The Youngest Sister: A Tale of Manitoba
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Title: The Youngest Sister: A Tale of Manitoba
Author: Bessie Marchant
Illustrator: W. Rainey
Release date: May 12, 2015 [eBook #48942]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNGEST SISTER: A TALE OF MANITOBA ***
BY BESSIE MARCHANT
“Bessie Marchant is the girls’ ‘Henty’, and a writer
of genuine tales of adventure with a dash and vigour
quite exceptional.”—Daily Chronicle.
Sally Makes Good: A Story of Tasmania.
A Transport Girl in France: A Story of the Adventures of a
W.A.A.C.
Norah to the Rescue: A Story of the Philippines.
Cynthia Wins: A Tale of the Rocky Mountains.
The Gold-marked Charm: A Story of the Blue Nile Country.
A Canadian Farm Mystery: or, Pam the Pioneer.
Joyce Harrington’s Trust: An Argentine Mystery.
A Mysterious Inheritance: British Columbia.
The Heroine of the Ranch: Tierra del Fuego.
A Girl of Distinction: A Tale of the Karroo.
A Countess from Canada: Life in the Backwoods.
Daughters of the Dominion: The Canadian Frontier.
Sisters of Silver Creek: A Story of Western Canada.
A Dangerous Mission: A Tale of Russia in Revolution.
Lois in Charge: or, A Girl of Grit.
A Girl Munition Worker: A Story of the Great War.
A Girl and a Caravan: A Story of Persia.
Helen of the Black Mountain: Montenegro.
The Loyalty of Hester Hope: British Columbia.
A Princess of Servia: A Story of To-day.
The Ferry House Girls: An Australian Story.
Greta’s Domain: A Tale of Chiloé.
A Courageous Girl: A Story of Uruguay.
No Ordinary Girl: A Story of Central America.
A Heroine of the Sea: A Story of Vancouver Island.
A V.A.D. in Salonika: A Tale of the Great War.
Molly Angel’s Adventures: A Story of Belgium under German
Occupation.
Denvers Wilson’s Double: A Story of New Mexico.
The Adventurous Seven.
The Girl Captives: A Story of the Indian Frontier.
Three Girls on a Ranch: A Story of New Mexico.
LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, LTD., 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C.
The Youngest Sister
A Tale of Manitoba
BY
BESSIE MARCHANT
Author of “A Girl of Distinction” “The Ferry House Girls”
“A Countess from Canada” “Greta’s Domain”
“Daughters of the Dominion” &c.
_ILLUSTRATED BY WILLIAM RAINEY, R.I._
BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY
Contents
Chap. Page
I. THE WONDER OF IT 9
II. CONCERNING THE DOYNES 18
III. TREMULOUS BEGINNINGS 27
IV. A SERIES OF SHOCKS 36
V. AGAINST HER WILL 45
VI. A WILD JOURNEY 55
VII. WORSE THAN HER FEARS 65
VIII. GREAT EXPECTATIONS 73
IX. A DREADFUL BLOW 81
X. THE WORST 92
XI. A WILD REVOLT 100
XII. THE GLORY OF THE WHEAT 108
XIII. A TRICK OF MEMORY 120
XIV. IN THE RUSH 130
XV. TEMPTATION 140
XVI. A BLOW OF FATE 151
XVII. BLACK RUIN 162
XVIII. STANDING IN THE BREACH 173
XIX. A DISQUIETING RUMOUR 184
XX. AN IMPOSSIBLE FAVOUR 194
XXI. OUT OF THE SILENCE 205
XXII. THE ERRAND IS DONE 215
XXIII. SOMETHING OF A MISTAKE 225
XXIV. A REVELATION FOR BERTHA 235
XXV. DISAPPOINTMENT 245
XXVI. EN ROUTE 258
XXVII. A WEIRD NIGHT 268
XXVIII. CONSTERNATION 281
XXIX. A GREAT EMBARRASSMENT 289
XXX. BAD NEWS 301
XXXI. THE TIDINGS CONFIRMED 312
XXXII. THE MAN AT LAST 323
XXXIII. THE MYSTERY CLEARS 331
XXXIV. THE END 344
Illustrations
“SHE HAD REACHED THE BOAT”
GRACE MEETS WITH AN ACCIDENT
“SHE WAS MAKING NO HEADWAY”
“THERE WAS A MAN LYING UNDERNEATH”
The Youngest Sister
CHAPTER I
The Wonder of It
BERTHA heard the commotion as she came round the bend, where the road
from Paston led out on to the cliffs. It was a very quiet day, although
there was a heavy swell on outside, which meant danger to any small
craft that got among the rocks. She was very tired, and there was a
horrible stitch in her side from walking so fast. But she was anxious to
get home in time to cook supper for Anne, and she had simply raced along
the level bit of the road.
Old Jan Saunders, with his wife and the fat German who kept the little
store at the bottom of the hill, were standing in an excited group at
the edge of the roadway and pointing out to the upstanding rocks called
the Shark’s Teeth, which showed grim and deadly a few yards out from the
shore.
“What is the matter? What is wrong?” she gasped, panting still, and
pressing her hand against her side to quiet the pain of the stitch.
“Ach! Ach!” sobbed the fat German, wringing his pudgy hands, while the
tears rolled down his cheeks. “It is a man; he is caught on the Shark’s
Teeth, and he will be drowned.”
“Oh, how very, very dreadful!” exclaimed Bertha, turning pale, and
wishing that she had gone the other way, although it was so much longer,
and she would certainly not have been home in time to get the supper
ready.
“We haven’t got a boat,” piped old Jan in his thin, wavering voice.
“Nowt but a rope. Our Mestlebury fleet went out on the morning tide,
there ain’t a boat nearer than Paston, and with such a sea it would take
four hours to row round.”
“He’ll be drowned afoor then, poor chap, he will; for the tide is
flowing in fast, and his boat won’t lift more than another foot!” cried
Mrs. Saunders, who was weeping like the German.
Bertha turned sick and faint. If only, only she had gone the other way,
instead of stumbling on a scene like this! Suddenly old Jan turned upon
her with an almost fierce expression on his kindly old face. “You can
swim, missie. Tak’ a roop oot to that poor chap yonder, and we will tow
you back safe enough, boat and all.”
“Oh, I am afraid, I am afraid!” she cried, covering her face with her
hands to shut out the sight of the grey, heaving sea, the little boat
wedged in under the rocks, and the man who sat there waiting for death
to take him, because he could not swim, and his boat was caught too fast
for any effort of his to push it off.
“He will drown! Ah, what a cruel fate it is, and my three boys gone just
the same! Dear Lord, when shall it be that the sea will give up its
dead?” wailed Mrs. Saunders.
“Ach! Ach! And such a proper man too! Dear Gott in Heaven, don’t let him
die before our eyes,” sobbed the German, sinking on his knees in the
roadway with his hands clasped in supplication.
“I will run for Anne; she can swim, and she is so brave!” cried Bertha,
whose breath was coming in lumpy gasps of excitement.
“No use at all; he would be drowned before school-marm could get here,
if she ran every step of the way,” said old Jan hoarsely. “See, the boat
bumped that time, and he got a nasty knock, poor chap! It is your
chance, missie, and only yours; and it is a man’s life that is hanging
on your hands, to save or to throw away.”
Bertha felt as if her brain would burst. A man’s life to hang on her
feeble, incapable hands! And it was the wonder of it that roused her to
prompt, decided action.
“Fetch the rope!” she said curtly, as she wrenched off her coat and
stooped to the buttons of her boots.
A chill dismay came over her then as her hand touched her heavy serge
skirt. It would have to come off, and she had nothing underneath but a
grey underskirt patched with green. How her sisters had laughed at those
two patches with the contrast of colour! But she had been too indolent
to alter them. Yet now she winced as she stood before the three, erect
and slim, with those two patches of vivid green upon her knees.
“God speed you, missie!” muttered old Jan, as he knotted the rope about
her waist. “Swim east when you start, and the current will drift you
right down on the boat.”
A man’s life on her futile hands!
What was it Hilda had said to Anne only that morning at breakfast when
the porridge was burned and the coffee was half-cold? “Bertha is
hopeless; she dreams all day, and wastes every atom of her strength in
building castles in the air, while we have to work and to bear all the
discomforts of her incompetence.”
And now she, Bertha, the incompetent one, had to save a man’s life or to
see him drown!
“Oh, I would rather die myself than see him drown!” she sobbed, and then
she took the water with a motion so swift and graceful that the three on
the steep, rocky shore gave a wavering cheer of encouragement.
The man in the boat called out something too, but it was a warning to
her not to risk her life for him. This she did not hear, however, and
would not have heeded if she had.
She was swimming steadily, gliding through the water with quick, curving
strokes, which Anne had taught her on the holiday afternoons in summer,
when they had gone to bathe from the little strip of sand in front of
Seal Cove. Anne held a silver medal for swimming, but Bertha had never
even thought of competing.
The water was cold, so cold; for autumn was far advanced. The great
storm of yesterday was still leaving its effect upon the sea. Bertha
felt the heave and throb of it even in that sheltered little bay, and
before she was halfway across to the Shark’s Teeth she knew that it
would be an awful struggle to get there. But now there was no thought of
turning back. If she had to die she must, but she could not—oh, she
could not!—fail that man out yonder whose life depended upon her.
Panting heavily, she was swimming almost blindly, struggling forward,
yet knowing all the time that the drift of the current had her in its
grip, and she was powerless to fight against it.
She could not go much farther, she could not. She would have to fail
after all, and her sisters would say, “Bertha is always so ineffectual,
poor little girl!”
But she did not want to be pitied, she just hated it. She wanted to do
something that was worth the doing; so she struggled and struggled,
until it seemed to her that she had been in the water for weeks and
weeks.
Then suddenly a strong hand gripped at her shoulder and a voice said in
her ears, “Downright plucky you are, and you have saved me from an
uncommonly tight corner!”
She had reached the boat, and it was the man whom she had come to save
who was helping her to scramble on board. She was fearfully exhausted,
but that did not matter. What troubled her most was to think of those
bright green patches which were absolutely vivid now because of the wet.
She had tumbled into the boat anyhow, vigorously helped by the man, who
had at least strong arms, even though he could not swim nor yet
extricate himself from a plight into which no prudent person should have
fallen.
Whew! How cold she was! She was shivering violently, and her teeth were
chattering. The man dived under the seat upon which he was sitting and
dragged out a coat. “Here, put this on; it may help a little,” he said,
holding it out so that she might slip her arms into it.
The coat was long and roomy, and Bertha dragged it round her dripping
underwear, feeling that it was a comfort unspeakable to have it, and
then she sat and watched while the three on the shore tugged at the
rope, and the man in the boat used the oar as a lever to do his part in
getting out of his tight corner.
How the fat German tugged and strove! A gurgle of irrepressible laughter
escaped from Bertha when the boat suddenly gave, and the three on the
shore tumbled all in a heap.
“I am glad that you are able to get some amusement out of it,” said the
man rather curtly, for he too had also fallen with the jerk of the boat
and had banged his elbow on the side.
“Please forgive me; I did not mean to make fun, but they did look so
comical,” murmured Bertha contritely; and the man, who had supposed that
she was laughing at him, was instantly mollified.
The boat was going through the water now by leaps and jerks. The zeal of
the fat German was without discretion, and as he was the strongest of
the three, he naturally set the pace.
“Hold, hold; careful there; mind the rocks, or you will upset her!”
cried old Jan warningly.
The two in the boat were quite at the mercy of the tow-rope, for the man
had broken one oar in trying to lever his boat out from the grip of the
Shark’s Teeth, and the other had been torn from his hand and lost in
that sudden jerk which had upset the three on the shore.
“Oh, the rocks!” cried Bertha, with a gasp of dismay, realizing that
unless the towing were very steady, they must be upset when nearing the
shore.
Then she thought of Anne, who would be coming home from school to find
no supper ready, most likely the fire out, and a general air of
discomfort everywhere.
“Oh dear, oh dear, she will think that I did it on purpose!” said Bertha
to herself, repressing a sob with difficulty. She had meant so honestly
to be all ready for Anne this evening, so it was fearfully disappointing
to have failed.
“Mind the rocks! Pull in slowly!” she shouted, reaching out one arm in a
roomy coatsleeve, and fending the boat away from a half-submerged rock.
But at that moment the German gave a wild tug at the rope, and the boat
jerked up against a rock on the other side. The two were pitched
violently against each other, and then, before they could sort
themselves out at all, they were flung headfirst into the water.
Fortunately they were so near the shore, that old Jan waded in and, with
the help of the German, dragged out the man, who had knocked his head
against the rock in falling, and seemed helpless, while Bertha scrambled
ashore as best she could, terribly encumbered by the big coat, and
fearfully worn out with all that she had gone through.
But she had done what was expected of her, and nothing else seemed to
matter in the least. The others could look after the man. She did not
even stop to see if he were rallying from that desperate blow on the
head which he got when the boat was overturned. Thrusting her wet feet
into her boots, and gathering her coat, skirt, and hat in her arms, she
fled along the road as fast as she could go. If only she could get home
before Anne, and slip into dry clothes, it would still be possible
perhaps to have some sort of supper ready for the tired eldest sister.
There was a wonderful elation stirring in Bertha’s heart. It was as if
something had broken away and set her free. She had saved a man’s life
at the risk of her own, and the very thought of it thrilled her into new
life and vigour. Her limbs were shaking still, and her breath came in
sobbing gasps as she fled along the road; but she was happier than she
had ever been in all her life before.
Flip, flap, flop! Flip, flap, flop! Her unbuttoned boots squelched up
and down over her wet stockings, and she looked wildly dishevelled as
she dashed along Mestlebury Main Street. One or two women standing at
the doors of their wooden houses called out to know what was the matter,
but she paid no heed at all, and so at length came in sight of the
little drab-painted house with green shutters where she lived with her
sisters.
She was in time, for the door was still fast shut—sure sign that Anne
was not home yet. Thrusting her hand into the place where the key was
always hidden when they all chanced to be out together, she drew it out,
and, unlocking the door, passed hurriedly in to see if there were any
fire still left in the stove. It took but a minute to thrust a handful
of dry kindlings among the embers, which were still hot; then, filling
the kettle and standing it on the stove to boil, she darted into her own
room to shed her wet garments.
The chamber, a small one, was in the wildest confusion. Sheets of
manuscript were strewn on table, chair, and bed. Garments of all sorts
lay about in the wildest disorder. The bed was unmade, and a liberal
coating of grey dust showed on such of the furniture as was not covered
with papers or clothes. She gave a groan of dismay at the sight. It was
as if the eyes of her mind had been opened at once to see all her
defects and shortcomings.
“I can’t stop to tidy it now. But I will do differently to-morrow—oh, I
will!” she said, with a fervent outburst, as she dragged on dry garments
and twisted her wet hair into an untidy knot at the top of her head.
The wet clothes were all left in a heap in one corner of the room, for
her sole idea was to have supper ready for Anne—the very nicest supper
which could be managed in the time.
This was one of the nights when Hilda did not come home to sleep, and it
was a secret satisfaction to Bertha that she would be able to get her
small reforms well under way, before her sharp-tongued second sister
appeared on the scene again.
“It will have to be white monkey on toast, I think; that is the quickest
thing that I can do,” she muttered, as she darted to and fro collecting
the milk, flour, butter, egg, and other ingredients which went to the
making of the dish known as white monkey; then, while the milk was
getting hot in the double saucepan, she grated the cheese and toasted
generous slices of bread, on which the white monkey was to be spread.
There was such a glow of triumph in her heart, and such a sense of
elation in her bearing, that for a time it over-mastered her weariness.
She had done a brave thing, a really plucky deed, and although she had
been in a manner forced into the doing, nothing could take the joy of it
from her.
Oh, it was good, it was good to be of use in the world—to do something
which but for her must have been left undone. And Jan Saunders had said
that the man’s life hung upon her hands!
“My dear Bertha, what have you been doing to yourself?” cried a voice
from the door, in a tone of shocked surprise, and Bertha, who had been
too busy to notice the sound of approaching steps, turned quickly, to
see her eldest sister standing on the threshold, while just behind was a
gentleman who was a stranger to her.
Then it flashed upon poor Bertha what an awful object she must look,
with her wet hair screwed into a tight knot on the top of her head, and
her garments simply pitch-forked on to her person.
And Anne was as neat and trim as if fresh from making a toilet, although
in reality she had been teaching the township school all day.
“Is this the musical sister?” asked the stranger, advancing upon Bertha
with outstretched hand and a manner glowing with kindness.
A gurgle of irrepressible laughter shook Anne as she thought of what
Hilda’s feelings would have been if she could have heard the question,
and then she answered hastily, “No, indeed; Hilda is not at home this
evening. This is only Bertha, my youngest sister.”
[Illustration: “SHE HAD REACHED THE BOAT”]
CHAPTER II
Concerning the Doynes
ANNE DOYNE was a really striking personality. Had she been born in a
different class of society, she might have been a reigning beauty, so
perfectly moulded were face and figure, so beautiful her colouring, and
so regal the manner in which she carried herself. But she was only the
orphan of a Nova Scotian clergyman, with two younger sisters more or
less dependent on her, and if sometimes the sense of her overwhelming
responsibilities made her a trifle dictatorial, she was surely to be
forgiven.
The mother of the three girls had died when Anne was twelve and Bertha
only six years old. But then Cousin Grace had been there to mother them,
and life had been fairly easy until the death of their father, just five
years ago, had thrown the three girls upon their own resources, and this
time without any Cousin Grace to bear the heaviest end of the troubles,
for she had married and gone west two years before the death of Mr.
Doyne. Since then Anne had been the head of the family—father, mother,
and breadwinner rolled into one.
Hilda, the middle sister, was bright, keen, and clever. She lacked the
beauty of Anne, but she made up for it by a sparkling wit, which, if
sometimes a trifle caustic in its tone, was at least always meant
good-naturedly.
The two sisters were a really fine pair, and they had made a splendid
fight against narrow means, uncongenial surroundings, and those other
evils which vex the hearts of girls who, having lost their natural
defenders, must face the world and make the best of it for themselves.
Anne taught the township school, earning enough to keep home together,
and out of school hours she made their frocks, and did all sorts of
things to make the little income go as far as possible. Hilda, on her
part, worked away at scales, exercises, and fugues on the little old
piano, which had been a wedding present to their dead mother. Then, when
by sheer pluck and perseverance she had pulled through sufficient exams
to give her a teaching certificate, she had hunted round for pupils.
There had been few enough to be found in Mestlebury, which was on the
northern coast of Nova Scotia, but she had gone inland among the farmers
who were well-to-do, and so had gathered a little teaching connection,
the fees from which were added to the family funds.
But Hilda knew very well that she had touched only the barest fringe of
musical knowledge, even though she was the best player and the best
teacher for many miles round. It was the dream of her life to go to
Europe, to get at least a year of study in Germany, and to hear some
really good musicians. The dream seemed very far off realization,
however, and meanwhile she was travelling long distances, getting cheap
pupils, and struggling to keep herself in the public eye, which, after
all, is the only way to get on as a travelling music teacher. This she
had long since discovered, and she was astute enough to take the utmost
advantage of every opportunity which presented itself for making her
way.
Bertha was the disappointment of the family, for she was only a dreamer,
while the other two were workers, and very hard workers, their lot being
all the more toilsome because she did so little. She wrote little poems,
in which heart rhymed with part, and that contained many references to
soulful yearnings which stayed unsatisfied. Sometimes she even attempted
short stories; but these were so morbid in sentiment, that Anne would
have turned sick at such mawkish rubbish, while Hilda would have gone
into fits of laughter and made fun of them for months afterwards.
But neither sister ever did see them, and Bertha wasted precious hours
over her futile scribbling which had been much more usefully employed in
looking after the comfort of the two elder sisters, who worked so hard
and had no time to waste in dreaming at all.
Poor child! she believed herself to be a genius, and secretly she looked
forward to the time when she should burst upon the world with a
full-blown literary reputation, without any preliminary preparation of
climbing and falling, only to climb again. If anyone had told her that
genius was only an infinite capacity for hard work in any given
direction, it is to be feared that she would not have believed it, but
would have still dreamed on, expecting to wake some day to find herself
famous.
If there had been anyone in her little world of whom she could have made
a confidante, her eyes might have been the sooner opened to her
mistakes; but the three girls kept very much to themselves, and Bertha
would just as soon have thought of standing on her head in Mestlebury
Main Street, as of confiding any of her aspirations to her sisters.
So she emerged slowly from girlhood, growing more dreamy and futile with
every month that passed over her head, until that day in the autumn when
she had walked to Paston in the morning with Hilda to help carry some
music to the train depot, and had come back by way of the shore, to find
the man on the Shark’s Teeth. It was old Jan Saunders who had torn the
veil from her eyes and had made her see that it is a finer thing to be
up and doing, ready to help where help is needed, than to spend one’s
time in thinking noble thoughts, which never by any chance developed
into works of practical kindness and utility.
And the firstfruits of her awakening had been an intense but wholly
salutary disgust of herself and all her previous doings. It was this
feeling which had sent her scurrying along Mestlebury Main Street
half-clad, and dripping with water from her swim, in order that she
might be home in time to get supper ready for Anne.
But she had not reckoned upon a visitor, and when Anne appeared with the
stranger, who was introduced as Mr. Roger Mortimer, from Adelaide,
Australia, Bertha was so upset by the thought of what she must look
like, that she would thankfully have run away if she could.
There was no chance of this, however, for Mr. Mortimer at once proceeded
to make himself so much at home and to engross her attention, that
presently she even forgot how frightfully untidy she was. He toasted
more bread while she buttered the slices and spread the white monkey
upon them; he even made the coffee while she finished setting the table,
and by the time that Anne came out of her bedroom ready for supper,
Bertha felt as if she had known the genial Australian for quite a long
time.
Indeed, as it turned out, he was not a stranger, for he had been an old
friend of the Doynes many years before, and he had, as he declared,
carried Bertha on his back more times than he could count.
“Do you remember the day we went sleighing to Micmac Cove, Anne, and how
the sleigh came to grief, and we had to carry the kids home between us?”
he asked, looking across the table at Anne, who appeared to have
blossomed into a greater beauty than ever, as she presided over the
humble little supper table, with a sweet dignity and graciousness that
would not have been out of place in a mansion.
“Oh yes, I remember it perfectly,” replied Anne, with a merry laugh.
“But it was Hilda whom you carried then, for she had a bad foot and
could not walk; so I stumbled along under the weight of Bertha, and my
arms ached more or less for a whole week afterwards, although I do not
think that she could have been very heavy, because she was always so
small and thin for her age.”
“She is small and thin now, and her face is so white. Don’t you feel
well, Miss Bertha?” asked the visitor abruptly.
Bertha, who was conscious of feeling extremely queer, roused herself
with an effort, declaring that there was nothing the matter with her
except that she was rather tired.
“Girls like you ought never to be tired, not until bedtime, that is, and
then they ought to sleep like logs until morning. What have you been
doing to get tired?” he asked.
It was Anne who answered, for Bertha was struggling with a desire to
laugh or to cry, it did not seem to matter which, so long as she could
make a noise or a fuss over something.
“Oh, Bertha never does very much; she has not begun to take life very
seriously yet, you see. But she walked to Paston to-day to help Hilda
carry some music, and I expect the extra exertion has knocked her up a
little.”
Bertha clenched her hands so tightly that the nails entered into the
flesh. A little extra exertion—what a joke it was! She wondered what
Anne would have said to have seen the struggle to reach the Shark’s
Teeth, with the rope that was to save the life of a man. A little extra
exertion, indeed! Well, it was quite true it was extra, and then the
funny thing was that she suddenly seemed to be in the water again, and
doing battle for her own life and for the life of the man whom she was
trying so hard to save. She seemed to be crying and laughing all in a
breath, then there was more confusion, the sound of many waters in her
ears; and then she came to herself to find that Mr. Mortimer was holding
her in his arms at the open door, while Anne bent over her with a face
full of concern.
“Bertha, darling, what is the matter? Are you ill, dear? You have given
us such a shock!” cried Anne, whose eyes were swimming in tears.
Somehow it was the sight of the tears which helped Bertha to rally her
flagging powers, and to keep from slipping back into that gulf from
which she had but just emerged. It was so rarely that Anne showed any
sign of tears, and surely it must be something very much out of the
common to induce them.
“Oh, I am all right,” said Bertha slowly. “I was tired, you know, and I
was so afraid that I should not have supper ready in time for you.”
A cloud crept over the face of Anne. To her there seemed no reason why
Bertha should have been overdone by the walk to Paston and back, while
supper had not called for very active preparation. But Bertha always
took so long to do the simplest thing, and even then the doing was
mostly unsatisfactory.
“She looks clean worn out; I should put her to bed,” said the visitor,
with such a clear understanding of just how Bertha felt, that she
blessed him in her heart and wondered that he should be so wise.
“Yes, I should like to go to bed,” she murmured faintly, and then
suddenly remembering all those new resolutions that she had made, she
said hurriedly, as she tried to free herself from the arms which held
her, “But I will wait and wash the supper dishes first, for Anne must be
so tired with working all day.”
There was a note of derisive laughter from the man, but which was
promptly checked as Anne exclaimed, in very real concern, “Oh, I am sure
that she is ill, poor darling, because she does not trouble about the
supper dishes as a rule!”
“Wait until the morning before making up your mind that she is bad,”
said Roger Mortimer. “She may be quite all right when she has had a
night of sleep. I will carry her to her room now, then you can put her
to bed, and afterwards we will wash up the supper dishes together, you
and I; it will be like old times.”
Bertha was drifting again, but she roused at this speech to make quite a
vigorous protest—she could not, and would not, be carried to her room
by this man, who was a stranger, or almost a stranger. The thought of
the awful muddle—the unmade bed and the wild disorder which reigned
there—seemed to give her a momentary spurt of strength. She must walk
to her bed on her own feet—she must, she must!
But Anne broke in upon her gasping, half-incoherent protests with a
quick word of common sense. “Bring her into my room, please. I must have
her with me to-night, and mine is the only double bed in the house.”
Bertha dropped quiet with a sigh of relief. If there was no danger of
her room being seen, she would just as soon be carried as walk, for her
limbs seemed to have lost all power, and she felt quite stupid.
Mr. Mortimer carried her into Anne’s room, which was just a picture of
neatness, and laid her on the bed. But Bertha would not let Anne stay
for any work of undressing, declaring that as she was so tired, it was
too much trouble to take her clothes off yet awhile.
Perhaps Anne did not require much persuading, for sounds from the outer
room seemed to point to the fact of the visitor being engaged in very
active clearing of the supper table. But she left the door ajar, and
Bertha lay for a time in a state of dreamy content, listening to the
voices in the next room.
Presently she drifted into slumber, and she must have been sleeping for
some time, for the room was quite dark when she awoke, while a gleam of
lamplight showed faintly from the room beyond. It was the sound of
voices that roused her, a woman’s tones, eager and agitated, while
Anne’s voice replied in surprised, almost unbelieving, query.
“But, Mrs. Saunders, Bertha did not say anything about it, and she
cannot swim very much, certainly not well enough to take the risk of
swimming out to the Shark’s Teeth with a rope in a sea like this, for
there has been a heavy swell on all day from the storm of yesterday.”
“Well, Miss Doyne, she did it—as true as I am sitting here, she did
it—and we towed the boat ashore with the gentleman in it, though I’m
sorry to say the boat fouled the rocks just as we were drawing her
inshore, and he got a nasty knock on the head which, he said, made him
feel downright stupid. But he was so upset because your sister went away
without his having so much as a chance to say thank you to her, so I
said that I would just come along and see how she was after getting such
a chill and a wetting, for the water is real cold to-day,” replied the
voice of Mrs. Saunders in very real concern.
“Then, of course, it was the shock and the excitement which upset her
and gave us such a bad scare at supper, when she was first hysterical
and then fainted,” said Anne. “I was afraid that she was going to have a
bad illness, poor child!”
The voice of Mrs. Saunders took a lower key, and presently Bertha fell
asleep again.
It was later still when she roused once more, to find this time that
Anne was kneeling beside the bed sobbing, and sobbing in a fashion more
stormy than Bertha had ever heard before.
“What is the matter, Anne?” asked Bertha in alarm, in that first moment
of confused awakening. She had forgotten all about her brave deed of the
afternoon, and only wondered why it was that every bone in her body
seemed to be aching with a separate and individual pain.
“My darling, my baby, why did you not tell me how brave you had been,
and how you had saved that poor man’s life?” cried Anne, with so much
keen reproach in her tone that Bertha was roused to fresh wonder, though
the pain of her limbs demanded so much in the way of endurance, that she
had little attention to bestow on anything else.
“Mr. Mortimer was here—I could not tell you in front of him; besides,
it would not have made any difference,” replied Bertha languidly, not
liking to admit that she would hardly have screwed her courage to the
pitch necessary to the telling, even if Anne had been alone.
“It would have made a difference—it would have made all the
difference!” cried Anne sharply, and her arms, which were round Bertha,
tightened their clasp.
“How?” There was a dreamy wonder in Bertha’s tone, but she was so tired,
and her limbs ached so badly, that she was only about half-conscious of
what was going on, or what Anne was saying.
“Because I have done something to-night that I do not think I should
have done, if I had even dreamed that you were going to wake up like
this!” said Anne, her voice breaking in another sob. “Don’t blame me,
dear, for I was so tired of my heavy responsibility, so I took the
easiest way out; but I never would have done it if I had known.”
“It does not matter, things happen so sometimes,” said Bertha vaguely,
and then she went to sleep again.
CHAPTER III
Tremulous Beginnings
IT was a whole fortnight before Bertha was able to leave her bed and
creep about the little drab-painted house again. An anxious fortnight it
was for the two elder sisters, who had their own work to do and to nurse
Bertha in between whiles. Sometimes Bertha was conscious and sometimes
she was not, but always, always, whether sensible or insensible, there
was pressing upon her the shadow of a deep disgrace. She had set her
hand to do a brave thing, moved thereto by the feeling that she could
not stand by and see a fellow creature die whom she might have saved.
But the price she had to pay for having saved him was that she herself
had to be the most awful nuisance to her two sisters, who worked so hard
and had the living to earn.
A little while ago this would hardly have troubled her at all. But now,
just as her eyes had been opened to her own very serious shortcomings,
and she had made up her mind to set about a wholesale reformation of
herself without delay, it was nothing short of tragic that she should
have been taken ill. It did not even comfort her to remember that but
for that act of daring, which had taken her so completely out of
herself, she might still have gone on in the old aimless fashion,
remaining futile and incapable to the end of the chapter.
The worry of it was likely to retard her recovery. It seemed to her, in
the new mood which had taken possession of her, that she could never do
enough to repay her sisters for the nights of broken sleep and the days
of worry and hard work which they endured on her account. Then a grain
of common sense came to her rescue, and she remembered that the sooner
she was well and able to take up her accustomed duties, the sooner they
would be able to get some rest and relaxation.
When she arrived at this wholesome state of mind, convalescence set in
steadily, and in a very short time she was creeping about the house,
making pathetic attempts to be useful, when both Anne and Hilda would
much rather that she would sit still and get a little stronger.
They were very kind to her, and never once in those two anxious weeks
did she hear one word of complaint from either of them because of the
hardness of their lives. There was a difference, too, in their manner of
treating her. Bertha thought at first it was a sort of respect such as
they might show to one who was their equal at last, and no longer a
child to be chidden for indolent ways and careless habits. But as the
days went by it began to dawn upon her that the manner of both was
tinged with pity—just unmistakable pity!
This first irritated and then frightened her. Did they think she was
going into a decline, she wondered? And although she had written yards
of feeble poetry about the joys of dying young, the mere prospect of
such a thing occurring put her into such a condition of fume, that she
made quite extraordinary efforts at getting better, and succeeded even
beyond her expectations.
Then Hilda was able to go her long-distance journeys again, and Anne
went off to school, and stayed away the whole morning without running
back between classes to see how it fared with the invalid.
The first morning that this happened was a cold grey day, when there was
a feeling of snow in the air, and Bertha was ordered to take life as
easily as possible, and not to burden herself with any duties beyond
keeping the fire in. But Bertha had her own ideas on the subject of what
she was going to do, and prepared to carry them out to the best of her
ability.
There had been no proper meals cooked since she had been ill. Broth,
beef tea, and gruel had been prepared for her as she had needed, or the
things had been offerings from kindly neighbours as hard-working as the
two Miss Doynes, and the girls had just lived on bread and butter,
because they lacked the time to do any cooking for themselves. But this
sort of thing was coming to an end now, so Bertha told herself with
great decision, as she got up out of the rocking chair as soon as Anne
had passed out of sight on her way to school.
“I am going to be useful somehow, or perish in the attempt,” she said to
herself, with a laugh which somehow ended in a sob. She was so weak
still, and everything demanded such a desperate effort to accomplish.
But she was thinking of that night when she was first taken ill, and
Anne had knelt sobbing beside her bed. Somehow Bertha just hated to
think of that night, and she hated to remember the words which her
sister had uttered. Indeed, she had tried her very best to forget them,
but it seemed as if the more she tried the more vividly they came back
to her. There was an uneasy feeling in her heart that somehow, that had
been a day of fate in more senses than one. Sometimes she wondered if
her sister’s sobbing words had had anything to do with the visit of
Roger Mortimer; but she had dismissed the idea as ridiculous, for she
had not seen him since, and she had never once heard Anne mention him
since, except yesterday, when she herself had asked Anne when he was
coming to see them again, and Anne had replied that he was away in
Halifax just now, but that he might return next week or the week after.
Anne had gone on to speak of other things immediately, as if the subject
of Mr. Mortimer were not interesting enough for discussion. But she had
blushed in a vivid and glorious fashion right up to the roots of her
hair, and it was the memory of that blush which worried Bertha so much
as she moved feebly about, cooking the early dinner.
Oh, how truly awful it would be if one of them were to fall in love and
get married just now, when she so badly wanted to show them what a good
sister she could be! Indeed, the thought was so much too bad to be
borne, that she put it from her, resolved to think no more about it, but
to confine herself entirely to the business in hand.
When the cooking was well under way, she set about tidying up the
sitting-room, which had to be kitchen, dining-room, and drawing-room
combined. The house did really boast two sitting-rooms, but the second
one had been taken by Anne for a bedroom. For it seemed so much more
desirable to the three girls to have a room each for their private use
than to be crowded together at night, to have the doubtful advantage of
another sitting-room for use in the day.
Very tired was Bertha when she had done, in fact she had to stop far
short of her intentions in the matter of tidying, because her strength
gave out so much before her energy. But at least it was a beginning, and
she sat down for a brief half-hour of rest before Anne came home,
feeling as if her feet were set at last on the steep ladder which had to
be climbed to capability and usefulness. It was then, as she sat
resting, that she thought of her own room, and the awful confusion
awaiting her there.
“I will start on clearing it up when Anne has gone back to school this
afternoon,” she said to herself, as she crouched by the stove. The house
was very quiet, but outside there was constant sound and commotion, as
long streams of migratory birds passed overhead on their way from the
cold, rock-bound shores of Labrador and the land round Baffin’s Bay.
They were bound for the warm and sunny south, and the air echoed with
the plaintive “hawnk, honk” of the geese as they flew in single streams
or wedge-like masses.
So quiet was the house, and Bertha was so very tired, that presently she
fell asleep, and was still dozing when Anne came in, all blown about,
and sweetly fresh with autumn winds and raindrops, for the weather was
getting more stormy as the day wore on.
“Oh, Bertha, why did you trouble to cook?” cried Anne, with a little
dismay in her tone. The savoury smells resulting from Bertha’s labours
were filling the house, and saluted her as she burst in at the door,
hungry and tired with her long morning of work in the school.
“It was not any trouble,” said Bertha, starting up and rubbing her eyes
with much the same guilty feeling which came to her, when she overslept
herself in the mornings, “and it is so long since you have had anything
better than roast potatoes and butter for your dinner.”
“Roast potatoes and butter are not to be despised, I can tell you,”
laughed Anne, as she sat down at the table to enjoy the unwonted luxury
of being waited upon; “but a real stew properly made is something of a
luxury, I can assure you.”
What was there in those words to make Bertha wince as if someone had
struck her a blow? There would have been nothing, less than nothing, but
for that awakened conscience of hers, which reminded her of the many
times her sisters had had to sit down to badly prepared and insufficient
meals, just because she had been too indolent to bestir herself for the
cooking.
“I am sorry it storms so. Hilda will have quite a dreadful journey
across to the Sudeleys,” she said presently, as she sat watching Anne,
getting a lot of enjoyment out of her sister’s zest for the meal, but
eating very little herself.
“Hilda won’t mind that, I fancy,” laughed Anne. “Mrs. Nelson is to be at
the Sudeleys to-day, and Hilda is very keen on meeting her, you know.”
“No, I don’t know. I do not believe that I have ever heard of her
before. Who is she? The mother of a likely pupil?” asked Bertha, with no
lack of interest now; for another pupil, of course, meant more money,
and where the means are so straitened every little sum becomes of vital
importance.
Anne laughed. “Of course you do not know. I keep forgetting that you
have been out of everything for the last fortnight. But we had to keep
you as quiet as possible, because you would go off your head every
minute that you got a chance for doing it. But when Hilda comes home
to-morrow she will tell you herself all about her hopes and fears, and
what her chances are. Now I am going to make haste and wash the dishes,
because I must be back at school very early this afternoon.”
“You will do nothing of the sort,” said Bertha, giving her a gentle push
back into the chair from which she had just risen. “You will sit down
and read a book, or go to sleep, or do what you like for as long as it
would take you to wash the dishes, then when you have gone I will wash
the dishes myself, if you please.”
“Are you going to develop into a domestic tyrant?” asked Anne, with a
laugh, as she went over to the rocking chair by the stove and sat gently
swaying to and fro, very much at ease.
“I can’t say what I may develop into,” replied Bertha, with a shake of
her head, and then, with a great shrinking upon her, she was just going
to confide in Anne something of the purposes and resolves that were
stirring in her heart, when there was a knock at the door, and a
shock-headed boy very much out of breath with running appeared on the
threshold, saying that one of the children had burned herself at the
school stove, and would teacher please come at once.
Of course Anne had to rush away in a great hurry then, and Bertha’s
chance was gone for the time. When the dishes were washed and put away,
Bertha turned her steps to her little bedroom, which had scarcely been
entered since she was taken sick. At least she could take a look round
and decide where to begin the work of clearing up to-morrow.
The window was shut, and the room had a close, musty feeling. Her first
move would have been to the window to fling it wide open, but for the
moment she could not get there; for a chair laden with papers and
clothes had somehow been upset in the middle of the open space, and she
had to pick them up and sort them over before she could get across the
floor to the window. Naturally she paused to read some of the lines
written on those fluttering sheets of paper, and she winced again to
think that she could ever have written such mawkish rubbish.
“Oh dear, and it was only two weeks ago; why, it might have been two
years!” she exclaimed, as she gathered up the sheets and laid them
aside. It was strange how that swim to the Shark’s Teeth had altered her
outlook. She had gone to save a man’s life because there was nobody else
to do it. But it was her own self that she had discovered when she
performed her little act of courage and daring.
The wet garments she had shed in such a hurry, when she came home to get
supper for Anne, still lay in a heap in the corner just as she had cast
them off, and she lifted them up with a rueful air. One’s clothes are
never improved by lying for a whole fortnight in a wet heap on a dusty
bedroom floor. But no one was to be blamed—the two elder girls had far
too much to do to be able to think of anything outside, and she herself
had been too ill to remember. She shook the garments out one by one and
hung them from pegs on the wall, meaning to take them out to the other
room and dry them one by one at the stove. But the last garment of all
puzzled her not a little, for it was a man’s coat of a very roomy
description.
“Why, how did that get here?” she exclaimed, and then suddenly
remembered that the man whom she had gone to save had dragged a coat out
from under the seat of his boat, and had told her to wrap herself in it
because she shivered so.
“And of course I came home in it. I remember now how it flapped about as
I ran. But I wonder that he did not come for it, or ask Mrs. Saunders to
get it for him,” she said, as she picked the water-logged garment up
from the floor and shook it out.
Something dropped on to the floor with a thud, and she laid the coat
over a chair while she went painfully down on her knees to pick it up.
Those two weeks had been so full of rheumatism and similar afflictions,
that moving from one position to another still took some time, and also
entailed something in the way of endurance. The something was a little
morocco case bound with silver at the corners, and looking very much as
if it were intended for cigars. There was a spring at one side, and
Bertha pressed it to see if the case would open. She had her full share
of curiosity, and the little case seemed very heavy. “Perhaps it is
money,” she said to herself, with a little shiver of dread; for she was
wondering what the stranger must think of her, if it were indeed money
that made the case so heavy.
“He might even think that I had found it, and meant to keep it!” she
muttered, as she wrestled with the spring, which was rather hard to
move.
Presently it flew open with a jerk, and she saw to her relief that it
contained not money, but twelve dull grey stones of slightly varying
sizes. Pebbles they looked like, and her first thought was that they
were geological specimens. Perhaps the man was a scientist, stones being
his particular ology.
“He might even have been looking for stones of sorts when he got into
such a dangerous place,” she muttered, and for ten minutes or so she
tried to make herself believe that these dull grey pebbles were just
specimens and nothing more.
But at the end of that time she had thrust the little case right at the
back of her one lock-up drawer, and turning the key upon them she went
out to the other room, which was warm and pleasant from the glow of the
stove. Marching straight to the bookcase, she hunted until she found a
little dictionary of common things which belonged to Anne, and turning
the pages over hastily she hunted up “Diamonds”.
“Colourless or dull grey stones of exceeding hardness,” she read aloud,
and a look of care and perplexity dropped on to her face. If those
stones in the case were uncut diamonds, why was the man carrying them in
the pocket of his loose outer coat? and why, oh why, had he not sent to
enquire for that same coat?
CHAPTER IV
A Series of Shocks
A FIT of shivering seized Bertha. Of course she was weak and unstrung
still, or the incident would not have struck her as being of such
magnitude. As it was, she felt as if she were up against the greatest
trouble of her life. Was the man a thief? Had he stolen the diamonds,
and so when he lost them was afraid to make enquiries about them through
fear of being found out? But that seemed hardly probable, because, of
course, he might have come to enquire for his coat. The question which
troubled her most was whether he would think that she was a thief.
Indeed, her fertile imagination immediately sketched a pretty but wholly
improbable piece of fiction, as to how the man had missed his diamonds,
but would not enquire for them, being willing to sit down under the loss
because she had saved his life.
“Oh dear, oh dear, what shocking nonsense, and I don’t even know that
they are diamonds!” she exclaimed, putting the book back into the
bookcase, and turning her attention resolutely from the affair because
it worried her so.
To-morrow she would go as far as the little house where Jan Saunders
lived, and ask for the address of the man she had helped. Then she would
send him a letter, telling him what she had found, and ask him to fetch
his property or tell her how to send it to him, and so she would be quit
of this tiresome responsibility.
That evening was full of petty worries. Anne came home from school very
late, because she had been out to a farm which lay far back in the
woods, to take home the little girl who had burned herself in the dinner
hour. And when she did get home she was most dreadfully depressed, for
the mother of the child, instead of being decently grateful for the care
and kindness bestowed upon the little girl, chose to consider herself
aggrieved, because the children were left to themselves in the noon
spell.
“She said that I was paid to look after them, and I ought never to leave
them. Just fancy what a hateful time I should have of it if I had to
stay in that pokey, horrible schoolhouse for the dinner hour!” said
Anne, with more heat than she usually displayed; for she was blessed
with an evenly balanced temperament, and was not easily ruffled.
“But no one would expect you to stay, would they?” asked Bertha, opening
her eyes very wide. “No reasonable person, I mean.”
“School committee-men are not always the most reasonable of creatures,
and as Mrs. Scott declares that she will lodge a formal complaint and
ask that the teacher be requested to stay at the school for the noon
spell, it is quite probable that I may find myself with a little extra
duty tacked on to what I already have,” replied Anne, with a short laugh
that had very little mirth in it.
“If it comes to that, I will take the noon-spell duty for you. The
committee won’t be particular who it is, provided there is some
responsible person there,” said Bertha, with intent to console.
“My dear, you could not manage that rabble,” said Anne impatiently.
“They would be quite equal to turning you out of the school and locking
the door upon you if you chanced to offend them, or they might take the
other course of locking you in. It takes every bit of will power that I
possess to master them, I can tell you, and I was born to rule, which
you never were.”
“No, I’m afraid I wasn’t,” admitted Bertha meekly, but she felt keenly
mortified notwithstanding, because Anne had not seemed more grateful for
her offer of help.
Even her request to help in the preparation of the needlework for the
class next day met with a refusal, for Anne was irritated with her
reception from Mrs. Scott, and she was not sufficiently alert to see how
much Bertha wanted to be of service.
So the evening, which might have been so restful and pleasant, was
spoiled for both of them, and they were thankful when bedtime came.
“I shall go back to my own room to-morrow, and then you can have your
bed to yourself again,” said Bertha, as the two prepared for slumber.
“Yes, that will be better, now that you are quite well again,” Anne
answered, in an absent-minded fashion. And she was so silent and
absorbed that Bertha chafed in miserable discomfort, wishing she had put
her own room straight and aired the bed to-day, then Anne could have had
her own room free from disturbance. With this sort of mood upon her, it
was not wonderful that Bertha said nothing of what she had found in the
pocket of that wonderfully roomy overcoat. Anne might be angry because
the coat had been forgotten so long, or she might feel hurt because of
the appearance of neglect on her part, in not having hunted round
Bertha’s little bedroom to find the wet garments which had lain unheeded
so long.
Next morning the sun shone, and although the wind was keen with the
breath of coming winter, the air was so pleasant that everything looked
easier. Even the prospect of having to stay in school for the noon spell
was not so dreadful as it had seemed last night, and Anne set off for
her day of work in quite good spirits, just her own serene self, with
all the petulance of the previous night quite gone.
Then Bertha brought the coat to the fire, and, drying it carefully,
folded it into a neat parcel ready for sending away. When this was done
she put on her hat and coat, and, taking a stick, because she felt so
waggly on her feet, she set out for the little cottage where Jan
Saunders lived. But she did not take the coat with her, for she knew
very well that, being a useful garment, it would probably get no
farther, as Mrs. Saunders had very stretchable ideas on the rights of
property.
Oh, it was good to be out again, even though her feet were not all they
should be in the matter of steadiness, and Bertha walked slowly along
Mestlebury Main Street, noting all the differences which had come over
the face of the gardens and orchards during the time in which she had
been shut up in the house.
Mrs. Saunders was out on the cliff as usual, and as usual she was doing
nothing but gaze out to sea, while old Jan smoked a pipe in calm content
at her side. They both fell upon Bertha with a greeting that was fairly
rapturous, and the old woman, with a tear in her bleared old eye, said
fervently, “My dear, my dear, you look that delicate that a puff of wind
might blow you away!”
“It would have to be a very strong puff—something that was first cousin
to a whirlwind or a tornado, I fancy,” replied Bertha, with a laugh, and
then she turned to Jan, who might be trusted to tell the truth if he
knew it.
“Can you tell me where the man lives whose boat got stuck on the Shark’s
Teeth?” she asked.
“Furrin parts somewhere, ain’t it, Mother?” asked the old man, taking
his pipe from his mouth and looking across at his wife.
Mrs. Saunders pursed up her mouth in a disapproving pucker and slowly
shook her head. “He said something about Peru, but it might have been
Australia, or somewhere round that way. Anyhow, he was in a mighty hurry
to be off again that night, when we had pulled him out of the water and
dried him up so beautiful. Downright ungrateful I called it, for I had
arranged for him to sleep with Herr Schmudcht, and I had lent a pair of
nearly clean sheets to put on the bed, and then the gentleman would not
stay, and Herr Schmudcht has slept in those sheets ever since, so now I
expect they will want washing before ever I can lend them to anyone
else; it is really downright vexing, so it is,” and Mrs. Saunders heaved
a windy sigh over her misplaced kindness, which was meeting such a poor
return, but Bertha burst out laughing.
“I should insist on Herr Schmudcht washing the sheets himself; I am sure
that he is stronger than you are,” she said, and then becoming suddenly
grave, she asked again, and this time with a ring of real anxiety in her
tone, “But where did the man go to on that night when he left here, and
what was his name?”
“My dear, he wasn’t a man, he was a gentleman,” said Mrs. Saunders, with
quite crushing emphasis, and then she went on, “It wasn’t for us to be
asking him all sorts of personal questions. I never was one for poking
into business what did not concern me, I am thankful to say.”
“But you surely must know something about him; and I want to write to
him,” said Bertha impatiently, and then she was surprised to see a
flicker of fear in the old woman’s blear eyes.
“Well, I guess that the writing will have to wait a bit. Perhaps he will
happen along this way again some day, and then you can say what you want
to—a much better fashion than putting things in black and white, so
that they can be sweared to in a court of justice,” said Mrs. Saunders,
with a toss of her head, and not another bit of information could Bertha
get out of her.
“I shall have to ask the girls what I had better do,” she said to
herself, as she went slowly back to her home to start on her belated
morning’s work.
Even that short walk had tired her so much, that it needed the entire
stock of her lately acquired resolution to keep from sitting down and
letting things go anyhow. But by a great effort she stuck to her task,
and was all ready for Anne, who came rushing home about a quarter past
twelve, snatched a hasty meal, and rushed back again, uneasy all the
time lest her turbulent charges should get up to serious mischief in her
absence.
Then Bertha was left with the long afternoon before her, for Hilda could
not be home much before six o’clock. However, there was the house to put
tidy, and the work she could not accomplish in the morning was cleared
out of the way in the afternoon, and she found herself with an hour of
rest before the girls came home.
She was tremendously proud of the tidy rooms, and she kept walking
backwards and forwards admiring her handiwork, until some undarned
stockings poking from an over-full drawer in Hilda’s room suggested a
fresh outlet for her new-found energy, and taking them out to the
kitchen, she sat down by the stove and began to darn them. It was the
work that she hated most of all, so the voluntary doing of it was the
most real self-sacrifice that she could have shown. However, Hilda had
been forced to do all sorts of things for her when she was ill, and so
it was up to her to make what amends were in her power. Anne was in, and
supper was ready, when Hilda came back from Paston, rushing into the
house like a whirlwind, and shouting in great excitement—
“Girls! girls! I have got some of the most wonderful news for you. What
do you think is going to happen?”
“How should we know?” cried Anne, standing erect and staring at Hilda in
amazement; for the second sister usually hugged her dignity too closely
for exhibitions like these.
“I am going to Europe!” cried Hilda, stopping in the middle of the
floor, and dropping the words out one by one with tremendous emphasis
and solemnity.
“You are going to Europe—when?” cried Anne, who was the first to
recover the power of speech, while Bertha caught at a chair to steady
herself, because the room would keep swinging round at such a rate.
“We start next month, just four weeks to-day. I am to take Mrs. Nelson’s
two daughters to Germany for a year. Oh, Anne, Anne, don’t say that I
can’t go! It is the chance of my life; I can never hope to get such
another opportunity,” said Hilda, casting herself upon her elder sister
and hugging her frantically, as if to squeeze a consent out of her in
that way.
“It is not for me to say that you may not take a chance when it comes,”
said Anne, turning suddenly pale, as pale as Bertha, who still clung
trembling to the chair. “Especially I could not say anything to you now,
when I have just decided to take my own chance of an easier life. Only
it does seem hard for poor Bertha that we should both be going away at
the same time.”
“I was afraid you would say that,” said Hilda; and now there was a
mutinous look on her face. “But why, oh why, should I have to lose my
chance in life because of Bertha? She can surely be boarded out
somewhere for a year; I can spare a part of my salary to help pay for
it, and we can sell this furniture. Oh, let us be willing to make any
sacrifice to meet an emergency like this. I did not venture to put one
straw of protest in your way, Anne, when you said that Mr. Mortimer
wanted to marry you, so it is hardly fair that you should begrudge me my
chance, now that it has come to me.”
“My dear, I do not grudge it to you,” said Anne, with keen distress on
her beautiful face. “I was only thinking of poor Bertha, and how hard it
would be for her.”
“What is it all about?” asked Bertha, finding her tongue for the first
time; but speaking with horrible difficulty, because her heart was
beating so fast. “Are you going to marry Mr. Mortimer, Anne? And when?”
Anne came closer, and put her arms round Bertha’s trembling figure,
holding her sister in a tight embrace.
“Bertha, darling, I would have told you before, only you have been so
ill, and I did not like to worry you until you were quite strong. Mr.
Mortimer came all the way from Australia to ask me to marry him, and I
said yes, for I was so tired of this awful driving life; but I have been
afraid ever since that I put my own happiness and comfort before your
welfare, and it has seemed so dreadfully selfish of me. This is why I
flew out at Hilda just now.”
“There is no need to worry about me,” said Bertha, in a dazed sort of
tone, “only it has all come so suddenly, that I do not seem able to take
it in.”
“Of course it looks like trouble to begin with,” burst in Hilda, and her
voice was just a wee bit patronizing, or so poor Bertha, in her new
sensitiveness, judged it to be. “But next year, when I come back from
Europe, as Mrs. Nelson says, I shall be able to charge almost what I
like for lessons, and then we can set up house together.”
“Here in Mestlebury?” asked Bertha, not because she particularly wanted
to know, but because she must say something, just to keep herself from
sobbing like a baby.
“I should sincerely hope not,” laughed Hilda. “I would have left this
out-of-the-way corner of the country ever so long ago if it had depended
upon me only. But there was Anne’s school to be considered. We could not
afford to keep this house on if I lived in lodgings, and so I have had
to put up with it, and fearfully wearing work it has been. Think of the
miles I have had to travel to earn a dollar, and all the fag, and the
wear and tear of my life. Oh, no more of Mestlebury for me, thank you,
not when once Anne is married.”
“Where will you live, when—when you are married?” demanded Bertha
sharply, as she faced round upon Anne. A sudden dread had assailed her
that Anne would have to go right away, and the thought was unbearable.
Anne’s face fell. By instinct she guessed what was in the mind of
Bertha, and it seemed such horrible cruelty to take one’s own happiness
when it brought so much pain to the others, or at least to Bertha; for
Hilda, with her own career in front of her, could not be expected to
care so much about the parting.
“Dear, Roger has a big sheep run fifty miles from Adelaide, and that is
where our home will be.”
Anne’s tone was low and soft; then, when she had finished, a deep hush
fell on the group. Bertha stood white and rigid, like a figure carved in
stone, and the other two were afraid to disturb her.
It was shock upon shock, blow upon blow, and it was small wonder that
she was left, as it were, battered and breathless, trying to realize all
that these changes would mean to her, yet, in spite of it, too dull and
numbed with the pain to take it in.
CHAPTER V
Against her Will
IT was a week later, and the first snow had fallen, just a thin white
coating on the hills and the plains, while the wind moaned with a new
mournfulness through the forests of pine and of hemlock, stirring the
fluttering pennons of black moss, as in the days when Evangeline’s
people, the simple Acadian peasantry, tilled the land and lived upon the
products of their industry. But the face of the countryside was changed
since the driving forth of the village lovers to the long exile of
separation and suffering. Where had stood the forest primeval, the
ground was covered with fat orchards, with fruitful fields, and with
bustling townships, which had “Progress” for their watchword.
Bertha had lived through the week in a kind of dream. Anne and Hilda
discussed the various schemes they were making for her benefit, but at
present she was too dazed to take much interest in them herself. It did
not seem to matter in the least what became of her, and she found
herself wishing sometimes that when she was ill she had been a little
more ill, just enough to have carried her through the dark portal, and
settled the question of her future once and for all. Of course this was
very wrong. It was also very unnatural. But then Bertha at this time was
scarcely normal, and so was to be forgiven and pitied, instead of being
held up to censure or severe criticism.
Then at the end of the week the mail came in, bringing with it a letter
which effectually settled the question of Bertha’s destiny, and that
without any chance of appeal. The letter was from Cousin Grace, now Mrs.
Ellis, who had been so good to the girls when their own mother died.
“So Anne is going to be married, and is to live in Australia.
What a piece of luck for me! Now, girls, what you had better do
is to break up your home, let Hilda take a teaching post in a
school, where she will have a regular salary to fall back upon,
and then I can have Bertha. Oh, you can’t think what it will
mean to me to have someone that I can depend upon in the home!
Life is really a terror sometimes with so many babies to look
after, to clothe and feed, and only my one pair of hands to do
it all.”
Anne read so much of the letter aloud, and then she stopped short, with
a quiver of breakdown in her voice.
“Why, what a charming idea!” cried Hilda, looking up from a great heap
of theory exercises through which she had been laboriously wading. “I
wonder that it never occurred to either of us to ask Grace to take
Bertha. Why, the arrangement will be perfectly ideal!”
Bertha, who was kneading a batch of bread at the table at the far end of
the room, jerked up her head with a quick motion of protest, but before
she could utter the words which rose to her lips, Anne, who was sitting
back to her, began to speak—
“If I had asked Grace to take Bertha, I do not think that I should have
felt so sure that it was the right thing to do. But seeing that the
settlement of her future has been, as it were, taken right out of my
hands and all arranged for me, I am sure that it must be right. With
Grace, Bertha will be as safe as if she were with you or me, and she
will be as kindly cared for. Oh, I am too thankful for words!”
“Poor old Anne!” muttered Hilda, and then, sweeping the pile of
exercises on one side, she jumped up, and flinging her arms about Anne,
she gave her a sounding kiss.
Bertha clenched her fists hard and punched the bread with quite
unnecessary vigour, while she winked and winked to keep back the tears
she was too proud to shed.
Oh, it hurt her! No one could even guess how it hurt her to think that
her sisters had so much trouble to dispose of her. She knew that Hilda
had asked Mrs. Sudeley to have her as a sort of mother’s help, but
because she was not musical Mrs. Sudeley would have nothing to do with
her. Bertha knew that she might have been musical if only she had tried
hard enough. It was never any trouble to her to learn anything, but she
had never worked at scales and exercises as Hilda had; indeed, she had
never worked at anything, and now this was the price she had to pay,
that when a home was needed for her no one wanted to be burdened with
her.
Mrs. Sudeley’s refusal to have her had been a bitter mortification,
although she had said no word about it. Once, nearly a year ago, she had
paid a visit to the Sudeley homestead, and had been charmed with all the
comfort, and even luxury, which the house contained. It was in most
romantic country, too, and Bertha, who was always most strongly
influenced by her surroundings, had been filled ever since with the
longing to go there again. So it had not made her disappointment easier
to bear to know that it was entirely her own fault that she could not
teach elementary music and look after the piano practice of the elder
children.
And now she would have to go thousands of miles away, right out on to
the prairie, away from the sea, away from the forests, into a house
crowded with little children, whose mother was overdone with work, and
wanted someone to help her drudge through the monotonous, unlovely days!
“Bertha, Bertha, do you hear? Cousin Grace wants you to go and live with
her. Do you think that you will like it?” called Anne, holding out her
hand with the letter in it.
“It is very kind of Grace, but won’t it be a very expensive journey?”
asked Bertha dubiously. She could not say outright that she simply hated
the thought of going to Grace, and that if she had to be left with
strangers she would much rather they were real strangers. Her memories
of Grace were not very vivid, and Mr. Ellis she had only seen twice, and
it was dreadful to think of being pitch-forked into a household and in a
manner forced to remain there whether she liked it or not.
“Of course it will be an expensive journey,” replied Anne; “but, my
dear, think of the comfort of it! Why, I shall be able to take my
happiness now with a clear conscience, which so far I have not been able
to do. Oh, Bertha, you do not know how bad I have felt about it!” and,
to the surprise and dismay of both the girls, Anne, the brisk, brave,
and capable, put her head down upon her hands and burst into a passion
of tears.
In a moment Bertha had crossed the floor, and was sliding a pair of
hands well caked with dough round her sister’s neck.
“Anne, dear Anne, don’t cry like this. Of course it is most awfully good
of Cousin Grace to want me, and I expect that we shall get on most
beautifully together,” said Bertha, making up her mind that in any case
Anne would not be told about it, however unhappy she might be.
“Poor old Anne! you have been overdoing it lately,” put in Hilda, in a
tone of pitying common sense, and it restored Anne to composure quicker
than anything else could have done.
Somehow Hilda never could bear anything that even verged on emotional
display, and Anne was careful not to upset her in this direction. Bertha
was quite different; indeed she was a regular bundle of nerves and
emotions, with a strong dash of sentimentality thrown in. And when later
in that same day Hilda told her that once before Mr. Mortimer had
written from Adelaide, asking Anne to marry him, and she had refused
because of the two younger girls, for whom she must make a home, that
little bit of confidence, joined to the sight of Anne’s breakdown,
settled the future for Bertha without any hope of appeal. If her lot in
the Ellis household were to be ever so hard or uncongenial, Anne must
never know of it. There was something of the spirit of the martyr about
Bertha, and she set herself to endure this hard thing which had come
into her life with a Spartan disregard for pain.
But oh, the relentless heartache of those next few weeks! There were
things in after-life which she could never see nor touch without it
coming back to her in waves of pain and homesickness.
There was another letter from Grace, directly she heard of Hilda’s good
fortune, and in this second epistle she gave all the necessary
directions for Bertha’s journey westward, and with great generosity even
enclosed the money to pay for her ticket through to the nearest railway
station, which was thirty miles from the farm.
But she wanted Bertha to go at once, before the snow became so very
deep. Sometimes in winter even sledges could not get through to the
railway for weeks at the stretch, and it would be so very trying if
Bertha were to be held up _en route_ in this fashion. Moreover, if the
home were to be broken up, there seemed to be no sense in delaying the
upheaval.
“That is just what I think!” exclaimed Hilda, when she read the letter.
“And if Bertha starts before I do, I can take her to Halifax and put her
on the cars myself, then she will be all right until she gets to
Winnipeg. I wish that Mr. Ellis could have met her there, but I suppose
that is too much to expect. But anyhow, it will be a great relief to be
able to start her on the journey myself.”
“Oh, I could manage somehow; I am not a baby, you see,” said Bertha,
with a nervous laugh. As a matter of fact, she dreaded the journey
horribly, but she was not going to upset Anne’s peace of mind if she
could help it.
“It will be better for Bertha to go before the sale of the furniture.
Let me see, that is next Wednesday; then Bertha had better go on
Tuesday,” said Anne, who was up to her eyes in work of all sorts,
arranging for the break-up of the only home they had ever known, making
plans for her wedding, which was to take place almost directly; for Mr.
Mortimer, having waited so long, was not disposed to wait any longer.
“But that will mean that I shall have to go before you are married,”
said Bertha, with a note of protest in her tone.
“It cannot be helped, dear, and, after all, you will be spared a little
more sadness,” Anne replied gently. “Weddings are harrowing things at
the best of times, and mine must be sadder than ordinary, since it means
so much parting for us all.”
Bertha turned away. Of course it was best that she should go away before
Anne was married. But it was just horrible, like everything else. And
because no one wanted her in the house just then, she thrust her arms
into her coat, and, dragging her hat on, she set out through the snow to
that part of the shore where the road from Paston came out on to the
rocks.
She had only been there once since that day when she swam out to the
rescue of the man, who had gone away without saying thank you, or even
claiming the coat which was his. The thought of the coat came into her
head now as she plunged along the snowy road, where the drifts were not
yet packed hard enough to make walking a very pleasant exercise.
Of choice, she would have sent, or taken, the coat along to old Jan
Saunders, and had no more responsibility in the matter. But she knew
that it would not do to trust Mrs. Saunders even with the coat, and, of
course, there was the morocco case with those grubby-looking pebbles
which might be diamonds, or might be only the commonest stones of the
roadside for aught she knew.
Oh no, it would never do to let Mrs. Saunders know anything about that
case. Indeed, Bertha did not feel inclined to trust her in the matter of
the coat either, so she had decided that the best thing that she could
do would be to give the old people her address, and then they could
write to her if the man wrote to them, or even came to interview them on
the subject of his missing property.
A moaning wind swept round the headland, and Bertha shivered, for it was
as if the wind were voicing her lament at leaving the sea and the rocks
and the trees, with all the other beautiful things to which she had been
accustomed all her life.
“Oh, I cannot bear it, I cannot!” she muttered between her set teeth;
yet she knew all the time that she would have to bear it, and many a
hard thing besides, since to bear and to endure is the lot of the human
family.
“But I will come back some day. I will not stay all my life buried away
on the prairie,” she said, as she turned from the sea towards the little
house where old Jan Saunders lived.
It was the woman who opened the door to her to-day, and the old creature
said that Jan was ill in bed, and that he had just fallen into a quiet
sleep—the first rest that he had had for two days and nights.
“Then, of course, you must not disturb him on my account,” said Bertha,
although she would much rather have done her errand to the old man, who
at least meant to be honest.
“It would be a sin and a shame to disturb him, missie,” said the old
woman. “But if you will tell me what it is that you wanted to see him
for, I can let him know when he wakes up.”
“I am going away from Mestlebury, and my home now will be a long way off
in the west, and so I thought that I had better bring you my new
address, so that you might write to me if you hear anything of the man
whose boat we pulled off the Shark’s Teeth. I must write to him as soon
as I can, as I have something of his which I want to give back to him,”
said Bertha, and then she produced a stamped and addressed envelope,
which she gave to Mrs. Saunders.
“Something belonging to the gentleman? Now—why didn’t you say so when
you was here before?” asked the old woman in a whining tone, as she
shook her head disapprovingly.
“But it would have been no use if I had,” replied Bertha, with a laugh.
“Don’t you remember that you told me you did not know who he was or
where he had gone?”
“Still, I might have found out,” objected the old woman.
“Just so. And it is because I want you to find out now that I have told
you this. Of course, I cannot make any promises for another person, but
I should not be at all surprised if the man were to give you some small
reward, if you could put me in communication with him,” said Bertha,
hoping to raise the old woman’s curiosity, and to stimulate her
endeavours by this suggestion of profit to be gained.
But again there was a look of something like dread on the face of Mrs.
Saunders, and although she promised to do what she could towards the
furthering of Bertha’s wishes, there did not appear much prospect of
ultimate success in that direction.
Bertha was turning her steps homeward again, feeling that she had not
achieved much beyond a little extra heartache by her outing, when, as
she was passing the little store kept by the fat German, she heard her
name called, and, looking round, she saw him beckoning to her to come
nearer.
For a moment she hesitated, half-disposed to go on her way without
heeding a summons of such a sort. But reflecting that his manners were,
after all, made in Germany, and hence their limitations, she crossed
over the patch of trodden snow to the door of the little store and asked
the fat man, what it was that he wished to say to her.
“_Ach, himmel_, it is the bad manners of me to call you so, but it is
the bad foot on me which will let me only stand and not walk,” said the
German, pointing downward to a bandaged foot, whereupon Bertha promptly
forgave him for the lack of courtesy that he had displayed.
“You have a bad foot? I am very sorry,” she said gravely.
“It has been bad, very bad, ever since the day when the stranger’s boat
got stuck on the Shark’s Teeth,” explained the fat man, puffing and
snorting and spreading his pudgy hands out as if his feelings were too
much for him, and then, suddenly leaning forward, he asked, in a
confidential whisper: “Has the old woman given you your share yet?”
“What do you mean?” asked Bertha, drawing herself up with an offended
air.
“The man we saved left money with the old woman to be given to you. I
heard him say so myself. He thought that you were poor, and he sent the
money to you with his best thanks. Has she given it to you?” said the
German anxiously.
Bertha drew herself up, looking more haughty than ever. “No, indeed; and
I should not think of taking money for doing a thing like that!” she
said indignantly.
The German laughed in a deprecating fashion as he said, in his deep,
rumbling tones: “That may be all very well for you, but she has kept the
money that was meant for me also, and this I do not approve.”
CHAPTER VI
A Wild Journey
IT was over at last, and Bertha was on board the train which was to take
her through to Winnipeg. In a certain sense it was a huge relief when
the last goodbye was said and the long train of westward-bound cars drew
away from the depot, leaving Hilda standing white-faced on the platform,
while Bertha, with a smile which seemed frozen on her face, stood at the
rear end of the car, watching until there was nothing more to be seen.
But the parting with Hilda, bad though it was, could not be compared
with the pain of saying goodbye to Anne, who had been the head of the
family and the mainstay of the home for so long. If Bertha had been the
ordinary sort of girl, who looks upon change and upheaval as a welcome
sort of diversion, she might not have suffered so keenly at this
breaking up of home. Being cast in a different mould, and hating change
as much as the domestic cat, she had to endure an exquisite torture of
regret and longing in those last days at Mestlebury.
She had never even anticipated change, nor even supposed that any of
them would marry. There were not very many educated young men in
Mestlebury, and both Anne and Hilda had a trick of looking down upon the
men with whom they came in contact as rather inferior sort of creatures;
so it is not wonderful that Bertha had not taken their getting married
into serious consideration. But Roger Mortimer was so different from any
of the men she had been in the habit of meeting, that she did not wonder
Anne liked him well enough to give up her sisters for his sake.
“But I—oh, I really believe that I hate him!” said Bertha to herself,
with a little vindictive snap of her jaws, as the cars bore her out of
sight of Hilda standing white and rigid on the platform, and the wide,
wide world yawned to take her in.
“Hush, my dear, it ain’t right to hate anyone, specially when you are so
young,” said a motherly body, who sat in the seat opposite, and who
reached out a comforting hand to pat Bertha’s arm, as the poor girl
dropped in a limp heap now that the strain of parting was over.
“Did I speak aloud? Oh, I am sorry; and you are quite right, I ought not
to hate anyone, especially a good, kind man, but it is so horrid to say
goodbye,” faltered Bertha, her lips quivering piteously, for she had
much ado to keep from breaking down in childish crying.
“Ah, that it is!” The voice of the woman was wholly sympathetic, for she
too had known what it was to suffer in similar fashion, and during the
three days and nights they were together on the cars no one could have
been kinder than she was to poor Bertha.
It was after Winnipeg was past, and she had changed into the cars that
were to take her out to Rownton, which was the nearest point of railway
to Mr. Ellis’s place, when the real loneliness began. The cars into
which she had changed were not so comfortable as those she had left, the
people were not so kindly, while, chiefest discomfort of all, a blizzard
had set in which threatened to snow them up before they reached Rownton.
It was prairie now—a limitless stretch of snow as far as the eye could
see on every side. But when the blizzard began it was not possible to
see anything beyond the white smother which shut them in, while their
progress was so slow that sometimes they hardly appeared to be moving at
all. They had passed the Gilbert Plains Junction, and another three
hours should have found Bertha at Rownton, when the train came to a
standstill. A great buzz of talk broke out then, and everyone had some
story to tell of snowed-up trains and the sufferings incidental to such
a condition. But the conductor came along presently to give them what
comfort he could, telling them that the engine had been taken off to
drive the snow-plough, and that probably three or four hours would see
them on the move again. There was an old man in the cars who aroused
Bertha’s compassion; he was so very frail and feeble, and he looked so
unfit to be travelling alone. He had a topcoat, but no scarf, and the
keen wind which would penetrate the cars, despite red-hot stoves and
shut windows, seemed to wither the poor old fellow with its rigours.
“Won’t you take this scarf of mine? I do not need it in the least, and
you look so cold,” she said, with gentle pity in her tone, as she held a
big woollen scarf towards him.
“You are very kind, but I could not deprive you of your wraps,” he
answered, with a little bow.
“But please, I do not want it,” said Bertha, pressing the gaudy woollen
thing upon him. She had knitted it herself last winter for a sofa
blanket, but, like most of her undertakings in the direction of
fancy-work, it had turned out quite different from what she had intended
it to be, and as it was much too narrow and twice too long for a sofa
blanket, it had been laid aside to come in useful some day. Then, when
the long cold journey west had to be undertaken, there certainly seemed
a chance of its finding a use at last. But so far she had not been
sufficiently cold to make her willing to wind those shades of blue,
yellow, grey, and brown wools round her throat.
“Are you sure?” His voice was wistful, and she could see that he was
trembling with cold.
“Quite sure.” As she spoke Bertha got up, and, taking the scarf, she
wound it round and round his neck and shoulders, so getting for the
first time a little satisfaction out of that sorely bungled piece of
fancy-work which ought to have turned out so different in shape and
size.
The man was so old and frail, that it became a sort of duty to look
after him. Moreover, he reminded her a little of poor old Jan Saunders,
whom she liked as much as she disliked Mrs. Saunders. The reminder was
only that of association, for whereas Jan was a rough, uneducated man,
this individual whom she was befriending spoke like a person of culture
and refinement.
“Are you going far in this direction?” the old man asked presently, when
he had thanked her for her goodness to him.
“Only to Rownton by rail, but I have a cross-country journey of about
thirty miles after that,” she answered, giving a glance at the whirling
snow atoms outside, and wondering however that journey would be
accomplished in this sort of weather.
“And I have come wrong, and shall have to take the next cars back to
Gilbert Plains Junction, for I took a west fork cars instead of going
for an east fork train. These trunk lines are very bewildering to a
stranger,” he remarked, with a little petulance in his tone.
“Yes; indeed I think that I should have gone wrong several times if I
had not had my directions written out so very plainly for me,” answered
Bertha, with a laugh.
“You are fortunate to have someone to do it for you. But there, it is
only the old who are alone; the young can always find friends,” he said
bitterly.
“Are you alone? I am so very sorry!”
There was so much sympathy in Bertha’s tone, that the old fellow looked
at her in surprise.
“Why should you be so kind to an old man? Have you a father of your
own?” he asked gruffly.
“No; my father is dead, and my mother too. But you said that you were
alone, and because I also am alone I felt sorry for you,” replied Bertha
simply.
He nodded, but did not say anything more for a long time, and she
thought he was asleep, as most of the other passengers were. The slow
hours dragged on, the blizzard raged outside, and presently darkness
settled down; but the engine had not come back, and people began to wake
up, telling each other in low tones of anxiety that it could not get
back. Then the conductor came back, and they at once fell upon him with
their questioning, but he could not tell them more than they knew
already—the engine had gone ahead with the snow-plough to clear the
track. It had not yet come back, probably could not get back, in which
case they were stuck fast until such time as something came along to
help them out of their fix.
Most of the passengers took the ill fortune quietly, since after all it
was of no use to rail at what could not be helped. But there were a few,
and Bertha’s old man was among them, who abused the railway company in
no measured terms for not taking more care to keep their roads clear.
“I shall lose money heavily from the delay, and I can ill afford to add
loss to loss in this fashion,” he said querulously, when he came back to
sit with Bertha, after he had spent himself in his utterly useless
complaints.
“Perhaps it will not be so bad as you fear. We may not be delayed very
long after all,” she said, trying to speak courageously, although she
was dreadfully depressed by the existing state of things, which was so
much worse than anything that she had expected to encounter in her
journey.
“It could not very well be much worse. The fact that I got on the wrong
cars at all means a delay that will stand me in to lose two thousand
dollars, while a few weeks ago I was robbed to the tune of about two
hundred thousand dollars,” he said angrily, taking off his gloves and
beating his poor wrinkled old hands together to warm them a little.
A great pity came into the heart of Bertha. Not for one moment did she
believe this story of the old man’s losses, but it was plain that he
believed it himself. The poor shabby clothes which he was wearing would
not lead anyone to suppose that he had ever had any money to lose; but
one must be kind to the old and the frail, especially when there is
poverty behind. So Bertha soothed and quieted him; she even bought him
hot coffee and other comforts of the kind all the time there was
anything on the cars left for anyone to buy, and he received her little
attentions with so much gratitude, that her pity for him grew stronger
every hour—she even forgot her own discomforts in trying to mitigate
the hardship for him.
The long night wore to an end, as the longest must do; but when the
tardy daylight came again, the cars were completely buried, snowed right
over, and frozen in until it was like being entombed in an ice cave. The
men formed themselves into a party of volunteers, and, armed with coal
shovels, iron bars, or anything else which came handy, set to work to
dig themselves out. The exercise warmed them, certainly, but it did not
accomplish much else; for where was the use of digging the cars out and
letting the cold in when they had no engine to drag them forward or put
them back to Gilbert Plains Junction? They tried to get on to the
telegraph wires to let their plight be known; but the wires were broken
with the weight of the snow, so that attempt failed also.
Then some of the more adventurous spirits were for starting across the
snow to find some settler’s house where food and firing might be
purchased. There was such grave danger about such an undertaking,
however, as the party had no snow-shoes, that the brakeman and conductor
refused, in the name of the railway company, to allow anyone to take the
risk.
“But we can’t sit here and die!” exclaimed a fat man with a very red
face, who seemed the very embodiment of restless energy, and could not
keep still for five minutes at the stretch.
“You don’t seem in any immediate danger of passing away from
starvation,” said the conductor, with so much ironic emphasis that the
others burst out laughing, and the fat man subsided into the background,
quashed for the time being.
“Help will reach us before night,” the officials said confidently, as
they went through the cars comforting the women and children and saying
encouraging things to the men. They were heroes in their way, and all
through that long dreary time of waiting no one heard an impatient word
from them or a murmur of any sort.
The fuel had run so low that the stoves had all to be let out save one
in the middle car, and into this car all the passengers were gathered, a
fearful crowd, of course, but it was better to be crowded than to freeze
in solitude. The engine having gone, they were entirely dependent on the
stoves for warmth, and if help did not come by the time the ordinary
fuel was exhausted, it would be necessary to break up some of the
fixings of the cars for firewood; but that had been done before, and
could be done again if need be. What a long, long day it was! And before
it came to an end Bertha realized that the poor old man who had talked
so much about his losses was very ill.
“Is he a friend of yours, miss?” asked the conductor.
“No; I had never seen him until I boarded the train at Gilbert Plains
Junction,” replied Bertha.
“There isn’t a doctor on the cars nor a nurse either, and what we are to
do I’m sure I don’t know,” said the official, permitting himself to look
really worried now, for the situation was getting serious.
Then suddenly the shout was raised that men were approaching on
snow-shoes, drawing sledges behind them. Half the passengers turned out
to meet them, and the conductor was left alone at the end of the car
with Bertha and the poor old man, who was plainly so very ill.
“Can you stay with him, miss, while I go to see if a doctor can be got
here somehow? or shall I call one of those ladies yonder?” asked the
man.
Bertha looked across at the group of women cowering round the stove.
Most of them had small children with them. The exceptions were a fat old
lady with a peevish voice, who seemed to have a great difficulty in
moving about; two girls of about her own age who were travelling with
their father; and a young woman with a pleasant, sensible face, but a
bandaged arm, which showed her plainly unfit for anything beyond taking
care of herself.
“I will do my best for him,” she said quietly. “But come back as soon as
you can, for he seems very ill.”
“Yes, and I’m afraid by the looks of him that he is going to be worse
before the night is out,” said the conductor, as he hurried away.
He was back inside of ten minutes with the cheering news that the
snow-ploughs were within six miles, and that they hoped to get the line
clear by midnight.
“So we may hope to draw into the depot at Three Crowns by nine o’clock
to-morrow morning at the latest,” he said.
“And shall we have to manage until then without help?” asked Bertha, in
dismay.
“I am afraid so, miss, but we can clear them all out of this car and
make the poor old fellow a little more comfortable,” replied the
conductor.
“Is anything wrong? Can I help?” asked the girl with the bandaged arm,
coming up to Bertha.
“An old man is ill—he seems so very ill—and we cannot get to Three
Crowns until nine o’clock to-morrow morning. I am wondering whatever we
can do for all the night,” said Bertha, with more dismay in her tone
than she knew.
“And you have got him to look after? Oh, I am sorry for you! Shall I
come and help? Not that I can do much because of my arm; but, anyhow, I
can be a little company, and most of the other women here have got
children to look after, poor things,” said the young woman, who was not
so very young after all.
“Oh, I shall be glad!” cried Bertha. “He is such a poor old man, and he
seems so frail. I have thought all day how ill he looks, but for the
last hour he has been so very much worse, and now he does not seem to
know where he is.”
“Ah, he is light-headed—old people get like that very quickly; but he
may be very much better in the morning. Draw those curtains at the back
of him; yes, like that. Now we will make him up a bed on that long seat,
and when the conductor comes back he will lift the old man on to it for
us; no, you must not try to do it yourself, you are not strong enough.”
The girl was so brisk and alert in her ways, that her presence was an
infinite consolation to Bertha, on whom was dumped the responsibility of
being nurse-in-chief. But it was a night long to be remembered; neither
Bertha nor the girl with the bandaged arm had time to even doze, for the
poor old man tossed and raved, talking of all sorts of wild and
impossible things, or he would break into grievous lamenting about some
boy whom he had wronged. He was moaning now for someone whom he called
Tom, and a minute later he would burst into bitter invective against
some other person, name unknown, who had robbed him of property of great
value.
Just about midnight there was a jar and a bang when the engine reached
them and was fastened on once more; then they went slowly forward on the
journey that had suffered so much delay. At Three Crowns depot, a wooden
shed planted by the side of the track in company with half a dozen
houses and a tin-roofed store, the old man was carried from the cars,
and Bertha had to go with him, because he had hold of her hand, and was
crying pitifully that he could not be taken among strangers, who would
be sure to rob him. So the cars had to be kept waiting while the short
journey to the house of the doctor was accomplished.
“Tell me your name—please tell me,” pleaded the poor old fellow, when
he had been taken into the house of the doctor, and Bertha had told him
that she must go.
“My name is Bertha Doyne, and I am going to the house of Mr. Ellis at
Duck Flats,” said Bertha, and then the doctor laid a firm but kindly
hand on the wrist of the poor old fellow to set Bertha free—for the
train could not wait indefinitely—and she was hurried away.
CHAPTER VII
Worse than Her Fears
A TIMBER house, a barn, two sheds, and a fenced enclosure, that was all,
and they stood black specks on the vast snowfield, visible for miles
before they were reached.
“There you are, that is home!” exclaimed Tom Ellis, pointing away to the
dots on the horizon, and at the same moment the pair of horses quickened
their pace, as if they too had seen and understood that yonder was the
end of the journey.
Bertha thrust her head a little forward and peered and peered; but she
was so nearly blinded with the glare of the snow, that dots on the
horizon were quite invisible to her.
“It is home, sweet home,” chanted Tom Ellis, in a musical baritone. He
was a cheerful soul, with strong faith but little imagination, and those
black dots on the distant horizon encompassed his world. “Cousin Bertha,
I hope you are going to be very happy with us at Duck Flats.”
“Thank you,” replied Bertha, in a strictly non-committal tone. But all
her heart was crying out against the monotonous ugliness of a landscape
that had no hidden things, no mystery—which, after all, is the charm of
nature—and nothing that appealed to the imagination in the slightest
degree.
“It is a great land,” said Tom, with a sweep of his arm that included
the whole horizon from sky to sky.
“It is certainly very big,” said Bertha, wondering if that were the
right thing to say, and then she ventured a question: “What do you grow?
I mean, what is there under the snow—grass?”
“Wheat is what I grow,” replied Tom, with a thrill of pride in his tone;
for to him the man who grew wheat was a public benefactor. It was not
his own profit that was secured merely, but the good of the world at
large, since everyone needed wheat in some form or other.
“And is it all one big field?” she asked, “or are there fences under the
snow?”
“Except for the fence round the house, there is not a fence for ten
miles. The land is not all mine, of course; but we all grow wheat in
this district, and a ridge thrown up with the plough is boundary
enough,” he answered serenely.
“I should have thought that mixed farming would have paid better. I
don’t think that I should like to put all my eggs in one basket,” said
Bertha, with a little shrug of her shoulders under her wraps. “Suppose
the wheat should fail for one year?”
“Then I should fail too, and pretty quickly, I can tell you. But don’t
talk about it; the bare idea of such a thing gets on my nerves
sometimes, and then I can’t sleep in the nights,” he answered.
“But if you feel like that, why do you take such a risk?” persisted
Bertha, who could not understand this sort of vicarious tribulation.
“Because the profits are greater, and there is less outlay in
proportion,” he replied. “I grow wheat, and I grow nothing else. Very
well, then, I only need the implements for wheat-growing, and most of
them I can hire at reasonable rates, which pays me, don’t you see. Then,
when my wheat is harvested and thrashed, my cares for the year are over,
and I have nothing to do but to plough for next year’s crop. Of course,
the thing can’t go on for always, for it stands to reason that you can’t
grow the same crop year after year without the ground becoming
impoverished. When that time comes, however, I shall sell the land and
move on into a new district, where I can start afresh. That is the way
that money is made, little cousin. There is risk in it, I grant you, but
that is half the fun; it takes from the dead-level monotony of the
affair.”
“And does Grace like that sort of thing—the risk, I mean, and being
dragged up by the roots, and dumped down in a fresh place when the
impoverished land makes a move necessary?” asked Bertha, with some
curiosity. She was thinking that if it were herself she should just hate
it all.
Tom Ellis shook his head with a merry laugh. “I am afraid that my wife
got some very stodgy, old-fashioned notions from living so long in Nova
Scotia. Why, she was even saying the other day that she meant to have a
flower garden next summer, an awful waste of ground, really, but you
can’t get women to be practical. And she insists on my keeping a cow!”
“But why shouldn’t you keep a cow?” asked Bertha, in a puzzled tone,
quite unable to see where the enormity of such a course came in.
He laughed again, and told her that she would understand the situation
better when she had lived eight or nine years on the prairies.
“Which I never, never will, if by any means in my power I can get away!”
said Bertha; but she said it to herself, being too sensitive regarding
the feelings of other people to let one word of her deep discontent show
itself as yet.
The door was flung open as the horses drew up with a flourish before the
house, and Mrs. Ellis appeared on the threshold, her arms stretched out
in eager welcome.
“Oh, Bertha, little Bertha, can it really be you! My dear, my dear, it
is almost too good to be true!” she cried, and there was so much of
downright breakdown in the voice of Grace, that Bertha caught her breath
sharply, and at the same moment looked anxiously round, hoping that Tom
Ellis did not hear.
But he was hauling the baggage out of the sledge, and was much too busy
to notice how near to breakdown his wife had come.
“Oh, what a lot of children! I mean, what a lot they look altogether,”
said Bertha, as she was half-led, half-dragged into a room which seemed
to be full of babies.
“Yes, are they not darlings? This is Dicky, my eldest, a very bad boy
mostly, at other times very good indeed; then comes Molly, who always
reminds me of you when you were a baby. After her there are Jimmy, Sue,
and Baby Noll, who will be a year old on Christmas Day. Now, children,
just give Auntie Bertha the very nicest welcome that you can manage.”
But the small people were much too shy to make any demonstration of
welcome. Dicky and Molly stared at her from solemn eyes, which to Bertha
seemed to have a disapproving stare; while the twins, Jimmy and Sue, who
were two years old, burst into howls of protest when she wanted to kiss
them, and the fat baby swelled the chorus.
Bertha’s heart grew heavy with secret dismay. She had so little
first-hand knowledge of children, and she wondered how it would be
possible to endure the long months of winter shut into a small house
with so many crying babies. Perhaps if she had not been so very tired
with her long journey, and the wearing strain of the time when they were
snowed-up on the western fork, things would not have seemed quite so
dreary or so hopelessly hard to bear.
“Oh, my dear, my dear, you cannot think what joy it is to have you
here!” cried Grace again. “I had no idea how much I loved you all until
I came away, and you cannot think how much I have longed for a sight of
some of the dear home faces. But you have altered so much that I should
not have known you, and you look so quiet, though you were such a
restless, fidgety child, never content to sit still for more than two
minutes at the stretch. Your father used to call you ‘Little
Quicksilver’, and that is what you were.”
“I am afraid that I must have outgrown the character, then, with my
flapper frocks, for I am not a bit quick at anything now, and the girls
would tell you the same,” replied Bertha ruefully.
“Oh, what nonsense! You cannot really expect me to believe that a Doyne
could be slow at anything, except in the matter of thinking evil of
one’s neighbour,” said Grace, with a laugh. “And you are only a flapper
still, for the matter of that. How old are you—seventeen?”
“Almost eighteen, but I feel quite thirty,” Bertha answered, with a
serious air.
“Wait until you are thirty, then the chances are that you will feel only
about thirteen. Oh, I know what girls are like, especially girls with
brains, and you were due to be the genius of the family!” said Mrs.
Ellis, as she swept the crying twins up from the floor with one arm, and
picked up the baby with the other, upon which ensued a great calm, for
even a stranger was tolerable when viewed from the safe vantage-ground
of mother’s arms. Little Dick and Molly had retired into private life
behind her chair, and so the whole family watched Bertha take off her
wraps, very much enjoying the spectacle.
“It is Hilda who is the clever one,” said Bertha modestly, “and Anne is
very nice-looking, but I have neither beauty nor brains.”
Mrs. Ellis leaned back with her armful of babies and surveyed her young
cousin critically. Then she said, with her head held a little on one
side: “You are certainly not plain, or, in other words, ugly; and I
should say that in a year or two you will probably be rather
nice-looking in a quiet, distinguished sort of way. Anne, of course, is
downright handsome, but she was always good-looking, even as a child.
Hilda is smart and clever, but she is not a genius, though she will make
her way in the world, because she is careful and painstaking. She has
also a great deal of tact, which, after all, goes further than genius.”
“How well you know them both!” cried Bertha, and half against her will,
for at this stage she did not even want to be happy. A feeling of home
peace stole into her heart, and she felt that however much she might
detest the flat monotony of the prairie, or feel the irksomeness of that
little house packed with noisy, crying babies, she could not be wholly
unhappy where Grace was.
“Of course, I know them well. Think how your home was my home, and your
people were my people,” said Mrs. Ellis. “It was a very dear home, too.
But here am I talking and talking, while I have never showed you your
room. I am so very sorry, dear, that we could not give you a room to
yourself, and I have made Tom promise that he will build a room on at
one end next summer, between seeding and harvest, so that you may have a
little spot quite to yourself; but until then I am afraid that you will
have to put up with Dicky and Molly as room mates.”
Bertha’s heart went right down into her boots as she followed Grace into
the smaller of the two bedrooms, which was all that the house contained.
She had expected, at the very least, to have a room to herself, and to
know that never for one hour in the twenty-four could she be sure of
uninvaded privacy was a blow indeed. But it had to be borne, and for the
sake of the kind eyes that were on her she bravely hid the trouble, so
that Grace, shrewd though she was, did not guess it.
Bertha had not expected Grace to be so kind. It was almost
disappointing, in fact, for she had strung herself up to the pitch of
heroic self-sacrifice, and lo! there was nothing in the way of sacrifice
demanded of her, except perhaps in the matter of not having a bedroom to
herself. Even that was rather an advantage than otherwise, if she had
but known it, for she was thus unconsciously put upon her honour in the
matter of keeping the little chamber tidy, and since habit stands for so
much, she was effectually cured of the shocking untidiness which had
been such a bone of contention in the old days between herself and her
sisters.
But she suffered in those long weeks of winter as she had never suffered
in her life before. The bare ugliness of the house and barn was a
positive pain to her eyes, which simply ached to look on things of
beauty. Then there was nothing in the dead level of the prairie to rest
the eyes. From the time she arrived at Duck Flats, in early November,
until late in April, it was white from one horizon to the other, and she
was forced into the continual wearing of tinted glasses to save herself
from going blind with the glare. She grew to hate the snow as she had
never hated it before, and one day she broke down in childish crying
over a little branch of an evergreen shrub which Tom Ellis had brought
from Rownton.
“Oh, please forgive me; I did not mean to be so silly!” she exclaimed,
when Grace chanced to find her in tears.
“My dear, I have cried over the bare ugliness of it all too often not to
be able to sympathize with anyone else. But it is strange how that
passes off, and one grows to find a beauty even in the flat monotony, at
least I have found it so,” said Mrs. Ellis, with a rapt look, which poor
Bertha could not understand or in any way appreciate.
“That is because you are content with your home and your children; they
are your world, and you do not want anything else!” she cried. “But with
me it is different, and I feel as if I would give almost everything that
I possess for the sight of a tree, or a hill, or a bit of rock-bound
shore. I have loved beautiful things all my life, and especially have I
loved beautiful scenery, and this is worse—far worse—than I ever
dreamed it would be.”
“Poor little girl!” murmured Grace, patting her in a soothing fashion;
then she said hopefully, “Do you know, Bertha, I should not be at all
surprised if this yearning of yours for beautiful things wakes up the
sleeping soul that is in you.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Bertha, in wide-eyed astonishment. She had
always imagined that her soul was extremely wideawake; indeed, it had
always seemed too much awake for her to do the practical things which
everyday life demanded of her.
“I mean that no one has seen the best of you yet, and that you do not
even know yourself what is in you. I believe that you are going to
surprise us all some day, and the very thing to bring out the best that
is in you is this same horrid monotony, as you call it.”
“In what way do you expect me to surprise you?” asked Bertha, pausing in
the sewing she was doing but indifferently well and looking at Grace,
while a thrill of hope quivered in her heart, for when people expected
anything of her, she mostly found that she could rise to it.
“Would it be a surprise if we knew?” demanded Grace, with a laugh. “I
expect that it will be a surprise to you when it comes.”
CHAPTER VIII
Great Expectations
SPRING was coming. The feel of it was in the air, and though howling
winds and driving rains swept over the plain, while the earth was like a
quag on Duck Flats, everyone remarked how fine the weather was, which
meant what a welcome change it was after months on months of snow, of
frost, and of winds so keen that they seemed to scorch and sear the
skin. Bertha sang about her work in the mornings now; it was sheer
gladness of heart, because the white covering had gone from the ground
and the brown earth was showing once again. The day that the first
plough was put into the ground was like a festival, and then followed
weeks of such strenuous labour, that there was scarcely time to get
through the allotted toil between sunrise and sunset, and they all went
to bed to fall at once into dreamless sleep until morning came again.
She had a salary now, just the money that Grace would have paid to a
hired help, and the feeling of independence which it gave her ministered
not a little to her happiness and content. But the real fount and spring
of her happiness lay in the fact that she had begun to write, and that
already, young though she was, the sweet of a tiny success had come to
her.
By the advice of Grace she had let poetry severely alone. There was no
demand for it, and however fond of writing poetry people might be, they
rarely cared to read much of it; there was not absorbing interest enough
in it. So Bertha had tried her prentice hand upon a short story, and
then had gone almost delirious with joy when it was accepted and paid
for. But not a word did she say in her letters to Hilda or to Anne of
the good thing which had come into her life. It would be time enough for
that when she had done something bigger, and all her hopes were centred
now on having a book published. If only she could manage that, it would
serve as something to show for her labour. So she thought of it by day
and dreamed of it at night, while little by little, like the building of
a house, the story took on form and shape in her brain.
It was so strange to her to have someone to whom she could talk of her
hopes and aspirations. She would never have dreamed of talking to her
own sisters as she talked to Grace. They would have laughed at her, and
would have said to each other in pitying tones, “If only Bertha were
more practical and did not dream so much, what a good thing it would
be!”
But Grace seemed always to understand that dreams were the great factor
in Bertha’s happiness, and that she could not be happy without them. It
was that power to understand which gave Grace the influence on her young
cousin’s life. Bertha had not been at Duck Flats for a week before it
had seemed quite possible to her to tell Grace everything that was in
her heart. She had even confided in Mrs. Ellis the story of that one
brave deed of hers which had brought so much discomfort to the three
girls, and incidentally had left so much mortification behind it.
Bertha had never been able to tell Anne of what the German had told her,
about how the stranger had left money with old Mrs. Saunders to be given
to her for saving his life, but which the old woman had kept for her own
private use.
“And I have always felt quite certain that the old woman could have told
me of his whereabouts if she had liked, only she was afraid that he
would find out about her keeping the money,” said Bertha. “But what I
never could understand was why he never came to see what had become of
his coat and his diamonds.”
“Diamonds?” echoed Grace, in amazement. “My dear Bertha, what are you
talking about?”
“They may not be diamonds at all, nothing, in fact, but pebbles from the
Micmac shoals,” laughed Bertha. “But you shall see them, and then you
will be able to tell me, perhaps.”
She went off to her room and unearthed the coat and the little case from
among her belongings, and then told Grace how the man had thrown the
coat round her because she shivered so; she had run home in it, and then
it had lain in a corner of her room until she was well.
“They are diamonds, I am sure of it,” said Mrs. Ellis, in a tone of
conviction. “Tom had an uncle, an old Welshman, who had some choice
uncut diamonds in his possession, and Tom has often told me that they
looked just like dirty pebbles, only they were so very, very hard, that
they could not possibly be mistaken by anyone who had any knowledge of
such things. Do you mind if I tell Tom about these, and ask him to look
at them?”
“Of course not. But it does make me so fearfully uncomfortable to have
the things in my possession like this. I feel as if I had stolen them,”
said Bertha, who was very much relieved because at last the story was
off her mind, and the knowledge shared by someone else.
Grace laughed. “Oh, you poor little Bertha, you are the sort of child
that it takes a mother to understand. I expect that Anne and Hilda would
about cry themselves blind if they thought they had in any way failed in
their duty to you, and yet, poor girls, they could never get at the
heart of you, while you have opened out to me like the rosebuds to the
sun.”
Bertha shuffled uneasily. “It was my fault, of course,” she said
stiffly. “But I had a downright morbid dislike of being laughed at or
criticised, so I mostly kept things to myself.”
“Well, I shall laugh at you and criticise you, and when you shut
yourself up like an oyster I shall worm things out of you somehow, so be
prepared,” said Grace, and she had been true to her word.
Mr. Ellis had looked at the diamonds which were in the case, and he had
declared them to be very valuable indeed. “There is no mistaking them,
and they are worth many thousands of dollars. I wish you had not got
them, Bertha; it is horrid to think of your being bothered with valuable
stuff like that.”
“Put them into the bank,” suggested Grace.
But Bertha shook her head. “I don’t think I will,” she said slowly. “It
would only cause comment and speculation, perhaps; for how could a girl
as poor as I am become possessed of diamonds like these in an ordinary
way? Besides, I may some day encounter the man to whom they belong, and
then I can restore them without any fuss, don’t you see? If no one knows
that I have them, there is no danger of their being stolen.”
“The house might burn down,” suggested Grace.
“That would not matter at all so far as the diamonds are concerned, for
I keep them in my tin trunk, and there is little danger of a diamond
robbery right out in the heart of the prairie,” said Bertha; and then
she carried the little morocco case back to her room and put it, with
the coat, in the bottom of the tin trunk, after which they sat and
talked of Tom’s old uncle, the Welshman, who had brought him up, then
quarrelled with him, and cast him off in his young manhood just when
most he needed a friend to help him.
“But I have got on in spite of being left to my own devices,” said Tom,
with pardonable pride in his own achievements, and then he went on more
soberly. “But it upsets me to think that the old man would persist in
believing that I wanted his money. I was a great deal more keen on
having someone to care for. Perhaps I ought to have been more patient
with him. But when he was always flinging it at me that I was hanging
round for the chance of what I could get out of him, it riled me so
badly that I just cleared out and came west.”
“How hard it must have been for you!” murmured Bertha, who already knew
Tom Ellis well enough to understand that his loneliness must have been
frightful.
“It was about as rough as I cared for,” he answered. “When I got off the
cars at Winnipeg I had only half a dollar left, so I had to go to work
sharp, and not stand too fine as to what sort of job I got. I did
anything I could get for two years, and then, as I had saved a little
money, I pre-empted on a quarter section of land out here, lived on it
for six months in each year to fulfil requirements, and the other six
months I went east and earned enough to keep me going.”
“And that is where Grace came in, I suppose?” There was keen interest in
Bertha’s tone. She was remembering that Anne and Hilda had always
maintained that Grace had married beneath her, but surely a man who
could carve his way through difficulties like these was well worth
caring for. It was far more to his credit that he had carved his own
way, than if he had still hung on with his uncle, bearing all sorts of
abuse meekly for the sake of the gain which might come to him later.
The coming of the spring made a vast difference to the comfort of the
little house on the prairie. There seemed so much more room to move now,
for the children were out from morning to night, not even coming indoors
to eat if they could only get their food given to them out-of-doors. The
work of the house could much of it be done outside also. Tom Ellis had
fitted up a bench and a table on the veranda, and here the washing of
dishes and the washing of clothes, with many other similar activities,
could be carried on—which lessened the work in no small degree.
Another horse had been bought to help with the spring ploughing and
seeding, and when the corn was all in, Tom bought a side-saddle from a
man who had no further use for it, and insisted on Grace going out for
rides with him. He would have taken Bertha also, but she was not good at
that sort of locomotion, and greatly preferred being left at home to
look after the house and the children in the long quiet evenings, while
Tom and Grace went for long expeditions among their own crops or those
of their widely scattered neighbours. Then, with the cares of the day
all done, and the children asleep or at play, Bertha enjoyed herself in
her own way, working at the book which was to make her famous, as she
fondly hoped, or merely dreaming dreams.
She was sitting so one evening, when the twins and Noll were safe in
bed, while Dicky and Molly worked hard at making a flower garden in one
corner of the paddock, which they had dug up and were planting with wild
columbine, common blue violets, early milk vetch, and silver weed, which
she had helped them to dig up and bring home earlier in the evening. It
was getting late, but Bertha had not noticed it; indeed, she was
oblivious to most things just then, except the very pleasant dreams in
which she was indulging, of being able to earn enough money by
literature to keep her from the necessity of doing anything else. Her
arms ached with breadmaking, washing, and ironing, and all the other
activities of the prairie day, where, if one does not do the work with
one’s own hands, it has to go undone. Then up sauntered Dicky, his spade
over his shoulder, while Molly trailed limply along behind.
“We’re about done, Bertha, put us to bed,” said the small boy, dropping
in a heap on the floor, because he was quite too tired to stand up any
longer.
“Very well, I will bath Molly while you eat some supper, and then you
can bath yourself, because you are a man, or soon will be,” said Bertha,
coming out of her dreams with an effort, and thinking how delightful it
would be for her when these minor worries such as bathing children and
that sort of thing were lifted from her.
“Oh, I had rather go to bed as I am to-night, and I can’t be very dirty,
for I had a dreadful big wash yesterday,” sighed Dicky, who had rolled
over on to his back, and was surveying the rising moon with a very
sleepy gaze.
Bertha laughed. “I wonder what the sheets would be like to-morrow if you
went to bed as you are,” she said, as she picked up Molly—that being
the quickest way of getting the little girl into the house. “Suppose you
get your buttons all undone while you are waiting, and then it won’t
take you so long.”
By the time Molly’s bedtime toilet was complete, the little evening
prayer said, and the child had trotted off to bed, Dicky was fast asleep
on the veranda floor, and Bertha had to undress him and put him into the
water before he roused at all; even then he was almost asleep again
before she could get him into bed.
“Oh dear, why could he not have kept awake a little longer!” she
exclaimed, going back to her dreaming, only to find the spell broken,
and that a strange restlessness had taken possession of her which would
not let her even sit still.
“I wonder when Grace and Tom are coming home?” she said to herself, as
the twilight, grey and mysterious, crept over the prairie. A flock of
birds flew shrilling overhead, and then there was silence unbroken and
profound.
Unable to bear the oppression of the quiet, Bertha went into the house,
looked at the sleeping children, lighted a lamp, but remembering that
the petroleum was getting low, she put it out again and went
out-of-doors, because, after all, the silence and the waiting were more
bearable out there than inside the close little house. Then a great sigh
close at hand startled her almost into a fit, until the sound of a
subdued munching reached her ears, and she realized that it was only the
third horse which was feeding with the cow in the paddock that had
frightened her so badly.
“Oh dear, how silly it is to be afraid!” she cried, pressing her hand
over her fluttering heart. “I don’t suppose there is a creature within
three miles of the place, unless, indeed, Tom and Grace are nearly home.
But we shall be fearfully tired to-morrow if we are so late going to bed
to-night.”
Her panic passed off presently. It was really very pleasant sitting out
there in the cool darkness, and, almost without knowing it, she began to
get drowsy. But she must not go to sleep, oh, that would never do!
Shaking herself vigorously, she sat erect for about five minutes, and
then—
But it must have been hours later, and the night was growing very cold,
when she awoke with a start to hear a long sobbing breath close beside
her.
CHAPTER IX
A Dreadful Blow
“WHAT is it, oh, what is it?” cried Bertha, not really wideawake even
now, and so bewildered by the strangeness of her waking as scarcely to
know what she was about.
“Berfa, Berfa, I’m so fwightened, and I want mummy,” said the voice of
Molly close beside her, and then instantly Bertha’s power of
self-control returned. She had been afraid of she knew not what. But
when it was only Molly in trouble who was sobbing at her side, she could
be brave again, or at least she could soothe the child and keep her
fears to herself.
“My poor darling, did you come out here on your bare toes?” she
exclaimed, picking the child up in her arms and groping her way back
into the house, where she lighted the lamp, for the night was now at its
darkest.
“I waked, and it was dark, and I couldn’t find no uns,” explained Molly,
with a whimper—she was addicted to becoming incoherent under stress of
emotion—then she asked, in a plaintive tone, “Where is mummy, Berfa? I
wants her.”
“Mummy has not come back yet, darling; but I will put you into bed, and
then you will shut your eyes and go fast to sleep again,” said Bertha,
soothing the frightened child with loving words and caresses, though she
was not a little anxious and dismayed herself; for the clock in the
kitchen pointed to half-past one, and she knew that something dreadful
must have happened to the two who had gone out riding; because they
would never have left her alone in this fashion if they could have
helped it.
“Will mummy be home when I wakes?” demanded Molly tearfully; and Bertha
made haste to be as soothing as possible, for as a rule Molly could not
enjoy being miserable unless all the others were miserable too, so a
shower with her stood commonly for a downpour all round, and Bertha felt
that she simply could not bear having all those children crying together
just now.
“Yes, I expect mummy will be here by that time,” she said cheerfully.
“But she will not like it if she comes home in the dark and finds you
awake, so you had better make haste and go to sleep again.”
“Me will,” replied Molly, struggling with her sobs and suppressing them
with a great effort, for the stroll out-of-doors into the big dark to
find Bertha had tried her small nerves considerably.
When Molly was safely asleep again, Bertha went back to the door, but
this time she did not put out the light. If they were coming home now
they would need the light to guide them, maybe; in any case, she was
glad to have the company of it as she stood on the dark threshold
straining her eyes and her ears to the night.
What was that? Surely it was a cry away in the distance!
Panting and trembling she clung to the doorpost, her head bent forward
so that she might hear the quicker, but for a time she heard nothing
more. The hands of the clock were pointing to past two; in another hour
it would be daylight, but what, oh what would the new day bring?
Ah, there it was again! A real cry, and no mistake about it. She left
off trembling then. It was no use to shake and shiver when there was
something to do, and Bertha was quite sure by this time that there was
need of her help, only first she must find out from which direction the
cry had come.
Leaving the door wide open, so that the light of the lamp might shine
out, she went away from the house, right out to the darkness of the
paddock, and then stood listening again. She thought that she would hear
better out here, and when that cry came again she meant to answer it,
for all thought of fear was gone from her heart now, and only the desire
to help remained.
“Ber-tha, Ber-tha!”
It was Tom’s voice that called, so it was Grace that was hurt, she told
herself, with a quick understanding of the situation. Then she lifted up
her voice in a ringing shout and began to run. Oh, how she ran! Slipping
through the rails of the paddock fence, she took a bee line across the
brown earth from which the green blades of wheat were already strongly
springing.
It was getting lighter—what a mercy that the night was past! Even in
her sharp anxiety she had time for this bit of thankfulness. Then she
paused, wondering whether she were running wide or going straight, for
as yet she could see nothing but the unending stretch of brown earth,
with the dim shadows of the springing wheat.
“Where are you?” she called, straining her eyes and her ears anew.
“I am here; you are coming straight,” answered the voice; but it was so
exhausted, and so filled with anguish, that Bertha caught her breath in
a sob, realizing that the trouble might be even worse than anything
which she had feared.
On and on she ran, until it seemed to her that she had been running for
hours, and she thought with dismay of the five sleeping babies which she
had left in the little lonely house with the door wide open. But it
could not be helped, and after all they might not wake.
Ah, there was Tom! She saw him now; he was staggering along under a
burden which seemed to weigh him down.
He was carrying Grace! Then where were the horses?
But Bertha had no time for speculation just then, for just as she picked
him out in the pale light she saw him lurch and stumble, try to recover
himself, but failing, pitch forward on to the ground. Surely she had
never run so fast before! She could hear herself panting as she sped
along. But before she could reach him he was on his feet again and was
gathering his wife up in his arms afresh.
“She isn’t dead, Bertha, she isn’t dead, for I heard her groan, poor
dear, when I fell with her. I am afraid I must have hurt her dreadfully.
But it is good to know that there is a little life left in her. For the
last two hours I have thought she had really gone.”
The poor fellow was sobbing from sheer relief and thankfulness, but
Bertha thrust him aside and tried to take Grace in her own arms.
“I am sure that I can carry her for a little way, just to let you get
your breath,” she said, and at the first was more shocked by the awful
haggard look on his face than she was by the white insensibility of
Grace.
“No, you can’t, for you are smaller than she is. But you can help me,
and I am nearly spun out,” he said faintly, and again she was startled
at the look on his face.
Clasping their hands under the insensible form, they went slowly forward
in the growing light of the dawn. Neither spoke a word—they had no
breath left for speech—and Bertha was too appalled even to want to ask
a question as to how the calamity had come about.
Slowly, slowly, slowly went on that dreadful progress. Bertha felt as if
her arms were being dragged out of her body; it was a horrible,
intolerable pain. There was a tightening of the muscles at her throat
which bade fair to choke her; she felt as if she were going blind as she
stumbled forward on that interminable walk—her very senses were
reeling—and then suddenly Tom’s voice called out sharply: “Mind the
gate, Bertha!”
They had reached the paddock. Oh, the blessed relief of it! She made a
great effort, took on a fresh spurt of strength, and fairly counted the
steps across the paddock to the open door of the house where the light
was still burning. Into the kitchen they carried the poor unconscious
Grace, and then Tom lurched forward on to the floor and lay there, while
Bertha turned swiftly to the pantry for the jug of water which she had
put there last night, which already seemed so far away. Pouring some of
it into a basin, she dipped her handkerchief into it and bathed his face
and hands. She must get him better somehow, for she was afraid to touch
Grace, who lay exactly as if she were dead. For a few dreadful moments
Tom lay as apparently lifeless as his wife, then he drew a long breath
and faintly asked for water. Bertha lifted his head and held the glass
to his lips, for he seemed incapable of doing even so much for himself.
But when he had gulped down a glassful his strength came slowly back to
him, and at the end of ten minutes or so he was able to sit up again.
“There is brandy on the top shelf of the cupboard; get it down; we must
try to make her swallow some,” he said, pointing to the cupboard which
stood in the corner.
Bertha hastened to obey. The sight of the white-faced rigid figure on
the couch filled her with awe, for there appeared to be no life there at
all; but Tom seemed so sure that his wife still lived, and now he was
saying over and over again:
“She really groaned when I fell with her, Bertha; she really groaned, I
tell you.”
“Yes, yes, she will be better soon,” panted Bertha, scarcely knowing
what it was that she said, yet realizing the tremendous need there was
for keeping his courage up at this most critical time. Then she got a
teaspoon, and when Tom lifted the poor unconscious head, she gently
trickled a few drops of the spirit through the clenched teeth.
“Give her more, give her more; there is plenty in the bottle,” he said
hoarsely; a terrible fear had struck him that she was gone too far for
any restorative to bring back.
“I dare not put in more than a few drops at the time; it might choke
her,” whispered Bertha, who was listening anxiously for the sound of a
drawn breath.
There were long, awful moments of waiting, then Bertha tried again. Her
face was almost as white now as the face of Grace, but there was a sort
of desperate courage in her heart; she must do her best and wisest, she
must, for it was upon her that the poor distracted husband was leaning
for help, and she had never felt so ignorant in her life, never.
“Ah, she swallowed then! I am sure of it!” cried Tom, in a tone of
ecstasy, as the muscles of Grace’s throat contracted in a little
spasmodic jerk.
More moments of waiting, Bertha had tried again, and again there was
distinct response. Grace was alive, she could swallow, and they could
hear her breathe; but she did not open her eyes or in any way recover
consciousness, and they were sure that she must be terribly injured.
“I must go for the doctor,” said Tom thickly; but he looked so
exhausted, that Bertha took a sudden desperate resolution.
“I shall go myself,” she said sharply. “You are not fit to sit a horse
after what you have gone through, and it will take longer to get the
doctor here if you can’t ride fast.”
“I can’t trust you out alone on horseback; you are not enough used to
riding,” objected Tom.
Bertha’s face whitened. Only too well did she know her limitations with
regard to horseflesh; but it did not weaken her resolution, rather it
strengthened it.
“God will take care of me,” she said simply, reaching down a
wide-brimmed hat that hung on a peg just inside the door. The sun would
be high before she got home, so the hat would be a necessity.
“There is only my old saddle, and you will have to ride Pucker, for I
turned the other horses loose, and they may not be home until to-morrow,
if then, for Grace’s horse was dead lame,” said Tom, getting on to his
feet again with difficulty, for he had been kneeling by the side of his
wife.
“I shall ride cross-saddle, I don’t care what I look like, and I shall
be safer that way,” said Bertha. “If I catch Pucker and bring him up to
the door, will you help me fix the saddle on? I am not quite sure that I
know how it ought to go.”
“I will saddle for you if you can bring the old horse up,” he said, and
Bertha hurried off to catch Pucker, which was fairly easy, as the old
horse was rather of a nuisance than otherwise, for it was in the habit
of hanging about the house to get little scraps of food and dainties of
sorts not usually appreciated by horses.
In about five minutes Bertha was back again, leading Pucker by the
forelock, while Tom had fetched his old saddle from the barn and was
tying it up with string.
“Will you be able to milk at six o’clock?” asked Bertha. “I can do it
before I go, if you like, only it will hinder, and we ought to get the
doctor here as soon as possible.”
“I can do it, and give the children their breakfast too. What are they
to have?” he asked, as he slipped the saddle on to the quiet old horse
and fastened the girths.
“Oh, give them as much milk as they like, and there is some bread in the
pan; they will not hurt until I come home. But, Tom, can you tell me how
it happened?” she asked, in a hesitating tone, with a nod of her head in
the direction of the silent figure which was lying on the couch in the
kitchen. “I hate to worry you; only, the doctor will want to know.”
“Of course he will; but I thought I had told you,” he said, as he helped
her on to the back of Pucker. “Her horse put its foot into a hole and
fell, shooting her over its head. When I picked her up I thought she had
a broken neck, and that is what I am afraid of still.”
“Oh, but that could not be!” she exclaimed, with a quick instinct to
comfort. “For remember, she is alive.”
“Only just; but while there is life there is hope. God bless you,
Bertha, for all the help and comfort you have been to me to-night,” he
said brokenly, and then, as she rode away, he called out: “Tell the
doctor that it happened between eight and nine o’clock last night, and I
was all that time getting her home.”
Bertha gasped. No wonder that he had seemed so fearfully exhausted, if
he had been toiling along with such a burden for so many hours!
Pucker had done no work for three days beyond carrying Dicky and Molly
round and round the paddock whenever it pleased them to take a ride, so
the old horse was able and willing to go. It was not the thirty miles to
Rownton that Bertha had to ride. There was, fortunately for her, a
doctor living at Pentland Broads, fifteen miles away, where they went to
church on Sundays, and where was the nearest store and post office.
A thought came into her mind that she might ride across to Blow End,
where their nearest neighbour lived, and ask her to go over to Duck
Flats and stay with poor Tom until she got back again. But second
thoughts decided her against it. Mrs. Smith was a dreadfully nervous
woman; moreover, she had a young baby, and would naturally find it very
difficult to leave home in the morning. Besides, it would mean half an
hour’s delay in getting to Pentland Broads, and that would be serious.
Pucker was not the easiest of horses to ride, for the creature gambolled
along with a difficult sideway motion which always made Bertha feel as
if she were pitching off. But the cross-saddle fashion in which she was
riding made her feel safer; she had so much better chance of sticking on
than when she sat upon a side-saddle.
She had no whip, but when the first mile or so had been got over at a
horrible shaking trot, she managed to cuff her steed into a lumbering
gallop, and then she got forward at a great pace. She had no chance of
guiding the horse, every faculty being absorbed in the effort to hold
on. But Pucker was more used to going to Pentland Broads than anywhere
else, and having once had his nose set in that direction, there was not
much danger of his going any other road.
“Oh dear, oh dear! I do really believe that I shall be shaken to bits if
this sort of thing keeps on much longer!” she muttered to herself, as
the sun grew hotter and hotter, and the shaking, racking experience of
Pucker’s very best foot foremost made her ache in every limb. Then a
long way ahead she saw the houses at Pentland Broads standing out clear
against the sunshine, and knew that the long, dreadful ride was nearly
at an end.
She could not think what would happen if the doctor should chance to be
out. But it was so early in the day, that such a thing would not be very
likely, unless indeed he had been away all night.
Cloppety, cloppety, clop! Cloppety, cloppety, clop! Poor old Pucker was
entering into the spirit of things with praiseworthy energy; but the
worst of it was that the poor old creature had its limitations, and
could not understand that its rider would want to go anywhere but to the
post office. So it tore past the doctor’s house just as if it were doing
the most colt-like bolt imaginable, then it came to a sudden stop before
the post office, and stood there as if it were planted, while Bertha sat
still on its back, and dared not try to turn the creature round through
fear lest it should start off again, like John Gilpin’s horse of
immortal fame, and take her straight home again with her errand
unaccomplished.
She knew that she could not get off unassisted either, unless indeed she
rolled off; but in that case she might sustain some sort of damage, and
that risk must not be run, in view of the urgent need there was for her
most active assistance now in that stricken household at Duck Flats.
Presently a woman poked her head out from the door of the post office to
see why the old horse with the girl on its back had halted so long just
outside.
“There ain’t no letters from yesterday’s mail for you, Miss Doyne, and
to-day’s mail isn’t in yet,” she said.
“I have not come for letters; I have ridden in for the doctor, but my
horse brought me past his house, and I dare not turn the creature round
for fear that it will carry me back home without stopping at the
doctor’s house. I am not used to riding, you see, and I am not very good
at managing horses either. Could you help me get down? Then I will hitch
my horse up here and go back for the doctor,” said Bertha, hoping that
the woman would not laugh at her for being so helpless.
But nothing was further than laughter from the thoughts of Eunice Long
at the mention of riding for the doctor. It takes a person dwelling in
those remote places of the earth rightly to understand what sickness
means in such widely scattered communities.
“Oh dear, oh dear! Come for the doctor, have you? Who is bad—one of the
children? I am downright sorry for you,” said the little woman, with
such kindly sympathy that it nearly broke down Bertha’s self-control.
“Mrs. Ellis has had an accident out riding; I am afraid that she is very
badly hurt indeed,” said Bertha, and then she rolled off into the arms
of Eunice Long. But as she was more heavy, or perhaps more awkward, than
the little woman expected, the result was that they both rolled over in
the dust together, and it was a man who was passing that picked them up
and set them on their feet again.
Staying for only a brief word of apology, Bertha set off running along
the road to the doctor’s house. She was horribly stiff and cramped with
her long ride, and her progress was neither swift nor graceful; but the
urgency of the case drove her along, and soon she was knocking at the
green-painted door which carried Dr. Benson’s modest brass plate.
But, to her intense dismay, the woman who opened the door to her said
that the doctor was not at home, that he had been away all night, and
might not be home until the next day.
[Illustration: GRACE MEETS WITH AN ACCIDENT]
CHAPTER X
The Worst
“Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?” cried Bertha; and now, under
pressure of this new calamity, her overstrained nerves gave way, and,
sitting down on the doorstep, she burst into a passion of weeping.
“Good gracious! Is it anything very bad the matter?” asked the doctor’s
housekeeper in great concern.
“Yes, yes, there has been a bad accident. Mrs. Ellis has been hurt, and
she may die if we can’t get a doctor to her quickly,” sobbed Bertha,
wondering however she would dare to go back and face poor distracted Tom
if she did not take the doctor with her.
“Well, well, whatever is to be done!” cried the woman, holding up her
hands in consternation, but not able to suggest any way out of the
trouble. It was the quiet voice of Eunice Long, who had followed Bertha
along the road to the doctor’s house, that settled the question of what
would have to be done.
“Where has the doctor gone, Hester?” she asked, reaching out her hand to
give Bertha a comforting pat on the shoulder.
“He is away to Pottle’s Bent. A man there has broke a leg, and doctor
said as there was nothing pressing he’d stay over there to give him a
bit of attention, because he is such a big man that his wife can’t move
him, and it is so wearing to the horses to do that journey very often,”
replied the woman.
“Someone must ride out to Pottle’s Bent and fetch him back at once.
Twenty miles, isn’t it? Now, I wonder who has got the best horse?”
Eunice Long had taken command of the situation, and poor harassed Bertha
sat on the doorstep and listened, thankful to have the dreadful
responsibility lifted from her shoulders.
“Why, Silas Ford has got the best cattle in Pentland Broads; trust him
for that. But whether he will be willing to ride so far for the doctor
is quite another question. Myself, I should be inclined to doubt it,”
said the doctor’s housekeeper in a dogmatic tone.
But Eunice Long smiled, as she said softly: “He will go, I feel sure of
it. That would be a hard-hearted person who would not help a neighbour
in such distress. Besides, Tom Ellis has done us good turns all round,
so we are bound to do our best for him to-day. Just step over to Mr.
Ford, will you, and ask him to set off at once. Tell him that Mrs. Ellis
may die if the doctor is not fetched as quickly as possible.”
“Hadn’t you better go yourself? You are a deal cleverer than I am at
making folks do things they don’t want to do,” said the woman.
“I can’t. I am going to take this child back to the post office and give
her some breakfast, and then I am going to get Bill Humphries to drive
us both out to Duck Flats in his wagon. I could not ride out there if I
tried, and I guess that Miss Doyne has had enough of it for one day,”
replied Eunice, in her quiet, determined fashion.
“Oh, how kind you are; you think of everything!” exclaimed Bertha, as
she limped back to the post office, there to snatch a hasty breakfast,
while Bill Humphries, who kept the forge, hitched a pair of particularly
mettlesome horses to his wagon, in obedience to the softly uttered
command of Miss Long.
“We are bound to do our best for each other,” said Eunice. “It is you
that need it to-day, but it may be me to-morrow, don’t you see, and if
we don’t do a good part for each other, who is going to put themselves
out for us?”
“How can you leave the post office?” asked Bertha, for she knew that
David Long, the brother of Eunice, was away, and Government servants
cannot do as other people.
“Oh, Kitty Humphries will watch the instruments, and her mother will
stand sponsor for her, and will keep the key of the safe,” answered
Eunice. “I would not like to promise that Kitty won’t read all the post
cards; but that is not a serious matter, because people should not put
private business on post cards, and what is already public does not
matter.”
At this moment Bill Humphries drove his skittish pair up to the door,
and the two made haste to clamber into the wagon, while Bill’s eldest
boy hung on to the heads of the horses to keep them from bolting.
“Oh, what shall I do with Pucker? Shall he be tied on behind?” asked
Bertha, suddenly remembering her horse, which still stood as if it were
planted in front of the post office.
“Better not; the poor old creature can’t travel as fast as my colts.
I’ll send my Jim out with him this evening; he can bring over the
doctor’s stuff,” said Bill Humphries; then he shouted an order to Jim to
look after Pucker, and to give the old horse a good feed, to which Jim
responded with a yell, as he sprang clear of the horses, which
immediately started off at a tearing gallop.
“Has the other man gone for the doctor yet?” asked Bertha in a low tone,
as Eunice tucked a cushion at her back to rest her a little and save her
some of the jolting of the wagon.
“Silas Ford? Yes, he started before we did,” said Eunice, and Bill
Humphries rumbled out a low laugh of amusement, which even the solemnity
of the occasion could not prevent.
“He was mad about it, though, and he said downright flat that he
wouldn’t budge, for he is behind with his seeding, and looked to about
finish it to-day; but the doctor’s housekeeper told him as how Miss Long
had said that he had got to go, and then he gave in as mild as a
calf—ha, ha, ha!”
Bertha wondered where the joke came in, and then was amazed to find that
the face of Eunice Long was scarlet with hot, distressful blushes. She
turned her head quickly then, for it did not seem right to spy into
matters which did not concern her, and she could not bear for Eunice to
know that she had seen. How those horses did go! And with what skill
Bill guided them along the rough trail through those endless stretches
of ploughed land, where the green wheat was springing in straight
furrows which seemed to have no end. But Bertha hardly saw the wheat.
She was wondering what was happening at that lonely little house at Duck
Flats. Had Grace shown any sign of consciousness yet? And how was Tom
bearing the weary waiting for the help which was so long in coming?
Bill had lapsed into a sort of shamed silence after his burst of
laughter about the way in which Silas Ford had been made to do his duty,
while Eunice spoke no word at all, only once or twice reached out a
comforting hand to pat Bertha on the arm, as if to show a sympathy that
was too deep for words. Presently the house with its barns and sheds
came in sight.
“She is still alive,” announced Bill suddenly, with so much relief in
his tone that Bertha instantly forgave him that unseemly burst of
laughter.
“How do you know?” she asked.
He pointed with his whip to two small figures scuttling to and fro
before the house, which were plainly Dicky and Molly feeding the
chickens and doing small chores to the best of their ability.
“See the children running out and in. Do you think Tom Ellis would let
them do that if the poor mother had gone? Don’t you fret, Miss Doyne, I
guess if the poor thing has lived so long she is going to get better,”
he said, with the cheery optimism that was a part of his nature.
“Yes, please God, she is going to get better,” breathed Eunice; and
Bertha was comforted in spite of her fears, for faith is somehow
infectious, and one could not utterly despair in such company.
Tom was at the door to meet them when the wagon drew up at the house;
such an unkempt, dishevelled figure he looked. “Where is the doctor?” he
demanded, with fierce impatience, as his eye swept the little group in
the wagon.
“On his way here by this time, if I know anything about Silas Ford and
the ways of his cattle,” said Bill Humphries, as he leaped off the front
of the wagon and held out his arms to lift Eunice down first. He
reckoned that she was of the most use at this juncture, having had more
experience in sickness than Bertha, so he put her in readiness for
action first.
Tom groaned. It was dreadful to think of having to wait longer, after
having waited so long already; but it was something to see Eunice Long
on the scene, for it was well known that she was more clever and capable
than most in sickness and trouble of all kinds.
“How is she?” asked Eunice, putting Tom aside with one hand, and
stepping across the threshold, followed by Bertha.
“She is alive, and that is all I can say about it,” answered Tom,
following them into the kitchen, where Grace still lay on the couch just
as he had lain her down with the help of Bertha in the dawning.
Eunice stooped over her, deftly touching her here and there, while the
other two looked on, and then she said, with a look at Bertha: “I think
we ought to get her to bed. Is it ready for her?”
“The bed is, but the children have not been dressed yet. I will get them
out of the room,” said Bertha, turning towards the bedroom, where Noll
and the twins, still in a state of undress, were having a great time at
a pillow fight.
She swept up an armful of little garments, seized Noll in the other arm,
and, calling to the twins to follow, took them out on to the veranda,
and there set Molly and Dicky to the task of clothing the three small
children, active assistance being rendered by Bill Humphries, who,
having a large family of his own, had learned many things by experience,
although he confessed that the buttons and tapes were to the last degree
bewildering to a mere man.
Inside the house Eunice and Bertha, with some help from Tom, carried
Grace and laid her on her bed, then, sending him away, Eunice removed
the garments one by one and anxiously searched for possible injuries.
But there was not one to be seen. Grace did not even seem to have been
bruised by the terrible fall, although she lay so still and motionless.
“What is it? What are you afraid of?” asked Bertha sharply, seeing the
gravity had become deeper on the face of Eunice.
“It is her brain or her spine which has been injured, I fear, perhaps
both,” said Eunice softly, although she might have shouted and Grace
would still not have heard or understood.
“Will she get better?” asked Bertha, her parched tongue rattling against
the roof of her mouth.
“If the Lord wills,” replied Eunice, in a solemn tone; but there was no
ring of hopefulness in her tone now, and Bertha turned away wondering,
yet did not dare to ask another question.
It was noon before the doctor came. Bill Humphries had put his horses in
the barn and was doing such things about the house as Tom would have
done in happier circumstances; but Tom himself was lying on the bed in
the little room where Bertha slept, in such a state of collapse, that it
looked as if they were going to have two invalids to care for instead of
one.
A long half-hour the doctor was shut in with Grace, with only Eunice for
a helper, and when he came out his face was as grave as that of Eunice
had been when the injured woman was undressed. Tom was asleep, too worn
out and exhausted to keep awake for the news which was like life or
death to him, so there was only Bertha to hear the verdict of the
doctor.
“There is some concussion of the brain, but that will probably pass off
in a few hours, and Mrs. Ellis will become conscious again,” said the
doctor.
Bertha’s face lightened with a flash of radiant hope. “Then do you think
that she will soon be better?” she asked, with such bounding relief at
her heart that she longed to shout or sing.
“That I cannot say yet,” replied the doctor, and his manner was so very
grave that the riotous hope in Bertha’s heart died suddenly.
“What is it that you are afraid of? Tell me quick; I can bear it,” she
said sharply; but she turned so very white that the doctor had his
doubts about her ability to stand up under any more trouble just then,
so he said that he would be glad of a meal if she could get him
something to eat, then he would go out and lie on the straw in the barn
for a couple of hours, after which he would see Mrs. Ellis again before
he went away.
“But why the barn?” asked Bertha; then remembering that Tom was lying
asleep in the other room, she said quickly, “I will rouse my cousin; he
would not like you to be turned into the barn, I am sure.”
“I should be very angry if you did rouse him,” said the doctor, looking
so fierce that Bertha quailed before him. “We have got quite enough
trouble to face in this house just now without having Tom Ellis for a
patient as well as his wife. It is this sleep that may save him from
collapse, but he will need to sleep for hours and hours if it is going
to do him any good. I have had to rest in a good many places not half so
comfortable as that barn yonder, so you need not worry about me. Only,
if I am not back in the house again by three o’clock, I shall be glad if
you will come and call me.”
“I will do it, certainly,” she answered; then, plucking up courage, she
said timidly, “but will you please tell me what is the matter with Mrs.
Ellis? I have got to know sometime, and there is nothing so wearing as
suspense.”
The doctor went suddenly silent, stirred his coffee with an air of
impatience, as if angry at being bothered, although in reality he hated
to give pain, then he said gruffly: “There is injury to the spine, and I
am afraid, I am very much afraid, that she will be a helpless invalid
for the remainder of her days.”
CHAPTER XI
A Wild Revolt
BERTHA stared at the doctor in speechless horror, but he was stirring
his coffee again and frowning at the tablecloth as if it had offended
him. Then she turned and walked out-of-doors, feeling her way with her
hands because she could not see.
It was awful, too awful for words! Busy, active Grace, with her tribe of
little children, a hopeless, helpless invalid! Why, surely sudden death
would have been kinder! What would they do? Who would nurse Grace and
mother the children, wash, cook, and mend for the household? Who would
do all these things?
“I shall have to do them myself,” she groaned, then realizing all that
it would mean to her cherished prospects and the tremendous giving up
that it would involve, she muttered between her set teeth as she
clutched at the post of the veranda to keep herself from falling, “I
can’t do it, and I won’t! Oh, I won’t!”
How long she stood there she had no idea. She knew that the doctor went
past her on his way to the barn; she heard Eunice come to the door and
call softly to Bill Humphries and then go back again. But mercifully no
one took the slightest notice of her, so she clung fast to her post,
while the whirling revolt in her heart grew blacker and wilder, until
she felt as if she would go off her head.
It was the cry of a child which brought her to her senses again. Baby
Noll had come to grief again, and was yelling in the whole-hearted
fashion in which he always voiced his woes. Tom must not hear him, and
the crying of the child would be sure to rouse him. Bertha remembered
how Grace had often said that Tom always heard the children cry at night
long before they roused her.
Moving slowly, because she felt so weak and spent, Bertha went to pick
up the crying child, and comforted him, as she had often done before,
until he was soon laughing again; for happily his griefs did not last
long. Then she went back to the house. It was all very well to make up
her mind that she would accept no responsibility with regard to this
distressful family in the immediate future, but to save her own
self-respect, and because her heart was kinder than she believed it to
be, she had got to do her duty by them at the present. She was clearing
up the kitchen, moving in a dull, mechanical fashion because of her
dreadful weariness, when Eunice came out of the bedroom and laid
forcible hands upon her.
“You must have some rest or you will break down, and you have been such
a dear, brave child,” said the little woman kindly.
“I can’t rest yet; I have to call the doctor at three o’clock, and this
muddle must be cleared up,” said Bertha, stoutly resisting any attempt
to make her rest, but secretly wincing at the words of praise from
Eunice, because she knew herself unworthy of them.
“I can call the doctor, or I can rouse you to go and do it at the proper
time. Come in with me and lie on the children’s bed for a little rest,
then you will feel so much better, more fit to help everyone who needs
you,” said the little woman in her gentle, persuasive fashion.
Bertha yielded then because she had no more strength to hold out, only
when she went into the room where Grace lay unconscious she glanced
fearfully at the still white face, as if fearing that the mute lips
would upbraid her for the wild revolt which was tearing at her heart.
Then she dropped on to the little bed where the twins slept at night,
and for a brief spell her troubles were forgotten in the slumber which
comes so easily when one is young.
It was Eunice who called the doctor, for Bertha was so very fast asleep.
Then he came stealing into the room, looked at Grace, gave a curt order
or two under his breath, and then rode away. He would come again
to-morrow. Meanwhile, there was nothing to be done but to watch and
wait.
It was six o’clock when Bertha woke, and she was dreadfully ashamed of
herself for having slept so long. She went out to get supper then and to
bring in the tired children, who had played out-of-doors the whole day
long. Bill Humphries wanted her to say that he might take Dicky and
Molly back with him for a while, so that they should be off her hands,
but Bertha, remembering how useful those two had been in looking after
the three babies that day, said that she could not spare them. It was a
little puzzling to know where to put them to bed that night, but finally
the three youngest were put into their mother’s room as usual, and if
their father did not rouse later on, Dicky and Molly would have to sleep
on the sofa which stood in the kitchen. But she and Eunice would watch
in the sickroom; for who could say what the turn of the night might
bring to the white-faced woman on the bed?
Young Humphries rode Pucker home in the evening. He brought medicine
from the doctor with him, and he had also discovered the two horses
feeding by the side of the trail through the wheatfields, had managed to
catch them, and had brought them along also. He told Eunice that her
brother had come home, so that the post office need not trouble her, and
that someone would come out next morning to relieve her as nurse for a
few hours. Then he helped his father hitch the frisky horses to the
wagon, and the two drove away in the twilight, and darkness dropped
softly over the wide stretches of wheat and over the little house with
its burden of pain.
Tom Ellis was still asleep, and the two elder children, to their great
delight, were put to bed on the couch, where they lay in rapturous
enjoyment of the novelty of the situation, giggling ecstatically until
they went to sleep.
It was at the turn of the night, that weird hour between one day and
another, when so many sufferers slip their fetters, that the eyes of
Grace came open, and in a tone of surprise she asked: “Where am I?”
“At home in bed,” replied Bertha, making her voice sound as natural as
she could, though she was trembling in every limb.
“Was it a bad dream that I have been having, then?” Grace asked. “I
thought that I was hurt, or was it Tom? Oh, Bertha, where is Tom?”
“He is asleep on the bed in the other room,” said Bertha soothingly,
while Eunice sank farther back in the shadows, fearing to excite Grace
with her presence just then.
“Bertha, there was an accident then, and he was hurt! Is he still alive,
oh, tell me, quick, quick?” she panted, her eyes moving with an
expression of the keenest distress; but she did not lift a finger or
attempt to move herself in any way.
Bertha stooped over her and gently stroked her face. “He is not hurt at
all, dear, only he is very, very tired, for he brought you home in his
arms. It took hours; he was fearfully exhausted, and the doctor said
that we were not to wake him on any account.”
“The doctor? Then he is hurt? Oh, Bertha, Bertha, it is cruel, cruel to
tell me falsehoods even in kindness!” exclaimed Grace, and there was
such a pathos in her voice that Bertha shrank back affrighted, looking
at Eunice for help.
The little woman stepped forward out of the shadows and gently thrust
Bertha to one side.
“She is quite right, Mrs. Ellis, your husband was not hurt. It was you
that were thrown, pitched on to your head, and it has made you dazed for
a time. Mr. Ellis had to carry you so far that he was really knocked up,
though I think it was his worry on your account that upset him as much
as anything.”
“Why, it is Miss Long!” said Grace, in great surprise.
“Yes, I came over when I heard that you had had a fall. Bertha is not
very much used to sickness, you see, and I knew that you would come to
me if I were bad and needed you. Now, suppose you take this stuff the
doctor left for you and then try to sleep, you will feel better when you
wake again,” said Eunice, a kind of mesmeric soothing in her voice, as
she held the medicine to the lips of Grace.
“I can’t move, and I can’t feel what is the matter with me. Shall I be
better when I wake?” asked Grace, with such a look of terror in her
face, that Eunice swallowed a sob and kept her voice steady with a great
difficulty.
“You will be stronger when you wake. Go to sleep now, dear, go to
sleep,” said the little woman gently, and then, under the influence of
the medicine, which was a sleeping draught, Grace was speedily
unconscious again.
“Her brain is all right, thank God!” said Eunice, in a low moved tone,
as the two stood looking at the quiet figure in her deep slumber.
“But her body! Oh, Miss Long, did you hear what she said?” cried Bertha,
with a sob.
“Yes; but the body is such a small matter compared with the brain, and
in time who can say but what she may be quite well again. Stranger
things have happened, and doctors are human and likely to make mistakes
like the rest of us,” said Eunice, in a cheerful tone; then she added,
with a graver note in her voice, “Meanwhile, she has you, and what a
blessing you will be in the house! It will be your chance of paying back
to your cousin the care she gave to you and your sisters when your
mother died.”
Bertha drew a sharp breath and turned away without answering. This was a
side of the question she had not looked at before. She had entirely
ignored her own responsibility in the matter in that night’s wild
revolt, and the recollection of it was like a fetter to bind her to the
life from which she was so anxious to escape.
Tom did not wake until daylight, and then he was himself again, at least
it was a comfort to know there was no fear of having him for an invalid
also; and Bertha tried to rally her drooping spirits as the day wore on,
telling herself that most probably things would not be so bad or so
black as at first they had threatened.
It was late in the afternoon when the doctor came, and Grace was just
rousing out of her deep, drug-induced sleep. Again it was Eunice and the
doctor who were shut up with her, while Bertha waited in anxious dread
outside the closed door, and Tom, who did not know that there was
anything to dread, hovered round, so glad and thankful that his wife was
still alive, that it made Bertha’s heart ache to watch him.
Why, oh why had Eunice not warned him of what might be in store? It
seemed so cruel to let him hope when perhaps there was no hope.
“What a long time the doctor is in there! Was he as long yesterday?” Tom
asked, coming restlessly into the kitchen and standing by the table
where Bertha was busy breadmaking. To her it was like the grimmest irony
of things that daily work had to be done, whatever issues were at stake.
But she only nodded her head in reply, for at that moment the doctor
came out of the room, and, crossing to the outer door, beckoned to Tom
to follow him. Bertha heaved a great sigh of relief. At least she had
been spared the heavy task of letting him know of the trouble which
might be in store for him.
In about ten minutes he was back again with such a look on his face as
she had never seen there before, and she caught her breath in a little
gasp of amazement. It was a glorified expression that he wore, and it
lifted him above the commonplace.
“Can I go in?” he asked, as Eunice at this moment appeared on the
threshold of the inner room; and when the little woman nodded her head,
he passed in and shut the door behind him.
If trouble could make a plain man look like that, surely it could not be
unmixed disaster! That was the thought in Bertha’s mind for the
remainder of the day, and though she tried to escape it she could not.
All her life she had worshipped beauty wherever she could find it. Tom
Ellis had seemed hitherto to be only a struggling unlettered farmer,
more intent on making money than improving his intellectual standing;
but the blow which might have felled a less noble soul had left him
standing erect and strong, so surely the disaster had wrought him only
good.
The question was, What would it do for her? Could she, too, rise above
this crushing blow of fate and watch all her bright ambitions smitten to
the dust, while only the satisfaction of duty done remained to her?
Could she rise above it? Could she?
But meanwhile there was bread to bake, five little children to care for
and feed, the housework to do, and all the thousand-and-one things that
come to tax the strength and patience of the prairie housekeeper, so
Bertha went straight on, leaving the question of what she could really
do and bear to settle itself.
CHAPTER XII
The Glory of the Wheat
THE magic of Manitoba was laying hold of Bertha. There was a vigour and
a stir in the wild, solitary life of the prairie which was like new life
to the girl who had been so pale and listless when she lived at home,
sheltered and cared for by the two hard-working elder sisters. There was
not much sheltering or carefulness on her account in these glowing
summer days while the wheat was ripening and the busy farmers were
preparing to deal with a record crop.
Grace lay in the same helpless condition in which she had been brought
home. She could move one hand a little, her face and speech were just
the same as when she was well, but the rest of her was as if it were
dead so far as her feeling went.
Regardless of the expense, Tom had had a specialist out from Winnipeg;
but the great man could only endorse the opinion of Dr. Benson, who had
said that Mrs. Ellis might recover after some years, when the paralyzing
effects of the fall had worn off, or she might all her life remain a
helpless invalid. The cost of the specialist’s visit would leave Tom
Ellis a poor man until after he had reaped his harvest, and the worst of
it was no good had come from it save that little ray of hope for the
future, which, after all, might not be hope. But husband and wife
accepted the inevitable with the resignation and patience born of a
great faith and trust, making the best of things so far as a best could
be made.
Friends and neighbours were as kind as kind could be, but it was on
Bertha that the heavy load of the household burden fell. It was she who
had to mother the children now, to make the bread, and cook the dinners.
It was her sorely incapable hands which, when the cooking and cleaning
were done, had to fashion the little garments for the children. Only in
this matter of sewing Grace, though helpless, was of the greatest
assistance, because she knew just how it ought to be done, and she could
direct the cutting out, the putting together, and all the planning and
fixing which goes to work of that kind.
Bertha’s revolt was over. No one had even guessed the time of struggle
through which she had gone, unless indeed Eunice Long had read what was
in her heart during those black hours when the disaster was new. But
Bertha felt that never again would she be able to respect herself
because of the manner in which she had fallen in her self-esteem that
day, when first she had been told that Grace would probably be helpless.
She hated the thought of her bondage as much as ever, but she knew that
there was no escaping it, and so accepted her fate with the best grace
she could.
Perhaps it was that most wholesome disgust of herself which helped her
most at this time, because she forced herself to perform all her
manifold duties with the quickness and thoroughness she would have put
into work that was a joy, and if in the morning her soul revolted at the
thought of the long, toilsome day ahead of her, no one knew it but
herself.
The children grew and throve in the sunshine, they lived in the fields
from morning to night, and the narrow little house was strangely quiet
and peaceful in the long summer noons when Bertha came to sit by the
couch, and learn the unspoken lessons of patience which Grace was
teaching her day by day.
From the window of the kitchen, which was sitting-room, dining-room, and
kitchen all combined, there was nothing to be seen save the wide
stretches of waving wheat, varied here and there by low grassy knolls
covered with golden rod in full bloom, a mauve chrysanthemum and the
bright purple thistle common to the prairie. Bertha’s eyes ached for the
cool green of tree foliage, but the only green leaves to be seen were
from the pumpkin vines, which she herself had planted by the veranda in
the springtime, and which had flourished and spread until they made a
shade of greenery most welcome to the eye.
“Another month and all will be bare stubble. Of what a relief it will
be!” said Grace one hot afternoon, as her eager gaze wandered out
through the open door to the landscape bathed in sunshine, where the
waving wheat was already turning to gold in readiness for harvest.
“It will be a very busy time, but we shall get through somehow; don’t
worry about it,” replied Bertha soothingly; for she thought that Grace
was wondering how the harvest rush of work would go through without her
hands to help.
“It was not the thought of the work which made me so anxious to have it
over,” went on Grace, with a far-away look in her eyes, as if she were
seeing more than the waving stretch of wheat. “I am afraid that my faith
is of very poor stuff, because it gets so feeble in times of strain. But
sometimes I can hardly sleep at night, wondering what would happen to us
if tempest ruined the crop now.”
“A tempest might damage it, but surely, surely it would not entirely
ruin it now,” said Bertha, who found it difficult to realize all that
was involved by this system of specializing in agriculture.
“Sometimes a thousand acres of corn are destroyed in a night on these
prairie lands, and if it is fate—our fate—who can stay it?” said
Grace, as her gaze travelled to and fro along the little stretch of
horizon that could be seen from where she lay. Then she cried out, with
an anguish of fear in her tone: “Bertha! Bertha! What is that out
yonder?”
Bertha sprang to her feet, startled by the terror in the tone of the
invalid. But she could see nothing at all to rouse a fear; it was just a
stretch of golden-floored space, with the blue sky above, and a dim
white cloud on the edge of the horizon.
“There is nothing wrong, dear, that I can see, nothing,” she said, but
all the same she went to the window, which gave a different view to that
spread out before the open door; for she wanted to make sure that there
was really no cause for alarm.
“It is smoke! It is smoke!” cried Grace hoarsely. “Don’t you see that
white cloud on the edge of the horizon? It was not there ten minutes
ago, and it is not a real cloud, I am sure of it. Something has set fire
to the wheat, and the wind is driving this way. Oh, Bertha, what shall
we do? What shall we do?”
“There may be nothing wrong,” said Bertha quietly, although her heart
was beating furiously. “I will run across to the barn and climb the
ladder. Tom left it there this morning when he was mending the shingle
at the corner. There was not enough wood to finish the job, so he said
that it would have to wait until to-morrow.”
“Take the glass, you will see farther; it stands on the shelf in my
bedroom. Only, make haste, make haste!” panted Grace.
Bertha flew to obey. She was growing alarmed herself, for certainly this
was like no cloud that she had ever seen before, and already the whole
horizon was streaked with filmy haze.
Slipping the field glass into her apron pocket, so that she might have
both hands free for climbing the ladder, she swarmed upwards as fast as
she could go. Reaching the ridge, she steadied herself with one hand,
and, pulling the glass from her pocket with the other, she tried to see
what it was which made that dreadful murky haze away to the west, where
the stretch of corn reached to the horizon.
Her hand was shaking so badly that the glass wobbled up and down, and
she could get no focus at all. But alas! alas! she did not need the
evidence of her eyes to tell her what it was, for the west wind was
bringing on its breath the smell of smoke. Grace was right; it was the
wheat that was on fire, and the wind was blowing it straight on to their
section. Tom was away. He had gone over to Pottle’s Bent with two horses
to bring home a reaper, in readiness to start cutting on the next day
but one. But if the fire had its way there would be no cutting to do,
and the golden plenty which waited for harvesting would be nothing but a
blackened ruin.
“What can I do?” she wailed, as she slid down the ladder, and then with
unerring instinct ran indoors to ask Grace what was the wisest thing to
do.
“If the reaper were here, you might ride up and down a swath until you
had cut enough to stop the fire. But the reaper isn’t here, and so that
is out of the question, and there is nothing to be done but to beat it
out,” said Grace, her nimble mind taking in the best way to meet the
danger and overcome it.
“I’ll go and hitch Pucker to the wagon and put a barrel into it; I shall
have to fill it with water afterwards, and it will take time, but I will
be as fast as I can,” panted Bertha, and then she rushed away in a great
hurry, bidding Grace remember all that she would want to take with her.
The wagon stood outside the barn, and it did not take many minutes to
roll an empty barrel towards it, and then by sheer strength of arm get
it up into the wagon, where she wedged it tight to keep it from spilling
the water. Pucker came up to see what was going forward, and she caught
him promptly, hitching him to the wagon with a dexterity born of much
practice, then, driving up to the house, she proceeded to fill her
barrel rather more than half full of water. Luckily she had that morning
drawn up from the well the water she would want the next day for the
family wash, and this saved her much time.
“Throw half a dozen sacks into the wagon, some pieces of string, and two
or three brooms—you will be able to fight the fire quicker with a bag
on a broom,” said Grace, then she bade her prop the doors open and go.
“Say Godspeed to me, dear; I am so horribly afraid!” panted Bertha,
halting for a moment by the couch, her face white and drawn, and all the
old cowardice of her nature rising up to mock her, now that she so badly
needed to be brave and strong.
“Godspeed you, dear, and make your arms strong to save our harvest for
us,” said Grace, and there was such a thrill in her tones, that Bertha
was stirred by it into forgetting the miserable tremors which made her
shrink from the task before her.
Scrambling into the wagon, she drove across the paddock to the gate
leading out to the westward trail. The children were playing behind the
barn, where there was a thin strip of shade, and she called to them to
go back to the house to look after their mother. She would have liked to
take Dicky with her, because he was quite able to help her fight the
fire. But he was the eldest, and must be left to look after the smaller
children; for Molly was a feckless mite, and the twins were mostly in
mischief.
When once the paddock gate was shut, and she had mounted the wagon
again, she drove along the trail a hard gallop. The old horse doubtless
wondered why so much stick was his portion, but he rose to the occasion,
and did his level best to get over the ground. Grace had told her to put
a cover on the barrel so that the water should not be spilled, and
although a little washed over and wet her frock, it did more good than
harm, since if she were wet there would be less danger of her clothing
taking fire.
Once before, when she and Hilda were staying at a farm, she had helped
to fight a fire which broke out in a hayfield, but it had been
comparatively easy for half a score of people to tramp out the sparks
and flames in a field of burning grass. But now she had to wrestle
singlehanded with a stretch of fire that threatened a vast area of wheat
which was more than waist high.
“But someone else will see it, and if I am the first there I shall be
sure to have help soon,” she said to herself, as the wagon bumped,
bounced, and swayed over the roughness of the trail. She was getting
nearer now; the flames were visible, shooting out like red tongues
through the thick smoke, while she could hear the soft rustle and rush
of the flames.
Luckily the trail led along one side of the burning area, and so she was
able to get quite near with the wagon before plunging into the
waist-high wheat. Her great trouble was with Pucker. The poor old horse
was afraid of the fire, and she was so much in dread that he would bolt.
To prevent a catastrophe of this sort, she dismounted and, tilting her
hat over the eyes of the animal, led it forward right up to the edge of
the burning corn.
Before she could begin to fight the fire she had to unhitch Pucker from
the wagon and tie him so that he could not stampede. When this was done
she set to work knocking out the fire, but it was awful toil. Every time
she wanted to wet her broom afresh she had to swing up into the wagon,
dip the broom and the sack into the barrel, and swing down again, rush
across the patch of blackened, smouldering stubble, and dab away at the
fire until her weapon was dry again. Her boots were singed; her short
skirt would have been blazing long ago, if she had not taken the
precaution of dipping it in the barrel, so that it hung limp and soaked
about her feet.
Would no help ever come? She was making no headway in putting out the
fire, though it was not gaining as it would have done if she had not
been there to check it. There was a great terror on her lest her water
should be exhausted before help came. If this happened, she would have
to go back to the house for more, and she would have to draw it up from
the well; and oh! the very thought of it almost broke her down, while
there was a noise of many waters in her head, the sun scorched her with
a fierce heat, the fire burned her shoes, and she was so nearly
exhausted that she was afraid that she would roll into the burning
wheat, and so come by a terrible death in her efforts to put out the
fire.
Slowly she swung herself into the wagon for the last time—it must be
the last time, for there was hardly enough water left to damp her sack.
What was the use of even trying to keep on any longer, when she could
only keep the fire in check and could not succeed in putting it out?
Squelch! Squelch! Down into the bottom of the barrel went the singed and
smouldering broom. Surely there was more water left than she had
supposed! She could keep on a little longer yet, and, yes—really she
was sure that the stretch of fire was no greater than it had been.
But hark! What was that?
A strained shout reached her ears, but as yet she could not see anyone
coming. Her eyes were smarting so with dust and steam that everything
was misty and indistinct; but it was a shout that she had heard,
and—ah, yes, there was another!
Joy! Joy! The wheat might be saved after all! Down from the wagon she
sprang, the black, dirty water splashing into her face, which was
blacker still; but no one thought of looks in times of stress like
these. She was stronger now that her hope had revived, and she fled
across the blackened space to fight with renewed energy, while the
shouts came nearer and nearer. She could hear horses galloping, and knew
for a certainty that help was at hand.
“Look out; you are afire!” yelled a voice, too hoarse and strained for
recognition, and at the same moment Bertha felt a swirling hot blast
strike her on the side, and, to her horror, a tongue of flame shot up
the sleeve of her blouse. There was no time to think, she could only
act, and, dropping promptly on the ground, she rolled and rolled,
fighting the terrible danger that menaced her. Then suddenly something
wet and cold dropped upon her, there was more vigorous rolling, only now
it was someone else who did it, and then, when she tried to get up, a
woman’s voice said in her ears:
“Lie still a few minutes; you will feel better then. But I must go and
help them put the fire out.”
For a little while Bertha lay still, trying to get rid of that horrible
fluttering at her heart which had seized her when she saw the fire
creeping up her arm; then, remembering the dire need there was for her
to be up and helping, she struggled to her feet again. At first she
swayed dizzily, but by dint of leaning on her broom handle she managed
to get across to where several people were working with frantic haste at
the line of fire.
“Better, are you?” panted the woman, whom Bertha now recognized as Mrs.
Smith, from Blow End, their nearest neighbour.
“I am all right, thank you,” Bertha answered, and then, dipping her
broom into a barrel of water, which the two men who were also fighting
the fire had placed on the ground, she went to work with a will again.
It was easier now—the terrible sense of responsibility was lifted.
Moreover, it was so much easier with the water on the ground: one could
dip and run, dabbing and beating with a dripping sack, and so quenching
out a much longer area of fire with the same amount of labour.
Neither of the men spoke to Bertha, except that once Mr. Smith shouted
to her to be careful and wet her frock, or she would be on fire again.
At the end of half an hour the danger was over, and the four blackened,
exhausted fire-fighters gathered in a group to discuss the ruin which
had been so narrowly averted, and to rest their aching arms after the
trial of strength and endurance through which they had passed.
“We were drawing up the water for washing to-morrow,” said Mrs. Smith, a
young and pretty woman with two little children, “then a traveller from
Brown & Smedley’s Implement Factory at Gilbert Plains rode up and said
he’d seen smoke over this way. I guess we acted on that hint pretty
smart. His horses were fresh, and ours wanted catching, so we just
filled three barrels with water, and I shut the children into the
bedroom. They were both asleep, luckily, and then away we came. But I
guess we should have been too late to have done much good if it had not
been for you. My word, but you were plucky to tackle it alone, and you
must have worked like a nigger!”
“Is there much wheat burned?” asked Bertha, miserably conscious now of
her most awful appearance, as the traveller from Messrs. Brown & Smedley
turned to look at her with what she deemed a calm and critical gaze. He
was black and dusty himself, but nothing compared to her.
“Not more than two acres, I should say,” replied Mr. Smith. “But that is
thanks to you, Miss Bertha. It would have been touch and go with a
hundred acres if you had not kept it from crossing the Rownton trail.”
“I am afraid that I should never have been brave enough to face it
alone. But Mrs. Ellis told me that I must come, and so I just had to do
my best,” replied Bertha. “And oh, can you do without me now, for I have
left her alone except for the children?”
“Yes, go by all means; the men can do without any more help now. I am
going myself, too, for I tremble to think what may be happening to my
babies,” said Mrs. Smith; and then she called out: “Here comes someone
else—what a blessed relief! Now I shall be able to be driven home
instead of having to walk.”
The someone else was Bill Humphries, who had been driving back to
Pentland Broads from the depot at Rownton, but, seeing the smoke, had
driven as hard as his horses could travel to reach the place.
While these explanations had been going on, Bertha went off to hitch up
Pucker, and she was quite unreasonably annoyed because the strange young
man, who was a traveller from Messrs. Brown & Smedley, came to help in
the hitching-up process.
“I do not need help, thank you,” she said, in a frosty tone.
“I can quite believe that you do not, still it is a pleasure to do
something, all the same,” said the unknown, who did not appear to be
easily rebuffed; for he had calmly taken the business into his own
hands, and Bertha found herself relegated to the position of mere
onlooker, which made her more vexed than before. She told herself it was
like cool impertinence to thrust her on one side in this fashion.
So she stood silent and ungracious, then, when the wagon was ready, she
mounted with a brief word of thanks and drove off, glad to get away from
those calmly scrutinizing eyes.
CHAPTER XIII
A Trick of Memory
POOR old Pucker had a good deal of stick on the return journey also, but
he was a horse that mostly needed considerable encouragement of this
kind. Moreover, Bertha was sick with anxiety on account of Grace, who
had never been left alone since the accident. She had not had time to
think about her before, the need had been too desperate, but now—well,
Pucker had to do his very best in the matter of speed, that was all,
while the empty wagon bounced and bumped, threatening to overturn at
least half a dozen times, yet never quite managing to do it.
What a relief it was when the house and barn came in sight! What a still
greater relief when she drove up to the gate of the paddock, to find
Dicky running to open it for her! And when she had driven through, and
the gate was shut again, she stopped the horse and reached down to help
the adventurous Dicky to climb up beside her.
“Have you taken good care of Mummy?” she asked, letting Pucker cross the
paddock at a walk, because she felt that she could not bear any more
bumping just then.
“Of coorse I has,” replied Dicky, with a great deal of swagger. “But I
just wish that I had been able to come and help you fight the fire,
Bertha. Wasn’t it fine?”
“No, it was not—it was horrible!” she exclaimed, with a shudder,
thinking of some of the moments when she was almost at the point of
despair before help came.
“I shouldn’t have been afraid, at least not much,” said the small boy,
with a sigh; and then he burst out: “I say, Bertha, a man has been here
since you went away.”
“What man?” asked Bertha sharply, thinking that if it were a stranger,
Grace must have been dreadfully upset.
“I don’t know, and I don’t like him either, though he gave me half a
dollar, and he gave Molly another,” said Dicky, frowning heavily. In his
estimation people who could bestow largess to that amount ought to be in
every way satisfactory, which made it disappointing when they were not.
Bertha drove up to the house with very active wonder stirring in her
mind, and, jumping down, she lifted Dicky out also, and then hurried
indoors to see how it fared with Grace. One look at the face on the
pillow was enough to show Bertha that the excitement of the afternoon
had been far too much for the invalid, and, letting everything else go,
she set herself to the task of making poor Grace quiet and composed once
more.
“Is the fire under?” asked Grace, who was wild-eyed with fear and
agitation.
“Yes, it is quite out; but Mr. Smith and Mr. Humphries are both there,
and one of them will stay until there is no more fear of it lighting up
again, though it looks as if it might rain, in which case there will not
be any danger at all,” said Bertha. And then she refused to talk, or to
let Grace talk, finally succeeding in getting the invalid off to sleep
for a short time. Not a word had Grace said of any person having been at
the house, and Bertha might have been inclined to think that Dicky had
dreamed it but for those two half-dollars, which he and Molly displayed
so proudly when she went out to them in the paddock after their mother
had dropped into a doze.
Having unhitched Pucker and turned the old animal loose to feed, she
went indoors to change her singed and dirty garments, and incidentally
to wash her face.
“Oh! oh! what an unutterable fright I look!” she gasped, staring at
herself in the glass, and reflecting ruefully that Mrs. Smith had not
looked bad at all; there had not been the shadow of a smudge across her
face, and her hair, although a little loosened by the wind and the hard
work, had been quite passably tidy.
But Bertha’s heavy masses of hair were hanging down her back, her face
was streaked and smudged with dust and blacks, her blouse was torn open
at the neck and slit up the arm where it had taken fire, and her skirt
was a ruin.
“It is my fate to look a most awful guy when I am forced to do anything
out of the common,” she muttered to herself, as she washed her face with
tremendous zeal and energy, and then, as she did her hair, she recalled
that time when she had been forced to swim out to the Shark’s Teeth at
Mestlebury in that dreadful garment with the patches of vivid green.
Suddenly she dropped her comb with a clatter, and stood before the glass
with her hands tightly clasped. She was recalling the face of the man
whose life she had saved. He reminded her of—of—of whom?
“Why, why, I do believe that the man with the Smiths to-day was the very
same individual!” she gasped. “But surely, surely the coincidence is too
ridiculous!” and she laughed nervously as she stooped to pick up the
comb; then she twisted up her hair in a great hurry, clothed herself in
tidy garments, and went out to get supper.
There was little room in her busy days for dreaming now, and to-night
she seemed more driven than ever. Grace was decidedly unwell from the
strain and excitement of the afternoon, while the children were tired,
hungry, and, truth to tell, rather cross; for the day had been fiercely
hot, and they had been running about since early morning.
For a time her one pair of hands were more than full, but when the
little ones had been fed, washed, and put to bed, there was a brief
half-hour of respite in which she could sit still and think. And the
more she thought the more sure she was that the man with the Smiths
to-day and the individual whom she had saved from the Shark’s Teeth
rocks were one and the same person. To-morrow she would go over to Mrs.
Smith and ask for the name of the unknown. Then she would write to him
and tell him that she was the girl who had saved him, and she would
remind him that she had his coat still, if he wished to claim it again.
Would she write to him?
She was remembering what the fat German had told her about the man
having left money to be given to her, which old Mrs. Saunders had
appropriated. Well, what of that? Surely she could tell him that she had
never had the money, and did not want it. But it would be a horribly
difficult task. If she told him that she had never had a reward for what
she had done, it would seem, it must seem, as if she were asking for
something, and all her pride was up in arms at the mere suggestion. But
there were the diamonds! If she kept them and said nothing at all, how
much better would she be than a thief?
Then again came the old question, why had the man never made exhaustive
enquiries for his va
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