White Heather: A Novel (Volume 3 of 3)

'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.'

'Oh, Tom!' cried Miss Kerfoot reproachfully; and presently everybody at the table was showering attentions on this young man.

'And may I go in and see her now?' said Miss Kerfoot, preparing to steal away.

'No,' was the peremptory answer. 'No one. Every half hour of a sleep like that is worth its weight in gold – well, that's a muddle, but you know what I mean. It's worth a cart-load of gold, anyway. I hope she'll go on for twenty-four hours, or thirty-six, for the matter of that. Oh, I can tell you it is quite refreshing to look at her – talk about the sleep of an infant! – you never saw an infant sleeping as deep and sound as that; and I shouldn't wonder now if her temperature were down another degree by midnight.'

But he saw that Mr. Hodson was still terribly agitated.

'Well, sir, would you like to go in and see her for a moment? I have told the nurse to leave the door half an inch open, and there's a screen to keep off the draught; I dare say we can slip in without disturbing her.'

And so it was that Mr. Hodson saw his daughter again – not with flushed cheeks and dilated eye, but lying still and calm, a very weight of sleep appearing to rest on her eyelids. And when he came out of the room again, he pressed the young man's hand – it was a message of thanks too deep for words.

All that night she slept; and all next day she slept, without a moment's intermission. When, at length, she opened her eyes, and stirred a little, Emma Kerfoot was by the bedside in an instant.

'Dear Carry!' she said. 'Do you want anything?'

She shook her head slightly; she was excessively weak; but the look in her eyes was one of calm intelligence; it was clear that the delirium had left her.

'Do you know that your father is here?'

'Why?' she managed to say.

'Because you have been so ill! Don't you know? Don't you recollect?'

'Yes – I know, a little,' she said. 'Where is Jack Huysen?'

'He is here in the hotel too. Oh, how glad they will all be to hear that you are quite yourself again. And I must go and tell them, as soon as nurse comes; for, you know, you'll have a long pull before you, Carry; and if you don't get quite well again not one of us will ever forgive ourselves for bringing you to Lake George. And there's Jack Huysen, poor fellow, he has just been distracted; and all the time you were ill you never had a word for him – though he used to haunt the passage outside just like a ghost – well, well, you'll have to make it up to him.'

At this moment the nurse appeared, and Miss Kerfoot was free to depart on her joyful errand. Of course, she was for summoning everybody – and Jack Huysen among the rest; but the doctors interposed; their patient must be kept perfectly quiet; in the meantime no one but her father was to have access to her room.

Now Mr. Hodson, when he was seated there by her side, and chatting lightly and carelessly about a variety of indifferent matters (she herself being forbidden to speak), considered that he could not do better than relieve her mind of any anxiety she may have entertained on Ronald's account. All through her delirium that was the one thing that seemed to trouble her; and, lest she should revert to it, he thought he might as well give her ample assurance that Ronald should be looked after. However, to his great surprise, he found that she was quite ignorant of her having made these appeals on behalf of Ronald. She did not seem to know that she had been in dire distress about him, reproaching herself for their treatment of him, and begging her father to make such atonement as was yet possible. No; when she was allowed to speak a little, she said quite calmly that it was a pity they had not been able to go to Scotland that autumn; that they should have written to Ronald to see how he was getting on; and that her father, if he visited the old country, in the coming spring, ought surely to seek him out, and remind him that he had some friends in America who would be glad to hear of his welfare. But Mr. Hodson said to himself that he would do a little more than that. He was not going to recall the promise that he had made to his daughter when, as he thought, she lay near to the very gates of death. What had put that pathetic solicitude into her mind he knew not; but she had made her appeal, with dumb fever-stricken eyes and trembling voice; and he had answered her and pledged his word. Ronald should be none the loser that this sick girl had thought of him when that she seemed to be vanishing away from them for ever; surely in that direction, as well as any other, the father might fitly give his thank-offering – for the restitution to life of the sole daughter of his house?

CHAPTER XIII

IN ABSENCE

Loch Naver lay calm and still under the slow awakening of the dawn. All along the eastern horizon the low-lying hills were of a velvet-textured olive-green – a mysterious shadow-land where no detail was visible; but overhead the skies were turning to a clear and luminous gray; the roseate tinge was leaving the upper slopes of Ben Loyal and Ben Clebrig; and the glassy surface of the lake was gradually whitening as the red-golden light changed to silver and broadened up and through the wide sleeping world. An intense silence lay over the little hamlet among the trees; not even a dog was stirring; but a tiny column of pale blue smoke issuing from one of the chimneys told that some one was awake within – probably the yellow-haired Nelly, whose duties began at an early hour.

And what was Meenie – or Rose Meenie, or Love Meenie, as she might be called now, after having all those things written about her – what was she doing awake and up at such a time? At all events, her morning greeting was there confronting her. She had brought it and put it on the little dressing-table; and as she brushed out her beautiful abundant brown tresses, her eyes went back again and again to the pencilled lines, and she seemed not ill-pleased. For this was what she read:

The hinds are feeding upon the hill,And the hares on the fallow lea;Awake, awake, Love Meenie!Birds are singing in every tree;And roses you'll find on your window-sillTo scent the morning air;Awake, awake, Love Meenie,For the world is shining fair!O who is the mistress of bird and flower?Ben Clebrig knows, I ween!Awake, awake, Love Meenie,To show them their mistress and queen!

And it could hardly be expected that she should bring any very keen critical scrutiny to bear on these careless verses of Ronald's (of which she had now obtained a goodly number, by dint of wheedling and entreaty, and even downright insistence), seeing that nearly all of them were written in her praise and honour; but even apart from that she had convinced herself that they were very fine indeed; and that one or two of them were really pathetic; and she was not without the hope that, when the serious affairs of life had been attended to, and a little leisure and contemplation become possible, Ronald might turn to his poetical labours again and win some little bit of a name for himself amongst a few sympathetic souls here and there. That he could do so, if he chose, she was sure enough. It was all very well for him to make light of these scraps and fragments; and to threaten to destroy them if she revealed the fact of their existence to anybody; but she knew their worth, if he did not; and when, in this or that magazine or review, she saw a piece of poetry mentioned with praise, her first impulse was to quickly read it in order to ask herself whether Ronald – given time and opportunity – could not have done as well. Moreover, the answer to that question was invariably the same; and it did not leave her unhappy. It is true (for she would be entirely dispassionate) he had not written anything quite so fine as 'Christabel' – as yet; but the years were before him; she had confidence; the world should see – and give him a fitting welcome all in good time.

When, on this clear morning, she was fully equipped for her walk, she stole silently down the stair, and made her way out into the now awakening day. The little hamlet was showing signs of life. A stable-lad was trying to get hold of a horse that had strayed into the meadow; a collie was barking its excitement over this performance; the pretty Nelly appeared carrying an armful of clothes to be hung out to dry. And then, as Meenie passed the inn, she was joined by Harry the terrier, who, after the first grovelling demonstrations of joy, seemed to take it for granted that he was to be allowed to accompany her. And she was nothing loth. The fact was, she was setting out in quest of that distant eyrie of Ronald's of which he had often told her; and she doubted very much whether she would be able to find it; and she considered that perhaps the little terrier might help her. Would he not naturally make for his master's accustomed resting-place, when they were sufficiently high up on the far Clebrig slopes?

So they went away along the road together; and she was talking to her companion; and telling him a good deal more about Glasgow, and about his master, than probably he could understand. Considering, indeed, that this young lady had just been sent home in deep disgrace, she seemed in excellent spirits. She had borne the parting admonitions and upbraidings of her sister Agatha with a most astonishing indifference; she had received her mother's reproaches with a placid equanimity that the little woman could not understand at all (only that Meenie's face once or twice grew fixed and proud when there was some scornful reference to Ronald); and she had forthwith set about nursing her father – who had caught a severe chill and was in bed – with an amiable assiduity, just as if nothing had happened. As regards her father, he either did not know, or had refused to know, about Meenie's lamentable conduct. On this one point he was hopelessly perverse; he never would listen to anything said against this daughter of his; Meenie was always in the right – no matter what it was. And so, notwithstanding that she had been sent home as one in disgrace, and had been received as one in disgrace, she installed herself as her father's nurse with an amazing self-content; and she brought him his beef-tea and port-wine at the stated intervals (for the good Doctor did not seem to have as much faith in drugs as might have been anticipated); and she kept the peat-fire piled up and blazing; and she methodically read to him the Inverness Courier, the Glasgow Weekly Citizen, and the Edinburgh Scotsman; and when these were done she would get out a volume of old ballads, or perhaps 'The Eve of St. Agnes,' or 'Esmond,' or 'As You Like It,' or the 'Winter's Tale.' It did not matter much to him what she read; he liked to hear the sound of Meenie's voice – in this hushed, half-slumberous, warm little room, while the chill north winds howled without, chasing each other across the driven loch, and sighing and sobbing away along the lonely Strath-Terry.

But on this fair morning there was not a breath stirring; and the curving bays and promontories and birch-woods, and the far hills beyond, were all reflected in the magic mirror of the lake, as she sped along the highway, making for the Clebrig slopes. And soon she was mounting these – with the light step of one trained to the heather; and ever as she got higher and higher the vast panorama around her grew wider and more wide, until she could see hills and lochs and wooded islands that never were visible from Inver-Mudal. In the perfect silence, the sudden whirr of a startled grouse made her heart jump. A hare – that looked remarkably like a cat, for there was as much white as bluish-brown about it – got up almost at her feet and sped swiftly away over heath and rock until it disappeared in one of the numerous peat-hags. There was a solitary eagle slowly circling in the blue; but at so great a height that it was but a speck. At one moment she thought she had caught sight of the antlers of a stag; and for a second she stopped short, rather frightened; but presently she had convinced herself that these were but two bits of withered birch, appearing over the edge of a rock far above her. It was a little chillier here; but the brisk exercise kept her warm. And still she toiled on and on; until she knew, or guessed, that she was high enough; and now the question was to discover the whereabouts of the clump of rocks under shelter of which Ronald was accustomed to sit, when he had been up here alone, dreaming day-dreams, and scribbling the foolish rhymes that had won to her favour, whatever he might think of them.