MAX MAKES A STAND AND A DISCOVERY.
There was a pause, and then Carrie, without answering him, turned to go
back into the house. But Max followed and caught her by the arm.
"Carrie," said he, "they're making a slave of you, without a word of
thanks. You look worn out."
"No, I'm not," said she, briskly. "I've only taken my turns; I should
look all right if it hadn't been for that long, tiring journey
yesterday. I haven't quite got over that yet."
She was trying to free her hand, which Max was holding in his.
"You'll never be strong enough for a hospital nurse, Carrie!"
"Oh, yes, but I shall!" retorted she. And as she spoke, the pink color,
the absence of which made her usually look so delicate, came into her
cheeks. "And you must remember that I shall be better fed, better
clothed then. I am not really weak at all."
"I repeat--you will never be strong enough for a nurse. Better take my
advice and marry me, Carrie!"
But at that, a sudden impulse of hot anger gave the girl the necessary
strength to snatch her hand away from him. She faced him fiercely.
"What! To be looked at always as your father, your mother, look at me
now? As if I were a thief who must be watched, lest she should steal
something? They needn't be afraid either, if only they knew! And before
I go I'll tell them. Yes, I'll tell them what a mistake they make in
thinking I want to take their son, their precious son, away from them!
That for their son!"
And Carrie, very ungratefully, to be sure, held her right hand close to
the face of Max and snapped her fingers scornfully. She had seen Mrs.
Wedmore's eyes over the half blind of one of the windows, and the minx
thought this little scene would be a wholesome lesson.
But Max, following the direction of Carrie's eyes, had also seen the
watching face, and a manful spirit of defiance on the one hand, of
passion on the other, moved him to show both Carrie and his mother how
things were going with him.
Seizing the girl round the waist when her little spurt of defiance was
scarcely over, he held her head with his disengaged hand and pressed
upon her eyes, her cheeks and her lips a dozen hot kisses.
"There!" said he, when at last he let her go, and she, staggering,
blushing, ran toward the shelter of the house. "That's what you get for
being ungrateful, you little cat. And it's nothing to what you'll get
from my mother, who's sure to say it's all your fault. And so--" roared
he up the stairs after her, as she reached the top, "so it is, of
course!"
But Carrie found a refuge inside the sick-room, where Dudley, who had
passed a better night than they had even hoped, was now lying with
closed eyes, quiet and apparently calm.
It was upon Max himself, for a wonder, that the vials of the family
wrath were poured. Mrs. Wedmore, happening to meet her husband while the
last grievance against the girl was fresh, and before she had had the
time to meditate on the result of a premature disclosure, made known to
him the outrage of which she had been a witness, taking care to dwell
upon the audacity of the girl in pursuing and provoking Max.
Mr. Wedmore listened in silence, and then said, curtly:
"Where is he now? Send him to me."
Max, bent upon making himself as conspicuous and, therefore, as
offensive as possible, was whistling in the hall at the moment. And
there was a defiant note in his very whistling which worked his father
up to boiling point. Mr. Wedmore sprang off his chair and dashed open
the door.
"Max, you fool, come here!" was his unpromising summons.
Max came at once, rather red in the face and bright of eyes. Mrs.
Wedmore, standing, frightened and anxious, in the background, thought
she had never seen her darling boy look so handsome, so manly. He came
in very quietly, without swaggering, without defiance, as if he had not
noticed the offensive epithet.
His father, who was by this time on the post of vantage, the hearth-rug,
with his hands behind him and his back to the fire, pointed imperiously
to a chair.
"Sit down, sir."
Max sat down very deliberately on a chair other than the one his father
had chosen for him, and looked down on the floor.
"So you are at your old tricks, your old habits!" began Mr. Wedmore.
Max looked up. Then he sat up.
"What old tricks and habits do you mean, sir?"
"Running after every girl you see, and in defiance of all decency, under
your mother's very nose."
Mrs. Wedmore would have interposed here, but her husband waved his hand
imperially, and she remained silent. Max leaned back in his chair and
met his father's eyes steadily.
"You have made a mistake, sir, and my mother has made a mistake, too. It
is quite true she may have seen me kissing Miss--Miss--Carrie, in fact.
But I hope to have the right to kiss her. I want to marry her."
"To marry this--this--"
"This beautiful young girl, whom nobody has a word to say against,"
interrupted Max, in a louder voice. "Come, sir, you can't say I'm at my
old tricks _now_. I've never wanted to marry any girl before."
For the moment Mr. Wedmore was stupefied. This was worse, far worse than
he had expected. Mrs. Wedmore, also, was rather shocked. But the
sensation, was tempered, in her case, with admiration of her boy's
spirit in daring to make this avowal.
"Mind, I only say I _want_ to marry her. Because, so far, she has
refused to have anything to say to me."
"Not refused to marry you!" broke in Mrs. Wedmore, unable to remain
quiet under such provocation as this.
"Yes, refused to marry me, mother. I have asked her--begged her."
"Oh, it's only artfulness, to make you more persistent," cried Mrs.
Wedmore, indignantly.
"Or perhaps," suggested Mr. Wedmore, in his driest tones, "the girl is
shrewd enough to know that I should cut off a son who was guilty of such
a piece of idiocy and leave him to his own resources."
Max said nothing for a moment; then he remarked, quietly:
"You have been threatening to do that already, sir, before there was any
question of my marrying."
Mrs. Wedmore was frightened by the tone Max was using. He was so much
quieter than usual, so much more decided in his tone, that she began to
think there was less chance than usual of his coming to an agreement
with his father.
"You know, Max," she said, coming over to his chair and putting an
affectionate hand on his head, "that your father has only spoken to you
as he has done because he wanted to rouse up your spirit and make you
ashamed of being lazy."
Max rose from his chair and turned to her with flashing eyes.
"And now, when there is a chance of my rousing myself at last, when I am
ready and anxious to prove it, and to set to work, and to settle down,
he is angrier with me than ever. Mother, you know I'm right, and you
know it isn't fair."
Mrs. Wedmore looked with something like terror into her son's handsome,
excited face.
"But, my dear boy, don't you see that this would be ruin, to tie
yourself to a girl like that? Why, she told me herself that she didn't
belong to anywhere or anybody."
"And is that any reason why she should never belong to anywhere or to
anybody? If there was anything wrong about the girl herself, I would
listen to you--"
"Listen to us! You'll have to listen!" interrupted his father.
Max glanced at him, and went on:
"But there is not."
"And how do you know that? How long have you known her?"
Max was taken aback. It had not occurred to him to think how short his
acquaintance with Carrie had been.
"Long enough to find out all about her," he answered, soberly; "and to
make up my mind that I'll have her for my wife."
"Then that settles it," broke in Mr. Wedmore, whose ill-humor had not
been decreased by the fact that Max evidently considered it more
important to conciliate his mother than to try to convince him. "You
will go to the Cape next month; and if you choose to take this baggage
with you, you can do so. It won't much matter to us what sort of a wife
you introduce to your neighbors out there."
But Max strode across the room and stood face to face with his father,
eye to eye.
"No, sir," he said, in a dogged tone of voice, thrusting his hands deep
into his pockets and looking at him steadily. "I shall not go to the
Cape. You have a right to turn me out of your house if you please. In
fact, it's quite time I went, I know. It's time I did settle down. It's
time I did try to do something for myself. And I'm going to. I'm going
to try to earn my own living and to make enough to keep a wife--the wife
I want. And I shall do it somehow. But I'm not going to be packed off to
Africa, as if my marrying this girl were a thing to be ashamed of. I'm
going to stay in England. I sha'n't come near you. You needn't be afraid
of that. I shall be too proud of my wife to bring her among people who
would look down upon her. And perhaps you'd better not inquire where I
live or what I'm doing, for we sha'n't be able to live in a fashionable
neighborhood, nor to be too particular about what we turn our hands to."
While Max made this speech very slowly, very deliberately, his father
listened to him with ever-increasing anger and disgust, and his mother,
not daring to come too close while he was right under the paternal eye,
hung over the table in the background, with yearning, tremulous love in
her eyes, and with her lips parted, ready to utter the tender words of a
pleading peacemaker.
But the tone Mr. Wedmore chose to take was that of utter contempt,
complete irresponsibility. When his son had finished speaking he waited
as if to hear whether there was any more to come, and then abruptly
turned his back upon him and began to poke the fire.
"Very well," said he, with an affectation of extreme calmness. "Since
you have made up your mind, the sooner you begin to carry out your plans
the better. I'm very glad to see that you have a mind to make up."
"Thank you, sir," said Max.
And he was turning to leave the room, when his mother sprang forward and
stopped him.
"No, no! Don't go like that! My boy! George! Don't say good-bye yet.
Take a little time. Let him try a little trouble of his own for a
change. He has made up his mind, he says. I'm sure he's old enough.
Leave him alone."
Max put his arm round his mother, gave her a warm kiss, disengaged
himself, and left the room.
The poor woman was almost hysterical.
"He means it, George! He means it this time!" she moaned.
And her husband, though he laughed at her, and though he said to himself
that he did not care, was inclined to agree with her.
Max went straight up to his own room, and began to do his packing with
much outward cheerfulness. Indeed he felt no depression over the dashing
step he was taking, although he felt sore over the parting with home and
his mother and sisters.
He was debating within himself whether he should try to see Carrie
before he went, or whether he should only leave a note to be given to
her after he was gone, when he heard the voice of his sister Doreen
calling him. He threw open the door and shouted back.
She was in the hall.
"Max," cried she, in a hissing whisper, "I want to speak to you. Make
haste!"
He ran downstairs and found her standing with two of the maids, both of
whom looked rather frightened.
"Max," said Doreen, "there's an old woman hanging about the place--" Max
started. He guessed what was coming. "The same old woman that came at
Christmas time. She jumped up in the well-house at Anne, and sent her
into hysterics. And now they've lost sight of her, just as they did last
time, and we want you to help to ferret her out and send her away."
"All right," said Max. "We'll pack her off."
He was at the bottom of the staircase by this time, and was starting on
his way to the yard, when a little scream from one of the two maids, as
she glanced up the stairs, made him look around. Carrie had come down so
lightly and so swiftly that she was upon the group before they had heard
a sound. She beckoned to Max, who came back at once.
Carrie was shaking like a leaf; her eyes were wide with alarm, with
terror. Max went up a few stairs, to be out of hearing of the others, as
she seemed to wish. Then she whispered:
"You know who it is. I saw her. Leave her alone. I implore you to leave
her alone! She'll do no harm. Let her rest. Let the poor creature rest.
If--if the police--"
At that moment there was a shout from the yard outside. Carrie sprang
like a hare up the stairs to the window, and looked out with straining
eyes.
The afternoon was one of those dull misty winter days, with a leaden sky
and an east wind.
"I'll see that she isn't hurt!" called out Max, as he bounded down the
stairs and ran into the yard behind the house.
Here he found a motley group--the stablemen, the laundry-maids and the
gardeners--all hunting in the many corners and crannies of the
outbuildings for the old woman who had alarmed Anne.
Max spoke sharply to the men.
"Here, what are you about?" said he. "Hunting a poor old woman as if she
were a wild animal? Go back to your work. She'll never dare to show her
face while you are all about!"
"She's left the well-house, sir, and, we think, she's got into the big
barn," explained one of the lads, with the feeling that Mr. Max himself
would want to join in the chase when he knew that the game was to hand.
"Well, leave her there," answered Max, promptly. "She'll come out when
you've all gone, and I'll send her about her business."
Max saw, as he spoke, that there was a man standing at a little distance
just outside the stable-gate, whom he did not recognize. Before he could
ask who he was, however, the man had disappeared from view. He
remembered what Carrie had said about the presence of a policeman, and
he thought the time was come to take the bull by the horns.
So he walked rapidly in the direction of the gate, and addressed the man
whom he found there.
"Are you a policeman?" he asked, abruptly.
"Yes, sir," answered the man, touching his hat.
"What is your business here?"
"I'm on the lookout for some one I have a warrant for. Charge of murder,
sir."
"Man or woman?"
"Man, sir."
"Will you tell me his name?"
"Horne, sir."
Max thought a moment.
"Why are you pottering about here, instead of going straight up to the
house?"
"Well, sir, I'm obeying orders."
"Come with me," said Max suddenly. "There's an old hag hiding in the
barn now, who knows more about this business than Mr. Horne."
Behind the young gentleman's back the detective smiled, but he professed
to be ready to follow him.
"There's only one way out of this barn," explained Max, as he approached
the door, beside which a groom was standing. "By this door, which is
never locked. There is a window, but it's too high up for anybody to get
out by."
Telling the groom to guard the door, Max went into the barn, followed by
the detective. There was still light enough for them to find their way
about among the lumber.
"Where's the window, sir?" asked the detective.
Max pointed to a speck of light high in the south wall of the barn.
"She couldn't get out there," said he, "even if she could climb up to
it. Unless she could swarm a rope."
And he touched one of the ropes which dangled from a huge beam.
The detective, however, walked rapidly past him, and stopped short,
pointing to something which was lying on the floor under the window.
It was the body of a man, lying in a heap.