'I see your brother's position well enough, Mr. Strang,' said he. 'I can understand his diffidence; and it is but right that he should be anxious not to give the envious and ill-natured a chance of talking. He is willing to let the ceremony take place in his house, because you are his brother. If I were you, I would rather have it take place anywhere else – both as being fairer to him, and as being more likely to ensure secrecy, which you seem to think necessary.'
Ronald's face burned red: should he have to ask Meenie to come to his humble lodgings, with the wondering, and perhaps discontented and suspicious, landlady, as sole on-looker?
'Well, now,' the young preacher continued, 'when I come to Glasgow, there are two old maiden aunts of mine who are good enough to put me up. They live in Rose Street, Garnethill; and they're very kind old people. Now I shouldn't wonder at all if they took it into their head to befriend the young lady on this occasion – I mean, if you will allow me to mention the circumstances to them; indeed, I am sure they would; probably they would be delighted; indeed I can imagine their experiencing a fearful joy on finding this piece of romance suddenly tumbling into the middle of their prim and methodical lives. The dear old creatures! – I will answer for them. I will talk to them as soon as I get home now. And do you think you could persuade Miss Douglas to call on them?'
Ronald hesitated.
'If they were to send her a message, perhaps – '
'When are you likely to see her?'
'To-morrow morning, at eleven,' he said promptly.
'Very well. I will get one of the old ladies to write a little note to Miss Douglas; and I will post it to you to-night; and to-morrow morning, if she is so inclined, bring her along and introduce yourself and her – will you? I shall be there, so there won't be any awkwardness; and I would not hurry you, but I've to get back to Airdrie to-morrow afternoon. Is it a bargain?'
'So far as I am concerned – yes; and many thanks to ye,' Ronald said, as he bade his companion good-bye and went away home to his solitary lodgings.
But when, the next morning, in Randolph Terrace – and after he had rapidly told her all that had happened – he suggested that she should there and then go along and call on the Misses Mannering, Meenie started back in a kind of fright, and a flush of embarrassment overspread her face. And why – why – he asked, in wonder.
'Oh, Ronald,' she said, glancing hurriedly at her costume, 'these – these are the first of your friends you have asked me to go to see, and do you think I could go like this?'
'This' meant that she had on a plain and serviceable ulster, a smart little hat with a ptarmigan's wing on it, a pair of not over-new gloves, and so forth. Ronald was amazed. He considered that Meenie was always a wonder of neatness and symmetry, no matter how she was attired. And to think that any one might find fault with her!
'Besides, they're not my friends,' he exclaimed. 'I never saw them in my life.'
'They know who your brother is,' she said. 'Do you think I would give any one occasion to say you were marrying a slattern? Just look.'
She held out her hands; the gloves were certainly worn.
'Take them off, and show them the prettiest-shaped hands in Glasgow town,' said he.
'And my hair – I know it is all rough and untidy – isn't it now?' she said, feeling about the rim of her hat.
'Well, it is a little,' he confessed, 'only it's far prettier that way than any other.'
'Ronald,'she pleaded, 'some other time – on Friday morning – will Friday morning do?'
'Oh, I know what you want,' said he. 'You want to go and get on your sealskin coat and your velvet hat and a new pair of gloves and all the rest; and do you know what the old ladies are like to say when they see you? – they'll say, "Here's a swell young madam to be thinking of marrying a man that may have but a couple o' pounds a week or so at first to keep house on."'
'Oh, will they think that?' she said quickly. 'Well, I'll – I'll go now, Ronald – but please make my hair smooth behind – and is my collar all right?'
And yet it was not such a very dreadful interview, after all; for the two old dames made a mighty fuss over this pretty young creature; and vied with each other in petting her, and cheering her, and counselling her; and when the great event was spoken of in which they also were to play a part they affected to talk in a lower tone of voice, as if it were something mysterious and tragic and demanding the greatest caution and circumspection. As for the young minister, he sate rather apart, and allowed his large soft eyes to dwell upon Meenie, with something of wistfulness in his look. He could do so with impunity, in truth, for the old ladies entirely monopolised her. They patted her on the shoulder, to give her courage; they spoke as if they themselves had gone through the wedding ceremony a hundred times. Was she sure she would rather have no other witnesses? Would she stand up at the head of the room now, and they would show her all she would have to do? And they stroked her hand; and purred about her; and were mysteriously elated over their share in this romantic business; insomuch that they altogether forgot Ronald – who was left to talk politics with the absent-eyed young parson.
Between this interview and the formal wedding a whole week had to elapse; and during that time Agatha Gemmill saw fit to deal in quite a different way with her sister. She was trying reason now, and persuasion, and entreaty; and that at least was more agreeable to Meenie than being driven into a position of angry antagonism. Moreover, Meenie did not seek to vaunt her self-will and independence too openly. Her meetings with Ronald were few; and she made no ostentatious parade of them. She was civil to Mr. Frank Lauder when he came to the house. Indeed, Mr. Gemmill, who arrogated to himself the success of this milder method of treating the girl, was bold enough to declare that everything was going on well; Meenie had as much common sense as most folk; she was not likely to throw herself away; and when once she had seen old Mr. Lauder's spacious mansion, and picture galleries, and what not, and observed the style in which the family lived, he made do doubt but that they would soon have to welcome Frank Lauder as a brother-in-law.
Trembling, flushed at times, and pale at others, and clinging nervously to Ronald's arm, Meenie made her way up this cold stone staircase in Garnethill, and breathless and agitated she stood on the landing, while he rang the bell.
'Oh, Ronald, I hope I am doing right,' she murmured.
'We will let the future be the judge of that, my good girl,' he said, with modest confidence.
The old dames almost smothered her with their attentions and kindness; and they had a bouquet for her – all in white, as became a bride; and they had prepared other little nick-nacks for her adornment, so that they had to carry her off to their own room, for the donning of these. And when they brought her back – rose-red she was, and timid, and trembling – each of them had one of her hands, as if she was to be their gift to give away; and very important and mysterious were they about the shutting of the doors, and the conducting the conversation in whispers. Then the minister came forward, and showed them with a little gesture of his hand where they should stand before him.
The ceremonial of a Scotch wedding is of the simplest; but the address to the young people thus entering life together may be just anything you please. And in truth there was a good deal more of poetry than of theology in these mellifluent sentences of the Rev. Mr. Mannering's, as he spoke of the obligations incurred by two young folk separating themselves from all others and resolved upon going through the world's joys and sorrows always side by side; and the old dames were much affected; and when he went on to quote the verses
'And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old,'
they never thought of asking whether the lines were quite apposite; they were sobbing unaffectedly and profusely; and Meenie's eyes were rather wet too. And then, when it was all over, they caught her to their arms as if she had been their own; and would lead her to the sofa, and overwhelm her with all kinds of little attentions and caresses. Cake and wine, too – of course she must have some cake and wine!
'Should I, Ronald?' she said, looking up, with her eyes all wet and shining and laughing: it was her first appeal to the authority of her husband.
'As you like – as you like, surely.'
But when they came to him he gently refused.
'Not on your wedding day!' the old ladies exclaimed – and then he raised the glass to his lips; and they did not notice that he had not touched it when he put it down again.
And so these two were married now – whatever the future might have in store for them; and in a brief space of time – as soon, indeed, as she could tear herself away from these kind friends, she had dispossessed herself of her little bits of bridal finery; and had bade a long and lingering good-bye to Ronald; and was stealing back to her sister's house.
CHAPTER XII
IN DARKENED WAYS
It was with feelings not to be envied that Jack Huysen stalked up and down the verandah in front of this Fort George hotel, or haunted the long, echoing corridors, eager to question any one who had access to the sick room. All the mischief seemed to be of his doing; all the help and counsel and direction in this time of distress seemed to be afforded by his friend Tilley. It was he – that is, Huysen – whose carelessness had led to the boating catastrophe; it was the young Doctor who had plunged into the lake and saved Carry's life. Not only that, but it was on his shoulders that there now seemed to rest the burden of saving her a second time; for she had gone from bad to worse; the fever had increased rapidly; and while Doctor Tilley was here, there, and everywhere in his quiet but persistent activity, taking elaborate precautions about the temperature of the room, instructing the two trained nurses whom he had telegraphed for from New York, and pacifying the mental vagaries of the patient as best he might, what could Jack Huysen do but wander about like an uneasy spirit, accusing himself of having wrought all this evil, and desperately conscious that he could be of no use whatever in mitigating its results.
She was not always delirious. For the most part she lay moaning slightly, breathing with the greatest difficulty, and complaining of that constant pain in her chest; while her high pulse and temperature told how the fever was rather gaining upon her than abating. But then again, at times, her face would grow flushed; and the beautiful soft black eyes would grow strangely bright; and she would talk in panting whispers, in an eager kind of way, and as if she had some secret to tell. And always the same delusion occupied her mind – that this was Loch Naver; that they had got into trouble somehow, because Ronald was not in the boat; that they had sent for Ronald, but he had gone away; and so forth. And sometimes she uttered bitter reproaches; Ronald had been ill-treated by some one; nay, she herself had been to blame; and who was to make up to him for what he had suffered at her hands?
'Not that he cared,' she said, rather proudly and contemptuously, one hushed evening that the Doctor was trying to soothe her into quietude. 'No, no. Ronald care what a conceited scribbling schoolboy said about him? No! I should think not. Perhaps he never knew – indeed, I think he never knew. He never knew that all our friends in Chicago were asked to look on and see him lectured, and patronised, and examined. Oh! so clever the newspaper-writer was – with his airs of criticism and patronage! But the coward that he was – the coward – to strike in the dark – to sit in his little den and strike in the dark! Why didn't Jack Huysen drag him out? Why didn't he make him sign his name, that we could tell who this was with his braggart airs? The coward! Why, Ronald would have felled him! No! no! He would not have looked the way the poor pretentious fool was going. He would have laughed. Doctor, do you know who he was? Did you ever meet him?'
'But who, Miss Carry?' he said, as he patted her hot hand.
She looked at him wonderingly.
'Why, don't you know? Did you never hear? The miserable creature that was allowed to speak ill of our Ronald. Ah! do you think I have forgotten? Does Jack Huysen think I have forgotten? No, I will not forget – you can tell him, I will not forget – I will not forget – I will not forget – '
She was growing more and more vehement; and to pacify her he had to assure her that he himself would see this matter put straight; and that it was all right, and that ample amends would be made.
Of course, he paid no great attention to these delirious wanderings; but that same evening, when he had gone into the smoking-room to report to Jack Huysen how things were going, this complaint of Miss Carry's happened to recur to his mind.
'Look here, Jack, what's this that she's always talking about – seems to worry her a good deal – some newspaper article – and you're mixed up in it, too – something you appear to have said or done about that fellow her father took such a fancy for – I mean, when they were in Scotland – '
'Oh, I know,' said the editor, and he blushed to the very roots of his long-flowing hair. 'I know. But it's an old story. It's all forgotten now.'
'Well, it is not,' the young Doctor said 'and that's the fact. She worries about it continually. Very strange, now, how her mind just happened to take that bent. I don't remember that we were talking much about the Scotch Highlands. But they must have been in her head when she fell ill; and now it's nothing else. Well, what is it about the newspaper article, anyway?'
'Why, nothing to make a fuss about,' Jack Huysen said, but rather uneasily. 'I thought it was all forgotten. She said as much. Wonder you don't remember the article – suppose you missed it – but it was about this same Highland fellow, and some verses of his – it was young Regan wrote it – confound him, I'd have kicked him into Lake Michigan before I let him write a line in the paper, if I'd have known there was going to be this trouble about it. And I don't think now there was much to find fault with – I only glanced over it before sending it to her, and it seemed to me favourable enough – of course, there was a little of the de haut en bas business – you know how young fellows like to write – but it was favourable – very favourable, I should say – however, she chose to work up a pretty high old row on the strength of it when she came home, and I had my work cut out for me before I could pacify her. Why, you don't say she's at that again? Women are such curious creatures; they hold on to things so; I wonder, now, why it is she takes such an interest in that fellow – after all this time?'
'Just as likely as not the merest coincidence – some trifle that got hold of her brain when she first became delirious,' the young Doctor said. 'I suppose the boating, and the lake, and all that, brought back recollections of the Highlands; and she seems to have been fascinated by the life over there – the wildness of it caught her imagination, I suppose. She must have been in considerable danger once or twice, I should guess; or perhaps she is mixing that up with the mishap of the other day. Well, I know I wish her father were here. We can't do more than what is being done; still, I wish he were here. If he can get through to Glen Falls to-night, you may depend on it he'll come along somehow.'
By this time Jack Huysen was nervously pacing up and down – there was no one but themselves in the room.
'Now, look here, Tom,' he said, presently, 'I wish you would tell me, honour bright: was it a squall that caught the boat, or was it downright carelessness on my part? I may as well know. I can't take more shame to myself anyhow – and to let you jump in after her, too, when I'm a better swimmer than you are – I must have lost my head altogether – '
'And much good you'd have done if you had jumped in,' the Doctor said, 'and left the two women to manage the boat. How should we have got picked up, then?'
'But about that gybing, now – was it my fault?'
'No, it was mine,' the Doctor said curtly. 'I shouldn't have given up the tiller. Fact is, the girls were just mad about that "Dancing in the Barn"; and I was fool enough to yield to them. I tell you, Jack, it isn't half as easy as it looks steering a boat that's running fair before the wind; I don't blame you at all; I dare say there was a nasty puff that caught you when you weren't looking; anyhow, it's a blessing no one was hit by the boom – that was what I feared at first for Miss Hodson when I found her insensible – I was afraid she had been hit about the head – '
'And you don't think it was absolute carelessness?' the other said quickly. 'Mind, I was steering straight for the pier, as you said.'
'Oh, well,' said the young Doctor evasively, 'if you had noticed in time, you know – or when I called to you – but perhaps it was too late then. It's no use going back on that now; what we have to do now is to fight this fever as well as we can.'
'I would take it over from her if I could,' Jack Huysen said, 'and willingly enough.'
It was not until early the next morning that Mr. Hodson arrived. He looked dreadfully pale and harassed and fatigued; for the fact was he was not in Chicago when they telegraphed for him; some business affairs had called him away to the south; and the news of his daughter's illness followed him from place to place until it found him in a remote corner of Louisiana, whence he had travelled night and day without giving himself an hour's rest. And now he would not stay to dip his hands and face in cold water after his long and anxious journey; he merely asked a few hurried questions of the Doctor; and then, stealthily and on tip-toe, and determined to show no sign of alarm or perturbation, he went into Carry's room.
She had been very delirious during the night – talking wildly and frantically in spite of all their efforts to soothe her; but now she lay exhausted, with the flushed face, and bluish lips, and eager, restless eyes so strangely unlike the Carry of other days. She recognised him at once – but not as a new-comer: she appeared to think he had been there all the time.
'Have you seen him, pappa?' she said, in that eager way. 'Did you see him when you were out?'
'Who, darling?' he said, as he sate down beside her and took her wasted hand in his.
'Why, Ronald, to be sure! Oh, something dreadful was about to happen to him – I don't know what it was – something dreadful and dreadful – and I called out – at the window – at the window there – and nurse says it is all right now – all right now – '
'Oh yes, indeed,' her father said gently, 'you may depend it is all right with Ronald now. Don't you fret about that.'
'Ah, but we neglected him, pappa, we neglected him; and I worst of any,' she went on, in that panting, breathless way. 'It was always the same – always thinking of doing something for him, and never doing it. I meant to have written to the innkeeper for his address in Glasgow; but no – that was forgotten too. And then the spliced rod, that George was to have got for me – I wanted Ronald to have the best salmon-rod that America could make – but it was all talking – all talking. Ah, it was never talking with him when he could do us a service – and the other boatmen getting money, of course – and he scarcely a "thank you" when we came away. Why didn't George get the fishing-rod? – '
'It's all right, Carry, darling,' her father said, whispering to her, 'you lie quiet now, and get well, and you'll see what a splendid salmon-rod we'll get for Ronald. Not that it would be of much use to him, you see, when he's in Glasgow with his books and studies; but it will show him we have not forgotten him. Don't you trouble about it, now; I will see it is all right; and you will give it to him yourself, if we go over there next spring, to try the salmon-fishing again.'
'Then you will take George with you, pappa,' she said, regarding him with her burning eyes.
'Oh yes; and you – '
'Not me, not me,' she said, shaking her head. 'I am going away. The Doctor doesn't know; I know. They have been very kind; but – but – ask them, pappa, not to bother me to take things now – I want to be let alone, now you are here – it will only be for a little while – '
'Why, what nonsense you talk!' he said – but his heart was struck with a sudden fear, for these few straggling sentences she had uttered without any appearance of delirium. 'I tell you, you must hasten to get well and strong; for when George and you and I go to Scotland, there will be a great deal of travelling to do. You know we've got to fix on that piece of land, and see how it is all to be arranged and managed, so that George will have a comfortable little estate of his own when he comes of age; or maybe, if it is a pretty place, we may be selfish and keep it in our own hands – eh, Carry? – and then, you see, we shall have to have Ronald travel about with us, to give us his advice; and the weather may be bad, you know, you'll have to brace yourself up. There, now, I'm not going to talk to you any more just now. Lie still and quiet; and mind you do everything the Doctor bids you – why, you to talk like that! – you! I never thought you would give in, Carry: why, even as a schoolgirl you had the pluck of a dozen! Don't you give in; and you'll see if we haven't those two cobles out on Loch Naver before many months are over.'
She shook her head languidly; her eyes were closed now. And he was for slipping out of the room but that she clung to his hand for a moment.
'Pappa,' she said, in a low voice, and she opened her eyes and regarded him – and surely at this moment, as he said to himself, she seemed perfectly sane and reasonable, 'I want you to promise me something.'
'Yes, yes,' he said quickly: what was it he would not have promised in order to soothe and quiet her mind at such a time?
'I don't know about going with you and George,' she said, slowly, and apparently with much difficulty. 'It seems a long way off – a long time – and – and I hardly care now what happens. But you will look after Ronald; you must promise me that, pappa; and tell him I was sorry; I suppose he heard the shooting was taken, and would know why we did not go over in the autumn; but you will find him out, pappa, and see what he is doing; and don't let him think we forgot him altogether.'
'Carry, darling, you leave that to me; it will be all right with Ronald, I promise you,' her father said eagerly. 'Why, to think you should have been worrying about that! Oh! you will see it will be all right about Ronald, never fear! – what would you say, now, if I were to telegraph to him to come over and see you, if only you make haste and get well?'
These assurances, at all events, seemed to pacify her somewhat; and as she now lay still and quiet, her father stole out of the room, hoping that perhaps the long-prayed-for sleep might come to calm the fevered brain.
But the slow hours passed, and, so far from any improvement becoming visible, her condition grew more and more serious. The two doctors – for Doctor Tilley had summoned in additional aid – were assiduous enough; but, when questioned, they gave evasive answers; and when Mr. Hodson begged to be allowed to telegraph to a celebrated Boston physician, who was also a particular friend of his own, asking him to come along at once, they acquiesced, it is true, but it was clearly with the view of satisfying Mr. Hodson's mind, rather than with any hope of advantage to the patient. From him, indeed, they scarcely tried to conceal the extreme gravity of the case. Emma Kerfoot and Mrs. Lalor were quieted with vague assurances; but Mr. Hodson knew of the peril in which his daughter lay; and, as it was impossible for him to go to sleep, and as his terrible anxiety put talking to these friends out of the question, he kept mostly to his own room, walking up and down, and fearing every moment lest direr news should arrive. For they had been much of companions, these two; and she was an only daughter; and her bright, frank, lovable character – that he had watched from childhood growing more and more beautiful and coming into closer communion with himself as year after year went by – had wound its tendrils round his heart. That Carry, of all people in the world, should be taken away from them so, seemed so strange and unaccountable: she that was ever so full of life and gaiety and confidence. The mother had been an invalid during most of her married life; the boy George had not the strongest of constitutions; but Carry was always to the fore with her audacious spirits and light-heartedness, ready for anything, and the best of travelling companions. And if she were to go, what would his life be to him? – the light of it gone, the gladness of it vanished for ever.
That afternoon the delirium returned; and she became more and more wildly excited; until the paroxysm passed beyond all bounds. She imagined that Ronald was in some deadly peril; he was alone, with no one to help; his enemies had hold of him; they were carrying him off, to thrust him into some black lake; she could hear the waters roaring in the dark. It was in vain that the nurse tried to calm her and to reason with her; the wild, frightened eyes were fixed on vacancy; and again and again she made as if she would rush to his help, and would then sink back exhausted and moaning, and heaping reproaches on those who were allowing Ronald to be stricken down unaided. Then the climax came, quite unexpectedly. The nurse – who happened at the moment to be alone with her in the room – went to the side-table for some more ice; and she was talking as she went; and trying to make her charge believe that everything was going on well enough with this friend of hers in Scotland. But all of a sudden, when the nurse's back was thus turned, the girl sprang from the bed and rushed to the window. She tore aside the curtains that had been tied together to deaden the light; she tugged and strained at the under sash; she was for throwing herself out – to fly to Ronald's succour.
'See, see, see!' she cried, and she wrenched herself away from the nurse's frightened grasp. 'Oh, don't you see that they are killing him – they are killing him – and none to help! Ronald – Ronald! Oh, what shall I do? Nurse, nurse, help me with the window – quick – quick – oh, don't you hear him calling? – and they are driving him down to the lake – he will be in the water soon – and lost – lost – lost – Ronald! – Ronald! – '
Nay, by this time she had actually succeeded in raising the under sash of the window a few inches – notwithstanding that the nurse clung round her, and tried to hold her arms, while she uttered shriek after shriek to call attention; and there is no doubt that the girl, grown quite frantic, would have succeeded in opening the window and throwing herself out, had not Mrs. Lalor, alarmed by the shrieking of the nurse, rushed in. Between them they got her back into bed; and eventually she calmed down somewhat; for, indeed, this paroxysm had robbed her of all her remaining strength. She lay in a kind of stupor now; she paid no heed to anything that was said to her; only her eyes were restless – when any one entered the room.
Dr. Tilley was with her father; the younger man was apparently calm, though rather pale; Mr. Hodson made no effort to conceal his agony of anxiety.
'I can only tell you what is our opinion,' the young Doctor said, speaking for himself and his brother practitioner. 'We should be as pleased as you could be to have Dr. Macartney here; but the delay – well, the delay might prove dangerous. Her temperature is 107 – you know what that means?'
'But this rolling up in a wet sheet – there is a risk, isn't there?' the elder man said; and how keenly he was watching the expression of the young Doctor's face!
'I have only seen it used in extreme cases,' was the answer. 'If she were my own daughter, or sister, that is what I would do.'
'You have a right to speak – you have already saved her life once,' her father said.
'If we could only bring about a profuse perspiration,' the young Doctor said, a little more eagerly – for he had been maintaining a professionally dispassionate manner; 'and then if that should end in a long deep sleep – everything would go well then. But at present every hour that passes is against us – and her temperature showing no sign of abating.'
'Very well,' her father said, after a moment's involuntary hesitation. 'If you say the decision rests with me, I will decide. We will not wait for Macartney. Do what you propose to do – I know you think it is for the best.'
And so it proved. Not once, but twice, within a space of seven days, had this young Doctor saved Carry Hodson's life. That evening they were all seated at dinner in the big dining-hall – Mrs. Lalor and her sister, Jack Huysen, and Carry's father – though the food before them did not seem to concern them much. They were talking amongst themselves, but rather absently and disconnectedly; and, what was strange enough, they spoke in rather low tones, as if that were of any avail. Dr. Tilley came in, and walked quickly up to the table; and quite unwittingly he put his hand on Emma Kerfoot's shoulder.
'I have good news,' said he, and there was a kind of subdued triumph in his eyes. 'She is sleeping as soundly – as soundly as any human being ever slept – everything has come off well – why, I am as happy as if I had been declared President!' But instantly he perceived that this exuberance of triumph was not in accordance with professional gravity. 'I think there is every reason to be satisfied with the prospect,' he continued in more measured tones, 'and now that Dr. Sargent is with her, and the night nurse just come down, I think I will take the opportunity to get something to eat – for I have forgotten about that since breakfast.'