Transcriber's notes: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.
[Illustration]
HER BROTHER'S KEEPER.
BY
AGNES GIBERNE
Author of
"The Nameless Shadow," etc.
HOME WORDS
FOR
HEART AND HEARTH
1906
"HOME WORDS" PUBLISHING OFFICE
11, LUDGATE SQUARE, LUDGATE HILL, E.C.
CONTENTS.
[Illustration]
I. Will He Come Home?
II. A Letter from Australia
III. Fresh Prospects
IV. The Time of Harvest
V. Life in Ivy Cottage
VI. A Downward Path
VII. Brought upon Himself
VIII. Confessions
IX. A Moonlit Battle
X. No Easy Matter
XI. Adjusted
HER BROTHER'S KEEPER.
CHAPTER I. Will He Come Home?
IN a motor-bus, making its vociferous way along one of the noisiest of
main City thoroughfares, sat Dulcie Hurst.
She was used to London clamour, and it hardly disturbed the even
current of her thoughts. Omnibuses lumbered by in the opposite
direction; cabs went this way and that; private motors, reluctantly
compelled to creep, gave forth their asthmatic coughs of warning; yells
of "Evening pi-per" pierced the din; but she neither turned her head
nor varied her steadfast gaze.
She was close to the door, and one seat at the further end remained
empty. All others were occupied.
Two distinct trains of ideas were working behind that strong pale face,
at which few looked once without looking a second time.
"Will he be there?" she was asking, as she kept continuous watch for a
certain side-street, at the corner of which her brother Norman, clerk
in a house of business, was wont to joint the bus which took her back
from her day in a city typing-office. Punctuality was not a prime
virtue with Norman Hurst, and he often failed to arrive in time.
This returning together from their respective occupations meant a good
deal to Dulcie. They were orphans, practically alone in the world; and
he, in a sense, was everything to her. She was much to him, but not
quite in the same sense.
"Would he be in time?" again she questioned. And below this upper
current of her cogitations flowed another. She was saying also—
"'Will he come?'"
But the subject of the second query was a different "he,"—was one who
might have been far more to her than even her brother, one whom for ten
long years she had not seen, yet never could forget.
During three months past, she had been asking the question and finding
no satisfactory reply. But as his face arose in her mind, her own
gained a great softness, which made more than one opposite passenger
examine her wonderingly.
She was a woman of rather large build, tall, well-proportioned, not
stout, but sufficiently substantial for her height; and she looked
fully her twenty-eight years. Ten years earlier, she had been nothing
less than lovely, regular-featured with radiant colouring and hair of
pale gold, a vision that had taken captive the heart of George Kennedy.
Her complexion now was uniformly pale, having lost all brilliance, and
her hair had darkened into ordinary brown, and she was no longer a
"girl," though many keep their girlhood well into the thirties. But she
was an attractive woman.
Kennedy had wooed her with all the vehemence of which he was capable,
and had failed to win. Then in despair, he had fled from the country,
giving dire offence by so doing to his only near relative, the Squire
of Apthorne, and apparently sacrificing his own prospects by the act.
He told no one the true reason, not even his friend, Norman Hurst; but
go he did, despite all opposition.
Dulcie kept his secret, and her own too. Her girlish heart had been
won by him from the first, but she would not marry. She had an invalid
and suffering mother, dependent on her for constant care, dependent
partly on her exertions for daily support; and she also had a brother
who needed her at every turn. It might be years before she could count
herself free. Hers was a self-sacrificing nature; and she allowed
no hint of her real feelings to escape. She would not risk binding
Kennedy down to years of waiting, and she received his advances coldly,
repelling them with decision.
Whether she would have acted more kindly by speaking out is a question
on which judges may differ, but in any case, she acted from high and
unselfish motives. If she did make a mistake, which is very doubtful,
she made it nobly and unselfishly. Most people's mistakes lie in the
other direction.
The Squire of Apthorne, Kennedy's uncle, whom he so direfully offended
by his apparently capricious flight to Australia, was believed to have
disinherited him in consequence. But when, three months before this
date, he died, it was found that he had left everything without reserve
to the nephew with whom for ten years he had held no intercourse. The
reading of the will took everybody by surprise.
George Kennedy was now a rich man: a land-owner. He would surely return
at once to his possessions.
Would he? That was the question. Dulcie was aware that he had declared
he never would again set foot in his native land. Would circumstances
alter this resolution? And if he did come home, would he remember the
past?—Would he still care for her? And if he did care—what then?
Her lips moved with a noiseless "No!" She was tied yet. There was
Norman, her only brother, "his" friend. But the "No" was not very
emphatic.
Norman was different altogether from herself; a pleasant fellow enough;
kind-hearted and generous, when personal comfort was not involved: very
much of a favourite generally, but—Dulcie's mind flashed back to her
mother's dying injunction—"You will look after Norman, darling—keep him
out of mischief—keep him straight. He is so dear—so affectionate—but
you know!—you know—!"
Yes, she knew. There had been no need to finish that pathetic little
murmur, which had died away into a sigh. She knew only too well. Norman
was very affectionate, very loveable, but he had not backbone. He was
not staunch. He could be easily turned this way or that. He was a man
and she was a woman: he was eight years the elder; but hers was the
stronger nature, the firmer will. She had been, to the best of her
ability, his guardian angel through years of City life; yet she could
not feel that she had altogether succeeded. She was always trying to
veil his weaknesses from others; but she was always seeing them herself.
Of late, he had been a greater care than ever. He had not been his
usual self. He was worried, moody, fretful, uneasy: less sweet-tempered
than of old, more inclined to neglect his work, and to indulge in
restless desires for more money, less drudgery. She recognized the
presence of some new element in his life, but she could discover
nothing definite.
With her mind thus bent upon other matters, it was hardly surprising
that she should forget the noise and bustle around.
In the corner opposite, an elderly man sat upright, resting his
sunburnt hands upon a stick, and scanning the busy world around with
interested eyes—sharp yet not unkindly eyes. He was grey-haired, with
an alert, purposeful face; and in age, he perhaps bordered on the
sixties. Now and again his glance wandered to Dulcie. For a while she
did not notice him, but at length her attention was drawn, and she
found herself wondering when and where had she met him before?
He was speaking to another man by his side, and she overheard what
passed.
"Can't conceive how any human being can live by choice in this
hurly-burly."
"You prefer the country?" the other asked, with a Londoner's polite
pity.
"Prefer it! I couldn't exist here! It would land me in a lunatic
asylum. I've spent most of my life in the country and hope to end my
days there."
"Ah!" the other remarked, with a slight glance at the country cut of
the speaker's clothes. "Tastes differ. I'm never happy long out of
London."
"One man's meat is another man's poison."
"That's it, I suppose."
"Well, all I say is, give 'me' pure air, let who will live in this
choking atmosphere! Give me green fields and country quiet, not this
deafening roar."
"Get used to it in time."
"Not I! I wouldn't set up my tent in London, if I was paid to do it."
"Don't you think there is a word to be said on both sides?" asked
Dulcie. "One gets the best of some things in London, and the best of
other things in the country."
"I'll give up my share of town good things to anybody who likes to take
them. Nothing can make up for this!"—And he scanned with a face of
disgust the slimy pavements, the thronging foot-passengers, the grimy
walls, the ceaseless streams of vehicles. "Plenty of room, and not too
many folks for comfort—that's what I'm used to."
They were stopping at the corner where Dulcie's brother should have
been, and she lent forward, to meet with disappointment. He had not
come.
One passenger jumped out, another stepped in. Still, a vacant seat.
Changing the tone of its racket, the motor-bus went on; and Norman
appeared. Though not a very energetic character, he could be active on
occasions; and he thought nothing of racing after a motor-bus, to board
it when going at high speed. He set off instantly, and Dulcie watched
his movements. He had often done the same before.
[Illustration: He missed his aim . . . and fell heavily in the roadway.]
But, the streets were clothed in a thick film of sticky mud, and he was
perhaps over-confident. At the moment of making his spring, his foot
slid. He missed his aim, and, instead of landing on the board, fell
heavily in the roadway, striking his face against the "tail" of the
bus, and crashing with his whole weight upon a doubled right arm.
Shouts on all sides and desperate efforts to draw up saved him from
being run over. Before the motor-bus could fully slacken its speed,
Dulcie had sprung out, and rushed to his side. With hardly less
celerity, the grey-haired man followed, and others came quickly round.
They helped him up, but he was dazed, half-stunned, evidently much
hurt. Blood poured from a cut in his forehead, and the right arm hung
helplessly. When the grey-haired man touched it, he all but swooned.
"Not to a hospital! Take me home," he muttered, over-hearing what was
said.
By this time, they had him on the pavement, and the motor-bus was
gone on, but the grey-haired man remained behind. A crowd of gazers,
inevitable on such occasions, stood around, five or six deep.
"No, I'm not a doctor," the elderly man said, meeting Dulcie's look of
appeal. "But I might have been—I went through half the training." Then
in a lower voice—"Yes, it's broken. You must have a cab. Where do you
live? Stop—I'll tie up his head."
He used a clean handkerchief, supplied by Dulcie, doing the business
not ineffectually. Then he helped the injured man into a cab, showing
her how to support the arm, and advising her to send at once for a
surgeon.
"If you'd like me to come with you—" he added.
"Thank you very much, but I could not think of troubling you. We shall
manage quite well," she said cheerfully.
He did not further press his help, but stood looking after the cab as
it drove away.
Where had he seen that face before? Not Norman's, but Dulcie's.
He could find no answer to this question. Presently, he dismissed it
from his mind, and stepped into the next bus, going the same way.
A second question, often in his mind of late, rose to the surface; and,
strangely, it was the same as that of Dulcie, bearing reference to the
identical person.
"'Will he come home?'"
And if he—George Kennedy—did come home—"Shall I be allowed to keep my
work?" the grey-haired man wanted to know.