"IT IS A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH."
"And the Prince had the dearest face in all the world. It was not
exactly handsome, but it was very strong, and when you looked at it,
you knew that he was good. And his eyes were grey and very kind,
and----"
"And did he wear white armour, all shining, and a silver crown on his
head?"
Baba's voice, clear and imperious, interrupted Christina's dreamy
tones, and her dimpled fingers seized and shook the girl's hand, in
order to attract her attention, which, as the baby was vaguely aware,
had wandered from the fairy tale in process of being told. "Did the
Prince have white armour?"
"Yes, I expect so," Christina answered, with momentary hesitation,
flushing as a vision flashed into her mind of a tall figure in well-cut
dark blue serge, that bore no resemblance whatever to silver armour;
"he--he put on armour when he had to go and fight dragons, but when he
was in the Castle with the lovely Princess, he wore a velvet tunic,
dark blue velvet, and a silver crown upon his head."
"And the Princess was just 'zactly like you," Baba said lovingly,
pressing her golden head more closely against Christina's breast, and
looking into the girl's face with adoring eyes, "just 'zactly like my
pretty lady."
Christina laughed softly, running her hands through the child's curls,
and bending down to kiss the uplifted face.
"You are a little monkey, Baba," she said, "and a flatterer. You
mustn't call Christina a pretty lady. She isn't a bit pretty, and
she's only just your nurse."
"Baba will call Christina just 'zactly what she likes," the child
answered sturdily, enunciating her words with the clearness often found
in an only child who is constantly with grown-up people. "Christina's
a very pretty lady, and Baba loves her."
"Baba's a goose, and we must put on our things and go out in the
sunshine and see what we can find in these nice lanes." She put the
child off her lap, and, going into an adjacent room, brought out the
red cloak in which she had first seen her, and wrapped it round Baba's
graceful little form, drawing the hood over the golden curls.
Barely a fortnight had gone by since Christina had first entered Lady
Cicely's service, after an interview which had ended precisely as
Rupert had laughingly declared it would end, in the engagement of
Christina as Baba's nurse. The references the girl had produced from
her late employer, Mrs. Donaldson, from an old clergyman who had known
her in Devonshire, and from her father's solicitor, had seemed to
Cicely to justify her in taking this step, even though the Donaldsons
were in Canada, the old clergyman dead, and the solicitor gone to South
Africa.
"She looks genuine; I am sure she _is_ genuine," the little lady said
afterwards to Rupert; "and she was so overwhelmed with delight and
gratitude at the idea of coming to us."
"No doubt she was," Rupert responded drily; "well! no great harm can
come of giving her a month's trial. I am glad you had the saving grace
to suggest that. And during the month you will be able to see what she
is made of."
But the month had not fallen out quite as Rupert had naturally supposed
that it would. Lady Cicely, driven nearly distracted by a scare of
scarlet fever in the near neighbourhood, and unable to use Bramwell
Castle, which was in the builder's hands, had sent Christina and Baba
off, almost at a moment's notice, to Graystone. In this remote hamlet
on a remote Sussex border, Mrs. Nairne, an old servant of the Staynes
family, owned a small farmhouse, and also received lodgers; and here,
for the past ten days, Christina and her little charge had been
rejoicing in the country sights and sounds, which even in early
December had a fascination all their own.
To Baba, the farmyard was an unfailing source of delight; and to
Christina, the great spaces of moorland, the deep lanes, the woods
whose soft brown hues gave colour to the hillsides, were a welcome
change from London streets, and the squalor of London lodgings. To the
girl who for so long had been tossing on a sea of struggle and
privation, her quiet life at Graystone was like a haven of rest; and
her one passionate prayer was, that at the end of her month of
probation, she might still find favour in Lady Cicely's eyes, and keep
the situation which seemed to her a more delightful one than she had
ever dared to hope for in her wildest dreams. With the help of a
little pony cart, she and the child could make quite lengthy excursions
about the country side, and Christina often found herself wondering why
it was the fashion to talk as if there were no beauties to be found in
the country in winter time. She revelled in the great sweeps of
moorland that rolled away to far hills on the horizon, hills scarcely
less blue than the soft blue of the winter sky. And, if the moorlands
were no longer clad in their robe of purple heather, or pale pink ling,
the duns and browns of heath and bracken, the dark green of fir-trees,
and the brightly tinted leaves of the bilberry plants offered no lack
of colour. On the oaks in the lanes bright brown leaves still hung;
and the trees that were leafless--delicate birches, sturdy ashes,
smooth-stemmed beeches, made so dainty a lacework of bare boughs
against their background of sky, that the leaflessness was in itself
beautiful. The sunlight poured a flood of radiance on the upland road,
as Christina and Baba jogged peacefully along it, in the wake of the
small black pony, who meandered on at his own pace, just as the fancy
took him. Larks sang in the sunlight; in the copse under the hill the
thrushes were already beginning to learn their songs of spring; and
Christina, drinking in all the loveliness about her, laughed aloud for
sheer gladness of heart.
They had driven for some distance along the main road, when they came
to a spot where four roads met, and towards one of them Baba pointed a
fat forefinger.
"Let's go along there," she said; "it's such a ducky wee road, and
there's a pond."
Christina was lain to confess that the road indicated had special
attractions of its own. It wound down from the upland, between hedges
which in summer must be a tangled loveliness of briar roses,
honeysuckle, and clematis; and, skirting a common where a pond
reflected the sunshine on its small ruffled waves, turned down again
between woods that climbed steeply up the hill-side on either hand.
The lane narrowed as it wound onwards, and Christina was beginning to
wonder whether it would end in a mere grassy track, when she saw a
clearing in the woods on the right-hand side, and became aware of
chimney-pots showing above a very high wall.
"What an extraordinarily lonely place," the girl reflected, looking
with a little shudder at the height of the wall, and at the dense woods
which hemmed it in on every side. Excepting where the space for the
actual house itself had been cleared, and where the lane meandered past
it, it was entirely shut in by woods--beech, oak, and birch on the
lower levels, pines climbing upward to the summit, closing the building
in from all observation. Thanks to the steep hills and the overhanging
woods, only a very small proportion of sunshine could filter into the
lane, and Christina shivered again, feeling that there was something
sinister about this secluded spot, and the house that was barely
visible behind its encircling walls.
"Baba thinks p'raps the Princess lives behind there," said the baby,
looking with round blue eyes at the frowning walls; "it's a awful,
dreadful place; and p'raps the Dragon's got the Princess safe in there;
and she's waiting for the Prince to come and get her out."
"The Prince will come in his shining armour," Christina answered
brightly; "and then the Princess will come away, and be happy ever
after."
At the moment they were driving past a green door in the wall; and as
she spoke these words, the door was hurriedly opened, and a tall woman
stepped out into the lane. She was closely wrapped in a dark cloak,
and some magnificent black lace draped her hair. But it was the sight
of her face that made Christina draw in her breath sharply, for she
thought she had never seen anything more beautiful than its white
loveliness, anything more sad than the glance of the great dark eyes.
She panted a little, as though she had been running; there was a
strange mingling of fear and anguish in her expression, and she held up
her hand with so pleading a gesture, that Christina pulled up, and
leaning from the cart, said gently:
"Is there anything I can do for you?"
The dark eyes met hers, a startled look, one would almost have said a
look of recognition swept over the white face, then she exclaimed
breathlessly:
"Why--I thought--you were--I beg your pardon--it was foolish of me--of
course, I have never seen you before."
"No, never," Christina answered emphatically, knowing that the lovely
face of this woman, once seen, could never have faded from her memory;
"but, I am afraid you are in trouble; can I help you?
"A doctor," the other panted. "I must have a doctor; and yet--I am
afraid--I am afraid," she wrung her hands together, and her lips
quivered pitifully.
"We are driving back to Graystone. Can I send a doctor if there is one
in the place? Or, can I send over to the nearest town?" Christina
asked, struck afresh by the anguish in the other's eyes, and realising
that only some vital necessity could so have moved her.
"I must have a doctor," the words were reiterated, and the woman put
her hands upon the cart, and leant heavily against it. "I can't
let--him--die--and yet--no one must know if the doctor comes here," she
exclaimed, suddenly pulling herself upright, and speaking fast and
earnestly; "not a living soul must ever know; and the doctor himself?
If you find a doctor for me, promise to make him swear that he will
never divulge where he has been, or what he sees in this house."
Christina looked the bewilderment she felt, and a faint wonder flashed
across her mind whether this woman could be sane. Her speech savoured
of melodrama, her hurried, breathless sentences, the nervous glances
she cast over her shoulder, and the strangeness of the words she spoke,
all tended to make the girl doubt the speaker's sanity. But the dark
eyes, unfathomable and sad as they were, looked straight into hers
without a trace of madness; and though she was plainly afraid of
something or somebody, it was not the unreasoning fear of insanity.
"Is there someone ill in that house?" the girl questioned practically;
"is it of great importance to have a doctor?"
"It is a matter of life and death," was the broken answer; "when I
heard wheels in the lane I came out, hoping it might be someone who
would help me. I--cannot leave him myself; I have no one to send--it
is all that my servant and I can do to manage----" she pulled herself
up abruptly, adding after a moment, "for pity's sake help me if you
can."
"I will do the best I can," Christina answered, bewildered surprise
still her dominant sensation. "I am a stranger in Graystone. We are
only staying in a farmhouse there, but by hook or by crook I will get a
doctor for you."
"I think you will carry through whatever you undertake," the other
answered, a smile flitting across the wan misery of her face, as her
eyes rested on the girl's square chin, and firmly cut lips; "you look
as if you would not easily be beaten."
Christina smiled back at her and shook her head.
"I was very nearly beaten a little while ago," she said, gathering up
the reins and preparing to turn the pony's head up the steep ascent
again; "when one is poor, and hungry, all the fight seems to go out of
one. But I don't like being beaten, and I shall find a doctor for you."
She nodded her head cheerily, and was touching the pony lightly with
the whip, when the stranger clutched the side of the cart again, and
laid a hand on the girl's shoulder.
"Remember, no one must be told that the doctor is coming here; and he
himself must be sworn--_sworn_ to secrecy. Promise me you will not
tell a soul you have seen me, not a living soul." She was labouring
under strong excitement, and it alarmed Christina to notice how the
whiteness of her face had extended to her very lips, and what black
shadows of suffering and fear lay under her eyes.
"Promise," she repeated, her grasp tightening on Christina's shoulder.
"I--promise," Christina answered slowly. "I will not tell anyone that
I have seen you, or what you have said to me; and I will--do as you
wish about the doctor."
Having received the girl's assurance, the woman drew back from the
cart, and stood watching it retrace its way up the hill, her hands
wrung together in anguish, her dark eyes wide with pain.
Baba had been a silent spectator of the strange little scene,
understanding very little of what passed between her two elders, but
watching the face of the beautiful stranger with an intent scrutiny,
curious in one so young.
"That was a beautiful Princess," she said, after the cart had driven a
short distance. "Baba hopes the Prince will come soon, and take her
right away."
"Perhaps he will," Christina answered absently, relieved that the child
had woven the strange lady into a fairy tale, thus obviating the
possibility that close attention would be paid to remarks Baba might
make about their encounter with her; and speculating vainly over all
that she had just heard and seen, and over the striking personality of
the woman who had commissioned her to do so strange an errand.
Resourceful as nature and necessity had made her, Christina was
nevertheless a little puzzled to think how she could make enquiries
about a doctor, without betraying what she had been especially conjured
to keep secret; but during the drive home her plans were matured, and,
having reached the farm, and put Baba into her cot for her afternoon
nap, she went to the kitchen in search of Mrs. Nairne.
That worthy dame was engaged in making scones for tea, and turned a
flushed but kindly face to Christina, who had already won her heart.
"Well, missy, you and the precious baby's had a nice drive; and I'm
sure you're wise and right to take her out early, in the sunshine, and
let her rest a bit before her tea--a prettier baby never was."
"She is a darling," Christina answered, "and if she hadn't the
sweetest, most wholesome nature in the world, she would be spoilt,
everybody adores her so!"
"There! and who can wonder, miss. The little dear! I was baking some
scones for her tea and yours, miss, and----"
"That is very good of you, Mrs. Nairne. I was going to ask whether you
would be so kind as to look in upon Baba presently; she is asleep in
her cot, and quite safe there. But, if you would look at her now and
then I should be so grateful. I haven't had the cart, sent round to
the stables, for I must go up to the post office."
"And I'll do it with pleasure, miss. You go out with a light heart; no
harm shall come to that little dear, that I'll promise you."
The post office, which occupied one side of the tiny general shop, was
at the end of the straggling row of houses Graystone called its village
street; and Mr. Canning, the postmaster, besides watching over His
Majesty's mails, served customers with bacon and butter, sweets or
string, sugar or tea, as occasion required. He was weighing out very
brown and moist looking Demarara sugar when Christina entered the shop,
and he looked at her over his spectacles, with all the absorbing
interest felt by a villager for the stranger in their midst.
"A shillingsworth of penny stamps, please," Christina said, when with
much deliberation he had tied up the parcel of brown sugar and handed
it to his customer, "and a packet of halfpenny cards." Then, when the
customer had departed, she asked a few questions about the
neighbourhood, adding, with well-feigned carelessness:
"I suppose in such a small place as this you have no resident doctor?"
"Well, no, miss," the man answered; "we have no one nearer than Dr.
Stokes--Dr. Martin Stokes. He lives on the other side of the hill at
Manborough. I hope the little lady is not ailing?" Mr. Canning asked
sympathetically, for Baba's gracious little personality had endeared
itself to the postmaster, and to the rest of the villagers.
"No; oh, no!" Christina answered quickly; "she is very well, and we
like this lovely place so much. It is a good thing, though, to know
where the doctor lives, isn't it?" she added, brightly and evasively.
"Ah! there you are right, miss. Getting the doctor in time saves
fetching the undertaker, as I've said more than once," and Mr. Canning
bowed Christina out of his shop, with all the empressement of a
courtier.
"Manborough--the other side of the hill." It was, as the girl knew, at
least three miles off, and Sandro, the fat pony who stood lazily
flicking his tail before the shop door, was not to be hurried under any
circumstances.
"A matter of life and death!" Those words, and the anguished tones in
which they had been uttered, recurred to her, as she stood looking
thoughtfully up the village street, and before her eyes rose the white,
agonised face of the woman who uttered them.
"I think you will carry through whatever you undertake." Other words
spoken in that same voice, came back to the girl's thoughts, and she
looked with a puzzled frown at Jem, the farm boy, who stood at the
pony's head.
"Taking the short cut over the moor, I believe I can walk there as
quickly as Master Sandro would joggle along the main road," she
reflected, saying aloud after that second of reflection:
"You can take the cart back, Jem; and please ask Mrs. Nairne if she
will be so very kind as to give Miss Baba her tea; and say I have been
detained."
The boy nodded and drove off, whilst Christina walked away in the
opposite direction, following the main road to Manborough, until she
reached a point some way beyond the village, where a steep path--the
short-cut she had recollected--struck across the open moorland. She
had just reached this point, and was about to turn into the by-path,
when the hoot of a motor sounded behind her, and turning, she saw a
large car coming slowly up the road. It contained only two occupants;
and with a leap of the heart at her own audacity, Christina suddenly
resolved to stop them, and ask for their help.
"A matter of life and death!" the words still rang in her ears, and
with the resourcefulness in emergency which belonged to her character,
she held up her hand to the two men in the car, and signalled to them
to stop. The great car instantly slowed down, and Christina, flushing
rosily at her own audacity, stepped forward to speak to one of the two
men who bent towards her. Both were gentlemen, she saw at once, and
one of them she recognised, and her heart almost stopped beating, when
her eyes met the grey eyes of Lady Cicely's cousin.
He looked at her with grave courtesy, but evidently with no idea that
he had ever seen her before; and, indeed, on the one and only occasion
when they had met in Lady Cicely's boudoir, he had paid very scant
attention to the girl, beyond observing that she was white and thin,
and very shabbily dressed. The girl who stood now beside his car was
neatly and becomingly gowned in garments of soft dark green, which had
the effect of making her eyes look very deep and green; she was
flushing rosily and becomingly, and the wind blew her dark hair into
fascinating little curls about her forehead.
"Oh! please forgive me for stopping you," she exclaimed breathlessly,
"but--are you going to Manborough?"
"Yes," Rupert answered, "we are going through Manborough. Is there
anything we can do for you?"
Christina noticed again, as she had noticed on the occasion of their
first meeting, the peculiarly musical quality of his voice; its tones
sent little thrills running along her pulses, and a dreamy conviction
crept over her, that, if only he would go on speaking, she could
willingly stand here for ever, listening to his deep, vibrating voice.
His question roused her to the absurdity of her thoughts, and, flushing
more vividly, she answered:
"I hardly dare ask you what flashed into my mind to ask, when I stopped
you. But I am very anxious to get quickly over to Manborough to the
doctor; it is an urgent case, and I----"
"Of course we will drive you over," Rupert broke in quickly, opening
the door, and holding out his hand to help her into the back part of
the car. "I am very glad we happened to be passing."
"It was dreadfully audacious of me to stop you," Christina answered,
smiling in response to his smile, "but I do so want to get to the
doctor as fast as I can, and when I saw the car, I thought of nothing
but what I wanted to do."
Rupert glanced back at her, an amused twinkle in his grey eyes.
"You don't let obstacles hinder your attaining your goal?" he
questioned.
"I--don't think I do," was the reply; "and especially when it is a
matter of real importance--one of life and death." By this time they
were whirling along the road at a pace which rendered conversation
difficult, and Christina sat back in her comfortable seat, looking
first at the man who had spoken to her, and was now steering the
machine, then at his companion who sat beside him. Now that Rupert was
no longer smiling pleasantly at her, she observed how grave and worn
was his face, what new deep lines seemed to have carved themselves
about his mouth, what a shadow of pain, or of some gnawing anxiety lay
in his eyes.
"He is in trouble," the girl thought, her heart contracting with pity,
as her eyes rested on the strong, rugged face. "I wish I could help
him; he looks as if he had lost something he cared for with all his
soul, and it is breaking his heart!"
From the strong face, with its lines of pain, her eyes turned to his
companion--a slight, alert man, military in build--and with fair,
good-humoured features devoid of any marked personality.
His blue eyes had brightened when Christina stopped the car, and whilst
she talked to Rupert, he watched her expressive face with growing
admiration. They had only proceeded a short distance on their journey,
when he turned round to the girl, and said kindly:
"We are going a great pace, and you are not dressed for motoring; you
must be cold. Will you wrap yourself in this?" and, drawing from
behind him a heavy fur coat, which he had brought as an extra wrap, if
necessary, he handed it to Christina, who gratefully rolled herself in
its warm folds.
"By Jove! she looks more fetching than ever, with her face looking out
of all that fur," the blue-eyed young man reflected, when he again
glanced over his shoulder at her, "those green eyes of hers are like no
others I ever saw," and Christina, little as she was in the habit of
considering such things, could not help noticing how often during their
three-miles' drive, the young man turned to look at her, or to shout a
remark. The grey-eyed man looked round only once, to say shortly but
kindly:
"Quite comfortable?" But even those two words in the vibrating voice,
had, as before, an oddly thrilling effect on Christina's pulses.
That rapid drive across the moorland, in the low sunlight of the
December afternoon, seemed to her for long afterwards, like part of
some extraordinary dream--a dream in which she, and the grey-eyed man,
and the beautiful white-faced woman, were all playing parts; a dream
which had no real relation at all to the commonplace details of
everyday life.
"Here is Manborough," Rupert called out, when, over the brow of a steep
hill, they came in sight of clustering red-roofed houses amongst pine
woods; "now where does the doctor live? What is his name?"
"Doctor Martin Stokes is his name; I don't know what his house is
called, but Manborough is only a small place," Christina answered. "If
you will very kindly put me down in the main street, I shall easily
find the right house."
"Oh, no, we will drive you up in state," was the laughing rejoinder;
and the car once more slowed down, whilst Rupert put a question to a
passing rustic, who jerked his thumb to the right.
"Doctor's house be up among they pines," he said; "Doctor calls 'un
Pinewood Lodge."
"Unromantic and ordinary person, that doctor," said Rupert, with a
short laugh; "this country and those woods might inspire a man to
invent a name with some sort of poetry in it. Ah! here is the lodge in
question--and as ordinary as its name," he concluded, stopping the car
before a closed brown gate, through which a well-kept drive led to a
red-brick house, that might have been transplanted bodily to these
heights, from a London suburb.
"I don't know how to say thank you properly," Christina said a little
tremulously, when she stood by the brown gate, helped out of the car by
the blue-eyed young man, who had skilfully forestalled Rupert in this
act of gallantry; "it is very, very good of you to have helped me, and
will you please forgive me for being so bold and stopping you as I did?"
Rupert laughed and held out his hand.
"Don't think twice about it," he said heartily. "I am very glad you
did stop the car, and very glad we were able to save so much time for
you. I hope the doctor will pull your patient well through the
illness." His hand closed over Christina's small one, the blue-eyed
man likewise shook her by the hand, and before the door bell of the
doctor's house had been answered, the car had whirled out of sight.
"Poor little girl, she was very prettily grateful," Rupert said to his
companion. "I wonder whose illness she is agonising over. Plucky
thing to do, stopping us as she did."
"She is a young woman of resource," the other answered. "I like that
sort of 'git up and git' way of tackling a difficulty. Now, in her
place, I should have just begun to think what might have happened if I
_had_ stopped somebody's car, by the time the car was two miles further
down the road."
"My dear Wilfred, you hit your own character to a nicety," Rupert
answered with a laugh; "but it's only your confounded laziness of mind
that prevents your being as much on the spot as that little green-eyed
girl."
"Very fetching eyes, too," Wilfred mused aloud, "and a smile that she
ought to find useful. Can't we come back this way to-morrow, old man?
We might find she wanted some errand done in the opposite direction,
and I'll keep a sharp look-out for her all along the road!"
"As it happens, I have every intention of coming back this way," Rupert
answered drily, "though not in order to enable you to rescue distressed
damsels. You were not intended for a knight-errant, my good Wilfred;
leave well alone. But I am bound to come back through Graystone. I
promised Cicely that on my way home from Lewes, I would look in on Baba
and her new nurse. They are lodging at old Mrs. Nairne's farm, and
it's somewhere near Graystone village. Cicely wants to know whether
the new nurse is all she should be; we will look in upon them on our
way back."