overheard between Leah and her mistress when they were in the seat in the asphalt walk: you shall hear it from my lips word for word.'
I never saw a countenance change as Leah's did that moment: her ordinary sallow complexion became a sort of dead-white; from insolence, her manner grew cringing, almost abject; the shock deprived her of all power of speech; only directly I began she caught hold of my gown with both hands, as though to implore me to stop; but Mr. Hamilton shook off her touch angrily, and asked her if it looked as though she were an honest woman to be so afraid of her own words. And then the sullen look came back to her face and never left it again.
I repeated every word. I do not believe I omitted a sentence, except that part that referred to Uncle Max. I could see Leah shrink and collapse as I mentioned her convict-brother, and such a gleam of fierce concentrated hatred shot from beneath her drooping lids that Mr. Hamilton instinctively moved to my side; but a low groan escaped him when I repeated Leah's words about the cheque. 'Good heavens! do you mean that Eric never took it?' he exclaimed, in a horror-stricken tone; but the woman merely raised her eyes and looked at him, and he was silent again until I had finished.
There was a moment's ominous silence after that: perhaps Mr. Hamilton was praying for self-control; he had grown frightfully pale, and yet he was a man who rarely changed colour: the veins on his forehead were swollen, and when he spoke his voice was hoarse with repressed passion.
'What have you to say for yourself, Leah? Do you know I could indict you for conspiracy and conniving at theft?'
'I know that very well,' returned the woman, trying to brave it out; but she could not meet his indignant look. 'But it is your own flesh and blood that is in fault here. Miss Etta is more to blame than I.' Mr. Hamilton crossed the room and locked the door, putting the key coolly in his pocket; then he made me sit down,--for I had been standing all this time,--and, as though to enforce obedience, he kept his hand on my arm. I could see Leah looking about her as though she were caught in a trap: her light-coloured eyes had a scintillating look of fear in them.
'Now, Leah,' observed her master, in a terrible voice, 'if you are to expect any mercy at my hand you will make a clean breast; but first you will answer my question: Has Miss Garston repeated the conversation between you and Miss Etta correctly?'
'Yes, I believe so,' very sullenly.
'You saw Miss Etta take the cheque with your own eyes the night before Mr. Eric left home?'
'Yes.' Then, as though these questions tortured her, she said doggedly-- 'Look here, sir; I am caught in a trap, and there is no getting out of it. I have lost my place and my character, thanks to Miss Garston,'--another vindictive look at me. 'If you will promise like a gentleman not to take advantage of my evidence, I will tell you all about it.'
'I will make no promises,' he returned, in the same stern voice; 'but if you do not speak I will send for the police at once, and have you up before a magistrate. You have connived at theft; that will be sufficient to criminate you.'
'I know all about that,' was the unflinching answer; 'and I know for the old mistress's sake you will be glad to hush it all up: it would not be pleasant to bring your own cousin before a magistrate, especially after promising the old mistress on her death-bed to be as good to Miss Etta as though she were your own sister.'
I saw the shadow of some sorrowful recollection cross his face as she said this. I had heard from Max how dearly he had loved his aunt Margaret: though her daughter had wrought such evil in his life, he would still seek to shield her. Leah knew this too, and took advantage of her knowledge in her crafty manner.
'It would be best to tell you all, for Mr. Eric's sake. I know Miss Etta will be safe with you. She has done a deal of mischief since she has been under your roof. Somehow crooked ways come natural to her: the old mistress knew that, for she once said to me towards the last, "Leah, I am afraid my poor child has got some twist or warp in her nature; but I hope my nephew will never find out her want of straightforwardness." And she begged me, with tears in her eyes, to watch over her and try to influence her, although I was only a servant; and for a little while I tried, only the devil tempted me, for the sake of poor Bob.'
'Bob is the name of your brother who is at Millbank?' asked Mr. Hamilton, in the same hard voice.
'Yes, sir; he got into a bit of trouble through mixing with bad companions. But there,'--with a sudden fierce light in her eyes that reminded me of a tigress protecting her young,--'I am not going to talk of Bob: lads will get into trouble sometimes. If Mr. Eric had not been so interfering at that time, ordering Bob off the premises whenever he caught sight of him, and calling him a good-for-nothing loafer and all sorts of hard names,--why, he gave Bob a black eye one day when he was doing nothing but shying stones at the birds in the kitchen-garden,--if it had not been for Mr. Eric's treatment of Bob I might have acted better by him.'
'Will you keep to the subject, Leah?' observed her master, in a warning voice. 'I wish to hear how that cheque was taken from my study that night.'
'Well, sir, if you must know,' returned Leah reluctantly, 'Miss Etta was in a bit of a worry about money just then: she had got the accounts wrong somehow, and there was a heavy butcher's bill to be paid. She had let it run on too long, and all the time you believed it was settled every week: it was partly your fault, because you so seldom looked at the accounts, and was always trusting her with large sums of money. Miss Etta did not mean to be dishonest, but she was extravagant, and sometimes her dressmaker refused to wait for the money, and sometimes her milliner threatened to dun her; but she would quiet them a bit with a five- or ten-pound note filched from the housekeeping, always meaning, as she said, to pay it back when she drew her quarterly allowance.
'I used to know of these doings of hers, for often and often she has sent me to pacify them with promises. I told her sometimes that she would do it once too often, but she always said it was for the last time.
'She got afraid to tell me at last, but I knew all about the butcher's bill, for Mr. Dryden had been up to the house asking to see you, as he wanted his account settled. You were out when he called, but I never saw Miss Etta in such a fright: she had a fit of hysterics in her own room after he had left the house, and I had trouble enough to pacify her. She said if you found out that Dryden's account had not been settled for three months that you would never trust her again; that she was afraid Mr. Eric suspected her, and that she did not feel safe with him, and a great deal more that I cannot remember.
'It ended with her making up her mind to pawn most of her jewellery, and we arranged that Bob should manage the business. He was up at the cottage for a night or two, though no one was aware of that fact, for he kept close, for fear Mr. Eric should spy upon him.
'He slept at the cottage the very night the cheque was stolen from the study'; but as Leah paused here Mr. Hamilton lifted his head from his hands and bade her impatiently go on with the history of that night.
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{
"id": "16080"
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44
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LEAH'S CONFESSION
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'You know what happened that day, sir,' observed Leah, hesitating a moment, for even her hard nature felt some compunction at the look of suffering on her master's face. She had eaten his bread for years, and had deceived and duped him; but she must have felt remorse stirring in her as she saw him drop his head on his clasped hands again, as though he were compelling himself to listen without interruption.
'You had been talking to Mr. Eric a long time in the study, Miss Etta told me; he had been going on like mad about Mr. Edgar Brown, and having to go to Mr. Armstrong's office; but you had been very firm, and had refused to hear any more, and he had flung off to his own room in one of his passions. Miss Gladys had followed him, and I heard him telling her that he had forgotten himself and struck you, and that you had turned him out of the study, and that he was in difficulties and must have money, for Mr. Edgar had got him into some trouble.'
'You heard this by listening at Mr. Eric's door, for Miss Gladys saw you,' I observed, not willing to let this pass.
'What has that got to do with it?' she returned rudely. 'I am speaking to the master, not you': but she grew a shade paler as I spoke. 'You were up late that night, sir; I was waiting to speak to Miss Etta, and encountered you in the passage. I went back to my own room for a little while, and then I knocked at her door; but there was no answer. I could see the room was dark, but I could hardly believe she was asleep: so I went to the bed and called Miss Etta, but I very soon found she was not there: her gown was on the couch and her dressing-gown missing from its place.
'I had a notion that I might as well follow her, for somehow I guessed that she had gone to the study; but I was certainly not prepared to see Mr. Eric stooping over your desk. He had a letter in his hand, and had just put down his chamber candlestick. All at once it flashed upon my mind that Miss Etta had told me that you had received a large cheque that night, and that you were going up to London the next day to cash it, and she hoped Dryden would not call again before you went. She said it quite casually, and I am sure then she had not thought of helping herself. Then the thought must have come to her all of a sudden.
'I remembered the cheque, and for an instant I suspected Mr. Eric. But as I was watching him I saw the curtain of one of the windows move, and I had a glimpse of yellow embroidery that certainly belonged to Miss Etta's dressing-gown. In a moment I grasped the truth: she had taken the cheque to settle Dryden's bill. But I must make myself certain of the fact: so I asked Mr. Eric, rather roughly, what he was doing, and he retorted by bidding me mind my own business.
'He had laid his letter on the desk, but when he had gone I walked up straight to the window, and nearly frightened Miss Etta into a fit by asking her what she had done with the cheque. She was grovelling on her knees before me in a moment, calling me her dear Leah and imploring me to shield her. I was very fierce with her at first, and was for putting it back again, until she told me, trembling all over, that she had endorsed it. She had copied your writing, and only an expert could have told the difference. ' "It is too late, Leah," she kept saying; "we cannot hide it from Giles now, and I must have the money, and you must help me to get it." And then she whispered that I should have some of it for Bob. ' "It is a nasty bit of business, Miss Etta," I replied, for I did not want to spare her; "it is forgery, that is what they would call it in a court of law"; but she would not let me finish, but flung herself upon me with a suppressed scream, and I could not shake her off. She kept saying that she would destroy herself if I would not help her: so I turned it over in my mind. I wanted money for Bob, and--well, sir, the devil had a deal to do with that night's business. I had settled it all before an hour was over. Bob would go up to London with the cheque, and cash it at the bank: he was tall and fair, and a suit of Mr. Eric's old clothes would make him quite the gentleman, and no one would notice the scar; when he was safely off and you missed the cheque there would be little trouble in casting the blame on Mr. Eric. I had taken care to place the letter in the desk, and I had plenty of circumstantial evidence to offer.
'Well, you know the rest, sir,--how you called Miss Etta into your study, and how she begged you to send for me. I had my story all ready,--my fear of thieves, and how I saw Mr. Eric standing with his hand in your desk. Of course the cheque could not be found: no one believed the poor young gentleman's ravings, especially after his talk with Miss Gladys. We took care that the telegram should not be sent too soon. Bob was on his way back by then, and before evening Dryden had his money, and Bob was safe in Clerkenwell. What is the good of my repeating it all? I shielded Miss Etta at Mr. Eric's expense; and, though I was sorry enough to drive him away from his home, we had to look to our own safety, and Miss Etta was nearly out of her mind with remorse and terror.' But here Mr. Hamilton's voice interrupted her harshly.
'Wait a moment, woman: have you ever since that day heard anything of that unfortunate boy?'
To my surprise Leah hesitated. 'Miss Etta believes that he is dead, sir; but I can't help differing from her, though I never told her the reason; but I have fancied more than once,--indeed I am speaking the truth now, sir,' as he darted a meaning look at her, 'I have no motive to do otherwise. --I have fancied that I have seen some one very like Mr. Eric lurking about the road on a dark night. Once I was nearly sure it was Mr. Eric, though he wore a workman's dress as a disguise. He was looking at the windows; the blind was up in the study, and Miss Gladys was there with Mr. Cunliffe; he had made her laugh about something. It was a warm night, and rather wet, and the window was open; I was just shutting it when I caught sight of him, and nearly called out; but he turned away quickly, and hid himself in the shrubbery, and though I went out to look for him I was too late, for I could see him walking down the road.'
'You are sure it was Mr. Eric.' Oh, the look of intense relief on Mr. Hamilton's face! He must have believed him dead all this time.
'I am nearly sure, sir. I saw him again in town. I was passing the Albert Memorial when I looked up at one of the fine houses opposite, and saw a young workman on the balcony with a painter's brush in his hand: the sun was shining full on his face. I saw him plainly then.'
Mr. Hamilton started from his seat. 'If this be true! --my father's son gaining his bread as a house-painter!'
'It is true,' I whispered; 'for I saw him myself, and told Gladys.'
'You saw him! --you!' with an air of utter incredulity.
'Yes; and I tried to speak to him. He was so like the picture in Gladys's room, I thought it must be Eric. But he would not hear me, and in a moment he was gone. The men called him Jack Poynter, and said he was a gentleman, but no one knew where he lived. Oh, I have tried so hard to find him for you, but he will not be found.'
'And you did not tell me of this,' very reproachfully.
'Gladys would not let me tell you,' I returned: 'we could not be sure, and--' But he put up his hand to stop me.
'That will do,' in a tone of suppressed grief that went to my heart. 'I will not wrong you if I can help it; no doubt you did it for the best; you did not willingly deceive me.'
'Never! I have never deceived you, Mr. Hamilton.'
'Not intentionally. I will do you justice even now; but, oh,'--and here he clinched his right hand, and I saw the veins on it stand out like whip-cord,--'how I have been betrayed! Those I have trusted have brought trouble and confusion in my household; and, good God! they are women, and I cannot curse them.'
I saw Leah quail beneath this burst of most righteous indignation. The blinding tears rushed to my eyes as I heard him: in spite of his sternness, he had been so simple and so unsuspicious. He trusted people so fully, he was so generous in his confidence, and yet the woman he loved had played him false, and the pitiful creatures he had sheltered under his roof had hatched this conspiracy against his peace.
'You can leave me now,' he continued harshly, turning to Leah. 'I will not trust myself to say more to you. If you receive mercy and not justice at my hands, it is because your confederate is even more guilty than you. I cannot spare the one without letting the other go unpunished. To-morrow morning, before the household is up, you and everything belonging to you shall leave this house. If you ever set foot in Heathfield again it will be at your own peril. Go up to your own room now and pack your boxes; I shall take the precaution of turning the key in your door to prevent your holding communication with any member of my household.'
'I give you my word, sir--' began Leah, turning visibly pale at the idea of finding herself a prisoner.
'Your word!' was the disdainful reply; and then he pointed to the door. 'Go at once!' But she still lingered. There was a spark of good even in this woman. She was unwilling to quit our presence without knowing what was to become of her mistress.
'You will not be hard on Miss Etta, sir? She has done wrong, but she is a poor creature, and--' But Mr. Hamilton walked to the door and threw it open with a gesture that compelled obedience.
The next moment, however, he recoiled with a low exclamation of horror; for there, drawn up against the wall, in a strange half-crouching attitude, as though petrified with terror, was his miserable cousin.
I heard Leah's shocked 'Miss Etta! How could you be so mad?' And then Mr. Hamilton put out his hand, as though to forbid approach; but with a cry of despair Miss Darrell seemed to sink to the ground, and held him convulsively round the knees, so that he could not free himself.
'Get up, Etta!' he said indignantly. 'It is not to me you have to kneel'; for he thought her attitude one of supplication. But I knew better. She had not strength to stand or support herself, and I passed behind him quickly and went to her help.
'You cannot speak to him like that, Miss Darrell. He will not hear you.' But, though Leah assisted me, we had some difficulty in inducing her to relax her frantic grip. And even when we placed her in a chair she seemed as though she would sink again on the ground. She was trembling all over, her teeth chattering; the muscles of her face worked convulsively.
'Giles, Giles,' she screamed, as he seemed about to leave her, 'you may kill me if you like, but you shall not look at me like this.' But, without vouchsafing her any answer, he turned to me.
'Will you wait with my cousin a moment? I will be back directly.' I nodded assent. I knew he wished to see Leah safely in her room, but as he closed the door Miss Darrell clutched my arm. She seemed really beside herself.
'Where has he gone? Will he fetch the police, Miss Garston? Will they put me in prison for it?'
'No,' I returned sternly. 'You know you are safe with him. He will not hurt a hair of your head, because you are a woman, and his own flesh and blood.'
'But he will banish me from his house!' she moaned. 'He will never forgive me or let me see his face again. He will tell--oh, I cannot bear it!' --her words strangled by a hoarse scream. 'I cannot and will not bear it.'
I put my hand on her shoulder. 'You must control yourself,' I said coldly. 'Would you wish Mr. Hamilton to treat you as a mad woman? Listen to me, Miss Darrell. One part of your secret is safe with me. Try and restrain yourself, and I will promise you that it shall never pass my lips.'
Even in her hysterical excitement she understood me, and a more human expression came into her hard, glaring eyes. 'Say it again; promise me,' she moaned. 'I hate you, but I know you are to be trusted.'
'If you behave yourself and try to control your feelings a little,' I returned slowly, 'I will say nothing about Uncle Max.' But at the name she covered her face with her hands and rocked herself in agony. In spite of all her sins I pitied her then.
At that moment Mr. Hamilton returned; but before he could speak I said quickly-- 'Your cousin is not in a condition to listen to you to-night, and it is very late: I am going to take her up to her room and do what I can to help her. Will you allow us to go?'
He looked at her and then at me. His face was hard and sombre; there was no relenting there. 'Perhaps it will be better,' he returned slowly. 'Yes, you may go, but do not stay long with her. I may want to speak to you again.'
'Not to-night,' I remonstrated; for I could see he was oblivious of the time, and it was near midnight. 'To-morrow morning, as early as you like; but I cannot come down again.'
'Oh, I see,' the meaning of my words dawning upon him. 'To-morrow morning, then. Take her away now.' And, without another glance, he walked away to his study table.
'Come, Miss Darrell,' I whispered, touching her; and she rose reluctantly. 'Giles,--let me say one word to him,' said she, trying to follow him feebly, but I recalled her sternly and made her follow me. I had no fear of her now. Leah, whom I dreaded, was locked safely in her room, and this poor miserable woman was harmless enough.
She broke into hysterical sobs and moans when I got her into her own room. I was afraid Gladys might hear her, and I insisted on her showing more self-control. My sharp words had their effect after a time, but it was impossible to induce her to undress or go to bed. She had flung herself across the foot and lay crouched up in a heap, with all the delicate embroidery of her French dressing-gown crushed under her. When she was quieter I put pillows under her head and covered her up warmly, and then sat down to watch her.
I was about to leave the room once to fetch something I wanted, when she suddenly struggled into a sitting posture, and begged me, in a voice of horror, not to leave her.
'Leah will murder me if you do!' she cried. 'She has frightened me often,--she says such things,--oh, you do not know! I should never have been so bad but for Leah!'
'I shall not be long; and Leah is locked in her room; Mr. Hamilton has the key,' I returned quietly. But it was with difficulty that she would let me go. I suppose even criminals feel the need of sympathy. Miss Darrell hated me in her heart, had always hated me, but the sight of even an unloved human face was better than solitude. No wonder with such thoughts people go mad sometimes.
I was surprised to see Mr. Hamilton walking up and down the long passage, as though he were keeping guard. He was going to let me pass him without a word, but I stopped and asked what he was doing.
'I was waiting until you were safe in your own room,' was the reply. 'What has kept you so long?'
'I must go back again,' I returned quickly; 'she is not fit to be left alone. I am not afraid of her now, Mr. Hamilton: she can do me no harm. Please do not watch any longer.'
'You were ill: have you forgotten that? I ought not to allow you to make yourself worse. Why,' with a sort of impatience visible in his manner, 'need you be troubled about our miserable affairs?'
'Let me go back for a little while,' I pleaded; for I knew if he ordered me into my own room I should be obliged to obey him. 'It keeps her in check, seeing me there: she is so exhausted that she must sleep soon; and then I will lie down.' I suppose he thought there was no help for it, for he drew back for me to pass; but I was grieved to hear his footsteps for a long time after that pacing slowly up and down, and it was more for his sake than my own that I was glad when Miss Darrell's moans ceased, and the more quiet regular breathing proved to me that she was asleep.
The passage was empty when I came out, and the first faint streak of dawn was visible. It was too late then to think of going to bed. I lay down, dressed as I was, and slept for a couple of hours; then the sunshine woke me, and I got up and took my bath and felt refreshed.
Chatty brought me my tea early, and told me that Mr. Hamilton was walking in the garden. 'And do you know, ma'am,' observed the girl breathlessly, 'something strange must have happened since last evening; for when I looked out of my window before six this morning I saw master standing before the door, and there was Leah, in her bonnet, speaking to him, and she went off with Pierson, wheeling off her boxes on his truck. I do believe she has really gone, ma'am, and not a creature in the house knows it.'
'Never mind: it is not our business, Chatty; but I think I will go and speak to your master when I have finished my tea.'
'I was to give you a message, ma'am,--that he would be glad if you could join him in the garden as soon as you were up, as he had to go some distance, and he wanted to tell you about it.' I put down my cup at once when I heard this, and hurried out into the garden.
Mr. Hamilton was pacing up and down the asphalt walk as he had paced the passage last night. He did not quicken his steps when he saw me, but walked towards me slowly, with the gait of a man who has a load on his mind.
'I hardly expected you so early. Have you had any rest at all?' looking at me rather anxiously.
'Yes, thank you; I have slept for two hours. But you have not, Mr. Hamilton'; for he was looking wretchedly worn and ill.
'Was it likely that I could sleep?' he returned impatiently. 'But I have no time to waste. Atkinson will be round here directly with the dog-cart. I am going off to Liverpool by the 12.10 train.'
'To Liverpool?' in unfeigned surprise.
'Yes; I have been thinking all night what is to be done about my unfortunate cousin. She is dependent on me, and I cannot send her away without finding her a home. That home,' pausing as though to give emphasis to his words, 'can never be under my roof again.'
'I suppose not.'
'The sin is of too black a dye for me to bring myself to forgive her. If I were to say that I forgive her I should lie.' And here his face became dark again. 'She has disgraced that poor boy Eric, and driven him away from his home; she has made Gladys's life wretched: her whole existence must have been a tissue of deceit and treachery. How could I sleep when I was trying to disentangle this mesh of deception and lies? how do I know when she has been true or when wholly false?'
'I fear there has been little truth spoken to you, Mr. Hamilton.' I was thinking of Gladys when I said that, but something in my words seemed to strike him.
'Is there anything else I ought to know? But no, I have no time for that: I must try and make some arrangements at once: she cannot break bread with us again. The people I want to find are old patients of mine. I was able to serve them once: I feel as though I have a claim on them.'
'But you will be back soon?' for I could not bear him to leave us alone.
'To-morrow morning. I will take the night train up, but I shall be detained in London. Take care of Gladys for me, Miss Garston. Do not tell her more than you think necessary. Do not let Etta see her, if you can help it; but I know you will act for the best.' Then, as he looked at me, his face softened for a moment. 'I wish I had not to leave you; but you could send for Mr. Cunliffe.'
'Oh, there will be no need for that,' I returned hastily, for the thought of the wretched woman upstairs would prevent me from sending for Uncle Max. 'Come back as quickly as you can, and I will do my best for Gladys.'
'I know it. I can trust you,' he replied, very gently. 'Take care of yourself also.' Then, as the wheels of the dog-cart sounded on the gravel, he held out his hand to me gravely, and then turned away. A moment afterwards I heard his voice speaking to Atkinson, and as I entered the shrubbery Pierson was fastening the gate after them.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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45
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'THIS HOME IS YOURS NO LONGER'
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There are long gray days in every one's life.
I think that day was the longest that I ever spent: it seemed as though the morning would never merge into afternoon, or the afternoon into evening. Of the night I could not judge, for I slept as only weary youth can sleep.
Sheer humanity, the mere instinct of womankind, had obliged me to watch by Miss Darrell through the previous night: for some hours her hysterical state had bordered on frenzy. I knew sleep was the best restorative in such cases: she would wake quieter. There would be no actual need for my services, and unless she sent for me I thought it better to leave her alone: she was only suffering the penalty of her own sin, the shame of detected guilt. There was no sign of real penitence to give me hope for the future.
I found Gladys awake when I returned from the garden: in spite of my anxiety, it gave me intense pleasure to hear her greeting words.
'Oh, Ursula, come and kiss me; it is good morning indeed. I woke so happy; everything is so lovely,--the sunshine, and the birds, and the flowers!' And, with a smile, 'I wished somebody could have seen--"my thoughts of Max."' And then, still holding me fast, 'I do not forget my poor boy, in spite of my happiness, but something tells me that Eric will soon come back.'
'He might have been here now,' I grumbled, 'if you had allowed me to tell your brother'; for those few reproachful words haunted me.
'Yes, dear; I know I was wrong,' she answered, with sweet candour. 'Giles is so kind now that I cannot think why I was so reserved with him; but of course,' flushing a little, 'I was afraid of Etta.'
'I suppose that was the reason,' I returned, busying myself about the room; for I did not care to pursue the subject. Mr. Hamilton's few words had convinced me that he thought it would be wiser to leave Gladys in ignorance of what was going on until Miss Darrell was out of the house. She had borne so much, and was still weak and unfit for any great excitement. My great fear was lest Miss Darrell should force her way into Gladys's presence and disturb her by a scene; and this fear kept me anxious and uneasy all day.
Gladys was a trifle restless; she wanted a drive again, and when I made her brother's absence a pretext for refusing this, she pleaded for a stroll in the garden. It was with great difficulty that I at last induced her to remain quietly in her room. But when she saw that I was really serious she gave up her wishes very sweetly, and consoled herself by writing to Max, in answer to a letter that he had sent under cover to me.
It was nearly noon before Chatty brought me a message that Miss Darrell was just up and dressed, and wished to speak to me; and I went at once to her.
The usually luxurious room had an untidy and forlorn aspect. The crumpled Indian dressing-gown and the breakfast-tray littered the couch; ornaments, jewellery, and brushes strewed the dressing-table. Miss Darrell was sitting in an easy-chair by the open window. She did not move or glance as I entered in the full light. She looked pinched and old and plain. Her eyelids were swollen; her complexion had a yellowish whiteness; as I stood opposite to her, I could see gray hairs in the smooth dark head; before many years were over Miss Darrell would look an old woman. I could not help wondering, as I looked at her, how any one could have called her handsome.
'Chatty says Leah has gone,' she said, in a voice fretful with misery. 'I told her that that was too good news to be true. Is it true, Miss Garston?'
'Yes; she has gone.'
'I am glad of it,' with a vixenish sharpness that surprised me. 'I hated that woman, and yet I was afraid of her too: she got me in her toils, and then I was helpless. Where has Giles gone, Miss Garston? Chatty said he went off in a dog-cart with his portmanteau.'
How I wished Chatty would hold her tongue sometimes! but most likely Miss Darrell had questioned her.
'Mr. Hamilton's business is not our affair,' I returned coldly.
'That means I am not to ask; but all the same you are in his secret,' with one of her old sneers. 'Will he be back to-night?'
'No, not to-night; to-morrow morning early.'
'That is all I want to know, Miss Garston,' hesitating a little nervously. 'I have never liked you, but all the same I have not injured you.'
'Have you not, Miss Darrell?'
'No,' very uneasily; but she did not meet my eyes. 'I defy you to prove that I have. Still, if I were your enemy, ought you not to heap coals of fire on my head?'
'Possibly.'
My coolness seemed to frighten her; she lost her sullen self-possession.
'Have you no heart?' she said passionately. 'Will you not hold up a finger to help me? You have influence with Giles; do not deny it. If you ask him to keep me here he will not refuse you, and you will make me your slave for life.'
I heard this proposition with disgust. She could cringe to me whom she hated. I shook my head, feeling unable to answer her.
'I could help you,' she persisted, fixing her miserable eyes on me. 'Oh, I know what you want: you cannot hide from me that you are unhappy. I know where the hindrance lies; one word from me would bring Giles to your feet. Am I to say that word?'
'No,' I returned indignantly. 'Do you think that I would owe anything to you? I would rather be unhappy all my life than be under such an obligation. You are powerless to harm me, Miss Darrell; your plots are nothing to me.'
'And yet a word from me would bring him to your feet.'
'I do not want him there,' I replied, irritated at this persistence. 'I do not wish you to mention his name to me; if you do so again I will leave you.'
'On your head be your own obstinacy,' she returned angrily; but I could see the despair in her eyes, and I answered that.
'Miss Darrell,' I went on, more gently, 'I cannot help you in this. How could I ask Mr. Hamilton to keep you under his roof, knowing that you have poisoned his domestic happiness? Even if I could be so mad or foolish, would he be likely to listen to me?'
'He would listen to you,' half crying: 'you know he worships the ground you walk on.'
I tried to keep back the rebellious colour that rose to my face at her words.
'Do not cheat yourself with this insane belief,' I returned quietly. 'Mr. Hamilton is inexorable when he has decided on anything.'
'Inexorable! you may well say so!' rocking herself in an uncontrollable excitement. 'Giles is hard,--cruel in his wrath: he will send me away and never see me again.' And now the tears began to flow.
'Miss Darrell,' I continued pityingly, 'for your own sake listen to me a moment. You have failed most miserably in the past: let the future years be years of repentance and atonement. Mr. Hamilton will not forgive until you have proved yourself worthy of forgiveness: remember you owe the future to him.'
She stared at me for a moment as though my words held some hope for her; then she turned her back on me and went on rocking herself. 'Too late!' I heard her mutter: 'I cannot be good without him.' And, with a strange sinking of heart, I left the room.
She could bring him to my feet with a word. Was this the truth, or only an idle boast? No matter; I would not owe even his love to this woman. 'I can live without you, Giles,--my Giles,' I whispered; but hot tears burnt my cheeks as I spoke.
In the afternoon I saw Miss Darrell pacing up and down the asphalt walk. Gladys saw her too, and turned away from the window rather nervously. 'How restless Etta seems!' she said once; but I made no answer. Towards evening I heard her footsteps perambulating the long passage, and softly turned the key in the lock without Gladys noticing the movement. Gladys noticed very little in that sweet dreamy mood that had come to her; her own thoughts occupied her; her lover's letter had more than contented her.
About ten o'clock I went in search of Chatty, and came face to face with Miss Darrell. She was in her crumpled yellow dressing-gown, and her dark hair hung over her shoulders; her eyes looked bright and strange. I moved back a step and laid my hand on the handle.
She greeted this action with a disagreeable laugh.
'I suppose you heard me trying the door just now. Yes, I wanted to see Gladys; I wished to make some one feel as wretched as I do myself; but you were too quick for me. Do you always keep your patients under lock and key?'
'Sometimes,' laconically, for I disliked her manner more than ever to-night: it was not the first time that I had fancied that she had had recourse to some form of narcotic. 'Why do you not go to bed, Miss Darrell?'
'Perhaps I shall when I have thoroughly tired myself. These passages have rather a ghastly look: they remind me of Leah, too,' with a shudder. 'Good-night, Miss Garston; pleasant dreams to you. I suppose you have not thought better of what I said about Giles?'
'No, certainly not,' retreating into my room and locking the door in a panic. I heard a husky laugh answer me. Perhaps last night's watching had tired my nerves, for it was long before I could compose myself to sleep.
The night passed quietly, and I woke, refreshed, to the sound of summer rain pattering on the shrubs. The little oak avenue looked wet and dreary; but no amount of rain or outward dreariness could damp me, with the expectation of Mr. Hamilton's return; and I helped Chatty arrange our rooms with great cheerfulness.
He came back earlier than I expected. I had hardly finished settling Gladys for the day,--she took great pains with her toilet now, and was hard to please in the matter of ruffles and ornaments,--when Chatty told me that he wished to speak to me a moment.
I made some excuse and joined him without delay. He looked much as he had the previous morning,--very worn and tired, and his eyes a little sunken; but he greeted me quietly, and even kindly; he asked me if I felt better, and how Gladys was. I was rather ashamed of my nervous manner of answering, but that odious speech of Miss Darrell would come into my mind when he looked at me.
'Chatty says my cousin is in the dining-room: do you mind coming down with me for a few minutes? I do not wish to see her alone.'
Of course I signified my willingness to accompany him, and he walked beside me silently to the dining-room door.
Miss Darrell was sitting on the circular seat looking out on the oak avenue; she did not turn her head, and there was something hopeless in the line of her stooping shoulders. I saw her hands clutch the cushions nervously as her cousin walked straight to the window.
'Etta,' he began abruptly, 'I wish you to listen to me a moment. I will spare you all I can, for Aunt Margaret's sake: I do not intend to be more hard with you than my duty demands.'
'Oh, Giles!' raising her eyes at this mild commencement; but they dropped again at the sight of the dark impenetrable face, which certainly had no look of pity on it. She must have felt then, what I should certainly have felt in her place, that any prayers or tears would be wasted on him.
'It would be useless, and worse than useless,' he went on, 'to point out to you the heinousness of your sin,--perhaps I should say crime. All these years you have not faltered in your relentless course; no pity for me and mine has touched your heart; you have allowed our poor lad to wander about the world as an outcast; you have suffered Gladys to carry a heavy and bitter weight in her bosom. Pshaw! why do I reiterate these things? you know them all.'
'Giles, I have loved you in spite of it all! Be merciful to me!' But he went on as though he heard her no more than the rain dripping on the leaves.
'This home is yours no longer; you are no fit companion for my sisters, even if I could bear to shelter a traitor under my roof. If I know my present feelings, I will never willingly see your face again: whether I ever do see it depends on your future conduct.'
'Oh, for pity's sake, Giles!' She was writhing now. In spite of all her sins against him, she had loved him in her perverse way.
'I have found you a home far from here,' he continued in the same chilling manner, 'and to-morrow morning you will be taken to it. The Alnwicks are kind, worthy people--not rich in this world's goods, or what the world would call refined. I was able to help them once when they were in bitter straits: in return they have acceded to my request and have offered you a home.'
'I will not go!' she sobbed passionately. 'I would rather you should kill me, Giles, than treat me with such cruelty!'
'They are old,' he went on calmly, 'but more with trouble than years, and they have no one belonging to them, and they promise to treat you like a daughter. You will be in comfort, but not luxury: luxury has been your curse, Etta. A moderate sum will be paid to you yearly for your dress and personal expenses, but if overdrawn or misapplied it will be curtailed or stopped altogether. Your maintenance will be arranged between the Alnwicks and myself, and, unless I give you permission to write,--which is distinctly not my purpose now,--no letter from you will be read or answered, and I forbid all such communication.'
'I cannot--I cannot bear it!' she screamed, springing to her feet; but he waved her back with such a look that her arms dropped to her side.
'No scene, I beg,' in a tone of disgust. 'Let me finish quietly what I have to say. --Miss Garston,' turning to me, 'could you spare Chatty to help my cousin pack her clothes and books? for we shall start early in the morning. Mr. Alnwick has promised to meet us half-way.'
'I can set Chatty at liberty for the day,' was my answer.
'Very well. Etta, you may as well go at once. Your meals will be served in your room. I do not wish you to resume your usual habits: this is my house, not yours. Your only course now must be obedience and submission. Let your future conduct atone to me for the past, that I may remember without shame that I have a cousin Etta.'
He turned away then, but I could see his face working. He had dearly loved this miserable creature, and had cared for her as though she had been his sister, and he could not leave her without this vague word of hope. Did she understand him, I wonder,--that in the future he might bring himself to forgive her? I heard her weeping bitterly in her room afterwards, and Chatty, in her fussy, good-natured way, trying to comfort her: the girl had a kind heart.
Early in the afternoon Mr. Hamilton joined us in the turret-room. Directly he came in and sat down by his sister's couch I knew that he meant to tell her everything,--that he thought it best that she should hear it from him.
He told it very quietly, without any explanation or expression of feeling; but it was not possible for Gladys to hear that Eric's name was cleared without keen emotion. 'Oh, thank God for this other mercy!' she sobbed, bursting into tears; and presently, as he went on, she crept closer to him, and before he had finished she had clasped his arm with her two hands and her face was hidden in them.
'Oh, Giles! if you only knew what she has made me suffer!' she whispered. 'We should have understood each other better if Etta had not always come between us.'
'You are right; I feel you are right, Gladys,' stroking her fair hair as he spoke; then she looked up and smiled affectionately in his face.
'Ursula, will you leave me alone with my brother for a little? There is something I want to tell him!' And I went away at once.
As I opened the door, Chatty came down the passage with a pile of freshly-ironed linen. Her round face looked unusually disturbed.
'She is going on so, ma'am,' she whispered, 'it is dreadful to hear her. She is making us turn out all her drawers, and there are three big trunks to fill. She says she is going away for ever.'
'Hush!' I returned, with a warning look, for Miss Darrell was at the door watching us. She was in her yellow dressing-gown, and the old pinched look was still in her face.
'Why are you stopping to gossip, Chatty?' she said querulously. 'I shall not have finished until midnight at this rate. Leah would have packed by this time.' And Chatty, with rather a frightened look, carried in her pile of clean linen.
I strolled about the garden for an hour, and then went back to the house. Mr. Hamilton was just closing the door of his sister's room. He looked happier, I thought: the dark, irritable expression had left his face. He came forward with a smile.
'Gladys has been telling me, Miss Garston. I am more glad than I can say. Cunliffe is a fine fellow; there is no one that I should like so well for a brother.'
'I knew you would say so. Uncle Max is so good.'
'Well, he has secured a prize,' with a slight sigh. 'Gladys is a noble woman; she will make her husband a happy man. There is little doubt that Etta did mischief there; but Gladys was not willing to enter on that part of the subject. I begin to think,' with a quick, searching look that somewhat disturbed me, 'that we have not yet reached the limits of her mischief-making.'
I could have told him that I knew that. I think he meant to have said something more; but a slight movement in the direction of Miss Darrell's room made us separate somewhat quickly. I saw Mr. Hamilton glance uneasily at the half-closed door as he went past it.
I found Gladys in tears, but she made me understand with some difficulty that they were only tears of relief and joy.
'But I am sorry too, because I have so often grieved him so,' she said, drying her eyes. 'Oh, how good Giles is! --how noble! --and I have misunderstood him so! he was so glad about Max, and so very very kind. And then we talked about Eric. He says we were wrong to keep it from him, that even you were to blame in that. He thinks so highly of you, Ursula; but he said even good people make mistakes sometimes, and that this was a great mistake. I was so sorry when he said that, that I asked his pardon over and over again.'
I felt that I longed to ask his pardon too; and yet the fault had been Gladys's more than mine; but I knew she had talked enough, so I kissed her, and begged her to lie down and compose herself while I got the tea ready.
We did not see Mr. Hamilton again that night. Gladys and I sat by the open window, talking by snatches or relapsing into silence. When she had retired to rest I stole out into the passage to see what had become of tired Chatty, but I repented this charitable impulse when I saw Miss Darrell standing in the open doorway opposite, as though she were watching for some one.
On seeing me she beckoned imperiously, and I crossed the passage with some reluctance.
'Come in a moment: I want to speak to you,' she said hoarsely; and I saw she was much excited. 'I sent Chatty to bed. We have finished packing,--oh, quite finished. Giles will be satisfied with my obedience; and now I want you to tell me what you and he were saying about Mr. Cunliffe.' But her white lips looked whiter as she spoke.
'Excuse me, Miss Darrell,' I returned; but she stopped me.
'You are going to say that it is no business of mine. You are always cautious, Miss Garston; but I am resolved to know this, or I will refuse to leave the house to-morrow morning. Are they engaged? is that what Giles meant when he said he was a fine fellow?'
I thought it wiser to tell her the truth. 'They are engaged.'
'And Giles knows it, and gives his consent?'
'Most gladly and willingly.'
'I wish I could kill them both!' was the sullen reply; and then, without taking any further notice of me, she sat down on one of the boxes and hid her face in her hands, and when I tried to speak to her she shook her head with a gesture of impatience and despair.
'The game is played out; I may as well go,' she muttered; and seeing her in this mood I thought it better to leave her; but I slept uneasily, and often started up in bed fancying I heard something. I remembered her words with horror: the whole scene was like a nightmare to me,--the disordered and desolate room, with the great heavily-corded trunks, the dim light, the wretched woman in her yellow dressing-gown sitting crouched on a box. 'Can this be love?' I thought, with a shudder,--'this compound of vanity and selfishness?' and I felt how different was my feeling for Giles. The barrier might never be broken down between us, I might never be to him more than I was now, but all my life I should love and honour him as the noblest man I knew on God's earth.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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46
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NAP BARKS IN THE STABLE-YARD
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I was arranging some flowers that Max had sent us the next morning, and waiting for Gladys to join me, when Mr. Hamilton came in.
'Where is Gladys?' he asked, looking round the room; but when he heard that she had not finished dressing, he would not hear of my disturbing her.
'It is no matter,' he went on. 'I shall be back before she is in bed. I only wanted to tell her that I have seen Cunliffe. I breakfasted with him this morning. He will be up here presently to see her. He looks ten years younger, Miss Garston.' And, as I smiled at that, he continued, in rather a constrained voice,-- 'Mr. Tudor breakfasted with us.'
'Yes, I suppose so,' I returned carelessly. 'What splendid carnations these are, Mr. Hamilton! You have not any so good at Gladwyn.'
'Cunliffe must spare me some cuttings,' he replied, rather absently; then, without looking at me, and in a peculiar voice, 'Is it still a secret, Miss Garston, or may I be allowed to congratulate you?'
I dropped the carnations as though they suddenly scorched me.
'Why should you congratulate me, Mr. Hamilton?'
'I thought you considered me a friend,' he replied, rather nervously. 'But, of course, if it be still a secret, I must beg your pardon for my abruptness.'
'I don't know what you mean,' I said, very crossly, but my cheeks were burning. 'If this be a joke, I must tell you once for all that I dislike this sort of jokes: they are not in good taste': for I was as angry with him as possible, for who knew what nonsense he had got into his head? He looked at me in quite a bewildered fashion; my anger was evidently incomprehensible to him. We were playing at cross-purposes.
'Do you think I am in the mood for joking?' he said, at last. 'Have you ever heard me jest on such subjects, Miss Garston? I thought we agreed on that point.'
'Do you mean you are serious?'
'Perfectly serious.'
'Then in that case will you kindly explain to me why you think I am to be congratulated?'
He looked uncomfortable. 'I have understood that you and Mr. Tudor were engaged, or, at least, likely to become so. Do you mean,' as my astonished face seemed to open room for doubt, 'that it is not true? --that Etta deceived me there?'
'Miss Darrell!' scornfully; then, controlling my strong indignation with an effort, I said, more quietly, 'I think that we ought to beg Mr. Tudor's pardon for dragging in his name in this way: he would hardly thank us. If I am not mistaken, he is in love with my cousin Jocelyn.'
'Impossible! What a credulous fool I have been to believe her! Your cousin Jocelyn,--do you mean Miss Jill?'
'Yes,' I returned, smiling, for a sense of renewed happiness was stealing over me. 'The foolish fellow is always following me about to talk of her. I do believe he is honestly in love with her. He saved her life, and that makes it all the worse.'
'All the better, you mean,' regarding me gravely. That fixed, serious look made me rather confused.
'Would you mind telling me, Mr. Hamilton,' I interposed hurriedly, 'what put this absurd idea into your head?'
'It was Etta,' he returned, in a low voice. 'It was that night when you had been singing to us, and she came home unexpectedly.'
'Yes, yes, I remember'; but I could not meet his eyes.
'She told me when we got home that Mr. Tudor was in love with you, and that she believed you were engaged, or that, at least, there was an understanding between you; and she added that if I did not believe her I might watch for myself, and I should see that you were always together.'
'Well?' rather impatiently.
'I will beg your pardon afterwards for following Etta's advice, but I did watch, and it was not long before I came round to her opinion.'
'Mr. Hamilton!'
'Wait a moment before you get angry with me again. I never saw you in a passion before'; but I knew he was laughing at me. 'Etta was certainly right in one thing: I seemed always finding you together.'
'That was because I often met Mr. Tudor in the village, and he turned back and walked with me a little; but we always talked of Jill.'
'How could I know that?' in rather an injured voice. 'Were you talking of Miss Jocelyn in the vicarage kitchen-garden that evening?'
'Probably,' was my cool reply; for how could I remember all the subjects of our conversation?
'And when you went to Hyde Park Gate, you were together then,--Leah saw you,--and--' But I could bear no more.
'How could I know that I should be watched and spied upon, and all my innocent actions misrepresented?' I exclaimed indignantly. 'It was not fair, Mr. Hamilton. I could not have believed it of you, that you should listen to such things against me. That boy, too!'
'Nonsense!' speaking in his old good-humoured voice, and looking exceedingly pleased. 'He is five-and-twenty, and a very good-looking fellow: a girl might do worse for herself than marry Lawrence Tudor.'
'But I intend to have him as my cousin some day,' was my reply; but at this moment Chatty came in to tell Mr. Hamilton that the boxes were in the cart, and Miss Darrell waiting in the carriage.
'Confound it! I had forgotten all about Etta,' he returned impatiently. 'Well, it cannot be helped: we must finish our conversation this evening.' And with a smile that told of restored confidence he went off.
I sat down and cried a little for sheer happiness, for I knew the barrier was broken at last, and that we should soon arrive at a complete understanding. It was hard that he should have to leave me just then; and the thought of resuming the conversation in the evening made me naturally a little nervous. 'Supposing I go back to the White Cottage,' I thought once; but I knew he would follow me there, and that it would seem idle coquetting on my part. It would be more dignified to wait and hear what he had to say. I should go back to the White Cottage in a day or two.
Gladys came out of her room when she heard the wheels, and proposed that we should go down into the drawing-room. 'Poor poor Etta!' she sighed. 'I try to pity and be sorry for her, but it is impossible not to be glad that she has gone. I want to look at every room, Ursula, and to realise that I am to have my own lovely home in peace. We must send for Lady Betty; and Giles must know about Claude. I do not believe that he will be angry: oh no, nothing will make Giles angry now.'
Max found us very busy in the drawing-room. I was just carrying out a work-box and a novel that belonged to Miss Darrell, and Gladys had picked up a peacock-feather screen, and a carved ivory fan, and two or three little knick-knacks. 'Take them all away, Ursula dear,' she pleaded, with a faint shudder; but as she put them in my arms there were Max's eyes watching us from the threshold.
I saw her go up to him as simply as a child, and put her hands in his, and as I closed the door Max took her in his arms. The peacock screen fell at my feet, the ivory fan and a hideous little Chinese god rolled noisily on the oilcloth. I smiled as I picked them up. My dear Max and his Lady of Delight were together at last. I felt as though my cup of joy were full.
Max remained to luncheon, but he went away soon afterwards. Gladys must rest, and he would come again later in the evening. I was rather glad when he said this, for I wanted to go down to the White Cottage and see Mrs. Barton, and I could not have left the house while he was there. Yes, Max was certainly right: it would be better for him to come again when Mr. Hamilton was at home.
I made Gladys take possession of her favourite little couch in the drawing-room, but she detained me for some time talking about Max, until I refused to hear another word, and then I went up to my own room, and put on my hat.
I thought Nap would like a run down the road,--and I could always make Tinker keep the peace,--so I went into the stable-yard in search of him. He was evidently there, for I could hear him barking excitedly. The next moment a young workman came out of the empty coach-house, and walked quickly to the gate, followed closely by Nap, jumping and fawning on him.
'Down, down, good dog!' I heard him say, and then I whistled back Nap, who came reluctantly, and with some difficulty I contrived to shut him up in the stable-yard. There seemed no man about the premises. Then I hurried down the road in the direction of the village: my heart was beating fast, my limbs trembled under me. I had caught sight of a perfect profile and a golden-brown moustache as the young workman went out of the gate, and I knew it was the face of Eric Hamilton.
My one thought was that I must follow him, that on no account must I lose sight of him. As I closed the gate I could see him in the distance, just turning the corner by the Man and Plough; he was walking very quickly in the direction of the station. I quickened my steps, breaking into a run now and then, and soon had the satisfaction of lessening the distance between us; my last run had brought me within a hundred yards of him, and slackened my pace, and began to look the matter in the face.
I remembered that the London train would be due in another quarter of an hour; no doubt that was why he was walking so fast. I must keep near him when he took his ticket. I had no fear of his recognising me; he had only seen me twice, without my bonnet, and now I wore a hat that shaded my face, and my plain gray gown was sufficiently unlike the dress I had worn at Hyde Park Gate. I had a sudden qualm as the thought darted into my mind that he might possibly have a return-ticket; but I should know if he got into the Victoria train, and I determined on taking a ticket for myself.
I had a couple of sovereigns and a little loose silver in my purse. I had assured myself of this fact as I walked down the hill. As soon as the young workman had entered the booking-office, I followed him closely, and to my great relief heard him ask for a third-class ticket for Victoria. When he had made way for me I took the same for myself, and then, as I had seven minutes to spare, I went into the telegraph-office and dashed off a message to Gladys.
'Called to town on important business; may be detained to-night. Will write if necessary.'
As I gave in the form I could hear the signal for the up train, and had only time to reach the platform when the Victoria train came in.
The young workman got into an empty compartment, and I followed and placed myself at the other end. I had no wish to attract his notice; the ill success of my former attempt had frightened me, and I felt I dared not address him, for fear he should leave the train at the next station. Some workmen had got in and were talking noisily among themselves. I did not feel that the opportunity would he propitious.
When we had actually left Heathfield I stole a glance at the young man: he had drawn his cap over his eyes, and seemed to feign sleep, no doubt to avoid conversation with the noisy crew opposite us; but that he was not really asleep was evident from the slight twitching of the mouth and a long-drawn sigh that every now and then escaped him.
I could watch him safely now, and for a few minutes I studied almost painfully one of the most perfect faces I had ever seen. It was thin and colourless, and there were lines sad to see on so young a face; but it might have been a youthful Apollo leaning his head against the wooden wainscotting.
Once he opened his eyes and pushed back his cap with a gesture of weariness and impatience. He did not see me: those sad, blue-gray eyes were fixed on the moving landscape; but how like Gladys's they looked! I turned aside quickly to hide my emotion. I thought of Gladys and Mr. Hamilton, and a prayer rose to my lips that for their sake I might succeed in bringing the lost one back.
The journey seemed a long one. All sorts of fears tormented me. I remembered Mr. Hamilton was in London: there was danger of encountering him at Victoria. It was five now: he might possibly return to dinner. I could scarcely breathe as this new terror presented itself to me, for if Eric caught sight of his brother all would be lost.
When the train stopped, I followed the young workman as closely as possible. As we were turning in the subterranean passage for the District Railway, my heart seemed to stop. There was Mr. Hamilton reading his paper under the clock: we actually passed within twenty yards of him, and he did not raise his eyes. I am sure Eric saw him, for he suddenly dived into the passage, and I had much trouble to keep him in sight: as it was, I was only just in time to hear him ask for a third-class single to Bishop's Road.
I did not dare enter the same compartment, but I got into the next, and now and then, when our train stopped at the different stations, I could hear him distinctly talking to a fellow-workman, in a refined, gentlemanly voice, that would have attracted attention to him anywhere. Once the other man called him Jack, and asked where he hung out, and I noticed this question was cleverly eluded, but I heard him say afterwards that he was in regular work, and liked his present governor, and that the old woman who looked after him was a tidy, decent lady, and kept things comfortable. My thoughts strayed a little after this. The sight of Mr. Hamilton had disturbed me. What would he think when Gladys showed him my telegram? He had promised to finish our conversation this evening. I felt with a strange soreness of longing that I should not see Gladwyn that night. My absence of mind nearly cost me dear, for I had no idea that we had reached Bishop's Road until Eric passed my window, and with a smothered exclamation I opened the door: happily, the passengers were numerous and blocked up the stairs, so I reached the street to find him only a few yards before me.
My patience was being severely exercised after this, for Eric did not go straight to his lodgings. He went into a butcher's first, and after a few minutes' delay--for there were customers in the shop--came out with a newspaper parcel in his hand. Then he went into a grocer's, and through the window I could see him putting little packets of tea and sugar in his pocket.
His next business was to the baker's, and here a three-cornered crusty loaf was the result. The poor young fellow was evidently providing his evening meal, and the sight of these homely delicacies reminded me that I was tired and hungry and that a cup of tea would be refreshing. Eric carried his steak and three-cornered loaf jauntily, and every now and then broke into a sweet low whistle that reminded me of his nickname among his mates of 'Jack the Whistler.'
We were threading the labyrinth of streets that lie behind Bishop's Road Station; I was beginning to feel weary and discouraged, when Eric stopped suddenly before a neat-looking house of two stories, with very bright geraniums in the parlour window, and taking out his latch-key let himself in, and closed the door with a bang.
I stalked carelessly to the end of the street, and read the name. 'No. 25 Madison Street,' I said to myself, and then I went up to the door and knocked boldly. My time had come now, I thought, trying to pull myself together, for I felt decidedly nervous.
A stout, oldish woman with rather a pleasant face opened the door; her arms were bare, and she dried her hands on her apron as she asked me my business.
'Your lodger Jack Poynter has just come in,' I said quietly. 'I have a message for him. Can I see him, please?'
'Oh ay,--you can see him surely.' And she stepped back into the passage and called out, 'Jack, Jack! here is a young woman wants to speak to you.' But I shut the door hurriedly and interrupted her: 'Let me go up to his room: you can tell me where it is'; for it never would do to speak to him in the passage.
'Well, perhaps he may be washing and brushing himself a bit after his journey,' she returned good-humouredly: 'he is a tidy chap, is Jack. If you go up to the top landing and knock at the second door, that is his sitting-room; he sleeps at the back, and Sawyer has the other room.'
I followed these instructions, and knocked at the front-room door; but no voice bade me come in; only a short bark and a scuffle of feet gave me notice of the occupant: so I ventured to go in.
It was a tidy little room, and had a snug aspect. A white fox-terrier with a pretty face retreated growling under a chair, but I coaxed her to come out. The steak and the loaf were on the table. But I had no time for any further observation, for a voice said, 'What are you barking at, Jenny?' and the next moment Eric entered the room.
He started when he saw me caressing the dog.
'I beg your pardon for this intrusion,' I began nervously, for I saw I was not recognised; 'but I have followed you from Heathfield to tell you the good news. Mr. Hamilton, it is all found out; Miss Darrell stole that cheque.'
I had blurted it out, fearing that he might start away from me even then: he must know that his name was cleared, and then I could persuade him to listen to me. I was right in my surmise, for as I said his name he put his hand on the door, but my next words made him drop the handle.
'What?' he exclaimed, turning deadly pale, and I could see how his lips quivered under his moustache. 'Say that again: I do not understand.'
'Mr. Hamilton,' I repeated slowly, 'you need not have rushed past your poor brother in that way at Victoria, for he is breaking his heart, and so is Gladys, with the longing to find you. Your name is cleared: they only want to ask your forgiveness for all you have suffered. It was a foul conspiracy of two women to save themselves by ruining you. Leah has made full confession. Your cousin Etta took the cheque out of your brother's desk.'
'Oh, my God!' he gasped, and, sitting down, he hid his face in his hands. The little fox-terrier jumped on his knee and began licking his hands. 'Don't, Jenny: let me be,' he said, in a fretful, boyish voice that made me smile. 'I must think, for my brain seems dizzy.'
I left him quiet for a few minutes, and Jenny, after this rebuke, curled herself up at his feet and went to sleep. Then I took the chair beside him, and asked him, very quietly, if he could listen to me. He was frightfully pale, and his features were working, but he nodded assent and held his head between his hands again, but I know he heard every word.
I told him as briefly as I could how Gladys had languished and pined all these years, how she had clung to the notion of his innocence and would not believe that he was dead. He started at that, and asked what I meant. Had Giles really believed he was dead?
'He had reason to fear so,' I returned gravely; and I told him how his watch and scarf had been found on the beach at Brighton, and how the hotel-keeper had brought them to Mr. Hamilton.
He seemed shocked at this. 'I had been bathing,' he said, in rather an ashamed voice: 'some boy must have stolen them, and then dropped his booty for fear of the police. I missed them when I came out of the water, and I hunted about for them a long time. As I was leaving the beach I saw one of Giles's friends coming down towards me, and I got it into my head that I was recognised. I dared not go back to the hotel. Besides, my money was running short. I took a third-class ticket up to London, and on my way fell in with a house-painter, who gave me lodging for a few nights.'
'Yes, and then--' for he hesitated here.
'Well, you see, I was just mad with them at home. I thought I could never forgive Giles that last insult. My character and honour were gone. Etta had been my secret enemy all along, because she knew I read her truly. Leah had given in her false evidence. My word was nothing. I was looked upon as a common thief. I swore that I would never cross the threshold of Gladwyn again until my name was cleared. They should not hear of me; if they thought me dead, so much the better!'
'Oh, Mr. Eric, and you never considered how Gladys would suffer!'
'Yes, that was my only trouble; but I thought they would turn her against me in time. I was nearly mad, I tell you: but for Phil Power I believe I should have been desperate; but he stuck to me, and was always telling me that a man can live down anything. Indeed, but for Phil and his pretty little wife I should have starved, for I had no notion of helping myself, and would not have begged for a job to save my life, for I could not forget I was a gentleman. But Phil got me work at his governor's. So I turned house-painter, and rather liked my employment. I used to tell myself that it was better than old Armstrong's office. Why, I make two pounds a week now when we are in full work,' finished the poor lad proudly.
My heart was yearning over him, he was so boyish and weak and impulsive; but I would not spare him. I told him that it was cowardly of him to hide himself,--that it would have been braver and nobler to have lived his life openly. 'Why not have let your brother know what you were doing?' I continued. 'For years this shadow has been over his home. He has believed you dead. He has even feared self-destruction. This fear has embittered his life and made him a hard, unhappy man.'
'Do you mean Giles has suffered like that?' he exclaimed; and his gray eyes grew misty.
'Yes, in spite of all your sins against him, he has loved you dearly; and Gladys--' But he put up his hand, as though he could hear no more.
'Yes, I know, poor darling; but I have often seen her, often been near her; but I heard her laugh, and thought she was happy and had forgotten me. How long is it since Leah confessed, Miss--Miss--' And here he laughed a little nervously. 'I do not know who you are, and yet you must be a friend.'
'I am Ursula Garston, a very close friend of your sister Gladys, and I have been nursing her in this last illness.'
'What! has she been ill?' he asked anxiously. And when I had given him full particulars he questioned me again about Leah's confession, and I had to repeat all I could remember of her words.
'Then I was not cleared when you spoke to me at Hyde Park Gate?' he returned, with a relieved air. 'So it did not matter my giving you the slip. You frightened me horribly, Miss Garston, I can tell you that. I saw those advertisements, too, to Jack Poynter, and I was very near leaving the country; but I am glad I held on, as Phil advised,' drawing a long breath as he spoke.
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{
"id": "16080"
}
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47
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'AT LAST, URSULA, AT LAST!'
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We were interrupted at this moment by the landlady's voice calling to Eric from the bottom of the stairs.
'Jack,--I say, Jack, what has become of the steak I promised to cook for you? I'll be bound Jenny has eaten it.'
Eric gave a short laugh and went out into the passage, and I heard him say, in rather a low voice,-- 'A lady, a friend of my sister's, has just brought me some news. I expect she is as tired and hungry as I am. Do you think,' coaxingly, 'that you could get tea for us in the parlour, Mrs. Hunter? and perhaps you will join us there'; for class-instinct had awoke in Eric at the sight of a lady's face, and I suppose, in spite of my Quakerish gray gown, I was still young enough to make him hesitate about entertaining me in his bachelor's room.
There was a short parley after this. Then Mrs. Hunter came up panting, and, still wiping her hands from imaginary soap-suds, carried off the steak and the three-cornered loaf. 'It will be ready in about twenty minutes, Jack,' she observed, with a good-natured nod.
Eric employed the interval of waiting by questioning me eagerly about his sisters. Then he tried to find out, in a gentlemanly way, how I contrived to be so mixed up with his family. This led to a brief _résumé_ of my own history and work, and by the time Mrs. Hunter called us I felt as though I had known Eric for years.
Mrs. Hunter beamed on us as we entered. There was really quite a tempting little meal spread on the round table, though the butter was not fresh nor the forks silver, but the tea was hot and strong, and the bread was new. And Eric produced from his stores some lump sugar and a pot of strawberry jam, and I did full justice to the homely fare.
When Mrs. Hunter went into the kitchen to replenish the teapot I took the opportunity of consulting Eric about a lodging for the night. It was too late to return to Heathfield. Besides, I had made up my mind that Eric should accompany me. Aunt Philippa and Jill were in Switzerland, and the house at Hyde Park Gate would be empty. I could not well go to an hotel without any luggage. Eric seemed rather perplexed, and said we must take Mrs. Hunter into our confidence, which we did, and the good woman soon relieved our minds.
She said at once that she knew an excellent person who let lodgings round the corner,--a Miss Moseley. Miss Gunter, who had been a music-mistress until she married the young chemist, had lived with her for six years; and Miss Crabbe, who was in the millinery department at Howell's, the big shop in Kimber Street, was still there. Miss Gunter's room was vacant, and she was sure Miss Moseley would take me in for the night and make me comfortable.
I begged Mrs. Hunter to open negotiations with this obliging person, and she pulled down her sleeves at once, and tied her double chin in a very big black bonnet. While she was gone on this charitable errand, Eric and I sat by the parlour window in the gathering dusk, and I told him about Gladys's engagement to Uncle Max.
He seemed much excited by the news. 'I always thought that would be a case,' he exclaimed: 'I could see Mr. Cunliffe cared for her even then. Well, he is a first-rate fellow, and I am awfully glad.' And then he fell into a reverie, and I could see there were tears in his eyes.
Mrs. Hunter returned presently with the welcome news that Miss Moseley was airing my sheets at the kitchen fire, and, after a little more talk, Eric walked with me to Prescott Street and gave me in charge to Miss Moseley, after promising to be with me soon after nine the next morning.
I found Miss Moseley a cheerful talkative person, with very few teeth and a great deal of good-nature. She gave me Miss Gunter's history as she made the bed. I could see that her marriage with the young chemist was a great source of glorification to all connected with her. She was still holding forth on the newly-furnished drawing-room, with its blue sofa and inlaid chiffonier, as she lighted a pair of candles in the brass candlesticks, and brought me a can of hot water. I am afraid I was rather thankful when she closed the door and left me alone, for I was tired, and longed to think over the wonderful events of the day. I slept very sweetly in the old-fashioned brown bed that was sacred to the memory of Miss Gunter, and woke happily to the fact that another blue day was shining, and that in a few hours Eric and I would be at Heathfield. I ate my frugal breakfast in a small back parlour overlooking the blank wall of a brewery, and before I had finished there was a quick tap at the door, and Eric entered. A boyish blush crossed his handsome face as I looked at him in some surprise. He had laid aside his workman's dress, and wore the ordinary garb of a gentleman. Perhaps his coat was a little shabby and the hat he held in his hand had lost its gloss, but no one would have noticed such trifles with that bright speaking face and air of refinement; and, though he looked down at his uncovered hands and muttered something about stopping to buy a pair of gloves, I hastened to assure him that it was so early that it did not matter. 'I should hardly have recognised you, Mr. Eric,' I ventured to observe, for I saw he was a little sensitive about his appearance; and then he told me in his frank way that the clothes he wore were the same in which he left Gladwyn nearly four years ago.
'They have been lying by all this time,' he went on, 'and they are sadly creased, I am afraid. I have grown a little broader, and they don't seem to fit me, somehow, but I did not want Gladys to see me in anything else.'
We had decided to take the ten o'clock train to Heathfield, so I did not keep him long waiting for me. On our way to the station we met a house-painter: he looked rather dubiously at Eric.
'All right, Phil,' he laughed, 'I am going home; but I shall turn up again all right: this lady has brought me good news.' And he wrung Phil's hand with a heartiness that spoke volumes.
He was very excited and talkative at first, but as soon as we left Victoria behind us he became quieter, and soon afterwards perfectly silent; and I did not disturb him. He grew more nervous as we approached Heathfield, and when the train stopped he had not an atom of colour in his face.
'I do not know what I shall say to Giles,' he said, as we walked up the hill. 'It will be very awkward for both of us, Miss Garston. Of course I know that--' But I begged him not to anticipate the awkwardness. 'You will be welcomed as we only welcome our dearest and best,' I assured him. 'Your brother's heart has been sore for you all these years: you need not fear one word of reproach from him.' But he only sighed, and asked me not to walk so quickly; his courage was failing; I could see the look of nervous fear on his face.
We had arranged that he should accompany me to Gladwyn. Gladys never left her room before twelve, and I thought that I could shut him safely in the dining-room while I prepared her for his arrival. I knew Mr. Hamilton was never at home at this hour, but I had not reckoned on the disorganised state of the house, or the difference my brief absence would make in the usual routine.
I blamed myself for rashness and want of consideration when, on opening the gate, I saw Gladys crossing one of the little lawns around the house, with Max and Mr. Hamilton. At my faint exclamation Eric let go the gate rather too suddenly, and it swung back on its hinges so noisily that they all looked round, and the poor boy stood as though rooted to the spot. But the next moment there was the gleam of a white gown, and Gladys came running over the grass towards us with outstretched hands, and in another second the brother and sister were locked in each other's arms.
'Oh, my darling,' we heard her say, as she put up her face and kissed him, and then her fair head seemed to droop lower and lower until it touched Eric's shoulder. I glanced anxiously at Mr. Hamilton.
'Take her into the house, Eric,' he said, in his ordinary voice; but how white his face looked! 'It has been too sudden, and she has fainted.' And, without a word, Eric lifted her in his strong arms and carried her of his own accord to the little blue couch in the drawing-room, and then stood aside while his brother administered the usual remedy. Not a look had passed between them yet: they were both too much absorbed in Gladys.
She soon opened her eyes, and pushed away the vinaigrette I was holding to her.
'It is nothing, Ursula. I am well, quite well. Where is my dear boy? Do not keep him from me.' And then Eric knelt down beside her, and put his arm round her with a sort of sob.
'I ought not to have startled you so, Gladys. I have made you look so pale.' But she laughed again, and pushed back his hair from his forehead, and feasted her eyes on his face as though they could never be satisfied.
'Eric, darling, it seems like a dream; and it was Ursula, dear good Ursula, who has given you back to us. We must thank her presently; but not now. Oh, I must look at you first. He looks older, does he not, Giles? --older and more manly. And what broad shoulders, and such a moustache!' but Eric silenced her with a kiss.
'That will do, Gladys dear,' he whispered, springing to his feet; and then, with downcast eyes and a flush on his face, he held out his hand to his brother. It was taken and held silently, and then Mr. Hamilton's disengaged hand was laid on his shoulder caressingly.
'Welcome home, my dear boy,' he said; but his voice was not quite so clear as usual.
'I am very sorry, Giles,' he faltered; but Mr. Hamilton would not let him speak.
'There is nothing to be sorry for, now,' he said significantly. 'Have you shaken hands with Mr. Cunliffe, Eric? Gladys, can you spare your boy for a few moments while I carry him off?' And, as Gladys smiled assent, Mr. Hamilton signed to Eric to follow him.
Max sat down beside Gladys when they had left the room, and Gladys made a space for me on the couch.
'You must tell us how it happened,' she said, fixing her lovely eyes on me. 'Dear Ursula, we owe this fresh happiness to you: how can I thank you for all your goodness to us?' But I would not allow her to talk in this fashion, and I left Max to soothe her when she cried a little, and then I told them both how I had found Eric in the stable-yard with Nap, and how I had tracked him successfully to his lodgings.
'She is a brave, dear child, is she not, Gladys?' observed Max. Then, with a mischievous look in his brown eyes, 'You are proud of your presumptive niece, are you not, dear?' And then, in spite of Gladys's confusion, for she was still a little shy with him, I burst out laughing, and she was obliged to join me, for it had never entered into our heads that Gladys would be my aunt. The laugh brought back her colour and did her good; but she would not look at Max for a long time after that, though he was on his best behaviour and said all sorts of nice things to us both.
It was a long time before Mr. Hamilton brought Eric back to us. They both looked very happy, but Eric's eyes had a strangely softened look in them. The gong sounded for luncheon just then, and Mr. Hamilton asked me, in rather a surprised tone, why I had not taken off my hat and jacket, so I ran off to my room in a great hurry. As he opened the door for me, he said, in rather an odd tone, 'Do you know you have not wished me good-morning, Miss Garston?' I muttered some sort of an answer, but he merely smiled, and told me not to keep them waiting. Gladys came in to luncheon, and took her usual place; but neither she nor Eric made much pretence of eating, though Mr. Hamilton scolded them both for their want of appetite. Nobody talked much, and there was no connected conversation: I think we were all too much engrossed in watching Gladys. Max was in the background for once, but he did not seem to think of himself at all: the sight of Gladys's sweet face, radiant with joy, was sufficient pleasure for him; but now and then she turned to him in a touching manner, as though to show she had not forgotten him, and then he was never slow to respond.
When luncheon was over, Mr. Hamilton begged me to take Gladys to the turret-room and persuade her to lie down.
'I am going to send Cunliffe away until dinner-time,' he said, with a sort of good-natured peremptoriness: 'under the circumstances he is decidedly _de trop_. Yes, my dear, yes,' as Gladys looked pleadingly at him, 'Eric shall come and talk to you. I am not so unreasonable as that.' And I think we all understood the feeling that made Gladys put her arms round her brother's neck, though we none of us heard her whisper a word. Max consented very cheerfully to efface himself for the remainder of the afternoon, and Gladys accompanied me upstairs. I waited until Eric joined us, and then I left them together.
'Oh, Gladys, he was so good, and I did not deserve it!' he burst out before I had closed the door. 'I never knew Giles could be like that.' But I took care not to hear any more. I hardly knew what to do with myself that afternoon, but I made up my mind at last that I would finish a letter I had begun to Jill. The inkstand was in the turret-room, but I thought I would fetch one out of the drawing-room; but when I reached the head of the staircase I drew back involuntarily, for Mr. Hamilton was standing at the bottom of the stairs, leaning against the wall with folded arms, as though he were waiting for somebody or something. An unaccountable timidity made me hesitate; in another second I should have gone back into my room, but he looked up, and, as before, our eyes met.
'Come,' he said, holding out his hand, and there was a sort of impatience in his manner. 'How long are you going to keep me waiting, Ursula?' And I went down demurely and silently, but I took no notice of his outstretched hands.
I was trying to pass him in a quiet, ordinary fashion, as though there were no unusual meaning in his deep-set eyes; but he stopped me somewhat coolly by taking me in his arms.
'At last, Ursula, at last!' was all he said, and then he kissed me.... * * * * * I remember I told Giles, when I had recovered myself a little, that he had taken things too much for granted.
He had brought me into the drawing-room, and was sitting beside me on the little couch. To my dazzled eyes the room seemed full of sunshine and the sweet perfume of flowers: to this day the scent of heliotrope brings back the memory of that afternoon when Giles first told me that he loved me. He seemed rather perplexed at first by my stammering little speech, and then I suppose my meaning dawned on him, for his arm pressed me more closely.
'I think I understand: you mean, do you not, Ursula, that I have not asked you in plain English to be my wife? I thought we understood each other too well for any such word to be necessary. Ever since you told me that fellow Tudor was nothing to you, I felt you belonged to me.'
'I do not see that,' I returned shyly, for Giles in his new character was rather formidable. He had taken such complete possession of me, and, as I had hinted, had taken everything for granted. 'Because Mr. Tudor was simply a friend, it did not follow that I cared for any one else.'
'Yes; but you do care for me a good deal, darling, do you not?' in a most persuasive voice. 'But, for my own comfort, I want you to tell me if you are quite content to accept such a crabbed old bachelor for your husband.'
It was a little difficult to answer, but I made him understand that I looked upon him in a very different light, and I think I managed to content him.
'And you are really happy, dear?'
'Yes, very happy'; but the tears were in my eyes as I answered. He seemed distressed to see them, and wanted me to tell him the reason; but I think he understood me thoroughly when I whispered how glad Charlie would have been. I asked him presently how long he had cared for me, but, to my surprise, he declared that he hardly knew himself: he had been interested in me from the first hour of our meeting, but it was when he heard me sing in Phoebe Locke's room that the thought came to him that he must try and win me for his wife.
I think it was in answer to this that I said some foolish word about my want of beauty. I was a little sensitive on the subject, but, to my dismay, Giles's face darkened, and he dropped my hand.
'Never say that to me again, if you love me, Ursula,' he said, in such a grieved voice that I could hardly bear to hear it. 'Do you think I would have married you if you had been handsome? Do you know what you are talking about, child? Has no one told you about Ella?'
'Oh yes,' I returned, terrified at his sternness, for he had never spoken to me in such a tone before. 'Yes, indeed, and I know she was very beautiful.'
'She was perfectly lovely,'--in the same hard voice. Oh, how he must have suffered, my poor Giles! 'And the memory of that false loveliness has made me loathe the idea of beauty ever since. No, I would never have let myself love you if you had been handsome, Ursula.'
'I am glad I am not,' I returned, in a choked voice, for all this was very painful to me. Something in my tone attracted his notice, for he stooped and looked in my face, and his manner instantly changed.
'Oh, you foolish child,' very caressingly, 'there are actually tears in your eyes! You are not afraid of me, Ursula? I am always excited when I speak of Ella: she very nearly destroyed my faith in women.'
'I cannot bear to think how you suffered,' I faltered, but he would not let me finish.
'Never mind; you have been my healer; you have always rested me so. Never call yourself plain again in my hearing. No other face could be half so dear to me.' And then, with his old smile, 'Do you know, dear, when I saw you in that velvet gown at your cousin's wedding you looked so handsome that I went home in a bad humour, and then Etta told me about Tudor. Well, I have you safe now.' But I will not transcribe all Giles's speech; it was so lover-like, it made me understand, once for all, what I was to him, and how little he cared for life unless I shared it with him.
By and by he went on to speak of our mutual work, and here again he more than contented me.
'I do not mean to rob the poor people of their nurse, Ursula,' he said presently. 'When you come to Gladwyn as its mistress, I hope we shall work together as we do now.'
I told him I hoped so too; that I never wished to lay down my work.
'You are quite right, dear,' he answered cheerfully. 'We will not be selfish in our happiness. True, your work must be in limits. When I come home I shall want to see my wife's face. No,' rather jealously, 'I could not spare you of an evening, and in the morning there will be household duties. You must not undertake too much, Ursula.'
I told Giles, rather demurely, that there was plenty of time for the consideration of this point. He was inclined to bridge over the present in a man's usual fashion, but my new position was too overwhelming for me to look beyond the deep abiding consciousness that Giles loved me and looked to me for happiness.
So I turned a deaf ear when he asked me presently if I should mind Lady Betty sharing our home; 'for,' he went on, 'the poor child has no other home, and she is so feather-headed that no sensible man will think of marrying her.' It was not my place to enlighten Giles about Claude, but I thought it very improbable that Lady Betty would be long at Gladwyn; but I was a little oppressed by this sort of talk, and yet unwilling that he should notice my shyness, so I took the opportunity of saying it was tea-time, and did he not think that Gladys and Eric had been talking long enough?
He seemed unwilling to let me go, but I pleaded my nurse's duties, and then he told me, laughing, that I was a wilful woman, and that I might send Eric to him. As it happened, Eric was coming in search of Giles, and I found him in the passage.
Gladys was lying on her couch, looking worn out with happiness. She was beginning to speak about Eric, when something in my face seemed to distract her. She watched me closely for a moment, then threw her arms round me and drew my head on her shoulder.
'Is it so, Ursula? Oh, my dear dear sister! I am so glad!' And she seemed to understand without a word when my over-excited feelings found vent in a flood of nervous tears, for she only kissed me quietly, and stroked my hair, until I was relieved and happy again.
'Dear Ursula,' she whispered, 'how can I help being glad, for Giles's sake?'
'And not for mine?' drying my eyes, and feeling very much ashamed of myself.
'Ah, you will see how good Giles will be,' was her reply to this. 'You will be a happy woman, Ursula. You are exactly suited to each other.' And I knew she was right.
Max's turn came presently.
I was sitting alone in the drawing-room before dinner. Giles had brought me some flowers, and had rushed off to dress himself; and I was looking out on the garden and the strip of blue sky, and buried in a happy reverie, when two hands suddenly lifted me up, and a brown beard brushed my face.
'Little she-bear, do you know how glad I am!' Max joyously exclaimed. And indeed he looked very glad.
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{
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48
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'WHAT 0' THE WAY TO THE END?'
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Two days afterwards I went back to the White Cottage and took up my old life again,--my old life, but how different now!
I shall never forget how Phoebe welcomed me back, and how she and Susan rejoiced when I told them the news. Strange to say, neither of them seemed much surprised. They had expected it, Susan said, in rather an amused tone, for it was easy to see the doctor had thought there was no one like me, and was always hinting as much to them. 'Why, I have seen him watch you as though there were nothing else worth looking at,' finished Susan, with simple shrewdness.
I kept my own counsel with regard to Aunt Philippa and Jill, for I had made up my mind to go up to Hyde Park Gate as soon as they had returned, and tell them myself. But I wrote to Lesbia, with strong injunctions of secrecy.
The answer came by return of post.
It was a most loving, unselfish little letter, and touched me greatly.
'I shall be your bridesmaid, Ursula,' it said, 'whether you ask me or not. Nothing will keep me away that day. I shall love to be there for dear Charlie's sake.
'The news has made me so happy. Mother scolded me when she found me crying over your letter, but she cried herself too. We both agreed that no one deserved happiness more. I am longing to see your Mr. Hamilton, Ursie dear. He has one great virtue in my eyes already, that he appreciates you,' and so on, in Lesbia's gentle, sisterly way.
The fact of our engagement made a great sensation in the place. People who had hitherto ignored the village nurse came to call on me. I suppose curiosity to see Mr. Hamilton's _fiancée_ brought a good many of them.
My new position was not without its difficulties. Giles, who was impatient and domineering by nature, chafed much against the restraints imposed upon him by my loneliness.
His brief calls did not suffice him. I would not let him come often or stay long. Max asked us to the vicarage sometimes, and now and then Gladys or Lady Betty would call for me and carry me off to Gladwyn for the evening; and of course I saw Giles frequently when he visited his patients, but with his dislike to conventionality it was rather difficult to keep him in good-humour. He could not be made to see why I should not marry him at once and put an end to this awkward state of things.
We had our first lovers' quarrel on this point,--our first and our last,--for I never had to complain of my dear Giles again.
I think hearing about Lady Betty's long engagement with Claude Hamilton had made him very sore. He had been bitterly angry both with poor little Lady Betty and also with Gladys. He declared the secrecy had hurt him more than anything; but Eric acted as peacemaker, and he was soon induced to condone his sisters' trangression.
He came down to talk over the matter with me, and to tell me of the arrangements he had made for them.
It seemed that a letter from Claude had arrived that very mail; telling Giles of his promotion, and asking leave to come and fetch his dear little Lady Betty. It was an honest, manly letter, Giles said; and as Claude was in a better position, and Lady Betty had five thousand pounds of her own, there seemed no reason against their marrying.
He had talked to both Max and Gladys, and they were willing that Claude and Lady Betty should be married at the same time. The New Year had been already fixed for Gladys's, and Max meant to get leave of absence for two or three months and take her to Algiers; and as Claude would have to start for India early in March, Giles thought the double wedding would be best. They could get their _trousseaux_ together, and the fuss would be got over more easily.
I expressed myself as charmed with all these arrangements, for I thought it would be very dull for Lady Betty to be left behind at Gladwyn; and then I asked Giles what he had settled about Eric.
He told me that Eric was still undecided, but he rather thought of going to Cirencester to enter the agricultural college there.
'You see, Ursula,' he went on, 'the lad is a bit restless. He has given up his absurd idea of becoming an artist,--I never did believe in those daubs of his,--but he feels he can never settle down to city life. He is very much improved, far more manly and sensible than I ever hoped to see him; but he is of different calibre from myself,' 'Do you think farming will suit him?' I asked anxiously.
'Better than anything else, I should say,' was the reply. 'Eric is an active, capable fellow, and he was always fond of out-door pursuits. He is young enough to learn. I have promised to keep Dorlicote Farm in my own hands until he is ready to take it. It is only ten miles from here, and has a very good house attached to it, and Eric will find himself in clover.' Then, as though some other thought were uppermost in his mind, he continued, 'I am so glad that you and he are such friends, Ursula, for he will often take up his quarters at Gladwyn.'
It was after this that Giles asked me to marry him at once. He was strangely unreasonable that morning, and very much bent on having his own way. My objections were overruled one by one; he absolutely refused to listen to my arguments when I tried to show him how much wiser it would be to have his sisters and Eric settled before he brought me home as mistress to Gladwyn.
It was the first time our wills had clashed; and, though I knew that I was right and that he was wholly in the wrong, it was very painful for me to refuse his loving importunities and to turn a deaf ear when he told me how he was longing for his wife; but I held firmly to my two points, that I would settle nothing without Aunt Philippa's advice, and that I would not marry him until Easter.
I told him so very gently, but Giles was not quite like himself that day. Lady Betty's secrecy was still rankling in his mind, and he certainly used his power over me to make me very unhappy, for he accused me of coldness and over-prudence, and reproached me with my want of confidence in his judgment. My pride took fire at last, and rose in arms against his tyranny. 'You must listen to me, Giles,' I returned, trying to keep down a choking feeling. 'You are not quite just to me to-day, but you do not mean what you say. You will be sorry afterwards for your words. If I do not accede to your wishes, it is not because I do not love you well enough to marry you to-morrow, if it were expedient to do so; but under the circumstances it will be wiser to wait. I will marry you at Easter, If Uncle Max comes back by that time, for neither you nor I would like any one else to perform the ceremony. Will you not be content with this?'
'No,' he returned gloomily. 'You are keeping me waiting for a mere scruple: neither Gladys nor Lady Betty would say a dissenting word if I brought you to Gladwyn at once. You are disappointing me very much, Ursula. I could not have believed that my wishes were so little to you.' But he was not able to finish this cutting speech, for I could bear no more, and suddenly burst into such an agony of tears that Giles was quite frightened.
I found out then the goodness of his heart and his deep unselfish affection for me. He reproached himself bitterly for causing me such pain, begged my pardon a dozen times for his ill temper, and so coaxed and petted me that I could not refuse to be comforted.
He laughed and kissed me when I implored him to take back his words about my coldness.
'My darling! --as though I meant it!' he said; but he had the grace to look very much ashamed of himself. 'Of course you were right,--you always are, Ursula: we will wait until Easter if you think it best. Miss Prudence shall have her own way in the matter; but I will not wait a day longer for all the Uncle Maxes in the world.' And so we settled it.
I remember how I tried to make up to Giles for his disappointment, and to show him how much I cared for him. We were dining at the vicarage that evening with Gladys and Eric, and as he walked home with me in the moonlight he took me to task very gently for being too good to him.
'You have been like a little angel this evening, Ursula, and I have not deserved it. I believe I love you far more for not giving me my own way. It was pure selfishness: I see it now.'
'I hope it is the last time that your will will not be mine,' I answered, rather sadly. 'If you knew what it cost me to refuse you, Giles!' But one of his rare smiles answered me.
It was the end of September when I went up to Hyde Park Gate to tell my wonderful piece of news to Aunt Philippa and Jill. Jill was very naughty at first, and declared that she should forbid the banns; her dear Ursula should not marry that ugly man. But she changed her opinion after a long conversation with Giles, and then her enthusiasm knew no bounds. It was amusing to see the admiring awe with which Aunt Philippa looked at me. My engagement had raised her opinion of me a hundredfold. I was no longer the plain eccentric Ursula in her eyes; the future Mrs. Hamilton was a person of far greater consequence.
I could see that her surprise could scarcely be concealed. I used to notice her eyes fixed on me sometimes in a wondering way. She told Lesbia that she could hardly understand such brilliant prospects for dear Ursula. I had not Sara's good looks; and yet I was marrying a far richer man than Colonel Ferguson.
'I think Mr. Hamilton a very distinguished man, my dear,' she continued, much to Lesbia's amusement. 'He is peculiar-looking, certainly, and a little too dark for my taste; but his manners are charming, and he is certainly very much in love with Ursula. She looks very nice, and is very much improved; but still, one hardly expected such a match for her.'
Lesbia retailed this little speech with much gusto. Dear Aunt Philippa! she certainly did her duty by me then: nothing could exceed her kindness and motherliness. And Sara came very often, looking the prettiest and happiest young matron in the world, and almost overwhelmed me with advice and petting.
They had come to the conclusion that my position was a somewhat awkward one, and that it would not do for me to go on living at the White Cottage. They wanted me to give up my work at Heathfield until after my marriage; and at last Aunt Philippa conceived the brilliant idea of taking a house at Brighton for the winter.
'You have never liked Hyde Park Gate, Ursula,' she said, very kindly; 'and we shall all be glad to escape London fogs this year: your uncle will not mind the expense, and I think the plan will suit admirably. Heathfield is only twenty minutes from Brighton, and Mr. Hamilton will be able to visit you far more comfortably, and you can sleep a night or two at Sara's when you want to go up to London to get your _trousseau_.'
I thanked Aunt Philippa warmly for her kind thought, and then I wrote to Giles, and asked his opinion. I found that he entirely agreed with Aunt Philippa.
'I think it an excellent plan, dear,' he wrote; 'and you must thank your good aunt for her consideration for us both. I shall see you far oftener at Brighton than at the White Cottage. Miss Prudence will be less active there: I shall be allowed to enjoy a reasonable conversation without the speech--"Oh, do please go away now, Giles; you have been here nearly an hour"--that invariably closed our cottage interviews.' I could see Giles was really pleased with Aunt Philippa's proposition, so I promised to go back to Heathfield and settle my affairs, and join them directly the house in Brunswick Place was ready; and by the middle of October we were all settled comfortably for the winter.
I found Giles was right. I saw him oftener, and there was less restraint on our intercourse. He would come over to luncheon whenever he had a leisure day, and take me for a walk, or drop in to dinner and take the last train back. Gladys and Lady Betty came over perpetually. I used to help them with their shopping, and often go back with them for a few hours. Max was also a frequent visitor, and Mr. Tudor. Aunt Philippa kept open house, and made all my visitors welcome. I think she was a little sorry that Mr. Tudor came so perseveringly: but she was true to her principles to let things take their course and not to fan the flame by opposition. She was always kind to the young man, and though she generally contrived to keep Jill beside her when he dropped in for afternoon tea or encountered them on the parade, she did it so quietly that no one noticed any significance in the action.
But I think Aunt Philippa's maternal fears would have been up in arms if she had overheard a conversation between Jill and myself one wintry afternoon.
Aunt Philippa had gone up to town to see Sara, who was a little ailing, and she and Uncle Brian were to return later. Gladys and Giles were to dine with us, and Max would probably join them. Aunt Philippa was very fond of these impromptu entertainments, but she had not extended the invitation to Mr. Tudor, who had called the previous day, and I had got it into my head that Jill was a little disappointed.
She sat rather soberly by the fire that afternoon; but when Miss Gillespie left us she took her usual seat on the rug, and her black locks bobbed into my lap as usual, but I thought the firelight played on a very serious face.
'What makes you so silent this afternoon, Jill?' I asked, rather curiously; but she did not answer for a moment, only drew down my hand, and looked at the diamonds that were flashing in the ruddy blaze,--Giles's pledge that he had placed there; then she laid her cheek against them, and said suddenly-- 'I was only thinking, Ursie dear: I often think about things. Do you remember that evening at Hyde Park Gate when the lamp fell on me, and I might have been burnt to death?'
'Oh yes, Jill,' with a shudder, for I never cared to recall that scene.
'Well, I was thinking,' still dreamily. Then, with a change of manner that startled me, 'Ursie, if a person saves another person's life, don't you think that life ought to belong to them? --that is, if they wish it?' with a sudden blush that rather alarmed me.
'Stop, my dear,' I returned coolly. 'This is very vague. I do not think I quite understand. A person and another person, and them, too: it is terribly involved. Which is which? As the children say.'
Jill gave a nervous little laugh, but her eyes gave me no doubt of her meaning: they looked strangely dark and soft.
'Mr. Tudor saved my life,' she whispered. 'Ursie, if he wants it, that life ought to belong to him.'
'Jill, my dear,' for I was thoroughly startled now. Things were growing serious; but Jill gave me a little push in her childish way.
'Ursie, don't pretend to look so surprised: you knew all about it: I saw it in your face. Don't you remember what he said that night, that he did not know what would become of him if I died, that he could not bear it? Did you see how he looked when he said it?'
I remained silent, for I could not deny that Mr. Tudor had betrayed himself at that moment; but she went on very quietly, 'Ursie dear, I know Mr. Tudor cares for me; he does not always hide it, though he tries to do so. You see he is so real and honest that he cannot help showing things.'
'Jill,' I exclaimed anxiously, 'what would your mother say if she knew this?'
'I think she does know it,' replied Jill calmly. 'She does not care for Mr. Tudor to come so often, but she is good to him all the same. Neither father nor mother will be pleased about it, because he is not rich, poor fellow; not that I think that matters,' finished Jill, in a grave, old-fashioned manner.
'My dear child,' in a horrified tone, 'you talk as though you were sure of your own mind, and you are hardly seventeen.'
'So I am sure,' was the confused answer. 'If Mr. Tudor cares enough for me to wait for a good many years,--until I am one-and-twenty,--he will find me all ready: of course I belong to him, Ursula: has he not saved my life? There is no hurry,' went on Jill, in her matter-of-fact way; 'he is very nice, and I shall always like him better than any one else; but I should not care to be engaged until I am one-and-twenty. One wants a little fun and a good deal of work before settling down into an engaged person,' finished the girl, with a droll little laugh.
I was spared the necessity of any reply to this surprising confession by the entrance of our three visitors, for Max had encountered them at the station, of course by accident, and had walked up with them. That fact was sufficient to account for Gladys's soft bloom and the satisfied look in her eyes: she looked so lovely in the new furs Giles had bought her, that I did not wonder that Max was a little absent in his replies to me. Jill had made some excuse and left us, and it was really a very good idea of Giles's to ask me to come out on the balcony and look at the sea. He wrapped me in his plaid and placed me in a sheltered corner, and we stood watching the twinkling lights, and the dark water under the glimmer of starlight. He had a great deal to tell me, first how happy Eric was in his new work, and what cheerful letters he wrote to Gladys, and next about Captain Hamilton, with whom he professed himself much pleased.
'Lady Betty is just as much a child as ever. It is ridiculous to think of her as a married woman,' he went on; 'but Claude declares himself to be perfectly satisfied. Well, there is no accounting for tastes,' with a change of intonation that was very intelligible.
'And how is Phoebe, Giles?'
'Oh, first-rate,' he answered cheerfully; 'she likes her new couch much better than the bed. I tell her if she goes on improving like this we shall have her in the next room before Easter. By the bye, Ursula, have you digested the contents of my last letter? Shall we go to the Pyrenees to spend our honeymoon? It will be too early for Switzerland; we might go later on, or to the Italian lakes.'
'Anywhere with you, Giles,' I whispered; and he gave me silent thanks for that pretty speech.
He did not say any more for a little time, and I stood by him watching the dark, wintry sea. Once my life had been dark and wintry too, but how mercifully I had been drawn out of the deep waters and brought to this dear haven of rest! As I crept nearer to Giles he seemed to utter my unspoken thought.
'I am very happy to-night, Ursula, I have been thinking as I travelled down what it will be to me to have you always near me, to share my work and life. I am so glad you love Gladwyn so dearly.'
'Love Gladwyn,--your home, Giles: is there anything strange in that?'
'No, dear, perhaps not; but I like to hear you say so. There will not be a wish of yours ungratified if I can help it. I mean to spoil you dreadfully, Ursula.'
I told him, smiling, that I was not afraid of this threat, and just then Max's voice interrupted us: 'Little she-bear, do you know this is dreadfully imprudent? Is this the way Hamilton means to take care of you?'
'Wait a moment, Ursula,' whispered Giles. 'Do you hear that ballad-singer in the square?' A voice clear and shrill seemed to float to us in the darkness: 'Sweet and low, sweet and low, wind of the western sea,' she sang. The waves seemed to splash in harmonious accompaniment; the lights were flickering, the carriages rolling under the faint starlight. I saw Giles's face--as I loved to see it--grave, thoughtful, and satisfied.
'After all,' he said, as though answering some inward questioning, 'a man cannot know what his life will bring him. Do you remember what Robert Browning says: "What o' the way to the end? --The end crowns all."
The end crowns all to me, Ursula.' And Giles's deep-set eyes gave me no doubt of his meaning.
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"id": "16080"
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1
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None
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At four o'clock in the morning everybody in the tent was still asleep, exhausted by the terrible march of the previous day. The hummocky ice and pressure-ridges that Bennett had foreseen had at last been met with, and, though camp had been broken at six o'clock and though men and dogs had hauled and tugged and wrestled with the heavy sledges until five o'clock in the afternoon, only a mile and a half had been covered. But though the progress was slow, it was yet progress. It was not the harrowing, heart-breaking immobility of those long months aboard the Freja. Every yard to the southward, though won at the expense of a battle with the ice, brought them nearer to Wrangel Island and ultimate safety.
Then, too, at supper-time the unexpected had happened. Bennett, moved no doubt by their weakened condition, had dealt out extra rations to each man: one and two-thirds ounces of butter and six and two-thirds ounces of aleuronate bread--a veritable luxury after the unvarying diet of pemmican, lime juice, and dried potatoes of the past fortnight. The men had got into their sleeping-bags early, and until four o'clock in the morning had slept profoundly, inert, stupefied, almost without movement. But a few minutes after four o'clock Bennett awoke. He was usually up about half an hour before the others. On the day before he had been able to get a meridian altitude of the sun, and was anxious to complete his calculations as to the expedition's position on the chart that he had begun in the evening.
He pushed back the flap of the sleeping-bag and rose to his full height, passing his hands over his face, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He was an enormous man, standing six feet two inches in his reindeer footnips and having the look more of a prize-fighter than of a scientist. Even making allowances for its coating of dirt and its harsh, black stubble of half a week's growth, the face was not pleasant. Bennett was an ugly man. His lower jaw was huge almost to deformity, like that of the bulldog, the chin salient, the mouth close-gripped, with great lips, indomitable, brutal. The forehead was contracted and small, the forehead of men of single ideas, and the eyes, too, were small and twinkling, one of them marred by a sharply defined cast.
But as Bennett was fumbling in the tin box that was lashed upon the number four sledge, looking for his notebook wherein he had begun his calculations for latitude, he was surprised to find a copy of the record he had left in the instrument box under the cairn at Cape Kammeni at the beginning of this southerly march. He had supposed that this copy had been mislaid, and was not a little relieved to come across it now. He read it through hastily, his mind reviewing again the incidents of the last few months. Certain extracts of this record ran as follows: "Arctic steamer Freja, on ice off Cape Kammeni, New Siberian Islands, 76 deg. 10 min. north latitude, 150 deg. 40 min. east longitude, July 12, 1891.... We accordingly froze the ship in on the last day of September, 1890, and during the following winter drifted with the pack in a northwesterly direction.... On Friday, July 10, 1891, being in latitude 76 deg. 10 min. north; longitude 150 deg. 10 min. east, the Freja was caught in a severe nip between two floes and was crushed, sinking in about two hours. We abandoned her, saving 200 days' provisions and all necessary clothing, instruments, etc.... "I shall now attempt a southerly march over the ice to Kolyuchin Bay by way of Wrangel Island, where provisions have been cached, hoping to fall in with the relief ships or steam whalers on the way. Our party consists of the following twelve persons: ... All well with the exception of Mr. Ferriss, the chief engineer, whose left hand has been badly frostbitten. No scurvy in the party as yet. We have eighteen Ostiak dogs with us in prime condition, and expect to drag our ship's boat upon sledges.
"WARD BENNETT, Commanding Freja Arctic Exploring Expedition."
Bennett returned this copy of the record to its place in the box, and stood for a moment in the centre of the tent, his head bent to avoid the ridge-pole, looking thoughtfully upon the ground.
Well, so far all had gone right--no scurvy, provisions in plenty. The dogs were in good condition, his men cheerful, trusting in him as in a god, and surely no leader could wish for a better lieutenant and comrade than Richard Ferriss--but this hummocky ice--these pressure-ridges which the expedition had met the day before. Instead of turning at once to his ciphering Bennett drew the hood of the wolfskin coat over his head, buttoned a red flannel mask across his face, and, raising the flap of the tent, stepped outside.
Under the lee of the tent the dogs were sleeping, moveless bundles of fur, black and white, perceptibly steaming. The three great McClintock sledges, weighted down with the Freja's boats and with the expedition's impedimenta, lay where they had been halted the evening before.
In the sky directly in front of Bennett as he issued from the tent three moons, hooped in a vast circle of nebulous light, shone roseate through a fine mist, while in the western heavens streamers of green, orange, and vermilion light, immeasurably vast, were shooting noiselessly from horizon to zenith.
But Bennett had more on his mind that morning than mock-moons and auroras. To the south and east, about a quarter of a mile from the tent, the pressure of the floes had thrown up an enormous ridge of shattered ice-cakes, a mound, a long hill of blue-green slabs and blocks huddling together at every conceivable angle. It was nearly twenty feet in height, quite the highest point that Bennett could discover. Scrambling and climbing over countless other ridges that intervened, he made his way to it, ascended it almost on hands and knees, and, standing upon its highest point, looked long and carefully to the southward.
A wilderness beyond all thought, words, or imagination desolate stretched out before him there forever and forever--ice, ice, ice, fields and floes of ice, laying themselves out under that gloomy sky, league after league, endless, sombre, infinitely vast, infinitely formidable. But now it was no longer the smooth ice over which the expedition had for so long been travelling. In every direction, intersecting one another at ten thousand points, crossing and recrossing, weaving a gigantic, bewildering network of gashed, jagged, splintered ice-blocks, ran the pressure-ridges and hummocks. In places a score or more of these ridges had been wedged together to form one huge field of broken slabs of ice miles in width, miles in length. From horizon to horizon there was no level place, no open water, no pathway. The view to the southward resembled a tempest-tossed ocean suddenly frozen.
One of these ridges Bennett had just climbed, and upon it he now stood. Even for him, unencumbered, carrying no weight, the climb had been difficult; more than once he had slipped and fallen. At times he had been obliged to go forward almost on his hands and knees. And yet it was across that jungle of ice, that unspeakable tangle of blue-green slabs and cakes and blocks, that the expedition must now advance, dragging its boats, its sledges, its provisions, instruments, and baggage.
Bennett stood looking. Before him lay his task. There under his eyes was the Enemy. Face to face with him was the titanic primal strength of a chaotic world, the stupendous still force of a merciless nature, waiting calmly, waiting silently to close upon and crush him. For a long time he stood watching. Then the great brutal jaw grew more salient than ever, the teeth set and clenched behind the close-gripped lips, the cast in the small twinkling eyes grew suddenly more pronounced. One huge fist raised, and the arm slowly extended forward like the resistless moving of a piston. Then when his arm was at its full reach Bennett spoke as though in answer to the voiceless, terrible challenge of the Ice. Through his clenched teeth his words came slow and measured.
"But I'll break you, by God! believe me, I will."
After a while he returned to the tent, awoke the cook, and while breakfast was being prepared completed his calculations for latitude, wrote up his ice-journal, and noted down the temperature and the direction and velocity of the wind. As he was finishing, Richard Ferriss, who was the chief engineer and second in command, awoke and immediately asked the latitude.
"Seventy-four-fifteen," answered Bennett without looking up.
"Seventy-four-fifteen," repeated Ferriss, nodding his head; "we didn't make much distance yesterday."
"I hope we can make as much to-day," returned Bennett grimly as he put away his observation-journal and note-books.
"How's the ice to the south'ard?"
"Bad; wake the men."
After breakfast and while the McClintocks were being loaded Bennett sent Ferriss on ahead to choose a road through and over the ridges. It was dreadful work. For two hours Ferriss wandered about amid the broken ice all but hopelessly bewildered. But at length, to his great satisfaction, he beheld a fairly open stretch about a quarter of a mile in length lying out to the southwest and not too far out of the expedition's line of march. Some dozen ridges would have to be crossed before this level was reached; but there was no help for it, so Ferriss planted his flags where the heaps of ice-blocks seemed least impracticable and returned toward the camp. It had already been broken, and on his way he met the entire expedition involved in the intricacies of the first rough ice.
All of the eighteen dogs had been harnessed to the number two sledge, that carried the whaleboat and the major part of the provisions, and every man of the party, Bennett included, was straining at the haul-ropes with the dogs. Foot by foot the sledge came over the ridge, grinding and lurching among the ice-blocks; then, partly by guiding, partly by lifting, it was piloted down the slope, only in the end to escape from all control and come crashing downward among the dogs, jolting one of the medicine chests from its lashings and butting its nose heavily against the foot of the next hummock immediately beyond. But the men scrambled to their places again, the medicine chest was replaced, and Muck Tu, the Esquimau dog-master, whipped forward his dogs. Ferriss, too, laid hold. The next hummock was surmounted, the dogs panting, and the men, even in that icy air, reeking with perspiration. Then suddenly and without the least warning Bennett and McPherson, who were in the lead, broke through some young ice into water up to their breasts, Muck Tu and one of the dogs breaking through immediately afterward. The men were pulled out, or, of their own efforts, climbed upon the ice again. But in an instant their clothes were frozen to rattling armor.
"Bear off to the east'ard, here!" commanded Bennett, shaking the icy, stinging water from his sleeves. "Everybody on the ropes now!"
Another pressure-ridge was surmounted, then a third, and by an hour after the start they had arrived at the first one of Ferriss's flags. Here the number two sledge was left, and the entire expedition, dogs and men, returned to camp to bring up the number one McClintock loaded with the Freja's cutter and with the sleeping-bags, instruments, and tent. This sledge was successfully dragged over the first two hummocks, but as it was being hauled up the third its left-hand runner suddenly buckled and turned under it with a loud snap. There was nothing for it now but to remove the entire load and to set Hawes, the carpenter, to work upon its repair.
"Up your other sledge!" ordered Bennett.
Once more the expedition returned to the morning's camping-place, and, harnessing itself to the third McClintock, struggled forward with it for an hour and a half until it was up with the first sledge and Ferriss's flag. Fortunately the two dog-sleds, four and five, were light, and Bennett, dividing his forces, brought them up in a single haul. But Hawes called out that the broken sledge was now repaired. The men turned to at once, reloaded it, and hauled it onward, so that by noon every sledge had been moved forward quite a quarter of a mile.
But now, for the moment, the men, after going over the same ground seven times, were used up, and Muck Tu could no longer whip the dogs to their work. Bennett called a halt. Hot tea was made, and pemmican and hardtack served out.
"We'll have easier hauling this afternoon, men," said Bennett; "this next ridge is the worst of the lot; beyond that Mr. Ferriss says we've got nearly a quarter of a mile of level floes."
On again at one o'clock; but the hummock of which Bennett had spoken proved absolutely impassable for the loaded sledges. It was all one that the men lay to the ropes like draught-horses, and that Muck Tu flogged the dogs till the goad broke in his hands. The men lost their footing upon the slippery ice and fell to their knees; the dogs laid down in the traces groaning and whining. The sledge would not move.
"Unload!" commanded Bennett.
The lashings were taken off, and the loads, including the great, cumbersome whaleboat itself, carried over the hummock by hand. Then the sledge itself was hauled over and reloaded upon the other side. Thus the whole five sledges.
The work was bitter hard; the knots of the lashings were frozen tight and coated with ice; the cases of provisions, the medicine chests, the canvas bundle of sails, boat-covers, and tents unwieldy and of enormous weight; the footing on the slippery, uneven ice precarious, and more than once a man, staggering under his load, broke through the crust into water so cold that the sensation was like that of burning.
But at last everything was over, the sledges reloaded, and the forward movement resumed. Only one low hummock now intervened between them and the longed-for level floe.
However, as they were about to start forward again a lamentable gigantic sound began vibrating in their ears, a rumbling, groaning note rising by quick degrees to a strident shriek. Other sounds, hollow and shrill--treble mingling with diapason--joined in the first. The noise came from just beyond the pressure-mound at the foot of which the party had halted.
"Forward!" shouted Bennett; "hurry there, men!"
Desperately eager, the men bent panting to their work. The sledge bearing the whaleboat topped the hummock.
"Now, then, over with her!" cried Ferriss.
But it was too late. As they stood looking down upon it for an instant, the level floe, their one sustaining hope during all the day, suddenly cracked from side to side with the noise of ordnance. Then the groaning and shrieking recommenced. The crack immediately closed up, the pressure on the sides of the floe began again, and on the smooth surface of the ice, domes and mounds abruptly reared themselves. As the pressure increased these domes and mounds cracked and burst into countless blocks and slabs. Ridge after ridge was formed in the twinkling of an eye. Thundering like a cannonade of siege guns, the whole floe burst up, jagged, splintered, hummocky. In less than three minutes, and while the Freja's men stood watching, the level stretch toward which since morning they had struggled with incalculable toil was ground up into a vast mass of confused and pathless rubble.
"Oh, this will never do," muttered Ferriss, disheartened.
"Come on, men!" exclaimed Bennett. "Mr. Ferriss, go forward, and choose a road for us."
The labour of the morning was recommenced. With infinite patience, infinite hardship, the sledges one by one were advanced. So heavy were the three larger McClintocks that only one could be handled at a time, and that one taxed the combined efforts of men and dogs to the uttermost. The same ground had to be covered seven times. For every yard gained seven had to be travelled. It was not a march, it was a battle; a battle without rest and without end and without mercy; a battle with an Enemy whose power was beyond all estimate and whose movements were not reducible to any known law. A certain course would be mapped, certain plans formed, a certain objective determined, and before the course could be finished, the plans executed, or the objective point attained the perverse, inexplicable movement of the ice baffled their determination and set at naught their best ingenuity.
At four o'clock it began to snow. Since the middle of the forenoon the horizon had been obscured by clouds and mist so that no observation for position could be taken. Steadily the clouds had advanced, and by four o'clock the expedition found itself enveloped by wind and driving snow. The flags could no longer be distinguished; thin and treacherous ice was concealed under drifts; the dogs floundered helplessly; the men could scarcely open their eyes against the wind and fine, powder-like snow, and at times when they came to drag forward the last sledge they found it so nearly buried in the snow that it must be dug out before it could be moved.
Toward half past five the odometer on one of the dog-sleds registered a distance of three-quarters of a mile made since morning. Bennett called a halt, and camp was pitched in the lee of one of the larger hummocks. The alcohol cooker was set going, and supper was had under the tent, the men eating as they lay in their sleeping-bags. But even while eating they fell asleep, drooping lower and lower, finally collapsing upon the canvas floor of the tent, the food still in their mouths.
Yet, for all that, the night was miserable. Even after that day of superhuman struggle they were not to be allowed a few hours of unbroken rest. By midnight the wind had veered to the east and was blowing a gale. An hour later the tent came down. Exhausted as they were, they must turn out and wrestle with that slatting, ice-sheathed canvas, and it was not until half an hour later that everything was fast again.
Once more they crawled into the sleeping-bags, but soon the heat from their bodies melted the ice upon their clothes, and pools of water formed under each man, wetting him to the skin. Sleep was impossible. It grew colder and colder as the night advanced, and the gale increased. At three o'clock in the morning the centigrade thermometer was at eighteen degrees below. The cooker was lighted again, and until six o'clock the party huddled wretchedly about it, dozing and waking, shivering continually.
Breakfast at half past six o'clock; under way again an hour later. There was no change in the nature of the ice. Ridge succeeded ridge, hummock followed upon hummock. The wind was going down, but the snow still fell as fine and bewildering as ever. The cold was intense. Dennison, the doctor and naturalist of the expedition, having slipped his mitten, had his hand frostbitten before he could recover it. Two of the dogs, Big Joe and Stryelka, were noticeably giving out.
But Bennett, his huge jaws clenched, his small, distorted eyes twinkling viciously through the apertures of the wind-mask, his harsh, black eyebrows lowering under the narrow, contracted forehead, drove the expedition to its work relentlessly. Not Muck Tu, the dog-master, had his Ostiaks more completely under his control than he his men. He himself did the work of three. On that vast frame of bone and muscle, fatigue seemed to leave no trace. Upon that inexorable bestial determination difficulties beyond belief left no mark. Not one of the twelve men under his command fighting the stubborn ice with tooth and nail who was not galvanised with his tremendous energy. It was as though a spur was in their flanks, a lash upon their backs. Their minds, their wills, their efforts, their physical strength to the last ounce and pennyweight belonged indissolubly to him. For the time being they were his slaves, his serfs, his beasts of burden, his draught animals, no better than the dogs straining in the traces beside them. Forward they must and would go until they dropped in the harness or he gave the word to pause.
At four o'clock in the afternoon Bennett halted. Two miles had been made since the last camp, and now human endurance could go no farther. Sometimes when the men fell they were unable to get up. It was evident there was no more in them that day.
In his ice-journal for that date Bennett wrote: "... Two miles covered by 4 p.m. Our course continues to be south, 20 degrees west (magnetic). The ice still hummocky. At this rate we shall be on half rations long before we reach Wrangel Island. No observation possible since day before yesterday on account of snow and clouds. Stryelka, one of our best dogs, gave out to-day. Shot him and fed him to the others. Our advance to the southwest is slow but sure, and every day brings nearer our objective. Temperature at 6 p.m., 6.8 degrees Fahr. (minus 14 degrees C). Wind, east; force, 2."
The next morning was clear for two hours after breakfast, and when Ferriss returned from his task of path-finding he reported to Bennett that he had seen a great many water-blinks off to the southwest.
"The wind of yesterday has broken the ice up," observed Bennett; "we shall have hard work to-day."
A little after midday, at a time when they had wrested some thousand yards to the southward from the grip of the ice, the expedition came to the first lane of open water, about three hundred feet in width. Bennett halted the sledges and at once set about constructing a bridge of floating cakes of ice. But the work of keeping these ice-blocks in place long enough for the transfer of even a single sledge seemed at times to be beyond their most strenuous endeavour. The first sledge with the cutter crossed in safety. Then came the turn of number two, loaded with the provisions and whaleboat. It was two-thirds of the way across when the opposite side of the floe abruptly shifted its position, and thirty feet of open water suddenly widened out directly in front of the line of progress.
"Cut loose!" commanded Bennett upon the instant. The ice-block upon which they were gathered was set free in the current. The situation was one of the greatest peril. The entire expedition, men and dogs together, with their most important sledge, was adrift. But the oars and mast and the pole of the tent were had from the whaleboat, and little by little they ferried themselves across. The gap was bridged again and the dog-sleds transferred.
But now occurred the first real disaster since the destruction of the ship. Half-way across the crazy pontoon bridge of ice, the dogs, harnessed to one of the small sleds, became suddenly terrified. Before any one could interfere they had bolted from Muck Tu's control in a wild break for the farther side of the ice. The sled was overturned; pell-mell the dogs threw themselves into the water; the sled sank, the load-lashing parted, and two medicine chests, the bag of sewing materials--of priceless worth--a coil of wire ropes, and three hundred and fifty pounds of pemmican were lost in the twinkling of an eye.
Without comment Bennett at once addressed himself to making the best of the business. The dogs were hauled upon the ice; the few loads that yet remained upon the sled were transferred to another; that sled was abandoned, and once more the expedition began its never-ending battle to the southward.
The lanes of open water, as foreshadowed by the water-blinks that Ferriss had noted in the morning, were frequent; alternating steadily with hummocks and pressure-ridges. But the perversity of the ice was all but heart-breaking. At every hour the lanes opened and closed. At one time in the afternoon they had arrived upon the edge of a lane wide enough to justify them in taking to their boats. The sledges were unloaded, and stowed upon the boats themselves, and oars and sails made ready. Then as Bennett was about to launch the lane suddenly closed up. What had been water became a level floe, and again the process of unloading and reloading had to be undertaken.
That evening Big Joe and two other dogs, Gavriga and Patsy, were shot because of their uselessness in the traces. Their bodies were cut up to feed their mates.
"I can spare the dogs," wrote Bennett in his journal for that day--a Sunday--"but McPherson, one of the best men of the command, gives me some uneasiness. His frozen footnips have chafed sores in his ankle. One of these has ulcerated, and the doctor tells me is in a serious condition. His pain is so great that he can no longer haul with the others. Shall relieve him from work during the morrow's march. Less than a mile covered to-day. Meridian observation for latitude impossible on account of fog. Divine services at 5:30 p.m." A week passed, then another. There was no change, neither in the character of the ice nor in the expedition's daily routine. Their toil was incredible; at times an hour's unremitting struggle would gain but a few yards. The dogs, instead of aiding them, were rapidly becoming mere encumbrances. Four more had been killed, a fifth had been drowned, and two, wandering from camp, had never returned. The second dog-sled had been abandoned. The condition of McPherson's foot was such that no work could be demanded from him. Hawes, the carpenter, was down with fever and kept everybody awake all night by talking in his sleep. Worse than all, however, Ferriss's right hand was again frostbitten, and this time Dennison, the doctor, was obliged to amputate it above the wrist. " ... But I am no whit disheartened," wrote Bennett. "Succeed I must and shall."
A few days after the operation on Ferriss's hand Bennett decided it would be advisable to allow the party a full twenty-four hours' rest. The march of the day before had been harder than any they had yet experienced, and, in addition to McPherson and the carpenter, the doctor himself was upon the sick list.
In the evening Bennett and Ferriss took a long walk or rather climb over the ice to the southwest, picking out a course for the next day's march.
A great friendship, not to say affection, had sprung up between these two men, a result of their long and close intimacy on board the Freja and of the hardships and perils they had shared during the past few weeks while leading the expedition in the retreat to the southward. When they had decided upon the track of the morrow's advance they sat down for a moment upon the crest of a hummock to breathe themselves, their elbows on their knees, looking off to the south over the desolation of broken ice.
With his one good hand Ferriss drew a pipe and a handful of tea leaves wrapped in oiled paper from the breast of his deer-skin parkie.
"Do you mind filling this pipe for me, Ward?" he asked of Bennett.
Bennett glanced at the tea leaves and handed them back to Ferriss, and in answer to his remonstrance produced a pouch of his own.
"Tobacco!" cried Ferriss, astonished; "why, I thought we smoked our last aboard ship."
"No, I saved a little of mine."
"Oh, well," answered Ferriss, trying to interfere with Bennett, who was filling his pipe, "I don't want your tobacco; this tea does very well."
"I tell you I have eight-tenths of a kilo left," lied Bennett, lighting the pipe and handing it back to him. "Whenever you want a smoke you can set to me."
Bennett lit a pipe of his own, and the two began to smoke. " 'M, ah!" murmured Ferriss, drawing upon the pipe ecstatically, "I thought I never was going to taste good weed again till we should get home."
Bennett said nothing. There was a long silence. Home! what did not that word mean for them? To leave all this hideous, grisly waste of ice behind, to have done with fighting, to rest, to forget responsibility, to have no more anxiety, to be warm once more--warm and well fed and dry--to see a tree again, to rub elbows with one's fellows, to know the meaning of warm handclasps and the faces of one's friends.
"Dick," began Bennett abruptly after a long while, "if we get stuck here in this damned ice I'm going to send you and probably Metz on ahead for help. We'll make a two-man kyack for you to use when you reach the limit of the pack, but besides the kyack you'll carry nothing but your provisions, sleeping-bags, and rifle, and travel as fast as you can." Bennett paused for a moment, then in a different voice continued: "I wrote a letter last night that I was going to give you in case I should have to send you on such a journey, but I think I might as well give it to you now."
He drew from his pocket an envelope carefully wrapped in oilskin.
"If anything should happen to the expedition--to me--I want you to see that this letter is delivered."
He paused again.
"You see, Dick, it's like this; there's a girl--" his face flamed suddenly, "no--no, a woman, a grand, noble, man's woman, back in God's country who is a great deal to me--everything in fact. She don't know, hasn't a guess, that I care. I never spoke to her about it. But if anything should turn up I should want her to know how it had been with me, how much she was to me. So I've written her. You'll see that she gets it, will you?"
He handed the little package to Ferriss, and continued indifferently, and resuming his accustomed manner: "If we get as far as Wrangel Island you can give it back to me. We are bound to meet the relief ships or the steam whalers in that latitude. Oh, you can look at the address," added Bennett as Ferriss, turning the envelope bottom side up, was thrusting it into his breast pocket; "you know her even better than I do. It's Lloyd Searight."
Ferriss's teeth shut suddenly upon his pipestem.
Bennett rose. "Tell Muck Tu," he said, "in case I don't think of it again, that the dogs must be fed from now on from those that die. I shall want the dog biscuit and dried fish for our own use."
"I suppose it will come to that," answered Ferriss.
"Come to that!" returned Bennett grimly; "I hope the dogs themselves will live long enough for us to eat them. And don't misunderstand," he added; "I talk about our getting stuck in the ice, about my not pulling through; it's only because one must foresee everything, be prepared for everything. Remember--I--shall--pull--through."
But that night, long after the rest were sleeping, Ferriss, who had not closed his eyes, bestirred himself, and, as quietly as possible, crawled from his sleeping-bag. He fancied there was some slight change in the atmosphere, and wanted to read the barometer affixed to a stake just outside the tent. Yet when he had noted that it was, after all, stationary, he stood for a moment looking out across the ice with unseeing eyes. Then from a pocket in his furs he drew a little folder of morocco. It was pitiably worn, stained with sea-water, patched and repatched, its frayed edges sewed together again with ravellings of cloth and sea-grasses. Loosening with his teeth the thong of walrus-hide with which it was tied, Ferriss opened it and held it to the faint light of an aurora just paling in the northern sky.
"So," he muttered after a while, "so--Bennett, too--" For a long time Ferriss stood looking at Lloyd's picture till the purple streamers in the north faded into the cold gray of the heavens. Then he shot a glance above him.
"God Almighty, bless her and keep her!" he prayed.
Far off, miles away, an ice-floe split with the prolonged reverberation of thunder. The aurora was gone. Ferriss returned to the tent.
The following week the expedition suffered miserably. Snowstorm followed snowstorm, the temperature dropped to twenty-two degrees below the freezing-point, and gales of wind from the east whipped and scourged the struggling men incessantly with myriad steel-tipped lashes. At night the agony in their feet was all but unbearable. It was impossible to be warm, impossible to be dry. Dennison, in a measure, recovered his health, but the ulcer on McPherson's foot had so eaten the flesh that the muscles were visible. Hawes's monotonous chatter and crazy whimperings filled the tent every night.
The only pleasures left them, the only breaks in the monotony of that life, were to eat, and, when possible, to sleep. Thought, reason, and reflection dwindled in their brains. Instincts--the primitive, elemental impulses of the animal--possessed them instead. To eat, to sleep, to be warm--they asked nothing better. The night's supper was a vision that dwelt in their imaginations hour after hour throughout the entire day. Oh, to sit about the blue flame of alcohol sputtering underneath the old and battered cooker of sheet-iron! To smell the delicious savour of the thick, boiling soup! And then the meal itself--to taste the hot, coarse, meaty food; to feel that unspeakably grateful warmth and glow, that almost divine sensation of satiety spreading through their poor, shivering bodies, and then sleep; sleep, though quivering with cold; sleep, though the wet searched the flesh to the very marrow; sleep, though the feet burned and crisped with torture; sleep, sleep, the dreamless stupefaction of exhaustion, the few hours' oblivion, the day's short armistice from pain!
But stronger, more insistent than even these instincts of the animal was the blind, unreasoned impulse that set their faces to the southward: "To get forward, to get forward." Answering the resistless influence of their leader, that indomitable man of iron whom no fortune could break nor bend, and who imposed his will upon them as it were a yoke of steel--this idea became for them a sort of obsession. Forward, if it were only a yard; if it were only a foot. Forward over the heart-breaking, rubble ice; forward against the biting, shrieking wind; forward in the face of the blinding snow; forward through the brittle crusts and icy water; forward, although every step was an agony, though the haul-rope cut like a dull knife, though their clothes were sheets of ice. Blinded, panting, bruised, bleeding, and exhausted, dogs and men, animals all, the expedition struggled forward.
One day, a little before noon, while lunch was being cooked, the sun broke through the clouds, and for upward of half an hour the ice-pack was one blinding, diamond glitter. Bennett ran for his sextant and got an observation, the first that had been possible for nearly a month. He worked out their latitude that same evening.
The next morning Ferriss was awakened by a touch on his shoulder. Bennett was standing over him.
"Come outside here a moment," said Bennett in a low voice. "Don't wake the men."
"Did you get our latitude?" asked Ferriss as the two came out of the tent.
"Yes, that's what I want to tell you."
"What is it?"
"Seventy-four-nineteen."
"Why, what do you mean?" asked Ferriss quickly.
"Just this: That the ice-pack we're on is drifting faster to the north than we are marching to the south. We are farther north now than we were a month ago for all our marching."
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{
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By eleven o'clock at night the gale had increased to such an extent and the sea had begun to build so high that it was a question whether or not the whaleboat would ride the storm. Bennett finally decided that it would be impossible to reach the land--stretching out in a long, dark blur to the southwest--that night, and that the boat must run before the wind if he was to keep her afloat. The number two cutter, with Ferriss in command, was a bad sailer, and had fallen astern. She was already out of hailing distance; but Bennett, who was at the whaleboat's tiller, in the instant's glance that he dared to shoot behind him saw with satisfaction that Ferriss had followed his example.
The whaleboat and the number two cutter were the only boats now left to the expedition. The third boat had been abandoned long before they had reached open water.
An hour later Adler, the sailing-master, who had been bailing, and who sat facing Bennett, looked back through the storm; then, turning to Bennett, said: "Beg pardon, sir, I think they are signalling us."
Bennett did not answer, but, with his hand gripping the tiller, kept his face to the front, his glance alternating between the heaving prow of the boat and the huge gray billows hissing with froth careering rapidly alongside. To pause for a moment, to vary by ever so little from the course of the storm, might mean the drowning of them all. After a few moments Adler spoke again, touching his cap.
"I'm sure I see a signal, sir."
"No, you don't," answered Bennett.
"Beg pardon, I'm quite sure I do."
Bennett leaned toward him, the cast in his eyes twinkling with a wicked light, the furrow between the eyebrows deepening. "I tell you, you don't see any signal; do you understand? You don't see any signal until I choose to have you."
The night was bitter hard for the occupants of the whaleboat. In their weakened condition they were in no shape to fight a polar hurricane in an open boat.
For three weeks they had not known the meaning of full rations. During the first days after the line of march over the ice had been abruptly changed to the west in the hope of reaching open water, only three-quarter rations had been issued, and now for the last two days half rations had been their portion. The gnawing of hunger had begun. Every man was perceptibly weaker. Matters were getting desperate.
But by seven o'clock the next morning the storm had blown itself out. To Bennett's inexpressible relief the cutter hove in view. Shaping their course to landward once more, the boats kept company, and by the middle of the afternoon Bennett and the crew of the whaleboat successfully landed upon a bleak, desolate, and wind-scourged coast. But in some way, never afterward sufficiently explained, the cutter under Ferriss's command was crushed in the floating ice within one hundred yards of the shore. The men and stores were landed--the water being shallow enough for wading--but the boat was a hopeless wreck.
"I believe it's Cape Shelaski," said Bennett to Ferriss when camp had been made and their maps consulted. "But if it is, it's charted thirty-five minutes too far to the west."
Before breaking camp the next morning Bennett left this record under a cairn of rocks upon the highest point of the cape, further marking the spot by one of the boat's flags: "The Freja Arctic Exploring Expedition landed at this point October 28, 1891. Our ship was nipped and sunk in 76 deg. 10 min. north latitude on the l2th of July last. I then attempted a southerly march to Wrangel Island, but found such a course impracticable on account of northerly drift of ice. On the lst of October I accordingly struck off to the westward to find open water at the limit of the ice, being compelled to abandon one boat and two sledges on the way. A second boat was crushed beyond repair in drifting ice while attempting a landing at this place. Our one remaining boat being too small to accommodate the members of the expedition, circumstances oblige me to begin an overland march toward Kolyuchin Bay, following the line of the coast. We expect either to winter among the Chuckch settlements mentioned by Nordenskjold as existing upon the eastern shores of Kolyuchin Bay or to fall in with the relief ships or the steam whalers en route. By issuing half rations I have enough provisions for eighteen days, and have saved all records, observations, papers, instruments, etc. Enclosed is the muster roll of the expedition. No scurvy as yet and no deaths. Our sick are William Hawes, carpenter, arctic fever, serious; David McPherson, seaman, ulceration of left foot, serious. The general condition of the rest of the men is fair, though much weakened by exposure and lack of food.
(Signed) "WARD BENNETT, Commanding."
But during the night, their first night on land, Bennett resolved upon a desperate expedient. Not only the boat was to be abandoned, but also the sledges, and not only the sledges, but every article of weight not absolutely necessary to the existence of the party. Two weeks before, the sun had set not to rise again for six months. Winter was upon them and darkness. The Enemy was drawing near. The great remorseless grip of the Ice was closing. It was no time for half-measures and hesitation; now it was life or death.
The sense of their peril, the nearness of the Enemy, strung Bennett's nerves taut as harp-strings. His will hardened to the flinty hardness of the ice itself. His strength of mind and of body seemed suddenly to quadruple itself. His determination was that of the battering-ram, blind, deaf, resistless. The ugly set of his face became all the more ugly, the contorted eyes flashing, the great jaw all but simian. He appeared physically larger. It was no longer a man; it was a giant, an ogre, a colossal jotun hurling ice-blocks, fighting out a battle unspeakable, in the dawn of the world, in chaos and in darkness.
The impedimenta of the expedition were broken up into packs that each man carried upon his shoulders. From now on everything that hindered the rapidity of their movements must be left behind. Six dogs (all that remained of the pack of eighteen) still accompanied them.
Bennett had hoped and had counted upon his men for an average daily march of sixteen miles, but the winter gales driving down from the northeast beat them back; the ice and snow that covered the land were no less uneven than the hummocks of the pack. All game had migrated far to the southward.
Every day the men grew weaker and weaker; their provisions dwindled. Again and again one or another of them, worn out beyond human endurance, would go to sleep while marching and would fall to the ground.
Upon the third day of this overland march one of the dogs suddenly collapsed upon the ground, exhausted and dying. Bennett had ordered such of the dogs that gave out cut up and their meat added to the store of the party's provisions. Ferriss and Muck Tu had started to pick up the dead dog when the other dogs, famished and savage, sprang upon their fallen mate. The two men struck and kicked, all to no purpose; the dogs turned upon them snarling and snapping. They, too, demanded to live; they, too, wanted to be fed. It was a hideous business. There in that half-night of the polar circle, lost and forgotten on a primordial shore, back into the stone age once more, men and animals fought one another for the privilege of eating a dead dog.
But their life was not all inhuman; Bennett at least could rise even above humanity, though his men must perforce be dragged so far below it. At the end of the first week Hawes, the carpenter, died. When they awoke in the morning he was found motionless and stiff in his sleeping-bag. Some sort of grave was dug, the poor racked body lowered into it, and before it was filled with snow and broken ice Bennett, standing quietly in the midst of the bare-headed group, opened his prayer-book and began with the tremendous words, "I am the Resurrection and the Life--" It was the beginning of the end. A week later the actual starvation began. Slower and slower moved the expedition on its daily march, faltering, staggering, blinded and buffeted by the incessant northeast winds, cruel, merciless, keen as knife-blades. Hope long since was dead; resolve wore thin under friction of disaster; like a rat, hunger gnawed at them hour after hour; the cold was one unending agony. Still Bennett was unbroken, still he urged them forward. For so long as they could move he would drive them on.
Toward four o'clock on the afternoon of one particularly hard day, word was passed forward to Bennett at the head of the line that something was wrong in the rear.
"It's Adler; he's down again and can't get up; asks you to leave him."
Bennett halted the line and went back some little distance to find Adler lying prone upon his back, his eyes half closed, breathing short and fast. He shook him roughly by the shoulder.
"Up with you!"
Adler opened his eyes and shook his head.
"I--I'm done for this time, sir; just leave me here--please."
"H'up!" shouted Bennett; "you're not done for; I know better."
"Really, sir, I--I _can't_."
"H'up!"
"If you would only please--for God's sake, sir. It's more than I'm made for."
Bennett kicked him in the side.
"H'up with you!"
Adler struggled to his feet again, Bennett aiding him.
"Now, then, can you go five yards?"
"I think--I don't know--perhaps--" "Go them, then."
The other moved forward.
"Can you go five more; answer, speak up, can you?"
Adler nodded his head.
"Go them--and another five--and another--there--that's something like a man, and let's have no more woman's drivel about dying."
"But--" Bennett came close to him, shaking a forefinger in his face, thrusting forward his chin wickedly.
"My friend, I'll drive you like a dog, but," his fist clenched in the man's face, "I'll _make_ you pull through."
Two hours later Adler finished the day's march at the head of the line.
The expedition began to eat its dogs. Every evening Bennett sent Muck Tu and Adler down to the shore to gather shrimps, though fifteen hundred of these shrimps hardly filled a gill measure. The party chewed reindeer-moss growing in scant patches in the snow-buried rocks, and at times made a thin, sickly infusion from the arctic willow. Again and again Bennett despatched the Esquimau and Clarke, the best shots in the party, on hunting expeditions to the southward. Invariably they returned empty-handed. Occasionally they reported old tracks of reindeer and foxes, but the winter colds had driven everything far inland. Once only Clarke shot a snow-bunting, a little bird hardly bigger than a sparrow. Still Bennett pushed forward.
One morning in the beginning of the third week, after a breakfast of two ounces of dog meat and a half cup of willow tea, Ferriss and Bennett found themselves a little apart from the others. The men were engaged in lowering the tent. Ferriss glanced behind to be assured he was out of hearing, then: "How about McPherson?" he said in a low voice.
McPherson's foot was all but eaten to the bone by now. It was a miracle how the man had kept up thus far. But at length he had begun to fall behind; every day he straggled more and more, and the previous evening had reached camp nearly an hour after the tent had been pitched. But he was a plucky fellow, of sterner stuff than the sailing-master, Adler, and had no thought of giving up.
Bennett made no reply to Ferriss, and the chief engineer did not repeat the question. The day's march began; almost at once breast-high snowdrifts were encountered, and when these had been left behind the expedition involved itself upon the precipitate slopes of a huge talus of ice and bare, black slabs of basalt. Fully two hours were spent in clambering over this obstacle, and on its top Bennett halted to breathe the men. But when they started forward again it was found that McPherson could not keep his feet. When he had fallen, Adler and Dennison had endeavoured to lift him, but they themselves were so weak that they, too, fell. Dennison could not rise of his own efforts, and instead of helping McPherson had to be aided himself. Bennett came forward, put an arm about McPherson, and hauled him to an upright position. The man took a step forward, but his left foot immediately doubled under him, and he came to the ground again. Three times this manoeuvre was repeated; so far from marching, McPherson could not even stand.
"If I could have a day's rest--" began McPherson, unsteadily. Bennett cast a glance at Dennison, the doctor. Dennison shook his head. The foot, the entire leg below the knee, should have been amputated days ago. A month's rest even in a hospital at home would have benefited McPherson nothing.
For the fraction of a minute Bennett debated the question, then he turned to the command.
"Forward, men!"
"What--wh--" began McPherson, sitting upon the ground, looking from one face to another, bewildered, terrified. Some of the men began to move off.
"Wait--wait," exclaimed the cripple, "I--I can get along--I--" He rose to his knees, made, a great effort to regain his footing, and once more came crashing down upon the ice.
"Forward!"
"But--but--but--_Oh, you're not going to leave me, sir_?"
"Forward!"
"He's been my chum, sir, all through the voyage," said one of the men, touching his cap to Bennett; "I had just as soon be left with him. I'm about done myself."
Another joined in: "I'll stay, too--I can't leave--it's--it's too terrible."
There was a moment's hesitation. Those who had begun to move on halted. The whole expedition wavered.
Bennett caught the dog-whip from Muck Tu's hand. His voice rang like the alarm of a trumpet.
"Forward!"
Once more Bennett's discipline prevailed. His iron hand shut down upon his men, more than ever resistless. Obediently they turned their faces to the southward. The march was resumed.
Another day passed, then two. Still the expedition struggled on. With every hour their sufferings increased. It did not seem that anything human could endure such stress and yet survive. Toward three o'clock in the morning of the third night Adler woke Bennett.
"It's Clarke, sir; he and I sleep in the same bag. I think he's going, sir."
One by one the men in the tent were awakened, and the train-oil lamp was lit.
Clarke lay in his sleeping-bag unconscious, and at long intervals drawing a faint, quick breath. The doctor bent over him, feeling his pulse, but shook his head hopelessly.
"He's dying--quietly--exhaustion from starvation."
A few moments later Clarke began to tremble slightly, the mouth opened wide; a faint rattle came from the throat.
Four miles was as much as could be made good the next day, and this though the ground was comparatively smooth. Ferriss was continually falling. Dennison and Metz were a little light-headed, and Bennett at one time wondered if Ferriss himself had absolute control of his wits. Since morning the wind had been blowing strongly in their faces. By noon it had increased. At four o'clock a violent gale was howling over the reaches of ice and rock-ribbed land. It was impossible to go forward while it lasted. The stronger gusts fairly carried their feet from under them. At half-past four the party halted. The gale was now a hurricane. The expedition paused, collected itself, went forward; halted again, again attempted to move, and came at last to a definite standstill in whirling snow-clouds and blinding, stupefying blasts.
"Pitch the tent!" said Bennett quietly. "We must wait now till it blows over."
In the lee of a mound of ice-covered rock some hundred yards from the coast the tent was pitched, and supper, such as it was, eaten in silence. All knew what this enforced halt must mean for them. That supper--each man could hold his portion in the hollow of one hand--was the last of their regular provisions. March they could not. What now? Before crawling into their sleeping-bags, and at Bennett's request, all joined in repeating the Creed and the Lord's Prayer.
The next day passed, and the next, and the next. The gale continued steadily. The southerly march was discontinued. All day and all night the men kept in the tent, huddled in the sleeping-bags, sometimes sleeping eighteen and twenty hours out of the twenty-four. They lost all consciousness of the lapse of time; sensation even of suffering left them; the very hunger itself had ceased to gnaw. Only Bennett and Ferriss seemed to keep their heads. Then slowly the end began.
For that last week Bennett's entries in his ice-journal were as follows: "November 29th--Monday--Camped at 4:30 p.m. about 100 yards from the coast. Open water to the eastward as far as I can see. If I had not been compelled to abandon my boats--but it is useless to repine. I must look our situation squarely in the face. At noon served out last beef-extract, which we drank with some willow tea. Our remaining provisions consist of four-fifteenths of a pound of pemmican per man, and the rest of the dog meat. Where are the relief ships? We should at least have met the steam whalers long before this.
"November 30th--Tuesday--The doctor amputated Mr. Ferriss's other hand to-day. Living gale of wind from northeast. Impossible to march against it in our weakened condition; must camp here till it abates. Made soup of the last of the dog meat this afternoon. Our last pemmican gone.
"December lst--Wednesday--Everybody getting weaker. Metz breaking down. Sent Adler down to the shore to gather shrimps. We had about a mouthful apiece for lunch. Supper, a spoonful of glycerine and hot water.
"December 2d--Thursday--Metz died during the night. Hansen dying. Still blowing a gale from the northeast. A hard night.
"December 3d--Friday--Hansen died during early morning. Muck Tu shot a ptarmigan. Made soup. Dennison breaking down.
"December 4th--Saturday--Buried Hansen under slabs of ice. Spoonful of glycerine and hot water at noon.
"December 5th--Sunday--Dennison found dead this morning between Adler and myself. Too weak to bury him, or even carry him out of the tent. He must lie where he is. Divine services at 5:30 P.M. Last spoonful of glycerine and hot water."
* * * * * The next day was Monday, and at some indeterminate hour of the twenty-four, though whether it was night or noon he could not say, Ferriss woke in his sleeping-bag and raised himself on an elbow, and for a moment sat stupidly watching Bennett writing in his journal. Noticing that he was awake, Bennett looked up from the page and spoke in a voice thick and muffled because of the swelling of his tongue.
"How long has this wind been blowing, Ferriss?"
"Since a week ago to-day," answered the other.
Bennett continued his writing. " ...Incessant gales of wind for over a week. Impossible to move against them in our weakened condition. But to stay here is to perish. God help us. It is the end of everything."
Bennett drew a line across the page under the last entry, and, still holding the book in his hand, gazed slowly about the tent.
There were six of them left--five huddled together in that miserable tent--the sixth, Adler, being down on the shore gathering shrimps. In the strange and gloomy half-light that filled the tent these survivors of the Freja looked less like men than beasts. Their hair and beards were long, and seemed one with the fur covering of their bodies. Their faces were absolutely black with dirt, and their limbs were monstrously distended and fat--fat as things bloated and swollen are fat. It was the abnormal fatness of starvation, the irony of misery, the huge joke that arctic famine plays upon those whom it afterward destroys. The men moved about at times on their hands and knees; their tongues were distended, round, and slate-coloured, like the tongues of parrots, and when they spoke they bit them helplessly.
Near the flap of the tent lay the swollen dead body of Dennison. Two of the party dozed inert and stupefied in their sleeping-bags. Muck Tu was in the corner of the tent boiling his sealskin footnips over the sheet-iron cooker. Ferriss and Bennett sat on opposite sides of the tent, Bennett using his knee as a desk, Ferriss trying to free himself from the sleeping-bag with the stumps of his arms. Upon one of these stumps, the right one, a tin spoon had been lashed.
The tent was full of foul smells. The smell of drugs and of mouldy gunpowder, the smell of dirty rags, of unwashed bodies, the smell of stale smoke, of scorching sealskin, of soaked and rotting canvas that exhaled from the tent cover--every smell but that of food.
Outside the unleashed wind yelled incessantly, like a sabbath of witches, and spun about the pitiful shelter and went rioting past, leaping and somersaulting from rock to rock, tossing handfuls of dry, dust-like snow into the air; folly-stricken, insensate, an enormous, mad monster gambolling there in some hideous dance of death, capricious, headstrong, pitiless as a famished wolf.
In front of the tent and over a ridge of barren rocks was an arm of the sea dotted with blocks of ice moving silently and swiftly onward; while back from the coast, and back from the tent and to the south and to the west and to the east, stretched the illimitable waste of land, rugged, gray, harsh; snow and ice and rock, rock and ice and snow, stretching away there under the sombre sky forever and forever; gloomy, untamed, terrible, an empty region--the scarred battlefield of chaotic forces, the savage desolation of a prehistoric world.
"Where's Adler?" asked Ferriss.
"He's away after shrimps," responded Bennett.
Bennett's eyes returned to his journal and rested on the open page thoughtfully.
"Do you know what I've just written here, Ferriss?" he asked, adding without waiting for an answer: "I've written 'It's the end of everything.'"
"I suppose it is," admitted Ferriss, looking about the tent.
"Yes, the end of everything. It's come--at last.... Well." There was a long silence. One of the men in the sleeping-bags groaned and turned upon his face. Outside the wind lapsed suddenly to a prolonged sigh of infinite sadness, clamouring again upon the instant.
"Dick," said Bennett, returning his journal to the box of records, "it _is_ the end of everything, and just because it is I want to talk to you--to ask you something."
Ferriss came nearer. The horrid shouting of the wind deadened the sound of their voices; the others could not hear, and by now it would have mattered very little to any of them if they had.
"Dick," began Bennett, "nothing makes much difference now. In a few hours we shall all be like Dennison here;" he tapped the body of the doctor, who had died during the night. It was already frozen so hard that his touch upon it resounded as if it had been a log of wood. "We shall be like this pretty soon. But before--well, while I can, I want to ask you something about Lloyd Searight. You've known her all your life, and you saw her later than I did before we left. You remember I had to come to the ship two days before you, about the bilge pumps."
While Bennett had been speaking Ferriss had been sitting very erect upon his sleeping-bag, drawing figures and vague patterns in the fur of his deer-skin coat with the tip of the tin spoon. Yes, Bennett was right; he, Ferriss, had known her all his life, and it was no doubt because of this very fact that she had come to be so dear to him. But he had not always known it, had never discovered his love for her until the time was at hand to say good-bye, to leave her for this mad dash for the Pole. It had been too late to speak then, and Ferriss had never told her. She was never to know that he too--like Bennett--cared.
"It seems rather foolish," continued Bennett clumsily, "but if I thought she had ever cared for me--in that way--why, it would make this that is coming to us seem--I don't know--easier to be borne perhaps. I say it very badly, but it would not be so hard to die if I thought she had ever loved me--a bit."
Ferriss was thinking very fast. Why was it he had never guessed something like this? But in Ferriss's mind the idea of the love of a woman had never associated itself with Bennett, that great, harsh man of colossal frame, so absorbed in his huge projects, so welded to his single aim, furthering his purposes to the exclusion of every other thought, desire, or emotion. Bennett was a man's man. But here Ferriss checked himself. Bennett himself had called her a man's woman, a grand, splendid man's woman. He was right; he was right. She was no less than that; small wonder, after all, that Bennett had been attracted to her. What a pair they were, strong, masterful both, insolent in the consciousness of their power!
"You have known her so well and for so long," continued Bennett, "that I am sure she must have said something to you about me. Tell me, did she ever say anything--or not that--but imply in her manner, give you to understand that she would have married me if I had asked her?"
Ferriss found time, even in such an hour, to wonder at the sudden and unexpected break in the uniform hardness of Bennett's character. Ferriss knew him well by now. Bennett was not a man to ask concessions, to catch at small favours. What he wanted he took with an iron hand, without ruth and without scruple. But in the unspeakable dissolution in which they were now involved did anything make a difference? The dreadful mill in which they had been ground had crushed from them all petty distinctions of personality, individuality. Humanity--the elements of character common to all men--only remained.
But Ferriss was puzzled as to how he should answer Bennett. On the one hand was the woman he loved, and on the other Bennett, his best friend, his chief, his hero. They, too, had lived together for so long, had fought out the fight with the Enemy shoulder to shoulder, had battled with the same dangers, had dared the same sufferings, had undergone the same defeats and disappointments.
Ferriss felt himself in grievous straits. Must he tell Bennett the truth? Must this final disillusion be added to that long train of others, the disasters, the failures, the disappointments, and deferred hopes of all those past months? Must Bennett die hugging to his heart this bitterness as well?
"I sometimes thought," observed Bennett with a weak smile, "that she did care a little. I've surely seen something like that in her eyes at certain moments. I wish I had spoken. Did she ever say anything to you? Do you think she would have married me if I had asked her?" He paused, waiting for an answer.
"Oh--yes," hazarded Ferriss, driven to make some sort of response, hoping to end the conversation; "yes, I think she would."
"You do?" said Bennett quickly. "You think she would? What did she say? Did she ever say anything to you?"
The thing was too cruel; Ferriss shrank from it. But suddenly an idea occurred to him. Did anything make any difference now? Why not tell his friend that which he wanted to hear, even if it were not the truth? After all that Bennett had suffered why could he not die content at least in this? What did it matter if he spoke? Did anything matter at such a time when they were all to die within the next twenty-four hours? Bennett was looking straight into his eyes; there was no time to think of consequences. Consequences? But there were to be _no_ consequences. This was the end. Yet could Ferriss make Bennett receive such an untruth? Ferriss did not believe that Lloyd cared for Bennett; knew that she did not, in fact, and if she had cared, did Bennett think for an instant that she--of all women--would have confessed the fact, confessed it to him, Bennett's most intimate friend? Ferriss had known Lloyd well for a long time, had at last come to love her. But could he himself tell whether or no Lloyd cared for him? No, he could not, certainly he could not.
Meanwhile Bennett was waiting for his answer. Ferriss's mind was all confused. He could no longer distinguish right from wrong. If the lie would make Bennett happier in this last hour of his life, why not tell the lie?
"Yes," answered Ferriss, "she did say something once."
"She did?"
"Yes," continued Ferriss slowly, trying to invent the most plausible lie. "We had been speaking of the expedition and of you. I don't know how the subject was brought up, but it came in very naturally at length. She said--yes, I recall it. She said: 'You must bring him back to me. Remember he is everything to me--everything in the world.'"
"She--" Bennett cleared his throat, then tugged at his mustache; "she said that?"
Ferriss nodded.
"Ah!" said Bennett with a quick breath, then he added: "I'm glad of that; you haven't any idea how glad I am, Dick--in spite of everything."
"Oh, yes, I guess I have," murmured Ferriss.
"No, no, indeed, you haven't," returned the other. "One has to love a woman like that, Dick, and have her--and find out--and have things come right, to appreciate it. She would have been my wife after all. I don't know how to thank you, Dick. Congratulate me."
He rose, holding out his hand; Ferriss feebly rose, too, and instinctively extended his arm, but withdrew it suddenly. Bennett paused abruptly, letting his hand fall to his side, and the two men remained there an instant, looking at the stumps of Ferriss's arms, the tin spoon still lashed to the right wrist.
A few hours later Bennett noted that the gale had begun perceptibly to abate. By afternoon he was sure that the storm would be over. As he turned to re-enter the tent after reading the wind-gauge he noted that Kamiska, their one remaining dog, had come back, and was sitting on a projection of ice a little distance away, uncertain as to her reception after her absence. Bennett was persuaded that Kamiska had not run away. Of all the Ostiaks she had been the most faithful. Bennett chose to believe that she had wandered from the tent and had lost herself in the blinding snow. But here was food. Kamiska could be killed; life could be prolonged a day or two, perhaps three, while the strongest man of the party, carrying the greater portion of the dog meat on his shoulders, could push forward and, perhaps, after all, reach Kolyuchin Bay and the Chuckch settlements and return with aid. But who could go? Assuredly not Ferriss, so weak he could scarcely keep on his feet; not Adler, who at times was delirious, and who needed the discipline of a powerful leader to keep him to his work; Muck Tu, the Esquimau, could not be trusted with the lives of all of them, and the two remaining men were in all but a dying condition. Only one man of them all was equal to the task, only one of them who still retained his strength of body and mind; he himself, Bennett. Yes, but to abandon his men?
He crawled into the tent again to get the rifle with which to shoot the dog, but, suddenly possessed of an idea, paused for a moment, seated on the sleeping-bag, his head in his hands.
Beaten? Was he beaten at last? Had the Enemy conquered? Had the Ice enclosed him in its vast, remorseless grip? Then once more his determination grew big within him, for a last time that iron will rose up in mighty protest of defeat. No, no, no; he was not beaten; he would live; he, the strongest, the fittest, would survive. Was it not right that the mightiest should live? Was it not the great law of nature? He knew himself to be strong enough to move; to march, perhaps, for two whole days; and now food had come to them, to him. Yes, but to abandon his men?
He had left McPherson, it is true; but then the lives of all of them had been involved--one life against eleven. Now he was thinking only of himself. But Ferriss--no, he could not leave Ferriss. Ferriss would come with him. They would share the dog meat between them--the whole of it. He, with Ferriss, would push on. He would reach Kolyuchin Bay and the settlements. He would be saved; he would reach home; would come back--come back to Lloyd, who loved him. Yes, but to abandon his men?
Then Bennett's great fist closed, closed and smote heavily upon his knee.
"No," he said decisively.
He had spoken his thoughts aloud, and Ferriss, who had crawled into his sleeping-bag again, looked at him curiously. Even Muck Tu turned his head from the sickening mess reeking upon the cooker. There was a noise of feet at the flap of the tent.
"It's Adler," muttered Ferriss.
Adler tore open the flap.
Then he shouted to Bennett: "Three steam whalers off the foot of the floe, sir; boat putting off! What orders, sir?"
Bennett looked at him stupidly, as yet without definite thought.
"What did you say?"
The men in the sleeping-bags, roused by Adler's shout, sat up and listened stolidly.
"Steam whalers?" said Bennett slowly. "Where? I guess not," he added, shaking his head.
Adler was swaying in his place with excitement.
"Three whalers," he repeated, "close in. They've put off--oh, my God! Listen to that."
The unmistakable sound of a steamer's whistle, raucous and prolonged, came to their ears from the direction of the coast. One of the men broke into a feeble cheer. The whole tent was rousing up. Again and again came the hoarse, insistent cry of the whistle.
"What orders, sir?" repeated Adler.
A clamour of voices filled the tent.
Ferriss came quickly up to Bennett, trying to make himself heard.
"Listen!" he cried with eager intentness, "what I told you--a while ago--about Lloyd--I thought--it's all a mistake, you don't understand--" Bennett was not listening.
"What orders, sir?" exclaimed Adler for the third time.
Bennett drew himself up.
"My compliments to the officer in command. Tell him there are six of us left--tell him--oh, tell him anything you damn please. Men," he cried, his harsh face suddenly radiant, "make ready to get out of this! We're going home, going home to those who love us, men."
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{
"id": "16096"
}
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3
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As Lloyd Searight turned into Calumet Square on her way from the bookseller's, with her purchases under her arm, she was surprised to notice a drop of rain upon the back of one of her white gloves. She looked up quickly; the sun was gone. On the east side of the square, under the trees, the houses that at this hour of the afternoon should have been overlaid with golden light were in shadow. The heat that had been palpitating through all the City's streets since early morning was swiftly giving place to a certain cool and odorous dampness. There was even a breeze beginning to stir in the tops of the higher elms. As the drops began to thicken upon the warm, sun-baked asphalt under foot Lloyd sharply quickened her pace. But the summer storm was coming up rapidly. By the time she reached the great granite-built agency on the opposite side of the square she was all but running, and as she put her key in the door the rain swept down with a prolonged and muffled roar.
She let herself into the spacious, airy hallway of the agency, shutting the door by leaning against it, and stood there for an instant to get her breath. Rownie, the young mulatto girl, one of the servants of the house, who was going upstairs with an armful of clean towels, turned about at the closing of the door and called: "Jus' in time, Miss Lloyd; jus' in time. I reckon Miss Wakeley and Miss Esther Thielman going to get for sure wet. They ain't neither one of 'em took ary umberel."
"Did Miss Wakeley and Miss Thielman both go out?" demanded Lloyd quickly. "Did they both go on a call?"
"Yes, Miss Lloyd," answered Rownie. "I don't know because why Miss Wakeley went, but Miss Esther Thielman got a typhoid call--another one. That's three f'om this house come next Sunday week. I reckon Miss Wakeley going out meks you next on call, Miss Lloyd."
While Rownie had been speaking Lloyd had crossed the hall to where the roster of the nurses' names, in little movable slides, hung against the wall. As often as a nurse was called out she removed her name from the top of this list and slid it into place at the bottom, so that whoever found her name at the top of the roster knew that she was "next on call" and prepared herself accordingly.
Lloyd's name was now at the top of the list. She had not been gone five minutes from the agency, and it was rare for two nurses to be called out in so short a time.
"Is it your tu'n?" asked Rownie as Lloyd faced quickly about.
"Yes, yes," answered Lloyd, running up the stairs, adding, as she passed the mulatto: "There's been no call sent in since Miss Thielman left, has there, Rownie?" Rownie shook her head.
Lloyd went directly to her room, tossed her books aside without removing the wrappers, and set about packing her satchel. When this was done she changed her tailor-made street dress and crisp skirt for clothes that would not rustle when she moved, and put herself neatly to rights, stripping off her rings and removing the dog-violets from her waist. Then she went to the round, old-fashioned mirror that hung between the windows of her room, and combed back her hair in a great roll from her forehead and temples, and stood there a moment or so when she had done, looking at her reflection.
She was tall and of a very vigorous build, full-throated, deep-chested, with large, strong hands and solid, round wrists. Her face was rather serious; one did not expect her to smile easily; the eyes dull blue, with no trace of sparkle and set deep under heavy, level eyebrows. Her mouth was the mouth of the obstinate, of the strong-willed, and her chin was not small. But her hair was a veritable glory, a dull-red flame, that bore back from her face in one great solid roll, dull red, like copper or old bronze, thick, heavy, almost gorgeous in its sombre radiance. Dull-red hair, dull-blue eyes, and a faint, dull glow forever on her cheeks, Lloyd was a beautiful woman; much about her that was regal, for she was very straight as well as very tall, and could look down upon most women and upon not a few men.
Lloyd turned from the mirror, laying down the comb. She had yet to pack her nurse's bag, or, since this was always ready, to make sure that none of its equipment was lacking. She was very proud of this bag, as she had caused it to be made after her own ideas and design. It was of black russia leather and in the form of an ordinary valise, but set off with a fine silver clasp bearing her name and the agency's address. She brought it from the closet and ran over its contents, murmuring the while to herself: "Clinical thermometer--brandy--hypodermic syringe--vial of oxalic-acid crystals--minim-glass--temperature charts; yes, yes, everything right."
While she was still speaking Miss Douglass, the fever nurse, knocked at her door, and, finding it ajar, entered without further ceremony.
"Are you in, Miss Searight?" called Miss Douglass, looking about the room, for Lloyd had returned to the closet and was busy washing the minim-glass.
"Yes, yes," cried Lloyd, "I am. Sit down."
"Rownie told me you are next on call," said the other, dropping on Lloyd's couch.
"So I am; I was very nearly caught, too. I ran over across the square for five minutes, and while I was gone Miss Wakeley and Esther Thielman were called. My name is at the top now."
"Esther got a typhoid case from Dr. Pitts. Do you know, Lloyd, that's--let me see, that's four--seven--nine--that's ten typhoid cases in the City that I can think of right now."
"It's everywhere; yes, I know," answered Lloyd, coming out of the room, carefully drying the minim-glass.
"We are going to have trouble with it," continued the fever nurse; "plenty of it before cool weather comes. It's almost epidemic."
Lloyd held the minim-glass against the light, scrutinising it with narrowed lids.
"What did Esther say when she knew it was an infectious case?" she asked. "Did she hesitate at all?"
"Not she!" declared Miss Douglass. "She's no Harriet Freeze."
Lloyd did not answer. This case of Harriet Freeze was one that the nurses of the house had never forgotten and would never forgive. Miss Freeze, a young English woman, newly graduated, suddenly called upon to nurse a patient stricken with smallpox, had flinched and had been found wanting at the crucial moment, had discovered an excuse for leaving her post, having once accepted it. It was cowardice in the presence of the Enemy. Anything could have been forgiven but that. On the girl's return to the agency nothing was said, no action taken, but for all that she was none the less expelled dishonourably from the midst of her companions. Nothing could have been stronger than the _esprit de corps_ of this group of young women, whose lives were devoted to an unending battle with disease.
Lloyd continued the overhauling of her equipment, and began ruling forms for nourishment charts, while Miss Douglass importuned her to subscribe to a purse the nurses were making up for an old cripple dying of cancer. Lloyd refused.
"You know very well, Miss Douglass, that I only give to charity through the association."
"I know," persisted the other, "and I know you give twice as much as all of us put together, but with this poor old fellow it's different. We know all about him, and every one of us in the house has given something. You are the only one that won't, Lloyd, and I had so hoped I could make it tip to fifty dollars."
"No."
"We need only three dollars now. We can buy that little cigar stand for him for fifty dollars."
"No."
"And you won't give us just three dollars?"
"No."
"Well, you give half and I'll give half," said Miss Douglass.
"Do you think it's a question of money with me?" Lloyd smiled.
Indeed this was a poor argument with which to move Lloyd--Lloyd whose railroad stock alone brought her some fifteen thousand dollars a year.
"Well, no; I don't mean that, of course, but, Lloyd, do let us have three dollars, and I can send word to the old chap this very afternoon. It will make him happy for the rest of his life."
"No--no--no, not three dollars, nor three cents."
Miss Douglass made a gesture of despair. She might have expected that she could not move Lloyd. Once her mind was made up, one might argue with her till one's breath failed. She shook her head at Lloyd and exclaimed, but not ill-naturedly: "Obstinate! Obstinate! Obstinate!"
Lloyd put away the hypodermic syringe and the minim-glass in their places in the bag, added a little ice-pick to its contents, and shut the bag with a snap.
"Now," she announced, "I'm ready."
When Miss Douglass had taken herself away Lloyd settled herself in the place she had vacated, and, stripping the wrappings from the books and magazines she had bought, began to turn the pages, looking at the pictures. But her interest flagged. She tried to read, but soon cast the book from her and leaned back upon the great couch, her hands clasped behind the great bronze-red coils at the back of her head, her dull-blue eyes fixed and vacant.
For hours the preceding night she had lain broad awake in her bed, staring at the shifting shadow pictures that the electric lights, shining through the trees down in the square, threw upon the walls and ceiling of her room. She had eaten but little since morning; a growing spirit of unrest had possessed her for the last two days. Now it had reached a head. She could no longer put her thoughts from her.
It had all come back again for the fiftieth time, for the hundredth time, the old, intolerable burden of anxiety growing heavier month by month, year by year. It seemed to her that a shape of terror, formless, intangible, and invisible, was always by her, now withdrawing, now advancing, but always there; there close at hand in some dark corner where she could not see, ready at every instant to assume a terrible and all too well-known form, and to jump at her from behind, from out the dark, and to clutch her throat with cold fingers. The thing played with her, tormented her; at times it all but disappeared; at times she believed she had fought it from her for good, and then she would wake of a night, in the stillness and in the dark, and know it to be there once more--at her bedside--at her back--at her throat--till her heart went wild with fear, and the suspense of waiting for an Enemy that would not strike, but that lurked and leered in dark corners, wrung from her a suppressed cry of anguish and exasperation, and drove her from her sleep with streaming eyes and tight-shut hands and wordless prayers.
For a few moments Lloyd lay back upon the couch, then regained her feet with a brusque, harassed movement of head and shoulders.
"Ah, no," she exclaimed under her breath, "it is too dreadful."
She tried to find diversion in her room, rearranging the few ornaments, winding the clock that struck ships' bells instead of hours, and turning the wicks of the old empire lamps that hung in brass brackets on either side the fireplace. Lloyd, after building the agency, had felt no scruple in choosing the best room in the house and furnishing it according to her taste. Her room was beautiful, but very simple in its appointments. There were great flat wall-space unspoiled by bric-à-brac, the floor marquetry, with but few rugs. The fireplace and its appurtenances were of brass. Her writing-desk, a huge affair, of ancient and almost black San Domingo mahogany.
But soon she wearied of the small business of pottering about her clock and lamps, and, turning to the window, opened it, and, leaning upon her elbows, looked down into the square.
By now the thunderstorm was gone, like the withdrawal of a dark curtain; the sun was out again over the City. The square, deserted but half an hour ago, was reinvaded with its little people of nurse-maids, gray-coated policemen, and loungers reading their papers on the benches near the fountain. The elms still dripped, their wet leaves glistening again to the sun. There was a delicious smell in the air--a smell of warm, wet grass, of leaves and drenched bark from the trees. On the far side of the square, seen at intervals in the spaces between the foliage, a passing truck painted vermilion set a brisk note of colour in the scene. A newsboy appeared chanting the evening editions. On a sudden and from somewhere close at hand an unseen hand-piano broke out into a gay, jangling quickstep, marking the time with delightful precision.
A carriage, its fine lacquered flanks gleaming in the sunlight, rolled through the square, on its way, no doubt, to the very fashionable quarter of the City just beyond. Lloyd had a glimpse of the girl leaning back in its cushions, a girl of her own age, with whom she had some slight acquaintance. For a moment Lloyd, ridden with her terrors, asked herself if this girl, with no capabilities for either great happiness or great sorrow, were not perhaps, after all, happier than she. But she recoiled instantly, murmuring to herself with a certain fierce energy: "No, no; after all, I have lived."
And how had she lived? For the moment Lloyd was willing to compare herself with the girl in the landau. Swiftly she ran over her own life from the time when left an orphan; in the year of her majority she had become her own mistress and the mistress of the Searight estate. But even at that time she had long since broken away from the conventional world she had known. Lloyd was a nurse in the great St Luke's Hospital even then, had been a probationer there at the time of her mother's death, six months before. She had always been ambitious, but vaguely so, having no determined object in view. She recalled how at that time she knew only that she was in love with her work, her chosen profession, and was accounted the best operating nurse in the ward.
She remembered, too, the various steps of her advancement, the positions she had occupied; probationer first, then full member of the active corps, next operating nurse, then ward manager, and, after her graduation, head nurse of ward four, where the maternity cases were treated. Then had come the time when she had left the hospital and practised private nursing by herself, and at last, not so long ago, the day when her Idea had so abruptly occurred to her; when her ambition, no longer vague, no longer personal, had crystallised and taken shape; when she had discovered a use for her money and had built and founded the house on Calumet Square. For a time she had been the superintendent of nurses here, until her own theories and ideas had obtained and prevailed in its management. Then, her work fairly started, she had resigned her position to an older woman, and had taken her place in the rank and file of the nurses themselves. She wished to be one of them, living the same life, subject to the same rigorous discipline, and to that end she had never allowed it to be known that she was the founder of the house. The other nurses knew that she was very rich, very independent and self-reliant, but that was all. Lloyd did not know and cared very little how they explained the origin and support of the agency.
Lloyd was animated by no great philanthropy, no vast love of humanity in her work; only she wanted, with all her soul she wanted, to count in the general economy of things; to choose a work and do it; to help on, _donner un coup d'epaule_; and this, supported by her own stubborn energy and her immense wealth, she felt that she was doing. To do things had become her creed; to do things, not to think them; to do things, not to talk them; to do things, not to read them. No matter how lofty the thoughts, how brilliant the talk, how beautiful the literature--for her, first, last, and always, were acts, acts, acts--concrete, substantial, material acts. The greatest and happiest day of her life had been when at last she laid her bare hand upon the rough, hard stone of the house in the square and looked up at the facade, her dull-blue eyes flashing with the light that so rarely came to them, while she murmured between her teeth: "I--did--this."
As she recalled this moment now, leaning upon her elbows, looking down upon the trees and grass and asphalt of the square, and upon a receding landau, a wave of a certain natural pride in her strength, the satisfaction of attainment, came to her. Ah! she was better than other women; ah! she was stronger than other women; she was carrying out a splendid work. She straightened herself to her full height abruptly, stretching her outspread hands vaguely to the sunlight, to the City, to the world, to the great engine of life whose lever she could grasp and could control, smiling proudly, almost insolently, in the consciousness of her strength, the fine steadfastness of her purpose. Then all at once the smile was struck from her lips, the stiffness of her poise suddenly relaxed. There, there it was again, the terror, the dreadful fear she dared not name, back in its place once more--at her side, at her shoulder, at her throat, ready to clutch at her from out the dark.
She wheeled from the window, from the sunlight, her hands clasped before her trembling lips, the tears brimming her dull-blue eyes. For forty-eight hours she had fought this from her. But now it was no longer to be resisted.
"No, no," she cried half aloud. "I am no better, no stronger than the others. What does it all amount to when I know that, after all, I am just a woman--just a woman whose heart is slowly breaking?"
But there was an interruption. Rownie had knocked twice at her door before Lloyd had heard her. When Lloyd had opened the door the girl handed her a card with an address written on it in the superintendent's hand.
"This here jus' now come in f'om Dr. Street, Miss Lloyd," said Rownie; "Miss Bergyn" (this was the superintendent nurse) "ast me to give it to you."
It was a call to an address that seemed familiar to Lloyd at first; but she did not stop at that moment to reflect. Her stable telephone hung against the wall of the closet. She rang for Lewis, and while waiting for him to get around dressed for the street.
For the moment, at the prospect of action, even her haunting fear drew off and stood away from her. She was absorbed in her work upon the instant--alert, watchful, self-reliant. What the case was she could only surmise. How long she would be away she had no means of knowing--a week, a month, a year, she could not tell. But she was ready for any contingency. Usually the doctors informed the nurses as to the nature of the case at the time of sending for them, but Dr. Street had not done so now.
However, Rownie called up to her that her coupé was at the door. Lloyd caught up her satchels and ran down the stairs, crying good-bye to Miss Douglass, whom she saw at the farther end of the hall. In the hallway by the vestibule she changed the slide bearing her name from the top to the bottom of the roster.
"How about your mail?" cried Miss Douglass after her.
"Keep it here for me until I see how long I'm to be away," answered Lloyd, her hand upon the knob. "I'll let you know."
Lewis had put Rox in the shafts, and while the coupé spun over the asphalt at a smart clip Lloyd tried to remember where she had heard of the address before. Suddenly she snapped her fingers; she knew the case, had even been assigned to it some eight months before.
"Yes, yes, that's it--Campbell--wife dead--Lafayette Avenue--little daughter, Hattie--hip disease--hopeless--poor little baby."
Arriving at the house, Lloyd found the surgeon, Dr. Street, and Mr. Campbell, who was a widower, waiting for her in a small drawing-room off the library. The surgeon was genuinely surprised and delighted to see her. Most of the doctors of the City knew Lloyd for the best trained nurse in the hospitals.
"Oh, it's you, Miss Searight; good enough!" The surgeon introduced her to the little patient's father, adding: "If any one can pull us through, Campbell, it will be Miss Searight."
The surgeon and nurse began to discuss the case.
"I think you know it already, don't you, Miss Searight?" said the surgeon. "You took care of it a while last winter. Well, there was a little improvement in the spring, not so much pain, but that in itself is a bad sign. We have done what we could, Farnham and I. But it don't yield to treatment; you know how these things are--stubborn. We made a preliminary examination yesterday. Sinuses have occurred, and the probe leads down to nothing but dead bone. Farnham and I had a consultation this morning. We must play our last card. I shall exsect the joint to-morrow."
Mr. Campbell drew in his breath and held it for a moment, looking out of the window.
Very attentive, Lloyd merely nodded her head, murmuring: "I understand."
When Dr. Street had gone Lloyd immediately set to work. The operation was to take place at noon the following day, and she foresaw there would be no sleep for her that night. Street had left everything to her, even to the sterilising of his instruments. Until daylight the following morning Lloyd came and went about the house with an untiring energy, yet with the silence of a swiftly moving shadow, getting together the things needed for the operation--strychnia tablets, absorbent cotton, the rubber tubing for the tourniquet, bandages, salt, and the like--and preparing the little chamber adjoining the sick-room as an operating-room.
The little patient herself, Hattie, hardly into her teens, remembered Lloyd at once. Before she went to sleep Lloyd contrived to spend an hour in the sick-room with her, told her as much as was necessary of what was contemplated, and, by her cheery talk, her gentleness and sympathy, inspired the little girl with a certain sense of confidence and trust in her.
"But--but--but just how bad will it hurt, Miss Searight?" inquired Hattie, looking at her, wide-eyed and serious.
"Dear, it won't hurt you at all; just two or three breaths of the ether and you will be sound asleep. When you wake up it will be all over and you will be well."
Lloyd made the ether cone from a stiff towel, and set it on Hattie's dressing-table. Last of all and just before the operation the gauze sponges occupied her attention. The daytime brought her no rest. Hattie was not to have any breakfast, but toward the middle of the forenoon Lloyd gave her a stimulating enema of whiskey and water, following it about an hour later by a hundredth grain of atropia. She braided the little girl's hair in two long plaits so that her head would rest squarely and flatly upon the pillow. Hattie herself was now ready for the surgeon.
Now there was nothing more to be done. Lloyd could but wait. She took her place at the bedside and tried to talk as lightly as was possible to her patient. But now there was a pause in the round of action. Her mind no longer keenly intent upon the immediate necessities of the moment, began to hark back again to the one great haunting fear that for so long had overshadowed it. Even while she exerted herself to be cheerful and watched for the smiles on Hattie's face her hands twisted tight and tighter under the folds of her blouse, and some second self within her seemed to say: "Suppose, suppose it should come, this thing I dread but dare not name, what then, what then? Should I not expect it? Is it not almost a certainty? Have I not been merely deceiving myself with the forlornest hopes? Is it not the most reasonable course to expect the worst? Do not all indications point that way? Has not my whole life been shaped to this end? Was not this calamity, this mighty sorrow, prepared for me even before I was born? And one can do nothing, absolutely nothing, nothing, but wait and hope and fear, and eat out one's heart with longing."
There was a knock at the door. Instead of calling to enter Lloyd went to it softly and opened it a few inches. Mr. Campbell was there.
"They've come--Street and the assistant."
Lloyd heard a murmur of voices in the hall below and the closing of the front door.
Farnham and Street went at once to the operating-room to make their hands and wrists aseptic. Campbell had gone downstairs to his smoking-room. It had been decided--though contrary to custom--that Lloyd should administer the chloroform.
At length Street tapped with the handle of a scalpel on the door to say that he was ready.
"Now, dear," said Lloyd, turning to Hattie, and picking up the ether cone.
But the little girl's courage suddenly failed her. She began to plead in a low voice choked with tears. Her supplications were pitiful; but Lloyd, once more intent upon her work, every faculty and thought concentrated upon what must be done, did not temporise an instant. Quietly she gathered Hattie's frail wrists in the grip of one strong palm, and held the cone to her face until she had passed off with a long sigh. She picked her up lightly, carried her into the next room, and laid her upon the operating-table. At the last moment Lloyd had busied herself with the preparation of her own person. Over her dress she passed her hospital blouse, which had been under a dry heat for hours. She rolled her sleeves up from her strong white forearms with their thick wrists and fine blue veining, and for upward of ten minutes scrubbed them with a new nail-brush in water as hot as she could bear it. After this she let her hands and forearms lie in the permanganate of potash solution till they were brown to the elbow, then washed away the stain in the oxalic-acid solution and in sterilised hot water. Street and Farnham, wearing their sterilised gowns and gloves, took their places. There was no conversation. The only sounds were an occasional sigh from the patient, a direction given in a low tone, and, at intervals, the click of the knives and scalpel. From outside the window came the persistent chirping of a band of sparrows.
Promptly the operation was begun; there was no delay, no hesitation; what there was to be done had been carefully planned beforehand, even to the minutest details. Street, a master of his profession, thoroughly familiar with every difficulty that might present itself during the course of the work in hand, foreseeing every contingency, prepared for every emergency, calm, watchful, self-contained, set about the exsecting of the joint with no trace of compunction, no embarrassment, no misgiving. His assistants, as well as he himself, knew that life or death hung upon the issue of the next ten minutes. Upon Street alone devolved the life of the little girl. A second's hesitation at the wrong stage of the operation, a slip of bistoury or scalpel, a tremor of the wrist, a single instant's clumsiness of the fingers, and the Enemy--watching for every chance, intent for every momentarily opened chink or cranny wherein he could thrust his lean fingers--entered the frail tenement with a leap, a rushing, headlong spring that jarred the house of life to its foundations. Lowering close over her head Lloyd felt the shadow of his approach. He had arrived there in that commonplace little room, with its commonplace accessories, its ornaments, that suddenly seemed so trivial, so impertinent--the stopped French clock, with its simpering, gilded cupids, on the mantelpiece; the photograph of a number of picnickers "grouped" on a hotel piazza gazing with monolithic cheerfulness at this grim business, this struggle of the two world forces, this crisis in a life.
Then abruptly the operation was over.
The nurse and surgeons eased their positions immediately, drawing long breaths. They began to talk, commenting upon the operation, and Lloyd, intensely interested, asked Street why he had, contrary to her expectations, removed the bone above the lesser trochanter. He smiled, delighted at her intelligence.
"It's better than cutting through the neck, Miss Searight," he told her. "If I had gone through the neck, don't you see, the trochanter major would come over the hole and prevent the discharges."
"Yes, yes, I see, of course," assented Lloyd.
The incision was sewn up, and when all was over Lloyd carried Hattie back to the bed in the next room. Slowly the little girl regained consciousness, and Lloyd began to regard her once more as a human being. During the operation she had forgotten the very existence of Hattie Campbell, a little girl she knew. She had only seen a bit of mechanism out of order and in the hands of a repairer. It was always so with Lloyd. Her charges were not infrequently persons whom she knew, often intimately, but during the time of their sickness their personalities vanished for the trained nurse; she saw only the "case," only the mechanism, only the deranged clockwork in imminent danger of running down.
But the danger was by no means over. The operation had been near the trunk. There had been considerable loss of blood, and the child's power of resistance had been weakened by long periods of suffering. Lloyd feared that the shock might prove too great. Farnham departed, but for a little while the surgeon remained with Lloyd to watch the symptoms. At length, however, he too, pressed for time, and expected at one of the larger hospitals of the City, went away, leaving directions for Lloyd to telephone him in case of the slightest change. At this hour, late in the afternoon, there were no indications that the little girl would not recover from the shock. Street believed she would rally and ultimately regain her health.
"But," he told Lloyd as he bade her good-bye, "I don't need to impress upon you the need of care and the greatest vigilance; absolute rest is the only thing; she must see nobody, not even her father. The whole system is numbed and deadened just yet, but there will be a change either for better or worse some time to-night."
For thirty-six hours Lloyd had not closed an eye, but of that she had no thought. Her supper was sent up to her, and she prepared herself for her night's watch. She gave the child such nourishment as she believed she could stand, and from time to time took her pulse, making records of it upon her chart for the surgeon's inspection later on. At intervals she took Hattie's temperature, placing the clinical thermometer in the armpit. Toward nine in the evening, while she was doing this for the third time within the hour, one of the house servants came to the room to inform her that she was wanted on the telephone. Lloyd hesitated, unwilling to leave Hattie for an instant. However, the telephone was close at hand, and it was quite possible that Dr. Street had rung her up to ask for news.
But it was the agency that had called, and Miss Douglass informed her that a telegram had arrived there for her a few moments before. Should she hold it or send it to her by Rownie? Lloyd reflected a moment.
"Oh--open it and read it to me," she said. "It's a call, isn't it? --or--no; send it here by Rownie, and send my hospital slippers with her, the ones without heels. But don't ring up again to-night; we're expecting a crisis almost any moment."
Lloyd returned to the sick-room, sent away the servant, and once more settled herself for the night. Hattie had roused for a moment.
"Am I going to get well, am I going to get well, Miss Searight?"
Lloyd put her finger to her lips, nodding her head, and Hattie closed her eyes again with a long breath. A certain great tenderness and compassion for the little girl grew big in Lloyd's heart. To herself she said: "God helping me, you shall get well. They believe in me, these people--'If any one could pull us through it would be Miss Searight.' We will 'pull through,' yes, for I'll do it."
The night closed down, dark and still and very hot. Lloyd, regulating the sick-room's ventilation, opened one of the windows from the top. The noises of the City steadily decreasing as the hours passed, reached her ears in a subdued, droning murmur. On her bed, that had for so long been her bed of pain, Hattie lay with closed eyes, inert, motionless, hardly seeming to breathe, her life in the balance; unhappy little invalid, wasted with suffering, with drawn, pinched face and bloodless lips, and at her side Lloyd, her dull-blue eyes never leaving her patient's face, alert and vigilant, despite her long wakefulness, her great bronze-red flame of hair rolling from her forehead and temples, the sombre glow in her cheeks no whit diminished by her day of fatigue, of responsibility and untiring activity.
For the time being she could thrust her fear, the relentless Enemy that for so long had hung upon her heels, back and away from her. There was another Enemy now to fight--or was it another--was it not the same Enemy, the very same, whose shadow loomed across that sick-bed, across the frail, small body and pale, drawn face?
With her pity and compassion for the sick child there arose in Lloyd a certain unreasoned, intuitive obstinacy, a banding together of all her powers and faculties in one great effort at resistance, a steadfastness under great stress, a stubbornness, that shut its ears and eyes. It was her one dominant characteristic rising up, strong and insistent the instant she knew herself to be thwarted in her desires or checked in a course she believed to be right and good. And now as she felt the advance of the Enemy and saw the shadow growing darker across the bed her obstinacy hardened like tempered steel.
"No," she murmured, her brows levelled, her lips compressed, "she shall not die. I will not let her go."
A little later, perhaps an hour after midnight, at a time when she believed Hattie to be asleep, Lloyd, watchful as ever, noted that her cheeks began alternately to puff out and contract with her breathing. In an instant the nurse was on her feet. She knew the meaning of this sign. Hattie had fainted while asleep. Lloyd took the temperature. It was falling rapidly. The pulse was weak, rapid, and irregular. It seemed impossible for Hattie to take a deep breath.
Then swiftly the expected crisis began to develop itself. Lloyd ordered Street to be sent for, but only as a matter of form. Long before he could arrive the issue would be decided. She knew that now Hattie's life depended on herself alone.
"Now," she murmured, as though the Enemy she fought could hear her, "now let us see who is the stronger. You or I." Swiftly and gently she drew the bed from the wall and raised its foot, propping it in position with half a dozen books. Then, while waiting for the servants, whom she had despatched for hot blankets, administered a hypodermic injection of brandy.
"We will pull you through," she kept saying to herself, "we will pull you through. I shall not let you go."
The Enemy was close now, and the fight was hand to hand. Lloyd could almost feel, physically, actually, feel the slow, sullen, resistless pull that little by little was dragging Hattie's life from her grip. She set her teeth, holding back with all her might, bracing herself against the strain, refusing with all inborn stubbornness to yield her position.
"No--no," she repeated to herself, "you shall not have her. I will not give her up; you shall not triumph over me."
Campbell was in the room, warned by the ominous coming and going of hushed footsteps.
"What is the use, nurse? It's all over. Let her die in peace. It's too cruel; let her die in peace."
The half-hour passed, then the hour. Once more Lloyd administered hypodermically the second dose of brandy. Campbell, unable to bear the sight, had withdrawn to the adjoining room, where he could be heard pacing the floor. From time to time he came back for a moment, whispering: "Will she live, nurse? Will she live? Shall we pull her through?"
"I don't know," Lloyd told him. "I don't know. Wait. Go back. I will let you know."
Another fifteen minutes passed. Lloyd fancied that the heart's action was growing a little stronger. A great stillness had settled over the house. The two servants waiting Lloyd's orders in the hall outside the door refrained even from whispering. From the next room came the muffled sound of pacing footsteps, hurried, irregular, while with that strange perversity which seizes upon the senses at moments when they are more than usually acute Lloyd began to be aware of a vague, unwonted movement in the City itself, outside there behind the drawn curtains and half-opened window--a faint, uncertain agitation, a trouble, a passing ripple on the still black pool of the night, coming and going, and coming again, each time a little more insistent, each time claiming a little more attention and notice. It was about half past three o'clock. But the little patient's temperature was rising--there could be no doubt about that. The lungs expanded wider and deeper. Hattie's breathing was unmistakably easier; and as Lloyd put her fingers to the wrist she could hardly keep back a little exultant cry as she felt the pulse throbbing fuller, a little slower, a little more regularly. Now she redoubled her attention. Her hold upon the little life shut tighter; her power of resistance, her strength of purpose, seemed to be suddenly quadrupled. She could imagine the Enemy drawing off; she could think that the grip of cold fingers was loosening.
Slowly the crisis passed off, slowly the reaction began. Hattie was still unconscious, but there was a new look upon her face--a look that Lloyd had learned to know from long experience, an intangible and most illusive expression, nothing, something, the sign that only those who are trained to search for it may see and appreciate--the earliest faint flicker after the passing of the shadow.
"Will she live, will she live, nurse?" came Mr. Campbell's whisper at her shoulder.
"I think--I am almost sure--but we must not be too certain yet. Still there's a chance; yes, there's a chance."
Campbell, suddenly gone white, put out his hand and leaned a moment against the mantelpiece. He did not now leave the room. The door-bell rang.
"Dr. Street," murmured Lloyd.
But what had happened in the City? There in the still dark hours of that hot summer night an event of national, perhaps even international, importance had surely transpired. It was in the air--a sense of a Great Thing come suddenly to a head somewhere in the world. Footsteps sounded rapidly on the echoing sidewalks. Here and there a street door opened. From corner to corner, growing swiftly nearer, came the cry of newsboys chanting extras. A subdued excitement was abroad, finding expression in a vague murmur, the mingling of many sounds into one huge note--a note that gradually swelled and grew louder and seemed to be rising from all corners of the City at once.
There was a step at the sick-room door. Dr. Street? No, Rownie--Rownie with two telegrams for Lloyd.
Lloyd took them from her, then with a sharp, brusque movement of her head and suddenly smitten with an idea, turned from them to listen to the low, swelling murmur of the City. These despatches--no, they were no "call" for her. She guessed what they might be. Why had they come to her now? Why was there this sense of some great tidings in the wind? The same tidings that had come to the world might come to her--in these despatches. Might it not be so? She caught her breath quickly. The terror, the fearful anxiety that had haunted and oppressed her for so long, was it to be lifted now at last? The Enemy that lurked in the dark corners, ever ready to clutch her, was it to be driven back and away from her forever? She dared not hope for it. But something was coming to her; she knew it, she felt it; something was preparing for her, coming to her swifter with every second--coming, coming, coming from out the north. She saw Dr. Street in the room, though how and when he had arrived she could not afterward recall. Her mind was all alert, intent upon other things, listening, waiting. The surgeon had been leaning over the bed. Suddenly he straightened up, saying aloud to Campbell: "Good, good, we're safe. We have pulled through."
Lloyd tore open her telegrams. One was signed "Bennett," the other "Ferriss."
"Thank God!" exclaimed Mr. Campbell.
"Oh," cried Lloyd, a great sob shaking her from head to heel, a smile of infinite happiness flashing from her face. "Oh--yes, thank God, we--we _have_ pulled through."
"Am I going to get well, am I going to get well, Miss Searight?" Hattie, once more conscious, raised her voice weak and faint.
Lloyd was on her knees beside her, her head bent over her.
"Hush; yes, dear, you are safe." Then the royal bronze-red hair bent lower still. The dull-blue eyes were streaming now, the voice one low quiver of sobs. Tenderly, gently Lloyd put an arm about the child, her head bending lower and lower. Her cheek touched Hattie's. For a moment the little girl, frail, worn, pitifully wasted, and the strong, vigorous woman, with her imperious will and indomitable purpose, rested their heads upon the same pillow, both broken with suffering, the one of the body, the other of the mind.
"Safe; yes, dear, safe," whispered Lloyd, her face all but hidden. "Safe, safe, and saved to me. Oh, dearest of all the world!"
And then to her ears the murmur of the City seemed to leap suddenly to articulate words, the clanging thunder of the entire nation--the whole round world thrilling with this great news that had come to it from out the north in the small hours of this hot summer's night. And the chanting cries of the street rolled to her like the tremendous diapason of a gigantic organ: "Rescued, rescued, rescued!"
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{
"id": "16096"
}
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4
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None
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On the day that Lloyd returned to the house on Calumet Square (Hattie's recovery being long since assured), and while she was unpacking her valise and settling herself again in her room, a messenger boy brought her a note.
"Have just arrived in the City. When may I see you? BENNETT."
News of Ward Bennett and of Richard Ferriss had not been wanting during the past fortnight or so. Their names and that of the ship herself, even the names of Adler, Hansen, Clarke, and Dennison, even Muck Tu, even that of Kamiska, the one surviving dog, filled the mouths and minds of men to the exclusion of everything else.
The return of the expedition after its long imprisonment in the ice and at a time when all hope of its safety had been abandoned was one of the great events of that year. The fact that the expedition had failed to reach the Pole, or to attain any unusual high latitude, was forgotten or ignored. Nothing was remembered but the masterly retreat toward Kolyuchin Bay, the wonderful march over the ice, the indomitable courage, unshaken by hardship, perils, obstacles, and privations almost beyond imagination. All this, together with a multitude of details, some of them palpably fictitious, the press of the City where Bennett and Ferriss both had their homes published and republished and published again and again. News of the men, their whereabouts and intentions, invaded the sick-room--where Lloyd watched over the convalescence of her little patient--by the very chinks of the windows.
Lloyd learned how the ship had been "nipped;" how, after inconceivable toil, the members of the expedition had gained the land; how they had marched southward toward the Chuckch settlements; how, at the eleventh hour, the survivors, exhausted and starving, had been rescued by the steam whalers; how these whalers themselves had been caught in the ice, and how the survivors of the Freja had been obliged to spend another winter in the Arctic. She learned the details of their final return. In the quiet, darkened room where Hattie lay she heard from without the echo of the thunder of the nations; she saw how the figure of Bennett towered suddenly magnificent in the world; how that the people were brusquely made aware of a new hero. She learned that honours came thronging about him unsought; that the King of the Belgians had conferred a decoration upon him; that the geographical societies of continental Europe had elected him to honourary membership; that the President and the Secretary of War had sent telegrams of congratulations.
"And what does he do," she murmured, "the first of all upon his return? Asks to see me--me!"
She sent an answer to his note by the same boy who brought it, naming the following afternoon, explaining that two days later she expected to go into the country to a little town called Bannister to take her annual fortnight's vacation.
"But what of--of the other?" she murmured as she stood at the window of her room watching the messenger boy bicycling across the square. "Why does not he--he, too--?"
She put her chin in the air and turned about, looking abstractedly at the rugs on the parquetry.
Lloyd's vacation had really begun two days before. Her name was off the roster of the house, and till the end of the month her time was her own. The afternoon was hot and very still. Even in the cool, stone-built agency, with its windows wide and heavily shaded with awnings, the heat was oppressive. For a long time Lloyd had been shut away from fresh air and the sun, and now she suddenly decided to drive out in the City's park. She rang up her stable and ordered Lewis to put her ponies to her phaeton.
She spent a delightful two hours in the great park, losing herself in its farthest, shadiest, and most unfrequented corners. She drove herself, and intelligently. Horses were her passion, and not Lewis himself understood their care and management better. Toward the cool of the day and just as she had pulled the ponies down to a walk in a long, deserted avenue overspanned with elms and great cottonwoods she was all at once aware of an open carriage that had turned into the far end of the same avenue approaching at an easy trot. It drew near, and she saw that its only occupant was a man leaning back rather limply in the cushions. As the eye of the trained nurse fell upon him she at once placed him in the category of convalescents or chronic invalids, and she was vaguely speculating as to the nature of his complaint when the carriage drew opposite her phaeton, and she recognised Richard Ferriss.
Ferriss, but not the same Ferriss to whom she had said good-bye on that never-to-be-forgotten March afternoon, with its gusts and rain, four long years ago. The Ferriss she had known then had been an alert, keen man, with quick, bright eyes, alive to every impression, responsive to every sensation, living his full allowance of life. She was looking now at a man unnaturally old, of deadened nerves, listless. As he caught sight of her and recognised her he suddenly roused himself with a quick, glad smile and with a look in his eyes that to Lloyd was unmistakable. But there was not that joyful, exuberant start she had anticipated, and, for that matter, wished. Neither did Lloyd set any too great store by the small amenities of life, but that Ferriss should remain covered hurt her a little. She wondered how she could note so trivial a detail at such a moment. But this was Ferriss.
Her heart was beating fast and thick as she halted her ponies. The driver of the carriage jumped down and held the door for Ferriss, and the chief engineer stepped quickly toward her.
So it was they met after four years--and such years--unexpectedly, without warning or preparation, and not at all as she had expected. What they said to each other in those first few moments Lloyd could never afterward clearly remember. One incident alone detached itself vividly from the blur.
"I have just come from the square," Ferriss had explained, "and they told me that you had left for a drive out here only the moment before, so there was nothing for it but to come after you."
"Shan't we walk a little?" she remembered she had asked after a while. "We can have the carriages wait; or do you feel strong enough? I forgot--" But he interrupted her, protesting his fitness.
"The doctor merely sent me out to get the air, and it's humiliating to be wheeled about like an old woman."
Lloyd passed the reins back of her to Lewis, and, gathering her skirts about her, started to descend from the phaeton. The step was rather high from the ground. Ferriss stood close by. Why did he not help her? Why did he stand there, his hands in his pockets, so listless and unconscious of her difficulty. A little glow of irritation deepened the dull crimson of her cheeks. Even returned Arctic explorers could not afford to ignore entirely life's little courtesies--and he of all men.
"Well," she said, expectantly hesitating before attempting to descend.
Then she caught Ferriss's eyes fixed upon her. He was smiling a little, but the dull, stupefied expression of his face seemed for a brief instant to give place to one of great sadness. He raised a shoulder resignedly, and Lloyd, with the suddenness of a blow, remembered that Ferriss had no hands.
She dropped back in the seat of the phaeton, covering her eyes, shaken and unnerved for the moment with a great thrill of infinite pity--of shame at her own awkwardness, and of horror as for one brief instant the smiling summer park, the afternoon's warmth, the avenue of green, over-arching trees, the trim, lacquered vehicles and glossy-brown horses were struck from her mind, and she had a swift vision of the Ice, the darkness of the winter night, the lacerating, merciless cold, the blinding, whirling, dust-like snow.
For half an hour they walked slowly about in the park, the carriages following at a distance. They did not talk very much. It seemed to Lloyd that she would never tire of scrutinising his face, that her interest in his point of view, his opinions, would never flag. He had had an experience that came but to few men. For four years he had been out of the world, had undergone privation beyond conception. What now was to be his attitude? How had he changed? That he had not changed to her Lloyd knew in an instant. He still loved her; that was beyond all doubt. But this terrible apathy that seemed now to be a part of him! She had heard of the numbing stupor that invades those who stay beyond their time in the Ice, but never before had she seen it in its reality. It was not a lack of intelligence; it seemed rather to be the machinery of intelligence rusted and clogged from long disuse. He deliberated long before he spoke. It took him some time to understand things. Speech did not come to him readily, and he became easily confused in the matter of words. Once, suddenly, he had interrupted her, breaking out with: "Oh, the smell of the trees, of the grass! Isn't it wonderful; isn't it wonderful?" And a few seconds later, quite irrelevantly: "And, after all, we failed."
At once Lloyd was all aroused, defending him against himself.
"Failed! And you say that? If you did not reach the Pole, what then? The world will judge you by results perhaps, and the world's judgment will be wrong. Is it nothing that you have given the world an example of heroism--" "Oh, don't call it that."
"Of heroism, of courage, of endurance? Is it nothing that you have overcome obstacles before which other men would have died? Is it nothing that you have shown us all how to be patient, how to be strong? There are some things better even than reaching the Pole. To suffer and be calm is one of them; not to give up--never to be beaten--is another. Oh, if I were a man! Ten thousand, a hundred thousand people are reading to-night of what you have done--of what you have done, you understand, not of what you have failed to do. They have seen--you have shown them what the man can do who says _I will_, and you have done a little more, have gone a little further, have been a little braver, a little hardier, a little nobler, a little more determined than any one has ever been before. Whoever fails now cannot excuse himself by saying that he has done as much as a man can do. He will have to remember the men of the Freja. He will have to remember you. Don't you suppose I am proud of you; don't you suppose that I am stronger and better because of what you have done? Do you think it is nothing for me to be sitting here beside you, here in this park--to be--yes, to be with you? Can't you understand? Isn't it something to me that you are the man you are; not the man whose name the people are shouting just now, not the man to whom a king gave a bit of ribbon and enamel, but the man who lived like a man, who would not die just because it was easier to die than to live, who fought like a man, not only for himself but for the lives of those he led, who showed us all how to be strong, and how strong one could be if one would only try? What does the Pole amount to? The world wants men, great, strong, harsh, brutal men--men with purposes, who let nothing, nothing, nothing stand in their way."
"You mean Bennett," said Ferriss, looking up quickly. "You commenced by speaking of me, but it's Bennett you are talking of now."
But he caught her glance and saw that she was looking steadfastly at him--at him. A look was in her face, a light in her dull-blue eyes, that he had never seen there before.
"Lloyd," he said quietly, "which one of us, Bennett or I, were you speaking of just then? You know what I mean; which one of us?"
"I was speaking of the man who was strong enough to do great things," she said.
Ferriss drew the stumps of his arms from his pockets and smiled at them grimly.
"H'm, can one do much--this way?" he muttered.
With a movement she did not try to restrain Lloyd put both her hands over his poor, shapeless wrists. Never in her life had she been so strongly moved. Pity, such as she had never known, a tenderness and compassion such as she had never experienced, went knocking at her breast. She had no words at hand for so great emotions. She longed to tell him what was in her heart, but all speech failed.
"Don't!" she exclaimed. "Don't! I will not have you."
A little later, as they were returning toward the carriages, Lloyd, after a moment's deliberation upon the matter, said: "Can't I set you down somewhere near your rooms? Let your carriage go."
He shook his head: "I've just given up my downtown rooms. Bennett and I have taken other rooms much farther uptown. In fact, I believe I am supposed to be going there now. It would be quite out of your way to take me there. We are much quieter out there, and people can't get at us so readily. The doctor says we both need rest after our shaking up. Bennett himself--iron as he is--is none too strong, and what with the mail, the telegrams, reporters, deputations, editors, and visitors, and the like, we are kept on something of a strain. Besides we have still a good deal of work to do getting our notes into shape."
Lewis brought the ponies to the edge of the walk, and Lloyd and Ferriss separated, she turning the ponies' heads homeward, starting away at a brisk trot, and leaving him in his carriage, which he had directed to carry him to his new quarters.
But at the turn of the avenue Lloyd leaned from the phaeton and looked back. The carriage was just disappearing down the vista of elms and cottonwoods. She waved her hand gayly, and Ferriss responded with the stump of one forearm.
On the next day but one, a Friday, Lloyd was to go to the country. Every year in the heat of the summer Lloyd spent her short vacation in the sleepy and old-fashioned little village of Bannister. The country around the village was part of the Searight estate. It was quiet, off the railroad, just the place to forget duties, responsibilities, and the wearing anxieties of sick-rooms. But Thursday afternoon she expected Bennett.
Thursday morning she was in her room. Her trunk was already packed. There was nothing more to be done. She was off duty. There was neither care nor responsibility upon her mind. But she was too joyful, too happily exalted, too exuberant in gayety to pass her time in reading. She wanted action, movement, life, and instinctively threw open a window of her room, and, according to her habit, leaned upon her elbows and looked out and down upon the square. The morning was charming. Later in the day it probably would be very hot, but as yet the breeze of the earliest hours was stirring nimbly. The cool of it put a brisker note in the sombre glow of her cheeks, and just stirred a lock that, escaping from her gorgeous coils of dark-red hair, hung curling over her ear and neck. Into her eyes of dull blue--like the blue of old china--the morning's sun sent an occasional unwonted sparkle. Over the asphalt and over the green grass-plots of the square the shadows of the venerable elms wove a shifting maze of tracery. Traffic avoided the place. It was invariably quiet in the square, and one--as now--could always hear the subdued ripple and murmur of the fountain in the centre.
But the crowning delight of that morning was the sudden appearance of a robin in a tree close to Lloyd's window. He was searching his breakfast. At every moment he came and went between the tree-tops and the grass-plots, very important, very preoccupied, chittering and calling the while, as though he would never tire. Lloyd whistled to him, and instantly he answered, cocking his head sideways. She whistled again, and he piped back an impudent response, and for quite five minutes the two held an elaborate altercation between tree-top and window-ledge. Lloyd caught herself laughing outright and aloud for no assignable reason. "Ah, the world was a pretty good place after all!"
A little later, and while she was still at the window, Rownie brought her a note from Bennett, sent by special messenger.
"Ferriss woke up sick this morning. Nobody here but the two of us; can't leave him alone. BENNETT."
"Oh!" exclaimed Lloyd Searight a little blankly.
The robin and his effrontery at once ceased to be amusing. She closed the window abruptly, shutting out the summer morning's gayety and charm, turning her back upon the sunlight.
Now she was more in the humour of reading. On the great divan against the wall lay the month's magazines and two illustrated weeklies. Lloyd had bought them to read on the train. But now she settled herself upon the divan and, picking up one of the weeklies, turned its leaves listlessly. All at once she came upon two pictures admirably reproduced from photographs, and serving as illustrations to the weekly's main article--"The Two Leaders of the Freja Expedition." One was a picture of Bennett, the other of Ferriss.
The suddenness with which she had come upon his likeness almost took Lloyd's breath from her. It was the last thing she had expected. If he himself had abruptly entered the room in person she could hardly have been more surprised. Her heart gave a great leap, the dull crimson of her cheeks shot to her forehead. Then, with a charming movement, at once impulsive and shamefaced, smiling the while, her eyes half-closing, she laid her cheek upon the picture, murmuring to herself words that only herself should hear. The next day she left for the country.
On that same day when Dr. Pitts arrived at the rooms Ferriss and Bennett had taken he found the anteroom already crowded with visitors--a knot of interviewers, the manager of a lecture bureau, as well as the agent of a patented cereal (who sought the man of the hour for an endorsement of his article), and two female reporters.
Decidedly Richard Ferriss was ill; there could be no doubt about that. Bennett had not slept the night before, but had gone to and fro about the rooms tending to his wants with a solicitude and a gentleness that in a man so harsh and so toughly fibred seemed strangely out of place. Bennett was far from well himself. The terrible milling which he had undergone had told even upon that enormous frame, but his own ailments were promptly ignored now that Ferriss, the man of all men to him, was "down."
"I didn't pull through with you, old man," he responded to all of Ferriss's protests, "to have you get sick on my hands at this time of day. No more of your damned foolishness now. Here's the quinine. Down with it!"
Bennett met Pitts at the door of Ferriss's room, and before going in drew him into a corner.
"He's a sick boy, Pitts, and is going to be worse, though he's just enough of a fool boy not to admit it. I've seen them start off this gait before. Remember, too, when you look him over that it's not as though he had been in a healthy condition before. Our work in the ice ground him down about as fine as he could go and yet live, and the hardtack and salt pork on the steam whalers were not a good diet for a convalescent. And see here, Pitts," said Bennett, clearing his throat, "I--well, I'm rather fond of that fool boy in there. We are not taking any chances, you understand."
After the doctor had seen the chief engineer and had prescribed calomel and a milk diet, Bennett followed him out into the hall and accompanied him to the door.
"Verdict?" he demanded, fixing the physician intently with his small, distorted eyes. But Pitts was non-committal.
"Yes, he's a sick boy, but the thing, whatever it is going to be, has been gathering slowly. He complains of headache, great weakness and nausea, and you speak of frequent nose-bleeds during the night. The abdomen is tender upon pressure, which is a symptom I would rather not have found. But I can't make any positive diagnosis as yet. Some big sickness is coming on--that, I am afraid, is certain. I shall come out here to-morrow. But, Mr. Bennett, be careful of yourself. Even steel can weaken, you know. You see this rabble" (he motioned with his head toward the anteroom, where the other visitors were waiting) "that is hounding you? Everybody knows where you are. Man, you must have rest. I don't need to look at you more than once to know that. Get away! Get away even from your mails! Hide from everybody for a while! Don't think you can nurse your friend through these next few weeks, because you can't."
"Well," answered Bennett, "wait a few days. We'll see by the end of the week."
The week passed. Ferriss went gradually from bad to worse, though as yet the disease persistently refused to declare itself. He was quite helpless, and Bennett watched over him night and day, pottering around him by the hour, giving him his medicines, cooking his food, and even when Ferriss complained of the hotness of the bedclothes, changing the very linen that he might lie upon cool sheets. But at the end of the week Dr. Pitts declared that Bennett himself was in great danger of breaking down, and was of no great service to the sick man.
"To-morrow," said the doctor, "I shall have a young fellow here who happens to be a cousin of mine. He is an excellent trained nurse, a fellow we can rely upon. He'll take your place. I'll have him here to-morrow, and you must get away. Hide somewhere. Don't even allow your mail to be forwarded. The nurse and I will take care of Mr. Ferriss. You can leave me your address, and I will wire you if it is necessary. Now be persuaded like a reasonable man. I will stake my professional reputation that you will knock under if you stay here with a sick man on your hands and newspaper men taking the house by storm at all hours of the day. Come now, will you go? Mr. Ferriss is in no danger, and you will do him more harm by staying than by going. So long as you remain here you will have this raft of people in the rooms at all hours. Deny yourself! Keep them out! Keep out the American reporter when he goes gunning for a returned explorer! Do you think this," and he pointed again to the crowd in the anteroom, "is the right condition for a sick man's quarters? You are imperilling his safety, to say nothing of your own, by staying beside him--you draw the fire, Mr. Bennett."
"Well, there's something in that," muttered Bennett, pulling at his mustache. "But--" Bennett hesitated, then: "Pitts, I want you to take my place here if I go away. Have a nurse if you like, but I shouldn't feel justified in leaving the boy in his condition unless I knew you were with him continually. I don't know what your practice is worth to you, say for a month, or until the boy is out of danger, but make me a proposition. I think we can come to an understanding."
"But it won't be necessary to have a doctor with Mr. Ferriss constantly. I should see him every day and the nurse--" Bennett promptly overrode his objections. Harshly and abruptly he exclaimed: "I'm not taking any chances. It shall be as I say. I want the boy well, and I want you and the nurse to see to it that he _gets_ well. I'll meet the expenses."
Bennett did not hear the doctor's response and his suggestion as to the advisability of taking Ferriss to his own house in the country while he could be moved. For the moment he was not listening. An idea had abruptly presented itself to him. He was to go to the country. But where? A grim smile began to relax the close-gripped lips and the hard set of the protruding jaw. He tugged again at his mustache, scowling at the doctor, trying to hide his humour.
"Well, that's settled then," he said; "I'll get away to-morrow--somewhere."
"Whereabouts?" demanded the doctor. "I shall want to let you know how we progress."
Bennett chose to feel a certain irritation. What business of Pitts was it whom he went to see, or, rather, where he meant to go?
"You told me to hide away from everybody, not even to allow my mail to be forwarded. But I'll let you know where to reach me, of course, as soon as I get there. It won't be far from town."
"And I will take your place here with Mr. Ferriss; somebody will be with him at every moment, and I shall only wire you," continued the doctor, "in case of urgent necessity. I want you to have all the rest you can, and stay away as long as possible. I shan't annoy you with telegrams unless I must. You'll understand that no news is good news."
* * * * * On that particular morning Lloyd sat in her room in the old farmhouse that she always elected to call her home as often as she visited Bannister. It was some quarter of a mile outside the little village, and on the road that connected it with the railway at Fourth Lake, some six miles over the hills to the east. It was yet early in the morning, and Lloyd was writing letters that she would post at Fourth Lake later in the forenoon. She intended driving over to the lake. Two days before, Lewis had arrived with Rox, the ponies and the phaeton. Lloyd's dog-cart, a very gorgeous, high-wheeled affair, was always kept at Bannister.
The room in which she now sat was delightful. Everything was white, from the curtains of the bed to the chintz hangings on the walls. A rug of white fur was on the floor. The panellings and wooden shutters of the windows were painted white. The fireplace was set in glossy-white tiles, and its opening covered with a screen of white feathers. The windows were flung wide, and a great flood of white sunlight came pouring into the room. Lloyd herself was dressed in white, from the clean, crisp scarf tied about her neck to the tip of her canvas tennis shoes. And in all this array of white only the dull-red flame of her high-piled hair--in the sunshine glowing like burnished copper--set a vivid note of colour, the little strands and locks about her neck and ears coruscating as the breeze from the open windows stirred them.
The morning was veritably royal--still, cool, and odorous of woods and cattle and growing grass. A great sense of gayety, of exhilaration, was in the air. Lloyd was all in tune with it. While she wrote her left elbow rested on the table, and in her left hand she held a huge, green apple, unripe, sour, delicious beyond words, and into which she bit from time to time with the silent enjoyment of a school-girl.
Her letter was to Hattie's father, Mr. Campbell, and she wrote to ask if the little girl might not spend a week with her at Bannister. When the letter was finished and addressed she thrust it into her belt, and, putting on her hat, ran downstairs. Lewis had brought the dog-cart to the gate, and stood waiting in the road by Rox's head. But as Lloyd went down the brick-paved walk of the front yard Mrs. Applegate, who owned the farmhouse, and who was at once Lloyd's tenant, landlady, housekeeper, and cook, appeared on the porch of the house, the head of a fish in her hand, and Charley-Joe, the yellow tomcat, at her heels, eyeing her with painful intentness.
"Say, Miss Searight," she called, her forearm across her forehead to shade her eyes, the hand still holding the fish's head, "say, while you're out this morning will you keep an eye out for that dog of our'n--you know, Dan--the one with liver'n white spots? He's run off again--ain't seen him since yesterday noon. He gets away an' goes off fighting other dogs over the whole blessed county. There ain't a dog big 'r little within ten mile that Dan ain't licked. He'd sooner fight than he would eat, that dog."
"I will, I will," answered Lloyd, climbing to the high seat, "and if I find him I shall drag him back by the scruff of his neck. Good-morning, Lewis. Why have you put the overhead check on Rox?"
Lewis touched his cap.
"He feels his oats some this morning, and if he gets his lower jaw agin' his chest there's no holding of him, Miss--no holding of him in the world."
Lloyd gathered up the reins and spoke to the horse, and Lewis stood aside.
Rox promptly went up into the air on his hind legs, shaking his head with a great snort.
"Steady, you old pig," said Lloyd, calmly. "Soh, soh, who's trying to kill you?"
"Hadn't I better come with you, Miss?" inquired Lewis anxiously.
Lloyd shook her head. "No, indeed," she said decisively.
Rox, after vindicating his own independence by the proper amount of showing off, started away down the road with as high an action as he could command, playing to the gallery, looking back and out of the tail of his eye to see if Lewis observed what a terrible fellow he was that morning.
"Well, of all the critters!" commented Mrs. Applegate from the porch. But Charley-Joe, with an almost hypnotic fixity in his yellow eyes, and who during the last few minutes had several times opened his mouth wide in an ineffectual attempt to mew, suddenly found his voice with a prolonged and complaining note.
"Well, heavens an' airth, take your fish, then!" exclaimed Mrs. Applegate suddenly, remembering the cat. "An' get off'n my porch with it." She pushed him away with the side of her foot, and Charley-Joe, with the fish's head in his teeth, retired around the corner of the house by the rain barrel, where at intervals he could be heard growling to himself in a high-pitched key, pretending the approach of some terrible enemy.
Meanwhile Lloyd, already well on her way, was having an exciting tussle with Rox. The horse had begun by making an exhibition of himself for all who could see, but in the end he had so worked upon his own nerves that instead of frightening others he only succeeded in terrifying himself. He was city-bred, and the sudden change from brick houses to open fields had demoralised him. He began to have a dim consciousness of just how strong he was. There was nothing vicious about him. He would not have lowered himself to kick, but he did want, with all the big, strong heart of him, to run.
But back of him there--he felt it thrilling along the tense-drawn reins--was a calm, powerful grip, even, steady, masterful. Turn his head he could not, but he knew very well that Lloyd had taken a double twist upon the reins, and that her hands, even if they were gloved in white, were strong--strong enough to hold him to his work. And besides this--he could tell it by the very feel of the bit--he knew that she did not take him very seriously, that he could not make her afraid of him. He knew that she could tell at once whether he shied because he was really frightened or because he wanted to break the shaft, and that in the latter case he would get the whip--and mercilessly, too--across his haunch, a degradation, above all things, to be avoided. And she had called him an old pig once already that morning.
Lloyd drove on. She keenly enjoyed this struggle between the horse's strength and her own determination, her own obstinacy. No, she would not let Rox have his way; she would not allow him to triumph over her for a single moment. She would neither be forced nor tricked into yielding a single point however small. She would be mistress of the situation.
By the end of half an hour she had him well in hand, and was bowling smoothly along a level stretch of road at the foot of an abrupt rise of land covered with scrub oak and broken with outcroppings of granite of a curious formation. Just beyond here the road crossed the canal by a narrow--in fact, a much too narrow--plank bridge without guard-rails. The wide-axled dog-cart had just sufficient room on either hand, and Lloyd, too good a whip to take chances with so nervous a horse as Rox, drew him down to a walk as she approached it. But of a sudden her eyes were arrested by a curious sight. She halted the cart.
At the roadside, some fifty yards from the plank bridge, were two dogs. Evidently there had just been a dreadful fight. Here and there a stone was streaked with blood. The grass and smaller bushes were flattened out, and tufts of hair were scattered about upon the ground. Of the two dogs, Lloyd recognised one upon the instant. It was Dan, the "liver'n white" fox-hound of the farmhouse--the fighter and terror of the country. But he was lying upon his side now, the foreleg broken, or rather crushed, as if in a vise; the throat torn open, the life-blood in a great pool about his head. He was dead, or in the very throes of death. Poor Dan, he had fought his last fight, had found more than his match at last.
Lloyd looked at the other dog--the victor; then looked at him a second time and a third.
"Well," she murmured, "that's a strange-looking dog."
In fact, he was a curious animal. His broad, strong body was covered with a brown fur as dense, as thick, and as soft as a wolf's; the ears were pricked and pointed, the muzzle sharp, the eyes slant and beady. The breast was disproportionately broad, the forelegs short and apparently very powerful. Around his neck was a broad nickelled collar.
But as Lloyd sat in the cart watching him he promptly demonstrated the fact that his nature was as extraordinary as his looks. He turned again from a momentary inspection of the intruders, sniffed once or twice at his dead enemy, then suddenly began to eat him.
Lloyd's gorge rose with anger and disgust. Even if Dan had been killed, it had been in fair fight, and there could be no doubt that Dan himself had been the aggressor. She could even feel a little respect for the conqueror of the champion, but to turn upon the dead foe, now that the heat of battle was past, and (in no spirit of hate or rage) deliberately to eat him. What a horror! She took out her whip.
"Shame on you!" she exclaimed. "Ugh! what a savage; I shan't allow you!"
A farm-hand was coming across the plank bridge, and as he drew near the cart Lloyd asked him to hold Rox for a moment. Rox was one of those horses who, when standing still, are docile as a kitten, and she had no hesitancy in leaving him with a man at his head. She jumped out, the whip in her hand. Dan was beyond all help, but she wanted at least to take his collar back to Mrs. Applegate. The strange dog permitted himself to be driven off a little distance. Part of his strangeness seemed to be that through it all he retained a certain placidity of temper. There was no ferocity in his desire to eat Dan.
"That's just what makes it so disgusting," said Lloyd, shaking her whip at him. He sat down upon his haunches, eyeing her calmly, his tongue lolling. When she had unbuckled Dan's collar and tossed it into the cart under the seat she inquired of the farm-hand as to where the new dog came from.
"It beats me, Miss Searight," he answered; "never saw such a bird in these parts before; t'other belongs down to Applegate's."
"Come, let's have a look at you," said Lloyd, putting back the whip; "let me see your collar."
Disregarding the man's warning, she went up to the stranger, whistling and holding out her hand, and he came up to her--a little suspiciously at first, but in the end wagging his tail, willing to be friendly. Lloyd parted the thick fur around his neck and turned the plate of the collar to the light. On the plate was engraved: "Kamiska, Arctic S.S. 'Freja.' Return to Ward Bennett."
"Anything on the collar?" asked the man.
Lloyd settled a hairpin in a coil of hair at the back of her neck.
"Nothing--nothing that I can make out."
She climbed into the cart again and dismissed the farm-hand with a quarter. He disappeared around the turn of the road. But as she was about to drive on, Lloyd heard a great clattering of stones upon the hill above her, a crashing in the bushes, and a shrill whistle thrice repeated. Kamiska started up at once, cocking alternate ears, then turned about and ran up the hill to meet Ward Bennett, who came scrambling down, jumping from one granite outcrop to another, holding on the whiles by the lower branches of the scrub oak-trees.
He was dressed as if for an outing, in knickerbockers and huge, hob-nailed shoes. He wore an old shooting-coat and a woollen cap; a little leather sack was slung from his shoulder, and in his hand he carried a short-handled geologist's hammer.
And then, after so long a time, Lloyd saw his face again--the rugged, unhandsome face; the massive jaw, huge almost to deformity; the great, brutal, indomitable lips; the square-cut chin with its forward, aggressive thrust; the narrow forehead, seamed and contracted, and the twinkling, keen eyes so marred by the cast, so heavily shadowed by the shaggy eyebrows. When he spoke the voice came heavy and vibrant from the great chest, a harsh, deep bass, a voice in which to command men, not a voice in which to talk to women.
Lloyd, long schooled to self-repression and the control of her emotions when such repression and control were necessary, sat absolutely moveless on her high seat, her hands only shutting tighter and tighter upon the reins. She had often wondered how she would feel, what was to be her dominant impulse, at such moments as these, and now she realised that it was not so much joy, not so much excitement, as a resolute determination not for one instant to lose her poise.
She was thinking rapidly. For four years they had not met. At one time she believed him to be dead. But in the end he had been saved, had come back, and, ignoring the plaudits of an entire Christendom, had addressed himself straight to her. For one of them, at least, this meeting was a crisis. What would they first say to each other? how be equal to the situation? how rise to its dramatic possibilities? But the moment had come to them suddenly, had found them all unprepared. There was no time to think of adequate words. Afterward, when she reviewed this encounter, she told herself that they both had failed, and that if the meeting had been faithfully reproduced upon the stage or in the pages of a novel it would have seemed tame and commonplace. These two, living the actual scene, with all the deep, strong, real emotions of them surging to the surface, the vitality of them, all aroused and vibrating, suddenly confronting actuality itself, were not even natural; were not even "true to life." It was as though they had parted but a fortnight ago.
Bennett caught his cap from his head and came toward her, exclaiming: "Miss Searight, I believe."
And she, reaching her right hand over the left, that still held the reins, leaned from her high seat, shaking hands with him and replying: "Well--Mr. Bennett, I'm so very glad to see you again. Where did you come from?"
"From the City--and from seventy-six degrees north latitude."
"I congratulate you. We had almost given up hope of you."
"Thank you," he answered. "We were not so roseate with hope ourselves--all the time. But I have not felt as though I had really come back until this--well, until I had reached--the road between Bannister and Fourth Lake, for instance," and his face relaxed to its characteristic grim smile.
"You reached it too late, then," she responded. "Your dog has killed our Dan, and, what is much worse, started to eat him. He's a perfect savage."
"Kamiska? Well," he added, reflectively, "it's my fault for setting her a bad example. I ate her trace-mate, and was rather close to eating Kamiska herself at one time. But I didn't come down here to talk about that."
"You are looking rather worn, Mr. Bennett."
"I suppose. The doctor sent me into the country to call back the roses to my pallid cheek. So I came down here--to geologise. I presume that excuse will do as well as another." Then suddenly he cried: "Hello, steady there; _quick_, Miss Searight!"
It all came so abruptly that neither of them could afterward reconstruct the scene with any degree of accuracy. Probably in scrambling down the steep slope of the bank Bennett had loosened the earth or smaller stones that hitherto had been barely sufficient support to the mass of earth, gravel, rocks, and bushes that all at once, and with a sharp, crackling noise, slid downward toward the road from the overhanging bank. The slip was small, hardly more than three square yards of earth moving from its place, but it came with a smart, quick rush, throwing up a cloud of dust and scattering pebbles and hard clods of dirt far before its advance.
As Rox leaped Lloyd threw her weight too suddenly on the reins, the horse arched his neck, and the overhead check snapped like a harp-string. Again he reared from the object of his terror, shaking his head from side to side, trying to get a purchase on the bit. Then his lower jaw settled against his chest, and all at once he realised that no pair of human hands could hold him now. He did not rear again; his haunches suddenly lowered, and with the hoofs of his hind feet he began feeling the ground for his spring. But now Bennett was at his head, gripping at the bit, striving to thrust him back. Lloyd, half risen from her seat, each rein wrapped twice around her hands, her long, strong arms at their fullest reach, held back against the horse with all her might, her body swaying and jerking with his plunges. But the overhead check once broken Lloyd might as well have pulled against a locomotive. Bennett was a powerful man by nature, but his great strength had been not a little sapped by his recent experiences. Between the instant his hand caught at the bit and that in which Rox had made his first ineffectual attempt to spring forward he recognised the inequality of the contest. He could hold Rox back for a second or two, perhaps three, then the horse would get away from him. He shot a glance about him. Not twenty yards away was the canal and the perilously narrow bridge--the bridge without the guard-rail.
"Quick, Miss Searight!" he shouted. "Jump! We can't hold him. Quick, do as I tell you, jump!"
But even as he spoke Rox dragged him from his feet, his hoofs trampling the hollow road till it reverberated like the roll of drums. Bracing himself against every unevenness of the ground, his teeth set, his face scarlet, the veins in his neck swelling, suddenly blue-black, Bennett wrenched at the bit till the horse's mouth went bloody. But all to no purpose; faster and faster Rox was escaping from his control.
"Jump, I tell you!" he shouted again, looking over his shoulder; "another second and he's away."
Lloyd dropped the reins and turned to jump. But the lap-robe had slipped down to the bottom of the cart when she had risen, and was in a tangle about her feet. The cart was rocking like a ship in a storm. Twice she tried to free herself, holding to the dashboard with one hand. Then the cart suddenly lurched forward and she fell to her knees. Rox was off; it was all over.
Not quite. In one brief second of time--a hideous vision come and gone between two breaths--Lloyd saw the fearful thing done there in the road, almost within reach of her hand. She saw the man and horse at grapples, the yellow reach of road that lay between her and the canal, the canal itself, and the narrow bridge. Then she saw the short-handled geologist's hammer gripped in Bennett's fist heave high in the air. Down it came, swift, resistless, terrible--one blow. The cart tipped forward as Rox, his knees bowing from under him, slowly collapsed. Then he rolled upon the shaft that snapped under him, and the cart vibrated from end to end as a long, shuddering tremble ran through him with his last deep breath.
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{
"id": "16096"
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5
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None
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When Lloyd at length managed to free herself and jump to the ground Bennett came quickly toward her and drew her away to the side of the road.
"Are you hurt?" he demanded. "Tell me, are you hurt?"
"No, no; not in the least."
"Why in the world did you want to drive such a horse? Don't ever take such chances again. I won't have it."
For a few moments Lloyd was too excited to trust herself to talk, and could only stand helplessly to one side, watching Bennett as he stripped off the harness from the dead horse, stowed it away under the seat of the cart, and rolled the cart itself to the edge of the road. Then at length she said, trying to smile and to steady her voice: "It--it seems to me, Mr. Bennett, you do about--about as you like with my sta-bub-ble."
"Sit down!" he commanded, "you are trembling all over. Sit down on that rock there." " --and with me," she added, sinking down upon the boulder he had indicated with a movement of his head, his hands busy with the harness.
"I'm sorry I had to do that," he explained; "but there was no help for it--nothing else to do. He would have had you in the canal in another second, if he did not kill you on the way there."
"Poor old Rox," murmured Lloyd; "I was very fond of Rox."
Bennett put himself in her way as she stepped forward. He had the lap-robe over his arm and the whip in his hand.
"No, don't look at him. He's not a pretty sight. Come, shall I take you home? Don't worry about the cart; I will see that it is sent back."
"And that Rox is buried--somewhere? I don't want him left out there for the crows." In spite of Bennett's injunction she looked over her shoulder for a moment as they started off down the road. "I only hope you were sure there was nothing else to do, Mr. Bennett," she said.
"There was no time to think," he answered, "and I wasn't taking any chances."
But the savagery of the whole affair stuck in Lloyd's imagination. There was a primitiveness, a certain hideous simplicity in the way Bennett had met the situation that filled her with wonder and with even a little terror and mistrust of him. The vast, brutal directness of the deed was out of place and incongruous at this end-of-the-century time. It ignored two thousand years of civilisation. It was a harsh, clanging, brazen note, powerful, uncomplicated, which came jangling in, discordant and inharmonious with the tune of the age. It savoured of the days when men fought the brutes with their hands or with their clubs. But also it was an indication of a force and a power of mind that stopped at nothing to attain its ends, that chose the shortest cut, the most direct means, disdainful of hesitation, holding delicacy and finessing in measureless contempt, rushing straight to its object, driving in, breaking down resistance, smashing through obstacles with a boundless, crude, blind Brobdignag power, to oppose which was to be trampled under foot upon the instant.
It was long before their talk turned from the incident of the morning, but when it did its subject was Richard Ferriss. Bennett was sounding his praises and commending upon his pluck and endurance during the retreat from the ship, when Lloyd, after hesitating once or twice, asked: "How is Mr. Ferriss? In your note you said he was ill."
"So he is," he told her, "and I could not have left him if I was not sure I was doing him harm by staying. But the doctor is to wire me if he gets any worse, and only if he does. I am to believe that no news is good news."
But this meeting with Lloyd and the intense excitement of those few moments by the canal had quite driven from Bennett's mind the fact that he had _not_ forwarded his present address either to Ferriss or to his doctor. He had so intended that morning, but all the faculties of his mind were suddenly concentrated upon another issue. For the moment he believed that he had actually written to Dr. Pitts, as he had planned, and when he thought of his intended message at all, thought of it as an accomplished fact. The matter did not occur to him again.
As he walked by Lloyd's side, listening to her and talking to her, snapping the whip the while, or flicking the heads from the mullein stalks by the roadside with its lash, he was thinking how best he might say to her what he had come from the City to say. To lead up to his subject, to guide the conversation, to prepare the right psychological moment skilfully and without apparent effort, were maneuvers in the game that Bennett ignored and despised. He knew only that he loved her, that she was there at his side, that the object of all his desires and hopes was within his reach. Straight as a homing pigeon he went to his goal.
"Miss Searight," he began, his harsh, bass voice pitched even lower than usual, "what do you think I am down here for? This is not the only part of the world where I could recuperate, I suppose, and as for spending God's day in chipping at stones, like a professor of a young ladies' seminary"--he hurled the hammer from him into the bushes--"that for geology! Now we can talk. You know very well that I love you, and I believe that you love me. I have come down here to ask you to marry me."
Lloyd might have done any one of a dozen things--might have answered in any one of a dozen ways. But what she did do, what she did say, took Bennett completely by surprise. A little coldly and very calmly she answered: "You believe--you say you believe that I--" she broke off, then began again: "It is not right for you to say that to me. I have never led you to believe that I cared for you. Whatever our relations are to be, let us have that understood at once."
Bennett uttered an impatient exclamation "I am not good at fencing and quibbling," he declared. "I tell you that I love you with all my heart. I tell you that I want you to be my wife, and I tell you that I know you do love me. You are not like other women; why should you coquette with me? Good God! Are you not big enough to be above such things? I know you are. Of all the people in the world we two ought to be above pretence, ought to understand each other. If I did not know you cared for me I would not have spoken."
"I don't understand you," she answered. "I think we had better talk of other things this morning."
"I came down here to talk of just this and nothing else," he declared.
"Very well, then," she said, squaring her shoulders with a quick, brisk movement, "we will talk of it. You say we two should understand each other. Let us come to the bottom of things at once. I despise quibbling and fencing as much, perhaps, as you. Tell me how have I ever led you to believe that I cared for you?"
"At a time when our last hope was gone," answered Bennett, meeting her eyes, "when I was very near to death and thought that I should go to my God within the day, I was made happier than I think I ever was in my life before by finding out that I was dear to you--that you loved me."
Lloyd searched his face with a look of surprise and bewilderment.
"I do not understand you," she repeated.
"Oh!" exclaimed Bennett with sudden vehemence, "you could say it to Ferriss; why can't you say it to me?"
"To Mr. Ferriss?"
"You could tell _him_ that you cared."
"I--tell Mr. Ferriss--that I cared for you?" She began to smile. "You are a little absurd, Mr. Bennett."
"And I cannot see why you should deny it now. Or if anything has caused you to change your mind--to be sorry for what you said, why should I not know it? Even a petty thief may be heard in his own defence. I loved you because I believed you to be a woman, a great, strong, noble, man's woman, above little things, above the little, niggling, contemptible devices of the drawing-room. I loved you because the great things of the world interested you, because you had no place in your life for petty graces, petty affectations, petty deceits and shams and insincerities. If you did not love me, why did you say so? If you do love me now, why should you not admit it? Do you think you can play with me? Do you think you can coquette with me? If you were small enough to stoop to such means, do you think I am small enough to submit to them? I have known Ferriss too well. I know him to be incapable of such falsity as you would charge him with. To have told such a lie, such an uncalled-for, useless, gratuitous lie, is a thing he could not have done. You must have told him that you cared. Why aren't you--you of all women--brave enough, strong enough, big enough to stand by your words?"
"Because I never said them. What do you think of me? Even if I did care, do you suppose I would say as much--and to another man? Oh!" she exclaimed with sudden indignation, "let's talk of something else. This is too--preposterous."
"You never told Ferriss that you cared for me?"
"No."
Bennett took off his cap. "Very well, then. That is enough. Good-bye, Miss Searight."
"Do you believe I told Mr. Ferriss I loved you?"
"I do not believe that the man who has been more to me than a brother is a liar and a rascal."
"Good-morning, Mr. Bennett."
They had come rather near to the farmhouse by this time. Without another word Bennett gave the whip and the lap-robe into her hands, and, turning upon his heel, walked away down the road.
Lloyd told Lewis as much of the morning's accident by the canal as was necessary, and gave orders about the dog-cart and the burying of Rox. Then slowly, her eyes fixed and wide, she went up to her own room and, without removing either her hat or her gloves, sat down upon the edge of the bed, letting her hands fall limply into her lap, gazing abstractedly at the white curtain just stirring at the open window.
She could not say which hurt her most--that Ferriss had told the lie or that Bennett believed it. But why, in heaven's name why, had Ferriss so spoken to Bennett; what object had he in view; what had he to gain by it? Why had Ferriss, the man who loved her, chosen so to humiliate her, to put her in a position so galling to her pride, her dignity? Bennett, too, loved her. How could he believe that she had so demeaned herself?
She had been hurt and to the heart, at a point where she believed herself most unassailable, and he who held the weapon was the man that with all the heart of her and soul of her she loved.
Much of the situation was all beyond her. Try as she would she could not understand. One thing, however, she saw clearly, unmistakably: Bennett believed that she loved him, believed that she had told as much to Ferriss, and that when she had denied all knowledge of Ferriss's lie she was only coquetting with him. She knew Bennett and his character well enough to realise that an idea once rooted in his mind was all but ineradicable. Bennett was not a man of easy changes; nothing mobile about him.
The thought of this belief of Bennett's was intolerable. As she sat there alone in her white room the dull crimson of her cheeks flamed suddenly scarlet, and with a quick, involuntary gesture she threw her hand, palm outward, across her face to hide it from the sunlight. She went quickly from one mood to another. Now her anger grew suddenly hot against Ferriss. How had he dared? How had he dared to put this indignity, this outrageous insult, upon her? Now her wrath turned upon Bennett. What audacity had been his to believe that she would so forget herself? She set her teeth in her impotent anger, rising to her feet, her hands clenching, tears of sheer passion starting to her eyes.
For the greater part of the afternoon she kept to her room, pacing the floor from wall to wall, trying to think clearly, to resolve upon something that would readjust the situation, that would give her back her peace of mind, her dignity, and her happiness of the early morning. For now the great joy that had come to her in his safe return was all but gone. For one moment she even told herself she could not love him, but the next was willing to admit that it was only because of her love of him, as strong and deep as ever, that the humiliation cut so deeply and cruelly now. Ferriss had lied about her, and Bennett had believed the lie. To meet Bennett again under such circumstances was not to be thought of for one moment. Her vacation was spoiled; the charm of the country had vanished. Lloyd returned to the City the next day.
She found that she was glad to get back to her work. The subdued murmur of the City that hourly assaulted her windows was a relief to her ears after the profound and numbing silence of the country. The square was never so beautiful as at this time of summer, and even the restless shadow pictures, that after dark were thrown upon the ceiling of her room by the electrics shining through the great elms in the square below, were a pleasure.
On the morning after her arrival and as she was unpacking her trunk Miss Douglass came into her room and seated herself, according to her custom, on the couch. After some half-hour's give-and-take talk, the fever nurse said: "Do you remember, Lloyd, what I told you about typhoid in the spring--that it was almost epidemic?"
Lloyd nodded, turning about from her trunk, her arms full of dresses.
"It's worse than ever now," continued Miss Douglass; "three of our people have been on cases only in the short time you have been away. And there's a case out in Medford that has killed one nurse."
"Well!" exclaimed Lloyd in some astonishment, "it seems to me that one should confine typhoid easily enough."
"Not always, not always," answered the other; "a virulent case would be quite as bad as yellow fever or smallpox. You remember when we were at the hospital Miss Helmuth, that little Polish nurse, contracted it from her case and died even before her patient did. Then there was Eva Blayne. She very nearly died. I did like the way Miss Wakeley took this case out at Medford even when the other nurse had died. She never hesitated for--" "Has one of our people got this case?" inquired Lloyd.
"Of course. Didn't I tell you?"
"I hope we cure it," said Lloyd, her trunk-tray in her hands. "I don't think we have ever lost a case yet when good nursing could pull it through, and in typhoid the whole treatment really is the nursing."
"Lloyd," said Miss Douglass decisively, "I would give anything I can think of now to have been on that hip disease case of yours and have brought my patient through as you did. You should hear what Dr. Street says of you--and the little girl's father. By the way, I had nearly forgotten. Hattie Campbell--that's her name, isn't it? --telephoned to know if you had come back from the country yet. That was yesterday. I said we expected you to-day, and she told me to say she was coming to see you."
The next afternoon toward three o'clock Hattie and her father drove to the square in an open carriage, Hattie carrying a great bunch of violets for Lloyd. The little invalid was well on the way to complete recovery by now. Sometimes she was allowed to walk a little, but as often as not her maid wheeled her about in an invalid's chair. She drove out in the carriage frequently by way of exercise. She would, no doubt, always limp a little, but in the end it was certain she would be sound and strong. For Hattie and her father Lloyd had become a sort of tutelary semi-deity. In what was left of the family she had her place, hardly less revered than even the dead wife. Campbell himself, who had made a fortune in Bessemer steel, a well-looking, well-groomed gentleman, smooth-shaven and with hair that was none too gray, more than once caught himself standing before Lloyd's picture that stood on the mantelpiece in Hattie's room, looking at it vaguely as he clipped the nib from his cigar.
But on this occasion as the carriage stopped in front of the ample pile of the house Hattie called out, "Oh, there she is now," and Lloyd came down the steps, carrying her nurse's bag in her hand.
"Are we too late?" began Hattie; "are you going out; are you on a case? Is that why you've got your bag? We thought you were on a vacation."
Campbell, yielding to a certain feeling of uneasiness that Lloyd should stand on the curb while he remained seated, got out of the carriage and stood at her side, gravely listening to the talk between the nurse and her one-time patient. Lloyd was obliged to explain, turning now to Hattie, now to her father. She told them that she was in something of a hurry. She had just been specially called to take a very bad case of typhoid fever in a little suburb of the City, called Medford. It was not her turn to go, but the physicians in charge of the case, as sometimes happened, had asked especially for her.
"One of our people, a young woman named Miss Wakeley, has been on this case," she continued, "but it seems she has allowed herself to contract the disease herself. She went to the hospital this noon."
Campbell, his gravity suddenly broken up, exclaimed: "Surely, Miss Searight, this is not the same case I read of in yesterday's paper--it must be, too--Medford was the name of the place. That case has killed one nurse already, and now the second one is down. Don't tell me you are going to take the same case."
"It is the same case," answered Lloyd, "and, of course, I am going to take it. Did you ever hear of a nurse doing otherwise? Why, it would seem--seem so--funny--" There was no dissuading her, and Campbell and Hattie soon ceased even to try. She was impatient to be gone. The station was close at hand, and she would not hear of taking the carriage thither. However, before she left them she recurred again to the subject of her letter to Mr. Campbell, and then and there it was decided that Hattie and her maid should spend the following ten days at Lloyd's place in Bannister. The still country air, now that Hattie was able to take the short journey, would be more to her than many medicines, and the ponies and Lloyd's phaeton would be left there with Lewis for her use.
"And write often, won't you, Miss Searight?" exclaimed Hattie as Lloyd was saying good-bye. Lloyd shook her head.
"Not that of all things," she answered. "If I did that we might have you, too, down with typhoid. But you may write to me, and I hope you will," and she gave Hattie her new address.
"Harriet," said Campbell as the carriage drove back across the square, the father and daughter waving their hands to Lloyd, briskly on her way to the railroad station, "Harriet."
"Yes, papa."
"There goes a noble woman. Pluck, intelligence, strong will--she has them all--and a great big heart that--heart that--" He clipped the end of a cigar thoughtfully and fell silent.
A day or two later, as Hattie was sitting in her little wheel-chair on the veranda of Mrs. Applegate's house watching Charley-Joe hunting grasshoppers underneath the currant bushes, she was surprised by the sharp closing of the front gate. A huge man with one squint eye and a heavy, square-cut jaw was coming up the walk, followed by a strange-looking dog. Charley-Joe withdrew, swiftly to his particular hole under the veranda, moving rapidly, his body low to the ground, and taking an unnecessary number of very short steps.
The little city-bred girl distinguished the visitor from a country man at once. Hattie had ideas of her own as to propriety, and so rose to her feet as Bennett came up, and after a moment's hesitation made him a little bow. Bennett at once gravely took off his cap.
"Excuse me," he said as though Hattie were twenty-five instead of twelve. "Is Miss Searight at home?"
"Oh," exclaimed Hattie, delighted, "do you know Miss Searight? She was my nurse when I was so sick--because you know I had hip disease and there was an operation. No, she's not here any more. She's gone away, gone back to the City."
"Gone back to the City?"
"Yes, three or four days ago. But I'm going to write to her this afternoon. Shall I say who called?" Then, without waiting for a reply, she added, "I guess I had better introduce myself. My name is Harriet Campbell, and my papa is Craig V. Campbell, of the Hercules Wrought Steel Company in the City. Won't you have a chair?"
The little convalescent and the arctic explorer shook hands with great solemnity.
"I'm so pleased to meet you," said Bennett. "I haven't a card, but my name is Ward Bennett--of the Freja expedition," he added. But, to his relief, the little girl had not heard of him.
"Very well," she said, "I'll tell Miss Searight Mr. Bennett called."
"No," he replied, hesitatingly, "no, you needn't do that."
"Why, she won't answer my letter, you know," explained Hattie, "because she is afraid her letters would give me typhoid fever, that they might"--she continued carefully, hazarding a remembered phrase--"carry the contagion. You see she has gone to nurse a dreadful case of typhoid fever out at Medford, near the City, and we're so worried and anxious about her--papa and I. One nurse that had this case has died already and another one has caught the disease and is very sick, and Miss Searight, though she knew just how dangerous it was, would go, just like--like--" Hattie hesitated, then confused memories of her school reader coming to her, finished with "like Casabianca."
"Oh," said Bennett, turning his head so as to fix her with his own good eye. "She has gone to nurse a typhoid fever patient, has she?"
"Yes, and papa told me--" and Hattie became suddenly very grave, "that we might--might--oh, dear--never see her again."
"Hum! Whereabouts is this place in Medford? She gave you her address; what is it?" Hattie told him, and he took himself abruptly away.
Bennett had gone some little distance down the road before the real shock came upon him. Lloyd was in a position of imminent peril; her life was in the issue. With blind, unreasoned directness he leaped at once to this conclusion, and as he strode along with teeth and fists tight shut he kept muttering to himself: "She may die, she may die--we--we may never see her again." Then suddenly came the fear, the sickening sink of heart, the choke at the throat, first the tightening and then the sudden relaxing of all the nerves. Lashed and harried by the sense of a fearful calamity, an unspeakable grief that was pursuing after him, Bennett did not stop to think, to reflect. He chose instantly to believe that Lloyd was near her death, and once the idea was fixed in his brain it was not thereafter to be reasoned away. Suddenly, at a turn in the road, he stopped, his hands deep in his pockets, his bootheel digging into the ground. "Now, then," he exclaimed, "what's to be done?"
Just one thing: Lloyd must leave the case at once, that very day if it were possible. He must save her; must turn her back from this destruction toward which she was rushing, impelled by such a foolish, mistaken notion of duty.
"Yes," he said, "there's just that to be done, and, by God! it shall be done."
But would Lloyd be turned back from a course she had chosen for herself? Could he persuade her? Then with this thought of possible opposition Bennett's resolve all at once tightened to the sticking point. Never in the darkest hours of his struggle with the arctic ice had his determination grown so fierce; never had his resolution so girded itself, so nerved itself to crush down resistance. The force of his will seemed brusquely to be quadrupled and decupled. He would do as he desired; come what might he would gain his end. He would stop at nothing, hesitate at nothing. It would probably be difficult to get her from her post, but with all his giant's strength Bennett set himself to gain her safety.
A great point that he believed was in his favour, a consideration that influenced him to adopt so irrevocable a resolution, was his belief that Lloyd loved him. Bennett was not a woman's man. Men he could understand and handle like so many manikins, but the nature of his life and work did not conduce to a knowledge of women. Bennett did not understand them. In his interview with Lloyd when she had so strenuously denied Ferriss' story Bennett could not catch the ring of truth. It had gotten into his mind that Lloyd loved him. He believed easily what he wanted to believe, and his faith in Lloyd's love for him had become a part and parcel of his fundamental idea of things, not readily to be driven out even by Lloyd herself.
Bennett's resolution was taken. Never had he failed in accomplishing that upon which he set his mind. He would not fail now. Beyond a certain limit--a limit which now he swiftly reached and passed--Bennett's determination to carry his point became, as it were, a sort of obsession; the sweep of the tremendous power he unchained carried his own self along with it in its resistless onrush. At such, times there was no light of reason in his actions. He saw only his point, beheld only his goal; deaf to all voices that would call him back, blind to all consideration that would lead him to swerve, reckless of everything that he trampled under foot, he stuck to his aim until that aim was an accomplished fact. When the grip of the Ice had threatened to close upon him and crush him, he had hurled himself against its barriers with an energy and resolve to conquer that was little short of directed frenzy. So it was with him now.
* * * * * When Lloyd had parted from the Campbells in the square before the house, she had gone directly to the railway station of a suburban line, and, within the hour, was on her way to Medford. As always happened when an interesting case was to be treated, her mind became gradually filled with it to the exclusion of everything else. The Campbells, and Bennett's ready acceptance of a story that put her in so humiliating a light, were forgotten as the train swept her from the heat and dust of the City out into the green reaches of country to the southward. What had been done upon the case she had no means of telling. She only knew that the case was of unusual virulence and well advanced. It had killed one nurse already and seriously endangered the life of another, but so far from reflecting on the danger to herself, Lloyd felt a certain exhilaration in the thought that she was expected to succeed where others had succumbed. Another battle with the Enemy was at hand, the Enemy who, though conquered on a hundred fields, must inevitably triumph in the end. Once again this Enemy had stooped and caught a human being in his cold grip. Once again Life and Death were at grapples, and Death was strong, and from out the struggle a cry had come--had come to her--a cry for help.
All the exuberance of battle grew big within her breast. She was impatient to be there--there at hand--to face the Enemy again across the sick-bed, where she had so often faced and outfought him before; and, matching her force against his force, her obstinacy against his strength--the strength that would pull the life from her grasp--her sleepless vigilance against his stealth, her intelligence against his cunning, her courage against his terrors, her resistance against his attack, her skill against his strategy, her science against his world-old, worldwide experience, win the fight, save the life, hold firm against his slow, resistless pull and triumph again, if it was only for the day.
Succeed she would and must. Her inborn obstinacy, her sturdy refusal to yield her ground, whatever it should be, her stubborn power of resistance, her tenacity of her chosen course, came to her aid as she drew swiftly near to the spot whereon the battle would be fought. Mentally she braced herself, holding back with all her fine, hard-tempered, native strength. No, she would not yield the life to the Enemy; no, she would not give up; no, she would not recede. Let the Enemy do his worst--she was strong against his efforts.
At Medford, which she reached toward four in the afternoon, after an hour's ride from the City, she found a conveyance waiting for her, and was driven rapidly through streets bordered with villas and closely shaven lawns to a fair-sized country seat on the outskirts of the town. The housekeeper met her at the door with the information that the doctor was, at the moment, in the sick-room, and had left orders that the nurse should be brought to him the moment she arrived. The housekeeper showed Lloyd the way to the second landing, knocking upon the half-open door at the end of the hall, and ushering her in without waiting for an answer.
Lloyd took in the room at a glance--the closely drawn curtains, the screen between the bed and the windows, the doctor standing on the hearth-rug, and the fever-inflamed face of the patient on the pillow. Then all her power of self-repression could not keep her from uttering a smothered exclamation.
For she, the woman who, with all the savage energy of him, Bennett loved, had, at peril of her life, come to nurse Bennett's nearest friend, the man of all others dear to him--Richard Ferriss.
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{
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Two days after Dr. Pitts had brought Ferriss to his country house in the outskirts of Medford he had been able to diagnose his sickness as typhoid fever, and at once had set about telegraphing the fact to Bennett. Then it had occurred to him that he did not know where Bennett had gone. Bennett had omitted notifying him of his present whereabouts, and, acting upon Dr. Pitts' advice, had hidden himself away from everybody. Neither at his club nor at his hotel, where his mail accumulated in extraordinary quantities, had any forwarding address been left. Bennett would not even know that Ferriss had been moved to Medford. So much the worse. It could not be helped. There was nothing for the doctor to do but to leave Bennett in ignorance and go ahead and fight for the life of Ferriss as best he could. Pitts arranged for a brother physician to take over his practice, and devoted himself entirely to Ferriss. And Ferriss sickened and sickened, and went steadily from bad to worse. The fever advanced regularly to a certain stage, a stage of imminent danger, and there paused. Rarely had Pitts been called upon to fight a more virulent form of the disease.
What made matters worse was that Ferriss hung on for so long a time without change one way or another. Pitts had long since been convinced of ulceration in the membrane of the intestines, but it astonished him that this symptom persisted so long without signs either of progressing or diminishing. The course of the disease was unusually slow. The first nurse had already had time to sicken and die; a second had been infected, and yet Ferriss "hung on," neither sinking nor improving, yet at every hour lying perilously near death. It was not often that death and life locked horns for so long, not often that the chance was so even. Many was the hour, many was the moment, when a hair would have turned the balance, and yet the balance was preserved.
At her abrupt recognition of Ferriss, in this patient whom she had been summoned to nurse, and whose hold upon life was so pitifully weak, Lloyd's heart gave a great leap and then sank ominously in her breast. Her first emotion was one of boundless self-reproach. Why had she not known of this? Why had she not questioned Bennett more closely as to his friend's sickness? Might she not have expected something like this? Was not typhoid the one evil to be feared and foreseen after experiences such as Ferriss had undergone--the fatigue and privations of the march over the ice, and the subsequent months aboard the steam whaler, with its bad food, its dirt, and its inevitable overcrowding?
And while she had been idling in the country, this man, whom she had known since her girlhood better and longer than any of her few acquaintances, had been struck down, and day by day had weakened and sickened and wasted, until now, at any hour, at any moment, the life might be snuffed out like the fight of a spent candle. What a miserable incompetent had she been! That day in the park when she had come upon him, so weak and broken and far spent, why had she not, with all her training and experience, known that even then the flame was flickering down to the socket, that a link in the silver chain was weakening? Now, perhaps, it was too late. But quick her original obstinacy rose up in protest. No! she would not yield the life. No, no, no; again and a thousand times no! He belonged to her. Others she had saved, others far less dear to her than Ferriss. Her last patient--the little girl--she had caught back from death at the eleventh hour, and of all men would she not save Ferriss? In such sickness as this it was the nurse and not the doctor who must be depended upon. And, once again, never so strong, never so fine, never so glorious, her splendid independence, her pride in her own strength, her indomitable self-reliance leaped in her breast, leaped and stood firm, hard as tempered steel, head to the Enemy, daring the assault, defiant, immovable, unshaken in its resolve, unconquerable in the steadfast tenacity of its purpose.
The story that Ferriss had told to Bennett, that uncalled-for and inexplicable falsehood, was a thing forgotten. Death stood at the bed-head, and in that room the little things of life had no place. The king was holding court, and the swarm of small, everyday issues, like a crowd of petty courtiers, were not admitted to his presence. Ferriss' life was in danger. Lloyd saw no more than that. At once she set about the work.
In a few rapid sentences exchanged in low voices between her and the doctor Lloyd made herself acquainted with the case.
"We've been using the ice-pack and wet-pack to bring down the temperature in place of the cold bath," the doctor explained. "I'm afraid of pericarditis."
"Quinine?" inquired Lloyd.
"From twenty to forty grains in the morning and evening. Here's the temperature chart for the last week. If we reach this point in axilla again--" he indicated one hundred and two degrees with a thumb-nail--"we'll have to risk the cold bath, but only in that case."
"And the tympanites?"
Dr. Pitts put his chin in the air.
"Grave--there's an intestinal ulcer, no doubt of it, and if it perforates--well, we can send for the undertaker then."
"Has he had hemorrhages?"
"Two in the first week, but not profuse--he seemed to rally fairly well afterward. We have been injecting ether in case of anemia. Really, Miss Searight, the case is interesting, but wicked, wicked as original sin. Killed off my first nurse out of hand--good little boy, conscientious enough; took no care of himself; ate his meals in the sick-room against my wishes; off he went--dicrotic pulse, diarrhea, vomiting, hospital, thrombosis of pulmonary artery, _pouf_, requiescat."
"And Miss Wakeley?"
"Knocked under yesterday, and she was fairly saturated with creolin night and morning. I don't know how it happened.... Well, God for us all. Here he is--that's the point for us." He glanced toward the bed, and for the third time Lloyd looked at the patient.
Ferriss was in a quiet delirium, and, at intervals, from behind his lips, dry and brown and fissured, there came the sounds of low and indistinct muttering. Barring a certain prominence of the cheek-bones, his face was not very wasted, but its skin was a strange, dusky pallor. The cold pack was about his head like a sort of caricatured crown.
"Well," repeated Pitts in a moment, "I've been waiting for you to come to get a little rest. Was up all last night. Suppose you take over charge."
Lloyd nodded her head, removing her hat and gloves, making herself ready. Pitts gave her some final directions, and left her alone in the sick-room. For the moment there was nothing to do for the patient. Lloyd put on her hospital slippers and moved silently about the room, preparing for the night, and making some few changes in the matter of light and ventilation. Then for a while the medicine occupied her attention, and she was at some pains to carefully sort out the antiseptic and disinfectants from the drugs themselves. These latter she arranged on a table by themselves--studying the labels--assuring herself of their uses. Quinine for the regular morning and evening doses, sulphonal and trional for insomnia, ether for injections in case of anemia after hemorrhage, morphine for delirium, citrite of caffeine for weakness of the heart, tincture of valerian for the tympanites, bismuth to relieve nausea and vomiting, and the crushed ice wrapped in flannel cloths for the cold pack in the event of hyperpyrexia.
Later in the evening she took the temperature in the armpit, noted the condition of the pulse, and managed to get Ferriss--still in his quiet, muttering delirium--to drink a glass of peptonised milk. She administered the quinine, reading the label, as was her custom, three times, once as she took it up, again as she measured the dose, and a last time as she returned the bottle to its place. Everything she did, every minute change in Ferriss's condition, she entered upon a chart, so that in the morning when Dr. Pitts should relieve her he could grasp the situation at a glance.
The night passed without any but the expected variations of the pulse and temperature, though toward daylight Lloyd could fancy that Ferriss, for a few moments, came out of his delirium and was conscious of his surroundings. For a few seconds his eyes seemed to regain something of their intelligence, and his glance moved curiously about the room. But Lloyd, sitting near the foot-board of the bed, turned her head from him. It was not expedient that Ferriss should recognise her now.
Lloyd could not but commend the wisdom of bringing Ferriss to Dr. Pitts's own house in so quiet a place as Medford. The doctor risked nothing. He was without a family, the only other occupants of the house being the housekeeper and cook. On more than one occasion, when an interesting case needed constant watching, Pitts had used his house as a sanatorium. Quiet as the little village itself was, the house was removed some little distance from its outskirts. The air was fine and pure. The stillness, the calm, the unbroken repose, was almost Sabbath-like. In the early watches of the night, just at the turn of the dawn, Lloyd heard the faint rumble of a passing train at the station nearly five miles away. For hours that and the prolonged stridulating of the crickets were the only sounds. Then at last, while it was yet dark, a faint chittering of waking birds began from under the eaves and from the apple-trees in the yard about the house. Lloyd went to the window, and, drawing aside the curtains, stood there for a moment looking out. She could see part of the road leading to the town, and, in the distance, the edge of the town itself, a few well-kept country residences of suburban dwellers of the City, and, farther on, a large, rectangular, brick building with cupola and flagstaff, perhaps the public school or the bank or the Odd Fellows' Hall. Nearer by were fields and corners of pasture land, with here and there the formless shapes of drowsing cows. One of these, as Lloyd watched, changed position, and she could almost hear the long, deep breath that accompanied the motion. Far off, miles upon miles, so it seemed, a rooster was crowing at exact intervals. All at once, and close at hand, another answered--a gay, brisk carillon that woke the echoes in an instant. For the first time Lloyd noticed a pale, dim belt of light low in the east.
Toward eight o'clock in the morning the doctor came to relieve her, and while he was examining the charts and she was making her report for the night the housekeeper announced breakfast.
"Go down to your breakfast, Miss Searight," said the doctor. "I'll stay here the while. The housekeeper will show you to your room."
But before breakfasting Lloyd went to the room the housekeeper had set apart for her--a different one than had been occupied by either of the previous nurses--changed her dress, and bathed her face and hands in a disinfecting solution. When she came out of her room the doctor met her in the hall; his hat and stick were in his hand. "He has gone to sleep," he informed her, "and is resting quietly. I am going to get a mouthful of fresh air along the road. The housekeeper is with him. If he wakes she'll call you. I will not be gone fifteen minutes. I've not been out of the house for five days, and there's no danger."
Breakfast had been laid in what the doctor spoke of as the glass-room. This was an enclosed veranda, one side being of glass and opening by French windows directly upon a little lawn that sloped away under the apple-trees to the road. It was a charming apartment, an idea of a sister of Dr. Pitts, who at one time had spent two years at Medford. Lloyd breakfasted here alone, and it was here that Bennett found her.
The one public carriage of Medford, a sort of four-seated carryall, that met all the trains at the depot, had driven to the gate at the foot of the yard, and had pulled up, the horses reeking and blowing. Even before it had stopped, a tall, square-shouldered man had alighted, but it was not until he was half-way up the gravel walk that Lloyd had recognised him. Bennett caught sight of her at the same moment, and strode swiftly across the lawn and came into the breakfast-room by one of the open French windows. At once the room seemed to shrink in size; his first step upon the floor--a step that was almost a stamp, so eager it was, so masterful and resolute--set the panes of glass jarring in their frames. Never had Bennett seemed more out of place than in this almost dainty breakfast-room, with its small, feminine appurtenances, its fragile glassware, its pots of flowers and growing plants. The incongruous surroundings emphasized his every roughness, his every angularity. Against its background of delicate, mild tints his figure loomed suddenly colossal; the great span of his chest and shoulders seemed never so huge. His face; the great, brutal jaw, with its aggressive, bullying, forward thrust; the close-gripped lips, the contracted forehead, the small eyes, marred with the sharply defined cast, appeared never so harsh, never so massive, never so significant of the resistless, crude force of the man, his energy, his overpowering determination. As he towered there before her, one hand gripped upon a chair-back, it seemed to her that the hand had but to close to crush the little varnished woodwork to a splinter, and when he spoke Lloyd could imagine that the fine, frail china of the table vibrated to the deep-pitched bass of his voice.
Lloyd had only to look at him once to know that Bennett was at the moment aroused and agitated to an extraordinary degree. His face was congested and flaming. Under his frown his eyes seemed flashing veritable sparks; his teeth were set; in his temple a vein stood prominent and throbbing. But Lloyd was not surprised. Bennett had, no doubt, heard of Ferriss's desperate illness. Small wonder he was excited when the life of his dearest friend was threatened. Lloyd could ignore her own quarrel with Bennett at such a moment.
"I am so sorry," she began, "that you could not have known sooner. But you remember you left no address. There was--" "What are you doing here?" he broke in abruptly. "What is the use--why--" he paused for a moment to steady his voice--"you can't stay here," he went on. "Don't you know the risk you are running? You can't stay here another moment."
"That," answered Lloyd, smiling, "is a matter that is interesting chiefly to me. I suppose you know that, Mr. Bennett."
"I know that you are risking your life and--" "And that, too, is my affair."
"I have made it mine," he responded quickly. "Oh," he exclaimed sharply, striking the back of the chair with his open palm, "why must we always be at cross-purposes with each other? I'm not good at talking. What is the use of tangling ourselves with phrases? I love you, and I've come out here to ask you, to beg you, you understand, to leave this house, where you are foolishly risking your life. You must do it," he went on rapidly. "I love you too well. Your life is too much to me to allow you to hazard it senselessly, foolishly. There are other women, other nurses, who can take your place. But you are not going to stay here."
Lloyd felt her indignation rising.
"This is my profession," she answered, trying to keep back her anger. "I am here because it is my duty to be here." Then suddenly, as his extraordinary effrontery dawned upon her, she exclaimed, rising to her feet: "Do I need to explain to you what I do? I am here because I choose to be here. That is enough. I don't care to go any further with such a discussion as this."
"You will not leave here, then?"
"No."
Bennett hesitated an instant, searching for his words, then: "I do not know how to ask favours. I've had little experience in that sort of thing. You must know how hard it is for me, and you must understand to what lengths I am driven then, when I entreat you, when I beg of you, as humbly as it is possible for me to do so, to leave this house, now--at once. There is a train to the City within the hour; some one else can take your place before noon. We can telegraph; will you go?"
"You are absurd."
"Lloyd, can't you see; don't you understand? It's as though I saw you rushing toward a precipice with your eyes shut."
"My place is here. I shall not leave."
But Bennett's next move surprised her. His eagerness, his agitation left him upon the instant He took out his watch.
"I was wrong," he said quietly. "The next train will not go for an hour and a quarter. There is more time than I supposed." Then, with as much gentleness as he could command, he added: "Lloyd, you are going to take that train?"
"Now, you are becoming a little more than absurd," she answered. "I don't know, Mr. Bennett, whether or not you intend to be offensive, but I think you are succeeding rather well. You came to this house uninvited; you invade a gentleman's private residence, and you attempt to meddle and to interfere with me in the practice of my profession. If you think you can impress me with heroics and declamation, please correct yourself at once. You have only succeeded in making yourself a little vulgar."
"That may be true or not," he answered with an indifferent movement of his shoulders. "It is all one to me. I have made up my mind that you shall leave this house this morning, and believe me, Miss Searight, I shall carry my point."
For the moment Lloyd caught her breath. For the moment she saw clearly with just what sort of man she had to deal. There was a conviction in his manner--now that he had quieted himself--that suddenly appeared unanswerable. It was like the slow, still moving of a piston.
But the next moment her own character reasserted itself. She remembered what she was herself. If he was determined, she was obstinate; if he was resolved, she was stubborn; if he was powerful, she was unyielding. Never had she conceded her point before; never had she allowed herself to be thwarted in the pursuance of a course she believed to be right. Was she, of all women, to yield now? The consciousness of her own power of resistance came suddenly to her aid. Bennett was strong, but was she not strong herself? Where under the blue sky was the power that could break down her will? When death itself could not prevail against her, what in life could shake her resolution?
Suddenly the tremendous import of the moment, the magnitude of the situation, flashed upon Lloyd. Both of them had staked everything upon this issue. Two characters of extraordinary power clashed violently together. There was to be no compromise, no half-measures. Either she or Bennett must in the end be beaten. One of them was to be broken and humbled beyond all retrieving. There in that commonplace little room, with its trivial accessories, its inadequate background, a battle royal swiftly prepared itself. With the abruptness of an explosion the crisis developed.
"Do I need to tell you," remarked Bennett, "that your life is rather more to me than any other consideration in the world? Do you suppose when the lives of every member of my command depended upon me I was any less resolved to succeed than I am now? I succeeded then, and I shall succeed now, now when there is much more at stake. I am not accustomed to failure, and I shall not fail now. I assure you that I shall stop at nothing."
It was beyond Lloyd to retain her calmness under such aggression. It seemed as though her self-respect demanded that she should lose her temper.
"And you think you can drive me as you drove your deck-hands?" she exclaimed. "What have you to do with me? Am I your subordinate? Do you think you can bully me? We are not in Kolyuchin Bay, Mr. Bennett."
"You're the woman I love," he answered with an abrupt return of vehemence, "and, by God! I shall stop at nothing to save your life."
"And my love for you, that you pretend is so much to you, I suppose that this is the means you take to awaken it. Admitting, for the moment, that you could induce me to shirk my duty, how should I love you for it? Ask yourself that."
But Bennett had but one answer to all her words. He struck his fist into the palm of his hand as he answered: "Your life is more to me than any other consideration."
"But my life--how do you know it is a question of my life? Come, if we are to quarrel, let us quarrel upon reasonable grounds. It does not follow that I risk my life by staying--" "Leave the house first; we can talk of that afterward."
"I have allowed you to talk too much already," she exclaimed angrily. "Let us come to the bottom of things at once. I will not be influenced nor cajoled nor bullied into leaving my post. Now, do you understand? That is my final answer. You who were a commander, who were a leader of men, what would you have done if one of your party had left his post at a time of danger? I can tell you what you would have done--you would have shot him, after first disgracing him, and now you would disgrace me. Is it reasonable? Is it consistent?"
Bennett snapped his fingers.
"That for consistency!"
"And you would be willing to disgrace me--to have me disgrace myself?"
"Your life--" began Bennett again.
But suddenly Lloyd flashed out upon him with: "My life! My life! Are there not some things better than life? You, above all men, should understand that much. Oh, be yourself, be the man I thought you were. You have your code; let me have mine. You could not be what you are, you could not have done what you did, if you had not set so many things above merely your life. Admit that you could not have loved me unless you believed that I could do the same. How could you still love me if you knew I had failed in my duty? How could you still love me if you knew that you had broken down my will? I know you better than you know yourself. You loved me because you knew me to be strong and brave and to be above petty deceptions and shams and subterfuges. And now you ask me to fail, to give up, to shirk, and you tell me you do so because you love me."
"That is all so many words to me. I cannot argue with you, and there is no time for it. I did not come here to--converse."
Never in her life before had Lloyd been so angry as at that moment. The sombre crimson of her cheeks had suddenly given place to an unwonted paleness; even her dull-blue eyes, that so rarely sparkled, were all alight. She straightened herself.
"Very well, then," she answered quietly, "our conversation can stop where it is. You will excuse me, Mr. Bennett, if I leave you. I have my work to do."
Bennett was standing between her and the door. He did not move. Very gravely he said: "Don't. Please don't bring it--to that."
Lloyd flashed a look at him, her eyes wide, exclaiming: "You don't mean--you don't dare--" "I tell you again that I mean to carry my point."
"And I tell you that I shall _not_ leave my patient."
Bennett met her glance for an instant, and, holding her gaze with his, answered but two words. Speaking in a low voice and with measured slowness, he said: "You--shall."
There was a silence. The two stood there, looking straight into one another's eyes, their mutual opposition at its climax. The seconds began to pass. The conflict between the man's aggression and the woman's resistance reached its turning point. Before another word should be spoken, before the minute should pass, one of the two must give ground.
And then it was that Lloyd felt something breakdown within her, something to which she could not put a name. A mysterious element of her character, hitherto rigid and intact, was beginning at last to crumble. Somewhere a breach had been opened; somewhere the barrier had been undermined. The fine steadfastness that was hers, and that she had so dearly prized, her strength in which she had gloried, her independence, her splendid arrogant self-confidence and conscious power seemed all at once to weaken before this iron resolve that shut its ears and eyes, this colossal, untutored, savage intensity of purpose.
And abruptly her eyes were opened, and the inherent weakness of her sex became apparent to her. Was it a mistake, then? Could not a woman be strong? Was her strength grafted upon elemental weakness--not her individual weakness, but the weakness of her sex, the intended natural weakness of the woman? Had she built her fancied impregnable fortress upon sand?
But habit was too strong. For an instant, brief as the opening and shutting of an eye, a vision was vouchsafed to her, one of those swift glimpses into unplumbed depths that come sometimes to the human mind in the moments of its exaltation, but that are gone with such rapidity that they may not be trusted. For an instant Lloyd saw deep down into the black, mysterious gulf of sex--down, down, down where, immeasurably below the world of little things, the changeless, dreadful machinery of Life itself worked, clashing and resistless in its grooves. It was a glimpse fortunately brief, a vision that does not come too often, lest reason, brought to the edge of the abyss, grow giddy at the sight and, reeling, topple headlong. But quick the vision passed, the gulf closed, and she felt the firm ground again beneath her feet.
"I shall not," she cried.
Was it the same woman who had spoken but one moment before? Did her voice ring with the same undaunted defiance? Was there not a note of despair in her tones, a barely perceptible quaver, the symbol of her wavering resolve? Was not the very fact that she must question her strength proof positive that her strength was waning?
But her courage was unshaken, even if her strength was breaking. To the last she would strive, to the end she would hold her forehead high. Not till the last hope had been tried would she acknowledge her defeat.
"But in any case," she said, "risk is better than certainty. If I risk my life by staying, it is certain that he will die if I leave him at this critical moment."
"So much the worse, then--you cannot stay."
Lloyd stared at him in amazement.
"It isn't possible; I don't believe you can understand. Do you know how sick he is? Do you know that he is lying at the point of death at this very moment, and that the longer I stay away from him the more his life is in peril? Has he not rights as well as I; has he not a right to live? It is not only my own humiliation that is at stake, it is the life of your dearest friend, the man who stood by you, and helped you, and who suffered the same hardships and privations as yourself."
"What's that?" demanded Bennett with a sudden frown.
"If I leave Mr. Ferriss now, if he is left alone here for so much as half an hour, I will not answer--" "Ferriss! What are you talking about? What is your patient's name?"
"Didn't you know?"
"Ferriss! Dick Ferriss! Don't tell me it's Dick Ferriss."
"I thought all the time you knew--that you had heard. Yes, it is Mr. Ferriss."
"Is he very sick? What is he doing out here? No, I had not heard; nobody told me. Pitts was to write--to--to wire. Will he pull through? What's the matter with him? Is it he who had typhoid?"
"He is very dangerously ill. Dr. Pitts brought him here. This is his house. We do not know if he will get well. It is only by watching him every instant that we can hope for anything. At this moment there is no one with him but a servant. _Now_, Mr. Bennett, am I to go to my patient?"
"But--but--we can get some one else."
"Not before three hours, and it's only the truth when I tell you he may die at any minute. Am I to go?"
In a second of time the hideous situation leaped up before Bennett's eyes. Right or wrong, the conviction that Lloyd was terribly imperilling her life by remaining at her patient's bedside had sunk into his mind and was not to be eradicated. It was a terror that had gripped him close and that could not be reasoned away. But Ferriss? What of him? Now it had brusquely transpired that his life, too, hung in the balance. How to decide? How to meet this abominable complication wherein he must sacrifice the woman he so dearly loved or the man who was the Damon to his Pythias, the Jonathan to his David?
"Am I to go?" repeated Lloyd for the third time.
Bennett closed his eyes, clasping his head with both hands.
"Great God, wait--wait--I can't think--I--I, oh, this is terrible!"
Lloyd drove home her advantage mercilessly.
"Wait? I tell you we can't wait."
Then Bennett realised with a great spasm of horror that for him there was no going back. All his life, accustomed to quick decisions in moments of supreme peril, he took his decision now, facing, with such courage as he could muster, its unspeakable consequences, consequences that he knew must harry and hound him all the rest of his life. Whichever way he decided, he opened his heart to the beak and talons of a pitiless remorse. He could no longer see, in the dreadful confusion of his mind, the right of things or the wrong of things, could not accurately weigh chances or possibilities. For him only two alternatives presented themselves, the death of Ferriss or the death of Lloyd. He could see no compromise, could imagine no escape. It was as though a headsman with ready axe stood at his elbow, awaiting his commands. And, besides all this, he had long since passed the limit--though perhaps he did not know it himself--where he could see anything but the point he had determined to gain, the goal he had determined to reach. His mind was made up. His furious energy, his resolve to conquer at all costs, had become at last a sort of directed frenzy. The engine he had set in motion was now beyond his control. He could not now--whether he would or no--reverse its action, swerve it from its iron path, call it back from the monstrous catastrophe toward which it was speeding him.
"God help us all!" he muttered.
"Well," said Lloyd expectantly.
Bennett drew a deep breath, his hands falling helplessly at his sides. In a way he appeared suddenly bowed; the great frame of bone and sinew seemed in some strange, indefinable manner to shrink, to stagger under the sudden assumption of an intolerable burden--a burden that was never to be lifted.
Even then, however, Bennett still believed in the wisdom of his course, still believed himself to be right. But, right or wrong, he now must go forward. Was it fate, was it doom, was it destiny?
Bennett's entire life had been spent in the working out of great ideas in the face of great obstacles; continually he had been called upon to overcome enormous difficulties with enormous strength. For long periods of time he had been isolated from civilisation, had been face to face with the simple, crude forces of an elemental world--forces that were to be combated and overthrown by means no less simple and crude than themselves. He had lost the faculty, possessed, no doubt, by smaller minds, of dealing with complicated situations. To resort to expedients, to make concessions, was all beyond him. For him a thing was absolutely right or absolutely wrong, and between the two there was no gradation. For so long a time had he looked at the larger, broader situations of life that his mental vision had become all deformed and confused. He saw things invariably magnified beyond all proportion, or else dwarfed to a littleness that was beneath consideration. Normal vision was denied him. It was as though he studied the world through one or the other ends of a telescope, and when, as at present, his emotions were aroused, matters were only made the worse. The idea that Ferriss might recover, though Lloyd should leave him at this moment, hardly presented itself to his mind. He was convinced that if Lloyd went away Ferriss would die; Lloyd had said as much herself. The hope that Lloyd might, after all, nurse him through his sickness without danger to herself was so remote that he did not consider it for one instant. If Lloyd remained she, like the other nurse, would contract the disease and die.
These were the half-way measures Bennett did not understand, the expedients he could no longer see. It was either Lloyd or Ferriss. He must choose between them.
Bennett went to the door of the room, closed it and leaned against it.
"No," he said.
Lloyd was stricken speechless. For the instant she shrank before him as if from a murderer. Bennett now knew precisely the terrible danger in which he left the man who was his dearest friend. Would he actually consent to his death? It was almost beyond belief, and for the moment Lloyd herself quailed before him. Her first thoughts were not of herself, but of Ferriss. If he was Bennett's friend he was her friend too. At that very moment he might be dying for want of her care. She was fast becoming desperate. For the moment she could put all thought of herself and of her own dignity in the background.
"What is it you want?" she cried. "Is it my humiliation you ask? Well, then, you have it. It is as hard for me to ask favours as it is for you. I am as proud as you, but I entreat you, you hear me, as humbly as I can, to let me go. What do you want more than that? Oh, can't you understand? While we talk here, while you keep me here, he may be dying. Is it a time for arguments, is it a time for misunderstandings, is it a time to think of ourselves, of our own lives, our own little affairs?" She clasped her hands. "Will you please--can I, can I say more than that; will you please let me go?"
"No."
With a great effort Lloyd tried to regain her self-control. She paused a moment, then: "Listen!" she said. "You say that you love me; that I am more to you than even Mr. Ferriss, your truest friend. I do not wish to think of myself at such a time as this, but supposing that you should make me--that I should consent to leave my patient. Think of me then, afterward. Can I go back there to the house, the house that I built? Can I face the women of my profession? What would they think of me? What would my friends think of me--I who have held my head so high? You will ruin my life. I should have to give up my profession. Oh, can't you see in what position you would place me?" Suddenly the tears sprang to her eyes. "No!" she cried vehemently. "No, no, no, I will not, I will not be disgraced!"
"I have no wish to disgrace you," answered Bennett. "It is strange for you to say that to me, if I love you so well that I can give up Ferriss for--" "Then, if you love me so much as that, there must be one thing that you would set even above my life. Do you wish to make me hate you?"
"There is nothing in the world more to me than your life; you know that. How can you think it of me?"
"Because you don't understand--because you don't know that--oh, that I love you! I--no--I didn't mean--I didn't mean--" What had she said? What had happened? How was it that the words that yesterday she would have been ashamed to so much as whisper to herself had now rushed to her lips almost of their own accord? After all those years of repression, suddenly the sweet, dim thought she had hidden in her secretest heart's heart had leaped to light and to articulate words. Unasked, unbidden, she had told him that she loved him. She, she had done this thing when, but a few moments before, her anger against him had shaken her to her very finger-tips. The hot, intolerable shame of it smote like fire into her face. Her world was cracking about her ears; everything she had prized the dearest was being torn from her, everything she had fancied the strongest was being overthrown. Had she, she who had held herself so proud and high, come at last to this?
Swiftly she turned from him and clasped her hands before her eyes and sank down into the chair she had quitted, bowing her head upon her arms, hiding her face, shutting herself from the light of day, quivering and thrilling with an agony of shame and with an utter, an abject self-contempt that was beyond all power of expression. But the instant she felt Bennett's touch upon her shoulder she sprang up as if a knife had pierced her, and shrank from him, turning her head away, her hand, palm outward, before her eyes.
"Oh, please!" she begged piteously, almost inarticulately in the stress of her emotion, "don't--if you are a man--don't take advantage--please, please don't touch me. Let me go away."
She was talking to deaf ears. In two steps Bennett had reached her side and had taken her in his arms. Lloyd could not resist. Her vigour of body as well as of mind was crushed and broken and beaten down; and why was it that in spite of her shame, that in spite of her unutterable self-reproach, the very touch of her cheek upon his shoulder was a comfort? Why was it that to feel herself carried away in the rush of this harsh, impetuous, masculine power was a happiness? Why was it that to know that her prided fortitude and hitherto unshaken power were being overwhelmed and broken with a brutal, ruthless strength was an exultation and a glory? Why was it that she who but a moment before quailed from his lightest touch now put her arms about his neck and clung to him with a sense of protection and of refuge, the need of which she had always and until that very moment disdained?
"Why should you be sorry because you spoke?" said Bennett. "I knew that you loved me and you knew that I loved you. What does it matter if you said it or did not say it? We know each other, you and I. We understand. You knew that I loved you. You think that I have been strong and determined, and have done the things I set out to do; what I am is what you made me. What I have done I have done because I thought you would approve. Do you think I would have come back if I had not known that I was coming back to you?" Suddenly an impatient exclamation escaped him, and his clasp about her tightened. "Oh! words--the mere things that one can _say_, seem so pitiful, so miserably inadequate. Don't you know, can't you feel what you are to me? Tell me, do you think I love you?"
But she could not bear to meet his glance just yet. Her eyes were closed, and she could only nod her head.
But Bennett took her head in both his hands and turned her face to his. Even yet she kept her eyes closed.
"Lloyd," he said, and his voice was almost a command; "Lloyd, look at me. Do you love me?"
She drew a deep breath. Then her sweet dull-blue eyes opened, and through the tears that brimmed them and wet her lashes she looked at him and met his glance fearlessly and almost proudly, and her voice trembled and vibrated with an infinite tenderness as she answered: "I do love you, Ward; love you with all my heart."
Then, after a pause, she said, drawing a little from him and resting a hand upon either shoulder: "But listen, dear; we must not think of ourselves now. We must think of him, so sick and weak and helpless. This is a terrible moment in our lives. I don't know why it has come to us. I don't know why it should all have happened as it has this morning. Just a few moments ago I was angry as I never was in my life before--and at you--and now it seems to me that I never was so happy; I don't know myself any more. Everything is confused; all we can do is to hold to what we know is right and trust that everything will be well in the end. It is a crisis, isn't it? And all our lives and all our happiness depend upon how we meet it. I am all different now. I am not the woman I was a half-hour ago. You must be brave for me now, and you must be strong for me and help me to do my duty. We must live up to the best that is in us and do what we think is right, no matter what risks we run, no matter what the consequences are. I would not have asked you to help me before--before what has happened--but now I need your help. You have said I helped you to be brave; help me to be brave now, and to do what I know is right."
But Bennett was still blind. If she had been dear to him before, how doubly so had she become since she had confessed her love for him! Ferriss was forgotten, ignored. He could not let her go, he could not let her run the slightest risk. Was he to take any chance of losing her now? He shook his head.
"Ward!" she exclaimed with deep and serious earnestness. "If you do not wish me to risk my life by going to my post, be careful, oh, be very careful, that you do not risk something that is more to us both than life itself, by keeping me from it. Do you think I could love you so deeply and so truly as I do if I had not kept my standards high; if I had not believed in the things that were better than life, and stronger than death, and dearer to me than even love itself? There are some things I cannot do: I cannot be false, I cannot be cowardly, I cannot shirk my duty. Now I am helpless in your hands. You have conquered, and you can do with me as you choose. But if you make me do what is false, and what is cowardly, and what is dishonourable; if you stand between me and what I know is my duty, how can I love you, how can I love you?"
Persistently, perversely, Bennett stopped his ears to every consideration, to every argument. She wished to hazard her life. That was all he understood.
"No, Lloyd," he answered, "you must not do it." " --and I want to love you," she went on, as though she had not heard. "I want you to be everything to me. I have trusted you so long--had faith in you so long, I don't want to think of you as the man who failed me when I most needed his help, who made me do the thing that was contemptible and unworthy. Believe me," she went on with sudden energy, "you will kill my love for you if you persist."
But before Bennett could answer there was a cry.
"It is the servant," exclaimed Lloyd quickly. "She has been watching--there in the room with him."
"Nurse--Miss Searight," came the cry, "quick--there is something wrong--I don't know--oh, hurry!"
"Do you hear?" cried Lloyd. "It is the crisis--he may be dying. Oh, Ward, it is the man you love! We can save him." She stamped her foot in the frenzy of her emotion, her hands twisting together. "I _will_ go. I forbid you to keep--to hinder--to--to, oh, what is to become of us? If you love me, if you love him--_Ward, will you let me go? _" Bennett put his hands over his ears, his eyes closed. In the horror of that moment, when he realised that no matter how he might desire it he could not waver in his resolution, it seemed to him that his reason must give way. But he set his back to the door, his hand gripped tight upon the knob, and through his set teeth his answer came as before: "No."
"Nurse--Miss Searight, where are you? Hurry, oh, hurry!"
"Will you let me go?"
"No."
Lloyd caught at his hand, shut so desperately upon the knob, striving to loosen his clasp. She hardly knew what she was doing; she threw her arms about his neck, imploring, commanding, now submissive, now imperious, her voice now vibrating with anger, now trembling with passionate entreaty.
"You are not only killing him, you are killing my love for you; will you let me go--the love that is so dear to me? Let me love you, Ward; listen to me; don't make me hate you; let me love you, dear--" "Hurry, oh, hurry!"
"Let me love you; let him live. I want to love you. It's the best happiness in my life. Let me be happy. Can't you see what this moment is to mean for us? It is our happiness or wretchedness forever. Will you let me go?"
"No."
"For the last time, Ward, listen! It is my love for you and his life. Don't crush us both--yes, and yourself. You who can, who are so powerful, don't trample all our happiness under foot."
"Hurry, hurry; oh, will nobody come to help?"
"Will you let me go?"
"No."
Her strength seemed all at once to leave her. All the fabric of her character, so mercilessly assaulted, appeared in that moment to reel, topple, and go crashing to its wreck. She was shattered, broken, humbled, and beaten down to the dust. Her pride was gone, her faith in herself was gone, her fine, strong energy was gone. The pity of it, the grief of it; all that she held dearest; her fine and confident steadfastness; the great love that had brought such happiness into her life--that had been her inspiration, all torn from her and tossed aside like chaff. And her patient--Ferriss, the man who loved her, who had undergone such suffering, such hardship, who trusted her and whom it was her duty to nurse back to life and health--if he should perish for want of her care, then what infinite sorrow, then what endless remorse, then what long agony of unavailing regret! Her world, her universe grew dark to her; she was driven from her firm stand. She was lost, she was whirled away--away with the storm, landmarks obliterated, lights gone; away with the storm; out into the darkness, out into the void, out into the waste places and wilderness and trackless desolation.
"Hurry, oh, hurry!"
It was too late. She had failed; the mistake had been made, the question had been decided. That insensate, bestial determination, iron-hearted, iron-strong, had beaten down opposition, had carried its point. Life and love had been crushed beneath its trampling without pity, without hesitation. The tragedy of the hour was done; the tragedy of the long years to come was just beginning.
Lloyd sank down in the chair before the table, and the head that she had held so high bowed down upon her folded arms. The violence of her grief shook her from head to foot like a dry, light reed. Her heart seemed literally to be breaking. She must set her teeth with all her strength to keep from groaning aloud, from crying out in her hopeless sorrow her impotent shame and despair.
Once more came the cry for help. Then the house fell silent. The minutes passed. But for Lloyd's stifled grief there was no sound. Bennett--leaning heavily against the door, his great shoulders stooping and bent, his face ashen, his eyes fixed--did not move. He did not speak to Lloyd. There was no word of comfort he could address to her--that would have seemed the last mockery. He had prevailed, as he knew he should, as he knew he must, when once his resolve was taken. The force that, once it was unleashed, was beyond him to control, had accomplished its purpose. His will remained unbroken; but at what cost? However, that was for future consideration. The costs? Had he not his whole life before him in which to count them? The present moment still called upon him to act. He looked at his watch.
The next quarter of an hour was all a confusion to him. Its incidents refused to define themselves upon his memory when afterward he tried to recall them. He could remember, however, that when he helped Lloyd into the carryall that was to take her to the depot in the village she had shrunk from his touch and had drawn away from him as if from a criminal--a murderer. He placed her satchel on the front seat with the driver, and got up beside the driver himself. She had drawn her veil over her face, and during the drive sat silent and motionless.
"Can you make it?" asked Bennett of the driver, watch in hand. The time was of the shortest, but the driver put the whip to his horses and, at a run, they reached the railway station a few moments ahead of time. Bennett told the driver to wait, and while Lloyd remained in her place he bought her ticket for the City. Then he went to the telegraph office and sent a peremptory despatch to the house on Calumet Square.
A few moments later the train had come and gone, an abrupt eruption of roaring iron and shrieking steam. Bennett was left on the platform alone, watching it lessen to a smoky blur where the rails converged toward the horizon. For an instant he stood watching, watching a resistless, iron-hearted force whirling her away, out of his reach, out of his life. Then he shook himself, turning sharply about.
"Back to the doctor's house, now," he commanded the driver; "on the run, you understand."
But the other protested. His horses were all but exhausted. Twice they had covered that distance at top speed and under the whip. He refused to return. Bennett took the young man by the arm and lifted him from his seat to the ground. Then he sprang to his place and lashed the horses to a gallop.
When he arrived at Dr. Pitts's house he did not stop to tie the horses, but threw the reins over their backs and entered the front hall, out of breath and panting. But the doctor, during Bennett's absence, had returned, and it was he who met him half-way up the stairs.
"How is he?" demanded Bennett. "I have sent for another nurse; she will be out here on the next train. I wired from the station."
"The only objection to that," answered the doctor, looking fixedly at him, "is that it is not necessary. Mr. Ferriss has just died."
|
{
"id": "16096"
}
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7
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None
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Throughout her ride from Medford to the City it was impossible for Lloyd, so great was the confusion in her mind, to think connectedly. She had been so fiercely shocked, so violently shattered and weakened, that for a time she lacked the power and even the desire to collect and to concentrate her scattering thoughts. For the time being she felt, but only dimly, that a great blow had fallen, that a great calamity had overwhelmed her, but so extraordinary was the condition of her mind that more than once she found herself calmly awaiting the inevitable moment when the full extent of the catastrophe would burst upon her. For the moment she was merely tired. She was willing even to put off this reaction for a while, willing to remain passive and dizzied and stupefied, resigning herself helplessly and supinely to the swift current of events.
Yet while that part of her mind which registered the greater, deeper, and more lasting impressions remained inactive, the smaller faculty, that took cognisance of the little, minute-to-minute matters, was as busy and bright as ever. It appeared that the blow had been struck over this latter faculty, and not, as one so often supposes, through it. She seemed in that hour to understand the reasonableness of this phenomenon, that before had always appeared so inexplicable, and saw how great sorrow as well as great joy strikes only at the greater machinery of the brain, overpassing and ignoring the little wheels and cogs, that work on as briskly as ever in storm or calm, being moved only by temporary and trivial emotions and impressions.
So it was that for upward of an hour while the train carried her swiftly back to the City, Lloyd sat quietly in her place, watching the landscape rushing past her and cut into regular divisions by the telegraph poles like the whirling pictures of a kinetoscope. She noted, and even with some particularity, the other passengers--a young girl in a smart tailor-made gown reading a book, cutting the leaves raggedly with a hairpin; a well-groomed gentleman with a large stomach, who breathed loudly through his nose; the book agent with his oval boxes of dried figs and endless thread of talk; a woman with a little boy who wore spectacles and who was continually making unsteady raids upon the water-cooler, and the brakeman and train conductor laughing and chatting in the forward seat.
She took an interest in every unusual feature of the country through which the train was speeding, and noted each stop or increase of speed. She found a certain diversion, as she had often done before, in watching for the mile-posts and in keeping count of the miles. She even asked the conductor at what time the train would reach the City, and uttered a little murmur of vexation when she was told that it was a half-hour late. The next instant she was asking herself why this delay should seem annoying to her. Then, toward the close of the afternoon, came the City itself. First a dull-gray smudge on the horizon, then a world of grimy streets, rows of miserable tenements festooned with rags, then a tunnel or two, and at length the echoing glass-arched terminal of the station. Lloyd alighted, and, remembering that the distance was short, walked steadily toward her destination till the streets and neighbourhood became familiar. Suddenly she came into the square. Directly opposite was the massive granite front of the agency. She paused abruptly. She was returning to the house after abandoning her post. What was she to say to them, the other women of her profession?
Then all at once came the reaction. Instantly the larger machinery of the mind resumed its functions, the hurt of the blow came back. With a fierce wrench of pain, the wound reopened, full consciousness returned. Lloyd remembered then that she had proved false to her trust at a moment of danger, that Ferriss would probably die because of what she had done, that her strength of will and of mind wherein she had gloried was broken beyond redemption; that Bennett had failed her, that her love for him, the one great happiness of her life, was dead and cold and could never be revived, and that in the eyes of the world she stood dishonoured and disgraced.
Now she must enter that house, now she must face its inmates, her companions. What to say to them? How explain her defection? How tell them that she had not left her post of her own will? Lloyd fancied herself saying in substance that the man who loved her and whom she loved had made her abandon her patient. She set her teeth. No, not that confession of miserable weakness; not that of all things. And yet the other alternative, what was that? It could be only that she had been afraid--she, Lloyd Searight! Must she, who had been the bravest of them all, stand before that little band of devoted women in the light of a self-confessed coward?
She remembered the case of the young English woman, Harriet Freeze, who, when called upon to nurse a smallpox patient, had been found wanting in courage at the crucial moment, and had discovered an excuse for leaving her post. Miss Freeze had been expelled dishonourably from the midst of her companions. And now she, Lloyd, standing apparently convicted of the same dishonour, must face the same tribunal. There was no escape. She must enter that house, she must endure that ordeal, and this at precisely the time when her resolution had been shattered, her will broken, her courage daunted. For a moment the idea of flight suggested itself to her--she would avoid the issue. She would hide from reproach and contumely, and without further explanation go back to her place in the country at Bannister. But the little exigencies of her position made this impossible. Besides her nurse's bag, her satchel was the only baggage she had at that moment, and she knew that there was but little money in her purse.
All at once she realised that while debating the question she had been sitting on one of the benches under the trees in the square. The sun was setting; evening was coming on. Maybe if she waited until six o'clock she could enter the house while the other nurses were at supper, gain her room unobserved, then lock herself in and deny herself to all callers. But Lloyd made a weary, resigned movement of her shoulders. Sooner or later she must meet them all eye to eye. It would be only putting off the humiliation.
She rose, and, turning to the house, began to walk slowly toward it. Why put it off? It would be as hard at one time as another. But so great was her sense of shame that even as she walked she fancied that the very passers-by, the loungers on the benches around the fountain, must know that here was a disgraced woman. Was it not apparent in her very face, in the very uncertainty of her gait? She told herself she had not done wisely to sit even for a moment upon the bench she had just quitted. She wondered if she had been observed, and furtively glanced about her. There! Was not that nursemaid studying her too narrowly? And the policeman close at hand, was he not watching her quizzically? She quickened her gait, moved with a sudden impulse to get out of sight, to hide within doors--where? In the house? There where, so soon as she set foot in it, her companions, the other nurses, must know her dishonour? Where was she to go? Where to turn? What was to become of her?
But she _must_ go to the house. It was inevitable. She went forward, as it were, step by step. That little journey across the square under the elms and cottonwoods was for her a veritable _chemin de la croix_. Every step was an agony; every yard covered only brought her nearer the time and place of exposure. It was all the more humiliating because she knew that her impelling motive was not one of duty. There was nothing lofty in the matter--nothing self-sacrificing. She went back because she had to go back. Little material necessities, almost ludicrous in their pettiness, forced her on.
As she came nearer she looked cautiously at the windows of the agency. Who would be the first to note her home-coming? Would it be Miss Douglass, or Esther Thielman, or Miss Bergyn, the superintendent nurse? What would first be said to her? With what words would she respond? Then how the news of the betrayal of her trust would flash from room to room! How it would be discussed, how condemned, how deplored! Not one of the nurses of that little band but would not feel herself hurt by what she had done--by what she had been forced to do. And the news of her failure would spread to all her acquaintances and friends throughout the City. Dr. Street would know it; every physician to whom she had hitherto been so welcome an aid would know it. In all the hospitals it would be a nine days' gossip. Campbell would hear of it, and Hattie.
All at once, within thirty feet of the house, Lloyd turned about and walked rapidly away from it. The movement was all but involuntary; every instinct in her, every sense of shame, brusquely revolted. It was stronger than she. A power, for the moment irresistible, dragged her back from that doorway. Once entering here, she left all hope behind. Yet the threshold must be crossed, yet the hope must be abandoned.
She felt that if she faced about now a second time she would indeed attract attention. So, while her cheeks flamed hot at the meanness, the miserable ridiculousness of the imposture, she assumed a brisk, determined gait, as though she knew just where she were going, and, turning out of the square down a by-street, walked around the block, even stopping once or twice before a store, pretending an interest in the display. It seemed to her that by now everybody in the streets must have noted that there was something wrong with her. Twice as a passer-by brushed past her she looked back to see if he was watching her. How to live through the next ten minutes? If she were only in her room, bolted in, locked and double-locked in. Why was there not some back way through which she could creep to that seclusion?
And so it was that Lloyd came back to the house she had built, to the little community she had so proudly organised, to the agency she had founded, and with her own money endowed and supported.
At last she found herself at the bottom of the steps, her foot upon the lowest one, her hand clasping the heavy bronze rail. There was no going back now. She went up and pushed the button of the electric bell, and then, the step once taken, the irrevocable once dared, something like the calmness of resignation came to her. There was no help for it. Now for the ordeal. Rownie opened the door for her with a cheery welcome. Lloyd was dimly conscious that the girl said something about her mail, and that she was just in time for supper. But the hall and stairway were deserted and empty, while from the dining-room came a subdued murmur of conversation and the clink of dishes. The nurses were at supper, as Lloyd had hoped. The moment favoured her, and she brushed by Rownie, and almost ran, panic-stricken and trembling, up the stairs.
She gained the hall of the second floor. There was the door of her room standing ajar. With a little gasp of infinite relief, she hurried to it, entered, shut and locked and bolted it behind her, and, casting her satchel and handbag from her, flung herself down upon the great couch, and buried her head deep among the cushions.
At Lloyd's abrupt entrance Miss Douglass turned about from the book-shelves in an angle of the room and stared a moment in no little surprise. Then she exclaimed: "Why, Lloyd, why, what is it--what is the matter?"
Lloyd sprang up sharply at the sound of her voice, and then sank down to a sitting posture upon the edge of the couch. Quietly enough she said: "Oh, is it you? I didn't know--expect to find any one--" "You don't mind, do you? I just ran in to get a book--something to read. I've had a headache all day, and didn't go down to supper."
Lloyd nodded. "Of course--I don't mind," she said, a little wearily.
"But tell me," continued the fever nurse, "whatever is the matter? When you came in just now--I never saw you so--oh, I understand, your case at Medford--" Lloyd's hands closed tight upon the edge of the couch.
"No one could have got a patient through when the fever had got as far as that," continued the other. "This must have been the fifth or sixth week. The second telegram came just in time to prevent my going. I was just going out of the door when the boy came with it."
"You? What telegram?" inquired Lloyd.
"Yes, I was on call. The first despatch asking for another extra nurse came about two o'clock. The four-twenty was the first train I could have taken--the two-forty-five express is a through train and don't stop at Medford--and, as I say, I was just going out of the door when Dr. Pitts's second despatch came, countermanding the first, and telling us that the patient had died. It seems that it was one of the officers of the Freja expedition. We didn't know--" "Died?" interrupted Lloyd, looking fixedly at her.
"But Lloyd, you mustn't take it so to heart. You couldn't have got him through. No one could at that time. He was probably dying when you were sent for. We must all lose a case now and then."
"Died?" repeated Lloyd; "Dr. Pitts wired that Mr. Ferriss died?"
"Yes; it was to prevent my coming out there uselessly. He must have sent the wire quite an hour before you left. It was very thoughtful of him."
"He's dead," said Lloyd in a low, expressionless voice, looking vacantly about the room. "Mr. Ferriss is dead." Then suddenly she put a fist to either temple, horror-struck and for the moment shaken with hysteria from head to foot, her eyes widening with an expression almost of terror. "Dead!" she cried. "Oh, it's horrible! Why didn't I--why couldn't I--" "I know just how you feel," answered Miss Douglass soothingly. "I am that way myself sometimes. It's not professional, I know, but when you have been successful in two or three bad cases you think you can always win; and then when you lose the next case you believe that somehow it must have been your fault--that if you had been a little more careful at just that moment, or done a little different in that particular point, you might have saved your patient. But you, of all people, ought not to feel like that. If you could not have saved your case nobody could."
"It was just because I had the case that it was lost."
"Nonsense, Lloyd; don't talk like that. You've not had enough sleep; your nerves have been over-strained. You're worn out and a little hysterical and morbid. Now lie down and keep quiet, and I'll bring you your supper. You need a good night's sleep and bromide of potassium."
When she had gone Lloyd rose to her feet and drew her hand wearily across her eyes. The situation adjusted itself in her mind. After the first recoil of horror at Ferriss's death she was able to see the false position in which she stood. She had been so certain already that Ferriss would die, leaving him as she did at so critical a moment, that now the sharpness of Miss Douglass's news was blunted a little. She had only been unprepared for the suddenness of the shock. But now she understood clearly how Miss Douglass had been deceived by circumstances. The fever nurse had heard of Ferriss's death early in the afternoon, and supposed, of course, that Lloyd had left the case _after_, and not before, it had occurred. This was the story the other nurses would believe. Instantly, in the flood of grief and remorse and humiliation that had overwhelmed her, Lloyd caught at this straw of hope. Only Dr. Pitts and Bennett knew the real facts. Bennett, of course, would not speak, and Lloyd knew that the physician would understand the cruelty and injustice of her situation, and because of that would also keep silence. To make sure of this she could write him a letter, or, better still, see him personally. It would be hard to tell him the truth. But that was nothing when compared with the world's denunciation of her.
If she had really been false to her charge, if she had actually flinched and faltered at the crucial moment, had truly been the coward, this deception which had been thrust upon her at the moment of her return to the house, this part which it was so easy to play, would have been a hideous and unspeakable hypocrisy. But Lloyd had not faltered, had not been false. In her heart of hearts she had been true to herself and to her trust. How would she deceive her companions then by allowing them to continue in the belief of her constancy, fidelity, and courage? What she hid from them, or rather what they could not see, was a state of things that it was impossible for any one but herself to understand. She could not--no woman could--bring herself to confess to another woman what had happened that day at Medford. It would be believed that she could have stayed at her patient's bedside if she had so desired. No one who did not know Bennett could understand the terrible, vast force of the man.
Try as she would, Lloyd could not but think first of herself at this moment. Bennett was ignored, forgotten. Once she had loved him, but that was all over now. The thought of Ferriss's death, for which in a manner she had been forced to be responsible, came rushing to her mind from time to time, and filled her with a horror and, at times, even a perverse sense of remorse, almost beyond words. But Lloyd's pride, her self-confidence, her strength of character and independence had been dearer to her than almost anything in life. So she told herself, and, at that moment, honestly believed. And though she knew that her pride had been humbled, it was not gone, and enough of it remained to make her desire and strive to keep the fact a secret from the world. It seemed very easy. She would only have to remain passive. Circumstances acted for her.
Miss Douglass returned, followed by Rownie carrying a tray. When the mulatto had gone, after arranging Lloyd's supper on a little table near the couch, the fever nurse drew up a chair.
"Now we can talk," she said, "unless you are too tired. I've been so interested in this case at Medford. Tell me what was the immediate cause of death; was it perforation or just gradual collapse?"
"It was neither," said Lloyd quickly. "It was a hemorrhage."
She had uttered the words with as little consciousness as a phonograph, and the lie had escaped her before she was aware. How did she know what had been the immediate cause of death? What right had she to speak? Why was it that all at once a falsehood had come so easy to her, to her whose whole life until then had been so sincere, so genuine?
"A hemorrhage?" repeated the other. "Had there been many before then? Was there coma vigil when the end came? I--" "Oh," cried Lloyd with a quick gesture of impatience, "don't, don't ask me any more. I am tired--nervous; I am worn out."
"Yes, of course you must be," answered the fever nurse. "We won't talk any more about it."
That night and the following day were terrible. Lloyd neither ate nor slept. Not once did she set foot out of her room, giving out that she was ill, which was not far from the truth, and keeping to herself and to the companionship of the thoughts and terrors that crowded her mind. Until that day at Medford her life had run easily and happily and in well-ordered channels. She was successful in her chosen profession and work. She imagined herself to be stronger and of finer fibre than most other women, and her love for Bennett had lent a happiness and a sweetness to her life dear to her beyond all words. Suddenly, and within an hour's time, she had lost everything. Her will had been broken, her spirit crushed; she had been forced to become fearfully instrumental in causing the death of her patient--a man who loved and trusted her--while her love for Bennett, which for years had been her deep and abiding joy, the one great influence of her life, was cold and dead, and could never be revived.
This in the end came to be Lloyd's greatest grief. She could forget that she herself had been humbled and broken. Horrible, unspeakably horrible, as Ferriss's death seemed to her, it was upon Bennett, and not upon her, that its responsibility must be laid. She had done what she could. Of that she was assured. But, first and above all things, Lloyd was a woman, and her love for Bennett was a very different matter.
When, during that never-to-be-forgotten scene in the breakfast-room of the doctor's house, she had warned Bennett that if he persisted in his insane resolution he would stamp out her affection for him, Lloyd had only half believed what she said. But when at last it dawned upon her that she had spoken wiser than she knew, that this was actually true, and that now, no matter how she might desire it, she could not love him any longer, it seemed as though her heart must break. It was precisely as though Bennett himself, the Bennett she had known, had been blotted out of existence. It was much worse than if Bennett had merely died. Even then he would have still existed for her, somewhere. As it was, the man she had known simply ceased to be, irrevocably, finally, and the warmth of her love dwindled and grew cold, because now there was nothing left for it to feed upon.
Never until then had Lloyd realised how much he had been to her; how he had not only played so large a part in her life, but how he had become a very part of her life itself. Her love for him had been like the air, like the sunlight; was delicately knitted and intertwined into all the innumerable intricacies of her life and character. Literally, not an hour had ever passed that, directly or indirectly, he had not occupied her thoughts. He had been her inspiration; he had made her want to be brave and strong and determined, and it was because of him that the greater things of the world interested her. She had chosen a work to be done because he had set her an example. So only that she preserved her womanliness, she, too, wanted to count, to help on, to have her place in the world's progress. In reality all her ambitions and hopes had been looking toward one end only, that she might be his equal; that he might find in her a companion and a confidante; one who could share his enthusiasms and understand his vast projects and great aims.
And how had he treated her when at last opportunity had been given her to play her part, to be courageous and strong, to prevail against great odds, while he stood by to see? He had ignored and misunderstood, and tossed aside as childish and absurd that which she had been building up for years. Instead of appreciating her heroism he had forced her to become a coward in the eyes of the world. She had hoped to be his equal, and he had treated her as a school-girl. It had all been a mistake. She was not and could not be the woman she had hoped. He was not and never had been the man she had imagined. They had nothing in common.
But it was not easy to give Bennett up, to let him pass out of her life. She wanted to love him yet. With all her heart and strength, in spite of everything--woman that she was, she had come to that--in spite of everything she wanted to love him. Though he had broken her will, thwarted her ambitions, ignored her cherished hopes, misunderstood and mistaken her, yet, if she could, Lloyd would yet have loved him, loved him even for the very fact that he had been stronger than she.
Again and again she tried to awaken this dead affection, to call back this vanished love. She tried to remember the Bennett she had known; she told herself that he loved her; that he had said that the great things he had done had been done only with an eye to her approval; that she had been his inspiration no less than he had been hers; that he had fought his way back, not only to life, but to her. She thought of all he had suffered, of the hardships and privations beyond her imagination to conceive, that he had undergone. She tried to recall the infinite joy of that night when the news of his safe return had come to her; she thought of him at his very best--how he had always seemed to her the type of the perfect man, masterful, aggressive, accomplishing great projects with an energy and determination almost superhuman, one of the world's great men, whose name the world still shouted. She called to mind how the very ruggedness of his face; with its massive lines and harsh angles, had attracted her; how she had been proud of his giant's strength, the vast span of his shoulders, the bull-like depth of his chest, the sense of enormous physical power suggested by his every movement.
But it was all of no effect. That Bennett was worse than dead to her. The Bennett that now came to her mind and imagination was the brutal, perverse man of the breakfast-room at Medford, coarse, insolent, intractable, stamping out all that was finest in her, breaking and flinging away the very gifts he had inspired her to offer him. It was nothing to him that she should stand degraded in the eyes of the world. He did not want her to be brave and strong. She had been wrong; it was not that kind of woman he desired. He had not acknowledged that she, too, as well as he--a woman as well as a man might have her principles, her standards of honour, her ideas of duty. It was not her character, then, that he prized; the nobility of her nature was nothing to him; he took no thought of the fine-wrought texture of her mind. How, then, did she appeal to him? It was not her mind; it was not her soul. What, then, was left? Nothing but the physical. The shame of it; the degradation of it! To be so cruelly mistaken in the man she loved, to be able to appeal to him only on his lower side! Lloyd clasped her hands over her eyes, shutting her teeth hard against a cry of grief and pain and impotent anger. No, no, now it was irrevocable; now her eyes were opened. The Bennett she had known and loved had been merely a creature of her own imagining; the real man had suddenly discovered himself; and this man, in spite of herself, she hated as a victim hates its tyrant.
But her grief for her vanished happiness--the happiness that this love, however mistaken, had brought into her life--was pitiful. Lloyd could not think of it without the choke coming to her throat and the tears brimming her dull-blue eyes, while at times a veritable paroxysm of sorrow seized upon her and flung her at full length upon her couch, her face buried and her whole body shaken with stifled sobs. It was gone, it was gone, and could never be called back. What was there now left to her to live for? Why continue her profession? Why go on with the work? What pleasure now in striving and overcoming? Where now was the exhilaration of battle with the Enemy, even supposing she yet had the strength to continue the fight? Who was there now to please, to approve, to encourage? To what end the days of grave responsibilities, the long, still nights of vigil?
She began to doubt herself. Bennett, the man, had loved his work for its own sake. But how about herself, the woman? In what spirit had she gone about her work? Had she been genuine, after all? Had she not undertaken it rather as a means than as an end--not because she cared for it, but because she thought he would approve, because she had hoped by means of the work she would come into closer companionship with him? She wondered if this must always be so--the man loving the work for the work's sake; the woman, more complex, weaker, and more dependent, doing the work only in reference to the man.
But often she distrusted her own conclusions, and, no doubt, rightly so. Her mind was yet too confused to reason calmly, soberly, and accurately. Her distress was yet too keen, too poignant to permit her to be logical. At one time she was almost ready to admit that she had misjudged Bennett; that, though he had acted cruelly and unjustly, he had done what he thought was best. His sacrifice of Ferriss was sufficient guarantee of his sincerity. But this mistrust of herself did not affect her feeling toward him. There were moments when she condoned his offence; there was never an instant she did not hate him.
And this sentiment of hatred itself, independent of and apart from its object, was distasteful and foreign to her. Never in her life had Lloyd hated any one before. To be kind, to be gentle, to be womanly was her second nature, and kindness, gentleness, and womanliness were qualities that her profession only intensified and deepened. This newcomer in her heart, this fierce, evil visitor, that goaded her and pricked and harried her from day to day and throughout so many waking nights, that roused the unwonted flash in her eye and drove the hot, angry blood to her smooth, white forehead and knotted her levelled brows to a dark and lowering frown, had entered her life and being, unsought for and undesired. It did not belong to her world. Yet there it sat on its usurped throne deformed and hideous, driving out all tenderness and compunction, ruling her with a rod of iron, hardening her, embittering her, and belittling her, making a mockery of all sweetness, fleering at nobility and magnanimity, lowering the queen to the level of the fishwife.
When the first shock of the catastrophe had spent its strength and Lloyd perforce must turn again to the life she had to live, groping for its scattered, tangled ends, piecing together again as best she might its broken fragments, she set herself honestly to drive this hatred from her heart. If she could not love Bennett, at least she need not hate him. She was moved to this by no feeling of concern for Bennett. It was not a consideration that she owed to him, but something rather that was due to herself. Yet, try as she would, the hatred still remained. She could not put it from her. Hurt her and contaminate her as it did, in spite of all her best efforts, in spite of her very prayers, the evil thing abode with her, deep-rooted, strong, malignant. She saw that in the end she would continue in her profession, but she believed that she could not go on with it consistently, based as it was upon sympathy and love and kindness, while a firm-seated, active hatred dwelt with her, harassing her at every moment, and perverting each good impulse and each unselfish desire. It was an ally of the very Enemy she would be called upon to fight, a traitor that at any moment might open the gates to his triumphant entry.
But was this his only ally; was this the only false and ugly invader that had taken advantage of her shattered defence? Had the unwelcome visitor entered her heart alone? Was there not a companion still more wicked, more perverted, more insidious, more dangerous? For the first time Lloyd knew what it meant to deceive.
It was supposed by her companions, and accepted by them as a matter of course, that she had not left the bedside of her patient until after his death. At first she had joyfully welcomed this mistake as her salvation, the one happy coincidence that was to make her life possible, and for a time had ceased to think about it. That phase of the incident was closed. Matters would readjust themselves. In a few days' time the incident would be forgotten. But she found that she herself could not forget it, and that as days went on the idea of this passive, silent deception she was obliged to maintain occurred to her oftener and oftener. She remembered again how glibly and easily she had lied to her friend upon the evening of her return. How was it that the lie had flowed so smoothly from her lips? To her knowledge she had never deliberately lied before. She would have supposed that, because of this fact, falsehood would come difficult to her, that she would have bungled, hesitated, stammered. But it was the reverse that had been the case. The facility with which she had uttered the lie was what now began to disturb and to alarm her. It argued some sudden collapse of her whole system of morals, some fundamental disarrangement of the entire machine.
Abruptly she recoiled. Whither was she tending? If she supinely resigned herself to the current of circumstance, where would she be carried? Yet how was she to free herself from the current, how to face this new situation that suddenly presented itself at a time when she had fancied the real shock of battle and contention was spent and past?
How was she to go back now? How could she retrace her steps? There was but one way--correct the false impression. It would not be necessary to acknowledge that she had been forced to leave her post; the essential was that her companions should know that she had deceived them--that she had left the bedside before her patient's death. But at the thought of making such confession, public as it must be, everything that was left of her wounded pride revolted. She who had been so firm, she who had held so tenaciously to her principles, she who had posed before them as an example of devotion and courage--she could not bring herself to that.
"No, no," she exclaimed as this alternative presented itself to her mind. "No, I cannot. It is beyond me. I simply cannot do it."
But she could. Yes, she could do it if she would. Deep down in her mind that little thought arose. She could if she wanted to. Hide it though she might, cover it and bury it with what false reasoning she could invent, the little thought would not be smothered, would not be crushed out. Well, then, she would not. Was it not her chance; was not this deception which others and not herself had created, her opportunity to recover herself, to live down what had been done--what she had been forced to do, rather? Absolute right was never to be attained; was not life to be considered rather in the light of a compromise between good and evil? To do what one could under the circumstances, was not that the golden mean?
But she ought. And, quick, another little thought sprang up in the deeper recesses of her mind and took its place beside the other. It was right that she should be true. She ought to do the right. Argument, the pleas of weakness, the demands of expediency, the plausibility of compromise were all of no avail. The idea "I ought" persisted and persisted and persisted. She could and she ought. There was no excuse for her, and no sooner had she thrust aside the shifty mass of sophistries under which she had striven to conceal them, no sooner had she let in the light, than these two conceptions of Duty and Will began suddenly to grow.
But what was she to gain? What would be the result of such a course as her conscience demanded she should adopt? It was inevitable that she would be misunderstood, cruelly misjudged. What action would her confession entail? She could not say. But results did not matter; what she was to gain or lose did not matter. Around her and before her all was dark and vague and terrible. If she was to escape there was but one thing to do. Suddenly her own words came back to her: "All we can do is to hold to what we know is right, and trust that everything will come well in the end."
She knew what was right, and she had the strength to hold to it. Then all at once there came to Lloyd a grand, breathless sense of uplifting, almost a transfiguration. She felt herself carried high above the sphere of little things, the region of petty considerations What did she care for consequences, what mattered to her the unjust condemnation of her world, if only she remained true to herself, if only she did right? What did she care for what she gained? It was no longer a question of gain or loss--it was a question of being true and strong and brave. The conflict of that day at Medford between the man's power and the woman's resistance had been cruel, the crisis had been intense, and though she had been conquered then, had it, after all, been beyond recall? No, she was not conquered. No, she was not subdued. Her will had not been broken, her courage had not been daunted, her strength had not been weakened. Here was the greater fight, here was the higher test. Here was the ultimate, supreme crisis of all, and here, at last, come what might, she would not, would not, would not fail.
As soon as Lloyd reached this conclusion she sat about carrying her resolution into effect.
"If I don't do it now while I'm strong," she told herself, "if I wait, I never will do it."
Perhaps there was yet a touch of the hysterical in her actions even then. The jangled feminine nerves were yet vibrating far above their normal pitch; she was overwrought and oversensitive, for just as a fanatic rushes eagerly upon the fire and the steel, preferring the more exquisite torture, so Lloyd sought out the more painful situation, the more trying ordeal, the line of action that called for the greatest fortitude, the most unflinching courage.
She chose to make known her real position, to correct the false impression at a time when all the nurses of the house should be together. This would be at supper-time. Since her return from Medford, Lloyd had shut herself away from the other inmates of the house, and had taken her meals in her room. With the exception of Miss Douglass and the superintendent nurse no one had seen her. She had passed her time lying at full length upon her couch, her hands clasped behind her head, or pacing the floor, or gazing listlessly out of her windows, while her thoughts raced at a gallop through her mind.
Now, however, she bestirred herself. She had arrived at her final decision early in the afternoon of the third day after her return, and at once she resolved that she would endure the ordeal that very evening.
She passed the intervening time, singularly enough, in very carefully setting her room to rights, adjusting and readjusting the few ornaments on the mantel-shelf and walls, winding the clock that struck ship's bells instead of the hours, and minutely sorting the letters and papers in her desk. It was the same as if she were going upon a long journey or were preparing for a great sickness. Toward four o'clock Miss Douglass, looking in to ask how she did, found her before her mirror carefully combing and arranging her great bands and braids of dark-red hair. The fever nurse declared that she was immensely improved in appearance, and asked at once if she was not feeling better.
"Yes," answered Lloyd, "very much better," adding: "I shall be down to supper to-night."
For some reason that she could not explain Lloyd took unusual pains with her toilet, debating long over each detail of dress and ornament. At length, toward five o'clock, she was ready, and sat down by her window, a book in her lap, to await the announcement of supper as the condemned await the summons to execution.
Her plan was to delay her appearance in the dining-room until she was sure that everybody was present; then she would go down, and, standing there before them all, say what she had to say, state the few bald facts of the case, without excuse or palliation, and leave them to draw the one inevitable conclusion.
But this final hour of waiting was a long agony for Lloyd. Her moods changed with every moment; the action she contemplated presented itself to her mind in a multitude of varying lights. At one time she quivered with the apprehension of it, as though at the slow approach of hot irons. At another she could see no reason for being greatly concerned over the matter. Did the whole affair amount to so much, after all? Her companions would, of their own accord, make excuses for her. Risking one's life in the case of a virulent, contagious disease was no small matter. No one could be blamed for leaving such a case. At one moment Lloyd's idea of public confession seemed to her little less than sublime; at another, almost ridiculous. But she remembered the case of Harriet Freeze, who had been unable to resist the quiet, unexpressed force of opinion of her fellow-workers. It would be strange if Lloyd should find herself driven from the very house she had built.
The hour before supper-time seemed interminable; the quarter passed, then the half, then the three-quarters. Lloyd imagined she began to detect a faint odour of the kitchen in the air. Suddenly the remaining minutes of the hour began to be stricken from the dial of her clock with bewildering rapidity. From the drawing-room immediately below came the sounds of the piano. That was Esther Thielman, no doubt, playing one of her interminable Polish compositions. All at once the piano stopped, and, with a quick sinking of the heart, Lloyd heard the sliding doors separating the drawing-room from the dining-room roll back. Miss Douglass and another one of the nurses, Miss Truslow, a young girl, a newcomer in the house, came out of the former's room and went downstairs, discussing the merits of burlap as preferable to wall-paper. Lloyd even heard Miss Truslow remark: "Yes, that's very true, but if it isn't sized it will wrinkle in damp weather."
Rownie came to Lloyd's door and knocked, and, without waiting for a reply, said: "Dinneh's served, Miss Searight," and Lloyd heard her make the same announcement at Miss Bergyn's room farther down the hall. One by one Lloyd heard the others go downstairs. The rooms and hallways on the second floor fell quiet. A faint, subdued murmur of talk came to her ears in the direction of the dining-room. Lloyd waited for five, for ten, for fifteen minutes. Then she rose, drawing in her breath, straightening herself to her full height. She went to the door, then paused for a moment, looking back at all the familiar objects--the plain, rich furniture, the book-shelves, the great, comfortable couch, the old-fashioned round mirror that hung between the windows, and her writing-desk of blackened mahogany. It seemed to her that in some way she was never to see these things again, as if she were saying good-bye to them and to the life she had led in that room and in their surroundings. She would be a different woman when she came back to that room. Slowly she descended the stairs and halted for a moment in the hall below. It was not too late to turn back even now. She could hear her companions at their supper very plainly, and could distinguish Esther Thielman's laugh as she exclaimed: "Why, of course, that's the very thing I mean."
It was a strange surprise that Lloyd had in store for them all. Her heart began to beat heavy and thick. Could she even find her voice to speak when the time came? Would it not be better to put it off, to think over the whole matter again between now and to-morrow morning? But she moved her head impatiently. No, she would not turn back. She found that the sliding doors in the drawing-room had been closed, and so went to the door that opened into the dining-room from the hall itself. It stood ajar. Lloyd pushed it open, entered, and, closing the door behind her, stood there leaning against it.
The table was almost full; only two or three places besides her own were unoccupied. There was Miss Bergyn at the head; the fever nurse, Miss Douglass, at her right, and, lower down, Lloyd saw Esther Thielman; Delia Craig, just back from a surgical case of Dr. Street's; Miss Page, the oldest and most experienced nurse of them all; Gilbertson, whom every one called by her last name; Miss Ives and Eleanor Bogart, who had both taken doctors' degrees, and could have practised if they had desired; Miss Wentworth, who had served an apprenticeship in a missionary hospital in Armenia, and had known Clara Barton, and, last of all, the newcomer, Miss Truslow, very young and very pretty, who had never yet had a case, and upon whose diploma the ink was hardly dry.
At first, so quietly had she entered, no one took any notice of Lloyd, and she stood a moment, her back to the door, wondering how she should begin. Everybody seemed to be in the best of humour; a babel of talk was in the air; conversations were going forward, carried on across the table, or over intervening shoulders.
"Why, of course, don't you see, that's the very thing I meant--" "--I think you can get that already sized, though, and with a stencil figure if you want it--" "--Really, it's very interesting; the first part is stupid, but she has some very good ideas." " --Yes, at Vanoni's. But we get a reduction, you know--" "--and, oh, listen; this is too funny; she turned around and said, very prim and stiff, 'No, indeed; I'm too old a woman.' Funny! If I think of that on my deathbed I shall laugh--" "--and so that settled it. How could I go on after that--?" " --Must you tack it on? The walls are so hard--" "Let Rownie do it; she knows. Oh, here's the invalid!"
"Oh, why, it's Lloyd! We're so glad you're able to come down!"
But when they had done exclaiming over her reappearance among them Lloyd still remained as she was, her back against the door, standing very straight, her hands at her side. She did not immediately reply. Heads were turned in her direction. The talk fell away by rapid degrees as they began to notice the paleness of her face and the strange, firm set of her mouth.
"Sit down, Lloyd," said Miss Bergyn; "don't stand. You are not very well yet; I'll have Rownie bring you a glass of sherry."
There was a silence. Then at length: "No," said Lloyd quietly. "I don't want any sherry. I don't want any supper. I came down to tell you that you are all wrong in thinking I did what I could with my typhoid case at Medford. You think I left only after the patient had died. I did not; I left before. There was a crisis of some kind. I don't know what it was, because I was not in the sick-room at the time, and I did not go when I was called. The doctor was not there either; he had gone out and left the case in my charge. There was nobody with the patient but a servant. The servant called me, but I did not go. Instead I came away and left the house. The patient died that same day. It is that that I wanted to tell you. Do you all understand--perfectly? I left my patient at the moment of a crisis, and with no one with him but a servant. And he died that same afternoon."
Then she went out, and the closing of the door jarred sharply upon the great silence that had spread throughout the room.
Lloyd went back to her room, closed and locked the door, and, sinking down upon the floor by the couch, bowed her head upon her folded arms. But she was in no mood for weeping, and her eyes were dry. She was conscious chiefly that she had taken an irrevocable step, that her head had begun to ache. There was no exhilaration in her mind now; she did not feel any of the satisfaction of attainment after struggle, of triumph after victory. More than once she even questioned herself if, after all, her confession had been necessary. But now she was weary unto death of the whole wretched business. Now she only knew that her head was aching fiercely; she did not care either to look into the past or forward into the future. The present occupied her; for the present her head was aching.
But before Lloyd went to bed that night Miss Bergyn knew the whole truth as to what had happened at Dr. Pitts's house. The superintendent nurse had followed Lloyd to her room almost immediately, and would not be denied. She knew very well that Lloyd Searight had never left a dying patient of her own volition. Intuitively she guessed at something hidden.
"Lloyd," she said decisively, "don't ask me to believe that you went of your own free will. Tell me just what happened. Why did you go? Ask me to believe anything but that you--no, I won't say the word. There was some very good reason, wasn't there?"
"I--I cannot explain," Lloyd answered. "You must think what you choose. You wouldn't understand."
But, happily, when Lloyd's reticence finally broke Miss Bergyn did understand. The superintendent nurse knew Bennett only by report. But Lloyd she had known for years, and realised that if she had yielded, it had only been after the last hope had been tried. In the end Lloyd told her everything that had occurred. But, though she even admitted Bennett's affection for her, she said nothing about herself, and Miss Bergyn did not ask.
"I know, of course," said the superintendent nurse at length, "you hate to think that you were made to go; but men are stronger than women, Lloyd, and such a man as that must be stronger than most men. You were not to blame because you left the case, and you are certainly not to blame for Mr. Ferriss's death. Now I shall give it out here in the house that you had a very good reason for leaving your case, and that while we can't explain it any more particularly, I have had a talk with you and know all about it, and am perfectly satisfied. Then I shall go out to Medford and see Dr. Pitts. It would be best," she added, for Lloyd had made a gesture of feeble dissent. "He must understand perfectly, and we need not be afraid of any talk about the matter at all. What has happened has happened 'in the profession,' and I don't believe it will go any further."
* * * * * Lloyd returned to Bannister toward the end of the week. How long she would remain she did not know, but for the present the association of the other nurses was more than she was able to bear. Later, when the affair had become something of an old story, she would return, resuming her work as though nothing had happened.
Hattie met her at the railway station with the phaeton and the ponies. She was radiant with delight at the prospect of having Lloyd all to herself for an indefinite period of time.
"And you didn't get sick, after all?" she exclaimed, clasping her hands. "Was your patient as sick as I was? Weren't his parents glad that you made him well again?"
Lloyd put her hand over the little girl's mouth.
"Let us not talk any 'shop,' Hattie," she said, trying to smile.
But on the morning after her arrival Lloyd woke in her own white room of the old farmhouse, abruptly conscious of some subtle change that had occurred to her overnight. For the first time since the scene in the breakfast-room at Medford she was aware of a certain calmness that had come to her. Perhaps she had at last begun to feel the good effects of the trial by fire which she had voluntarily undergone--to know a certain happiness that now there was no longer any deceit in her heart. This she had uprooted and driven out by force of her own will. It was gone. But now, on this morning, she seemed to feel that this was not all.
Something else had left her--something that of late had harassed her and goaded her and embittered her life, and mocked at her gentleness and kindness, was gone. That fierce, truculent hatred that she had so striven to put from her, now behold! of its own accord, it had seemed to leave her. How had it happened? Before she had dared the ordeal of confession this feeling of hatred, this perverse and ugly changeling that had brooded in her heart, had seemed too strong, too deeply seated to be moved. Now, suddenly, it had departed, unbidden, without effort on her part.
Vaguely Lloyd wondered at this thing. In driving deceit from her it would appear that she had also driven out hatred, that the one could not stay so soon as the other had departed. Could the one exist apart from the other? Was there, then, some strange affinity in all evil, as, perhaps, in all good, so that a victory over one bad impulse meant a victory over many? Without thought of gain or of reward, she had held to what was right through the confusion and storm and darkness. Was this to be, after all, her reward, her gain? Possibly; but she could not tell, she could not see. The confusion was subsiding, the storm had passed, but much of the darkness yet remained. Deceit she had fought from out her heart; silently Hatred had stolen after it. Love had not returned to his old place, and never, never would, but the changeling was gone, and the house was swept and garnished.
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{
"id": "16096"
}
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8
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None
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The day after the funeral, Bennett returned alone to Dr. Pitts's house at Medford, and the same evening his trunks and baggage, containing his papers--the records, observations, journals, and log-books of the expedition--followed him.
As Bennett entered the gate of the place that he had chosen to be his home for the next year, he was aware that the windows of one of the front rooms upon the second floor were wide open, the curtains tied up into loose knots; inside a servant came and went, putting the room to rights again, airing it and changing the furniture. In the road before the house he had seen the marks of the wheels of the undertaker's wagon where it had been backed up to the horse-block. As he closed the front door behind him and stood for a moment in the hallway, his valise in his hand, he saw, hanging upon one of the pegs of the hat-rack, the hat Ferriss had last worn. Bennett put down his valise quickly, and, steadying himself against the wall, leaned heavily against it, drawing a deep breath, his eyes closing.
The house was empty and, but for the occasional subdued noises that came from the front room at the end of the hall, silent. Bennett picked up his valise again and went upstairs to the rooms that had been set apart for him. He did not hang his hat upon the hat-rack, but carried it with him.
The housekeeper, who met him at the head of the stairs and showed him the way to his apartments, inquired of him as to the hours he wished to have his meals served. Bennett told her, and then added: "I will have all my meals in the breakfast-room, the one you call the glass-room, I believe. And as soon as the front room is ready I shall sleep there. That will be my room after this."
The housekeeper stared. "It won't be quite safe, sir, for some time. The doctor gave very strict orders about ventilating it and changing the furniture."
Bennett merely nodded as if to say he understood, and the housekeeper soon after left him to himself. The afternoon passed, then the evening. Such supper as Bennett could eat was served according to his orders in the breakfast-room. Afterward he called Kamiska, and went for a long walk over the country roads in a direction away from the town, proceeding slowly, his hands clasped behind his back. Later, toward ten o'clock, he returned. He went upstairs toward his room with the half-formed idea of looking over and arranging his papers before going to bed. Sleep he could not; he foresaw that clearly.
But Bennett was not yet familiar with the arrangement of the house. His mind was busy with other things; he was thoughtful, abstracted, and upon reaching the stair landing on the second floor, turned toward the front of the house when he should have turned toward the rear. He entered what he supposed to be his room, lit the gas, then stared about him in some perplexity.
The room he was in was almost bare of furniture. Even part of the carpet had been taken up. The windows were wide open; a stale odour of drugs pervaded the air, while upon the bed nothing remained but the mattress and bolster. For a moment Bennett looked about him bewildered, then he started sharply. This was--had been--the sick-room. Here, upon that bed, Ferriss had died; here had been enacted one scene in the terrible drama wherein he, Bennett, had played so conspicuous a part.
As Bennett stood there looking about him, one hand upon the foot-board of the bed, a strange, formless oppression of the spirit weighed heavily upon him. He seemed to see upon that naked bed the wasted, fever-stricken body of the dearest friend he had ever known. It was as though Ferriss were lying in state there, with black draperies hung about the bier and candles burning at the head and foot. Death had been in that room. Empty though it was, a certain religious solemnity, almost a certain awe, seemed to bear down upon the senses. Before he knew it Bennett found himself kneeling at the denuded bed, his face buried, his arms flung wide across the place where Ferriss had last reposed.
He could not say how long he remained thus--perhaps ten minutes, perhaps an hour. He seemed to come to himself once more when he stepped out into the hall again, closing and locking the door of the death-room behind him. But now all thought of work had left him. In the morning he would arrange his papers. It was out of the question to think of sleep. He descended once more to the lower floor of the silent house, and stepped out again into the open air.
On the veranda, close beside him, was a deep-seated wicker arm-chair. Bennett sank down into it, drawing his hands wearily across his forehead. The stillness of a summer night had settled broadly over the vast, dim landscape. There was no moon; all the stars were out. Very far off a whippoorwill was calling incessantly. Once or twice from the little orchard close at hand an apple dropped with a faint rustle of leaves and a muffled, velvety impact upon the turf. Kamiska, wide awake, sat motionless upon her haunches on the steps, looking off into the night, cocking an ear to every faintest sound.
Well, Ferriss was dead, and he, Bennett, was responsible. His friend, the man whom most he loved, was dead. The splendid fight he had made for his life during that ferocious struggle with the Ice had been all of no effect. Without a murmur, without one complaint he had borne starvation, the bitter arctic cold, privation beyond words, the torture of the frost that had gnawed away his hands, the blinding fury of the snow and wind, the unceasing and incredible toil with sledge and pack--all the terrible hardship of an unsuccessful attempt to reach the Pole, only to die miserably in his bed, alone, abandoned by the man and woman whom, of all people of the world, he had most loved and trusted. And he, Bennett, had been to blame.
Was Ferriss conscious during that last moment? Did he know; would he, sometime, somewhere, know? It could not be said. Forever that must remain a mystery. And, after all, had Bennett done right in keeping Lloyd from the sick-room? Now that all was over, now that the whole fearful tragedy could be judged somewhat calmly and in the light of reason, the little stealthy doubt began to insinuate itself.
At first he had turned from it, raging and furious, stamping upon it as upon an intruding reptile. The rough-hewn, simple-natured man, with his arrogant and vast self-confidence, his blind, unshaken belief in the wisdom of his own decisions, had never in his life before been willing to admit that he could be mistaken, that it was possible for him to resolve upon a false line of action. He had always been right. But now a change had come. A woman had entangled herself in the workings of his world, the world that hitherto had been only a world of men for him--and now he faltered, now he questioned himself, now he scrutinised his motives, now the simple became complicated, the straight crooked, right mingled with wrong, bitter with sweet, falseness with truth.
He who had faith in himself to remove mountains, he who could drive his fellow-men as a herder drives his sheep, he who had forced the vast grip of the Ice, had, with a battering ram's force, crushed his way through those terrible walls, shattered and breached and broken down the barriers, now in this situation involving a woman--had he failed? Had he weakened? And bigger, stronger, and more persistently doubt intruded itself into his mind.
Hitherto Bennett's only salvation from absolute despair had been the firm consciousness of his own rectitude. In that lay his only comfort, his only hope, his one, strong-built fabric of defence. If that was undermined, if that was eaten away, what was there left for him? Carefully, painfully, and with such minuteness as he could command, he went over the whole affair from beginning to end, forcing his unwilling mind--so unaccustomed to such work--to weigh each chance, to gauge each opportunity. If _this_ were so, if _that_ had been done, then would _such_ results have followed? Suppose he had not interfered, suppose he had stood aside, would Lloyd have run such danger, after all, and would Ferriss at this time have been alive, and perhaps recovering? Had he, Bennett, been absolutely mad; had he been blind and deaf to reason; had he acted the part of a brute--a purblind, stupid, and unutterably selfish brute--thinking chiefly of himself, after all, crushing the woman who was so dear to him, sacrificing the life of the man he loved, blundering in there, besotted and ignorant, acting the bully's part, unnecessarily frightened, cowardly where he imagined himself brave; weak, contemptibly weak, where he imagined himself strong? Might it not have been avoided if he had been even merely reasonable, as, in like case, an ordinary man would have been? He, who prided himself upon the promptness and soundness of his judgment in great crises, had lost his head and all power of self-control in this greatest crisis of all.
The doubt came back to him again and again. Trample it, stifle it, dash it from him as he would, each time it returned a little stronger, a little larger, a little more insistent. Perhaps, after all, he had made a mistake; perhaps, after all, Lloyd ran no great danger; perhaps, after all, Ferriss might now have been alive. All at once Bennett seemed to be sure of this.
Then it became terrible. Alone there, in the darkness and in the night, Bennett went down into the pit. Abruptly he seemed to come to himself--to realise what he had done, as if rousing from a nightmare. Remorse, horror, self-reproach, the anguish of bereavement, the infinite regret of things that never were to be again, the bitterness of a vanished love, self-contempt too abject for expression, the heart-breaking grief of the dreadful might-have-been, one by one, he knew them all. One by one, like the slow accumulation of gigantic burdens, the consequences of his folly descended upon him, heavier, more intolerably, more inexorably fixed with every succeeding moment, while the light of truth and reason searched every corner of his mind, and his doubt grew and hardened into certainty.
If only Bennett could have believed that, in spite of what had happened, Lloyd yet loved him, he could have found some ray of light in the darkness wherein he groped, some saving strength to bear the weight of his remorse and sorrow. But now, just in proportion as he saw clearer and truer he saw that he must look for no help in that direction. Being what Lloyd was, it was impossible for her, even though she wished it, to love him now--love the man who had broken her! The thought was preposterous. He remembered clearly that she had warned him of just this. No, that, too, the one sweetness of his rugged life, he must put from him as well--had already, and of his own accord, put from him.
How go on? Of what use now was ambition, endeavour, and the striving to attain great ends? The thread of his life was snapped; his friend was dead, and the love of the one woman of his world. For both he was to blame. Of what avail was it now to continue his work?
Ferriss was dead. Who now would stand at his side when the darkness thickened on ahead and obstacles drew across the path and Death overhead hung poised and menacing?
Lloyd's love for him was dead. Who now to bid him godspeed as his vessel's prow swung northward and the water whitened in her wake? Who now to wait behind when the great fight was dared again, to wait behind and watch for his home-coming; and when the mighty hope had been achieved, the goal of all the centuries attained, who now to send that first and dearest welcome out to him when the returning ship showed over the horizon's rim, flagged from her decks to her crosstrees in all the royal blazonry of an immortal triumph?
Now, that triumph was never to be for him. Ambition, too, was dead; some other was to win where now he could but lose, to gain where now he could but fail; some other stronger than he, more resolute, more determined. At last Bennett had come to this, he who once had been so imperial in the consciousness of his power, so arrogant, so uncompromising. Beaten, beaten at last; defeated, daunted, driven from his highest hopes, abandoning his dearest ambitions. And how, and why? Not by the Enemy he had so often faced and dared, not by any power external to himself; but by his very self's self, crushed by the engine he himself had set in motion, shattered by the recoil of the very force that for so long had dwelt within himself. Nothing in all the world could have broken him but that. Danger, however great, could not have cowed him; circumstances, however hopeless, could not have made him despair; obstacles, however vast, could not have turned him back. Himself was the only Enemy that could have conquered; his own power the only one to which he would have yielded. And fate had so ordered it that this one Enemy of all others, this one power of all others, had turned upon and rent him. The mystery of it! The terror of it! Why had he never known? How was it he had never guessed? What was this ruthless monster, this other self, that for so long had slept within his flesh, strong with his better strength, feeding and growing big with that he fancied was the best in him, that tricked him with his noblest emotion--the love of a good woman--lured him to a moment of weakness, then suddenly, and without warning, leaped at his throat and struck him to the ground?
He had committed one of those offences which the law does not reach, but whose punishment is greater than any law can inflict. Retribution had been fearfully swift. His career, Ferriss, and Lloyd--ambition, friendship, and the love of a woman--had been a trinity of dominant impulses in his life. Abruptly, almost in a single instant, he had lost them all, had thrown them away. He could never get them back. Bennett started sharply. What was this on his cheek; what was this that suddenly dimmed his eyes? Had it actually come to this? And this was he--Bennett--the same man who had commanded the Freja expedition. No, it was not the same man. That man was dead. He ground his teeth, shaken with the violence of emotions that seemed to be tearing his heart to pieces. Lost, lost to him forever! Bennett bowed his head upon his folded arms. Through his clenched teeth his words seemed almost wrenched from him, each word an agony.
"Dick--Dick, old man, you're gone, gone from me, and it was I who did it; and Lloyd, she too--she--God help me!"
Then the tension snapped. The great, massive frame shook with grief from head to heel, and the harsh, angular face, with its salient jaw and hard, uncouth lines, was wet with the first tears he had ever known.
He was roused at length by a sudden movement on the part of the dog. Kamiska had risen to her feet with a low growl, then, as the gate-latch clinked, she threw up her head and gave tongue to the night with all the force of her lungs. Bennett straightened up, thanking fortune that the night was dark, and looked about him. A figure was coming up the front walk, the gravel crunching under foot. It was the figure of a man. At the foot of the steps of the veranda he paused, and as Bennett made a movement turned in his direction and said: "Is this Dr. Pitts's house?"
Bennett's reply was drowned in the clamour of the dog, but the other seemed to understand, for he answered: "I'm looking for Mr. Ferriss--Richard Ferriss, of the Freja; they told me he was brought here."
Kamiska stopped her barking, sniffed once or twice at the man's trouser legs; then, in brusque frenzy of delight, leaped against him, licking his hands, dancing about him on two legs, whining and yelping.
Bennett came forward, and the man changed his position so that the light from the half-open front door shone upon his face.
"Why, Adler!" exclaimed Bennett; "well, where did you come from?"
"Mr. Bennett!" almost shouted the other, snatching off his cap. "It ain't really you, sir!" His face beamed and radiated a joy little short of beatitude. The man was actually trembling with happiness. Words failed him, and as with a certain clumsy tenderness he clasped Bennett's hand in both his own his old-time chief saw the tears in his eyes.
"Oh! Maybe I ain't glad to see you, sir--I thought you had gone away--I didn't know where--I--I didn't know as I was ever going to see you again."
Kamiska herself had been no less tremulously glad to see Adler than was Adler to see Bennett. He stammered, he confused himself, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his eyes danced, he laughed and choked, he dropped his cap. His joy was that of a child, unrestrained, unaffected, as genuine as gold. When they turned back to the veranda he eagerly drew up Bennett's chair for him, his eyes never leaving his face. It was the quivering, inarticulate affection of a dog for its master, faithful, submissive, unquestioning, happy for hours over a chance look, a kind word, a touch of the hand. To Adler's mind it would have been a privilege and an honour to have died for Bennett. Why, he was his chief, his king, his god, his master, who could do no wrong. Bennett could have slain him where he stood and Adler would still have trusted him.
Adler would not sit down until Bennett had twice ordered him to do so, and then he deposited himself in a nearby chair, in as uncomfortable a position as he could devise, allowing only the smallest fraction of his body to be supported as a mark of deference. He remained uncovered, and from time to time nervously saluted. But suddenly he remembered the object of his visit.
"Oh, but I forgot--seeing you like this, unexpected, sir, clean drove Mr. Ferriss out of my mind. How is he getting on? I saw in the papers he was main sick."
"He's dead," said Bennett quietly.
Adler was for the moment stricken speechless. His jaw dropped; he stared, and caught his breath.
"Mr. Ferriss dead!" he exclaimed at length. "I--I can't believe it." He crossed himself rapidly. Bennett made no reply, and for upward of five minutes the two men sat motionless in the chairs, looking off into the night. After a while Adler broke silence and asked a few questions as to Ferriss's sickness and the nature and time of his death--questions which Bennett answered as best he might. But it was evident that Bennett, alive and present there in the flesh, was more to Adler than Ferriss dead.
"But _you're_ all right, sir, ain't you?" he asked at length. "There ain't anything the matter with you?"
"No," said Bennett; looking at him steadily; then suddenly he added: "Adler, I was to blame for Mr. Ferriss's death. If it hadn't been for me he would probably have been alive to-night. It was my fault. I did what I thought was right, when I knew all the time, just as I know now, that I was wrong. So, when any one asks you about Mr. Ferriss's death you are to tell him just what you know about it--understand? Through a mistake I was responsible for his death. I shall not tell you more than that, but that much you ought to know."
Adler looked at Bennett curiously and with infinite amazement. The order of his universe was breaking up about his ears. Bennett, the inscrutable, who performed his wonders in a mystery, impenetrable to common eyes, who moved with his head in the clouds, behold! he was rendering account to him, Adler, the meanest of his subjects--the king was condescending to the vassal, was admitting him to his confidence. And what was this thing he was saying, that he was responsible for Ferriss's death? Adler did not understand; his wits could not adjust themselves to such information. Ferriss was dead, but how was Bennett to blame? The king could do no wrong. Adler did not understand. No doubt Bennett was referring to something that had happened during the retreat over the ice--something that had to be done, and that in the end, and after all this lapse of time, had brought about Mr. Ferriss's death. In any case Bennett had done what was right. For that matter he had been responsible for McPherson's death; but what else had there been to do?
Bennett had spoken as he did after a moment's rapid thinking. To Adler's questions as to the manner of the chief engineer's death Bennett had at first given evasive replies. But a sudden sense of shame at being compelled to dissemble before a subordinate had lashed him across the face. True, he had made a mistake--a fearful, unspeakable mistake--but at least let him be man enough to face and to accept its consequences. It might not be necessary or even expedient to make acknowledgment of his folly in all quarters, but at that moment it seemed to him that his men--at least one of them--who had been under the command of himself and his friend, had a right to be told the truth. It had been only one degree less distasteful to undeceive Adler than it had been to deceive him in the first place. Bennett was not the general to explain his actions to his men. But he had not hesitated a moment.
However, Adler was full of another subject, and soon broke out with: "You know, sir, there's another expedition forming; I suppose you have heard--an English one. They call it the Duane-Parsons expedition. They are going to try the old route by Smith Sound. They are going to winter at Tasiusak, and try to get through the sound as soon as the ice breaks up in the spring. But Duane's ideas are all wrong. He'll make no very high northing, not above eighty-five. I'll bet a hat. When we go up again, sir, will you--will you let me--will you take me along? Did I give satisfaction this last--" "I'm never going up again, Adler," answered Bennett.
"Sho!" said Adler a little blankly. "I thought sure--I never thought that you--why, there ain't no one else but you _can_ do it, captain."
"Oh, yes, there is," said Bennett listlessly. "Duane can--if he has luck. I know him. He's a good man. No, I'm out of it, Adler; I had my chance. It is somebody else's turn now. Do you want to go with Duane? I can give you letters to him. He'd be glad to have you, I know."
Adler started from his place.
"Why, do you think--" he exclaimed vehemently--"do you think I'd go with anybody else but you, sir? Oh, you will be going some of these days, I'm sure of it. We--we'll have another try at it, sir, before we die. We ain't beaten yet."
"Yes, we are, Adler," returned Bennett, smiling calmly; "we'll stay at home now and write our book. But we'll let some one else reach the Pole. That's not for us--never will be, Adler."
At the end of their talk some half-hour later Adler stood up, remarking: "Guess I'd better be standing by if I'm to get the last train back to the City to-night. They told me at the station that she'd clear about midnight." Suddenly he began to show signs of uneasiness, turning his cap about between his fingers, changing his weight from foot to foot. Then at length: "You wouldn't be wanting a man about the place, would you, sir?" And before Bennett could reply he continued eagerly, "I've been a bit of most trades in my time, and I know how to take care of a garden like as you have here; I'm a main good hand with plants and flower things, and I could help around generally." Then, earnestly, "Let me stay, sir--it won't cost--I wouldn't think of taking a cent from you, captain. Just let me act as your orderly for a spell, sir. I'd sure give satisfaction; will you, sir--will you?"
"Nonsense, Adler," returned Bennett; "stay, if you like. I presume I can find use for you. But you must be paid, of course."
"Not a soomarkee," protested the other almost indignantly.
The next day Adler brought his chest down from the City and took up his quarters with Bennett at Medford. Though Dr. Pitts had long since ceased to keep horses, the stable still adjoined the house, and Adler swung his hammock in the coachman's old room. Bennett could not induce him to room in the house itself. Adler prided himself that he knew his place. After their first evening's conversation he never spoke to Bennett until spoken to first, and the resumed relationship of commander and subordinate was inexpressibly dear to him. It was something to see Adler waiting on the table in the "glass-room" in his blue jersey, standing at attention at the door, happy in the mere sight of Bennett at his meals. In the mornings, as soon as breakfast was ready, it was Adler's privilege to announce the fact to Bennett, whom he usually found already at work upon his writing. Returning thence to the dining-room, Adler waited for his lord to appear. As soon as he heard Bennett's step in the hall a little tremor of excitement possessed him. He ran to Bennett's chair, drawing it back for him, and as soon as Bennett had seated himself circled about him with all the pride and solicitude of a motherly hen. He opened his napkin for him, delivered him his paper, and pushed his cup of coffee a half-inch nearer his hand. Throughout the duration of the meal he hardly took his eyes from Bennett's face, watching his every movement with a glow of pride, his hands gently stroking one another in an excess of satisfaction and silent enjoyment.
The days passed; soon a fortnight was gone by. Drearily, mechanically, Bennett had begun work upon his book, the narrative of the expedition. It was repugnant to him. Long since he had lost all interest in polar exploration. As he had said to Adler, he was out of it, finally and irrevocably. His bolt was shot; his role upon the stage of the world was ended. He only desired now to be forgotten as quickly as possible, to lapse into mediocrity as easily and quietly as he could. Fame was nothing to him now. The thundering applause of an entire world that had once been his was mere noise, empty and meaningless. He did not care to reawaken it. The appearance of his book he knew was expected and waited for in every civilised nation of the globe. It would be printed in languages whereof he was ignorant, but it was all one with him now.
The task of writing was hateful to him beyond expression, but with such determination as he could yet summon to his aid Bennett stuck to it, eight, ten, and sometimes fourteen hours each day. In a way his narrative was an atonement. Ferriss was its hero. Almost instinctively Bennett kept the figure of himself, his own achievements, his own plans and ideas, in the background. On more than one page he deliberately ascribed to Ferriss triumphs which no one but himself had attained. It was Ferriss who was the leader, the victor to whom all laurels were due. It was Ferriss whose example had stimulated the expedition to its best efforts in the darkest hours; it was, practically, Ferriss who had saved the party after the destruction of the ship; whose determination, unbroken courage, endurance, and intelligence had pervaded all minds and hearts during the retreat to Kolyuchin Bay.
"Though nominally in command," wrote Bennett, "I continually gave place to him. Without his leadership we should all, unquestionably, have perished before even reaching land. His resolution to conquer, at whatever cost, was an inspiration to us all. Where he showed the way we had to follow; his courage was never daunted, his hope was never dimmed, his foresight, his intelligence, his ingenuity in meeting and dealing with apparently unsolvable problems were nothing short of marvellous. His was the genius of leadership. He was the explorer, born to his work."
One day, just after luncheon, as Bennett, according to his custom, was walking in the garden by the house, smoking a cigar before returning to his work, he was surprised to find himself bleeding at the nose. It was but a trifling matter, and passed off in a few moments, but the fact of its occurrence directed his attention to the state of his health, and he told himself that for the last few days he had not been at all his accustomed self. There had been dull pains in his back and legs; more than once his head had pained him, and of late the continuance of his work had been growing steadily more obnoxious to him, the very physical effort of driving the pen from line to line was a burden.
"Hum!" he said to himself later on in the day, when the bleeding at the nose returned upon him, "I think we need a little quinine."
But the next day he found he could not eat, and all the afternoon, though he held doggedly to his work, he was troubled with nausea. At times a great weakness, a relaxing of all the muscles, came over him. In the evening he sent a note to Dr. Pitts's address in the City, asking him to come down to Medford the next day.
* * * * * On the Monday morning of the following week, some two hours after breakfast, Lloyd met Miss Douglass on the stairs, dressed for the street and carrying her nurse's bag.
"Are you going out?" she asked of the fever nurse in some astonishment. "Where are you going?" for Lloyd had returned to duty, and it was her name that now stood at the top of the list; "I thought it was my turn to go out," she added.
Miss Douglass was evidently much confused.
Her meeting with Lloyd had apparently been unexpected. She halted upon the stairs in great embarrassment, stammering: "No--no, I'm on call. I--I was called out of my turn--specially called--that was it."
"Were you?" demanded Lloyd sharply, for the other nurse was disturbed to an extraordinary degree.
"Well, then; no, I wasn't, but the superintendent--Miss Bergyn--she thought--she advised--you had better see her."
"I will see her," declared Lloyd, "but don't you go till I find out why I was skipped."
Lloyd hurried at once to Miss Bergyn's room, indignant at this slight. Surely, after what had happened, she was entitled to more consideration than this. Of all the staff in the house she should have been the one to be preferred.
Miss Bergyn rose at Lloyd's sudden entrance into her room, and to her question responded: "It was only because I wanted to spare you further trouble and--and embarrassment, Lloyd, that I told Miss Douglass to take your place. This call is from Medford. Dr. Pitts was here himself this morning, and he thought as I did."
"Thought what? I don't understand."
"It seemed to me," answered the superintendent nurse, "that this one case of all others would be the hardest, the most disagreeable for you to take. It seems that Mr. Bennett has leased Dr. Pitts's house from him. He is there now. At the time when Mr. Ferriss was beginning to be ill Mr. Bennett was with him a great deal and undertook to nurse him till Dr. Pitts interfered and put a professional nurse on the case. Since then, too, the doctor has found out that Mr. Bennett has exposed himself imprudently. At any rate, in some way he has contracted the same disease and is rather seriously ill with it. Dr. Pitts wants us to send him a nurse at once. It just happened that it was your turn, and I thought I had better skip your name and send Louise Douglass."
Lloyd sank into a chair, her hands falling limply in her lap. A frown of perplexity gathered on her forehead. But suddenly she exclaimed: "I know--that's all as it may be; but all the staff know that it is my turn to go; everybody in the house knows who is on call. How will it be--what will be thought when it is known that I haven't gone--and after--after my failing once--after this--this other affair? No, I must go. I, of all people, must go--and just because it is a typhoid case, like the other."
"But, Lloyd, how _can_ you?"
True, how could she? Her patient would be the same man who had humiliated her and broken her, had so cruelly misunderstood and wronged her, for whom all her love was dead. How could she face him again? Yet how refuse to take the case? How explain a second failure to her companions? Lloyd made a little movement of distress, clasping her hands together. How the complications followed fast upon each other! No sooner was one difficult situation met and disposed of than another presented itself. Bennett was nothing to her now, yet, for all that, she recoiled instinctively from meeting him again. Not only must she meet him, but she must be with him day after day, hour after hour, at his very side, in all the intimacy that the sick-room involved. On the other hand, how could she decline this case? The staff might condone one apparent and inexplicable defection; another would certainly not be overlooked. But was not this new situation a happy and unlooked-for opportunity to vindicate her impaired prestige in the eyes of her companions? Lloyd made up her mind upon the instant. She rose.
"I shall take the case," she said.
She was not a little surprised at herself. Hardly an instant had she hesitated. On that other occasion when she had believed it right to make confession to her associates it had been hard--at times almost impossible--for her to do her duty as she saw and understood it. This new complication was scarcely less difficult, but once having attained the fine, moral rigour that had carried her through her former ordeal, it became easy now to do right under all or any circumstances, however adverse. If she had failed then, she certainly would have failed now. That she had succeeded then made it all the easier to succeed now. Dimly Lloyd commenced to understand that the mastery of self, the steady, firm control of natural, intuitive impulses, selfish because natural, was a progression. Each victory not only gained the immediate end in view, but braced the mind and increased the force of will for the next shock, the next struggle. She had imagined and had told herself that Bennett had broken her strength for good. But was it really so? Had not defeat in that case been only temporary? Was she not slowly getting back her strength by an unflinching adherence to the simple, fundamental principles of right, and duty, and truth? Was not the struggle with one's self the greatest fight of all, greater, far greater, than had been the conflict between Bennett's will and her own?
Within the hour she found herself once again on her way to Medford. How much had happened, through what changes had she passed since the occasion of her first journey; and Bennett, how he, too, changed; how different he had come to stand in her estimation! Once the thought that he was in danger had been a constant terror to her, and haunted her days and lurked at her side through many a waking night. Was it possible that now his life or death was no more to her than that of any of her former patients? She could not say; she avoided answering the question. Certainly her heart beat no faster at this moment to know that he was in the grip of a perilous disease. She told herself that her Bennett was dead already; that she was coming back to Medford not to care for and watch over the individual, but to combat the disease.
When she arrived at the doctor's house in Medford, a strange-looking man opened the door for her, and asked immediately if she was the nurse.
"Yes," said Lloyd, "I am. Is Dr. Pitts here?"
"Upstairs in his room," answered the other in a whisper, closing the front door with infinite softness. "He won't let me go in, the doctor won't; I--I ain't seen him in four days. Ask the doctor if I can't just have a blink at him--just a little blink through the crack of the door. Just think, Miss, I ain't seen him in four days! Just think of that! And look here, they ain't giving him enough to eat--nothing but milk and chicken soup with rice in it. He never did like rice; that's no kind of rations for a sick man. I fixed him up a bit of duff yesterday, what he used to like so much aboard ship, and Pitts wouldn't let him have it. He regularly laughed in my face."
Lloyd sent word to the doctor by the housekeeper that she had arrived, and on going up found Pitts waiting for her at the door of the sick-room, not that which had been occupied by Ferriss, but another--the guest-chamber of the house, situated toward the rear of the building.
"Why, I expected Miss Douglass!" exclaimed the doctor in a low voice as soon as his eye fell upon Lloyd. "Any one of them but you!"
"I had to come," Lloyd answered quietly, flushing hotly for all that. "It was my turn, and it was not right for me to stay away."
The doctor hesitated an instant, and then dismissed the subject, putting his chin in the air as if to say that, after all, it was not his affair.
"Well," he said, "it's queer to see how things will tangle themselves sometimes. I don't know whether he took this thing from Ferriss or not. Both of them were exposed to the same conditions when their expedition went to pieces and they were taken off by the whaling ships--bad water, weakened constitution, not much power of resistance; in prime condition for the bacillus, and the same cause might have produced the same effect; at any rate, he's in a bad way."
"Is he--very bad?" asked Lloyd.
"Well, he's not the hang-on sort that Mr. Ferriss was; nothing undecided about Captain Ward Bennett; when he's sick, he's sick; rushes right at it like a blind bull. He's as bad now as Mr. Ferriss was in his third week."
"Do you think he will recognise me?"
The doctor shook his head. "No; delirious most of the time--of course--regulation thing. If we don't keep the fever down he'll go out sure. That's the danger in his case. Look at him yourself; here he is. The devil! The animal is sitting up again."
As Lloyd entered the room she saw Bennett sitting bolt upright in his bed, staring straight before him, his small eyes, with their deforming cast, open to their fullest extent, the fingers of his shrunken, bony hands dancing nervously on the coverlet. A week's growth of stubble blackened the lower part of his face. Without a moment's pause he mumbled and muttered with astonishing rapidity, but for the most part the words were undistinguishable. It was, indeed, not the same Bennett, Lloyd had last seen. The great body was collapsed upon itself; the skin of the face was like dry, brown parchment, and behind it the big, massive bones stood out in great knobs and ridges. It needed but a glance to know that here was a man dangerously near to his death. While Lloyd was removing her hat and preparing herself for her work the doctor got Bennett upon his back again and replenished the ice-pack about his head.
"Not much strength left in our friend now," he murmured.
"How long has he been like this?" asked Lloyd as she arranged the contents of her nurse's bag on a table near the window.
"Pretty close to eight hours now. He was conscious yesterday morning, however, for a little while, and wanted to know what his chances were."
They were neither good nor many; the strength once so formidable was ebbing away like a refluent tide, and that with ominous swiftness. Stimulate the life as the doctor would, strive against the enemy's advance as Lloyd might, Bennett continued to sink.
"The devil of it is," muttered the doctor, "that he don't seem to care. He had as soon give up as not. It's hard to save a patient that don't want to save himself. If he'd fight for his life as he did in the arctic, we could pull him through yet. Otherwise--" he shrugged his shoulders almost helplessly.
The next night toward nine o'clock Lloyd took the doctor's place at their patient's bedside, and Pitts, without taking off his clothes, stretched himself out upon the sofa in one of the rooms on the lower floor of the house, with the understanding that the nurse was to call him in case of any change.
But as the doctor was groping his way down the darkened stairway he stumbled against Adler and Kamiska. Adler was sitting on one of the steps, and the dog was on her haunches close at his side; the two were huddled together there in the dark, broad awake, shoulder to shoulder, waiting, watching, and listening for the faint sounds that came at long intervals from the direction of the room where Bennett lay.
As the physician passed him Adler stood up and saluted: "Is he doing any better now, sir?" he whispered.
"Nothing new," returned the other brusquely. "He may get well in three weeks' time or he may die before midnight; so there you are. You know as much about it as I do. Damn that dog!"
He trod upon Kamiska, who forbore heroically to yelp, and went on his way. Adler resumed his place on the stairs, sitting down gingerly, so that the boards should not creak under his weight. He took Kamiska's head between his hands and rocked himself gently to and fro.
"What are we going to do, little dog?" he whispered. "What are we going to do if--if our captain should--if he shouldn't--" he had no words to finish. Kamiska took her place again by his side, and the two resumed their vigil.
Meanwhile, not fifty feet away, a low voice, monotonous and rapid, was keeping up a continuous, murmuring flow of words.
"That's well your number two sledge. All hands on the McClintock now. You've got to do it, men. Forward, get forward, get forward; get on to the south, always to the south--south, south, south! ... There, there's the ice again. That's the biggest ridge yet. At it now! Smash through; I'll break you yet; believe me, I will! There, we broke it! I knew you could, men. I'll pull you through. Now, then, h'up your other sledge. Forward! There will be double rations to-night all round--no--half-rations, quarter-rations.... No, three-fifths of an ounce of dog-meat and a spoonful of alcohol--that's all; that's all, men. Pretty cold night, this--minus thirty-eight. Only a quarter of a mile covered to-day. Everybody suffering in their feet, and so weak--and starving--and freezing." All at once the voice became a wail. "My God! is it never going to end? ... Sh--h, steady, what was that? Who whimpered? Was that Ward Bennett? No whimpering, whatever comes. Stick it out like men, anyway. Fight it out till we drop, but no whimpering.... Who said there were steam whalers off the floe? That's a lie! Forward, forward, get forward to the south--no, not the south; to the _north_, to the north! We'll reach it, we'll succeed; we're most there, men; come on, come on! I tell you this time we'll reach it; one more effort, men! We're most there! What's the latitude? Eighty-five-twenty--eighty-six." The voice began to grow louder: "Come on, men; we're most there! Eighty-seven--eighty-eight--eighty-nine-twenty-five!" He rose to a sitting position. "Eighty-nine-thirty--eighty-nine-forty-five." Suddenly the voice rose to a shout. "Ninety degrees! _By God, it's the Pole! _" The voice died away to indistinct mutterings.
Lloyd was at the bedside by now, and quietly pressed Bennett down upon his back. But as she did so a thrill of infinite pity and compassion quivered through her. She had forced him down so easily. He was so pitifully weak. Woman though she was, she could, with one small hand upon his breast, control this man who at one time had been of such colossal strength--such vast physical force.
Suddenly Bennett began again. "Where's Ferriss? Where's Richard Ferriss? Where's the chief engineer of the Freja Arctic Exploring Expedition?"
He fell silent again, and but for the twitching, dancing hands, lay quiet. Then he cried: "Attention to the roll-call!"
Rapidly and in a low voice he began calling off the muster of the Freja's men and officers, giving the answers himself.
"Adler--here; Blair--here; Dahl--here; Fishbaugh--here; Hawes--here; McPherson--here; Muck Tu--here; Woodward--here; Captain Ward Bennett--here; Dr. Sheridan Dennison--here; Chief Engineer Richard Ferriss--" no answer. Bennett waited for a moment, then repeated the name, "Chief Engineer Richard Ferriss--" Again he was silent; but after a few seconds he called aloud in agony of anxiety, "Chief Engineer Richard Ferriss, answer to the roll-call!"
Then once more he began; his disordered wits calling to mind a different order of things: "Adler--here; Blair--died from exhaustion at Point Kane; Dahl--here; Fishbaugh--starved to death on the march to Kolyuchin Bay; Hawes--died of arctic fever at Cape Kammeni; McPherson--unable to keep up, and abandoned at ninth camp; Muck Tu--here; Woodward--died from starvation at twelfth camp; Dr. Sheridan Dennison--frozen to death at Kolyuchin Bay; Chief Engineer Richard Ferriss--died by the act of his best friend, Captain Ward Bennett!" Again and again Bennett repeated this phrase, calling: "Richard Ferriss! Richard Ferriss!" and immediately adding in a broken voice: "Died by the act of his best friend, Captain Ward Bennett." Or at times it was only the absence of Ferriss that seemed to torture him. He would call the roll, answering "here" to each name until he reached Ferriss; then he would not respond, but instead would cry aloud over and over again, in accents of the bitterest grief, "Richard Ferriss, answer to the roll-call; Richard Ferriss, answer to the roll-call--" Then suddenly, with a feeble, quavering cry, "For God's sake, Dick, answer to the roll-call!"
The hours passed. Ten o'clock struck, then eleven. At midnight Lloyd took the temperature (which had decreased considerably) and the pulse, and refilled the ice-pack about the head. Bennett was still muttering in the throes of delirium, still calling for Ferriss, imploring him to answer to the roll-call; or repeating the words: "Dick Ferriss, chief engineer--died at the hands of his best friend, Ward Bennett," in tones so pitiful, so heart-broken that more than once Lloyd felt the tears running down her cheeks.
"Richard Ferriss, Richard Ferriss, answer to the roll-call; Dick, old man, won't you answer, won't you answer, old chap, when I call you? Won't you come back and say 'It's all right?' Ferriss, Ferriss, answer to my roll-call. ... Died at the hands of his best friend. ... At Kolyuchin Bay. ... Killed, and I did it. ... Forward, men; you've got to do it; snowing to-day and all the ice in motion. ... H'up y'r other sledge. Come on with y'r number four; more pressure-ridges, I'll break you yet! Come on with y'r number four! ... Lloyd Searight, what are you doing in this room?"
On the instant the voice had changed from confused mutterings to distinct, clear-cut words. The transition was so sudden that Lloyd, at the moment busy at her nurse's bag, her back to the bed, wheeled sharply about to find Bennett sitting bolt upright, looking straight at her with intelligent, wide-open eyes. Lloyd's heart for an instant stood still, almost in terror. This sudden leap back from the darkness of delirium into the daylight of consciousness was almost like a rising from the dead, ghost-like, appalling. She caught her breath, trembling in spite of her best efforts, and for an instant leaned a hand upon the table behind her.
But on Bennett's face, ghastly, ravaged by disease, with its vast, protruding jaw, its narrow contracted forehead and unkempt growth of beard, the dawning of intelligence and surprise swiftly gave place to an expression of terrible anxiety and apprehension.
"What are you doing here, Lloyd?" he cried.
"Hush!" she answered quickly as she came forward; "above all things you must not sit up; lie down again and don't talk. You are very sick."
"I know, I know," he answered feebly. "I know what it is. But you must leave here. It's a terrible risk every moment you stay in this room. I want you to go. You understand--at once! Call the doctor. Don't come near the bed," he went on excitedly, struggling to keep himself from sinking back upon the pillows. His breath was coming quick; his eyes were flashing. All the poor, shattered senses were aroused and quivering with excitement and dread.
"It will kill you to stay here," he continued, almost breathless. "Out of this room!" he commanded. "Out of this house! It is mine now; I'm the master here--do you understand? Don't!" he exclaimed as Lloyd put her hands upon his shoulders to force him to lie down again.
"Don't, don't touch me! Stand away from me!"
He tried to draw back from her in the bed. Then suddenly he made a great effort to rise, resisting her efforts.
"I shall put you out, then," he declared, struggling against Lloyd's clasp upon his shoulders, catching at her wrists. His excitement was so intense, his fervour so great that it could almost be said he touched the edge of his delirium again.
"Do you hear, do you hear? Out of this room!"
"No," said Lloyd calmly; "you must be quiet; you must try to go to sleep. This time you cannot make me leave."
He caught her by one arm, and, bracing himself with the other against the headboard of the bed, thrust her back from him with all his might.
"Keep away from me, I tell you; keep back! You shall do as I say! I have always carried my point, and I shall not fail now. Believe me, I shall not. You--you--" he panted as he struggled with her, ashamed of his weakness, humiliated beyond words that she should know it. "I--you shall--you will compel me to use force. Don't let it come to that."
Calmly Lloyd took both his wrists in the strong, quiet clasp of one palm, and while she supported his shoulders with her other arm, laid him down among the pillows again as though he had been a child.
"I'm--I'm a bit weak and trembly just now," he admitted, panting with his exertion; "but, Lloyd, listen. I know how you must dislike me now, but will you please go--go, go at once!"
"No."
What a strange spinning of the wheel of fate was here! In so short a time had their mutual positions been reversed. Now it was she who was strong and he who was weak. It was she who conquered and he who was subdued. It was she who triumphed and he who was humiliated. It was he who implored and she who denied. It was her will and no longer his that must issue victorious from the struggle.
And how complete now was Bennett's defeat! The very contingency he had fought so desperately to avert and for which he had sacrificed Ferriss--Lloyd's care of so perilous a disease--behold! the mysterious turn of the wheel had brought it about, and now he was powerless to resist.
"Oh!" he cried, "have I not enough upon my mind already--Ferriss and his death? Are you going to make me imperil your life too, and after I have tried so hard? You must not stay here."
"I shall stay," she answered.
"I order you to go. This is my house. Send the doctor here. Where's Adler?" Suddenly he fainted.
An hour or two later, in the gray of the morning, at a time when Bennett was sleeping quietly under the influence of opiates, Lloyd found herself sitting at the window in front of the small table there, her head resting on her hand, thoughtful, absorbed, and watching with but half-seeing eyes the dawn growing pink over the tops of the apple-trees in the orchard near by.
The window was open just wide enough for the proper ventilation of the room. For a long time she sat thus without moving, only from time to time smoothing back the heavy, bronze-red hair from her temples and ears. By degrees the thinking faculties of her brain, as it were, a myriad of delicate interlacing wheels, slowly decreased in the rapidity and intensity of their functions. She began to feel instead of to think. As the activity of her mind lapsed to a certain pleasant numbness, a vague, formless, nameless emotion seemed to be welling to the surface. It was no longer a question of the brain. What then? Was it the heart? She gave no name to this new emotion; it was too confused as yet, too undefinable. A certain great sweetness seemed to be coming upon her, but she could not say whether she was infinitely sad or supremely happy; a smile was on her lips, and yet the tears began to brim in her dull-blue eyes.
She felt as if some long, fierce struggle, or series of struggles, were at last accomplished; as if for a long period of time she had been involved in the maze and tortuous passages of some gloomy cavern, but at length, thence issuing, had again beheld the stars. A great tenderness, a certain tremulous joy in all things that were true and good and right, grew big and strong within her; the delight in living returned to her. The dawn was brightening and flushing over all the world, and colour, light, and warmth were coming back into her life. The night had been still and mild, but now the first breath of the morning breeze stirred in the trees, in the grass, in the flowers, and the thick, dew-drenched bushes along the roadside, and a delicious aroma of fields and woods and gardens came to her. The sweetness of life and the sweetness of those things better than life and more enduring, the things that do not fail, nor cease, nor vanish away, suddenly entered into that room and descended upon her almost in the sense of a benediction, a visitation, something mystic and miraculous. It was a moment to hope all things, to believe all things, to endure all things.
She caught her breath, listening--for what she did not know. Once again, just as it had been in that other dawn, in that other room where the Enemy had been conquered, the sense of some great happiness was in the air, was coming to her swiftly. But now the greater Enemy had been outfought, the morning of a greater day was breaking and spreading, and the greatest happiness in the world was preparing for her. How it had happened she did not know. Now was not the moment to think, to reason, to reflect. It seemed as though the rushing of wings was all about her, as though a light brighter than the day was just about to break upon her sight, as though a music divinely beautiful was just about to burst upon her ear. But the light was not for her eye; the music was not for her ear. The radiance and the harmony came from herself, from within her. The intellect was numb. Only the heart was alive on this wonderful midsummer's morning, and it was in her heart that the radiance shone and the harmony vibrated. Back in his place once more, high on his throne, the love that she believed had forever departed from her sat exalted and triumphant, singing to the cadence of that unheard music, shining and magnificent in the glory of that new-dawned light.
Would Bennett live? Suddenly that question leaped up in her mind and stood in the eye of her imagination, terrible, menacing--a hideous, grim spectre, before which Lloyd quailed with failing heart and breath. The light, the almost divine radiance that had burst upon her, nevertheless threw a dreadful shadow before it. Beneath the music she heard the growl of the thunder. Her new-found happiness was not without its accompanying dismay. Love had not returned to her heart alone. With it had returned the old Enemy she had once believed had left her forever. Now it had come back. As before, it lurked and leered at her from dark corners. It crept to her side, to her back, ready to leap, ready to strike, to clutch at her throat with cold fingers and bear her to the earth, rending her heart with a grief she told herself she could not endure and live. She loved him now with all her mind and might; how could it ever have been otherwise? He belonged to her--and she? Why, she only lived with his life; she seemed so bound to him as to be part of his very self. Literally, she could not understand how it would be possible for her to live if he should die. It seemed to her that with his death some mysterious element of her life, something vital and fundamental, for which there was no name, would disintegrate upon the instant and leave her without the strength necessary for further existence. But this would, however, be a relief. The prospect of the years after his death, the fearful loneliness of life without him, was a horror before which she veritably believed her reason itself must collapse.
"Lloyd."
Bennett was awake again and watching her with feverish anxiety from where he lay among the pillows. "Lloyd," he repeated, the voice once so deep and powerful quavering pitifully. "I was wrong. I don't want you to go. Don't leave me."
In an instant Lloyd was at his side, kneeling by the bed. She caught one of the great, gnarled hands, seamed and corded and burning with the fever. "Never, never, dearest; never so long as I shall live."
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{
"id": "16096"
}
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9
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None
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When Adler heard Bennett's uncertain steps upon the stairs and the sound of Lloyd's voice speaking to him and urging that there was no hurry, and that he was to take but one step at a time, he wheeled swiftly about from the windows of the glass-room, where he had been watching the October breeze stirring the crimson and yellow leaves in the orchard, and drew back his master's chair from the breakfast table and stood behind it expectantly, his eyes watching the door.
Lloyd held back the door, and Bennett came in, leaning heavily on Dr. Pitts's shoulder. Adler stiffened upon the instant as if in answer to some unheard bugle-call, and when Bennett had taken his seat, pushed his chair gently to the table and unfolded his napkin with a flourish as though giving a banner to the wind. Pitts almost immediately left the room, but Lloyd remained supervising Bennett's breakfast, pouring his milk, buttering his toast, and opening his eggs.
"Coffee?" suddenly inquired Bennett. Lloyd shook her head.
"Not for another week."
Bennett looked with grim disfavour upon the glass of milk that Lloyd had placed at his elbow.
"Such slop!" he growled. "Why not a little sugar and warm water, and be done with it? Lloyd, I can't drink this stuff any more. Why, it's warm yet!" he exclaimed aggrievedly and with deep disgust, abruptly setting down the glass.
"Why, of course it is," she answered; "we brought the cow here especially for you, and the boy has just done milking her--and it's not slop."
"Slop! slop!" declared Bennett. He picked up the glass again and looked at her over the rim.
"I'll drink this stuff this one more time to please you," he said. "But I promise you this will be the last time. You needn't ask me again. I have drunk enough milk the past three weeks to support a foundling hospital for a year."
Invariably, since the period of his convalescence began, Bennett made this scene over his hourly glass of milk, and invariably it ended by his gulping it down at nearly a single swallow.
Adler brought in the mail and the morning paper. Three letters had come for Lloyd, and for Bennett a small volume on "Recent Arctic Research and Exploration," sent by his publisher with a note to the effect that, as the latest authority on the subject, Bennett was sure to find it of great interest. In an appendix, inserted after the body of the book had been made up, the Freja expedition and his own work were briefly described. Lloyd put her letters aside, and, unfolding the paper, said, "I'll read it while you eat your breakfast. Have you everything you want? Did you drink your milk--all of it?" But out of the corner of her eye she noted that Adler was chuckling behind the tray that he held to his face, and with growing suspicion she leaned forward and peered about among the breakfast things. Bennett had hidden his glass behind the toast-rack.
"And it's only two-thirds empty," she declared. "Ward, why will you be such a boy?"
"Oh, well," he grumbled, and without more ado drank off the balance.
"Now I'll read to you if you have everything you want. Adler, I think you can open one of those windows; it's so warm out of doors."
While he ate his breakfast of toast, milk, and eggs Lloyd skimmed through the paper, reading aloud everything she thought would be of interest to him. Then, after a moment, her eye was caught and held by a half-column article expanded from an Associated Press despatch.
"Oh!" she cried, "listen to this!" and continued: "'Word has been received at this place of the safe arrival of the arctic steamship Curlew at Tasiusak, on the Greenland coast, bearing eighteen members of the Duane-Parsons expedition. Captain Duane reports all well and an uneventful voyage. It is his intention to pass the winter at Tasiusak, collecting dogs and also Esquimau sledges, which he believes superior to European manufacture for work in rubble-ice, and to push on with the Curlew in the spring as soon as Smith Sound shall be navigable. This may be later than Captain Duane supposes, as the whalers who have been working in the sound during the past months bring back news of an unusually early winter and extraordinary quantities of pack-ice both in the sound itself and in Kane Basin. This means a proportionately late open season next year, and the Curlew's departure from Tasiusak may be considerably later than anticipated. It is considered by the best arctic experts an unfortunate circumstance that Captain Duane elected to winter south of Cape Sabine, as the condition of the ice in Smith Sound can never be relied upon nor foretold. Should the entrance to the sound still be encumbered with ice as late as July, which is by no means impossible, Captain Duane will be obliged to spend another winter at Tasiusak or Upernvick, consuming alike his store of provisions and the patience of his men.'"
There was a silence when Lloyd finished reading. Bennett chipped at the end of his second egg.
"Well?" she said at length.
"Well," returned Bennett, "what's all that to me?"
"It's your work," she answered almost vehemently.
"No, indeed. It's Duane's work."
"What do you mean?"
"Let him try now."
"And you?" exclaimed Lloyd, looking intently at him.
"My dear girl, I had my chance and failed. Now--" he raised a shoulder indifferently--"now, I don't care much about it. I've lost interest."
"I don't believe you," she cried energetically; "you of all men." Behind Bennett's chair she had a momentary glimpse of Adler, who had tucked his tray under his arm and was silently applauding in elaborate pantomime. She saw his lips form the words "That's it; that's right. Go right ahead."
"Besides, I have my book to do, and, besides that, I'm an invalid--an invalid who drinks slop."
"And you intend to give it all up--your career?"
"Well--if I should, what then?" Suddenly he turned to her abruptly. "I should not think _you_ would want me to go again. Do _you_ urge me to go?"
Lloyd made a sudden little gasp, and her hand involuntarily closed upon his as it rested near her on the table.
"Oh, no!" she cried. "Oh, no, I don't! You are right. It's not your work now."
"Well, then," muttered Bennett as though the question was forever settled.
Lloyd turned to her mail, and one after another slit the envelopes, woman fashion, with a shell hairpin. But while she was glancing over the contents of her letters Bennett began to stir uneasily in his place. From time to time he stopped eating and shot a glance at Lloyd from under his frown, noting the crisp, white texture of her gown and waist, the white scarf with its high, tight bands about the neck, the tiny, golden buttons in her cuffs, the sombre, ruddy glow of her cheeks, her dull-blue eyes, and the piles and coils of her bronze-red hair. Then, abruptly, he said: "Adler, you can go."
Adler saluted and withdrew.
"Whom are your letters from?" Bennett demanded by way of a beginning.
Lloyd replaced the hairpin in her hair, answering: "From Dr. Street, from Louise Douglass, and from--Mr. Campbell."
"Hum! well, what do they say? Dr. Street and--Louise Douglass?"
"Dr. Street asks me to take a very important surgical case as soon as I get through here, 'one of the most important and delicate, as well as one of the most interesting, operations in his professional experience.' Those are his words. Louise writes four pages, but she says nothing; just chatters."
"And Campbell?" Bennett indicated with his chin the third rather voluminous letter at Lloyd's elbow. "He seems to have written rather more than four pages. What does he say? Does he 'chatter' too?"
Lloyd smoothed back her hair from one temple.
"H'm--no. He says--something. But never mind what he says. Ward, I must be going back to the City. You don't need a nurse any more."
"What's that?" Bennett's frown gathered on the instant, and with a sharp movement of the head that was habitual to him he brought his one good eye to bear upon her.
Lloyd repeated her statement, answering his remonstrance and expostulation with: "You are almost perfectly well, and it would not be at all--discreet for me to stay here an hour longer than absolutely necessary. I shall go back to-morrow or next day."
"But, I tell you, I am still very sick. I'm a poor, miserable, shattered wreck."
He made a great show of coughing in hollow, lamentable tones.
"Listen to that, and last night I had a high fever, and this morning I had a queer sort of pain about here--" he vaguely indicated the region of his chest. "I think I am about to have a relapse."
"Nonsense! You can't frighten me at all."
"Oh, well," he answered easily, "I shall go with you--that is all. I suppose you want to see me venture out in such raw, bleak weather as this--with my weak lungs."
"Your weak lungs? How long since?"
"Well, I--I've sometimes thought my lungs were not very strong."
"Why, dear me, you poor thing; I suppose the climate at Kolyuchin Bay _was_ a trifle too bracing--" "What does Campbell say?" " --and the diet too rich for your blood--" "What does Campbell say?" " --and perhaps you did overexert--" "Lloyd Searight, what does Mr. Campbell say in that--" "He asks me to marry him."
"To mum--mar--marry him? Well, damn his impudence!"
"Mr. Campbell is an eminently respectable and worthy gentleman."
"Oh, well, I don't care. Go! Go, marry Mr. Campbell. Be happy. I forgive you both. Go, leave me to die alone."
"Sir, I will go. Forget that you ever knew an unhappy wom--female, whose only fault was that she loved you."
"Go! and sometimes think of me far away on the billow and drop a silent tear--I say, how are you going to answer Campbell's letter?"
"Just one word--'_Come_.'"
"Lloyd, be serious. This is no joke."
"Joke!" she repeated hollowly. "It is, indeed, a sorry joke. Ah! had I but loved with a girlish love, it would have been better for me."
Then suddenly she caught him about the neck with both her arms, and kissed him on the cheek and on the lips, a little quiver running through her to her finger-tips, her mood changing abruptly to a deep, sweet earnestness.
"Oh, Ward, Ward!" she cried, "all our unhappiness and all our sorrow and trials and anxiety and cruel suspense are over now, and now we really have each other and love each other, dear, and all the years to come are only going to bring happiness to us, and draw us closer and nearer to each other."
"But here's a point, Lloyd," said Bennett after a few moments and when they had returned to coherent speech; "how about your work? You talk about my career; what about yours? We are to be married, but I know just how you have loved your work. It will be a hard wrench for you if you give that up. I am not sure that I should ask it of you. This letter of Street's, now. I know just how eager you must be to take charge of such operations--such important cases as he mentions. It would be very selfish of me to ask you to give up your work. It's your life-work, your profession, your career."
Lloyd took up Dr. Street's letter, and, holding it delicately at arm's length, tore it in two and let the pieces flutter to the floor.
"That, for my life-work," said Lloyd Searight.
As she drew back from him an instant later Bennett all at once and very earnestly demanded: "Lloyd, do you love me?"
"With all my heart, Ward."
"And you will be my wife?"
"You know that I will."
"Then"--Bennett picked up the little volume of "Arctic Research" which he had received that morning, and tossed it from him upon the floor--"that, for my career," he answered.
For a moment they were silent, looking gladly into each other's eyes. Then Bennett drew her to him again and held her close to him, and once more she put her arms around his neck and nestled her head down upon his shoulder with a little comfortable sigh of contentment and relief and quiet joy, for that the long, fierce trial was over; that there were no more fights to be fought, no more grim, hard situations to face, no more relentless duties to be done. She had endured and she had prevailed; now her reward was come. Now for the long, calm years of happiness.
Later in the day, about an hour after noon, Bennett took his daily nap, carefully wrapped in shawls and stretched out in a wicker steamer-chair in the glass-room. Lloyd, in the meantime, was busy in the garden at the side of the house, gathering flowers which she intended to put in a huge china bowl in Bennett's room. While she was thus occupied Adler, followed by Kamiska, came up. Adler pulled off his cap.
"I beg pardon, Miss," he began, turning his cap about between his fingers. "I don't want to seem to intrude, and if I do I just guess you'd better tell me so first off. But what did he say--or did he say anything--the captain, I mean--this morning about going up again? I heard you talking to him at breakfast. That's it, that's the kind of talk he needs. I can't talk that talk to him. I'm so main scared of him. I wouldn't 'a' believed the captain would ever say he'd give up, would ever say he was beaten. But, Miss, I'm thinking as there's something wrong, main wrong with the captain these days besides fever. He's getting soft--that's what he is. If you'd only know the man that he was--before--while we was up there in the Ice! That's his work, that's what he's cut out for. There ain't nobody can do it but him, and to see him quit, to see him chuck up his chance to a third-rate ice-pilot like Duane--a coastwise college professor that don't know no more about Ice than--than you do--it regularly makes me sick. Why, what will become of the captain now if he quits? He'll just settle down to an ordinary stay-at-home, write-in-a-book professor, and write articles for the papers and magazines, and bye-and-bye, maybe, he'll get down to lecturing! Just fancy, Miss, him, the captain, lecturing! And while he stays at home and writes, and--oh, Lord! --lectures, somebody else, without a fifth of his ability, will do the _work_. It'll just naturally break my heart, it will!" exclaimed Adler, "if the captain chucks. I wouldn't be so main sorry that he won't reach the Pole as that he quit trying--as that a man like the captain--or like what I thought he was--gave up and chucked when he could win."
"But, Adler," returned Lloyd, "the captain--Mr. Bennett, it seems to me, has done his share. Think what he's been through. You can't have forgotten the march to Kolyuchin Bay?"
But Adler made an impatient gesture with the hand that held the cap. "The danger don't figure; what he'd have to go through with don't figure; the chances of life or death don't figure; nothing in the world don't figure. _It's his work_; God A'mighty cut him out for that, and he's got to do it. Ain't you got any influence with him, Miss? Won't you talk good talk to him? Don't let him chuck; don't let him get soft. Make him be a Man and not a professor."
When Adler had left her Lloyd sank into a little seat at the edge of the garden walk, and let the flowers drop into her lap, and leaned back in her place, wide-eyed and thoughtful, reviewing in her imagination the events of the past few months. What a change that summer had brought to both of them; how they had been shaped anew in the mould of circumstance!
Suddenly and without warning, they two, high-spirited, strong, determined, had clashed together, the man's force against the woman's strength; and the woman, inherently weaker, had been crushed and humbled. For a time it seemed to her that she had been broken beyond hope; so humbled that she could never rise again; as though a great crisis had developed in her life, and that, having failed once, she must fail again, and again, and again--as if her whole subsequent life must be one long failure. But a greater crisis had followed hard upon the heels of the first--the struggle with self, the greatest struggle of all. Against the abstract principle of evil the woman who had failed in the material conflict with a masculine, masterful will, had succeeded, had conquered self, had been true when it was easy to be false, had dared the judgment of her peers so only that she might not deceive.
Her momentary, perhaps fancied, hatred of Bennett, who had so cruelly misunderstood and humiliated her, had apparently, of its own accord, departed from her heart. Then had come the hour when the strange hazard of fortune had reversed their former positions, when she could be masterful while he was weak; when it was the man's turn to be broken, to be prevailed against. Her own discomfiture had been offset by his. She no longer need look to him as her conqueror, her master. And when she had seen him so weak, so pathetically unable to resist the lightest pressure of her hand; when it was given her not only to witness but to relieve his suffering, the great love for him that could not die had returned. With the mastery of self had come the forgetfulness of self; and her profession, her life-work, of which she had been so proud, had seemed to her of small concern. Now she was his, and his life was hers. She should--so she told herself--be henceforward happy in his happiness, and her only pride would be the pride in his achievements.
But now the unexpected had happened, and Bennett had given up his career. During the period of Bennett's convalescence Lloyd had often talked long and earnestly with him, and partly from what he had told her and partly from much that she inferred she had at last been able to trace out and follow the mental processes and changes through which Bennett had passed. He, too, had been proved by fire; he, too, had had his ordeal, his trial.
By nature, by training, and by virtue of the life he lived Bennett had been a man, harsh, somewhat brutal, inordinately selfish, and at all times magnificently arrogant. He had neither patience nor toleration for natural human weakness. While selfish, he was not self-conscious, and it never occurred to him, it was impossible for him to see that he was a giant among men. His heart was callous; his whole nature and character hard and flinty from the buffetings he gave rather than received.
Then had come misfortune. Ferriss had died, and Bennett's recognition and acknowledgment of the fact that he, Ward Bennett, who never failed, who never blundered, had made at last the great and terrible error of his life, had shaken his character to its very foundations. This was only the beginning; the breach once made, Humanity entered into the gloomy, waste places of his soul; remorse crowded hard upon his wonted arrogance; generosity and the impulse to make amends took the place of selfishness; kindness thrust out the native brutality; the old-time harshness and imperiousness gave way to a certain spirit of toleration.
It was the influence of these new emotions that had moved Bennett to make the statement to Adler that had so astonished and perplexed his old-time subordinate. He, Bennett, too, like Lloyd, was at that time endeavouring to free himself from a false position, and through the medium of confession stand in his true colours in the eyes of his associates. Unconsciously they were both working out their salvation along the same lines.
Then had come Bennett's resolve to give Ferriss the conspicuous and prominent place in his book, the account of the expedition. The more Bennett dwelt upon Ferriss's heroism, intelligence, and ability the more his task became a labour of love, and the more the idea of self dropped away from his thought and imagination. Then--and perhaps this was not the least important factor in Bennett's transformation--sickness had befallen; the strong and self-reliant man had been brought to the weakness of a child, whom the pressure of a finger could control. He suddenly changed places with the woman he believed he had, at such fearful cost, broken and subdued. His physical strength, once so enormous, was as a reed in the woman's hand; his will, so indomitable, was as powerless as an infant's before the woman's calm resolve, rising up there before him and overmastering him at a time he believed it to be forever weakened.
Bennett had come forth from the ordeal chastened, softened, and humbled. But he was shattered, broken, brought to the earth with sorrow and the load of unavailing regret. Ambition was numb and lifeless within him. Reaction from his former attitude of aggression and defiance had carried him far beyond the normal.
Here widened the difference between the man and the woman. Lloyd's discontinuance of her life-work had been in the nature of heroic subjugation of self. Bennett's abandonment of his career was hardly better than weakness. In the one it had been renunciation; in the other surrender. In the end, and after all was over, it was the woman who remained the stronger.
But for her, the woman, was it true that all was over? Had the last conflict been fought? Was it not rather to be believed that life was one long conflict? Was it not for her, Lloyd, to rouse that sluggard ambition? Was not this her career, after all, to be his inspiration, his incentive, to urge him to the accomplishment of a great work? Now, of the two, she was the stronger. In these new conditions what was her duty? Adler's clumsy phrases persisted in her mind. "That's his work," Adler had said. "God Almighty cut him out for that, and he's got to do it. Don't let him chuck, don't let him get soft; make him be a man and not a professor."
Had she so much influence over Bennett? Could she rouse the restless, daring spirit again? Perhaps; but what would it mean for her--for her, who must be left behind to wait, and wait, and wait--for three years, for five years, for ten years--perhaps forever? And now, at this moment, when she believed that at last happiness had come to her; when the duty had been done, the grim problems solved; when sickness had been overcome; when love had come back, and the calm, untroubled days seemed lengthening out ahead, there came to her recollection the hideous lapse of time that had intervened between the departure of the Freja and the expedition's return; what sleepless nights, what days of unspeakable suspense, what dreadful alternations between hope and despair, what silent, repressed suffering, what haunting, ever-present dread of a thing she dared not name! Was the Fear to come into her life again; the Enemy that lurked and leered and forebore to strike, that hung upon her heels at every hour of the day, that sat down with her to her every occupation, that followed after when she stirred abroad, that came close to her in the still watches of the night, creeping, creeping to her bedside, looming over her in the darkness; the cold fingers reaching closer and closer, the awful face growing ever more distinct, till the suspense of waiting for the blow to fall, for the fingers to grip, became more than she could bear, and she sprang from her bed with a stifled sob of anguish, driven from her rest with quivering lips and streaming eyes?
Abruptly Lloyd rose to her feet, the flowers falling unheeded from her lap, her arms rigid at her side, her hands shut tight.
"No," she murmured, "I cannot. This, at last, is more than I can do."
Instantly Adler's halting words went ringing through her brain: "The danger don't figure; nothing in the world don't figure. It's his work."
Adler's words were the words of the world. She alone of the thousands whose eyes were turned toward Bennett was blinded. She was wrong. She belonged to him, but he did not belong to her. The world demanded him; the world called him from her side to do the terrible work that God had made him for. Was she, because she loved him, because of her own single anguish, to stand between him and the clamour of the world, between him and his work, between him and God?
A work there was for him to do. He must play the man's part. The battle must be fought again. That horrible, grisly Enemy far up there to the north, upon the high curve of the globe, the shoulder of the world, huge, remorseless, terrible in its vast, Titanic strength, guarding its secret through all the centuries in the innermost of a thousand gleaming coils, must be defied again. The monster that defended the great prize, the object of so many fruitless quests must be once more attacked.
His was the work, for him the shock of battle, the rigour of the fight, the fierce assault, the ceaseless onset, the unfailing and unflinching courage.
Hers was the woman's part. Already she had assumed it; steadfast unselfishness, renunciation, patience, the heroism greater than all others, that sits with folded hands, quiet, unshaken, and under fearful stress, endures, and endures, and endures. To be the inspiration of great deeds, high hopes, and firm resolves, and then, while the fight was dared, to wait in calmness for its issue--that was her duty, that, the woman's part in the world's great work.
Lloyd was dimly conscious of a certain sweet and subtle element in her love for Bennett that only of late she had begun to recognise and be aware of. This was a certain vague protective, almost maternal, instinct. Perhaps it was because of his present weakness both of body and character, or perhaps it was an element always to be found in the deep and earnest love of any noble-hearted woman. She felt that she, not as herself individually, but as a woman, was not only stronger than Bennett, but in a manner older, more mature. She was conscious of depths in her nature far greater than in his, and also that she was capable of attaining heights of heroism, devotion, and sacrifice which he, for all his masculine force, could not only never reach, but could not even conceive of. It was this consciousness of her larger, better nature that made her feel for Bennett somewhat as a mother feels for a son, a sister for her younger brother. A great tenderness mingled with her affection, a vast and almost divine magnanimity, a broad, womanly pity for his shortcomings, his errors, his faults. It was to her he must look for encouragement. It was for her to bind up and reshape the great energy that had been so rudely checked, and not only to call back his strength, but to guide it and direct into its appointed channels.
Lloyd returned toward the glass-enclosed veranda to find Bennett just arousing from his nap. She drew the shawls closer about him and rearranged the pillows under his head, and then sat down on the steps near at hand.
"Tell me about this Captain Duane," she began. "Where is he now?"
Bennett yawned and passed his hand across his face, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
"What time is it? I must have slept over an hour. Duane? Why, you saw what the paper said. I presume he is at Tasiusak."
"Do you think he will succeed? Do you think he will reach the Pole? Adler thinks he won't."
"Oh, perhaps, if he has luck and an open season."
"But tell me, why does he take so many men? Isn't that contrary to the custom? I know a great deal about arctic work. While you were away I read every book I could get upon the subject. The best work has been done with small expeditions. If you should go again--when you go again, will you take so many? I saw you quoted somewhere as being in favour of only six or eight men."
"Ten should be the limit--but some one else will make the attempt now. I'm out of it. I tried and failed."
"Failed--you! The idea of you ever failing, of you ever giving up! Of course it was all very well to joke this morning about giving up your career; but I know you will be up and away again only too soon. I am trying to school myself to expect that."
"Lloyd, I tell you that I am out of it. I don't believe the Pole ever can be reached, and I don't much care whether it is reached or not."
Suddenly Lloyd turned to him, the unwonted light flashing in her eyes. " _I_ do, though," she cried vehemently. "It can be done, and we--America--ought to do it."
Bennett stared at her, startled by her outburst.
"This English expedition," Lloyd continued, the colour flushing in her cheeks, "this Duane-Parsons expedition, they will have the start of everybody next year. Nearly every attempt that is made now establishes a new record for a high latitude. One nation after another is creeping nearer and nearer almost every year, and each expedition is profiting by the experiences and observations made by the one that preceded it. Some day, and not very long now, some nation is going to succeed and plant its flag there at last. Why should it not be us? Why shouldn't _our_ flag be first at the Pole? We who have had so many heroes, such great sailors, such splendid leaders, such explorers--our Stanleys, our Farraguts, our Decaturs, our De Longs, our Lockwoods--how we would stand ashamed before the world if some other nation should succeed where we have all but succeeded--Norway, or France, or Russia, or England--profiting by our experiences, following where we have made the way!"
"That is very fine," admitted Bennett. "It would be a great honour, the greatest perhaps; and once--I--well, I had my ambitions, too. But it's all different now. Something in me died when--Dick--when--I--oh, let Duane try. Let him do his best. I know it can't be done, and if he should win, I would be the first to wire congratulations. Lloyd, I don't care. I've lost interest. I suppose it is my punishment. I'm out of the race. I'm a back number. I'm down."
Lloyd shook her head.
"I don't--I can't believe you."
"Do you want to see me go," demanded Bennett, "after this last experience? Do you urge me to it?"
Lloyd turned her head away, leaning it against one of the veranda pillars. A sudden dimness swam in her eyes, the choking ache she knew so well came to her throat. Ah, life was hard for her. The very greatness of her nature drove from her the happiness so constantly attained by little minds, by commonplace souls. When was it to end, this continual sacrifice of inclination to duty, this eternal abnegation, this yielding up of herself, her dearest, most cherished wishes to the demands of duty and the great world?
"I don't know what I want," she said faintly. "It don't seem as if one _could_ be happy--very long."
All at once she moved close to him and laid her cheek upon the arm of his chair and clasped his hand in both her own, murmuring: "But I have you now, I have you now, no matter what is coming to us."
A sense of weakness overcame her. What did she care that Bennett should fulfil his destiny, should round out his career, should continue to be the Great Man? It was he, Bennett, that she loved--not his greatness, not his career. Let it all go, let ambition die, let others less worthy succeed in the mighty task. What were fame and honour and glory and the sense of a divinely appointed duty done at last to the clasp of his hand and the sound of his voice?
In November of that year Lloyd and Bennett were married. Two guests only assisted at the ceremony. These were Campbell and his little daughter Hattie.
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{
"id": "16096"
}
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10
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None
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The months passed; Christmas came and went. Until then the winter had been unusually mild, but January set in with a succession of vicious cold snaps and great blustering winds out of the northeast. Lloyd and Bennett had elected to remain quietly in their new home at Medford. They had no desire to travel, and Bennett's forthcoming book demanded his attention. Adler stayed on about the house. He and the dog Kamiska were companions inseparable. At long intervals visitors presented themselves--Dr. Street, or Pitts, or certain friends of Bennett's. But the great rush of interviewers, editors, and projectors of marvellous schemes that had crowded Bennett's anterooms during the spring and early summer was conspicuously dwindling. The press ceased to speak of him; even his mail had fallen away. Now, whenever the journals of the day devoted space to arctic exploration, it was invariably in reference to the English expedition wintering on the Greenland coast. That world that had clamoured so loudly upon Bennett's return, while, perhaps, not yet forgetting him, was already ignoring him, was looking in other directions. Another man was in the public eye.
But in every sense these two--Lloyd and Bennett--were out of the world. They had freed themselves from the current of affairs. They stood aside while the great tide went careering past swift and turbulent, and one of them at least lacked even the interest to look on and watch its progress.
For a time Lloyd was supremely happy. Their life was unbroken, uneventful. The calm, monotonous days of undisturbed happiness to which she had looked forward were come at last. Thus it was always to be. Isolated and apart, she could shut her ears to the thunder of the world's great tide that somewhere, off beyond the hills in the direction of the City, went swirling through its channels. Hardly an hour went by that she and Bennett were not together. Lloyd had transferred her stable to her new home; Lewis was added to the number of their servants, and until Bennett's old-time vigour completely returned to him she drove out almost daily with her husband, covering the country for miles around.
Much of their time, however, they spent in Bennett's study. This was a great apartment in the rear of the house, scantily, almost meanly, furnished. Papers littered the floor; bundles of manuscripts, lists, charts, and observations, the worn and battered tin box of records, note-books, journals, tables of logarithms were piled upon Bennett's desk. A bookcase crammed with volumes of reference, statistical pamphlets, and the like stood between the windows, while one of the walls was nearly entirely occupied by a vast map of the arctic circle, upon which the course of the Freja, her drift in the pack, and the route of the expedition's southerly march were accurately plotted.
The room was bare of ornament; the desk and a couple of chairs were its only furniture. Pictures there were none. Their places were taken by photographs and a great blue print of the shipbuilder's plans and specifications of the Freja.
The photographs were some of those that Dennison had made of the expedition--the Freja nipped in the ice, a group of the officers and crew upon the forward deck, the coast of Wrangel Island, Cape Kammeni, peculiar ice formations, views of the pack under different conditions and temperatures, pressure-ridges and scenes of the expedition's daily life in the arctic, bear-hunts, the manufacture of sledges, dog-teams, Bennett taking soundings and reading the wind-gauge, and one, the last view of the Freja, taken just as the ship--her ice-sheathed dripping bows heaved high in the air, the flag still at the peak--sank from sight.
However, on the wall over the blue-print plans of the Freja, one of the boat's flags, that had been used by the expedition throughout all the time of its stay in the ice, hung suspended--a faded, tattered square of stars and bars.
As the new life settled quietly and evenly to its grooves a routine began to develop. About an hour after breakfast Lloyd and Bennett shut themselves in Bennett's "workroom," as he called it, Lloyd taking her place at the desk. She had become his amanuensis, had insisted upon writing to his dictation.
"Look at that manuscript," she had exclaimed one day, turning the sheets that Bennett had written; "literally the very worst handwriting I have ever seen. What do you suppose a printer would make out of your 'thes' and 'ands'? It's hieroglyphics, you know," she informed him gravely, nodding her head at him.
It was quite true. Bennett wrote with amazing rapidity and with ragged, vigorous strokes of the pen, not unfrequently driving the point through the paper itself; his script was pothooks, clumsy, slanting in all directions, all but illegible. In the end Lloyd had almost pushed him from his place at the desk, taking the pen from between his fingers, exclaiming: "Get up! Give me your chair--and that pen. Handwriting like that is nothing else but a sin."
Bennett allowed her to bully him, protesting merely for the enjoyment of squabbling with her.
"Come, I like this. What are you doing in my workroom anyhow, Mrs. Bennett? I think you had better go to your housework."
"Don't talk," she answered. "Here are your notes and journal. Now tell me what to write."
In the end matters adjusted themselves. Daily Lloyd took her place at the desk, pen in hand, the sleeve of her right arm rolled back to the elbow (a habit of hers whenever writing, and which Bennett found to be charming beyond words), her pen travelling steadily from line to line. He on his part paced the floor, a cigar between his teeth, his notes and note-books in his hand, dictating comments of his own, or quoting from the pages, stained, frayed, and crumpled, written by the light of the auroras, the midnight suns, or the unsteady, flickering of train-oil lanterns and blubber-lamps.
What long, delicious hours they spent thus, as the winter drew on, in the absolute quiet of that country house, ignored and lost in the brown, bare fields and leafless orchards of the open country! No one troubled them. No one came near them. They asked nothing better than that the world wherein they once had lived, whose hurtling activity and febrile unrest they both had known so well, should leave them alone.
Only one jarring note, and that none too resonant, broke the long harmony of Lloyd's happiness during these days. Bennett was deaf to it; but for Lloyd it vibrated continuously and, as time passed, with increasing insistence and distinctness. But for one person in the world Lloyd could have told herself that her life was without a single element of discontent.
This was Adler. It was not that his presence about the house was a reproach to Bennett's wife, for the man was scrupulously unobtrusive. He had the instinctive delicacy that one sometimes discovers in simple, undeveloped natures--seafaring folk especially--and though he could not bring himself to leave his former chief, he had withdrawn himself more than ever from notice since the time of Bennett's marriage. He rarely even waited on the table these days, for Lloyd and Bennett often chose to breakfast and dine quite to themselves.
But, for all that, Lloyd saw Adler from time to time, Kamiska invariably at his heels. She came upon him polishing the brasses upon the door of the house, or binding strips of burlaps and sacking about the rose-bushes in the garden, or returning from the village post-office with the mail, invariably wearing the same woollen cap, the old pea-jacket, and the jersey with the name "Freja" upon the breast. He rarely spoke to her unless she first addressed him, and then always with a precise salute, bringing his heels sharply together, standing stiffly at attention.
But the man, though all unwittingly, radiated gloom. Lloyd readily saw that Adler was labouring under a certain cloud of disappointment and deferred hope. Naturally she understood the cause. Lloyd was too large-hearted to feel any irritation at the sight of Adler. But she could not regard him with indifference. To her mind he stood for all that Bennett had given up, for the great career that had stopped half-way, for the work half done, the task only half completed. In a way was not Adler now superior to Bennett? His one thought and aim and hope was to "try again." His ambition was yet alive and alight; the soldier was willing where the chief lost heart. Never again had Adler addressed himself to Lloyd on the subject of Bennett's inactivity. Now he seemed to understand--to realise that once married--and to Lloyd--he must no longer expect Bennett to continue the work. All this Lloyd interpreted from Adler's attitude, and again and again told herself that she could read the man's thoughts aright. She even fancied she caught a mute appeal in his eyes upon those rare occasions when they met, as though he looked to her as the only hope, the only means to wake Bennett from his lethargy. She imagined that she heard him say: "Ain't you got any influence with him, Miss? Won't you talk good talk to him? Don't let him chuck. Make him be a man, and not a professor. Nothing else in the world don't figure. It's his work. God A'mighty cut him out for that, and he's got to do it."
His work, his work, God made him for that; appointed the task, made the man, and now she came between. God, Man, and the Work,--the three vast elements of an entire system, the whole universe epitomised in the tremendous trinity. Again and again such thoughts assailed her. Duty once more stirred and awoke. It seemed to her as if some great engine ordained of Heaven to run its appointed course had come to a standstill, was rusting to its ruin, and that she alone of all the world had power to grasp its lever, to send it on its way; whither, she did not know; why, she could not tell. She knew only that it was right that she should act. By degrees her resolution hardened. Bennett must try again. But at first it seemed to her as though her heart would break, and more than once she wavered.
As Bennett continued to dictate to her the story of the expedition he arrived at the account of the march toward Kolyuchin Bay, and, finally, at the description of the last week, with its terrors, its sufferings, its starvation, its despair, when, one by one, the men died in their sleeping-bags, to be buried under slabs of ice. When this point in the narrative was reached Bennett inserted no comment of his own; but while Lloyd wrote, read simply and with grim directness from the entries in his journal precisely as they had been written.
Lloyd had known in a vague way that the expedition had suffered abominably, but hitherto Bennett had never consented to tell her the story in detail. "It was a hard week," he informed her, "a rather bad grind."
Now, for the first time, she was to know just what had happened, just what he had endured.
As usual, Bennett paced the floor from wall to wall, his cigar in his teeth, his tattered, grimy ice-journal in his hand. At the desk Lloyd's round, bare arm, the sleeve turned up to the elbow, moved evenly back and forth as she wrote. In the intervals of Bennett's dictation the scratching of Lloyd's pen made itself heard. A little fire snapped and crackled on the hearth. The morning's sun came flooding in at the windows. " ... Gale of wind from the northeast," prompted Lloyd, raising her head from her writing. Bennett continued: "Impossible to march against it in our weakened condition."
He paused for her to complete the sentence. " ... Must camp here till it abates...." "Have you got that?" Lloyd nodded. " ... Made soup of the last of the dog-meat this afternoon.... Our last pemmican gone."
There was a pause; then Bennett resumed: "December 1st, Wednesday--Everybody getting weaker.... Metz breaking down.... Sent Adler to the shore to gather shrimps ... we had about a mouthful apiece at noon ... supper, a spoonful of glycerine and hot water."
Lloyd put her hand to her temple, smoothing back her hair, her face turned away. As before, in the park, on that warm and glowing summer afternoon, a swift, clear vision of the Ice was vouchsafed to her. She saw the coast of Kolyuchin Bay--primordial desolation, whirling dust-like snow, the unleashed wind yelling like a sabbath of witches, leaping and somersaulting from rock to rock, folly-stricken and insensate in its hideous dance of death. Bennett continued. His voice insensibly lowered itself, a certain gravity of manner came upon him. At times he looked at the written pages in his hand with vague, unseeing eyes. No doubt he, too, was remembering.
He resumed: "December 2d, Thursday--Metz died during the night.... Hansen dying. Still blowing a gale from the northeast.... A hard night."
Lloyd's pen moved slower and slower as she wrote. The lines of the manuscript began to blur and swim before her eyes.
And it was to this that she must send him. To this inhuman, horrible region; to this life of prolonged suffering, where death came slowly through days of starvation, exhaustion, and agony hourly renewed. He must dare it all again. She must force him to it. Her decision had been taken; her duty was plain to her. Now it was irrevocable. " ... Hansen died during early morning.... Dennison breaking down.... "... December 5th--Sunday--Dennison found dead this morning between Adler and myself...." The vision became plainer, more distinct. She fancied she saw the interior of the tent and the dwindling number of the Freja's survivors moving about on their hands and knees in its gloomy half-light. Their hair and beards were long, their faces black with dirt, monstrously distended and fat with the bloated irony of starvation. They were no longer men. After that unspeakable stress of misery nothing but the animal remained. " ... Too weak to bury him, or even carry him out of the tent.... He must lie where he is.... Last spoonful of glycerine and hot water.... Divine service at 5:30 P.M...." Once more Lloyd faltered in her writing; her hand moved slower. Shut her teeth though she might, the sobs would come; swiftly the tears brimmed her eyes, but she tried to wink them back, lest Bennett should see. Heroically she wrote to the end of the sentence. A pause followed: "Yes--' divine services at'--I--I--" The pen dropped from her fingers and she sank down upon her desk, her head bowed in the hollow of her bare arm, shaken from head to foot with the violence of the crudest grief she had ever known. Bennett threw his journal from him, and came to her, taking her in his arms, putting her head upon his shoulder.
"Why, Lloyd, what is it--why, old chap, what the devil! I was a beast to read that to you. It wasn't really as bad as that, you know, and besides, look here, look at me. It all happened three years ago. It's all over with now."
Without raising her head, and clinging to him all the closer, Lloyd answered brokenly: "No, no; it's not all over. It never, never will be."
"Pshaw, nonsense!" Bennett blustered, "you must not take it to heart like this. We're going to forget all about it now. Here, damn the book, anyhow! We've had enough of it to-day. Put your hat on. We'll have the ponies out and drive somewhere. And to-night we'll go into town and see a show at a theatre."
"No," protested Lloyd, pushing back from him, drying her eyes. "You shall not think I'm so weak. We will go on with what we have to do--with our work. I'm all right now."
Bennett marched her out of the room without more ado, and, following her, closed and locked the door behind them. "We'll not write another word of that stuff to-day. Get your hat and things. I'm going out to tell Lewis to put the ponies in."
But that day marked a beginning. From that time on Lloyd never faltered, and if there were moments when the iron bit deeper than usual into her heart, Bennett never knew her pain. By degrees a course of action planned itself for her. A direct appeal to Bennett she believed would not only be useless, but beyond even her heroic courage. She must influence him indirectly. The initiative must appear to come from him. It must seem to him that he, of his own accord, roused his dormant resolution. It was a situation that called for all her feminine tact, all her delicacy, all her instinctive diplomacy.
The round of their daily life was renewed, but now there was a change. It was subtle, illusive, a vague, indefinite trouble in the air. Lloyd had addressed herself to her task, and from day to day, from hour to hour, she held to it, unseen, unnoticed. Now it was a remark dropped as if by chance in the course of conversation; now an extract cut from a newspaper or scientific journal, and left where Bennett would find it; now merely a look in her eyes, an instant's significant glance when her gaze met her husband's, or a moment's enthusiasm over the news of some discovery. Insensibly and with infinite caution she directed his attention to the world he believed he had abjured; she called into being his interest in his own field of action, reading to him by the hour from the writings of other men, or advancing and championing theories which she knew to be false and ridiculous, but which she goaded him to deny and refute.
One morning she even feigned an exclamation of unbounded astonishment as she opened the newspaper while the two were at breakfast, pretending to read from imaginary headlines.
"Ward, listen! 'The Pole at Last. A Norwegian Expedition Solves the Mystery of the Arctic. The Goal Reached After--'" "What!" cried Bennett sharply, his frown lowering. "' --After Centuries of Failure.'" Lloyd put down the paper with a note of laughter.
"Suppose you should read it some day."
Bennett subsided with a good-humoured growl.
"You did scare me for a moment. I thought--I thought--" "I did scare you? Why were you scared? What did you think?" She leaned toward him eagerly.
"I thought--well--oh--that some other chap, Duane, perhaps--" "He's still at Tasiusak. But he will succeed, I do believe. I've read a great deal about him. He has energy and determination. If anybody succeeds it will be Duane."
"He? Never!"
"Somebody, then."
"You said once that if your husband couldn't nobody could."
"Yes, yes, I know," she answered cheerfully. "But you--you are out of it now."
"Huh!" he grumbled. "It's not because I don't think I could if I wanted to."
"No, you could not, Ward. Nobody can."
"But you just said you thought somebody would some day."
"Did I? Oh, suppose you really should one of these days!"
"And suppose I never came back?"
"Nonsense! Of course you would come back. They all do nowadays."
"De Long didn't."
"But you are not De Long."
And for the rest of the day Lloyd noted with a sinking heart that Bennett was unusually thoughtful and preoccupied. She said nothing, and was studious to avoid breaking in upon his reflections, whatever they might be. She kept out of his way as much as possible, but left upon his desk, as if by accident, a copy of a pamphlet issued by a geographical society, open at an article upon the future of exploration within the arctic circle. At supper that night Bennett suddenly broke in upon a rather prolonged silence with: "It's all in the ship. Build a ship strong enough to withstand lateral pressure of the ice and the whole thing becomes easy."
Lloyd yawned and stirred her tea indifferently as she answered: "Yes, but you know that can't be done."
Bennett frowned thoughtfully, drumming upon the table.
"I'll wager _I_ could build one."
"But it's not the ship alone. It's the man. Whom would you get to command your ship?"
Bennett stared.
"Why, I would take her, of course."
"You? You have had your share--your chance. Now you can afford to stay home and finish your book--and--well, you might deliver lectures."
"What rot, Lloyd! Can you see me posing on a lecture platform?"
"I would rather see you doing that than trying to beat Duane, than getting into the ice again. I would rather see you doing that than to know that you were away up there--in the north, in the ice, at your work again, fighting your way toward the Pole, leading your men and overcoming every obstacle that stood in your way, never giving up, never losing heart, trying to do the great, splendid, impossible thing; risking your life to reach merely a point on a chart. Yes, I would rather see you on a lecture platform than on the deck of an arctic steamship. You know that, Ward."
He shot a glance at her.
"I would like to know what you mean," he muttered.
The winter went by, then the spring, and by June all the country around Medford was royal with summer. During the last days of May, Bennett practically had completed the body of his book and now occupied himself with its appendix. There was little variation in their daily life. Adler became more and more of a fixture about the place. In the first week of June, Lloyd and Bennett had a visitor, a guest; this was Hattie Campbell. Mr. Campbell was away upon a business trip, and Lloyd had arranged to have the little girl spend the fortnight of his absence with her at Medford.
The summer was delightful. A vast, pervading warmth lay close over all the world. The trees, the orchards, the rose-bushes in the garden about the house, all the teeming life of trees and plants hung motionless and poised in the still, tideless ocean of the air. It was very quiet; all distant noises, the crowing of cocks, the persistent calling of robins and jays, the sound of wheels upon the road, the rumble of the trains passing the station down in the town, seemed muffled and subdued. The long, calm summer days succeeded one another in an unbroken, glimmering procession. From dawn to twilight one heard the faint, innumerable murmurs of the summer, the dull bourdon of bees in the rose and lilac bushes, the prolonged, strident buzzing of blue-bottle-flies, the harsh, dry scrape of grasshoppers, the stridulating of an occasional cricket. In the twilight and all through the night itself the frogs shrilled from the hedgerows and in the damp, north corners of the fields, while from the direction of the hills toward the east the whippoorwills called incessantly. During the day the air was full of odours, distilled as it were by the heat of high noon--the sweet smell of ripening apples, the fragrance of warm sap and leaves and growing grass, the smell of cows from the nearby pastures, the pungent, ammoniacal suggestion of the stable back of the house, and the odour of scorching paint blistering on the southern walls.
July was very hot. No breath of wind stirred the vast, invisible sea of air, quivering and oily under the vertical sun. The landscape was deserted of animated life; there was little stirring abroad. In the house one kept within the cool, darkened rooms with matting on the floors and comfortable, deep wicker chairs, the windows wide to the least stirring of the breeze. Adler dozed in his canvas hammock slung between a hitching-post and a crab-apple tree in the shade behind the stable. Kamiska sprawled at full length underneath the water-trough, her tongue lolling, panting incessantly. An immeasurable Sunday stillness seemed to hang suspended in the atmosphere--a drowsy, numbing hush. There was no thought of the passing of time. The day of the week was always a matter of conjecture. It seemed as though this life of heat and quiet and unbroken silence was to last forever.
Then suddenly there was an _alerte_. One morning, a day or so after Hattie Campbell had returned to the City, just as Lloyd and Bennett were finishing their breakfast in the now heavily awninged glass-room, they were surprised to see Adler running down the road toward the house, Kamiska racing on ahead, barking excitedly. Adler had gone into the town for the mail and morning's paper. This latter he held wide open in his hand, and as soon as he caught sight of Lloyd and Bennett waved it about him, shouting as he ran.
Lloyd's heart began to beat. There was only one thing that could excite Adler to this degree--the English expedition; Adler had news of it; it was in the paper. Duane had succeeded; had been working steadily northward during all these past months, while Bennett-- "Stuck in the ice! stuck in the ice!" shouted Adler as he swung wide the front gate and came hastening toward the veranda across the lawn. "What did we say! Hooray! He's stuck. I knew it; any galoot might 'a' known it. Duane's stuck tighter'n a wedge off Bache Island, in Kane Basin. Here it all is; read it for yourself."
Bennett took the paper from him and read aloud to the effect that the Curlew, accompanied by her collier, which was to follow her to the southerly limit of Kane Basin, had attempted the passage of Smith Sound late in June. But the season, as had been feared, was late. The enormous quantities of ice reported by the whalers the previous year had not debouched from the narrow channel, and on the last day of June the Curlew had found her further progress effectually blocked. In essaying to force her way into a lead the ice had closed in behind her, and, while not as yet nipped, the vessel was immobilised. There was no hope that she would advance northward until the following summer. The collier, which had not been beset, had returned to Tasiusak with the news of the failure.
"What a galoot! What a--a professor!" exclaimed Adler with a vast disdain. "Him loafing at Tasiusak waiting for open water, when the Alert wintered in eighty-two-twenty-four! Well, he's shelved for another year, anyhow."
Later on, after breakfast, Lloyd and Bennett shut themselves in Bennett's workroom, and for upward of three hours addressed themselves to the unfinished work of the previous day, compiling from Bennett's notes a table of temperatures of the sea-water taken at different soundings. Alternating with the scratching of Lloyd's pen, Bennett's voice continued monotonously: "August 15th--2,000 meters or 1,093 fathoms--minus .66 degrees centigrade or 30.81 Fahrenheit."
"Fahrenheit," repeated Lloyd as she wrote the last word.
"August 16th--1,600 meters or 874 fathoms--" "Eight hundred and seventy-four fathoms," repeated Lloyd as Bennett paused abstractedly.
"Or ... he's in a bad way, you know."
"What do you mean?"
"It's a bad bit of navigation along there. The Proteus was nipped and crushed to kindling in about that same latitude ... h'm" ... Bennett tugged at his mustache. Then, suddenly, as if coming to himself: "Well--these temperatures now. Where were we? 'Eight hundred and seventy-four fathoms, minus forty-six hundredths degrees centigrade.'"
On the afternoon of the next day, just as they were finishing this table, there was a knock at the door. It was Adler, and as Bennett opened the door he saluted and handed him three calling-cards. Bennett uttered an exclamation of surprise, and Lloyd turned about from the desk, her pen poised in the air over the half-written sheet.
"They might have let me know they were coming," she heard Bennett mutter. "What do they want?"
"Guess they came on that noon train, sir," hazarded Adler. "They didn't say what they wanted, just inquired for you."
"Who is it?" asked Lloyd, coming forward.
Bennett read off the names on the cards.
"Well, it's Tremlidge--that's the Tremlidge of the Times; he's the editor and proprietor--and Hamilton Garlock--has something to do with that new geographical society--president, I believe--and this one"--he handed her the third card--"is a friend of yours, Craig V. Campbell, of the Hercules Wrought Steel Company."
Lloyd stared. "What can they want?" she murmured, looking up to him from the card in some perplexity. Bennett shook his head.
"Tell them to come up here," he said to Adler.
Lloyd hastily drew down her sleeve over her bare arm.
"Why up here, Ward?" she inquired abruptly.
"Should we have seen them downstairs?" he demanded with a frown. "I suppose so; I didn't think. Don't go," he added, putting a hand on her arm as she started for the door. "You might as well hear what they have to say."
The visitors entered, Adler holding open the door--Campbell, well groomed, clean-shaven, and gloved even in that warm weather; Tremlidge, the editor of one of the greater daily papers of the City (and of the country for the matter of that), who wore a monocle and carried a straw hat under his arm; and Garlock, the vice-president of an international geographical society, an old man, with beautiful white hair curling about his ears, a great bow of black silk knotted about his old-fashioned collar. The group presented, all unconsciously, three great and highly developed phases of nineteenth-century intelligence--science, manufactures, and journalism--each man of them a master in his calling.
When the introductions and preliminaries were over, Bennett took up his position again in front of the fireplace, leaning against the mantle, his hands in his pockets. Lloyd sat opposite to him at the desk, resting her elbow on the edge. Hanging against the wall behind her was the vast chart of the arctic circle. Tremlidge, the editor, sat on the bamboo sofa near the end of the room, his elbows on his knees, gently tapping the floor with the ferrule of his slim walking-stick; Garlock, the scientist, had dropped into the depths of a huge leather chair and leaned back in it comfortably, his legs crossed, one boot swinging gently; Campbell stood behind this chair, drumming on the back occasionally with the fingers of one hand, speaking to Bennett over Garlock's shoulder, and from time to time turning to Tremlidge for corroboration and support of what he was saying.
Abruptly the conference began.
"Well, Mr. Bennett, you got our wire?" Campbell said by way of commencement.
Bennett shook his head.
"No," he returned in some surprise; "no, I got no wire."
"That's strange," said Tremlidge. "I wired three days ago asking for this interview. The address was right, I think. I wired: 'Care of Dr. Pitts.' Isn't that right?"
"That probably accounts for it," answered Bennett. "This is Pitts's house, but he does not live here now. Your despatch, no doubt, went to his office in the City, and was forwarded to him. He's away just now, travelling, I believe. But--you're here. That's the essential."
"Yes," murmured Garlock, looking to Campbell. "We're here, and we want to have a talk with you."
Campbell, who had evidently been chosen spokesman, cleared his throat.
"Well, Mr. Bennett, I don't know just how to begin, so suppose I begin at the beginning. Tremlidge and I belong to the same club in the City, and in some way or other we have managed to see a good deal of each other during the last half-dozen years. We find that we have a good deal in common. I don't think his editorial columns are for sale, and he doesn't believe there are blow-holes in my steel plates. I really do believe we have certain convictions. Tremlidge seems to have an idea that journalism can be clean and yet enterprising, and tries to run his sheet accordingly, and I am afraid that I would not make a bid for bridge girders below what it would cost to manufacture them honestly. Tremlidge and I differ in politics; we hold conflicting views as to municipal government; we attend different churches; we are at variance in the matter of public education, of the tariff, of emigration, and, heaven save the mark! of capital and labour, but we tell ourselves that we are public-spirited and are a little proud that God allowed us to be born in the United States; also it appears that we have more money than Henry George believes to be right. Now," continued Mr. Campbell, straightening himself as though he were about to touch upon the real subject of his talk, "when the news of your return, Mr. Bennett, was received, it was, as of course you understand, the one topic of conversation in the streets, the clubs, the newspaper offices--everywhere. Tremlidge and I met at our club at luncheon the next week, and I remember perfectly well how long and how very earnestly we talked of your work and of arctic exploration in general.
"We found out all of a sudden that here at last was a subject we were agreed upon, a subject in which we took an extraordinary mutual interest. We discovered that we had read almost every explorer's book from Sir John Franklin down. We knew all about the different theories and plans of reaching the Pole. We knew how and why they had all failed; but, for all that, we were both of the opinion" (Campbell leaned forward, speaking with considerable energy) "that it can be done, and that America ought to do it. That would be something better than even a World's Fair.
"We give out a good deal of money, Tremlidge and I, every year to public works and one thing or another. We buy pictures by American artists--pictures that we don't want; we found a scholarship now and then; we contribute money to build groups of statuary in the park; we give checks to the finance committees of libraries and museums and all the rest of it, but, for the lives of us, we can feel only a mild interest in the pictures and statues, and museums and colleges, though we go on buying the one and supporting the other, because we think that somehow it is right for us to do it. I'm afraid we are men more of action than of art, literature, and the like. Tremlidge is, I know. He wants facts, accomplished results. When he gives out his money he wants to see the concrete, substantial return--and I'm not sure that I am not of the same way of thinking.
"Well, with this and with that, and after talking it all over a dozen times--twenty times--we came to the conclusion that what we would most like to aid financially would be a successful attempt by an American-built ship, manned by American seamen, led by an American commander, to reach the North Pole. We came to be very enthusiastic about our idea; but we want it American from start to finish. We will start the subscription, and want to head the list with our checks; but we want every bolt in that ship forged in American foundries from metal dug out of American soil. We want every plank in her hull shaped from American trees, every sail of her woven by American looms, every man of her born of American parents, and we want it this way because we believe in American manufactures, because we believe in American shipbuilding, because we believe in American sailmakers, and because we believe in the intelligence and pluck and endurance and courage of the American sailor.
"Well," Campbell continued, changing his position and speaking in a quieter voice, "we did not say much to anybody, and, in fact, we never really planned any expedition at all. We merely talked about its practical nature and the desirability of having it distinctively American. This was all last summer. What we wanted to do was to make the scheme a popular one. It would not be hard to raise a hundred thousand dollars from among a dozen or so men whom we both know, and we found that we could count upon the financial support of Mr. Garlock's society. That was all very well, but we wanted the _people_ to back this enterprise. We would rather get a thousand five-dollar subscriptions than five of a thousand dollars each. When our ship went out we wanted her commander to feel, not that there were merely a few millionaires, who had paid for his equipment and his vessel, behind him, but that he had seventy millions of people, a whole nation, at his back.
"So Tremlidge went to work and telegraphed instructions to the Washington correspondents of his paper to sound quietly the temper of as many Congressmen as possible in the matter of making an appropriation toward such an expedition. It was not so much the money we wanted as the sanction of the United States. Anything that has to do with the Navy is popular just at present. We had got a Congressman to introduce and father an appropriation bill, and we could count upon the support of enough members of both houses to put it through. We wanted Congress to appropriate twenty thousand dollars. We hoped to raise another ten thousand dollars by popular subscription. Mr. Garlock could assure us two thousand dollars; Tremlidge would contribute twenty thousand dollars in the name of the Times, and I pledged myself to ten thousand dollars, and promised to build the ship's engines and fittings. We kept our intentions to ourselves, as Tremlidge did not want the other papers to get hold of the story before the Times printed it. But we continued to lay our wires at Washington. Everything was going as smooth as oil; we seemed sure of the success of our appropriation bill, and it was even to be introduced next week, when the news came of the collapse of the English expedition--the Duane-Parsons affair.
"You would have expected precisely an opposite effect, but it has knocked our chances with Congress into a cocked hat. Our member, who was to father the bill, declared to us that so sure as it was brought up now it would be killed in committee. I went to Washington at once; it was this, and not, as you supposed, private business that has taken me away. I saw our member and Tremlidge's head correspondent. It was absolutely no use. These men who have their finger upon the Congressional pulse were all of the same opinion. It would be useless to try to put through our bill at present. Our member said 'Wait;' all Tremlidge's men said 'Wait--wait for another year, until this English expedition and its failure are forgotten, and then try again.' But we don't want to wait. Suppose Duane _is_ blocked for the present. He has a tremendous start. He's on the ground. By next summer the chances are the ice will have so broken up as to permit him to push ahead, and by the time our bill gets through and our ship built and launched he may be--heaven knows where, right up to the Pole, perhaps. No, we can't afford to give England such long odds. We want to lay the keel of our ship as soon as we can--next week, if possible; we've got the balance of the summer and all the winter to prepare in, and a year from this month we want our American expedition to be inside the polar circle, to be up with Duane, and at least to break even with England. If we can do that we're not afraid of the result, provided," continued Mr. Campbell, "provided _you_, Mr. Bennett, are in command. If you consent to make the attempt, only one point remains to be settled. Congress has failed us. We will give up the idea of an appropriation. Now, then, and this is particularly what we want to consult you about, how are we going to raise the twenty thousand dollars?"
Lloyd rose to her feet.
"You may draw on me for the amount," she said quietly.
Garlock uncrossed his legs and sat up abruptly in the deep-seated chair. Tremlidge screwed his monocle into his eye and stared, while Campbell turned about sharply at the sound of Lloyd's voice with a murmur of astonishment. Bennett alone did not move. As before, he leaned heavily against the mantelpiece, his hands in his pockets, his head and his huge shoulders a little bent. Only from under his thick, knotted frown he shot a swift glance toward his wife. Lloyd paid no attention to the others. After that one quiet movement that had brought her to her feet she remained motionless and erect, her hands hanging straight at her sides, the colour slowly mounting to her cheeks. She met Bennett's glance and held it steadily, calmly, looking straight into his eyes. She said no word, but all her love for him, all her hopes of him, all the fine, strong resolve that, come what would, his career should not be broken, his ambition should not faint through any weakness of hers, all her eager sympathy for his great work, all her strong, womanly encouragement for him to accomplish his destiny spoke to him, and called to him in that long, earnest look of her dull-blue eyes. Now she was no longer weak; now she could face the dreary consequences that, for her, must follow the rousing of his dormant energy; now was no longer the time for indirect appeal; the screen was down between them. More eloquent than any spoken words was the calm, steady gaze in which she held his own.
There was a long silence while husband and wife stood looking deep into each other's eyes. And then, as a certain slow kindling took place in his look, Lloyd saw that at last Bennett _understood_.
After that the conference broke up rapidly. Campbell, as the head and spokesman of the committee, noted the long, significant glance that had passed between Bennett and Lloyd, and, perhaps, vaguely divined that he had touched upon a matter of a particularly delicate and intimate nature. Something was in the air, something was passing between husband and wife in which the outside world had no concern--something not meant for him to see. He brought the interview to an end as quickly as possible. He begged of Bennett to consider this talk as a mere preliminary--a breaking of the ground. He would give Bennett time to think it over. Speaking for himself and the others, he was deeply impressed with that generous offer to meet the unexpected deficiency, but it had been made upon the spur of the moment. No doubt Mr. Bennett and his wife would wish to talk it over between themselves, to consider the whole matter. The committee temporarily had its headquarters in his (Campbell's) offices. He left Bennett the address. He would await his decision and answer there.
When the conference ended Bennett accompanied the members of the committee downstairs and to the front door of the house. The three had, with thanks and excuses, declined all invitations to dine at Medford with Bennett and his wife. They could conveniently catch the next train back to the City; Campbell and Tremlidge were in a hurry to return to their respective businesses.
The front gate closed. Bennett was left alone. He shut the front door of the house, and for an instant stood leaning against it, his small eyes twinkling under his frown, his glance straying aimlessly about amid the familiar objects of the hallway and adjoining rooms. He was thoughtful, perturbed, tugging slowly at the ends of his mustache. Slowly he ascended the stairs, gaining the landing on the second floor and going on toward the half-open door of the "workroom" he had just quitted. Lloyd was uppermost in his mind. He wanted her, his wife, and that at once. He was conscious that a great thing had suddenly transpired; that all the calm and infinitely happy life of the last year was ruthlessly broken up; but in his mind there was nothing more definite, nothing stronger than the thought of his wife and the desire for her companionship and advice.
He came into the "workroom," closing the door behind him with his heel, his hands deep in his pockets. Lloyd was still there, standing opposite him as he entered. She hardly seemed to have moved while he had been gone. They did not immediately speak. Once more their eyes met. Then at length: "Well, Lloyd?"
"Well, my husband?"
Bennett was about to answer--what, he hardly knew; but at that moment there was a diversion.
The old boat's flag, the tattered little square of faded stars and bars that had been used to mark the line of many a weary march, had been hanging, as usual, over the blue-print plans of the Freja on the wail opposite the window. Inadequately fixed in its place, the jar of the closing door as Bennett shut it behind him dislodged it, and it fell to the floor close beside him.
He stooped and picked it up, and, holding it in his hand, turned toward the spot whence it had fallen. He cast a glance at the wall above the plans of the Freja, about to replace it, willing for the instant to defer the momentous words he felt must soon be spoken, willing to put off the inevitable a few seconds longer.
"I don't know," he muttered, looking from the flag to the empty wall-spaces about the room; "I don't know just where to put this. Do you--" "Don't you know?" interrupted Lloyd suddenly, her blue eyes all alight.
"No," said Bennett; "I--" Lloyd caught the flag from his hands and, with one great sweep of her arm, drove its steel-shod shaft full into the centre of the great chart of the polar region, into the innermost concentric circle where the Pole was marked.
"Put that flag there!" she cried.
|
{
"id": "16096"
}
|
11
|
None
|
That particular day in the last week in April was sombre and somewhat chilly, but there was little wind. The water of the harbour lay smooth as a sheet of tightly stretched gray silk. Overhead the sea-fog drifted gradually landward, descending, as it drifted, till the outlines of the City grew blurred and indistinct, resolving to a dim, vast mass, rugged with high-shouldered office buildings and bulging, balloon-like domes, confused and mysterious under the cloak of the fog. In the nearer foreground, along the lines of the wharves and docks, a wilderness of masts and spars of a tone just darker than the gray of the mist stood away from the blur of the background with the distinctness and delicacy of frost-work.
But amid all this grayness of sky and water and fog one distinguished certain black and shifting masses. They outlined every wharf, they banked every dock, every quay. Every small and inconsequent jetty had its fringe of black. Even the roofs of the buildings along the water-front were crested with the same dull-coloured mass.
It was the People, the crowd, rank upon rank, close-packed, expectant, thronging there upon the City's edge, swelling in size with the lapse of every minute, vast, conglomerate, restless, and throwing off into the stillness of the quiet gray air a prolonged, indefinite murmur, a monotonous minor note.
The surface of the bay was dotted over with all manner of craft black with people. Rowboats, perilously overcrowded, were everywhere. Ferryboats and excursion steamers, chartered for that day, heeled over almost to the water's edge with the unsteady weight of their passengers. Tugboats passed up and down similarly crowded and displaying the flags of various journals and news organisations--the News, the Press, the Times, and the Associated Press. Private yachts, trim and very graceful and gleaming with brass and varnish, slipped by with scarcely a ripple to mark their progress, while full in the centre of the bay, gigantic, solid, formidable, her grim, silent guns thrusting their snouts from her turrets, a great, white battleship rode motionless to her anchor.
An hour passed; noon came. At long intervals a faint seaward breeze compressed the fog, and high, sad-coloured clouds and a fine and penetrating rain came drizzling down. The crowds along the wharves grew denser and blacker. The numbers of yachts, boats, and steamers increased; even the yards and masts of the merchant-ships were dotted over with watchers.
Then, at length, from far up the bay there came a faint, a barely perceptible, droning sound, the sound of distant shouting. Instantly the crowds were alert, and a quick, surging movement rippled from end to end of the throng along the water-front. Its subdued murmur rose in pitch upon the second. Like a flock of agitated gulls, the boats in the harbour stirred nimbly from place to place; a belated newspaper tug tore by, headed for the upper bay, smoking fiercely, the water boiling from her bows. From the battleship came the tap of a drum. The excursion steamers and chartered ferryboats moved to points of vantage and took position, occasionally feeling the water with their paddles.
The distant, droning sound drew gradually nearer, swelling in volume, and by degrees splitting into innumerable component parts. One began to distinguish the various notes that contributed to its volume--a sharp, quick volley of inarticulate shouts or a cadenced cheer or a hoarse salvo of steam whistles. Bells began to ring in different quarters of the City.
Then all at once the advancing wave of sound swept down like the rush of a great storm. A roar as of the unchained wind leaped upward from those banked and crowding masses. It swelled louder and louder, deafening, inarticulate. A vast bellow of exultation split the gray, low-hanging heavens. Erect plumes of steam shot upward from the ferry and excursion boats, but the noise of their whistles was lost and drowned in the reverberation of that mighty and prolonged clamour. But suddenly the indeterminate thunder was pierced and dominated by a sharp and deep-toned report, and a jet of white smoke shot out from the flanks of the battleship. Her guns had spoken. Instantly and from another quarter of her hull came another jet of white smoke, stabbed through with its thin, yellow flash, and another abrupt clap of thunder shook the windows of the City.
The boats that all the morning had been moving toward the upper bay were returning. They came slowly, a veritable fleet, steaming down the bay, headed for the open sea, beyond the entrance of the harbour, each crowded and careening to the very gunwales, each whistling with might and main.
And in their midst--the storm-centre round which this tempest of acclamation surged, the object on which so many eyes were focussed, the hope of an entire nation--one ship.
She was small and seemingly pitifully inadequate for the great adventure on which she was bound; her lines were short and ungraceful. From her clumsy iron-shod bow to her high, round stern, from her bulging sides to the summit of her short, powerful masts there was scant beauty in her. She was broad, blunt, evidently slow in her movements, and in the smooth waters of the bay seemed out of her element. But, for all that, she imparted an impression of compactness, the compactness of things dwarfed and stunted. Vast, indeed, would be the force that would crush those bulging flanks, so cunningly built, moreover, that the ship must slip and rise to any too great lateral pressure. Far above her waist rose her smokestack. Overhead upon the mainmast was affixed the crow's nest. Whaleboats and cutters swung from her davits, while all her decks were cumbered with barrels, with crates, with boxes and strangely shaped bales and cases.
She drew nearer, continuing that slow, proud progress down the bay, honoured as no visiting sovereign had ever been. The great white man-of-war dressed ship as she passed, and the ensign at her fighting-top dipped and rose again. At once there was a movement aboard the little outbound ship; one of her crew ran aft and hauled sharply at the halyards, and then at her peak there was broken out not the brilliant tri-coloured banner, gay and brave and clean, but a little length of bunting, tattered and soiled, a faded breadth of stars and bars, a veritable battle-flag, eloquent of strenuous endeavour, of fighting without quarter, and of hardship borne without flinching and without complaining.
The ship with her crowding escorts held onward. By degrees the City was passed; the bay narrowed oceanwards little by little. The throng of people, the boom of cannon, and the noise of shouting dropped astern. One by one the boats of the escorting squadron halted, drew off, and, turning with a parting blast of their whistles, headed back to the City. Only the larger, heavier steamers and the sea-going tugs still kept on their way. On either shore of the bay the houses began to dwindle, giving place to open fields, brown and sear under the scudding sea-fog, for now a wind was building up from out the east, and the surface of the bay had begun to ruffle.
Half a mile farther on the slow, huge, groundswells began to come in; a lighthouse was passed. Full in view, on ahead, stretched the open, empty waste of ocean. Another steamer turned back, then another, then another, then the last of the newspaper tugs. The fleet, reduced now to half a dozen craft, ploughed on through and over the groundswells, the ship they were escorting leading the way, her ragged little ensign straining stiff in the ocean wind. At the entrance of the bay, where the enclosing shores drew together and trailed off to surf-beaten sand-spits, three more of the escort halted, and, unwilling to face the tumbling expanse of the ocean, bleak and gray, turned homeward. Then just beyond the bar two more of the remaining boats fell off and headed Cityward; a third immediately did likewise. The outbound ship was left with only one companion.
But that one, a sturdy little sea-going tug, held close, close to the flank of the departing vessel, keeping even pace with her and lying alongside as nearly as she dared, for the fog had begun to thicken, and distant objects were shut from sight by occasional drifting patches.
On board the tug there was but one passenger--a woman. She stood upon the forward deck, holding to a stanchion with one strong, white hand, the strands of her bronze-red hair whipping across her face, the salt spray damp upon her cheeks. She was dressed in a long, brown ulster, its cape flying from her shoulders as the wind lifted it. Small as was the outgoing ship, the tug was still smaller, and its single passenger had to raise her eyes above her to see the figure of a man upon the bridge of the ship, a tall, heavily built figure, buttoned from heel to chin in a greatcoat, who stood there gripping the rail of the bridge with one hand, and from time to time giving an order to his sailing-master, who stood in the centre of the bridge before the compass and electric indicator.
Between the man upon the bridge and the woman on the forward deck of the tug there was from time to time a little conversation. They called to one another above the throbbing of the engines and the wash of the sea alongside, and in the sound of their voices there was a note of attempted cheerfulness. Practically they were alone, with the exception of the sailing-master on the bridge. The crew of the ship were nowhere in sight. On the tug no one but the woman was to be seen. All around them stretched the fog-ridden sea.
Then at last, in answer to a question from the man on the bridge, the woman said: "Yes--I think I had better."
An order was given. The tug's bell rang in her engine-room, and the engine slowed and stopped. For some time the tug continued her headway, ranging alongside the ship as before. Then she began to fall behind, at first slowly, then with increasing swiftness. The outbound ship continued on her way, and between the two the water widened and widened. But the fog was thick; in another moment the two would be shut out from each other's sight. The moment of separation was come.
Then Lloyd, standing alone on that heaving deck, drew herself up to her full height, her head a little back, her blue eyes all alight, a smile upon her lips. She spoke no word. She made no gesture, but stood there, the smile yet upon her lips, erect, firm, motionless; looking steadily, calmly, proudly into Bennett's eyes as his ship carried him farther and farther away.
Suddenly the fog shut down. The two vessels were shut from each other's sight.
As Bennett stood leaning upon the rail of the bridge behind him, his hands deep in the pockets of his greatcoat, his eyes fixed on the visible strip of water just ahead of his ship's prow, the sailing-master, Adler, approached and saluted.
"Beg pardon, sir," he said, "we're just clear of the last buoy; what's our course now, sir?"
Bennett glanced at the chart that Adler held and then at the compass affixed to the rail of the bridge close at hand. Quietly he answered: "Due north."
|
{
"id": "16096"
}
|
1
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PROLOGUE.
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But for a recent occurrence I should certainly not be telling the story of a friend, or, rather, I should say, of two friends of mine. What that occurrence was I will not here indicate--it is unnecessary; but it has not been without its effect upon my life and plans. If it be asked by those who may read these pages under what circumstances it became possible for me to acquire such familiarity with certain scenes and incidents in the lives of one man and one woman,--scenes and incidents which, from their very nature, were such that no third person could figure in them,--I have only to explain that Grant Harlson and I were friends from boyhood, practically from babyhood, and that never, during all our lives together, did a change occur in our relationship. He has told me many things of a nature imparted by one man to another very rarely, and only when each of the two feels that they are very close together in that which sometimes makes two men as one. He was proud and glad when he told me these things--they were but episodes, and often trivial ones--and I was interested deeply. They added the details of a history much of which I knew and part of which I had guessed at.
He was not quite the ordinary man, this Grant Harlson, close friend of mine. He had an individuality, and his name is familiar to many people in the world. He has been looked upon by the tactful as but one of a type in a new nationality--a type with traits not yet clearly defined, a type not large, nor yet, thank God, uncommon--one of the best of the type; to me, the best. A close friend perhaps is blind. No; he is not that: he but sees so clearly that the world, with poorer view, may not always agree with him.
I hardly know how to describe this same Grant Harlson. At this stage of my story it is scarcely requisite that I should, but the account is loose and vagrant and with no chronology. Physically, he was more than most men, six feet in height, deep of chest, broad-shouldered, strong-legged and strong-featured, and ever in good health, so far as all goes, save the temporary tax on recklessness nature so often levies, and the other irregular tax she levies by some swoop of the bacilli of which the doctors talk so much and know so little. I mean only that he might catch a fever with a chill addition if he lay carelessly in some miasmatic swamp on some hunting expedition, or that, in time of cholera, he might have, like other men, to struggle with the enemy. But he tossed off most things lightly, and had that vitality which is of heredity, not built up with a single generation, though sometimes lost in one. Forest and farm-bred, college-bred, city-fostered and broadened and hardened. A man of the world, with experiences, and in his quality, no doubt, the logical, inevitable result of such experiences--one with a conscience flexile and seeking, but hard as rock when once satisfied. One who never, intentionally, injured a human being, save for equity's sake. One who, of course, wandered in looking for what was, to him, the right, but who, having once determined, was ever steadfast. A man who had seen and known and fed and felt and risked, but who seemed to me always as if his religion were: "What shall I do? Nature says so-and-so, and the Power beyond rules nature." Laws of organization for political purposes, begun before Romulus and Remus, and varied by the dale-grouped Angles or the Northmen's Thing, did not seem to much impress him. He recognized their utility, wanted to improve them, made that his work, and eventually observed most of them. This, it seemed to me, was his honest make-up--a Berseker, a bare-sark descendant of the Vikings, in a dress-coat. He had passions, and gratified them sometimes. He had ambitions, and worked for them. He had a conscience, and was guided by it.
It was always interesting to me to look at him in youthful fray, more so, years afterward, in club or in convention, or anywhere, and try to imagine him the country small boy. Keen, hard, alert in all the ways of a great city, it was difficult to conceive him in his early youth, well as I knew it; difficult to reflect that his dreams at night were not of the varying results of some late scheme, nor of white shoulders at the opera, nor the mood of the Ninth Ward, nor of the drift of business, but of some farm-house's front yard in mid-summer with a boy aiming a long shot-gun at a red-winged poacher in a cherry tree, or that he saw, in sleep, the worn jambs beside the old-fashioned fireplace where, winter mornings, he kicked on his frozen boots, and the living-room where, later in the morning, he ate so largely of buckwheat cakes. He was a figure, wicked some said, a schemer many said, a rock of refuge for his friends said more. This was the man, no uncommon type in the great cities of the great republic.
As for the woman, I write with greater hesitation. I can tell of her in this place but in vague outline. She was slender, not tall, brown-haired and with eyes like those of the deer or Jersey heifer, save that they had the accompanying expression of thought or mood or fancy which mobile human features with them give. She was a woman of the city, with all that gentle craft which is a woman's heritage. She was good. She was unlike all others in the world to one man--no, to two.
I have but tried to tell what these two people appeared to me. I can see them as they were, but cannot tell it as I should. I have not succeeded well in expressing myself in words. Even were I cleverer, I should fail. We can picture characters but approximately.
|
{
"id": "16143"
}
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2
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CLOSE TO NATURE.
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The great forest belt, oak, ash, beech and maple, sweeps southwestward from New England through New York and trends westward and even to the north again till one sees the same landscape very nearly reproduced in Wisconsin wilds. Not far from where its continuity is broken by the southern reach of Lake Huron was a clearing cut in the wood. The land was rolling, and through the clearing ran a vigorous creek, already alder-fringed--for the alder follows the chopper swiftly--and glittering with countless minnows. In the spring great pickerel came up, too, from the deep waters, miles away, to spawn and, sometimes, to be speared. From either side of the creek the ground ascended somewhat, and on one bank stood a little house. It was a house pretentious for the time, since it was framed and boarded instead of being made of logs, but it contained only three rooms: one, the general living-room with the brick fireplace on one side, and the others, smaller, for sleeping apartments. So close to the edge of the forest was the house that the sweep of the wind through the tree-tops made constant music, and the odd, squalling bark of the black squirrel, the chatter of the red one, the drumming of the ruffed grouse, the pipe of the quail and the morning gobble of the wild turkey were familiar sounds. There were deer and bear in the depths of the green ocean, and an occasional wolverine. Sometimes at night a red fox would circle about the clearing and bark querulously, the cry contrasting oddly with the notes of whippoorwills and the calls of loons. The trees were largely oak and beech and ash and birch, and in the spring there were great splashes of white where the Juneberry trees had burst into bloom. In summer there was a dense greenness everywhere, and in autumn a great blaze of scarlet and yellow leaves.
There was an outlined flower garden in front of the house, made in virgin soil, and with the stumps of trees, close-hewn, still showing above the surface. Beside the door were what they called "bouncing Betties" and "old hen and chickens," and on each side of a short pathway, that led to what was as yet little more than a trail through the wood, were bunches of larkspur and phlox and old-fashioned pinks and asters, and there were a few tall hollyhocks and sunflowers standing about as sentinels. The wild flowers all about were so close to these that all their perfumes blended, and the phlox and pinks could see their own cousins but a few feet away. The short path ran through a clump of bushes but a few yards from the creek. In these bushes song-sparrows and "chippy-birds" built their nests.
In the doorway of the little house by the forests edge stood, one afternoon in summer, a young man. He was what might perhaps be termed an exceedingly young man, as his sixth birthday was but lately attained, and his stature and general appearance did not contradict his age. His apparel was not, strictly speaking, in keeping with the glory of the general scene. His hat had been originally of the quality known as "chip," but the rim was gone, and what remained had an air of abandon about it. His clothing consisted of two garments, a striped, hickory shirt and trousers of blue drilling. The trousers were supported by suspenders, home-made, of the same material. Sometimes he wore but one. It saved trouble. He was barefooted. He stood with a hand in each pocket, his short legs rather wide apart, and looked out upon the landscape. His air was that of a large landed proprietor, one, for instance, who owned the earth.
This young man under consideration had not been in society to any great extent, and of one world had seen very little. Of another he knew a great deal, for his age. With people of the sort who live in towns he was unacquainted, but with nature's people he was on closer terms. He had a great friend and crony in a person who had been a teacher, and who had come to this frontier life from a broader field. This person was his mother. With his father he was also on a relationship of familiarity, but the father was, necessarily, out with his axe most of the time, and so it came that the young man and his mother were more literally growing up together with the country. To her he went with such problems as his great mind failed to solve, and he had come to have a very good opinion of her indeed. Not that she was as wise as he in many things; certainly not. She did not know how the new woodchuck hole was progressing, nor where the coon tracks were thickest along the creek, nor where the woodpecker was nesting; but she was excessively learned, nevertheless, and could be relied upon in an emergency. He approved of her, decidedly. Besides, he remembered her course on one occasion when he was in a great strait. He was but three years old then, but he remembered all about it. It was, in fact, this occurrence which had given him his hobby.
The young man had a specialty. He had several specialties, but to one yielded all the rest. He had an eye to chipmunks, and had made most inefficient traps for them and hoped some day to catch one, but they were nothing to speak of. As for the minnows in the creek, had he not caught one with a dipper once, and had he not almost hit a big pickerel with a stone? He knew where the liverwort and anemones grew most thickly in the spring and had gathered fragrant bunches of them daily, and he knew, too, of a hollow where there had been a snowy sheet of winter-green blossoms earlier, and where there would soon be an abundance of red berries such as his mother liked. At beech-nut gathering, in the season, he admitted no superior. As for the habits of the yellow-birds, particularly at the season when they were feeding upon thistle-seed and made a golden cloud amid the white one as they drifted with the down, well, he was the only one who really knew anything about it! Who but he could take the odd-shaped pod of the wild fleur-de-lis, the common flag, and, winding it up in the flag's own long, narrow leaf, holding one end, and throwing the pod sling-wise, produce a sound through the air like that of the swoop of the night-hawk? And who better than he could pluck lobelia, and smartweed, and dig wild turnips and bring all for his mother to dry for possible use, should, he or his father or she catch cold or be ill in any way? Hopes for the future had he, too. Sometimes a deer had come in great leaps across the clearing, and once a bear had invaded the hog-pen. The young man had an idea that as soon as he became a little taller and could take down the heavy gun, an old "United States yager" with a big bore, bloodshed would follow in great quantities. He had persuaded his father to let him aim the piece once or twice, and had confidence that if he could get a fair shot at any animal, that animal would die. Were it a deer, he had concluded he would aim from a great stump a few feet distant from the house. If a bear came, he would shut the door and raise the window, not too far, and blaze away from there. But in none of all these things, either present exploits or imaginings for the future, was his interest most entangled. His specialty was Snakes.
Not intended by nature for a naturalist was this youthful individual whose specialty was snakes. Very much enamored was he of most of nature's products, but not at all of the family _ophidia_. Snakes were his specialty simply because he did not approve of them. All dated back to the affair of three years before. Snakes were abundant in the wood, but were not of many kinds. There were garter-snakes, dreaded of the little frogs, but timid of most things; there was a small snake of wonderful swiftness and as green as the grass into which it darted; there were the water pilots, sunning themselves in coils upon the driftwood in the water, swart of color, thick of form and offensive of aspect; there were the milk-snakes, yellowish gray, with wonderful banded sides and with checker-board designs in black upon their yellow bellies. Sometimes a pan of milk from the solitary cow, set for its cream in the dug-out cellar beneath the house, would be found with its yellow surface marred and with a white puddling about the floor, and then the milk remaining would be thrown away and there would be a washing and scalding of the pan, because the thief was known. There were, in the lowlands, the massasaugas; short, sluggish rattle-snakes, venomous but cowardly, and, finally, there were the black-snakes ranging everywhere, for no respecter of locality is _bascanion constrictor_ when in pursuit of prey. Largest of all the snakes of the region, the only constrictor among them, at home in the lowlands, on the hill-sides or in the tree-tops, the black-snake was the dread of all small creatures of the wood. There was a story of how one of them had dropped upon a hunter, coiled himself about his neck and strangled him.
This young man of six remembered how, one day, three years back, before he had assumed trousers or become familiar with all the affairs of the world, he was alone in the house, his mother having gone into the little garden. He remembered how, looking up, he saw, lifted above the doorsill, a head with beady, glittering eyes, and how, after a moment's survey, the head was lifted higher and there came gliding over the floor toward him a black monster, with darting tongue and long, curved body and evident fierce intent. He remembered how he leaped for a high stool which served him at the table, how he clambered to its top and there set up a mighty yell for succor--for he had great lungs. He could, by shutting his eyes, even now, see his mother as she came running from the garden, see her look of terror as she caught sight of the circling thing upon the floor, and then the look of desperation as the mother instinct rose superior and she dashed into the room, seized the great iron shovel that stood before the fireplace, and began dealing reckless blows at the hissing serpent. A big black-snake is not a pleasant customer, but neither--for a black-snake--is a frenzied mother with an iron fire shovel in her hand, and this particular snake turned tail, a great deal of it, by the way, since it extended to its head, and disappeared over the doorsill in a cataract of black and into the wood again.
From that hour the individual so beleaguered on a stool had been no friend of snakes. Talk about vendettas! No Sicilian feud was ever bitterer or more relentlessly pursued, as the boy increased in size and confidence. Scores of garter-snakes had been his victims; once even a milk-snake had yielded up the ghost, and once--a great day that--he had seen a black-snake in the open and had assailed it valorously with stones hurled from a distance. When it came toward him he retreated, but did not abandon the bombardment, and finally drove it into a cover of deep bushes. Come to close quarters with a black-snake he had never done, for a double reason: firstly, because stones did almost as well as a club, and, secondly, because his father, fearing for him, had threatened him with punishment if he essayed such combat, and the firm old rule of "spare the rod and spoil the child" was adhered to literally by the father and indorsed by the mother with hesitation. And, growing close to the house, were slender sprouts of birch and willow, each of which leaned forward as if to say, "I am just the thing to lick a boy with," and such a sprout as one of these, especially the willow, does, under proper conditions, so embrace one's shoulders and curl about one's legs and make itself familiar. But the feud was on, and as a permanency, though, on this particular afternoon, the young man, as he stood there in the doorway, had no thought of snakes. Something else this summer was attracting much of his attention. He had a family on his hands.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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3
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BOY, BIRD AND SNAKE.
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The young man's family was not large, but a part of it was young, and he felt the responsibility. The song-sparrow is the very light and gladness of the woods and fields. There are rarer singers, and birds of more brilliant plumage, but he is the constant quantity. His notes may not rival those mellow, brief ones of the blue-birds in early spring, so sweet in their quaint inflection, which suggest all hope, and are so striking because heard while snow may be yet upon the ground; he may not have the wild abandon of the bobolink with that tinkle and gurgle and thrill; he is no pretentious songster, like a score of other birds, but he is a great part of the soul of early summer, for he is telling, morning, noon and night, how good the world is, how he approves of the sunshine, and how everything is all right! And so the young man approved much of the song-sparrow, and was interested in the movements of all his kind.
One day in May, the boy had noted something in the clump of bushes, between the house and creek, which very much resembled a small bird's-nest, and had at once investigated. He found it, the nest of the song-sparrow, and, when the little gray guardian had fluttered away, he noted the four tiny eggs, and their mottled beauty. He did not touch them, for he had been well trained as to what should be the relations between human beings and all singing birds, but his interest in the progress of that essay in summer housekeeping became at once absorbing. He announced in the house that he intended to watch over the nest all summer, and keep off the hawks, and that when the little eggs were hatched, and the little birds were grown, maybe he would try to tame one. He was encouraged in the idea. It is good to teach a boy to be protective. And when the birds were hatched, his interest deepened.
He was half inclined, as he stood in the doorway on this particular day, to visit the dense bushes and note the condition of affairs in that vicinity, but, buoyant as he was, there was something in the outlook which detained him. There was such a yellow glory to the afternoon, and so many things were happening.
Balanced above the phlox, a humming-bird, green-backed and glittering, hung and tasted for a moment, then flashed to where the larkspurs were. A red-headed woodpecker swung downward on the wing to the white-brown side of a dead elm, sounded a brief tattoo upon the surface, then dived at a passing insect. A phoebe bird was singing somewhere. A red squirrel sat perched squarely on the drooping limb of a hickory tree and chewed into a plucked nut, so green that the kernel was not formed, then dropped it to the ground, and announced in a chatter that he was a person of importance. Great yellow butterflies, with black markings upon their wings, floated lazily here and there, and at last settled in a magnificent cluster upon a moist spot in a mucky place where something pleased their fancy, and where they fed and fluttered tremulously. There were myriads of wild bees, and a pleasant droning filled the air, while from all about came the general soft clamor of the forest, made up of many sounds.
The boy was satisfied with the prospect. Suddenly he started. There was a call which was not of peacefulness. He knew the cry. He had heard it when some bird of prey had seized a smaller one. It was the call of the sparrow now, and it came from his clump of bushes. His family was in danger. A hawk, perhaps, but he would have seen such a foe in its descent. It might be a cat-bird or a weasel?
With a rush, the boy was across the garden, and as he ran he snatched up what was for a person of such inches an ideal club, a cut of hickory, perhaps two feet in length, not over an inch in thickness, but tough and heavy enough for a knight errant of his years. He broke through the slight herbage about the place where the bushes grew thickest, and, getting into an open space, had a fair view of the particular shrub wherein were the bird's-nest and his birdlings. He stopped short and looked, then ran back a little, then looked again, and straightway there rose from his throat a scream which, though greater in volume, was almost in its character like that other wild cry of the two sparrows who were fluttering pitifully and desperately about their nest, tempting their own death each instant in defense of their half-fledged young. He stood with his youthful limbs half paralyzed, and screamed, for he saw what was most horrible, and what it seemed he could not check nor hinder, though a cruel tragedy was going on before his eyes!
Curled easily about the main stem of the bush, close to which, upon a forked limb, rested the sparrow's nest, its dark coils reaching downward and its free neck and head waving regularly to and fro, was a monstrous black-snake, and in its jaws fluttered feebly one of the youthful sparrows. Evidently the seizure had just been made when the boy burst in upon the scene. The snake's eyes glittered wickedly, and it showed no disposition to drop its prey because of the intruder. It only reared its head and swung slowly from side to side. Lying almost at full length upon a branching limb of the same bush, and on a level with the nest, was a second serpent, its head raised slightly, but motionless, awaiting, it seemed, its opportunity to seize another of the tender brood. The parent birds flew about in converging circles in their strait, clamoring piteously and approaching dangerously near to the jaws of their repulsive enemies. The boy but stood and screamed. They were the greatest black-snakes he had ever seen. Then, all at once, he became another creature. His childish voice changed in its key, and, club in hand, screaming still louder, he ran right at the bush. At the same moment his frightened mother came running down the pathway, screaming also.
As the boy leaped downward, both snakes, with wonderful swiftness, dropped to the ground and darted across the open space of a few yards, toward the creek. Side by side, with crests erect, they glided, and one of them still held between his jaws the unfortunate young sparrow. The boy did not hesitate a moment. Still making a great noise, but hoarsely for a creature of his age, he ran to head them off and barely passed them as they touched the water. He leaped in ahead of them and they were beside him in an instant. The water was up to his waist. He plunged deeper recklessly. With a cry of rage he struck at the serpent with the bird, and struck and struck again, blindly, still giving utterance to that odd sound, and with the fury of a young demon. The woman had reached the bank and stood, unknowing what to do, shrieking in maternal terror, while across the clearing a man was running. And then a fierce chance blow, delivered with all the strength of the maddened boy, alighted fairly, just below the head of the snake carrying away the bird, and in a second it was done for, floating, writhing down the stream with a broken neck, and its tiny prey loosened and drifting away beside it.
The mother gasped in relief, but only for a moment. The boy cast one glance at the floating reptile and the bird, and only one, then turned to the other serpent. It had almost reached the shore, and between that and the covert it might attain was a stretch of shrubless ground. Already its black length was defined on the short grass when the boy rushed from the water with uplifted club, just as his father came in full view of the scene from the other side. With cries like those of some young wild beast, the child ran at the snake, raining blows with the stout club, and with rage in every feature. The black-snake, checked in its course, turned with the constrictor's instinct and sprang at the boy, whipping its strong coils about one of its assailant's legs and rearing its head aloft to a level with his face. The boy but struck and gasped and stumbled over some obstruction, and, somehow, the snake was wrenched away, and then there was another rush at it, another rain of blows, and it was hit as had been its mate, and lay twisting with a broken back. The man dashed through the creek and came upon the scene with a great stick in his hand, but its use was not required. The only labor which devolved upon him was to tear away from his quarry the boy who was possessed of a spirit of rage and vengeance beyond all reasoning. Upon the heaving, tossing thing, so that he would have been fairly in its coils had it possessed longer any power, he leaped, striking fiercely and screaming out all the fearful terms he knew--what would have been the wildest of all abandonment of profanity had he but acquired the words for such performance. His father caught him by the arm, and he struggled with him. It was simply a young madman. Carried across the creek and held in bonds for a brief period, he suddenly burst out sobbing, and then went to inspect the ravished nest where the two old birds hovered mourningly about, and where the remaining nestlings seemed dead at first, though they subsequently recovered, so gruesomely had the fascination of their natural enemy affected them!
What happened then? What happens when any father and mother have occasion to consider the matter of a son, a child, bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh, who has transgressed some rule they have set up for him wisely, thoughtfully, but with no provision for emotional or extraordinary contingencies, because it would be useless, since he could not comprehend exceptions. They took him to the house. The father looked at him queerly, but with an expression that was far removed from anger on his face, and his mother took the young man aside and washed him, and put on another hickory shirt, and told him that his sparrows would raise a pretty good family after all, and that it wouldn't be so hard for the old birds to feed three as four.
Early that same evening a six-foot father strolled over to the place of the nearest settler, a mile or so away, and the two men walked back, talking together as neighbors will in a new country, though they do not so well in cities, and when they reached the creek one of them, the father, cut a forked twig and lifted the black-snake to its full length. Its head, raised even with his, allowed its tail to barely touch the ground. Evidently the men were interested, and evidently one of them was rather proud of something. But he said nothing to his son about it. That would, in its full consideration, have involved a licking of somebody for disobedience of orders. It was a good thing for the bereaved song-sparrows, though. Older heads than that of the boy were now considerate of their welfare. Lucky sparrows were they!
As for the youth, he had, that night, queer dreams, which he remembered all his life. He was battling with the snakes again, and the fortunes of war shifted, and there was much trouble until daylight. Then, with the sun breaking in a blaze upon the clearing, with the ground and trees flashing forth illuminated dew-drops, with a clangor of thousands of melodious bird-voices--even the bereaved father song-sparrow was singing--he was his own large self again, and went forth conquering and to conquer. He found the murdered nestling stranded down the creek, and buried it with ceremony. He found both dead invaders, and punched their foul bodies with a long stick. And he wished a bear would come and try to take a pig!
This was the boy. This was the field he grew in, the nature of his emergence into active entity, and this may illustrate somewhat his unconscious bent as influenced by early surroundings, while showing some of the fixed features of heredity, for he came of a battling race.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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4
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GROWING UP WITH THE COUNTRY.
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Have you ever seen a buckwheat field in bloom? Have you stood at its margin and gazed over those acres of soft eider-down? Have your nostrils inhaled the perfume of it all, the heavy sweetness toned keenly with the whiff of pine from the adjacent wood? Have you noted the wild bees in countless myriads working upon its surface and gathering from each tiny flower's heart that which makes the clearest and purest and most wine-like of all honey? Have you stood at the forest's edge, perched high upon a fence, maybe of trees felled into a huge windrow when first the field was cleared, or else of rails of oak or ash, both black and white--the black ash lasts the longer, for worms invade the white--and looked upon a field of growing Indian corn, the green spread of it deep and heaving, and noted the traces of the forest's tax-collectors left about its margins: the squirrel's dainty work and the broken stalks and stripped ears upon the ground, leavings of the old raccoon, the small bear of the forest, knowing enough to become a friend of man when caught and tamed, and almost human in his ways, as curious as a scandal-monger and selfish as a money-lender?
Have you gone into the hard maple wood, the sugar bush, in early spring, the time of frosty nights and sunny days, and driven home the gouge and spile, and gathered the flowing sap and boiled it in such pots and kettles as later pioneers have owned, and gained such wildwood-scented product as no confectioner of the town may ever hope to equal? Have you lain beside some pond, a broadening of the creek above an ancient beaver-dam, at night, in mellowest midsummer, and watched the muskrats at their frays and feeding? Have you hunted the common wildcat, short-bodied demon, whose tracks upon the snow are discernible each winter morning, but who is so crafty, so gifted with some great art of slyness, that you may grow to manhood with him all about you, yet never see him in the sinewy flesh unless with dog and gun, and food and determination, you seek his trail, and follow it unreasoningly until you terminate the stolid quest with a discovery of the quarry lying close along the body of some eloping, stunted tree, and with a lively episode in immediate prospect? Did you ever chase a wolverine, last of his kind in a clearing-overflowed region, strange combination in character and form of bear and lynx, gluttonous and voracious, and strong and fearless, a beast descended almost unchanged from the time of the earliest cave-men, the horror of the bravest dog, and end his too uncivilized career with a rifle-shot at thoughtful distance?
Have you seen the wild pigeons, before pot-hunters invaded their southern roosts and breeding-grounds and slaughtered them by millions, exterminating one of the most wonderful of American game birds, sweep over in such dense clouds that the sun would be obscured, and at times so close to earth that a long pole thrust aloft from tree or hillock would stun such numbers as would make a gallant pot-pie? Have you followed the deer in the dense forest, clinging doggedly to his track upon the fresh snow from the dusk of early morning, startling him again and again from covert, and shooting whenever you caught even so much as a glimpse of his gray body through distant interstices of tree and brush, until, late in the afternoon, human endurance, which always surpasses that of the wild beast, overcame him, and he leaped less strongly with each new alarm and grew more reckless before twilight, and came within easy range and fed his enemies on the morrow? Have you watched for him beside the brackish waters of the lick, where, perched upon a rude, high scaffold built beside a tree, mosquito-bitten and uneasy, you waited and suffered, preserving an absolute silence and immobility until came ghost-like flitting figures from the forest to the shallow's edge, when the great gun, carrying the superstitious number of buckshot, just thirteen, roared out, awakening a thousand echoes of the night, and, clambering down, found a great antlered thing in its death agony?
Have you wandered through new clearings neglected for a season and waded ankle-deep in strawberry blooms, and, later, fed there upon such scarlet fruit, so fragrant and with such a flavor of its own that the scientific horticulturist owns to-day his weakness? Have you looked out upon the flats some bright spring morning and found them transformed into a shallow lake by the creek's first flood, and seen one great expanse of shining gold as the sun smote the thin ice made in the night but to disappear long before mid-day and leave a surface all ripples and shifting lights and shadows, upon which would come an occasional splash and great out-extending circles, as some huge mating pickerel leaped in his glee? Have you stood sometime, in sheer delight of it, and drawn into distended lungs the air clarified by hundreds of miles of sweep over an inland sea, the nearest shore not a score of miles away, and filtered through aromatic forests to your senses, an invisible elixir, exhilarating, without a headache as the price? Have you seen the tiger-lilies and crimson Indian-tobacco blossoms flashing in the lowlands? Have you trapped the mink and, visiting his haunts, noticed there the old blue crane flitting ever ahead of you through dusky corridors, uncanny, but a friend? Have you--but there are a thousand things!
If you have not seen or known or felt all these fair things--so jumbled together in the allusion here, without a natural sequence or thought or reason or any art--if you have not owned them all and so many others that may not here be mentioned, then you have missed something of the gifts and glories of growth in a new land. Such experience comes but to one generation. But one generation grows with the conquest, and it is a great thing. It is man-making.
And from the east came more hewers of wood, not drawers of water, and the axe swung all around, and new clearings were made and earlier ones broadened, and where fireweed first followed, the burning of the logs there were timothy and clover, though rough the mowing yet, and the State was "settled." Roads through the woods showed wagon-ruts, now well defined; houses were not so far apart, and about them were young orchards. The wild was being subjugated. The tame was growing. The boy was growing with it.
There was nothing particularly novel in the manner of this youth's development, save that, as he advanced in years, he became almost a young Indian in all woodcraft, and that the cheap, long, single-barreled shotgun, which was his first great personal possession, became, in his skilled hands, a deadly thing. Wild turkey and ruffed grouse, and sometimes larger game, he contributed to the family larder, and he had it half in mind to seek the remoter west when he grew older, and become a mighty hunter and trapper, and a slaughterer of the Sioux. The Chippewas of his own locality were scarcely to be shot at. Those remaining had already begun the unpretending life most of them live to-day, were on good terms with everybody, tanned buckskin admirably, and he approved of them. With the Sioux it was quite different. He had read of them in the weekly paper, which was now a part of progress, and he had learned something of them at the district school--for the district school had come, of course. It springs up in the United States after forests have been cut away, just as springs the wheat or corn. And the district school was, to the youth, a novelty and a vast attraction. It took him into Society.
Through forest paths and from long distances in each direction came the pupils to this first school of the region, and there were perhaps a score of them in all, boys and girls, and the teacher was a fair young woman from the distant town. The school-house was a structure of a single room, built in the wood, and squirrels dropped nuts upon its roof from overhanging boughs and peeped in at the windows, and sometimes a hawk would chase a fleeing bird into the place, where it would find a sure asylum, but create confusion. Once a flock of quail came marching in demurely at the open door, while teacher and pupils maintained a silence at the pretty sight. And once the place was cleared by an invasion of hornets enraged at something. That was a great day for the boys.
The studies were not as varied as in the cross-roads schools to-day. There was the primer, and there were a few of the old Webster spelling-books, but, while the stories of the boy in the apple tree and the overweening milkmaid were familiar, the popular spelling-book was Town's, and the readers were First, Second, Third and Fourth, and their "pieces" included such classics as "Webster's Reply to Hayne" and "Thanatopsis," and numerous clever exploits of S. P. Willis in blank verse. Davie's Arithmetic was dominant, and, as for grammar, whenever it was taught, Brown's was the favorite. There was, even then, in the rural curriculum the outlining of that system of the common schools which has made them of this same region unexcelled elsewhere in all the world. There were strong men, men who could read the future, controlling the legislation of some of the new States.
The studies mentioned, and geography were the duties now in hand, and there was indifference or hopefulness or rivalry among those of the little group as there is now in every school, from some new place in Oklahoma to old Oxford, over seas. In all scholarship, it chanced that this same boy, Grant Harlson, was easily in the lead. His mother, an ex-teacher in another and older State, loving, regardful, tactful, had taught him how to read and comprehend, and he had something of a taste that way and a retentive memory. So, inside the rugged schoolroom, he had a certain prestige. Outside, he took his chances.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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5
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GRIM-VISAGED WAR.
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It has been said that there were some twenty children in the school. They were of various degrees and fortunes. There were the sons and daughters of the land-owners, the pioneers, and there were the sons and daughters of the men who worked for them, mostly the drifting class, who occupied log houses on unclaimed ground and got flour or meal or potatoes for their services with the steadier or more masterful. In the school, though, there were no distinctions on this account. There were but two measurements of standing among girls and boys together, their relative importance in their classes, the teacher giving force to this, and among the boys alone the equation resulting from the issue of all personal encounter. Boys will be boys, and our fighting Anglo-Saxon blood will tell.
There were Harrison Woodell and George Appleton and Frank Hoadly and Mortimer Butler, among the older boys; and, among the second growth, though varying somewhat in their ages, were Alf Maitland and Maurice Shannon and Grant Harlson, and three or four others who ranked with them. The girls differed more in age, for there were some who aspired to be teachers, who, if boys, would have been home at work in summer-time, and some who could come, while very young, since their older sisters came with them to exercise all needed care. And among the smaller ones, though not so young as some, was Katie Welwood, a black-haired, black-eyed, evil-tempered little thing, who was the rage among the boys. She had smiled upon Grant Harlson, and smiled upon young Maitland, so early in her years is the female a coquette, and they looked askance upon each other, though they were the best of friends. Had they not together defied the big George Appleton, and vanquished him in running fight, and were they not sworn allies, come any weal or woe! But woman, even at the age of ten, has ever been the cause of trouble between males, and those two had, on her account, a mortal feud. It all came suddenly. There had been certain jealousies and heartaches caused by the raven-locked young vixen with the winning eyes, but there had been no outspoken words of anger between these vassals in her train until there came excuse in other way, for your country lad is modest, and never admits that his ailing has aught to do with the grand passion. But there had been a sharp debate over the proper ownership of a big gray squirrel at which they had shot their arrows from strong hickory bows together, and, with this excuse for fuel to the fire already smoldering, there soon came a great flame. Neither would yield to one he knew in his heart addicted to winning, villainously, the affections of the young woman, and so they fought. Unfortunately for Grant, Napoleon was at least in a measure right when he remarked that Providence always favored the heaviest battalions, and equally unfortunate for him that Alf, as resolute as he, was just a little heavier, was as tough of fiber at that stage of their young careers, and was, in a general way, what a patron of the prize ring would term the better man. Grant went home licked as thoroughly as any country boy, not hyper-critical, could ask, and should have felt that all was lost save honor. But he did not feel that way. He did not consider honor at greater length than is generally done by any boy of ten, on the way to eleven, but he did want vengeance. To lose his siren and a portion of his blood--"-'twas from the nose," as Byron says--together, was too much for his philosophy. He must have vengeance! He was no lambkin, and he knew things. He had read the Swiss Family Robinson. He resolved that on the morrow he would spear his hated rival and successful adversary!
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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6
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THE SPEARING OF ALFRED.
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"The spears they carried, though entirely of wood, were dangerous weapons," says the old writer in describing the armament of a tribe of the South Sea islanders. "Their points are hardened by being subjected to fire, and, in the hands of those fierce men, they are as deadly as the assegai of the African."
This passage, which he had stumbled upon somewhere, was of deepest interest to young Harlson. His armament, he felt, was not yet what it should be. He had arrived at the dignity of a gun, it was true, but that was quite another thing. What he needed was something especially adapted for personal encounter and for any knight-errantry which chanced to offer itself. He had imagined what might occur if he were with Katie Welwood and they should be assailed by anything or anybody. He had large ideas of what was a lover's duty, and was under the impression, from what he had read, that a proper knight should go always prepared for combat. So he had fashioned him a spear, a formidable weapon contrived with great exactitude after the South Sea island recipe. He had gone into the woods and selected a blue beech, straight as could be found, and nearly an inch in thickness. From this he had cut a length of perhaps ten feet, which, with infinite labor and risk of jack-knife, he had whittled down to smoothness and to whiteness. Upon one end he left as large a head as the sapling would allow, and this, after shaving it into the fashion of a spear-blade, he had plunged into the fire until it had begun to char. He had scraped away the charring with a piece of broken glass, and, as a result of his endeavors, had really a spear with a point of undoubted sharpness and great hardness. He took huge pride in his new weapon, and carried it to school with him for days and on his various woodland expeditions, but there had come no chance to rescue any distressful maiden anywhere, and the envy and admiration of the other boys had but resulted in emulation and in the appearance of similar warlike gear among them.
He had tired of carrying the thing about, and had for some time left it peacefully at home, leaning beside the hog-pen. Now all was different. The time had come! He would have revenge, and have it in a gory way. As the South Sea islanders treated their foes, his should be treated. He would go upon the war-path, and as for Alf--well, he was sorry for him in a general way, but all mercy was dead within his breast specifically. He remembered something in the reader: "'Die! spawn of our kindred! Die! traitor to Lara!' As he spake, there was blood on the spear of Mudara!"
There must be blood, and he laid his plans with what he considered the very height of savage craft and ingenuity.
The father of Alf was a sturdy man and good one, but he had a weakness. He was the chief supporter in the neighborhood of the itinerant minister who exhorted throughout this portion of the country, and he had imbibed, perhaps, too much of a fancy for hearing himself talk at revival meetings, and for hearing himself in long prayers at home. His petitions covered a great range of subjects, and he was regular in their presentation. The family prayers before breakfast every morning were serious matters to the boys from one point of view, and not as serious as they should have been from another. Present, and kneeling at chairs about the room, they always were on these occasions, for the order was imperative, and the father's arm was strong, and above the door hung a strap of no light weight, constituting as it had once done that portion of a horse's harness known technically as the bellyband. So the boys were always there, each at his particular chair, and Grant Harlson, who had been present at these orisons many a time, knew exactly where Alf's chair was, and the attitude he must occupy. It was close beside an open window, and his back was always toward the opening, this particular attitude having been dictated by the father in the vain hope of making his buoyant offspring more attentive if their gaze were diverted from things outside. And all these circumstances the dreadful savage from the South Sea islands was considering with care. They are very regular in their habits in the country, and he knew just the moment when the morning devotions would begin--some fifteen minutes before the breakfast hour. He knew about how long he would be in traversing the distance between his own house and the scene of the coming tragedy, and the morning after his resolve was made he bolted his own breakfast in a hurry, seized his spear, and scurried down the wood road until he approached the verge of the Maitland clearing. Then began a series of extraordinary movements.
Mr. Maitland's house stood close by the wood at one side of the clearing, and Grant could easily have walked unperceived until within a few yards of the place, had he but kept hidden by the trees; but such was not his course. Right across the clearing, and passing near the house, had been dug a great ditch a yard in depth, a year or two before, with the intent of draining a piece of lowland lately subjugated. This ditch had been overgrown with weeds until it was almost hidden from sight, and now in summer time its bottom was but a sandy surface. It was with the aid of this natural shelter that the wily invader proposed to steal upon his enemy. Already he was lurking near its entrance.
Just why he had to "lurk" at this particular juncture Grant could not probably have told. There was not the slightest necessity for lurking. There were no windows in the side of the house toward him, and no one was visible about the place, but he knew what he had read, and he knew that the savages of the South Sea islands were always addicted to lurking just previous to springing upon their unsuspecting victims, and he was bound to lurk and do it thoroughly. His manner of lurking consisted, before he reached the clearing fence, in crouching very low and creeping along in a most constrained and uncomfortable manner, occasionally dropping to the ground slowly and with utter noiselessness and rising again with equal caution. All this time the face of the young man wore what he conceived to be an expression of most bloody purpose craftily concealed. Upon reaching the fence, he shot his head above it, and withdrew it with lightning-like rapidity, frightening almost into convulsions, in her nest, a robin whose home was between the rails in the immediate vicinity. Of course he could have looked through the fence with greater ease, but that would have involved no such dramatic effect. His sudden view of the landscape taken, the boy climbed the fence, ran to the dry ditch, parted the overhanging weeds and leaped down. Once in the dry waterway, he was utterly concealed from view, even had any one been near; but that made no difference with his precautions. He knew that after savages had lurked, they always glided, and that what the writers describe as "a snake-like motion" was something absolutely essential.
Spear in hand and creeping on his hands and knees, the destroyer advanced along the drain, lying flat and wriggling with much patience wherever a particularly clear stretch of sand presented itself. Half way across the field he raised his head with a movement so slow that a full minute was occupied in the performance, parted the weeds gently and peered out to get his bearings and ascertain if any foemen were in sight. There were no foemen, and his progress had been satisfactory. The remainder of the desperate advance was made with no less adroitness and success. At last there fell upon the ear of the avenger the sound of a human voice. He was close to the house, and the morning exercises had begun!
Here was the moment for the exhibition of all South Sea island craft, and the moment was about at hand, too, for exhibition of the full measure of a South Sea islander's ferocity! The islander glided from the ditch, crept to the house and slowly put forth his head until he could see around the corner. There, within three feet of him, back to the window, kneeling beside his chair, was Alf, ostensibly paying deep attention to his father's unctuous and sonorous sentences, though really, as Grant could see, engaged in flicking kernels of corn at his brother in another corner. His jeans trousers were, as a result of his present attitude, drawn tightly across that portion of his body nearest to the window, and never fairer mark was offered savage spear! Not a moment did the avenger hesitate. He poised his weapon, took deadly aim, and lunged!
Never was quiet of a summer morning broken more suddenly and startlingly. A yell so loud, so wild, so blood-curdling, ascended from within the farm-house, that even nature seemed to shiver for a moment. Then came the rush of feet and the clamor of many voices. Out of doors ran all the household, the father included, so appalling had been Alf's cry of apparently mortal agony, to learn the source of all the trouble. There was nothing to be seen. Not a living being was in sight. It dawned upon the elders gradually that nothing very serious had occurred, and the father and the females of the household went in to breakfast, the exercises of the morning not being now renewed, while Alf and his brother scoured the wood. Upon one leg of Alf's jeans trousers appeared an artistic dab of red. He had been wounded, and for days the sitting down and the uprising of him would be acts of care.
And where was the South Sea islander? Almost as he lunged he had leaped backward around the corner of the house and run for the covered ditch. Once in that covert, he did not "lurk" to any great extent. He crawled away as rapidly as his hands and knees would carry him, reasoning that the boys would, upon finding no one near the house, run naturally to the wood in search of the enemy. They never thought of the old ditch, though, later in the day, the thing occurred to them, and an examination of the sandy bottom told the story. The edge of the field was reached, the islander lying very low until he could climb the fence in safety. Then he examined his fatal spear-point. It appeared incarnadined. There was certainly blood on the spear of Mudara!
A week later Alf caught Grant, and, despite another valiant struggle, licked him mercilessly. A year later the fortunes of war had turned the other way. As they grew, these boys, like race-horses well-matched, passed each other, physically, time and again, one now surging to the front and then another, with no great difference at any time between them.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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7
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HOW FICTION MADE FACT.
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What may become a streak of proper modern chivalry in the man is but a fantastic imagining in the boy. Some one has said that but for the reading of "Ivanhoe" in the South, there would have been no war of the rebellion, that the sentiment of knightliness and desire to uphold opinions in material encounter was so fostered by the presence of the book in thousands of households that, when the issue came, a majority was for war which might have been otherwise inclined under more practical teaching. This may or may not have been the case. There would be nothing strange in it were the theory correct; the influence of great novels is always underrated; but certain it is that the reading of the age influences much the youth, and that many a bent of mind is made by the books that lie about the house when some strong young intellect is forming. So with this boy. The same force which made of him a great savage marauder of the South Sea islands, though modified by a keener perception and a broader intelligence, affected him as he grew older. There were a few books available to him; and what a reader he was, and what a listener! His father would sometimes read aloud at night from current weeklies, and then the boy would sprawl along the floor, his feet toward the great fireplace, his head upon a rolled-up sheepskin, and drink in every word. "East Lynne" was running as a serial then, and he would have given all his worldly possessions to have had Sir Francis Levison alone in the wood, and had his spear, and at his back some half-dozen of the boys whom he could name. In some publication, too, at about that time, appeared the tale of the adventures of Captain Gardiner and Captain Daggett in antarctic wastes, seeking the sea-lions' skins, and the story of pluckiness and awful trial affected his imagination deeply. Years afterward, when he himself was at death's portal once, because of a grievous injury, and when ice was bound upon his head to keep away the fever from his brain, he imagined in his delirium that he was Captain Gardiner, and called aloud the orders to the crew which he had heard read when a boy, and which had so long lain in his memory's storehouse among the unconsidered lumber.
The boy's reading included all there was in his home, and the small collection was not a bad one. "Chambers' Miscellany" was in the accidental lot, and good for him it was. "Chambers' Miscellany" is better reading than much that is given to the world to-day, and the boy rioted in the adventure-flavored tales and sketches. Scott's poetical works were there, and Shakespeare, but the latter was read only for the story of the play, and "Titus Andronicus" outranked even "Hamlet" among the tragedies. As for Scott, the stirring rhymes had marked effect, and this had one curious sequence. Tales of the lance and tilting have ever captivated boys, and Grant was no exception. Alf did not read so much, was of a nature less imaginative, and his younger brother, Valentine, read not at all, but among them was enacted a great scene of chivalry which ended almost in a tragedy. Grant, his mind absorbed in jousting and its laurels, explained the thing to Alf and induced him to read the tales of various encounters. Alf was more or less affected by the literature and ready to do his share toward making each of them a proper warrior fit for any fray. They considered the situation with much earnestness, and concluded that the only way to joust was to joust, and that Valentine should act as marshal of the occasion, for a marshal at a tourney, they discovered, was a prime necessity. As for coursers, barbs, destriers, or whatever name their noble steeds might bear, they had no choice. There were but a couple of clumsy farm mares available to them, and these the knights secured, their only equipments being headstalls abstracted from the harness in the barn, while the course fixed upon was a meadow well out of sight from the houses and the eyes of the elders. Valentine was instructed in his duties, particularly in the manner of giving the word of command. _Laissez aller_, as found in "Ivanhoe," Grant did not understand, but a passage from "The Lady of the Lake": "Now, gallants! for your ladies' sake, Upon them with the lance!"
seemed to answer every purpose, and Valentine was instructed to commit it to memory, as the event proved, with but indifferent success. He comprehended, in a vague way, that the warriors were to do battle for the honor of their true loves, but, at the critical moment, the lines escaped him and he had to improvise. The lances were rake-handles, and, as this was not to be a fray _a l'outrance_, about the end of each formidable weapon was wadded and tied an empty flour bag.
The unwilling, lumbering mares were brought upon the ground, and Valentine held the headstall reins while a preliminary ceremony was performed, for your perfect knight omits no courteous detail. Gloves were unknown about the farm, but Grant drew from his pocket a buckskin mitten, and with it slapped Alf suddenly in the face. It was to be regretted that the aggressor had somewhat exaggerated the mediaeval glove idea, and had not previously explained to Alf that to fling one's glove in a foeman's face was one proper form of deadly insult preceding mortal combat, for, ignoring lances, steeds and all about them, the assailed personage immediately "clinched," and the boys rolled over in a struggle, earnest, certainly, but altogether commonplace. It was with the greatest difficulty, while defending himself, that Grant was enabled to explain that his act was one rendered necessary by the laws of chivalry and a part of the preliminaries of the occasion, instead of an attack in cold blood upon an unwarned adversary. Alf accepted the apology gloweringly, and manifested great anxiety to secure his lance, and mount. It was evident the encounter would be deadly.
Some hundred yards apart, with the perplexed, astonished old mares facing each other, sat the warriors in their saddles, or, rather, in the place where their saddles would have been had they possessed them. Each grasped the headstall reins firmly in his left hand, and with his right aimed his top-heavy lance in a somewhat wobbling manner at his adversary. It must soon be known to all the world of knighthood which was the grimmer champion! At middle distance and well to one side, stood Grand Marshal Valentine, racking his brains for the lines which should give the signal for the shock, but all in vain. Desperation gave him inspiration. "Let 'er go for your girls!" he roared.
Never, even in the gentle and joyous passage of arms at Ashby, or on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, was afforded a more thrilling spectacle than when these two paladins rushed to the onset and met in mid-career. Each gave a yell and dug his heels into his charger, and whacked her with the butt end of his lance, and forced her into a ponderous gallop for the meeting. It matters not now what was the precise intent of either jouster, which of them aimed at gorget or head-piece, or at shield, for--either because the flour bags made the lances difficult to manage or of some unevenness in the ground--each missed his enemy in the encounter! Not so the two old mares! They came together with a mighty crash and rolled over in a great cloud of dust and grass and mane and tail and boy and spear and flour-bag!
There is a providence that looks after reckless youth especially, else there would have been broken bones, or worse; but out of the confusion two warriors scrambled to their feet, dazed somewhat and dirty, but unharmed, and two old mares floundered into their normal attitude a little later, evidently much disgusted with the entire proceeding. And Valentine, grand marshal, who had chanced to have a little difficulty with his elder brother the day before, promptly awarded the honors of the tournament to Grant on the ground that old Molly, the horse ridden by Alfred, seemed a little more shaken up than the other.
Of course there were other books than those of chivalric doings which appealed to this young reader so addicted to putting theory into practice at all risks. "Robinson Crusoe," and Byron, and D'Aubigne's "History of the Reformation," and "Midshipman Easy," and "Snarleyow," and the "Woman in White," "John Brent," and Josephus, and certain old readers, such as the American First Class Book, made up the odd country library, and there was not a book in the lot which was not in time devoured. There was another book, a romance entitled "Don Sebastian," to which at length a local tragedy appertained. The scene was laid in Spain or Portugal and the hero of the story was a very gallant character, indeed, one to be relied upon for the accomplishment of great slaughter in an emergency, but who was singularly unlucky in his love affair, in the outcome of which Grant became deeply interested, too deeply, as the event proved. Upon the country boy of eleven or twelve devolve always, in a new country, certain responsibilities not unconnected with the great fuel question,--the keeping of the wood-box full,--and these duties, in the absorption of the novel, the youth neglected shamefully. A casual allusion or two, followed by a direct announcement of what must come, had been entirely lost upon him, and, one day, as he was lying by the unreplenished fire, deep in the pages of the book, the volume was lifted gently from his hands, and, to his horror, dropped upon the blazing coals against the back-log. Many things occurred to him in later life of the sort men would avoid, but never came much greater mental shock than on that black occasion. Stunned, dazed, he went outside and threw himself upon the grass and tried to reason out what could be done. Was he never to know the fate of Don Sebastian? It was beyond endurance! A cheap quality of literature the book was, no doubt, but he was not critical at that age, and in later years he often sought the volume out of curiosity to learn what in his boyhood had entranced him, but he never found it. It was a small, fat volume, very like a pocket Bible in shape, bound cheaply in green cloth, and printed in England, probably somewhere in the '30's, but it had disappeared. The bereaved youth was, henceforth, in as sore a retrospective strait over "Don Sebastian" as Mr. Andrew Lang declares he is, to-day, with his "White Serpent" story.
Byron--"Don Juan," in particular--had an effect upon the youth, and "The Prisoner of Chillon" gave him dreams. "Snarleyow" was the book, though, which struck him as something great in literature. The demon dog tickled his fancy amazingly. He was somewhat older when he read "Jane Eyre" and "John Brent," and could recognize a little of their quality, but "Snarleyow" came to him at an age when there was nothing in the world to equal it.
Meanwhile the whole face of nature was changing, and the boy was necessarily keeping up with the procession of new things. Broad meadows were where even he, a mere boy still, had seen dense woodland; there were highways, and it was far from the farmhouse door to the forests edge. The fauna had diminished. The bear and wolverine had gone forever. The fox rarely barked at night; the deer and wild turkey were far less plentiful, though the ruffed grouse still drummed in the copses, and the quail whistled from the fences. Different, even, were the hunters in their methods. The boy, whose single-barreled shot-gun had known no law, now carried a better piece, and scorned to slay a sitting bird. Both he and Alf became great wing shots, and clever gentlemen sportsmen from the city who sometimes came to hunt with them could not hope to own so good a bag at the day's end. Wise as to dogs and horses were they, too, and keen riders at country races. And ridges of good muscles stiffened now their loins, and their chests were deepening, and at "raisings," when the men and boys of the region wrestled after their work was done, the two were not uncounted. For them the country school had accomplished its mission. The world's geography was theirs. Grammar they had memorized, but hardly comprehended. As for mathematics, they were on the verge of algebra. Then came the force of laws of politics and trade, a shifting of things, and Grant strode out of nature to learn the artificial. His family was removed to town.
Western, or rather Northwestern, town life, when the town has less than ten thousand people, varies little with the locality. There is the same vigor everywhere, because conditions are so similar. It is odd, too, the close resemblance all through the great lake region in the local geography of the towns. Small streams run into larger ones, and these in turn enter the inland seas, or the straits, called rivers, which connect them. Where the small rivers enter the larger ones, or where the larger enter the straits or lakes, men made the towns. These were the water cross-roads, the intersections of nature's highways, and so it comes that to so many of these towns there is the great blue water front intersected at its middle by a river. There is a bridge in the town's main street, and the smell of water is ever in the air. Boys learn to swim like otters and skate like Hollanders, and their sisters emulate them in the skating, though not so much in the swimming as they should. There is a life full of great swing. The touch between the town and country is exceedingly close, and the country family which comes to the community blends swiftly with the current. So with the family of Grant Harlson and so with him personally. A year made him collared and cravatted, short-cropped of hair, mighty in high-school frays, and with a new ambition stirring him, of a quality to compare with that of one Lucifer of unbounded reputation and doubtful biography. There was something beyond all shooting and riding and wrestling fame and the breath of growing things. There was another world with reachable prizes and much to feed upon. He must wear medals, metaphorically, and eat his fill, in time.
The high-school is really the first telescope through which a boy so born and bred looks fairly out upon this planet. The astronomer who instructs him is often of just the sort for the labor, a being also climbing, one not to be a high-school principal forever, but using this occupation merely as a stepping-stone upon his ascending journey. If he be conscientious, he instils, together with his information that all Gaul is divided and that a parasang is not something to eat, also the belief that the game sought is worth the candle, and that hard study is not wasted time. Such a teacher found young Harlson; such a teacher was Professor--they always call the high-school principal "Professor" in small towns--Morgan, and he took an interest in the youth, not the interest of the typical great educator, but rather that of an older and aspiring jockey aiding a younger one with his first mount, or of a railroad engineer who tells his fireman of a locomotive's moods and teaches him the tricks of management. They might help each other some day. Well equipped, too, was Morgan for the service. No shallow graduate of some mere diploma-manufactory, but one who believed in the perfection of means for an end,--an advocate of thoroughness.
So it came that for four years Grant Harlson studied feverishly,--selfishly might be almost the word,--such was the impulse that moved him under Morgan's teaching, and so purely objective all his reasoning. In his vacations he hunted, fished, and developed the more thews and sinews, and acquired new fancies as to whether an Irish setter or a Gordon made the better dog with woodcock, and upon various other healthful topics, but his main purpose never varied. In his classes there were fair girls, and in high-schools there is much callow gallantry; but at this period of his life he would have none of it. He was not timid, but he was absorbed. Morgan told him one day that he was ready for college.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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8
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NEW FORCES AT WORK.
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"You will be kind enough, sir, to write upon the blackboard two couplets: "'What do you _think_ I'll shave you for nothing and _give you a drink_.'
"And "'_What_ do you think I'll shave you for _nothing_ and give you a drink.'
"You will observe that, while the wording is the same, the inflection is different. Please punctuate them properly, and express the idea I intend to convey."
This from a professor, keen-eyed and unassuming in demeanor, to a big, long-limbed young fellow, facing, with misgivings despite himself, a portion of the test of whether or not he were qualified for admission as a freshman into one of our great modern universities. He had not been under much apprehension until the moment for the beginning of the trial. There was now to be met the first issue in the new field. He plunged into his task.
Then the professor: "Well, yes, you have caught my idea. How write upon the board: 'This is the forest primeval,' and a dozen lines or so following, from this slip. Scan that for me; parse it; show me the relations of words and clauses, and all that sort of thing."
A pause; some only half-confident explanation, and enlargement upon the subject by the young man.
The professor again: "H-u-u-m--well--now you may write--no, you needn't--just tell me the difference, in your opinion, between what are known as conjunctions and prepositions. Say what you please. We ask no odds of them. Be utterly free in your comment."
More explanations by the young man. The professor: "We'll not pursue that subject. You might tell us, incidentally, what a trochaic foot is? --Yes. --And who wrote that 'Forest primeval' you just scanned? --Certainly--That will do, I think. Oh, by the way, who was Becky Sharp? --The most desirable woman in 'Vanity Fair,' eh? I may be half inclined to agree with you, but I was asking who, not what. Good afternoon. You have passed your examination in English literature. I trust you may be equally successful in other departments. Good afternoon, sir."
And this was all from a professor whose name was known on more than one continent and who was counted one of the greatest of educators. Such was his test of what of English literature was required in a freshman. A lesser man than this great teacher would have taken an hour for the task and learned less, for, after all, did not the examination cover the whole ground? The droll range of the inquiry was such that the questioner had gauged, far better than by some more ponderous and detailed system, the quality of the young man's knowledge in one field. One of the strong teachers this, one not afraid of a departure, and one of those who, within the last quarter of a century, have laid the foundations of new American universities deep and wide, and given to the youth facilities for a learning not creed-bound, nor school-bound, but both liberal and of all utility.
It was well for the particular freshman whose examination is here described that his first experience with a professor was with such a man. It gave confidence, and set him thinking. With others of the examiners he did not, in each instance, fare so happily. What thousands of men of the world there are to-day who remember with something like a shudder still the inquisition of Prof. ----, whose works on Greek are text-books in many a college; or the ferocity of Prof. ----, to whom calculus was grander than Homer! But the woes of freshmen are passing things.
What Grant Harlson did in college need not be told at any length. He but plucked the fruit within his reach, not over-wisely in some instances, yet with some industry. He had, at least, the intelligence to feel that it is better to know all of some things than a little of all things, and so surpassed, in such branches as were his by gift and inclination, and but barely passed in those which went against the mental grain.
It may be the professor of English literature had something to do with this. Between Grant and him there grew up a friendship somewhat unusual under all the circumstances. One day the professor was overtaken by the student upon a by-way of the campus, and asked some questions regarding certain changed hours of certain recitations, and, having answered, detained the questioner carelessly in general conversation. The elder became interested--perhaps because it was a relief to him to talk with such a healthy animal--and, at the termination of the interview, invited him to call. There grew up rapidly, binding these two, between whose ages a difference of twenty years existed, a friendship which was never broken, and which doubtless affected to an extent the student's ways, for he at least accepted suggestions as to studies and specialties. This relationship resulted naturally in transplanting to the mind of the youth some of the fancies and, possibly, the foibles of the man. One incident will illustrate.
The student, during a summer vacation, had devoted himself largely to the copying of Macaulay's essays, for, in his teens, one is much impressed by the rolling sentences of that great writer. Upon his return Harlson told of his summer not entirely wasted, and expressed the hope that he might have absorbed some trifle of the writer's style.
The professor of English literature laughed.
"Better have taken Carlyle's 'French Revolution' or any one of half a dozen books which might be named. Let me tell a little story. Some time ago a fellow professor of mine was shown by a Swedish servant girl in his employ a letter she had just written, with the request that he would correct it. He found nothing to correct. It was a wonderfully clear bit of epistolary literature. He was surprised, and questioned the girl. He learned that, though well educated, she knew but little English, and had sought the dictionary, revising her own letter by selecting the shortest words to express the idea. Hence the letter's strength and clearness. Stick to the Saxon closely. Macaulay will wear off in time." And this was better teaching than one sometimes gets in class.
This is no tale of the inner life of an American university. It is but a brief summary of young Harlson's ways there. But some day, I hope, a Thomas Hughes will come who will write the story, which can be made as healthful as "Tom Brown," though it will have a different flavor. What a chance for character study! What opportunity for an Iliad of many a gallant struggle! Valuable only in a lesser degree than what is learned from books is what is learned from men in college, that is, from young men, and herein lies the greater merit of the greater place. In the little college, however high the grade of study, there is a lack of one thing broadening, a lack of acquaintance with the youth of many regions. The living together of a thousand hailing from Maine or California, or Oregon or Florida, or Canada or England, young men of the same general grade and having the same general object, is a great thing for them all. It obliterates the prejudice of locality, and gives to each the key-note of the region of another. It builds up an acquaintance among those who will be regulating a land's affairs from different vantage-grounds in years to come, and has its most practical utility in this. When men meet to nominate a President this fact comes out most strongly. The man from Texas makes a combination with the man from Michigan, and two delegations swing together, for have not these two men well known each other since the day their classes met in a rush upon the campus twenty years ago?
No studious recluse was Harlson. His backwoods training would not allow of that. In every class encounter, in every fray with townsmen, it is to be feared in almost every hazing, after his own gruesome experience--for they hazed then vigorously--he was a factor, and beefsteak had been bound upon his cheek on more than one occasion. A rollicking class was his, though not below the average in its scholarship, and the sometimes reckless mood of it just suited him. "There were three men of Babylon, of Babylon, of Babylon."
There is what some claim is an aristocracy in American colleges. It is asserted that the leading Greek fraternities are this, and that the existence of Alpha Delta Phi, Psi Upsilon or Delta Kappa Epsilon, or others of the secret groups, is not a good thing for the students as a whole. Yet in the existence of these societies is forged another of the links of life to come outside, and all the good things to be gained in college are not the ratings won in classes. Harlson was one of those with badges and deep in college politics. He never had occasion to repent it.
And so, with study, some rough encounter and much scheming and much dreaming, time passed until the world outside loomed up again at close quarters. The present view was a new struggle. The great money question intervened. There had come a blight upon his father's dollar crop, and when Grant Harlson left the university he was so nearly penniless that the books he owned were sold to pay his railroad fare.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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9
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MRS. POTIPHAR.
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It must have been some person aged, say, twenty, who expressed to Noah the opinion that there wasn't going to be much of a shower. At twenty tomorrow is ever a clear day, and notes are easy things to meet, and friends and women are faithful, and Welsh rarebit is digestible, and sleep is rest, and air is ever good to breathe. Grant Harlson was not particularly troubled by the condition of his finances. That the money available had lasted till his schooling ended, was, at least, a good thing, and, as for the future, was it not his business to attend to that presently? Meanwhile he would dawdle for a week or two.
So the young man stretched his big limbs and lounged in hammocks and advised or domineered over his sisters, as the case might be, and read in a desultory way, and fished and shot, and ate with an appetite which threatened to bring famine to the family. Your lakeside small town is a fair place in July. He would loaf, he said, for a week or two. The loafing was destined to have character, perhaps to change a character.
There had come to Harlson in college, as to most young men, occasional packages from home, and in one of these he had found a pretty thing, a man's silk tie, worked wonderfully in green and gold, and evidently the product of great needlecraft. It was to his fancy, and he had thought to thank whichever of his sisters had wasted such time upon him, but had forgotten it when next he wrote, and so the incident had passed.
One day, wearing this same tie, he bethought him of his negligence lying supine on the grass, while his sister Bess was meanwhile reading in the immediate vicinity. He would be grateful, as a brother should.
"I say, Bess," he called, "I forgot to write about this tie and thank you. Which of you did it?"
Bess looked up, interested.
"I thought I wrote you when I sent the other things. None of us did it. It was Mrs. Rolfston."
"Mrs. Rolfston?"
"Certainly. She was here one day, when we were making up a lot of things for you, and said that she'd make something herself to go with the next lot. A week or two later she brought me that tie, and I inclosed it. Pretty, isn't it?"
"Very pretty."
The young man on the grass was thinking.
He knew Mrs. Rolfston slightly; knew her as the wife of a well-to-do man who saw but little of her husband.
Daughter of a poor man of none too good character in the little town, she had grown up shrewd, self-possessed, and with much animal beauty. At twenty she had married a man of fifty, a builder of steamboats, a red-faced, riotous brute, who had bought her as he would buy a horse, and to whom she went easily because she wanted the position money gives. Within a week he had disgusted her to such an extent that she almost repented of the bargain. Within a year, he had tired of her and was openly unfaithful in every port upon the lakes, a vigorous, lawless debauchee. His ship-building was done in a distant port, and he rarely visited his wife. He rather feared her, mastiff as he was, for here was the keener intelligence, and her moods, at times, were desperate as his. So he furnished her abundant income and was content to let it go at that. It pleased her, also, to have it that way.
Harlson thought of the woman, and wondered somewhat. Black-haired, black-eyed, white-skinned, deep of bust and with a graceful and powerful swing of movement, she was a woman, physically considered, not of the common herd. She was a lioness, yet not quite the grand lioness of the desert. She lacked somewhat of dignity and grandeur of countenance, and had more of alertness and of craft. She was, though dark, more like the tawny beast of the Rocky Mountains, the California lion, as that great cougar is called, supple, full of moods and passion, and largely cat-like. She had filled his eye casually. Why had she sent him the tie, the silken thing in green and gold?
He thought and pulled his long limbs together and rose till he was sitting, and decided that it was but courteous, but his duty as a gentleman, to wander over to her house and thank her for her remembrance of him. It was but an expression of good will toward the family generally, this little act of hers; he knew that, but it was a personal matter, after all, and he should thank her. It was well to be thoughtful, to attend to the small amenities, and it took him more than the usual time to dress. His apparently careless summer garb required the adjustment of an expert here and there. He was an hour in the doing of it. When he emerged he was not, taken in a comprehensive way, bad-looking. He was clear-faced, strong-featured and of stalwart build.
The ordinary man he would not have feared in any meeting; of the woman he was about to meet he had some apprehension. He knew her quality, but--she had worked for him a tie! He went up the broad path to the doorway, between flowers and trees and shrubbery. It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and he would find her alone, he thought, for chances of calls are not so great in the smaller towns as in the cities; there is an average to be maintained, and Mrs. Jones or Mrs. Smith does not receive on days particularized. He was compelled to wait in the parlor but a moment. She came in, and he saw her for the first time in two years.
What a gift women have in producing physical effects upon the creature male, no matter what the woman's status. Mrs. Rolfston came in with a look of half inquiry on her face and with a presentation of herself which was perfect in its way. She wore some soft and fluffy dress--a man cannot describe a garb in detail--with that lace-surrounded triangular bareness upon the bosom just below the chin which is as irreproachable as it is telling. There was a relation between the swing of her drapery and, the movements of her body. She was rich of figure, and flexile. And she was glad to see Mr. Harlson, and said so. He was not really embarrassed. The time had passed when that could be his way. But he was puzzled as to what to say. Some comment he made upon the quality of the season and upon Mrs. Rolfston's appearance of good health. Then he entered upon his subject with no link of connection with preceding sentences. "I but learned to-day," he said, "that the tie I wear was made by you. All fellows have little fancies, I suppose. I have, anyhow. I liked this, though I did not know who made it. My sister told me, and I have come to thank you. Why did you do it for me?"
That was putting the case plainly enough, certainly, and promptly enough, but it was not of a nature to trouble Mrs. Rolfston. This was a clever woman, married ten years, and of experiences which varied. She even glanced over the visitor from head to heel before she answered, and her color deepened and her eyes brightened, though he did not note it.
"You have changed," she commented. "I should hardly have known you but for your lips and eyes. You are broader and taller, and a big man, are you not? How long do you stay in town? Will you spend the summer here?"
"I wish I could," he answered. "It is pleasant here, but I must work, you know. I may idle for a little time. You haven't said anything about the tie."
"Oh, the tie? Don't speak of that. I had the whim to make something for somebody--I have an embroidering mania on me sometimes--and there was a chance to dispose of it, you see."
The young man's face fell a little as he looked upon the great, handsome woman and heard her seemingly careless words. He did not want to go away, yet what excuse was there for staying? He rose, hat in hand.
Here, now, was the woman in a quandary. She had not anticipated such abruptness.
"Don't go yet," she said, impetuously. "I want to talk with you. Tell me all about the college, and yourself, and your plans. And---about the tie--I wouldn't have made one for any one else. I remembered your face. You know I was go often at your home, and I wondered how it would suit you. You should take that interest as a compliment. And I am lonesome here, and you are idling, you say, and why should we not be good friends for the summer? The men in town annoy me, and the girls here are not bright enough for you. Let us be cronies, will you not? Take me fishing to-morrow. I want you to teach me how to catch bass in the river. I heard some one say once you knew better than any one else how that is done. Is not this a good idea of mine? It will help both of us kill time."
She sat there on the sofa, half stretched out, yet not carelessly nor ungracefully, but in an assumed laziness of real felinishness, a woman just ten years older than the man she was addressing, yet in all the lushness of magnificent womanhood, and emanating all magnetism.
Harlson said he would call for her and that they would go fishing. And they went.
The light is tawny upon the lily-pods in shady places on the river. And rods, such as are used for bass, are light upon the wrist, and, in the lazy hours of mid-afternoon, when bass bite rarely, demand but slight attention. And two people idling in a boat get very close in thought together and come soon to know each other well. And a ruthless young man of twenty and a tempestuous woman of thirty are as the conventional tow and tinder.
And there were books she had never read in Mrs. Rolfston's library--for she was not a woman of books--which interested Harlson, and it was easier to read them there than take them home. And Mrs. Rolfston waited upon him--how gifted is a woman of thirty--and he felt bands upon him, and liked it, and would not reason to himself concerning it.
And one night, late, came a panting servant--Mrs. Rolfston had no men, only two women domestics, with her in her home--to say that her mistress had heard some one evidently attempting to open a window on the piazza, and that they were all in fear of their lives, and that she had fled out of the back way to ask Mr. Harlson the elder, or his son, to come over at once and look around.
The father laughed, and said that, had there been a burglar, he must have fled already, and the young man, laughing too, said that some one must go anyhow, in all courtesy to defenseless women, and that if Mrs. Rolfston feared for her front porch, he would lie upon a blanket in the lawn beside it to set her mind at rest. He had not slept beneath the stars alone, he said, since the family had left the farm. And there was much laughing, and Harlson took home the servant girl, and she, growing bold as they approached the house, ran up the path ahead of him. The lawn between the better house and street in the lake country town is often a little forest, so dense the trees and their foliage. And added to the fragrance of the leaves in later midsummer are the mingled odors of petunias and pinks and rosemary and bergamot and musk, for all these flourish late. And the moon comes through the tree-tops in splashes, and there is a softness and a shade, and it is all like a scented garden in some old Arabian story, and the senses are affected and, maybe, the reason. Harlson went up the path, half dreaming, yet alive in every vein. There was no burglar visible, but a wonderful woman, in fleecy dishabille, was sure she had heard a sound most sinister, and endangered women must be guarded of the strong.
And Grant Harlson returned not home that night; yet the moon, shining through the trees, revealed no form upon a blanket in the garden.
And the summer days drifted by; and the young man fresh from college, full of ambitions and dreams, found himself a creature he had never known, a something conscience-stricken, yet half-abandoned, and with a leaden weight upon his feet to keep them from carrying him away from the temptation.
He would force himself to a solitary day at times, and go out into the country with dog and gun, and tramp for miles, and wonder at himself. He had all sorts of fancies. He thought of his wickedness and his wasted time, and compared himself with the great men in the books who had been in similar evil straits,--with Marc Antony, with King Arthur in Gwendolen's enchanted castle, and with Geraint the strong but slothful,--rather far-fetched this last comparison,--and of all the rest. It was a grotesque variety, but amid it all he really suffered. And he would make good resolves and, for the moment, firm ones, and return to town when the dew was falling and the moonlight coming, and the tale was but retold. And the woman was wise, as women are, and conscienceless, yet suffering a little, too.
She had found more than a summer's toy, and she had grown to fear the great boy in his moods, and to want to keep him, and to doubt the measure of her art. This must be a hard thing, too, for such splendid pirates to bear. They may not even scuttle all the craft they capture.
And the root of all evil is sometimes the root of all good. The dollar pulls all ways. Harlson must earn his way. One day his father dropped a chance word regarding some one, miles in the country, who wanted a fence built inclosing a tract out of the wood. It was isolated work, a task of a month or two for a strong man, a mere laborer. Young Harlson became interested.
"Why shouldn't I try it?" he asked.
His father laughed.
"It's work for a toughened man, my boy. You have softened with six years of only study."
The boy laughed as well.
"You needn't fear," he said. "All strength is not attained upon a farm, and I want to swing an ax and maul again."
And that day he set out afoot for the home of the man who needed a fence. He told Mrs. Rolfston briefly. She paled a trifle, but made no objection. He said he would make visits to the town.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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10
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THE BUILDING OF THE FENCE.
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An ax, a maul, a yoke of oxen; these are the great requisites for him who would build a rail fence through a forest. Grant Harlson made the bargain for the work, hired a yoke of oxen, as you may do in the country, and secured the right to eat plain food three times a day at the cabin of a laborer. A bed he could not have, but the right to sleep in a barn back in the field, and there also to house his oxen for the night, was given him. He slept upon the hay-mow. He went into the forest and began his work. The wood was dense, and what is known all through the region as a black ash swale, lowland which once reclaimed from nature makes, with its rich deposits, a wondrous meadow-land. He "lined" the fence's course and cleared the way rudely through the forest, a work of days, and then he made the maul.
The mace of the mediaeval knight is the maul of to-day. No longer it cracks heads or helmets, but there is work for it. And it has developed into a mighty weapon. There are two sorts of maul in the lake country. As the stricken eagle is poetically described as supplying the feather for the arrow by which itself was hurt to death, the trees furnish forth the thing to rend them. Upon the side of the curly maple, aristocrat of the sugar bush, grows sometimes a vast wart. This wart has neither rhyme nor reason. It has no grain defined. It is twisted, convoluted, a solid, tough and heavy mass, and hard, almost, as iron. It is sawed away from the trunk with much travail, and is seasoned well, and from it is fashioned a great head, into which is set a hickory handle, and the thing will crush a rock if need be. This is the maul proper.
There is another maul, or mace, made from a cut of heavy iron-wood, a foot in length and half a foot in thickness, with the hickory handle set midway between iron bands, sprung on by the country blacksmith. This is sometimes called the beetle.
The beetle is a monster hammer, the maul a monster mace. Each serves its purpose well, but the beetle never has the swing and mighty force of the great heavy maple knot. Grant Harlson bought a seasoned knot of an old woodman and shaped a maul. He had learned the craft in youth.
The ash trees fell beneath the ax, the trunks were cut to rail lengths, and the oxen dragged logs through muck and mire and brush and bramble to the line of fence, and there the maul swung steadily in great strokes upon the iron and wooden wedges, the smell of timber newly split was in the air, and the heavy rails were lifted, and the fence began its growth.
And it was lonesome in the depths of the wood, for the black ash swale is not tenanted by many birds and squirrels as are the ridges, and only the striped woodpecker or a wandering jay fluttered about at times, or a coon might seek the pools for frogs. Harlson had circumstance for thought. Only the hard labor cleared his blood and brain, and helped him.
Could fortune come to him who had such a load upon his conscience? Was not he a violator of all law, as he had learned it,--law of both God and man? Had he an excuse at all, and what was the degree of it? He could not endure the time when it became too dark in the wood for work, and when he drove the jaded oxen out into the field and to the barn, and it was yet too early for seeking the hay-mow, which was of clover, and there seeking sleep. A clover mow is a wonderful sleep-compeller. There are the softness and fragrance, but, sometimes, even with that, he would be wakeful. To avoid himself, the young man would, at last, go in early evening to the older farmers' homes,--for it was his own country and he knew them all,--and there, with the sons and hired men, pitch quoits in the road before the house.
Quoits is still a game of farmers' sons, and the horseshoe is superior to the quoit of commerce and the town. The open side affords facility for aggressive feats of cleverness in displacing an opponent's cast, and the corks upon the shoes reduce some sliding chances, and the game has quality. And Harlson found rather a distraction in the contests. He found, maybe, distraction, too, in chatting with slim Jenny Bierce, who was a very little girl when he was in the country school, but who had grown into almost a woman, and who was a trifle more refined, perhaps, than most of her associates. She had a sweetheart, a stalwart young farmer named Harrison Woodell, one of the schoolmates of Harlson's early youth, but she liked to talk with Harlson. He was different from her own lover; no better, of course, but he had lived another life, and could tell her many things.
And Woodell, who expected to marry her, glowered a little. She did not care for that. Grant Harlson had not noticed it.
But neither quoits nor Jenny Bierce sufficed at all times for forgetfulness. Harlson was in the grasp of that enemy--or friend--who gives vast problems, and with them no solution. He could not rest. He read his Bible, but that only puzzled him the more, because there seemed to him, of necessity, degrees of wrong, and he could not find a commandment which was flexible. He chafed because there was no measure for his sentence.
A pebble at the rivulet's head will turn the tiny current either way, and so change the course of eventual creek and river. The pebble fell near the source in Grant Harlson's case, for never before in his life had he studied much the moral problem. His had been the conventional training, which is to-day the training which asks one to accept, unreasoning, the belief of yielding predecessors, and, until he felt the prick of conscience, he had never cared to question the inheritance. Now he wanted proof. If he could not plead not guilty, might he not, at least, find weakness in the law? Then fell the pebble.
It was only a country newspaper, and it was only the chance verses clipped from some unknown source which turned the tide that might have grown yet have run forever between narrow banks.
For the verses--who wrote them? --were those of that brief poem which has made more doubters than any single revelation of the hollow-heartedness of some famed godly one; than any effort of oratory of some great agnostic; than any chapter of any book that was ever written: I think till I'm weary of thinking, Said the sad-eyed Hindoo king, And I see but shadows around me, Illusion in every thing.
How knowest thou aught of God, Of His favor or His wrath? Can the little fish tell what the lion thinks, Or map out the eagle's path!
Can the Finite the Infinite search! Did the blind discover the stars? Is the thought that I think a thought, Or a throb of a brain in its bars?
For aught that my eyes can discern, Your God is what you think good-- Yourself flashed back from the glass When the light pours on it in flood.
You preach to me to be just, And this is His realm, you say; And the good are dying with hunger, And the bad gorge every day.
You say that He loveth mercy, And the famine is not yet gone; That He hateth the shedder of blood And He slayeth us every one.
You say that my soul shall live, That the spirit can never die: If He was content when I was not, Why not when I have passed by?
You say I must have a meaning: So must dung, and its meaning is flowers; What if our souls are but nurture For lives that are greater than ours?
When the fish swims out of the water, When the birds soar out of the blue, Man's thoughts may transcend man's knowledge, And your God be no reflex of you!
One night in after life I sat with Grant Harlson, in his rooms in a great city, and he told me of this, his time of doubt and tribulation, and repeated to me the poem.
"The questions it asks have not yet been answered, so far as I know," said he, "and I do not think they can be by the alleged experts in such things."
Then a sudden fancy seized him, and he broke out with a novel proposition: "You have little to do to-morrow, nor have I much on my hands. Speaking of this to you has awakened an old interest in me and made me curious. Help me to-morrow. We'll make up now a list of twenty leading clergymen. I know most of them personally, and some of them can reason. We'll each take a cab and each visit ten, exhibiting these verses, going over them stanza by stanza, explaining the doubts they have aroused, and asking for such solution as the clergymen have, and such solace as it may afford. That will be rather an interesting experiment, will it not?"
I fell in with his whim, and the next day we made the rounds agreed upon.
What a curious thing it was! How men of various creeds felt confident and repeated the old platitudes, and would be anything but logical! How one or two were honest, and said they could not answer.
And how absurd, we said at night, the keeping of men to tell us what can no more be learned in a theological school than in a blacksmith shop, and in neither place as well as in the woods or on the sea! Yet there was no scoffing in it. We were neither irreligious.
To this young man building the fence there came a resisting mood, and he was puzzled still, but slept more pleasantly again upon his clover-mow. He was groping, but less despondent, that was all. It seemed all strange to him, for the old farm life had become largely a memory, and it was but yesterday that he was in college, one of a thousand, full of all energy and lightsomeness, and here he was alone in the wood as in a monastery, and all else was somehow like a dream. Only the oxen and the logs and the ax and the maul and the growing fence were real by day. But, in the evening, there was Jenny Bierce, and she was very real, as well as charming.
Ho wondered if she cared for him. She was apparently pleased when he found her, and they had taken long walks alone in the twilight. Once he had kissed her, and she had not been angry. What sort of drift was this, and why was he so carried by it? How different it all was from even the life of a few weeks ago! Then there came before his eyes a picture of the great, splendid animal in town, and it remained with him. It bothered him for many a day and night.
If the Hindoo king were right, if all were so undefined, why not do as did the birds and squirrels, and seek all sunny places? He could not work at his fence Sunday. He had not done that yet, but he would walk the miles Saturday night and spend his Sunday in the town.
As he thought, so he did. He did not swing the maul late the next Saturday that came, but took up his journey and reached home in early evening.
He had been absent but three weeks, yet his family had much to ask, and his father laughed at his hardened palms, and congratulated him. He changed his garb and took the way toward Mrs. Rolfston's. She had not looked for him sooner, though she knew men well, for she had seen his growing trouble and she knew his will. Her eyes blazed as might the eyes of some hungry thing to which food is brought. It was late when he reached his home again, and the next day he must read a book, he said, that he had found at Mrs. Rolfston's. At night he was stalking across the country again, to his couch on the dry clover; and he thought not even of the Hindoo king. Mrs. Rolfston's school of theology was not of the sort which worries one with puzzling things, and he had been in a receptive mood.
The next day he worked like a giant. In the early evening he found Jenny Bierce. She questioned him, but he had not much to answer.
"Is there some one in the town ?" she asked.
"There are several hundred people there."
"You know what I mean. Is there any one in particular?" --this poutingly.
He said that of late the only one, to speak of, he had found anywhere was a girl in a calico dress.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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11
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SETTLING WITH WOODELL.
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So passed the days away. What added brawn came to the strong young fellow's arms from the driving of the rails and lifting them to place! Brown, almost, as the changing beech-leaves his face, and the palms of his hands became like celluloid. He was unlike the farmers, though, for he lacked the farmers' stoop--he had not to dig nor mow, nor rake nor bind. He swung his ax or maul, and commanded the red oxen in country speech, and deeper and deeper into the forest grew the fence. And, of evenings, he was with Jenny, and Sundays he was in the town. What days they were, with all their force, and health, and lawless abandonment, though in the line of nature. He drank not, nor smoked, nor ate made dishes. He was like an unreasoning bobolink, or hawk, or fawn, or wolf. But there grew apace the problem of Jenny.
One night, as the two were walking, each caught a glimpse of something dark, which moved swiftly through the bushes some distance from the road.
The girl started.
"What is the matter?" Harlson said.
"Did you not see it--that shadow in the bushes?"
"Yes. Some one was there. What of it? Some of the boys are coon-hunting."
"It wasn't that," she whispered. "I know what it was. It was Harrison Woodell, and he is watching."
"Well, he might be in much better business. Are you fond of him?"
"I like him very much," she answered, simply, "but sometimes I am afraid."
He laughed.
"He'll not hurt you. He dare not."
"But he may hurt you."
Another laugh.
"Don't you think I can take care of myself?"
"Oh, yes"--hurriedly--"but one of you may get hurt, and I don't want anything to happen to either of you. Oh, Grant! You must be careful!"
He was impressed, though he did not show it. There may have been some of that magnetic connection, of which the scientists have told us so little, between minds tending toward each other, with sinister intent or otherwise, when all conditions are complete. Harlson felt in his heart that the girl's apprehensions were not altogether groundless, but, as was said, he was in perfect health and had a pride, and he cast away the thought and but made love. And he prospered wickedly. It was late when the girl reached her home again, and she went in tremblingly and silently. So bent had been their footsteps that neither Harrison Woodell nor other living thing could have been near them and unseen.
Down the tree-fringed roadway and across the field to the barn went Harlson, and wondered somewhat at himself. Into what had he developed, and how would it all end? He was elated, but uneasy. He was glad the fence was nearing completion, and that with the money due him life in the big city would begin. He clambered upon the clover-mow, and tossed about uneasily on the blanket upon which he had thrown himself still dressed. It was some time before he slept, and then odd dreams came.
He thought he had taken Jenny to the town, and that Mrs. Rolfston seemed always near them, yet in hiding. They could not get away from her. Then came a time when she had crept up behind them and over his head had thrown a noose, and was drawing it tighter and tighter and strangling him, and he could not, somehow, raise his hands to free himself. He was suffocating! He struggled in his agony and awoke--awoke to find his dream no dream at all! to feel a hand on his throat, a knee upon his chest, and to know that he was being choked to death!
More than once in later life Grant Harlson felt himself very near the line which men who have crossed once may not repass, but never later came to him the feeling of this moment. It was but a flash of thought, for the physical being's upheaval followed in an instant, but it was a flash of horror. Then began an awful struggle.
Borne down deeply in the yielding clover, Harlson had little chance to exert his strength, which, with that grip upon his throat, could not last long at most; but he writhed with all the force of desperation, and wrenched loose, at last, one arm, which had been pressed useless against his side. With the free hand he clutched his adversary's collar and strained at it, while he heaved with all his power to turn himself below. The couch was not far from the edge of the great mow, but of that he was not thinking, nor of the fact that the hay had, in the stowing away, been built out, so that the mow well overhung the barn floor. Well for him that it was so! There was a sudden loosening and sliding as the struggle in the darkness became fiercer, and then, parting from the mass, a section of the mow, a ton at least in weight, shot downward, carrying upon it the two men, who, as it struck the floor beneath, rolled from its surface through the great open doors, down the steep incline, up which wagons were driven on occasion, and leaped to their feet together, there in the clear moonlight.
They stood glaring at each other. Grant Harlson gasping, but himself again, as he inhaled the blessed air. Each stood at bay and watchful.
"Woodell!"
The man glared at him savagely.
"What does it mean! What were you going to do?"
"I was going to kill you."
"Then they would have hung you."
"No, they wouldn't; they would never have found you."
"Did you have a knife?"
"I didn't need one--if the cursed hay hadn't come away."
"What are you going to do now?"
"I'm going to kill you."
There was a look in the man's eyes which showed he was not jesting. Harlson thought very rapidly just then. He recognized the earnestness of it all, but his sudden terror was now gone. Here were light and air and even terms with the other. The effect of the choking had passed away. He felt himself a match for Woodell.
With the revulsion of feeling came then suddenly upon him a rage against this would-be midnight slayer so great that he was calm in his very savagery. He laughed, as was his way.
"You were very foolish. You should have brought a knife or club. Kill me! Why, man, do you suppose if you were to try to get away now I would let you go? I want you, you murderer, I want you!" And he reached out his hands toward the other and opened and shut them clutchingly; and then with a snarl Woodell leaped forward and the two men grappled like bull-dogs.
Well for Harlson was it that through all the weeks he had been swinging the maul and ax, and that his muscles were hard and his endurance great, for Woodell was counted one of the strong men of the region. As it was, in point of sheer strength, the two were about evenly matched, but there was a difference in their resources. One was gymnasium-trained, the other not.
In country wrestling there are the side-hold, and square-hold, and back-hold, and rough-and-tumble, the last the catch-as-catch-can of stage struggles. In early boyhood Harlson had learned the tricks of these, and in the college gymnasium he had supplemented this wisdom by persistent training in every device of the professional gladiators. He was there considered something better than the common. And this, though a life depended on it, was but a wrestling-match. It was but a struggle to see which should get the other in his power, and blows count but little in a death-grapple.
They swayed and swung together, but so evenly braced and firm that minutes passed, while, from a little distance, they would have seemed but motionless. All who have watched two well-matched wrestlers will recognize this situation.
In each man's mind was a different immediate aim. Woodell wanted Harlson on the ground and underneath him; he wanted his hand upon his throat, and to clutch that throat so savagely and so long that the man's face would blacken and his tongue protrude, and his limbs finally relax, and the work attempted on the hay-mow be done completely! Harlson had but one thought: to overmaster in some way his assailant.
There was a sudden change, a mighty movement on the part of Woodell, and in an instant the struggle was over.
Glorious are your possibilities, O pretty grip and heave, O half-Nelson, beloved of wrestlers! What a leverage, what a perfection of result is with you! What a friend you are in time of peril! Woodell, too bloodthirsty to feint or dally, released his hold and stooped and shot forward, his arms low down, to get the country hold, which rarely failed when once secured. And, even as he did so, in that very half-second of time, there was a half-turn of the other's body, an arm about his neck, a wrench forward to a hip, and, big man though he was, nothing could save him!
His feet left the earth; he whirled on a pivot, high and clear, and came to the ground with a force to match his weight, his body, like a whip-lash, cracking its whole length as he struck.
Stunned by the awful shock, he did not move. His adversary stood glaring at the still form for a moment, dazed himself by the sudden outcome, then dashed into the barn, came out with a harness throat-latch and a pitchfork, strapped Woodell's hands together, pulled them over his knees, and between the knees and wrists passed the long ash fork-handle. The man, slowly recovering his senses, was "bucked" in a manner known to any schoolboy; as securely bound as if with handcuffs and with shackles; as helpless as a babe!
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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12
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INCLINATION AGAINST CONSCIENCE.
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The shock had affected Woodell very much as what is known as a "knock-out" in sparring affects a man. Absolutely unconscious at first, he recovered intelligence slowly, though practically uninjured. Harlson stood beside the grotesquely trussed figure and watched the return to consciousness with curiosity. The cool night air assisted the restoration.
Woodell opened his eyes, seemed to be wondering where he was, and then, as realization came, made an attempt to rise. The effort was ridiculous, and he but flopped like a winged loon. The contortion of his face was frightful as there came upon him full understanding of his situation. He struggled fiercely once again, then lay quiet, looking up at Harlson with malignant eyes.
Harlson's fit of rage had gone entirely. There had come upon him a swift compunction. "Why did you try to murder me?" he asked.
"You know well enough, ---- you!" came from between the teeth of the man on the ground.
"I do not. I can't understand it! Have I ever injured you?"
"Injured me? You dodging, lying thief! What are you quibbling for? You know just how you have injured me. Why don't you finish the thing? Get a club and knock out my brains! They won't hang you, for you can say it was in self-defense, and my being here will prove it. Do it! Have a complete job of what you have done this summer!"
The man, writhed in his ignoble position, and tears gushed from his eyes. Harlson reached forward and withdrew the pitchfork handle. Woodell scrambled to his feet ungracefully, for his hands were still strapped together before him.
"Look here, Woodell," said Harlson, "let us go to the road and walk down toward your place. I'll not unstrap your hands just yet. I think I'll feel a trifle more comfortable having you as you are. I want to talk with you. I want you to be fair with me. Was it because of Jenny Bierce?"
"You know it was."
"But why haven't I as good a right to make love to Jenny as you or any other man?"
Woodell turned fiercely: "More quibbling." Then in a tone of demand: "Tell me this: Are you going to marry her?"
Harlson hesitated. "I don't know."
"You do know! You know you haven't any idea of such a thing. You are just amusing yourself until you get your cursed fence built."
"What is that to you?"
"To me! She was engaged to be married to me, and we were happy together until you came; and you've come, broken up two lives and done no one any good, not even yourself, you hungry wolf! She cares more for me to-day than she does for you. She is better suited to me! But with your trick of words and your ways you tickled her fancy at first, and, finally, you charmed her somehow as they say snakes do birds. And she'll not be fit for anybody when you go away!" The big man sobbed like a baby.
Harlson made no immediate reply. Was not what Woodell was saying but the truth? Did he really care for Jenny or she for him? What had it been but pastime? He could give her up. It would be a little hard, of course. It is always so when a man has to surrender those close relations with a woman which are so fascinating, and which come only when there has been established that sympathy between them which, if not love, is involuntarily considered by each something that way. There was a struggle in his mind between the instinct to be honorable and straight-forward and fair, and to do what was right, and the impulse, on the other hand, to refuse anything demanded by an assailant. But the would-be murderer was not a murderer, after all. He was only a temporary lunatic whom Harlson himself had driven mad. That was the just way to look at it. As for Jenny, she would not suffer much. There had not been time enough. Not in a day does a man or woman have that effect produced upon the heart which lasts forever. So, were he to disappear from the affair, nothing very serious, nothing affecting materially the whole of any life would follow. The odds were against him, or rather against the worst side of him, in the reflection.
He acted promptly. "I don't know about it," he said; "I'm puzzled. I don't care much. I don't know just where I stand, anyhow. I want to be decent, but it seems to me I have some rights; I'm all tangled up. I don't think you imagine I am afraid--I wasn't when I was a little boy in school with you as a bigger one. You know that--and I'm not now. But that doesn't count. I've been studying over a lot of things, and I don't know what to do. I think you may be right, and that I have been all wrong. I give it up. But I do know that a fellow can't make any mistake if he tries to do what is right, and, in figuring out the thing, takes the side that seems to be against him. He can fight, he can do anything better after he feels that he has done that. Hold on."
Woodell stopped, wonderingly. Harlson unbuckled the strap about the man's hands and threw it into the bushes at the roadside.
The farmer straightened himself up, reached out his arms, clutched his palms together, and looked at the other man. Harlson spoke bluntly.
"Yes, I know you want to try it again. But, as I feel now, it could only end one way. I don't mind. I only wanted to loose you before I say what I wanted to say, so that you wouldn't think I was making terms on my own account."
"Go on," said Woodell, gruffly, still stretching his arms.
"Well, it is just this. I don't think I've been doing the right thing. I am going to leave Jenny Bierce to you. She will not care much, and it will be all right in a little time. That is all. No, not quite! You tried to kill me. Maybe I would have been as big a fool, just such a crazy, jealous man as you, if things had been the other way. I don't know. But I do know this, that your coming here to-night, except that it has made me think, has nothing to do with what I have made up my mind to. Here we are in the road. I don't want to sleep uneasily in the barn. You tried to kill me. I have tried to decide on what is right, and I will do it. Now, I want it settled with you. Here I am! Do you want to fight?"
Woodell's face had been something worth seeing while Harlson was speaking. He had followed the words of his late antagonist closely. He grasped in a general way the intent expressed. There was a radiance on his rough features.
"Do you really mean that?"
"Of course I do. What should I say it for if I didn't?"
"Then it will be all right."
"But do you want to fight?"
"No, I don't. I won't say you could lick me. It was partly luck before. I won't give up that way. But you might. That doesn't matter. I'm sorry I tried to kill you. I was crazy. You would have been, in my place. And you won't have anything to do with Jenny again? Oh, Harlson!"
And the two shook hands, and Harlson went back to his bed on the clover-mow. He thought he had done a great and philosophically noble deed--remember, this was but a boy little over twenty--and he slept like a lamb. And next evening he went over to Woodell's home and said he wanted some supper, and after the meal laughed at Woodell, and said he was going off to another farm to pitch quoits until it got too dark, and the two young men walked down the road together and exchanged some confidences, and when they parted each was on good terms with the other. This was strange, following an attempted murder, but such things happen in real life. And it may be that Woodell had the worst of the bargain in that conversation.
He was better equipped for the winning of Jenny, but the troubled man with whom he had been talking had reached out blindly for aid in another direction. Not much satisfaction was the result. Woodell was of the kind who, if religious at all, believe without much reasoning, but Harlson had repeated to him the reasoning of the Hindoo skeptic. Woodell had at least intelligence enough to follow the line of thought, and, in after time, when he was a family man and deacon, the lines would recur to vex him sorely.
And Jenny did not pine away and die because she saw little more of Harlson. He met her and explained briefly that they had been doing wrong, and that he and Woodell had talked. She turned pale, then red, but said little. Of the struggle in the night Jenny never learned. She inferred, of course, that her lover had gone in a straightforward way to Harlson, and that his demands had been acceded to. She was gratified, perhaps, that she had become a person of much importance. She thought more of Woodell and less of Harlson, because of the issue of the debate, as she understood it, and, when the first pique and passion were over, became resigned enough to the outlook. She had been on the verge of sin, but she was not the only woman in the world to carry a secret. Woodell's pleadings were met with yielding, and the wedding occurred within a month. Perhaps she made a better wife because her husband did not know the truth in detail, and she felt the burden of a debt, but that is doubtful. Though fair of feature, she was not deep enough of mind to even brood. Of course, too, by this standard should be lessened the real degree of all erring. Harlson, wiser, was much the more guilty of the two and deserved some punishment, but, as an equation, it could, at least, since he was young, be said in his defense that as he was to Jenny so had Mrs. Rolfston been to him. The person who had changed things was that same fair animal of the town.
And shallow-minded legislatures will enact preposterous social laws for the regulation of the morals of boys, and imagine they have placed another paving-stone in the road to the millennium, while the Mrs. Rolfstons are having a riotous time of it.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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13
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FAREWELL TO THE FENCE.
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When the first frosts of autumn come the black ash swales are dry, and there is more life in them than in midsummer. Hickory trees grow in the swales, and the squirrels are very busy with the ripened nuts. The ruffed grouse, with broods well grown, find covert in the tops of fallen trees, or strut along decaying logs. There are certain berries which grow in the swales, and these have ripened and are sought by many birds. The leaves are turning slowly to soft colors. There is none of the blaze and glory of the ridges where the hard maples and beeches are, but there is a general brownness and dryness and vigor of scene. It is good. The fence was nearly done, and the money for its building was almost owned. The rails stretched away in a long line through the narrow lane hewed through the wood, the tree-tops meeting overhead, and a new highway was built for the squirrels, who made famous use of the fence in their many journeys. The woodpeckers patronized it much, and tested every rail for food, but only in a merely incidental way, for each woodpecker knew that every rail was green and tough, and sound and tenantless as yet. There was a general chirp and twitter and pleasant call, for all the young life of the year was out of nest and hole and hollow, and now entering upon life in earnest. It was a season for buoyant work.
The great maul, firm and heavy still, showed an indentation round its middle, where tens of thousands of impacts against the iron wedges had worn their way, and even the heads of the wedges themselves were rounded outward and downward with an iron fringe where particles of the metal had been forced from place. The huge hook at the end of the log chain was twisted all awry, though no less firm its grip. The fence, the implements and all about showed mighty work, something of mind, but more of muscle.
Most perfect of all tonics is physical, out-door labor, particularly in the forest, and it is as well for mind as body. It eliminates what may be morbid, and is healthful for a conscience. Why it is that, under most natural conditions which may exist, the conscience is not so nervously acute, is something for the theologians to decide,--they will decide anything,--but the fact remains. The out-door conscience is strong, but seldom retrospective.
Grant Harlson swung his maul and delighted in what was about him, and breathed the crisp October air, scented with the spice bushes he cut to clear the way, and pondered less and less upon the puzzles of the Hindoo king. His mood was all robust, and when he visited the town he was a wonder to Mrs. Rolfston, who was infatuated with the savagery of his wooing and madly discontent with the certainty that she must lose him. She made wild propositions, which he laughed at. She would remove to the city; she would do many things. He said only that the present was good, and that she was fair to look upon. And from her he would go to his other sweetheart, the great maul, and be faithful for six days of the seven. He did not work as late of afternoons now. He was enjoying life again in the old healthful, boyish way.
He had a friend from town with him, too--a setter, with Titian hair and big eyes, which slept on the clover beside him, and an afternoon or two a week he would take dog and gun and go where the ruffed grouse were or where a flock of wild turkeys had their haunts among the beech trees. He would announce, with much presumption and assurance, at some farm-house door, that he would be over for dinner to-morrow, and that it would be a game dinner, and that he would leave the game with them on his way back that same evening. There would be chaffings and expressions of doubt as to reliance upon such promise and "First catch your rabbit" comment, but they were not earnest words, for his ability as a mighty hunter was well known.
Craft and patience are required when the wild turkey is to be secured, for it is wise in its generation, and will carry lead, but it is worth the trouble, for no pampered gobbler of the farm-yard has meat of its rich flavor. Beech-nuts and berries make diet for a bird for kings to eat. And when Harlson brought a couple of noble young turkeys to the board the banquet was a great one, and the boys pitched quoits that night no better for it. A good thing is the wild turkey, but even a better thing, when his numbers and quality are considered, is the ruffed grouse, the partridge of the North, the pheasant of the South. How, in the lake region, he dawdles among the low-land thornberry bushes in autumn, how he knows of many things to eat beside the thorn-apples, and how plump he gets, and how cunning! How watchful he is, how knowing of covert, and with what a burst he lifts himself from his hiding-place and whirls away between the tree-trunks! How quick the eye and hand to catch him when he rises from the underbrush and is out of sight in the wood before the untrained sportsman stops him with what is little more than a snapshot, so instantaneously must all be done! Yet what a dignified thing is he, and how easy to find by one who knows his ways and what hold habit has upon his gray-brown majesty. Should the sudden shot fail, there is the fatal weakness of the bird of flying, as the bee flies, straight as an arrow goes, and of alighting high, say about two hundred yards away, and trusting to the trick which fools all other enemies to fool the man. Following the straight line of his flight, scanning the tree-tops, will you note at last, upon some great limb and close to the tree's trunk, an upright thing, slender, still-hued, silent and motionless. It is so like the wood it well might miss the tyro. It is not unsportsmanlike, it is in fair chase to shoot, and then there comes to the ground, with a great thump, the cock of the northern woods, and you have one of the prizes man gets by slaying. But this is only in the wood. In the open it is quite another thing. What a toothsome bird, too, is your ruffed grouse, how plump and yet gamey to the taste! You must know how to cook him, though. He must be broiled, split open neatly and well larded with good butter, for not so juicy even as the quail is the ruffed grouse, and he must have aid. But, broiled and buttered and seasoned, well, what a bird he is!
There were woodcock, too, in the lowlands, and Harlson found with them such buoyant life as we men find in sudden death of those small, succulent creatures. To stop a woodcock on the wing as it pitches over the willows is no simple thing, and he who does it handily is, in one respect, greater than he who ruleth a kingdom. And, at the table--but why talk of the woodcock? There are other game birds for the eating, good in their various degrees, but the woodcock is not classed with them. In him is the flavoring drawn by his long bill from the very heart of the earth, the very aroma of nature, and all richness. They ate peacocks' brains in Caesar's time. Later, they found there was something greater in the ortolan, and in some of the similar smaller things which fly. But as the ages passed, and palates became cultivated by heredity, and what made all flavors became known, the woodcock rose and was given the rank of his great heritage--the most perfect bird for him who knows of eating; the bird which is to others what the long-treasured product of some Rhine hillside or Italian vineyard is to the vintage of the day, what old Roquefort or Stilton is to curd, what the sweet, dense, musky perfume of the hyacinth is to the shallow scent of rhododendron. Even the Titian-haired setter recognized the imperial nature of the woodcock, and was all emotion about the willow-clumps.
Of course, from one point of view it is absurd, to thus depart from a simple story upon the killing or the cooking or the flavor of a bird. But I am telling of Grant Harlson and the woman he later found, and it seems to me that even such matters as these, the sport he had, and the facts and fancies he acquired, are part of the story, and have something to do with defining and making clear the forming knowingness, and character, and habits and inclinations of the man. Between him who knows old Tokay and woodcock, and the other man, there is every distinction. Harlson had learned his woodcock, but the Tokay was yet to come.
And the fence neared its end. The young man almost regretted it, eager as he had become to test his strength in the great city. Physically, it was grand for him. What thews he gained; what bands of muscle criss-crosses between and below his shoulders! What arms he had and what full cushions formed upon his chest! That was the maul. How he ate and drank and slept!
The days shortened, and the hoar frosts in the early morning made the fence look a thing in silver-work strung through the woods. Where the oxen had stepped in some soft place were now, at the beginning of the day, thin flakes of ice. Even in the depth of the clover-mow the change of temperature was manifest, and Harlson slept with a blanket close about him. The autumn had come briskly. And the last ash was felled, the oxen for the last time scrambled through the wood with the heavy logs, and for the last time ax and maul and wedge did sturdy service. One day Grant Harlson lifted the last rail into place; then climbed upon the fence, looked critically along it, and knew his work in the country was well done. He was absorbed in the material aspect of it just then. It was a good fence. Fifteen years later he strolled one afternoon, cigar in mouth, across the wheat-field where the wood had been, and inspected the fence he had built alone that summer, away back. The rails had grown gray from the effect of time and storms, and a rider was missing here and there, but the structure was a sound one generally, and still equal to all needs. It was a great fence, well built. He looked at the wasting evidence of the great ax strokes upon the rail ends, and said, as did Brakespeare, when he visited the castle of Huguemont and noted where his sword had chipped the stairway stone in former fight; "It was a gallant fray."
There was the getting of pay--the selling of a Morgan yearling colt sufficed the owner of the land for that--and the end of one part of one human being's life was reached. He went to town again and lived there a week or two. A life not held in bonds, but somehow under all control. It was curious; he could not understand it; but, even in the wood, he had out-grown Mrs. Rolfston. He was with her much. There was no let nor hindrance to their united reckless being, but all was different from the beginning. He was not selfish with her; he grew more courteous and thoughtful, yet the woman knew she could not keep him. There were stormy episodes and tender ones, threats and tears, and plottings and pleadings, and all to the same unavailing end. Your woman of thirty of this sort is a Hecla ever in eruption, but becoming sometimes, like Hecla, in the ages, ice-surrounded. She has her trials, this woman, but her trials never kill her. The rending of the earth, earthy, is never fatal. She recovers. With her, good digestion ever waits on appetite, though an occasional appetite be faulty.
And one day Grant Harlson left the town, his face turned cityward. The country boy--this later young man of the summer--was no more. To fill his place among the mass of bipeds who conduct the affairs of the world so badly and so blunderingly, was but one added to the throng of strugglers in one of men's great permanent encampments.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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14
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A RUGGED LOST SHEEP.
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The journal of Marie Bashkirtseff is a great revelation of the hopes and imaginings and sufferings of a girl just entering that period of life when woman's world begins. Many upon two continents have been affected by the depths and sadness of it, yet it is but a primer, the mere record of a kindergarten experience, in comparison with what would be the picture showing as plainly a heart of some man of the city. Did you ever read the diary, unearthed after his death, and printed in part but recently, of Ellsworth, the young Zouave colonel, who was slain in Alexandria, and avenged on the moment, at the very beginning of the great civil war? That is a diary worth the reading. There is told the story of not alone vain hopes and ungratified ambitions, but of an empty stomach and dizzy head to supplement the mental agony and make its ruthlessness complete. There were, too, the high courage which was sorely tested--and an empty stomach is a dreadful shackle--and the bulldog pertinacity which ever does things. That was a diary of real life, with little room for dreams, and much blood upon the pen.
It befell Grant Harlson to learn how helpless in the great city is the man as yet unlearned in all its heartlessness and devious ways and lack of regard for strangers, and the story of Ellsworth was very nearly his.
It was well enough at first. He had some money, and had occupation at a pittance, intended only by the law firm with whom he was a student to serve for his car or cab-hire when on service outside the office. His privilege of studying with the firm was counted remuneration for his services, and he was, so far as this went, but in the position of other young men of his age and value under such circumstances, but, unlike others, he had relied upon the law of chance to aid him.
One hundred dollars does not last long when one is healthy and has a mighty appetite, and, that gone, two dollars and fifty cents a week, and hard work for it, is very little to live on, and Harlson found it so. Not for all the comforts of the world would he have written home for aid in the town. It seemed there was nothing for him to do. It had become mid-winter, and the winter was a cold one. Gaunt men followed the coal wagons or visited the places where charity is bunglingly dispensed by the sort of people who drift into smug officials at such agencies as naturally as some birds fly to worm-besprinkled furrows for their gleanings.
Harlson saw much of this, and knew his fate was not the worst among so many, and it aided him in his philosophy, but he had a mighty appetite. He was a great creature, of much bone and brawn, and being hungry was something he could not endure. He thought--how far back it seemed--of the farmers' dinners, and the turkey and ruffed grouse and woodcock. Woodcock! Why, his whole two dollars and fifty cents would not feed him for a single time upon that glorious bird! He looked through the fine restaurant windows, and it amused him. His own meals were taken in restaurants of a poorer class. With thirty-five cents and a fraction to live upon for a day, one does not care for game.
Harlson's dress became of the shabby genteel order. The binding upon coat and vest had begun to show that little wound which is not wide nor deep, but is past the healing, and the shininess at knees and elbows reflected the light that never was on land or sea, or, at least, ought not to be. He felt a degradation with it all, though it was with him the result of folly, not of fault, and he made a struggle for reform in his finances. He abandoned the cheap room in which he lived, and slept upon the office floor at night, the place in decent weather being moderately warm.
The individual from China and the individual from more than one other land, who comes to live with us, can exist on thirty-five cents a day and think his provender the fat of the land. But he is not a great meat-eater. The fiber of him is not our own. His style of tissue was not fixed in northern bay and fjord and English and Norman forests, and his ancestors transmitted to him a self-denying stomach. He can live in the city upon thirty-five cents a day, and clasp his hands across his abdomen and say, with the thankful, "I have dined." Not so the man of Harlson's type, and of his size. The sum of two dollars and fifty cents, the young man found, would not feed and clothe him for a week. He was a boy still, in the freshness of his appetite, yet his demands in quantity were manly, to a certainty. Six feet of maul-swinging humanity had eaten much, even in midsummer. That same six feet required more now, when the temperature was low and the system needed carbon. Perhaps he got all that was good for him; it is well to train down a little occasionally; but Harlson wandered about sometimes with a feeling of sympathy for the wolf of the forest, the hawk of the air, and the pickerel of the waters, all hungry ever and all refusing to live by bread alone.
As time passed this condition of things wore upon the man. His fancies, if not morbid, became a trifle ugly. He worked feverishly, but he chafed at his own ignorance of city ways, such that he could not increase his income. He sought manual labor which could be done at night, but failed even in this, for at that time he lacked utterly the way about him which fits the city, and persuades the man of business when there is little labor to be done. It was almost a time of panic. He would wander about the streets at night like a lost spirit. Sometimes he would meet old college friends. He had classmates in the city, some of them well-to-do and well established, and they were glad to meet him, the man who had done a little to give the class its record, and he was invited to swell dinners and to parties. He would but feign excuses, and to none of them told bluntly, as he should have done, just what his situation was, and how a trifling aid would make his future different. He was very proud, this arrogant product of the old Briton blending and the new world's new northwest, and he lacked the sense which comes with experience in the bearings of a life all novel, and so he remained silent, and, incidentally, hungry.
It was at this period of his career that Harlson was in closest sympathy with the sad-eyed Hindoo king. He was not doing anything out of the way; he was working hard, with clean ambitions, yet he was hungry. He could not understand it. No doubt an empty stomach inclines a man to much logic and the splitting of straws. There comes with an empty stomach less of grossness and more of abstract reason, and an exaltation which may be all impractical, but which is recklessly acute.
"I want to do things, I want to help others--I don't know why, but I do--I have ambitions, but I try to make them good. I am doing the best I can with the brains I have. I get up in the morning from the office floor and do my utmost all day, and try to do better when I get out, but nothing helps me! Where is the God who, it is said, at worst, helps those who help themselves. " 'You say that we have a meaning; So has dung, and its meaning is flowers.'
"The Hindoo king must be right. I am, we all are but like horses, or trees, or mushrooms; and it is only some sort of accident which makes each thing with life successful or unsuccessful, happy or unhappy, as the case may be."
So, at this time, Grant Harlson reasoned, blindly, yet in his heart there was something which protested against his own deductions and kept him in the path which was straightforward, and from staking all the future on the morrow. So drifted away the days, and this strong-limbed young fellow became hungrier and hungrier, and more shiny at knees and elbows, and more lapsided of foot-gear, and more thoroughly puzzled at, and disgusted with, the city world.
Sometimes the young man would resolve that in the morning he would abandon all his plans, and seek the country again, and there, where he could hold his own and more, live and die apart from all the feverishness and chances of another way of living. And he would awake and sniff in the morning air, and say to himself that he was a cur last night, and that he would stay and hold his own, and, in the end, win somehow. The bulldog strain asserted itself, and he was his own again. At night, after a fruitless day, he might become again depressed, but the morning restrung the bow. Sometimes--these were his weaker days--he would abandon all effort, and seek the free public library, and there plunge into books and find, for the passing time, forgetfulness. These were his only draughts of absolute nepenthe, for at night he dreamed of the yesterday or of the morrow, and it marred his rest. The library gave him, for the time, another world, though it had harsh suggestions. He would stop his reading to wonder how Chatterton felt when starving, or if Hood had as miserable a time of it as alleged, or if Goldsmith was jolly when, penniless, he argued his way through Europe, or if even Shakespeare went without a meal. But the library, on the whole, was a solace and a tonic. It rested him, since it made him, for a time, forget.
It was but characteristic of Harlson that, in the midst of all this test of endurance of a certain sort, he should do what deprived him of all chance of greater ease and greater vantage-ground with time expended out of the line he had established. One of his old college friends, guessing, perhaps, his real condition, came to him with an offer of what was more than a fair income, if he would teach one of the city's high-schools. The hungry fellow only laughed, and said that was not on his programme. He still went hungry and grew more shabby in appearance, and then came to him what was, perhaps, a sear upon his life--perhaps what broadened, educated, and made him wiser.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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15
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THE STRANGE WORLD.
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One night Harlson, with a great appetite, as usual,--for he had not eaten since his scant breakfast,--went out to get his supper. It was not dinner, for he never, at that time, dined. He had in his pocket twenty cents. The next day he would get his usual weekly stipend. He would spend fifteen cents, he thought, upon his supper, then return to the office to sleep, and would have five cents remaining for the morning meal. That would do to buy buns with, and he would endure what stomach clamor might come until evening, when he would be a capitalist, and riot in all he could eat, even though he doubled a cheap order.
So he reasoned, as he went down the garish street, and looked right and left for some new restaurant, for he chanced to want a change. One's love for cheap restaurants is not perpetual. A mild illuminated sign over a small building attracted his attention. It had the aspect of what would be cheap, but clean.
Harlson entered the place and found what he had looked for. There was the small front room with scattered tables, the partition at the back, reaching but half way to the ceiling, with the usual curtained door, and there was no one in the room. He took a seat beside one of the tables and there waited. He had not long to wait. The curtains parted and a woman entered. The woman who came into the room was possibly thirty-five years of age. She was strong of frame, though not uncouth, and had keen, laughing gray eyes, heavy eyebrows and chestnut hair. She was a half jaunty, buxom amazon, with a brazen, comrade look about her, and was evidently the proprietress of the place. She came to where Harlson was seated and asked him what he wished to eat. The patron of this restaurant was studying the bill of fare intently. He wanted to get what was, as Sam Weller says, "werry fillin," at the price, and yet he had certain fancies. He looked up at the woman and said, bluntly: "I have only fifteen cents to spend. What would you advise for the money?"
For the first time the eyes of the two met. Harlson was interested in the fraction of a second. In the fraction of a second he knew that it was not a restaurant pure and simple that he had entered, for he had learned much already in the city. The woman who looked at him was not merely the proprietress of a place where food was sold.
The woman did not answer at once. She was looking at the customer. She pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down.
"Have you lived here long?" she said.
Harlson had been so isolated, that to have an inquiry made in relation to his personal affairs seemed droll. It seemed something like humanity again, as well.
He studied more closely the woman opposite. She did not convey any idea of a creature of innate dishonesty or treacherous character. She had the appearance of being a shrewd, merry, healthy sinner. He forgot that she owed him an answer as he met her question: "No, I have not lived here long, but I am as hungry as if I had lived here for half a century. What shall I order?"
She looked at him curiously. His language was not of the kind she had been accustomed to. She measured him from head to heel, while he noted her examination and was amused, and showed it in his face. She blushed, or rather flushed, and measured him again. Then she told him what he should order most wisely for the sum he had named. He was surprised at the quantity and quality of it.
The woman, meanwhile, had left him without further comment. As he was ending his meal, she came in again and took the seat in front of him.
"You are hungry," she said.
"I was, decidedly. I'm not now."
She looked him over.
"You have spent only fifteen cents. What is the matter?"
He was surprised. He looked into her eyes and was perplexed. Why should this woman ask him this question? But he could see nothing in those eyes save a gray inquisition.
"I had only that much to spend to-night, that's all. Do you see anything absurd about it?"
The woman was puzzled in turn. She looked into the man's face in a fearless way enough, but did not know what to say. Then again came that odd way of looking over him. Finally she broke out: "You haven't any more money, and yet you put on airs. I like it."
"I am much obliged," said he.
"That isn't fair. You know what I mean. And you know already--you're not a fool--what this place is. It is mine. The little restaurant in front is but a part. Women come here--and men. Two women live here. Did you think that?"
Harlson said he had inferred, since he came in, that the restaurant was not a restaurant alone.
"It's a funny world," he said.
She was bothered. "I don't know what you mean about the world, and I don't care. But I would like to know what your business is, and how you are doing?"
"I am not doing well, and get hungry sometimes. Had it not been for that I should not have come here to-night. But what is it to you?"
"Can't you see? Why am I talking to you?"
"I don't know."
She looked at him steadily again.
"What do you want?" was his inquiry.
"Where do you live?"
"I have no bed. I am in a lawyer's office. I can't afford a boarding-house just now, and I sleep on the office floor."
"How do you like that?" she asked.
"I don't like it."
"Then why do you stay there?"
"Where else would I sleep? I have only so much a week."
"Would you like to stay here to-night?"
"Maybe. This is better than the office floor; at least I imagine it is."
The curtains parted and there was a heavy step upon the floor. A man came in. He stopped and looked at the couple grimly. He was a big man whose cheeks had jowls and whose eyes were red. He had the air of a bully. He seemed perfectly at ease and conscious of his status, and the woman started, then looked up half anxiously and half defiantly. The man spoke first: "What are you doing here?"
"I am talking with this gentleman at the table."
"You mustn't talk with these fellows. Get out of here!" he said, turning to Harlson.
Harlson was not really in a pleasant frame of mind; he had been too hungry. It was not the occasion on which a flabby bully should have thus addressed him. He did not answer the man, but turned to the woman.
"Is that your husband?" he asked.
"No."
"What is he, then?"
It was the intruder who answered, violently: "She belongs to me, and you'd better get out of here."
"I don't belong to him! He has lived here, but I want to get away from him! Now," turning recklessly to the man, "you may do what you please!"
The man paid little note to what the woman said. His attention was bestowed upon Harlson.
"Look here, young fellow! Get out of this, and get out quick! You're in the way!"
Now, upon this young man Harlson, during this conversation, had come a certain increased ill humor. He was in no violent mood, as yet, but he was not, as has been said, one for a big flabby brute to thus annoy. He was quiet enough, though.
"I've come into a restaurant to get my supper."
The man's red face became redder still. "If you don't get out, I'll throw you out!"
Harlson stood up. "I'll not go!" he said, and then the man rushed upon him.
It was only a clean, quick blow, but there was no check nor parry to mar its full effectiveness. The man plunged forward too confidently, the blow caught him fairly in the face, on the fullness of the cheek, just under the eye, and those bronzed knuckles cut in to the bone. It was a wicked blow, and its force was great enough to hurl the whole body back. The man whirled away under it, and he went toppling down, with his arms thrown up wildly. As he fell, he pitched still further back, in his effort to save himself, and his head struck the wainscoting as he reached the floor. Blood gushed from his cut cheek. It was a moment or two before he clambered slowly to his feet.
"Shall I hit you just once more?" was Harlson's query.
The man did not answer. The woman stood looking on curiously, but saying nothing. Harlson waited for a time, then told his assailant to go away; and the man picked up his hat and stumbled out upon the street.
The woman sat down again. It was some time before she spoke.
"You are strong, and will fight," she said.
"I had nothing else to do."
"Do you want to stay here?"
"It is better than the office floor."
"Will you stay here?"
He hesitated. It was a turning-point in his life, and he knew it. There was something rather startling to him in it.
Then came the swift reflection: He wanted to know all of life. This was the under-life, the under-current, of which reformers prate so much and know so little. Why not be greater than they? Why not have been a part of it, and in time to come speak knowingly? He was but a part of this world, as accident had made it. He hoped if the world wagged well to be a protector for certain weak ones. It was a world wherein immediate brute force told. Well, he could supply that easily enough. And what would he not learn? He would learn the city, the ignorance of which had resulted in his being hungry--he, a young man college-bred, and with some knowledge of Quintilian's crabbedness, or the equations of X and Y in this or that or the Witch of Agnesi. And were not these people part of the world, and was not this life something of which he ought to know the very heart?
Still, there were relations of things to be considered. There were people at home, and it would not do.
Then, just as he turned to refuge the woman who sat looking at him, the curtains parted again and a face appeared. It was the face of a woman, not of the world about him. It was some accident, some sinister, unexampled happening, which had brought the face to the surroundings. It gave to the wavering man a new idea of this world of shame and sin, and it may have been the deciding ounce.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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16
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THE REALLY UGLY DUCKLING.
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He turned, to the woman across the table: "All right; I will stay."
I am but telling the story of a man of whose life from this time for two years I know but little. He was always reticent about these years, yet always said he had no occasion to regret them. With the life's outlines, though, with what it really was, aside from details, I became, in a degree, familiar.
What does the average person in one class know of the life in another? There are "classes," certainly, with great bars between them here, though this is a republic, and all men and women are supposed to be free and equal and alike in most things. There are lower and wider grades of existence, such that the story of them may never be told save in patch-work or by inference, yet which have as full a history, and where there are loves and hates and hopes and despairs as deep as are ever felt in the mass where the creed-teachers and Mrs. Grundy and the legislatures are greater factors.
And of this more reckless, hopeless people Harlson learned much. With them he was; of them he could never fully be. The extent to which a man is permanently defiled by pitch-touching cannot, of course, be known. It depends upon the pitch and upon the man. It was not a quiet life the young man led! On the contrary, it was a very feverish one, for he labored hard in the office by day--he never for an instant abandoned his ambitions and his plans--and at night he drifted into the land where were warmth and light and lawlessness. He had his duty there, such as it might be, for he was both a gambler and a protector, and, young as he was, callow as he was, within a year he had become one in demand, no trifler at the table, and an object of rivalry among those whose regard means fee of body and of soul. He, himself, at that time, did not appreciate the remarkable nature of his changing. So rapidly he aged in knowledge of all undercurrents that he passed into full maturity without a comprehension of the change. It is said that some Indians teach their children to swim, not by repeated gentle lessons, but by throwing them into a deep stream recklessly, saving them only at the last moment. So had some power hurled Grant Harlson into the black waters, and he had not drowned, and had taken rank among strong swimmers.
It is, as I have said, difficult to write intelligently of this portion of this man's life. I want to do him justice, for I have always cared for him; yet, from the conventional point of view, at least, nothing can excuse his lapse at this one time. He should have continued starving, I suppose, as have so many others, and have either died or won, as they did, instead of tasting all that is denied, and gaining much knowledge of the world, of much use in the future, all at the expense, perhaps, of that purity attaching to certain ignorances, as much in the man as the woman, since between the sexes all things are relative.
There were enough odd things in this most odd career. There were friendships and feuds with those who were of the lower multitude morally, but who were politicians and had their followings. There were romances of the order which makes the story of Dumas such a success upon the stage, and risks and escapes enough to satisfy the hungriest of romance-readers. It was all grotesque in its grim reality, and the young man did not know it. He was an unconscious desperado, and the odd thing about it all was the ease with which he led the double life.
In the morning, clear-headed and competent--for he did not drink at all of liquors--he appeared and was resolute at his work. He was becoming more and more considered. That he, somehow, knew the town so well, was in his favor. More than one case of importance was decided in another way from which it might have been, because of his knowledge of the outcasts and their connections, and how they had been used or trifled with on this occasion or on that one. He was zealous and studied furiously, and in the mere letter of the law became most confident. His examination was a trifling thing, and, once admitted to the bar, he did not remit his efforts. He was valuable to the firm. He was their watch-dog, and he suggested many things.
One day the senior partner called Harlson in, and a long conference was held. The younger man was offered a partnership on condition that he would make a specialty of certain branches of the firm's varied practice; but the offer had its disadvantages. It was not in the line political at all, but in one with vexatious business demands and requisites; yet it was accepted in a moment. And within the next week all the wicked, nervous night-life was abandoned, all the friendships formed there put upon probation, all the soiled sentiment made a thing to be ended surely and forgotten, if possible.
There were some wrenches to it all. Camille learns to love sometimes, and Oakhurst, the gambler, does not want to part with one who has stood a friend in an emergency. But Camille knows that, for her, few flowers are even annual, and Oakhurst is practical and a fatalist.
From that day, all his life, Grant Harlson kept away from close touch with this ever-existing group who live from day to day because they have been branded and do not care. Good friends he ever had among them, but they never claimed him, though, on many occasions, the men served him. They recognized the fact that he had never been more than an adopted wanderer among them, and rather prided themselves upon him. In later times he would occasionally exchange a word or two on that old life with some one who had grown outwardly respectable, with some one-time thug, later saloon-keeper and alderman and what may follow, and would be reminded of what happened on the night when the mirrors were all broken, and the Washington woman shot the man she was seeking, or when "we did the Coulson gang;" but it had long grown to seem unreal and dreamlike. He grew away from the memory, and there was no glamour to him in what might attract some other men to evil-doing, because to him there could be no novelty. He was a past-master in the ceremonials of fallen, reckless human nature, and the ritual bored him. He deserved no credit further than that. True, he was but young when he learned the rites, but that he was not still a member of the order was only because his ambition was dominant and his tastes had changed. That his will was strong, that he had tastes to develop, was because of the blood which filled his veins, and of nothing else. He had gone with a current absolutely, though swimming and always keeping his head above water until he swam ashore. Yet, as told in the beginning of this chapter, he always said to me that he did not regret this experience of abandonment. And he became a man seeking place and money.
He liked to visit his old home, and was faithful to his old crony, his aging mother, still; and, for a time, after any of these sojourns among the birds and squirrels and in the forest, he would be distrait and preoccupied with something; but all this would wear off, and then would come the press for place and pelf again. He was not entirely unsuccessful, and finally he married, as a prospering young man should--married a woman with money and presence for a hostess, and with traits to make her potent. He lived with her for a season, and found another, without his dreams and sympathies and understandings, but with a will and a way.
I do not care to tell the story of it,--indeed, I do not know it,--but the man learned the old-fashioned lesson, which seems to hold good still, that for a really comfortable wedded life a little love, as a preliminary, is a good thing always--usually a requisite. The woman lacked neither perception nor good sense. It was she who proposed, since they were ill-mated, they should live apart, and he consented, with only such show of courtesy as might conceal his height of gladness. There were money features to the arrangement made, and it was all dignified and thoughtful. The world knew nothing of the agreement, though that generation of vipers, the relations of Mrs. Grundy, wondered why Mr. Harlson's wife and he so lived apart, and if either of them were opium-eaters, or dangerous in insane moods. The relations of Mrs. Grundy have the reputation of the universe on their hands, and, the task being one so great, they must be pardoned if they err occasionally.
From the day he was alone, Grant Harlson appeared himself again, and I speak knowingly, for I was with him then. His old self seemed then restored. The buoyancy of boyhood was his as it had never been to me since we were young together. It matters not what a chance,--this is a land where all men drift about,--but I was in the city near him now, and the old relationship was resumed. We rioted in the past of the country, and we visited it together. As time went on, Harlson seemed to forget that he was, or ever had been, a married man, and eventually the woman found other things in life than awaiting old age without social potency, and suggested, from a distance, that the separation be completed. Perhaps there was another man. I know that Harlson did not hesitate. He responded carelessly, and then reverted to things practical.
The reflection came that the mismated in this present age must ordinarily bear the burden to the end. Collusion, which in such case is but a term for a mutual business agreement, is not allowable. The social problem is a puzzle the solution of which is left to those whose ideas were given to them stereotyped. The separation was delayed, but was, vaguely, a thing possible. And Harlson laughed and threw out his arms, and made friends of many women.
They were the variety of his life, which else was a hard-working one. He was not a saint nor a deliberate sinner. He but drifted again.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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17
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"EH, BUT SHE'S WINSOME."
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"Eh, but she's winsome!"
Grant Harlson entered my room one evening with this irrelevant exclamation.
I have remained unmarried, and have learned how to live, as a man may, after a fashion, who has no aid from that sex which alone knows how to make a home.
Harlson, at this time, had apartments very near me, and we invaded each other's rooms at will, and were a mutual comfort to each other, and a help--at least I know that he was all this to me. I have never yet seen a man so strong and self-reliant or secretive--save some few who were misers or recluses, and not of the real world--who, if there were no woman for him, would not tell things to some one man. We two knew each other, and counted on each other, and while I could not do as much for him as he for me, I could try as hard. He knew that.
"Eh, but she's winsome!"
He went to the mantel, took a cigar, and lit it, and turned to me indignantly: "You smoke-producing dolt, why are you silent? Didn't you hear my earnest comment? Where is the trace of good behavior you once owned?"
"Who's winsome?"
"She, I tell you! She--the girl I met to-night. And you sit there and inhale the fumes of a weed, and are no more stirred by my announcement than the belching chimney of an exposition by the fair display around it!"
"You big, driveling idiot, how can I know what you are talking about? You come in with an obscure outburst of enthusiasm over something,--a woman, I infer,--and because the particular tone, and direction, and mood of your insanity is not recognized within a moment, you descend to personalities. If your distemper has left you reason enough for the comprehension of words, sit down and tell me about it. Who's winsome? What's winsome? And have you been to a banquet?"
"There is a degree of reason in what you say--that is, from the point of a clod. I'll tell you. I've met a woman."
"I dare say. There are a number in town, I understand."
"Spoken in the vein of your dullness. A person not sodden with nicotine and dreams would have recognized the fact that I had met a Woman, one deserving a large W whenever her name is spelled, a woman of the sort to make one think that all poems are not trickery, and all romances not romance."
"What's her name?"
"Do you suppose I'll tell you, you scheming wife-hunter! If I do, you'll get an introduction somehow, and then you'll win her, for I'm afraid she has good sense."
And Harlson laughed and looked down in the brotherly way he had.
"But this is nonsense. Why don't you tell me something about her? Is she fat and fifty and rich, or bread-and-buttery and white-skinned and promising, or twenty and just generally fair to look upon, or twenty-five and piquant and knowing, or some big, red-haired lioness, or some yellow-haired, blue-eyed innocent, with good digestion and premature maternal ways, or----" "Rot! She's a woman, I tell you!"
"All right. Answer questions now categorically."
"Go ahead."
"How old is she?"
"Twenty-seven or eight."
"Married?"
"No."
"Ever been married?"
"Certainly not."
"How do you know?"
Harlson looked surprised, and then he became indignant again.
"Alf," said he, "you have good traits, but you have paralysis of a certain section of your brain. You don't remember things. Don't you think I could tell whether or not a woman were married?"
I did not answer him off-hand. I could not very well. He knew that his reply had set me thinking of many a curious test and many a curious experience. Harlson had an odd fad over which we had many a debate.
It occurred usually upon the street cars. He would make a study of the women in the car when we were together--it seemed to amuse him--and tell me whether they were married or not. He would not look at their hands--that would be a point of honor between us--but only at their eyes, and then he would say whether any particular woman were married or single, and we would leave it to the rings to decide.
Sometimes he would lose, but then he would only say: "Well, if she didn't wear a wedding ring she should have done so," and would pay for the cigars we smoked.
He had some sort of fancy about their eyes which I could never quite understand. He said that a woman who had been very close to a man, who had been part of him in any way, had nevermore the same look, and that the difference was perceptible to one who knew the thing. I tested him more than once, and I found that he had never actually failed. Sometimes the woman with the look had proved unmarried, but there were facts that made the difference.
One night Harlson and I were wandering about the city, mere driftwood, after a dinner, and our mood carried us into the haunts of those without the pale, not that we cared for any new emotion or excitement, but that we wanted to look at something outside the commonplace. To me there might be, of course, some novelty in the things that might confront us, though to Harlson they were, at their utmost, but a reminiscence. We went where a man alone was not in safe companionship, but there were enough who knew my companion well, and all was curious to me, without even the spice of care for self.
It chanced that at one period of the wandering, very late at night, or, rather, early morning, Harlson became hungry, and insisted upon entrance to a restaurant where were gathered the very refuse of the reckless and non-law-abiding, and I went with him, perforce, and saw a motley gathering. There were all sorts of people there, from thief to pander, all save those who might retain a claim to faint respectability. Harlson demanded comparative cleanliness at our table, and the food was fairly decent. We ate, then smoked, and looked about us.
I have seen many people, and many strange faces, but never such a person nor such a face as of an old woman who sat at that early hour of the morning at a table near us. The figure was a warped and withered caricature, the face that of a hag, a creature vixenish and viperish, and mean and crafty. It was the face of a procuress of the lowest and most desperate type, of a deformed she-wolf of the slums, of the worst there is in all abandoned human nature, and Harlson was as interested as I was disgusted and repelled. He noted the woman closely.
"By Jove! look there!" he said.
"What is it?"
"Look at her hand."
I looked. I saw a hand which was a claw, a strong, shriveled thing with long, dirty nails and a vulturous suggestion. It was not a pleasant sight. On the third finger of the left hand, though, was a slight gleam amid the carnivorous dullness. There was a slender band of gold there, a ring worn down to narrowness and thinness. I turned to Harlson, but he spoke first: "Do you see that old wedding ring?"
"Yes."
"It's queer. It's good, too. There's a streak of what was good left in everything, it seems to me. I'm going to talk to her."
"Don't do it. She'll throw the plate in your face."
"No, she won't." And he rose and went over to the table of the beldame and sat down beside her. She looked up at him glaringly. He did not smile, nor, apparently, make any apology or excuse, but began talking to her, looking at the ring, and saying I know not what. And I watched that miserable old woman's face and wondered. There was more than one emotion shown--fierce resentment at first, then the half fear of the hound or the hound-bitch yielding to the master, and then the yielding of the heart, not touched, perhaps, for a quarter of a century. Harlson talked. The woman did not speak for minutes, then made some short reply, and then, a little later, there were tears in her old foxy eyes.
He rose, glared at the one or two hard-faced waiters who had ventured near him, and took upon a card something she said. Then he came back to me as the old woman left the place.
"Queer-looking, wasn't she?" he said.
"Decidedly," said I. "What were you talking about?"
"Oh, nothing but the ring. It's wonderful how they always wear the ring when they have the right to."
"But what was the use of it all? What came of your talk?"
"Nothing to speak of. It was only a fad of mine. I have a right to an occasional whim, haven't I? I'll be hanged if I'll see a wedding ring worn that way buried in unbought ground. The old hag was a marvel of all that is unwomanly and sinful. But that ring shall be properly buried, and the hand that wears it, because it _does_ wear it. So I'm going to take the woman out of this and put her where she will not have to be a monster in order to live."
And he did what he said he would do. He found a place in some old women's home for that aged demon, and one day he made me go with him to see her. Maybe it was the different dress and the different surroundings, but, it seemed to me, her eyes were not as they were in the low restaurant. The hand that wore the thin gold ring was clean in its pitiful shrunkenness. The creature looked neither hunted nor hunting. She was but an old woman going to the grave so near her, and going, I could not but imagine, to find the one who had given her that gold circlet some half century ago. I rather fancied Harlson's fad. As for him, when I told him so, he only said: "Oh, of course. Peter told the third assistant bookkeeper to credit Harlson with such or such an amount." And he added; "If those people don't take good care of that old woman there'll be a new superintendent." But they took good care of her.
This is lugging in an incident at great length as an illustration, but I know of no other way to explain how Harlson so expressed himself when I asked him how he knew whether the woman of whom he had been talking was married or not. He felt confident enough.
"Well, what is she like? Can't you describe her? Has she seared your eyes with her loveliness?"
"She hasn't seared my eyes. She has only opened them. Listen to me, you thing of mud! She is just a little brown streak."
"That's an odd description of a woman."
"It's the correct one, though. She's just a little brown streak of a thing."
"Well, I've heard of a man in love with a dream, and in love with a shadow, but never before did I hear of one infatuated with a streak. Where did you meet this creature? Have you known her long?"
"Only for a month or so, and but slightly. We have not met half a dozen times. It was only tonight, you see, that I began to know her well. We talked together, and I got a glimpse of her real self--of her slender little body, of her earthly tenement, of course, I had an idea before. She is a lissom thing, with eyes like wells, and with a way to her which conveys the idea of wisdom without wickedness, and which makes a man wish he were not what he is, and were more fitted to associate with her."
"That's one good effect, anyhow. I don't know of any man who more needed to meet such a woman. How long do you expect this influence to last?"
"Longer than one of your good resolutions, my son; as long as she will have anything to do with me."
"Does this brown streak of a saint live in the city? Is her shrine easy of access? What are you going to do about it?"
"She's not a saint; she's a piquant, cultivated woman; but she is different, somehow, from any other I've ever met."
"You've met a good many, my boy."
His face fell a little.
"Yes," he said, "and I almost wish it were different; but the past is not all there is of being. There's a heap of comfort in that."
"Cupid has thumped you with his bird-bolt, certainly. Why, man, you don't mean to say that you're in earnest--that you are really stricken; that this promises to be something unlike all other heart or head troubles with you?"
He laughed.
"I am inclined to believe that the gravest diagnosis is the correct one."
"But how about the present Mrs. Harlson?"
No friend less close than I could have asked such a question. I almost repented it myself, when I noted the look which came upon the man's face after its utterance.
I suppose such a look might come to one in prison, who, in the midst of some pleasant fancy, has forgotten his surroundings, and is awakened to reason and suddenly to a perception again of the grim walls about him, and of his helplessness and, maybe, hopelessness. Harlson left the mantel against which he bad been leaning, and walked about the room for a moment or two before speaking.
"It's true," he said, "I am certainly a married man. The law allows it, and the court awards it, as things are in this society, bound by the tapes of Justice Shallow and the rest. I entered into a contract which was a mistake on the part of two people. They discovered their error, and rectified it as far as they could. Had they been two men or two women who had gone into ordinary business together, and subsequently discovered they were not fitted for a partnership, the law would have assisted cheerfully in their absolute separation. But with this, the gravest of all contracts, the one most affecting human welfare, no such kindness of the statutes may exist. Some of the churches say the contract is a sacrament, though the shepherd kings, whose story is our Bible, had no such thought, nor was it taught by the lowly Nazarene; but the law supports the legend, within certain limits. What are we going to do about it?"
I told him that I didn't know, and there were several thousand people--good people--in the city facing the same conundrum.
I called attention to the fact that the conventional band was a strong one at this time, and could not be burst without a penalty, even by the shrewdest. The dwarfs were so many that, united, they were stronger than any Gulliver. And I added that, in my opinion, as a mere layman, he was very well off; that he had been at least relieved of the great, continued trouble which follows a mismating, and that it would be time enough for him to chafe at the light chain still restraining him, when he was sure he wanted to replace it by another.
"It's not your fashion," I said, "to fret over the morrow, and it is my personal and profound conviction that you have no more real idea of marrying again than you have of volunteering in the service of the Akhoond of Swat--if there be an Akhoond of Swat at present. You're only wandering mentally to-night, my boy, dreaming, because this wisp of a young woman of whom you have been telling has turned your brain for the time. You'll be wiser in the morning."
All this I said with much lofty arrogance, and a great assumption of knowing all, and of being a competent adviser of a friend in trouble, but, at heart, I knew that, in Harlson's place, I should not have shown any particular degree of self-control. I have never felt the thing, but it must be grinding to occupy a position like that of this man I was addressing. The serving out of a society sentence must be a test of grit.
We dropped the discussion of the problem, and Harlson referred to it again but incidentally.
"The fact is," said he, "I had almost forgotten that I was not as free as other men. I have not regulated my course by my real condition. I've drifted, and there have been happenings, as you know well. There's Mrs. Gorse. I've never concealed anything. Those who know me at all well know my relationships, but I imagine that I have been deceiving myself. I am not a free agent--though I will be. It's not right as it is."
"And when am I to see this woman who has interested you, and restored the old colors to the rainbow? You will allow me to admire her, I suppose, if only from a distance?"
"Oh, yes! Come with me to the Laffins' to-morrow night. She'll be there, I learned, and I said I was going to be there too. Come with me. Of course, you understand that if she smiles on you at all, or if you appear to have produced a favorable impression upon her, I shall assassinate you on our way home."
I told him that I thought my general appearance and style of conversation would preserve me from the danger, and that I would take the risk and accompany him.
The next night I met Jean Cornish. We were destined to become very well acquainted.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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18
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THE WOMAN.
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Only a little brown woman she. Man of the world and profligate he, Hard and conscienceless, cynical, yet, Somehow, when he and the woman met, He learned what other there is in life Than passion-feeding and careless strife. There came resolve and a sense of shame, For she made as his motto but "Faith and fame."
The world is foolish: we cover truth; We're barred by the gates that we built in youth. Two were they surely, and two might stay, But she turned him into the better way; His thoughts were purified even when He chafed and raged at the might-have-been; He learned that living is not a whim, For the soul in her entered into him.
He fights, as others, to win or fall, And the spell of the Woman is over all. Bravely they battle in their degree, For--"The woman I love shall be proud of me!" And the man and woman, the one in heart, May be buried together or hurled apart, But the strong will battle in his degree, For--"The woman I love shall be proud of me!"
There were men and women, and music and flowers, and some of the people had intelligence, and I drifted about at the Laffins' party, and rather enjoyed myself. Of course I wanted to see the woman a fancy for whom had gripped Harlson so hardly. I had forgotten about her until, with a pleasant and clever person upon my arm, I had found something to eat and had come upstairs again, and released her to another. I wandered into an adjacent room, and there ran upon Harlson among a group. I was presented to Miss Cornish.
I do not know how to describe a woman. This one, whom I have known better than any other woman in the world, is most difficult of all for me to picture. She stood there, not uninterested altogether, for, no doubt, Harlson had been telling her already of his closest friend, his lieutenant in many things, and I had an opportunity to study her with all closeness as we exchanged the commonplaces. I understood, when I saw her, how it was that he had referred to her so absurdly as a little brown streak of a thing. Little she was, assuredly, and brown, and so slender, that his simile was not bad, but the brownness and the slenderness were by no means all there was noticeable of her. She was not imposing, this woman, but she was not commonplace. Supple of figure she was, and there were the big eyes this stricken friend of mine had told me of, and rather pronounced eyebrows, and her lips were full and red, and there was that fullness of the chin, or, rather, the vague dream or hint or vision of a daintily double chin at fifty, which means so much, but the forehead was what a woman's should be, and the glance of the eyes was clean and pure, though, in a clever woman's way, observant and comprehensive. It was a cultivated and fascinating woman whom I met.
We talked together, and Grant Harlson looked on gratified, and she seemed to like me. She made me feel, in her own way, that she liked me because she knew of me, and as we were talking I felt that she was paying, unconsciously, the greatest compliment she could to the man beside us. I knew it was because of the other, and of something that he had said of me, that she was so readily on terms of comradeship. And I knew, in the same connection, and from the same reasoning, that she had already begun to care as much for him as he for her--the man who, the night before, had so comported himself with me. Of course, it appears absurd that I could reach such a conclusion upon so little basis, but to tell when people are interested in each other is not difficult sometimes, even for so dull a man as I. "You have known Mr. Harlson many years, I believe," she said, and added smilingly: "What kind of a man is he?"
"A very bad man," I replied, gravely.
She turned to him in a charming, judicial way: "If your friends so describe you, Mr. Harlson, what must your enemies say? And what have you to say in your own defense? What you yourself have owned to me in the past is recognition of the soundness of the authority."
"I haven't a word to say. Of course, I had not expected this unfriendly villain to be what he has proved himself, but what he says is, no doubt, true. I'm going to reform, though. In fact, I've already begun."
"When was the revolution inaugurated?"
He looked at her so earnestly that there came a faint flush to her cheek. "Since my eyes were opened, and I saw the light," he answered.
She diverted the conversation by turning to me, and saying that, while the information I had given her was no doubt valuable, and that she should regulate her course accordingly, and advise all her friends to do the same, yet she felt it her duty to reprimand me for telling the truth so bluntly. She knew that I had done it for the best, but if there were really any hope for this wicked man, if he had really decided upon a new life, we ought to encourage him. Did I think him in earnest?
I told her that it hurt me to say it, but that I had no great confidence in Mr. Harlson's protestations. He was of the earth, earthy. A friend, it was true, should bear a friend's infirmities, but he should not ask other people to bear them, nor should he testify to anything but the truth. Mr. Harlson might or might not be in earnest in what he had declared, but, even if in earnest, there was the matter of persistency. I doubted seriously his ability to overcome the habits of a lifetime.
She was becoming really interested in the chaffing.
"What is the nature of Mr. Harlson's great iniquity?"
"There, Miss Cornish, I am justified in drawing the line in my reply. I have conscientiously explained that he was, in a general way, a villain of the deepest dye, but to make specifications would be unfriendly, and I know you wouldn't have me that."
Harlson said that he was very much obliged for my toleration, or would be until he got me alone, and Miss Cornish showed a proper spirit, and so I left them. But I had no evidence that she believed what I had said.
As we walked home together in the early morning, Harlson told me more of the young lady. She was living with an aunt, he said, and was, otherwise, alone in the world. She had but a little income, barely enough to live on, but she had courage unlimited, and tact, and was not insignificant as a social factor. She had the sturdiness of her ancestry, in which the name of Jean ran.
"I like it," Harlson said; "it fits her--'Jean Cornish'--little brown 'Jean Cornish'--little leopardess, little, wise, good woman."
I told him that he was mixing his similes, and that in a broad, comprehensive way he had become a fool.
"I tell you I'm in love with her already," he blurted out, "and somehow, some day, I will have her, and wear her and care for her!"
"But, my dear boy, don't be insane. There is the problem we were discussing last night. Have you a solution of it? And first catch your hare. Have you caught your pretty hare yet? I'll admit it's possible. Women are fools over such fellows as you when they should be adhesive to good, plodding members of society, like the friend who is now advising you, but Miss Cornish is not a fool, you see, and I don't think you deserve her."
"For that matter, neither do I," he answered; "but I will deserve her yet. I must do more of many things, and cease to do many things. I believe I comprehend better now than I ever did the words in the service, 'We have done those things and left undone,' and all that. But you'll see a difference. I'll make her proud of me. That's the right way to become clean, isn't it, old man?"
I said I thought it a wholesome and commendable resolution, on general principles, and, of course, the idol would gradually disintegrate. All idols were of clay. But it didn't matter about the idol, so long as the effect was produced. He might count on me any time for good advice. He only glared at me, and called me hard names, and we dropped in at the club and finished our cigars, and separated.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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19
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PURGATORY.
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And Grant Harlson made love to Jean Cornish and won her heart.
But all the time, unconsciously, he was a man of false pretensions, one dishonorable and unworthy of her. His friends knew of his marriage and its sequel. He had never concealed nor thought of concealing his condition, and it never occurred to him that Jean Cornish was not aware of it. He had supposed her, if she cared for him as he hoped, to be somewhat troubled, but to understand that he would do no mean thing, and that all would be well in time. Then came the sorrow of it, for Jean Cornish learned, quite accidentally, that Grant Harlson was a man with a living wife.
She would not believe it at first, and, when convinced, was dazed and could not understand. No such shock had ever before come into her life. This man, of whom she had made a hero, a trickster and a liar! It seemed as if the world were gone! There was a meeting and an explanation, and she learned how wrong she had been, in one way.
He put the case earnestly and desperately. He would not yield her. He knew she loved him, and he knew she was too good and wise to suffer forever herself or let him suffer because, in society, there were blunders. There was a way out--a clean, right way--and they must take it. He could get a divorce on grounds of mere desertion, and three people, at least, would be better off. It was pitiful, the scene, one afternoon. He had called to see her, and was pleading with her. It was in the drawing-room, and there were stained windows they both remembered in later years. He had talked of his bondage and of his hopes. She was not quite herself; she was suffering too much. I know what happened. Grant told me once of the wrench of him then, and of all the scene. There had been a fierce appeal from him. He had become almost enraged.
"And so," he said, "you would have a man's marriage like the black biretta of Spain that is drawn over the prisoner's head before they garrote him?"
She did not move nor speak, but stood straight and silent, her hands hanging at her sides with the palms loosely open, the very abandonment of pathetic helplessness.
Such a little woman, to withstand a storm of passion!
As he wondered at her curiously blended strength and weakness, a sun-shaft blazed through the crimson glass of the upper window. The reddened light, falling on her up-springing almost coppery locks, seemed to the man's excited fancy a crown, of thorns, crimsoned with blood, and there was, oddly enough, a cross in the window.
The thought of another vicarious sacrifice awed him. Must this be one, too?
"Mistakes, dear, are not crimes. Can you not understand? I have been mistaken, have suffered, have atoned for my error. Is that enough?"
"But," she said, and her voice seemed to have suddenly grown old and thin, "you have no right to talk of mistakes. She is your wife."
"The biretta, that ends all, again! No, not so. It is as insane and inhuman to force two people to remain in wedlock after it has become odious to them, as it would be to force them into that marriage at first. Oh, my tender-hearted little one, can you not see that the bondage is more humiliating, more craven than is the idea of the veriest chattel mortgage? Yet you refuse to let the injured one go free, as you would not refuse the poorest prodigal whose one chance for home and happiness was passing from his sight."
"I cannot answer you when you discuss learnedly on such questions," she said, with a weary dignity, "for I have never thought about them. Why should I? It has always seemed to me that a man with more than one wife was a--a--Mormon. It is all so dreadful. Surely, if a marriage is anything, it is a vow before God."
"It is you that make the mistake now," he said, "for the mere form of marriage is nothing but the outward evidence of a union that has already taken place. The first is the vow before God--not the latter. I understand why you think all this; clergymen have so long been called upon to officiate at marriage rites that, with the fatherly assumption notable in the order all the world over, they have grown to regard themselves as the especial and heaven-appointed guardians of the institution. It is all so grotesque when one remembers how ready they are to 'solemnize'--save the mark! --marriage, no matter what the conditions. Have the candidates to be known as right and fitting persons? Is there even the simplest formula of preparatory examination? None! Two wholly unsuited people may rush into marriage--and misery--any day by simply presenting themselves before a sleek-faced person who mumbles drowsily over their clasped hands, and calls it a vow before God! --as he hurries back to his dinner!"
Still she was silent.
An errand boy trudging by whistled a few bars of the wedding march, doubtless heard that day at some open church door.
"Dear, there is a higher, holier law of the great Power, who made us what we are, than this one of slavish obedience to a tradition. Why must our feet go in the burning ruts?"
"It is not the well-worn ruts that burn, but the by-paths," she answered, "and oh! _how_ they burn!"
"Let me lift you in my arms and carry you over them, then, that your feet may not touch. Do not be unjust to yourself. Cannot you see how right, how good it is? It is not as if I came to you from another woman----" The girl faced around on him almost fiercely.
"No, you could not be so bad as that! To have felt the morning kiss of another woman, to have watched her good-night smile, and then to have come to me--that would have been too base, too degrading--I should have hated you because I despised you. I should have loathed you instead----" "Of loving me! Be honest and true, little Jean--you do care."
"Yes, I have cared."
"And do still?"
"Yes."
Her tone was as cold and as clear as the sound of an icicle striking the frozen earth in the fall. It angered him, and his voice shook roughly.
"A man who binds up his life in the love of a woman is a fool! Because she is all the world to him, all he works to receive praise from, all he fears in the blaming, he thinks her capable of as much love as himself. And even as he watches, he sees her pass from fervor into apathy. Her affection is but the dry husks of what he hoped to find. You never cared!"
"Grant," she said, earnestly, "you have told me to be honest. I will be. I think"--with a little laugh--"that if I had been a man I should not have been a coward. I shall not be now. You wrong me and yourself when you say that I never cared. It is because my caring has been so much a part of myself that I have never been able to stand aloof and look and comment upon it. It was just me. When I lived, it lived; when I die----" "My love!"
"When--no. I do not believe it can die even then! I think it is a part of my soul, and will outstand all time."
She hesitated as if devising words to express herself with even more sweet abandon. There was a certain loving recklessness in what she uttered now: "Not care? I wish you, too, would understand! Perhaps it is because we care in such different ways. I don't know, but to me it has been all! There is no joy, no pleasure, however petty, through all the day, but it brings with it the swift desire to share it with you. Every morning I waken with your half-uttered name on my lips, as though, when I slipped hack through the portals of consciousness into the world of reality, I came only to find you, as a timid child awakes and calls feebly for its mother. Once, not long ago, in a street accident, such as you know of in our busy city, I seemed very close to death, and in an instant my spirit seemed to have overleaped the peril and the terrible scene, and was with you. Afterward, one who sat near me said that, while some screamed or prayed, I said only 'Grant,' and he asked, lightly, now that danger was over: 'Is the great general your patron saint?' And I--I did not know that I had said it, since the name can never be as near to my lips as it is to my heart."
Harlson did not reply. He could not then. His head was bent.
"And when you were ill--ah! then it was the hardest of all! I dreamed of the little things I could do for you--how your dear head could rest on my shoulders, and it might help to ease the pain; how I could save you from annoyances; how I could--love you!"
"Then come, love of me; I need you--we need each other."
"No, I think a woman who loves a man could scarcely bear that he had ever been bound to another still living, or even dead."
"But----" "No. It is not right."
It is not always that even he who is right and strong in the consciousness of it, and resolute toward the end he is seeking may express himself as he would in protest against the object yielding to what is in the social world, though it be wrong. Grant Harlson looked down upon the slender figure and into the earnest face and was helpless for the time. Yet he was fixed of mind.
He was very tender with her, but this was not a man to give up easily what was his. He pleaded with her further, but in vain. She would not yield.
And so the weeks passed, with the problem yet unsolved. They were still much together, for she could not turn him away, and he would not stay away. There was more pleading on his part, and more anger sometimes. It seemed to him absurd that lives should be blighted because of a legend.
And she was unhappy, and, it may be, gradually attaining to broader views and moral bravery. Jean Cornish was courageous, but there was the legend.
And suddenly all was changed, the problem finding a solution not expected. Grant Harlson's wife was, as has been said, a woman of reason and of force, and she had her own life, with its objects. She chafed under the bond which still connected her with Harlson, and she broke it cleanly. It was she, not he, who sought divorce, and the simple logical ground of incompatibility of temperament was all that was required, in the State where she resided. There was no defense. Grant Harlson became free, and Jean Cornish, since his freedom came in this way, promised, at last, to become his wife.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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20
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TWO FOOLS.
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They loved. They were to marry, but there were the conventionalities to be observed, and they could not be wed at once. That was understood by Grant Harlson, though he chafed at it a little.
There were certain months to be passed before the two would be as one completely, and those months were very sweet months to the twain. They were much together, this man and woman who were plighted to each other, for why should they not be, since they were to become man and wife, and since neither was so happy under other circumstances? They were not what a profound, unsentimental person would consider models of common-sense, but they were not depending upon the opinions of profound, unsentimental persons for anything in particular; so this did not affect them.
They exhibited no great interest in society, though each commanded a place there, but they would go to church or theater together, and they were much addicted to luncheons. She would come down town at noon to meet him, and then--what banquets! Sometimes they would visit the restaurants where there were fine things, and he would seek to make of her a gourmet. He taught her the beauties of the bobolink in his later attractive form, the form he assumes when, after having been transformed into a reed bird, he comes back on ice to the region where, in the midsummer, he disported himself, and stirs the heart of the good liver, as in June he did the heart of the poet. He taught her the difference between Roquefort cheese, that green garden of toothsome fungi, that crumbly, piquant apotheosis of the best that comes from curd, and all other cheeses, and taught, too, the virtues of each in its own way. She learned the adjuncts of black coffee and hard crackers. She even learned to criticise a claret, and once, with Harlson, she tested a _pousse cafe_, but only once. He didn't approve of it, he said, for ladies. And, besides, a _pousse cafe_ was not of merit in itself. It was but a thing spectacular.
And in the matter of made dishes from the man about town she acquired much wisdom.
The man in his great happiness was buoyant and fantastic, and well it was that the woman, too, possessed the sense of humor which makes the world worth occupancy, and that the two could understand together. He was but a foolish boy in this, his delicious period of probation.
And she was but a loving woman who had given her heart to him, who understood him, and who, in a woman's way, was of his mood. It was an idyl of the clever.
At the more modest restaurants were the lunches of these two the most delightful. He would, somehow, find queer little places where all was clean and the cooking good, but far away from the haunts of men, that is, far away from the haunts of the men and women they knew, and there the two would have great feasts. At one unpretending place he had one day found pork and beans,--not the molasses-colored abomination ordinarily sold in town, but the white beans, baked in a deep pan, with the slashed piece of pork browned in the middle of the dish,--and this place became a great resort for them. They would sit at a small table, and have the beans brought on, and mustard of the sharpest and shrewdest, and dishes such as formed a halo about the beans, which were the central figure, and then would they eat, being healthy, and look into each other's face, and riot in present happiness, having certain brains and being in love. The very rudeness of it pleased him mightily.
One evening they had dined together. She had been shopping or doing what it is that women do down town of afternoons, and he had met her at the close of business, and they had eaten together as usual, and when they emerged into the open air it was but to learn that the mercury had dropped some few degrees, and that the jacket she wore was light for the occasion. She became cold before her home was reached, and he was troubled.
"I wish it were months later," he said.
"Why?"
"Because then I could care for you, and see to it that you did not suffer from the chill. I don't know though, even with the admirable supervision I'd have over you then, whether you would take proper care of yourself, my Brownie. What would you do?"
"I don't know quite," she answered. "I think I should want to get pretty near the grate. I'd pull one of the tiger-skins or bear-skins on the rug, very close to the fire, and I'd curl down on the fur and turn about a little, and get very warm."
He assumed a lofty air, and announced that he was under the impression that, when chilled, she would do nothing of the sort! He had his own ideas regarding the treatment of chills of small, brown women. What would really occur, what the solid, tangible fact of the occasion would be, required no effort to describe. He should merely draw a great easy-chair before the grate. Then some one would be picked up and turned about before the fire until thoroughly warmed and with full circulation of the blood again. She should be simply, but scientifically, toasted: "I'd hold you thus before the brand, To catch caloric blisses, And you should be my muffin and I'd butter you with kisses."
She responded that the gift of doggerel was not one to be desired, and, furthermore, that she was not a muffin, nor anything in the culinary way.
All of which, of course, served but as provocation to further flippancy, and, for days later, the lady was referred to as his own sweetest soda biscuit, his bun, his precious fruit-cake, and so on, until a bakery's terms were so exhausted. All this was, no doubt, silliness.
The woman, in her way, was not less inexcusable than the man. She was as much in love as he, and the strictly personal equation was as strong within her. She would watch him when they were at lunch together, and if her gaze was not so bold and feeding as was his, it was at heart as earnest.
She wanted to do something, because of the passionately loving mood within her. She wanted to "hurt" him just a little, and one day occurred an odd thing.
They were chatting across a little table in a restaurant almost vacant save for them, and he had made some grotesque sweetheart comment which had pleased her fancy, lovingly alert, and she suddenly straightened in her seat and looked at him with eyes which were becoming dewy, but said never a word.
She looked all about the room in one swift, comprehensive glance, and then, leaning over, with her small right hand she smote him hardly upon the cheek. There was no occasion for such demonstration. It was but the outpouring, the sweet, barbaric fancy of the woman, in line with the man's grotesquerie, and not one whit less affectionate. And he, thus smitten, made no remonstrance nor defense, further than to refer incidentally to his slender sweet assailant as "a burly ruffian."
That evening, at her home, he suddenly, just before leaving, picked up the woman, as if she were a baby, and threatened to carry her away with him. She did not appear alarmed, at least to the extent of hysteria, though she struggled feebly, and said that somebody was a big, brutal gorilla, and that she did not propose to be snatched from the bosom of her tribe to be conveyed to some tree-top refuge, and there become a monster's bride.
He would assert at times, and the idea was one he clung to with great persistency, that the person with him was not even of the race, but had been substituted in the cradle for a white child stolen by an Indian woman with some great wrong to avenge. He would call her his Chippewa Changeling, and at lunch would be most solicitous as to whether or not the Wild Rose would have a little more of the chicken salad. Would the Flying Pawn try the celery? Some of the jelly, he felt confident, would please the palate of the Brown Dove. Might the white hunter help her to a little more of this or that? Only once she rebelled. She was laughing at something he had said, and he referred to her benignantly as his Minnegiggle, which was, admittedly, an outrage.
A great fancy of these two it was to imagine themselves a couple apart from the crowd, and unversed in city ways, and just from the country. Not from the farm would they come, but from some town of moderate size, for they prided themselves on not being altogether ignorant. Far from it. Was there not a city hall in Blossomville, and a high-school, and were there not social functions there? But, of course, it was a little different in a great city, and it would be well not to mingle too recklessly with the multitude.
They would even visit the circus when one of those "aggregations" made the summer hideous, and he would buy her peanuts and observe all the conventional rules laid down for rural deportment on such occasions. The whimsicality, the childishness of it all, gave it a charm. They appreciated anything together. Harlson said, one day: "I believe that an old proverb should be changed. 'He laughs best who laughs last,' is incorrect. It should be: 'He laughs best who laughs with some one else.' And that is what will make us strong in life, my love. Some trying times may come, but we shall be brave. We'll just look at each other, and laugh, because we shall understand. We know. We, somehow, comprehend together. Don't you see? Of course you do, because, if you didn't understand, what I am saying would be nonsense."
She understood well enough. She understood his very heart-beats. It had grown that way.
"I am getting very much like you, I think," she said, "and I want you to understand, sir, that I do not regret it. I'm afraid I'm lost totally. I'm not alarmed that it is as if your blood were in my veins. What can a poor girl do?"
"You might as well abandon yourself," he answered. "What is it they do in a part of Africa, when something to last forever is intended? I think they drink a little of another's blood. Could you do that?"
She laughed. "I could drink yours."
He bared his arm in an instant, and sank the point of a pen-knife into a small vein. The red current came out upon the smooth skin prettily. She looked at Harlson's act in astonishment, and turned a little pale; then, all at once, with a great resolve in her eyes, she bent swiftly forward and applied the red of her lips to that upon the arm. She raised her head proudly, and he looked at her delightedly.
"How did it taste?"
"Salty"--with a pucker of her lips and a desperate effort to keep from fainting.
"Yes, there is much saline matter in blood. Even such admirable blood as that you have just tasted is, no doubt, a little salty. Are you sorry you did it?"
"No," she said, bravely, but she was pallid still.
"Allow me to remind you that science has learned many things, and that you will have, literally, some of my blood in your veins. Not much, it is true, but there will be a little."
She replied that she was glad of it.
And henceforth, when her moods most pleased his lordship, he would comment on the good effect of the experiment, and when they differed he would regret that she had not taken more of him.
They were two fools.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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21
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"MY LITTLE RHINOCEROS-BIRD."
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It was not all sweet nonsense, though, with this man and woman. Some practical things of life became theirs soon, because of the love which was theirs.
A curious thing, and to me a pleasant thing, occurred one night. I was with Grant Harlson in his room, and he was lying on a sofa smoking, while I lounged in an easy-chair. Harlson was pretty well fagged out, for it was the end of a hard day for him, as, for that matter, it had been for me. There was a ward to be carried against a ring, and Harlson was in the midst of the fray for half a hundred reasons, and I was aiding him. He headed the more reputable faction, but in the opposition were many shrewd men and men of standing.
It was no simple task we had before us, and we had been working hard, and we were not quite satisfied with the condition of things. The relations of two men of prominence we wanted to know particularly. Had there, or had there not, been a coalition between them? If there had, it would change Harlson's policy, naturally, but work so far had been conducted on the supposition that an ancient political feud between the two was not yet ended, and that upon the support of one against the other he could count with reasonable certainty. We were discussing this very matter when there came a ring at the door, and a cab-driver entered.
"There is a lady in my cab," said he, "who wants to see Mr. Harlson."
Harlson was puzzled.
"I don't know what it means," he said. "Come down with me and we'll solve the mystery," and we went to where the cab was drawn close to the sidewalk.
The door was opened with some energy, and a woman's head appeared--a head with brown hair.
"Grant!"
"Jean! What is the matter? What brings you here at such a time? My poor child."
She laughed. "There is nothing the matter, you big baby. Only I heard something I thought you would care to know, and which I thought you should know at once, so I came to tell you."
"Yes, tell me."
"It was this way, you see." All this impetuously. "I was at Mrs. Carlson's party, and among the guests were Mr. Gordon and Mr. Mason, with their wives. I didn't listen intentionally, of course, but Mr. Mason and Mr. Gordon came close to where I was sitting and I heard your name mentioned, and I suppose that made my hearing suddenly acute, and I heard in two sentences enough to know that those two gentlemen are working together against you in something political. So, sir, knowing your foolish interest in such things, and actuated by my foolish interest in you, I told aunt I'd like to go home early, and a cab was called and I was put into it, and I told the driver to come here, and--you know the rest, you staring personage."
Women can read men's faces, and Jean Cornish must have been repaid for what she had done by the mere look of the man before her. He said nothing for a moment, and then uttered only these words softly: "My little rhinoceros-bird."
"Will you kindly explain the meaning of that extraordinary phrase?"
He did not answer just then, but got into the cab with her and directed the driver to her home.
She had removed her wraps in the drawing-room when she turned to him and demanded further information as to the term applied to her. He made comment on some people's general ignorance of natural history, took a big arm-chair, placed the young lady in a low seat close beside him, and, assuming a ponderous, pedagogical air, began: "The rhinoceros, my child, as you may possibly be aware, is a huge beast of uncouth appearance, with a horn on its nose, and inhabiting the wild regions of certain wild countries, notably Africa. It is a dangerous animal, and has enemies galore and friends but few. The hunter counts it a noble prize, and steals upon it in its fastnesses, and even a rhinoceros may not withstand the explosive bullet of modern science. Somewhat sluggish and dull, at times, is the rhinoceros, and it is in his careless, listless moods that he is liable to fall a victim. Well for him is it on such occasions that he has a friend, a guardian, a tiny lover. Well for him that the rhinoceros-bird exists! The rhinoceros-bird is a little thing which never deserts the mighty beast. It perches upon his head or back, and flutters about him, and makes of him its world. To the rhinoceros-bird the rhinoceros is all there is of earth. And well is the brute repaid for liking the bird about him. Though the monster may have stupid periods, the bird has none, and, hovering about bushes, fluttering over openings, ever alert, watchful and solicitous, naught may escape its eye, and, danger once discovered, swift is the warning to the slumbering giant, and then woe to the intruder on his domain! And such, dear pupil, is the rhinoceros-bird. And you are my rhinoceros-bird."
She understood, of course. The look in her eyes told that, but her words belied her.
She said that, in a general way, the simile had application, the rhinoceros being a huge beast of uncouth appearance.
And, so far as this conversation was concerned, he perished miserably.
But that was only the beginning of a practical exhibition of the woman's earnestness and acuteness, and her great love. It was but evidence that she was to be, what she became in time, his rhinoceros-bird in all things, his right hand, prompter in such relations as a woman's wit and woman's way best serve. She was of him. But with two who blended, so there must be many added intervals of delicious nonsense before the reality of marriage came.
They made odd names for things. They ate lobster together one day, and he, in some mood, kept misquoting and distorting passages from the Persian poet, and thenceforth broiled lobster was known to the two as "a Rubaiyat." And there were a score or two of other bizarre titles they had made for things or for localities, with the instinct of so embalming a perfect recollection. And each had certain tricks of speech, of course, as have all human beings, and these two, so living in each other, caught all these, and mocked and gibed and imitated, until there was little difference in their pronunciations. To some one overhearing them they might have been deemed as of unsound mind, though they were only talking in love's volapuk.
They resembled each other, these two beings, as nearly in bodily fancies as in other ways. Each, for instance, was a great water lover, each addicted to the bath and perfumes, he perhaps because of his long gymnasium training, and she from the instinct of all purity which appertains to all women worth the owning.
One afternoon they had fled from the city and were walking on the beach, beside the lake, with no one near them. For a mile in either direction, they could look up and down and see that no intruder was in sight. He sent flat stones skipping and galloping over the waves with some whirling trick of underthrow, and tried to teach her the device of it, and they sat upon the sand and ate the luncheon he had secured preparatory to this great excursion, a luncheon devised with great skill by a great caterer, and packed in a paper box which would go in a coat-pocket, and they talked of many things and delighted in being together, and alone. And he, floundering in the sand, must needs get much of it inside his shoe. And then this reckless person, having removed the shoe to rid himself of the sand, must needs step in a treacherous spot and wet his stocking dismally. And the sensible thing to do was to remove the stocking and dry it in the sun.
There should be, so far as its relation to society is concerned, no difference between the human hand and the human foot, but, somehow, the average man is not, as a rule, ready to exhibit his bare feet carelessly to the one woman, and to the average woman a similar revelation would seem a thing indelicate; but these two were not of the common sort. Harlson pulled off his stocking as carefully as he would have done a glove, and spread it on the sand where it might dry, and, laughing at his disaster, he dabbled with his foot in the sand.
She looked at him curiously. She looked at the foot, too, being a woman, and this being the man above all others to her, and then she laughed out joyously and frankly.
"I don't believe any one but you would have done that, Grant. And what a foot you have!"
He replied, with much pomposity, that it was the far-famed Arabian foot, the instep of which arched so beautifully that water could flow beneath it without wetting the skin. Just at present, though, he thought a little water might run over it to advantage, instead of under, the sand being a trifle mucky. And why would no one else have done such a thing? And he was glad she liked his foot; in fact, he was glad she liked anything about him, and rather wondered that she did, and the world had become to him a good place to live in.
All of which was but the sentimentalism which appertains to a man and a woman in love with each other, but the drift of thought continued in the direction suggested by his action and her comment. They looked at the lake, with its shifting coloring of green and blue and purple, and he told her how, some day, he would teach her to swim like a Sandwich Island beauty, and she said she would like to learn. She liked the water.
"I'm very glad of that," he commented; "I like it myself. I am a great bather. I admire the English for the 'tubbing' which is made such a subject of jest against them by other people. There must be water into which I may tumble when I rise in the morning, or water in abundance in some way, else I should be a trifle uncomfortable all day long. I don't mean just a mild lavatory business, you know, but a plunge or a cataract, or something of that sort. It is barely possible, my dear, that you are going to marry a man whose remote ancestors were the product of evolution from otters, instead of monkeys. Think of that!"
And she confessed, half-blushingly, her own regard for water, and that she had been laughed at by other women for what they deemed a fancy carried to an extreme. And she said she was very glad that a great big Somebody was dainty in his ways. While in many respects she could not approve of him, it was a comfort, at least, to be enabled to think of him as ever clean and wholesome, and as having one weakness of which she could condone.
He looked at her majesty, as she sat enthroned upon a little mound, but to her small oration made no reply. He was worshiping her bodily. And from this conversation came a sequel, a day or two later, which was but the worshiping put into things material. Of his love and the bath he would have fancies, and he wanted what touched her to be from him. She was surprised by a cumbrous package which, opened, revealed great things for a woman's dalliance with water--the soft Turkish towel, vast enough to envelop her, the perfumed soaps, and even the bath-mittens. And she was a little frightened, maybe, at the personality of it all, but she recognized the nature of his fancy, and but loved him the more because he had it. It was an odd gift, it is true, but they were odd people. They were very close together.
An eventful day in other respects, that is, from a lover's point of view, was this one of the outing by the lake. The stocking dried, and in its proper place upon the foot, and inside the shoe again, and the lunch dispatched, there was more idle rambling by the lakeside, and, of course, more lovers' talk. At one place there was a little wood which extended to the water's edge, and there she perched herself in a seat formed by the bent limb of an upturned tree, and he produced from his coat-pocket a paper of macaroons for her dessert, and she sat there munching them like a monkey, while he sprawled, again upon the sand. She made a pretty picture, this small, brown woman, thus exalted; to him a wonderful one. Suddenly she ceased her munching and spoke to him imperiously: "Come here, sir."
He rose and went to her, standing before her, obedient and waiting. She reached up and took his face between her hands, and pulled his face gently downward until the faces of the two were close together. She looked into his eyes.
"I merely called you up, sir," she said, "to impart a certain piece of information. I am in love with you."
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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22
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TWO FOOLS STILL.
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When a woman, who is all there is in the world to a man, falls into the deliciously generous mood of abandonment, and is revealing what is in her heart, the man, I understand from various excellent authorities, gets about as near heaven as he may ever do in the flesh. And Harlson formed no exception to the rule. The small personage on the limb of the fallen tree owned him as absolutely and completely as ever Cleopatra owned a slave, or Elizabeth a servitor.
"I don't know what to say," he murmured. "There aren't any words--but--you understand."
She pulled his face still closer and kissed him on the lips, though blushing as she did so, for this young woman had fancies regarding lips and regarding kisses which should be entertained by a greater number of the women of the land. Then she told him to lie upon the sand again; that she wanted to look at him. And he obeyed, machine-like.
She was in a fantastic mood assuredly. She watched him, her cheek resting upon one little hand for a long time, a thoughtful look upon her face. Then she broke out impetuously: "How smooth and clean your face is! Do you--do you go to--you know what I mean. Do you go to a barber every day?"
He answered that he shaved himself.
"Is it very hard?" she asked.
"Well, that depends."
She studied once more for a long time, then spoke again, on this occasion blushing furiously: "Grant, dear, I want to _do_ things for you always. I want to take care of you. It seems to me that, some time, I might learn, you know. It seems to me that some time I might almost"--with a little gasp--"shave you."
He wanted to gather her up in his arms and smother and caress her, after that climax of tender admission, but she waved her hand as she saw him rising. He fell back then upon his ignoble habit of talking vast science to her.
"My dear, that dream may, I hope, be realized. I'd rather have my face slashed by you than be shaved by the most careful, conscientious and silent barber in all Christendom, but shaving is a matter of much gravity. It is not the removal of the beard which tests the intellect; it is the sharpening of the razors."
"How is that, sir?"
"All razors are feminine, and things of moods. The razor you sharpen to-day may not be sharp, though manipulated upon hone or strap with all persistence and all skill. The razor you sharpen to-morrow may be far more tractable. Furthermore, the razor which is comparatively dull to-day may be sharp to-morrow, without further treatment."
She said that, in her opinion, that was nonsense, and that he was trying to impose upon a friendless girl, because the topic was one of which men would, ordinarily, have a monopoly, and regarding which they would assume all wisdom, and, perhaps, make jests.
"I am in earnest," he said. "Razors have moods, and are known to sulk. But science has solved the conundrum of their antics. It has been discovered that whetting changes the location of the molecules of metal, that there is frequently left what is not a perfect edge after the supposed sharpening, but that, given time, the molecules will readjust themselves, and the edge return. My dear, you are now, or at least should be, a woman rarely learned in one great mystery. Is there no reward for merit?"
She scorned reply to such a screed, but slid down from her perch with the remark that she had "et hearty." A man who had eaten near them in a restaurant had used the expression, and they had both promptly adopted it.
He rose, went to her side, and leaned over, and inhaled the perfume of her hair.
She looked up mischievously. "You are a big black animal!"
As already remarked, these two were very foolish.
That same evening, when Grant Harlson reached his office, he found a note awaiting him. It was a pretty, perfumed thing, and he knew the handwriting upon it well. He had not seen the writer for three months. He had almost forgotten her existence, yet she had been one with whom his life had been, upon a time, closely associated. He opened the envelope and read the note: MY DEAR GRANT: Yon know I am philosophical--for a woman--and that I have never been exacting. I have formed habits, though, and have certain foolish ways. One of these ways was to be much with Grant Harlson, not very long ago. I lost him, somehow, but still have a curiosity to see his face again, to note if it has changed. I have something to say to him, too. Please call upon me to-night. ADA.
The effect of the note upon the man was not altogether pleasant. He felt a certain guiltiness at his own indifference. This clever woman of the social world he knew was not to be trifled with by one unarmored or irresolute. He had hoped she would forget him, that his own indifference would breed the same feeling upon her part, and now he knew he was mistaken, as men have been mistaken before. There was an interview to be faced, and one promising interesting features. He started on the mission with a grimace.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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23
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JUST A PANG.
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Mrs. Gorse was at home, the servant said, and Harlson found her awaiting him in a room which was worth a visit, so luxurious were its appointments and so delicate its colorings and its perfumes. A woman of admirable taste was Mrs. Gorse, and one who knew how to produce dramatic effect. But dramatic effects as between her and Grant Harlson were things of the past. People sometimes know each other so well that the introduction of anything but reality is absurd. Mrs. Gorse attempted nothing as Harlson entered. She was not posed. She was standing, and met him at the door smilingly.
"How do you do, Grant?"
"I'm well," he said, "and how are you? Certainly you are looking well."
"I am not ill. I think I am not plumper nor more thin than usual. I imagine my weight is normal."
He laughed.
"And how much is that?"
The woman flushed a little.
"It is hardly worth the telling, since you do not remember. There was a time, you know, when you had some whim about it, and when I had to report to you. You professed to be solicitous about my health or personal appearance, or whatever it was that led you to the demand. And you have forgotten."
He was uneasy. "That is true, Ada. I did have that fad, didn't I? Well, I forget the figures, but I see that you are still yourself, and as you should be."
She shrugged her shoulders. "Take the big chair. It's the one you like best. You see I don't forget certain trifles" (this with a slight trembling inflection). "And tell me about yourself. I haven't seen you for three months and over. Haven't you been out of town. Couldn't you have written me a note."
"I've not been out of town. I might have written you a note, but I didn't suppose it mattered."
"Yet there is a legend to the effect that men and women sometimes get to be such friends, and have such relations, that a sudden unexplained absence of three months matters a great deal."
"That is so. But--what is the use, Ada? It doesn't matter with us, does it? Are we not each capable of taking care of ourselves? Were we ever of the conventionally sentimental?"
She sighed. "I suppose not. But it grew that way a little, didn't it, Grant? Has it all been nothing to you?"
"I won't say that," he answered. "It has been a great deal to me, but isn't it wiser to make all in the past tense now? What have we to gain?"
She tried to smile. "Nothing, I suppose." Then breaking out fiercely: "You are a strange man! You are like the creature Margrave, in Bulwer's hard 'Strange Story,' with mind and body, but with no soul nor sympathy."
The man in his turn became almost angry. He spoke more grimly: "You are not just! Have I broken any pledge or violated any promise, even an implied one? Have we not known each other on even terms? It was but a pact for mutual enjoyment until either should be weary. We have no illusions. You a Lilith of the red earth, not of Adam; you a woman sweet and passionate and kind, but soulless, too, and fickle; and I a trained man, made as soulless by experience, we met and agreed, without words, to break a lance in a flirtation. And that both lances were splintered doesn't matter now. We had joy in the encounter, didn't we, and more after each surrendered captive? But it has been only mimic warfare. It has not been the real thing."
"Evidently not--to you! Unfortunately one forgets sometimes, and then one is endangered."
He was troubled. He rose and came to her side, and put his hand upon her head, the usually proudly carried head of a handsome woman, now bowed in the effort to hide a face which told too much. "It is all unfortunate. It is unfortunate that we met, if you care as you profess. I had counted us as equal; that you were, with me, caring for the day and never for the morrow, so far as we two were concerned."
She raised her face. "Do you love me?" she said.
He hesitated. "I am fond of you."
"Do you love me?"
"In the sense that I suppose you mean, no."
She did not look at him for a moment; then she rose swiftly to her feet and looked squarely in his face.
"Is there some one else?"
He did not answer.
"Is there some one else?"
"Yes."
"Then it _is_ unfortunate, as you say--and for her."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I will not endure to be dropped by you as a child drops a toy of which it is weary. I mean that I will not surrender you to some new creature who has intervened! What does it matter that there has been no pledge between us? You have made me love you! You know it! The very being to each other what you and I have been is a pledge for the future. Oh, Grant!"
The woman's eyes were full of tears, and her voice was a moan. The man was suffering both shame and agony. He knew that, careless as he had been, the relations had grown to imply a permanency. The woman was at least justified in her claims that words are not always necessary to a contract. What could he do? Then came the thought of Jean. One hair of her brown head was more to him than this woman, or any other woman he had ever known. He was decided.
"I am a brute, Ada," he said, "or, at least, I have to be brutal. We do care for each other in a certain way, and we have found together many of the good things in living, but we are not lovers in the greater sense. We never could be. It means much. It means a knitting together of lives, a oneness, a confluence of soul and heart and passions, and a disposition to sacrifice, if need be. We have not been that way, and are not. We have been more like two chess-players. We have had a mutual pleasure in the game, but we have been none the less antagonists. The playing is over, that is all. It doesn't matter who has won the game. We will call it drawn, or you may have it. But it is ended!"
She stood with one hand upon her breast. There came a shadow of pain to her face, and a hard look followed.
"It is nonsense talking about the game. The playing ended a year ago, and you were the winner. Now you are careless about the prize! Well" (bitterly), "it may not be worth much--to you."
"It is worth a great deal. It has been worth a great deal to me. But I must relinquish it."
"Why did you make me care for you?" she demanded, fiercely, again.
"I did not do more than you did. As I said before, we played the game together. It is but the usual way of a flirting man and woman. We should have each been more on guard."
The woman was silent for a little time, and it was evident that she was making an effort at self-control. She succeeded. She had half-turned her back to Harlson, and when she again faced him, she had assumed her dignity.
"You are right, after all," she said. "I did not consider your own character well enough. You tire of things. You will tire of the woman you love now. And you will come back to me, just because I have been less sentimental, and, so, less monotonous than some others. Whether or not I shall receive you time will determine. Is that the way you want me to look at it?"
He bowed. "That is perhaps as good a way as any. It doesn't matter. Will you shake hands, Ada?"
She reached out her hand listlessly, and he took it. A minute later and he was on the street. And so the last link of one sort with the past was broken. It was long--though he had no concealments from her--before he told Jean of this interview. And then he did not tell the woman's name, nor did she care to know.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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24
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AS TO THOSE OTHERS.
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Time passes, even with an impatient lover, and so there came an end at last to Grant Harlson's season of probation. There was nothing dramatic about the wedding.
To him the ceremony was merely the gaining of the human title-deed to the fortune which was his on earth, and to Jean Cornish it was but the giving of herself fully to the man--that which she wished to do with herself. There were few of us present, but we were the two's closest friends. They were a striking pair as they stood together and plighted their faith calmly: he big and strong, almost to the point of burliness, and she slight, sweet and lissom. There was no nervousness apparent in either, perhaps because there was such earnestness. And then he carried her away from us.
They had not been long away, this newly wedded couple, when they returned to the home he had prepared. As he remarked half grimly to me, in comment on lost years, they had met so late in the nesting season that time should not be wasted. Of that home more will be told in other pages, but it is only of the two people I am talking now.
I noted a difference in their way when I first dined with them, which I did, of course, as soon as they had returned. I had thought them very close together before in thought and being, but I saw that there was more. The sweet, sacred intimacy which marriage afforded had given the greater fullness to what had seemed to me already perfect. But I was one with much to learn of many things. And yet these two were to come closer still--closer through a better mutual understanding and new mutual hopes. It was long afterward when I understood.
It was after dinner one day, and in the sitting-room, which was a library as well. They were going out that evening, but it was early still, and he was leaning back in a big chair smoking the post-prandial cigar, and she coiled upon a lower seat very near him, so near that he could put his hand upon her head, and they were talking lightly of many things. She looked up more earnestly at last.
"Will you ever tire of it, Grant?"
He laughed happily.
"Tire of what, Brownie?"
"Of this, of me, and of it all; will you never weary of the quietness of it and want some change? You must care very much, indeed, if you will not."
He spoke slowly.
"It seems to me that though we were to live each a thousand years, I would never tire of this as it is. But, of course, it will not be just this way. We could not keep it so if we would, and would not if we could."
"Why should it change?"
He drew her close to him and placed his hand upon her face and kissed her on the forehead.
"I shall be more in the fray again. I must be. You would not have your husband a sluggard among men, and that will sometimes take me from you, though never for long, because I'm afraid I shall be selfish and have you with me when there are long journeys. And it will change, too, you know--because you see, dear, there may be the--the others. You hope so, with me, do you not?"
Her face remained hidden for a little time. When she raised it, there was a blush upon her cheeks, but her eyes had not the glance he had anticipated.
"No!" she said.
He did not reply, because he could not comprehend. He looked at her, astonished, and she broke forth recklessly: "I love you so, Grant! I love you so! I want you, just you, and no one else. Are we not happy as we are? Are you not satisfied with me, just me? You are like all men! You are selfish! You--oh, love! You love me so--I know that--but you think of me--it seems so, anyhow--as but part of a scheme of life, of the life which will make you happy. My love, my husband! why need it be that way? Why am I not enough? Why may we not be one, just one, and be that way? I want nothing more. Why should you? Are we not all our own world? I will be everything to you. Oh, Grant!" And she ceased, sobbingly.
The man said nothing. He could not understand at first; then came upon him, gradually, a comprehension of how different had been their dreams in some ways. It was inexplicable. He thought of the mother instinct which gives even to the little girl a doll. He had supposed that his own fancies were but weak reflections of what was in the innermost heart of the woman he loved so. He blurted out, almost roughly: "'Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife.'" Then added, bitterly, "It is the man who is saying it this time, you see."
A second later, shame-faced and repentant, he had caught the slender figure in his arms and was holding it close to him.
"I'm a brute, dear," he said, "and there is no excuse for me. I understand, I think. We dreamed differently. That was all. Had you loved me less, dear heart, you would have been more like other women. But it doesn't matter. It shall be as you say, as you may wish or fancy. We thought unlike, yet you were as much the pivot of my thought as I of yours. It was of you, for you, and because of you, I had my visions. That is all. And we will not talk more of it."
She nestled closer to him, and he stroked the brown mass of her hair and remained silent. Some moments passed that way. Then she roused herself and sat up squarely, and looked him bravely in the face.
"I have been thinking," she said, "and I can think very well when I am so close to you, with my head where it is now. I have been thinking, and it has occurred to me that I was not a wise, good woman, and I want you to forgive me."
His answer involved no words at all, but it was meet for every purpose. She pushed him away from her, and spoke gravely: "Will you do something for me, Grant?"
"Yes."
"Will you do it now?"
"Yes--if it be good for you."
"I want you to do this. I want you to imagine me some one else, some one you regard, but for whom you do not care particularly. And then I want you to tell me what you think, what you would think best about the--'the others'"--blushing more fairly than any rose that ever grew on stem. "Will you do that?"
His face was very earnest. "I will try," he said, "but it will be difficult to imagine you someone else. How can I do that when I can look into your eyes, my little wife? I'll try, though."
"Then talk to me, now."
He was troubled. He did not know how to express himself in the spirit asked of him, and he did not look at her in the beginning.
"Sweetheart, you are a part of me, and you are the greatest of what there is of my life. It is about you that all my thoughts converge. I do not suppose there will be any happier, any dearer time ever than this we are passing together, with none to molest us, or divert us from each other. You know me well now. I am what I am, and never was a man of stronger personal moods or one who so hungered for the one woman. And you are the one woman, the one physical object in the world, I worship. There is no need that I tell you anything. And you have learned, too, how I care for you in all greater, and, it may be, purer ways. We are happy together. But, love of me, we are a man and wife, an American man and wife, of the social grade--for there are social grades, despite all our democracy--where, it seems to me, a family has come to be esteemed almost a disgrace, as something vulgar and annoying. And it seems to me this is something unnatural, and all wrong. Whatever nature indicates is best. To do what nature indicates is to secure the greatest happiness. Trials may come, new sorrows and incumbrances be risked, but nature brings her recompense. I want you the mother of our child, of our children, as it may be. I know what your thought has been, I understand it now, but how can children separate us? When a man and woman look together upon a child, another human being, a part of each of them, a being who would never have existed had they not found each other, a being with the traits of each combined, it seems to me as if their souls should blend somehow as never before. They are one then, to a certainty. They have become a unit in the great scheme of existence. And so, darling, I have thought and thought much. I have dreamed of you as the little mother, the one who would not be of the silly modern type, the one who, with me, would not be ashamed any more than were our sturdy ancestors of a sturdy family, should we be blessed so. The one who would be glad with me in the womanhood and manhood of it. And, as I said, it could never part us. It would but make me more totally your own, more watchful, if that were possible, more tender, if that could be, more worshipful of you in the greater life of us two together, us two more completely. And that is all. It shall be as you say, and I will not complain, for I know your impulse in what you said and all its lovingness."
She had listened to each word intently, and her face had flushed and paled alternately. When he had done she snuggled more closely to him, and still said nothing. When she did speak, this is what she said, and she said it earnestly: "I was wrong, my husband; I was a selfish, infatuated woman, who loved with one foolish idea which marred its fullness. You have taught me something, dear. You could not give me the thought I had again, even were you to try yourself, for I see it now. And----" She put her arms about his neck and buried her fair face upon the pillow which afforded her such convenient shelter. As for the man, there was something like a lump in his throat, but he spoke with an effort at playfulness, though his voice wavered a little: "It is right, my love. And we will visit this nature of ours together. It is the season now, and next week we go camping. I want to show old friends of mine, the spirits of the forest, how fair a wife I've won."
And, a few days later, there was a pretty little scene down town. "Sportsmen's Goods," the sign above the doorway said, and in the windows were numerous wooden ducks and dainty rods of split bamboo, and glittering German silver reels and gaudy flies, and a thousand things to delight the heart of a fisherman or hunter. Enter, a broad-shouldered gentleman and a haughty wisp of a woman, the latter a trifle embarrassed, despite her stateliness.
"How are you, Jack?"
This to the proprietor of the place, as he comes forward.
"How are you, Harlson?"
"This is Mrs. Harlson." The ceremony takes place. "Now, Jack, here's a grave matter of business. Have you a private room? And I want you to send in a lot of light wading-boots--the smallest sizes. And I want some other things." And the list is given.
And the lady and gentleman disappear into a small room assigned them, and a lot of wading-boots are taken in, and time elapses. And, eventually, lady and gentleman emerge again, the man's eyes full of laughter, and the woman's eyes full of laughter and confusion, and a package is made up.
"Send it to my house, Jack," says the man, and the couple leave the place.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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25
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MATURE AGAIN.
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Michigan is divided into two peninsulas, the apexes of which meet.
The State is shaped like an hour-glass, with the upper portion twisted to the left. About all the two peninsulas lie blue waters, the inland seas, lakes Michigan, Superior and Huron. Upon the upper peninsula are great mineral ranges, copper and iron, a stunted but sturdy forest growth, and hundreds of little lakelets. The lower peninsula, at its apex, is yet largely unclaimed from nature, but, toward the south, broadens out into the great area of grain and apple blossoms, and big, natty towns, once the country of oak openings, the haunt of Pontiac and of Tecumseh, braided and crossed by one of Cooper's romances.
It is with the crest of the lower peninsula that this description deals. There exist not the rigors of the northern peninsula; there the timber has not tempted woodland plunderers, nor have dried brook-beds followed shorn forests, nor the farmer invaded the region of light soil. There is the dense but stunted growth of the hard maple and pine and beech and fir, and there are windfalls and slashes which sometimes bridge the creeks. There are still black ash swales and dry beech ridges, but they are not as massive as further south. There are still the haunting deer and the black bear and the ruffed grouse, the "partridge" in the idiom of the country, the "pheasant" of the South and Southwest. There are scores of tiny lakes, deep and pure and tenanted, and babbling streams, and there are the knighted speckled trout, the viking black bass and that rakish aristocrat, the grayling.
One way to cross from Michigan to Huron is in a canoe, threading one's way from woodland lake to woodland lake, through brush-hidden brooklets, without a portage. In this region the liverwort blooms fragrantly beside the snow-bank in early spring, and here the arbutus exists as in New England. The adder-tongues and violets and anemones are here in rare profusion in their time, and the wandering gray wolf, last of his kind, almost, treads softly over knolls carpeted with wintergreen and decorated with scarlet berries. It is a country of blue water and pure air, of forest depths and long alleys arching above strong streams.
This is the southern peninsula of Michigan in its northern part, and here came, as the first suspicion of a tinge of yellow came to the leaves of certain trees, as the hard maple trees first flashed out in faint red, two people.
There were three of them who came at first, for there was the man with the wagon, engaged in the outlying settlement, who brought them fifteen miles into the depths of the woodland. They came lumbering through an archway over an old trail, the homesteader sitting jauntily, howbeit uncertainly, upon the front seat--for the roadway tilted in spots--and behind him a couple from the town, a man and a woman, the man laughing and supporting his companion as the wagon swayed, and the woman wondering and plucky, and laughing, too, at the oddness of it all. The forest amazed her a little, and awed her a little, but from awe of it soon came, as they plunged along, much friendliness. She was receptive, this game woman, and knew Nature when she met her.
In the rear of the wagon crouched or stood upright, or laid down, as the mood came upon his chestnut-colored grandness, a great Irish setter, loved of the man because of many a day together in stubble or over fallow, loved of the woman because he, the setter, had already learned to love and regard the woman as an arbitrator, as queen of something he knew not what.
And so the wagon rumbled on and pitched and tilted, and finally, in mid-afternoon, reached a place where the road seemed to end. There was a little open glade, but a few yards across, and there was dense forest all around, and, just beyond the glade, the tree-tops seemed to all be lowered, because there was a descent and a lake half a mile long, as clear as crystal and as blue as the sky. A little way beyond the glade could be heard the gurgling and ruffling of a creek, which, through a deep hollow, came athwart the forest and plunged into the lake most willingly. This was the place where these two people, this man and woman, were to end their present journey, for the man had been there before and knew what there to seek and what to find.
And there was a creaky turn of the wagon, a disembarkment, and an unloading of various things. There was all the kit for a hunter of the northern woods, and there were things in addition which indicated that the hunter was not alone this time. There was a tent which had more than ordinarily selected fixtures to it, and there were two real steamer-chairs with backs, and there were four or five of what in the country they call "comforts," or "comforters," great quilts, thickly padded, generally covered with a design in white of stars or flowers on beaming red, and there were rods and guns and numerous utensils for plain cooking.
The wagon with its horses and its driver turned about and tumbled along the roadway on its return, and there were left alone in the forest, miles from civilization, miles from any human being save the driver fast leaving them, the man and woman and the setter dog.
They did not appear depressed or alarmed by the circumstance.
The load from the wagon had been left in a heap. The man pulled from it a camp-chair with a back, and opened it, and set it up on the grass very near the edge of the glade, and announced that the throne was ready for the Empress, not of Great Britain and India, nor of any other part of the earth, but of the World; it was ready, and would she take her seat?
He explained that, as, at present, there were some things she didn't know anything about, she might as well sit in state. So the Empress, who was not very big, sat in state.
The dog had pursued a rabbit, and was making a fool of himself. The man selected from among the baggage left an ax, heavy and keen, and attacked a young spruce tree near. It soon fell with a crash, and the Empress leaped up, but to sit down again and look interestedly at what was going on.
The man, the tree fallen, sheared off its wealth of fragrant tips, and laid the mass of it by the side of the great tree. Then from out the wagon's leavings he dragged a tent, a simple thing, and, setting up two crotched sticks with a cross-pole, soon had it in its place. He carried the mass of spruce-tips by armfuls to the tent and dumped them within it until there was a great heap of soft, perfumed greenness there. Then, over all, he spread a quilt or two, and announced, with much form, to her majesty, that her couch was prepared for her, and that she could sit in the front of the tent if she wished.
And he cut and put in place two more forked stakes, with a cross-bar, and hung a kettle and built a fire beneath, and brought water and got out a frying-pan and bread and prepared for supper. All articles not demanded for immediate use were stowed away just back of the tent. "And," he remarked, "there you are."
The Empress rose from her camp-chair and investigated.
"Are we to sleep in the tent, Grant?"
"Yes."
"What will we do if it rains?"
"Stay in the tent."
"But we'll get wet, won't we?"
"No; we'll be upon the spruce-tops; the water will run under us."
"Aren't there animals in the wood?"
"Yes."
"What will you do if they come about?"
"I think I'll kiss you."
The Empress of the World did not seem to fully enter into the spirit of his carelessness.
She had her imaginings, after all. She knew that she was all right, somehow, yet she did not quite comprehend. But she knew her royalty.
She rose and went to the entrance of the tent, and stepped in daintily, and sat down in another chair which had been placed there for her reception, and then inhaled all the sweetness of the spruce-tips, and pitched herself down upon the quilts, and curled herself up there for a moment or two, and then rose and came out again into the open, where her husband stood watching her.
"Do you like the woods, dear?" he said.
"Don't you see?"
He said nothing, but led her majesty to a seat for a time, while he got ready for the evening meal--of food from the town for this first time--and then, in a courtier's way, of course, suggested, that she aid him.
They cooked and ate the strips of bacon with the soft stale bread he had brought, and drank the tea, and the shadows of the trees lengthened across the glade, and the chestnut-hued setter came back to camp and was gravely reprimanded by his master, and it soon became night, and time passed, and the fire flashed against the greenery strangely, and the man took the woman by the hand and led her to the entrance to the tent, and said: "We must rise early."
She entered the tent, and not long later he entered, also, or thought to do so. He lifted the flap, which he had let down, and looked inside.
She lay there upon the cushioned spruce-tips, and, as he raised the white curtain, the moonlight streamed in upon her.
She looked up at him, and smiled.
The loving face of her was all he saw--the face of the one woman.
He spoke to her. He tried to tell her what she was to him, and failed. She answered gently and in few words. They understood.
He entered the tent and sat upon the couch beside her as she was lying there, and took her small hand in his, but said no more. From the wood about them--for it was into the night now--came many sounds, known of old, and wonderfully sweet to him, but all new and strange to her.
"Ah-rr-oomp, ah-rr-oomp, ba-rr-oomp," came from the edge of the water the deep cry of the bullfrog; from the further end of the lake came the strange gobble, gurgle and gulp of the shitepoke, the small green heron which is the flitting ghost of shaded creeks and haunting thing of marshy courses everywhere. Night-hawks, far above, cried with a pleasant monotony, then swooped downward with a zip and boom. It was not so late in the season that the call of the whippoorwill might not be heard, and there were odd notes of tree-toads and katydids from the branches. There came suddenly the noise of a squall and scuffle from the marshy edge of the lake, where 'coons were wrangling, and the weird cry of the loon re-echoed up and down. The air was full of the perfumes of the wood. The setter just outside the tent became uneasy, and dashed into a thicket near, and there was a snort and the measured, swift thud of feet flying in the distance. A deer had been attracted by the fire-light. An owl hooted from a dead tree near by. There was the hum of many insects of the night, and the soft sighing of the wind through boughs. It was simply night in the northern woods.
The man rose and went outside, and stood with one hand upon the tent-pole at the front. He seemed to himself to be in a dream. He looked up at the moon and stars, and then at the glittering greenery deepening further out into blackness about him. He looked down toward the grass at his feet, and there appeared near him a flash of gold.
What Harlson saw was but a dandelion. That most home-like and steadfast flower blooms in early springtime and later in the season, with no regard to the chronology of the year. It was one of the vagrant late gladdeners of the earth that his eye chanced to light upon.
It held him, somehow. It was wide open--so wide that there was a white spot in its yellow center--and close above it drooped, a beech-tree's branch, so close that one long green leaf hung just above the petals. And upon this green leaf the dew was gathering.
The man looked at the flower.
"Is all the world golden?" he said to himself. And he straightened and moved and went from the tent to where the open was. He stood in the glade in the moonlight, and wondered at it all.
Here he was--he could not comprehend it--here, all alone, save for her, in the forest, miles away from any other human being! He had wholly loved but two things all his life--her and nature--and the three of them--she, nature and he--were here together! It was wonderful!
And there in that preposterous covering of canvas, half hid in the forest's edge, was Jean Cor--no, Jean Harlson, belonging to him--all his--away from all the world, just part of him, in this solitude!
He wondered why he had deserved it. He wondered how he had won it. He looked up at the pure sky, with the moon defined so clearly, and all the stars, and was grateful, and reached out his hands and asked the Being of it to tell him, if it might be, how to do something as an offset.
The night passed, and the sun rose clearly over the forest. The chestnut setter roused himself from behind the tent, and came in front of it, and barked joyously at a yellow-hammer which had chosen a great basswood tree with deadened spaces for an early morning experiment toward a breakfast.
There issued from the white tent a man, who looked upward toward all the greenness and all the glory, and was glad.
He looked downward at the sward, and there was the little flower. And the dew had run its course, and had gathered in a jewel at the leaf's tip, and there, fallen in the midst of the disk of yellow, was the product from the skies. There, in the flower's heart, was the perfect gem--a diamond in a setting of fine gold!
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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26
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ADVENTURES MANIFOLD.
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"I've et hearty," said the woman, saucily, as the breakfast, for which the birds furnished the music, was done. And then he initiated her into the brief art of washing tin things in the gravel at the water's edge. Then he informed her that target practice was about to begin, and brought out four guns from their cases.
Two of the pieces were rifles, and of each kind one was a light and dainty piece. He said they would practice with the rifles; that when she became an expert rifle-shot the rest would all be easy, and then upon the boll of a tree at one side of the opening he pinned a red scrap of paper, and shot at it.
With the report half the scrap was torn away, and then he taught her how to hold the piece and how to aim.
She expressed, at last, a desire to shoot, and he gave her the little rifle loaded. She aimed swiftly and desperately, and pressed the trigger, and the echoes had not died away when she let fall the gun upon the grass.
"I'm hurt," she said.
He sprang to her side, pale-faced, as she raised her hand to her shoulder, but he brightened a moment later. He opened the dress at her neck, and turned it down on one side, and there, on the round, white shoulder, was a slight ruddy bruise. He kissed it, and laughed.
"It'll be all right in no time. Now, do as I tell you."
He put a cartridge in the piece again.
"Try it once more," he said; "aim more deliberately and hold the stock of the gun very tightly against your shoulder as you fire."
"But it will hurt me."
"No, it won't. Do as I tell you."
She would have obeyed him had he told her to leap into the lake, and the lake was deep.
She set her lips firmly, held the gun hard against her shoulder, aimed carefully and fired.
The red spot flew from the gray trunk of the oak. She looked up amazed.
"Why, it didn't hurt me a bit!"
"Of course not. There is a law of impact, and you are learning it. The strongest man in the world could not hurt you pushing you against nothing. He could kill you with a blow. With the first shot your gun gave you a blow. In the second it could only push you. Listen to the wisdom of your consort!"
She made a mouth at him, and he told her she'd had her "baptism of fire," and soon they sallied into the forest, hunting.
She was very pretty and piquant in her kilted dress and shooting jacket and high boots. It was a formidable army of two.
There were myriads of bees in the openings, and the fall flowers were yielding up the honey to be stored, in the hearts of great trees, and at noon-time they sat down in one of the openings for luncheon.
He had shot only a couple of ruffed grouse, for it was a ramble rather than a real hunt, this first mid-wood excursion of the pair, and she had shot at various things, a grouse or two and squirrels, and missed with regularity, and was piqued over it, but he had noted her increasing courage and confidence and resolution with each successive shot, and knew that he had with him, for the future, a "little sportsman," as he called her.
They built a fire, just for the fun of it, and a grouse was plucked and broiled with much ado, and never was greater feast. And, the meal over, he produced a cigar and--which was not really good form for the woods--lay on the grass and smoked it, looking at her and talking nonsense.
She sat upon a log and delighted in the fragrance and the light, and the droning sounds and bird-cries, and the new world of it to her. All at once, her gaze became fixed upon some object a little distance away. She reached out her hand to him appealingly.
"What is that?"
He rose and looked where she pointed.
Years of decay had made of the trunk of a fallen tree but a long ridge of crumbling, brown chips, and, upon this ridge, where the sun streamed down hotly, lay something coiled in a black mass, and there was a flat, hideous head resting upon it all with beady eyes which seemed, to leer.
Harlson looked at it carelessly.
"Big one, isn't it?" he said.
"What is it?" she gasped.
"What is it, you small ignoramus! It's a blacksnake and a monster. It is one of the dreads of the small life of the wood, and it was one of the dreads of my youth, and its days are numbered."
He reached for his gun, then checked himself.
"Shoot it."
She picked up the little rifle and raised it to her shoulder, as calmly as any Leather-Stocking in the land.
The report came like a whip-crack, and up from the dead log leaped a great writhing mass, which coiled and twisted and thrashed about, and finally lay still.
Harlson walked up and examined what he called the "remains." Half the serpent's ugly head had been torn away by the bullet.
"It was a great shot! 'And the woman shall bruise the serpent's head!'" he quoted. "Egad, you've done it with a vengeance, my huntress! And you are a markswoman among many, and thy price is above rubies! Hooray!"
She informed him, with much dignity, that she never missed such monsters as were blacksnakes, and that her undoubted skill with the rifle was due to the quality of the tutor she had owned, and, at the same time, would he mind moving to some other place to finish his cigar, for the sight of the dead monster was not a pleasant thing?
And so was accomplished the woman's first feat with the gun; but on that same day, before they had returned to camp, she had slain, at a fair distance, a grouse which, when flushed, had sailed away with lofty contempt for but a score of yards, and, alighting upon a limb close beside the body of a tree, had stood awaiting, jauntily and ignorantly, his doom.
She was a proud woman when the bird came plunging to the ground, and of that particular fowl he remarked, subsequently, when they were eating it, that its flavor was a little superior to anything in the way of game he had ever tasted, and he was more than half in earnest.
And the nights were poems and the days were full of life, and the brown cheeks of the woman became browner still, and she was referred to more frequently than even in the ante-wedded days as merely of the tribe of Chippewas.
In one respect, too, she excelled in deserving that same title, for your Chippewa, of either sex, takes to the water like a duck, as becomes a tribe of the lake regions. He took her to the lake and taught her not to fear it, and they frolicked in its waves together, and she learned to swim as well as he, and to dive as smoothly as a loon or otter, and was a water nymph such as the creatures of the wood had never seen. He was very vain of her art acquired so swiftly, though in conversation he gave vast credit to her teacher. And in the catching of the black bass there came eventually to the nine-ounce split bamboo in her little hands as many trophies as to his heavier lancewood. One day, after she had become at home in the water, and had better luck than he, and was lofty in her demeanor, he upset the boat in deep water, and her majesty was compelled to swim about it with him and assist at one end while he was at the other, in righting it. So mean of spirit was he.
All other things, though, were but the veriest trifle compared with the adventure which came at last. He had made her wise in woodcraft, and she could tell at the lake's margin or along the creek's bed the tracks of the 'coon, like the prints of a baby's foot, the mink's twin pads, or the sharp imprint of the hoofs of the deer. One day another track was noted near the camp, a track resembling that of a small man, shoeless, and Harlson informed her that a bear had been about.
She asked if the black bear of Michigan were dangerous, and he said the black bear of Michigan ate only very bad people, or very small ones.
One afternoon they were some distance from the camp. They had been shooting with fair success, and, returning, had seated themselves in idle mood upon one end of a great fallen trunk, upon which they had just crossed the gully, at the bottom of which a little creek tumbled toward the lake. The gleam of a maple's leaves near by, already turning scarlet, had caught her eye; she had expressed a wish for some of the gaudy beauties, and he had climbed the tree and was plucking the leaves for her, when, suddenly, the woods resounded with the fierce barking of the dog in the direction from which they had just come. He called to her to be ready to shoot, that a deer might have been started, when there was a crashing through the bushes and the quarry burst into sight.
Lumbering into the open, turning only to growl at the dog which was yelping wildly in its rear, but keeping wisely out of its reach, was a black bear. The beast did not see the woman opposite him, but rushed at the log and was half way across it when she screamed. Then it paused. Behind was the dog, before the woman; it advanced slowly, growling.
Harlson, in the tree, saw it all, and, as a fireman drops with a rush down the pole in the engine-house, he came down the maple's boll and bounded toward the log. The bear hesitated.
"Shoot! you little fool, shoot!" shouted the man, as he ran.
Her courage returned in a moment, at least did partial presence of mind. She raised the gun desperately, and the report rang out. The bear clutched wildly at the log, then rolled off, and fell to the rocky bottom, twenty feet below. Harlson seized his own gun and looked down. The beast was motionless, and from a little hole in its head the blood was trickling.
And the woman--well, the woman was sitting on the grass, very pale of face and silent.
The man seized her, and half smothered her with kisses, and shouted aloud to the forest and all its creatures that great was Diana of the Ephesians!
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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27
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THE HOUSE WONDERFUL.
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And the bear's skin was tanned with the glossy black fur still upon it, the head with the white-fanged jaws still attached and made natural with all the skill of an artist in such things, and it lay, a great, soft, black rug, upon a couch in the House Wonderful, or, at least, the house to which Harlson gave that name. It seemed to him the House Wonderful, indeed.
Therein was held all there was in the world for him, and he was satisfied with it all, and content, save that he felt, at seasons, how little man is worthy of the happiness which may come to him sometimes, even in this world. Yet it was not all poetry in the House Wonderful; there were many practical happenings, and many droll ones.
The House Wonderful, it is needless to say, was in the city. The bear-skin was but one of many such soft trophies of the chase which were spread upon the floors or upon soft lounges and divans. Over this particular skin there was much said, at times, when there were guests.
Jean would explain to some curious person, that she herself had shot the original wearer of the skin, and that her husband was up a tree at the time, and there would be odd looks, and he would explain nothing, and then she, woman-like, must needs spoil the mystery by telling all about it, as if any one would not comprehend some jest in the matter! It was a home of rugs and books, and very restful. I liked to go there, where they both spoiled me, and where the softness and the perfume of it all made me useless and dissatisfied after I had come away. There is no reason in the average man. But in the Eden was one great serpent--not a real serpent, but a glittering one, like the toy snakes sold at Christmas time.
There is some weakness in our American training of girls. Visibly and certainly the woman who marries a man engages herself to conduct his household--to relieve him of all troubles there--because he is the bread-winner. But very few girls seem trained with such idea, though all girls look forward to a marriage and such mutually helpful compact between two human beings. It is, of course, the fault of a social growth, the fault of mothers, the fault of many conditions. And Jean did not know how to cook! She was a woman of keen intelligence, of all sweetness and all faithfulness, yet she found herself almost helpless when she became the chatelaine of the castle where Grant was to come to dinner.
It is needless to tell of all that happened. The woman was adroit in the engagement of domestics, and there were dinners certainly, and, possibly, good ones, but the knowingness of it all was wanting. He felt it, and wondered a little, but did not fret. He knew the woman. One evening they were together, after dinner again, just as they had been when he told her he would take her to the woods, and she lay coiled up upon a divan, while he sat beside her. It was their after-dinner way. She spoke up abruptly and very bravely: "Grant, I'm a humbug."
"Certainly, dear; what of it?"
"I mean--and it's something serious--I really am, you know, and I want to tell you."
"Go ahead, midget."
She did not seem altogether reassured, but plunged in gallantly: "You thought I would be a good wife to you. You thought I knew everything a woman should know who agreed to live together with the man she loved, and make the most of life. But, Grant, I was and am really a humbug! I don't know how to manage a house; I have to leave it to the servants, and I can see enough, at least, to know that it isn't what it should be. There are a thousand little fancies of yours I don't know how to gratify, and I want to do it so, Grant! What shall I do?"
He responded by saying that he was very fond of his little Dora Copperfield and that he would buy her a poodle dog. He added, though, that she mustn't die--he needed her!
There was a laugh in his eyes, and he was but the tyrant man enjoying the discomfort of the one being to him; but when she curled a little closer and looked up in earnestness, he relented.
"That is nothing, dear," he said, "save that I'm afraid you have a little work ahead. Yes, it is right that you should know what you do not. You must learn. It is nothing for a clever woman, such as the one I have gained. I look to you, love, for the home and all the sweetness of it, and I wouldn't do that if I did not think that in the end there would be all pride and comfort for you. Down East they call this or that woman 'house-proud.' I want you to be 'house-proud.' No wife who is that but is doing very much for all about her, and I won't say any more, except that you must let me help you."
And thenceforth ensued strange things. There were experiments, and there was even a cooking-school episode, Harlson, at this period, professing great weariness, and sometimes, after meals, simulating pains which required much attention, though drugs were vigorously refused. All he wanted was strictly personal care. It is to be feared that he was not honest as to details, though honest as a whole. And he would go marketing with the brown woman, who had become so practical, and they became critical together, and the gourmands, wise old men about town, whom he brought, occasionally, to dine with him, began to wonder how it was that they found such perfection at a private table. And, as for the woman, well, she passed so far beyond her clumsy Mentor that he became but as the babe which doesn't know, and had nothing to say in her august presence. He might talk about a cheese or a wine or some such trifle, but how small a portion of living are cheese and wine!
The first year of wedded life is experimental, though it be with the pair best mated since the world began. There is an unconscious dropping of all surface traits and all disguises, and a showing of heart and brain to the one other. Never lived the woman so self-contained and tactful that, at the end of a year, her husband, if he were a man of ordinary intelligence, did not know her for what she was worth; never the man so thoughtful and discreet that he was not estimated at his value by the one so near him. This I have been told by men and women who should know. I lack the trial which should give wisdom to myself, but I am inclined to accept the dictum of these others. It must be so, from force of circumstances.
It was pleasant to me to watch this man and woman. It seemed to me that the hard lines in Grant Harlson's face became, week by week and month by month, less harshly and clearly defined, while upon the face of his wife grew that new look of a content and ownership which marks the woman who sleeps in some man's arms, the one who owns her--the same look which Grant, with his broader experience and keener insight, used to recognize when he puzzled me so in telling whimsically, in the street cars, who were wedded, without looking at their rings. It may have been a fancy, but it seemed to me the two grew very much to look alike. It was in no feature, in nothing I can describe, but in something beyond words, in a certain way which cannot be defined. It may have been but the unconscious imitation by each of some trick of the other's speech, or manner, but it appeared a deeper thing. I cannot explain it.
They were not much apart, those two. Sometimes Harlson would be called away by some business or political emergency, and then would occur what impressed me as a silly thing, deeply as I cared, for each. He would get railroad tickets for two, and they would go riotously across the country, playing at keeping house in a state-room, and enjoying themselves beyond all reason. I explained often to each of them that it wasn't fair to the other; that he could attend to business better in some distant city without having to report to her at a hotel, and that it would be more comfortable for her in her own fair home; and the two idiots would but laugh at me.
The library was their fad together, for Jean was as much of a bibliomaniac, almost, as was her husband, and I confess I enjoyed myself amid the rich collection, made without precedent or reason, but, somehow, wonderfully attractive. They were whimsical, the pair, with books as with regard to other things, but the few who might invade their library were inclined to linger there. I always found a mingled odor there of cigar-smoke and of some perfume which Jean preferred, and I learned to like the combination. Maybe that was a perverted taste,--cigar-smoke and delicate perfumes are not consorted in the code of odor-lovers,--but, as I say, I learned to like it.
I have but little more to tell of this first wedded year of my dear friends. One incident I may relate. It occurred less than a year from the date of the outing in the woods. There were relations each of the two should meet, and he was very busy with many things, and it was, finally, after much thought, decided that Jean should go her way and he his for two long weeks; so they bade good-by to each other and left the city, in different directions, the same day.
It was just four days later when I got a note asking me to call at the house. It was from Jean, and she was a little shame-faced when she met me. Certain business complications had arisen in Grant's absence to which I might attend, and it was for this that she had summoned me; but she had an explanation to make. She did it, blushing.
"I went to my people, Alf," she said, "but it palled in a couple of days. That is all. I'd rather be here alone, where he has been, and await him here, than be anywhere else. It's foolish, of course, but you, who know us both so well, may possibly understand." And she blushed more than ever.
The next day there stalked into my office a man who asked me to lunch. It was Grant Harlson. There was a quizzical look on his face, and a rather happy one.
"I won't tell you anything, old man," he said. "I was only a few hours behind the girl. That's all. I suppose we might as well keep up the fool record we have begun. It suits me, anyhow."
And a single man, knowing nothing about such things, could give no opinion. I was abusive and sarcastic, but he insisted on buying a great luncheon.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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28
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THE APE.
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Given a man and a woman, married, loving each other, and what a recent clever writer calls "the inevitable consequences" ordinarily come and cause the inevitable anxiety, more, doubtless, to the man than to the woman. There comes a time when she he loves must bear him their first child. In primitive existence this trouble to the man must have been much less, must have been little more than the sympathy of an hour, because, in nature, unaffected, there is seldom much of suffering and almost never death prematurely. But we have changed all this. We have violated gentle Nature's laws in our ways of living, and inasmuch as we have done this, we have lost, to such extent, her soft protecting hand. We breathe too little of the pure air; we are lax in physical effort, and, even though the individual man or woman be wise, he or she must bear the burden of the errors of an ancestry or the evils of the present. So, to the woman gentle-bred there comes a risk in the undergoing of that which she has most hoped for since she loved a man, and since she would be all there is of perfect womanhood. There is peril, and she knows it, but is braver than man at this time. There is peril, and he knows it, and he is helpless and clinging as a child. What can he do? Nothing, save to bring in a hard hour the presence of one who may not bear a portion of the real trial. Yet this is something. It has saved dear women's lives. There is something--we do not quite understand about it yet--which is a band of more than steel between two close together, and which holds back the one sometimes from even the grip of that force seldom denied, which is named Death, the one who fills the graveyards.
And, one evening, there was a man in deep trouble, and in the morning he sat beside a bed in which was his small wife and beside her a tiny red thing, "rather underdone," he said, in the buoyant reaction which came upon him, for that was Harlson's way when he had emerged from trouble; and the small red thing was the son of the two of them. And who can tell what the man said to the woman. There are precious, sacred overflows of love, sweet outbursts of what makes life worth the living, never yet in words for all, never yet written in black upon some white surface. There is a sanctuary.
It was a healthy baby, and the mother was soon herself, and the most foolish of small women over it. I rather liked the young animal myself, for they let me see it when its days were few, and it clutched at my fingers in a way that won me. It was a curious young animal to me. It took to the water wonderfully, and all three of us together sometimes, when I would call, would summon the nurse and see the young villain bathe. This was when he was but a few months old. He was such a royal fellow, so brave and buoyant, that I fell in love with him. How could a lonely man help being foolish?
An odd name had the child. It all came from the hours, when, all danger passed, a proud and happy man sat upon a bedside and looked down into the face of a proud and happy woman, and, at times, studied the quality of the odd mite beside her, half hidden in the waves of pillow and of sheet. He would look at the thing's wonderful hands, and its wonderful pink feet, and have remarks to make. One hour he came in and examined the creature and repeated great words from some authority: "How many people have ever taken notice of a baby's foot, except to admire its pinkiness and its prettiness?" said he. "And yet, to the anatomist, it is a revelation. Take, for example, the feet of a child of ten months, that has never walked nor stood alone. It has a power of grasping to some extent, and is used instinctively like a hand. The great toe has a certain independent working, like a thumb, and the wrinkles of the sole resemble those of the palm. These markings disappear when the pedal extremity has come to be employed for purposes of support.
"The hands and feet of a human being are strikingly like those of the chimpanzee in conformation, while the gorilla's resemblance to man in these respects is even more remarkable. The higher apes have been classified as 'quadrumana,' or 'four-handed,' because their hind feet are hand-shaped; but this designation is improperly applied, because the ape's posterior extremities are not really hands at all. They merely look like hands at the first glance, whereas, in fact, they are but feet adapted for climbing. The big toes cannot be 'opposed' to other toes, as thumbs are to the fingers, but simply act pincer-wise, for the purpose of grasping. Now, oddly enough, the 'infant's' feet have this same power of grasping, pincer-fashion, and the action is performed in precisely the same way. Advocates of evolutionary theories take this to signify that the human foot was originally utilized for climbing trees also, before the species was so highly developed as it is now. Also, they assert that the fact that the art of walking erect is learned by the child with such difficulty proves that the race has only acquired it recently.
"There, darling," he said, "you see how it is. We have but come into possession of a little ape! What shall we do?"
She was not troubled. In his eyes she saw that which is worth more to the young mother than all else the world can give, but she entered into the spirit of his mood. She replied, gently, that she didn't know what to do, but had he the bad taste to kiss an Ape? And he admitted that he had, and kissed the object gently, as if afraid of breaking it, and kissed the gentle mother a hundred to one.
I liked the Ape--for so they came to allude to that sturdy babe. He may be my heir some day--though he was named, as Jean insisted, for his father--and I had many a frolic with him in his babyhood, when I was allowed to enter the sanctuary of that home. He was a little viking, a little raider, this child, conceived in the forest. There seemed to have come to him the daring and the vigor of outdoor things, and the force of nature. A great man-child was this.
I was not alone in the rejoicing over the infant, though really he was, it seems to me, as dear to me, the isolated man, as to his parents. They rioted in their vast possession, and were very foolish people. But why should I keep repeating that these two were very foolish people together?
They were like other fathers and mothers, in some respects, but one difference I noted. They seemed almost to adore the child, but he was never first with either of them. He but bound the two more closely together, and the looks of the man were sometimes almost worshipful as he looked upon the mother of his child. And she--she understood, and they were glad together. Their kingdom had been but enlarged.
It is not to be supposed that this whimsical couple--for they were really whimsical, these friends of mine, as must have appeared often in my account could rear a child without grotesqueries. The woman, I am afraid, was, before she became a mother, addicted to monkey tricks, even to the extent of bounding leopard-like upon the man from unexpected places, and the Ape was, in his early days, bred in a way barbaric. They had great times with the Ape.
One day Grant Harlson had his business for the day concluded early. He could reach home as a little after five o'clock, where dinner came at six. One of the fiercest of summer rains was falling. He started buoyantly. He wanted his wife and boy.
He reached the house and entered. No wife was there to greet him; no drunken-footed babe, for the Ape had learned to walk now, albeit unsteadily; not even a servant girl to make some explanation. He stalked through the house wonderingly, back to the kitchen, which looked out upon a green back-yard where they had erected a tent, and had there had dinners and inhaled the odor of the grass. He found in the kitchen the two girls, who were all delight, and exhibited but slight awe at his presence. He recognized that all was well, and looked out through the descending sheets of water.
There, beside the quaint tent set upon the green-sward, were two people. One was a graceful woman, one a sturdy, shouting child. Neither was garbed save in the simplest way. She wore a wrap of some sort, a careless thing, the boy a night-gown, and they were moving about in the warm rain and bathing in nature's way, and particularly happy.
The man was righteously indignant at all desertion of him. He shouted manfully, and at last attracted the attention of the pair. He told them to come in to him. As well have talked to the wild winds. He looked from the porch upon the riant, dissipated two, and commanded and cajoled and made tremendous threats, but to no purpose. He reproached his wife with unwifely disobedience, and with the crime of turning her own offspring against his father, and the two but mocked him! Then he disappeared, and appeared five minutes later in a frayed old swimming suit, and there was terror in the camp of the foe! He made a charge through sheets of rain, and a fair woman was, in most unmanly way, laid in a puddle, and her son set aloft in pride upon his prostrate and laughing mother. And high jinks ensued. So did these two conduct themselves!
But an hour later, when guests came to the dinner, the Ape had gone to his nursery without a whimper, and no more grave and courteous man or more stately and gracious dame sat down at table that evening in all the city of a million people.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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29
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THE FIRST DISTRICT.
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The trouble with us in the First Congressional District was that we could not carry the Ninth Ward. But for this weak point we would have felt assured at any time. With the Ninth Ward eliminated we could control the district barely. With the Ninth Ward for us it would be a walk-over. But the ward belonged to Gunderson.
Gunderson employed three thousand men. He was not a party man, but he was a partisan; that is, he would get interested sometimes in a campaign, and when he did, each workman in his big manufactory must vote as indicated or go. And Gunderson did not like Harlson. The ways of the big employer were not what Harlson admired, and he had never tried much to conciliate him. So it came that in more than one legislative and local contest we had lost the Ninth Ward. And now Harlson was a candidate for Congress.
We were puzzled. "I'm afraid Jean will have to lock me out again," laughed Harlson, as we were discussing the problem one night after a committee meeting, and herein he referred to a funny episode, dating back to the time when the Ape was but a yearling. Jean, dignified, chatelaine, sweet wife and fond mother, was as interested in politics as in anything else that commanded her husband's attention at any time, and had learned from our conversations all about the Ninth Ward. We were confident one spring, and as Grant left home on the morning of election day he was informed that unless he came as a victor he must not expect admission to the home containing his wife and baby boy. He said he would return in triumph or upon his shield, but he did neither. At five o'clock in the afternoon we knew that we were whipped, whipped beautifully and thoroughly, and all because of that same black demon of a Ninth Ward, and the fact was so apparent that we became suddenly philosophical, and Grant turned to me and said: "Come to dinner with me, Alf, and let's go now. What's the use of staying to the funeral? We'll eat a good dinner and smoke, and good digestion will wait on appetite, and we'll plan and say we'll do better next time."
So we left the hurly-burly and took the train, and were at Harlson's home a little before the dinner hour. Grant tried his latch-key, but it would not serve. He rang the bell, but there came no answer. Then there came a tapping and clatter from inside a window, and both of us left the porch to get down upon the sward and visit the window and investigate.
Inside the window, and smiling, was a small, brown woman, holding in her arms a crowing youngster, who was making a great ado and reaching out his hands toward his father. She raised the window just a little, and put a question, gravely: "What is it that you wish, gentlemen?"
Grant intimated, humbly, that we wanted to get in and be given some dinner.
"Are you the gentlemen who were going to carry the Ninth Ward?"
"Yes."
"Did you carry it?"
"No."
The laughing face fell a little, but the stately air was recovered in a moment. "Well," she said, with dignity, "I'm very sorry. We do not wish to seem inhospitable, neither the baby nor I, but really we do not feel justified in harboring people incapable of carrying the Ninth Ward."
We explained and pleaded and apologized and promised, but for a long time to no avail. At last, after the dinner-bell had sounded, and after we had pledged ourselves to carry that ward yet or perish, we were admitted, only then, though, as was explained, for the child's sake. He was accustomed to climb upon his father after dinner.
So carrying the Ninth Ward became a synonym for any difficult feat with us, and if Grant accomplished this or that, or I made a good turn, or Jean gave her cook or dressmaker an inspiration, the Ninth Ward was referred to as having been carried. And here was that ward before us again in a greater emergency, and in its own proper person.
Gunderson had a wife. He would have owned two wives had the one in his possession been surveyed and subdivided properly, for she was big enough, abundantly, for two. She was the best illustration I ever saw of what difficulties burden the ignorant rich who have social ambitions. She was good-hearted, coarse, shy and hopeful. A woman may be coarse and yet timid, as I have noted many a time, and Mrs. Gunderson was of this type. She hungered for social status, but knew not how to attain it. To her burly husband's credit, he wished, above all things, to gratify his wife's ambition, but he was as ignorant as she regarding ways and means. He had learned that there was a limit even to the power of money.
Jean had met Mrs. Gunderson in a social way, but of course there could be no affinity between the two, and the heavy-weight matron, anxious for recognition, had hardly attracted a second thought from the small aristocrat. I do not know, by the way, that I have told of the social status of these friends of mine. I don't think either Grant or Jean ever gave the matter much attention. Grant was democratic in every principle, and yet, unknowingly, it seems to me, exclusive arbitrarily. He had those about him whom he liked, and they were necessarily somewhat of his kind. And Jean was, a little more thoughtfully, perhaps, of the same sort. Unconsciously they were the center of a set for admission to which rich men would have given money. But, as I said, this key is one of the few things money cannot buy.
The political fight was on, and fierce. We did good work in that campaign. The struggle was so keen, the supervision of everything so searching, that daring fraud became a thing impossible. It was simply a test of persuasion, of popularity and of relative skill in those devices which are but the moves upon the chessboard in a game where chances are nearly even. We were but moderately hopeful. Harlson was immeasurably the better candidate. He was, at least, earnest and honest, and would represent the district well. I asked once why he wanted to go to Congress.
"I'll have to think," he said, "to answer you in full. Firstly, I believe I want to go because I have some fool ideas about certain legislation which I think I can accomplish. I believe they'll like me better in this district, and, perhaps, in a broader way, after I have been there. Then I want Jean to enjoy with me all the mummery and absurdity of the most mixed social conditions on the face of the civilized globe, and, besides that, I've been invited to take black bass with her out of a certain stream in the Shenandoah Valley, and to kill a deer or two, with headquarters at an old house up in West Virginia."
He said this lightly, yet I knew it was not far from the full truth. He had ideas of changes and reforms, and was prepared to fight for them. As for Jean and the fishing and the shooting, that was a matter of course. He must get out to nature, and he must have her with him certainly. As for me, personally--well, we had fought the world together for many a year, and I never knew him to fail me, and I could not very well fail him. I worried about this battle, though we had gained steadily. There was an element in the district, led by shrewd politicians, of the graduated saloon-keeper type, which did not lack large numbers. Outside one ward, though we had practically beaten them, Grant had invoked everything. He had stood up squarely on every platform, and as well in every drinking-shop and den, and almost bagnio, and explained to whom he found the nature of the contest, and told them what he wanted to do, and what all the hearings were, and told them then to conduct themselves as they pleased--he had but put his case as it was.
And there are men among the thugs, and humanity is not altogether bad, even in the slums, and help had come to us from unexpected places. More than one man, brutal-looking, but with lines in his countenance showing that he had once been something better, came around and worked well, and all to his future advantage, for Harlson's memory of such things was as the memory of that cardinal--what was his name? --who never forgot a face or incident or figure. We were what the politicians call "on top," a week before election, save in that same Ninth Ward. I had seen old Gunderson myself. He was not what we call affable. I had to wander through many offices, and finally to send in my card. I found this burly man in his private room, looking over papers on his desk. He did not look up as I came in. I took a seat, unasked, and waited. It was five minutes before he turned his head. Then he muttered a "good-morning," for we had met before.
I tried to be companionable and easy. I returned his salutation, somewhat too effusively, it may be, and asked him about his business, and then wanted to know, in a general way, how be stood on the Congressional issue. He hardened in a moment.
"I don't know why I should support Harlson," he said.
"Isn't he honest?" I asked.
"Oh, yes, I suppose so," he grunted; "but he's not my kind."
"Is the other man?" I asked.
Even the burly animal before me flushed. The other man was but a tricky politician of the creeping sort, a caterer to all prejudices, and a flatterer and favorer. This everybody knew. But he had become a part of the machine, was shrewd, and, with the machine behind him, was a power.
"I've nothing to say about that; but Harlson's not my kind. He's like one of those stag-hounds. He has nothing to do with the other dogs."
"He's fought some of the other dogs," I suggested.
The man grunted, again: "He's not my kind." And I left the place. I had little hope of the Ninth Ward.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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30
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THE NINTH WARD.
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Unaccustomed to story-telling, it is possible that I have neglected chronology in this account. I referred just now to the time we couldn't get into Harlson's house because we hadn't carried the Ninth Ward and to the Ape crowing at the window in his mother's arms. Time passed after that, and, we all grew older, though, somehow, Jean did not seem to change, nor, for that matter, did Grant, though he was years her elder. But the Ape changed amazingly. He grew into a stalwart youth of fourteen, and became, about that time, addicted to a bad habit for which I reproved him in vain. He had discovered that he could pick up his little mother and carry her about in his arms, and he did so frequently. And his two younger brothers looked on enviously, and his pretty sister, the youngest of the group, with gravest apprehension. But Jean seemed rather to like it, though it was most undignified, and Grant, though he ruled his children well, seemed rather to approve of their treatment of her majesty. They were a happy lot together. The Ape was a good deal interested in the election, but was not allowed to talk outside the house. And Jean wore a serious look. She lived for one man.
I attended a party soon after my visit to Gunderson, and a very pretty affair it was. A very pretty incident I saw there, too.
What I saw was the advent of a big, blowsy woman, who was blazing with diamonds, whose face was good-natured, but who seemed ill at ease. She was like a Muscovy duck among game fowl. She was well received by the mass and overlooked by the few, and, being a woman, though of no acute comprehension, she understood vaguely her condition. She was unhappy, and there was a flush, upon her face.
I saw a small woman, neat in a gown of the Directory, it seemed to me, though of course not so pronounced, brought by apparent accident in contact with the big, blazing creature. The smaller woman was self-contained and of the blue-blooded in look and unconsciousness from head to heel. The two engaged in conversation, the one affable and interested, the other flushed and happy.
I do not know that I ever enjoyed a party more, yet I did nothing on that occasion, save to watch at a distance the two people I have mentioned. They drifted along together, and there was soon a group about them. Was not Mrs. Grant Harlson a social power, and was not a friend of hers fit friend and confidant for any one? I do not understand the ways of women. I do not comprehend their manner of doing things, but I know a thing when it is done. And when that party ended I knew that fat Mrs. Gunderson had risen to a higher plane than she had dared to covet for the time, and that she knew who had accomplished it. Grant was not present at the party, and of the incident I told him nothing then. I wanted him to note its possible sequence first.
The day of election came, and a great day it was. Outside the Ninth Ward we had passed beyond our hopes. That ward, though,--at least from the first reports, and we paid slight attention to the later ones,--remained, through Gunderson, sullen, incomprehensible, uncommitted. And at night, the voting over, newspapers began to show the bulletins as the ballots were counted and the returns came in. We were at campaign headquarters and got the figures early.
The scattering returns were satisfactory. Through most of the district they showed a gain for us over past encounters. The drift was all our way, but it was not big enough to offset all contingencies. There was nothing from the Ninth Ward yet. The counting was slow there.
It was eleven o'clock before the vote of any precinct from the Ninth Ward came in. It stood as follows: Harlson, 71.
Sharkey, 53.
Harlson picked up the filled-out blank, glanced at it, and threw it down again.
"It's some mistake," he said; "that precinct is one of the stiffest the other way. Wait until we get more of them."
We waited, but not for long. The returns came fluttering in like pigeons now. The second read: Harlson, 33.
Sharkey, 30.
There dawned a light upon me; but I said no word. I was interested in watching Harlson's face. He was a trifle pale, despite his usual self-control, and was noting the figures carefully. Added precincts repeated the same story. Harlson would take up a return, glance at it, compare it with another, and then examine a dozen of them together, for once in his life he was taken unawares, and was at sea. He left the table at length, lit a cigar, and came over to where I stood, leaning against the wall.
"What does it mean, Alf? If those figures don't lie, the Ninth Ward has swung as vigorously for us as it ever did against us. With an even vote in the ward the chances were about even. Now, unless I'm dreaming, we own the district."
"We do."
"But how is it? What does it all mean?"
"I suppose it means that Gunderson is with you."
"But how can that be?"
"Were you at Mrs. Gorson's party?"
"No."
"Jean was there, though."
"Yes."
"So was Mrs. Gunderson."
The man's face was a study worth the scrutiny. For a moment or two he uttered no word. The whole measurement of it was dawning on him. "The little rhinoceros-bird!" he said, softly.
The room was thronged, and there was a roar of cheers. The issue was decided beyond all question. The newspaper offices were flashing out the fact from illuminated windows. There were shouting crowds upon the streets. Hosts of people were grasping Harlson's hand. He had little to say save to thank them in a perfunctory manner. He was in a hurry to get home.
When I dined with Harlson the next day I hoped to learn some details, but I was disappointed. Jean was herself a trifle radiant, perhaps, for she remarked to me, apropos of nothing, and in the most casual way, that men were dull, and Harlson had little to say. Judging from his general demeanor, though, and the expression on his face, I would have given something to know what he said to his wife when he reached home the night before. Something no bachelor, I imagine, could comprehend.
And before the year ended Harlson had the Ninth Ward so that it couldn't bolt him under any ordinary circumstances.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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31
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THEIR FOOLISH WAYS.
|
It is, as I have said so often, but the simple story of two friends of mine I am trying to tell, but I wish I had more gift in that direction. I wish I could paint, just as an artist with brush and colors reproduces something, the home life in the house where much of my time was spent. I can but give a mechanical idea of what it was, but to me it was very pleasant.
A very shrewd politician Jean became, after the famous contest in which the Ninth Ward aided us to victory, and we were accustomed to consult her on the social bearings of many a struggle. In case she became too arbitrary on any occasion Grant had fallen into the way of calling the Ape, and asking him to remove her, whereupon the youth would carry off his small mother in his arms and insist that, as he put it, from a childhood expression, with a long "a," she "'have herself." There was ever this quality of the whimsical about life in this home. And I am inclined to believe that the world is better for such a flavor.
The children, were well grown now, the family was rounded out, and Grant's mustache, gray when he was forty, was now grayer still, though Jean's brown hair showed yet no glint of silver. I asked one day after dinner, when we two were idling and smoking in the library, and Jean was hovering about, if she hadn't a gray hair yet, and Grant said no, without hesitation, though the lady herself seemed less assured. Then happened a curious thing, at least to me. I asked Grant how he knew so well, if even his wife, who, being a woman and fair to look upon, would be naturally apprehensive of any change in aspect, could not tell if a gray hair had come, and he but laughed at me. "Come here, Jean," he said.
She came and stood, beside him, close to me.
"Alf," said he, "I have a vast opinion of you, but there are some things I imagine you do not comprehend. You should have blended your life with that of some such creature as this, and you would have developed a new faculty. Now I close my eyes. Ask me anything about her--I don't mean about her dress, but about her head or hands, all you can see of the real woman."
I accepted the challenge, and there was great sport, and a little-great result. I made the inquest a most searching and minute affair. I asked him to tell me if there were any mark upon the neck, near one ear, and he described the precise locality and outline of a tiny brown fleck, no larger than a pin's head. He told of any little dimple, of any sweep of the downward growth of the brown hair, of any trifling scar from childhood. And of her chin and neck he told the very markings, in a way that was something wonderful. His eyes were closed, and his face was turned away from us, but this made no difference. He described to me even the character of the wonderful network in the palms of her little hands. Then he opened his eyes and turned to me, chaffingly: "You see how ignorant is a man of your sort. Having no world worth speaking of, he knows nothing of geography."
I do not believe that even Jean herself knew, before, of how even the physical being of her had been impressed upon the heart and brain of this man. She listened curiously and wonderingly when, he was talking with his eyes closed, and when he opened them and began his nonsense with me she stood looking at him silently, then suddenly left the room. It was a way of Jean's to flee to her own room for a little season when something touched her, and I imagine this was one of the occasions. She had known for long years how two souls could become knitted and interwoven into one, but I do not believe that before this incident she had ever comprehended how her physical self, as well, had become an ever present picture upon the mind's retina of her lover and her husband.
I am worried, and bothered. I am a man past middle age. I shall never marry now, and shall but drift into a time of doing some little, I hope, toward making things easier for some other men and some women, and then--into a crematory. I have a fancy that my body, this machine of flesh and muscle in which I live, should not be boxed and buried in seeping earth to become a foul thing. That was an idea I learned from this firm friend of mine. I want it burned, and all of it, save the little urn full of white ashes which some one may care for, to go out and mingle with the pure air, and there to be one of earth's good things, and to be breathed in again and make part of the life of the maple leaf, or the young girl going to school in the morning, or the old-fashioned pinks in the front yard of the old-fashioned people, or the red roses in the florist's hot-houses. I have that fancy.
I am worried because I, clumsy, dull-thinking man, cannot tell what I wish to tell of a life I saw. I am worried because I cannot make others understand it as it was. It seems to me it would do some good in the world. It seems to me that many a man and woman, if they could know about Grant and Jean, who really lived,--for this is but a tale of fact,--would be now more loving and better men and women because of it. But I do not know how to tell of what I saw and what I knew.
Grant was over sixty years old at this time of which I write, and I am coming very near the end, and Jean was past forty, and the two were not much different from what they were when I first saw them together. I suppose it was partly because I had been with them so much that I did not note the changes nature wrought in this pair of her children, but certainly they were far younger than their years. They had found together the only fountain of eternal youth which exists or ever will exist upon this planet which threw off a barren moon and bred monsters and, later, mastodons and apes, and finally made a specialty of men and women. They laughed at time, and hoped for a future of souls after this trial. I saw it with my eyes, I heard it with my ears, when they spoke together. They were blended, and it made life worth the living. What I learned conveyed to me new things. It taught me that all there is in novels is not romance nor untrue. It taught me that a male and female of this species of ours may meet, and from the two may come an entity which is something very near divine. Why is it, I wonder, that the right man and the right woman out of the hundreds of millions meet so seldom at the fitting time, and that life is either so barren or so jagged and hurtful because of the non-meeting of those who should be mated? What a world this might be! Of course, though, there is some higher thought, and it is all right in some way.
They were what you would call religious, Grant and Jean. They liked the same church--it doesn't matter which it was--and attended regularly, and worshiped without much regard for its more narrow legends. They did not trouble themselves with the idea of the everlasting punishment of babes, nor the fate of the untutored heathen. They had, somehow, a simple idea that the human being who tried to do right according to his or her views was all right as to the future. They were not much in sympathy with what is called heretic-hunting. They had each read the story of the gentle Nazarene, and had failed to learn that there was more than one church--a church without either spectacular effects or creed bickerings. A church of the group who, at one time, clung to Him and His teachings, and so had shaped their course. To them a narrow, grim old Presbyterian--were he but honest and earnest according to his inherited brain and intelligence--might, some time, a year or ten million years from now, be walking arm and arm along the sidewalks of some glorious street of some New Jerusalem with the Jesuit of to-day, honest and earnest according to his brain and his intelligence. This is not reasoning. Was it a bad creed?
They were not afraid of old age as it came nearer, hour by hour and day by day, these friends of mine. They had pondered of it much, of course, for they were thoughtful people, and they had talked of it doubtless many times, for there was little of which they thought that the two did not reveal to each other in plain words; but they were not troubled over the outlook. They seemed to realize that the flower is no greater than what follows, that fruit is the sequel of all fragrance, and that to those who reason rightly there is no difference in the income of what is good in all the seasons of human being. I remember well an incident of one evening.
We had been playing billiards, Grant and I. He had a table in his house and had taught Jean how to play until she had become a terror, though the Ape had nearly caught up with her in skill, and there was, at this time, a great pretended struggle between them, and we had come up into the library after a hard after-dinner game. Jean came in, and we talked of various things, and looked at some old books, and, somehow--I forget the connection--began talking of old age. It was in the midst of our debate that Grant, after his insane way, suddenly leaped up and, standing beside me as I sat, proceeded to make me an oration. He talked of the friction of things and of the future of this soul or mind of ours, concerning the luck of which we know so little. And, while I may or may not have agreed with his general theories, I did not disagree with the one that the autumn is as much a part of what there is as is the spring, and that all trends toward a common end, which must be for the best in some way we do not comprehend, because we see, at least, enough to know that nature, wiser than we, makes no mistakes. "The fruitage 'goes'!" Grant exclaimed larkingly, and then, forgetting me for the moment, he caught up Jean, and, carrying her gravely about, repeated to her these lines: "Grow old, along with me; The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made!"
And they were at least exponents of the belief they had, and it was to me an education and a comfort. I learned, what I could not profit by, that a man and woman together are more than twice one man or twice one woman, when the man and woman are the right two. It was like an astronomer studying the sun. And what warmth and light there was to look upon!
I have tried in these rambling words to tell how these two people faced the autumn and found it spring, since they were still together. I wonder why I made the attempt? It is but a simple relation of certain things which happened, yet I do not, somehow, get the pulse of it. It must be because I have known the people all too well. My heart is so much in what I try to say that I am not clear.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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32
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THE LAW OF NATURE.
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Of what was the result of finally owning the Ninth Ward and the district I have only to say that it, of course, added to the reputation of one man--and of one woman as well, it may be added, for Jean in her necessary social functions grew in her way with Grant; but otherwise it made little difference. There was the family hegira to the capital, and much enjoyment of the limited attractions of the semi-Ethiopian and shabby but semi-magnificent city in a miasmatic valley, and it was, no doubt, some education for the children. To Grant it was a fray, of course, and to Jean it was enjoyment of his successes, and probably more sorrow than he felt at his failures. The successes were the more numerous. Jean herself never failed. She was an envied woman in the social world. She was a strong man's wife, and possessed of all tact and gentle wisdom in aiding him, but she was not a rival of the mere self-advertisers among the queens of a shifting society. She could not afford it, even had her inclination bent that way. She had absorbing riches. They were a man and her children.
When I brightened up, because my friends were coming back to me, was the great season of the year to me, as to them. When the family returned from the capital and reoccupied the home there was rejoicing. And what rioters we were! But once more, each time, it was said by Grant, and by me as well, the battle must be fought, and so came re-elections and the flittings. And, after all, it was good. It was not the rusting in the sheath.
And it came that there was another gallant fight on. The city Congressional district is not like the country one, where a man once firmly in the saddle may stay there for a quarter of a century. The city constituencies have the fault in make-up that their Congressmen are not selected as those who will do best for the districts, but because they have hands on the lever of some machine. Of course, there are always exceptions, as in Grant's case, but the rule prevails. And now there had been flung down the gauntlet of a clever adversary, and the battle was a warm one.
We both enjoyed this contest, for, though the struggle was likely to be sharp, we knew the issue was ours, from the beginning, and the whole thing, as Grant said, was like a hunting trip. But how it ended!
He had been out much at night, for it was a large district and there were many meetings, and had been as tireless as was usual with him. His thought was never given much to the care of himself, and in this campaign he appeared more than ordinarily reckless. Jean, watchful ever, reproached him and made him change his ways a little. Perhaps it was not all his fault that one day he felt ill. It was on the eve of the election.
We carried the day as we had hoped, and easily, and there was a demand for Harlson that night which could not be refused with grace. He was compelled to speak, and in the open air of a chill November evening. He told me he felt ill. When, late at night, we reached his home and he found Jean awaiting him, he turned to me and said: "It's all right, Alf. I'll be myself again by morning. I'm where all that is good for me is, and should be well in no time. She will but pass her hands above my head, and--there you are!"
And we parted, as carelessly as usual, and as I went home I was speculating on what the revised returns would show the majority to be, not as to the outcome of Grant Harlson's indisposition.
Jean sent for me the next morning. I found a look upon her face which troubled me.
"Grant is not well," she said. "He came home late and spoke of an odd feeling. We cared for him, but this morning he was listless and did not want to dress and come to breakfast. He is in bed still. Please go up and see him, and then come down to the library and tell me what you think the matter is."
I went upstairs and found Grant lying in his bed and breathing heavily. I shook him by the shoulder.
"What's the matter, old man?"
He turned over with an effort, though laughing. "I don't know," he answered. "I only know I haven't been well since last night, and that there is a queer feeling about my throat and chest. I ought to be up, of course, but I'm listless and careless, somehow. By the way, what were the totals?"
I gave him the figures, and he smiled, and then with an "Excuse me, old man," turned his face to the wall. A moment later, as I sat watching him, alarmed, he roused himself and turned toward me again. "Won't you send Jean to me?" he asked.
I saw Jean, and she went upstairs, and when she came down her face was white. The Ape, rugged young man as he was, had tears in his eyes, and his brothers and sisters were crying quietly. I left the house, and an hour later a physician, one of the most famous on the continent, was by Grant Harlson's bedside. He was a personal friend of both of us. When he came down his face was grave.
"What is it, Doctor?"
"It's pneumonia, and a bad case."
"What can we do?"
"Nothing, but to care for him and aid him with all hopefulness and strength. He has vitality beyond one man in a thousand. He may throw off all the incubus of it. But it has come suddenly and is growing." Then he got mad in all his friendship, and blurted out: "Why didn't the great blundering brute send for me when first he felt something he couldn't meet nor understand?" And there were almost tears in his eyes.
The doctors have much to say about pneumonia. Doubtless they know of what they talk, but pneumonia comes nevertheless, and defeats the strong man and the doctors. The strong man it strangles. The doctors it laughs at.
All that medical science could command was brought to the bedside of Grant Harlson. The doctor, his friend, called in the wisest of associates in consultation, and as for care--there was Jean! He was cared for as the angels might care for a wandering soul. But the big man in the bed tossed and muttered, and looked at Jean appealingly, and grew worse. The strength seemed going from him at last--from him, the bulwark of us all.
All that science could do was done. All that care could do was done, but our giant weakened. The doctors talk of the croupous form of pneumonia, and of some other form--I do not know the difference--but I do know that this man had a great pain in his chest, and that his head ached, and that he had alternate arctic chills and flames of fever. His pulse was rapid, and he gasped as he breathed. Sometimes he would become delirious, then weaker in the sane intervals. He would send us from the room then, and call for Jean alone, and, when she emerged--well--God help me! --I never want to see that awful look of suspense and agony upon a human face again. It will stay with me until I follow the roadway leading to my friends.
The doctor gave the sick man opiates or stimulants, as the case might at any moment seem to need, and they had some slight effect; but there came a shallower breathing, and the quilts tossed under the heaving of the broad chest, fitfully. It reminded me in some strange way of the imitation sea scenes at the theater, where a great cloth of some sort is rocked and lifted to represent the waves. Only one lung was congested in the beginning, but, later, the thing extended to each, and the air-cells began filling, and the man suffered more and more. He fought against it fiercely.
"Grant," said the doctor, after the administration of some strong stimulant, "help us all you can. Cough! Force the air through those huge lungs of yours, and see if you can't tear away that tissue which is forming to throttle you!"
And Grant would summon all his strength, by no means yet exhausted, and exert his will, and cough, despite the fearful pain of it; but the human form held not the machinery to dislodge that growing web which was filling the lung-chambers and cutting off, hour by hour, the oxygen which makes pure blood and makes the being.
And the man who laughed at things grew weaker and weaker, and, though he laughed still and was his old self and made us happy for a brief interval, when he had not the fever and was clear-headed, and said that it was nothing and that he would throw it off, we knew that there was deadly peril. And one evening, when Grant was again delirious, the doctor came to me and said there was very little hope.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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33
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WHITEST ASHES.
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What is the mood of fate? Must strong men die illogically? What does it all mean, anyhow? About this I am but blind and reasonless. I wish I knew! The world is more than hollow to me, yet I have a hope, I'll say that. There was some one very like Jean, one whom I loved and who loved me, thirty years ago. Will she and I meet some day, I wonder? And what will she be to me then? I suppose I have the philosophy and endurance of the average man; but this is, with any doubt, a black world at times, and one in which there is no good. The breaking of heart-strings mars all music. I am alone and dull and wondering, and in a blind revolt. Why should all things change so, and what is this death which comes? There must be some future world. If there be not, what a failure is all the brutal material scheme.
One day Grant was clear of head, but weaker, and talked with me long of his affairs.
"I'm afraid I can't fight it out after all," he said, "though you mustn't let Jean and the children know that yet."
We talked more of what I should do if the worst came, and then he sent for the children. He addressed himself to the Ape first, the brave boy's eyes full of tears and his whole body trembling as he listened: "My boy, you are hardly a man yet, but I know your manliness. If I cannot stay with you, you will become the practical head of the family. Make them all proud of you. And care for your mother always as you would for your own life or whatever is greatest." Then he called the others to him: "You heard what I just said. I spoke to the Ape only because he is oldest. Remember that I have said this thing to all of you. I needn't say it, I know--my blessed boys and girls--you understand. But live for your little mother always."
I cannot describe what those young people said or did. It was most pitiful. It was brave and sweet, too. But they would not let their father die. He must not! They could not face the fact.
Jean came then, and we three were left alone for a time. She sat beside the bed, for he wanted his hand in hers when possible, and he spoke slowly: "Jean, I don't know. There must be another world, as we have trusted. The great Power that fitted us to each other so will surely bring us together again. Let us look at it that way. We'll imagine that I'm only going to the country, and that you are to join me. That is all. I know it. God knows. He will adjust it somehow."
Jean did not answer. She but clasped his hand and looked into his face. I feared she would die of a bursting heart. From that time till the end she never left his bedside.
Murderous Death has certain kindnesses in his killings. Just before the end is peace. The struggles of this strong man became something fearful as the lungs congested, and the most powerful of anti-pyretics ceased to have effect, and then came the peace which follows nature's virtual surrender, the armistice of the moment. What trick of reversion to first impressions comes, and what causes it, none have yet explained, but long before the time of Falstaff men, dying, had babbled o' green fields. Grant Harlson, now, was surely dying. The physicians had warned us all, and we were all about his bedside. As for me, thank God, the tears could come as they did to the children. But there were none upon the cheeks of Jean. Her sweet face was as if of stone; whiter than that of the man in the bed.
The convulsions had ceased, but his mind was wandering and his speech was rambling. It was easy to tell of what he was thinking. He was a little boy in the woodland home with his mother again, and was telling her delightedly of what he had seen and found, and of the yellow mandrake apples he had stored in a hollow log. She should help him eat them. And then the scene would shift, and he was older, and we were together in the fields. He called to me excitedly to take the dog to the other side of the brush-heap, for the woodchuck was slipping through that way! There was the old merry ring in his voice, and I knew where he was and how there came to him, in fancy, the sweet perfumes of the fields, and how his eyes, which were opened wide but saw us not, were blessed with all the greenness and the glory of the summer of long ago. Then his manner changed, and the word "Jean" came softly to his lips, and again I knew they were camping out together, and he was teaching to his wife the pleasant mysteries of the forest, and all woodcraft. There was love in his tones and in his features. The breast of the woman holding his hand heaved, and the pallor on her face grew more.
There was another struggle for breath, then a desperate one, and with its end came consciousness. Grant smiled and spoke faintly: "It must he pretty near the end. I am very tired. Jean, darling, get closer to me. Kiss me."
She leaned over and kissed him passionately. He smiled again, then feebly took one of her little hands in each of his and lifted them to his face and kissed them; then held them down upon his eyes. There was a single heave of his great chest, and he was dead.
And the woman who fell to the floor was, apparently, as lifeless as the silent figure on the bed.
She was not dead. We carried her to her own room--hers and his, with the dressing-rooms attached--and she woke at last to a consciousness of her world bereft of one human being who had been to her nearly all there was. She was not as we had imagined she would be when she recovered. She was not hysterical, nor did she weep. She was singularly quiet. But that set, thoughtful look had never left her face. She seemed some other person. I talked to her of what was to be done. What a task that was, for I could scarcely utter words myself. She suddenly brightened when I spoke of the crematory and what Grant's wishes were.
"It must be as he wished," she said--"as he wished, in each small detail." Then she said no more, and all the rest was left to me.
She was quiet and grave at the funeral of her husband and my friend. She shed no tears; she uttered not a word. She listened quietly while I told her how I had arranged to carry out all his wishes about himself, or, rather, about his tenement. She did not accompany me. There came with me on that journey only the Ape, who was red of eye and vainly trying to conceal it all. How the youth was suffering!
I came to the home one day with an urn of bronze. There were only ashes in it, clean and white. Jean looked at them and asked me to go away. The urn was put, at her request, in her own apartments. It was sealed and stood upon a mantel of the room in which she slept. I do not believe she thought much of the ashes as representing the man who had gone away from her. She may have thought of them as precious, just as she did of a pair of gloves she had mended for him just before his illness, and which she kept always with her, but I believe that of the ashes, as of the gloves, she thought only of what her love had used in life and left behind. That was the total of it. It was the heart, the soul, the knowing of her that was gone.
How the Ape, how all the children cared for the small mother now! Never was woman more watched, and guarded and waited upon. She recognized it all, too, but said very little. Her soft hands would stroke the forehead of her first-born, or of her eldest daughter, or of any of the offspring of the two, the product of their love, and she would tell them that she was glad they were so good, but, gentle and thoughtful as she was, there was something lacking. She seemed in another world.
I talked to Jean. I tried to be a philosopher, to tell her of the children and of the broadness of life, and that she must drift into it again. She was kind and courteous as of old with me, but it was somehow not the same. And she grew weaker day by day, and would lie for hours, the children told me, in the room where Grant and she had been together all those years.
How can I tell of it! Jean, who had become my sister, who was part of Grant Harlson, drifted away before my eyes! It was harder, almost, for us than the fierce fight with death of the one who had been the mainstay of us all. Somehow, we knew she was going to leave us, and the grief of the children was something terrible. She listened to them and was kind to them, wildly affectionate at times, but she lapsed ever into the same strange apathy. We had the best physicians again. I talked with one of them. "What shall we do?" I asked.
He was a great man, a successful one, a man above the rut, and he answered simply: "I cannot advise. The mind governs the body beyond us sometimes,--very often, I imagine. She does not want to live. That is all I can say. Drugs are not in the treatment of the case."
She grew thinner and thinner and more listless, and finally, one day, the Ape came to my office and said his mother had not left her room for a day or two. I went with him to the home which had been almost as my own.
I was admitted to Jean's room as a matter of course. I was one of the household. She was lying upon a great sofa, one Grant had liked. I asked her to tell me what to do.
She was calm and quiet as she answered. "There is nothing," she said. Then suddenly she seemed to be the Jean I had known one time. She raised herself up: "Alf, you were very close to us. Cannot you see?" She began another sentence, then stopped suddenly, and only smiled at me and said I was the nest friend ever two people had in all this world. She still spoke of two people. As if Grant were with us still!
How can one tell of the fading of a lily. No one ever told of it all. One day they sent for me, and when I came the sweetest woman lay upon her couch! She had talked with her children much that day, and told them many things--of plannings for their futures. She had, for the first time, told them of all their father had designed, or hoped, or guessed for each of them. And they had been very happy, and thought she would recover. And she had slept peacefully, and had not awakened.
I looked upon her face, and the smile upon it was something wonderful. It was one of the things which makes me believe there is some great story to it. There was none with her but her youngest daughter when she left us, and the child could not tell when worlds were touching. But upon that face was the expression which tells of what is all beyond. I do believe that, even before she quitted her earthly frame, dear Jean knew that she had found Grant again.
Why have I told this story of two people, which is no story at all, but only what I know of what has happened to those closest to me? There is no more of it. It ends with the deaths of them, and yet I do not know that it is sad. They lived and loved and died. They had more happiness than comes to one-half humanity. Their life was of the gold of what is the inner life of the better ones of this great new nation of a new continent. They lived and loved, and their children live, and will be good men and women.
* * * * * * I cannot understand the problem. No learning clears it. I only know that there were Grant and I, that there were bees and perfumes, and wild, boyish delights, and the older life, and the feverish life of a city, and the rare, great love I looked upon.
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{
"id": "16143"
}
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1
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: The Coming Of The Vikings.
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All along our East Anglian shores men had watched for long, and now word had come from Ulfkytel, our earl, that the great fleet of Swein, the Danish king, had been sighted off the Dunwich cliffs, and once again the fear of the Danes was on our land.
And so it came to pass that I, Redwald, son of Siric, the Thane of Bures, stood at the gate of our courtyard and watched my father and our sturdy housecarles and freemen ride away down the hill and across the winding Stour river to join the great levy at Colchester. And when I had seen the last flash of arms sparkle from among the copses beyond the bridge, I had looked on Siric, my father, for the last time in this world, but no thought rose up in my mind that this might be so.
Yet if I stand now where I stood on that day, and see by chance the glimmer of bright arms through green boughs across the river, there comes to me a rush of sadness that dulls the bright May sunshine and the sparkle of the rippling water, and fills the soft May-time wind with sounds of mourning. Now to me it seems that I was thus sad at the time that is brought back to me. But I was not so. It is only the weight of long years of remembrance of what should have been had I known. At that parting I turned back into the hall downcast, only because my father had thought me not yet strong enough to ride beside him, and a little angry and hurt moreover, for I was broad and strong for my sixteen years.
Little thought I that in years to come I should remember all of that leave taking, even to the least thing that happened; but so it is. No man may rightly be said to forget aught. All that he has known and learnt is there, hidden up in his mind to come forth if there is anything that shall call it again to light.
Now my father lies resting among nameless heroes who died for England on Nacton Heath--I know not even which of the great mounds it may be that holds his bones--but he fell before the flight began when Thurketyl Mirehead played the craven. Neither victor nor vanquished was he when his end came, but maybe that is the best end for a warrior after all. Some must fall, and some may live to boast, and some remain to mourn, but to give life for fatherland in hottest strife is good. That is what my father would have wished for himself, and I at least sorrow but for myself and not for him.
Now I have spoken of remembrance, and I will add this word--that some things in a man's life can never be set aside from his memory. Waking or sleeping they come back to him. Eight days after that going of my father came such a time to me, so that every least thing is clear to me today as then.
I sat plaiting a leash for my hounds on the settle before the fire in our great hall at Bures, and I remember how the strands of leather thong fell in my hand; I remember how my mother's spinning wheel stopped short with a snapping of broken threads; how the thrall who was feeding the fire stayed with the log in his hands; how the sleepy men at the lower end of the hall sprang up with heavy words checked on their lips before the lady's presence; how the maidens screamed--aye, and how the draught swayed the wall hangings, and sent a long train of sparks flying from a half-dead torch, as the great door was thrown open and a man flung himself into our midst, mud splashed and white faced, with hands that quivered towards us as he cried hoarsely: "In haste, mistress--you must fly--the Danes--" and fell like a log at my mother's feet where she sat on the dais, neither moving nor speaking more.
It was Grinkel, the leader of our housecarles {1}. His armour was rent and gashed, and no sword was in the scabbard at his side, and his helm was gone, and now as he fell a bandage slipped from his arm, and slowly the red stream from a great wound ran among the sweet sedges wherewith the floor was strewn.
There came a mist before my eyes, and my heart beat thick and fast as I saw him; but my mother rose up neither screaming nor growing faint, though through her mind, as through mine, must have glanced the knowledge of all that this homecoming of brave Grinkel meant. She stepped from the high place to the warrior's side and hastily rebound the wound, telling the maidens meanwhile to bring wine that she might revive him if he were not already sped.
Then she rose up while the old steward took the wine and tried to force it between the close-set teeth, and she called the farm servants to her.
"Make ready all the horses and yoke the oxen to the wains," she said in a clear voice that would not tremble. "Send the lads to warn the village folk to fly beyond the river. For Grinkel comes not in this wise for nought. The Danes are on us."
Now I remember the grim faces of the men as they went, and I remember the look on the faces of the women as they heard, and in the midst of us seemed to lie terror itself glaring from the set eyes of the dead warrior. And of those memories I will say nought--I would not have them live in the minds of any by day and night as they lived in mine for many a long year thereafter. Many were the tales I had heard of the coming of Ingvar's host in the days of Eadmund our martyred king, who was crowned here at Bures in our own church, and those tales were terrible. Now the like was on us, and I saw that what I had heard was not the half.
The old steward rose up now, shaking his head in sorrow. I think he was too old for fear.
"Grinkel is dead, lady," he said gently, closing the wild eyes as he spoke, and then throwing a cloak from the wall over him. But my mother only said, "May he rest in peace. What of the Thane?"
Thereat the steward looked forthright into his lady's face, and spoke bravely for all around to hear: "Doubtless the levy is broken for this once, and he bides with Earl Ulfkytel to gather a new and stronger force. The Thane has sent Grinkel on, and he has ridden in over-much haste for a wounded man. He was ever eager."
My mother gave back her old servant's look in silence, and seemed to assent. Yet I, though I was but a lad of sixteen, could see what passed in that look of theirs. I knew that surely my father had fallen, and that need was great for haste.
Then was hurry and hustle in the house as all that was most valuable was gathered, and I myself could but take my arms from the wall, and don mail-shirt and helm and sword and seax {2} and then look on, useless enough, with my thoughts in a whirl all the time.
Presently out of their tangle came one thing clearly to me, and that was that there were others whom I loved to be warned, besides the villagers.
My mother came into the hall again, and stood for a moment like a carven statue looking at the maidens who wrought at packing what they might. She had not wept, but in her face was written sorrow beyond weeping. Yet almost did she weep, when I stood beside her and spoke, putting my hand on her arm.
"Mother," I said, "I must go to Wormingford and warn them also. My horse will be ready, and I will return to you."
Then she looked at me, for as I go over these things I know that this was the first time that I had ever said to her "I must," without asking her leave, in aught that I would do. And she answered me calmly.
"Aye, that is a good thought. They will need help. Bide with them if need is, and so join us presently on the road. We will fly to London."
"So far, mother?" I said. "Surely Colchester will be safe."
"I will go to Ethelred the king," she answered. "He has ever been your father's friend, and will be yours. And I was the queen's maiden in the old days, and she will welcome me. Now go and bring Hertha to me."
She turned to her work, and I went out across the courtyard. Already the wains stood there, the teams of sleepy oxen tossing their long horns in the glare of torches. The church bell was clanging the alarm of fire to bring home the men from field or forest if any were abroad so late, for it was an hour after sunset, and there was no moon yet.
The gray horse that my father gave me a year agone stood ready saddled in the stall when I came to the stables. I went and loosed him, while a groom saw me and ran to help, and as I swung into the saddle I saw his face marked with new lines across his forehead.
"Do you fly first, master?" he said, with strange meaning in his voice.
"I go to Wormingford," I answered. "Likely enough, therefore, that I fly last," and I laughed.
"Aye, let me go, master, let me go," he said. "It is like that the Danes are on the road."
"Not yet," I said, touched by question and offer alike. "There is many a mile between here and Ipswich, and I think that to go to Wormingford is my work, surely."
So I rode away fast, seeing in the valley below me the lights of the house that I sought. As I had said, the errand was indeed mine.
For at the great house just across the river below the hills lived the one who should be my wife in the days to come--Hertha, daughter of Osgod, the Thane of Wormingford. It was now three years since we had been betrothed with all solemnity in our church, and that had seemed but fit and right, for we were two children who had played together since we could run hand in hand. And my mother had been as a mother also to little Hertha since she was left with only her father to tend her.
Our house and Osgod's were akin, though not near, for we both traced our line from Redwald the first Christian king of East Anglia, whose name I bore. Hertha was two years younger than I.
Now Osgod the Thane had ridden away to the war with my father, and unless he had returned with Grinkel, Hertha was alone in the house with her old nurse and the farm servants. Most surely she would have been at Bures with us but for some spring-time sickness which was among the village children, and from which my mother sought to keep her free. It might be that the thane had returned, but it was in my mind that the manner of Grinkel's coming boded ill to all of us.
So I rode on quickly down the hill towards the river. I knew not how near the Danes might be, but I thought little of them, until suddenly through the dusk I saw a red point of fire flicker and broaden out into flame on a hilltop eastward, where I knew a beacon fire was piled against need. And then from every point along the Stour valley beacon after beacon flashed out in answer, until all the countryside was full of them; and I hurried on more swiftly than before.
Our hall stood on the hill crest above church and village, beyond the reach of creeping river mist and sudden floods, and I rode down the track that crosses the lower road and so comes to the ford below Osgod's place on the Essex side of the river. And when I came to the crossing my horse pricked his ears and snorted, so that I knew there were horsemen about, and I reined up and waited in the lane.
I could hear the quick hoofbeats of two steeds, and all the air was full of the sound of alarm bells, for the evening was very still.
Then up the road from eastward rode two men at an easy gallop, and my horse's manner told me that a stable mate of his was coming, so I feared no longer but went into the main road to meet them.
"What news?" I cried, and they halted.
"It is the young master," said one, and I knew the voice of Edred, our housecarle. And when he was close to me I could see that he was in almost as evil plight as had been Grinkel his comrade. The other man I knew not, but he bore a headless spear shaft in his hand, and Edred's shield had a great gash across it.
"Master, has Grinkel come?" Edred asked me.
"Aye, and is dead. He bade us fly, and could say no more. What of my father?"
The men looked at one another for a moment, and then Edred said very sadly: "Woe is me that I must be the bearer of heavy tidings to you and the lady your mother. But what is true is true and must be told. Never has such a battle been fought in East Anglia, and the fortune of war has gone against us."
The fear that I had read in my mother's eyes fell cold on me at those words-and I asked again, longing and fearing to know the worst: "What of the thane, my father?"
"Master, he fell with the first," Edred answered with a breaking of his voice. "Nor might we bring him from the place where he fell. For the Danes swept us from the field at the last like dead leaves in the wind, and there was nought left us but to fly. Two long hours we fought first, and then came flight. They say one man began it. I know not; but it was no man of ours. Now the Danes are marching hitherwards to Colchester."
"What of Osgod of Wormingford?" I asked.
"He lies beside our lord. There is a ring of slain round them. I would I were there also," the warrior answered.
"Then were there one less to care for our helpless ones," I said. "All are preparing for flight at Bures. Come with me to Wormingford, and we will warn them. There is work to do for us who are left."
"Aye, master, that is right," he said; "we may fight again and wipe out this business."
Then the other man, who belonged to Sudbury, five miles beyond us, bade us farewell, and so rode on with his tale of terror, and Edred followed me across the ford to Osgod's house, which was but a mile from where we met. He told me that Grinkel had found a fresh horse in Stoke village, and so had outstripped him.
Many thralls stood at the gate of Osgod's courtyard as we came there, and they were staring at the beacon fires around us, and listening to the wild bells that rang so strangely. There was a fire blazing now on the green before our own house, and one on the hill above the Wormingford mere, which men say is haunted.
"I would see your mistress," I said as they came and held my horse. I had not been to the house for two days, as it chanced.
Then one ran and brought the house steward, and told him.
"I know not if that may be, master," he said; "but I will ask Dame Gunnhild."
"Has the lady gone to rest?" I said, being surprised at this delay.
"She is not well" the man said; "and the dame has not suffered her to rise today."
"Then let me have speech with the dame without delay," I said, for this made me uneasy, seeing what need there was for speedy flight.
The steward went in, and I bade the thralls do all that Edred ordered them, telling him to see to what was needed for flight and so I went into the house, and stood by the hall fire waiting for Gunnhild the nurse.
There is nothing in all that wide hall that I cannot remember clearly, even to a place where the rushes were ill strewn on the floor. And the short waiting seemed very long to me.
Then came Gunnhild. She was old, and I feared her, for men said that she was a witch. But she had been in the house of Osgod the Thane since he himself was a child, and Hertha loved her, and that was enough for me. Nor had I any reason to think that the dame had any but friendly feelings towards myself, though her bright eyes and tall figure, and most of all what was said of her, feared me, as I say. Now she came towards me swiftly, and did not wait for me to speak first.
"What will you at this hour, Redwald?" she said.
"Nought but pressing need bade me come thus," I answered. "The levy is broken, and the Danes are on the way to Colchester. My mother flies to London, and you and Hertha must do likewise."
"So your father and hers are slain," she said, looking fixedly at me, and standing very still.
"How know you that?" I asked sharply, for I had told the steward nothing.
"By your face, Redwald," she said; "you were but a boy two days agone, now you have a man's work on your hands, and you will do it. Who bade you ride here?"
"No one," I said, wondering, "needs must that I should come."
"That is as I thought," she said; "but we cannot fly."
"Why not?"
"Because the sickness that your mother feared is on Hertha, and she cannot go."
Now I was ready to weep, but that would be of no use.
"Is there danger to her?" I said, and I could not keep my voice from shaking, for Hertha was all the sister I had, and she in time would be nearer than that to me.
"None," answered the dame, "save she runs risk of chill. For she has been fevered for a while."
"Which is most to be feared," said I, "chill, or risk of Danish cruelty?"
She made no answer, but asked me what were my mother's plans. And when I said that she would fly to Ethelred the king, the old nurse laughed strangely to herself.
"Then you go to the very cause of all this trouble," she said. "Truly the king's name should be 'the Unredy', for rede he has none. It is his ill counsel that has brought Swein the Dane on us. We have to pay for the Hock-tide slayings {3}."
"We had no share in that" I said.
"No, because half our folk are Danes, more or less, some of the men of Ingvar and Guthrum. But Swein will not care for that--they are all English to him."
"What will you do, then?" I asked, growing half wild that she should stand there quietly and plan nought.
"These folk will side with Swein presently, when they find that he is the stronger, and then the old kinship will wake in them, and the Wessex king will be nought to their minds. Then will be peace here, for the Danes will sweep on to Mercia and London. Do you go to Ethelred the Unredy--and I abiding here shall be the safer in the end, and Hertha with me."
"But peace has not come yet" I said.
"I can hide until it does come," she said. And then, for my face must have shown all the doubt that I felt, she spoke very kindly to me. "Trust the old witch who wishes you well, Redwald, my son; she who has nursed Hertha for so long will care for her till the last; safe she will be until you return to find her when the foolishness of Ethelred is paid for."
"Where can you hide?" I asked, and urged her to tell me more, but she would not do so.
"No man would dream of the hiding place that I shall seek," she said, "and I will tell it to none. Then will it be the surer."
"I know all this country," I answered. "There is no place."
She smiled faintly, and paused a little, thinking.
"I will tell you this," she said at last. "You go to the king; well--I go to the queen. That is all you may know. But maybe it will be enough to guide you someday."
I could not understand what she meant; nor would she tell me more. Only she said that all would be safe, and that I need fear nothing either for Hertha or for herself.
"My forbears were safe in that place to which I go," she said; "and I alone know where it is. When the time comes, Hertha shall tell you of it but that must wait for the days to be."
"I fear they will be long. Let me see Hertha before I go," I said, "for I must needs be content."
"How looked she when last you saw her?"
"Well, and bright, and happy," I answered.
"Keep that memory of her therefore," Gunnhild said. "I would not have you see her in sickness, nor may she be waked without danger. Tell your mother that surely if she could take Hertha with her it should be so, but it may not be. She would be harmed by a long journey."
The old nurse turned and left me as swiftly as she had come. And now it is in my mind that she went thus lest she should weep. So I was alone in the hall, and there was no more left for me to do. I must even let things be as she would. It came into my thought that she was right about our half-Danish folk, for though they had fought to keep the newcomers from the land that their fathers had won, Swein was no foreigner, and they would as soon own him as Ethelred of Wessex, if he got the upper hand and would give them peace. Even we Angles never forgot that the race of Ecgberht was Saxon and not of our own kin altogether. The Dane was as near to us as the Wessex king, save by old comradeship, and the ties that had come with years.
So all that Edred and I could do was to bid the steward take his orders from Gunnhild, and so ride back to Bures along the riverside track. And when we came there the long train of flying people were crossing the bridge, and we rode past them one by one, and the sight of those wain loads of helpless women and children was the most piteous I had ever seen. Many such another train was I to look on in the years to come, but none ever wrung my heart as this, for I knew every face so well. Yet I thought they would be safe, for the Danes were far off yet, and there was full time to gain the depths of the forest land on the East Saxon side.
Now, our people had gone on more quickly than the villagers by reason of better cattle and more hands to the work, and when we had passed the foremost of these, the road went up the hill and no man was upon it. So we went quickly, and then came one on foot towards the village, and just beyond him were our folk, whom he had passed or left.
It was good Father Ailwin, our old priest, and I thought that he sought me, or took back some word to others and I would ride back for him.
"What is it, Father?" I cried, "I will do your errand."
"Nay, my son, you cannot," he said; "your mother drew me to fly with her, and my weakness bade me do it for a while. But I may not leave my place. The Danes are not all heathen as they were in Eadmund's days, and I think that I am wrong to go. When our folk come back they must find their priest waiting for them."
Then I strove to turn him again to flight with us, but I could not, and at last he commanded me to desist and leave him. And so he gave me his blessing, and I went, being sure that he would be slain, and weeping therefore, for I loved him well. But I told him of Dame Gunnhild's words, and begged him to seek her and speak with her, for she might hide him also for a while if he would not leave the place altogether.
So we left our home, and that was the last time I set eyes on our hall at Bures. Then I caught up my mother hard by the dark wood that is round the great solemn mound that we say is the tomb of Boadicea, the Icenian queen of the men who fought against Rome. We call it haunted, and none of us dare set foot in those woods, by day even.
The beacon fires burnt all round us, and in every farmstead was terror and hustle as the poor folk trembled to think what they could mean, and some came now and then and asked my mother what they should do.
"Bide in your homes till you must needs take to the woods," she said; and that was wise counsel, and many were glad thereafter that they took it, for the Danes passed them by.
Now I remember all that happened on our journey to London along the great Roman road that runs from Colchester thither, but there is little to tell thereof, for it was safe and we hardly hurried after the first day. We rested at the house of a thane who was well known to us on the first evening, and there my mother heard from Edred all that had befallen. And she bore the heavy tidings well, for she had already given up any hope that my father still lived. Yet as I look back I know that she was never the same after that day.
So we came in safety to London, and to the court of Ethelred our king, and there we were most kindly received, for my father was well known to the king, and the queen loved my mother for the sake of old days. They gave us lodging near the great house where the court was held, and on the third day after we came, we were bidden to the king's presence.
Then it was that I looked on Ethelred for the first time, and I had thought that a king should have been more kingly than he. For there was no command in his face, and he moved quickly and with little meaning in what he did, being restless in his way. But he put his hand on my shoulder very kindly, and looked in my face and said: "One may know that this is the son of Siric, my friend. He is like what the good thane was in the old days. What shall I do for him, lady?"
Now, my mother would have answered, but I was not afraid of this handsome, careless-looking man, and I had my own wishes in the matter. So I spoke for myself.
"Make me a warrior, lord king. I would fain fight the Danes, and already I can use sword and spear, and can ride."
Then my mother spoke hastily and almost weeping, being broken down with all her trouble and the long journey.
"I would have him serve Holy Church rather, in some monastery. Already he can read and write, my king, for I have had him taught in hopes that this might be."
Thereat the king shook his head, and walked away to the window for a minute. Then he came back quickly and said, not looking at my mother: "Holy Church will be best served by warriors who will use carnal arms against Swein's heathen just now. The boy is right--I would that there were more who had his spirit. We need and shall need those who love fighting."
Then he said to me: "Siric your father had a wondrous sword that I used to envy him; you shall learn to use it."
"Lord king," I answered, "I must learn to win it back from the Danes, who have it now."
I thought the king changed countenance a little at that, and he bit his lip.
"We have been well beaten in East Anglia," he said as if to himself. "Here is truth from this boy at least."
Now, if Ethelred did not know that our men had been so scattered by the Danes that they could not even ask for truce to recover their slain, it seemed plain even to me that the king was ill-served in some way. But I could say nought; and after that he bade us farewell for the time.
So it came to pass that he gave me a place among the thanes' sons of his own court and there I was well trained in all that would make me a good warrior. Soon I had many friends, and best of all I loved the athelings, Eadmund and Eadward, who soon took notice of me, the one because I was never weary of weapon play, and the other, Eadward, who was somewhat younger than I, because of the learning that our good priest of Bures had taken such pains to teach me against my will. For above all things Eadmund loved the craft of the warrior, and Eadward all that belonged to peace.
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{
"id": "16196"
}
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2
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: Olaf The King.
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My mother lived but a few months after that flight of ours; but at least she knew before she died that Bertha was safe. What the old nurse had foreseen had come to pass. The half-Danish and Danish folk of the East Angles owned Swein as king, though not willingly, and a housecarle from Wormingford made his way to us with word from Gunnhild that set our minds at rest. Truly our hall and Osgod's had been burnt by parties from the Danish host, and for a time the danger was great, for Swein's vengeance for his sister's death was terrible.
Now the land was poorer, but in peace. Yet Hertha would keep in hiding till we might see how things went, for the Danes might be forced back, and when a Danish host retreats it hinders pursuit by leaving a desert in its wake. Many a long year will it be before those Danish pathways are lost to sight again. They seem to be across every shire of our land.
So I lived on in Ethelred's court now in one town and now in another, as the long struggle bade us shift either to follow or fly the Danes; and presently the memory both of my mother and Hertha grew dim, for wartime and new scenes age and harden a youth very quickly. Soon I might ride at the side of Eadmund the Atheling to try to stay the march of Swein through England; and many were the fights I saw with him, until I was the only one left of all the youths who had been my comrades at first, and Eadmund had won his name of "Ironside" in bravest hopeless struggle.
I grew to be a close and trusted friend of his, and so at last amidst the trouble that was all round us in those heavy times the remembrance of Hertha became but as part of a childhood that was long gone, and I thought of her but as of the little one with whom I had played in the old days beside the quiet Stour. There were none left to remind me of her, for one by one my few Bures men had fallen, and Edred, who had been my servant at the court, gave his life for mine in my first battle. Into Swein's East Anglia our levies never made their way.
What need for me to say aught of those three years of warfare? Their tale is written in fire over all the fair face of England. For nothing checked Swein Forkbeard until step by step the Danish hosts closed on London, and at last even the brave citizens were forced to yield to him. Then Ethelred our king must needs fly from his throne, and leave the land to its Danish master.
Yet it was true, as Eadmund the Atheling said, that the Dane was but master of the land, and not of the English people. Even today my mind is full of wondering honour for those sullen Saxon levies of ours who for three years bore defeat after defeat at the hands of the trained and hardened veterans of the north, uncomplaining and unbent. What wonder if at last we were wearied out and must hold our hands for a while?
So now when I was nineteen, and looking and feeling many years older by reason of the long stress of warfare and trouble, I was at Rouen, in Normandy, at the court of our queen's brother, Richard the Duke. To him Ethelred had fled at the last and there, too, were the queen and the athelings, good Abbot Elfric of Peterborough, and a few more of the court, besides myself. Ethelred had hoped to gain some help from the duke; but he could only give us shelter in our need, for he had even yet to hold the land that Rolf, his forefather, had won against his neighbours, and could spare us not one of his warriors.
So in Rouen we waited and watched for some new turn of things that might give us fresh hopes of regaining our own land. Yet it was a weary waiting for one knew not what; and Ethelred the king grew moody and despairing as the days went on, and there seemed to be no help.
But Eadmund was ever planning for return, and was restless, riding down to each ship that came into the river to hear what news might be, until the winter set in, and we must needs wait until springtime brought the traders again from the English shores.
Only Elfgiva the queen, whom her own people call Emma, was well content to be in her own land again for a while, though one might easily see that she sorely grieved for the loss of her state as the queen of England. And Eadward the Atheling loved to be among the wondrous buildings of the Norman land, spending long hours with the learned men, and planning many good things to be wrought in England when times of peace should come once more. And in these plannings Elfric the abbot was ever ready to help him, and the more, as I think, that to hear of their thoughts of return to England, and of happier times, would cheer our king. For Elfric would never allow but that we were here for a short while only, saying that England would yet rise up refreshed, and sweep the Danes into the sea, from whence they came.
"Else why should I have given all that I have--even five hundred pounds--for St. Florentine his body (wanting the head, in truth, but I might not have that), if I were not sure that I should take it home for the greater glory of St. Peter's church at Medehamstede {4} presently? Answer me that, lord king, and be not so downhearted."
This he said one day, being full of his purchase, and I think that the cheerfulness of the good man helped our king.
"Verily, Redwald, my son," the abbot said to me, "if I get not St. Florentine home, I think my money is not lost. The king waxes more hopeful when he sees the shrine waiting to be taken overseas."
Nor could I say for myself that I was not pleased with the stay in Rouen. For I had never known the fierce joy of victory, and the rest from the long tale of defeat was good to me. Yet I set myself to learn all that I could of the splendid weapon craft of the Norman warriors, for I thought that I should yet need in England all I could learn. And the new life and scenes pleased me well, for I was young enough to let the cares of our poor land slip from my mind for a while.
So the long winter wore away, and at last the season came when we might look for the first ships of the year, and with them news from England. Then Eadmund would go to the haven at the mouth of the great river Seine that runs to Rouen, so that he should be at hand to hear the first tidings that came. Glad enough was I to go with him, and we took up our quarters in a great house that belonged to the duke at the town they call "The Haven," and there waited, ever watching the long gray sea line for a coming sail.
But none came until the first week in March, when the wind blew steadily from the northeast, and the sky was clear and bright with promise of open weather. Then at last we saw eight ships together heading for the haven, and that sight was more welcome than I can say.
When they came near we knew that they were no traders, but long dragon ships, and at first we thought they were Danish vikings; and the townsmen armed in haste and mustered along the wharves to prevent their landing, if they came on their wonted errand of plunder. And eagerly enough did Eadmund and I join them, only hoping for another blow at our foes, and having no thought in our minds that the ships we watched were bringing us more hope than we dared long for.
Next I knew that these ships were like no Danish vessels that I had ever seen, but were far more handsome, both in build and fittings. Nor did they fly the terrible raven banner as most Danes were wont. Then it was not long before the lines of armed townsmen broke up their ranks and crowded down to the wharves to greet the ships in all friendliness, for they were Norse, as it would seem, and the Norse viking is ever welcome in the land that Rolf Ganger, the viking, won for himself.
So the ships came into the harbour, brave with gilded dragon heads and sails striped with bright colours, all fresh from their winter quarters, and Eadmund turned away, for he thought that they would be Swein's men, of the host of Thorkel the Norseman, his great captain, and foster father of Cnut his son. For Swein held Norway as well as Denmark, and many Norsemen followed him. Thorkel's host was that which slew Elfheah, the good archbishop of Canterbury, whom his monks called Elphege, but last year.
That, too, was the thought of the seamen to whom I spoke when the ships were yet distant, and so we went back to the hall heavy and disappointed. We would not speak to these men, knowing that from Thorkel's folk we should but hear boasting of Swein's victories.
But presently the steward came into the hall, where we sat silently listening to the shouts of the men as they berthed the ships, and he said that the leader of the vikings would see and speak with Eadmund himself.
"Is he Thorkel, or Thorkel's man?" answered the atheling, "for if he be, I will not see him."
"No, lord," said the steward, "he is one who has no dealings with the Danes. He will not tell me his name, but I think that he is a great man of some kind."
"Not a great man, but thick," said a kindly voice of one who stood without. "If hatred of Danes will pass me into Eadmund's presence, I may surely enter."
And then there came into the doorway a man who was worth more than a second look. Never had I seen one to whom the name of king seemed to belong so well by right as to this man, whatever his rank might be. He stood and looked round for a moment, as if the dim light from the high windows was not enough to show him where we were at first, and I could not take my eyes from him.
He was not tall, but very square of shoulder and deep of chest, with mighty arms that were bare, save for their heavy gold bracelets, below the sleeves of his ring mail, and his hair and beard were golden red and very long. He wore a silvered helm, whereon was inlaid a golden cross above a narrow gold circlet that was round its rim, and his hand rested on the hilt of such a priceless sword as is told of in the old tales of the heroes. But I forgot all these things as I looked into his pleasant weatherbeaten face, and saw the kindly look in the gray eyes that I knew would flash most terribly in fight. He was twenty-five years old, as I thought; but therein I was wrong, for he was just my own age, though looking so much older.
"I am Olaf Haraldsson--Olaf Digri, the Thick, as men call me," he said. "Some call me king, though I rule but over a few ships, as a sea king. Which of you thanes is Eadmund the Atheling?"
Then Eadmund rose up from his place, and went towards the king. His seat had been in shadow, else there had been no need to ask which was he.
"I have heard of you, King Olaf," he said, "for your deeds are sung in our land already. And you are most welcome. Have you news from England?"
So those two grasped each other's hands, and I think there were no two other such men living at that time. It was good to see them together.
"Aye," said the king, "I have been in England, and therefore I have come to find you. Swein is dead, and your chance has come. Let me help you to win your land again."
That was plain speaking, and for the moment Eadmund held his breath, and could not speak for sheer surprise and gladness. But I could not forbear leaping up and shouting, tossing my helm in the air as I did so, so wondrous was all this to me, and so full of hope.
At that Olaf laughed, and leaving Eadmund to his thoughts, turned to me.
"Which of the athelings are you?" he asked. "I have heard of Eadmund's brothers," and he held out his strong hand to take mine.
"I am but the atheling's comrade--his servant, rather," I said, growing red as I did so, for I had surely forgotten myself in my gladness.
"Redwald is no servant, King Olaf," said Eadmund quickly. "He is my closest comrade here, and has fought well at my side. Thane of Bures in East Anglia he is--but now the Danes hold his place."
"Why then," said Olaf, "Thoralf's grandson surely?"
"Aye, king," I answered, wondering; "my grandfather was named Thoralf. He was one of Olaf Tryggvesson's chiefs."
"Then have I found a cousin," laughed the king. "Give me your hand, kinsman," and he looked me over from head to foot, but very kindly.
I took the king's hand gladly, but somewhat dazed in my mind at being thus owned. And Olaf saw that I was so, and told me more.
"Asta, my good mother, was this Thoralf's cousin, and we Norsemen do not lose count of our kin. So I knew well that Thoralf found an English home and wife when Olaf Tryggvesson was first in England, and that he was Thane of Bures by some right of his lady. So I knew, when I heard your name and place, that I had found a kinsman. And I have so few that I am glad."
Now I knew that this was true, but we had never thought much of Thoralf, rather priding ourselves on his wife's long descent from King Redwald. I wished for the first time now that I knew more of this Norse grandfather of mine.
"Presently we will find Rani, my foster father, who is with the ships," said Olaf; "he knew Thoralf well. You and I must see much of one another, cousin."
Then he turned to Eadmund, who was, as it seemed, well pleased that I had found so good a friend. And he said: "Forgive me if I have forgotten greater matters for a moment. But I cannot greet a kinsman coldly, and it is in my mind that Redwald is a cousin worth finding, if I may judge by the way in which he hailed my news."
"Truly," said Eadmund, "I am minded to do as he did, now that I have taken all the wonder of it in. But it seems over good to be true--Swein dead--and your offered help!"
Then they both laughed, well content, and so Eadmund called the steward, and wine and meat were set for the king, and they sat down and talked, as he ate with a sailor's hunger. But I listened not to their talk, my mind being over full of this good fortune of my own. I had none left of my own kin, and till today I had been as it were alone.
Presently, however, I heard an East Anglian name that was dear to me. Eadmund asked how it was that Swein Forkbeard had died, for none thought that his end was yet to be thought of as near. Now it would seem that he had gone suddenly.
"He was at Gainsborough," said Olaf, "and he was about to make his way south to Eadmund's burg. Whereon men say that to save his town and shrine the holy martyr, King Eadmund, whom Ingvar slew, thrust Swein through with an iron lance. Some say that he slew him otherwise, but all agree as to his slayer. And now I think that England will rise."
"What of Cnut, Swein's son?" asked Eadmund.
"He is but a boy. What he may be in a few years' time I know not. With him it will be as with myself. I was given a ship when I was twelve years old, and thereafter all that my men did goes to my credit in the mouths of the scalds. Yet my men and I know well that Rani, my foster father, whom you will soon know, was the real captain and leader for the first three or four years."
Then said Eadmund: "Cnut is of no account."
Olaf laughed a little, and answered: "Cnut's own arm may be of little strength, but his name is on the lips of every Dane. There are three chiefs who will hold the kingdom in his name, and they are the men whom you must meet: Thorkel the High, his foster father; Ulf Sprakalegsson the jarl, his brother-in-law; and Eirik the jarl, whose brother Homing holds London even now. Good men and loyal they are, and what they do Cnut does."
"I have three chiefs in my mind who can match these," said our atheling. "Olaf the king, and Ulfkytel of East Anglia, and Edric Streone, my foster father."
Then Olaf looked in the face of Eadmund, as it seemed to me in surprise, and made no answer.
"Are we not equal then?" asked the atheling.
"I have heard that Edric Streone is on the Danish side," said Olaf. "Cannot Utred of Northumbria be trusted?"
"Edric has but sought rest, from need," answered Eadmund. "I know not what else he could do at last. He will join us again as soon as we land. So also will Utred."
"Then we are equal," said the king, while a cloud seemed to pass from his face, for Streone led all Mercia, and were he in truth on our side things would go well. It was no very secret talk among some of us that Edric the earl had made peace sooner than might have been, but that angered Eadmund and the king sorely if so much were even hinted.
"Then you will indeed help us?" said Eadmund, for Olaf had accepted the place he had named for him as it were.
"I have a debt to England that I can never repay," answered the king gravely. "She gave us our first teachers in the Christian faith. And Swein has held Norway, my own land, with the help of the heathen jarls who are yet there. I fight the fight of the Cross, therefore, and when I go back to my own land, it will be to sweep away the last worship of Odin and Thor. But the time has not come yet," and his eyes shone strangely.
"When it comes I will help you," said Eadmund, "if it may be that I can do so."
"I know it, and I thank you; but it is my thought that I shall need no help," said the king, while the look on his face was very wondrous, so that I had never seen the like. It minded me of the pictures of St. Stephen that I saw in a great church here with Abbot Elfric and Eadward. Then he spoke of the spread of the Faith in Norway, and how that he would be the one who should finish what Olaf Tryggvesson, his cousin, had begun; and one might see that he longed for power and kingship only for that work.
Long did those two warriors talk before they turned to lighter matters, and in the end they planned to ride to Rouen to see the king himself on the next day. But before night fell there came more news with another ship that came alone into the haven. And she was English, bearing messengers from the great witan itself.
These thanes told Eadmund their news, and it was this: That Cnut had been hailed as king by the Danish host at Gainsborough, but that the English people begged Ethelred to return to them, promising that a good force should be ready to meet him on his landing. Already the London folk had planned a rising there and in the great towns against the Thingmen, as the Danish paid garrisons were called, and it was likely that this had by this time come about.
So at once Eadmund went with these thanes to Rouen, and Olaf would have me bide with him till word came from the king as to the next doings.
That was a pleasant time to me, for I grew to love Olaf, and he was never willing that I should be far from him. Then, too, I heard many tales of my grandfather Thoralf from Rani, the old viking who had fought beside him, and had been with Tryggvesson when he was christened in England. And of all Olaf's men I liked best Ottar the Black, the scald, who was but five years older than myself, but who had yet seen much fighting with the king both by land and sea. We sang much together, for I was willing to learn from him, and he to teach me.
Now of this singing there is one thing that I will set down, for the matter comes into my story again.
One day Ottar sang the saga of the sword of Hiorvard; how the maiden warrior won it from the grave mound of her father, Angantyr, in spite of terror of the dead hero, and of the unearthly fires. That was a good saga, and when it was ended old Rani said: "Thoralf had a sword that was won by his father from a chief's grave mound in Vendland, It was the most wondrous sword, save only Olaf's 'Hneitir' yonder, that I have ever seen. Silver and gold was its hilt, and the blade was wrought in patterns on the steel, and there were runes in gold close to the hilt. He would call it 'Foe's Bane', and that in truth was what the sword was."
I knew only too well that that sword became my father's in his turn, and now it was lost to me.
"My father fell with sword 'Foe's Bane' in his hand," I said sadly. "Yet I know that the name was not belied ere he did so."
"Then the Danes have it," said Rani, "and it will come back to you."
I remembered that Ethelred himself had spoken of the sword, and how I had made his face fall when he heard that it was lost. Nor had I been long at court before I heard words from one thane or another that seemed to say that Edric Streone had made light of our defeat, for some reasons of his own.
"I must win it back," I said.
"If there is aught in old sayings," answered Ottar, "the sword will draw its holder to face you, unless he won it in fair fight hand to hand."
Thereat Olaf laughed, and no more was said. But in years to come there were told strange tales of the longing, as it were, of his own sword 'Hneitir' to be back at its master's side.
So the time went quickly for me, but to Olaf the waiting seemed long before Eadmund rode back from Rouen. And with him came those thanes and his half-brother Eadward, but Ethelred himself was not with them. He would not go to England, fearing treachery as it seemed; but Eadward was to go over and meet the witan and speak with them. Yet the thanes said that without the king no force would move.
"Why does he not go?" said Olaf impatiently. "Here is time lost when a sudden blow would win all."
"Because he is Ethelred the Unredy," answered Eadmund shortly, for he was very angry at the delay.
Then was another waiting, but Eadward was very wise though he was so young, being but twelve years old at this time, and he had Elfric the abbot with him, and at last word came from him that all was going well. Then Ethelred made up his mind and listened to Olaf's counsel.
"Strike at London," he said. "We know that the citizens are ever loyal."
They had risen, as it seemed, and had slain many of the thingmen, and Heming, Thorkel's brother, himself. That had but brought on them hardships and a stronger garrison, while Ethelred wavered and would not come.
At last Ethelred gathered what few men would follow him from Normandy and sailed to go to Southampton, and so to Winchester. Richard the Duke gave him a few ships and men enough to man them. Then Olaf, as it was planned, would sail up the Thames in such time as to meet the king's land force at London on a certain day, and thus take the city by a double attack. And Olaf asked that I might sail with him.
That Eadmund gladly agreed to, saying that we should meet on London Bridge shortly, and so I saw him set out full of hope, and then waited with Olaf for the short time that he would yet stay before sailing. He would not reach the Thames too early lest London should be held in too great force for us, and it was his plan that we should sail up the great river too suddenly for any new Danish force to be gathered.
Now on the evening before we sailed Olaf the king was restless, and silent beyond his wont at the feasting before departure, and he seemed to take little pleasure even in the songs of Ottar the scald, though the men praised them loudly. I thought it likely that some foreboding was on him, and that is no good sign before a fight.
So presently I spoke to Rani, asking him if aught ailed the king. Whereat he answered, smiling: "Nought ails him but longing to be sword to sword with these old foes of ours. This is his way, ever. If he were gay as Biorn the marshal yonder I might wonder at him maybe."
But presently Olaf rose up and bade Rani take his place, saying that he would go down to the ships to see that all was well. And then he beckoned me to follow him, and we went down the long hall together. It would seem that this was no new thing that he should leave the feast there, for the little hush that fell as we passed the long tables lasted no long time, and the men seemed not surprised. Indeed King Olaf had little love for sitting over the ale cup, and no man was more careful to see to all things about his ships and men than he.
The great doors closed after us, and we stood in the white moonlight for a moment. The air was cold and sharp after the warmth of the crowded hall. Down in the harbour the water was quiet enough, but outside a fair breeze was blowing from the southwest.
"The wind will hold, and will serve us well," said Olaf. "Who of all the Danish hosts will deem that such a wind is bringing fire and sword on them from across the sea?"
Then he folded his cloak round him and we went down to the harbour, where the long line of ships lay side by side along the wharf with their bows shoreward. The great dragon stem heads towered over us, shining strangely in the moonlight, and the gentle send of the waves into the harbour made them sway and creak as though they were coming to life.
"The dragons are restless as I," he said looking up at them.
"Tomorrow, hungry ones--tomorrow--then shall you and I be set free to meet wind and wave and foe again."
Then one of the men on watch began to sing, and his song was an old sea stave that had a swing and roll in its rough tune that was like the broken surge of sea water, even while it was timed to the fall of oar blades into the surf. One may not say how old those songs are that the seamen sing.
"That is the dragon's answer," said the king to me. "Sing, Redwald, and take your part."
So when the man came to the part where all should join, I took up the song with him, and then many others of the men joined in--some five or six in each ship.
"That is good," said Olaf, laughing softly. "Here are men whose hearts are light."
The man who sang first came now and looked over the high bows of the ship, and his figure was black against the moonlight.
"Ho, master scald!" he cried in his great voice, "now shall you sing the rest. You have put me out of conceit with my own singing. Why are you not at the feast, where I would be if I were not tied here!"
"He is keeping the dragons awake," laughed the king. "Nor do I think that even a feast would take you from the ship just as the tide is on the turn."
"Maybe not, lord king," answered the man, lifting his hand in salute. "But the dragons will be wakeful enough--never fear for them."
So the king answered back cheerily, and other men came and listened, and so at last he turned away, leaving the men who loved him pleased and the happier for his coming thus.
Now I thought that we should have gone back to the hall; but Olaf walked away from the town, going along the shore. The tide was just out, and the flow would soon begin. Soon we lost sight of the last lights from the houses, and still he went on, and I followed him, not speaking, for I knew not what plans he was making.
At last we came to a place to which I had not been before, and it was lonely enough. The forest came down to the beach, and the land was low and sheltered between the hills. There the king stayed, sitting down on a fallen tree and resting his chin on his hand, as he looked out over the water with grave eyes that seemed to see far beyond the tossing waves.
I rested beside him, and there we bided silent for an hour or more. There was only the sound of the wind in the storm-twisted trees behind us, and of the waves as they broke along the edge of the bare sands, where a few waking sea birds ran and piped unseen by us. Almost had I slept with those well-known sounds in my ears.
Then suddenly the king lifted his head, and spoke one word to me: "Listen," he said.
I roused, but all that I could hear at first were the sounds that I had forgotten--the song of the wind in the trees, the rush of the breakers, and the cry of the sea birds across the sands.
Then my heart began to beat wildly, for out of these sounds, or among them, began to come clearly, and yet more clearly the sound of the tread of many armed feet--the passing of a mighty host--and with that the thunder of the war song, and the cry of those who bade farewell. And these sounds passed over us and around us, going seawards; then they died away out towards the north, and were gone.
Yet still the king listened, and again came the tramp of the armed thousands, and the war song, and the voices of parting, and they passed, and came, and passed yet once more.
Then after the third time there was nought but the sound of wind and wave and sea fowl, and I drew closer to Olaf and asked him: "What is this that we hear?"
"Wait," he said, and pointed seaward.
Then I looked, and I saw all the northern sky glow red as glows the light of a burning town on the low clouds when the host that has fired it looks back on its work. And plain and clear in the silver moonlight against the crimson sky sat the wraith of a king, throned on the sand at the very water's edge, and round him stood shadowy nobles, looking seaward.
And even as I saw it the first wave of the rising tide sent its edge of foam shorewards, and it surged around the kingly feet and sapped the base of the throne, and the stately wraith turned and looked upon the nobles, and was gone.
Then faded the red light from the sky, and the waves washed over the place where the throne and court had been, and Olaf rose up and looked in my face. Nor was there fear of what he had seen and heard written in his quiet look.
"What is this, my king?" I said, trembling with the fear that comes of things beyond our ken.
"It is the fate of England that is falling on her," he said quietly.
"Read it me, for I fear what I have heard and seen," I said.
"We have heard the going of mighty hosts to England, and we have heard the sound of farewell. But we have heard no shout of victory, or wailing for defeat. Little therefore will be gained or lost by this sailing of ours. Yet all is surely lost if we sail not."
Then he ceased, but he had not yet spoken of what we saw, and I waited for his words. Yet still he stood silent, and looked out over the sea, until I was fain to ask him what the vision meant.
"Surely it was the wraith of a son of Swein that we saw," he said; "but it will be long years ere Cnut bears that likeness, for that was of a man full grown and mighty."
Now the reading of this was beyond me, for I have no skill in these matters, as had Olaf. And he said nought for a little while, but seemed to ponder over it.
"Now I know," said he at last. "What we have seen is the outcome of the going of the hosts to England. There shall be a Danish kingdom built upon sand. Cnut shall reign, but his throne shall fall. The wave of English love for England's kings of her own race cannot be stayed."
Then I was downcast, for hope that the Danes would be driven from the land had filled all my mind, and I said: "Surely the vision may mean that we shall sweep away the Danish rule as the waves sapped the throne and swept over its place."
"Aye, may it be so," answered Olaf. "Often one may read these visions best even as their bodings come to pass. Let us go back. This is a lonesome place, and strange fancies weigh down a man's mind when all he may hear is the wind singing to the surges. Maybe these are but dreams. What matters it if Cnut reigns over the old Danelagh as Guthrum reigned, if Ethelred is overlord? It will be again as in Alfred's days, and once more an English king over the English folk, when Cnut is gone."
So he turned, and led the way back towards the town, and when we saw the lights close at hand, he bade me say nought of this to any man.
"We have seen strange things, cousin," he said, taking my arm, "and they will be better untold. You and I may see their meaning hereafter, and maybe shall have a share in their working out. Now let us sleep, and dream only of seeing England again tomorrow."
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{
"id": "16196"
}
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3
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: The Breaking Of London Bridge.
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There was a fair wind for us into the Thames mouth, and all seemed to be going well. But when we came off the Medway it seemed that there was to be fighting, for our way was blocked by a fleet and that stronger than ours.
Now as the longships were cleared for the weapon play, Olaf wondered how the Danes should have had word of our coming, for it was plain that this fleet of ten ships was waiting for us. Yet we had kept well away from the forelands, lest we should make it too plain where we were going.
Then one ship left the rest and came swiftly towards us, under oars. And when the ship drew near, we saw that she bore the banner of Ethelred himself.
So the fair plans that had been made had come to naught, and when Olaf understood this his face grew dark with anger, and he said: "Almost would I leave this foolish king to go his own way without help of mine. But I have promised Eadmund, and I must keep my word. Henceforward I shall know what I must look for."
Little, therefore, had Olaf to say to Ethelred when they met, nor would he go on board the English ship, but Ethelred must come to him. Eadmund was at his father's side, and his face was very wrathful, for he felt even as did Olaf.
"London is ours already," Ethelred said. "Wherefore I would join you."
"London by this time may be in other hands," answered Olaf; "but we shall see when we get there. Now must there be no more time lost but we must make all speed up the river, tarrying nowhere."
So we sailed on. When we came to Greenwich there were no Danes there, nor any Danish ships. I went ashore in a boat, and asked the men I saw what was become of them. And they told me that Thorkel's fleet had sailed northward on Swein's death, and that the thingmen whom he had left in the place had gone to London.
"That is as I thought," said Olaf. "Now there will be more trouble in driving them out than there has been in letting them in."
When we came at last in sight of London Bridge I knew that Olaf was right, for since the Danes had gained the city they had not been idle. They had built a great fort on the Southwark side of the river, girt with a wide moat, and all the stronger that the walls thus surrounded were partly of timber and stone. The road from across London Bridge runs through this fort, so that one might by no means pass over it until the place was won. And at the other end of the bridge the old Roman walls of London itself were far too strong for our force to take by storm.
But the strangest thing to me was to see what they had done to the great timber bridge itself, for they had made that also into a fortress. The old railing along the roadway was gone, and in its place were breast-high bulwarks of strong timber, and on each span of the bridge was a high wooden tower whose upper works overhung the water, looking downstream, as if they feared assault from the river itself.
We came up to the Pool on a good flood-tide, and as we dropped anchor there we saw all this, and, moreover, that the place was held by the Danes in force. The red cloaks of Cnut's thingmen were on bridge and walls and fort alike, and no few of them in either stronghold. There was work before us if we would win the place for our king.
Before any word had come to Olaf of what should be done, Eadmund had gone ashore with all his warriors, and had fallen on the Southwark earthwork. It was Olaf's first thought to follow him, but he held back.
"Let him go," he said. "Maybe he will like best to win his own city without my help at the first onset. Yet unless that fort is weaker than it looks, his attack will be of no use. For, see--all the Danes from the bridge are going to help."
So it was, and from the deck of Olaf's ship I looked on at the fight for half an hour. At one time I thought that we had won the place, for our men charged valiantly through the moat and up the steep sides of the earthworks.
There waited for them the Danish axes, and an axeman behind a wall is equal to two men below him.
I longed to be beside Eadmund, whom I could see now and then, and ever where the fighting was fiercest; but Olaf bade me be patient. There would be fighting enough for me presently, he said.
"You will see that we shall have to take the bridge, and so cut the Danish force in two. Then from the bridge we have but to fight our way either into the fort or into the town."
Presently our men gave back. The earthworks were too strong for them. Then I asked again that I might go.
"If you must fall, it shall be at my side, cousin," said Olaf, laying his hand on my arm. "Eadmund does not need you."
For now he and his men were coming back to the ships, having won nought but knowledge of the strength of the fort. The Danes would not leave their walls to follow the retreating English, though Eadmund halted just beyond bow shot, and waited as if to challenge them to fight in the open.
Now by this time the tide was almost full, and the stream of the flood was slackening. And it seemed as if one might easily scale the bulwarks of the great low-timbered bridge from the foredeck of a ship. Ethelred saw that, and as soon as his men were on board again the word was passed that attack on the bridge should be made by every vessel that could reach it.
As it fell out, we of Olaf's eight ships lay below the rest, and must have passed them to reach the bridge. All we might do, therefore, was to close up to the sterns of the vessels that were leading, and wait to send our men across their decks when the time came. That pleased not Olaf at first, for he thought that his turn had come; but in the end it was well for us.
Now the ships slipped their cables, and drifted up to the bridge steadily, with a few oars going aft to guide them, and as they came the Danes crowded above them, manning their towers and lining the whole long length with savage faces and gleaming weapons. They howled at us as we drew near, and as the bows of the leading ships almost touched the piles, they hove grappling irons into them from above, holding them fast. Whereat Eadmund thanked them for saving trouble, while the arrows fell round him like hail.
But in a moment that word of his was changed, for now fell from towers and bulwarks a fearsome rain of heavy darts and javelins, and the men fell back from the crowded fore decks to seek safety aft until the store of weapons was spent. Truly, there must have been sheaves of throwing weapons piled ready on the roadway of the bridge.
Then Eadmund's voice cried: "Steady, men--this cannot last!"
And even as they heard him the warriors swarmed back across the corpse-cumbered decks, and began to climb up the piles, for the tide held the ships strongly against the bridge. Yet when the ships were there the height of the bridge above them was far greater than it had seemed from a distance. Now their fore decks were under the towers, for the upper works of these overhung the water.
Then the Danish war horns blew, and the men raised a great shout, and down from those towers and from openings in the bridge rained and thundered great ragged blocks of stone--masses rent from the old Roman city walls--and into the ships they crashed, and there rose a terrible cry from our men, for no ship that was ever built could stand so fierce a storm as this.
Two good ships swayed and sank, and their men climbed on bridge and piling, or leapt into the stream to reach the ships that yet were afloat. Then the storm stayed for lack of rocks within reach, as it would seem, for I saw men hoisting more into the towers as fast as crane and windlass would serve them.
Now fell the javelins again, and still the grappling irons held the ships, though the oars were manned. Then dared a man in each ship to do the bravest deed of that day. Through rain of falling javelins each ran forward, axe in hand, and cut the grappling lines as our Norsemen cheered them in wild praise. Yet I know that not one of those men lived to see that his deed had saved the ships, for our oars were out and swiftly we towed them away to safety.
Aye, but I saw one tall Dane on the bridge strive to hold the hands of his fellows that he might save at least the brave man in the ship below him. And that should be told of him, for such a deed is that of a true warrior.
All this I watched in dismay, for it seemed to me that we could in no way take the town. As for Olaf, he said nought; and when we had come to anchor again he sat on the steersman's bench, looking at the bridge and saying no word to any of us. The Danes were crowding the bridge and jeering at us, as one might well see.
Then Rani came aft and sat on the rail by me.
"Well," he said, "how like you this business?"
"Ill enough," I answered. "What can be done?"
He nodded towards Olaf, smiling grimly.
"I know of nothing; but if your king lets him go his own way he will find out some plan. Know you what he did when the Swedes blocked us into a lake some years ago?"
"I have not heard," I said.
"Why, seeing that we might not go out by the way in which we came, Olaf made us dig a new channel, and we went out by that, laughing. We all had to dig for our lives, grumbling, but we got away."
Now Olaf looked up and saw us, and his face was bright again.
"I am going to see Ethelred," he said, "for I think that I can take the bridge."
A boat shot alongside even as he spoke, and a thane came to bid Olaf to a council of the leaders on Ethelred's ship. So Olaf went with him, and was long away. The tide was almost low, and darkness had fallen before he came back in high spirits.
"Ethelred was sorely downcast, even to weeping," he told us, "and so had almost given up hope of taking London. He thought of sailing away and landing elsewhere. Then I said that I would take the bridge tomorrow if I had help in what I needed tonight."
Then he looked round on us, and what he saw in our faces made him laugh a little.
"It seems to me that you are over fearful of stone throwing after the Danish sort," he said. "Had I not a plan that will save our heads and the ship's timbers alike, I would not go. I am not the man to risk both for nought. We will build roofs over the fore decks and try again."
Then Rani growled: "How are we to climb out from under your roofs so as to get upon the bridge? We have already seen that ladders are needed for that also."
"Nay," said Olaf, "we will bring the bridge down to us," and so he went forward laughing to find his shipwrights.
So all that night long we wrought as he bade us, and Ethelred's men came with spars and timber from houses they pulled down ashore, and when morning broke we had on each ship the framework of a strong, high-pitched roof that covered the vessels from stem to midships or more, and stretched out beyond the gunwales on either board.
Then the men who wrought ashore brought us boatloads of strong hurdles and the sides and roofs of the wattled huts of the Southwark thralls, and with them all our wooden shelters were covered so strongly that, if they might not altogether stand the weight of the greatest stones, these roofs would break their fall and save the ships.
When all this was finished, King Olaf told us what his plan was. We were not to try to storm the bridge, but were to break it.
"See," he said, "all night long the wagons that brought more stones have been rumbling and rattling into the middle of the bridge, and every Dane thereon will crowd into the centre to see the breaking of King Olaf's ships, and their weight will help us. We will go so far under the bridge that we may make fast our cables to the piles, and then will row hard down the falling tide at its swiftest. Whereupon the laugh will be on our side instead of with the Danes, as yesterday."
After that he bade us all sleep, for we had some long hours to wait for the falling tide when all was done. And we did so, after a good meal, as well as we could, while the wains yet brought stones, and arrows and darts in sheaves to the bridge. But forward in our ships the men were coiling the great cables that should, we hoped, bring the bridge and stones alike down harmlessly to us.
It was plain that the Danes knew what the roofs over the ships were for, since all the while that we wrought we could see them pointing and laughing one to another in scorn, from where we lay, not much beyond arrow shot below them. But not one of all the men on the bridge could have guessed what our real plan might be. Only we who looked at the ancient bridge from the water, and marked how frail and decaying some of the piles that upheld its narrow spans were, knew how likely it was that Olaf's plan would succeed. The wide roadway seemed to them to be strong enough for the wooden towers and the many tons of stones they had burdened it with; but now that Olaf had showed us, we saw that it was none so safe, so we waited in good spirits.
The tide reached its height and as the ships swung idly to their cables on the slack, the Danes thronged the bridge, thinking, doubtless, that we should attack when they were within reach, as yesterday.
The hum of their voices came down to us, and as the time went by, and the ebb tide set in, the hum strengthened into a long roar of voices, that broke out into a yelling laugh now and then, as some word of scorn went round. For they thought our Norsemen were afraid.
But they could not see beneath the penthouse roofs, where the men, three at each oar, were armed and ready. Nor could they see the gangs of twelve men told off to the cables on each foredeck. Six of these were to pass the cables round the piles and make fast while the other six were to stand by with shields ready, in case the roofs were broken. But even then it should not take long to do all we needed, and some of the roof would be left surely at the worst.
Four only of the ships were to touch the bridge, one at each of the four midmost pilings. The other four were made fast, stern to stern of the leading ships, so that their weight of oar play might be used to the full in the long pull to come, and two ships would haul at each set of piles where the weight was heaviest upon the bridge.
So we waited until the tide was at its fiercest ebb. The water rushed through the narrow waterways of the bridge in a broken torrent streaked with foam that swirled far down the stream towards us; so the time having come, Olaf gave the word. His own ship was one of the two in the middle, and Rani was in command of the other.
Then in a moment the oars flashed out, and the moorings were slipped; a shout went up from the bridge, and then the Danes were silent, wondering. The foam flew from our bows, and as we dashed up the stream the Danish war cry broke out again, while from end to end of the bridge the weapons flashed and sparkled.
Now the arrows rattled on the penthouse roofs, and one or two glanced from Olaf's armour and mine, and from the shields which Ottar and I held before him. For we were alone with him at the helm. He was steering his ship himself, as was Rani, and hardly would he suffer us to be beside him to shield him. But we would have it thus in the end.
At last we were almost on the bridge, and Olaf smiled and watched the ships to right and left of us--the oar blades were bending as the men struggled with clenched teeth against the fierce current that flew past us foaming.
Then the Danish grapnels were cast, as yesterday. The shadow of the bridge fell black upon us--the line of Danish faces were above our bows--and then down crashed the great stones from above, and I saw Olaf's lips tighten and set as he saw their work. Yet though the good ship quivered and reeled under the shock, the penthouse roofs were strong and steep, and but one great stone tore a hole for itself, crushing two men beneath it; but the rest bounded into the water, splintering an oar blade or two as they went. And all the while the arrows rained round us, and the javelins strove to pierce the roofs.
Then was a shout from forward of the ship, and Olaf's eyes brightened as he raised his hand. Instantly the rowers stayed, and the ships drifted away from the bridge more swiftly than they had come, while the Danish grappling irons ripped and tore along the roofs uselessly. There was no firm hold for them.
That made the Danes think that we were driven off, and their yells began afresh.
Then came a quick word from Olaf, and the oars took the water to ease the sharp check as the length of the cables was reached, while the ship astern of us swung to her tow line. The king glanced to right and left of him, and saw that the other three ships had fared as well as we, and that they too were dropping down from the bridge.
How the Danes roared and howled with joy, thinking that we were all in full retreat! Yet, as the last ship tightened her cable, I saw the jerk shake one of them from his perch on the bridge bulwarks and send him headlong into the water.
Olaf saw it, and raised his hand and shouted. And with one accord the oars of the eight great ships smote the water, and bent, and tore the waves into foam--and London Bridge was broken!
The memory of that sight will never pass from my mind or from the mind of any man of us who saw all that the lifted hand and shout of Olaf the king brought about.
There was a slow groaning of timbers and a cracking, and then a dead silence. Then the silence was broken by a wild yell of terror from the swarming Danes, and ere they could fly from the crowded towers and roadway where the bridge was steepest, the whole length of three spans bent and swayed towards us, and a wide gap sprang open across the roadway. Into that gap crumbled a great stone-laden tower, and men like bees from a shaken swarm. And then those three spans seemed to melt away with a great rush and roar, and howl of men in mortal terror--and down the freed tide swept our ships, dragging after them the timbers that the cables yet held.
Then into the Southwark fortress went Eadmund and his men like fire, while from the London side of the river came the roar of a fight, as the citizens fell on the Danes who were fleeing terror smitten from the weakened spans that were left of London Bridge.
Then Olaf swung our ships to either bank, and past us went in confusion, on the rush of pent-up water, the great timbers and piles of the bridge, as it broke up piece by piece in the current. The men on Ethelred's ships had all they could do to save their vessels from being stove in by the heavier woodwork when it was swept down among them.
That danger passed; and now was our turn come to join in the fighting, for there were none to prevent us from getting the ships up to the bridge. And so we scaled from our decks the bulwarks that had been so terrible, and fell on the Danes in the rear as Eadmund in Southwark and the citizens in London took them in the front. It must have been that few Danes were left on either bank, for the fighting lasted no long time, and when we had done with these men from off the bridge there was no other attack.
So, before the evening came we knew that London was once more in the hands of Ethelred, and the bells were ringing to welcome back an English king to English land. For Olaf had brought him home.
There was high feasting in London town that night, and Ethelred deemed that England was already won. Nor was there any honour too great for him to show to the man who had wrought this for him.
But what Olaf said was this: "To win London is much--though, indeed, it should never have been thus lost--but London is not England. There will be more fighting yet, if Cnut is a worthy son of Swein Forkbeard."
Now, in after years men made light of this breaking of London Bridge, and the reason is not far to seek. For, first of all, Cnut's folk, when they had the upper hand, liked not to hear thereof. And then the citizens would speak little among themselves of their thraldom to the Danes, and much of their welcome to Ethelred and their own share in the business when the bridge had been broken. And lastly, it was wrought by an outlander. Truly no Englishman, whether of Saxon or Danish kin, grudges praise to a stranger when he has won it well, but Olaf had few to speak for him after he had gone hence. But I have told what I saw, and think that it should not be forgotten, for it was a great deed. Men sing the song that Ottar the scald wrote thereon in Olaf's Norway, and I think that they will sing it for many an age to come.
We have forgotten that song; but the first time he sang it was at the great feast in the wide hall of the London merchants' guild that night, and sorely did the few Danish lords, who sat as captives among us unwillingly enough, scowl as they listened. But our folk held their breath lest they should lose aught of either voice or words of the singer, for they had never heard his like before, and this is part of what he sang {5}: "Bold in the battle Bravest in sword play! Thou wert the breaker Of London's broad bridge. Wild waxed the warfare When thou gold wonnest Where the shields splintered 'Neath the stones' crashing-- When the war byrnies broke Beaten beneath them.
"Thine was the strong arm That Ethelred sought for; Back to his lost land Thou the king leddest. Then was the war storm Waged when thou earnest Safe to his high seat Leading that king's son, Throned by thy help On the throne of his fathers."
He ended, and our warriors rose and cheered both hero and singer, and when the noise ceased Ethelred gave Ottar his own bracelet; but to Olaf he gave his hand, and there in the presence of all the company thanked him for what he had wrought, giving more praise to him than Ottar had sung.
Then sang the English gleemen of the deeds of Eadmund the Atheling, and all were well pleased. Now those songs have bided in our minds while Ottar's song is forgotten, and maybe that is but natural. But Olaf was my kinsman and very dear to me, and I am jealous for his fame.
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{
"id": "16196"
}
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4
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: Earl Wulfnoth Of Sussex.
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Cnut the new Danish king was at Gainsborough with all the force that had followed Swein his father, and he had made a pact with the Lindsey folk, who were Danes of the old settlement, and of landings long before the time of Ingvar, that they should fight for him and find provision and horses for his host.
So it seemed most likely that the next thing would be that he would march on us, and Ethelred gathered all the forces to him here in London that he could, against his coming. At once the English thanes came in, and even Sigeferth and Morcar, the powerful lords of the old Danish seven boroughs in Mercia, brought their men to his help, and that was almost more than could have been hoped. Then too came Edric Streone, the great Earl of Mercia, Eadmund's uncle by marriage and his foster father, praying for and gaining full forgiveness for having seemed to side with Swein, as he said. With these was Ulfkytel, our East Anglian earl, and many more, while word came from Utred of Northumbria that he would not hold back.
So it was not long before Ethelred and Eadmund rode away north towards Gainsborough at the head of as good a force as they had ever led, in order to be beforehand with the Danes, who as yet had made no move. It seemed as though they feared this new rising of all England against them, although all Swein's men who had been victors before were there with their new king.
But Olaf, who knew more of Denmark and what might happen there than we, said that Cnut waited for news from thence. It might be that some trouble would arise at home, for seldom did a king come to his throne there without fighting against upstarts who would take it.
"So he holds his force in readiness in the Humber to fall on either Denmark or England. If things go ill at home, he will go over sea first, and return here. But if all is well, we shall have fighting enough presently."
Now when the court of Ethelred had gathered again, it was not long before he grew more cold in his way with Olaf, and one might easily see that this grew more so with the coming of Edric Streone. So that when the march to Lindsey was spoken of, Olaf thought well to stay in the Thames with the ships, and when Eadmund asked him to come north with the levies he said: "It seems to me that there are jealousies already among your thanes concerning me, and I will not be the cause of any divisions among your folk. Yet I would help you, and here is what I can do. I will see that no landing is made on these southern shores while you are northward, for if you beat Cnut he will take ship and come to Essex or Kent; or maybe even into the Thames again. Give me authority to command here until you return, and I think I can be of more use than if I went with you."
So that was what was done in the end, and Olaf was named as captain of the ships and of any southern host that he might be able to raise, and Olaf asked that I might stay with him.
That our atheling granted gladly, telling me that it was for no lack of wish on his part to have me at his side, as ever of late, but that I should take a better place with the king my kinsman than among the crowd of thanes who were round Ethelred. Then he took his own sword from his side and gave it me.
"Farewell therefore for a while, Redwald, my comrade," he said when he went away. "You have helped me to tide over many heavy hours that would have pressed sorely on me but for your cheerfulness. When peace comes you shall have your Anglian home again, with more added to its manors for the sake of past days and good service."
That was much for the atheling to say, and heartily did I thank him. Yet I had grown to love Olaf my kinsman better than any other man, and I was glad to be with him, away from the court jealousies and strivings for place. There was little of that in Olaf's fleet, where all were old comrades, and had each long ago found the place that he could best fill.
So the levies marched on Gainsborough, and Olaf bided in the Thames and gathered ships and men till we had a fair fleet and a good force. Then came the news that Cnut and all his host had taken ship and fled from England without waiting to strike a blow at Ethelred, and our folk thought that this was victory for us. But Olaf rode down to the ships in haste, and took them down to Erith, while his land levies followed on the Kentish shore. For he thought it likely that Cnut did but leave Ethelred and his armies in Lindsey while he would land here unopposed.
Then came a fisher's boat with word that Cnut's great fleet was putting into Sandwich, but before we had planned to throw our force between him and London came the strange news that again he had left Kent and had sailed northwards.
We sailed then to Sandwich to learn what we might, sending two swift ships to watch if Cnut put into the Essex creeks. But at Sandwich we found the thanes whom Swein had held as hostages left, cruelly maimed in hand and face, with the message from Cnut that he would return.
"He may return," said Olaf, "but if all goes well he will find England ready for him. There is some trouble in Denmark or he would not leave us thus."
So now all that seemed to be on hand was to bring back the towns that were yet held by the Danish garrisons, the thingmen, to their rightful king, and to gather a fleet that would watch the coast against the return of Cnut. These things seemed not so hard, and our land would surely soon be secure.
Then began to creep into my mind a longing to be back in my own place again at Bures, to see the river and woods that I loved, and to take up the old quiet life that was half forgotten, but none the less sweet to remember after all this war and wearing trouble. But of all England, after Lindsey, East Anglia was the greatest Danish stronghold for those old reasons that I have spoken of, and it was likely that there would be more fighting there before Ethelred was owned than anywhere else. So I could not go back yet, but must wait for Earl Ulfkytel and his levies, who would surely make short work of the Danes there when their turn came. After that my lands would be my own again, and then--What wonder, after three years and more of warfare and the hard life of a warrior who had no home but in a court which was a camp--after exile in a strange land--with my new-found kinship with Olaf the viking--that what should be then had gone from my mind? Will any blame the warrior who did but remember his playfellow as part of a long-ago dream of lost peace, if he had forgotten what tie bound him to her? When I and little Hertha were betrothed it had been nought to us but a pleasant show wherein we had taken foremost parts--and across the gap of years of trouble so it seemed to me still whenever I recalled it. I remembered my confirmation at the good bishop's hands more plainly than that, for well I knew what I took on me at that time.
But the knowledge of what our betrothal meant would have grown up in our hearts had peace lasted. There had been none to mind me of it, or of her, and warfare fills up the whole mind of a man. I was brought up amid the scenes of camp and march and battle just at that time when a boy's mind is ready to be filled with aught, and, as he learns, the past slips away, for his real life has begun.
And these were strange days through which I had been. We grew old quickly amid all the cruel trouble of the hopeless fighting. As David, the holy king, grew from boy to man suddenly in his days, which seem so like ours when one hears them read of in Holy Writ, so it had been with Olaf--with Eadmund and Eadward his brother--so it would be with Cnut, and so it was with myself. I have often spoken with men who were rightly held as veteran warriors, and who yet had seen less warfare in ten years than we saw in those three. It was endless--unceasing--I would have none go through the like. I know not now how we bore it.
So I had forgotten Hertha, whether there is blame to me or not. But now, as I say, with the sudden slackening of warfare came to me the longing for rest. I would fain find my home again and my playmate, and all else that belonged to the past. But before I could do so there was work to be done, and I was content to look forward and wait.
Now I might make a long story of the doings of Olaf the king during this summer. Ottar the scald has much to sing of what we wrought. For we went through the fair land of Kent with our Norsemen and the new levies, and brought back all the folk to Ethelred. It was no hard task, for the poor people thought that Cnut had deceived them by his flight; and they were ground down by the heavy payments the Danes had levied on them. Only at Canterbury, inside whose walls the Danish thingmen gathered in desperation, had we any trouble, and we must needs lay siege to the place. But in the end Olaf and I knelt in the ancient church of St. Martin and gave thanks for victory. We had avenged the death of the martyred archbishop, Elfheah.
Ethelred ravaged all Lindsey after Cnut was gone. It was a foolish and cruel deed, and he left men there who hated his name more than even the name of Swein, to whom they had bowed since they must. Then he sat down at Oxford as if all were done, while to have marched peacefully, but with a high hand, through the old Danelagh would have made the land sure to him. Olaf did so in Kent, and when we left it, we left a loyal people who would rise against Cnut for Ethelred if the Danes should indeed return. And Lindsey would as surely rise for Cnut against us.
But Olaf, though he blamed our king for this, in all singleness of purpose went on with the task that he had undertaken. And now the next thing was to gather a fleet.
"If we could win Wulfnoth of Sussex to help his king, we have a fleet ready made," he said. "Let us sail to his place and speak with him."
That was true, and the ships that Wulfnoth had were the king's by right. They were the last of the fleet that England had had but five years ago--and her mightiest.
Now it happened that I was to see much of this Earl Wulfnoth before we had done with him, so I will say at once how he came to have the king's ships, and how it was that we must ask his help for Ethelred--or rather why he had not given it freely.
It was the fault of Brihtric, Edric Streone's brother, who had some private grudge against him, and would ruin him if possible. So he accused Wulfnoth of treachery to Ethelred, and that being the thing that the king always dreaded from day to day--seeing maybe that he was not free from blame in that matter himself--so prevailed that the earl was outlawed. Whereon he fled to the fleet, and sailed away with all the ships that would follow him.
Then Brihtric chased him with the rest, and met with storm and shipwreck on the rugged southern coasts. And through the storm fell on him Wulfnoth, and beat him and scattered or took the ships the storm had spared. Brihtric left the rest to their own devices, and the shipmen brought them back into the Thames. There the Danes took them presently, and that was the end of England's fleet.
But Wulfnoth turned viking; and would have nought to do with Ethelred after that. His Sussex earldom was beyond reach of attack through the great Andred's-weald forests that keep its northern borders, and he could keep the sea line. So Ethelred left him alone, and Swein would not disturb him. But his help was worth winning, and Olaf thought that he might do it.
So we sailed to Lymne, and then to Winchelsea, and there we heard that the earl and some of his ships were at his great stronghold of Pevensea, which lay not far westward along the coast. And we came there in the second week of September, when the time was near that the ships should be laid up in their winter quarters.
As we came off the mouth of the shallow tidal haven that runs behind the great castle, whose old Roman walls seem strong as ever, a boat from the shore came off very boldly to speak with us. But we could see the sparkle of arms as some ships were manned in all haste lest we were no friendly comers.
The leader of the boat's crew was a handsome boy of about fifteen, well armed and fearless, and he stepped on board Olaf's ship without mistrust when the king hailed him.
"Who are you, and what would you on these shores?" he asked before we had spoken.
Olaf laughed pleasantly in his quiet way, and answered: "I must know who asks me before I say aught."
"Maybe that is fair," said the boy. "I am Godwine, son of Wulfnoth the earl."
"Then you have right to ask," answered our king. "I am Olaf Haraldsson. I am a viking, and come in peace to see and speak with your father."
The boy stared at the king in wonder for a moment.
"Are you truly Olaf the Thick, who broke London Bridge?" he asked.
"Well, I had some hand in it," answered Olaf laughing, "for I told the men when to pull, and when they pulled, the bridge came down. They did it and I looked on."
Then young Godwine laughed also, and bade the king welcome most heartily, adding: "You must tell me all about the bridge breaking presently."
"Nay; but Redwald my cousin, or Ottar my scald here will tell you more than I may."
"Redwald is an Anglian name," said Godwine, taking my hand. "Are you English therefore?"
"Aye, young sir, from East Anglian Bures, in Suffolk," I answered.
"Are you Edric Streone's man then?" he said, dropping my hand suddenly and half stepping back.
"I am not," I said pretty stoutly, for I was angry with Streone's way with Olaf--and with other ways of his. "Ulfkytel is our earl."
"Aye, I have heard of him as an honest man," Godwine said.
"Come ashore, King Olaf, and you other thanes, and there will be good cheer for you."
"Can you steer us into the haven, young sir?" asked Rani, who stood by smiling to himself. "We must have the ships inside the island while the tide serves."
"Aye, that I can," said the boy eagerly; "I take my own ship in and out without troubling any other to help."
And with that he took hold of Rani's arm and showed him mark after mark, giving him depth of water and the like, while we listened and watched his face.
Presently Olaf said: "Take command of my ship, Godwine, and lead the rest."
"You will take the risk, lord king," he answered laughing.
"Aye, and will hold you blameless if she takes the ground before she is beached."
Now there was no doubt that Godwine was used to command, and was confident in himself, for he made no more ado, but took charge, and bade Rani signal the rest to follow, while he went to the helm himself.
Then said Olaf to me while the boy was intent on his work: "Here is one who will be a great man in England some day, and I think before long."
And I had thought the same; for Earl Wulfnoth's son would rank high for the sake of his birth, and it seemed that he was fitted to take the great place that might be his.
So Godwine beached the ships well, in the lee of the island on which the great castle stands when the tide is high, and we went ashore. The castle gates were well guarded in our honour, for Godwine had sent the boat back with word who we were.
There greeted us Earl Wulfnoth himself in the courtyard of his great house. One went inside the castle walls to find almost a village of buildings, all of timber, that had grown up round the hall that stood in the midst, and that had its courtyard and stockading, as had our own house on the open hill at Bures. I think there was no stronger place than this castle of Pevensea in all Sussex, if anywhere on the southern coasts.
Now it were long to say how Wulfnoth the earl welcomed King Olaf, but it was after a kingly sort, for he was king in all but name in his earldom, shut off as it is from the rest of England by the deep forests. But he feasted us for two days before he would speak a word with Olaf as to what he had come to ask him, saying that it was enough for him to see the bridge breaker and the taker of Canterbury town, and to do him honour. For Olaf's fame had gone widely through all England.
Now Godwine would ever talk with me, for I could tell him of Olaf, and also of the long war, and of the Norman court, so that we became great friends. But he had no liking for Ethelred, which was not wonderful, seeing that Wulfnoth his father had not a good word to say for him.
At last, when Olaf told him plainly of the needs of England and of her king, and of what he feared of the return of Cnut, Earl Wulfnoth answered: "Had you come to ask me to go a-viking with yourself, gladly would I have joined with or followed you. Godwine my son has yet some things to learn which a Norseman could teach him, and it would have been well. But Ethelred holds me as a traitor; and while Edric Streone is at his side I will not have aught to do with him. I will drive any Dane out of my land, and that is all. Neither Ethelred nor Cnut is aught to me. I and my son are earls of Sussex."
Then he rose up from his high seat and strode out of the hall, bidding us follow him. He led us to the eastern gate, and climbed to the broad top of the ramparts.
"See yonder," he said, and pointed eastward across the river and marsh. "There is the hill where our standard has been raised time after time since OElla and Cissa drove in flight the Welsh who had raised theirs in the same place before us. There will I raise it again against Cnut or Streone or any other of his men."
"Edric Streone is with King Ethelred," said Olaf; "he is not Cnut's man."
"He has been Swein's man; and if it suits him will be Cnut's. I will not alter my saying of him."
"Ethelred believes in him," answered Olaf, "and Eadmund the Atheling believes in him as in himself."
"So much the worse for them," said the earl; "you will see if I am not right. I know Edric Streone over well, and he knows it, and hates me."
"Come, therefore, and take Ethelred out of his hands," Olaf said.
"Not I. Let him inlaw me again first. I will not go and ask pardon for what I have not done."
And after that the earl would say no more on the matter, waxing wroth if Olaf would try to persuade him. So it seemed that our journey was lost; and Olaf began to be anxious to return to the Thames, where our ships should go into winter quarters. But the wind held in the east, and kept us for a while.
Wulfnoth was not sorry for this, for it was full harvest time, and he sent his housecarles out to his other manors to gather it, so that he had few folk about him. Godwine went with them to a place on the downs called Chancton, where was a great house of the earl. We parted unwillingly; but we might sail at any time if the wind shifted, and the earl would have him go.
"When you have done with fighting for Ethelred the Unredy," said the boy to me, "bring Olaf back here, and you and I, friend Redwald, will go a-viking with him. He says he wants to go to Jerusalem Land some day--and that would be a good cruise."
Now the day after the housecarles left Pevensea, there befell a matter which would have brought them back hastily had we not been in the haven. There was always a beacon fire ready to recall them, and they watched for it even as they wrought in the upland fields, or if they were among the woods. Turn by turn one would climb to a place whence it could be seen, for one may never know what need shall be on our English shores, and I was to learn that need for arms might be in a forest-girt land also, from foes at home.
Olaf and I were in the ships. The wind was unsteady, and it seemed that a shift was coming with that night's new moon, and we were preparing for sailing. And from our decks we saw a little train of people crossing the difficult path from the mainland to the island that folk can only use when the tide is low, and then only if they know it well or have a guide to lead them. They say that once the path was always under water, but that the land grows slowly, and that at some time the island will be joined to the low hills that are nearest to it on the northwest.
We went back almost as these folk came into the castle garth by the western gate, and met them in the courtyard. Then it was plain that there was trouble on hand, for the leader of the party was a thane whom I knew by sight, as he had been called to our feasting when first we came, and he had brought with him two ladies, who came in no sort of state; and, moreover, there were one or two wounded men among the twenty rough housecarles who followed them, and bore such burdens of household stuff as had been taken by us when we fled from Bures.
I had seen the like too often to mistake these signs, and I said to Olaf: "Here is fighting on hand, my king."
And then before he answered, came Wulfnoth out of the great door and hurried up to the party, doffing his velvet cap as he saw the ladies.
"Ho, friend Relf," he said, "what is amiss?"
"Outlaws, earl," said the thane, "and in strong force."
"This is the pest of my life," answered the earl angrily, "for no sooner are our men gone harvesting than these forest knaves begin to give trouble.
"When were you last burnt out, Relf of Penhurst?" and he laughed in an angry way that had no mirth in it.
"Four years agone--after our trouble with Brihtric," answered the thane. "They have not been so bold since then; and the small fights I have had with them have not been so fierce that I must fetch you from Bosham to my help."
"Evil times make them bold," said the earl. "How many are there in this band?"
"Enough to sack the Penhurst miners' village," the thane said. "Men say that there are Danes among them; and I know that there are men who are well armed beyond the wont of outlaws and forest dwellers."
Then Wulfnoth called to us: "See here, King Olaf, this is your fault; you have driven the Danes out of Kent into our forests, and now we have trouble enough on our hands."
"Then, Earl Wulfnoth," answered Olaf, "my men and I will fight them here again."
But when we drew near I was fain to look on one of the two ladies who still sat on their horses waiting for the earl's pleasure. One was Relf the thane's wife, and the other his daughter; and it was in my mind that I had never seen so beautiful a maiden as this was. It seemed to me that I could willingly give my life in battle against those who had harmed her home, if she might know that I did so.
But the thane was telling Olaf that there must be some three hundred of the outlaws and others.
"I had forty-two men yesterday, and I have but twenty with me now," said he.
"Then you fought?" asked Wulfnoth.
"Aye," answered the thane shortly, for it was plain enough that he had done so.
"Have they burnt your house?"
"Not when I left. They are mostly strangers to the land, and they bide where there is ale and plunder, in the old Penhurst village at the valley's head."
"Then," said Olaf, "let us march at once and save the thane's hall."
"That is well said," answered the earl, rubbing his hands with glee. "We will make a full end; there will be no more trouble for many a year to come."
Then he bethought him of the two ladies, and he called his steward and bade him take them in. At which, when they would dismount, I went to help the maiden, and was pleased that she thanked me for the little trouble, looking at me shyly. I think that I had not heard a more pleasant voice than hers, or so it seemed to me at the time. She went into the house with her mother, and I was left with a remembrance of her words that bided with me; and I called myself foolish for thinking twice of the meeting.
Then the earl and Olaf and Relf began to speak of the best way in which to deal with these plunderers; and as I looked at the stout fair-haired thane it seemed to me that things must have been bad if he had had to fly.
It would seem that his place was some ten miles from Pevensea, lying at the head of a forest valley, down which was a string of the old hammer ponds that the Romans made when they worked the iron. And the village, or town as he called it, was in the next valley, at the head of the little river Ashbourne, whose waters joined the river which makes the haven of Pevensea. The town was very old, and had a few earthworks round it, though the place whereon it stood was strong by nature. The iron workers in the old Roman days had first built there, and they knew how to choose their ground. Thence, too, the Romans would float their boatloads of iron down to the port of Anderida, as they called Pevensea; and there were yet old stone buildings that had been raised by them.
So if these outlaws chose to hold the place, it was likely that we should have some fighting, though this would not be quite after the manner of forest dwellers, unless it were true that Danes were among them.
"Whether there is any fight in them or not," said Wulfnoth, "I will have the place surrounded, and let not one get away."
"That is early morning work," Olaf answered. "How many of my men will you have?"
"It depends on what manner of men they are," said the earl. "All I know of them yet is that they are good trenchermen."
That pleased not Olaf altogether, for there seemed to be a little slight in the words--as though he had come to the earl to be fed only. And he made a sign to me that I knew well; and I thought to myself that Wulfnoth of Sussex was likely to wish that he had seen our warriors in their war gear before.
Olaf paid no heed to me as I went quickly down to the ships. The men were lying about and watching the sky, for it was changing. But at one word from me there was no more listlessness; and Rani called them to quarters. I would that in the English levies there was the order and quickness that was in Olaf's ships. Yet these men had been with him for years, and were not like our hastily-gathered villagers.
So in ten minutes or less they were armed and ready for aught; and Rani and I led them up to the castle, leaving the ship guard set, as if we were making a landing in earnest on an enemy's shore. Eight hundred strong we were, and foremost marched the men of Olaf's ship, each one of whom wore ring mail of the best and a good helm, and carried both sword and axe and round shield.
Wulfnoth stood with his back to the gate as we entered with the leading files. But when he heard the tramp and ring of warriors in their mail, he started and turned round sharply. I saw his face flush red, and I saw Olaf's smile, and Relf's face of wonder. And then the earl broke out--angrily enough--for his castle was, as it were, taken by Olaf.
"What is the meaning of this?"
"You wished to see my men, lord earl," said Olaf. "I sent for them therefore. King Ethelred, for whom they fight just now, was pleased with them."
Then the earl saw that Olaf tried one last plan by which to make him side with the king. Maybe he thought that this chance had been waited for, but it was not so. Therefore he choked down his anger that we should come unbidden into his fortress, and laughed harshly.
"Well for me, King Olaf, that you come in peace, as it seems. One may see that these men are no untried war smiths."
"There is no man in my own crew who has not seen four battles with me," answered Olaf. "Some have seen more. The rest of the men have each seen two fights of mine."
"I would that I had somewhat on hand that was worthy to be counted as another battle of yours, instead of a hunting of these forest wolves," answered Wulfnoth, seeming to grow less angry. "Supposing that you and I were to fight for the crown of England for ourselves--either of us has as much right thereto as Cnut."
"The Danes hold that England has paid scatt {6} to their king as overlord, and that is proof of right for Cnut, as they say," answered Olaf.
"They say!" growled Wulfnoth fiercely. "King and witan and people have been fools enough to buy peace with gold and not with edged steel. But that has been ransom, not tribute. When a warrior is made prisoner and held to ransom, is the man who takes the gold to set him free his master, therefore, ever after? Scatt, forsooth! I have a mind to go and teach the pack of fools whom Streone leads by the nose and calls a witan, that there is one man left in England who is strong enough to make them pay scatt to himself!"
Then Olaf said, very quietly: "Why not put an end to Danegeld once for all by helping me drive out the last Dane from England? We should be strong enough as things are now.
"For Streone and his tools to reap the benefit? Not I," said the earl. "Come, we have forgotten our own business."
Now it seemed to me that Wulfnoth was eager to get our men back to the ships outside of the walls again, for there is no doubt that had Olaf chosen to take the place for Ethelred it was already done. But such thought of treachery to his host could never be in Olaf's mind, and it was the last time that he tried to win the earl over.
So Wulfnoth went quickly down the ranks and noted all things as a chief such as he will. But now and then he waxed moody, and growled in his thick beard, "Scatt, forsooth!"
So presently he asked Olaf to bring two ship's crews--about eight-score men in all--against the outlaws. Fifty of his own housecarles would go, and Relf's twenty. And they were to be ready two hours before dawn, as he meant to surprise the outlaws in the village at the first light.
Then he praised the men, and had ale brought out for them, and so recovered his good temper, and at last he said to Olaf with a great laugh: "Verily you may go away and boast that you are the first man who has brought his armed followers inside Pevensea walls without leave, since the days when OElla and Cissa forced the Welsh to let them in. Now I wot that Ethelred has a friend who must be reckoned with."
"Nay, but you would see the men," said Olaf.
"Aye, and I have seen them," answered the earl grimly.
When we sat down in the hall that night I was next to the maiden Sexberga, Relf's daughter, at the high table. She was very different from the great ladies of the court, who were all that I knew. I tried to assure her that her home would be safe, and I promised her many things in order to see her smile, and to please her.
Yet when I went down to the ships presently, for none of us slept within Wulfnoth's walls, I was glad that there was no light of burning houses over Penhurst woods, as yet.
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{
"id": "16196"
}
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5
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: How Redwald Fared At Penhurst.
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It was very dark when we marched from Pevensea. We followed the earl's men, and save for remembering the muddy torchlit causeway to firm ground from the castle, and after that dim hill and dale passed in turn, and a long causeway and bridge that spanned the mouth of a narrow valley that opened into the great Pevensea level, I knew not much of what country we went through. After passing that causeway we came into forest land, going along a track for awhile, and then turning inland across rolling hills till we began to go down again. And as the first streaks of dawn began to show above the woods, the word was passed for silence, and then that we should lie down and rest in the fern on the edge of a steep slope below which shone the faint gleam of water.
Then came Wulfnoth and spoke to Olaf, and said that he and his men would go beyond the village so as to take the outlaws from the rear. He would send a man to us who would show us all that was needed.
After that we lay and waited, and as the sun rose and the light grew stronger, I thought that I had never seen a more beautiful place.
We were above a little cliff of red rock that went down to the valley of the Ashbourne brook. And all the valley from side to side was full of the morning mists so that it seemed one lake, while the woods were bright with the change of the leaf, from green to red and gold--oak and beech and chestnut and hazel each with its own colour, and all beautiful. The blue downs rose far away to our left across the ridges of the forest land, and inland the Andred's-weald stretched, rising hill above hill as far as one might see, timber covered. There were trees between us and the village that we sought; but above its place rose a dun cloud of smoke from some houses fired that night by those who held it, and that was the one thing that spoiled the beauty of all that I saw.
Now Olaf and I spoke of all this, whispering together, for we were close to the village, and already we had heard voices from thence as men woke. For Olaf was ever touched by the sight of a fair land lying before him. And while he spoke, a man seemed to rise out of a cleft of the rocks below us, and climbed up to us, and bowed before us, saying that he was to guide us.
He was a great man, clad in leather from head to foot, and carrying a sledgehammer over his shoulder. That and a billhook stuck in his belt were his only weapons.
"I am Spray the smith," he said, in a low voice. "The earl is ready, and the thane also. The knaves are all drunken with our ale, and we may fall on them at once."
"Have they no watch kept?" asked Olaf wondering.
"None, master."
"Are there Danes with them?"
"Aye; half are Danes. But I met one of them last night and spoke to him peacefully, being stronger than he, and I said that vikings had come to Pevensea, and that the earl was minding them. So they fear no one."
Then came a herdsman's call from the woods beyond the village, and the smith said: "That is the thane. Fall on, master, and fear nought."
Whereat I laughed, and the men sprang up. The smith led us for a hundred paces through the beech trees and then across the brook, and the steep slope up to the village was before us. There was a little, ancient earthwork of no account round the place, but if there had been a stockade on it, it was gone.
Then came a roar of yells and shouts from the far side, and we knew that the work had begun, and ran up the hillside. Then fled a man in chain mail out of the place, leaping over the earthworks straight at us, unknowing.
Spray the smith swung his hammer, not heeding at all the sword in the man's hands. Sword and helm alike shivered under the blow, and the man rolled over and over down the hillside.
"That is the first Dane I ever slew," said Spray to me as we topped the ridge.
Then we were in the village and among a crowd of wild-looking, half-armed forest men, who fled and yelled, and smote and cried for quarter in a strange and ghastly medley. There was no order, and seemingly no leader among them, and an end was soon made. Before I had struck down two men they scattered and fled for hiding, and we followed them. Wulfnoth would have no mercy shown to these wretches who would harry the peaceful villagers--their own kin. They would but band together again.
Now I did a foolish thing which might have cost me my life. For two outlaws ran into one of the old stone buildings of which I had heard, and I followed them. As I crossed the threshold I stayed for a moment, for the place seemed very dark inside, and I could not see them. But I was plain enough to them, of course, and before I could see that a blow was coming one smote me heavily on the helm and I fell forward, while they leapt out over my body into the open again. Then I seemed to slip, and fell into nothingness as my senses left me.
Presently I came round, nor could I tell how long I had been alone, I heard far off shouts that were dull and muffled as if coming through walls, and then as my brain cleared, I saw that I was in what seemed to be a dungeon like those that Earl Wulfnoth had under Pevensea. All round me were walls, and the light came in from a round hole above me.
When I saw that I knew that I had indeed fallen into this place, and my sword, too, lay on the floor where it had flown from my hand as I did so. It was lucky that I had not fallen on it.
Now the shouts died away, and I thought that our men were chasing the last of the outlaws into the woods. When the silence fell, I waxed lonely, and began to wonder if I had been forgotten. But Olaf would miss me presently, and would surely return to the village before long. So I would be patient, and at least try to find a way out of this trap into which I had come so strangely.
But there was no way out unless a ladder or rope were lowered to me. The roof of the place was rounded and arched above me, and the hole was in its centre so that I could not reach it. Maybe the place was ten feet across and ten feet high under the hole, and it minded me of the snake pit into which Gunnar the hero was thrown, as Ottar the scald sang. Only here were no snakes, and the air was thick and musty, but dry enough. I could see the beams of the house roof above the hole.
Then I thought that if I could prise some stones from the old walls I might pile them up until I reached the edge of the hole with my hands, when it would be easy to draw myself up, though maybe not without taking off my armour. But when I tried the joints of the masonry with the point of my seax, I did but blunt the weapon, for the mortar was harder than the stone, which was the red sandstone of the cliff where we had rested.
So I forbore and sat down, leaning my aching head against the cool wall, to wait for Olaf's return. There would be time to shout when I heard voices again, and it was not good to make much noise in that place after the blow of a club that had set my ears ringing already.
Then I fell to thinking of Sexberga, and those thoughts were pleasant enough. And idly I began to sharpen my seax again on a great square stone that was handy in the wall as I sat, but it was very soft, and crumbled away under the steel without doing it much good.
Now, when one is waiting and thinking, one will play with an idle pastime for the sake of keeping one's hands amused as it were, and so I went on working the long slit in the stone, which the blade was making, deeper and deeper. The sand trickled from it in a stream, and then all of a sudden I became aware that I had pierced through the stone into a hole behind, and I bent over to see how this could be.
The stone was not more than an inch or two thick, and there was certainly a hollow which it closed, and when I saw that I broke and worked away more of it until I could get my hand in. Then I found that I could feel nothing, for the place was deep. So I made the hole bigger yet, and put my arm in. Then I found the back and one side of a stone-cased chest in the wall, as it were, of which the stone I had bored was the door, though this was to all appearance like several other of the larger blocks that the place was built of.
When I reached downwards my hand could just touch what felt like rotten canvas, and at that I began to work again at the hole. The stone was too strong to break, though it seemed thin, and I was so intent on this, that the voices I had longed to hear made me start.
"He was hereabouts, master, when I last saw him," said one whom I thought was Spray the smith.
"I will hang you up if he is lost," said Wulfnoth's voice.
Then I sprang up and shouted, and the vault rang painfully in my ears. It was Olaf who called back to me.
"Ho, Redwald where are you?"
"Under the house, in a pit," I answered, standing under the opening.
Then someone came tramping above me, and the next moment Spray's leather-hosed leg came through the hole, and he nearly joined me. Thereat others laughed, and he climbed up quickly enough, for it was an ill feeling to be hanging over an unknown depth.
"Lower me down a rope," I said, as I saw his face peering into the place with some others.
There seemed to be a ladder handy, for the next minute its end came down, and at once I picked up my sword and climbed out. Olaf stood in the doorway now with Relf.
"It is easy to see how my cousin got into that place," he said to Relf, pointing to my helm, which was sorely dinted.
The big thane looked and laughed.
"That is what felled him. But I knew not of this pit," he said, looking past me into the house where Spray and the men stood round the hole.
Then the smith said: "Nor did I, master. But this has been found by the forest men--here are their tools."
And when we looked, all the floor of the house was broken up, and the stone paving was piled in corners, and a pick or two lay on them with a spade and crowbar.
"They have been digging for treasure," said Relf, "and that has kept them from my house. There are always tales of gold hidden in these old places. I have seen that they have done the like elsewhere in the village."
"Aye," said Spray, "they have heard some of our tales, and they have dug where we would not, for it spoils a house, and the wife's temper also, to meddle with the good stone floor."
Now it seemed to me that here was a likelihood that there was truth in the old tales, and that I had lit on the lost hiding place of which some memory yet remained even from the days when OElla's men took the town from the iron workers five hundred years and more ago, when the might of Rome had passed.
"There is somewhat that I have found in this place," I said. "Come and see what it is."
Wondering, Olaf and Wulfnoth climbed down the ladder after me, and Relf did but stay to find a torch before he followed us. Then I showed them the stone and the hollow behind it, and the earl called for the crowbar that was left by the outlaws, and with a stroke or two easily broke out the rest of the stone, and the glare of the torch shone into the place that it had so long sealed.
It was a chamber in the wall, and maybe a yard square each way. The stone had not filled all its width or depth of mouth, but was, as it were, a sealed door to be broken and replaced by another. Then we could see that the canvas I had thought that I had felt was indeed the loose folds of the tied mouths of bags that were neatly arranged at the bottom of this stone-built chest. And the canvas that I had reached and pulled at had easily parted, and through the rent showed the dull gleam of gold coin as the torchlight flared upon it.
The light shone too on letters scratched on the soft stone of the back of the chamber. I could read them, but Wulfnoth pointed to them, saying: "Here may be a curse written on him who touches. I will have our priest read that which is there if he can."
Then I laughed, and said that it was no curse, but the name of some Roman who made the place, for all that was there was: CLAVD. MARTINVS. ARTIF. FEC.
"Which means that a workman named Martin was proud of his work, and left his name there," I said when I had read it.
"And was slain, doubtless, lest he should betray the secret," said Wulfnoth.
And he put his hand out to take one of the bags from the place, feeling round the rotten canvas to get a fair grip of the mass of coin.
Then he drew back his hand with a cry that came strangely from his stern lips, for it sounded like alarm, and he stepped back.
"As I live," he said, "somewhat cold moved beneath my fingers in there."
Even as he spoke something crawled slowly on to the bag that was broken and sat on the red gold that was hidden no longer. There it stayed, staring at the torchlight--a great wizened toad, whose eyes were like the gold which it seemed to guard. And we stared at it, for not one of us dared touch it, nor could we say aught.
It is ill to waste breath in wondering how the creature got into this long-closed place or how it lived. But when I have told of this, many a time have I heard stories of toads that have been found in stranger places--even in solid-seeming rock. But however it came there--and one may think of many ways--it scared us. It seemed a thing not natural.
"It is the evil spirit that guards the treasure," whispered Relf to Olaf, edging toward the ladder.
"Fetch Anselm the priest, and let him exorcise this," said the earl. "It is some witchcraft of the heathen Romans."
"Were I in Finmark I would say that this was a 'sending' {7}," Olaf said, "but we are in Christian England, and this is but a toad."
Now I said nothing, but I wished the beast away, for I would see the treasure I had found. Then the earl bethought himself.
"Maybe it is but a toad," he said. "I will cast it out."
And with that he went to do so, but liked it not, and drew back again.
"Toad or worse," I said then, "I mind not their cold skin, and will see what it is."
So I took hold of the beast, and it swelled itself out as I did so, and croaked a little. That was the worst it did; but I will say this, that the sound almost made me drop it. But I cast it behind me into the shadow, and then put both hands into the chamber and took out one of the bags.
It was full of gold coin, as was that which had been torn open, and as were all the rest--ten of them--when we looked. And the coins were older than we could tell, being stamped with strange figures that bore some likeness to horses whose limbs fell apart, and a strange face on the other side. Many had letters on them, and these were mostly--CVNO.
"They are coins of the Welsh folk whom we conquered," said Wulfnoth. "I have seen the like before. They made them at Selsea, and we find many there on the shore after storms."
Now I think that we had found the hiding place of the tribute money that should be sent to Rome when some ship came thence or from beyond the Channel to fetch it, or maybe it was some iron master's hoarded payment for the good Sussex iron that they smelted in these valleys in the Roman days. More likely it was the first, for men would know that it had never been sent away. None can tell how the places of these hoards are lost, but times of war have strange chances. Then folk do but hand down the knowledge that, somewhere, the treasure is yet hidden {8}.
"Good booty had OElla and Cissa our forbears, but they have left some for us," said Earl Wulfnoth.
"Here is gold enough to buy a good fleet for Ethelred," said Olaf thoughtfully.
"Gold enough for you and me to win England for ourselves withal," said the earl in a low voice. "You take the Danelagh, and I the rest, and we will keep Ethelred for a puppet overlord."
"If Cnut wins there will be time enough to think of that," answered Olaf coldly. "Eadmund is my friend."
"Not Ethelred?" said Wulfnoth eagerly.
"I fight for him," answered Olaf.
"Well, well. I did but speak my own wish," said the earl. "You and I will not be agreed on this matter."
Then he turned to Relf, and began to give him some directions about a horse whereon to load the treasure. And Olaf and I went back up the ladder, leaving them, for the vault grew close and hot, and this was their business. The earl would take it back to Pevensea, where it would be safe. Word would go round quickly enough concerning the find, and of what value it was. Nor would that grow less in the telling, though none of us had ever seen so much gold together before.
I suppose that I had been in the place for two hours or more, and the morning sky had changed strangely since the fight began. The sun was hidden with a great mass of heavy clouds that were driving up fast from the southwest, although the woods around us were still and motionless in the hot, heavy air. The smoke that still rose from the burnt houses went up straight as a pine tree.
Olaf looked up at the sky, and seemed anxious.
"There is a gale brewing," he said. "I am glad Rani is with the ships."
Then he walked away to a spur of the hill that looked down the valley towards the sea. We could see all the tidal water, and almost to Pevensea, and there came a long murmur of the sea on the pebble beach, even to where we stood, so hushed were all things. Surely there was a heavy sea setting in to make so loud a noise as that. And all the hills and marshes seemed close at hand, so clear was the air.
Then came to us Olaf's ship master, and he was uneasy also.
"Tide is at its highest tonight," he said, "and if the wind gets up from the southwest, as seems likely, it will be higher yet than usual. See how the clouds whirl over us."
Then the king went back to the building and called to Wulfnoth, who came up the ladder asking what was amiss, for he heard that Olaf's voice was urgent.
"Here is a gale coming," the king said, "and we must be back with the ships."
Wulfnoth came out into the open and looked round.
"Aye; and tide will be high at the causeway. These spring tides run wildly at this time of year," he said. "We must be going."
Then was no more delay, but the horns blew the recall, and the men came in. We had lost none, but I do not think that many outlaws were left.
They brought a farm horse, with baskets slung across its back in the Sussex manner, and into them the gold was put. I looked down into the vault as the men left it, and saw that Relf was there, and that they had tried every great stone in the walls in search of another chamber, but that there had not been one. And when he came up I was about to draw up the ladder after him, and looked down for the last time.
There at the ladder's foot sat the elvish toad, and it seemed to me that it looked pitifully up at the light. How many years might it have been without sunlight or touch of dew or cool green leaves that it had loved? And I was fain to climb down and take it up in my hand and set it free on the grass outside the house, where a dock spread its broad leaves. It crawled under them in haste, and I saw it no more. Then I found that Spray the smith was watching me, and he said a strange thing.
"That is a good deed, master," he said. "I think that you shall never be in prison."
"May I never be so," I answered, wondering.
"I am a forest-bred man," he said, "and I love all beasts," and then he turned away, and went to the men who were waiting for the earl's word.
And when all was ready Relf came to me and said that he would go to his own place with his men, and that he would ask me to take word to his wife and daughter that all was safe at home. The outlaws had been too busy in the town to seek further for plunder, or had not cared to do so at once. So he went, as we started, and I was pleased with the chance of having speech with Sexberga.
Now there was a moaning overhead as we went through the woods along the ridge above the valley, and hot breaths of air began to play in our faces. The clouds raced above us more swiftly, and black masses of scud drifted yet faster below them from across the hard black backs of the downs to the westward. There was something strange in the feeling of the weather that seemed to betoken more than a storm of wind and rain, and we were silent and oppressed as we marched.
Now we came to the crest of the hill where the track goes down to the level of the river and marshes and to the causeway, which we crossed in the early morning. I could see now how narrow the outlet of the river was between the hills where it joined the main tidal waters, and the causeway was low, and both it and the bridge were very ancient. They call it Boreham Bridge, and it is a place that I shall not forget.
When we were halfway down the steep hill suddenly the first blast of the gale smote us in the face, and that with a roar and howl and rush that drowned all other sounds. The branches flew from the trees along the hillside, and more than one great trunk gave way at last to that onset. Then all along the coastline grew and widened a white line of flying spindrift that hid the distant gray walls of Pevensea on its low island, and shone like snow against the black dun-edged cloud that came up from out of the sea.
"Hurry, men," shouted Wulfnoth, "or the bridge will be down! Look at the tide!"
And that was racing up inland, already foaming through the wooden arches that spanned its course. I had heard that the tide reached this place a full hour after it began to flow at Pevensea, and even now it was thus, two hours before it should have been at its highest there.
Wulfnoth's men led, and then came the earl, riding beside Spray and the horse which bore the treasure. Olaf was riding just behind them, and I marched with our crew not ten paces after him. So we went down the hill, and so we stepped on the causeway, and came to the first timbers of the bridge. And hardly had I stepped on them than there came a great shout from the men behind us, while one seized my arm and pointed seaward across the marshes.
There came rushing across the level--blending channel and land into one sea as it passed--a vast white roller, great as any wave which breaks upon the shore, and its length was lost behind the hill before us, and far away to our left. So swiftly did it come that it seemed that none of us might gain the hill before it whelmed us and causeway and bridge alike.
Earl Wulfnoth grasped the bridle of the pack horse, and the man Spray lashed it, shouting aloud to us to hasten. And Olaf turned in his saddle and saw me, and reined up until I grasped his stirrup leather, and ran on beside him. And our men broke and ran, some following us, and some going back to the hill whence we came. And all the while the great white billow was thundering nearer, and my head reeled with its noise and terror till I knew not what I was doing, and let go my hold of Olaf's stirrup.
Then it broke over bridge and causeway, and through its roar I heard yells, and the crash of broken timber, before I lost all knowledge of aught but that I was lost in that mighty wave, and was being whirled like a straw before it, where it would take me.
I struck out wildly as if to swim--but of what avail was that against the weight of rushing water? I seemed to be rolled over and against broken timber and reeds and stones--and once my hand touched a man, for I felt it grate over the scales of armour--and my ears were full of roarings and strange sounds, and I thought that I was surely lost.
Then a strong grip was on me, and the water flew past me, and hurled things at me, for I no longer went with it. My feet touched ground, and other hands held me, and then I was ashore, and spent almost nigh to death. Well for me it was that in the old days by the Stour river I had loved to swim and dive in the deep pool behind the island, for I had learned to save my breath. Had I not done so, the choking of the great wave had surely ended my days.
It was Olaf who had saved me. Almost had we won to the high ground when I had let go his stirrup leather, and then the shoreward edge of the wave had caught me. But he had faced its fury as he saw me borne away, and had snatched me from it as it tossed me near the bank again. Now he bent over me, trying to catch the sound of my voice through the roar of the storm and the rush of the flood below us. But I could not speak to him though I would, and it was not all drowning that ailed me, for the blow which had felled me in the fight was even now beginning to do its work. Else had I clung to him all along, and had been safe as he was. For he won to shore ten yards beyond its reach as the wave came.
Now I know that Olaf and our men carried me into a place under the lee of a hill, and bided there till the gale blew over. There was a sharp pain as of a piercing weapon in my side as they did so, and after that I knew not much of being carried on to the house of Relf, the Thane of Penhurst, along a forest road where travelling was no easier for the fallen trees that lay across it. And after I was there I knew nothing. The blow I had had took its effect on me, and I had several ribs broken by some timber that smote me amid the tossing of the great wave of the flood.
Many are the tales that men all round the coasts will tell of the great sea flood that came on Michaelmas even. For it ran far into the land where no tide had run before, and many towns were destroyed by it, and many people were drowned. It will be long before the scathe it wrought will be forgotten. Many of the earl's ships were broken, even where they lay behind the island, and two of ours were lost--carried across the level where no ship had ever swum before. And eight of our men had been swept from the causeway and drowned. Two lie yet under the wreck of bridge and causeway, or in the Ashbourne valley amid wrack and ruin of field and forest that the flood left behind it.
But these things I learnt afterwards. Now I was like to die, and Olaf bided at my side and minded nought else, as men said.
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{
"id": "16196"
}
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6
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: Sexberga The Thane's Daughter.
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Days came and went by while I lay helpless. Olaf the king at last must needs leave me, and take the ships back to the Thames, there to watch against Cnut's return, in which he, almost alone in England, believed. But he would not sail before he knew that I would recover, and he left me in the kind hands of Anselm, the old Norman priest, who was well skilled in leech craft, and of Relf the Thane and his wife. So I need say nought of the long days of weakness after danger was gone, for there are few men who have not known what they are like, and well for them if they have had such tending as these good folk gave to me.
Yet it was not till November had half gone that I was able to ride hunting again at last, and to go out with Relf in the crisp frosts of early winter through the great woods of the Andred's-weald in search of wolf and boar, or when the mists hung round the gray copses, and the turf in the glades was soft, and scent was high, to follow the deer that harboured in the deep shaws. We were seldom without their spoils as we came homeward, and how good it was to feel my strength coming back to me as I rode--to find the grip on a spear shaft hardening, and the bow hand growing steadier against a longer pull on the tough string. And Relf rejoiced with me to see this, for he deemed that he owed me the more care because my hurt had been gained in fighting for him and his home. Honest and rough, with a warm heart was this forest thane, and we grew to be fast friends.
Now when I was helpless, Wulfnoth the earl and Godwine would often ride from Pevensea to learn how I fared. For Wulfnoth and Godwine alike loved Olaf the king, and Godwine thought of me as his own friend among the vikings of our fleet. But presently Godwine went away to Bosham, where the earl's ships were mostly laid up, to see to the housing of his vessels for the winter, and when I grew strong it was rather my place to go to Pevensea and wait on Wulfnoth, if I would see him. I think the earl came to Penhurst more often also, because he would dig for more treasure in all the old ruins in the town. But he found no more, as one might well suppose, for it was but a chance that our find had escaped the searching of the first Saxon comers. Yet I saw him now and then, and ever would he rail at Ethelred the king, who sat still and left the Danish thingmen in possession of the eastern strongholds even yet.
Now one day the thane and I rode together with hawk and hound eastward from Penhurst along the spur of a hill that runs thence for many a long mile, falling southward on one side towards the sea and lower hills between, and northward looking inland over forest-covered hill and valley. And we went onward until we came to the village that men call Senlac, where the long hill ridge ends and sinks sharply into the valley of the little river Asten, and there we thought that a heron or mallard would lie in the reedy meadows below the place.
But up the course of the stream came another party, and when we neared it, we saw that it was the earl himself with but a few followers, and he too was riding with hawk on wrist, and hounds in leash behind him, though it did not seem as if he had loosed either.
"Ho, Relf, good morrow. What sport?" he said.
"Little enough, lord earl, as yet," the thane said.
"Do you and friend Redwald come with me, and I will show you somewhat before you go home," the earl answered.
So we must go with him, willingly enough, for he was a great hunter, and very skilful in woodcraft.
Now we went back through the village and up the hill again on the same track by which we had just come, and when we were almost at the top of the rise, the earl bade the men wait while we three rode on. So they stayed, and we followed him, not at all knowing what he would do.
Then we came to a track leading to the right as we rode, and he took that way. It led to a place of which I had heard, for it had no good name among the people, but I thought that he would not go thither. Nevertheless he held straight on, and came to the place in the hillside that was feared. And it was very beautiful, for thence one looks out over the valley to the hills beyond, with the long line of the sea away to the right, and to the left the valleys that slope down to the inlet where Winchelsea stands, far off to the eastward. There is a well which they say is haunted, though by what I know not, save that men speak of ghostly hands that seize them as they pass, if pass they must, at night. Hardly was there a track to the place, though the water that comes from the rocky spring is so wondrously pure and cold that they call the place Caldbec {9} Hill. And there by the side of the spring was a little turf-built hut, hardly to be known from the shelving bank against which it leant, and to that the earl led us.
"Now," he said, "tie the horses somewhere, and we will go and speak with the Wise Woman."
At that Relf was not pleased, as it seemed, for he did not dismount.
"Come not if you fear her," said Wulfnoth; "bide with the horses if you will, while I and Olaf's cousin go in. Maybe there will be a message that he must take to his kinsman."
"I have nought to seek from the old dame," said Relf, "nor is there aught that I fear from her. I give her venison betimes, as is fitting. I will bide with the horses."
Wulfnoth said no more to him, and turned sharply to me. "You give her no venison--maybe you fear her therefore!" he said in a scornful way enough.
"I fear her no more than Relf," I answered, "but, like him, I will not seek her without reason."
"Maybe there is reason for you to hear what she tells me," the earl said. "I will have you come."
He seemed in no wise angry, but rather wishful that I should be with him, and so I got off my horse and went. But it crossed my mind that Wulfnoth the earl liked not to be alone, and suddenly I remembered the way in which two of our Bures franklins had spoken to each other when they would see Dame Gunnhild, Hertha's nurse. It was just in this same wise.
There was a blue reek of oak-wood smoke across the doorway of the hut, and at first the tears came into my eyes with its biting, and I could see nothing as the earl drew me inside. We had to stoop low as we crossed the threshold, and then the air was clearer at the back of the hut, which was far larger than one would think, seeing that its front did but cover the mouth of a cave that was in the sandstone rock. I heard the water of the cold spring rattling and bubbling somewhere close at hand.
There was a long seat hewn from the rock at the very back of the place and to one side, and Wulfnoth drew me down beside him upon it, and there we sat silent, waiting for I knew not what. A great yellow cat came and rubbed itself, tail in air, against my legs, and I stroked it, and it purred pleasantly.
Then I became aware that over against us across the fire sat the most terrible-looking old witch that I had ever seen or dreamed of, elbows on knees and chin on hand, staring at us. And when I saw her I forgot the cat, and could not take my eyes off her.
So for long enough we sat, and she turned her bright eyes from one of us to the other, letting them rest steadily on each in turn. And at last she spoke.
"What do Earl Wulfnoth and Redwald the thane seek?"
"Read me what is in the time to come. What shall be the outcome of this strife for England?" the earl said plainly, but in a low voice.
"Time to come is longer than I can read," said the old woman, never stirring or taking her eyes from the earl. "I can only see into a few years, and I cannot always say what I know of them."
Then she turned her gaze on me, and stretched out her hand and pointed at me. But her eyes looked past me, as it seemed.
"River and mere and mound," she said in a strangely soft voice--"those, and the ways of the old time of Guthrum, in the town that saw Eadmund the king. That is what is written for the weird of Redwald the thane."
Now at that I was fairly terrified, for it was plain that this old woman, who had never set eves on me before, had knowledge more than mortal. But if she had gone so far, I would have her go yet further. Black terror had been before the days of Guthrum grew peaceful, and I swallowed my fear of her and asked: "What of Guthrum's days?"
"Danish laws in the Danish Anglia," she said, "and the peace that comes after the sword and the torch."
"Fire and sword we have had," I said. "Danish laws have ever been ours. But Ethelred shall be king."
"Ethelred is king," she answered; "but I speak of time to come."
Then Wulfnoth broke in: "What is this that you speak of, dame? Tell me if I shall bear fire and sword into Ethelred's land, and give it the peace that shall be thereafter."
Then she turned her look away from us, and stared across the fire and out of the doorway.
"Not with you, nor with your son, but with your son's son shall fire and sword come into this land of ours," she said.
"Godwine's son!"
"Aye--Harold Godwinesson, who is unborn. Look through the smoke, lords, across the valley, and see if you can learn aught."
Then I stared out through the blue reek, and the earl looked.
"You do but play with me--I see nought!" he cried, half starting up in anger.
But I minded him not.
Many a fight have I seen--but that which I saw from Caldbec Hill through the smoke of the fire is more than I may say. No fight that I have seen was as that--it was most terrible. Surely, if ever such a fight shall in truth rage across the quiet Senlac stream and up the green hillside, the fate of more than a king shall hang thereon. Surely I saw such a strife as makes or ends a nation.
The old woman laughed.
"What has Redwald seen?" she asked mockingly.
The earl glanced at me, and so plainly was it written in my face that I had seen somewhat awesome, that he gazed at me in amaze.
And I rose up and said: "Let me go hence--I will see no more."
And I was staggering to the doorway; but Wulfnoth grasped my arm and stayed me, saying: "Bide here and say what you have seen--if it is aught."
"Ask me not, earl," I answered.
Then the dame spoke in her slow, soft voice.
"What banner saw you? Say that much, Redwald."
"The banner that flies from Pevensea walls--the banner that bears a fighting warrior for its sign."
"Ha!" said Wulfnoth; "was it well or ill with that banner?"
"I know not how it went; I saw but a battle--yonder," and I pointed to where, across the haze of smoke, valley and stream and hill stretched before me, and thought that surely the fight still raged as I had seen it--wave after wave of mail-clad horsemen charging uphill to where, ringed in by English warriors, Saxon and Anglian and Danish shoulder to shoulder, the banner of the Sussex earls stood--while from the air above it rained the long arrows thick as driving hail.
One thing I knew well, and that was that the warriors who charged wore the war gear of the dukes of Rouen--the Normans. How should they come here? and who should weld our English races into one thus to withstand so new a foe from across the sea?
"So--a battle?" said Wulfnoth. "That is the first fancy that a boy's brain will weave. Battles enough shall my banner see. No need of you, witch as you are, to tell me that!"
"Maybe not," answered the old woman. "Why, then, Earl Wulfnoth, come here to ask me to tell you things you know?" and she turned away towards the fire again as if uncaring.
Then the earl changed his tone, saying: "Nay, good dame, but I would know if I shall take up arms at all at this time, and what shall befall if I must do so."
"I tell you, earl, that you have not any share in the wars that shall be seen. And let Godwine your son bide with his sheep--so shall he find his place."
Then the earl flushed red with anger and waited to hear no more, but flung out of the house, muttering hard words on the dame and on his own foolishness in seeking her.
Then the great cat sprang on my knee, and clung to me with its strong claws as I would set it down to follow him. And as it stayed me, the old dame spoke to me, and there was nought to fear in either her face or voice.
"Ask me somewhat, Redwald."
I wondered, but I dared not refuse. So I said: "How shall fare King Olaf?"
"For him a kingdom, and more than a kingdom. For him fame, and better than fame. For him a name that shall never die."
"That is a wondrous weird," I said. "Tell me now of Eadmund Atheling;" for some strange power that the old woman had seemed to draw me to ask of her what I would most know.
"For Eadmund of Wessex? For him the shadow of Edric Streone over all his brave life."
"What then of Cnut, the Dane King?"
"Honour and peace, and the goodwill of all men."
"Not mine," I said.
"Yours also, Redwald--for England's sake and his own."
But I could not believe her at that time.
Now the angry voice of Wulfnoth called me from outside the place, and the dame said "Go," smiling at me and holding out her hand.
"No more can I tell you, Redwald. But I have this to say of you, that you have pleased me in asking nought concerning yourself."
"I would know nought beforehand," I said, speaking old thoughts of my own plainly. "It is enough to hope ever for good that may not come, and to live with one's life unclouded by fear of the evil that must needs be."
The dame smiled again, very sadly, as it seemed to me. "It is well said. Now I will tell you this, that over your life is the shadow of no greater evil than what every man must meet. Farewell."
So she spoke her last words to me, and sat down by the fire again. And it is in my thoughts that she wept, but I know not.
Outside stood the earl, staring over the Senlac valley eastward.
"This were a good place for a battle, after all," he said, as to himself. Then he heard me and turned.
"Well, what more has the old witch told you?" he said, trying to speak carelessly, though one might see that he longed to hear more.
As we went towards the horses, I told him, therefore, of what had been said of Eadmund and Cnut. And as he heard he grew thoughtful.
"Now," he said, slowly and half to himself, "if the shadow of that villain Streone is on Eadmund as on me, I will not strike for myself--as yet; and Cnut shall win other men's praise before I give him mine or go to him unsought."
"Eadmund needs a friend, lord earl," I said, mindful of Olaf's errand, yet hardly daring to say more seeing that he had failed.
"If there were no Ethelred--" said the earl, and stopped.
He said no more then until we were nearly within hearing of Relf. Then he turned and faced me, taking my hand and staying me.
"I would that Olaf and you were my friends," he said, "for you both speak out for those whom you love or serve. See here, Redwald, when you are tired of the ways of Ethelred's crew, come to me again, and we will plan together. And tell Olaf the same. I shall bide quiet, keeping my Sussex against all comers, until I think a time has come. And then, maybe, the old banner will go forward. I would have you with me then."
So it seemed that I had found a friend, though a strange one, and I thanked the earl, and promised him as he wished, for it bound me only to what I thought would surely never come to pass.
After that we went on to Relf, and rode to where we had left the men. Then the earl left us, making his way to his ships that lay at Bulverhythe, where some were in winter quarters. The great sea flood had changed the Pevensea haven strangely, and he mistrusted it.
I told Relf all these things, but he cared not much for aught but his free life in the Penhurst woodlands, where he had no foes or fear of foes left, now that the outlaws were done with.
"Well, if there must be fighting under the earl at some time," he said, "I am glad that you may be with us."
And he cared to ask no more about it from that day, nor do I think that he ever gave these matters, which were so heavy to me, a thought, being always light hearted. And now as we rode on silently, and I deemed that his mind was full of bodings, as was mine, he roused me from the memory of what I had seen and heard by saying, with a laugh: "Saw you the old dame's cat?"
"Aye," I answered carelessly; "a great one, and a friendly beast enough."
"Was it so? Then I will warrant that the old witch was in a sorely bad temper," he said, laughing again.
"What makes you think that?" I asked, not caring if he answered.
"Why, our folk say that the temper of cat and witch are ever opposite. So when they go to ask aught of the old lady, they wait outside till they see how the cat--which is, no doubt, her familiar spirit--behaves. Then if the beast is wild and savage, they know that its mistress will be in good temper and they may go in. But if the cat is friendly, they may as well go home, else will they be like to get harder words than they would care to hear."
Then I laughed also, and said that there seemed nought strange in the ways of the great cat, but that it behaved as if used to being noticed kindly.
"That is certain," said Relf. "It is not well to offend either mistress or beast. But surely she was ill tempered?"
"There was nothing ill natured in her doing or sayings at all," I said. "The earl angered her a little, but that passed."
"Maybe that was enough to put her familiar into a good temper," said Relf, and was satisfied that the common saying was true.
Then I minded a small black cat that belonged to our leech at Bures in the old days. It would let none come near it but its master. Yet I have many times seen it perched on the shoulder of the town witch, and she hated the leech sorely.
So I fell to thinking of the old home and ways, soon, as I thought, to be taken up again. But at the same time there stole into my mind the feeling that I had grown to love this place.
Then with flap of heavy wings and croak of alarm flew up a great heron from a marshy pool, and in a moment all was forgotten as I unhooded my hawk--one that Olaf had given me from the Danish spoils at Canterbury. Then the rush of the long-winged falcon, and the cry of the heron, and the giddy climbing of both into the gray November sky as they strove for the highest flight, was all that I cared for, and we shook our reins and cantered after the birds as they drifted down the wind, soaring too high to breast it.
And when the heron was taken the dark thoughts were gone, and we rode back to Penhurst gaily, speaking no word of war or coming trouble, but of flight of hawk and wile of quarry, and the like pleasant things.
After this I saw no more of Earl Wulfnoth, and the winter set in with heavy snow and frosts, so that before long one might hardly stir into the woods, where the drifts were over heavy in the deep shaws to be very safe to a stranger. But we had some good days when word came that the foresters had harboured an old boar in a sheltered place. And to attack the fearless beast when he is thus penned and at bay amid snow walls, is warriors' sport indeed.
But while the snow fell whirling in the cold blasts from the sea round the great low-roofed hall I must needs bide within, and so I saw more of the maiden Sexberga than before, as she sat at her wheel with the lady, her mother, and the maidens of the house at the upper end of the hall, while the men wrought at their indoor work of mending and making horse gear and tool handles and the like, below the fire that burnt in the centre.
And so it had been like enough that soon I should have bound my heart to this pleasant place with ties that would have been hard to break, but for some words that came about by chance. For there had begun to spring up in my mind a great liking for the words and ways of Sexberga, who had been pleasant in my eyes from the very first time that I had seen her and her mother in Earl Wulfnoth's courtyard.
And I think that there is no wonder in this, for these ladies were ever most kind to me, and long were the days since I had spoken with any in such a home as this. Nor, as I have said, should I be blamed for forgetting old days at Bures in this wise.
Now, soon after Christmas, when there came one of those days when men must needs keep under cover, I sat by the fire trimming arrows, and presently it chanced that the lady and I were alone in the hall, for the maidens were preparing the supper elsewhere, and the housecarles had not yet come in from cattle yard and sheep pens. And we talked quietly of this and that, as her wheel hummed and clicked cheerfully the while, and at last some word of mine led her to say: "I have heard little of your own folk, Redwald. I do not know even their names."
"After my father was slain, I had none left but my mother," I said. "We are distant kinsfolk of Ulfkytel, our earl, but we have no near kin."
"Was your mother's name Hertha?" she said, naturally enough, for I had never named her, always speaking, as one will, of her as my mother only.
I looked up wondering, for I could not think how she knew that name, or indeed any other than that of Siric, my father, and maybe Thorgeir, my grandfather, for Olaf had told them at first, when they took charge of me, to what family I had belonged, and how I was akin to him.
"That was not my mother's name," I answered. "It was that of a playfellow of mine. How could you know it?"
"One will go back in thought and word to old times when one is sick," the lady said, smiling. "This was a name often on your lips as I sat by you in your sickness. It was ever 'Mother' and 'Hertha'. Olaf said that you had no sisters, or I should have thought you called to one of them, maybe."
Then I remembered at last; and for a little while I sat silent, and my heart was sorely troubled. And the trouble was because my growing thought of Sexberga taught me, all in a flash as it were, when the remembrance of Hertha was brought thus clearly back to me, what tie bound me to Bures and to this more than playmate of mine. In truth, I think that had it not been for this, until I had been back in Bures again I should not have recalled it.
Now I was glad that I had said nought that might have made my liking for the maiden plain to her, and so things would be the easier. Yet for a few moments the thought of saying nought of the old betrothal came to me--of letting it remain forgotten. And then that seemed to me to be unworthy of a true man. It was done, and might not be undone by my will alone. I would even speak plainly of the matter; and at least I had not gone so far in any way that the lady could blame me for silence. So I hardened my heart--for indeed the trouble seemed great--and spoke quickly.
"Hertha was nearer to me than sister, for we were betrothed when I was but thirteen and she eleven."
I think the trouble in my voice was plain, for the lady deemed that there was some to be told.
"Where is she now?" she asked. "I hope that no harm came to her when the evil Danes overran your land."
"I know not where she may be, dear lady," I said. "We know that she was in safety after the first peril passed. Now our land is in Danish hands, and I have no news from thence for four years."
"There are many places here where one might hide well enough," she said thoughtfully. "I suppose her people could find the like in your country. But it would be a dull life enough."
Then I told her of Gunnhild the nurse and her wisdom, and said that none knew the land around Bures better than she, while she had friends everywhere.
"Then you may find your Hertha yet," the lady said at last; and as she spoke Sexberga, of whom my mind was full, came into the hall.
"You speak sadly together," she said, looking from one to the other, and noting that her mother's wheel was idle.
"It is no happy tale that our friend has told me," the lady said, and so told her all that she had learned from me.
Then Sexberga clasped her hands together, and said: "Shall I ever forget the time when we fled to Pevensea before the outlaws? And to think of that terror--if it had lasted for days and weeks--and months maybe, as it would for your Hertha. Could you in no way seek her, Redwald?"
She knew nothing of the ways of wartime and of the troubles which must come to men who are weapon bearers, and I tried to tell her how I could by no means have sought Hertha, and how, had that been possible, and had I found her, I could hardly have brought her even to London in safety. I told her of good Bishop Elfheah and his death, and many more things, and yet she said: "I think you have been over long in seeking her. And she has been in hiding for four years past!"
Now that was hardly fair, but what could she think else? Yet in my mind was the certainty now that I might have had no easy task to win this kindly maiden, who so little cared that I was bound elsewhere. Now I will not say that that altogether pleased me, for no man likes to learn that a fair maiden who is pleasant to his eyes has no like feeling for himself; which is nought but vanity after all. So when I turned this over in my mind I knew that I ought to be glad that she cared nothing, for so was the less trouble in the end, and I found also that what a man ought to be is not the same always as what a man is.
So I made no answer, and Sexberga went on: "Now must you seek her as soon as you can, for that is your part as a good warrior--a good knight, as Father Anselm will say when he hears thereof."
"Surely I shall go back this spring with our earl," I said. "Then shall I find her, for she and her nurse will come back from their hiding when peace is sure."
"Aye; and you will not know her!" said Sexberga, clapping her hands and laughing. "She is a woman grown, as I am, by this time!"
Then was gone my little playfellow, and in her place, in my thoughts, must stand a maiden with eyes of sad reproach that must be ever on me. And maybe in her heart would be fear of me, and of what I had become, as she was bound to me.
And now Sexberga began to weave fancies of how I should meet this long-lost bride of mine, and I could make no answer to her playful railing, for I saw more clearly than she. And her mother knew that this must be so, and sent her away on some household errand, and I was glad.
Then she laid her hand on mine, and spoke very kindly to me.
"I fear, Redwald, that there is a strange trial coming for you; but I think that you will face it rightly. It is likely that you will hardly know Hertha when you see her; yet you are betrothed to her, and that is a thing that cannot be forgotten."
"She will not know me at all," I said.
"Women are keen sighted," the lady answered; "but it is more than likely that she will not."
Then said I: "What if she has no love for me?"
"Or you of her? But I think that in her hiding she has thought of you ever, and well will it be for you if you come not short of her dream of you. But you have thought of her not at all."
"Blame me not, lady," I said humbly enough, though I thought I deserved blame more than she knew.
"I cannot," she answered, and then a half smile crossed her fair face; "nor should I have thought it wonderful if some other maiden had taken her place in your heart. But that would have been ill for three people in the end."
I sat silent, and maybe I was glad that the glow of the fire was ruddy on my face, for it seemed that she had seen somewhat of my thoughts of late.
"Now you must find Hertha," she went on, "and then if either of you will be released, I think that Holy Church will not be hard on you, nor keep you bound to each other, for things have turned out ill for such a betrothal."
"This is a hard case," I said, "for supposing that one longs for release and the other does not?"
"Why, you cannot be so much as lovers yet!" she said, laughing suddenly. "Here we speak as if a child's thoughts were aught. Now comes into my mind such a plan as is in the old stories. You shall seek Hertha as Olaf's kinsman only--as a kinsman who seeks for you, maybe, not letting her know who you are. Then may you try to win her love, if you will--or if you cannot love her, you may so work on her mind that she will not love you, and then all is easy. For if she will not love you when you would win her, you will not hold her bound."
"Surely not," I said. "This seems a good plan, if only it may be carried out. But it depends on whether Hertha knows me again."
"Or the old nurse, Gunnhild," she answered. "If she lives yet, you must take her into the plan."
So this seemed to me to be a matter easily managed, as I thought thereof, and I was content. And after we had talked a while longer, planning thus, I said: "Now I must go back to Olaf as soon as I can. The winter is wearing away."
"Aye; the good king will be missing you," she said.
I was not ready to say more, for I meant a great deal by my words, as might be supposed. And the lady knew it, as I think, for presently she said: "I wonder that you spoke not of Hertha before."
"There need be no wonder, lady," I answered. "I have lived but in the constant thought of war, until I must needs be quiet here. But for this, I should still have forgotten her."
"That is true; but you must remember her now," she said, looking quaintly at me.
"I will remember, lady," I answered, kissing her hand; and she smiled on me and was content.
Truly that one who teaches a man that he is worthy of trust is his best teacher of honour, and the name of the lady of Penhurst is ever dear to me.
So it came to pass that I had nought wherewith to blame myself in the days to come, and I taught myself to look on Sexberga as a pleasant friend only, though it was hard at first, to say the truth. And I think that her talk of Hertha, and her jesting at my unknown bride, as she would call her, helped me, for it kept me mindful.
Then at last came a messenger from Wulfnoth to bid me ride to see him at Pevensea, and I went, wondering what new turn of things was on hand. But when I reached the castle, I saw a ship that I knew lying in the haven--one of Olaf's own. For Ottar the scald had come to seek me with the first sign of open weather, bringing also many gifts of Danish spoil for Relf and his household, and many words of thanks also.
So in two days' time I parted from Relf and his people, not without sorrow. Nor could I say all that I would to them of my thoughts of what I owed them for their care.
Then Wulfnoth and Godwine gave me twenty pieces of the gold from the treasure, and bade me return ere long.
"And I think that you will come back presently with an itching to get home a sword stroke at one whom I care not to name lest I break out," said the earl grimly.
"At Streone?" said I, being light of heart.
"Aye; curses on him!" answered Wulfnoth, and turned away with a scowl of wrath.
Now Ottar had been to Penhurst with me, and we had come thence together to the ships. And when the old walls of the great castle were lost to sight as the vessel plunged eastward, he said: "Relf's daughter is a fair maiden, friend Redwald. It is in my mind that she will long to see you back again."
"Not so," I answered; "she is but friendly."
"But she had much ado not to weep when you parted just now, and I saw her run home from the gate over quickly. These be signs," he said sagely, being a scald, and therefore wise in his own conceit about such matters.
Maybe I was glad to think that the maiden did care that I went, were it ever so little, though I would not believe that it was so.
So I came back into the Thames to Olaf, and glad was he to see me once more, and that I was in no wise the worse now for my hurts. And in his company it soon came to pass that I longed not at all for Penhurst, though at first it seemed to me that I should have little pleasure in life away from Sexberga. By and by I could laugh at myself for that thought, but I have never seen cause to be sorry therefor. There is no shame to a man that his mind has turned towards a maiden whom he knows that he could trust and reverence.
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{
"id": "16196"
}
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7
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: The Fight At Leavenheath.
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March and April went by, and Olaf had gathered good fleet enough in the Thames. But there was no word of Cnut's return, though the dread thereof hung heavy over all the land, in such wise that no man could plan what he would do without the thought rising up, "Unless the Dane comes," seeing that each day might bring news of him.
No man knows now what that terror and uncertainty was like--to have ever in one's heart the fear of that awful host that seemed to sweep from end to end of the land before a levy could be gathered to meet it.
There had been time to gather a levy now against the coming of Cnut, but naught had been done. Sick at heart and impatient was Olaf, for England's rulers would not take care for her safety.
Then came word of a great council to be held at Oxford, and we hoped much from that; but two days after it had been held there came to us, angry and desponding, Ulfkytel, our East Anglian earl, and told us how things had gone as ill as they might. Few words enough are needed to tell it, but none can know what harm was wrought thereby. Whereof Olaf says that a good leader will act first, and call his council afterwards.
All the best of England were there, not only Saxon thanes of Wessex, but also loyal Danes of the old settlement, and had the king spoken his will plainly, all would have been well. For of the Danish nobles, Utred of Northumbria and the two earls of the old seven boroughs, Sigeferth and Morcar, were at one with our earl and Eadmund for gathering a great levy, and keeping it together by marching through the Danelagh, and calling on the Danish thingmen, in the towns they yet held, to surrender.
That plan was good, and would have been carried out; but Edric Streone rose up and reminded Ethelred of how the march through Lindsey had done more harm than good.
"Cnut will not return," he said, "and messages to these Danish garrisons with promise of peace if they surrender will be enough. But if we fall on them, they will grow desperate, and will send for Cnut to help them. If we win them to peace, Cnut cannot come back."
Thereat Sigeferth of Stamford spoke hotly, minding Streone that the harm was done in Lindsey by pillage and burning wrought among peaceful folk, who were thus made enemies to the king. The thingmen would submit quietly if they knew they must; but if they were left, they would send word to Cnut that there was no force to oppose him.
But the words of Streone prevailed as ever, and the council broke up, and the nobles fell to feasting, while this foolish message was sent to Swein's veterans in their towns.
Then Sigeferth and Morcar made no secret of their belief that Streone was playing into Cnut's hands for reasons of his own. Wherefore Streone sent for them in friendly wise, as if to recall his words, and they went, and came from his house alive no more. Then their men went to avenge their lords' deaths, and were driven into St. Frideswide's church, and that was burnt over their heads.
"Now the seven boroughs will welcome Cnut," said Ulfkytel, "and Lindsey looks for him; so he has a clear road into the heart of England."
Then I saw that Streone surely wrought for Cnut, else was he a more foolish man than was thought, for all held him as the most skilful at statecraft in England.
Then said Ulfkytel: "Utred has gone to mind his own land, and I have come to ask you to help me in East Anglia."
And in the end it came to pass that Olaf gave his new fleet into the hands of the London thanes, for Ethelred seemed to care nought for it, and took his own ships only, and we sailed first of all to Maldon. Little trouble was there, for the Danes who held the place submitted, being too few to fight us, and we gave their arms to the citizens, and mounted all of our men whom we could, and so left the ships and marched towards Colchester, along the great road that I had last passed as a fugitive in the years that seemed to me so long ago.
It was strange to me as we went, and the mist of time seemed to pass away, so that all began to be as plain to my mind as if that flight had been but yesterday. There was nothing of the wayside happening that I could not remember well.
But all the roadside was changed, for the cottages were gone, and the farmsteads stood no longer in the clearings. I know not what tales of terror I might have heard concerning the burnings of these homes. Where the thralls' huts had been were but patches of nettles and docks hiding heaps of ashes, and the farmhouses were charred ruins. And we saw now and then a man, skin clad and wretched, seeking shelter in the woods in all haste as we sighted him. But I had no need to ask aught--I knew only too well what manner of tales might be told here, as everywhere in Swein's track.
As we drew nearer Colchester, and the village folk began to learn who we were, and so would gather with gifts for the good-natured Norsemen who came to release them from the tyranny of the thingmen, now and then a face that I knew would start, as it were, upon me from among a little crowd. But none knew me, nor were they likely to do so. Hardly could I think myself the same as the careless boy who had watched his father ride away to the war. Indeed, I know that I changed less in the ten years that came after this than in the four that had gone by since that day. For in those four years I had become the hardened warrior of many defeats and but this one victory.
Now when we reached Coggeshall village, word came to us that the Danes were gathering in force in Colchester, and that they expected Olaf to besiege them there.
"I will waste no time under Colchester walls," he said, "but will strike inland a little; then they will come out and give us battle in the open to stay our march."
By this time the loyal freemen of Essex had gathered to Ulfkytel in good force, and Olaf thought it would be well that he should march along the road that leads from Coggeshall to Dunmow and take that town, which is strong, so that the Danish forces should not join against us.
Therefore he left us, and would go northwards from Dunmow, taking the towns from thence to Thetford and Norwich, and he should go to Ipswich and maybe to Dunwich after this. So would all East Anglia submit. And all went well with Ulfkytel until the time came when he must turn back in haste, as I must tell presently.
Now, after he was gone, Olaf thought that it would be well to cross the Colne and Stour rivers, and so cut off the Sudbury Danes from Colchester if it might be done.
"Then there is no better place than my own," said I, "for the road on either side of the Stour can be guarded at Bures, and I know all the country well."
That pleased Olaf, and he said that we would take up some strong position there, and so wait to draw the Danes into the open, where he thought that one battle would do all for us.
Thus I came hack to the home that I loved and longed to see again. And when we came in the early morning to the place where the great mound of the Icenian queen towers above its woods I know not how my heart was stirred. I cannot say the things that I felt, and Olaf said: "Let us ride on alone and see your place."
Then we came swiftly to the crest of the hill, and I could see all that was mine by right. But it was a piteous sight for me, and my rage and sorrow made me silent as I looked.
The stockading that had been so good was broken and useless, and the church was in blackened ruins, standing among the houses where black gaps among them also showed that the Danes had been at work and that none had had heart to rebuild. Black were the ruins of my home on the hill above the village, and across the mere woods one burnt gable of Hertha's home stood alone above the hill shoulder to show where Osgod had dwelt in the hollow of the hills beside the ford.
Then we rode across the bridge and into the street unchallenged, for all the poor folk had fled from before us thinking that we were some fresh foes. Very strange the deserted place looked to me as I sat on my horse on the familiar green, and saw the river gleam across the gap where the church had been, and missed the houses that I had known so well.
"Call aloud, Redwald," said Olaf. "It may be that your name will bring some from their hiding."
So I called, and the empty street echoed back the words: "Ho, friends! I am Redwald, your thane. Will none come to greet me?"
There was no answer, and Olaf lifted up his clear voice: "Ho, Ethelred's men! here is help against the Danes."
Then from under the staging by the riverside where the boats land their cargo, crept two men and came towards us slowly. And one was that thrall of mine who would have gone to Wormingford for me on the night when we fled. His silver collar of thraldom was gone, for the Danes had taken it, and his face bore marks of long hardship, but I knew him instantly. So I called him by name, and he stared at me fixedly for a moment, and then cried aloud and ran to me and fell to kissing my hand and weeping with joy at my return. Nor could I get a word from him at first.
Then more of the people came from one place or another, timidly at first, but growing bold as they saw these two men without fear of us, and by the time that Olaf's warriors came over the bridge there were not a few folk standing round us and looking on. One by one I knew their faces, though years of pain had marked them sorely. But none knew me at first, though doubtless they would do so if I called to them as I had called to Brand the thrall.
Now was busy setting of watches and ordering of outposts, and Olaf went with me to the top of our hill and there set a strong post of our men, for there could be no better place for a camp either for rest or defence, and the people told him that every Dane in the countryside had gone to Colchester, where they thought to be attacked.
Now Brand the thrall had followed us to the hilltop, and while I sat and looked at the ruins of my home he left me and spoke to a group of countrymen who looked on at the warriors. There was one among this group whose face drew me, for I seemed to think that I ought to know him, though I could not say who he was. He looked like a poor franklin in his rough brown jerkin and leather-gartered hose, and broad hat, and he bore no weapon but a short seax in his belt, and a quarterstaff, and there was nought about him to claim notice. But I was watching for old friends of mine with a full heart, and scanned the face of each one that came near.
Then it seemed that the others spoke to this man with a sort of reverence, and presently one bared his head before him. Thereat I knew who he was, and my heart leapt with joy, for it was good Father Ailwin, our priest, who had gone back to his death as we had thought.
Then I made haste and went to him, dismounting before him.
"Father," I said, "have you forgotten Redwald, your pupil?"
He took my hand in silence, being too much moved to speak, and signed the sign of the cross towards me in token of blessing. I bowed my head, and rejoiced that he was yet living.
Then Olaf called me, and I said: "When the warriors have dispersed, come to the house on the green that was Gurth's. The king and I shall be there. We have much to say to one another, father."
So I had to leave him at that time, for now Olaf would take eight score of our men in haste to Sudbury, which is but five miles away, and call on the townsfolk to rise for Ethelred and drive out any Danes who were left there.
We went away quickly, and took all our mounted men, for we could hear of no Danish force afield yet. It is likely that word of our force had gone from Maldon, losing nothing on the way.
We rode to Sudbury gates and called on the townspeople to open their gates. Then was some tumult and fighting inside the town, but they opened to us, and we rode in. There were some slain men in the street, for what Danes had been there had resisted the surrender to so small a force.
But the Sudbury folk rejoiced to see us, and hailed Ethelred as king very gladly. Then Olaf bade them raise what men they could and join him at Bures on the morrow with the first light. Thereat the old sheriff of Sudbury, whom I knew well, promised that we should have all the men whom he could raise.
"Nor will they be your worst fighters, King Olaf," he said, "for we have many wrongs to avenge."
It was late evening when we went back. And in the road where it winds between the river and the hill before one comes into Bures street waited Rani and some men with news. The Danes had come from Colchester, and already their watch fires were burning along the heath some four miles to eastward of us. It had fallen out, as Olaf wished, that they would try to bar our way into Suffolk, and we should have work to hand on the morrow.
Now men had gone with some thralls who could take them safely near the host, to spy what they could of the number and the plans of the Danes.
So it came to pass that I went no more into the village that night, but slept by a fire that burnt where our own hearthstone had been, amid the ruins of my home. And that was a sad homecoming enough. Moreover, in the first hours of the night a wonderful thing happened which seemed to be of ill omen, and was so strange that maybe few will believe it.
There was a bit of broken wall near the fire, and I laid me down in my cloak under its shelter, setting the sword that Eadmund had given me against it close to my head, so that I could reach it instantly if need were. After a while I slept, for the day had been very long and I was weary, else would sad thoughts have kept me waking. And presently there was a rumble and snapping that woke me up in a dream of falling ruin, and the man who lay next to me cried out and dragged me roughly aside.
The broken wall had fallen, crumbling with the heat of the fire, I suppose, and had almost slain me. But I was not touched, though the sword was broken. And when Ottar the scald heard of it he was troubled, not knowing what this might betoken. But Olaf thought little of it.
"It means that axe is better than sword for this fight," he said, for he had armed me like himself after the Norse manner, than which is none better or more handsome. He had given me a byrnie {10} of the best ring mail, and a helm gold-inlaid as became a king's kinsman, and axe and shield like his own. He and his men alone of all Norsemen in those days bore the cross on both helm and shield. Nor would Olaf have any unchristened man in all his host. Many a stout warrior did he turn away because he was not and would not be a Christian, for many Danes were yet heathen, and most Norway men.
Some of the men who had gone out to see the Danish force came back soon after midnight, and they said that there would seem to be close on a thousand of them in all.
After that we knew that a hard fight was before us, and the king bade us sleep and take what rest we might. Then, very early, came men to say that the Sudbury folk had come, and Olaf and I went down to the village to meet them. Close on two hundred men had come with Prat, the son of the sheriff of Sudbury, at their head, and they were not to be despised, for they were sturdy spearmen, and many had mail, though the most wore the stout leathern jerkin that will turn a sword cut well enough.
And Prat asked that they should have the first place in the fight, seeing that they fought for their own land.
"That is the place of my own ship's crew," said Olaf, "nor will they be denied it. Now shall you fight under Redwald, your own thane, and he will have the next place to me."
That pleased both them and me well, and after that Olaf sent me on as advance guard, for we knew the country.
We were nine hundred strong in all, and when I took my men to the hilltop I met a man who said that the Danes mustered some fifteen hundred strong. There were Anglian Danes there besides thingmen. But Olaf had said that we would fight two to one if necessary, and so I held on; he would send after me if he would make any change in his plans when he heard this. It was well that we had settled with the Sudbury force already or we should have had them to deal with besides.
We left Bures hill and went down the steep valley beyond it, and I thought that the Danes might wait for us in the wood that is on the opposite slope. But there were none, and we came out on the open ground that stretches away in a fairly level upland for many a mile northward and eastward before us. There I waited, for we needed no advance guard beyond these last woodlands. One could see to the dip that is by Leavenheath, and there the Danes would be. And indeed across the open rode a few men in that direction, and I knew that they were scouts who would take the news of our coming; but they were too far away to be stopped even had I wished to do so. Olaf would not be led far from Bures and the river, but would have the foe come to him.
So we stayed just beyond the cover, and the bustards ran across the heath as we roused them, and the larks sprung up and sang overhead, and the blackbirds called their alarm notes in the copse behind us, and the men talked of these things and pointed at the rabbits that sat up to look at us before they fled, as if there were no fighting at hand; for indeed I think that one notes all these well-known things more plainly when one's mind is strung up and over watchful, as it will be before somewhat great that is looked for.
Then came Olaf at the head of his men, and as he came I saw the first sparkle of armour across the heath under the sun, for the Danes were in array, and were coming up to the level ground over which we looked.
And when Olaf saw that his face grew bright with the joy of battle in a good cause, and his hand went to his sword while he looked quickly round for the place that he would choose. Nor was he long in choosing, for he led us but a furlong from the cover's edge, and there drew us up in a half circle, with the hollow towards the cover and our horsemen on the flanks, so that the greater force could not outflank us, while we had the wood in our rear. So if one half of the curved line was forced back it would but drive us closer together, back to back, and at the worst we could not be followed into the cover except by scattered men who would be of no account.
Now the strongest part of our curved line was in the centre, and there stood Olaf's mailed shipmen, and behind them my English spearmen. That place they liked not at first, till the king told them carefully what he would have them do at the first charge of horsemen for which he looked, for now it was plain that many of the Danes were mounted.
Olaf and I stood between his men and mine, leaving our horses in the cover, for a viking leader will ever fight on foot. Rani was on the right wing, and Biorn the marshal on the left; and Ottar the scald bore Olaf's banner beside the king. There were six of the best warriors of the crew before Olaf as his shield wall, and six of the best English warriors had been named by Prat to act in the same way for me. Olaf had given me a good plain sword in place of that which I broke, but I took a spear now, ashen shafted and strong, in the English way, that I might be armed as were my men, and I think that pleased them.
The Danes came on fast, and they had not been miscounted. They were full half as many again as we, and they were drawn up in line with their horsemen on the wings as we were, so that at first I thought we should fight man to man, both horse and foot, along the whole front.
Now they came almost within bow shot, and there they halted and closed up, leaning on their weapons, while a great man, tall and black bearded, and clad in black chain mail, rode out before them and came towards us with his right hand held up in token of parley.
Olaf went out from the line to meet him, and when they were close together a great hush fell on the two hosts to hear what was said.
"Are you the leader of this host?" the Dane said.
"Aye. Who are you?" answered Olaf.
"I am Egil Thorarinsson, of Colchester," he answered. "And whoever you may be, I call on you to yield to Cnut, King of Denmark and England, and Norway also."
"Maybe he is king of neither," Olaf answered quietly. "I am Olaf Haraldsson, and I am here to see if he shall be King of England. So I call on you to submit peaceably to Ethelred, leaving Cnut to take his own land if he can."
"We are Cnut's men and Danes," answered Egil, "and from your speech and name it would seem that you are no Englishman. Now if you are Olaf the Thick, own your own king Cnut, and leave this Ethelred the Unredy to his own foolishness."
"I am one of those Norsemen who hold that Cnut is no king of ours, and therefore I fight him wherever I can. But if you will own Ethelred there shall be peace from him, and you will but do what the Danes of Guthrum's host did in the old days--hold the land you have won from an English overlord."
"A fine overlord, forsooth," said the Dane; "maybe one would think of it had he been a second Alfred--but Ethelred the Unredy! Not so, King Olaf. Will you own Cnut, or must we make you?"
"It seems that we shall not agree until we have fought out this question," said Olaf, laughing a little.
The Dane laughed back.
"Aye, I suppose not. I would that you had a few more men. But that is a hard lot in the centre."
And so he looked down our line with an unmoved face, and turned his horse and rode slowly back to his own men. Olaf came back to us with a confident look enough.
"There is a man worth fighting," he said to me; "he is foster brother of Thorkel the High, who leads young Cnut, and he seems an honest warrior enough."
Then all at once his face hardened, and he spoke in the sharp tone of command: "Get your spearmen forward--the horsemen are coming first."
And I saw even before he spoke that this was so, for they were closing in across their line from the wings, and forming up for an attack that they maybe thought would break the grim ranks of Olaf's crew who were the strength of our centre.
So I gave the word, and my spearmen came quickly forward through the viking line, and there stood two deep, setting the butt ends of their spears firmly in the ground at their feet, and lowering the points to meet the horses breast high. Olaf bade the front rank kneel on one knee and take both hands to the spear shaft, and then the thick hedge of glittering points was double. I had never seen this plan before, but it was what Olaf had bidden us do if there was a charge of horsemen. And I stood in the second rank with Prat beside me, and behind me were the men of Olaf's shield wall. I took my axe in my right hand instead of the sword, for the heavier weapon seemed best against what was coming.
Now were the foes ready, even as the spearmen knelt, and a chief rode out before them and gave the word to charge, and with a great roar they answered him, spurring their horses and flying down on us. The arrow shafts rattled on the bow staves as Olaf's vikings made ready, and I cried to my spearmen to stand steady, for it seemed as if that thundering charge must sweep the crouching lines like chaff before it. And as it came we were silent, and no spear wavered in all the long hedge to right and left of me.
They were but fifty paces from us; and then with hiss and rattle as of the first gust of a storm in dry branches the arrows flew among them, smiting man and horse alike, and down went full half of the foremost line, while over the fallen leapt and plunged those behind them unchecked, and were upon us sword in air; and the tough spear shafts bent and cracked, and a great shout went up, and over the shoulders of my men flashed the viking axes, falling on horses and dismounted men, and the Danish riders recoiled from the steadfast spearmen whose line they could not break though they had gapped it here and there, while the arrows and javelins flew among them unceasingly.
They drew back disordered, and then from the wings charged our horsemen and broke them, chasing them back towards their own men in disorder, while my stolid spearmen closed up again shoulder to shoulder, and the level hedge of spear points was ready again. But now they shone no longer, for they were dulled with the crimson token of their work.
Then the Danish ranks opened, and their horsemen passed through to the rear, and at once our men wheeled back to their posts on the wings, shouting in the faces of the Danes as they galloped past their lines. Then was the ground open between the forces again, but now it was cumbered with fallen men and horses, and below our spear points was a ghastly barrier of those who had dared to rush on them, for spear had begun and axe had finished the work.
"Well done, spearmen!" Olaf cried to us, "now is our turn."
And at his word his vikings took our place, and we were content. For we had borne the first shock of the battle after all, and had earned praise. Moreover the whole line cheered us as we fell back into the second line.
"Now comes the real fighting," said Olaf to me; "stay by my side, cousin, and you and I will see some sword play together."
So I stood on the left hand, and Ottar was on his right with the standard, and Prat of Sudbury was next to me. The viking line was two deep before us, and Olaf's shieldmen and mine were between us and the rear rank, and my spearmen leant on their weapons behind us again. But it took us less time to fall into place thus than it has taken to say how we stood.
And hardly were we steady again before the whole Danish line broke out into their war song and advanced. Then the song became a hoarse roar, and their line lapped round to compass our bowed front, and man to man they flung themselves on us as the storm of darts and arrows crossed from side to side between us. Then rang the war chime, the clang of steel on steel loud over Leavenheath, and there came into my heart again the longing to wipe out the memory of old defeats, and I gripped my axe and shield and waited for my turn to come.
There was a little time while I might see all that happened, and at the first rush I saw Biorn's men give back a pace--no more--and win their place again. I saw our horsemen watching for a chance to charge in on the Danish flank, and I saw the Danish riders wheeling to meet them. Then I must keep my eyes for what was before me, for men were falling. Then Ottar began to sing, and his voice rose over the cries of battle, and rang in tune with the sword strokes as it seemed to me, and with his singing came to me, as to many, the longing to do great deeds and to fall if I might but be sung thus.
Then I saw a Dane fell one of the vikings, and leap at the men of Olaf's shield wall, and an axe flashed and he went down. The fighting was coming nearer to me, and I watched and waited, and I knew that I had never seen so stern a fight as this, for before me Olaf's veterans fought against Swein's--the trained thingmen who held the towns. And neither side had ever known defeat, and it seemed to me that surely we must fight till all were slain, for these were men who would not yield.
Then was a gap in the ranks before me for a moment, and through it glanced like light a long spear with a hook that caught the edge of Prat's red shield and tore it aside; and I smote it and cut the shaft in twain, so that it was but wood that darted against Prat's mail, and he said, "Thanks, master," and smiled at me, for the ranks had closed up again.
Then before me I saw Egil's black armour, and the mighty form of the chief who had led the mounted Danes; and they rushed on us and their men followed them, and in a moment one was shield to shield with me, and I took his blow on mine, and my stroke went home on his helm, and he fell at my feet, swaying backwards, while over him tripped Egil, and lost his footing, and came with a heavy fall against me, so close and suddenly that I could not strike him or he me, and I grappled with him and we went down together.
Then my spearmen roared "Out, out!" and charged on the Danes who had broken our line thus, and I heard Olaf's voice shouting, and then I was inside our line behind the heels of the men who fought, and struggling with the Danish chief for mastery.
That was a tough wrestle, but I had been in training with Olaf, and the Dane had been shut up in the town at ease; and at last he gave way, and I knelt on his broad chest, drew my seax, and bade him yield.
"Not I," he said, panting for breath.
But I would not slay a brave warrior who had fallen as I knew by chance, and so I said--for fighting was too hot for any man to pay heed to us, as his Danes were trying to reach him through my spearmen: "You had better. For you have fought well, and this is but chance."
"Tie me up, then," he growled. "Who are you?"
"Olaf's cousin," said I. "I can yield to you, then," he said; "take my sword and tie me up, for I will escape if I can."
Then two spearmen turned and shouted, and went to drive their weapons into the body of my foe, and I put my shield in the way.
"Strike not a fallen man," I said, and they forebore, ashamed.
Then I loosed the baldric that his sword hung in--his axe was gone as he fell or wrestled--and took the weapon. And lo! it was sword Foe's Bane, my father's sword; and I cast away my axe and gripped the well-known hilt, and bade the spearmen guard my captive, and turned back into the fight. And all this had gone by in a whirl, as it were, and the Danes were still striving to regain their lord, while Olaf and Ottar were smiting unceasingly. Only Prat was gone, while now our whole line was of spearmen and vikings mingled, and the Danish line was in no sort of order, but I thought they prepared for another rush on us.
Then it came, and we were driven back fighting; it slackened, and we took our ground again. And then I know not what sign Olaf saw in the faces of the Danes before him, but suddenly he spoke, and our war horns brayed. Then Ottar raised the standard and pointed it forward, and there rose a thundering cheer from our whole line as we charged and swept the Danes before us, spear and axe and sword cleaving their way unchecked. And surely sword Foe's Bane wiped out the dishonour of biding in a foeman's power that day.
Then rode our horsemen among the disordered crowd, and that was the end. The Danes broke and fled, and Olaf had won his seventh battle, and I had seen victory at last; moreover the sword of Thorgeir was in my hand.
The light-armed men and the riders followed the flying Danes, and Olaf sheathed his red sword with the light of victory shining on his face, and while the men cheered around us he put his hand on my shoulder and asked if I were hurt.
"I saw you fall, cousin," he said, "but I could not win to you. The Danes pressed on to reach the man you had down."
"It was Egil," I said. "I am not hurt--are you touched?"
And he was not, but it was our good mail that had saved us both. There would be work for the armourer by and by before we could wear it again, for after Egil had fallen I had been beside the king, and there was no lack of blows before the time had come when our charge ended the matter. Only three of his six shield men and two of mine were left.
But Prat was slain, and many another good warrior lay dead where our line had been.
Now when I looked for Egil he was gone. The two spearmen lay where I thought he had been, and I looked to find him slain also. So I asked the men round me, and at last found one who had seen him dragged up by the rush that bore us back. And so he had escaped.
"That is the chance of war," said Olaf, "but you could not have slain him with honour."
"Nevertheless," said Ottar, "Redwald has a sure token there that he overcame him," and he pointed to my sword.
"It is my father's sword," I said. "It has come back to me, even as you said it would."
"They have not said too much of sword Foe's Bane," Ottar answered. "For I have seen you use it--and I think that Hneitir is hardly more handsome."
Now came that which is the most terrible part of a battle, even for the victors, and that is the calling of the roll. And sad enough were we when that was done, for the loss was heavy. Yet what the loss was to the Danes I cannot say, for our men chased them till there were no two left together to make a stand among those who had not found safety in the woods that fringe the heath.
Then we bore back our wounded--and they were many--to Bures, and it was noonday when we reached there. But there was no rest for Olaf yet, for Colchester must be barred against the Danes.
He and I therefore took a hundred of our men, mounting them on the freshest of the horses, and covered the nine miles between us and the town as quickly as we might. Very fair the old place looked to me as we crossed the Colne and saw the walls among the trees on the steep hillside, and the houses nestling against it. The gates were shut, and there was a strong guard along the ramparts on either side, and we halted and summoned the townsfolk to surrender to Ethelred in peace.
Doubtless some flying Danes had brought news of how the battle had gone, for at once the gates were opened to us, and the chief men came out and prayed for favour at Olaf's hands, and he told them that Ethelred their king would take no revenge on them for having bowed to Swein and his mighty force. So there was rejoicing in Colchester, for it seemed to the townsfolk that peace had surely come at last, and with it relief from the oppression of the thingmen. For these warriors had carried matters with a high hand, so that no Anglian dared to call them aught but lord--it must be "lord Dane" if they spoke even to the meanest of the hosts and the gravest burgher must give way to some footman of Swein's if they met in street or on bridge. So they were not loved.
Olaf bade the townspeople prove their loyalty by taking all the Danish warriors who were in the place, and bringing them to him on the market hill where the great roads cross. Then was fighting in Colchester for a while, but in the end, towards sunset, there was a sullen gathering of them enough, and many were wounded.
Then the king went and spoke to them.
"What think you that I will do to you?" he asked.
"Even as we would do to you," one said.
"Hang me, maybe?" said Olaf.
"Aye, what else?" the man answered in a careless way, but looking more anxious than he would wish one to see.
"I do not hang good warriors," the king said. "What would you do if I gave you life?"
"What bargain do you want to make?" said the Dane.
"If I put you into a ship and let you go, will you promise to take a message for me to Cnut, and not to come back to England as foes?"
"If that is all, we will do it," the man answered, while his look grew less careful, and the other men assented readily enough with the fierce townsmen and their broad spears waiting around them.
"Go and tell Cnut, then, that Ethelred is king, and how you have fared. That is all I bid you. Are there any Norsemen among you?"
There were eight or ten among the six-score prisoners, and Olaf spoke aside with them.
"Go back to our own land and say what you have seen of the dealings of Olaf Haraldsson with those who fight bravely though against him. And if when you hear that I have returned to Norway you come and mind me of today, I will give you a place among my own men."
Then they said that they would fain serve him now; but he would not have that, and then they said that they would surely come to him if they heard that he was anywhere in their land.
There were two trading busses in the river, and into these vessels we put the Danes, giving them all they needed to take them back to Denmark, but leaving them no arms. The townsfolk would have it that they would return and take revenge in spite of their promise, but Olaf told them that they must not fear so few men, but rather take care to be ready against the coming of more.
So the Danes sailed away down the river and to sea, and whether they kept their promise or not I cannot say. But I think that Olaf had done somewhat towards preparing a welcome for himself when he should return to his own land by acting thus. I would that Ethelred and Eadmund had been wise as he, for by forgiveness they would have won men to them. But evil counsel was ever waiting on them, and maybe they are not to blame so much as is he who gave it.
There were no men of note among these Danes whom we took, and we thought that Ulfkytel would maybe hear of Egil before long, if he could by any means get his scattered forces together. Yet the rout was very complete, else he would have been back in Colchester before us.
The townsfolk made a great feast in Colchester for us that night, and next day Olaf called the headmen and set all in order for Ethelred the king. And we thought that the town was safe for him, for a levy would be made to hold the place at once. We rode back to Bures in the evening, therefore, taking a few of our men as a guard lest there should be parties of Danes on the road--a likely thing enough, as a beaten and disbanded force in a hostile land must live by plunder, for a time at least. But we met none.
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{
"id": "16196"
}
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8
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: The White Lady Of Wormingford Mere.
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As we rode over the uplands we saw that the Sudbury men would do all honour to those who had fallen fighting beside them, for they made a great mound over Olaf's men, and Ailwin our priest was there with us to see that they had Christian burial with such solemnity as might be in those troubled days. There might be no chanting of choir or swinging of censer at that burying; but when the holy rites were ended Ottar the scald sang the deeds of those who were gone, while the mound was closed. And that would be what those valiant warriors loved to hear.
So passed the day, and then were our wounded to be seen; but at last I might sit quietly in the house on the green and speak all that I would with Ailwin, and we had much to say. I know not if I longed or feared now to speak of Hertha, but I would do so. Yet first I asked Ailwin how he himself had fared when the Danes came; for I had thought that he would have been slain.
"Aye, my son, that I should have surely been," he said, "but I found a hiding place until their fury was past, and the host swept on, leaving but a few among us. Some of these were wounded men, and you mind that I am skilled in leechcraft. So I dressed myself in a freeman's garb and tended them, winning their respect at least, if not gratitude. So I have been the leech ever since, for the church was burnt, and many a priest was slain, and these Danes are but half Christian if they are not open pagans; and I might not don my frock, else would there have been no one left to christen and say mass and marry for our poor folk in quiet places."
Then I said: "Where did you find a hiding place, father?"
"It was shown me by one who made me promise--aye and take oath, moreover, as if my word were not enough--that I would tell no man where it is. For such a place once known to any but those who use it is safe no longer."
"Was it Gunnhild who helped you thus?" I said, for I remembered now my last words to him, that he should seek her.
"I may say that it was Gunnhild. There she and Hertha and I were safe till the worst was over," he answered, and looked in my face.
Then I must say what was in my mind all the while, and I asked him plainly: "Where is Hertha now, father? Is she yet well and safe?"
"Both well and safe with Gunnhild," he said.
"Where is she--can I seek her?"
The old man looked at me meaningly for a minute, and I grew hot under his kindly gaze.
"What remember you of Hertha, my son?" he said gently.
"All, father," I answered; "but does she remember aught?"
"She remembers--she has never forgotten," he said.
And I had forgotten for so long. I think the old priest, who was so used to deal with men, saw what was written in my face, for he smiled a little and said: "Women have time to think, but a warrior of today has had none. What think you of your meeting with Hertha?"
Then I said, being sure that Ailwin understood the puzzle that was in my mind: "Father, I know not what to think. We are bound--but now it is likely that we should not know one another if we met; in truth, I think I fear to meet her."
"Is there any other maiden?" he asked, still smiling.
"Once I thought there was--and not so long ago either," I said honestly, "but I remembered in time. Now I will say truly that there is not."
I had no longing for Penhurst now.
Then there came across me a strange feeling that one might hardly call jealousy--though it was near it--and I said: "Has she seen any other who would make her wish to forget?"
"Truly she has not," Ailwin laughed; "how should she?"
"I know not where she has been, father," I said with a lighter heart, although but an hour ago I thought that I should have been glad to hear that it was so.
"Ah--I forgot," Ailwin said in some little confusion as I thought, and he was silent. But now I would say more.
"Well, then, father, both of us are heart whole, as it seems. But I know not if she would be pleased with me as I am now."
Ailwin looked up quickly at me, and then said: "One cannot tell. Maybe she thinks the same concerning you and your thought of her."
Then I told the good man of that plan which the lady of Penhurst had made when we spoke of the same doubt, and he laughed thereat, which did not please me. So I said: "Well, then, let me see her."
"Not yet," he said after a little thought. "This is not the first time that I have gone over this matter. Gunnhild has spoken with me more than once, and yesterday she gave me a message for you, and I was but to give it if I found that you longed to see Hertha again."
"What is it, then?"
"She says that the troubles are not over yet. Cnut will be back shortly, and then you have warriors' work to do. When that is done there will be peace, for England or Denmark, or both, will be worn out. It will not be long ere that is so, she says, and she is very wise. Then come and find Hertha if you will. But now there will be less trouble for both if you meet not."
Then I grew impatient, for I hate concealments of any kind.
"Better break the betrothal at once, then," I said, "for if I must wait I cannot say that I may not meet with a maiden whom I shall love."
"Then shall you let me know," said Ailwin coolly, "and it shall be broken. Thus will be no sorrow to Hertha."
"So be it," said I. "But I think you are hard on me."
"No so, my son," said the good man, "not so. Redwald and Hertha of today are strangers. I do not altogether hold with these early betrothals; but what is, must be. Wait a little, and then when peace comes, and you can dwell, one at Bures and one at Wormingford in the old way--seeing one another and learning what shall be best for both--all will be well. Be content. Your place and hers lie in ruins. Why, Redwald, what home have you to give her?"
Now that word of common sense was the best that he could have spoken, for I was waxing angry at being thus played with, as I thought. But at that moment Olaf and Ottar came in with clang and ring of mail and sword, and so no more was said, and soon Ailwin rose to depart. But I followed him out, and asked him for the last time: "Will you not tell me where Hertha bides?"
"No, my son--not yet. Believe me it is best."
"Well, then," I answered, "I shall try to find her; but if I cannot, you mind what I said."
"I will not forget. But I will add this--that there are many fair maidens, and but one Hertha."
Then he turned away into the dark, and was gone with an uplifting of his hand in parting blessing. I knew the good man loved me, and now I was sorry that I had spoken harshly to him, yet I had a feeling that I had been treated ill. Maybe that was foolish, but one acts on foolish thoughts often enough.
There was a man sitting on the settle in the porch of the house as I turned back. I had not noticed him as we came out. Now the firelight from the half-open door fell on his face, and I saw that it was one of those two thralls of mine.
"Ho, Brand," I said, "answer me truly. Know you where bides Dame Gunnhild the witch?"
"No, lord. We know not where she bides but it is not far hence, for we see her at times in the village, though not often."
"How did she escape when the Danes came?"
"She and the lady Hertha took boat--it was but three days after you had gone. All the men had fled as she bade them, but her brother came and helped her with the boat. They went into the mere, and that was the last we saw of them."
Now I remembered to have heard of Gunnhild's brother, but I had never seen him.
"Where does her brother live?" I asked.
"I know not. I have not seen him again," answered the man.
"Whence comes Dame Gunnhild into the village?" I went on, thinking that I might learn somewhat in that way.
"Master," said Brand, "she comes at twilight, nor will she have anyone follow her. Ill would it fare with the man who did so. I do not know whence she comes."
Now it seemed to me that the man had more in his mind than that, and at least that there must be some talk about the place, which is small enough to make the doings of everyone the talk of each one else.
"Where do men say she lives?" I asked therefore.
The man looked doubtfully at me, but he could see that I was not angry. So he smiled foolishly, and answered: "We say nought, lord. Danes hear everything in some way."
"Well, you can tell me safely enough."
"We think it is witchcraft of the old dame's, and that she and the lady Hertha live with the White Lady in the mere of Wormingford."
Then I was fain to laugh, for it was witchcraft more than even Gunnhild could compass, by which she might find refuge in the depths of that bottomless mere where the White Lady dwells. The place has an ill name enough among our folk, and even on a bright summer day, when all the margin of the wide circle of water is starred with the white lilies, I have known silence fall on those laughing ones who plucked the flowers, so still and dark are the waters, and so silent the thick woods that hem the mere round under the shadow of the westward hill that hides the sunset. No man cares to go near the mere when darkness has fallen, so much do our people fear to see the White Lady of whom Brand spoke.
I feared her not, for she was a lady of our own race, who was drowned there by the wild Welsh folk in some raid of theirs when we Angles first came from the land beyond the seas and drove them out. Ours was the clan of the Wormings--I bore the badge of the twining snake myself today, marked on my left arm, as had all my fathers before me--so ford and mere were named after us, and we were proud of the long descent, as I have said. Once had my mother seen the Lady, and that was on the day that my father was slain. Therefore had she seen unmoved the coming of Grinkel, for she knew already what had befallen. I had not seen the Lady, but I know that many others of my race had done so, and ever before the coming to them of somewhat great that was not always ill. But she never spoke to them, but floated, white robed, over the mere, singing at times, or silent.
Now it came into my mind that the thrall was not so far wrong, and that there was a chance that Gunnhild might have some hiding place among those woods about the mere, for no man willingly searches them, and Danes fear these places more than we, being heathenish altogether. So I asked Brand if the Danes knew about the White Lady.
"Ay, master, they soon learned that. They call her 'Uldra', though why I know not."
That was the name of the water spirit they believed in. So I became all the more sure that Gunnhild was there. It would be easy for her to feign to be the White Lady and so terrify any man who sought her. A man is apt to shape aught he sees into what he fears he may see.
"Has the White Lady been seen of late?" I asked therefore.
"I have heard that the Danes say that they have seen her," he answered. "They have seen also bale fires burning on the mound where the great queen lies."
That last was an old tale among us also, but I had never seen any light above the great mound. Ottar had many sagas that told of the fires that burnt, unearthly, above buried heroes, and the Danes would watch for them, and so, as I have said, would certainly see them, or deem that they did so. Yet I suppose that these strange fires may have burnt on the tombs of heathen men, else would not the tales have been told thereof so certainly. But Christian warriors rest in peace, and about their last bed is no unquiet. Nor may Christian folk be frighted by the bale fires of the long-ago heathen's mounds. For their sakes they have been quenched, as I think.
So I stood and mused for a while, turning over in my mind how best to find Gunnhild at the mere without leading others to her hiding place. And at last I laughed to myself, the thing was so simple. I had but to go into the mere woods at twilight or in the dusk, and wander about until she heard and feared my coming. Then she would play the White Lady's part on me to fray me away, and all was done. She could not tell who I was, nor would she think it likely that I would seek her there, and would easily forgive me for doing so, when we met.
I bade Brand the thrall goodnight, and went back into the great room of the house, where Olaf sat with Ottar resting and talking together. There was no one else in the place, for we had no fear of aught, and Olaf cared not to have many men about him. Some of his men would come presently and sleep across the doorway, but the evening was young yet.
"You seem as if you had heard somewhat pleasant," Olaf said when I came in.
I suppose that my certainty of finding Gunnhild and Hertha pleased me well enough to make my face bright.
Now both Olaf and Ottar knew of my wish to search for Hertha, and who she was, for I had told them as we sailed to Maldon on the way to my own country again, and they were eager to help me to take her from hiding into what we thought would be greater safety. So when the king said this, at first I thought of saying only that I had surely found out where she was hidden. But then I would not keep back what Ailwin had said, for Olaf might have advice for me.
Therefore I sat down and told them all the story of my talks with the priest and the thrall, adding that I was the more sure that Gunnhild was hard by, because Ailwin had said that it was but yesterday she had given him the message for me.
Then Olaf said: "Cousin, I think these two old folk are right. Better wait for peace, as they say."
"It is not so sure that Cnut will come back," I said.
"Is it not?" said Olaf. "Why--seeing that he has left his host of thingmen in the towns, and we had Thorkel's foster brother to fight but the other day, and that these Danes do not yield at once and so gain peace and hold what they have, but will rather fight than own Ethelred--I think that none can well doubt that word has gone round the Danes in the kingdom that he will return, and that they need not fear to hold out till he comes."
Then the last doubt of trouble to come passed from me, for it was plain that these thingmen looked for help presently. But Olaf was thinking of my affairs again.
"Four years is overlong for anyone to play ghost on a whole countryside," he said laughing. "I cannot think that Gunnhild, even if she be a witch, can have bided in sight of the village all this time without being found."
"No man dares go near the place," I said.
"Well, whence has she her food unless from the village? I think she cannot be so near," he replied, and there was reason in his question.
I was cast down at this, for I had made so sure that I had found out the secret that was so carefully kept from me. When there is mystery made, which is, or seems, needless, there is pleasure and a feeling of mastery in finding it out unaided, and I was losing that.
I will say this, however, that I was more vexed in this way than with the thought that I should not find Hertha, for in my own mind I began already to own that Ailwin and Gunnhild were in the right about our not meeting yet.
Olaf saw that I was vexed now, and put forward a plan which he thought would be pleasant to me, for he was certain that I should not be satisfied until I had seen if I was right.
"There is no reason why we should not go to the mere and see if Gunnhild is there," he said. "If she is, maybe it will be well for you to speak with her. And if not--why, then we know at least that she has a good hiding place elsewhere."
That was a plan that pleased me well, for though I had no fear of going to that lonely place so long as I had made myself certain that I should meet Gunnhild, now that it seemed not quite so sure but that I should find myself alone there, the thought of the quest was not quite so pleasant to me.
"Then we may as well go at once," Olaf said. "How like you the thought, Ottar?"
"I like not such places, my king," the scald answered honestly. "There are chills that come over one, and rising of the hair."
"Aye, there are," answered Olaf. "I have a fear of this White Lady myself. Therefore am I going with Redwald, because I want to see if there is aught to be feared of."
"I will come with you," the scald said, hardening his heart, for his mind was full of the wild tales of the old heathen days which he sang, and he feared more than we.
"It is but a lady after all," said Olaf, laughing at Ottar's face.
"I have a sort of fear of living ladies," the scald said, "how much more, therefore, of their ghosts! I had rather meet Danes. For when one sees them there comes a stiffening of back and knees and fists--whereas--" "Aye, Redwald and I know somewhat of what you mean," laughed Olaf, and then Ottar laughed, and we took our cloaks and were going, but first must seek Rani, and tell him that we were now about to leave the village for an hour or so.
Now no man questioned Olaf as to his lonely walks, as I saw in Normandy, and Rani said nought but: "Take your arms, for there may be wandering Danes about."
But we were armed already, though without mail, and as we went not far it seemed unlikely that we should need any. It was but a half-hour's walk from the house.
Now the mere lies on the south side of the river, which runs into it only by a narrow inlet, and this inlet is so overshadowed by the trees of the thick woodland that when one has passed through the opening it is lost to sight very quickly. So heavy is the growth of timber round the mere that one can see the water from no place, save for a glimpse as this inlet is passed in going down the river, and many a stranger has passed by all unknowing that such a mere could be near him. Hardly can the wind reach the wide waters to ruffle them even when a gale blows, and so the place is more silent, and its terror falls more heavily on a man's mind.
It was two hours after sunset when we started, but the fringe of the woodland is but a mile and a half from the village, and we were soon there. The night was bright enough, with a clear sky and stars overhead, though there was no moon as yet.
As we went Olaf was very cheerful, and railed pleasantly at Ottar for his fears, while I said little, not knowing if I wanted to find Gunnhild or not.
But Ottar would not pretend to be braver than he felt, having no shame in fear of things other than earthly, a matter wherein I think that he was right.
"Why," said the king, "if Dame Gunnhild tries to fray us, do you but turn that cloak of yours inside out, and you will frighten her"--for it chanced that the scald's red cloak had a white woollen lining, whereof he was somewhat proud, being a lover of bright dress.
"It is ill to mock a spirit," the scald said; "wherefore do I believe the less that a Wise Woman will bide in the place that it haunts."
So they talked until we came to the woodland; and when we came among the trees a silence fell on us.
"It is of no use," I said, "let us go back. You are right, and she cannot bide here."
"Why, now that I have got over my fear so far," Olaf said, "I will go on, even to the water's edge. Then will we go back."
I could not gainsay him, as may be known, and so we went on. It was easy at first to thread our way through the trees, but presently they were thicker, and it was dark. There was no wind moving in the boughs overhead, and there is no denying that the silence of that deserted place weighed heavily on us all.
And when we drew close to the water's edge, and saw the still water, starlit, stretching before us, a water hen sprang from the reeds almost at our feet with her shrill warning cry, and flapped out into the middle of the dark mere, leaving a long trail of broken water behind her that gleamed for a moment with dancing star sparks from the sky, as if it might have been the path of the White Lady herself. And from all round the lake came the answering cries of her mates, sounding weird and strange through the silent gloom. I heard Ottar draw a deep breath, and we all three started, and stood still, as if turned to stone.
"We have taken fright easily," said Olaf, as if angry with himself for being thus startled. "My heart beats like a hammer, and I will bide here till I can do better than that."
Yet he spoke in a whisper; and I saw no reason to try to answer him if I could. Then he walked on, keeping to the right, where the ground is high, at the hill foot, but still skirting the water's edge. Then I saw something beside the reeds, and went aside to see what it was; and, as I thought, it was a canoe that some fisher had left. There was a paddle still in it, and a bow net set on hoops, such as we were wont to use for eels and tench.
"Here is how Gunnhild might find food," I thought, but it was not likely.
Ottar stood and looked into it with me, but the king had walked on.
Now it grew darker as we followed him, and Ottar tripped and fell, and I lost him, though I could hear him close behind me as he broke a branch now and then in passing.
The king stayed in a clear place that I remembered well. Great trees stood round, and it was pleasant to sit there and look out over the water on a summers noonday.
"Where is Ottar?" he said, when I stood by him.
"Close behind me. I heard him even now," I answered. "Let us go back, my king. There is nought here."
"Aye, we will go back now," he said. "But Ottar is before me."
"Listen," I said, "the scald is behind us. I lost him in the dark."
"Nay, but I heard him in front of me even as you came," the king said.
And when we stood still we could hear the scald where I thought; but also we heard footsteps and breaking branches before us.
We could see anything that was not in shadow pretty plainly; and now Olaf whispered to me: "Someone is forward, and coming nearer. Get your sword loose."
At that there came a cry like the moor hen's from the thicket before us, and in a moment, with a great shout and crashing, there broke out on us many men, and I was down and held fast before I could draw on them. I saw Olaf draw the long dagger that hung ready to his right hand, and smite backwards over his shoulder in the face of a man who was pinioning him from behind, and the man shrieked and reeled backward into the bushes, hands to face. And then Olaf cried, "We are beset," and was borne down.
Then the men tied us roughly with belts, and stood round us.
I looked every moment to see the rush of Ottar into the midst, sword in hand; and saw that it would go hard with him, for all the men were armed, and some wore mail that rattled as they moved. But he came not; and I wondered if he too were taken, or if he had turned craven and had fled, a thought that I put from me as sorely wronging the brave scald; and then wondered how long it would take him to reach the nearest outpost of our men and come to rescue us.
But now one was hammering flint on steel and making a fire in haste that he might see who they had caught. And when it blazed up I saw that the men were Danes. No doubt they were strangers to the place, men who had wandered here from the Leavenheath woods after the battle; for no Dane who came from close at hand would have dared to shelter in this place. There were fourteen of them in all.
"Ho," said one who seemed to take the lead, "we have trapped some gay birds. Now, who might you be?"
He spoke to Olaf, who answered nothing. So the man turned to me with the same question. But I followed the king's plan and made no answer. Whereat the man kicked me, saying: "Answer, you Norway rat!"
I ground my teeth with rage, and said nothing.
"Fetch the English churl, and ask him if he knows who these are," said the Dane. "Then shall we see if this is a question of drowning or ransom."
Two of tho men went back into the woods, and presently returned, dragging with them my thrall Brand, whose teeth chattered with terror, more of the place than of the Danes as it seemed, for he kept his eyes on the mere.
When he saw me I shook my head ever so little in token that he should not own us. If Olaf thought best we could do that for ourselves.
Then they cuffed the poor thrall, and asked him if he knew us; and for answer he did but point out over the mere, whose waters looked black as ink beyond the fire lit circle of trees and shore.
"Let us go hence, lord Danes," he said trembling, "then will I say what I can. The Lady is wroth with men who come here at night."
"We care for no ladies," said the leading Dane. "What are you feared of?"
"The White Lady who dwells in the mere. To look on her in her wrath is death," Brand said--and one might well see that his terror was real.
The Danes looked on one another, and there were white faces among them. Then, as luck would have it, one said: "This must be the mere of which I have heard strange tales. Let us go," and he began to edge away towards the fire.
Then the leader said: "Let us find out if these men are worth taking with us," and he came and questioned us again, and again we answered not.
"I will make you speak," he said savagely. "Take them up and make ready to cast them into the water."
Now I wondered where Ottar was. Surely he must be back with more men soon.
"Aye, throw them in, and let us be going," said one or two, for they had been asking Brand many questions, and now were eager to leave the place and its terrors.
So one brawny Dane took my feet and another my shoulders and began to lift me; while I could not so much as struggle, so tightly was I bound.
"Hold!" said the leader. "Will you throw away a sword like that?"
It was certain now that they were in haste, for they had forgotten to strip me in their wish to have done.
They set me down again, and that was the saving of us. For even as they loosed their grip on me, one who stood near the water cried out in a sharp voice: "Listen--what is that!"
And they all stayed motionless as had we when the bird scared us.
There was a sound of wondrously sweet singing from away across the mere. Such a voice it was as I had never heard before, neither like the singing of man or woman, nor had the song words that I could catch.
The Danes forgot us as they heard that, and huddled together in twos and threes, looking out to whence the sound came. As for Brand the thrall, he fell on his knees and hid his face against a tree trunk, crying faintly: "It is the White Lady."
So too thought I; and now I will not say that I feared her, for she was of my own race, and maybe she came to my help.
Then I saw some of the Danes gasp and start, and point across the water, speechless, and I looked also.
Plain enough in the firelight stood a tall white figure on the water of the mere, coming slowly towards us, and singing the while that wondrous song. And ever as it drew nearer the song grew wilder; and the long white-robed arm pointed towards us.
Then the thrall leapt up and yelled, and fled into the dark wood. And that was enough for the Danes. They gave not another thought to us, but cried out in mortal terror and fled also, tripping and crashing through the underwood as they went; while the song of the White Lady grew louder, and she still neared us.
Then, still singing, her pace quickened, and suddenly I saw that she came in no magic wise, but in the fisher's canoe which I had seen. And then the bows touched the shore, while with a wholesome clank of sword, and throwing back his long white cloak, Ottar the scald leapt ashore and came to us, dagger in hand, and cut our bonds.
"Into the boat, lord king--quick!" he said. "We shall be safe there."
Dazed and stiff I was, but I rose and followed Olaf; then Ottar pushed off, and we shot out towards the midst of the mere into safety.
Then the king stared at me and at Ottar for a moment in amazement, and then laughed until the woods rang again, and I and the scald were fain to join him. Never had I heard such sounds before in that haunted place.
"Now, Ottar," he said, when he could speak again, "never say more that you fear troll, or nix, or ghost--for you have done what you told me but half an hour ago was most unwise."
"I needs must do somewhat, lord king," said Ottar gravely, "and it came into my mind that these Danes would be as badly scared as should I have been had I met Gunnhild; and methought that Redwald's lady would forgive me for his sake."
"Aye, surely," I said.
Then--was it fancy, or a vision wrought on me by long looking at Ottar as he came across the red track of the firelight on the water, still dimpled by the boat, glided the white form of no earthly maiden, and was gone.
I saw it and said nought. Ottar sat in the stern facing us, and his eyes were away from the fire, and Olaf was beside me, and I thought that he started.
Then Ottar said: "Can we go back by water, Redwald? It would be safer."
I showed him the channel which leads to the river, and he took the paddle with which he had so deftly sculled the boat across the mere, and as we left the overhanging trees and saw the faint glow of the rising moon across the open river we breathed more freely, and were safe.
Surely had it not been for the scald's ready wit both Olaf and I had been lying even now in the dark mere. For it would have been death to us all three had Ottar tried to rescue us sword in hand. It is his saying that he was so frozen with fear at first--until he knew we had met with mortals only--that he stood still and helpless, listening. Then came to him the thought of what to do, when he heard the talk of either ransom or drowning and knew that we were not slain. So even as Olaf had bidden him in jest, he had turned his cloak and had saved us.
But Ottar the scald's courage and craft are well known, and I have other thoughts concerning his fear. But I know this, that never again could he find that strange and sweet voice that had come to him in the need of his master.
Brand the thrall cowered in the house porch when we returned, and he was pale as a sheet, while his knees trembled even yet. We took him in and gave him wine and meat, and then asked him how the Danes got hold of him.
"Master," he said, "they caught me but a little while after I had left you--as I set snares for rabbits on the hill. I let them come to me, thinking them some of the king's men who are kindly. Then they said they needed a guide through the country to the sea, and kept me with them."
Then Olaf said to him: "No ill will come of this seeing of the White Lady, for she came to save Redwald your lord; you may sleep in peace therefore, but it would be unlucky to say that you saw her."
Then the man said that he would not speak of the matter, and it was plain that he dared not do so. But he went away cheerfully enough, with his mind at rest from its fears.
"It would be ill luck for me if Rani heard of this," said Olaf, looking ruefully at us; "for we cannot deny that he warned us. My foster father loves rating a king now and then, though it be only a small one like myself."
So we said nought that night, and none asked where we had been. Now I slept next to Olaf, and in the night I woke with a new terror on me, and I put my hand on his and woke him.
"My king," I whispered, "what if Gunnhild and Hertha are indeed in the woods yonder? These Danes will have found them."
The king was silent for a moment, for the fear that my guess as to their hiding place might be right came to him also before he gave the matter thought.
"It is not likely. The thought of danger makes it seem possible again," he said. "But I like not these prowling Danes--they are looking for hiding places for themselves."
"She was safe before," I said, but a great fear came to me with his words.
There had been nought to drive the Danes to seek sheltered spots before, now they were sure to do so.
"This matter is not in our hands," said the king, when I said as much. "We can do nought. Pray, therefore, and sleep again. I think that you need fear little."
Then after a while he spoke once more.
"Redwald, saw you aught upon the mere while we sat in the canoe in its midst?"
"Aye, my king," I answered, knowing what he meant.
"I saw her also," he said.
So it had been no fancy of mine, but the White Lady of our house had indeed passed before my eyes. I began to wonder if this portended aught to me, but soon I thought that it did not, for the like peril in which I had been, and even then had hardly escaped from, had not befallen any of my kin, as I was in peril at her own place, which was a new thing. So I judged that she showed her thought of us only.
In the morning matters fell out so that we had never need to say what danger we had run. For the men had seen Brand's plight, which was pitiful, after Danes and thickets had done their work on him, and told Olaf that the man had met with and escaped Danes from the mere woods.
So with twenty men we searched those covers in broad daylight, and found no token of any dwellers in the place. Nor were any Danes left, save one, and that was the man whom Olaf had smitten, for he had died. The embers of the fire were near him, and on the bank lay the severed belts that had bound us.
"These Danes have fought among themselves," said our men, and hove the body into the water. So the Dane lies there instead of Olaf the king and me, with the Welshmen whom my heathen forefathers cast into the black depths, in revenge for the death of the White Lady.
Now when we came back to Bures there was a tired horse standing by the house door, and in the hall waited a messenger from Colchester, and he brought the news that we looked for and yet feared, so that we had hoped against hope that it would not come.
A Frisian trader had put into the Colchester river, and he brought word that even now Cnut might be taking the sea for England, for in all the western havens of Denmark was gathered such a mighty host and fleet that no man had ever known the like, and he had heard that the day for sailing would soon come.
Then Olaf made no delay but rode to Colchester to see this shipmaster and speak with him, for he thought that he might find out from him what point on our coasts would be that at which Cnut aimed first.
So Gunnhild and Olaf were right, and the little peace we had had was to end. Now would come the last struggle of English and Dane for mastery in our land, and in my heart I wished that we had such a king as Olaf Haraldsson. For it seemed to me that we were not ready, though we had had a year and more in which to prepare.
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{
"id": "16196"
}
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9
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: The Treachery Of Edric Streone.
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When Olaf had gone I sought out Father Ailwin, for the danger that I had seen for Hertha lay heavily on my mind, and now also I would tell him of the certainty of coming warfare, asking him what he and Gunnhild would do. So I went to the place where one might be sure to find him during the last two days, and that was in the churchyard, where our people and Olaf's men were working together to raise for him a little wattled chapel among the ruins, that should serve at least until I could return and build the church anew.
It was a sore grief to me that the old one was gone, for in it had been crowned Eadmund the Holy, and it was rich with his gifts. And our hall had been the first house in which he had feasted as crowned king, so that we call the lane from church to hilltop St. Eadmund's Lane since he rode along it in all the pomp of that high festival after he left the altar. Only the ruins of God's house and man's abode were there now, but the lane was bright with the flowers that the good king loved, and the nightingale sang in the wooded banks even as when he listened to it in the old days. We had always these things to mind us of the martyr.
But Ailwin was not with the men, though he had been foremost in working and planning with them. Nor had any of them seen him that day.
So I waited for a little while and watched the work, wondering if I should live now to do all that I would in making new the place. And then as I walked to look across the bridge I passed a heap of earth that the men had thrown out for the place of a post, and I saw somewhat glittering in it, and stooped and took it up.
It was a silver penny, and when I rubbed the earth from it, I knew that it was one of Eadmund's, mint new and fresh as on the day when he stood in his robes and crown, even where I stood in the place of the old porch, while the people shouted and scrambled and fought in glee for the largess he threw among them. Doubtless this had been so thrown and had been trodden under foot and lost.
Now it came into my hands even when my thoughts were most troubled, and to me it seemed as a sign that I should surely return to the place that the saint had loved. I was greatly cheered thereat, for as I waited for Olaf to return I saw as it were the long hope of home and peace dashed from me, and the pain of the coming war grew plainer than I had known it in Ethelred's court. The old love of home had waked in me as I wandered in the places of my boyhood, and for the first time I learned the aching of the hearts of those who had known more of home than I, and would lose it.
But I was young, and it needed but a little thing to turn my thoughts, so this token as I say helped me to banish them. What might not Eadmund the Saint, who slew Swein to save his shrine from heathen hands, be able to do for me?
I would tell Ailwin presently, and ask him what vow I should make in return for this remembrance.
But Ailwin came not, and I grew impatient, and went to the cottage where he dwelt as the leech, at the head of the little street towards our hall. Maybe he would be there.
The door was open, and the little black cat that had been the leech's in the old days, and would not leave its house, sat in the sun on the step. I went inside and called, but there was no man. And then a footstep came from the road and in at the wicket, and a strange priest, younger than Ailwin, and frocked and cowled came in.
He saluted me gravely, and I bowed to him, and then he asked me where Redwald the thane might be found.
"I am he, father," I said.
"Then I have a message to you from Ailwin, your priest, whose place I am sent to take for a time."
"This is his house, father," I answered. "Let us come in and hear what he would tell me."
So we sat down inside the one room on the bench across the wall, and I wondered what I should hear.
"I will give my message first," the priest said, "and afterwards you shall tell me Ailwin's ways with your people, and I will try to be as himself with them."
I laughed a little, though I was pleased, and answered: "You cannot do that, father--for he has christened everyone in the parish that is thirty years younger than he.
"Aye, I forgot that," the priest said gravely. "They will miss him sorely. Therefore I will say that he will return ere long, but that my ways must be borne with until he comes."
"Now I think that if you steer between those two sayings of yours you will do well," I answered.
"Ailwin's ways wrought in my manner, therefore. I thank you, thane," the priest said. "I am cloister bred, and know nought much of secular work. Now, that is enough about myself. This morning, very early, came Ailwin and asked for one to take his place, and I am a Dane of the old settlement, and so I came, as running less risk if Cnut returns, as they say he will. Then Ailwin bade me seek you and say this. That because of the wandering Danes he would take his charges into some more quiet place for a time at least. Truly, he bade me tell you, they have a last refuge where none would find them, but it is ill fitted for a long stay, and it is likely that once there it might now be months before they could leave it. So he and Gunnhild think best to go far off. They will return with peace, and then he bids me tell you that, if the Lord will, all shall be well."
"Where will he go?" I asked.
"I know not. He gave me the message, and I know no more. Not even of whom he speaks."
Now for a moment I grew angry with Ailwin again, for it seemed to me that I should have been told more than this. Then I thought that perhaps Ailwin himself knew not yet where he would go.
"Does Ailwin know that there is news from Denmark?" I asked.
"Our abbot told him, but he knew already, having had word from Colchester in some way. He had heard before we as it seems."
That was doubtless Gunnhild's work, for I came to know afterwards that in the long years of trouble she had made a chain of friends who would pass word to her from every point whence trouble would come. It seems to me that much of the dame's knowledge of coming events was gained in ways like this rather than by witchcraft.
Then I was glad that the danger that I had learned had been foreseen by her and Ailwin; and as I sat without speaking for a few minutes I felt that now I was free to follow Olaf where he would lead his men to meet the Danes, for Hertha was not here, and her I could follow no longer.
There was no more to be learned from the priest, and so we rose up and went down to the churchyard, and saw the work, and I told him what I could of Ailwin and his ways, and thought that he had found one who was like him in thought and gentleness.
So presently I took Eadmund's penny from my pouch and gave it to him, telling him about it, even as I would have told Ailwin.
"Give me this back when I return, father," I said, "and it shall remind me of some vow which I will make at your advice."
"Make no vows, my son, save this one," he said. "What will befall you we know not, and therefore there is but one vow which we know certainly that you may be able to keep. I will have you put the penny where you may see it often, and so you shall remember, and vow if you will, that when your eyes fall on it you shall say a prayer to Him who gave power to Eadmund to conquer in dying, for this home of yours and this church, that out of ruin may come beauty, and after war, peace."
"I will make that vow, father," I said gladly.
"Forget not me at times in the prayer," he said very humbly; and I promised that I would not, taking the penny back.
Then he went and began to work on the church, being plainly skilful in the matter, and I went up to our hall's ruins and looked out over the land, and planned again what I would do in the days to come.
It was long dark when Olaf rode back, and he had learnt but little. But he had sent messengers to Ulfkytel at Thetford to warn him to watch his coasts, for he must go back to London with the ships to guard the Thames.
"And you, Redwald, my cousin, must go to Ethelred or Eadmund and warn them, and make them rouse, and raise and have ready the mightiest levy that they have ever led, for I think that all Denmark and Norway have sent their best to follow Cnut. We will ride together to Maldon, for the men shall follow me and find the ships with their cables up-and-down waiting for them, and you must hasten, for no time must be lost."
So it came to pass that my dream of finding Hertha passed from me, and the thought of war filled my mind again, for next morning we rode away southward along the Roman road, and the cheers of the villagers died away behind me and were forgotten.
Then I left Olaf where the road turns off to Maldon, to meet him again in London before many days, and I and my fifty men rode on. For Olaf would have me go as befitted his kinsman, and a word to the Colchester elders had found me the well-armed and mounted Anglian warriors who joined us after we reached the great road.
But when I came to London my journey was not at an end. Ethelred the king was at Corsham, in Wiltshire, and sorely sick as was said, and Eadmund was at Stamford. Now when I heard that I wondered, and asked the Sheriff, at whose house I was made most welcome, how this was.
Eadmund had been with his father, and had gone to Malmsbury, and there had seen the Lady Algitha, the widow of Earl Sigeferth whom Edric Streone slew, and had married her, and now had gone to take over the Five Boroughs for himself. That was good hearing, maybe, for Olaf had feared that Streone would have taken them.
But next I found that this marriage was sorely against the king's will, and that he and Eadmund had parted in anger therefore. I seemed then to see the hand of Streone in this quarrel, for all men knew that he slew the earls to gain the Five Boroughs for his own.
Then I thought that to go so far into Wessex to seek the sick king would be but lost time. I had better go to Stamford and seek the Atheling, and maybe it would be as well that he was free to act by himself, seeing that need was urgent. So I lay but one night in London, and then rode away to Stamford along the great Ermin Street, and there I found Eadmund and told him all that Olaf had bidden me.
And when he had heard all, he said: "Let me send for Edric Streone, my foster father, and we will take counsel with him."
"Send round the war arrow first, my prince," I urged, "then when the earl comes no time will be lost. He cannot but counsel you to raise men instantly."
"Why," he said, "Cnut can but fall on the east coast. Utred is in Northumbria to guard the Humber, and Ulfkytel guards the Wash, and Olaf is in the Thames. They will drive away the Danes before they set foot on the beach."
"They are still fighting the thingmen in the towns," I said. "Northumbria and Anglia are Danish at heart yet."
Aye, and I might have added "Mercia also," but I knew not that yet. Eadmund should have known it, though. It was but a few weeks before it was plain that Wessex alone and London stood fast for Ethelred.
I chafed, but Eadmund would not be hurried. I cannot tell what strange blindness, save it was his trust in Streone, had fallen on him at this time.
Then the earl came from Nottingham, and at the very first he sent for me. Eadmund had told him my news when he sent for him.
I found him alone in a chamber of Eadmund's house--that which had been Sigeferth's, and it seemed that no memory of the murdered earl haunted him. His great form was as square and strong as ever, and his grizzled brown beard was as bushy and well cared for as when I used to see him and speak with him before the flight into Normandy. And he still had the same pleasant voice and ways, even to the little chuckle--as to himself--when he spoke, and the way he had of gazing on the rafters rather than at the man to whom he was talking.
"So, Redwald, my friend," he laughed, "you have turned viking as it seems! How have you fared in East Anglia with Olaf the Thick?"
"Well enough, lord earl," I said, "but there is work to be done there yet."
"Aha! those thingmen are no babes," he said. "Where is your earl now?"
"At Thetford, as they say."
"Well, what is this tale that you bring about Cnut?"
I told him, and he laughed in his way.
"Cnut is but a boy. No such great following would gather to him," he said. "It is not possible."
"Eirik and Ulf and Thorkel the jarls may gather them for Cnut," I answered. "And he is Swein's son."
"Those men are Cnut as yet, as one may say," answered Edric chuckling. "One has to deal with them therefore. What says Olaf?"
"He says the same, lord earl."
Then he turned sharply towards me, though he did not look at me, and said: "The king does not trust Olaf, I fear. He thinks that he might be won over to Cnut's side."
"Ethelred our king should have no mistrust of the man who brought him home," I said coldly, having no doubt who made the first jealousy of Olaf.
"He should not, in truth," Edric answered. "But what if Cnut offered Olaf the under-kingship of Norway, or Northumbria say, if he would go over to his side?"
"He would not take it," I said.
"Have you ever heard him say as much?" asked Edric in a careless way.
I was growing angry now, for this seemed beside the point.
"Such a thing has never been spoken of between us," I said.
"So. Then ask him the question one day, and see what his answer is."
"I can answer it now," I said hotly; "he would refuse. Nor will the offer ever be made."
"I am not so sure of that," said Edric. "Cnut needs help, and will bid high for it. Nay, I know that it will be made. We have our spies in Cnut's court, Redwald, and know more than you may think. Tell him, therefore, only what I have said to you, and let me know his answer by someone whom you can trust."
Then I rose up in my anger, and said: "You ask me to spy on the king, lord earl, and I will not do it."
"Nay, nay," he said. "I do but want to set our king's mind at rest. I know what the honest viking's answer would be; he would be as wroth as you. Only I would have sure word to send to Ethelred."
Then I said, while Edric watched me sidelong: "Olaf's force is small, and our levies, lord earl, should be enough without his help, if they are raised in time. Our king may be sure that Olaf has not sent me to raise England thus against himself."
"Aye, I will tell Ethelred so. Our king is very sick, and a sick man's fancies are many. So Olaf thinks that we should raise a great levy at once."
Then he spoke of nought but that, and so earnestly that I believed that the summons to the sheriffs would surely go out that night. And he spoke of the help of the ships that Olaf had gathered, praising him honestly, and not over much or too little, so that I forgot his doubtful speeches, and thought that all was well, and that his own levies were now gathering.
And so after an hour or more's talk he rose up and held out his hand.
"Many thanks, Redwald, for your pains," he said taking mine. "I think that Cnut and his jarls will have lost their journey through your coming hither. The king shall not forget you when all is safe again."
Who would not have been pleased with this? I went from Streone's presence with a light heart, until I came to the great hall, and there sat in the high place the Lady Algitha herself and her maidens. Very beautiful she was, but very sad looking. And when I crossed the floor before her I bowed, and she beckoned to me.
So I came near, and knelt on one knee before her.
"You are Redwald, Olaf's kinsman and messenger?" she asked.
"Yes, lady," I answered.
"I have heard of your coming. Have you spoken with the earl--Streone?" she said, while a wrinkle crossed her fair forehead as she named him.
"I have but just left him, lady."
She sunk her voice very low, and bent a little towards me.
"Were his words pleasant and fair spoken?" she said.
"They could not have been more so--at the last," I replied, the memory of my anger coming back to me of a sudden.
"You crossed him once, then?"
"But a little; he crossed me rather," I said plainly.
"Wear your mail, Redwald," she said whisperingly. "Farewell."
Then she was once more herself again, the lady whose hand I might kiss reverently and look at afar. But in those few moments she had been as a friend who warned me of a danger unforeseen. Even thus had Edric Streone spoken with Sigeferth, fairly and pleasantly.
I left the house, feeling uneasy therefore; but I could not think that Edric would deem me worth crushing, and it seemed that the lady would let her hatred of Edric go far.
They had given me lodging in the town across the river, where there was a large guest house that had been made in the days of OEthelfloed {11}, the brave lady of the Mercians who won back the Five Boroughs from the Danes. One could see the great fort she made rising from the river banks over the whole town. No other thane was in guest quarters there with me, and I and my men had the place to ourselves. Nor was there anyone in Stamford at the time whom I knew, apart from the people of Eadmund's household.
So I went along the street slowly enough, and presently I passed a house where through the open window I saw a goldsmith working, and I thought that he could do somewhat for me. I would have the penny of St. Eadmund set in a gold band on the scabbard of sword Foe's Bane, where I should see it continually. There was much gilt silver work over all the scabbard from end to end--wrought by what skilful artists in the Norseland, or how long ago, I cannot tell--and there was a place among the other work where such a fitting would go well.
But I had placed the coin in safety in the house, and I must go and fetch it, and I passed on for the time. Then I loitered on the bridge, for the old town and its grim earthworks looks very fair thence, and so a thane sent from Eadmund caught me up and took me back to the great house, for he had some word for me. It was near sunset by this time.
"Redwald, my friend," the Atheling said, when I stood before him, "I would have you go back to Olaf. You have done your errand well, and your kinsman will want to have you with him. You will fight for us no less well with him than here."
Now I could speak plainly with the Atheling ever, and I said, being anxious to know more of Streone's meanings: "I am glad that you tell me so, my prince, for Edric the earl would have it that our king fears that Olaf's good faith may be little."
"That is new to me," Eadmund said, frowning; "but, as you know, my father and I have had little to say to each other of late."
"Then you doubt him not?" I asked.
"I would as soon doubt Edric himself," he said, "and him I trust as I would trust myself."
"That is well," answered I. "For I feared that you also might have been doubtful of Olaf."
"Why, what should the king think of Olaf but that he has been his best friend?"
"The earl tells me that he has heard that Cnut will offer Olaf some under-kingship if he will take his part," I said.
"I cannot tell how he has heard that," Eadmund said, and he looked puzzled.
"By your spies in Cnut's court," said I. "We have no spies there. I hate spying," the Atheling said. "What means he?"
Then I saw that for some reason which was beyond me Streone had let me know more than was safe. It was plain that if he spoke truth, he had more dealings with Cnut than were known to the Atheling. Yet the earl might, for Ethelred's sake, watch thus on Cnut, rightly enough, and think it safer to say nought to Eadmund, whose wisdom was not so great as his valour. It was a poor watch enough though, I thought, if he knew the talk about Olaf and not the plans for sailing, which should surely have been told him first of all.
"Maybe he minded him of some old plan of Cnut's that he heard when you were in Lindsey," I said, that being all that I could imagine. "That were enough to return to the mind of our king in his sickness, and trouble him."
"Aye, I think my father fears treachery from all men," the Atheling answered. "But Olaf has done well for us both at the first and now in sending word by you."
Then the sword I was wearing caught Eadmund's eyes, for he was ever fond of goodly war gear.
"So--you have a new sword instead of that I gave you," he said. "And I think you have made a good exchange. Let me see this."
"I broke the other blade strangely enough," I told him. "But this was my father's sword, and it has come back to me."
Now I must tell him all about our great fight, and at the end he said: "I would that I had been there. It was a good fight." Then he laughed, and added: "Now, I will say this, that Streone noted this fine sword of yours, and wondered who had given it you, and why."
"Did he think that Cnut had bribed me also?" I said. "Such a sword as this is to a simple thane as much as a petty kingdom to Olaf."
Then Eadmund spoke in the old tone of comradeship that we had been wont to use in Normandy.
"On my word, I believe he did! But you have often spoken to me of this sword, and you described it well. I think had I found it on a Dane I should have claimed it for you. But I never thought you would see it again."
"Would you have believed that I was bribed, my prince, had it not chanced that you had heard of the sword from me beforetime?" I asked, being bitterly hurt that the earl should have put this into Eadmund's mind.
Did he want to make him doubt all his former friends?
"Not I, Redwald," the Atheling said. "Streone is over careful for our safety, I think, and lets his love for us make him suspect all men. I told him as much, and he said that perhaps it was so. Then I said that Olaf had doubtless given you the weapon, and he would have me ask you. He thought that you should not have lightly set aside my gift."
Now I was sure that the earl strove to break Eadmund's friendship with Olaf, for to anger me would help to do so. The next thing would be to have me made away with, for that would turn Olaf into a foe, and he would leave England maybe. I thought that the earl would stand alone in Eadmund's counsels, and did not dream yet that he was indeed working for Cnut in order to take the first place in England as Thorkel did in Denmark. But that was plain enough ere long, and all men know it now. At this time, however, these matters puzzled me, and had it not been for the slaying of Sigeferth and Morcar and one or two others, maybe I should have thought little of danger to myself. It was only as Olaf's kinsman that I was worth a thought of the man whose deep statecraft I could not pretend to understand.
So I said: "The earl's life must be uneasy with all these doubts. But so long as you yourself have none of King Olaf and myself, it is little matter what he thinks. His doubts will be proved false in time, and he will have fretted for nought."
"That is true," Eadmund answered. "I would that he troubled me not with his suspicions."
So the matter passed, and we spoke for a little while of the fleet and of Olaf's plans, and then I left him, saying that I would ride back to London with the first light of morning.
"We shall have one good fight, and then peace," said Eadmund. "Farewell, and trouble nought about my foster father and his ways of doubting. He will doubt me next, maybe."
He laughed lightly, and I went away down the street with a troubled mind, and was willing to get back to my lodgings through the dusk as quickly as I might.
And when I came there I put on my mail, as the lady had bidden me--rather blaming myself for doing so for all that, for it seemed to show fear of somewhat that I could not name.
Then I thought of the goldsmith again, and sent a man for him, thinking that he could do the work here in hall, so that I could be sure of having the scabbard, which was very valuable, when I rode away.
When he came I showed him what I would have done, and he said that it was no long business, and took his tools into a corner and lighted a wax taper and began to work by its light. The sword stood by my chair as I ate my supper at the head of the long tables where my men sat.
The goldsmith ended his work soon after the men had gone out to the stables to tend their horses for the night, and only he and I and my headman Thrand were left in the hall. He had put a flat band of chased gold round the scabbard, and the silver penny showed through a round setting that was in it.
I gave him one of the gold pieces that Earl Wulfnoth had taken from the treasure for me, and the man weighed it, wondering at its weight and fineness. Then he said that he was overpaid, and must give me money for the overweight, and asked that one should go back to his house with him and return with it.
"There were men lurking in the porches and on the bridge," he said, "when I came down here. I suppose there will be a fray when they meet the men they wait for, so I fear to go back alone. A goldsmith is ever fair prey."
Then came a knocking on the door, and my man went to see what was wanted. Then one said to him: "Edric the earl bids Redwald the thane to speak with him at his house before he sleeps."
Now the goldsmith stood where he could see the long streak of light that shone from the door across the street, and he said to me in a low voice: "There are a dozen armed men outside, lord."
Thrand turned round to tell me this message, and as he did so Streone's messenger pushed by him into the hail, rudely enough.
"To the stables and call my men," I whispered to the goldsmith, pointing to the door which led thither, and he went out slowly, not knowing why I sent him.
"Where is Redwald, Olaf's man?" the newcomer said, and his tone was so rough that at the uncivil words I glanced at him sharply and made no answer. He was fully armed, I saw.
But my follower would not bear this.
"Yonder is Redwald the thane," he said; "mind how you speak, man."
"Thane or not, I have come to take him to Edric the earl," was the answer.
"Ho, thane! hear you the earl's message?"
Now when this began, I had taken up the scabbard with my right hand and was looking at the work, and the sword was in my left, hidden by my cloak as it fell to my side. I suppose the earl's housecarle thought I was unarmed.
"I am Redwald," I said, putting the scabbard on the table, and so leaving my right hand free. "I hear an uncivilly-given message enough. And I think the earl has not sent for me in such terms as those."
The man raised his hand a little and made a sign, and I heard the quick steps of men crossing the street with clatter of steel. Then I knew that Edric had sent for me, dead or alive.
"Come you must," the man said.
"What if I will not?" I answered.
"I will make you," he said, and with that he smote Thrand fairly in the face and felled him, hitting squarely from his left shoulder, and then his sword was out and he made one step towards me.
Quick as thought I grasped the hilt of my sword, and smote upwards with it as I drew it from under the fold of my cloak. There is no stopping that stroke, and the man leapt back from it as it seemed, but the blade smote him beneath the chin, and so far as he was concerned Edric's message had come to naught. He would never draw sword on any man again. Nor do I think he would have been thus bold had he not thought me unarmed.
Then at the same moment my man was up, cursing, and the doorway to the street was full of Edric's men, and some of mine were coming leisurely through the other.
The crash of the falling man woke my people into life, and they ran to their spears, which were piled along the walls, and the earl's men faltered on the threshold, for they liked not the look of sword Foe's Bane, maybe. Then my man Thrand ran at the great door, which opened inward, and swung it to in the faces of Edric's men, and barred it. I heard them give a howl of rage as he did so, for one or two of them were flung backward into the street, so suddenly and strongly did he fling it against them in his rage.
Then we looked at one another, and at the dead man on the floor, in silence. I was the only one of all who knew what this message brought by armed men from Streone might mean. And all had happened so suddenly, from the time that the man had told me that I must come, and had drawn sword on me, to when the door slammed, that there had been no time for thought or wonder even.
I took up the scabbard and buckled it on, and sheathed the sword, and said: "We shall hear more of this, men. Stamford town is no place for us now."
"What is all this, lord?" asked the leader, who stood with his back against the door still.
"Edric the earl has another business on hand like that of Earls Sigeferth and Morcar," I said. Whereat the men growled fiercely.
The goldsmith came in with the last of my men, and heard me say this, and now looked in the face of him whom I had slain.
"This is the man who brought the like message to our earls," he said. "I was at Oxford, and saw him come. And the street then was full of armed men, as is ours tonight. Better go hence, lord, else you will be burnt out, as our men were when they went to avenge our lords' deaths, and were driven into St. Frideswide's Church."
Now it seemed to me also that we had better hasten, or we should have a strong force down on us. Then if we fought, Edric would have occasion against me, and if not, I was lost.
"To horse, men!" I said. "We will go to Peterborough for this night. Abbot Elfric is my friend, and will give us shelter."
"Let us take the road for London rather, and get back to Olaf the king," said the headman. "The horses are fresh, and we can ride far, and the nights are warm if we must lie out."
"We will speak of that outside the town," I answered. "To horse at once, and silently, or they will take warning and bring more men."
They ran out, leaving a dozen with me. Edric's men were yet in the street, and now they drew near the door, listening as I thought.
"How shall you escape?" I said to the goldsmith.
"Out of the back way, lord, and up the meadows to the ford if the ferryman is asleep. But I must go before the house is beset."
"Keep the gold for your service," I said, "for I think that the silver penny has saved me."
So he thanked me, and crept away easily enough. I suppose that Edric's men had no orders that had made provision for trouble with me of this sort, and that they hardly knew what had happened. But it was likely that they would send word to Edric directly, when they began to be sure that something had gone amiss. They tried the door again, but without much heart. My men wanted to throw it open and charge out on them, but I would not suffer it. So long as they loitered outside we had time to get away. Then some of them tried the gate of the courtyard behind the house, but the men had barred that after the goldsmith had gone out. And all the while the horses were being saddled silently, and they would be ready in a few minutes.
The earl's men spoke now outside the door, and I could hear what they said.
"Let us break in and see what has befallen Godric."
"Nay, the hall is full of men now. Let us go back."
"It was Godric's own fault. He had no reason to smite the porter, who stayed him not."
Then I thought that the men knew not what their errand was, and were to take orders from the slain man. Thus there would be no fighting in the street when we came out.
So it was, for when the horses were ready, the stablemen of the house threw open the great gates of the courtyard, which was beside the house, as it happened, and we rode out quietly, but with weapons ready, and they did but shrink together and stare when they saw us. There were about thirty of them in all.
Now I would not give Edric any reason to blame me to Eadmund, and so I wheeled my men to the right, away from the bridge and along the great road towards London, and letting them go on slowly, I called to a man who stood foremost.
"This is a sorry business," I said; "but your leader had no right to smite my man, and one waxes hasty when a man behaves thus. He was an unmannerly messenger."
"Aye, lord, he was," the men said.
"Well, then, tell your earl that I have even now left the town, and that being ready to do so I came not with you; and say how it was that this man was slain, and that I am sorry therefor."
"We will tell him," they said.
So I spurred my horse and rode after my company, knowing that it would be hard for Edric to know the rights of the matter. The men would certainly not wonder at the slaying of Godric, seeing how he had behaved. I thought that Eadmund would never hear of this.
I believe that I escaped very narrowly, and also that the silver penny was the cause thereof. For, first of all, it had been likely that Eadmund's messenger would not have found me so easily had I gone elsewhere than back to get it, and so I should have been belated and attacked in the street by these men. And next, the goldsmith warned me that the armed men waited outside. And then it was certain that Godric, the earl's man, would have cut me down before I could have drawn sword, had I not already held the weapon unsheathed. And that was because I looked on the penny and its setting before belting on the scabbard.
Now I thought, when we were fairly on the road, that we would go to Peterborough, to my good friend the Abbot Elfric, for I would fain tell him all this, thinking that he might warn Eadmund of Streone to more effect than could I. And inside the abbey walls would be a safe place for the night. It was not so certain that we should not be pursued, and so we went quickly, the horses rejoicing in the road after their idleness, for we had been three weeks in Stamford, waiting for the earl.
So we rode till we came to Castor, the old Roman town, and stayed not there, but went to the ford over the Nene at Water Newton, the road beyond the river being better than that on this side. It is not an easy ford, for a horseman has to turn downstream when nearly over, else he is over head and ears before he knows. One of my men had known somewhat of the place, and was going through first, but as his horse shied a little at the sparkling water and he was urging it in, a man rode fast down the opposite bank, and into the river, coming over to us. I heard his horse snorting, as if out of breath.
"Watch how he comes," I said to my man.
But there was little use in that, for he went to ride straight through, and next moment his horse was swimming, and he was crying for help, being bewildered, for the river was full and current strong.
Now, I was used to swimming my horse in our Stour fords, which are often very deep in autumn and winter, and so I rode in and grasped his horse's bridle, and told him to take heart, and so fetched him to our side.
"Give me a fresh mount, in the king's name," he said, for his horse was spent.
"Little thanks is that," said I. "What is the hurry?"
"I am sent with all speed to Redwald the thane, at Stamford, with word for Eadmund the Atheling."
"I am Redwald," I said. "Who sent you?"
"Olaf the king. Show me your sword, master."
I held out the hilt of my sword, for that was a token which a messenger should give and receive that Olaf and I had agreed on.
"Cnut the Dane has landed at Sandwich," the man said. "Eight hundred ships he has, and men more than I can count. The Kentish men have risen, and Olaf is with them; but he has not, and cannot have enough men to stay the Dane. There must be a levy of all England."
Then I was almost beside myself with rage, and could have wept, for the levy that should have been waiting for this had not even had a summons. And from the bottom of my heart I blamed Edric Streone for all the woe that I saw must come on England.
There was but one thing for me to do, and that was to go back to Stamford and see the Atheling. He would see me at midnight when no one else dared wake him, maybe, for he would know that I had heavy matters to speak of if I thus summoned him. The messenger would have to wait till morning, and could but give his message. I could reason with the Atheling, while this messenger would fall into Streone's hands. And that I knew now was the worst that could befall.
"Give the man a fresh horse," I said. "I must go back with him."
"Not so, lord," the men said. "You will be waylaid."
"I think my luck will serve me," I answered. "Do you find some barn at Chesterton over the water, and leave two or three men to watch for my coming. Thrand and Guthorm may come with me."
Then they grumbled at my running into danger, but I would be obeyed, though I must let them bide on this side of the ford.
We were but seven miles from Stamford town, and we went back at a hard gallop on the good turf alongside the paving of the Roman way. It was in my mind to see Eadmund and leave him at once, before Streone knew that any man had come into the town, if I could.
The bridge was barred, and the gates were too high to be leapt; but the guards were sleepy, and would not let me through, until I bade them open in the king's name. Then they did so, and we rode clattering up the street to the great hall.
There was bustle enough when I beat on the courtyard gates, for the place was stockaded, and there was a strong guard inside. Presently they opened the wicket, and the captain looked out angrily enough.
He began to rate us, but I cut him short.
"I am Redwald," I said, "and I must see the Atheling without delay."
The officer knew me well enough then, and let us in.
"You cannot see the Atheling, thane," he said. "It is as much as my life is worth to disturb him."
"I will do it myself, then," I said. "Take me into the house."
"What is amiss?" he asked, hesitating. "Is the king dead?"
"Nay, worse than that," I answered shortly, and the officer stared at me in horror.
"Oh, fool!" I said; "Cnut is landed, and it is Eadmund only who can save our land. Let me to him."
The warrior clutched his sword hilt with a sort of groan, and turned and took me into the house without a word. We went across the great hall, where the housecarles slept around the walls, sword under pillow, and spear at side. They raised their heads when their captain spoke the watchword, and looked at me curiously, but did not stir more than enough for that. They were not bidden.
We crossed a room where a few young thanes' sons slept, as I had slept before the king's door when I was first at court, and these leapt up, sword in hand.
"What will you?" one said in a low voice, setting his back against the door.
"I must see Eadmund, our atheling, on king's business," I said gently, remembering how I should have felt when on the same duty, if one had come thus.
"He may not be waked," the boy said.
Then I spoke loudly, so as to end the business without troubling these faithful guards.
"I am Redwald of Bures. I think that Eadmund will see me."
"Hush! hush! thane," the boy said.
But there was no need to say more, for the long camp life had sharpened Eadmund's ears to aught unusual. Now I heard the bar of the door thrown down, and Eadmund came out with a cloak round him and his sheathed sword in his left hand.
"Redwald--friend--what is it?" he said.
"Even what we have feared, my prince," I answered, looking at him.
"Where has the blow fallen?"
"At Sandwich. Olaf is there, and the Kentishmen have risen. His word is that he has not enough men."
"Surely Kent and London and Olaf--" he said.
"Eight hundred ships lie in Ebbsfleet. A ship may hold a hundred or but twenty men--not less."
Then Eadmund made a sign to his people, and they went out and left us together, and we looked on one another.
"Let me send for the earl," he said; but I put my hand on his arm.
"You are enough, my prince. But for sending for him your levies would be here, and we should march together even now to London."
He groaned.
"You are right, and I am a fool," he said.
"Wait for the earl no longer," I urged; "raise your own levy, and bid him follow you or the king as he will. There must be a raising of all England. Send to the king tonight."
"What will Cnut do?" he asked me.
"Olaf thought that if he landed in Kent he would make for London and besiege it. If so, you have time yet."
"There shall be no delay. Bide here and help me."
"I cannot," I said, and told him plainly of Edric's message to me, and the way in which it was sent; and I ended: "Let me go to Olaf, therefore, and take word from you that you come in haste. The earl doubts me yet."
"I do not understand it," Eadmund said, "but it must be so. Go back and tell Olaf to hold Cnut under London walls, and I will be there in a day before he expects, gathering forces as I come."
I kissed his hand and went, and as I did so I heard him bid his followers arm him. So I knew that he was roused, and that if he were himself all might yet be well.
Then I got to horse, and I and my two men rode down the street as fast as we had come. No man was about, and the bridge gates swung open for us.
"They are in a hurry to get rid of us," said Thrand, as we went through and passed the last houses of the town beyond the river.
Then the road lay white in the moonbeams before us until it ran among the trees of the first woodland, and there in the black shadow was a sparkle as of armour in the shafts of light that came through the leaves into the over-arched hollow of the track.
If any man was there he could see us clearly, though we could not well see him, for we were in full brightness.
Then Guthorm spoke, peering under his hand.
"Four men across the road, lord--horsemen standing still."
Then said I: "If they are friends they will stand aside for us. If not, they will expect us to halt and argue matters with them. Any way, they have no right to the whole road, even if they mean us no harm. Ride on steadily, one on either side of me, and when we are twenty paces from them, if they yet bar our way, spur your horses and we will clear the road."
"Swords out, master?" said Thrand.
"No, spear butts ready; maybe they are friends. But I am in a hurry."
So we rode over those four men, and I fear they were hurt, for we left two rolling horse and two men in the road. Nor did I ever know if they were Edric's men or not. Howbeit, their swords were drawn, and so I think we were not wrong in what we did, though the Colchester men smote hard, and my spear shaft was badly sprung over a helm.
After that we did not draw rein till we came to our comrades, and they were halfway back to Stamford looking for me. Then we took the road to London, for we would not tarry now at Peterborough.
Maybe my story would have had a different end had I gone there--but it was not to be. Yet, though I knew it not, I was close to Hertha at that time.
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{
"id": "16196"
}
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10
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: The Flight From London.
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I came back to Olaf while he gathered his ships in the Pool below London Bridge, and I found him ill at ease and angry with Ethelred and Eadmund, and when I told him all, most angry with Streone.
"Now you must stay with me, cousin, for that man will have you slain if he can. There is no doubt that he works for Cnut. And this word of his about a bribe for me is not his own invention; he has been told to make it."
Then he told me of the vast host that had poured into Kent. It was the greatest host that had ever landed on English shores--greater even than had been ours when we Angles left our old home a desert, and came over to this new land and took it. Olaf and the Kentish levies had fought and had been driven back, and now day by day we looked to see Cnut's armies before London, and also for the coming of Eadmund with his men. But neither came, for the Mercian levies would not fight unless the king himself headed them, and Cnut passed through Surrey into Wessex and none could withstand him.
Aye, they fought him. Wessex is covered with nameless battlefields; but ere long half of Cnut's fleet was sent round to the Severn, and Ethelred, sick and despairing, came back to London with but a few men.
It angers me even to think of what befell after that. Eadmund and Streone gathered each a good force, and came together within touch of Cnut. And then on the eve of battle, Edric made known his plan to his Mercian thanes, and that was nothing more nor less than that they should go over bodily to Cnut when the fight began. Which treachery so wrought on the honest Mercians that they would fight not at all, and so disbanded in sight of the enemy, leaving Eadmund with but enough men to make good his retreat. And Cnut was master of all the land from Kent to Severn shores, Ethelred's own country. So Edric Streone went over to Cnut, and with him many thanes who despaired of help from Ethelred, and chose rather peace under a king who was strong enough to give it them. And one night forty of the English ships slipped away from us down the tide and joined the Danes at Sandwich. The men had been bribed by Streone, as we found.
Almost then did Olaf make up his mind to leave England, but he pitied Ethelred, who turned to him again in this new trouble, and he did not go.
"But my men will not bide patiently much longer," he told me; "here is neither honour nor gold to be won, and I need them for my going to Norway when the time comes."
For every day Olaf looked for some sign that should bid him go back and take his own land from Cnut's hand.
Now Ethelred would not stir from London, fearing treachery everywhere. And again Eadmund's levies melted away for want of their king's presence, and at last we persuaded him to meet Eadmund at Coventry, and I went with him. There was a good levy that would have followed him, but some breath of suspicion came over him, and suddenly he left them and fled back to London and the citizens, whom he trusted alone of all England. And he would not suffer me to bide with Eadmund, but I must go back with him. So the levies melted, and Eadmund went north to Earl Utred of Northumbria for help.
Then when the winter wore away, and April came in calm and bright, the most awesome thing befell England that had been yet. For in the north Eadmund and Utred marched across the country, laying waste all as they went, lest the north should rise for Cnut; and going east as they went west, Cnut ravaged and burnt all the southern midlands. Then rose the wail of all England, for friend and foe alike had turned on her, and her case was at its hardest. And from that time forwards I know that none who chose Cnut for king should be blamed.
Then Cnut fell on York, and Utred of Northumbria, whose wife was Danish, submitted to him, and was slain by Streone's advice, as men say, though some say that he was slain by Thorkel the Jarl when he took the ships that tried to escape from the Humber. It may be thus. The shipmen fought well, and were all slain--sixty ships' crews.
Now all England was open to Cnut, and Eirik the jarl fell on Norwich and drove Ulfkytel back on us, and from him we heard of this trouble.
On the eve of St. George's day, Ethelred sent for me to his chamber, for he would speak with me. I found him sitting in a great chair before the fire, wrapped in furs, though the day was warm and sunny, and he was very feeble, so that his thin hands had little strength in them. The queen, Emma, was with him, looking young and handsome as ever, and in the light of a narrow window sat Eadward the Atheling, the sunshine falling on his strange white hair and on the pages of a great book over which he pored. He just lifted his pale eyes from his reading as I went in and saw who it was, and smiled pleasantly at me, and then turned to his book again. I thought that the troubles of the time passed lightly on the proud lady and the boy, whose learning was all that she cared for.
"Come near, Redwald, my son," the king said, in his voice that had grown so faint of late. "I have a charge to lay on you."
I went and knelt by him, and he put his hand on my shoulder, and the tears came to my eyes at the kindly touch, for it was the same as, and yet so unlike, that which had been a promise of friendship to me at the first time that I saw him.
"All things are slipping from me, Redwald," the king said; "nor is there aught that I grieve to lay down when the day comes on which I must pass through the gate of death. Crown and sceptre have been heavy burdens to me, for with them has been the weight of the sword also. I have borne those ill, and used that cruelly. I am the Unredy; but I have listened to ill counsels, having none of my own, nor wit to see what was best."
He ceased for faintness, and my heart ached to hear him speak thus to me, his servant. But Emma the queen turned half away from him, her face growing hard and scornful as she heard. Then Eadward set his book down gently, and, looking sadly at his mother, came and stood over against me at the other side of the king, and took his wan hand and said: "There are laws which you have made, my father, which will live in the hearts of men alongside those that Eadgar made--our best. There will not be all blame to you in the days to come, when men see clearly how things have gone with you."
Thereat Ethelred smiled faintly, and he answered: "I pray that it may be so. But the good outweighs not the evil. I may not count the one--I must confess the other."
He passed into thought, looking into the fire, and we were still beside him. The queen moved away to the seat where Eadward had been sitting and took his place, staring out of the window with unseeing eyes. And I was glad that she was no longer beside us.
Presently the king raised his head and turned it a little towards me.
"Redwald," he said, "you were our companion in Normandy, and you are a trusted friend of ours. It will not be long before the queen must fly to her brother--the good duke--again, and it is in my mind that her flight will be perilous. When that time comes, let it be your place to see her safely thither, with the athelings, her sons. It may be that Olaf will help you, but that you must see to as best you can. And I have sent for Abbot Elfric to help you."
"Lord king," I said, "what I can I will do, but I think there are men better fitted than I to guard our queen."
"None whom we trust more fully," the king said.
"See, my queen, this is he to whom you must look for furtherance of your journey."
Then Emma turned from the window, and her face was still unmoved.
"I can trust Redwald," she said. "It will be well."
But Eadward wept openly, for he knew that the king spoke of the day when he should die.
"That is well," the king said, and leaned back on his pillows. "Now have I no care left. Yet it is hard to put so heavy a burden on your young shoulders, my thane."
"It is an honour rather," I answered. "May I be worthy thereof."
Then a brightness came over the king's face, and he answered me slowly and plainly, and with great joy, as it were.
"Presently I shall meet with Eadmund, your martyred king, and to him I will say that his thane of Bures is worthy."
"Forget me not also, my father, when you come to that place," Eadward said.
"I will not forget. Now is given me to see plainly what shall be in the time to come--to what all tends even now. For now in the time of my death comes to me rede unearthly, as I think. There must be a strong hand who shall weld England into one--who shall bid our land forget that difference has ever been betwixt Angle and Saxon, Jute and Northumbrian, Mercian and Wessexman, Saxon and English and Dane. And when that wonder is wrought, then shall come peace and a new life to the land, under one who will give them the laws that they need to bind them into one English race, strong and honest, and patient in all things."
Then said Eadward, as the king ceased: "That is what those who love England would most hope for."
But his voice was hushed, as in the presence of one who sees beyond this earth.
Thereat the king looked on him, and said: "Have patience, my son, and you shall see it; aye, and you shall have part and share therein."
After that he spoke no more, and for a time we waited beside him. Soon he seemed to sleep, and I rose at a sign from the queen and left his chamber. Nor did I ever see Ethelred our king alive again. For when the morning came he had laid his heavy burdens down and had passed to the rest that he longed for. And the bells that rang merrily for St. George's mass ceased, and the toll for the dead went mournfully over the city.
"Eadmund is king, God help him," men said.
So it came to pass that even as they buried the king in the great Church of St. Paul the Danish armies were closing round the city, and when I went to Olaf to beg him to advise me concerning the flight of the queen, he answered: "You and I must part, my cousin. For you had better take ship from some quiet port, and that on the southern coast, and so make for Normandy. But I must see the citizens through this siege, and then I will come to you at Rouen, and we will take counsel together again."
He would bide no longer in England after this, for the doubt of him that Eadmund would not listen to was strong in the minds of others, and his presence was of little use. Only the London folk and Ulfkytel loved him, knowing him well, and holding that they owed him much. But none knew better than Earl Ulfkytel that Olaf must not bide here longer.
Now our scouts kept coming in with news of Cnut, and at last I could see by which road to fly with most chance of safety. I would go by Winchester and so to Southampton and there take ship with the queen. Cnut's fleet would be in the Thames ere long, if it barred not the mouth already.
But Abbot Elfric had not come. We feared that he had fallen into Danish hands, for it was hard to say where they were not. It seemed that we must perforce leave London without him. Yet I would stay till the last for his coming.
Now I must leave England, and I have said little about myself. But when this duty was laid on me by the king, I thought more of my lost quest of Hertha than I had done of late. For now I must leave her in our poor land, where she must be hunted maybe from hiding to biding, place to place, and in my heart grew up an unreasoning anger against Ailwin and Gunnhild, who by their secrecy had kept me from bringing her here with Olaf.
Then as I looked over this I became sure that they had seen somewhat in me which their charge could not love, so that they would keep me from her altogether. And I made up my mind to that at last, not wondering that it was so, for I was but a warrior and a landless thane with nought to be proud of but skilful weapon play, and some scars to show that I had been in a fight or two where blows were falling. And I minded how I had told Ailwin that I held myself free, and thought that he and Gunnhild, and maybe Hertha also, would have it so.
Yet I cared little for that, having heavier things to fill my mind than thought for a maiden whose very looks I knew not now. At least these two had taken Hertha into their charge, denying me any part therein, and I could not blame them rightly. I had done my best and could no more.
Then at the last moment Elfric came.
"Glad am I that you have not gone, my son," he said, as I greeted him. "I have wandered many a long mile over crossroads to escape the Danes. Very nearly did they have me once, but I escaped them. That will be a pleasant tale beside Duke Richard's fire, however. When must we go?"
"With nightfall, father," I said. "The horses are standing almost ready even now. How many shall you need?"
"Myself, and my chaplain, and three sisters--five," he said, "if you can take so many. These would fly with me and the queen."
I thought for a moment. The queen had Eadward and his brother Alfred and five maidens with her, and there were the pack horses and the servants. But two of the maidens were unwilling to go, being daughters of London thanes. Our court was very small in these days. So, as every woman added to our company was a source of weakness, in that our pace must be that of the least able to bear fatigue, I doubted until I thought that the queen might let the sisters take the places of the maidens who cared not to fly with her.
I went and asked her this, and she flushed with wounded pride, though I gave her my reasons and urged her peril.
"How shall it be told that Emma of Normandy was beholden to a nunnery for her handmaidens?" she said.
"It shall not be told, my queen," I said stoutly. "Men shall say that you gave protection to the holy women."
Truly my wits were sharpened by sore need, for at once the queen agreed to this. She loved power, and even this little use thereof pleased her.
"When can we go?" she asked. "I long to see my own land again."
"At nightfall, in two hours' time," I told her.
"It is well. Be ready then," she said.
She had persuaded herself, as I believe, that she arranged all things, and I was glad to have it so, for I had feared that I should have had trouble more than enough with her unreasoning pride.
So I told Elfric that his nuns could go, and he thanked me, laughing a little, with some thought of their journey here as I thought, and he added: "Aye, their dress protects them a little. It is not as in the old days of heathen against Christian. There is this to be said for Cnut, that he will have no monastery or nunnery harried if his orders are carried out."
Then a thought came to me, and I wished that I could persuade our queen to take on herself and her maidens the convent dress. She would not be the first royal lady of England who had worn it. And I asked Elfric to persuade her to do so, for Emma's great failing was love of queenship.
"If I know aught of our queen," he said, "she wants to ride in state."
"She does," I answered. "I think, father, that we have a troublous journey before us. She will not believe but that she may ride as ever through the land."
"You plan and I will argue," the good man said, being ever light hearted.
So he went to the queen and spoke long with her, but she would in no wise ride out of London but as a queen, even as she had told me more than once. There was nothing against that but that word might go to the Danish leaders that she was leaving the city. Still, if we could get her to disguise herself thus when our guards left us it might be as well. The Danes, did they seek her, would look for a larger party than ours, and would pay no heed to us, perhaps.
Now Olaf and my Colchester spearmen would be our guards even to the Surrey hills, for beyond them was not much fear of the Danes, who were advancing from Mercia, northward of the Thames. Only in the towns were garrisons whom we must fear, for they sent out parties to raid the land for provender and plunder and to keep the poor folk from rising on them.
So it was my plan, and it seemed good to Elfric, to travel as a little party only. So could we more easily escape notice, and take the byways, while an armed force, however small, would draw on us the notice of the Danes whose duty it was to watch against any gathering of English warriors.
We started that night as soon as dark came on, and the queen was pleased with the guard around her, and that Olaf the king himself rode at her side. Men cheered him as we passed along the streets, and the queen deemed that the cries were for her, and drew herself up proud and disdainful as she sat on her white horse with spearmen before and behind her, and her maidens on either side. But I doubt if any man knew who she was in the dusk. And I had sent the pack horses and servants on before us to wait our coming at a certain place, so that none should be able to say that we were a party of fugitives.
Presently the queen waxed silent, and Olaf and I could talk to one another of what we would do in the time to come if this and that happened. I told him that I should certainly return to fight at Eadmund's side, for the queen would not keep me in Rouen. When he left London it was his wish to seek me there, and so we looked to see one another again before very long.
"Then it is farewell, my cousin," he said, when at last we came to Banstead, for he would not leave us sooner. "We have had a good fight or two together, and may have more, and to more profit, as I hope, in the days to come."
We halted at the monastery and prayed for shelter there for the night, or at least what was left of it, and while Elfric spoke with the superior of the nuns who were there, I took leave thus of Olaf and of my spearmen. And these prayed me to return soon and lead them again. That I promised them, and so the darkness closed between us as they rode away, and I was left sad at heart enough, for Olaf was as a brother to me, and I knew not when I should meet with him again.
There was no talk of Danes at this quiet place over which the wave of war had gone already, leaving it poorer, but in peace; and it was not until the next afternoon that we rode out again, our party being that which must see the long road over together.
Twelve of us there were. The queen and her two maidens and the three nuns, Elfric the abbot and his chaplain, Eadward and Alfred the athelings, and Alfred's tutor--who was a churchman of Elfric's own monastery--and myself.
Then there were the servants, ten in all, who rode each leading a lightly-laden pack horse. It was such a party as an abbot might well travel with, and that is all that would be said of us if the Danish riders asked aught of the roadside folk. I and Eadward alone were armed as the abbot's housecarles. The men bore but spear and seax, as would any wayfarer for fear of robbers and the like.
Now, when all was ready in the courtyard, and we waited for the queen, she stood on the threshold before I knew her, for the nuns of the place, taught by Elfric, had prayed her to take their dress for the journey, and she had done so, as also had her two maidens. They were as abbess and sisters therefore, and I thought that one trouble was over--that is if our queen would but take the part of a nun as well as the dress, and be guided by Elfric the abbot.
Thus our journey to the sea was begun. And of that journey I might tell much, for it was a strange one. I think that the hardest task that a man could have, must be to take a proud and headstrong woman through a country full of danger, when she dislikes the manner of journey. And when that woman is a queen, surely it is harder yet. Had it not been for Elfric and Eadward I know not how we should have fared, for at times Emma the queen would not speak with me, if some plan that I must needs make was not to her liking. And seeing that she knew nought of the meaning of either time or distance, that was often enough. And when I heard of danger that must be skirted she would tell me that none would dare molest the queen--that she would declare herself and all would be well.
And seeing that of all hostages to Cnut the queen would be the most valuable, that plan would be fatal. I will say this now, that more than once I was obliged for very safety's sake to give wayside folk, among whom we were, to understand that the abbess was crazed through the long troubles, believing herself a queen.
And, alas for our land! it was but too easy for them to believe it. Few there were who knew not some wretched ones crazed at that time by all that had befallen them.
Well it was for us that the nights were clear and warm, and that the good Surrey and Hampshire franklins' wives were compassionate and hospitable. I could not now retrace our footsteps, for we could go by no road at times, but must take to the woods and downs.
And ever when we did so the queen rode sullenly, and angry with all around her, while Eadward and I and the two priests, who were valiant men enough, were ahead, scenting danger everywhere, for we had many a narrow escape of meeting raiding Danes. The stragglers of that mighty host were everywhere. I think that had we fallen into such hands I should have tried to send a man in all haste to the nearest post of the thingmen, that we might be taken again by warriors at least.
But the ladies bore the long journey well, and Elfric's nuns the best. I had little to do with them, having so many cares about me, and was glad enough to leave them in the closer charge of the abbot and his priests. But soon I found that there was one of the three nuns who was untiring and ever able to hearten the rest, and that even the queen listened to her. The dress made all five of the maidens seem alike at first, but in a few days the pleasant, cheerful face of this one seemed familiar to me, and it was fair enough for all the novice's garb she wore. I thought she minded me of someone whom I knew, and at last, finding out a likeness as I looked for one, I called her in my own mind Sister Sexberga, for surely she was like that fair friend of mine. It never happened that I heard her name, for I was ever forward and away from the queen's complainings, and the nuns spoke little even to one another.
Little rest and much care had I all the way thus. I will not write it, but will go on to the time when we came safely in sight of Winchester town. I could not enter it with my charges, but must needs go by myself, for here I should learn more sure news than anywhere. And what I might learn would decide whether I could take ship in Southampton Water or turn eastwards a little and go to Portsmouth or Bosham havens.
Now I knew that the Danes held the place in force, and so I told the queen. But to pass by her royal city seemed more than she could bear, and she wished and commanded us to ride in and call on her citizens to rise and protect her.
"Queen of England I am and will be," she said. "I have borne indignity long enough."
"My queen," I said, "if you see Winchester you will not see Normandy."
Then Elfric spoke with her, and at last she wept, saying that she was deserted, and the like, and so turned sullen, bidding us give her up to the Danes, who would respect a queen in distress.
Having seen this manner of submission to counsel not once or twice before, I put on a franklin's dress, and gave sword Foe's Bane into Eadward's keeping, and took a hunting spear instead, and went down into the town, leaving my party ten miles away in a nook of the wooded hills.
The scarlet-cloaked Danish thingmen at the gates paid no heed to me, for it was market day, and many countryside people were going in and out. So I went to the marketplace, and sat down on a bench outside an inn with others and listened to all that I could, while I drank my ale and ate as did the rest.
Some I talked with. There was little hatred of Cnut here, as I found. There was some change, too, in the ways of the thingmen, for it was not their plan here to make themselves hated and feared as in East Anglia.
Then came a man whose face and walk were those of a seaman, and he sat down close to me, and I pushed the ale mug towards him, and we began to talk of his calling. He had come to Winchester to find some merchant who needed a ship, as it seemed, and he began, as a good sailor will, to praise his own vessel with little encouragement.
I found out from him that Southampton Water was full of Danish vessels, and so I asked where his own lay.
"In Bosham haven," he said. "Earl Wulfnoth will have no Danes in his land. I must get some safe conduct from the Danish folk here if I come into the Water. So being tired of doing nought I even rode up to this place to see if aught could be managed for a voyage."
Now I thought that I was in luck's way, for from this man, who seemed honest enough, I could perhaps gain all I wanted. His ship was a great buss, fitted with a cabin fore and aft under the raised decks, and I could wish for no better chance than this might be.
"Would you take passengers for Normandy instead of goods?" I asked him carelessly.
"Aye, truly, and gladly if they could pay well."
"Now I will tell you that I am Earl Wulfnoth's friend," I said, "and you may know that pay is safe, therefore. I was at Pevensea when Olaf the Thick, the viking, came there."
He took my word for my friendship with the earl, and then I arranged for all things to be ready for us in a week's time. We had some rough country to cross before we came to Bosham, and I would not hurry over it. We wrangled over the price a little, as was fitting, for I would not seem too eager; but at last he said that he would depart on the morrow, and we shook hands and were satisfied.
"Speak not of this matter, friend Bertric," I said, "or we may be waylaid by Danes off the haven's mouth."
"Little fear of that, master," he laughed. "Our young Earl Godwine has beaten one or two ships already."
Then I went back light hearted to my people, and when the queen heard what I had done her mood changed, and she was most gracious, and thanked me, saying that she feared that I had run into danger for her in going into the town. So I felt myself repaid in full for the little trouble, that had been without risk as it fell out.
Very fair was the great Andred's-weald in the late April weather, but the forest tracts were rough and the way seemed long. Once we beat off, easily enough, some cowardly outlaws, but there were no Danes in Andred's-weald, and we came to Bosham in safety.
There Bertric's good ship was ready for us, and it happened that no other vessels, save fishing craft, were in the haven. I had looked to meet Godwine, my friend, but he and his ships were in Dorchester water, and there were few to mark our coming into the quiet town, or our going on board, which we did without delay.
We had no need of the stout housecarles, who had led the horses and served us so well, so the queen, as I asked her, gave them the horses as gifts in recompense for their journey, and so when they had gone we were few indeed. But there was room for few passengers in the buss. The queen and her ladies had the larger after cabin, and Elfric and the athelings and the two priests had that under the fore deck. I would remain on deck with Bertric and his crew of twenty men, but there was no hardship in that.
That night on Bertric's ship was the first for three long weeks that had sound sleep for me, for they hauled out into the middle of the haven, and none could come near us unseen, and I was at last free from care and watching.
But one thing troubled honest Bertric, and that was that he had found a black kitten on board. None knew whence it came, and he said it was an ill sign. And he dared do nought but treat it well, since it had come.
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{
"id": "16196"
}
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11
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: The Taking Of The Queen.
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When the early sunlight woke me, we were almost at the haven mouth, and slipping past Selsea, with its gray pile of buildings, on the first of the ebb tide. The wind was in the northeast, with a springtime coldness in it, but it was fair for Normandy, and there was no sea running under the land. We were well out at sea, therefore, ere Elfric, almost as worn out as I, came from his close quarters forward and stood by me, looking over the blue water of the Channel to where the Isle of Wight loomed to the westward.
"Now I think that all is well, Redwald," the abbot said, "and every mile from the English shore takes us further from danger."
And so we stood and talked in the waist of the ship, and Eadward came and joined us. The men ate their breakfast forward, and brought us some, and the two churchmen came out with the little atheling, and then Sister Sexberga, as I called her, came and shivered in the cold breeze and spoke to Bertric, who was alone on the after deck steering, and so went back to the cabin, where the queen had all things needful for breaking her fast.
Then Bertric whistled sharply, and I looked up at him. He pointed away to the eastward, and out to sea. There I saw far off on the skyline the sails of two ships that grew larger as I watched them.
I went to the break of the after deck and climbed up beside him.
"Men say that two ships passed westwards tonight, master," he said. "Here be two more heading over from the south."
"Can you tell what they are?" I asked him.
"Longships, as I think," he answered. "We shall know betimes."
The vessels hove up quickly, for our great brown sail bore us more or less across their course.
"It is safer to hold on, master," he said, "for to up helm and fly would be to bring them after us if they are vikings. They will see that we are not laden with cargo, and will not pay heed to us therefore."
It was but half an hour after that when we knew that the two ships were Danish war vessels, and that they were laying a fresh course to overhaul us. Nor was there any chance of our escaping them. They were thrice as fast as we.
Then I feared greatly, for I knew not what would happen. It might be that they would let our party go on, finding them to all seeming nought but church folk; but one could not tell, and I feared. So also did Elfric when I went to him and told him what these ships were, and that they were bearing down on us.
"We cannot fight," he said. "We must let things be as the Lord will."
"If any roughness is shown to the womenfolk," I said, "there will be one man who will fight."
"And will lose his life for naught," he answered. "If the worst comes to the worst we must even do as the queen has bidden us before now. We must proclaim her, and then we shall be safe from harm, if captives to Cnut. Tell me, have you heard that he is cruel to those he takes?"
"Rather I have heard that he is not," I said. "Moreover, if Emma of Normandy suffers aught at his hands he will have the duke to deal with very shortly."
"Now are we in the Lord's hands," said Elfric, for a hoarse hail came from the leading ship, which was to windward of us. She was a splendid dragonship, bright with gold and colour.
"What will you have me do, master?" Bertric cried to me.
"They can do what they will with us whatever we try. We may fare better by obeying," I said, for in truth there was nought else to do.
Now the great ship ranged up alongside of us, and the tall warrior at the helmsman's side hailed us again to heave to. And I saw a man bend his bow, and an arrow flew down the wind and stuck in the deck not far from me. Whereon Bertric raised his arm in answer and called to his men, and luffed while they lowered the sail. The Dane at the same time struck sail, and got out some oars in order to come alongside of us. There was no sea running that would make this dangerous.
Then I went to the low door of the after cabin, and spoke to the queen.
"Here is a ship that will come alongside ours," I said. "Fear nought, but wait for my word."
And then a glint of bright colour caught my eyes, and I looked more closely into the dark place; and there sat the queen no longer as a humble abbess, but in her own dress, for she had cast off the garb she hated, and she answered me: "Who dares to stay the Queen of England on her passage?"
"Oh, madam," I said, "for pity's sake don the convent robe again. I fear that the Danes are on us."
Then she cowered back into the shadow and said nought, for the very word terrified her when she knew her foes were so near. But Sister Sexberga came to the door, and she was pale enough, though her face lacked no courage.
"What shall we do, Redwald--thane?" she said quickly.
"Keep a brave heart, sister," I answered, "and let me manage all. I will bide before the door, and you will hear all I say. Then, if I say that we have the Queen of England, let our mistress come forward and disclose herself. But I hope they will let us go free. Pray that it may be so."
Then the two ships jarred together, and I saw that the Dane was well manned with armed warriors, and I also saw that their leader was Egil Thorarinsson, whom I had captured and again lost at Leavenheath fight. I will say that I was glad to see him, for I knew him as a free-spoken warrior who loved fair play, and I thought that he owed me a life, for I did not slay him when I might.
They leapt on board--a dozen armed Danes with Egil at their head--and there before them stood Elfric the abbot with his cross in his hand, facing them alone. His priests were forward under cover, praying doubtless, with the athelings. The great ship sheered off again, and bided within half arrow shot of us, all her rail crowded with men looking on.
"Neither gold nor goods have we," Elfric cried. "We are peaceful folk who cross the seas. It is the part of a good warrior and viking to let such go unharmed."
"Aye, so it is," answered Egil; "but, as it happens, we are looking for certain peaceful folk."
"You will not harm us," said Elfric, who knew nought of our queen's foolishness. "It is but a party of church people who go to Normandy."
"Put the holy man aside," said Egil to his men. "We are not heathens, and we will not hurt you, father."
So the warriors laughed, and went to draw Elfric away; but when he saw that I stood before the cabin door, he stepped aside by himself and watched what should befall. I had no mail on, and at first they did not notice me. It was the first day that I had not worn mail since we left London; but Foe's Bane was loose in the scabbard, and ready in case of need.
"Ho, skipper!" Egil cried, "whom have you on board?"
"Yon priest and some more of his sort," Bertric said.
"We have lit on a crow's nest," a man said, laughing. "Where are they, then?"
"In the fore peak, and aft here, deadly sick," said Bertric.
Then Egil's eyes lit on me, and he stared for a minute.
"Ho!" he cried, "here is no crow, but a stout warrior enough. What do you here, Olaf's right-hand man?"
"Helping the crows over seas," I said, trying to meet his words lightly, though my heart was heavy enough.
"Why then, friend," he said, "I must see these charges of yours. Stand aside, and let me go into that cabin."
"Nay, Egil; they are but nuns here."
The honest warrior looked puzzled, but some of his men began to crowd aft, being tired of the parley, and one tried to push me aside, saying: "Let us fetch them out, and waste no more words."
Whereon I sent him reeling against the gunwale, hands to face, for I dealt with him even as Godric served my warrior at Stamford.
Then I had my sword out, for it was time--and two men who drew sword on me went down on the deck before me. Sword Foe's Bane smote not amiss. Then was a ring of shouting Danes forming, and I felt someone at my shoulder, and Egil cried out: "Hold, men! the warrior is my man. Let me deal with him."
And there was Sister Sexberga beside me, with Bertric's sword, that had hung over his berth, in her hand; and her eyes were flashing, and it seemed to me that she had used a sword before this, or had learnt its use. It was reddened now.
The men gave back, and Egil came before me and he was laughing.
"That is enough, Redwald of Bures," he said. "I owe you a life, and you have it. If all your charges are like that maiden we had better begone. Little nunnery training is there about her sword play."
Then the sister shrank back into the cabin, and the men stared after her with a kind of awe, as at a Valkyrie of the old faith who had come to my help. There was a man whom she had smitten who was binding up a wound in his bare forearm. I believe that she stayed a shrewd blow from me.
"Let us go, Egil," I said.
"Presently, maybe. But I seek someone, and must needs see your people. No harm shall come to them."
Then I thought that all was well, and I turned to the door and spoke: "Lady abbess, you must needs come forward. I know this chief, and you need fear nought."
I heard Sister Sexberga's voice speaking low and pleadingly for a moment--and then all was lost.
"I am the Queen of England," said Emma in her proud, shrill voice. "Begone, churls, and let me not."
And bright in crimson and ermine she came from the cabin and stood swaying on the deck before Egil and his men, while round her train played heedlessly the ill-omened black kitten; and that seemed strange.
Egil bared his head and bowed before her.
"Are you truly the queen?" he said.
"Aye, knave. Who else should I be?" she answered. "Fetch me the old priest."
"Nay, Redwald will tell me now," Egil said. "Does this lady speak truth?"
"It is true," I answered. "Why should you hinder her going to the duke, her brother, who will seek her at your hands?"
Now Emma had been still during these words, looking with hard and scornful eyes at all before her, but now she spoke: "Let the sail be set again that I may go on my way. You shall surely answer for this hindrance."
But no one stirred, though even the Danes were silent, for there is that in the tones of one who is wont to be obeyed which makes men listen whether they will or not.
"Do you hear me?" she said, stamping her foot.
"Redwald, see that I am obeyed. Drive these knaves into the sea, and let me be rid of them."
Then Egil answered her, saving me trouble thereby, for I had nought to say: "Queen, we will do your bidding and hoist the sail. But my men and I must bide here."
"I care not, so that you do not hinder my folk," she said.
And with that she turned away, saying to the brave sister who yet stood beside her: "Let us seek shelter again--the wind is cold, and I am offended with the sight of these men."
They went into the cabin and closed the door after them, and Egil and I looked at one another. Egil grinned, but I could not. Outside the door the kitten mewed restlessly in the cold wind to be taken in.
"So," he said, "cheer up. This is not your fault; you almost won through. Had the queen come forth as an abbess, I think that I had left you for very shame. Priests and black cats are aye unlucky passengers, however."
I think that I was never so angry as then. To lose all our pains for the safety of the queen, and that by reason of her own foolishness, was hard.
Egil left me and went to Bertric; and once more the sail was set, and the ship headed backward for the English coast. We had almost lost sight of it. The two longships ranged up on either side of us, shortening sail to keep us company.
They took the two men whom I had slain and set them forward under some covering. Neither Egil nor his warriors bore me any grudge for their fall, which was in fair fight of their own making. After that Egil's men made the crew bring them what food and ale they had, and sat down below the fore deck quietly enough. They were courtmen of Jarl Thorkel's, as I thought, being better than the wild warriors who made the bulk of Cnut's great host.
Elfric came to me when all was quiet thus, and leant on the rail beside me for some time without speaking. We were making a long slant over to the English coast, and my heart was full of heavy thoughts, for I could not help wondering if this mischance had come about by my fault; and I was angry and sore that all the plans that I had made so confidently had come to naught. Presently the abbot said: "The queen takes this matter very easily."
"The trouble is to come," I answered; "she thinks that she is yet on her journey."
"It is no fault of ours that she is not," said he. "Maybe it is best thus. I suppose that she will understand how things are when we reach the shore. What will be done with us?"
"Let us ask Egil," I said. "I think we might have fallen into worse hands than his. It is in my mind that he likes not his errand."
So we went aft to the chief, who stood beside Bertric. And when I came to him he said, pointing westward: "Here comes Earl Wulfnoth, as I think."
Then I saw three large ships beating up to us, and the sail of one bore, painted on it, the device of a fighting warrior, Earl Wulfnoth's own ensign.
Now, on this I had a hope that we might be rescued by him, and my face must have shown as much, while Elfric glanced at me with the same thought written plainly in his eyes.
"I will not risk meeting the earl, though I do not think that he will interfere with us," Egil said; "but we are to windward of him, and can do as we like.
"Now, I have been wondering what I shall do with you, Redwald."
"Let me be taken with the queen and the athelings," I said. "What will you do with them?"
"They must go to Cnut," he answered; "but I am thinking that that will be bad for you."
"Why?"
"Maybe it is not my business, but I think that I owe you a good turn for letting me off at Leavenheath. If I take you to Cnut, Streone will have somewhat to say about you--and he is a great man with our king just now."
"Well, what if he has. He knows me well enough, and cares nought about me," I answered.
"Cares enough about you to have told Cnut to hang you as soon as he gets you," Egil said. "I suppose you have offended him in some way."
Then Elfric said: "That is so. Redwald escaped from his hands at Stamford. We heard many tales about it at Peterborough. They say that Eadmund the Martyr came bodily and saved him out of a house beset by the earl's men."
"If there is one dead man that we Danes have to fear, it is that king," Egil said. "Is this tale true?"
And he stared at me as at one who had dealings with the other world.
I knew that my story must have come into this shape through some tales that the goldsmith had set about.
"Hardly," said I; "but it is a long story. Maybe Eadmund the Saint had more to do with it than I know; but I saw him not."
"Well then, Redwald, it seems unsafe for you to go near Streone--" "It will be unsafe for him," I said savagely, for my temper was sorely tried by my failure, as I have said.
Egil laughed.
"Why, then, all the more must I keep you out of his way."
"Hang me and have done," I said; "I am of no more use."
"That," quoth Egil, "is what I thought concerning myself when you had me down in the fight. Now I am here to let you go, and bid you take heart. This is but chance of war, and one must take it as it comes."
Now it was so plain that the honest chief wished me well, that I could not but thank him for his words, though, indeed, just at this time I seemed to care little for what became of me.
"You are a generous foe, Egil Thorarinsson," I said.
"You and I shall be good friends some day, as I hope," he said; "meanwhile we will be fair foes. You slew me not, because I had fallen more or less by chance. Therefore I will let you go because you have fallen into my hands by chance. I will only lay this on you, that you shall bide with Earl Wulfnoth for two months before you fight against us again."
I was full of wonder at this, for he might well have made me promise to take up arms against Cnut no more, and I could have done no less than promise it, seeing that I was in his hands.
"Why, I must tie you down for a while," he said laughing at my face of doubt.
"Nay, Egil, I do but wonder that you set me free at all," I said.
"Is that so? I have wondered that you slew me not in the heat of battle. Well, I will add this, that if we fall on Earl Wulfnoth you may fight for him."
I held out my hand, and Egil took it.
"You have my word, Egil; you are most generous," I said.
Then he glanced at sword Foe's Bane.
"Some day you and I, maybe, will have a good fight for your sword in all friendliness," he said.
"Surely I thought you would take it back," I cried. "I feared so, for it was my father's sword."
"Aha! I knew there was somewhat strange about that blade," he said. "Tell me what story it has."
I told him in a few words about the winning of the sword from the grave mound by Thorgeir, my grandfather, and asked Egil how he came by it.
"I bought it from a man after Nacton fight, and I have never had any luck with it. I was sure it was a magic sword of some sort; for it let go three men whom I should surely have slain with any other blade. It seemed to turn in my hand. Such swords as these will not be used by any other than he who can win them from the owner."
"Ottar, Olaf's scald, said that it would draw the holder to me," I said; "but I would not believe it."
"You English have forgotten the old sayings," Egil said. "Now you know that he is right; keep the sword therefore."
Then I said: "If I must die a bed death, Egil, the sword shall be sent to you, for I think that you have the most claim to it."
He grew red with pleasure at my saying, and Elfric broke in on our talk.
"I would that I might see many more meetings of brave foes like this. Then would peace come very shortly."
"Why, father," said Egil, "Redwald and I have not any hate for each other, though we must fight on opposite sides."
"That is well. I would that it were ever so."
Then Egil changed his tone, for we were nearing shore. The ships he had seen were still far away, beating southward now.
"Are these maidens nuns, or but in disguise, father?" he said.
Elfric answered not at once, and I said: "Three are nuns, two only are disguised. You will not take the queen's maidens from her?"
"Not I," he answered. "I think that even with the abbot's help and theirs I shall have trouble enough with the queen when she finds that the shore we reach is not Normandy."
"Shall you take me?" asked Elfric.
"I must take all but my own friend here, and the three holy women; I will not hinder them. They can find shelter in Selsea or Chichester--a nun has always friends and a house--if Redwald will see them safely to the door," Egil said very kindly.
Then he bade the men get out the boat, which was a good one, and fitted for carrying cargo from ship to shore. Two of Bertric's men were to go ashore with me and the nuns, taking messages also to the Bosham folk of what had befallen the ship.
"You will scare the wife if you say you have fallen into the hands of the Danes," Egil said laughing at the shipmaster.
"It is the truth," Bertric said stoutly. " 'Tis the doing of yon cat."
"You shall come to no harm with us, and your ship shall come back to Bosham shortly. We have no war with your earl, and all will be well. Tell them, therefore, that it is thus. King Cnut is generous to all who fight not against him."
When I heard that I began to see why our people went over to his side so readily, and it seemed to me that he was fighting not only with sword, but also with policy.
"Now call your nuns, father," Egil said.
"May I have one word with Redwald first?" the abbot asked.
"Tell him what you will," Egil answered, and went forward.
He called one of the priests and told him to bid the three nuns come forth.
Then Elfric said to me: "Two of these women are nuns, the third, she who stood by you so well even now--saving your life, moreover--is not. She is the orphan daughter of a thane, whom her guardians begged me to take to Normandy, finding her a place in the queen's household or in some convent, if that might not be. She is friendless. But I think she may as well go with the nuns to Selsea. Bid her wait there till she hears from me--unless some lady will take pity on her and give her shelter."
"She will be more likely to take the vows, as have so many maidens of today who are in her case," I said. "I will do all for the nuns and her that I can."
The three sisters came out now. Two were weeping, and they were the nuns. The third was flushed and looked troubled, and she cast a glance back into the dark cabin. I heard the queen's voice speaking fast to her, as it would seem, and she shrank away as if dreading it.
Elfric went to meet them, and then the queen herself came through the cabin door stooping, for it was not high.
"This is your doing," she said to the abbot. "Am I to be left without any attendants?"
"My queen," the good man said, "we can take the sisters no further with us. They must go ashore."
The queen looked at the coast, which was plain enough now. It was certain that she had no knowledge that we were returning to England. That the ship was on another tack meant nothing to her.
"Why cannot they bide here and go on land with me? We cannot be more than an hour in reaching the harbour," and she pointed to Selsea.
"Tell her, father, I pray you," said the maiden in a low voice. "She believes that we are even now nearing her home."
Then I thought that this might come more easily from myself, seeing that Elfric had to stay with her, and I stood before her, and spoke.
"My Queen, that is not the Norman shore which you see. The Danes, into whose hands we have fallen, are taking us back to England."
As I said this, the queen's face grew white with rage, and she looked from Elfric to me, speechless. On the deck above stood Egil, and he caught my eye, and looked ruefully at us.
"What!" she said, "has Cnut bought you also? Is there no man whom I can trust?"
That was the most cruel thing that she could have said, but I knew what despair might lie behind her anger, and I answered nothing--nor did Elfric. We waited for the storm to pass.
"Ill it was that Ethelred trusted me to your hands--" she began again.
But there was one who would not bear this. The friendless maiden spoke plainly for us.
"Queen," she said, "I have borne your reproaches to myself in silence, but I cannot bear that these brave servants of yours should be blamed. Look at the abbot's torn and dusty robes, look at the thane's care-worn face--are they in the plight of men who are bribed?"
But the queen made no answer, and her face was like stone as she looked on none of us, gazing straight before her.
"What lies on yonder deck?" the girl went on, pointing to where the two bodies lay under their covering. "It is the thane's sword and risk of life that stayed them from laying hands on you. Does a bought man slay his buyers?"
Still the queen was silent, and then I said: "I think that you misjudge us, my queen. Had we wished to betray you it would have been long ere this that the Danes would have been summoned to take you."
I do not think that she heard me, and I am glad, for I spoke in anger. I saw her lean against the bulkhead, and her hand sought her heart, and she reeled a little. The maiden sprang forward to support her, for it seemed as if she would fall. But she recovered in a moment, and shook herself free of the girl's clasp.
"I am wrong, good friends," she said. "Now I know from what you have shielded me all this long journey through. What will they do with me?"
And she began to weep silently, yet she would not let the maiden touch her.
Elfric spoke then in his gentle voice.
"We cannot blame you, my queen, for the blow is heavy; yet the chief who has taken us is a true warrior and kindly, you need fear nought."
Then came Egil from the fore deck, and bowed to the queen, and said: "I must take you to Cnut the king, lady; and his commands are that you are to be treated as becomes the sister of Duke Richard. I am here to see that it is so."
Then the queen's mood changed, and she was once more herself.
"You shall answer to my brother for all you do," she said in her proud way.
"I have to answer to Jarl Thorkel and to King Cnut," Egil said simply. "The duke is no lord of mine."
Thereat the queen paid no sort of heed to him, but spoke to me.
"I will tell my brother hereafter of your great care for me, my thane. Why must you leave me now?"
Surely I should have asked Egil to let me stay, but he knew best what was safe for me.
"I will not take either thane or nuns, lady," he said. "They must leave you even now; time is short."
She glanced coldly at the chief, and answered him by speaking to me. She had brought herself now to see that she was powerless.
"Then I must say farewell, Redwald. In better days I will not forget your service," and then she smiled a little, and gave me her hand to kiss as I knelt before her, adding: "I think that I have been an ill-natured travelling companion at times."
Then she turned away quickly and sought the cabin. But she said no word to the maiden who had made the journey lighter to her, and I saw that this grieved her sorely.
Now I took hasty leave of Elfric and the athelings, and sad was I at parting with them. But I told Eadward that Egil was worthy of his charge, and a generous foe.
"You will not blame me that this matter has failed even at the last, my prince," I said.
"Not I, Redwald, good friend; you and I will laugh over it at some time hereafter," the atheling said.
I shook my head.
"It has been waste trouble and pains," I said sorrowfully.
"That it has not been," quoth Elfric. "No duty well and truly done is lost in the end, though it may seem to be so at the time. I shall remember my guardian in this journey all my life long, and the queen shall remember presently. You have been most patient. Lose not patience now. Be of good cheer rather that things are none so ill as they might be."
So the good man strove to hearten me, for I thought meanly enough of myself at that time, because I had been so certain that all was well, and now my pride was humbled. Maybe it was good for me that this should be so, but good things are passing bitter if all are like this. Lastly, he gave me his blessing, and I joined the sisters in the boat, and she was cast off, while at that moment the black kitten came to the rail and leapt in after us, which I liked not at all.
Then the great ship slipped away, her helm went down, and she headed away out to sea to escape a meeting with Godwine's vessels that had now gone about for the shore again, beating to windward for Bosham. As she passed us I saw the abbot and Eadward wave to us from the fore deck, and Egil lifted his hand in salute from beside Bertric at the helm.
Then they were gone beyond our reach, and we could no longer make them out. Our rowers were bending to their oars, and the boat was making good way enough, shoreward.
I do not know how I can say enough of Egil's friendliness to me, for I found my armour on the floor of the boat alongside the few things the poor women had. Helm and shield and axe too were there. He was as one of the heroes, of whom Ottar sang, in his way to me. Then I grew light hearted in that strange way that comes after long strain of fearing the worst, when the worst is known and it is not so terrible after all. I had no fear for the queen, and I was free, and going to Godwine and his father who were my friends. Also I should see Penhurst and Relf again, most likely.
Now when that memory came to me, suddenly I thought that I must see Sexberga. And it was strange to me that I had no pleasure in that thought. Most of all I hoped that Olaf would put in at Pevensea on his way to Normandy. It was likely enough.
So I sat and pondered, not sadly, but looking forward ever, and, as I say, feeling that a load was lifted from me. Then at last my thoughts came back from myself, and I turned to the sisters and told them that the queen was safe, if a prisoner. They need not grieve for her. The two nuns wept, but the thane's daughter smiled a little, and said, fondling the cat meanwhile on her lap: "In truth, I think that the queen will be happier in making Egil and his Danes obey her in little services than she has been in having to be guided by yourself and the abbot."
"It has been hard for her," I answered; "but she owes you much, as I think."
"She hates me," the girl said, half tearfully, "because I was the only one who dared speak plainly to her."
"Elfric and I owe you much, Sister Sexberga," said I, naming her as I had thought of her through all the journey, because I recalled so many times when we had looked to her for help in persuading the queen to common sense, She looked astonished at this, and smiled oddly, and then I saw what I had done.
"Forgive me," I said hastily; "I know not your name. That is what I ever called you to myself when I had to think of you in ordering matters."
"Why 'Sexberga'?" she said, looking out seawards.
"Truly I thought you like a lady of that name whom I knew. But now the likeness is gone," I said.
"Maybe I ought to be proud thereof," she said coldly enough.
"I will not say that," I answered. "Let me know your name that I may remember it."
"My name is Uldra," she said, without looking at me, and flushing a little, and then busying herself with the kitten's ears.
"That is a Norse name, lady," said I. "Aye--and a heathen one. But it is the best I have."
Then I said, feeling that I could not say aright what I would: "Lady Uldra, I have to thank you for saving my life today. Yours was a brave deed."
She shivered a little, at the thought of what she had done, as I think, for the heat of anger had gone.
"I am glad I was of use," she answered. "What are we to do when we come to land?"
"I will take you and the sisters to the great nunnery that good St. Wilfrith founded. There you will be welcomed."
So I said, but as I looked at her I thought what a prison the nunnery would be to such a maiden as this. Yet it was all that could be done.
"That will be peaceful," she said, but the tears seemed close at hand.
Now one of the men spoke to the other, looking back over his shoulder at him, and then when he was answered he turned to me.
"Master," he said, "tide serves ill for Selsea, and it will be easy for us to go straight up the haven to Bosham. The flood tide is strong in with us. May we do so?"
"Is there any nunnery there?" I asked.
"Why, yes, master--a little one."
There too was Wulfnoth's great house, where I should be welcome, as I knew. So I asked the sisters if this would suit them.
"One place is as another to us," they replied.
So we went on up the haven, and it was a long pull, so that it was late in the afternoon when we came in sight of the town.
Now I had said no more to Uldra about ourselves--save for a few words concerning sea and tides and the like--but had tried to cheer her, and myself also, by speaking of how Cnut would treat the queen--namely, that it was most likely to be in high honour, lest the duke should fall on him.
But as we sighted our journey's end, I bethought myself.
"Lady," I said, "is there aught that I can do for you in sending messages to your folk? There will be chapmen and the like going Londonwards shortly, when the siege is over."
"I have no friends there," she said.
"You shall bid me do what you will for you when I am free to go to our king again," said I. "There will be some who would know where you are and how you fare."
She thanked me, saying nothing but that when the time came, if I yet remembered her and would ask her, she might give me messages for those at Peterborough whom she had left, and I promised to do all I could in bearing them.
"I cannot forget the maiden who saved my life," I said.
She made no answer, and the boat shot alongside the little wharf, where a crowd was gathering quickly to see us come. Many questions there were when Bertric's men were known.
There was a kindly-looking monk among his people, and I went to him, and brought him to the nuns where they and Uldra stood apart by themselves, while the two men were busy with their folk.
"Pax vobiscum," he said; "you shall be welcome, my sisters, at our little nunnery for tonight. Then will we ask the bishop on the morrow what you had better do."
Then they were eager to go with him, and I bade them farewell, bowing, and they turned away. They might say nothing, according to their rule, Elfric told me, save in need.
Neither did Uldra speak, though no vow of silence was on her, but she went with them for a little way. I was rather hurt at this, and began to go back to the boat, wondering that she had no word of farewell.
"Redwald--thane," came a gentle call in her voice, and I turned sharply.
She was close to me, and the sisters were waiting for her twenty paces or so away.
"Farewell," she said. "I could but thank you for all your care for us."
"It has been freely given, lady," I said. "I only grieve that the journey has ended thus. May it be well with you."
"I will pray for you, thane, day and night in the nunnery that it may be so with you," she answered, with a little sort of choking. "The gratitude of us helpless women to you for your long patience is more than we can say."
Then she went swiftly back to the nuns, and they went their way. I thought that I had not deserved so much. And of this I was sure, that had not the sisters' dress kept me far from Uldra, I had forgotten Hertha in her company. Then thought I that there was no reason why I should remember Hertha any longer. And next, that it were better that I should think of no maiden at all, at this time.
Which last seemed wisest, and so I grew discontented, and went down to the boat and bade the men take my arms and few belongings to Earl Wulfnoth's house.
When I came there the steward knew me, and made me very welcome. The earl was at Pevensea or Shoreham, but Godwine was in and out of the haven, and would be here ere long. So they told me, and set a good meal before me. And when I had eaten I lay down on a settle and slept the long sleep that comes to one wearied in mind and body alike. If the house had burnt over my head I should not have waked, for others watched now, and I had no need to wake for aught.
A man knows those things in his sleep, I verily believe. One ill dream I had, and that was of Bertric's unlucky kitten, which seemed to be the queen in some uncanny way. Sometimes I wonder what became of it. I never learned, but it brought me no more ill luck.
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{
"id": "16196"
}
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12
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: Among Friends.
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When I woke it was daylight again. A fire burnt on the hearth in the middle of the hall, and someone had spread a wolf-skin rug over me. I had not moved from sunset to sunrise, and I was refreshed and broad awake at once, wondering at first where I was, and who had laughed and woke me.
There was a youth sitting on a table's edge by the wall over against where I lay, and a big broad-shouldered man leant on it with folded arms beside him, and at first I stared at them till my thoughts came back, and they laughed at me again, and then I knew Godwine and Relf the thane, who had but just come up from their ship to find me.
"On my word," said Godwine, "here is a man who could teach one how to sleep! We have sat here and talked about you for ten minutes or more."
"Redwald sleeps as though he had lost time to make up," said Relf. "Welcome back to us, anyway."
"Aye--welcome you are," said Godwine warmly, "but how did you come here?"
I got up and took their hands, rejoicing to see them. It was good to be among friends again after the long watching and many dangers. Then came the steward followed by his men with a mighty breakfast, and as he set the tables on the high place, Godwine's men trooped in. They had had to wait for the morning tide into the haven, and the ship was just berthed.
"Food first," Relf advised. "Then shall Redwald tell us all he knows."
So by and by we sat in the morning sunlight in the courtyard, and I told them all that had happened from beginning to end. They knew no more than that Ethelred was dead, and that Cnut was besieging London.
"We tried to chase those Danes because they had got our man's ship," said Godwine. "When we got near enough, for they came down wind and passed us before long, we found that Bertric was contented enough, running up his own flag, and the Danes did not stay to fight. So we came home, only losing our tide by the delay."
"What would you have done had you known that the queen was on board, and a prisoner?" I asked.
"Why, nothing more than we have done," Godwine said. "My father hates Emma the cat as bitterly as he does Streone the fox, which is saying a good deal. The cat's claws are clipped now, maybe."
Well, I knew this, and said nothing. One could expect no more from Earl Wulfnoth's son. Nor do I think that any loved Emma the queen much. One may know how a person is thought of by the way in which folk name them often enough, and though our king would have had his young wife called by her English name, Elfgiva, none ever did so. Her Norman, foreign name was all we used. If she had been loved, we should have rejoiced to name her in our own way.
Then Godwine said: "You have had an ill time with Emma, as I think, if she is all that my father says."
"Nay, Godwine," said Relf, "Redwald will not bear much of this. He is the queen's faithful servant, and will have nought against her, and he is right."
"So he is, and I am wrong," said the lad at once. "Forgive me, friend; I did not think."
Then I laughed, and turned it off. Godwine was only too right, but I could not say so. Now, however, I may say that the memory of Emma the queen's ways is to me as a nightmare.
"I would that I could meet with this Egil," Godwine said as I gave him sword Foe's Bane to handle; and then he forgot all else in the beauty of the weapon.
"What have you done with the brave maiden?" Relf asked me now.
"She is in the nunnery here," I said. "She is friendless, having no folk of her own nearer than Peterborough."
"That is far off," said Relf, and began to think, twisting his beard as was his wont when pondering somewhat weighty.
Now, before he had made up his mind to say any more, Godwine was ready to hear about the winning back of the sword, and of the fights in Ulfkytel's land, and then a man came from the ships with some business, and he went away with him. And by that time Relf had somewhat to say.
"Penhurst is a lonesome place, and it will be worse for my wife when Sexberga is gone," he said musingly.
"Why, where is your daughter going?" I asked him.
He looked at me sidewise for a moment, and I thought that his face fell a little. Then he said: "Going to be wedded shortly."
"That is well," I said. "To whom?"
Then the thane turned fairly round on me with wide eyes, and a blank fear fell on me that he meant that I was to wed her. Yet surely the lady had told him that I was betrothed.
"Ho!" he said; "did you not know that? Methought everyone did."
That was worse, and I knew not what he looked for from me.
"I have been away; I have heard nought," I answered lamely enough.
"Oh, aye; so you have," he said. "Truly, I forgot that. We quiet people fancy that all the world knows our affairs. And it was in my mind that you had a tenderness that way yourself. I knew not how you would take it."
Then we both laughed, but it was not a hearty laughter, for each feared the other a little, as it seemed.
"I am glad for Sexberga, if she is happy," said I. "Why, now, that is well," said Relf. "I had thought that I must break this matter gently to you."
"Maybe you would have had to do so had I bided at Penhurst much longer," said I truly enough.
"All the same, Redwald, I wish it were you, on my faith," said the thane, growing red in his earnestness.
"Thanks therefor," said I. "It is good to hear you say so; but I am a landless warrior in bad luck, and so it is better as it is. Who is the man of Sexberga's choice?"
"Eldred of Dallington," said he. "A good youth enough, and with lands enough. He has never seen a fight, though," and then he turned on me suddenly, putting his hand on mine. "I could have sworn, lad, that you were fond of the girl. Tell me if it is so, and Eldred shall go down the wind like a strayed hawk, for all I care."
I shook my head, but it came over me for a moment that I wished I might recall the wandering fancies of the winter days in Penhurst--but that passed, and I was lonely in heart.
"Nay, thane, that is not so. My sword here is all that I love next to my king and Olaf my cousin--and Relf the thane. I have no love for any maiden, nor could Sexberga think twice of me."
"If you had bided a little longer. Well, then, no hearts are broken, or so much as awry, and that is well. So, as I was saying, Penhurst will be lonely directly, and already I love this maiden with the outland name for saving you. How would she take it if we gave her shelter with us? I am going back home in a day or two, and you must come with me."
The good thane spoke fast, being easier in his mind, as it seemed, on one point, and not willing to make any show of generosity on the other.
"That is a kind thought of yours," I said, being very glad, and not less so that I could not help rejoicing that I should see more of Uldra.
"I wonder what my wife would say?" he said thoughtfully.
"If I know aught of her kindness, and I think that I have proved it well," answered I, "she will be glad to help this orphan maiden."
"Let us go and see her, and ask her to come, therefore," said Relf, rising up. "I want to thank her, moreover, for saving you."
I was nowise loath, and so we went along under the trees towards the nunnery. And as we went Relf talked of Eldred, the Thane of Dallington, and the wedding that was to come. And all the while I believe that he was troubling about two things that were mixed in his mind--fear that I was set aside by Sexberga, and a wish that I had been the bridegroom.
Then we knocked on the great door, and he was silent until a sister looked through the little barred square wicket in the midst of it.
"We would speak with the Lady Uldra," I said. "I am the thane who brought her ashore."
The sister said nought, but shut the wicket door, and left us. We heard her steps retreating across the little courtyard, and she shut a door after her somewhere else. Then all was quiet.
"What does that mean?" Relf said.
"That we have to wait," said I "that is all. It is the way in which they treat folk at these places. They would do the same if the queen came. She has gone to her Superior."
"What would Emma say?" chuckled Relf, looking slyly at me.
"One cannot say much to an iron-barred oak door."
"But there are thanes and such-like left outside," he said, laughing more yet. "Now Godwine is not here, I dare say that you have felt, more than once, the queen's tongue for nought."
"I will deny it," said I, "to anyone but Elfric the abbot," whereat he laughed till the tears came into his eyes. He had known our queen in the old days before Streone's treachery.
I was glad that the wicket flew open again. Relf stayed his laughter in a moment, and became very grave.
"What would she say now?" he whispered.
"Enough," I said, for the sister, having seen that we waited, unbarred the gate and let us in. Then she pointed to a door on our right, and went away.
I took Relf's arm and led him to this door--for he was going to follow the sister--and we opened it. It led into a small high-roofed chamber, that had a great crucifix painted in bright colours on the east wall, and pictured legends on the rest, between high narrow windows.
But there stood Uldra, no longer in convent dress, but in some robe of dark blue and crimson that became her well, so that at first I hardly knew her, for now for the first time I saw her bright brown hair that the novice's hood had hidden from me. I could not say that Uldra was fair as Sexberga to look on, but, as ever, I thought that her face was the sweetest that I had seen in all my life.
I was a little abashed before this grave and stately maiden, who was the same, and yet not the same, as she who had been through so much danger and trial with me, and I could not find a word to say at first. Nor could she, as it seemed, and so we looked at one another until she smiled. It was only for a moment, however, for when her face lighted up thus, Relf found his voice and spoke.
"I have come to thank you, lady, for saving my comrade's life yesterday," he said, taking her hand and kissing it. "I had lost a good friend but for you, he tells me."
"But for the thane, your friend, I know not what would have become of us," she answered. "The thanks are from me to him, rather."
"Yet I think that I owe you somewhat," Relf said, "and now I am minded to try to show that I would thank you in deed, and not in word only."
He paused, and Uldra looked at me as if asking if I could throw any light on this stranger's meaning.
"Relf, the Thane of Penhurst, is he who gave me shelter and care when I was hurt in a fight and a flood last winter," I said. "He has indeed been a good friend to me."
"Not I," said Relf; "you fought for me. It was my wife and Sexberga, my daughter, who tended you."
Now at that name, which she already knew, the maiden looked quickly away from me, and a little flush began to creep up into her face, with pleasure as it would seem.
"I have heard of your daughter Sexberga already," she said to Relf with a little smile.
"Why, that is well," he said. "Now, after her wedding my wife will be sorely lost for want of a companion, and I would ask you to come home to Penhurst with us, and bide there until you may seek your friends again--or as long as you wish. And glad shall we be of your help at the wedding feast."
So he spoke cheerfully, trying to make all the honour come from her, as kindness to himself and his wife. But though the tears came into Uldra's eyes at the good thane's plain meaning, she was silent yet, save that she said: "I know not how to thank you for your goodwill to me."
"Nay," he said; "but my wife will blame me if you come not. 'Here,' she will say, 'is the companion whom I needed, and a friend of our Redwald's, moreover, and you have not brought her.' I pray you, come with us. Do you ask her, Redwald; I am rough, and you are courtly."
Then I said: "Lady, this is all that Elfric would wish for you. I cannot tell you of the great kindness that is waiting for you in the thane's home."
And for answer she turned away and began to weep, and Relf could bear that not at all, and he went to her and put his arm round her, as he would have done to Sexberga, and tried to reassure her.
"Why," he said, "here is nought to weep about, maiden. Maybe we are homely people, but I think that you may learn to be happier in freedom with us than here. Nay, but weep not so bitterly, you shall be as our daughter to us if you will, for Redwald's life's sake. Aye, you shall have Sexberga's own chamber and all that--" But still Uldra wept, and I was unhappy to see her do so. This could not be all for sudden relief from doubt as I had thought at first.
Then she took herself gently from the thane's arm, and dried her eyes, and clasped her hands tightly before her, and said: "I cannot say how I thank you; but I must bide here."
"This is a cold place," said the thane. "It is no home for you."
"I think it will be so in the end," she said very sadly.
And I tried hard to think of somewhat to say that might persuade her, but there was that meaning in her voice that seemed to stay whatever came to me. I thought that she had made up her mind to take the veil, and there are few things that will turn a maiden from that when once she has chosen it.
Then said Relf: "Maybe I ask you too suddenly, lady. Let us leave it till tomorrow, and I pray you think with all kindness of the matter, for I shall be sorely grieved if you will not come."
And I said the same as well as I could, but though she promised to give her answer in the morning, it was plain to me that it would be even as she said now.
Then we took our leave of her, and found our way out of the place, somewhat down-hearted. The door was bolted after us, though I do not know who did it, or whence the portress watched our going. And it was dismal to hear the great bars jarring in their sockets.
"Poor maid," said Relf. "Why does she choose such a prison?"
"Those dismal nuns have talked her into it," said I angrily.
"Maybe. It is a way they have," the thane said. " 'Come in here!' said the rat in the trap to the rat outside, 'one is safe from the cat behind these bars.'"
So we walked on for a little, and then he said: "How did she hear of Sexberga? I thought you had had no speech with her on the journey."
"Nor had I," I answered. "I thought she was another silent nun. But I thought she was like Sexberga, and so I called her Sister Sexberga to myself, giving her a name in my thoughts. Then in the boat it slipped out unawares when I had to speak to her, and she asked to be told why I called her so."
"As much like Sexberga as you are like Godwine, which is not at all," said Relf laughing. "Was she pleased?"
"Why, I think not," I answered.
"How much more about Sexberga did you tell her?" he asked.
"Nothing, there was no need."
Then Relf began to chuckle to himself, and I could not tell why. But presently he said: "Did you give the sisters names likewise?"
"Yes, I did. I do not think I should have cared to say what they were," I answered, laughing also.
He said no more about this, and we came to the hall, and then went to find Godwine at the ships. But I could not but feel disappointed that Uldra would not come with us. And that was not all for her own sake, as I found when I came to turn over my thoughts a little. I would fain see more of the maiden who had borne peril so well, and had stood so bravely at my side.
Now when Godwine heard how our errand had failed, he laughed at Relf's downcast looks and said, scanning my weatherbeaten and forest-worn garments: "Maidens love to see warriors go in bright array. She is tired of those old weeds of Redwald's. We must fit him out afresh in the morning, and then she will listen maybe."
He was so pleased with this boyish wisdom of his own, being fully persuaded that he was right, that he and I must ride together to Chichester with morning light, and find new gear for me.
"We roll in riches since you fell into the pit," he said, when I would pay for what I had with my last piece of gold. "And you must keep that one; there are more due to you yet as I think."
Nor would he be denied in this, and it is not a warrior's part to take an earl's gifts grudgingly. And when I fairly shone in bright array from head to foot, he must needs add a wonderful round brooch, silver and gold wrought, with crimson garnets at the ends and in the spaces of the arms of a cross of inlaid pearl and enamel, such as one seldom sees.
"It is a Kentish brooch," he said, "so shall men know that you are a friend of the earls of Kent and Sussex."
That was an earl's giving indeed, but Godwine is ever open handed, and I am not alone in learning how he will give.
"Now we must go back, and you shall seek this damsel again since old Relf is so set thereon. As for you, it is likely that you have had trouble enough with her already, and will care little if she will not come," he said, and looked me over from head to foot as we stood outside the chapman's house in the wide place where the four roads cross in Chichester town.
"My faith!" he added, "I believe that even Emma the Cat would mind what you told her now!"
"Lord earl," said I, "you will make me vain."
"Earl, forsooth!" he cried, "the clothes have made you mighty courtly all at once. Godwine and Redwald are going back to Bosham, and the earl bides at Chichester Cross--mind you that!"
And he swung himself on his horse laughing, and we rode away, while the people shouted, for they had gathered in twos and threes to look on him.
Now when we came back to the great house, there was Relf sitting on the bench where we had sat yesterday, and he looked as if he had had good news.
"Now, thane," said Godwine, "here is a new messenger to your sorrowful damsel."
Relf stared at me and laughed, and when I got off my horse Godwine would have us go at once. So Relf took my arm and we went, while the young earl joked us till we were out of hearing.
"Now," said the thane, "we will not spoil the earl's jest, but must even let him think that all has been his doing thus."
"Why, he will see us start for Penhurst, and if Uldra is not there--" "Aye, but she will be. She is coming gladly," Relf said.
"How is this?" I asked.
"Just that I have been to see the maiden while you were gone, and I spoke to her as to a daughter, and so she is coming."
"You would not wait for me, then?" I said, being glad that he had managed without me, as things had turned out.
"Methought I could do better alone. The girl would say more to me than if you were there, perhaps. Moreover, I had a notion why she would not come, and I wanted to ask her if I was right. And I was."
"I thought of that," said I; "she was in the same plight as myself until Godwine decked me out thus. Women think more of their attire than we."
The thane chuckled in his quiet way.
"Why, perhaps that had somewhat to do with it, but I did not ask her, I forgot. But I did tell the old Lady Superior to do so, and gave her withal to care for the maiden."
Then I said: "It is well that you persuaded her; maybe I should have been in the way. I should have lost my tongue again, I think."
"Well, yes," said Relf, still laughing to himself, "it was you who were in the way; however, as you say, all is well, and she rides with us tomorrow. We will go and find a mule or a good forest pony for her, and so tell Godwine that the clothes have done it."
Now I never thought that there was anything more behind the thane's words, for of all things that had made my soul weary in these last weeks the complaints of Emma the queen about her dress had been the worst. So this seemed to me to be quite enough to explain Uldra's first refusal, and though I believe that Relf had been on the point of telling me more, he forbore, and let this suffice.
Relf knew where to look for a beast, and we soon had a good bay pony, that was quiet enough and strong, sent to Godwine's stables. And then Relf told the earl what he had done.
"Then I was right," said Godwine gleefully. "I will warrant that you two wise heads would never have thought thereof."
"Are you coming with us?" I asked him, for I did not care to have to find answers to many questions about our speech with Uldra, as things were.
"I am coming by sea presently with two ships," he said. "I shall wait till Bertric comes back, and so maybe shall have news of your queen to tell you. He should not be long. Relf goes back for the early hay time, he says, but I believe that he is tired of the sea."
"I am no sailor, lord," the thane said.
"As any of my crew will tell you," Godwine said merrily.
"Never, Redwald, was any man so undone as Relf when there is a little sea on. A common forest deer thief could tie him up."
"I should have thanked one for slaying me at times," said Relf grimly. "I prefer solid ground to shifty deck planks."
So whether it was love of home or loathing of sea that took him back to Penhurst, Relf and I left Godwine on the next morning; and at the nunnery door waited Uldra, looking bright and cheerful and greeting us gladly as we came. And it seemed to me that her troubles had passed from her, and that she was indeed glad to be leaving the walls of the place that was so prison-like.
Now that was a fair and pleasant ride over the Downs and among the forest paths through Sussex, and I look back on it as the brightest time that I had had in all the long years of trouble. The joy of going back to my old home at Bures had been clouded with the knowledge of loss, and with the sight of the trail of war. But here were none of these things.
We rode with twenty housecarles of Relf's behind us, and it was a new thing to me that I should see the wayside folk run out into the trackway to see us pass; that the farm thralls in the fields should but rise up, straightening stiffened backs and laughing, and stay their work for a moment to watch us; that no man who met us should ask with anxious face, "What news of the Danes?"
New it was, and most pleasant to Uldra also, for she had come through all the harried land, where the click of steel or the glint of armour had bidden the poor folk fly in terror, so that one rode through silent and deserted villages, and past farms where nought but the dogs told of life about the place. And that was what I had seen over all England since Swein of Denmark landed, so long ago. Men will hardly believe it now. Relf could hardly believe us as we told him. Yet today, were I to ride into an East Saxon village shouting "The Danes!" there are men who would cast down tools and all else that they were busied with, and clutch at the weapons that rust on the wall before thought could come to them. For the terror of these years cannot pass from England yet while any man is alive who knew it.
Now there was another pleasure for me, and that was to watch Uldra growing brighter and happier day by day. It was wonderful to me to see this, and with me she was ever frank and open, never wearying of speaking of our former journey and its troubles, for we could smile at them now. And Relf grew very fond of her in those few days, as one might see. Nor do I know how anyone could help doing so. Even the rough housecarles would watch for a chance of doing some little service for her.
And yet, as I have said, Uldra was not the fairest maiden that I had seen. Men are apt to think that the fairest must ever be the best, and a man learns that it is not so only by degrees, maybe. And when I looked on Uldra's face it began to seem to me the best that could be, and ever to me it would seem that I knew it well. For some look of hers that should be new to me was not new--I had expected it in some way, and should have wondered not to see it cross her face. And so in gesture and in word also. So that she seemed already well known to me, and why this was I could not say, and at times it troubled me as puzzling things will. But, all the same, I loved to find myself so puzzled.
Thus, by the time we came over the great spur of the Downs that ends in Beachy Head, and looked over all Pevensea level to the Penhurst woods and hills beyond, I and Uldra were very good friends, and Relf was pleased that it should be so, and rode between us in high content.
It was midday when we passed the last hill of the Downs where the mighty giant lies like a shadow on the grass by Wilmington; then we saw the gray castle where Wulfnoth bided, away to our right; and then along the steep ridge inland and down to Boreham, where I must tell the maiden of the great sea wave, and how Olaf saved me. And so we came to Penhurst in its valley among the trees, and the ride was over.
Now there is no need to say what welcome was at that house, whether for its lord, or for the warrior who had been nursed back to life there, or for the new-come homeless maiden. Relf was not wrong when he told her that she should be as a daughter in the house.
Some of the men had ridden on, so that the homecoming feast should be spread for us, and there was the lady at the courtyard gates, and with her Sexberga, and a tall, handsome young thane, whom I knew for Eldred of Dallington; and there was Father Anselm, and Spray the smith, and many more whose faces I was glad to see again.
And among all those faces were nought but welcoming looks--save from one only. I did not note this, being taken up with watching how they greeted Uldra, for that seemed to me to be the only thing that I cared about. If I had any thought of Sexberga now, it was as if she had been my sister, and I hoped that she would be pleased with the maiden who was thus brought to her unlooked for. I need have troubled nought about that, however, for she and her mother were alike in many things, and if I was sure of the one, so might I have been of the other in all that had to do with kindness.
But if I had looked beyond Sexberga to where her young thane stood I should have met with a black scowl enough, though I could not have told why this should be his greeting for me. I had but seen him once before, and that was at Earl Wulfnoth's feast to Olaf when we first came.
That was an evening to be remembered as most pleasant when, after the feast, we sat and spoke of all that had happened since I left Penhurst. I told them all the tale of warfare, and of Olaf's deeds, and of the winning back of my sword, and how that helped our meeting with Egil.
And when Spray the smith, who sat listening, with the other men in the hall below the high place, heard of that escape from the Danes, he said, without ceremony: "Master, well I knew that you would never be cast into prison."
"That was a saying of yours, Spray," said I. "May the luck last."
Then Uldra would tell the story of our journey in her way, and my name came pretty often into her tale. So, looking about the hall while she spoke, my eyes lit on Eldred, and it seemed that he was ill at ease, and displeased with somewhat. I thought that he would rather be sitting nearer Sexberga, maybe, and troubled nought about him, though I did think that he showed his ill temper over plainly in his face.
Now, in all this story telling there was one thing about which I said nothing, and that was my search for Hertha. It seemed to me that there was no need for doing so, and moreover, I would tell the lady thereof in private at some time. And I was glad that Sexberga asked me nought about it. I do not think that she had forgotten it, but she had her own reasons for saying nought of the matter, which were foolish enough when I found them out. The lady, her mother, waited for me to say what I would in my own way when I thought right.
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{
"id": "16196"
}
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13
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: Jealousy.
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That generous foe of mine, Egil--if indeed I should not call him my friend, as he named me once--had set two months as the time in which I must bide in peace, and I will not say that this space seemed likely to go over-heavily for me. We could hear little news except from such ships as put in from along the coast, and the first news that came was when Godwine returned from Bosham.
The Danes had taken the queen to Winchester in high honour, and there she was living in some sort of state, which pleased her well enough, until word came from Cnut concerning her. It was thought that he would let her go back to Normandy, keeping the athelings as hostages. So concerning her and them my mind was at rest.
Now Cnut was besieging London. But before he had left Wessex, there had been a great council of bishops and clergy at Salisbury, and at that gathering he had been chosen as king in succession to Ethelred, whose house was not loved. There, too, he was present, and swore to be their faithful king and to protect Holy Church in all things.
Then into Wessex went Eadmund, ravaging and laying waste there. One might know what hatred of him would come from that, and my heart sank at hearing this folly.
Two days after Godwine came, we saw the sails of a great fleet going westward, and we thought that Cnut had been beaten off from London. But a ship that had sprung a leak in some way put into Wulfnoth's haven at Shoreham from this fleet, and from thence we learnt that the Danes had halved their forces, and that Cnut and Ulf the jarl were going again into the Severn to withstand Eadmund in Wessex, and if possible to hem him in between two forces in the old way of the days of Alfred. London was beset straitly, but not taken yet.
I was more content then, for I could not have reached our king, had I returned from Normandy, as it seemed. And now it was possible that he might make headway against the divided forces of the Danes. I might join him yet in time to share in some final victory.
So the early summer days at Penhurst became very pleasant to me, for I had little care that need sit heavily on my mind. Indeed, I think that I should almost have forgotten that I had any, but for the foolishness of Sexberga, which bid fair to turn all things to sadness at one time.
I had spoken with her mother about my search for Hertha, telling her plainly all that had passed between me and Ailwin, and I asked her to tell me what she thought I must do now.
"Wait yet longer," she answered; "peace will come, and he will bring Hertha back to Bures."
That ought to have been my own plan, but I had rather hoped to hear her say that I was right in holding myself free to choose afresh as I would. The thought of being bound seemed irksome to me; though why I, landless and luckless, should have found it so, I could not say. It mattered not at all at present. So I said: "That is all one can do, lady; it matters not."
"What thinks Sexberga?" I asked presently.
"You have not spoken to her of your search, then?" the lady said. "I had thought that she would ask you of it first of all."
She had asked nothing, and I had said nothing.
Then the lady said: "She and I spoke thereof with Uldra but yesterday, and they were both full of your praises for wishing to seek for your Hertha. They will be glad to hear that you have done so, and sad that you have failed to find her."
Then there came over me a wish that Uldra knew nought about it. And that angered me with myself, because it was plain that I cared overmuch for the company and pleasant voice and looks of this maiden who was friendless as I.
So that was all that was said at the time, and I met Uldra in my foolishness as if this were going to make some difference in her way with me. Which of course it did not. Whereupon I was angrier yet with myself for deeming that it would.
Now, there was another person who should have known of this betrothal of mine, and that was Edred, but Sexberga never told him, and her mother did not, for she thought that Sexberga would do so.
Of all the foolish things that a maiden can do, the most foolish is to try to make the man who is to wed her jealous. For it is playing with edged tools in two ways--if the man, being an honest man and trustful, is not jealous, the maiden thinks that he cares not, and so is herself wretched. But if he is jealous, why, then every thought of his towards the maiden is changed and spoilt, and it will be long, if ever, before full trust is won again between those two.
But this seems to be good sport to some damsels, and so it was with Sexberga. The blacker grew the young thane's looks the more she would praise me, and the more she would choose to speak with me rather than to him; wherefore his life was made wretched for him, and I think he hated the sight of me. Maybe I was blind not to see this, but I liked him well enough, save for what I thought was his sullen temper, and I would try to joke him into better humour at times in all good fellowship. But I think that the trouble began before I came back, with talk of the time when I had been at Penhurst before.
He was ever at Penhurst--I should have thought ill of him if he had not been--for Dallington was close at hand, and he was ever welcome.
After that talk with the lady I must needs ask Sexberga what she thought concerning my strange betrothal, she having had so much to say thereon before. And so one day, as I had been with Spray to see some traps set by the bank of the Ashbourne river for otter, and was coming back with him, bearing a great one between us on a pole, we met Sexberga in the woodland track to the house, and Spray went on, while I walked back with her on her way to the old village--where we had had the fight--and talked about my baffled search.
Now her saying was that I had no need to pay any more heed to this betrothal after what I had said to Ailwin, and that he himself would seem to try to break it by thus taking Hertha out of my ken. And we talked freely of the matter, and the last thing that I said was this, coming round to what I had made up my better mind for: "It is not much matter either way. I can think of no maiden as things are."
Whereon we met Eldred, and his face was not pleasant to look on, though he said nothing at that moment, and turned and walked silently with us on the other side of the maiden.
When we came to the village I said that we would wait outside until she came back, and thought that Eldred would go along with her. But he stayed with me, and I looked round for a sunny seat where one could see all the long chain of bright hammer ponds that went in steps, as it were, down the valley before us.
"Nay," he said in a strange voice, "come over to the other side of the valley--there is a pleasant place there."
"The lady will miss us," said I. "We need not be long," he said. "The place I would show you is not far. One of us can be back before she has done with these churls."
So, as I supposed that we might have to wait for half an hour, because every woman in the place would want to tell her ailments to the kindly young mistress most likely, we went together, passing over the brook, and going up the steep valley side beyond it, until we came to the rocks of the old quarry where we had rested before the fight with the outlaws.
A pleasant place enough it was, truly, for the rocks stood round in a little cliff, hemming in a lawn of short grass on every side but one, and the trees that hung on the bank of the stream closed that in. So when we were fairly within this circle of red cliff and green trees Eldred said: "This will do. We will see which of us is to go back to Sexberga."
"Why, you will," said I, thinking that he had some device by which he might be free from my presence. "I spoil company for you both, and will go back to the hall by the lower track presently."
"You have spoilt company long enough," he said, his face growing very savage of a sudden. "Now I will end it, one way or the other."
"What is this foolishness?" I said, seeing now what he meant.
"You know well enough," he answered with a great oath. "Pluck out that fine sword of yours and show that you can do more than talk of using it."
"Come, Eldred," said I, "I have not deserved this."
"You deserve all that I shall give you," he answered, drawing his sword. "Stand up like a man."
Now it seemed very hard to me that all these friendships should be broken and spoilt by this foolish business, as they would be if either of us was hurt; and so I tried to quiet him yet once more.
"Eldred, listen to reason," I said. "I have done you no wrong. Tell me of what you complain."
Thereat he only cursed, bidding me draw and cease prating.
"I will not fight you thus," I said, for he was growing over wild to fight well for himself. "Let us find some to attend us and watch the business, that neither of us may be blamed. It is ill to slay a man in a hidden place like this with none to say that the fight was fair."
"You are afraid," he said sneeringly.
"You must ask Relf if that is likely," said I, for I would not be angered by his angry words. "But I do not care to risk blame to you or me. Nought is gained by fighting thus."
"Ask Relf, forsooth!" he snarled. "I care not to hear again how you lay hid in the pit yonder while others fought."
"Have a care, Eldred," I said then. "You grow heedless in your anger, and go too far. I do not think that you mean this."
"Do you need to be called nidring {12}?" he snarled at me.
Now none heard that word pass between us, and though it made me bitterly angry I kept my wrath back. Truly I began to think that I was foolish to argue with him; but there would be grief, lifelong, at Penhurst if deadly harm befell either of us where none could say that all was fairly fought out.
"Are you not going?" he said in a choking sort of way.
"No," I said, "not until I know what all this is about."
"What good in going over that again?" he answered. "You know well enough. Let me be--you have won."
"I know," said I; "but you have not told me aught. I can only guess that you think that I have taken your place with Sexberga."
"Aye--and now you have won it."
"I want it not," I answered. "Had you not been so angry you would have known that, when I bid you go back and meet her without me."
Now he looked at me with a sort of doubt, and said, in a somewhat halting way: "I heard you just now tell her that it could not be that you could think of her--as things are."
Then I remembered what my last words had been, and I saw that they might easily have misled him after all the trouble he seemed to have had.
"You heard too much or too little," said I, being minded to laugh, though the matter was over serious to him to let me do so. "I spoke of my own troubles, which were the less because my fortunes prevent my thinking of any maiden, seeing that I have no home to give a wife when I find her. You were wrong in thinking that I spoke of Sexberga--I spoke, as you might have known, of the one whom I have lost."
"How should I know that? I know nought of your affairs."
Then thought I to myself that I would punish Sexberga, for she had tortured this honest lover of hers over much.
"I will not tell you that tale. Ask Sexberga, who has known it from the first."
Then I was sorry for what I had said, for he flushed darkly.
"I have been made a fool of," he said.
"Nay; but you should have been more trustful," said I. "Now, were I in your place, I would go home to Dallington and bide there for a week, and the maiden will be pleased enough to see you when you return. And if she tries to make you jealous again, seem to mind it not. There is little sport in it for her then."
"I suppose there would not be," said he, and he began to look more cheerful.
"Now," said I, "I was betrothed long ago--the war time has come between me and her who should have been my wife. I have hunted for her and cannot find her--and that is all. Now you understand. It was Sexberga who cheered me in my search, and so I spoke to her thereof."
"I should not have doubted you," he said frankly; "forgive me."
I held out my hand and he took it. There was nought but friendliness in his grasp, and I could not blame him. I blamed Sexberga wholly.
Then he laughed a little ruefully.
"I am a fool with a sword," he said. "Will you teach me somewhat? I think I was mad when I used those evil words to you."
"I have forgotten them," I answered; and so I had. One does not think much of what a man says in utmost rage as his. "Come, let us go back to the village."
So we went back together, but Sexberga had gone on her way homeward without us. Whereat Eldred was not sorry, and said that he was going back to his own place.
"You will see me no more for a few days," he said. "I think your plan is good."
"Mind this," I answered, "I never tried it."
"Lookers-on see best," he answered, laughing bitterly. "But think no more of my anger with yourself, I pray you."
I told him that I would not, and so we parted good friends enough, though I feared that he might take this matter to heart in such wise that he would have some ill moments presently. There was little spring in his walk as he took the path towards Dallington.
I said nought of this affair, as one might suppose, and made little excuse to Sexberga for leaving her. We had walked too far, and had returned too late to find her, I said. She pouted and said nothing, but I thought that her punishment had already begun.
Next day there were ships heading in for Pevensea, and I rode away to find out what I could, and forgot Eldred and his troubles. For Olaf had come, and that was luck beyond what I could have looked for.
The ten great ships slid into the haven, and I was first on the strand to meet the king. Wulfnoth and Godwine were riding inland, and doubtless were returning posthaste if they knew that ships had come. But for a little while I had my kinsman to myself, and great was his wonder to find me in this place.
"I have thought that I should have to ransom you from Cnut's hand," he said, "for we have heard that Thorkel's men took the queen's ship. Were you not taken likewise?"
So when he heard of all that had brought me here, he praised Egil highly.
"He is a Norseman, and no Dane, by birth," he said. "One may be proud that he is so. I would that he were my man."
Then was my turn, and I wondered how Olaf had left London, for the Thames was full of Danish ships, as I had heard.
"Aye, so it is yet," he told me. "The Danes cannot take the city, try what they will, though they dug a great ditch round the Southwark fort, and took ships through it above the bridge, and so kept us shut up close enough. But walls and forts and citizens are too much for them. Now the siege is but a blind, while the real warfare is to be in Wessex. So I came away with the Danes, my men being tired of unprofitable warfare where we were not wanted, and gaining, moreover, neither gold nor honour."
"You came away with the Danes?" I cried. "Surely you made no pact with them?"
"Not I," said he. "But they sailed with an evening tide, which was my chance. Ten ships among four hundred or so make no odds. We took off the dragon heads, and when it was quite dark rowed down after them, and so caught them up at Greenwich. Then we slipped through the fleet easily, for it was mostly of cargo ships full of men, and no one paid any heed to us, as might be supposed. So by daylight we led the fleet, or nearly, and when the next night came we stood away from it, going across Channel. Then I came here to see if Wulfnoth or Godwine would cruise with me on some other shore, as I promised."
Then I asked him what I had better do, for with the sight of his face came the longing to be free again.
"Come with me," he said. "I am going to win ransom from a town or two against the time when I shall need gold wherewith to win men to me in Norway."
I think that I should have done this in the end, though I did not like to leave England without striking one more blow for Eadmund, and I cannot deny that I thought that Uldra would blame me if I did leave our land when she needed every sword that would strike for her. I had come to think very much of what the steadfast eyes of the brave maiden would tell me as I watched her face.
But that evening came Wulfnoth and Godwine, and they had made a plan for themselves which might help me to reach Eadmund when my freedom came. They had manors on the Severn, at Berkeley, and the earl would go there to save them if possible from plunder. At least, that is what he told me and Olaf. Whether he had any other deeper plan I cannot say. It seemed afterwards as if that might be so.
They brought back some strange news, too, at which both Olaf and I wondered. There was a rumour spreading through the country from Winchester that Cnut would wed Emma the queen.
"It is not likely," said Olaf. "She is twenty years older than he."
"If any man wants revenge on Cnut, I would counsel him to go and do all he can to see that this marriage comes to pass," sneered the earl, in his hatred of the Norman lady.
"What says Redwald?" asked Godwine.
"First, that the queen has little choice in the matter," said I; "and next, that, between ourselves, I think that she would do much to remain a queen in truth, if it must be over Denmark instead of England; and lastly, that if Cnut weds her, he keeps the duke, her brother, quiet, and maybe brings over more of our people to his side."
It was only too plain now that Cnut had a party for him in England, and I thought that he tried to strengthen it thus, if the report were true. But it seemed hardly possible; so much so, that when I turned the question over in speaking with Olaf presently, we thought that no man could have invented the story, and that it must be true.
Now Olaf and I went to Penhurst on the next day, for though he would not stop long in England, he would see and thank these good friends of mine for their care of me. And great was the rejoicing when he came.
I had told him of Uldra, and presently he bade Ottar, who was with us, sing of Leavenheath fight, and so spoke quietly with her, sitting a little apart in the shadow of the hall, for he wished to tell her also that he owed her thanks.
When the end of the long summer day came, and he must go back to the ships--for he would not sleep away from them--I went with him in order to see all that I might of him before he left, for I had made up my mind to go westward with Godwine, seeing that my promise to Egil was to bide in peace with Wulfnoth till the time came when I was free.
So as we rode with no other near us, he said: "What of Hertha, my cousin?"
"I know not," I answered. "I have heard nought, nor shall I now till I go back to Bures."
"Shall you hold to your betrothal?"
"Aye; the ladies think that it is my part to do so."
"So you asked them? Is that why fair Sexberga is so dull and restless?"
I laughed, for he had heard Ottar jesting about the fair maid at Penhurst more than once.
"No," I answered. "She has been crossing her lover, and he is in dudgeon for a while--that is all."
"I am glad," he said. "Asked you aught of Uldra?"
"I have not spoken of it to her."
"Is that so?" said Olaf, smiling. "Now she is likely to have more than common interest in you, for one reason or another."
Then I said frankly, knowing what he meant: "And I in her. That is partly the reason why I must go with Wulfnoth and Godwine westward. And the rest of the reason is this, that I would be near Eadmund. And maybe if I looked to find more reason yet it would be to leave Sexberga to work out matters without having me to fall back on when Eldred is to be made jealous."
Thereat Olaf laughed long.
"You have had an ill time with the womenfolk of late," he said, and it was true enough.
"I have," said I, "and I am tired thereof. I shall be glad to be where byrnies and swords are more common than kirtles and distaffs."
Yet in my mind I knew that I should not leave Uldra with much cheerfulness. Such companionship as ours had been, strange and full of peril, was a closer bond than even the care of me that had made me think twice or more about Sexberga. Thoughts of her came lightly in idleness, but when I thought of Uldra, there was comradeship that had borne the strain of peril.
Now I knew well what that comradeship might easily ripen into, and maybe, because I knew it, what I would not allow had begun. But Uldra had never given me any reason to think that this was so with her.
Olaf said that maybe I was right, and after that we talked of his doings, wondering now when we should meet again, for we were going different ways. Our parting was not as it had been before, when we knew that sooner or later we should forgather in one place or the other.
"I think, my cousin," he said, "that the time will soon come when I shall head north again for Norway, and I long for the sign that I must go. I am going to sail now towards Jerusalem Land, that I may at least try to see the Holy Places before I die. It may be that I shall reach that land, and it may be not, but when the sign comes I must turn back and go to fight the last fight that shall be between Christian and heathen in our country."
So he said to me before his ship sailed with the morning tide. And I had no words in which to answer him, for his going seemed to leave me friendless again, so much had we been at one together. Almost had I taken up that journey to the Holy Land with him, but I thought that if it was a good and pious thing to go on that pilgrimage for myself, it was even more so to bide for the sake of king and country here in the land that should be holy for all of us who are English. And when I said that to Olaf, he smiled brightly and answered: "If old Norway called for me, I would say the same. You are right."
Thus we parted, and I watched his sails fade and sink into the rim of the southern sea, and then rode back to Relf feeling as if the time to come had little brightness for me.
I went slowly, and by the longer way, for I had much to think of, and I cared not just yet for the light talk of the happy people in the Penhurst hall. And so I came into the way that leads across the woodland through Ashburnham and so by the upper hammer ponds to Penhurst, and when I was about a mile from the hall I met Uldra coming from a side track.
"Why, thane," she said in her bright way, "is aught amiss?"
"I have lost my kinsman, lady," I said, "and I have none other left me. Therefore I am sad enough. But these things must be, and the shadow of parting will pass presently."
I got off my horse and walked beside her, and I was glad that I had met her first of all. She had been to some sick thrall, and was now returning.
"Partings are hard," she said, "but one may always hope to meet again."
Then I said, speaking my thoughts: "I must go west into Wessex with the earl's ships, and I have more partings to come therefore."
She made no answer at once, and I thought that none was needed; but when she spoke again her voice was graver than before.
"You would be near our king if possible by doing so?"
"That is my thought," I answered. "If I wait in this pleasant place I may be far from him when the day comes that I should stand at his side again."
"You have six weeks--not so much by two days--yet," she said thoughtfully. "It is not long. Then you will be fighting once more."
"I hope so--and not in vain at last," I answered. "All our land longs for peace."
"Aye, and they tell me that you have a search to make," she said, looking away across the woodlands that lay down the valley to our right. "I fear there will be sorrow if--if you fall."
"Aye, I have a search that has been made hard for me," I said somewhat bitterly. "Truly I had not thought of falling; but it is in my mind that little grief will be in that quarter if I do so. Those who might have ended the search in an hour or two have kept their charge more deeply hidden than ever from me."
"Is that the maiden's doing, think you?" she said, hesitating a little, for the question was not an easy one for her to put, maybe. But it was like her to make excuse for others.
"I cannot tell," said I, "but I think it likely. We were but children, and she fears me now."
"That is to be seen," she said; "but I hope that you will find her. What shall you do if--if she loves you not now?"
"I would let her go free, surely."
"Even if you found you loved her yet?"
"Aye. I would not hold her bound were she unwilling."
"But if it were the other way--if she would wed you willingly, and you--well, were unwilling?"
"I would keep troth," said I; "she should not know it."
She laughed softly and answered: "You could not hide that from her."
Then I fell silent, for I liked not this subject at any time--still less from Uldra. And I think that she saw that I was displeased at her questioning, for after a little while she said shyly: "I think that I have asked you too closely about your affairs. Forgive me--women are anxious about such matters."
"It is a trouble to me, lady," I said, hardening my heart lest I should say too much; "but I can see no further than the coming warfare. When that is ended there will be time for me to think more thereof. But, as I have said, I believe that Hertha wishes that she were not bound."
Now I had almost said "even as I wish," but I stopped in time.
"Now, whether that is so or not, she should think well of you for your faith kept to her," Uldra said, and there was a little shake in her voice as of tears close at hand.
Then I knew that if she kept faith with me as I with her--though this was in a poor way enough--I must think well of her also. Wherefore, being obliged thus to think of one another, it would be likely enough that there would be pretence of love on both sides--and so things would be bad. Whereupon the puzzle in my mind grew more tangled yet, and I waxed savage, being so helpless.
And all the while those two words that came to me as I talked to Relf grew plainer, and seemed to ring in my ears unspoken, "Landless and luckless--landless and luckless," for that was what it all came to.
Then Uldra looked at me and saw the trouble in my face, and took what seemed to her to be the only way to help me.
"You cannot think of these matters now, Redwald," she said softly. "It is well for a warrior that he has none who is bound to him so closely that he must ever think of her. It is well for Hertha that she knows not what peril you are in--that she cannot picture you to herself--" She stopped with a sob that she could not check, and stayed her walk as if she had tripped. I turned to her, and put out my hand, and she leant on my arm with both hers for a moment, hanging her head down, and I thought she was faint, for my pace had quickened. So I waited till she raised her head again, longing to help her more and yet not daring to do so, lest I should give way altogether and say all I would. And then I said: "Let me set you on the horse--you are weary with keeping step with me."
She shook her head, but she said nothing, and so I lifted her and set her in the saddle, and the colour came back to her face.
"Thanks, thane," she said, "I am very foolish. I have been setting myself in your Hertha's place--as if she knew aught of you now. Aye, it is better as it is for both of you, as things must be for a while."
And I thought to myself: "Would that you were in Hertha's place;" and then this other thought, "She says right--landless and luckless am I, and there is none to trouble about me--nor shall there be."
"But I was going to tell you this, if I may," she said, "I will pray night and day that things may be well for you and yours in the end."
"Aye, pray therefor, Uldra," I answered, and thereafter we said no more, for the hall gates were before us, and the dogs came out to bid us welcome, and the thralls followed them to see who came. I helped her from the horse, and she smiled and went in.
Now, I saw Uldra no more that night, and Sexberga was unfriendly with me because Eldred still kept away. So I had my thoughts to myself while Relf slept as was his wont after supper, and the lady of the house turned her wheel as ever. I think that I would not wish any man to have such strange and sad thoughts as mine were at that time. There was nought of which I could be sure--save of Uldra's friendship, and of that it were better not to think, maybe.
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{
"id": "16196"
}
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14
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: The Last Great Battle.
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Ten days after I spoke thus with Uldra I was at Berkeley with Wulfnoth and Godwine. That was in the third week in June, while I was on my honour not to fight for a month yet. I had parted from Uldra as from a dear friend and no more, though well I knew now that she was more than that to me. And there had been a look in her face, moreover, that bided with me, making me wretched and yet glad, for it told me that her thoughts were as mine. And more than that neither of us would show. The tide of war had hold of me, and whither it would drift me none could say. Nor did I lose much. I had nought to lose as it seemed to me.
As for the rest of those who were such good friends of mine at Penhurst, they had wished me hearty God-speeds, bidding me return again, and that soon. Eldred of Dallington and Sexberga stood hand in hand as I went, vowing that they would not be content till I returned for their wedding, for there was no trouble between them since the young thane had come in from his place one day as if nought had happened, calling me to walk with him when Sexberga had feigned to wish for none of his company. After which he had talked lightly of going to Wessex with the earl and me; and he had no further trouble. I know not what he said presently in private to Sexberga, but he was the one who led thereafter, and I think that the maiden was the happier that it was so. There are some maids who will seem to wish to rule, though they are longing all the while to be ruled.
So we came up the Severn river to Berkeley, passing the endless lines of Danish ships that lay along the strand below Anst cliffs and Oldbury. Cnut's ship guard held the ancient fort in force, men said. His men boarded us, but Wulfnoth's name was well known, and it was not Cnut's plan to make an enemy of him. So we went on our way unhindered, and I bided, chafing sorely, in the great house where Wulfnoth lived in no state at all, as if he were but a rich franklin--gray clad and rough in ways and talk.
Now it is hard to me to think of what passed so close to me while I was helpless. But I saw nought of the battle that was at Pen-Selwood, and even as I heard thereof from men who had left the levy, the greatest battle of all was being fought within a morning's ride of us, at Sherston.
Two days that battle raged, and all men say that Eadmund would surely have chased the Danes in the end to their ships, but for a trick of Edric Streone's. It was another count in the long score against him, and I seemed to see that the words of the witch of Senlac were coming true--his shadow was over our king, for ill in all things.
The battle was going against Cnut--once Eadmund himself had cut his way through the press of Danes before their king, and had almost come to hand strokes with him, but had been borne back. And then Streone's eyes lit on one Osmer, a warrior of the Danish host, standing near him, and he saw that he was like our king. Therefore he slew him, and set his head on a spear, and rode forward to where the English line pressed most hardly on the Danish ranks. There he raised the head aloft, shouting in his great voice: "Fly, English, fly! Eadmund is dead. Know his head!"
Then for a moment panic seized our folk, and they held their hands, and in that pause Ulf the jarl charged among them, and the line was broken and flight began.
But Eadmund unhelmed when he heard the cry that he was slain, and rode through the ranks, and our men knew him, and cheered, and fell on the Danes afresh, and the broken line closed up, and they fought till night fell, and in the night the Danes drew off. And in the night by twos and threes, and then in companies, Eadmund's levies melted away from him, for his men were worn out and sick of slaughter, and knew not enough to bid them stay to follow their foes and turn retreat into rout, and doubt into victory. The Danes were going, they saw and heard; what need to stay longer?
So it came to pass that nothing was wrought by that awful fighting, and both sides claimed victory, for our men deemed that they had won, and the Danes claimed it because they were not followed, and because Ulf the jarl had cut through our line.
It was through this last that I lost Godwine as a companion. For Ulf lost himself in the forest that was in the rear of our forces, because he followed the flying too far, and the dusk of the evening was close at hand. He thought that the victory was surely won, for it had ever been that the first sign of flight was followed by rout of our men. At least the Danes learnt this at Sherston, that Eadmund could hold his own against them.
So Ulf the jarl wandered all night in the wood, and came out of it on the hillside where Godwine was speaking to one of his father's shepherds. And Godwine brought him, unknowing who he was, back to Berkeley.
Then maybe came into Wulfnoth's mind that rede of the witch of Senlac, that bade Godwine mind his sheep, and so find his place, or else this was part of the plan which had brought him into Wessex. For he asked Ulf to take Godwine to Cnut, and find him a place in his court, and the jarl did so. It was not until Godwine came to the ships that he knew who it was that he had guided, and they won him over, and he stayed.
Nor did I know. I spoke with Ulf, asking him of the battle, and of Egil, and the like, for he was the earl's guest. And I thought nothing of Godwine's guidance of a Dane to the ships, for the earl was no foe of Cnut. But when I rose in the morning after Ulf had come, and found that he and Godwine had gone in the night, and was told by Wulfnoth who the warrior was, and what he had asked for his son, I was very angry, though I knew that the earl had little cause to love the house of Ethelred.
But the earl said, very quietly: "There are two kings in England, and no king of England. Choice is free to me, and I choose that king who will honour my son, and who has done me no wrong. Were you to go to Cnut I would hold you blameworthy, seeing how things have been between you and Eadmund. Godwine goes to Cnut even as he flies to his ships. No man may say that he did but join him when he was victor."
Now, it was not Wulfnoth's way to give reasons thus for aught that he did, and I was surprised that he would do so to me. But I could look at things in his way if I put my own love for Eadmund aside, and I said: "I may not blame you, lord earl, maybe; but it is hard for me to see my friend take what I think the wrong side."
"Think no ill of him. It is my doing," Wulfnoth said. "All his life has Godwine been bidden to hate the house of Ethelred of Wessex. Now before long this warfare must end. And if your king has the victory I pray you speak for Godwine if need is. And if Cnut is victor you will need Godwine, maybe, to speak for you. Let this matter bide there between us. I would now that I had not let him go, for I am lonely."
Then I knew why the fierce old earl unbent to speak thus to me, and I spoke only of honour to be gained in the service of so great a king as Cnut.
Thereafter the time went very heavily for me. The great Danish fleet left the Severn on the day when Godwine would have come to them, and then Eadmund must gather another levy, and prepare for some fresh landing. And before that was done I was free again, and I could join him with a light heart. The earl gave me a good horse when I rode away, and parted with me very kindly for Godwine's sake, he said, and his own liking for me also.
"I shall look for you at Pevensea yet. Come to me when things go ill with you, and you shall be welcome."
I knew not if ever I should see Sussex again. But of this I was sure now, that if fortune went with me presently, I would surely seek Ailwin and tell him that I must be free, and so would seek Uldra, and ask her to share what I might have to give her, if a home should be mine again. I had thought much of this brave, quiet maiden while I was chafing at doing nought in Wulfnoth's farmstead, though I would not have stayed at Penhurst.
Now came a time when the victory was ours, and it seemed that at last the strong hand had come. For men would follow Eadmund, and he had the power of making them fight as he would. Yet there was nothing that would keep our levies together. Had they done so we had surely conquered, but it was ever the same. They fought and dispersed, and all the work and loss was for nought. I think it would have been the same with the Danish host had they been in their own country; but here they must needs hold together, and Cnut and his jarls wielded that mighty force as a man wields his sword. Eadmund smote as a man who fells his enemy with a staff that breaks in the smiting, so that he must needs seek another while his fallen foe rises again, sword in hand.
But our men were called from home and fireside to fight, and when they won and their own fields and houses were safe, they thought they had done all, and went home again, at ease, and maybe boasting overmuch.
We marched on London and relieved the city, driving the Danes in flight to their ships. And Eadmund slept that night among a great host; and in the morning the Wessex men were going home, and only his own housecarles and the men who followed him from ruined Mercia and East Anglia and Kent would bide around him. London could take care of herself now. But Eadmund strove to gather them for one more blow, and we had a great fight at Brentford, for the Danes had gone up river, and we won. Yet the Danes turned on us when the ships were reached, and we lost many men in the river, for they scattered in their eagerness to plunder the ships that they thought were already won, and so, without order or leaders, were driven to their death in the swift water.
Then Wessex disbanded, and all the work of gathering our forces must be done over again; and at once the Danes closed in round London when Eadmund had gone back to Salisbury.
Surely it would have broken the heart of any man but Eadmund the Ironside that thus it must be, but he would say: "England is waking; we shall win yet."
Then Cnut recalled the ships and host from London, and they raised the siege, and went into the Orwell, and once again began to march across the heart of our land.
This fourth levy that Eadmund the king had made was the best that he had had. And word must have come thereof to the Danes, for they went back to their fleet; and so waited for a little while, thinking doubtless that this levy would melt away in idleness as ever. For they came back into the Medway with the booty they had, and there we fell on them and drove them headlong to their ships, and I surely thought that we had done with Cnut for good and all.
Then fell the shadow of ill on us. Edric Streone and his men met us at Aylesford, and he came in to the king and made most humble submission to him.
And that was what Olaf had told Eadmund would happen when once again he had the victory. Therefore when I saw the earl come into the camp to speak with Eadmund I said: "Mind you what Olaf said. How that you should hang Streone."
"Aye, I mind it. But the man is deserted by his new friends. They have gone."
Almost had Eadmund quarrelled with Olaf on that saying.
"Put him in ward, my king, at least," I urged, and Ulfkytel, who had come with us from London, prayed him also to do so.
But Eadmund's fate was on him, and he received his foster father kindly, and forgave him, and thought that all would be well.
Now with Ulfkytel came my Colchester men, or rather the thirty who were left, And those two brothers, Thrand and Guthorm, who had ridden to Stamford with me were there also. These two came to me that evening when I was alone, and said that they had a plan they would carry out if I gave the word. And it was nothing more or less than that they would fall on Edric Streone and slay him when and where they met him.
I would that they had not asked me, but had wrought the deed on their own account. But I said that I could not have this done, for it was too much after Streone's own manner of settling things. I could not think of letting my men lie in wait for any foe of mine, however good cause I had for hating him. And I did hate Streone with a hate that I am not ashamed of, not for my own sake, but because he was a traitor to both king and country. There were Englishmen who fought for Cnut thinking that thus they wrought best for England and her peace--as Wulfnoth chose for Godwine--and I had no hatred for them. They were honest if they were wrong; but they were no traitors. But Edric Streone was as Judas to me.
So Thrand and Guthorm grumbled, and forbore, though they would have spent their own lives willingly in this way had I lifted a finger. It was, however, in revenge for the Stamford business that they would slay the earl, and that was only my quarrel, nothing higher. Nevertheless I owed them thanks for their love thus shown to me, and so I told them. Little had I done to deserve it; but who shall know what wins the love of rough souls like these?
Strange news came with Streone, though I had heard rumours thereof before, as I have said. It was true that Cnut was to wed Emma the queen; and they had, as it seemed, already been betrothed, at the advice of the three great jarls. Now she and the athelings her sons were back in Normandy, and one might see what the reason of this policy was, Not only was Duke Richard kept quiet, but also Cnut was stepfather to Eadward Atheling and his brothers. That meant that if Cnut won, they must needs suffer him to take the crown unopposed. And more than this, if Cnut must leave England alone presently, when Eadmund died he would claim the throne at once, either for himself or for one of these athelings as his under-king. For no man ever thought twice of Eadmund's brother Edwy, who was weak bodily, nor of his half brother, the other Edwy, whom we called "king of the churls," by reason of the low birth of his mother, for no thanes would follow him had he had the gift of leading.
Cnut's fleet went from the Medway northward, and it was in the thoughts of all men that the end had come, and that he sought his own land at last. And that seemed the more certain to most because Streone had submitted, as if he knew that he had no further hope of honour from the Danish king. Presently, however, it was plain that his coming over was but part of the deepest plot that he had yet made.
Suddenly, even as our levies dispersed in spite of all the king's entreaties, came the news that the Danish fleet had turned and was in the Crouch river in Essex, whence already the host had begun their march inland across Mercia in the old way. And so for the fifth time Eadmund strove to gather all England to him, and his summons was well obeyed. The thanes and their men gathered in haste, savage with hope deferred, and Cnut shrank back again to Ashingdon on the Crouch, and there built himself an earthwork on the south side of the river, while his ships lay on the further shore at Burnham, and in the anchorage, and along the mud below the earthworks, seeming countless. And there he waited for us, and there we knew that he meant to end the warfare in one great fight for mastery, with his ships behind him that he might go if he were at last obliged.
And there, too, though we knew it not, he waited for Streone to give England into his hands.
We were close on him when his main force fell back upon his earthworks, where they stand on the little hill above the river banks that men will call "Cnut's dune" {13} henceforward, in memory of what he won there. And Ulfkytel and I and the few East Anglians that we had were with the advance guard, and drove in the pickets that were between us and the hill. And then we knew that Cnut meant to stand and fight in the open, and we were glad, for out of his intrenchments poured his men, and we sent horsemen back to Eadmund to hurry on the main body of our forces.
They were a mile or two behind us, and we waited impatiently, watching the Danish host as it neared us, forming into the terrible half circle as it came. And I remember all of that waiting, for the day began with such hope, and ended so fearfully for us.
One could not have had a better day on which to fight, for there was neither sun to dazzle, nor rain to beat in the faces of men who needed eyes to guard their lives. But it was a gray day with a pleasant wind that blew in from the sea, and the light was wonderfully clear and shadowless as before rain, so that one could see all things over-plainly, as it were. The rounded top of Ashingdon hill seemed to tower higher than its wont, and close at hand, beyond the swampy meadows to our left, and I wondered that Cnut had not chosen that for his camping ground, though maybe it would have been less well placed for reaching the ships, owing to some shoaling of water that did not suit them. The tide was nearly high now, and all the wide stretch of the Crouch river was alive with the ships that brought over men from the Burnham shore, and one could see the very wake and the ripple at the bows as they came.
And when one looked at the Danes, the chiefs who ordered the host were plain to be seen, and the gay colours of banners and cloaks and shields were wonderful in the brightness, though at first we were nearly half a mile from them as we waited. I thought that we were about equal to them in numbers, and I knew that did we but fight as at Sherston the day would surely be ours. For when a force that is hard pressed knows that safety is close behind them there is an ever-present reason for giving way.
"We can drive this host to the ships, lord earl," I said to Ulfkytel.
"Aye, surely," he answered. "They know that the ships wait for them, and so will give back."
Now came Eadmund, and behind him our men marched steadily, and at his side was Edric Streone. He looked at the Danes, and his face was bright and confident.
"How shall we fight, lord earl?" he said to Ulfkytel.
"Redwald and I have spoken thereof," the earl answered. "And it seems to us that Olaf's viking plan is best. Let us fight in a wedge, and drive the point through that circle and break it in twain. We of East Anglia will willingly make the point, as we are on our own ground."
"It is a good plan, but I have not tried it," said Eadmund; and then Streone spoke.
"The old Saxon line is surely good enough," he said. "What need to take up with outland plans?"
"It will be good enough if our men fight as at Sherston," Eadmund answered.
And all the thanes who were gathering round him cried out that they would surely not fail him, and one could not but listen to the voice of all the noblest in England who were gathered there, for Eadmund had all his best with him. It was indeed a levy of all England.
So we were to fight in line, as Eadmund had given us our places on the day before, when we neared the battlefield. He himself was in the centre with his Wessex men, and Edric Streone and his Mercians were with him. There were some of us who had cried out at that, but the earl had said proudly that he would make amends for former ill, and the council had listened to and believed his words.
Ulfkytel was on the left, and there our line was flanked by the marshes that lie between the long slope where we were to fight and Ashingdon hill. At least he would have no horsemen upon him from the side, and that flank was safe from turning. The right wing was given to the Lindsey men under their own ealdorman, and with them were the men of the Five Boroughs {14}.
So our line was drawn up, and Eadmund rode out before them and they cheered, and then he unhelmed, and Bishop Ednoth of Dorchester, clad in his robes over chain mail, and with a heavy mace at his saddle bow, rode up beside him, and a monk who was with him brought forward and raised aloft a golden cross, and at that sign the host knelt, and the bishop shrived them and blessed them before the fight, and the sound of the "Amen" they spoke was like a thunder roll from end to end of the line. And it reached the ears of the Danes who waited for us, and they broke out into their war song--the Heysaa--and thereat our men sprang up and shouted thrice, and then the sullen silence of the Saxon kin settled down on them, for we are not wont to speak much when work is meant.
Silently we crossed the heath between us and the yelling Danes, and I rode beside Eadmund in my old place, and my heart was light, and sword Foe's Bane rattled in the scabbard as if longing to be let loose. And all the while I kept my eyes on Streone, who was riding among his Mercians twenty yards away to our right, and presently behind him I saw Thrand and Guthorm.
I thought that was ill for Streone, but I could not help it now--we were but a hundred yards from the foe. The first arrow flight crossed as I saw them, and then Eadmund cried: "Forward--remember Sherston!"
At that word the front ranks sprang like wolves to meet one another--and then came the shock of the meeting lines and the howl and cheer of Dane and Englishman--and under the arrow storm the spear and axe and sword were at work.
I kept my shield up and covering Eadmund's right side, and watched. The time for us to take our part had not come yet. And Eadmund looked on his foes to see what chance might be for a charge that would break them when arms grew weary.
Many were the brave deeds that I saw done in that little time, as the first lines fought man to man. And presently I knew that over against us was Cnut the king, for I saw one who was little more than a boy, whose helm bore a golden crown. There were several chiefs round him also, and one was Ulf. But I saw not Godwine, for he would not fight on that day against his own kin.
There, too, was another chief--he was Eirik the jarl, though I knew it not then; and he looked ever to our right, as if waiting for somewhat. And when I saw that I looked also, but there was nought that I could see. Our whole line was fighting well, and this first attack had brought no faltering on either side.
Then said Eadmund to me: "Let us make a dash for my stepfather yonder," pointing to Cnut--and even as he said it the brave bishop on his left threw up his arms and fell from his horse, smitten in the face with a javelin, and Eadmund leapt down to help him.
As he did so I heard a shout raised that he was slain.
Then was a roar from our right like nothing that I had ever heard--I pray that none may ever hear the like again--and I turned and looked to see what was on hand, and I saw the Mercians going backward, and Streone's horse was heading away from the Danes; and then the men of the Five Boroughs howled and fell on Dane and Mercian alike, cursing and smiting like madmen.
And I saw my two men leap up among the press and smite over the heads of those around them at Streone, and they were smitten down--they had not touched him.
That was all in a moment, and I called to the king, and he rose up and leapt on his horse and looked. And as he did so the Mercians, Streone's men, wheeled round and fell on our flank, fighting for the Danes, and the Danish line swept the Stamford men from before them and joined the Mercians; and I heard a great sob rise in Eadmund's throat, and he called to me, and charged among the traitor's men to reach him if he might. And the Mercians broke and fled before us, and the Danish line unbroken rolled forward and swept us into flight, for our men knew not what they could do.
Then I pointed to Ashingdon hill and cried: "We can rally yonder!"
And Eadmund gainsaid me not, but groaned, and called to his men, and we got together and faced round, so that the Danes drew back a little, as men will when a boar turns to bay. And we fought to reach the Lindsey and Borough men through the Danes, who had filled the gap that the flight of the Mercians had made--and won to them. There was the greatest slaughter of the Danish host at that time. But we could not win to Ulfkytel, for the centre and left wing of the Danes lapped us round, and their right drove him back on the marshes, away from us.
Then we were pressed back along the higher ground, and we were forced into a great ring that the Danes could not break, and ever where sign of weakening was Eadmund rode and shouted and smote, and the Danes gave back before him. Once or twice I could hold my hand as he sat in the midst of our circle watching all that went on, and I saw many things in those few moments while sword Foe's Bane rested.
The Mercians had not followed us for very shame, but they sat on the open hillside in the place where the Danish line had been. I think it was not Streone's fault that they were not fighting hand to hand with us. I saw him ride to Ulf the jarl, and I saw Ulf turn his shoulder on him, and then he sought Rink, and that chief spoke but a word to him, so that he tried not to reach Cnut, who never looked at him.
Then I saw Ulfkytel's men breaking and taking to the marshes, where the Danes cared not to follow them. More than one I could see sinking under the weight of arms in the fen slime among the green tussocks of grass that he had slipped from, and I saw that the flying men made for Ashingdon hill.
Now as we drew back some word went round among the Danish host and their onset slackened, and presently they drew off and left us to retreat as we would. They could not break our ring, and we were coming to broken land where we might have some advantage.
Then Eadmund said: "We will go to yonder hill and hold it. Then will East Anglia come to us, and we can begin again tomorrow, maybe; and if not, we can watch the Danes away. All is not lost yet."
So we went to Ashingdon hill, and there formed up. Only the Danish horsemen followed us to find out what we did. And we saw the main force drawing back towards their earthworks on one wing, while the other held the place of battle, and it was not plain at once why they thus divided.
We rested for a short half hour on Ashingdon hill, and the men of Ulfkytel gathered to us. But the brave earl was slain, and with him Abbot Wulsy, and the Mercians had slain the Ealdorman of Lindsey when they turned on us, and many more lay in the place where the flight began, good men and noble sold to their deaths by the traitor.
It was about midday when we won back to the hill, and the battle, from the time when we had first met, had lasted but a short time. Yet what with slaughter when we broke, and the desertion of the Mercians, we were short of a full third of our men now.
Eadmund waxed restless. There was the best half of a long summer day before us, and our men were angry and full of longing to fight and take revenge. I think there was not one that did not know all that might hang on this battle.
"Redwald," the king said, "is there no way by which we might cross the river? Then might we fall on the ships at Burnham, and Cnut must send his men over ship by ship, and so we might well gain the victory."
I looked at the tide, and called for some Essex men who knew the place, and one came and told me that in two hours' time we might cross at a ford higher up, which they name Hull bridge, though there is no bridge there. And when he heard that, at once our king set his men in order and cheered them with fresh hopes, and we started to march thither.
And at the same time Cnut's ships began to move, and from Burnham and from this shore his men were coming up on the tide towards the very place where we would cross, and before the ford could be passed by us we knew that they would be there in force.
"So," said Eadmund quietly, "they are before us. We will even go back to the hill."
We went back, and then I think that we knew the worst. We were hemmed in upon it, for the half of the Danish force that had remained were barring our way inland, while from the river every other man of the Danish host was coming up to attack us from that side.
"Now it would seem that some of us will stay on this hill for good," said Eadmund; "but if we must lie here till the last day it is a place whence one can look out over the English land and sea and river for which we have died."
And so he drew us up in the ring again there on the hilltop, which was wide enough, and we sat down and waited for the coming of the Danes.
"Lord king," I said, "let us make a wedge and cut through the Danes inland. So shall we win back to the open country, and we can gather men afresh."
He smiled wearily at me, and it seemed to me that at last he had given up hope. And but for Streone's treachery that thing would never have been. It had broken our king's spirit.
"Friend," he said, "I will die here if I can."
"That shall not be while there is one to give his life for you," I answered, and the thanes around us murmured "Aye!" in that stern voice that means more than aught of clamour.
Then I saw some Wessex thanes speaking earnestly to one another, and presently they beckoned to me, and while Eadmund sat silent on his horse I went to them to hear what they would.
"We will get the king off this field if we can," they said. "We cannot lose him. If chance is, we will take him against his will. Hinder us not."
"That is well," said I. "I will help you, for he is the hope of England."
Maybe Ashingdon hilltop is full fifty acres in the more level summit, and we could not guard it all; so we waited on that edge nearest the Danes, the half circle that faces inland from the marshes towards the battle ground we had lost, and to Hockley from the river. And presently the Danes began to come up the hill in even line, and we watched them drawing nearer in silence.
Then Eadmund bade our bowmen get to work; but the arrows were as nought against the long line that did but quicken its advance as they felt their sting here and there.
The Danes spread out along the hillside to surround us, and then when they had gained the summit they charged on us, and again we were hand to hand with them.
I suppose we fought so, without stirring from the place where we were, for half an hour. Our circle thinned, but never broke, and Dane after Dane fell or drew back to let fresh men come forward, and as we might we also sent fresh men from our inner ranks to relieve those who had grown weary. It was stern hand-to-hand fighting, and one knows how that will ever be--one of two men must go down or give way, and our men fell, but give way they would not.
I have said we were on the edge of the hilltop circle, and therefore the attack from the steep hill slope was weakest. And so it came to pass that presently the line against us there was thinned out, because men pressed upwards to the level, and then those Wessex thanes saw that we might break through and cut our way down the hill and make good our retreat.
Where Eadmund was I followed, and I know that I saved him once or twice from spear thrusts that would have slain him when he charged among the Danes, where they pressed us most hardly. Wearied was my arm, but sword Foe's Bane bit through helm and harness, and once I was facing Ulf the jarl, and he cried out to me: "Well smitten, Wulfnoth's man!"
For he knew me. And I looked for Egil, that I might call him to come and win the sword from me, but I could not see him; and a foolish fear that some other than he might get the good blade got hold of me, for I had no doubt that I must fall, and no fear thereof, save that. And why I longed for Egil thus was, I think, because of utter weariness and loss of hope.
Then they pushed us as it were over the hill edge, and we began to go down, and I knew at once what would come next.
The line of Danes on the hill slope gave way before us and left the way clear; and at first we went slowly and in good order, and then they charged on us down the hill with crushing weight of numbers.
And so we fled. I saw the Wessex thanes catch Eadmund's bridle, and they turned his horse and spoke to him. And he threatened them with his sword for a moment; but they were urgent, and at last he fled. And I, knowing that if we could keep back the Danes but for a few minutes longer he might escape, cried to what chiefs were left to us, and we rallied on the hillside for a last stand.
Then my horse reared and fell back on me, and I heard a great shout, and the rush of many feet passed over me, and Ashingdon fight and aught else was lost in blackness.
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{
"id": "16196"
}
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15
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: The Shadow Of Edric Streone.
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"The man is dead," said a rough voice. "Let him bide."
"He is not," one answered. "He had nought to slay him. Here be three flesh wounds only."
Then I began to come to myself, for water was being poured on my face, and I opened my eyes and saw Thrand of Colchester looking at me. My head was on his knee, and he had a helm full of water in his hand. His own head and arm were bandaged, and the man who spoke to him was passing on, seeking elsewhere. All that had happened came back to me in a moment then, and my ears woke to the sounds round me. I knew them only too well, for they were the awesome sounds of the time after battle.
"Where is the king?" I said.
"Safe enough, they say," Thrand answered. "Is it well with you, master?"
I sat up, and the maze passed from me. I had but been stunned by the fall from my horse, and now seemed little the worse, save for sickness and dull weight of weariness. I had been an hour or two thus, as it would seem, for now the Danish host was gone, and only a few men sought for friends on that hillside, as Thrand had sought for me. My horse was dead, slain by the spear thrust that made him rear. It was that one which Earl Wulfnoth gave me when I left him.
"I shall be myself again directly," I said. "How has it all ended? I thought I saw you slain."
"The Danes are chasing our men towards yon village," he said grimly pointing towards Hockley. "They will not catch the king, however. They smote me badly enough when I tried to be revenged on Streone, and they slew Guthorm; but they only stunned me."
"Go hence before Streone catches you," said I. "Not I," said Thrand. "He knows me not, and I shall wait for another chance. The Danes think me a Mercian, and so I bide with you. Can you fly now, master?"
I tried to rise, but I was weak and shaken, and sank down again. I was not fit for walking even yet.
"I must wait," I said.
"There are stray horses enough down yonder," Thrand said, looking over the meadows below us. "I will go and catch one. We must go soon, or the Danes will be back."
"No use," said I. "They are between us and safety. I must wait and take my chance."
With that I missed the sword that I loved, for I had thought of selling my life dearly if the Danes would slay me.
"Where is sword Foe's Bane?" I cried.
Thrand looked round about me, but could see it not. Then he turned over one or two of the slain men who lay thickly in the place where our last stand was made. But he could not find it, until a wounded man of ours asked what he sought. Thrand told him. Then I noted how few wounded there were. The sun, nigh to setting now, broke out and shone athwart the hillside; and it sparkled like the ice heaps on the long banks that a winter's tide has left by the river, for everywhere were the mail-clad slain. But the sparkles were steady, as on the ice, not as on a host that is marching. Ice cold were those who would need mail no more on Ashingdon hill.
"The sword is under the horse," the man said groaning. And it was so, and unhurt.
"Get me a sword from off the field," I said, "and hide Foe's Bane somewhere. Then, if they slay me, take it to Egil, Jarl Thorkel's foster brother; and if not, I can find it again. I will not have it taken from me thus."
So Thrand took it and its scabbard and hid both under his cloak, and went to where there was a patch of woodland at the foot of the hill--ash and alder growing by the marsh side--some two hundred yards off.
I closed my eyes and waited till he came back--and he was gone for some while. Presently he came, and told me that he had hidden it under a fallen tree trunk, and that the place was dry and safe. He found me another sword easily enough--and it was notched from point to hilt. Its edge was not like that of Foe's Bane, but the man whose it had been had done his duty with it. It was an English sword.
Now I thought that I could walk again, and stood up and made a step or two, painfully enough, in truth, but in such wise that I should soon do better. And then over the brow of the hill the Danes began to come. They had circled round and I had not noted them, and came on us from the other side. They were searching among the slain for their comrades.
Half a dozen of them came towards Thrand and me, and I suppose that they would have slain me. But my man was ready for them, and took the sword from me quickly.
"Will the king suffer us to keep captives?" he said.
"Aye," one answered, in some Jutland speech that was new to me, though one could understand it well enough, "there is word that we are to take any chiefs alive--but that is a new word to us. Who minds it?"
"I do," said Thrand. "Here is one who will pay for freedom, and he has yielded to me."
"That is luck for you," they said, and passed on.
There was plunder enough all around, and they were in haste lest others should come. Thrand's Anglian speech was Danish enough for them.
"Now you are safe, master," Thrand said; "no need for the sword."
"I am a captive," said I bitterly.
Then my eyes sought the ground as Thrand cast the useless blade away, and there, crawling on the reddened turf, was a toad that feared not the still dead, and must seek its food whether men lived or died, unheeding aught but that. And when I saw it, into my mind flashed the time when I had stood, weakened and hurt, and looked at the like in Penhurst village--and the words that Spray the smith spoke came to me, and they cheered me, as a little thing will sometimes. And then I thought of her who prayed for me among Penhurst woods, and I was glad that life was left me yet.
More Danes kept coming now, and presently one who was in some command came to where I sat with Thrand standing over me.
"Is this a captive?" he asked.
"Aye," said Thrand.
"Who is he?"
"Some thane or other. What shall I do with him?"
"Cnut wants to see all captives. Take him to the fort whence we came."
He passed on, and Thrand said: "Master, if you can find Egil all may be well, Let us go."
That was all that I could do. Egil or Godwine might befriend me. Godwine surely would, but I knew not if his word would go for anything.
Aye, but that was an awesome walk across the upland, where the flower of England lay dead. I knew not what had befallen us fully until I went slowly over Ashingdon hill. All the best blood of England was spilt there; and I knew, as we passed the wide ring of heaped corpses where our stand had been longest, that the hopes of Eadmund had come to nought, and that the shadow of Streone lay black across his life.
We came to the further slope of the hill, and were going down, and through the tears of rage and grief that filled my eyes I saw a few horsemen breasting the slope towards us, and one of them was Edric Streone the traitor himself; and when I saw him I felt as a man who lights suddenly on a viper, and I shuddered, for the sight of him was loathsome to me, and Thrand ground his teeth.
Streone's eyes fell on us, and he turned his horse to meet us. And when he knew who I was he glowered at me without speaking, and I looked him full in the face once, and then turned my back on him. He did not know my man.
"Bind your prisoner," he said sharply to Thrand.
"No need to do that," said Thrand coolly, "he is sorely hurt, and has no arms."
Then the other horsemen rode up leisurely.
"Who is this?" said one--and he was Jarl Eirik.
"No one worth having," said Streone, and reined round his horse to go on as if caring nought.
They went on up the hill. I suppose that they were going there that Edric Streone might say who the slain were. As for us we went our way, and Thrand cursed the earl with every step.
We had hardly got away from the hill when men came after us in haste, and before I knew that it was myself whom they sought, they had pushed Thrand aside and bound my hands.
"What is this?" Thrand asked angrily.
And I said: "Bind me not. I go to yield myself."
"Earl Edric's orders," said the men. "We are to keep you here till he comes."
At that I knew that I had fallen into his hands, and that my life was not worth much. I could see that Thrand knew this also.
"That is all very well," I said; "but I am Egil Thorarinsson's captive."
Whereat one of the men laughed.
"You may not choose your captor, man. Egil has not been ashore all day. He is with the ships yonder."
Then Thrand said, seeming very wroth: "I will not lose a good captive and ransom for any Mercian turncoat. I will go and find the king and make complaint."
"Tell him that you are Egil at the same time," a Dane sneered. "You will not hoodwink him as you have this Saxon."
"Is not this man Egil?" I asked, looking at Thrand with a hope that he would guess whom I needed.
"He Egil!" they answered, laughing loudly. And at that Thrand turned and went away quickly, and I sat down and said: "What will Earl Edric do with me?"
One said one thing and one another, and I did not listen much. But they all thought in the end that Edric's lust for gold would make him hold me to heavy ransom. I thought that he loved revenge even better than wealth, and this cheered me not at all.
About sunset Edric Streone came. Thrand had, I thought, made his escape, most likely, and I was glad. He had helped me all he could.
The earl left the party he was with, and came to me and my guards. He looked at me sidewise for a while, and then spoke to me in broad Wessex, which the Danes could hardly understand, if at all.
"So, Master Redwald, what will you give for freedom?"
I answered him back in my own Anglian speech, which any Dane knows, for it is but the Danish tongue with a difference of turn of voice, and words here and there: "I will give a traitor nothing."
"But I am going to hang you," and he chuckled in his evil way. There were many meanings in that laugh of Streone's.
"You can do as you like with me, as it happens," I answered, "but I had rather swing at a rope's end as an honest man than sit at Cnut's table as Streone the traitor."
He tried to laugh, but it stuck in his throat, and so he turned to rage instead.
"Smite him," he said to the Danes.
"Not we," said the spokesman of the half dozen. "Settle your own affairs between you."
"Take him to yon tree and hang him, and have done," said Edric.
"Spear me rather," said I in a low voice to the men.
They laughed uneasily, but did not move, and Edric again bade them take me to the tree, which was about a hundred paces away.
They took me there and set me under a great bough, and then stood looking at me and the earl. They had no rope, and the belts that bound me were of no use for a halter. Edric saw what was needed, and swore. Then he sent one of the men to the ships to get a line of some sort; and I think that his utter hatred of anyone who had seen through his plans made him spare me from spear or sword, for there is no disgrace in death by steel. But at this time there seemed no disgrace in the death he meant me to die, for it was shame to him, not to me.
The ships were not so far off. It was not long before three or four men came through the gathering dusk, and one had a coil of rope over his shoulder. And after them came across the hillside a horseman, beside whom ran a man on foot. There were many men about, and these were too far for me to heed them. I only noticed that which should end my life.
"Set to work quickly," said Streone.
So they flung the end of the line over the bough, sailorwise, and made a running bowline in the part that came down. There is torture in that way, and some of the men grumbled thereat, being less hard hearted. So they began to argue about the matter, and Streone watched my face, for this was pleasure to him, as it seemed, though he did not look straight at me. I wished they would hasten, that was all.
Now the horseman and his follower came up, and lo! Egil was the rider, and with him was Thrand.
"Ho!" cried Egil, "hold hard. That is my man."
Streone turned on him with a snarl.
"Your man!" he said. "I took him. Hold your peace."
"There you lie," quoth Thrand. "I took him myself for Egil, my master--as your own men know. I told them."
"He did so," the Danes said, for they loved Egil, and Streone was a stranger of no great reputation, though high in rank.
"Set him loose," said Egil. "I will have no man interfere with my captives."
Then Streone hid his anger, and took Egil aside while the Danes and Thrand set me free. Presently Egil broke out into a great laugh.
"Want you to hang him for slaying men of yours!" he cried. "Why, he might hang you for the same. How many of his men did you slay this morning?"
"That was in fight--he killed the others in time of peace."
"Better not say much of that fight," said Egil. "There was a peace breaking there."
Streone turned pale at that, for he saw that the Danes did not hold his ways in honour though they had profited by them.
"Well, then, take him. Little gain will he be to you, for he is landless and ruined," he sneered, chuckling.
"Well," said Egil, "he is a close friend of Earl Wulfnoth's, and maybe it is just as well that you hung him not. Cnut would hardly have thanked you for setting that man against him, and maybe bringing Olaf the Norseman down on him also."
Streone had thought not of those things. He turned ashy pale at the picture Egil had drawn of loss of Cnut's favour. He looked once or twice towards me as if he were trying to frame some excuse, but none would come.
"I knew it not," he said, falsely enough. "I am glad you came."
Egil only laughed, and with that Streone rode away quickly, and never looked back as he went.
Thereafter Egil took me down to the ships, and he sent Thrand for sword Foe's Bane when the night had fallen. Most kindly did the Dane treat me, but I cared for little. I could not move for stiffness and bruising after I had slept for twelve hours on end, but that was nought compared with the sorrow for what had befallen us.
Two days after this the Danish host followed in the track of Eadmund and his flying levies: but Egil stayed in command of the ships, and I with him. I had not seen Cnut, but Egil had spoken of me to him.
"I have heard of Redwald of Bures before," the king had said. "What know I of him? I think it is somewhat good."
"He nearly got Emma the queen out of England," Egil had answered. "I know not if you call that a good deed, lord king."
"That is it. She spoke to me for him, asking me to treat him well if he fell into my hands, because of his faithful service and long-suffering patience on the journey."
Then he asked what he could do, but Egil answered that I would bide with him at this time, and hereafter he would mind the king of me again.
"Do so," said Cnut. "He must be a friend of mine."
I could not but think well of the young king for this, but it seemed unlikely that friendly towards him I should ever be. Nevertheless, the words of the witch of Senlac were coming true.
Then we, safe in the shelter of the river, waited for news: the two kings being in Wessex. But I could not think it likely that Cnut would give time for a fresh gathering of Wessex men to Eadmund.
Nor did he. All men know how the two kings met at Olney in the Severn, and how peace was made, after Eadmund had said that he would rather fight out the matter hand to hand to the death. Few of us knew then how little able Cnut was to fight the mighty Ironside, but we thought him strong in body as in name. Else had that plan never been thought of.
They say that Edric Streone advised Cnut to take the old Danelagh and Northumbria and leave Eadmund the rest of the kingdom, the survivor to succeed to all the land. Maybe he did. If so, it was that he might earn more from Cnut by giving him all the land. But it is certain that thus Cnut wrought best for himself, for the Danelagh received him gladly, while Wessex loved Eadmund. And when Eadmund should die, Wessex would take Cnut for king at Eadmund's word, as it were, by reason of the treaty made and oaths given and received. Not for nothing do men call the King Cnut the Wise, for it is certain that he had Eadmund in his power, and forbore to use his advantage to the full.
So the long struggle ended, and at last there was rest to the land. But I, who had hoped for victory, felt as though life had little pleasure left when first this news came to me. But in a few days came one of Godwine's men bearing messages to me from him, and also from Eadmund my king.
The first were most kindly, speaking of hope of seeing me ere long, and the like; but it seemed that the young earl had promised Eadmund to send me the letter which the messenger brought, and that that was the most important business. I took the letter ashore and went to Ashingdon hill and sat there among the graves of the slain and read it, while the summer sun and wind and sky were over me, while the land and sea seemed at rest, and all was in a great peace after the strife that I had seen in that place.
To my Thane, greeting. --What has befallen us, and how we have divided the kingdom with our brother Cnut in the old way of the days of Alfred the greatest of our line, you will have heard. We have fought, and all men say that we have fought well; but this is how things have been ordered by the Lord of Hosts. Therefore, my thane, for your sake, and seeing specially that already our brother Cnut is well disposed toward you, as Godwine son of Wulfnoth tells us, by reason of your service to Emma the queen--I would bid you accept him as ruler of East Anglia, where your place is. And you shall hold this letter in proof that thus our word to you is, if in days to come the line of Wessex kings shell hold the kingdom once more. Few have been those who have been faithful to us as have you.
Now, I will set down no more, for Eadmund my king wrote to me as he was wont to speak in the days that were gone, and I wept as I read his words--wept bitterly there on Ashingdon hill, and I am not ashamed thereof.
And when I had spelt out to the end of his letter there were words also that were pleasant to me. For they were written by Elfric the abbot, my friend, thus: Written by the hand of Elfric, Abbot of St. Peter's Minster at Medehamstede.
I, Elfric, bid you, my son Redwald, be of cheer, for in the end all shall be for the best. Bide in your home of Bures if Cnut wills, as I think shall be, and see to the good of your own people as would your father who has gone. There is an end of war for England. It remains for us to make for the things of peace.
Then I sat and thought for long, and at last it seemed to me that I could do nought but as both king and friend would bid me, and the words that Elfric had written weighed more with me than those of the king. Now that I could fight no more I began to long to get back to that home life in the old place that had seemed so near to me and had been taken away.
And then came the thought of Uldra, and of what she would say of this. But as things were, and with this letter before me, I could not doubt what her word would be. She would speak as Elfric wrote. Then I longed for Olaf and his counsel. But he was far beyond my reach, nor could I tell where he might be. He had gone across the gray rim of the sea, and no track was there for me to follow.
The evening fell, and still I sat there, and Thrand of Colchester came to seek me--I know not what he feared for me if I grew lonely on Ashingdon hill now that all seemed lost.
"Master, come back to the ships," he said. "It is ill biding here after sunset. The slain are unquiet by reason of Streone's deeds."
"They will not harm me, Thrand," I answered. "I would I lay here with them even now . . . but that is past."
I rose up and went down the hill with him, and the sun set behind it, and it was gray and black against the red evening sky. There was a mist from the river, and one might think that one saw many things moving therein.
And I know not that I saw anything more than mortal--though maybe I did--until as we went to Cnut's dune, under which Egil's ship lay, and we passed that place where the left wing of our line had been driven back on the marsh. Then I saw an armed man coming towards us, and Thrand, who walked at my shoulder, closed up to me, for the warrior had a drawn sword in his hand.
And when we came face to face I knew that I looked once more on Ulfkytel our earl, and a great fear fell on me, for he lay with his men in the mound where he fell, and Egil and I had raised it over him. Then I must speak.
"Greeting to the earl," I said, and my voice sounded strange.
But he made no answer, save that he looked me in the face and smiled at me gravely and sweetly, and sheathed the sword he held, folding his arms thereafter as one whose work is done. And while one might count a score, I saw him, plainly as in life, and then he was gone.
Wherefore I thought that our own earl was not wroth with me for what I would do; and after that my mind was at rest, and ready to take what peace might come to me at the hands of Cnut the king.
"We have seen the earl," Thrand said, when he was gone.
"Aye. He tells us that the war is at an end, and that, in truth, Cnut is king in East Anglia."
"It is well," Thrand answered simply. "Dane were my fathers, and Danish is my name and that of Guthorm my brother. If Cnut lets us keep our old customs and governs with justice, it is all we need."
There was spoken the word of all Anglia, whether of the north or south folk, and I knew it. No man would but hail him there willingly. Our people had never forgotten that the Wessex kings were far from them, and that little help came from thence.
Now, when I came to Egil, I told him that the letter I had gotten bore messages to me from Eadmund, and I read it to him so far as I have written here.
"This is good," he answered, when I said that it should be as the king said. "Now are you Cnut's man and my friend indeed. Thorkel, my foster brother, is to be Earl of East Anglia, and you shall be Thane of Bures as ever. And I shall have to mind Colchester and this shore, and we shall see much of each other."
So he rejoiced, and I grew more cheerful as the days went on. Then Thorkel came, and together we went to Colchester, and thence he bade me go to Bures in peace and take my old place, for he said that Cnut and Emma the queen would have me honoured in all that I would, even did he himself not wish to keep me as his own friend.
Then said I: "What of Geirmund, your own man, who had Bures?"
Egil laughed.
"Geirmund is the man over whom I fell at your feet at Leavenheath fight. You yourself have made an end of him. I wonder that you knew it not."
So I went back to Bures, and there is no need to say how my poor folk rejoiced. But Ailwin was not there, nor had Gunnhild been seen. The young priest was there yet, and well loved.
Then I said to myself: "Let things bide for a while. When peace comes altogether and certainly, then will Ailwin bring back Hertha, and there will be trouble enough then, maybe. As it is, my house must be rebuilt, and the land has to settle down after war."
With that I set to work to gather the timber together from my own woods, that we might begin to build in the coming springtime, and I grew happy enough at that work, though I would that I worked for Uldra.
Then came the news that Eadmund our king was dead, slain by Streone's men--some say by the Earl's son, others by the king's own men, whom he bribed. One will, I suppose, never know what hands did the deed, but Streone's doing it was when all is told.
There is more in my mind about this than I will say. But Thrand, who had been with me, begged that he might go to Colchester for a while; and I let him go, for he waxed restless, though I knew not what he would leave me for.
Then the kingdom was Cnut's, and he spoke to the Wessex nobles at a great council in London in such wise that they hailed him for king. There was naught else for them to do. And he promised to keep the laws of Eadgar {15}, and to defend Holy Church, and to make no difference between Dane and Saxon, and by that time men knew that what Cnut the king promised that he would perform.
So came the strong hand that Ethelred our dying king had foretold, and sure and lasting peace lay fair before England. Above all things that made for our content Cnut promised to send home his host. Nor was it long before Jarl Eirik sailed away with all but those to whom lands had fallen. There were many manors whose English lords had died, and they must own Danish masters.
And I will say this other word, that now at the time that I write of these things, men speak of English only, for Cnut has welded the races of England into one in such wise as has never been before.
So I mourned for Eadmund, and wrought at home-making until the springtime came, and all the while the thought of Uldra grew dearer to me, and I longed to seek her again. And the thought of Hertha and my betrothal seemed as bondage to me. Yet I would do nought till Ailwin came or till I could find him. But none knew where he was.
I knew now that it was well that Hertha and I should not meet till all was broken off, for her I could not love, and she knew nought of me. Yet for her sake I set the Wormingford thralls at work in the like manner as my own people were busied, that she might find withal to build her own house place afresh, when, if ever, she should return.
Now, one day as I stood watching the shaping of the timber for the first framing of my hall, Thrand came back. He ran to me when he saw me, and cried: "Master all is avenged! Streone the traitor is no more."
I took him away to a quiet place, for this news was strange, and the thralls were listening wonderingly, and I asked him how this came about.
"Master, I slew him myself," he said grimly.
Then said I: "By subtlety--after his own manner?"
"Not so, master. But even in Cnut's own presence."
So I was amazed, and bade him tell all.
"When I left you, master," he said, "I took service with Jarl Thorkel. Then he went to court in London, even as I hoped, for that was all I needed, and presently came Streone with a great train to see Cnut. Now the king is not a great and strong man, as men think who have not seen him, but is tall and overgrown for his years, looking eighteen or twenty, though he is younger. He will be a powerful man some day, but his mail hangs loosely on him now. He is like an eagle in face, for his nose is high and bent, and his eyes are clear and piercing. Quiet and very pleasant is he in his way, and being so young also, some think they can do as they will with him. But that they try not twice.
"This is what Streone thought, for he deemed that he should be the king's master if he set him on the throne. So he must needs try to gain more wealth from the king, and after he had been at court for a while, one might see that Cnut grew weary of his words. But at last there was a great feast, and I stood behind Thorkel at the high place, and Streone was next to Thorkel, and Thorkel to the king on his right hand. When the ale was going round, Streone began to find fault with some ordering of Cnut's, and at last said: "Maybe one might judge how things would go when the man who gave you this kingdom is treated thus.'
"Then Cnut looked at him very quietly and said: "'You have the same honours from me as from Ethelred.' " 'Not so, not so,' he said. 'I was wont to sit at the king's right hand, with none between me and him.'
"Thereat Thorkel would have spoken, but Cnut held up his hand. I saw his bright eyes shining, and Streone should have taken warning, but his fate was on him. " 'You think, then, that you have not all you deserve?' the king said. " 'I have not. You have all--owing to me.'
"Then Cnut rose up and faced him, and a great hush fell on all the assembly. " 'This earl, as it seems, will be content with nothing short of the king's seat. Two kings has he pulled down, and one has he slain of those two. We have profited by this, as all men know. But here do I proclaim myself clear from all part in the slaying of Eadmund my brother, who, but for this man, might hereafter have taken all the kingdom when I died, according to our oaths. I suppose that no man will believe that I had nought to do with this murder, but I am clear thereof, both in thought or wish or deed. " 'Now in gaining the kingdom which has been the right of the Danish kings--if tribute paid for conquest in old time means aught--at least since the days of Guthrum, if not before, I have used the help of this earl, for Mercia was ours by right, as in the Danelagh. I will not say that his way of helping me has been what one would wish, but in war one uses what weapons one can find. For his help to me the Earl of Mercia has been well paid. Now, what shall be given to the man who betrayed to death the foster son who believed in him as in himself?'
"Then I, Thrand the freeman of Colchester, nowise caring what befell me, answered in a loud voice: "'Let him die. He is not fit to live.' " 'Slay him, therefore,' said Cnut.
"Thereat Streone cried for mercy once, grovelling. And he having done so, I lifted the axe I bore and slew him, even on the high place at the king's feet.
"Then one in the hall said in a great voice: "'Justice is from the hands of Cnut the king.'
"There went round a murmur of assent to that, and I called to me another of Thorkel's men, a Colchester man of your guard also, and while all held their peace and Cnut stood still looking at what was done, stirring neither hand nor foot, but with his eyes burning bright with rage and his head a little forward, as an eagle that will strike, we two bore the traitor's body to the window that overhangs the Thames, and cast it thereout into the swift tide.
"After that I went my way down the hall, and the king cried: "'Let the man go forth.'
"So that none spoke to me or withstood me.
"When I got to the street it was dark, and it seemed to me that the best thing that I could do was to fly. So I went by day and night, and I am here."
So that was the traitor's end. And I was glad, for I knew that England was free from her greatest foe. Justly was Edric Streone slain, and all men held that it was well done. Nor did any man ever seek Thrand to avenge the earl's death on his slayer. I think none held him worth avenging.
I bade Thrand hold his peace concerning his part in this matter, for a while at least, lest I should lose him.
After Streone's death it was plain that Cnut was king indeed, for his Danish jarls knew him too well to despise him. They went each to his place, and the land began to smile again with the peace that had come, and Cnut sent Eirik the jarl home to Denmark with the host, as I have said.
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{
"id": "16196"
}
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16
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: By Wormingford Mere.
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Now it was not long after Streone's death that I had a message from Emma the queen to bid me to her wedding with Cnut, that should be completed with all magnificence. And I went with Thorkel the jarl and Egil, and I could not complain of the welcome I had both from the queen and from Cnut. I might say much of that wedding, for it was wonderful, but I cared not much for it, except that there I met Elfric the abbot again, and he would have me stay in his house, so that it was most pleasant to be with him, and away from the bustle and mirth of the strangers who were with the king.
But for this wedding Eadward Atheling would not come from Normandy. Men said that he was likely to gather forces against his new stepfather, but that it would be of no use. So thought I, for it was a true word that I had heard at Senlac in the hut on Caldbec hill--that Cnut should have the goodwill of all men, even of myself. For so it was, as one might see written in the faces of the London burghers, who alone of all England had baffled him again and again, and now could not do enough honour to him. He had won even their love.
When I would go back to Bures, Emma the queen sent for me, hearing that I would speak with her ere I went, and she received me most kindly, coming down from her high place to greet me.
"Redwald," she said, laughing a little, "I was a sore burden to you when we fled hence."
"My queen," I answered, "the danger was the burden. It weighed on all of us."
"That is a court speech," she said; "but we taught you court ways, and I will not blame it. Nevertheless, though you will not tell me so plainly, I know that I made things worse for you by my foolishness. Forgive the abbess, if the queen may expect nought but smooth words."
"I do not know how I can answer you, Queen Emma," said I at that, "but it is true that for you I would go through the same again."
"Then I am forgiven," she said. "Now tell me what became of the brave maiden who withstood the Danes with you, and also my sharp tongue--trouble sharpened it, Redwald, and I have repented my hard words to her."
"She is with friends at Penhurst, near to Earl Wulfnoth's castle of Pevensea. And she feared that you would hate her."
"I would that I could reward her rather," the queen said. "Have you seen her of late?"
"Not since just before last midsummer," I answered; and I suppose my face showed some feeling that the queen noted.
"Redwald," she said, "if you would wed this maiden it is I who would give her a portion that should be worthy of her and of you. Can it be so?"
"My queen," I said with a great hope in my heart, "if that is your will, I think that it must be so. But in honesty I will tell you that an old betrothal that was when I was a child seems to stand in the way. But neither I nor the child to whom I was betrothed have seen one another since the coming of Swein's host. And I know not where she is."
"Ah! you would have it broken, and I wonder not. That can surely be."
Then all at once came over me one thought of how Hertha had perhaps, after all, longed and waited and prayed for my coming. I remembered words that Ailwin had spoken that seemed to say that this might be so; and thus on the very threshold of freedom I shrank back lest I should wrong the child I had loved by breaking my troth so solemnly plighted; and I knew not what to say, while the queen looked at me wondering.
Then she smiled and said: "Maybe you cannot love the maiden. Wait awhile, and let me hear of you again. One may not, in kindness, force these matters. But I will trust you to tell me if she is to wed any other than you--for her portion shall be ready for her. The riches of England and Denmark and Norway are mine."
There spoke Emma of Normandy again, and her proud look came back. The maidens on the dais were smiling at one another, for the queen was turned away from them.
"Let it be thus, my queen," I said, after I had thanked her.
And she said that it should be so, deeming that I had thought of Uldra not at all, maybe.
Then she spoke of my own doings, and Cnut came as we did so. I bowed to him, and he took my hand, calling me "thane" in all good faith.
"Now I have to come ere long into your country," he said, "for I have vowed to build a church in each place where I have fought and conquered. Have you a house where I may stay?"
"My place is far from Ashingdon, lord king," I answered, "and I am rebuilding my father's house as best I can."
"I suppose my men burnt it?" he said plainly.
"Your father's men did so in the first coming."
"Therefore shall his son rebuild for your father's son," said the king. "Will you accept aught from me?"
"Lord king," said I, "I have fought against you, and have owned you unwillingly at first."
"That is certain," he said laughing, "else had you not tried to take away my queen. Go to, Redwald, you are a troublesome subject."
"I think I shall be so no longer," I answered.
So those two most royal ones bade me farewell, and I went away to Elfric, and found Godwine there. The young earl was high in favour with Cnut, and rightly.
Presently came one from the king with somewhat for me, and that was a goodly gift of money, which I hardly cared to take at first.
Then Godwine laughed at me.
"We have a great chest half full of gold at Pevensea out of which you may take a double handful whenever you need it. Cnut has the gold of three kingdoms and says you may do the same out of his hoards. Head breaking brought you the first, and hardship the second. Take one as you would the other, man. It is your due."
And Elfric added that the king's gift was surely out of goodness of heart. There could be no thought of bribes now. So I took it, and was glad thereof, for I could not ask my people for rents and dues yet.
Elfric asked me of Uldra, as one might suppose, and was glad when he heard of her welfare.
"I suppose that when I get back to Medehamstede her folk will want to know how she fares in Normandy, or the like. Maybe they have troubled the good abbess already more than enough, for she brought her to me."
"Whose daughter was she?" I asked.
"Maybe I heard, but I have forgotten," he said. "The abbess knows. I saw not her folk, for the sisters brought her with them with my consent."
So I went back to Bures well content with all but one thing, and that was what troubled me more than enough. But I knew not that to my dying day I shall rejoice that I kept my troth to Hertha.
It was on one of those wondrous days that come in October, with glory of sunshine and clear sky over gold and crimson of forest and copse, that I learnt this.
I would go to Wormingford now and then to see that all was going well with the rebuilding of Hertha's home, for Cnut's gift was enough for that also, seeing that all one needed was at hand and did but require setting up by skilled workers. Our priest, Father Oswin, found me such craftsmen as I needed.
"Let me rebuild the church first, father," I had said to him when I returned thus rich.
"Not so, my son. That is a matter which must be taken in hand presently, and not hurriedly. Shelter first the man who shall do it, and provide for the fatherless at Wormingford, and it will be better done after all."
Therefore I was very busy. And on this day of which I speak I walked in the late afternoon, and must needs turn aside into the woods by the mere, for I had often done that of late, loving the place for old memories the more now that Olaf came into them. It seemed to me that I had never seen the still mere look more wondrously beautiful than on this day, for we had had neither wind nor rain to mar the autumn beauty of the trees, and that was doubled by the mirror of the water.
So I lingered in that place where Olaf and I had been so nearly slain, thinking of that night and of many other days, and then I heard a footstep coming through the wood, and turned to see who it might be, for I had never met any other in the haunted place.
And there came towards me slowly a white-robed maiden who looked steadfastly at me, saying nought. And I thought that surely she was the White Lady of the Mere. The shadows flickered across her face and dress, and in her hand she bore a basket with crimson leaves and the like.
And then I saw that surely this was Hertha coming to meet me as in the old days when I had waited for her here--Hertha grown older, and changed; but yet as I saw her here in the old place one could not but know her, and half I cried out her name, and then stayed with my heart beating fast.
For as she came into the clearing and was close to me she held out her hands, and the basket fell at her feet, and lo! it was Uldra, whom I loved--and Uldra was Hertha--and I had in my arms all that I longed for, and my trouble was gone for evermore.
"How was it that you knew me not before this?" she asked presently, while we walked together to Wormingford to find Ailwin. They had but come back that morning.
"Always have I seemed to know you well," I said, "but first the sisters' dress, and then that I looked not for Hertha in London, prevented me. And so I grew to know your looks and ways as Uldra, whom I grew to love. Then all thought of the old likeness that puzzled me at first was forgotten. There is no wonder in it, for you have grown from childhood to womanhood since we fled from Bures, and I have gone through much that blotted your face from my mind. Rather do I wonder where you have been all this time."
"One secret I may not tell you today," she said; "and that is where our safest hiding place has been in sorest peril. Some day I will show it you, for it is not far. But for long did Gunnhild and I dwell with her brother in the forest and marsh fastnesses beyond the Colne. There one might take to the woods when prowling Danes were near, though it was but twice, and but for a few hours then, that we had to do so. There was little or no danger there when the host passed on. Some day shall you and I ride to that quiet farmstead, for I love the kindly folk who cared for me so well."
Then I said, and my words came to pass afterwards: "If they will, they shall have my best farm here for their own, that they may be near you. Now tell me how you came to be with Elfric."
She blushed a little, and laughed.
"When we were at Penhurst," she said, "you told me how you were seeking me--well, maybe I was seeking you. It fell out thus. When you and Olaf, whom I long to see, scattered the Danes here, Gunnhild said that we must fly, for they were seeking hiding places. So she would go to her sister, who is abbess at Ramsey, by the great mere of Whittlesea. So we fled there, and the journey was overmuch for her, and there she died after two days. That was a sore grief to me, but I will not speak of grief now. Then Ailwin told the abbess to keep me with her until all things were safe, when he would return for me. But Gunnhild had asked her to find me a place with the Lady Algitha, Eadmund Atheling's wife, because I should meet you in his house often enough. That she could do, and would have done.
"Then the Danes came, and one day Elfric sent word that he was going to Normandy. Those two sisters would go home, and so the abbess sent me with them, thinking that thus her sister's plan for me would be best carried out. For she was told by Elfric that you were in charge of the party, saying the sisters would be safe in your care. Elfric might get me a place in the queen's new household; and if not--if you knew me not nor cared for me--there was always the convent."
"So all that plan came out thus--and it is well," I said. "But why would you not come to Penhurst at first?"
She laughed lightly, answering: "Can you not guess? Relf saw, and set things right. Did he never tell you what was wrong?"
"He said that it was want of travelling gear," said I. "Why, that was not it, though being thoughtful and fatherly he asked of that first."
"Tell me what was the trouble, then."
"I thought--there were things said, and you called me by her name--that the wedding Relf spoke of was yours and Sexberga's. That was all."
"Surely Relf knew not who you were?"
"No. He did not till Ailwin came to Penhurst."
"Then," said I, "it passes me to know how he found out what the trouble was."
"Because he has a daughter of his own," she laughed.
And so she began to speak of Sexberga's wedding, which had been not long since.
Then we came to Wormingford, and there was Ailwin, bent and aged indeed by the troubles, but well, and rejoiced to see me once more, and that I and Hertha were so happily together. But I had to ask his pardon for my roughness to him before I could feel content.
"My son, had you not felt this matter very deeply, I know you would not have troubled yourself even to wrath about it. Truly I was glad to hear you speak so. There is nought to forgive."
So he said, and maybe he was right.
I rode back presently to Bures with my heart full of joy, and a wondrous content. And when I came to the house on the green I was to learn that joys come not always singly any more than sorrows, which are ever doubled.
The door stood open as I rode up, and in the red light from within the house stood two tall figures on the threshold, and the light flashed from helms and mail as they moved, and for a moment a fear came over me that some new call to arms waited me, so that the peace that I thought I had at last found was to be snatched from me. For it was as in the days when Olaf's men stood on guard over us at the doorway.
More like those days it was yet to be, for as I reined up a voice cried: "Ho, cousin what of the White Lady?"
And Olaf himself came and greeted me as I leapt from the saddle, holding my shoulders and looking at me as he took me into the light to scan my face. The other warrior was Ottar the scald, my friend, and now I had all that I could wish.
We sat together in the old places, and he said presently: "You seem contented enough with Cnut, to judge by your face, my cousin."
"I had forgotten him. I am content with all things," I answered.
"How came you here?"
"Nay, but you shall tell me of yourself first," he said. "Then I may have somewhat to say of my doings."
So I told him all.
"Why then, you must be wedded betimes," he said; "for I must see that wedding, though I would not have Cnut catch me. The ships are in Colchester river, and but for Egil I had never got there even."
Then I heard how he had been southward, and what deeds he had done; and it was Ottar who told me that, for Olaf had nought to say of himself. But presently when it came to the time when he turned his ships homeward, Olaf took up the story.
"When I was minded to go on from this place, in Carl's water as they call it, even to Jerusalem and the holy places, I had the sign that I looked for--the sign that I should go back to Norway. I slept, and in my sleep there came to me a man, very noble looking and handsome, and yet terrible, and he stood by me and spoke to me saying, 'Fare back to the land that is thy birthright, for King of Norway thou shalt be for evermore.' And I knew this man for Olaf Tryggvesson my kinsman, and I think that he means that I shall gain all Norway for Christ's faith, and that my sons shall reign after me in the days to come."
"It is certain that you shall win Norway," I said, "for so also ran the words of the Senlac witch, 'For Olaf a kingdom and more than a kingdom--a name that shall never die'."
"I think men will remember me if I beat Cnut in my own land," he said lightly. "So I came back as far as the Seine river, and there was Eadward Atheling trying to raise men against Cnut his stepfather. I knew not that that peaceful youth could rage so terribly when occasion was, It was ill to speak of Cnut to him--or of the queen either. Now I spoke with his few thanes, and they held that it was of no use to try to attack England. None would rise to help him. But he begged me to go with him for the sake of old days and common hatred of the Dane. Wherefore I thought that it was as well for England that he learnt his foolishness, and we went together, and were well beaten off from the first place we put into. So he went back contented to try no more, and I put in here on my way homeward."
Then I said: "Do you blame me for submitting to Cnut?"
"You could do nought else," he answered. "And from all I hear he is likely to be a good king. Mind you that vision we saw on the shore in Normandy?"
"It has come to pass as you read it," I answered.
Then he said: "Yet more is to come to pass of that vision. Cnut will reign and will pass when his time comes, and with him will pass his kingdoms. There will be none of his line who shall keep them {16}."
"After him Eadward, therefore, or Alfred, should they live," I said, musing. For the words of dying Ethelred came back to me--his foretelling of the strong hand followed by the wise.
"That will be seen," answered Olaf. "Now I came to know if you were yet landless and desperate so that you would sail to Norway with me. But now I cannot ask you that. Nevertheless I shall be more glad to see you wedded and at rest here, for I think that you have seen your share of war."
"And I have been unlucky therein," said I. "Now has your luck changed," said Olaf. "And all is well."
So it came to pass that our wedding was made the happier by the presence of Olaf the king and by the songs of Ottar the scald. And Egil came from Colchester, and with him many of those of my men who were left, and Olaf's ship captains, so that with Sudbury folk and our own people there was a merry gathering enough, and the little church was over full when Ailwin and Oswin were ready at the altar.
After that was over, Olaf came forward and gave to the priests a great chain of gold links, bidding them lay it on the altar for a gift towards rebuilding the house of God.
"Only one thing do I ask you," he said, speaking in a hushed voice as he stood there. "And that is that no week shall pass without remembrance of those of my men who died for England on Leavenheath."
And Oswin said: "It shall be so, King Olaf, for it has already become our custom here. Now will we remember your name also."
* * * * * * Ten years agone it is since Olaf sailed away from us and won Norway from the hand of Cnut. Now and then come Norsemen to me from him when they put into Colchester or Maldon, and ever do they bring gifts for Hertha and Olaf and Eadmund and Uldra, the children that are ours. For all things have gone well with us, and with all England under the strong and wise rule of Cnut the king.
I stood beside him on Ashingdon hill when he came to see to the building of the churches on the battlefield at the place of the first fight, and at Ashingdon, and at Hockley where the flight ended. And he dedicated that at Ashingdon to St. Andrew, in memory of Eadmund his noble foe and brother king, for on the day of that saint Streone slew him.
There Cnut the king stood and spoke to me: "I build these churches, and their walls will decay in time, and maybe men will forget who built them, but the deeds of Eadmund will not be forgotten, for there are few men who have fought a losing fight so sternly and steadfastly as did he. Nor shall men forget you, Redwald, and those who fought and died here, and on the other fields that are rich with their blood spilt for love of England. None may say that their lives are wasted, for I see before us a new brotherhood that will rise out of our long strife, because Dane and Saxon and Anglian know each other for men."
So he said, and so it is, and our England is rising from the strife into a mighty oneness that has never been hers before.
We went to London before long to see the great wedding that was made for Godwine, my friend, and Gyda, the fair daughter of Ulf the jarl, and niece of Cnut himself. There also were Relf and the lady of Penhurst, and Eldred and Sexberga, and many more of Wulfnoth's thanes. But the old viking had gone to his place beyond the grave, and I saw him no more after I left him at Berkeley.
Godwine is the greatest man in England now, and well loved. All men speak of his deeds in Denmark, whither he took the king's English host when troubles were there, and he is one of those who hold the kingdoms together since Ulf and Thorkel and Eirik are dead. They were slain in petty quarrels, and it is ever in my mind that it was in judgment on them for treating with Streone the traitor in the days when Cnut had not yet taken the kingship and rule into his own hands. I hold him blameless of that, for what could a boy of thirteen, however wise, do against their word and plans?
But Thrand of Colchester lives yet, being port reeve of his own town under Egil, my good friend.
None have ever seen the White Lady of the Mere again, nor has aught ill befallen my thrall, who thought he saw her. I gave him his freedom when we were wedded, and he is over the herds for us. But ever do I choose rather to call my dear one "Uldra," the name which she borrowed from the White Lady when I met her at Bosham, and asked what I should call her, for by that name I learnt to love her.
Now one day she bade me take her to the great mound of Boadicea the queen beyond the river, for she had somewhat to show me, and half fearing I went. But she had no fear of the place, and one might see that she knew her way through the pathless woods around it well, so that I wondered. She led me across the water which stands around it in the old trench, stepping on fallen trees which made a sort of bridge, and then went to a place where the bushes grew thickly and tangled.
"Can you see aught strange here?" she said to me.
I could see nothing but thicket of briar and sloe climbing the steep side of the mound. And therefore she parted them, not easily at first, for none had touched them for long; and there before me was the opening of a low stone-sided-and-roofed passage, leading to the heart of the mound.
"Enter," she said. "This is our hiding place in sorest need."
"Hardly dare I do so. It is ill to disturb the mighty dead," I answered.
"The dead queen has sheltered us helpless women well," she answered. "She is not disturbed, for this is not her resting place."
So I went in, stooping double, for the stone passage was very low. I cannot tell whence the stone came, nor why the place was made unless it were to receive some chiefs of the Iceni, whose bones were gone had they ever been there, for there was a stone chamber in the mound's heart, fitted with stone seats and stone beds, as it were, and four people might well live in that place, for it was cool in summer and warm in winter, but very silent.
I spoke not a word till we were in the sunshine again, and then I shivered.
"I could not have entered that place alone," I said.
"Gunnhild had no fear thereof, nor had I as a little child. Three times we bided there for days, while the Danes pillaged and burnt all around us, and were safe."
It was some old secret handed down to Gunnhild that had taught her how to find the passage entrance. But she knew not where the great queen lay. Maybe her resting place is below the mound itself, or maybe she lies elsewhere, as some say.
Then said I: "Let us close the place. I pray that none may need it again."
So I loosened the earth above with my spear butt and it fell and covered the doorway. And none, save Hertha and myself, know where its place is.
Yet men say that they see the bale fires burning even now, on the mound top on the nights when men look for such things. I have never seen them.
There are two men of whom I must say a word, for I love them well. One is Father Ailwin, our priest, and my old master--who bides here with Oswin, whom I prayed to stay with us also--growing old peacefully; and the other is Elfric the abbot, my friend ever, and now Cnut's best adviser. Each in his own way fills well the place that is his, one as the counsellor and friend of plain folk like ourselves, winning the love and reverence of thane, and franklin, and thrall alike; and the other as the wisest in the land maybe, high in honour with all the highest in church and state. Well have those two wrought, and we cannot do without their like, whether in village or court.
It is likely that Elfric will be archbishop ere long, and that will be well for us all. So great is the name of Cnut the king that hereafter it will be that all that was wrought of wisdom in his time will be laid to his account; but he would not have it so, for he knows what he owes to Elfric. But also I think that the cruel deeds wrought by the jarls while he was yet but a child will be thought his work also, for men will forget how young he was when the crown came to him, seeing that in utmost loyalty the jarls spoke of him ever as commanding, as the old viking ways bade them.
But I who knew him almost from the first have seen how he hated these deeds, staying the hands of his chiefs as soon as he knew what his power was. Therein wrought Emma the queen, whose pride taught him what his place was, sooner than might else have been.
Now I will say one last word of myself, who am happy--in wife, and children, and home. Cnut made me ealdorman, that so I might serve East Anglia, and I am glad, for I must needs go to the great witan at times and meet Godwine and Relf and many others who are my friends. But, rather than Redwald the ealdorman, I would that I might be called ever by the name which comes into the songs of Ottar the scald now and then--the name in which I have most pride, King Olaf's kinsman.
THE END.
Notes.
1 the armed followers of a Saxon noble.
2 The national weapon. A short, strong, curved blade used as a dirk.
3 The massacre of the Danes on St. Brice's day, 1002 A.D., in which Swein's sister was killed.
4 Now Peterborough.
5 From the Heimskringla, Saga of Olaf the Saint.
6 Tribute.
7 An embodied familiar spirit.
8 According to Bede, in A.D. 418 the Romans collected and hid all the treasure in England, except some part which they took to Gaul. OElla took Anderida in 491 A.D. 9 The cold spring.
10 Mail shirt.
11 Daughter of Alfred the Great, and wife of Ethelred, Earl of Mercia.
12 The utmost term of Saxon contempt.
13 Now Canewdon.
14 The "Five Boroughs" of the old Danelagh were Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, Stamford, and Derby.
15 The work of the great Dunstan, and the first code that recognized the rights of Danish settlers.
16 This prophecy of Olaf's is recorded in the "Saga of Olaf the Saint".
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{
"id": "16196"
}
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The date is between twenty and thirty years ago. The place is an English sea-port. The time is night. And the business of the moment is--dancing.
The Mayor and Corporation of the town are giving a grand ball, in celebration of the departure of an Arctic expedition from their port. The ships of the expedition are two in number--the _Wanderer_ and the _Sea-mew_. They are to sail (in search of the Northwest Passage) on the next day, with the morning tide.
Honor to the Mayor and Corporation! It is a brilliant ball. The band is complete. The room is spacious. The large conservatory opening out of it is pleasantly lighted with Chinese lanterns, and beautifully decorated with shrubs and flowers. All officers of the army and navy who are present wear their uniforms in honor of the occasion. Among the ladies, the display of dresses (a subject which the men don’t understand) is bewildering--and the average of beauty (a subject which the men do understand) is the highest average attainable, in all parts of the room.
For the moment, the dance which is in progress is a quadrille. General admiration selects two of the ladies who are dancing as its favorite objects. One is a dark beauty in the prime of womanhood--the wife of First Lieutenant Crayford, of the _Wanderer_. The other is a young girl, pale and delicate; dressed simply in white; with no ornament on her head but her own lovely brown hair. This is Miss Clara Burnham--an orphan. She is Mrs. Crayford’s dearest friend, and she is to stay with Mrs. Crayford during the lieutenant’s absence in the Arctic regions. She is now dancing, with the lieutenant himself for partner, and with Mrs. Crayford and Captain Helding (commanding officer of the _Wanderer_) for vis-a-vis--in plain English, for opposite couple.
The conversation between Captain Helding and Mrs. Crayford, in one of the intervals of the dance, turns on Miss Burnham. The captain is greatly interested in Clara. He admires her beauty; but he thinks her manner--for a young girl--strangely serious and subdued. Is she in delicate health?
Mrs. Crayford shakes her head; sighs mysteriously; and answers, “In _very_ delicate health, Captain Helding.”
“Consumptive?”
“Not in the least.”
“I am glad to hear that. She is a charming creature, Mrs. Crayford. She interests me indescribably. If I was only twenty years younger--perhaps (as I am not twenty years younger) I had better not finish the sentence? Is it indiscreet, my dear lady, to inquire what _is_ the matter with her?”
“It might be indiscreet, on the part of a stranger,” said Mrs. Crayford. “An old friend like you may make any inquiries. I wish I could tell you what is the matter with Clara. It is a mystery to the doctors themselves. Some of the mischief is due, in my humble opinion, to the manner in which she has been brought up.”
“Ay! ay! A bad school, I suppose.”
“Very bad, Captain Helding. But not the sort of school which you have in your mind at this moment. Clara’s early years were spent in a lonely old house in the Highlands of Scotland. The ignorant people about her were the people who did the mischief which I have just been speaking of. They filled her mind with the superstitions which are still respected as truths in the wild North--especially the superstition called the Second Sight.”
“God bless me!” cried the captain, “you don’t mean to say she believes in such stuff as that? In these enlightened times too!”
Mrs. Crayford looked at her partner with a satirical smile.
“In these enlightened times, Captain Helding, we only believe in dancing tables, and in messages sent from the other world by spirits who can’t spell! By comparison with such superstitions as these, even the Second Sight has something--in the shape of poetry--to recommend it, surely? Estimate for yourself,” she continued seriously, “the effect of such surroundings as I have described on a delicate, sensitive young creature--a girl with a naturally imaginative temperament leading a lonely, neglected life. Is it so very surprising that she should catch the infection of the superstition about her? And is it quite incomprehensible that her nervous system should suffer accordingly, at a very critical period of her life?”
“Not at all, Mrs. Crayford--not at all, ma’am, as you put it. Still it is a little startling, to a commonplace man like me, to meet a young lady at a ball who believes in the Second Sight. Does she really profess to see into the future? Am I to understand that she positively falls into a trance, and sees people in distant countries, and foretells events to come? That is the Second Sight, is it not?”
“That is the Second Sight, captain. And that is, really and positively, what she does.”
“The young lady who is dancing opposite to us?”
“The young lady who is dancing opposite to us.”
The captain waited a little--letting the new flood of information which had poured in on him settle itself steadily in his mind. This process accomplished, the Arctic explorer proceeded resolutely on his way to further discoveries.
“May I ask, ma’am, if you have ever seen her in a state of trance with your own eyes?” he inquired.
“My sister and I both saw her in the trance, little more than a month since,” Mrs. Crayford replied. “She had been nervous and irritable all the morning; and we took her out into the garden to breathe the fresh air. Suddenly, without any reason for it, the color left her face. She stood between us, insensible to touch, insensible to sound; motionless as stone, and cold as death in a moment. The first change we noticed came after a lapse of some minutes. Her hands began to move slowly, as if she was groping in the dark. Words dropped one by one from her lips, in a lost, vacant tone, as if she was talking in her sleep. Whether what she said referred to past or future I cannot tell you. She spoke of persons in a foreign country--perfect strangers to my sister and to me. After a little interval, she suddenly became silent. A momentary color appeared in her face, and left it again. Her eyes closed--her feet failed her--and she sank insensible into our arms.”
“Sank insensible into your arms,” repeated the captain, absorbing his new information. “Most extraordinary! And--in this state of health--she goes out to parties, and dances. More extraordinary still!”
“You are entirely mistaken,” said Mrs. Crayford. “She is only here to-night to please me; and she is only dancing to please my husband. As a rule, she shuns all society. The doctor recommends change and amusement for her. She won’t listen to him. Except on rare occasions like this, she persists in remaining at home.”
Captain Helding brightened at the allusion to the doctor. Something practical might be got out of the doctor. Scientific man. Sure to see this very obscure subject under a new light. “How does it strike the doctor now?” said the captain. “Viewed simply as a Case, ma’am, how does it strike the doctor?”
“He will give no positive opinion,” Mrs. Crayford answered. “He told me that such cases as Clara’s were by no means unfamiliar to medical practice. ‘We know,’ he told me, ‘that certain disordered conditions of the brain and the nervous system produce results quite as extraordinary as any that you have described--and there our knowledge ends. Neither my science nor any man’s science can clear up the mystery in this case. It is an especially difficult case to deal with, because Miss Burnham’s early associations dispose her to attach a superstitious importance to the malady--the hysterical malady as some doctors would call it--from which she suffers. I can give you instructions for preserving her general health; and I can recommend you to try some change in her life--provided you first relieve her mind of any secret anxieties that may possibly be preying on it. ’” The captain smiled self-approvingly. The doctor had justified his anticipations. The doctor had suggested a practical solution of the difficulty.
“Ay! ay! At last we have hit the nail on the head! Secret anxieties. Yes! yes! Plain enough now. A disappointment in love--eh, Mrs. Crayford?”
“I don’t know, Captain Helding; I am quite in the dark. Clara’s confidence in me--in other matters unbounded--is, in this matter of her (supposed) anxieties, a confidence still withheld. In all else we are like sisters. I sometimes fear there may indeed be some trouble preying secretly on her mind. I sometimes feel a little hurt at her incomprehensible silence.”
Captain Helding was ready with his own practical remedy for this difficulty.
“Encouragement is all she wants, ma’am. Take my word for it, this matter rests entirely with you. It’s all in a nutshell. Encourage her to confide in you--and she _will_ confide.”
“I am waiting to encourage her, captain, until she is left alone with me--after you have all sailed for the Arctic seas. In the meantime, will you consider what I have said to you as intended for your ear only? And will you forgive me, if I own that the turn the subject has taken does not tempt me to pursue it any further?”
The captain took the hint. He instantly changed the subject; choosing, on this occasion, safe professional topics. He spoke of ships that were ordered on foreign service; and, finding that these as subjects failed to interest Mrs. Crayford, he spoke next of ships that were ordered home again. This last experiment produced its effect--an effect which the captain had not bargained for.
“Do you know,” he began, “that the _Atalanta_ is expected back from the West Coast of Africa every day? Have you any acquaintances among the officers of that ship?”
As it so happened, he put those questions to Mrs. Crayford while they were engaged in one of the figures of the dance which brought them within hearing of the opposite couple. At the same moment--to the astonishment of her friends and admirers--Miss Clara Burnham threw the quadrille into confusion by making a mistake! Everybody waited to see her set the mistake right. She made no attempt to set it right--she turned deadly pale and caught her partner by the arm.
“The heat!” she said, faintly. “Take me away--take me into the air!”
Lieutenant Crayford instantly led her out of the dance, and took her into the cool and empty conservatory, at the end of the room. As a matter of course, Captain Helding and Mrs. Crayford left the quadrille at the same time. The captain saw his way to a joke.
“Is this the trance coming on?” he whispered. “If it is, as commander of the Arctic expedition, I have a particular request to make. Will the Second Sight oblige me by seeing the shortest way to the Northwest Passage, before we leave England?”
Mrs. Crayford declined to humor the joke. “If you will excuse my leaving you,” she said quietly, “I will try and find out what is the matter with Miss Burnham.”
At the entrance to the conservatory, Mrs. Crayford encountered her husband. The lieutenant was of middle age, tall and comely. A man with a winning simplicity and gentleness in his manner, and an irresistible kindness in his brave blue eyes. In one word, a man whom everybody loved--including his wife.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said the lieutenant. “The heat has overcome her--that’s all.”
Mrs. Crayford shook her head, and looked at her husband, half satirically, half fondly.
“You dear old innocent!” she exclaimed, “that excuse may do for _you_. For my part, I don’t believe a word of it. Go and get another partner, and leave Clara to me.”
She entered the conservatory and seated herself by Clara’s side.
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{
"id": "1625"
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“Now, my dear!” Mrs. Crayford began, “what does this mean?”
“Nothing.”
“That won’t do, Clara. Try again.”
“The heat of the room--” “That won’t do, either. Say that you choose to keep your own secrets, and I shall understand what you mean.”
Clara’s sad, clear gray eyes looked up for the first time in Mrs. Crayford’s face, and suddenly became dimmed with tears.
“If I only dared tell you!” she murmured. “I hold so to your good opinion of me, Lucy--and I am so afraid of losing it.”
Mrs. Crayford’s manner changed. Her eyes rested gravely and anxiously on Clara’s face.
“You know as well as I do that nothing can shake my affection for you,” she said. “Do justice, my child, to your old friend. There is nobody here to listen to what we say. Open your heart, Clara. I see you are in trouble, and I want to comfort you.”
Clara began to yield. In other words, she began to make conditions.
“Will you promise to keep what I tell you a secret from every living creature?” she began.
Mrs. Crayford met that question, by putting a question on her side.
“Does ‘every living creature’ include my husband?”
“Your husband more than anybody! I love him, I revere him. He is so noble; he is so good! If I told him what I am going to tell you, he would despise me. Own it plainly, Lucy, if I am asking too much in asking you to keep a secret from your husband.”
“Nonsense, child! When you are married, you will know that the easiest of all secrets to keep is a secret from your husband. I give you my promise. Now begin!”
Clara hesitated painfully.
“I don’t know how to begin!” she exclaimed, with a burst of despair. “The words won’t come to me.”
“Then I must help you. Do you feel ill tonight? Do you feel as you felt that day when you were with my sister and me in the garden?”
“Oh no.”
“You are not ill, you are not really affected by the heat--and yet you turn as pale as ashes, and you are obliged to leave the quadrille! There must be some reason for this.”
“There is a reason. Captain Helding--” “Captain Helding! What in the name of wonder has the captain to do with it?”
“He told you something about the _Atalanta_. He said the _Atalanta_ was expected back from Africa immediately.”
“Well, and what of that? Is there anybody in whom you are interested coming home in the ship?”
“Somebody whom I am afraid of is coming home in the ship.”
Mrs. Crayford’s magnificent black eyes opened wide in amazement.
“My dear Clara! do you really mean what you say?”
“Wait a little, Lucy, and you shall judge for yourself. We must go back--if I am to make you understand me--to the year before we knew each other--to the last year of my father’s life. Did I ever tell you that my father moved southward, for the sake of his health, to a house in Kent that was lent to him by a friend?”
“No, my dear; I don’t remember ever hearing of the house in Kent. Tell me about it.”
“There is nothing to tell, except this: the new house was near a fine country-seat standing in its own park. The owner of the place was a gentleman named Wardour. He, too, was one of my father’s Kentish friends. He had an only son.”
She paused, and played nervously with her fan. Mrs. Crayford looked at her attentively. Clara’s eyes remained fixed on her fan--Clara said no more. “What was the son’s name?” asked Mrs. Crayford, quietly.
“Richard.”
“Am I right, Clara, in suspecting that Mr. Richard Wardour admired you?”
The question produced its intended effect. The question helped Clara to go on.
“I hardly knew at first,” she said, “whether he admired me or not. He was very strange in his ways--headstrong, terribly headstrong and passionate; but generous and affectionate in spite of his faults of temper. Can you understand such a character?”
“Such characters exist by thousands. I have my faults of temper. I begin to like Richard already. Go on.”
“The days went by, Lucy, and the weeks went by. We were thrown very much together. I began, little by little, to have some suspicion of the truth.”
“And Richard helped to confirm your suspicions, of course?”
“No. He was not--unhappily for me--he was not that sort of man. He never spoke of the feeling with which he regarded me. It was I who saw it. I couldn’t help seeing it. I did all I could to show that I was willing to be a sister to him, and that I could never be anything else. He did not understand me, or he would not, I can’t say which.”
“‘Would not,’ is the most likely, my dear. Go on.”
“It might have been as you say. There was a strange, rough bashfulness about him. He confused and puzzled me. He never spoke out. He seemed to treat me as if our future lives had been provided for while we were children. What could I do, Lucy?”
“Do? You could have asked your father to end the difficulty for you.”
“Impossible! You forget what I have just told you. My father was suffering at that time under the illness which afterward caused his death. He was quite unfit to interfere.”
“Was there no one else who could help you?”
“No one.”
“No lady in whom you could confide?”
“I had acquaintances among the ladies in the neighborhood. I had no friends.”
“What did you do, then?”
“Nothing. I hesitated; I put off coming to an explanation with him, unfortunately, until it was too late.”
“What do you mean by too late?”
“You shall hear. I ought to have told you that Richard Wardour is in the navy--” “Indeed! I am more interested in him than ever. Well?”
“One spring day Richard came to our house to take leave of us before he joined his ship. I thought he was gone, and I went into the next room. It was my own sitting-room, and it opened on to the garden.” -- “Yes?”
“Richard must have been watching me. He suddenly appeared in the garden. Without waiting for me to invite him, he walked into the room. I was a little startled as well as surprised, but I managed to hide it. I said, ‘What is it, Mr. Wardour?’ He stepped close up to me; he said, in his quick, rough way: ‘Clara! I am going to the African coast. If I live, I shall come back promoted; and we both know what will happen then.’ He kissed me. I was half frightened, half angry. Before I could compose myself to say a word, he was out in the garden again--he was gone! I ought to have spoken, I know. It was not honorable, not kind toward him. You can’t reproach me for my want of courage and frankness more bitterly than I reproach myself!”
“My dear child, I don’t reproach you. I only think you might have written to him.”
“I did write.”
“Plainly?”
“Yes. I told him in so many words that he was deceiving himself, and that I could never marry him.”
“Plain enough, in all conscience! Having said that, surely you are not to blame. What are you fretting about now?”
“Suppose my letter has never reached him?”
“Why should you suppose anything of the sort?”
“What I wrote required an answer, Lucy--_asked_ for an answer. The answer has never come. What is the plain conclusion? My letter has never reached him. And the _Atalanta_ is expected back! Richard Wardour is returning to England--Richard Wardour will claim me as his wife! You wondered just now if I really meant what I said. Do you doubt it still?”
Mrs. Crayford leaned back absently in her chair. For the first time since the conversation had begun, she let a question pass without making a reply. The truth is, Mrs. Crayford was thinking.
She saw Clara’s position plainly; she understood the disturbing effect of it on the mind of a young girl. Still, making all allowances, she felt quite at a loss, so far, to account for Clara’s excessive agitation. Her quick observing faculty had just detected that Clara’s face showed no signs of relief, now that she had unburdened herself of her secret. There was something clearly under the surface here--something of importance that still remained to be discovered. A shrewd doubt crossed Mrs. Crayford’s mind, and inspired the next words which she addressed to her young friend.
“My dear,” she said abruptly, “have you told me all?”
Clara started as if the question terrified her. Feeling sure that she now had the clew in her hand, Mrs. Crayford deliberately repeated her question, in another form of words. Instead of answering, Clara suddenly looked up. At the same moment a faint flush of color appeared in her face for the first time.
Looking up instinctively on her side, Mrs. Crayford became aware of the presence, in the conservatory, of a young gentleman who was claiming Clara as his partner in the coming waltz. Mrs. Crayford fell into thinking once more. Had this young gentleman (she asked herself) anything to do with the untold end of the story? Was this the true secret of Clara Burnham’s terror at the impending return of Richard Wardour? Mrs. Crayford decided on putting her doubts to the test.
“A friend of yours, my dear?” she asked, innocently. “Suppose you introduce us to each other.”
Clara confusedly introduced the young gentleman.
“Mr. Francis Aldersley, Lucy. Mr. Aldersley belongs to the Arctic expedition.”
“Attached to the expedition?” Mrs. Crayford repeated. “I am attached to the expedition too--in my way. I had better introduce myself, Mr. Aldersley, as Clara seems to have forgotten to do it for me. I am Mrs. Crayford. My husband is Lieutenant Crayford, of the _Wanderer_. Do you belong to that ship?”
“I have not the honor, Mrs. Crayford. I belong to the _Sea-mew_.”
Mrs. Crayford’s superb eyes looked shrewdly backward and forward between Clara and Francis Aldersley, and saw the untold sequel to Clara’s story. The young officer was a bright, handsome, gentleman-like lad. Just the person to seriously complicate the difficulty with Richard Wardour! There was no time for making any further inquiries. The band had begun the prelude to the waltz, and Francis Aldersley was waiting for his partner. With a word of apology to the young man, Mrs. Crayford drew Clara aside for a moment, and spoke to her in a whisper.
“One word, my dear, before you return to the ball-room. It may sound conceited, after the little you have told me; but I think I understand your position _now_, better than you do yourself. Do you want to hear my opinion?”
“I am longing to hear it, Lucy! I want your opinion; I want your advice.”
“You shall have both in the plainest and fewest words. First, my opinion: You have no choice but to come to an explanation with Mr. Wardour as soon as he returns. Second, my advice: If you wish to make the explanation easy to both sides, take care that you make it in the character of a free woman.”
She laid a strong emphasis on the last three words, and looked pointedly at Francis Aldersley as she pronounced them. “I won’t keep you from your partner any longer, Clara,” she resumed, and led the way back to the ball-room.
|
{
"id": "1625"
}
|
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