ILLUMINATION
When the two men went out Miss Chatterton discovered that she had
undertaken a very difficult task. The seamstress lay still looking at
her, evidently expectant, but saying nothing. She, it appeared, felt
herself mistress of the position. Lilian felt that the silence was
growing painful, and determined to attack the subject boldly.
"Mr. Dane has clearly been a good friend to your brother, but may I ask
whether that evening at the Hallows Bridge was the only time you spoke
to him?"
A flush crept into the sick girl's cheeks, and a hardness into her eyes.
"I was expecting ye would ask me. What would ye say if I did not
answer?"
"Probably nothing," returned Lilian, quietly. "Mr. Dane is, as we know,
somewhat impulsive, as well as generous. Why do you tell me that you
expected such a question?"
Mary Johnstone painfully raised herself on one elbow.
"Ye are a grand lady, but hard, I think, as some folk would call ye
bonny. I am a poor sewing woman with the need to strive hard, an'
always, to keep hunger from the door--but in the hearts of us there is
no that difference between you an' me. No--bide ye and listen."
Lilian had risen, but she sat down again. Something in the girl's voice
and manner compelled her attention, for the seamstress spoke as equal
to equal on the basis of their common humanity.
"I owe ye little, Miss Chatterton. What ye paid, I earned, an' some of
it hardly, but when ye bade me come no more to The Larches, with no
other word, there was many an ill tongue to cast dirt at me, forby lying
tales that ye found things of value missing."
"I never suspected that would happen," said Lilian, a little uneasily.
"How should ye?" continued the seamstress. "But ye could not blame the
slanderers, being quick yourself to think evil. May be ye did not know,
either, that my good name means work and bread to more than me? So, if
there was no other person interested, I would ask--how dare ye, thinking
what ye think, come here and ask me that question?"
Lilian was contrite, realizing the harm she had unwittingly done, and
recognizing the genuine ring of injured innocence in the speaker's
voice. She was also slightly angry, as well as astonished, but she was
sufficiently just to see that it would not become her to manifest
displeasure.
"I did wrong, but how do you know what I thought, or if I thought
anything at all?" she asked. "You have also avoided the question instead
of answering me."
"What did I tell ye at the beginning?" said the sick girl with a curious
smile. "Being poor, am I less a woman? Well, and not for your sake only,
ye shall have the answer that should pleasure ye. That night at Hallows
Brig was the one time only Mr. Dane had word with me. Are ye believing
me?"
Lilian failed to understand why she should feel so relieved by the
information, but she certainly did. She also felt humbled; and as it
was not her way to do anything by half, she made reparation with a
queenly simplicity. Stooping over the sick girl, she kissed her on the
cheek.
"After that you cannot refuse to forgive me, and must come back and help
me as soon as you are fit," she said. "But I do not understand yet what
you meant when you said it was not for my sake only."
The sick girl at first only regarded her with a smile, but it sufficed
to show Lilian that peace was made.
"If ye cannot guess, I fear I cannot tell ye," she said. "I have eyes
and the sense to see, but it would be presumption for me to tell ye all
they showed me. Still, ye and Mr. Maxwell were not the only persons I
saw that night at the Hallows Brig."
Lilian asked no further questions, but when she left there was a
brightness in her eyes which had not been there before.
"Mary Johnstone has clearly bewitched you," the clergyman remarked.
"Your very step is lighter than it was an hour ago, and you are looking
better than you have done all winter. Would it be indiscreet to ask what
spell she cast upon you?"
"I am afraid it would," Lilian answered, while a softness crept into her
face. She laughed, and henceforward chatted so brightly that when she
left him her companion looked after her longingly, and then sighed as he
turned back to his bachelor quarters. They struck him as very cheerless
and lonely.
A week had passed when Miss Chatterton, sitting alone, listlessly took
up a newspaper a maid brought in. The listlessness vanished, however,
when a heading, "Further Fighting in the Dark Continent," caught her
eye, and she eagerly hurried through an account of the reverses suffered
by a British punitive expedition in West Africa. Then, while her heart
beat fast, she sat very still, staring at the concluding paragraph:
A French trader brought news to the coast of another
unfortunate affair in the hinterland. It appears that
two Englishmen, Dane and Maxwell, who left the coast
months earlier, on a prospecting expedition, lost
their carriers by sickness, and have since been hemmed
in by hostile natives in a perilous position. Our
correspondent states that the French authorities, who
warned them against the expedition, consider their
extrication impossible, and believe they must have
perished already.
Lilian let the paper fall from her nerveless hands, and lay motionless,
shivering in her chair. The shock of a supposed discovery, and a
jealousy she would not own, had played their part in forcing on her
attention a question she had resolutely striven to ignore, while now,
when it was perhaps too late forever, the answer was clear. She could
deceive herself no longer; and she guessed why the man had risked his
life to win a little gold in Africa. Risked it--at the thought her eyes
grew hazy. It might well be that he had flung his life away! Yet, even
then, it was with a passing thrill of pride that she remembered the
stubbornness beneath his patience, and knew that it would go very hard
with his enemies before he went down.
Hilton Dane had changed swiftly in her estimation from a man with a
weakness to a hero, generous, loyal, swift to do her pleasure, and yet
fitted to command. It seemed to her overstrained fancy that she could
almost hear his voice ringing through the blast of the rifles in the
last struggle; and that it would be a very grim and terrible struggle
she knew. Then she shuddered once more, recollecting what she had read
of the scenes within an African stockade when the rifles lay cold in the
undergrowth, and the smoke of the flintlocks had melted away.
The sense of constraint inside grew unbearable, and the girl went forth
into the night, and stood bareheaded, staring into the darkness, hoping,
though almost afraid to hope, that the man she had sent away had not
passed forever beyond her power to recall him.
Chatterton and his wife, returning presently, found her waiting in the
hall; and the iron-master's action was characteristic when he had
glanced at the paper she handed him. Wrenching out his notebook he wrote
on the first blank leaf the address of a firm dealing in palm oil in
Liverpool, and then a message beneath it:
"_See newspaper report of disaster to West Coast explorers, Dane and
Maxwell. Wire your agents to find out how much is true, and all possible
details. Spare no expense whatever._"
He flung the paper to the groom outside.
"Get that telegram sent off before the post-office closes, if you kill
the horse!" he said.
There was a rattle of wheels, and Chatterton laughed a grim laugh as he
turned toward the women.
"No great cause for anxiety as yet. I know Hilton Dane better than
either of you, and I think I know Maxwell too. It would take several
legions of niggers to hem them in--and I should be sorry for many of the
black men."
A few days later, Thomas Chatterton sat beside his hearth one evening in
an unpleasant frame of mind. The weather might have caused a more even
tempered person some discontent, because the windows rattled under the
impact of the sleet-laden blast, and the snugly curtained room was swept
by chilling draughts. But Chatterton was not considering the weather; he
glanced at the clock before he turned toward the owner of Culmeny.
"That lazy rascal is stopping somewhere to gossip on the way," he said.
"The telegraph office is closed now, and he must be here shortly,"
replied Maxwell. "I was sorry to hear that Miss Chatterton was no
better. Have you any more favorable news to give me?"
"No. She is rather worse than better, and we are distinctly uneasy about
her to-night," he said. "Dr. Gilmour was here an hour ago, looking
rather more owl-like than usual, but I could get no opinion out of him.
In fact, the man puzzled me. He appeared dazed, and either would not
listen to my questions or was incapable of understanding plain English."
"Dazed? You do not as a rule speak ambiguously. If Miss Chatterton is
seriously ill I think it is my duty to tell you what you evidently do
not know, though it is no secret. Gilmour is not free from a weakness
for alcohol."
Chatterton was a man of action; making no comment, he wrenched upon the
rope of the bell before he pulled out his watch.
"Send Robertson here at once!" he ordered; and when his groom appeared,
he asked:
"Is it possible to ride a horse to Swiftsbridge across the Langside moss
and through the ford in time to bring out the doctor by the last
train?"
"No, sir," was the answer. "The moor track's under water, the ford just
roaring full, and I'm thinking that to swim the Swift to-night is
impossible."
"I think he is right," Maxwell said; "though I fancy I could have done
it twenty years ago."
"Then you can drive!" Chatterton said harshly to the groom. "It's a
little over forty miles there and back by road. Get a fresh horse at the
bridge; but if you value your place don't come back without the doctor!"
Chatterton walked to the window and flung the curtains behind him; then
he returned with brows contracted farther.
"The moor is white all over, and the air thick with sleet," he said. "It
will take that fellow all his time to bring the doctor here by
to-morrow."
A maid, appearing, laid a telegraphic envelope on the table, and
Chatterton tore it open.
"At last! I always thought the man was incapable. Listen to this!
"_Difficult to communicate by ocean cable except at heavy cost, but
surmise from message received that our coast agent credits published
account. His cable just received reads, as deciphered by our code: Yes.
Consider prospects discouraging. Do not look for improvement. Think we
could confirm._"
Chatterton whipped out a pencil and, scribbling across the foot of the
message, handed it to Maxwell.
"Can you send somebody down to the office with that?" he said. "It can't
go until to-morrow. I want to keep my other man ready."
"Yes," agreed Maxwell. "There are regulations, Chatterton, which will
bar out your opening sentence, _Damn your private code._ The rest is, I
think, plain enough. _Get news whatever it costs. Wire your agent in
English if he has sense enough to understand it. Believe I am quite able
to meet the bill._"
"That man," explained Chatterton, "is, I blush to say, a relative of my
own, and given to complaining that times are bad. It surprises me that
he does not find them ruinous, if this is a sample of his enterprise.
I'm almost as much cut up as you are about this affair; and I'm sorry
for you, Maxwell."
"Thanks," returned the master of Culmeny, quietly. "He was the only son
left me, and I have a presentiment of what the end will be. It is,
however, in the hands of the Almighty; but, if the worst comes, I know
that neither of them will forget what is due to the land that bred him."
Chatterton coughed huskily.
"You are morbid, Culmeny. If they can only steer clear of treachery, by
the Lord, those two lads will cut their way out in spite of all the
savages in Africa. I know the one whose father was my partner, and I
know your son. If my own brother told me he had seen them beaten, I
would not believe him."
Maxwell left, and in a few minutes Mrs. Chatterton came in to say that
Lilian was growing delirious. As they spoke together the iron-master
heard a voice in the hall.
"It is that confounded Rae," he observed. "It was he who encouraged Lily
to go poking into the houses of poor folks who didn't want her, all
winter. I consider him responsible for her illness, and feel quite
capable of telling him so."
The clergyman was ushered in, and he had barely stated the purport of
his visit when the elder man cut him short.
"No. Miss Chatterton will neither sing at your concert, nor distribute
any more coal tickets to encourage professional loafers!" he said. "In
fact she is seriously ill. If you had not been enjoying yourself in
Edinburgh you would have known it. You are sorry! Well, I really cannot
help saying that I think you ought to be. Miss Chatterton has not been
strong all winter, and was warned against damp and exposure; but you
managed to convince her it was her duty to wander up and down the
village, pestering the sick folk, in spite of the rain and snow. Women
have not the sense to discriminate between what is necessary and
sentimental foolishness, you know."
Rae, who was not readily browbeaten, interrupted the speaker, and though
he expressed no contrition, he showed such genuine anxiety concerning
Miss Chatterton's health that her uncle was surprised, as well as
mollified. It is possible that the clergyman showed his fears too
plainly.
"Perhaps you could not help it, being possibly afflicted with the crazy
notion that to destroy one's bodily health is good for the soul," he
said. "It is one of the few things which always excites my indignation."
Rae, who knew that the things which roused the speaker's ire were
numerous, smiled a little. "I certainly have never preached that
doctrine."
"You must forgive me if I appear abrupt," Chatterton apologized. "The
fact is that when I'm anxious my temper is not so good as it generally
is, and I am very anxious about my niece to-night. When Gilmour came
round, the infernal--yes, that's the adjective I meant--old scoundrel
wasn't even sober. And you remember Dane? Well, he is hemmed in by
hostile savages somewhere in Africa, and we can learn no news of him. My
niece and he were very good friends, and when she grows light-headed she
begs us to tell her what has happened to him. It is distressing because,
of course, we cannot do so."
Rae winced visibly at the last few sentences, and found a corroboration
of them in the recollection of the change in Miss Chatterton after
hearing Johnstone's story. Still, he pulled out his watch.
"There is a clever doctor at Swiftsbridge."
"I believe so," said Chatterton, impatiently. "There are also a number
in London and a few in New York, I've heard. I sent over for the
Swiftsbridge man some time ago; but considering the snow and bad roads,
I don't expect him before to-morrow--and to-morrow may be too late."
"It is scarcely twelve miles across the moor and moss," said Rae.
"There's a train this way in two hours' time. If you could lend me a
horse----"
"My man, who ought to know, declares that nobody could get through the
ford to-night. I'm obliged to you, Rae, but what you suggest is out of
the question. The one horse now in my stable has the fiend's own temper,
and I cannot allow you, who cannot have had much experience in the
saddle, to run risks that were too heavy for a very capable horseman."
"I used to ride a little, and haven't quite forgotten. If, as you
suggest, I am responsible for Miss Chatterton's illness, I must make the
only reparation possible. In fact, I intend to do so; and unless you
will mount me I will borrow a horse at Culmeny. I will not, however
promise to spare the beast."
"You can drown him if you bring the doctor through by the last train!"
said Chatterton, ringing the bell. "The horse will be ready inside ten
minutes; and I'm greatly obliged to you."
The time had not elapsed when Rae walked quietly toward the mettlesome
beast, which, resenting the change from its warm stable into the
stinging sleet, laid its ears back, and when Chatterton approached it
bared its teeth.
"Stand clear of his head!" cautioned Rae, swinging himself to the
saddle; and the horse, rearing half upright, sent the gravel flying.
"No. Leave the gate shut! I'm going the nearest way."
"I shall not forget this kindness," called Chatterton. "Feel I ought to
stop you, but dare not do it. Take care of yourself--and God bless you!"
"I hope He will prosper my journey," the younger man answered gravely.
There was a further scattering of gravel, a pounding of hoofs across a
strip of lawn, and a crash of brittle branches as horse and rider
smashed through a tall hedge into the sleet which whirled across the
meadow beyond it.
Chatterton, shaking the white flakes from him, returned to his wife.
"I suppose you saw what has happened," he said. "There's another of them
in the running now, and this one has mettle in him if he is a clergyman.
He's going through Langside moss to-night, though I gave him the
plainest hint I could that in respect to Lilian his chance is of the
smallest. Maxwell, it seems, took his dismissal gracefully; but what
Rae has done to-night will count heavily on his side. Why must that
idiot Hilton go out and get himself cut off by niggers in Africa?"
Thanks to Rae's daring ride, a skilful doctor arrived at the junction by
the last train, and remained at The Larches all the next day. He also
made a number of other visits before he stated that his patient was
making rapid progress on the way to recovery.
"You had, however, better take her south, say Egypt or the Canaries, to
escape our genial spring," he said. "Not necessary, but distinctly
advisable. Miss Chatterton might sail almost at any time."
"We will choose Teneriffe, and start at once," Chatterton informed his
wife. "It is well on the mail route to West Africa, and I'm growing
anxious about Hilton."