which, as we came up, a damp urchin creeping from some crevice added
himself. I was pushed in as if I had no will of my own, the gentleman
sprang up beside me, the boy tucked himself away somewhere behind, and
the little "teste" set off at a canter, so deceived by the driver's
excellent imitation of "Pss," the Norse for "Tchk," that in ten
minutes we were at home.
"Well, I never!" Clare said, surveying me from a respectful distance,
when at last I was safe in our room. "I would not be seen in such a
state by a man for all the fish in the sea!"
[Illustration: "BAB."]
And she looked so tall, and trim, and neat, that it was the more
provoking. At the moment I was too miserable to answer her, and had to
find comfort in promising myself that when we were back in Bolton
Gardens I would see that Fraeulein kept Miss Clare's pretty nose to the
grindstone though it were ever so much her last term, or Jack were
ever so fond of her. Papa was in the plot against me, too. What right
had he to thank Mr. Herapath for bringing "his little girl" home safe?
He can be pompous enough at times. I never knew a stout Queen's
Counsel--and papa is stout--who was not, any more than a thin one who
did not contradict. It is in their patents, I think.
Mr. Herapath dined with us that evening--if fish and potatoes and
boiled eggs, and sour bread and pancakes, and claret and coffee can be
called a dinner--but nothing I could do, though I made the best of my
wretched frock and was as stiff as Clare herself, could alter his
first impression. It was too bad; he had no eyes! He either could not
or would not see anyone but the draggled Bab--fifteen at most and a
very tom-boy---whom he had carried across the river. He styled Clare,
who talked Baedeker to him in her primmest and most precocious way,
Miss Guest, and once at least during the evening dubbed me plain Bab.
I tried to freeze him with a look then, and papa gave him a taste of
the pompous manner, saying coldly that I was older than I seemed. But
it was not a bit of use; I could see that he set it all down to the
grand airs of a spoiled child. If I had put my hair up, it might have
opened his eyes, but Clare teased me about it and I was too proud for
that.
When I asked him if he was fond of dancing, he said good-naturedly, "I
don't visit very much, Miss Bab. I am generally engaged in the
evening."
Here was a chance. I was going to say that that, no doubt, was the
reason why I had never met him, when papa ruthlessly cut me short by
asking, "You are not in the law?"
"No," he replied, "I am in the London Fire Brigade."
I think that we all upon the instant saw him in a helmet, sitting at
the door of the fire station by St. Martin's Church. Clare turned
crimson, and papa seemed on a sudden to call his patent to mind. The
moment before I had been as angry as angry could be with our guest,
but I was not going to look on and see him snubbed when he was dining
with us and all. So I rushed into the gap as quickly as surprise would
let me with, "Good gracious, how nice! Do tell me all about a fire!"
It made matters--my matters--worse, for I could have cried with
vexation when I read in his face next moment that he had looked for
their astonishment; while the ungrateful fellow set down my eager
remark to mere childish ignorance.
"Some time I will," he said, with a quiet smile _de haut en bas_; "but
I do not often attend one in person. I am Captain's private secretary,
aid-de-camp, and general factotum."
And it turned out that he was the son of a certain Canon Herapath, so
that papa lost sight of his patent box altogether, and they set to
discussing Mr. Gladstone, while I slipped off to bed, feeling as small
as I ever did in my life and out of temper with everybody. It was a
long time since I had been used to young men talking politics to papa
when they could talk--politics--to me.
Possibly I deserved the week of vexation which followed; but it was
almost more than I could bear. He--Mr. Herapath, of--course--was
always about fishing or lounging outside the little white
posting-house, taking walks and meals with us, and seeming heartily to
enjoy papa's society. He came with us when we drove to the top of the
pass to get a glimpse of the Sulethid peak; and it looked so
brilliantly clear and softly beautiful as it seemed to float, just
tinged with color, in a far-off atmosphere of its own beyond the dark
ranges of nearer hills, that I began to think at once of the drawing
room in Bolton Gardens, with a cozy fire burning and afternoon tea
coming up. The tears came into my eyes, and he saw them before I could
turn away from the view; and said to papa that he feared his little
girl was tired as well as cold, and so spoiled all my pleasure. I
looked back afterward as papa and I drove down. He was walking by
Clare's carcole, and they were laughing heartily.
And that was the way always. He was such an elder brother to me--a
thing I never had and do not want--that a dozen times a day I set my
teeth viciously together and said to myself that if ever we met in
London--but what nonsense that was, because, of course, it mattered
nothing to me what he was thinking, only he had no right to be so
rudely familiar. That was all; but it was quite enough to make me
dislike him.
However, a sunny morning in the holidays is a cheerful thing, and when
I strolled down stream with my rod on the day after our expedition, I
felt I could enjoy myself very nearly as much as I had before his
coming spoiled our party. I dawdled along, now trying a pool, now
clambering up the hill-sides to pick raspberries, and now counting the
magpies that flew across, feeling altogether very placid and good and
contented. I had chosen the lower river because Mr. Herapath usually
fished the upper part, and I would not be ruffled this nice day. So I
was the more vexed to come suddenly upon him fishing; and fishing
where he had no right to be. Papa had spoken to him about the danger
of it, and he had as good as said he would not do it again. Yet there
he was, thinking, I dare say, that we should not know. It was a spot
where one bank rose into quite a cliff, frowning over a deep pool at
the foot of some falls. Close to the cliff the water still ran with
the speed of a millrace, so fast as to endanger a good swimmer. But on
the far side of this current there was a bit of slack water, which was
tempting enough to have set someone's wits to work to devise means to
fish it, which from the top of the cliff was impossible. Just above
the water was a ledge, a foot wide, perhaps, which might have done,
only it did not reach to this end of the cliff. However, that
foolhardy person had espied this, and got over the gap by bridging the
latter with a bit of plank, and then had drowned himself or gone away,
in either case leaving his board to tempt others to do likewise.
And there was Mr. Herapath fishing from the ledge. It made me giddy to
look at him. The rock overhung the water so much that he could not
stand upright; the first person who got there must surely have learned
to curl himself up from much sleeping in Norwegian beds, which were
short for me. I thought of this oddly enough as I watched him, and
laughed, and was for going on. But when I had walked a few yards,
meaning to pass round the rear of the cliff, I began to fancy all
sorts of foolish things would happen. I felt sure that I should have
no more peace or pleasure if I left him there. I hesitated. Yes, I
would. I would go down, and ask him to leave the place; and, of
course, he would do it.
I lost no time, but ran down the slope smartly and carelessly. My way
lay over loose shale mingled with large stones, and it was steep. It
was wonderful how quickly an accident happens; how swiftly a thing
that cannot be undone is done, and we are left wishing--oh, so
vainly--that we could put the world, and all things in it, back by a
few seconds. I was checking myself near the bottom, when a big stone
on which I stepped moved under me. The shale began to slip in a mass,
and the stone to roll. It was all done in a moment. I stayed myself,
that was easy enough, but the stone took two bounds, jumped sideways,
struck the piece of board, which was only resting lightly at either
end, and before I could take it all in the little bridge plunged end
first into the current, which swept it out of sight in an instant.
He threw up his hands in affright, for he had turned, and we both
saw it happen. He made indeed as if he would try to save it, but
that was impossible; and then, while I cowered in dismay, he waved his
arm to me in the direction of home--again and again. The roar of the
falls drowned what he said, but I guessed his meaning. I could not
help him myself, but I could fetch help. It was three miles to
Breistolen,--rough, rocky ones,--and I doubted whether he could keep
his cramped position with that noise deafening him, and the endless
whirling stream before his eyes, while I was going and coming. But
there was no better way I could think of; and even as I wavered, he
signaled to me again imperatively. For an instant everything seemed to
go round with me, but it was not the time for that yet, and I tried to
collect myself and harden my heart. Up the bank I went steadily, and
once at the top set off at a run homeward.
I cannot tell at all how I did it; how I passed over the uneven
ground, or whether I went quickly or slowly save by the reckoning papa
made afterward. I can only remember one long hurrying scramble; now I
panted uphill, now I ran down, now I was on my face in a hole,
breathless and half-stunned, and now I was up to my knees in water. I
slipped and dropped down places I should at other times have shrunk
from, and hurt myself so that I bore the marks for months. But I
thought nothing of these things: all my being was spent in hurrying on
for his life, the clamor of every cataract I passed seeming to stop my
heart's beating with very fear. So I reached Breistolen and panted
over the bridge and up to the little white house lying so quiet in the
afternoon sunshine, papa's stool-car even then at the door ready to
take him to some favorite pool. Somehow I made him understand in
broken words that Herapath was in danger, drowning already, for all I
knew, and then I seized a great pole which was leaning against the
porch, and climbed into the car. Papa was not slow, either; he
snatched a coil of rope from the luggage, and away we went, a man and
boy whom he had hastily called running behind us. We had lost very
little time, but so much may happen in so little time.
We were forced to leave the car a quarter of a mile from that part of
the river, and walk or run the rest of the way. We all ran, even papa,
as I had never known him run before. My heart sank at the groan he let
escape him when I pointed out the spot. We came to it one by one. The
ledge was empty. Jem Herapath was gone. I suppose it startled me. At
any rate I could only look at the water in a dazed way and cry
quietly, without much feeling that it was my doing; while the men,
shouting to one another in strange, hushed voices, searched about for
any sign of his fate. "Jem! Jem Herapath!" So he had written his name
only yesterday in the travelers' book at the posting-house, and I had
sullenly watched him from the window, and then had sneaked to the book
and read it. That was yesterday, and now! Oh, Jem, to hear you say
"Bab" once more!
"Bab! Why, Miss Bab, what is the matter?"
Safe and sound! Yes, there he was when I turned, safe and strong and
cool, rod in hand and a quiet smile in his eyes. Just as I had seen
him yesterday, and thought never to see him again; and saying "Bab,"
exactly as of old, so that something in my throat--it may have been
anger at his rudeness, but I do not think it was--prevented me saying
a word until all the others came around us, and a babel of Norse and
English, and something that was neither, yet both, set in.
"But how is this?" objected my father, when he could be heard, "you
are quite dry, my boy?"
"Dry! Why not, sir? For goodness' sake, what is the matter?"
"The matter? Didn't you fall in, or something of the kind?" papa
asked, bewildered by this new aspect of the case.
"It does not look like it, does it? Your daughter gave me a very
uncomfortable start by nearly doing so."
Everyone looked at him for an explanation. "How did you manage to get
from the ledge?" I said feebly. Where was the mistake? I had not
dreamed it.
"From the ledge? Why, by the other end, to be sure, so that I had to
walk back round the hill. Still, I did not mind, for I was thankful
that it was the plank and not you that fell in."
"I--I thought--you could not get from the ledge," I muttered. The
possibility of getting off at the other end had never occurred to me,
and so I had made such a simpleton of myself. It was too absurd, too
ridiculous! It was no wonder that they all screamed with laughter at
the fool's errand they had come upon, and stamped about and clung to
one another. But when _he_ laughed too,--and he did until the tears
came into his eyes,--there was not an ache or pain in my body--and I
had cut my wrist to the bone against a splinter of rock--that hurt me
one-half as much. Surely _he_ might have seen another side to it. But
he did not; and so I managed to hide my bandaged wrist from him, and
papa drove me home. There I broke down entirely, and Clare put me to
bed and petted me, and was very good to me. And when I came down next
day, with an ache in every part of me, he was gone.
"He asked me to tell you," said Clare, not looking up from the fly she
was tying at the window, "that he thought you were the bravest girl he
had ever met."
So he understood now, when others had explained it to him. "No,
Clare," I said coldly; "he did not say that exactly. He said, 'the
bravest little girl.'" For, indeed, lying upstairs with the window
open, I had heard him set off on his long drive to Laerdalsoeren. As
for papa, he was half-proud and half-ashamed of my foolishness, and
wholly at a loss to think how I could have made the mistake.
"You've generally some common sense, my dear," he said that day at
dinner, "and how in the world you could have been so ready to fancy
the man in danger, I--can--not--imagine!"
"Papa," put in Clare suddenly, "your elbow is upsetting the salt."
And as I had to move my seat just then to avoid the glare of the
stove, which was falling on my face, we never thought it out.
II.
HIS STORY.
I was not dining out much at that time, partly because my acquaintance
in town was limited, and somewhat too because I cared little for it.
But these were pleasant people, the old gentleman witty and amusing,
the children, lively girls, nice to look at and good to talk with. The
party had too a holiday flavor about them wholesome to recall in
Scotland Yard: and as I had thought, playtime over, I should see no
more of them, I was proportionately pleased to find that Mr. Guest had
not forgotten me, and pleased also--shrewdly expecting that we might
kill our fish over again--to regard his invitation to dinner at a
quarter to eight as a royal command.
But if I took it so, I was sadly wanting in the regal courtesy to
match. What with one delay owing to work that would admit of none,
and another caused by a cabman strange to the ways of town, it was
twenty-five minutes after the hour named when I reached Bolton
Gardens. A stately man, so like the Queen's Counsel that it was plain
upon whom the latter modeled himself, ushered me straight into the
dining room, where Guest greeted me very kindly, and met my excuses by
apologies on his part--for preferring, I suppose, the comfort of
eleven people to mine. Then he took me down the table, and said, "My
daughter," and Miss Guest shook hands with me and pointed to the chair
at her left. I had still, as I unfolded my napkin, to say "Clear, if
you please," and then I was free to turn and apologize to her; being a
little shy, and, as I have said, a somewhat infrequent diner out.
I think that I never saw so remarkable a likeness--to her younger
sister--in my life. She might have been little Bab herself, but for
her dress and some striking differences. Miss Guest could not be more
than eighteen, in form almost as fairy-like as the little one, with
the same child-like, innocent look on her face. She had the big gray
eyes, too, that were so charming in Bab; but in her they were more
soft and tender and thoughtful, and a thousand times more charming.
Her hair too was brown and wavy: only, instead of hanging loose or in
a pig-tail, anywhere and anyhow, in a fashion I well remembered, it
was coiled in a coronal on the shapely little head, that was so Greek,
and in its gracious, stately, old-fashioned pose, so unlike Bab's. Her
dress, of some creamy, gauzy stuff, revealed the prettiest white
throat in the world, and arms decked in pearls, and, so far, no more
recalled my little fishing-mate than the sedate self-possession and
assured dignity of this girl, as she talked to her other neighbor,
suggested Bab making pancakes and chattering with the landlady's
children in her strangely and wonderfully acquired Norse. It was not
Bab in fact: and yet it almost might have been: an etherealized,
queenly, womanly Bab--who presently turned to me:
"Have you quite settled down after your holiday?" she asked, staying
the apologies I was for pouring into her ear.
"I had until this evening, but the sight of your father is like a
breath of fiord air. I hope your sisters are well."
"My sisters?" she murmured wonderingly, her fork halfway to her pretty
mouth and her attitude one of questioning.
"Yes," I said, rather puzzled. "You know they were with your father
when I had the good fortune to meet him. Miss Clare and Bab."
"Eh?" dropping her fork on the plate with a great clatter.
"Yes, Miss Guest; Miss Clare and Miss Bab."
I really began to feel uncomfortable. Her color rose, and she looked
me in the face in a half-proud, half-fearful way as if she resented
the inquiry. It was a relief to me, when, with some show of confusion,
she at length stammered, "Oh, yes, I beg your pardon, of course they
were! How very foolish of me! They are quite well, thank you," and so
was silent again. But I understand now. Mr. Guest had omitted to
mention my name, and she had taken me for someone else of whose
holiday she knew. I gathered from the aspect of the table and the room
that the Guests saw a good deal of company, and it was a very natural
mistake, though by the grave look she bent upon her plate it was clear
that the young hostess was taking herself to task for it: not without,
if I might judge from the lurking smile at the corners of her mouth, a
humorous sense of the slip, and perhaps of the difference between
myself and the gentleman whose part I had been unwittingly supporting.
Meanwhile I had a chance of looking at her unchecked; and thought of
Dresden china, she was so frail and pretty.
"You were nearly drowned, or something of the kind, were you not?" she
asked, after an interval during which we had both talked to others.
"Well, not precisely. Your sister fancied I was in danger, and behaved
in the pluckiest manner--so bravely that I can almost feel sorry that
the danger was not there to dignify her heroism."
"That was like her," she answered, in a tone just a little scornful.
"You must have thought her a terrible tomboy."
While she was speaking there came one of those terrible lulls in the
talk, and Mr. Guest, overhearing, cried: "Who is that you are abusing,
my dear? Let us all share in the sport. If it's Clare, I think I can
name one who is a far worse hoyden upon occasion."
"It is no one of whom you have ever heard, papa," she answered archly.
"It is a person in whom Mr.--Mr. Herapath"--I had murmured my name as
she stumbled--"and I are interested. Now, tell me, did you not think
so?" she murmured graciously, leaning the slightest bit toward me, and
opening her eyes as she looked into mine in a way that to a man who
had spent the day in a dusty room in Great Scotland Yard was
sufficiently intoxicating.
"No," I said, lowering my voice in imitation of hers. "No, Miss Guest,
I did not think so at all. I thought your sister a brave little
thing--rather careless, as children are apt to be, but likely to grow
into a charming girl."
I wondered, marking how she bit her lip and refrained from assent,
whether, impossible as it must seem to anyone looking in her face,
there might not be something of the shrew about my beautiful neighbor.
Her tone, when she spoke of her sister, seemed to import no great good
will.
"So that is your opinion?" she said, after a pause. "Do you know,"
with a laughing glance, "that some people think I am like her?"
"Yes?" I answered gravely. "Well, I should be able to judge, who have
seen you both and yet am not an old friend. And I think you are both
like and unlike. Your sister has very beautiful eyes"--she lowered
hers swiftly--"and hair like yours, but her manner and style were very
different. I can no more fancy Bab in your place than I can picture
you, Miss Guest, as I saw her for the first time--and on many after
occasions," I added, laughing as much to cover my own hardihood as at
the queer little figure I had conjured up.
"Thank you,' Mr. Herapath," she replied with coldness, though she had
blushed darkly to her ears. "That, I think, must be enough of
compliments for to-night--as you are not an old friend." And she
turned away, leaving me to curse my folly in saying so much, when our
acquaintance was as yet in the bud, and as susceptible to overwarmth
as to a temperature below zero.
A moment later the ladies left us. The flush I had brought to her
cheek still lingered there, as she swept past me with a wondrous show
of dignity in one so young. Mr. Guest came down and took her place,
and we talked of the "land of berries," and our adventures there,
while the rest--older friends--listened indulgently or struck in from
time to time with their own biggest fish and deadliest flies.
I used to wonder why women like to visit dusty chambers; why they get
more joy--I am fain to think they do--out of a scrambling tea up three
pairs of stairs in Pump Court, than from the very same materials--and
comfort withal--in their own house. I imagine it is for the same
reason that the bachelor finds a singular charm in a lady's drawing
room, and there, if anywhere, sees her with a reverent mind--a charm
and a subservience which I felt to the full in the Guests' drawing
room--a room rich in subdued colors and a cunning blending of luxury
and comfort. Yet it depressed me. I felt alone. Mr. Guest had passed
on to others and I stood aside, the sense that I was not of these
people troubling me in a manner as new as it was absurd: for I had
been in the habit of rather despising "society." Miss Guest was at the
piano, the center of a circle of soft light, which showed up also a
keen-faced, dark-whiskered man leaning over her with the air of one
used to the position. Everyone else was so fully engaged that I may
have looked, as well as felt, forlorn, and meeting her eyes could have
fancied she was regarding me with amusement--almost triumph. It must
have been mere fancy, bred of self-consciousness, for the next moment
she beckoned me to her, and said to her cavalier:
"There, Jack; Mr. Herapath is going to talk to me about Norway now, so
that I don't want you any longer. Perhaps you won't mind stepping up
to the schoolroom--Fraeulein and Clare are there--and telling Clare,
that--that--oh, anything!"
There is no piece of ill-breeding so bad to my mind as for a man who
is at home in a house to flaunt his favor in the face of other guests.
That young lawyer's manner as he left her, and the smile of perfect
intelligence which passed between them were such a breach of good
manners as would have ruffled anyone. They ruffled me--yes, me,
although it was no concern of mine what she called him, or how he
conducted himself--so that I could do nothing but stand by the piano
and sulk. One bear makes another, you know.
She did not speak, and I, content to watch the slender hands stealing
over the keys, would not, until my eyes fell upon her right wrist. She
had put off her bracelets and so disclosed a scar upon it, something
about which--not its newness--so startled me that I said abruptly,
"That is very strange! Pray tell me how you did it!"
She looked up, saw what I meant, and, stopping hastily, put on her
bracelets; to all appearance so vexed by my thoughtless question, and
anxious to hide the mark, that I was quick to add humbly, "I asked
because your sister hurt her wrist in nearly the same place on the day
when she thought I was in trouble, and the coincidence struck me."
"Yes, I remember," looking at me I thought with a certain suspicion,
as though she were not sure that I was giving the right motive. "I did
this much in the same way. By falling, I mean. Isn't it a hateful
disfigurement?"