IN THE HOUR OF DARKNESS
"No sign yet?"
"No sign." Margot's tone was almost hopeless. Day after day, many
times each day, she had climbed the pine-tree flagstaff and peered
into the distance. Not once had anything been visible, save that wide
stretch of forest and the shining lake.
"Suppose you cross again, to old Joe's. He might be back by this time.
I'll fix you a bite of dinner, and you better. Maybe----"
The girl shook her head and clasped her arms about old Angelique's
neck. Then the long repressed grief burst forth in dry sobs that shook
them both, and pierced the housekeeper's faithful heart with a pain
beyond endurance.
"Pst! Pouf! Hush, sweetheart, hush! 'Tis nought. A few days more and
the master will be well. A few days more and Pierre will come---- Ah!
but I had my hands about his ears this minute! That would teach him,
yes, to turn his back on duty, him. The ingrate! Well, what the Lord
sends the body must bear."
Margot lifted her head, shook back her hair, and smiled wanly. The
veriest ghost of her old smile, it was, yet even such a delight to the
other's eyes.
"Good. That's right. Rouse up. There's a wing of a fowl in the
cupboard, left from the master's broth----"
"Angelique, he didn't touch it, to-day. Not even touch it."
"'Tis nought. When the fever is on the appetite is gone. Will be all
right once that is over."
"But, will it ever be over? Day after day, just the same. Always that
tossing to and fro, the queer, jumbled talk, the growing thinner--all
of the dreadful signs of how he suffers. Angelique, if I could bear it
for him! I am so young and strong and worth nothing to this world
while he's so wise and good. Everybody who ever knew him must be the
better for Uncle Hughie."
"'Tis truth. For that, the good Lord will spare him to us. Of that be
sure."
"But I pray and pray and pray, and there comes no answer. He is never
any better. You know that. You can't deny it. Always before when I
have prayed the answer has come swift and sure, but now----"
"Take care, Margot. 'Tis not for us to judge the Lord's strange ways.
Else were not you and me and the master shut up alone on this island,
with no doctor near, and only our two selves to keep the dumb things
in comfort, though, as for dumbness, hark yonder beast!"
"Reynard! Oh! I forgot. I shut him up because he would hang about the
house and watch your poor chickens. If he'd stay in his own forest
now, I would be so glad. Yet I love him----"
"Aye, and he loves you. Be thankful. Even a beastie's love is of God's
sending. Go feed him. Here. The wing you'll not eat yourself."
There were dark days now on the once sunny island of peace.
That day when Mr. Dutton had said: "Your father is still alive,"
seemed now to Margot, looking back, as one of such experiences as
change a whole life. Up till that morning she had been a thoughtless,
unreflecting child, but the utterance of those fateful words altered
everything.
Amazement, unbelief of what her ears told her, indignation that she
had been so long deceived--as she put it--were swiftly followed by a
dreadful fear. Even while he spoke, the woodlander's figure swayed and
trembled, the hoe-handle on which he rested wavered and fell, and he,
too, would have fallen had not the girl's arms caught and eased his
sudden sinking in the furrow he had worked. Her shrill cry of alarm
had reached Angelique, always alert for trouble and then more than
ever, and had brought her swiftly to the field. Between them they had
carried the now unconscious man within and laid him on his bed. He had
never risen from it since; nor, in her heart, did Angelique believe he
ever would, though she so stoutly asserted to the contrary before
Margot.
"We have changed places, Angelique, dear," the child often said. "It
used to be you who was always croaking and looking for trouble. Now
you see only brightness."
"Well, good sooth. 'Tis a long lane has no turnin', and better late
nor never. Sometimes 'tis well to say 'stay good trouble lest worser
comes,' eh? But things'll mend. They must. Now, run and climb the
tree. It might be this ver' minute that wretch, Pierre, was on his way
across the lake. Pouf! But he'll stir his lazy bones, once he touches
this shore! Yes, yes, indeed. Run and hail him, maybe."
So Margot had gone, again and again, and had returned to sit beside
her uncle's bed, anxious and watchful.
Often, also, she had paddled across the narrows and made her way
swiftly to a little clearing on her uncle's land, where, among giant
trees, old Joseph Wills, the Indian guide and faithful friend of all
on Peace Island, made one of his homes. Once Mr. Dutton had nursed
this red man through a dangerous illness, and had kept him in his own
home for many weeks thereafter. He would have been the very nurse they
now needed, in their turn, could he have been found. But his cabin was
closed, and on its doorway, under the family sign-picture of a turtle
on a rock, he had printed in dialect, what signified his departure for
a long hunting trip.
Now, as Angelique advised, she resolved to try once more; and hurrying
to the shore, pushed her canoe into the water and paddled swiftly
away. She had taken the neglected Reynard with her and Tom had invited
himself to be a party of the trip; and in the odd but sympathetic
companionship, Margot's spirits rose again.
"It must be as Angelique says. The long lane will turn. Why have I
been so easily discouraged? I never saw my precious uncle ill before,
and that is why I have been so frightened. I suppose anybody gets thin
and says things, when there is fever. But he's troubled about
something. He wants to do something that neither of us understand.
Unless---- Oh! I believe I do understand! My head is clearer out here
on the water, and I know, I know! it is just about the time of year
when he goes away on those long trips of his. And we've been so
anxious we never remembered. That's it. That surely is it. Then, of
course, Joe will be back now or soon. He always stays on the island
when uncle goes and he'll remember. Oh! I'm brighter already, and I
guess, I believe, it is as Angelique claims--God won't take away so
good a man as uncle and leave me alone. Though--I am not alone! I have
a father! I have a father, somewhere, if I only knew--all in good
time--and I'm growing gladder and gladder every minute."
She could even sing to the stroke of her paddle and she skimmed the
water with increasing speed. Whatever the reason for her growing
cheerfulness, whether the reaction of youth or a prescience of
happiness to come, the result was the same; she reached the further
shore flushed and eager eyed, more like the old Margot than she had
been for many days.
"Oh! he's there. He is at home. There is a smoke coming out the
chimney. Joseph! Oh! Joseph, Joseph!"
She did not even stop to take care of her canoe but left it to float
whither it would. Nothing mattered, Joseph was at home. He had canoes
galore, and he was help indeed.
She was quite right. The old man came to his doorway and waited her
arrival with apparent indifference, though surely no human heart
could have been unmoved by such unfeigned delight. Catching his
unresponsive hands in hers she cried:
"Come at once, Joseph! At once!"
"Does not the master trust his friend? It is the time to come.
Therefore I am here."
"Of course. I just thought about that. But, Joseph, the master is ill.
He knows nothing any more. If he ever needed you he needs you doubly
now. Come, come at once."
Then, indeed, though there was little outward expression of it, was
old Joseph moved. He stopped for nothing, but leaving his fire burning
on the hearth and his supper cooking before it, went out and closed
the door. Even Margot's nimble feet had ado to keep pace with his long
strides and she had to spring before him to prevent his pushing off
without her.
"No, no. I'm going with you. Here. I'll tow my own boat, with Tom and
Reynard--don't you squabble, pets!--but I'll paddle no more while
you're here to do it for me."
Joseph did not answer, but he allowed her to seat herself where she
pleased and with one strong movement sent his big birch a long
distance over the water.
Margot had never made the passage so swiftly, but the motion suited
her exactly, and she leaped ashore almost before it was reached, to
speed up the hill and call out to Angelique wherever she might be:
"All is well! All will now be well--Joseph has come."
The Indian reached the house but just behind her and acknowledged
Angelique's greeting with a sort of grunt; yet he paused not at all to
ask the way or if he might enter the master's room, passing directly
into it as if by right.
Margot followed him, cautioning, with finger on lip, anxious lest her
patient should be shocked and harmed by the too sudden appearance of
the visitor.
Then and only then, when her beloved child was safely out of sight did
Angelique throw her apron over her head and give her own despairing
tears free vent. She was spent and very weary; but help had come; and
in the revulsion of that relief nature gave way. Her tears ceased, her
breath came heavily, and the poor woman slept, the first refreshing
slumber of an unmeasured time.
When she waked at length, Joseph was crossing the room. The fire had
died out, twilight was falling, she was conscious of duties left
undone. Yet there was light enough left for her to scan the Indian's
impassive face with keen intensity, and though he turned neither to
the right nor left but went out with no word or gesture to satisfy her
craving, she felt that she had had her answer:
"Unless a miracle is wrought my master is doomed."