Once she turned and looked over her shoulder, waving her hand
prettily. Her face, framed in a motor bonnet and lit by the glare of a
naphtha light, looked absurdly round and childish, just as it had done
upon a dim and distant morning in Snayling Church.
It was the last time in his life that her man was ever to behold it.
* * * * *
Master Hopper, partially restored by brandy and meat juice, and
feeling, on the whole, something of a hero, arrived at the pit-head an
hour later, there to be claimed by his mother and hustled off, by more
willing hands than he could comfortably accommodate, home to bed. The
bucket, which provided standing-room for two passengers, then went
down again.
This time it brought up Mr Walker, holding a supporting arm round
Carthew--a sick man indeed. He was less hardened to subterranean
existence than the rest. Sympathetic murmurs arose. The bucket was
swung out from beneath the pulley and landed gently on the edge of the
shaft. Carthew stepped out and stood swaying uncertainly.
A tall girl came suddenly forward.
"Jim, dear!" was all she said.
Carthew surveyed her, and smiled weakly.
"Hallo, Nina! That you?"
Miss Tallentyre took his arm.
"The car is waiting for you," she said. "Lean on me _hard_, old boy!"
And certainly no more desirable prop than this girl, with her splendid
youth and glorious vitality, was ever offered to a weary mortal.
Carthew, dazed but utterly content, put a feeble arm round the slim
shoulders of the woman whose mere hand he had hitherto counted it
heaven to touch, and the pair passed away together out of the
crowd--and out of this narrative. Happiness has no history.
Others were coming up the shaft now. First Mr Wilkie, in a very fair
state of preservation: then Denton, the reprobate, insensible--his
hands were in tatters, so fiercely had he worked,--then Atkinson,
still sheer drunk with the success of his own hymnology: then Amos
Entwistle.
Denton's huge inanimate form was laid on a stretcher, to be carried
home under the direction of his wife. (The wives of Renwick and Davis,
poor souls, had gone home long ago.) But, the Belton Hall motor
returning on that instant, Lady Carr insisted on carrying husband and
wife home together. The rush through the night air brought Denton
round, and he was able to walk into his own house, leaning
undeservedly upon the proudest little woman in the north of England.
Daphne returned to the pit-head for the last time. The rescue work was
completed. Surely she might claim him now!
No, the block and tackle were not working. No one else was coming up
at present. Only round the shaft a knot of men conferred eagerly. She
would wait in the car.
She lay back, wrapped in a rug--a cold dawn was breaking--and closed
her eyes. The rush and excitement of the three days had told upon
her. She had no clear recollection of having slept for any length of
time or eaten at any definite period. She had done work among stricken
wives and mothers that Belton village would never forget, but she had
not realised this. All her head and heart were filled by the mighty
knowledge that after five years of married life she and her husband
had found one another.
Meanwhile there was silence round the pit-head.
"Vick," said Daphne, suddenly fearful, "go and find Mr Walker, or some
one, and ask when Sir John will be up."
Mr Vick, who had been dozing comfortably at his wheel, clambered down
into the muddy road and departed as bidden. Ten minutes later he
returned falteringly.
"Mr Walker has just gone down the pit again, my lady," he said. "There
has been a slight explosion of coal-dust, I was to tell you. Nothing
serious--just a flash and a spit in a holler place in the roof, the
message said."
"Is Sir John down there?" Cold fear gripped Daphne's heart.
"Yes, my lady."
"Is he safe, do you know?"
"I couldn't say, my lady," replied Vick doggedly. "I'll inquire."
He turned away, glad to escape, with the brisk demeanour of one
anxious to investigate matters. But before he reached the pit-head the
answer to all possible inquiries came to meet him, in the form of a
slow-moving procession carrying something in its midst.
Very gently the bearers laid the stretcher on the grass by the
roadside. Daphne, white, silent, but composed, stooped down and turned
back the blanket which covered her husband's face. He lay very still.
His head and eyes were roughly bandaged. Daphne whispered, so low that
none other could hear.
"Jack--my Jack!"
His voice answered hers, from amid the bandages--faint, but
imperturbable as ever.
"I'm all right, dear. Afraid it has got me in the eyes a bit, though.
Take me home, wife of mine! You will have to lead me about with a
string now!"
Daphne's head sank lower still, and she whispered, almost exultantly--
"At last I can really be of some use to you!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.
ANOTHER ALIAS.
"Brian Vereker Carr," inquires a voice, "what time is it?"
"Half-past four, sir," replies the same voice respectfully. "In twenty
minutes"--in a more truculent tone--"you will have to go upstairs and
get ready for tea. You will have to wash your hands--and your face
too, I expect," adds the voice bitterly.
Thus, at the age of eight, does Master Brian Vereker Carr commune with
himself--a habit acquired during an infancy spent in a large nursery
where there was no one else to talk to. The necessity for this form of
duologue no longer exists, for now a sister shares the nursery with
him--Brian lives in dread of the day when she shall discover that her
manly brother not only owned but once rejoiced in the great doll's
house in the corner by the fireplace--but the habit remains. Besides,
Miss Carr is only four years old, and gentlemen who have worn
knickerbockers for years find it difficult to unbend towards their
extreme juniors to any great extent. Hence Mr Brian still confers
aloofly with himself, even in the presence of adults. There are
touches of Uncle Anthony Cuthbert about Brian.
At present he is inadequately filling a large arm-chair in front of
the library fire at Belton. The fire is the sole illuminant of the
room. The curtains are closely drawn, for it is a cold winter evening.
Brian Vereker continues his observations, now approaching an artistic
climax.
"If you go upstairs promptly _and_ obediently, like a good boy, what
do you think mother will give you?" inquires voice number one.
"Chocolates!" replies number two, with an inflection of tone which
implies that it will be playing the game pretty low down if mother
does not.
The owner of both voices then turns an appealing pair of brown eyes
upon Daphne, who is sitting on the other side of the fireplace,
engaged in the task of amusing her four-year-old daughter.
"We'll see," she replies after the immemorial practice of mothers....
"And suddenly," she continues to the impatient auditor on her lap,
"his furry skin fell away, and his great teeth disappeared, and he
stood up there straight and beautiful, in shining armour. He _was_ a
fairy prince, after all! Brian, dear, tumble out of that arm-chair.
Here is dad."
Daphne must have quick ears, for a full half-minute elapses before the
door opens and a figure appears in the dim light at the end of the
room. Apparently the darkness does not trouble him, for he
circumnavigates a round table and a revolving bookcase without
hesitation, and finally drops into the arm-chair recently vacated by
his son.
"Brian Vereker Carr," inquires a small and respectful voice at his
elbow, "do you think dad will play with you to-night?"
"I am _sure_ he will," comes a confident reply from the same quarter,
"if you give him two minutes to light his pipe in, and refrain from
unseemly demon--demonstrations of affection in the meanwhile."
"It's a hard world for parents," grumbles Juggernaut, getting up.
"Where is my tobacco-pouch?"
His hand falls upon the corner of the mantelpiece, but encounters
nothing there but a framed photograph of a sun-burned young man on a
polo-pony--Uncle Ally, to be precise.
"Now where on _earth_ is that pouch? I know I left it on the left-hand
end of the mantelpiece after lunch."
There is a shriek of delight at this from Brian, in which Miss Carr
joins, for the great daily joke of the Carr family is now being
enacted.
"Where can it be?" wails Juggernaut. "Under the hearthrug, perhaps?
No, not there! In the blotting-pad? No, not there! _I_ know! I expect
it is behind the coal-box."
Surprising as it may appear, his surmise proves to be correct; and the
triumphant discovery of the missing property scores a dramatic success
which no repetition seems able to stale. (This is about the fiftieth
night of the run of the piece.)
Presently the pipe is filled and lit, Master Carr being permitted to
kindle the match and Miss Carr to blow it out, the latter feat only
being accomplished by much expenditure of breath and a surreptitious
puff from behind her shoulder, contributed by an agency unknown.
"Now, Brian, young fellow," announces Juggernaut, "I will play for ten
minutes. Let me speak to the sister first, though."
He lifts his daughter, whom he has never seen, from her mother's knee,
and exchanges a few whole-hearted confidences with her upon the
subject of her recreations, conduct, dolls, health, and outlook on
life in general. Then he restores her, and shouts--
"Come on, Brian Boroo!"
There is a responsive shriek from his son, and the game begins. It is
not every boy, Master Brian proudly reflects as he crawls on all
fours beneath a writing-table, who can play at blind man's buff with a
real blind man!
Daphne leans back in her chair and surveys her male belongings
restfully. Time was when this husband of hers, at present eluding
obstacles with uncanny facility and listening intently, with the
youthful zest of a boy-scout, for the excited breathing of his quarry,
found life a less hilarious business. There rises before her the
picture of a man led from room to room, steered round corners, dressed
like a child, fed like a baby--shattered, groping, gaunt, but
pathetically and doggedly cheerful. Neither Daphne nor her husband
ever speak of that time now. Not that she regrets it: woman-like, she
sometimes feels sorry it is over and gone. She was of real use to her
man in those days. Now he seems to be growing independent of her
again. Then she smiles comfortably, for she knows that all fears on
that score are groundless. He is hers, body and soul. And she----
A small, unclean, and insistent hand is tugging at her skirt, and Miss
Carr, swaying unsteadily beneath the burden of a bulky and tattered
volume, claims her attention.
"Show me pictures," she commands.
She and her tome are hoisted up, and the exposition begins.
"Where did you find this book, Beloved?" inquires Daphne. The book is
an ancient copy of the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and we have encountered
it once before in this narrative.
"Over there," replies Beloved, indicating the bottom shelf of a
bookcase with a pudgy thumb--"under ze 'Gwaphics.' What's ze name of
that genelman?"
To Miss Carr distinctions of caste are as yet unknown. In her eyes
every member of the opposite sex, from the alien who calls on
Thursdays with a hurdy-gurdy to the knight-in-armour who keeps eternal
vigil in the outer hall, is a "genelman." Even if you are emitting
flames from your stomach, as in the present instance, you are not
debarred from the title.
Daphne surveys the picture in a reminiscent fashion, and her thoughts
go back to a distant Sunday morning at the Rectory, with her youngest
brother kneeling on the floor, endeavouring to verify a pictorial
reference in this very volume.
"What is he doin' to the other genelman?" continues the searcher after
knowledge upon her knee, in a concerned voice.
"He is trying to hurt him, dear."
"What for?"
So the inexorable, immemorial catechism goes on, to be answered with
infinite patience and surprising resource. Presently the cycle of
inquiry completes itself, and the original question crops out once
more.
"What did you say was ze name of that genelman?" with a puckered,
frowning effort at remembrance.
"Apollyon, dear."
"Oh." Then the inquirer strikes a fresh note.
"Do you know him?"
"I used to," replies Daphne. "At least," she adds, "I used to know
some one who I thought was like him. But his name turned out not to be
Apollyon after all."
"What _was_ his name, then--his pwoper name?" pursues Miss Carr,
deeply intrigued.
Daphne turns to another illustration, coming much later in the book,
and surveys it with shining eyes.
"His proper name, Beloved?" she asks.
"Yes. What _was_ it?"
"Mr Greatheart," says Daphne softly.
THE END.
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Transcriber's note:
1. Hyphenation and spelling have not been changed from the original text.
2. Some punctuation has been left as it appears in the original text.
For example, Mr appears without a period.
3. A series of 16 words which were hyphenated have been split across
two lines.