In another minute he was elegantly flying down Bycars Lane, guiding his own bicycle with his right hand and the crock with his left hand. The feat appeared miraculous to Rachel, who watched from the bow-window of the parlour. Beyond question he made a fine figure. And it was for her that he was flying to Hanbridge! She turned away to her domesticity.
II
It seemed to her that he had scarcely been gone ten minutes when one of the glorious taxicabs which had recently usurped the stand of the historic fly under the Town Hall porch drew up at the front door, and Louis got out of it. The sound of his voice was the first intimation to Rachel that it was Louis who was arriving. He shouted at the cabman as he paid the fare. The window of the parlour was open and the curtains pinned up. She ran to the window, and immediately saw that Louis" head was bandaged. Then she ran to the door. He was climbing rather stiffly up the steps.
"All right! All right!" he shouted at her. "A spill. Nothing of the least importance. But both the jiggers are pretty well converted into old iron. I tell you it"s all _right_! Shut the door."
He b.u.mped down on the oak chest, and took a long breath.
"But you are frightfully hurt!" she exclaimed. She could not properly see his face for the bandages.
Mrs. Tams appeared. Rachel murmured to her in a flash--
"Go out the back way and fetch Dr. Yardley at once."
She felt herself absolutely calm. What puzzled her was Louis"
shouting. Then she understood he was shouting from mere excitement and did not realize that he shouted.
"No need for any doctor! Quite simple!" he called out.
But Rachel gave a word confirming the original order to Mrs. Tams, who disappeared.
"First thing I knew I was the centre of an admiring audience, and fat Mrs. Heath, in her white ap.r.o.n and the steel hanging by her side, was washing my face with a sponge and a basin of water, and Heath stood by with brandy. It was nearly opposite their shop. People in the tram had a rare view of me."
"But was it the tram-car you ran into?" Rachel asked eagerly.
He replied with momentary annoyance--
"Tram-car! Of course it wasn"t the tram-car. Moreover, I didn"t run into anything. Two horses ran into me. I was coming down past the Shambles into Duck Bank--very slowly, because I could hear a tram coming along from the market-place--and just as I got past the Shambles and could see along the market-place, I saw a lad on a cart-horse and leading another horse. No stirrups, no saddle. He"d no more control over either horse than a baby over an elephant. Not a bit more. Both horses were running away. The horse he was supposed to be leading was galloping first. They were pa.s.sing the tram at a fine rate."
"But how far were they off you?"
"About ten yards. I said to myself, "If that chap doesn"t look out he"ll be all over me in two seconds." I turned as sharp as I could away to the left. I could have turned sharper if I"d had your bicycle in my right hand instead of my left. But it wouldn"t have made any difference. The first horse simply made straight for me. There was about a mile of s.p.a.ce for him between me and the tram, but he wouldn"t look at it. He wanted me, and he had me. They both had me. I never felt the actual shock. Curious, that! I"m told one horse put his foot clean through the back wheel of my bike. Then he was stopped by the front palings of the Conservative Club. Oh! a pretty smash! The other horse and the boy thereon finished half-way up Moorthorne Road. He could stick on, no mistake, that kid could. Midland Railway horses.
Whoppers. Either being taken to the vets" or brought from the vet"s--_I_ don"t know. I forget."
Rachel put her hand on his arm.
"Do come into the parlour and have the easy-chair."
"I"ll come--I"ll come," he said, with the same annoyance. "Give us a chance." His voice was now a little less noisy.
"But you might have been killed!"
"You bet I might! Eight hoofs all over me! One tap from any of the eight would have settled yours sincerely."
"Louis!" She spoke firmly. "You must come into the parlour. Now come along, do, and sit down and let me look at your face." She removed his hat, which was perched rather insecurely on the top of the bandages.
"Who was it looked after you?"
"Well," he hesitated, following her into the parlour, "it seems to have been chiefly Mrs. Heath."
"But didn"t they take you to a chemist"s? Isn"t there a chemist"s handy?"
"The great Greene had one of his bilious attacks and was in bed, it appears. And the great Greene"s a.s.sistant is only just out of petticoats, I believe. However, everybody acted for the best, and here I am. And if you ask me, I think I"ve come out of it rather well."
He dropped heavily on to the Chesterfield. What she could see of his cheeks was very pale.
"Open the window," he murmured. "It"s frightfully stuffy here."
"The window is open," she said. In fact, a noticeable draught blew through the room. "I"ll open it a bit more."
Before doing so she lifted his feet on to the Chesterfield.
"That"s better. That"s better," he breathed.
When, a moment later, she returned to him with a gla.s.s of water which she had brought from the kitchen, spilling drops of it along the whole length of the pa.s.sage, he smiled at her and then winked.
It was the wink that seemed pathetic to her. She had maintained her laudable calm until he winked, and then her throat tightened.
"He may have some dreadful internal injury," she thought. "You never know. I may be a widow soon. And every one will say, "How young she is to be a widow!" It will make me blush. But such things can"t happen to me. No, he"s all right. He came up here alone. They"d never have let him come up here alone if he hadn"t been all right. Besides, he can walk. How silly I am!"
She bent down and kissed him pa.s.sionately.
"I must have those bandages off, dearest," she whispered. "I suppose to-morrow I"d better return them to Mrs. Heath."
He muttered: "She said she always kept linen for bandages in the shop because they so often cut themselves. Now, I used to think in my innocence that butchers never cut themselves."
Very gently and intently Rachel unfastened two safety-pins that were hidden in Louis" untidy hair. Then she began to unwind a long strip of linen. It stuck to a portion of the cheek close to the ear. Louis winced. The inner folds of the linen were discoloured. Rachel had a glimpse of a wound....
"Go on!" Louis urged. "Get at it, child!"
"No," she said. "I think I shall leave it just as it is for the doctor to deal with. Shall you mind if I leave you for a minute? I must get some warm water and things ready against the doctor comes."
He retorted facetiously: "Oh! Do what you like! Work your will on me.... Doctor! Any one "ud think I was badly injured. Why, you cuckoo, it"s only skin wounds!"
"But doesn"t it _hurt_?"
"Depends what you call hurt. It ain"t a picnic."
"I think you"re awfully brave," she said simply.
At the door she stopped and gazed at him, undecided.
"Louis," she said in a motherly tone, "I should like you to go to bed.
I really should. You ought to, I"m sure."
"Well, I shan"t," he replied.