AFTER this long journey, to step out into the bright daylight of a March morning—cold, but sunshiny; and into the unfamiliar clean little streets of an English country-town, gave the most curious sensation to the travellers. Marjory stepped out of the carriage like one in a dream. The long sleepless night, the fatigue of the journey, the ache of anxiety in her mind, seemed to wrap a kind of painful mist about her, through which she saw vaguely the circumstances of the arrival, the unknown figures moving about; the strange houses—some still shuttered and closed up as for the night, while the cheerful stir of early morning had begun with others. Was it possible that all these unknown people had slept softly and soundly all that long night through; and knew of nothing to pluck away their rest from them, or pull their life asunder? The simplest things startled this little weary group as they hurried along the quiet sunshiny street. A cheerful red and white maid-of-all-work opening the windows, looking out with fresh vacant face upon them as they passed, looked as if she must have something to tell them. And so did the milkman clashing with his pails; and the early errandboy stopping in the midst of his whistle to contemplate the two tall old men—Mr. Heriot, with that strangely blanched hue struggling through his brownness—Mr. Charles long and thin, and shaky with fatigue.
“A clean little place; a clean little place!” the latter was saying encouragingly to Marjory, as if there was some faint consolation to be drawn from that fact. It was very unlike Comlie. Some of the houses were old, with peaked gables and lattice windows, but the line of flat brick buildings, such as the Scottish mind regards with disdain, with the cleanest of curtains and shutters, and tidy ugly orderliness, filled up the greater part of the street. The inn to which they were bound had a projecting sign, upon which the sun shone—a white horse, which swung, and pranced, and creaked in the morning air, over the low deep gateway by which the house was approached. The travellers were met by a little blear-eyed ostler, who peered at them anxiously from under the shelter of his hand.
“For Mr. ’Eriot?” he said, putting up his disengaged hand to his forehead, by way of salutation.
“How is he?” cried Marjory, a sudden sickness coming over her; the sickness of suspense which is never so tremendous as when it is about to be satisfied.
The little ostler shrugged his shoulders, and shook his ragged, shaggy head.
“I don’t know as he’s worse nor better,” he said. “Much the same, they tell me. He’s in the hands o’ them doctors, as is enough to kill twenty men. That’s why I’ve come to meet ye, my lady and gentlemen. There’s a bone-setter in this place as ’ud set him right in a jiffy; you take my word. He’s a nice gentleman; he gave me ten bob jist for nothing at all. You make ’em send for Job Turner, my lady. I know him. That’s your sort for broken bones. What am I doing, master? Party for Mr. ’Eriot! nothin’ in the world but showing the lady the way.”
The ostler’s speech had been interrupted by the master of the hotel, who came to the door bowing solemnly, endeavouring to combine the usual smiling benignity with which he received new guests with the gravity befitting the occasion.
“Walk in, gentlemen,” he said. “I think I may make bold to say that the news is good, so far as it goes. We’ve spent a pretty comfortable night, sir, on the whole—a pretty comfortable night. Perhaps the lady would like to rest a bit afore breakfast. Mr. Fanshawe, Sir, as is with Mr. ’Eriot, made sure as you’d come. Your rooms are all ready, and I hope as I’ll be able to make you and the lady as comfortable—as comfortable as is to be expected under the circumstances.”
“Cheer up, May,” said Mr. Heriot. It was the first time he had spoken since their arrival. “I told you it would turn out a trifle. You see the boy’s better already. Cheer up,” said the old man, faltering, and looking at her with glassy eyes. “We’ve had a fright, but, thank God, it’s over. Cheer up, my bonny May!”
For Marjory, so far from cheering up, had sunk down on the first chair, altogether overcome by the suspense and the information, and the sense of still more sickening suspense until she should see with her own eyes and judge how it was.
Tom Heriot had been far from passing, as the landlord said, a comfortable night; but he had slept for some hours towards the morning, and had awoke feeling, as he said, better, and in high spirits.
“After all I’ll cheat the doctors yet,” he had said to his friend. “I am half sorry now you sent for May. It will frighten them all to death at home. Odd as it may seem to you, the old boy’s fond of me in his way. And, by Jove, Fanshawe, I’ll try if I can’t make a change somehow, and be a comfort to him, and all that. Life’s a queer sort of business after all,” said the prodigal, raising his shoulders from the pillows, and supporting himself on his hands. “It isn’t the straightforward thing a fellow thinks when he’s beginning. Have your swing, that’s all very well—and God knows I’ve had mine, and done some things I can’t undo; but when one goes in for having one’s swing, one expects to have a steady time after, and settle to work and put all straight. Look here, Fanshawe—if I had died, as I thought I should last night! By Jove, to have nothing but your swing and end there, it isn’t much, is it, for a man’s life?”
“No, it isn’t much,” said his friend; “but don’t get on thinking, Tom, it’s bad for your back.”
“I don’t believe it’s my back,” said Tom; “it’s my legs or something. I’m as light as a bird, all here.” And he struck himself some playful blows across the chest. “When the doctor comes, you’ll see he’ll say there’s a difference. Get me some breakfast, there’s a good fellow. I wonder if they’ve come. You’ve heard me talk of May, Fanshawe? She’s not the sort of girl every fellow likes, and I’ve thought she was hard on me sometimes. Superior, you know—that sort of thing. Looking down, by Jove, upon her brother.” And here Tom laughed loudly, with an exquisite enjoyment of the joke. “But it would be pleasant to see her all the same. Who is that at the door? What! My sister! By George, May, this is being a thorough brick, and no mistake.”
“Oh, Tom, you are better!” cried Marjory, struck with a sudden weakness of delight as she saw the colour in his face and his sparkling eyes.
“Almost well,” he said, cheerfully, while she stooped over him; “well enough to be sorry I sent for you, and glad you’ve come. So you thought your poor wicked old brother worth looking after? You’re a good girl, May; you’re a dear girl. It’s a pleasure to see you. And you’re a beauty, too, by Jove, that can stand the morning light.”
“Tom!” said Marjory, gently.
She was struck to the heart by the sight she saw. His countenance had melted into soft lines like a child’s; the tears were standing in his over-bright eyes. Who does not know that human sentiment which trembles to see a sick man look too amiable, too angelical, too good? This sudden dread came over Marjory. She stood gazing at him and at the moisture in his eyes with a feeling that blanched all the morning freshness out of her face.
“All right,” said Tom. “I won’t praise you to your face,—especially as Fanshawe’s there; though he’s as good a fellow as ever was. I’ll tell you after, all I owe to him. But who came with you, May? and how did you persuade the two old boys to let you go? and how’s my father and little Milly, and all the rest of them? Sit down here, where I can reach you. Fanshawe, she wants a cup of tea or something.”
“I want to hear about you, Tom,” said Marjory, mastering, as well as she could, the impression made upon her by her brother’s emotion, and by the dark uncheering looks of Fanshawe, his previous nurse, who had shaken hands with her, but who avoided her eye. “But first I must tell you, the two old boys, as you call them, came with me. My father is here.”
“My father—here!” said the prodigal, once more raising his head from the pillow. A crimson flush came over his face, and his eyes filled with tears. “I told you they were fond of me at home,” he said, turning faltering to his friend, “and by Jove, May—no, I won’t say that—By God, as you’re both witnesses, I’ll turn over a new leaf, and be a comfort to him from this day!”
By an impulse which she could scarcely define, Marjory turned from her brother’s flushed and excited face to Fanshawe, who had retired to the other side of the room, and whom she had seen joining his hands together with a sudden movement of pain. When he caught her eye he shook his head gently. Then she knew what was before them.
Mr. Heriot, however, suspected nothing; he came in, still with something of the paleness which had come upon him when he first realized the news; but in five minutes had recovered his colour, and composure, and was himself.
“Your sister was anxious, my boy!” he said. “It is a woman’s fault; and, for my part, I don’t blame them. Rather that than man’s indifference, Tom. May would go through fire and water for anybody belonging to her. It makes them troublesome to steady-going folks, now and then; but it’s a good fault—a good fault.”
And Mr. Heriot, after a few minutes, cheerfully invited Mr. Fanshawe—to whom he made many old-fashioned acknowledgments—to go downstairs with him to breakfast, leaving Marjory with her brother.
“We’ll send her something upstairs,” he said; “I know she’ll like best to be with Tom.”
“She should get a rest first,” said Mr. Charles, grumbling momentarily in behalf of his favourite; but finally they all left the sick-room, going down to breakfast in high spirits. Tom, by this time, somewhat pale, lay back on his pillows, and looked admiringly and gratefully at his sister. A certain calm of well-being seemed to have fallen over him, which, in spite of herself, gave Marjory hope.
“And to think,” he said softly, “that last night—only last night, I had given everything up, and never hoped to see one of you again. May, give me your hand; you’re a good girl. It’s true what my father said: you would go through fire and water. That’s the old Scotch way; not so much for other people as women are now-a-days; but through fire and water—through fire and water, for your own! If you had been here last night I might have told you something—”
“Tell it to me now, Tom.”
“No; I don’t want you to think worse of me than you do. Please God, I will live and mend, and take up all my tangled threads, as Aunt Jean says. How is old Aunt Jean? Cankered body! but I suppose she would have done it too—through fire and water. Do you know, May, there’s a great deal of meaning, sometimes, in what these old boys say.”
“I wish you would not call them old boys, Tom.”
“Well, well—they are not young boys, are they? There is one thing tho’ about women—or, so I’ve always heard, at least. They say you’re hard on other women. If you were called on now to help a woman that was not your flesh and blood?—for the sake of those who were your flesh and blood—”
Marjory’s face was covered with a deep blush; there was but one idea that could be connected with such a speech; she had to conquer a momentary repugnance, an impulse of indignation and shame. But she did conquer it.
“Tom!” she said anxiously; “I hope I could be faithful to my trust. Tell me what it is?”
“Not I!” said Tom, laughing. “No, no, Miss May; I am not going to give you the whiphand over me. I can trust myself best. I am getting well, thank Heaven; and I’ll pick up my tangled threads. It is not a bad phrase that, either. Lord, what a lot of tangled threads I seemed to be leaving last night!”
What could Marjory say? She held his hand between hers and patted it softly, and kissed it with her heart full. It was not like a sick man’s hand, white and wasted. It was brown and muscular, and strong, capable of crushing hers, had he wished; and yet lay somewhat passively embraced by her slender fingers, as if—like the tide ebbing slowly from the shore, the strength had begun to ebb away.
“However, it’s well to be warned,” said Tom. “And, after all, I have done less harm than you would think; nobody’s enemy but my own—as people say. There’s no sensation I ever felt so curious as that one—of thinking you’re dying. What an awful fool you’ve been, you say to yourself; and now it’s no good. Struggle as you like, you can’t mend it; you must just lie still and take what’s coming. I say, May,” he added, with a sudden start. “Say something and be cheery, or I’ll get into the dumps again.”
“Here’s the doctor, Tom,” said Fanshawe at the door.
Marjory rose and left the room quickly; she could not bear to meet the eye of that final authority, whose glance seems to convey life or death. She went and stood by her brother’s friend outside on the landing. It was an old-fashioned winding oak staircase; and looking down they could see the movements of the house; the waiters carrying in dishes to the room where the father and uncle were breakfasting; and sometimes, when the door opened, could hear the roll of their vigorous Northern voices. Marjory stood with her hand on the oak balustrade, and looked wistfully into Fanshawe’s face.
“Do you mean,” she said, “that there is no hope?”
He made a little gesture of pain and shook his head; his eyes looked hollow, as if with tears. It was watching that had done it, but the effect was the same.
“Then he ought to know; he must know!” said Marjory.
“To what good, Miss Heriot? Do you think God takes a man unawares like that, to exact everything from him the same as if he had had long warning? I am not so good as you; but I think better of my Maker than that.”
“Mr. Fanshawe, this is no time to argue,” said Marjory, shivering; “but my poor Tom ought to know.”
“It would kill him in a moment,” said Fanshawe, “the shock would be too great; he has few enough moments to live. Go and pray for him, Miss Heriot; that’s better than telling him. You are far more likely to be paid attention to up yonder than fellows like poor Tom or me.”
And all the while fresh dishes were being carried in from the kitchen, and Mr. Heriot’s laugh, a large sound of ease and relief—the gaiety of a man just delivered from deadly anxiety—rang like a certainty of well-being all through the house. The breakfast was still going on when the doctor went downstairs; his grave face startled Tom’s father.
“You find your patient better, doctor?” he said.
“I cannot say I do,” the doctor answered, somewhat solemnly. “Though his strength has held out better than I thought.”
“But I assure you—the boy is looking as well as I ever saw him. His colour is good, and his eyes bright; and no suffering to speak of.”
“The explanation of that is but too easy,” said the doctor. “I suppose no one has told you the particulars. So long as there was pain there was a little hope. It is a hard thing to say to a father, but I must say it. Your son’s injury, Sir, is in the spine.”
“My God!”
Mr. Heriot stumbled up blindly from his chair; he put his hand out to grope his way to the door, and with the other thrust away from him the table at which he had been seated. The doctor rushed after and seized him by the arm.
“If you go into his room with that face, you will kill him on the spot!” he cried.
“And when will you—or nature, as you call it—kill him?” cried Mr. Charles, coming forward in his turn. “Thomas, my man, Thomas! you’ve still the others left.”
“He may last a few hours longer—not more,” said the doctor. “I shall come back presently;” and he rushed away, glad to escape from such a scene, and left those whom it most concerned to bear it as they could.
The two old brothers had taken each other by the hand. They stood together as they had done when they were boys; but one had his face hidden on the wall, against which he leant and heard the words of the other vaguely through his anguish, as if they were uttered miles away.
“Thomas! think. He is not your only child! there are others well worthy of your love. We must grieve—it’s God’s will; but for God’s sake dinna despair!”
What mockery the words seemed; merest commonplaces, easy to say, but hard, impossible to give an ear to. Despair? what else was there left for the man who was about to see his son die?