Two Maids and a Man
When next I awoke, it was amid conflicting sensations of pains and
pleasantnesses. My eyes gradually took in my surroundings. Instead of
being in Heaven, or the other place of future abode as I fully expected
to be, I was lying on my own bed, in my own room, in a semi-darkness.
A quiet, shadowlike form was flitting about. I followed it with my
eyes for a while, enjoying the fact that it did not know that I was
watching it. Then it tip-toed toward me and bent over me.
All my doubts and fears departed. After all, I was in Heaven; for
Mary,--the Mary I so loved,--was bending over me, crooning to me, with
her face so near, and placing her cooling, soothing hand on my hot brow.
I must have tried to speak, for, as if far away, I could hear her
enjoining me not to talk, but just lie quiet and I would soon be well.
She put a spoon to my mouth and, sup by sup, something warm, good and
reviving slowly found its way down my throat.
What hard work it was opening my lips! What a dreadful task it was to
swallow and how heavy my feet and hands seemed!--so heavy, I could not
lift them.
As the singing voice crooned and hushed me, I grew, oh! so weary of the
labour of swallowing and breathing that I dropped away again into
glorious slumberland.
When again I opened my eyes, it was evening. My reading lamp was
burning dimly on a table, near by. The air was warm from a crackling
fire in the stove. Some one was kneeling at my bedside.
I looked along the sheets that covered me.
It was Mary.
All I could see of her head were the coils of her golden hair, for she
had my hand in both her own and her face was hidden on the bed-spread.
I could hear her voice whispering softly. She was praying. She
repeated my name ever so often. She was praying that I might be
allowed to live.
From that moment I lived and grew stronger. But I dared not move in
case I might disturb her.
She rose at last and bent over my bandaged head. She scrutinised my
face. As she leaned closer, I caught the fragrance of her breath and
the perfume of her hair. And then,--God forgive me for my deceit!
although, for such an ecstasy I would go on being deceitful to the end
of time,--she stooped lower and her full, soft, warm lips touched mine.
I raised my eyelids to her blushing loveliness. I tried to smile, but
she put her finger up demanding silence. She fed me again and new
strength flowed through my veins.
What questions I asked her then! How did I get here? What day of the
week was it? Was Joe Clark dead?
"Hush, hush!" she chided. "You must go on sleeping."
"But I can't sleep forever. Already I have been asleep for years," I
complained feebly.
"Hush, then, and I will tell you."
She sat down by my bedside and I lay still and quiet as she went over
what she knew.
"This is Saturday evening. I found you, lying unconscious,--dead as I
thought,--out on the path, as I went for fresh water yesterday morning.
"I brought you here. I did not know what had befallen you. I was
afraid you had been set upon by the thieves who tried to rob Jake
Meaghan; but from what you have just said, it was Superintendent Clark
who attacked you."
I nodded.
"Was he not lying there beside me,--dead?" I asked.
"Hush! There was no one near you; but the place looked as if a herd of
buffalo had thundered over it."
I was puzzled, but I tried to laugh and the attempt hurt me.
"How did you get me here?" I interrupted.
"Now!" she said, "if you speak again, I will tell you nothing.
"I ran home for blankets. I got two poles and fixed the blankets to
these. I rolled you over on to my improvised stretcher and trailed you
here, Indian fashion. It was easy as easy. Mrs. Malmsbury was abed
and I did not wish to disturb her just then. Later, when I got you
here, she helped me to put you to bed.
"Oh! I am so glad that man did not murder you."
"But it would not have been murder, Mary," I put in. "It was a fair
fight."
"But why should two, strong, clean-living young men want to fight?
Don't answer me, George," she added quickly, "for I am merely
cogitating. Men seem such strange animals to us women."
I smiled.
Other questions I asked, but Mary declined to answer and I had,
perforce, to lie still, with nothing to do but follow her with my eyes
wherever she went.
For one more day, she kept me on my back, bullying me and tyrannising
over me, when I felt strong enough to be up and about my business.
Sometimes, when she came near enough, I would lay my hand over hers.
She would permit the caress as if she were indulging a spoiled baby.
Sometimes, I would lie with my eyes closed in the hope that she might
be tempted to kiss me, as she had done before; but Mary Grant saw
through the pretence and declined to become a party to it.
The Rev. Mr. Auld came during the early afternoon of that Sunday. He
examined my bruises and contusions with professional brutality. He
winked, and ordered me up, dressed and into a wicker chair,--for the
lazy, good-for-nothing rascal that I was. And,--God bless his kindly
old heart!--he told Mary I might smoke, in moderation.
He did not remain long, for he said he had been called to attend
another and a very urgent case of a malady similar to mine, at Camp No.
2.
"Why!--that's Joe Clark's Camp," I said.
"I am well aware of the fact," said he. "If you ask any more questions
or venture any more information, I shall order you back to bed and I
shall cancel your smoking permit."
As he was going off, he came over to me and whispered in my ear:--
"Man!--I would give something for the power of your right arm."
All the remainder of that afternoon, Mary read to me, as I browsed
[Transcriber's note: drowsed?] in an easy chair among cushions and
rugs, stretching first one leg and then the other, testing my arms,
trying every joint, every finger and toe, to satisfy myself that I was
still George Bremner, complete in every detail.
Just as Mary was preparing to say good-bye to my little place, late
that same day,--for her vigils over me were no longer necessary,--Rita
Clark ran in, flushed with hurried rowing and labouring under a strong
excitement. She flashed defiance at Mary, then she threw herself at my
feet and sobbed as if her little heart would break.
I put my hand on her head and tried to comfort her, and, when I looked
up again, she and I were alone.
"Rita, Rita!" I admonished.
"Oh!--no one told me," she wailed. "And it was all my fault. I know I
should not have come when Joe was that way about it.
"If he had killed you! Oh! George,--if he had killed you!"
Her eyes were red from weeping and dread still showed in her expressive
face.
"There, there," I comforted. "He did not kill me, Rita, so why worry?
"I shall be back at work in the store to-morrow, same as before. Cheer
up, little girl!"
"But nobody at the Camp can understand it," she went on with more
composure. "They all knew there had been a fight. They were sure you
had been killed, for nobody ever stands up against Joe without coming
down harder than he does, and they say Joe was pretty nearly done for."
"How is he now?" I inquired, inquisitive to know if he were suffering
at least some of what I had suffered.
"Mr. Auld just came in as I left. Joe's been unconscious for two days."
"Good!" I exclaimed, almost in delight.
Rita's face expressed a chiding her tongue refused to give.
"He only came to, when the minister got there this afternoon. Joe's
arm is broken. Two of his ribs are stove in. He's bruised and
battered all over. Mr. Auld says the hole in his forehead is the
serious one. Thinks you must have uprooted a tree and hit him with it."
I laughed. But Rita was still all seriousness.
"He'll pull through all right. Minister says he'll be out in two or
three weeks. Says it's a miracle how Joe ever got back to Camp. Must
have crawled to the launch, looked after the engine and steered all the
way himself, and him smashed up as he was. Funny he didn't come over
home. Guess he didn't want any of us to know about it.
"They found his boat run up on the beach at Camp and him lying in the
bottom of it, unconscious; engine of his boat still going full speed.
"Joe was delirious and muttering all the time:
"'I killed that son-of-a-gun, Bremner. I killed Bremner.'
"You know, George,--most of the men like Joe; for he's good to them
when they're down and out. But none of them has much sympathy for him
this time. Mr. Auld says they have heard him talk about doing you up
ever since you came to Golden Crescent. And now, Joe's the man that's
done up.
"Better for him if he had let you be.
"But, maybe after all, it is the best thing that ever happened,--for
Joe, I mean. It will let him see that brute force isn't everything;
that there never was a strong man but there was a stronger one still.
Eh! George."
Rita's mood changed.
"But, if you and Joe quarrel again, I'm going to run away. So there.
"I'm not beholden to any one now,--thanks to dear old Jake Meaghan. I
can get money,--all I want. Then maybe Joe'll be sorry.
"You won't fight any more, George? Say you won't!"
She put her arm round my shoulder and her cheek against mine, in her
old coaxing way.
Dear little woman! It was a shame to have worried her as Joe and I had
done.
"Well, Rita," I laughed, "I promise you I won't fight if Joe won't.
And, anyway,--Joe is not likely to seek another encounter till his arm
and ribs are well; and that will take six weeks all told. So don't
worry yourself any more about what is going to happen six weeks hence."
As Rita started out for home, I rose to accompany her to the boat.
"No, no!" she cried. "Why!--you are under doctor's orders."
"I have to work to-morrow, Rita, so I might as well try myself out now,
as later."
I was shaky at the knees, but, with Rita's arm round my waist, I
managed to make the journey with little trouble.
As we got to her boat, Rita pouted.
"What's the matter now, little maid?" I asked.
"I don't think you like me any more, George,--after bringing this on
you. And we've been pretty good pals too, you and I."
Her eyes commenced to fill.
"Why, foolish! Of course, we have been good pals and we are going to
stay good pals right to the end; no matter what happens."
"Sure?" she asked, taking an upward, sidelong glance at me.
"Sure as that," I exclaimed. I put my hands round her trim waist, and,
weak as I was, I lifted her up from the ground and kissed her laughing
mouth.
She struggled free, jumped into the boat and rowed away, with a laugh
and a blown kiss to me from her finger tips.
As I turned, I cast my eyes up along the wharf.
A figure was standing there, motionless, as if hewn in stone.
It was Mary Grant.
Her hands were pressed flat against her bosom as if she were trying to
stifle something that should not have been there. Her face wore a
strange coldness that I had never seen in it before.
I could not understand why it should be so,--unless,--unless she had
misconstrued the good-bye of Rita and me. But, surely,--surely not!
Slowly and laboriously, I made in her direction, but she sped away
swiftly down the wharf, across the rustic bridge and into her cottage,
closing the door behind her quickly.
As I sat by the fireside, thinking over what possibly could have caused
Mary to behave so, something spoke to me again and again, saying:--
"Go over and find out. Go over and find out."
But I did not obey. My conscience felt clear of all wrong intent and I
decided it would be better to wait till morning, when I would be more
fit for the ordeal and Mary would have had time for second thoughts.
Had I only known what the decision meant to me; the hours of mental
torment, the suspense, the dread loneliness, I would have obeyed the
inner voice and hastened to Mary's side that very moment, stripping all
wrong ideas and wrong impressions of their deceitful garments, leaving
them bare and cold and harmless.
I did not know, and, for my lack of knowledge or intuition, I had to
suffer the consequences.
Later in the evening, a yacht put into the Bay. It carried some ladies
and gentlemen who had been on a trip to Alaska and were now returning
south.
They called in for a few supplies, the getting of which I merely
supervised. They asked and obtained permission from me to tie up at
the wharf for the night.
After they had returned aboard and just as I was laboriously
undressing, I heard music floating across from Mary's. It was the same
sweet, entrancing, will-o'-the wisp music that her touch always created.
But to-night, she played the shadowy, mysterious, light and elusive
Ballade No. 3 of Chopin. How well I knew the story and how
sympathetically Mary followed it in her playing! till I could picture
the scenes and the characters as if they were appearing before me on a
cinema screen:--the palace, the forest and the beautiful lake; the
knight and the strange, ethereal lady; the bewitchment; the promise;
the new enchantress, the lure of the dance, the lady's flight and the
knight's pursuit over the marshes and out on to the lake; the drowning
of the unfaithful gallant and the mocking laugh of the triumphant siren.
The music swelled and whispered, sobbed and laughed, thundered and
sighed at the call of the wonderful musician who translated it.
I was bewitched by the playing, almost as the knight had been by the
ethereal lady of the music-story.
Suddenly the music ceased. I thought Mary had retired to rest. But
again, on the night air, came the introduction to the little ballad I
had already heard her sing in part. Her voice, with its plaintive
sweetness, broke into melody.
She lilted softly the first verse,--and I waited.
She sang the second verse. Again I waited, wondering, then hoping and
longing that she would continue.
The third verse came at last and--I regretted its coming.
A maid there was in the North Countree;
A sad little, lone little maid was she.
Her knight seemed fickle and all untrue
As he rode to war at the drummer's dree.
And, day by day, as her sorrow grew,
Her spinning wheel groaned and the threads wove through;
It groaned.--It groaned.--It groaned and the threads wove through.
"What a stupid little song, after all!" I exclaimed. "Surely there
must be another verse to it? Where does the happy ending come in?"
But, though I listened eagerly, no further sounds broke the stillness
of the night save the sobbing and moaning of the sea and the hooting of
a friendly owl in the forest behind.