What Reggie Suspects
His eyes bright, and his face flushed with fever, Reggie Furness was
sitting up in bed talking rapidly in a low tone.
“What is the matter, old fellow?” asked the Doctor, entering the room
with Sophy, greatly perturbed, at his heels, while Pam brought up the
rear, and stood halting on the threshold, as if uncertain whether to go
in or to remain outside.
“It is Mose, only I didn’t like to say so.” Reggie turned his flushed
face to the Doctor and talked rapidly, as if he were afraid he would
forget what he wanted to say. “Mose hated Sam Buckle like poison; he
talked, too, when he had had too much to drink. I used to be afraid he
would say something when folks was round, but he always seemed to know
enough to hold his tongue then.”
“I don’t see why he should hate him so much?” The Doctor’s tone had a
note of query in it, and he frowned a little. The wanderings of a
feverish patient were not to be trusted, and this would create a
prejudice against Mose Paget, which would be grossly unfair if the
things Reggie was babbling of were untrue.
Reggie laughed in an unmirthful fashion.
“Things have always gone against our Mose, but he ain’t a bad sort at
the bottom—not when he doesn’t forget, that is. I told Ma I would stick
by him and keep him straight when I could; I’ve done it too, only now
he’s gone away, didn’t even stop to say good-bye to me, he didn’t—looks
as if he didn’t care a red cent whether I lived or died.”
“Well, go to sleep now, and leave Mose alone till you feel a bit
better,” the Doctor said soothingly. Then he laid Reggie down in bed,
drew the coverlet over him, and waited until his eyes closed and he
seemed to sleep.
“It is of no use to take any notice of what the boy says while he is in
this condition,” he then said, drawing Sophy out of the room, and
closing the door so that Reggie should not be disturbed. “When he comes
to his senses he will most likely have forgotten everything he has said.
Are you two afraid to be left here alone with him? I dare say Mrs.
Buckle would come over and lend you a hand until he gets a bit more in
his right mind.”
“I am not afraid,” said Pam sturdily. “I don’t think that I want Mrs.
Buckle here at present. Just think how hard it would be for her to hear
all this talk of the poor boy’s! We will manage somehow, and we have
Jack now, you know.”
“We shall do very well,” agreed Sophy, who still looked white and
scared. “I called you because I thought I ought to do it for the sake of
Pam; but if you don’t think there is any truth in what he is saying, of
course it is of no use taking any notice of it.”
“I did not say there was no truth in it. I said it could not be regarded
as evidence,” corrected her father. “What we have to do is to nurse the
boy back to health and strength, and when he is better see if he will
tell us what he knows, if he really knows anything, that is. But there
must be no mention of this in any conscious spells that he may have. Now
I must be going; I have to go over to Hunt’s Crossing, and I want to get
home before dark if I can. By the way, do you know how the boy got his
hurt?”
“Jack says the water began to come into the house where Reggie lives. He
was trying to save the furniture when some up-stream wreckage crashed
into the side of the house, and the crazy old place collapsed; the boy
escaped by a miracle, and managed to scramble on to the table, which was
upside down. He was carried past Mrs. Buckle’s in that fashion, but they
were all so busy there, trying to barricade the house to keep the water
out, that they did not see him until it was too late. Jack started in
pursuit, and it was lucky for me that he did, for I was in difficulties
when he reached our frontage on the creek. I am not much good where
water is concerned. I can’t swim, and I have the most fearful terror of
water, too.” Pam shivered as she spoke, and the whole grim struggle
seemed to come back upon her; again she was fighting to keep on her feet
in the swirling brown current, while she strove to tow the table and the
boy to the bank.
The Doctor nodded in complete understanding, then said in his most
business-like manner:
“Suppose you go straight to bed now, and lie there until dawn; then you
can get up and relieve Sophy. The evening chores bothering you, are
they?” he laughed, as Pam began on a spirited objection to being sent to
bed like a naughty child in broad daylight. “Jack can manage them, he is
a downright capable chap; but I don’t want you for a patient to-morrow,
so you must do as you are told.”
It was of no use to protest. Pam felt so bad that she was very thankful
to be spared anything further in the way of exertion. She was so tired,
too, that she went fast asleep directly her head touched the pillow, and
she knew nothing more until the first grey glimmer of dawn began to
steal over the tops of the forest trees. She sprang up then, intent on
relieving Sophy. Hastily dressing, she stole downstairs, walked softly
across the best sitting-room, and gently pushed open the door of the
bedroom, which stood ajar.
Sophy was fast asleep, her head resting on the side of the bed. Reggie
was asleep too, and he looked such a small boy, his face so pinched and
white and pathetic, that Pam could have wept in sheer pity as she looked
at him. She withdrew as softly as she had entered, and, going out to the
kitchen, set to work to rouse the fire in the stove, and to make coffee.
She would not disturb Sophy yet; better to sleep in an uncomfortable
position than not to sleep at all.
Breakfast was ready, a very early breakfast, and the big kitchen was
full of the odours of coffee, fried bacon, and toast, when Pam went
across to the bedroom carrying a cup of milk for the invalid and some
toast. Sophy woke then, cramped, stiff, and miserable, and was ordered
out to the kitchen to have her breakfast, while Pam stayed to look after
the patient, who was also awake. The old dog had entered the room behind
her, and stood wagging a friendly tail by way of welcome to the boy on
the bed. The animal was used to fresh faces now, and being of a friendly
disposition was ready to welcome everyone that came.
“Better, are you?” asked Pam briskly. She put the milk down by the side
of the bed, and then stood looking at the boy with kindly pity in her
eyes. He was so small and thin that it was to the last degree pathetic
to think of him staying alone, and striving to make a living for himself
since Mose had deserted him.
“I suppose so; only, things seem queer,” he answered, with an uneasy
look round as if he were in search of something.
“People always feel queer when they have a broken leg; but time will
mend it, and you will be all the better for the rest in bed. I expect
you will grow a bit, too.” Pam spoke in the cheeriest possible tone, and
then she added, with intent to make him laugh: “Jack says that my
brother Greg grew so much, when he lay in bed ill with rheumatic fever,
that when he was able to get up they had to buy new clothes for him
because the old ones were too small.”
Reggie looked frightened.
“If that happens to me,” he rejoined, “I shall have to sew myself into a
sack, for I have no more clothes, nor any money to buy them. I am
dreadful scared because of the Doctor, and all the rest of it. Of course
I can work it all out, but it takes time, and going to school makes such
a difference. I get up directly it comes daylight, then by school-time
I’m so sleepy I can’t see the figures of my sums, and I’m dreaming
before I even think of dozing. Schoolmarm lays on for that, and no
mistake! My word, she is a rare one at fighting!”
Pam laughed, but her heart was very sore, and she felt that she wanted
to put her head down beside Reggie and cry from sheer pity. Instead, she
gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder, and said kindly:
“Don’t you worry about expense. The Doctor won’t charge for coming to
see you, and we shan’t charge for taking care of you, so you can feel as
if you are away from home on a visit, and you need have no worries about
anything. Then, when you are better, you can go on earning your living
again, unless your brother has come back to take care of you.”
The reference to Mose was unfortunate. The light which had come into the
eyes of Reggie at her words faded into a look of apprehension, and his
face set itself in lines of care, while his voice was an anxious whisper
as he said:
“Mose won’t come back; he has quit for good and all. If only he had
taken me with him I wouldn’t have cared, but it wasn’t playing fair to
leave me behind.”
Pam had a choking sensation, and her eyes were smarting with tears; but
it would never do to let him see them, so she made an effort to say
lightly:
“Perhaps he felt that you would be happier here among the people you
know. You have regular work with Miss Gittins, and perhaps she will let
you sleep there, now that your house has been washed away.”
“I’ve lost that!” answered the boy, with dumb hopeless misery in his
face.
“When did you lose it, and why?” she demanded. She supposed that he had
been up to some mischievous prank that had angered Galena, whose
patience was not of the most long-suffering kind.
“When she hears that I came here to warn the old man about the surprise
party, she won’t never forgive me,” he said in a shamed tone. “She can’t
abide folks that run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. She says
you ought to be true to one side or the other, and it was she who told
me about the surprise party, you see; then I came straight here and told
the old man. You can’t clear him without letting on to Miss Gittins that
I told, and she won’t get over it, not if I know anything about it.”
“You lie still, and try not to worry,” said Pam hopefully. “More
wonderful things have happened than that. You may have Miss Gittins
coming to see you one of these fine days, for she is a kind-hearted
sort.”
Reggie shook his head.
“I know her better than you,” he said, and Pam could not deny that he
did. “She likes you until you do something that makes her despise you;
then she never gets over it. Mose and she was going to get married an
awful long time ago, when I was a kid, but they quarrelled, and she
never got over it. Then one night there was a surprise party came to our
house when we was in bed. We hadn’t food, nor fire, nor nothing that
time, and Mose and me we just squirmed inside at having all them
laughing, joking, dressed-up folks coming to find out how poor we were.
They were just dressed up like grand folks in books, and Mose he went on
at Galena—that is Miss Gittins, you know—in the most awful way because
of her smart rig-out. Folks said that she had helped to get up that
surprise party because she wanted to make it up with Mose; but after
that, of course, they were worse than ever.”
“Still, she has found work for you,” Pam said gently, though his bitter
confidences made her feel unhappy.
“There wasn’t no one else to go,” he answered with great finality. “The
only other boy that lives near enough to do chores on Gittins’s place
and attend school is Josie Higgins, and his folks have got enough for
him to do at home. I don’t know how they will get on without me, and I
was downright fond of the beasts and things.”
Pam comforted poor sore-hearted Reggie to the best of her ability, but
when the days went past and Galena Gittins made no sign, she began to
realize with some consternation that the boy was right in his estimate
of his late employer. The Doctor had been to see the school teacher, who
at once confirmed Reggie’s statement as to the number of strokes of the
cane he had received on that particular day. She even showed the Doctor
the punishment record which she kept, and he read for himself the entry
in her neat handwriting to the effect that Reginald Furness, being
fifteen minutes late for afternoon school, had received fifteen strokes
of the cane.
“There is nothing like method,” said the Doctor with a smile, as he
handed her back the book, and thought how easy the record would make it
for Wrack Peveril to prove his alibi on that particular day—if he ever
came back, that was, which at present seemed doubtful.
“No, there is nothing like method,” agreed the teacher; and then she
added: “It is of no use to make rules and not keep to them. I do not
thrash the boys and girls because I like to do it, or because it
gratifies some brutal instinct in me—indeed, I hate it; but, because I
have said that I would do it, I keep my word. It is the only thing which
will bring them to school in time; and so, unpleasant though it is, I do
it as part of my duty.”
The Doctor nodded and went away, but it was noticeable afterwards, when
people complained to him that the teacher was so fond of punishing, that
he always stood up in her defence, declaring that it was not love of it,
but merely an honourable desire to keep her word.
The days were hard for the three at Ripple. Reggie was very ill, and
needed nursing night and day. Mrs. Buckle came over when she could, but
it was the busy time of the year. She had a great flock of turkeys
hatched, and they needed about as much care as if they had been babies.
Even Mrs. Higgins, the hard-worked mother of Amanda, put in two or three
nights of sitting up, so that Pam and Sophy might not be worn out; and
everyone—except Galena—was as kind as could be.
Then the fever abated, and Reggie began to get better; the Doctor only
came once a day instead of twice, and even took to missing a day once in
a way, and sending Don over instead to know how the boy was getting on.
At least, that was what Don said he came for, and although Sophy screwed
her face into an understanding smile, she was loyal enough to her
brother not to give him away by announcing that the Doctor never paid
proxy visits of that sort.
Don drove a frisky, high-stepping colt which he had bred himself, and
was very proud of. He said the creature needed exercise, and when he
came to enquire after Reggie, he would take Pam for a drive across the
forest, just to keep the colt in proper trim, so he said. Pam enjoyed
the swift motion, the fresh air, and the absence of fatigue as only a
very hard-worked person can enjoy anything. Don was so beguiling in his
conversation, too, and he knew so much, that she was won into
forgetfulness of her worries, and that in itself was a benefit indeed.
The question of money was always uppermost. It was quite astonishing
what a little they lived upon; but then there was so little coming in.
Of course there was the money for the black spruce, but both Pam and
Jack would have gone hungry any day rather than touch that. Reggie’s
confession would save their grandfather from having to stand his trial
for wounding Sam Buckle; but all the same the old man might need the
money very sorely, and in any case it was not theirs.
By the end of May some of the crops were coming up and needed careful
hoeing, the live stock was increasing in number and in size, and there
was a look of prosperity about Ripple which the place had not worn for
many a long year past, and that in spite of the tightness of money. It
was marvellous to Pam what a lot of their wants the farm supplied. Milk
they had in generous supply, and butter. There were enough potatoes in
the cellar to feed them, and the pigs and poultry, until potatoes came
again. Eggs they had also, but as these were in great demand they mostly
went to help out the store account, whilst the healthy folk ate corn
porridge and milk. Flour they had to buy, but not much else. Jack had
snared quite a lot of hares, and these served to vary the bacon, which
was home-cured; and other meat they did not buy.
Pam was realizing that she was learning to be thrifty in spite of
herself, while Jack was satisfied with anything in the way of food, and
would not have been inclined to complain if she had asked him to eat
nothing but baked potatoes and buckwheat porridge every day until
harvest came round.
In the days of Reggie’s slow convalescence Pam, who knew him best,
discovered that he was worrying himself most dreadfully because of
Galena’s attitude. Something would have to be done, that was certain.
Pam could not very well keep him at Ripple indefinitely, for she hoped
that her mother would consent to bring the children over in a month or
two. Even if Mrs. Walsh decided that she would stay in England for
another winter, it was still not advisable to keep Reggie at Ripple. The
boy knew everything there was to be known about life in the country, and
Jack knew only what he had been able to pick up since he had come to
Canada; Reggie was of the very dominant sort, and from very superiority
of knowledge he would come to the front and stay there, which would not
be good for him nor yet for Jack.
Then Pam had a bright idea, and the next time Don drove over to Ripple
to exercise that tireless colt she asked him if he would drive her over
to the Gittins’s farm, because she had important business with Galena.
“I will drive you anywhere with the greatest pleasure,” responded Don
with warmth, but Pam was so absorbed that she did not even blush. She
was so hard driven that she had no time to be self-conscious these days,
and this doubtless added to her charm in Don’s eyes, although he could
not help being a trifle resentful sometimes because she was so oblivious
of his attentions.
It was the last week in May. The fervid warmth of the spring sunshine
had made the forest foliage a sight to see. The young and tender greens,
freshened up by last night’s rain, were at their very best and most
beautiful stage, there were flowers everywhere, and the ground was
carpeted in places with a mosaic of colour.
“Why do people live in cities when the country is so beautiful?”
demanded Pam in a tone of positive awe, as her gaze roamed over the open
spaces and the vistas of green which stretched away on either side.
“People love their own species better than Nature,” answered Don, with
the rare wisdom which sometimes characterizes quiet folk. “So they herd
together, the closer the better, and find their happiness so. Half of
them don’t need any pity, for they would be just miserable if they had
to live alone with Nature.”
“I have never been in the woods in springtime before,” said Pam, who was
drawing deep breaths of pure ecstasy. “Every day shows some new miracle,
and I tell myself it was worth while enduring the winter to have the
glory of the spring.”
Nathan Gittins had just come home from a long day of seeding at a little
farm high up on the hills beyond the Ridge, where the winter lingered
long and was very loath to go. Yet the high ground was astonishingly
fertile, and responded more quickly to tillage than even the sheltered
valleys, so the long journey and hard work were worth while. Only Nathan
had not come home in the most amiable of tempers, for he missed Reggie
at every turn, and he often had to get the food for the horses ready
himself, after the long day afield, if Galena happened to be hard
pressed indoors.
This was the case to-night. Don, who understood about such things, tied
his horse to the hitching-post and went across to the barn to help,
while Pam, quaking inwardly, betook herself indoors to do her errand
with Galena.
Miss Gittins was on her dignity to-night. A deeply injured person she
felt herself, and she showed it in every line of her body as she darted
to and fro getting supper. But her manners were equal to the demand
hospitality made upon them, and she pressed Pam to stay to supper with
real cordiality, albeit she was excessively dignified, a pose that did
not suit her because it was unnatural.
“I have had supper, thank you, and I could not eat anything more if I
tried. I am very sorry, though, for your cookies do look most
delightful. I can’t think how it is you do it; mine never come out so
well.”
“It is use,” replied Galena. “I was doing that sort of thing when you
were in your cradle, and I have been doing it ever since, while I
suppose that you hardly saw a cooky until since you came to live at
Ripple.”
“That is it, I suppose; and so I may expect to become proficient by the
time I am grey-haired. Galena, why have you never been over to see that
poor boy since his accident?” Pam fired her question at Galena with such
disconcerting suddenness that she was too much taken aback to consider
her reply, and so blurted out the plain, unvarnished truth.
“I do not want to have anything to do with a miserable little sneak that
worms himself into my confidence and then goes hot-foot to tell what he
has found out. I have no use for two-faced people!”
“Neither have I in an ordinary way,” said Pam quietly. She had gently
elbowed Galena from the stove, and was briskly stirring Nathan’s
porridge herself. It was the first thing she saw that she could do, and
her doing it left Galena’s hands free for something else. “But do you
know why he did it? I mean, do you know why he went off to Ripple that
day to warn Grandfather about the surprise party?”
“To earn a quarter, I suppose. It is just disgusting to see young
children so set on getting money by fair means or foul. I have no
patience with it.” Galena was quite splendid in her wrath, but Pam’s
eyes were suddenly dim with tears.
“He did want money, I know,” she said quietly; “but he did not get it,
for Grandfather set the dog at him in return for his kindness in having
come to warn him.”
“Kindness!” snorted Galena, with her head in the air, and she set a dish
on the table with so much emphasis that the contents were spilled on the
table-cloth.
Pam wanted to laugh, but managed to keep a grave face. She knew that
Galena hated to spill things, and this was only Tuesday, so she would
have to look at that soiled table-cloth every day for the rest of the
week, which would be punishment enough for her without anything else.
“I think it was kindness,” said Pam quietly. “It must be dreadful to
have a set of people you do not care for coming to take forcible
possession of your house sometime when you have gone, or are just going
to bed, to have them go poking and prying through your private places,
and seeing all the miserable little shifts that you have to make to
present a decent front to the world. Oh, it must be hateful! You would
not realize it yourself, because you have never been poor. I don’t mean
that you have not had to want something you could not have, but you have
never had to make all sorts of miserable little shifts to keep people
from finding out how poor you were.”
“But you went to more than one surprise party yourself last winter, and
you enjoyed it as much as anyone, or at least you appeared to!” burst
out Galena, showing quick resentment, for she thought it was the idea
that Pam was attacking.
“I know that I did,” answered Pam. “Indeed, I never enjoyed a frolic
more in my life than the night we came here to surprise you and your
brother. But then you had nothing to hide. You were friends with every
one of us. There was food in your larder and firing in its proper place.
You had table-cloths, and dishes, and everything else that was needed.
But how would you have felt if you had gone to bed without any supper,
or next to none, if there had been no firing in the house, and your only
table-cloth was a torn old newspaper, not too clean, while all the house
was in the state of the most abject poverty that you can imagine?”
“Your Grandfather’s house was not like that!” cried Galena in amazement
and indignant astonishment. “Why, you were there and saw it yourself!”
“I know,” said Pam, whose heart was beating very fast; “but I was not
thinking of Grandfather just then, I was showing you the position from
Reggie’s standpoint. We cannot correctly judge other people’s motives
unless we can see things from their point of view. You blame him for
going to Ripple to tell Grandfather that the surprise party was coming,
yet you are forgetting how Reggie and his brother suffered from the same
infliction of most mistaken kindness. It was because he and Mose Paget
had suffered so fiercely in their pride that Reggie went to Ripple that
day.”
“Mose Paget has no pride; he would not be where he is to-day if he had
had a grain of pride worth having. He is bed-rock lazy, too!” burst out
Galena.
“I dare say he is not much good or he would not have left poor Reggie as
he has done,” admitted Pam rather ruefully. She hated to have to speak
against Mose, because of his goodness to her on that
never-to-be-forgotten day when she stumbled on the lynxes at the ruined
house on the old tote road. “Still, perhaps he had pride of a sort, only
it got so badly wounded that he could not rise above it: people are like
that sometimes. But it is Reggie that I am concerned about, and I have
come to ask you to forgive him, and to let him come back here to work
when he is better.”
“He was downright useful, I will say that for him, and we are lost
without him,” admitted Galena. “But I should hate to have anyone about
that I could not trust, and it will always be coming up against him in
my mind that he played me false before.”
“You will get over that. Try him again and see,” urged Pam. Then Don
called to her that it was time to be going, and she had to leave things,
uncertain whether she had scored a success or failed.