He went on to describe exactly how he had left the poor patient, giving the details with a careful minuteness. At the same moment that he had started for Miss Fountain, old Wilson had gone to Whinthorpe for the doctor. The Reverend Mother was there; and the nurses--kind and efficient women--were doing all that could be done.
He spoke in a voice that seemed to have no colour or emphasis. One who did not know him might have thought he gave his report entirely without emotion--that his sister"s coming death did not affect him.
Laura longed to ask whether Father Bowles was there, whether the Last Sacraments had been given. But she did not dare. That question seemed to belong to a world that was for ever sealed between them. And he volunteered nothing.
They entered on a steep descent to the main road. The wind came in fierce gusts--so that Laura had to hold her hat on with both hands. The carriage lamps wavered wildly on the great junipers and hollies, the clumps of blossoming gorse, that sprinkled the mountain; sometimes in a pause of the wind, there would be a roar of water, or a rush of startled sheep.
Tumult had taken possession of the fells no less than of the girl"s heart.
Once she was thrown against the Squire"s shoulder, and murmured a hurried "I beg your pardon." And at the same moment an image of their parting on the stairs at Bannisdale rose on the dark. She saw his tall head bending--herself kissing the breast of his coat.
At last they came out above the great prospect of moss and mountain.
There was just moon enough to see it by; though night and storm held the vast open cup, across which the clouds came racing--beating up from the coast and the south-west. Ghostly light touched the river courses here and there, and showed the distant portal of the sea. Through the cloud and wind and darkness breathed a great Nature-voice, a voice of power and infinite freedom. Laura suddenly, in a dim pa.s.sionate way, thought of the words "to cease upon the midnight with no pain." If life could just cease, here, in the wild dark, while, for the last time in their lives, they were once more alone together!--while in this little cart, on this lonely road, she was still his charge and care--dependent on his man"s strength, delivered over to him, and him only--out of all the world.
When they reached the lower road the pony quickened his pace, and the wind was less boisterous. The silence between them, which had been natural enough in the high and deafening blasts of the fell, began to be itself a speech. The Squire broke it.
"I am glad to hear that your cousin is doing so well at Froswick," he said, with formal courtesy.
Laura made a fitting reply, and they talked a little of the chances of business, and the growth of Froswick. Then the silence closed again.
Presently, as the road pa.s.sed between stone walls, with a gra.s.s strip on either side, two dark forms shot up in front of them. The pony shied violently. Had they been still travelling on the edge of the steep gra.s.s slope which had stretched below them for a mile or so after their exit from the lane, they must have upset. As it was, Laura was pitched against the railing of the dog-cart, and as she instinctively grasped it to save herself, her wrist was painfully twisted.
"You are hurt!" said Helbeck, pulling up the pony.
The first cry of pain had been beyond her control. But she would have died rather than permit another.
"It is nothing," she said, "really nothing! What was the matter?"
"A mare and her foal, as far as I can see," said Helbeck, looking behind him. "How careless of the farm people!" he added angrily.
"Oh! they must have strayed," said Laura faintly. All her will was struggling with this swimming brain--it should not overpower her.
The tinkling of a small burn could be heard beside the road. Helbeck jumped down. "Don"t be afraid; the pony is really quite quiet--he"ll stand."
In a second or two he was back--and just in time. Laura knew well the touch of the little horn cup he put into her cold hand. Many and many a time, in the scrambles of their summer walks, had he revived her from it.
She drank eagerly. When he mounted the carriage again, some strange instinct told her that he was not the same. She divined--she was sure of an agitation in him which at once calmed her own.
She quickly a.s.sured him that she was much better, that the pain was fast subsiding. Then she begged him to hurry on. She even forced herself to smile and talk.
"It was very ghostly, wasn"t it? Daffady, our old cow-man, will never believe they were real horses. He has a story of a bogle in this road--a horse-bogle, too--that makes one creep."
"Oh! I know that story," said Helbeck. "It used to be told of several roads about here. Old Wilson once said to me, "When Aa wor yoong, ivery field an ivery lane wor fu o" bogles!" It is strange how the old tales have died out, while a brand new one, like our own ghost story, has grown up."
Laura murmured a "Yes." Had he forgotten who was once the ghost?
Silence fell again--a silence in which each heart could almost hear the other beat. Oh! how wicked--wicked--would she be if she had come meddling with his life again, of her own free will!
Here at last was the bridge, and the Bannisdale gate. Laura shut her eyes, and reckoned up the minutes that remained. Then, as they sped up the park, she wrestled indignantly with herself. She was outraged by her own callousness towards this death in front of her. "Oh! let me think of her! Let me be good to her!" she cried, in dumb appeal to some power beyond herself. She recalled her father. She tried with all her young strength to forget the man beside her--and those piteous facts that lay between them.
In Augustina"s room--darkness--except for one shaded light. The doors were all open, that the poor tormented lungs might breathe.
Laura went in softly, the Squire following. A nurse rose.
"She has rallied wonderfully," she said in a cheerful whisper, as she approached them, finger on lip.
"Laura!" said a sighing voice.
It came from a deep old-fashioned chair, in which sat Mrs. Fountain, propped by many pillows.
Laura went up to her, and dropping on a stool beside her, the girl tenderly caressed the wasted hand that had itself no strength to move towards her.
In the few hours since Laura had last seen her, a great change had pa.s.sed over Mrs. Fountain. Her little face, usually so red, had blanched to parchment white, and the nervous twitching of the head, in the general failure of strength, had almost ceased. She lay stilled and refined under the touch of death; and the sweetness of her blue eyes had grown more conscious and more n.o.ble.
"Laura--I"m a little better. But you mustn"t go again. Alan--she must stay!"
She tried to turn her head to him, appealing. The Squire came forward.
"Everything is ready for Miss Fountain, dear--if she will be good enough to stay. Nurse will provide--and we will send over for any luggage in the morning."
At those words "Miss Fountain," a slight movement pa.s.sed over the sister"s face.
"Laura!" she said feebly.
"Yes, Augustina--I will stay. I won"t leave you again."
"Your father did wish it, didn"t he?"
The mention of her father so startled Laura that the tears rushed to her eyes, and she dropped her face for a moment on Mrs. Fountain"s hand. When she lifted it she was no longer conscious that Helbeck stood behind his sister"s chair, looking down upon them both.
"Yes--always, dear. Do you remember what a good nurse he was?--so much better than I?"
Her face shone through the tears that bedewed it. Already the emotion of her drive--the last battles with the wind--had for the moment restored the brilliancy of eye and cheek. Even Augustina"s dim sight was held by her, and by the tumbled gold of her hair as it caught the candle-light.
But the name which had given Laura a thrill of joy had roused a disturbed and troubled echo in Mrs. Fountain.
She looked miserably at her brother and asked for her beads. He put them across her hand, and then, bending over her chair, he said a "Hail Mary"
and an "Our Father," in which she faintly joined.
"And Alan--will Father Leadham come to-morrow?"
"Without fail."
A little later Laura was in her old room with Sister Rosa. The doctor had paid his visit. But for the moment the collapse of the afternoon had been arrested; Mrs. Fountain was in no urgent danger.
"Now then," said the nurse cheerily, when Miss Fountain had been supplied with all necessaries for sleep, "let us look at that arm, please."