The Lady of North Star

“I’d go slow if I were you,” he said warningly, as having finished one tuber, the sick man stretched his hand for another. “You had better not overdo it. A little every day is better than a glut; and, of course, my stock is limited.”

Dick Bracknell laughed weakly. “You’re right, of course. But if you knew what I suffer you’d understand the impulse to stuff oneself! I’ll go slow, as you advise, and perhaps I shall get quit of one disease at any rate, though the other will get rid of me as sure as a gun.”

“You think so?” asked Rayner, with an eager interest which Bracknell failed to note.

“Sure of it! I’ve seen other men this way – and there was always a funeral at the end of it; though not always a burial service. Parsons are scarce up here!”

“Have you been long in the country?” asked Rayner carelessly.

Bracknell looked at him sharply, as if suspicious of so simple a question, and then gave a short laugh. “I’ve been here a year or two. And you? You’re pretty new to the North, aren’t you?”

Rayner laughed. “A regular tenderfoot. I’ve been here before, but only for a short spell, and this time I’m straight from England.”

“Is that so?” asked Bracknell, and appraised the stranger anew. “In the mining line, I suppose?”

“Nothing half so profitable,” answered Rayner smilingly. “I am merely representing a legal firm, and have come out on a rather curious mission, one with little profit in it in fact, and with even a possibility of loss.”

“That’s poor business for a lawyer,” said Bracknell encouragingly.

“It is,” agreed Rayner, “and it’s not only that, but it is about the queerest business that I ever struck.” He turned and addressed a remark to one of his men who had entered the cabin, and then resumed, “It is quite a romance in high life, and very interesting. Would you like to hear the story?”

“I was always fond of romance,” answered Bracknell with a laugh, “and as up here we’ve no penny dreadfuls, I shall be glad to have a slice of the real thing.”

“Oh, it’s real enough,” answered Rayner, “and it’s interesting, because it has a rich and young and beautiful girl for the heroine.”

“Romance always must have!” commented Bracknell. “Your story, I can see, is going on the penny plain and twopenny coloured line!”

“Not quite. It has deviations and some original features. This girl’s father was immensely rich, and whilst he remained in this country looking after his mining properties, he sent his daughter to England to be educated. There she ran against the heir of an old Westmorland family, and married him secretly – ”

He broke off as his host rose unexpectedly to his feet. “What is the matter?” he asked innocently. “Are you not feeling well?”

“Just a spasm,” growled Bracknell. “It will pass in a minute. Get on with your tale.”

The other smiled a little to himself, and resumed his narrative. “As I was saying, she married this young gentleman secretly, and immediately after the marriage separated from him for some reason, and at the same time something else happened, which compelled her husband to leave England and to reside abroad… Did you say something?”

“No! It’s only this confounded wheeze of mine!”

“About the same time news reached England that the girl’s father had died in an accident out here, and as by the terms of his will the daughter was to reside for three years in the home he had built in the woods here, she returned to the Dominion without having said anything about the marriage to her uncle and guardian, the well-known solicitor Sir Joseph Rayner, of whom you perhaps have heard?”

“Yes, I’ve heard of him! Go on, man. Your story is very interesting.”

“Fortunately Sir Joseph was not left in ignorance of the marriage, for the girl’s husband wrote and informed him of it. Sir Joseph was astonished; but he kept the news to himself, because the husband, though of good family, had done something that was – er – scarcely creditable. He did not even inform the girl of the information which had reached him, hoping that time would solve what appeared to be a difficult situation.”

“And hasn’t it?”

“No, sir. Time may solve many things, but the policy of laissez-faire, whilst sometimes a good one, is not without its dangers! This happens to be one of the cases where the dangers predominate, and time has but brought a new complication.”

“What is that?” asked Bracknell sharply.

“Well, the girl is thinking of marrying again.”

“God in heaven!” Dick Bracknell had staggered to his feet. His eyes were burning and there was a ghastly pallor on his haggard face. He glared at the narrator as if he could slay him. “Man, do you know what you are saying?”

“Yes,” answered Rayner, with well-affected surprise. “I am saying that in her inexperience this girl-wife is thinking of contracting a flesh marriage, one in which her heart is engaged, as it appears not to have been in the first. Of course she may not understand the law as it relates to bigamy, or she may believe that her husband is dead – ”

“Who is the man?” asked Bracknell, in a strangled voice.

“The man? I do not understand. Do you mean the husband?”

“No, the man whom she is thinking of marrying?”

“Oh, I see. Well, that’s the curious part of the whole business, for this new lover is the cousin of her husband, one time a barrister, but now out here in the Mounted Police. What did you say? A strange story. Yes, it is that; but there is one piquant detail that you have not yet heard, sir!”

“What is that?”

“Well, it is this, the husband, as I informed you, is the heir to an old estate in Westmorland. He had a younger brother who since the elder’s disappearance had slipped into the position of heir – at least people had come to look upon him as such, it being fairly well known that the elder could not return to claim the succession. This younger son is dead – ”

“Dead!” The word came in a gasp from Dick Bracknell’s lips, and immediately after he was taken with a fit of coughing which lasted for some little time, and left him exhausted with his face hidden in his hands.

“Your cough is very bad, sir,” said Rayner with affected sympathy. “Are you sure that you wish me to continue the narrative?”

Bracknell lifted a tortured face, and in his deep-sunk eyes there was a moisture that was more than suspicious. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Go on!”

“As you wish,” replied Rayner with affected solicitude, and then continued, “As I was saying, this younger son is dead – ”

“How did he die?” interrupted Bracknell.

“Something went wrong with his gun when he was out grouse shooting. It burst, I believe, anyhow it killed him, and by his death, failing the succession of the older son, the cousin becomes the heir, and you have the rather unique situation of the cousin stepping into the shoes of the heir and the husband at one and the same time. Quite a little drama in its way, is it not?”

Dick Bracknell’s reply to the question was an inarticulate one, and afterwards for a little time he stared into the fire with eyes that looked almost ferocious. Then he asked abruptly, “How do you know all this?”

“As I explained, I am the representative of the firm of Sir Joseph Rayner and Son, and I have been sent out to find the girl wife – ”

“To find J – er – the girl?”

“Yes! she left England very suddenly a few weeks ago without informing Sir Joseph. She, as we have ascertained, came to the Dominion, and my principal suspecting that she was going to marry the man I have mentioned, sent me to intervene. Two courses are open for me to follow, either to find the young lady, and explain to the former that in the absence of proof of her husband’s death such a marriage is of more than doubtful legality; or to find the policeman and point out that the young lady is already a wife.”

“But he – but what if he already knows?”

“Then in that case I shall be called upon to explain the law to him also! But so far I have accomplished none of these things. The policeman, as I learned at Regina, is missing; and when I arrived there the young lady had already left her home up here for an unknown destination… I do not know, of course, but I have my suspicions as to who may be awaiting her at that destination.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, sir, you appear to be a man of education, and you will remember that the great Antony thought the world well lost for love, and what Cleopatra thought, her actions proved. Human nature does not change, and love is the strongest passion it knows, and I suspect that her lover being missing, the young lady has gone to look for him, or if not that to meet him at some appointed rendezvous. The two are young, between them they will be fabulously rich and they will not be the first pair of lovers to set the world and the world’s conventions at defiance. At least they will be able to afford it!”

“Never! by – never!”

The words came from the sick man’s lips explosively. He rose from his seat, and gripped Rayner’s shoulder in a way that made him grimace with pain.

“Man,” he cried, “are you telling me the truth?”

“Certainly, sir! Why – ”

“Do you know who I am?”

Bracknell’s eyes, full of wild light, glared down into Rayner’s but the latter, as he lied, met them unflinchingly.

“I do not, sir! We have not exchanged – ”

“My name is Bracknell – Dick Bracknell; and I can guess it is my wife and my cousin of whom you have been talking. By – if I had him here. And to think that two days ago he was here, and that I let him go.”

“He was here two days ago?”

“Two days ago – and I let him go because he pitched a cock and bull story which I believed! And I might have known all the time that it was so much bunkum, just a yarn to get out of my hands. I ought to have killed him as he tried to kill me by poisoning my dogs. I remember now that once before when we met, he showed a tenderness for Joy that was more than natural in a mere cousin by marriage. He suggested to me that I should make reparations to my wife by allowing her to divorce me!”

“That was a very crafty suggestion on his part!” broke in Rayner suavely. “It would have cleared his own way to your wife!”

The sick man was stung to madness at the thought. His eyes burned and his face grew convulsed. “Reparation!” he cried hoarsely in jealous rage. “Reparation! The viper! If ever I put eyes on him again, I will – ” he broke off as a fit of coughing took him, and when it was over he dropped to his seat utterly exhausted, gasping painfully for breath.

The man whose lying story had brought on this attack, watched him unmoved, and calculated cynically whether Bracknell’s own estimate of the span of life remaining to him was correct; then he said, “I am very sorry for you, Mr. Bracknell, but I cannot allow private wrongs to interfere with my own mission. You say that your cousin was here two days ago; perhaps you can tell me which way he was travelling?”

“He was going up the river – to meet Joy as like as not!”

“Then I shall follow! Perhaps I shall meet the lady; if so, I shall be able to assure her that the marriage she is contemplating is quite out of the question.”

“Say nothing to the man about my threats, if you find him,” said Bracknell, rousing himself. “Say I’ve news for him, that I want to see him; as by – I do! Tell him what you like, but get him to come back here.”

“I will do my best, sir!”

“If I’d dogs, sick though I am, I’d follow him myself. But that’s out of the question. I shall rely on you to – ”

“You may, sir,” broke in Rayner obsequiously. “If I find him, I will certainly induce him to come back to you, if I can. But I hope you will not be violent – ”

“Violent! Bring him here,” Bracknell laughed almost deliriously, “and you will see.”

…

In the morning when Adrian Rayner took the trail, he looked back at the haggard man standing by the cabin door. Bracknell had been delirious in the night, and now as he stood there swaying, the other looked at him without pity.

“Booked!” he muttered to himself, “and knows it. If Roger Bracknell should happen to return here, Harrow Fell will require a new heir, and I shall be saved from a disagreeable necessity. But that chance is not to be depended on. I must find him if I can.”

And as he followed the Northward trail there was the index of grim purpose in his face.

CHAPTER XIX

HUSBAND AND WIFE

IT WAS THE end of the day, and Joy Gargrave, kneeling down on a litter of young spruce boughs, in the shadow of a wind screen, stretched her mittened hands towards the fire. Then she removed her face mask and looked at her foster-sister, who having changed her moccasins was placing the pair she had worn through the day near the fire where they would dry slowly.

“Tired, Babette?”

“Not more than ordinary,” was the reply, “though I will own to having found those last two miles against the wind a little trying.”

They had been travelling for a week, and were growing used to the evil of the trail. Body stiffness no longer troubled them, and having been inured to the task from childhood, the agony of cramp brought on by snow-shoe work was unknown to them, the hard exercise of the trail inducing no more than a healthy tiredness at the end of the day. Joy stretched herself luxuriously on the spruce, and looked round. The darkness of the woods was behind them, and in front the waste of snow showed dimly. In the circle of firelight the Indian George was preparing the evening meal, whilst his son Jim was feeding the dogs. The girl watched them meditatively for a moment or two, then she spoke to Miss La Farge —

“A little different to the Ritz, Babette!”

Babette looked up from the steaming moccasins.

“What do you mean, Joy?”

Joy waved her hand in a half circle. “Why, everything – the trees, the snow, the darkness, the dogs, the camp-fire, George and Jim, and you and I like a couple of Dianas.”

Babette laughed and looked round appreciatively. “It makes me think of a picture which I saw when we were in London. It had a fancy name – ’When the World was Young,’ or something like that – and whoever painted it knew the wilderness well. It is, as you say, a little different to the Ritz – and ever so much better. I wonder how long we shall be on trail, not that I’m tired of it. Even hard work has its pleasures and compensations.”

“I do not know how long we shall be. I am content that we are on the right trail. The strange Indian with whom George talked today told a story of a white man, an officer of police, who had been taken to the winter camp of his tribe with a broken leg. The leg had healed, and the officer had departed ten days ago on the trail of a bad white man, and he went Northward. From the description given the officer was almost certainly Corporal Bracknell, and I have an idea that he may have news of Dick Bracknell and be following his trail, in which case I pray that we may come up with him soon; for if there was trouble between them, and the Corporal killed his cousin, it would be a very terrible thing, in view of the situation as regards the succession to Harrow Fell.”

“Yes,” answered Miss La Farge slowly, “but it is no use shutting one’s eyes to facts. The death of Dick Bracknell would be a relief to many people – yourself included!”

“It would be no relief to me if Dick Bracknell died by his cousin’s hand,” answered Joy in a low voice. “It would be quite terrible; it is more than I dare contemplate.”

“Why?” As Babette La Farge shot the question at her foster-sister she looked at her keenly, and saw a wave of warm blood surge over the beautiful face, and as she saw it her own grew suddenly tender. “No,” she added hurriedly, “don’t answer the question, Joy. There is no need. I can guess the answer, which I am sure you would not give me. I think you are right – for everybody’s sake nothing must happen between those two men. At all costs that must be prevented.”

She dropped the moccasins, took a couple of steps forward, and stopping, kissed Joy’s warm cheek. “My dear,” she said, “you must not worry. Time will unravel this dreadful tangle, and after all you are young yet.”

Joy looked up at her trying bravely to smile, but there was the gleam of unshed tears in her eyes. She was about to speak, when the servant George announced that supper was ready, and she contented herself with a glance that was full of love and gratitude.

The next morning, just before they broke camp the younger Indian, who had been out inspecting the trail, returned with news. He had been a little way up the river and had encountered a strange Indian in the act of taking a marten from a trap. He had talked with this man, and when the latter had heard who his mistress was he had betrayed considerable excitement, and had asked him to wait for him a little time, as he might have a message for his mistress. He had gone away, and a little later had returned and had then told Jim that his master – a white man – was lying sick in a cabin on a creek a little way up the river, and that he earnestly desired that Miss Gargrave would go and speak with him.

“Did he give his master’s name?” asked Joy, as a quick hope awoke within her.

“No, Miss, but he hav’ yours; he say you know him. And I wonder if he is the man we seek.”

Joy also wondered, wondered and hoped, and after consideration she nodded her head. “Yes, I will go and see this man. He may be Corporal Bracknell, or he may have seen him recently. In any case it is a Christian charity to visit any stricken white man in this desolate bush, and it will mean only a short delay. Where is the creek, Jim?”

“Up the river a little way, miss. The man he waits at the point where it joins the river.”

“Then Miss La Farge and I will go on ahead, and you can come on behind, and if you do not overtake us, you can await us at the mouth of the creek.”

The two girls started off, and presently reached the creek, where stamping his feet in the snow, Dick Bracknell’s man, Joe, awaited them. Both of them glanced at him keenly, but he was a stranger to them, and then Joy addressed him.

“Your master, where is he?”

The Indian pointed up the creek. “Him sick man, I take you to him!”

Without waiting for further words the man turned in his tracks and swung up the creek at such a pace that the two girls had hard work to keep up with him. Joy questioned the man as to his master’s name, but the man either did not or would not understand, for he merely shook his head, and pressed forward. In a few minutes they reached the little cabin at the edge of the trees, and maintaining a wooden face, the Indian swung the door open and motioned them to enter.

Joy pressed forward eagerly with her foster-sister at her heels. The Indian softly closed the door behind them, an evil smile wrinkling his scarred face, then going to the rear of the hut, a moment later he appeared with a bow and some arrows in his hand, and entering the shadow of the trees, he began to walk towards the mouth of the creek.

… As she entered the cabin Joy Gargrave looked quickly about her. The only light came through a parchment window and from the improvised stove, and in the semi-darkness, at first, she could see nothing. But after a moment she discerned a tall figure standing but a little way from her. The face was in shadow, and she could not make out the features, but as her eyes fell on him, the man gave vent to a thin, choking laugh.

“Good morning, my dear Joy! This is an unexpected pleasure!”

At the sound of the voice Joy started, and with a dawning fear in her eyes leaned forward and stared into the haggard face before her. As she did so, her fear increased, and she asked suddenly, “Who are you, that you should address me in that way?”

“Then you do not recognize me?” asked the voice mockingly. “I am not surprised. Time has wrought inevitable changes – but of course, it does not change the constant heart. Look again, my dear, and you will see – ”

Overwhelming fear surged in the girl’s heart. She knew who this haggard man was; indeed, she had known from the first word that he had spoken, and now she turned abruptly towards the door as if to flee. The door was closed, and as she stretched a hand towards the wooden latch, the thin cackling laugh broke out again.

“The door is fastened, my dear Joy – on the outside. I remember how you ran from me at Alcombe, and when I arranged this joyous meeting, I foresaw that you might be startled, that you might try to repeat that old folly; therefore I took steps – and my man Joe keeps the door outside. But I am glad to see you, dear wife, most unfeignedly glad to see you, and there is no need that you should hurry away; indeed, I am afraid that until I give permission for you to go, you will have to remain here.”

“What do you want?” asked Joy, striving in vain to keep her voice steady.

“What do I want?” there was an accent of mock surprise in Dick Bracknell’s voice as he echoed the question, and then he laughed again in a way that made the girl shiver. “What a question to ask a husband who has not seen his wife since his marriage morning! Really, my dear, such a question ought to be quite unnecessary.”

He broke off as his cough took him, and for perhaps half a minute he was shaken by it, and could not speak. When he resumed it was in a different tone.

“Sit down,” he said, “I want to talk to you, and there is no need that you stand on ceremony in your husband’s house. I regret the scarcity of chairs, but there is a log by the fire there – and if you will accept the advice of an expert you will throw off your furs… You won’t? Well, self-will is one of the characteristics of your sex, and no doubt you will please yourself. But all the same allow me to express my gratitude to you that you should have left your home in mid-winter to come and look for me. Such solicitude is beyond what I had ex – ”

“I was not looking for you,” Joy broke in. “You are the last person I was expecting to meet!”

“Is that so?” The mockery had gone out of Bracknell’s voice now, and there was a dangerous ring in it. The eyes in the haggard face were blazing, and to both the girls it was clear that he had much ado to keep himself in hand. “You dare to tell me that – me, your lawful husband? Perhaps you will tell me for whom you did leave your home then? Whom you were following and seeking on a winter trail?”

Joy felt her face flush suddenly. Could she tell him? she asked herself, and immediately her mind answered “No!” In the wild mood that was on him Dick Bracknell would be sure to put a false interpretation on any explanation that she might offer him. Realizing this she was silent, and a moment later he broke out again, wrathfully —

“You won’t tell me? You’re ashamed to tell me, I suppose. But accept my assurances that there is no need. I already know. My cousin Roger is the favoured man, is he not? You start at that! Then it is all true what I have heard, that not only is he to supplant me at Harrow Fell, but in my wife’s affections also? Well, that is not going to happen. I will have Harrow Fell and you also – and you first, my Joy, for there shall be no cuckoo in my nest… Yes, I will have Harrow Fell. I can face five years at Portland or at Parkhurst for that. But first, I will have you. You are here, in your husband’s house, where you have come of your own accord, and here you remain. Take off your furs!”

To Joy it was clear that Dick Bracknell was almost insanely jealous, and her face blanched as the possibilities of the situation flashed themselves upon her. The man took a step forward as if to enforce his order, and she shrank back against the rough logs of the shack. Bracknell laughed savagely, but the next moment there came an intervention.

“Stand back, Mr. Bracknell!”

The speaker was Miss La Farge, and as she stepped resolutely forward, holding a small but serviceable looking machine pistol in her hand, Dick Bracknell came to a standstill.

“What – ”

“Do as I tell you. Lay a finger on Joy, and I will shoot you. She may be your wife, but she is my more-than-sister, and I will brook no violence from you.”

Bracknell looked at her irresolutely. It was very clear to him that she would keep her word, and after a moment he stepped back and laughed to cover his discomfiture.

“A she-lynx – and with claws! Well, time is on my side. You will grow tired of standing there, and Joe will be back in a minute or two, then I shall know how to deal with you.”

Babette did not even reply to him. She glanced at the door and addressed herself to Joy.