TWO PROPOSALS
THREE days after her visit to the theatre with Sir Joseph Rayner, Joy
Gargrave went north to Westmorland, accompanied by Miss La Farge. She
was staying with old friends a few miles from the home of Sir James
Bracknell at Harrow Fell, and her hostess, remembering Dick Bracknell’s
devotion to her, gossiped freely.
“You remember Sir James’ eldest son, the one whom we used to say ran on
your heels, Joy?”
“Yes,” answered Joy, in a voice that was not very encouraging.
“He went to the dogs--all the way. There was a bad scandal, and though
it was hushed up for Sir James’ sake, Dick Bracknell had to run the
country. No one knows where he is now or whether he is alive or dead,
but it is thought the latter; anyway, we are all beginning to look on
Geoffrey as the heir of Harrow Fell. He is coming over here at the
week-end for the final grouse-shoot of the season, and Adrian Rayner
is coming also. Your uncle fished for an invitation for him, and my
husband could not very well refuse, you know. I fancy,” she added with
a knowing little laugh, “it isn’t merely grouse he is after.”
Joy gave no sign of understanding, but when the week-end arrived,
bringing with it Adrian Rayner, she was left in no uncertainty as to
her cousin’s intentions. He haunted her steps. He was always at hand
with assistance which she did not want; and when Geoffrey Bracknell
also arrived, there was something like open rivalry between them. Her
friend and hostess laughed.
“You will have a brace of proposals before the shoot is over, Joy.”
“Not if I can help it,” answered Joy quickly.
“You will not be able to help it,” was the reply. “They are both
determined young men and their minds are made up.”
“So is mine,” replied Joy.
Yet it was as her hostess said. On the day of the shoot, Geoffrey
Bracknell walked with her across the moor towards the “butts” built
of turf and behind which they were to wait for the driven birds. They
reached her own shelter first, and as she dropped to an improvised
seat, Geoffrey Bracknell halted and looked down at her.
“Miss Gargrave, there is--er--something that I want to say, and
to--a--ask you.”
She looked up and met his honest eyes, eyes that to her mind recalled
not his brother, her husband, but the eyes of his cousin Corporal
Bracknell of the Mounted Police. What she read there brought a quick
flush to her face, and she hastily put up a protesting hand.
“Please, Mr. Bracknell, don’t! Don’t spoil our friendship!”
“Ah!” said the young man, his face paling a little, “you understand
what I want. Is it really quite impossible?”
“Yes,” she answered with directness, “it is quite impossible.”
Geoffrey Bracknell whistled softly to himself. He had suffered a
blow, but he strove to behave like a gentleman. “Then I am sorry
to have troubled you, Miss Gargrave. Of course I knew that I was
not--er--worthy--”
“Oh, it is not that,” she intervened in a distressed voice. “It
is--something else, it has nothing to do with you at all!”
“But it knocks me out!” he said trying to smile. “Well, it is the
fortune of war. I suppose that I shall have to persuade the governor
to let me go on a big game trip, now. That is, the proper thing to do
under the circumstances, isn’t it?”
Again she met his eyes, he was still smiling, but she could see the
effort it required. She held out a hand impulsively.
“Geoffrey,” she said, “don’t let this spoil your life, or our
friendship. I cannot now explain what makes my refusal imperative. Some
day I may be able to, and when I can I shall tell you, if you are still
my friend.”
“Then you’ll have to tell me,” he said frankly, “for I shall always
be that. Couldn’t be anything else, you know.... But there’s the
head-keeper signalling; I must move on to my own butt. Good hunting!”
He laughed with forced lightness and walked away. Joy watched him go
with pain at her heart. How like his cousin he was, and how unlike
his brother! She felt very sorry for the boy, and the incident had
disturbed her so much that she shot very badly. Again and again as the
birds came driving towards her she either didn’t fire or fired too
late, but from the butt where Geoffrey Bracknell waited, the shots
came at regular intervals, and she saw the birds drop every time. Then
a covey of grouse came driving with the wind straight towards her
neighbour’s shelter. She waited. There was a sharp report, and a sudden
cry, and the birds drove on. She looked towards the shelter. It was
almost in a line with her own, and she could see something lying on the
ground behind it. Another flock of birds drove down the wind, but there
was no shot from Geoffrey Bracknell’s gun. A sudden fear assailed her.
Leaving her own gun resting against the turf wall, she ran towards the
next butt. Before she reached it, she knew that something dreadful had
happened, for she could see that the young man was lying on his back in
the heather. She reached the shelter and a cry broke from her.
White faced and still, with a ghastly wound in his right temple,
Geoffrey Bracknell lay there, quite dead. As she looked at him, she had
no doubt whatever about the matter, and a great agony surged up in her
heart.
Had he--? Her eyes fell on the gun close by, and before the thought
which had assailed her was completed she knew that it was groundless.
The lock of the gun was blown out, and the base of both barrels was
fractured. It had been an accident.
“Thank God,” she whispered to herself, delivered from the fear which
had assailed her, “it was not--”
She dropped on her knees by his side and took his hand. It was already
cold, as she raised it to her lips.
“Poor boy! Poor boy!”
She was in tears as she rose from her knees, and began to walk towards
the next butt. The news spread quickly and the shoot was stopped, and
the body was taken first to the village, and later in the day to Harrow
Fell. And that night Joy’s hostess, discussing the tragedy, set a
problem before her, which kept her awake far into the night.
“Poor Sir James,” she said. “He is left without a child, for as I told
you no one knows anything at all about Dick Bracknell, and it doesn’t
matter very much whether he is alive or dead, to any one but his cousin
Roger, for he can never return to England.”
“To his cousin Roger,” echoed Joy, visioning the corporal, “why should
it matter to him?”
“Because if Dick is out of the way, Harrow Fell will pass to him on Sir
James’ death. The estates are entailed, you know.”
Instantly Joy saw the difficulties of the situation. Dick Bracknell
might be dead, or he might be very much alive. In the former case,
the way was quite clear for his cousin; but in the latter, there were
possibilities that filled her with dread. The corporal had left North
Star in an endeavour to solve the mystery of the disappearance of his
cousin’s body. If Dick Bracknell were yet alive and he overtook him,
he would probably try to effect his arrest, and if Dick resisted there
might be trouble, and possibly Corporal Bracknell might be driven
to have recourse to arms. Suppose he shot his cousin, and so, in
innocence, cleared his own way to the succession of Harrow Fell? Her
face clouded, and an anxious look came into her eyes. She was recalled
to herself by her hostess’s voice.
“A penny for your thoughts, Joy.”
Joy prevaricated a little. “I was thinking what a strange coil life
is!” she answered.
“In what way?”
“Well, the last person I spoke to, before I left North Star to come to
England, was Roger Bracknell!”
“Roger Bracknell!” echoed her hostess in surprise.
“Yes, he is in the Mounted Police, and, in the way of duty, he came to
North Star, three days or so before I left.”
“That is an odd coincidence,” was the comment. “What did you think of
him, my dear?”
Joy answered with reserve. “He seemed to be very nice--a gentleman, you
know.”
Her hostess smiled. “Yes, Roger is that--the right sort, as my husband
would say. He, at any rate, will never disgrace the Bracknell clan, for
he is at the opposite pole from his cousin Dick. What did he look like?”
“Like a mounter!” answered Joy quickly.
“A mounter! Don’t talk slang, Joy. Interpret, please.”
“Well,” answered Joy smilingly, “a mounter is a member of the Royal
North West Mounted Police, who are as fine a body of men as you may
find from one end of the Empire to the other.”
“And therefore Roger Bracknell is a fine man, hey?”
“He struck me as being so!” answered Joy composedly. Her friend glanced
at her with shrewd eyes. “Hum!” she said. “You are very discreet, my
dear Joy. Now you know that the truth is that Roger Bracknell is a
man who takes the eye, a handsome man in fact, and why you should be
reluctant to own up--”
“Own up! What do you mean?” interrupted Joy, her face growing suddenly
scarlet.
“Nothing,” laughed her friend, “except that Roger Bracknell is a man to
whom few women could be as indifferent as you pretend to be. But I must
cut this conversation short. There’s Adrian Rayner looking for you, and
coming this way. I’ll send him on to you.”
“Please don’t,” cried Joy; but her hostess only laughed, and as she
walked towards the young man Joy fled to her room.
Late into the night she considered the possibilities which had
presented themselves to her mind at the mention of Roger Bracknell’s
possible succession to Harrow Fell, and in the morning she rode to the
post office in the neighbouring country town, and there dispatched two
cablegrams, one to Roger Bracknell, care of the Police Commissioner
at Regina, explaining to him the circumstances, and one to the
Commissioner himself asking for the whereabouts of Corporal Bracknell,
prepaying a reply. Three days later the reply reached her in London.
“Corporal Bracknell reported as missing. Supposed lost.”
When she received it, she was greatly distressed, and rather hurriedly
made up her mind to return at once to North Star. Why she should do so,
she did not make clear even to herself; and when Adrian Rayner pressed
her for her reason, she was covered with confusion.
“Joy,” he protested, “you must not do anything so foolish. You have
fulfilled the terms of your father’s will to the letter, and now your
place is here in England. We all want you here! I want you more than
any one else on earth. Do you understand?”
She gave him no reply to the question, but he explained further,
leaving her no room for doubt. “I love you, Joy. I loved you when you
were here in England three years ago. I loved you at North Star. I love
you more madly than ever, now. Will you marry me?”
“I can’t,” she said. “Don’t press me, Adrian.”
“But why can’t you?” he asked ruthlessly. “At least you owe me a reason
for refusal. I wonder if that reason has anything to do with this
foolishness of returning to North Star.”
She was a little startled by the acuteness of his conjecture, and did
not immediately reply. He smiled a trifle grimly, and then continued.
“If it has, you can dismiss that reason from your mind for good. Dick
Bracknell is dead.”
“Dick Bracknell! What--”
Her voice faltered as she met his gaze. “Yes,” he answered. “Dick
Bracknell, _alias_ Koona Dick. He was your husband, wasn’t he? You
married him down at Alcombe, didn’t you?”
“How do you know?” she asked quiveringly.
“That is a private matter,” he replied. “Just as your marriage was
private; and just as the manner of your husband’s death must be kept
private for the good of us all.”
“What ... what do you mean, Adrian?” she asked in a trembling voice,
her face ghastly with sudden terror.
“I mean that I know who shot Koona Dick,” he answered slowly.
“Oh!” she gasped, her hand over her heart in a wild endeavour to stay
its fierce beating. “Oh! what--what--”
“There is no need for you to be other than frank with me. I saw the
whole thing. I saw you get that message. I followed you into the woods.
You took a gun with you, and you hid in the trees where you could see
your husband arrive. I saw the flame of your shot, and that same second
Dick Bracknell fell in the snow. Mark you, I do not blame you. Dick
Bracknell was worthless and--”
“But oh!” sobbed Joy with horror in her face. “You are mistaken. It is
not true. I never--”
“Why try to bluff me, Joy? I say I saw you and if you were not the
person who killed Dick Bracknell, why did you make no mention of what
had occurred when you returned to the Lodge? That is not the way of
innocence.”
Joy did not reply. Her face was buried in her hands and she was sobbing
convulsively. Rayner looked at her with shrewd eyes, then after a
moment resumed in an altered tone--
“As I have said, Joy, my dear, I do not blame you; I even went out of
my way to help you that night.”
“You ... you went--”
“Exactly, I saw that policeman find Dick’s body, and afterwards leave
it, and go towards the Lodge. I knew that things might be awkward if
the truth came out, so I disposed of the body.”
“You disposed of the body?” She lifted her head suddenly, and through
her tears looked at him incredulously.
“Yes,” he answered airily. “It is difficult to prove a crime if there
is no evidence of it, so I removed the material evidence, to the utter
confusion of any theory that Corporal Bracknell might have formed.”
“But how? What--”
“I carried it away, and dropped it through an ice-hole in the river. It
will never be found until the ice breaks up in the spring, and then it
is not at all likely. I took a little risk, I know; but I did it for
your sake, believe me, Joy, quite as much as for my own.”
“I do not understand how it affected you,” faltered the girl.
“Perhaps not,” answered Rayner suavely. “But you have heard the reason.
I loved you. I wanted to marry you, even at that time I wanted you;
for I recognized that you were distraught when you--”
“Oh please! Please! Do not say it!” she cried.
“Very well,” he answered. “I will not. But you understand the position,
and I think you will agree that knowing what I know there are not a
great number of men who would wish to marry you.”
“And why should you?” she asked quickly.
“Again because I love you.”
She sat there in silence, staring absently at a vase of chrysanthemums
on the table, and seeing them not at all. In her mind she was again
living through the horror of that night at North Star, searching for
something that would give the lie to Adrian Rayner’s statement. And
suddenly she remembered something. That sled which had halted in the
wood. Who had been with it? Her gaze moved quickly from the vase to her
cousin’s face, and on it she surprised a cynical, calculating look that
stirred deep distrust in her.
“You say you dropped Dick Bracknell’s body through the ice? It was
rather a long way to the river. How did you get it there?”
For one second Rayner hesitated. He was not sure of the bearing of the
question, but after the brief hesitation he answered, “I carried it, of
course.”
Joy had marked the hesitation, and to her came the swift realization
that he was lying. She marked his slim form, and remembered Dick
Bracknell’s height and bulk, and the sudden conviction deepened. But
she gave no hint of it to Rayner, who stood watching her, sure that he
could bend her to his will. She offered no comment on his reply, but
thoughtfully twisted a ring upon her finger, while her mind sought for
a way out of her immediate difficulty.
“Well, Joy,” he asked, “you will marry me?”
She rose abruptly from her chair. “No,” she said on a sudden impulse.
“Not on the evidence of Dick’s death that you offer. I cannot
consider--”
“You are not wise!” he interrupted. “You are in my hands, remember.”
“Oh, but you mistake me,” she cried. “I am not saying that I will
never marry you. I am only saying that the evidence of Dick’s death
is not sufficiently convincing.” She lifted a hand as he would have
interrupted her. “No! Let me finish. When we left Corporal Bracknell at
North Star, he knew that I was Dick’s wife, and he undertook to find
out what had become of Dick’s body. There was some one else in the
woods at North Star that night, some one who probably witnessed all
that occurred. That person, I fancy, Roger Bracknell means to find. And
when I have heard that man’s story--”
“You shall certainly hear it, for I will find that man myself. I will
drag him across the world to tell it to you.”
He spoke vehemently, passionately, but in his bearing there was
something besides vehemence and passion. His face had gone white, and
in his eyes was a furtive look. Joy noticed these signs, but gave no
indication of having done so.
“You!” she cried, “you will go? What will you be able to do?”
“Yes,” he answered sharply. “I will go. I will do what your bungling
corporal has not been able to do. I will bring you proof of Dick
Bracknell’s death. I will find that man who was in the wood, if there
was a man--”
“There is no question of that,” she broke in. “I found his trail, and
Corporal Bracknell found it too. I believe he followed it--”
“Ah!”
The expression on Rayner’s face, as the interjection broke from him,
was one of mingled chagrin and fear. Joy noticed it, and it set her
wondering again. Then quite suddenly she remembered something. Roger
Bracknell had asked her if Adrian Rayner knew of her marriage with her
cousin. She had answered that he did not, but he had known all the
time! The significance of the question had not made itself felt at the
time, but now it broke on her with startling force, and Rayner saw that
something had happened to which he had no clue.
“What is it?” he asked sharply.
“Nothing!” she answered evasively. “But in view of all the
circumstances I think I shall return to North Star myself before long.”
He was about to reply when there came an interruption. Miss La Farge
entered the room.
“The car is waiting, Joy, and we are behind time. We really must be
going if Mr. Rayner can excuse you.”
“Right, Babette. Cousin Adrian was just about to go, as we have
finished our discussion, I believe.”
Rayner nodded. “Yes,” he said. “We have finished, and I am going. But
I shall see you again, Joy, very shortly, certainly before I go to the
North.”
Joy nodded and making his adieu Adrian Rayner passed out of the room.