HOW JIM ADDED STORIES TO HIS AIR-CASTLE, AND SMOKED HIS LAST PIPE.
HOW HE KNEW CHALLIS'S VOICE AGAIN. WHO HAD TO BE AT THE PARK GATE BY
NINE. HOW JIM HEARD THE MOTOR COMING BACK, AND LIZARANN'S VOICE. HOW
ATHELSTAN TAYLOR ARRIVED WITHOUT HER. OF JIM'S DEATH AND HERS
Athelstan Taylor and Aunt Bessy were at breakfast when the telegram
came to say all was "over unexpectedly; writing." It was opened by the
Rector, who rose and handed it to his sister-in-law; then passed on to
the door in time to stop an incursion of Phoebe and Joan with "Aunty's
coming directly, chicks. Run away now." But not in time to prevent Joan
having good grounds for asking Phoebe why Aunt Bessy was crying.
Aunt Bessy was, no doubt. And the Rector was completely upset, too, for
the moment. He had not the least expected anything so soon. But his
work was cut out for him now. "I must go to poor Jim at once," he said.
"Oh, Athel, Athel!" said Aunt Bessy through her sobs. "You know, don't
you, dear, that Jim would have been told before if I had had my way?"
It was what Athelstan himself afterwards spoke of to Adeline Fossett as
"poor Bessy's I-told-you-so consolation." The Rector was grieved for
her grief, and knew that this expedient would really help her to bear
it, so he was not going to grudge her all she could get from it.
"I know, Bess," said he. "Perhaps I was wrong. However, I didn't see
quite what else to do. And I never imagined anything so sudden as this.
Poor Jim!"
But it was only an easement, to be used and discarded. Miss Caldecott
was ready to surrender the point--certainly wouldn't rub it in.
"P-perhaps you _were_ right, after all!" said she. Her grief for
Lizarann was very real. And how was she to tell Phoebe and Joan?
"You may trust me to do whatever can be done for poor Jim, Bess. I
shall go to him at the Well at once. He won't be absolutely unprepared
by the time I tell him, because he knows my foot on the road a long way
off, and he will know something has happened by my coming so early.
It's not half-past eight yet. I shall be with him soon after nine."
"Won't he think you're bringing her with you? She was to have come here
first, you know. That was the arrangement."
"Oh no! He never used to expect her till he heard her call, 'Pilot.'
You know?"
"Oh, I know! Poor little Lizarann!"
* * * * *
And all those weary hours of the watchers by the bedside of his dying
child, Jim had slept sound, treasuring in the heart of his dreams
the inheritance of that last lucky memory of overnight. Old David's
tale of how he was condemned in boyhood, to live after all into his
hundredth year, stayed by Jim as a pledge of a sure Lizarann in the
days to come--a very sure one in that St. Augustin's summer that was
all but due now. Jim had slept sound, and the story does not grudge
him his sweet delusions. The heart-tonic of that false diagnosis of
eighty years ago took a variety of dream-forms before the morning, but
never lost its savour. By turns it would be a thing and an incident.
Jim had hardly time to appreciate the draught of nectar it became, when
it had changed, even as it touched his lips, to a triumphant arrival
in a glorious port, after stormy seas, with a wreck in tow, called
the Lizarann. Jim would fain have kept that dream, to see that wreck
refitted ready for sea. But then of a sudden, the wreck was no wreck,
but a tree, and Lizarann was up in the tree. And Jim was just thinking
now that he would see what Lizarann was really like, without any
wonderment why she was never visible before, when the tree changed its
identity and became old David himself, or his story; Jim was not clear
which. But through these dreams, and others, the interwoven warmth of
joy was always the same--the reinforced hope the old chap's yarn had
left behind.
Nevertheless, when Jim woke he found it hard to remember where on 'arth
he was; and didn't remember, at first. But he knew that when he did it
would be nice. And so it was. It was old Margy's cottage, and Lizarann
was coming back to it. Jim noticed that everything said so to him. A
voluble hen, however anxious she was he should know about her egg, made
frequent reference to Lizarann's return. A blackbird conversed with
a family of wrens about it, and a linnet endorsed their view, that
Lizarann was certainly coming back. A herd of cows, going leisurely to
pasture, lowed a great deal about it, and repeated to each other again
and again, "Lizarann is coming back," as they died away in the distance
musically. And Jim knew that, far afield, a thousand larks were all of
a tale, above the shorn crops in the blue heaven, telling each other
Lizarann was on the road--was coming back once more to her Daddy. His
little dog especially was clear about it, but was also clear that it
would never do to neglect official obligations, and dragged Jim to the
well-head with all his wonted enthusiasm. He was perfectly competent to
give due notice of her arrival, but business was business.
The essentials of Jim's breakfast, arranged overnight, scarcely brought
him in contact with human converse, because the very little girl, who
came with milk, and took ba'ack t'yoother joog, was so absorbed in her
task as to be able to think of nothing else, and speechless. Besides,
she had misgivings that the little dog wanted her blood, and made her
visit as short as possible. But when Jim arrived at his well-head, he
soon got a chance to speak of his hopes to a fellow-creature, although
it was a young one--too young to talk the matter out with. It was not
always easy to identify these youngsters, as they made no allowance for
blindness; only nodding affirmatives when asked their names right. Jim
had to impute wrong names, and provoke corrections.
"You're little Billy Lathrop, young man, I take it?"
"No-ah be-ant. Oy be Ma-atthew Ree-ad doon th' la-an--two dower off
Lathrop's."
"I reckoned you might be. It's your brother Jack I've to thank for the
loan of this young tyke. He'll be wanting to see him back. Suppose
you was to tell him he may have him back to-morrow. Or next day at
farthest. A smart young character like you can begin larnin' to carry
messages."
"Oy'll tell un."
"Because Lizarann's coming back--that's what you've got to tell. _Who_
is it's a-coming back, hey?"
"L'woyzara-ann."
"My little maid, d'ye see?"
"Yower little may-ud."
"That's a likely young customer. Now mind you tell your brother Jack
just that and nothing else, Matthew Read." And Matthew Read departed
with his pails, leaving Jim all the happier for having, as it were,
substantialized and filled out his hopes by this little performance.
The pipe Jim lighted with a vesuvian after discharging a few more
water-claims, now and then recurring to the subject nearest his heart
with the more talkworthy claimants, was as happy a pipe as he had
ever smoked. As the sun rose higher, a full-blooded southern Phoebus
with no stint of heat in his veins, he could rejoice in the evident
influence of this mysterious St. Augustin, of whom he had never heard
before, but who clearly could make a summer for him and his little
lass. It was coming, and so was she. She would not, maybe, be her old
self for a bit. But, then, no more had old David been. And that was
eighty-four years ago--over half a century before Jim was born! Any
number of glorious expectations might entrench themselves behind such a
precedent--making a fortress in his soul against Despair.
Who says tobacco cannot be enjoyed in the dark? Jim had heard that
story, and thought to himself as he cleared his pipe of ashes that
he could tell another tale. But what was that pipe to the pipes he
would smoke when his little lass was back, to make all this caution in
lighting them needless? It was as good as having eyes himself to have
the child beside him. But suppose now he had been blind from birth!
Think of what it would have been like to have never a tale to tell to
his little lass! He had so lost himself in his love for the child that
this little bit of optimism came spontaneously, without a shade of
bitter comment about being thankful for small mercies.
It was curious to him now--admittedly so--that he had shrunk from
hearing again the sound of the waves, seeing he was actually looking
forward to hearing Lizarann tell of them. It was on one account a
disappointment to him, that since she was taken away to Chalk Cliff
the weather had been so calm. It was true that the one letter she had
written him--just at the time of that slight fluctuation upwards in
the first week of her stay--had told of a rough sea, with such big
waves; but then it had told also of how a pleasure-boat had been shoved
off and a lady got wet through. Would that rough sea help him to tell
her, better than before, what the waves were like when he was on that
steamer in the China seas, and a typhoon swept the decks clear?
Talking was going on, down the road. Somebody was referring to the
Rectory, speaking of it as the parsonage. Jim listened. Pa'arson
had coom whoam yesterday. That was all right, but had no one else
come to the Rectory? Yesterday was exactly six weeks and a day since
Lizarann's departure. But Jim had hedged against despair with constant
self-reminders that her not having come need mean nothing. So he could
ask questions, equably.
"News of th' Master, belike, Jarge?" He affected great ease of
speech--a chatty nonchalance--as he awaited the arrival of the voice
he had recognized at the road-end of the avenue to his Well. He had
stumped along it quick, though, for a wooden leg and a stick.
"Nowt amiss has gotten t' Maister," said the bee-tender, taking time.
"Not for to reach _my_ ears, this marn'n."
"Thought I heard some guess-chap give him his name, Jarge. Yonder
along, a good cast down the road. Who might you have been talking to?"
"Po-ast."
"Ah!--and what said the Post?"
Jarge took more time, during which Jim urged him to fix his mind firmly
on the Rector. Jarge had understood that the Rector had come home, and
that the Post's son had just gone off to him with a telegram when the
Post left home. This was as much as Jarge could be expected to know all
at once, outside bee-craft; so Jim spared him further catechism. "Thank
'ee kindly, Jarge!" said he. "What o'clock might you make it?" Jarge
made it a qwoo-aater to eight-yut by th' soon, and Jim thanked him
again, and stumped back to the well-head.
In his sanguine mood, he took a rose-coloured view of that telegram.
Lizarann and Teacher had not come back yet, but it heralded their
coming. Why!--what else could it be, unless it was no consarn of his,
anyhow? He lit another pipe, and gave himself to happy anticipations;
for the influence of old David's early experience was strong on him.
Being alone, he talked to his little dog, to whom he could speak
freely; for with his keen hearing he could be sure he was alone, even
if the young pup's quiescence had been no proof. It wouldn't be but
a day, or two at most--so Jim told that pup--before Jack Read could
reclaim his property; if, indeed, he hadn't got a better little tyke
by now, as very like was the case; a superior article altogether, to
whom Keating was unknown, and who especially never ran after chickens.
However, it wouldn't do to make too sure, because maybe the little
lass wouldn't, just yet awhile, be allowed out by the doctor on cold
mornings, in which case things would have to remain as they were
for a bit of time. But a day would come when little tykes would be
superfluities, and Jack Read might have this one back, and see what he
could do towards larning him better manners in the house. The object
of these remarks misconceived the drift of them altogether, and,
taking them for recognition of his own merits, heaved a sigh over the
shortcomings of other little dogs, and fell asleep in the sun.
Jim sat again alone and smoked, and listened to the growing sounds of
the day, the insect life stirring in the sunshine, the birds that meant
to sing the summer out; growing fewer now, but revived by St. Augustin,
evidently. He could hear, at the interval of each new furrow, the
team of horses in an old-world plough swing round; and the ploughman's
voice, now near and clear, now at the far hedge of his field, and
dim. Somewhere a long way off a threshing-machine was droning, and as
the sound of it came and went, and rose and fell with the wind, Jim
thought of his little lass; and how that one letter of hers old Margy
had re-read to him so often had told how she had heard the sea sound
so through the night, now more, now less. If she had not come back
to the Rectory yesterday, as he hoped, was she up now and out on the
beach?... but no--hardly! It was barely eight o'clock. Yes--there went
the church-bells! But he could not count the strokes for the noise some
hedge-sparrows made suddenly, almost close to his ear.
That was a harvest cart with a many horses, Jim supposed, and every
horse with bells. Going to load up, at a guess; for it was soon gone
by, and its bells a memory. Then another sound of wheels stole in, and
grew. Not a cart; carts rattle. Some sort of carriage, coming from
Furnival Station. Not indigenous to this village; Jim had learned every
native wheel by heart. Not a very dashing carriage neither! It went
slow, and the horse seemed to think of every step. A hired fly from the
station, of course! Why didn't Jim spot that before?
Now, suppose it had been eight in the evening, it might have been
Teacher bringing Lizarann from the station. At this time in the morning
ridiculous, of course! Still, the thought was nice.
That fly had pulled up on the road, and not so far off. Jim could
hear interchanges between the driver and his fare, evidently male and
English. Did Jim know that voice?
"All right--pull up here! I'll get down and walk the rest of the way.
How far is it?"
"For to step it afut? Twenty minutes, easy."
"Which does 'easy' mean?"
"Easy for time, mister. You'll have to be a bit brisk to do it in
twenty minutes. Give you twenty-three, to do it without idlin'."
A foot on the road, a coach-door that wouldn't hasp, a discovery that
the driver has only one and elevenpence change for half-a-sovereign,
and then the half-sovereign is on its way back to Furnival, and the
fare has started on his twenty-three minutes' walk, with some of the
change in his pocket. But he is not going to do it without idling, it
seems.
Jim heard him approach the well-gap, and come to a stand. Then he
turned up the brick pathway. Now, who was this chap going to be?
"Well, Jim Coupland! Where's Lizarann? I've come to pay her a visit.
And you too!"
Jim knew Challis again the moment he heard his voice close. "Aha!" he
exclaimed joyfully. "You're the gentleman. Came with the Master nigh a
month agone!" And the cordiality of Blind Samson's big right hand was
all the greater that it was welcoming, not only a friend, but what was
in a sense the dawn of Lizarann. For this gentleman, whose name had
slipped Jim's memory, would never have asked for her on insufficient
grounds. In a flash of his mind, Jim had inferred that his visitor, on
his way to the Rectory, had decided--from information received--that
his lassie, due there the day before, would be, or might be, already
with her father at the Abbey Well. A very reasonable view! It was
almost an assurance that his child had arrived, that this gentleman
should speak of her thus.
Challis left his hand in Jim's, while he said, "But where's the kid?"
Said Jim, with confidence, "If you'd come another half-hour later, I
lay you'd have found her, back with her Daddy. Six martal weeks she's
been away. But you'll find her at the Master's, I take it, or meet on
the road."
Challis's voice hung fire a little as he answered, "I'm not on my way
to the Rectory now. I shall have to pay my respects to Miss Coupland
later. Jolly glad she's back, though, Jim, for your sake! How's she
coming on? All the better for the sea, I'll answer for it." Jim was not
the one to be behindhand in optimism. "Done her a warld o' good, I'm
told! Only, ye see, I haven't set eyes on the Master this week past,
and I have to put my dependence on the two little ladies, seeing the
old mother at the cottage has gone to London."
At this point Jim saw his way to still further flattering his certainty
of Lizarann's return by sending a message about her to his sister,
so he let Aunt Stingy into the conversation provisionally. He worded
a _couleur de rose_ account of his invalid, subject to reserves, and
asked Challis to be the bearer of it.
"What's that, Jim?... Ah, to be sure; I had forgotten that. Mrs.
Steptoe's your sister. Yes--I'll tell her." His manner was unsettled,
tense, _exalté_, but not that of a man preoccupied with any but
pleasant thoughts. Jim felt that some inquiry after this relative of
his would not be out of place. He hoped she was giving satisfaction
to "the mistress," and half suggested that her cooking was what he
was asking about. His shrewd hearing detected discomfort in Challis's
reply: "Oh aye--yes! Very good wholesome cooking!" Had he touched a
sore subject? He decided that he had, and was sorry when the gentleman
said abruptly: "That's all right enough. Can't stop now! Got to get to
the Park Gate by nine. How far do you make it out to the Park Gate?"
Jim gave what information he had to give; but Challis remembered quite
enough of the ground to know that the fly-driver's estimate was a low
one; in fact, it had been the interest of the latter to minimize the
distance, in order to get away as soon as he could. "I shall have to
look alive," said Challis. He shook Jim's hand cordially, and started.
In the accident of passing words it had so chanced that if either of
these two men had been asked--how came he to know that Lizarann had
returned to the Rectory?--he would have referred to the other as an
authority. Challis's confidence that he would find Lizarann at the Well
was only the echo of some words of the Rector's three weeks previously,
fixing the date of her return; while Jim's assurance that she was at
the Rectory was based on Challis's way of taking her presence at the
Well for granted. Certainly when they parted, each had an image in his
mind of the invalid back again, much improved, and looking forward to
her meeting with her Daddy.
Such serene unconsciousness of the truth as Jim's was at this moment
strikes harshly on one's sense of probability; but, probable or no,
it was actual. Jim had not experienced such happiness since his child
left him to live, during her absence, on hopes of her return in renewed
health. She was coming now; not a doubt of it! She was actually near
at hand; so near that, with a guide, he could almost have walked the
distance on his wooden leg. She was coming....
Then a gust of disbelief that anything so good could be his, so soon,
seized on his faculties, and made his judgment dizzy. He must be silent
and patient, and wait.
But with this added assurance of Lizarann, pending or near at hand,
Time got a quality of tediousness. The half-hour that followed on
Challis's invasion seemed longer than all the previous half-hours of
the morning added together. Till then Jim had been making all allowance
for the chance that Lizarann was not due till to-morrow, or even next
day. The question was an open one. Challis had managed to leave behind
him an implication that she had arrived. How the sluggard minutes would
crawl now, till she came! Well--patience!
Why was the gentleman going to the Park, not the Rectory? Pending
Lizarann, Jim thought it worth while to wonder at this; or, indeed,
at any other trifle that would hold his mind for a moment, and help
his patience. He had hardly noticed Challis's _distrait_ manner at
the time, but it came back to him now. Yes--why was the gentleman not
going to the Rectory? Of course, he was only known to him as a guest
there; might have been a perfect stranger at the Hall, for anything
that appeared to the contrary. But it was the way he had disclaimed the
Rectory that clashed with Jim's slight knowledge of him. "Not on his
way" there now! "However, it was no concern of Jim's, anyhow! Think of
Lizarann again--only Lizarann!"
His mind ran back to the old match-selling days in Bladen Street. There
was the terrible January night again, no darker than his day was now,
for all he felt St. Augustin's sun on his hands and face; for all he
knew at a guess how the white road would have glared on the eyes he
had lost, even as his last memory of daylight blazed on them still,
leagues away in Africa. There was he again!--a spot in the darkness
that was his lot for ever; a something made of sick torture, borne in
a litter; and then the voice of his little lass, and the touch of her
lips as he lay.... Well!--at least he had a man's heart in him then,
and, crushed as he was, made light of his agony, to spare her. That was
a consolation to him now.
His lot for ever! His lot, that is, so long as he himself should live
to bear it. His lot, till what was left of what was once a man was
laid by what once was Dolly, in a grave! Then touch and hearing would
be gone too, and he and Dolly alike forgotten in the black void of the
time to come.... What did _he_ matter? He flung the unconsidered unit,
himself, aside, in view of a new terror that came suddenly--an image of
his little lass without her Daddy. That was too much pain to bear. To
think of the lassie left alone!
But why think of it at all, yet awhile? Might not he see her again
within the hour? Was it not a chance that even now she was on her way,
coming----coming?...
What was that? A dog's bark he knew quite well--the Rector's
dog--somewhere over by the Rifle Butts. Near a mile off--yes!--but
clear to the sharpened hearing of a blind man. Equally clear to his dog
too, asleep in the sun, and calling for prompt action. The little tyke
started up, barking in reply, and scoured away to make his presence
felt elsewhere. Jim's thought stopped, that he might listen for a
distant step on the road, a step he knew well. A great swinging stride
unlike any other man's in those parts--how mistake it? But another
quarter of an hour must pass before either could have articulate
speech of the other, mere shouting apart. Jim was just on the very
verge of his release from suspense, and could not bear to wait a moment
longer, patience or no! He started along the paved way that led to the
road, guiding himself, as he could well do, by touching the curb with
his stick. It was all plain sailing to him, so far, and no guide was
needed.
He stood and listened, waiting for the approaching footsteps. He could
hear his own little deserter's bark, no great distance down the road;
and through it, at intervals, the bark of the other dog, coming slowly
nearer. But otherwise, nothing outside the sum of noises he could know
the day by from the night, a monotone with here and there a special
sound of beast or bird or insect. Yes!--there was another sound, some
way off still; the motor-car that had passed the cottage last night,
coming from the Hall. Jim knew its special hoot of old; could have
sworn to it among a dozen others.
An old turf-cutter was near enough to see Jim at this moment, and,
after, told what he saw. This man was some way off, trimming the
roadside turf; but his eyes were good, though he was deaf as any post.
He saw Jim--so his tale ran--standing where the path began, close
against the road. He seemed to be listening for something. Quite
unexpectedly he saw him throw up his arms as though surprised or
delighted; but of this the old man, hearing nothing, could not speak
with certainty. He had somehow an impression, though, that Jim was
"raising a great shouting." Then he saw him step suddenly into the
road, and limp with his stick, but with wonderful activity, towards the
twist in its course that it makes round the clump of thorn-trees that
shuts in the Abbey Well. The old turf-cutter saw him last just as he
turned that corner.
Immediately after, a motor-car, going at a mad speed, tore along the
road from the Park. Whether this car was sounding its trumpet the deaf
man could not say. All he knew was that it followed without slacking
down round the corner Jim had been last seen at. It vanished in a thick
cloud of its own dust. The deaf man "misdoubted something had gone
wrong," not from any noise, of course, but because he "watched along
the road" for the dust-cloud, and none came. He suspected nothing,
however, beyond some hitch in the car's working-gear, until some ten
minutes later, when the motor came back, slowly--or relatively slowly.
Then he saw that it contained a young lady, who looked, he said,
"all mazed and staring like"; a gentleman, who lay back with blood
running down his face, and seemed "no ways better than dead," and the
chauffeur. Then a little dog came barking down the road, and went after
the motor-car. He could see it was barking. That was all he could tell.
He laid his turf-spud aside, and went along the road to find Jim and
learn what he could of the mishap.
* * * * *
Athelstan Taylor left the Rectory, with a heavy heart, shortly before
nine o'clock. He knew he should find Jim at the Abbey Well, and he
wanted to make sure the news should not reach him through any other
channel. It would inevitably leak out now. He knew well how things of
the kind will travel, contrary to all calculations.
It occurred to him just as he was starting that if he took his dog with
him, Jim's prevision of something wrong, which he looked to as likely
to make his task easier, would have time to mature before his arrival.
Jim would hear the dog's bark, and recognize it, long before his own
footsteps could reach his ears. He had not at first intended to have
the animal with him, but he now went back and released him, and felt
that the idea was a good one. He could cover the ground, going by the
short-cut near the Rifle Butts, in less than half-an-hour. He might be
hindered on the way, but at least he would be as quick as he could. No
one should be beforehand with Jim, if he could help it.
The hindrances were few and slight. Two or three colloquies of as
many minutes each, ending with apologies for their brevity, made up
the total of delay. Twenty-five minutes may have passed since Challis
left Jim to keep his appointment, when the Rector reached the Rifle
Butts and took the path that goes across from them to the Abbey Well;
it branches off from the path Lizarann and Joan followed to go to the
cottage.
What ensued does not explain itself, unless it is made quite clear
that the curve in the road round the Abbey Well was no mere kink, but
a full curve, like the letter U. One side of this U looked towards the
Hall, the other to the village; and beyond it the turning for Thanes
Castle, along which the motor-car came last night. The point to keep in
mind is that the entrance to the Abbey Well gave towards the Hall, not
the village. Nevertheless, the Well was visible from the Rifle Butts
through a gap in the trees, which grew thicker on each side of the
curve of the road, concealing a portion of it very completely. It was
into this the motor-car vanished from the eyes of the deaf turf-cutter.
Athelstan Taylor, half broken-hearted as he thought of the task before
him, had a struggle with himself not to flinch from it, and slacken
the speed that was bringing it so near. He could see, shortly after
passing the Rifle Butts, the figure of Lizarann's Daddy, and could
picture to himself his unsuspicious ignorance. How sick he felt! How
glad he would be when it was over!
He saw Jim rise from his seat and make for the entrance, and
conjectured that his own footstep was the cause. He saw him stop and
wait when he reached the road, and then lost sight of the entry for a
moment. But he thought he heard Jim shout, as he had heard him often
shout before now, in answer to little Lizarann's call of "Pilot." When
he next saw the entry there was no Jim.
He had to go only the length of the curve to get to the place where he
saw Jim last. He was within five minutes of it now. Courage!
That was the motor-car from the Hall making that hideous noise. Louis
Rossier, the chauffeur, going by himself, of course! He always broke
out of bounds when alone, and that speed was something awful. The
Felixthorpes must have stayed at Thanes. Bess had said they were there;
and now M. Louis was going to fetch them. Would he never slacken down
at that bend in the road? Apparently not. A terrible corner that, to
whirl a motor round at sixty miles an hour! He could hear Jim's little
dog bark in answer to his own, but he was still some minutes' walk from
the road....
What was that cry? What were those cries, rather--cries of panic or of
warning, with a woman's shriek above them? And what was that terrible
cry in a voice he knew?--Jim's voice!
Then he was conscious, in spite of distance, of rapid, panic-stricken
interchange of speech. Two voices, a man's and a woman's, mixed with
the pulsations of the shut-off machinery of the car, checked in its
course. Then of alternations of the sounds of the working-gear, which
he knew meant the turning of the car in the narrow space. Then, as
he reached the spot, the sound of its resumed movement, and its
trumpet-signal again. When he arrived it was vanishing, but he took
little heed of it or its contents. All his thought was for the man
who lay, crushed and groaning, on the bare road in the sun. Would his
message need to be given now?
"Twice over's soon told, Master, and there an end!" Those seemed to be
Jim's words to the man who kneeled over him, not daring to touch him
yet till he should know more. Should he examine him where he lay, or
try at once to move him off the road?
"Oh, Jim--Jim Coupland--who has done this?" He raised the head that
lay in the dust with cautious strength, fearing that any touch might
only be so much more needless pain. But there was no appearance of
flinching; and he raised him further yet, to rest against his knee;
then carefully wiped the forehead, red with blood from a cut on the
temple, but still there was no sign of flinching from his touch. "Can
you bear to be lifted, Jim?... Say if I hurt you."
"Ah!--get me up out of the gangway. I'm a job for the doctor, I take
it...." His voice became inaudible, but not before the word "Water!"
had passed his lips. The old turf-cutter was coming slowly. If he could
be raised and moved to a safe place by the roadside, for the moment,
further help could be got. The Rector knew the old man would not hear
if he spoke at his loudest, but he contrived to make him understand.
Between them they raised poor Jim gently, and got him out of the
blazing sun. His fortitude was great to utter no sound--or, was he
injured to death, and half insensible? The Rector recalled what he had
heard of him in that old accident, and thought the former.
No, he was not insensible! For when they had laid him on some soft
bracken a little way off the road, and the old man had gone for
assistance to the nearest cottage--for he himself did not dare to leave
him--Jim tried again to speak.
"What, Jim? Say it again!" The Rector put his ear close to catch the
words.
"Make the best of me, and let my lassie come!" He was wandering,
clearly. But it was easy to see his meaning--that he wished to seem as
little hurt as might be to his child, whom he imagined near at hand.
Easier still when he added, "She came afore. Let her come now!"
"Lizarann is not here now, Jim." The speaker's voice half choked him.
But why was this worse than the other telling would have been?
He was speaking again. It was only repetition. "She came afore. Let her
come now!" His voice was all but inaudible, and the Rector's words had
been lost upon him.
The deaf old man had done his errand well. The daughter of the little
roadside inn, quicker of foot than he, came bringing water, and, what
was needed too, brandy. Speech came again after a mouthful, swallowed
with difficulty.
"Am I a bad sight, master? Let the lassie come! Never you fear for her!
She's used to her Daddy." He spoke so naturally, all allowance made
for pain resolutely kept at bay, that his only hearer--for the girl
from the inn heard nothing--was quite at a loss. A bald truth was safe
for the moment, though.
"Lizarann is not here, Jim. She cannot come to you now." The last words
almost said why as well! Then both Jim's hearers heard what came quite
distinctly from his lips: "What's got the lassie, Master, my lassie? I
tell ye, I heard her sing out 'Pi-lot!' Aye!--once and again, 'Pi-lot!'
when you was coming across the common yonder!"
But whether he himself heard the only reply Athelstan Taylor could
force his lips to--"Not with me, Jim; Lizarann was not with me"--no one
ever knew. For all he said was, "My little lass!" and never spoke again.
His shattered body was carried to old Margy's cottage, but the moment
of death was hard to determine. All that came to light from the
post-mortem examination was that the spine was injured beyond all hope
of recovery, and that this was only one of several injuries, any of
which might have caused death.
* * * * *
The windows of the ward at the Nursing Home at Chalk Cliff stand
wide to allow the sweet air from the sea to come and go at will. All
has been done that Death has left to do for Lizarann Coupland. Her
end and its cause are certified by medical authority, and registered
officially, and a little coffin has been ordered, in which the tiny
white thing, like an image well carved in alabaster, that Adeline
Fossett and her friend Miss Jane know is under that sheet on the bed,
is to be interred shortly, as soon as its Daddy's wishes are known.
They never will be, but neither lady knows that yet.
"Poor little darling!" said Miss Fossett. "Do you recollect, Jane,
those very last words she said?"
"About the Pilot?"
"No, no--after that. I wasn't sure you heard. I had tried to tell
her what ... what it was ... and I couldn't find words. But I fancy
the little thing half understood, too. What she said was--quite
clearly--'But who's a-going to tell my Daddy?'" It was so like herself.
The speaker breaks down; but then, you see, she had taken Lizarann to
her heart so thoroughly--was thinking she would never have another
child she should be so fond of. Miss Jane is used to these things, and
affects strength.
"I think it will be ready for the flowers now," she says, and removes
that sheet. Yes, the handkerchief round the face may come away. The
two ladies place flowers round the little alabaster head. It is the
head, one would say, of a sweet little girl, and the mouth is not too
large for beauty now, although that line of black is in the lips.
* * * * *
So it came to pass that neither Lizarann nor her Daddy lived to
mourn the loss of the other. The child was never an orphan, and the
father only childless an hour or so. And Lizarann never knew what his
employment had been, but cherished to the last an untainted memory of
those happy days when she led him home, blind but otherwise uninjured,
from the honourable fulfilment of some mysterious public service. And
yet, had she known, would she have thought it other than right? For,
was it not Daddy?