Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
"I SEE THEM, I SEE THEM PLAINLY!"
LIFE'S LITTLE STAGE
BY
AGNES GIBERNE
AUTHOR OF
"SUN, MOON AND STARS," "THIS WONDER-WORLD,"
"STORIES OF THE ABBEY PRECINCTS," ETC., ETC.
"Who can over-estimate the value of these little Opportunities?
How angels must weep to see us throw them away!
. . . And how can we ever expect to meet the great trials
worthily, unless we learn discipline by those which to others
may seem but trifles?"—ANON.
LONDON
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
4 BOUVERIE STREET AND 65 ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD, E.C.
1913
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Little 'Why-Because'
This Wonder-World
Gwendoline
The Hillside Children
Stories of the Abbey Precincts
Anthony Cragg's Tenant
Profit and Loss; or, Life's Ledger
Through the Linn
Five Little Birdies
Next-Door Neighbours
Willie and Lucy at the Sea-side
LONDON: THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
FOREWORD
THERE are many girls who, on leaving School for Home-life, find the year or two following rather "difficult." They seem often not quite to know what to do with themselves, with their time, with their gifts; and they are apt to fall into some needless mistakes for want of a guiding hand. My wish, in writing this tale, has been to give such girls a little help. It may be that one here or there, in reading it, will find out how to avoid such mistakes from the struggles, the defeats, and the non-defeats of Magda Royston.
AGNES GIBERNE.
EASTBOURNE.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
[VII. A MOUNTAIN HUT BY NIGHT]
[XXIII. HERSELF OR HER FRIEND?]
[XXXIII. THIS GLORIOUS WORLD!]
[XXXIV. ONCE MORE TO THE TEST]
LIFE'S LITTLE STAGE
[CHAPTER I]
GOOD-BYE TO SCHOOL
"SOME girls would be glad in your place."
"It's just the other way with me."
"Not that you have not been happy here. I know you have. Still—home is home."
"This is my other home."
Miss Mordaunt smiled. It was hardly in human nature not to be gratified.
"If only I could have stayed two years longer! Or even one year! Father might let me. It's such a horrid bore to have to leave now."
"But since no choice is left, you must make the best of things."
The two stood facing one another in the bow-window of Miss Mordaunt's pretty drawing-room; tears in the eyes of the elder woman, for hers was a sympathetic nature; no tears in the eyes of the girl, but a sharp ache at her heart. Till the arrival of this morning's post she never quite lost hope, though notice of her removal was given months before. A final appeal, vehemently worded, after the writer's fashion, had lately gone; and the reply was decisive.
Many a tussle of wills had taken place during the last four years between these two; and a time was when the pupil indulged in hard thoughts of the kind Principal. But Miss Mordaunt possessed power to win love; and though she found in Magda Royston a difficult subject, she conquered in the end. Out of battling grew strong affection—how strong on the side of Magda perhaps neither quite knew until this hour.
"There isn't any 'best.' It's just simply horrid."
"Still, if you are wanted at home, your duty lies there."
"I'm not. That's the thing. Nobody wants me. Mother has Penrose; and father has Merryl; and Frip—I mean, Francie—is the family pet. And I come in nowhere. I'm a sort of extraneous atom that can't coalesce with any other atom." A tinge of self-satisfaction crept into the tone. "It's not my fault. Nobody at home needs me—not one least little bit. And there isn't a person in all the town that I care for—not one blessed individual!"
Miss Mordaunt seated herself on the sofa, drawing the speaker to her side, with a protesting touch.
"There isn't. Pen snaps them all up. And if she didn't, it would come to the same thing. I'm not chummy with girls—never was. I had a real friend once; but he was a boy; and boys are so different. Ned Fairfax and I were immense chums; but he was years and years older than me; and he went right away when I was only eleven. I've never set eyes on him since, and I don't even know now what has become of him. Only I know we should be friends again—directly—if ever we met! The girls and I get on well enough here, but we're not friends."
"Except Beatrice."
"Bee is a little dear, and I dote on her; and she worships the ground I tread on. But after all—though she is more than a year older, she always seems the younger. And I'm much more to her than she is to me. Don't you see? I wouldn't say that to everybody, but it's true. I want something more than that, if it is to satisfy! Bee looks up to me. I want some one that I can look up to."
"There is much more in Bee than appears on the surface."
"I dare say. She pegs away, and gets on. She'll be awfully useful at home. And in a sort of way she is taking."
"People find her extremely taking. She is a friend worth having and worth keeping. But I hope you are going to have friends in Burwood."
"There's nobody. Oh well, yes, there is one—but she doesn't live there. She only comes down to a place near for a week or ten days at a time. Her name is Patricia, and she is a picture! I've seen her just three times, and I fell in love straight off. But I haven't a ghost of a chance. Everybody runs after her. Oh, I shall get on all right. There's Rob, you know. He and I have always been cronies; and it's quite settled that I shall keep house for him some day. Not till he gets a living; and that won't be yet. He was only ordained two years ago."
"I should advise you not to build too much on that notion. Your brother may marry."
Magda's eyes blazed. They were singular golden-brown eyes, with a reddish tinge in the iris, matching her hair.
"You don't know Rob! He always says he never comes across any girls to be compared with his sisters. And I always was his special! He promised—years ago—that I should live with him by-and-by. At least—if he didn't exactly promise, he said it. Father jeers at the idea, but Rob means what he says."
Miss Mordaunt hesitated to throw further cold water. Life itself would bring the chill splash soon enough.
"Well—perhaps," she admitted. "Only, it is always wiser not to look forward too confidently. Things turn out so unlike what one expects beforehand. Have you not found it so?"
"I'm sure this won't. It will all come right, I know. But just imagine father talking about my having 'finished my education.' Oh dear me, if he would but understand! He says his own sisters finished theirs at seventeen, and he doesn't see any need for new-fangled ways. You may read it!" Magda held out the sheet with an indignant thrust. "As if it mattered what they used to do in the Dark Ages."
Miss Mordaunt could not quite suppress another smile. She read the letter and gave it back.
"That settles the matter, I am afraid. I see that your father wants his daughter."
"He doesn't!" bluntly. "He wants nobody except Merryl. 'Finished my education' indeed! Why, I'm not seventeen till next month; and I'm only just beginning to know what real work means."
Miss Mordaunt could have endorsed this; but an interruption came. She was called away; and Magda wandered to one of the class-rooms, where, as she expected, she found a girl alone bending over a desk, hard at work—a girl nearly as tall as herself, but so slight in make that people often spoke of her as "little;" the more so, perhaps, from her gentle retiring manner, and from the look of wistful appeal in her brown eyes. It was a pale face, even-featured, with rather marked dark brows and brown hair full of natural waves. As Magda entered she jumped up.
"I've been wanting to see you, Magda. Only think—"
"I went to tell Miss Mordaunt—father has written at last."
"Has he? And he says—?"
"I'm to go home for good at the end of the term."
"Then we leave together, after all."
"It's right enough for you. You've had an extra year. But I do hate it—just as I am getting to love work—to have to stop."
"You won't stop. You are so clever. You will keep on with everything."
"It can't be the same—working all alone."
Beatrice looked sympathetic, but only remarked—"I have heard from my mother too. And only think! We are to leave town. Not now, but some time next year; when the lease of our house is up. Guess where we may perhaps live!"
"Not—Burwood!" dubiously.
Bee clapped joyous hands.
"What can have made your mother think of such a thing?"
"Why, Magda! Wouldn't you be glad to have us?"
"Of course. But I mean—how did it come into her head?"
"I put the notion there. Wouldn't you have done it in my place? London never has suited her; and our doctor advises the country. And I said something in my last about Burwood—not really thinking that anything would come of it. But mother has quite taken to the idea. She used to stay near, sometimes, when she was a child; and she remembers well how pretty the walks and drives were. It would make all the difference to me if we were near to you. I should not mind so very much then having to leave Amy."
Magda was not especially fond of hearing about this other great friend—Amy Smith. Whatever her estimate might be, in the abstract, of the value of Bee, she liked to have the whole of her; not to share her with somebody else. Certainly not with a "Miss Smith!"
"You see, I've been near Amy all my life; and she is so good to me—too good! She's years older, but we are just like sisters, and I don't know how I shall get on without her. But if it is to come near you, dear, saying good-bye won't be quite so hard."
"It will be frightfully nice if you do. We can do no end of things together. I suppose it's not settled yet."
"No; only, if mother once takes to a plan, she doesn't soon give it up. So I'm very hopeful. Just think! If I were always near you! And you were always coming in and out!"
"It would be frightfully nice!" repeated Magda, throwing into her voice what Bee would expect to hear. But when she strolled away, she questioned within herself—was she glad? Would she be more disappointed or more relieved if the scheme fell through?
The notion of introducing Beatrice Major to her home-circle did not quite appeal to her. The Roystons held their heads high, and moved in county circles, and were extremely particular as to whom they deigned to know. Bee herself was the dearest little creature—pretty and lovable, sweet and kind; but she had been only two years in the school, and Magda had met none of Bee's people. They might very easily fail to suit her people.
Beatrice, it was true, never seemed to mind being questioned about her home and connections; but it was equally true that she never appeared to have very much to say—at least of any such particulars as would impress the Royston imagination; and this was suggestive. Magda had heard so much all her life about people's antecedents, that she might be excused for feeling nervous. She had seen a photo of Bee's mother, and thought her a very unattractive person; also a photo of Amy Smith, which was worse still. She knew that Mrs. Major could not be too well off, for Bee's command of pocket-money was by no means plentiful, and her wardrobe was limited.
They would probably live in some poky little house. And though Magda could talk grandly about not caring what other people thought, and though personally she would not perhaps mind about the said house, yet she would mind extremely if her own particular friend were looked down upon by her home-folks. The very idea of Pen's air of mild disdain stung sharply.
So altogether she felt that, if the plan failed, she would not be very sorry. But Bee might on no account guess this.
Several weeks later came the day of parting; and once more Magda stood before Miss Mordaunt with a lump in her throat.
"You will have to work steadily, if you do not mean to lose all you have gained, Magda."
"I know. I shall make a plan for every day, and stick to it."
"Except when home duties come between."
"I've no home duties. Pen goes everywhere with mother, and Merryl does all the little useful fidgets. There's nothing left for me. Nobody will care what I'm after."
Miss Mordaunt studied the impressionable face. Some eager thought was at work below the surface.
"What is it, my dear?"
"You always know when I've something on my mind. I've been thinking a lot lately. Miss Mordaunt, I want to do something with my life. Not just to drift along anyhow, as so many girls do. I want to make something of it. Something great, you know!"—and her eyes glowed. "Do you think I shall ever be able? Does the chance come to everybody some time or other? I've heard it said that it does."
"It may. Many miss the 'chance,' as you call it, when it does come. I should rather call it 'the opportunity.' What do you mean by 'something great'?"
"Oh—Why!—You know! Something above the common run. Like Grace Darling, or Miss Florence Nightingale, or that Duchess who stayed behind in the French bazaar to be burnt to death, so that others might escape. It was noblesse oblige with her, wasn't it? I think it would be grand to do something of that sort,—that would be always remembered and talked about."
"Perhaps so. But don't forget that what one is in the little things of life, one is also in the great things. More than one rehearsal is generally given to us before the 'great opportunity' is sent. And if we fail in the rehearsals, we fail then also."
"Yes—I know. And I do mean to work at my studies. But all the same, I should like to do something, some day, really and truly great."
Miss Mordaunt looked wistfully at the girl. "Dear Magda—real greatness does not mean being talked about. It means—doing the Will of God in our lives—doing our duty, and doing it for Him."
[CHAPTER II]
WHAT WAS THE USE?
MANY months later that parting interview with Miss Mordaunt recurred vividly to Magda.
"What's the good of it all, I wonder?" she had been asking aloud.
And suddenly, as if called up from a far distance, she saw again Miss Mordaunt's face, and heard again her own confident utterances.
It was a bitterly cold March afternoon. She stood alone under the great walnut tree in the back garden—which was divided by a tall hedge from the kitchen garden. Over her head was a network of bare boughs; and upon the grass at her feet lay a pure white carpet. Some lilac bushes near had begun to show promise of coming buds; but they looked doleful enough now, weighed down by snow.
She had with such readiness promised steady work in the future! And she had meant it too.
The thing seemed so easy beforehand. And for a time she really had tried. But she had not kept it up. She had not worked persistently. She had not "stuck" to her plans. The contrast between intention and non-fulfilment came upon her now with force.
Six months had gone by of home-life, of emancipation from school control. Six months of aimless drifting—the very thing she had resolved sturdily against.
"Oh, bother! What's the use of worrying? Why can't I take things as Pen does? Pen never seems to mind." But she was in the grip of a cogitative mood, and thinking would not be stayed.
She had begun well enough—had planned daily two hours of music, an hour of history, an hour of literature, an hour alternately of French and German. It had all looked fair and promising. And the whole had ended in smoke.
Something always seemed to come in the way. The children wanted a ramble. Or she was sent on an errand. Or a caller came in. Or there was an invitation. Or—oftener and worse!—disinclination had her by the throat.
Disinclination which, no doubt, might have been, and ought to have been, grappled with and overcome. Only, she had not grappled with it. She had not overcome. She had yielded, time after time.
It was so difficult to work alone; so dull to sit and read in her own room; so stupid to write a translation that nobody would see; so tiresome to practice when there was none to praise or blame. Not that she liked blame; and not that she was not expected to practice; but no marked interest was shown in her advance; and she wanted sympathy and craved an object. And it was so fatally easy to put off, to let things slide, to get out of the way of regular plans. The fact that any time would do equally well soon meant no time.
This had been a typical day; and she reviewed it ruefully. A morning of aimless nothings; the mending of clothes idly deferred; hours spent in the reading of a foolish novel; jars with Penrose; friction with her mother; a sharp set-down from her father; then forgetfulness of wrongs and resentment during a romp in the snow with Merryl and Frip—till the younger girls were summoned indoors, leaving her to descend at a plunge from gaiety to disquiet. Magda's variations were many.
She stood pondering the subject—a long-limbed well-grown girl, young in look for her years, with a curly mass of red-brown hair, seldom tidy, and a pair of expressive eyes. They could look gentle and loving, though that phase was not common; they could sparkle with joy or blaze with anger; they could be dull as a November fog; they could, as at this moment, turn their regards inwards with uneasy self-condemnation.
But it was a condemnation of self which she would not have liked anybody else to echo. No one quicker, you may be sure, than Magda Royston in self-defence! Even now words of excuse sprang readily, as she stood at the bar of her own judgment.
"After all, I don't see that it is my fault. I can't help things being as they are. And suppose I had worked all these months at music and history and languages—what then? What would be the good? It would be all for myself. I should be just as useless to other people."
A vision arose of the great things she had wished to do, and she stamped the snow flat.
"It's no good. I've no chance. There's nothing to be done that I can see. If I had heaps of money to give away! Or if I had a special gift—if I could write books, or could paint pictures! Or even if my people were poor, and I could work hard to get money for them! Anything like that would make all the difference. As it is—well, I know I have brains of a sort; better brains than Pen! But I don't see what I can do with them. I don't see that I can do anything out of the common, or better than hundreds of other people do. And that is so stupid. Not worth the trouble!"
"Mag-da!" sounded in Pen's clear voice.
"She never can leave me in peace! I'm not going indoors yet."
"Mag-da!" Three times repeated, was followed by—"Where are you? Mother says you are to come."
This could not be disregarded. "Coming," she called carelessly, and in a slow saunter she followed the boundary of the kitchen garden hedge, trailed through the back yard, stopped to exchange a greeting with the house-dog as he sprang to the extent of his chain, stroked the stately Persian cat on the door-step, and finally presented herself in the inner hall.
It was one of the oldest houses in the country town of Burwood; rather small, but antique. Once upon a time it had stood alone, surrounded by its own broad acres; but things were changed, and the acres had shrunk—through the extravagance of former Roystons—to only a fair-sized garden. The rest of the land had been sold for building; and other houses in gardens stood near. In the opinion of old residents, this was no longer real country; and with new-comers, the Roystons no longer ranked as quite the most important people in the near neighbourhood. Their means were limited enough to make it no easy matter for them to remain on in the house, and they could do little in the way of entertaining. But they prided themselves still on their exclusiveness.
Penrose stood waiting; a contrast to Magda, who was five years her junior. Not nearly so tall and much more slim, she had rather pretty blue eyes and a neat figure, which comprised her all in the way of good looks. Her manner towards Magda was superior and mildly positive, though with people in general she knew how to be agreeable. Magda's air in response was combative.
"Did you not hear me calling?"
"If not, I shouldn't be here now."
"I think you need not have kept me so long."
Magda vouchsafed no excuse. "What's up?" she demanded.
"Mother wants you in the drawing-room."
"What for?"
"She found your drawers untidy."
"Of course you sent her to look at them."
"I don't 'send' mother about. And I have not been in your room to-day."
"I understand!" Magda spoke pointedly.
Penrose glanced up and down her sister with critical eyes. A word of warning would be kind. Magda seemed blissfully unconscious of her outward condition; and Pen had this moment heard a ring at the front door, which might mean callers.
"You've done the business now, so I hope you're satisfied," Magda went on. "Mother would never have thought of looking in my drawers, if you had not said something. I know! I did make hay in them yesterday, when I couldn't find my gloves, but I meant to put them straight to-night. It's too bad of you."
Pen's lips, parted for speech, closed again. If Magda chose to fling untrue accusations, she might manage for herself. And indeed small chance was given her to say more. Magda marched off, just as she was, straight for the drawing-room—her skirts pinned abnormally high for the snow-frolic; her shoes encased in snow; her tam-o'-shanter half-covering a mass of wild hair; her bare hands soiled and red with cold and scratched with brambles.
"Yes, mother. Pen says you want me."
She sent the words in advance with no gentle voice, as she whisked open the drawing-room door. Then she stopped.
Mrs. Royston, a graceful woman, looked in displeasure towards the figure in the doorway; for she was not alone.
Callers had arrived, as Pen conjectured; and through the front window might be seen two thoroughbreds champing their bits, and a footman standing stolidly. Why had Pen given no hint? How unkind! Then she recalled her own curt turning away, and knew that she was to blame.
"Really!" with a faint laugh protested Mrs. Royston.
"So I thought we would look in for five minutes on our way back from Sir John's," the elder caller was remarking in a manly voice.
She was a large woman, more in breadth and portliness than in height, and her magnificent furs made her look like a big brown bear sitting on end. Her face too was large and strongly outlined.
Magda guessed in a moment what her mother felt; for the Honourable Mrs. Framley was a county magnate; the weightiest personality in more senses than one to be found for many a mile around. A call from her was reckoned by some people as second only to a call from Royalty. The girl's first impulse was to flee; but a solid outstretched hand commanded her approach.
"Now, which of your young folks is this?" demanded Mrs. Framley, examining Magda through an eye-glass. "Let me see—you've got—how many daughters? Penrose—Magda—Merryl—Frances. I've not forgotten their names, though it's—how long?—since I was here last. Months, I'm afraid. But this is not your neat Penrose; and my jolly little friend Merryl can't have shot up to that height since I saw her; and Magda is out. Came out in the autumn, didn't she? So who is this? A niece?"
"I'm Magda," the girl said in shamefaced confession, for Mrs. Royston seemed voiceless.
Mrs. Framley leant back in her chair, and laughed till she was exhausted.
"So that's a specimen of the modern young woman, eh?"—when she could regain her voice. "My dear—" to Mrs. Royston—"pray don't apologise. It's I who should apologise. But really—really—it's irresistible." She went into another fit, and emerged from it, wheezing. "The child doesn't look a day over fifteen." The speaker wiped her eyes. "Don't send her away. Unadulterated Nature is always worth seeing—eh, Patricia?"
Magda turned startled eyes in the direction of the second caller, a girl three or four years older than herself, and the last person whom she expected to see. The last person, perhaps, whom at that moment she wished to see. For despite Magda's boasted non-chumminess with girls, this was the one girl whom she did, honestly and heartily, though not hopefully, desire for a friend. She had fallen in love at first sight with Mrs. Framley's niece, and had cherished her image ever since in the most secret recess of her heart.
"She'll think me just a silly idiotic school-girl!" flashed through Magda's mind, as she made an involuntary movement forward with extended hand—a soiled hand, as already said, scratched and slightly bleeding.
Patricia Vincent, standing thus far with amused eyes in the background, hesitated. She was immaculately dressed in grey, with a grey-feathered hat, relieved by touches of salmon-pink, and the daintiest of pale grey kid gloves. Contact with that hand did not quite suit her fastidious sense. A mere fraction of a second—and then she would have responded; but Magda, with crimsoning cheeks, had snatched the offending member away.
"I think you had better go and send Pen," interposed Mrs. Royston. Under the quiet words lay a command, "Do not come back."
Magda fled, without a good-bye, and went to the school-room, where she flung herself into an old armchair. The gas was low, but a good fire gave light; and she sat there in a dishevelled heap, weighing her grievances.
It was too bad of Pen, quite too bad, not to have warned her! And now the mischief was done. Patricia Vincent would never forget. Pen would go in and win; while she, as usual, would be nowhere in the race.
And all because she had not first rushed upstairs, to smooth her hair and wash her hands! Such nonsense!
As if Pen had not friends enough already! Just the single girl that she wanted for herself! If she might have Patricia, Pen was welcome to the rest of the world. But that was always the way! If one cared for a thing particularly, that thing was certain to be out of reach.
She was smarting still over the thought of that refused handshake; but her anger all went in the direction of Pen, not of Patricia. Pen alone was to blame!
Presently the front door was opened and shut; and then Mrs. Royston came in, moving with her usual graceful deliberation.
"What could have made you behave so, Magda?" she asked. "To come before callers in such a state!"
Magda was instantly up in arms. "Pen never told me there were callers."
"She did not know it. She would have reminded you how untidy you were—certainly in no condition to come into the drawing-room, even if I had been alone! But you show so much annoyance if she speaks."
"Pen is always in the right, of course."
"That is not the way to speak to me. I would rather have had this happen before anybody than before Mrs. Framley."
Magda shut her lips.
"Why did you not send Pen, as I told you?"
"I forgot."
"You always do forget. There is more dependence to be put upon Francie than upon you. You think of nothing, and care for nothing, except your own concerns. I am disappointed in you. It seems sometimes as if you had no sense of duty. And you ought to leave off giving way to temper as you do. It is so unlike your sisters. Nothing ever seems right with you."
"I can't help it. It isn't my fault."
"Then you ought to help it. You are not a little child any longer."
Mrs. Royston hesitated, as if about to say more; but Magda held up her head with an air of indifference, though invisible tears were scorching the backs of her eyes; and with a sigh she left the room. Magda would let no tear fall. She was angry, as well as unhappy.
Why should she be always the one in disgrace—and never Pen? True, Pen was careful, and neat, and sensible. All through girlhood Pen had been in the right. She had done her lessons, not indeed brilliantly, but with punctuality and exactness. Her hair was always neat; her stockings were always darned; her room was always in order; she never forgot what she undertook to do; she never gave a message upside-down or wrong end before. While Magda—but it is enough to say that in all these items she was the exact reverse of Penrose.
This week she in her turn had charge of the school-room, which was also the play-room. And the result, but for thoughtful Merryl, would have been "confusion worse confounded." Mr. Royston was wont to declare that when his second daughter passed through a room, she left such traces as are commonly left by a tropical cyclone. There was some truth in the remark, if Magda happened to be in a tumultuous mood.
Penrose had her faults, as well as Magda, though somehow she was seldom blamed for them. She had a knack of being always in the right, at least to outward appearance. No doubt her faults were exaggerated by Magda; but they did exist. She wanted the best of everything for herself; she alone must be popular; she could not endure that Magda should do anything better than she did; she was not always strictly true. Magda saw and felt these defects; but nobody else seemed to be aware of them; and she could prove nothing. If she tried, she only managed to get into hot water, while Pen was sure to come off with flying colours.
"And it will be just the same with Patricia Vincent," was the outcome of this soliloquy. "The moment Pen guesses that I like her, she'll step in and oust me. I know she will."
[CHAPTER III]
ROBERT
WITH a creak, the door was cautiously opened. Somebody put in his head.
"All alone, Magda!"
Depression vanished, and the transformation in Magda's face was like an instantaneous leap from November to June. In a moment her eyes were alight, her limbs alert.
"Rob!" she cried.
"Well, old girl! How are you?"
"You dear old fellow—I am glad."
The new-comer was about her own height, which though fairly tall for a girl could not be so counted for a man. He was slim in make, like Pen; also, like Pen, scrupulously neat in dress. Her eager welcome met with a quiet kiss; after which he seated himself; and his eyes travelled over her, with a rather dubious expression.
"It's awfully jolly to have you here again. You never told us you were coming."
"I happened not to know it myself till this morning. What have you been after?"
"Just now? Playing in the snow."
Rob's gaze reached her shoes, and she laughed.
"Yes, I know! Of course, I ought to have changed them. But it didn't seem worth while. I shall have to dress for dinner soon."
"And, meantime, you are anxious to start early rheumatism!"
"My dear Rob! I never had a twinge of it in my life—I don't know what it means."
"So much the better. It would be more sensible to continue in ignorance."
"Oh, all right. I'll be sensible, and change—presently. I really can't just now. I must have you while I can. When the others know you are here, I shall not have a chance. Are you going to stay?"
"One night. I must be off the first thing to-morrow morning."
"And I've oceans to say! Things that can't by any possibility be written."
"Fire away then. There's no time like the present."
"We shall be interrupted in two minutes. It's always the way! Why do things always go contrary, I wonder? At least, they do with me. If I could only come and live with you, Rob!—now!"
"That is to be your future life—is it?"
"Why, you know! Haven't we always said so? And whenever I am miserable, I always comfort myself by looking forward to a home with you."
"What are you miserable about?"
"All sorts of things. Some days everything goes wrong and I can't get on with people. It's not my fault. They don't understand me."
"I wonder whether you understand them?" murmured Rob.
"And there's nothing in life that's worth doing. Nothing in my life, I mean."
"Or rather—you have not found it yet."
"No, I don't mean that. I mean that there isn't anything. Really and truly!"
Rob said only, "H'm!"
"Yes, I dare say! But just think what I have to do. Tennis and hockey; cycling and walking; mending my clothes and making blouses—not that I'm much good at that! Going to tea with people I don't care a fig for; and having people here that I shouldn't mind never setting eyes on again! Smothering down all I think and feel, because nobody cares. Worrying and being worried, and all to no good. Nothing to show for the half-year that is gone, and nothing to look to in the year that's begun. The months are just simply frittered away, and no human being is the better for my being alive. It's not what I call Life. It is just getting through time. Don't you see? It suits Pen well enough. So long as she gets a decent amount of attention, she's happy. But I'm not made that way; and I can't see what life is given us for, if it means nothing better."
When she stopped, pleased with her own eloquence, Rob merely remarked—
"Don't you think that bit of hard judgment might have been left out? It wasn't a needful peroration."
Magda blushed; and Robert pondered.
"But, Rob—would you like to live such a life?"
Rob's gesture was sufficient answer.
"And yet you think I oughtn't to mind?"
"I beg your pardon. You are wrong to live it."
"But what can I do?"
"Find work. Take care that somebody is the better for your existence."
"I've tried. I can't. It's no good."
"There are always people to be helped—people you can be kind to—people you can cheer up, when they feel dull."
"Pick up old ladies' stitches, I suppose. Interesting!"
"I did not know you wished to be interested. I thought you wanted to be of use."
"Well—of course! But that's so commonplace. I want to do something out of the ordinary beat."
"You want some agreeable duty, manufactured to suit your especial taste!"
"Oh, bother! Somebody is coming. What a plague! And I have heaps more to say. Won't you give me another talk?"
"I'll manage it."
He stood up to greet his mother, as she came in, followed by the two younger girls. The news of his unexpected arrival seemed all at once to pervade the household.
Penrose entered next; and behind her Mr. Royston, a thick-set grey-haired man, of impulsive manners, sometimes more kindly than judicious.
He was devoted to his family; not much given to books; ready to help anybody and everybody who might appeal to him; generally more or less in financial difficulties, partly from his inherited tendency to allow pounds and pence to slide too rapidly through his fingers. A pleasant and genial man, so long as he did not encounter opposition; but it was out of his power to understand why all the world should not agree with himself. His wife gave in to him ninety-nine times in a hundred; and if, the hundredth time, she set her foot down firmly, he gave in to her; for he was a most affectionate husband.
As for his daughters, he doted on them. Steady Penrose, useful Merryl, picturesque little Frip, were everything that he desired. Magda alone puzzled him. He could not make out what she wanted, or why she would not be content to fit in with others, to play games, to sit and work, to do anything or nothing with equal content. Dreams and aspirations, indeed! Nonsense! Humbug! What did girls want with such notions? They had to be good girls, to do as they were told, and to make themselves agreeable. A vexed face annoyed him beyond expression. He could not get over it. He could never ignore it. By his want of tact, though with the kindest intentions, he often managed to put a finishing stroke to Magda's uncomfortable moods.
"Why can't father leave me alone?" she sometimes complained.
Mr. Royston never did leave anybody alone, whether for weal or for woe. Nor did he ever learn wisdom through his own mistakes.
This afternoon, happily, there were no dismal faces. With Rob to the fore, even though he had not fallen in with her views, Magda was in the best of spirits.
She took pains with her toilette that evening—which she was not always at the trouble to do. Sometimes it did not seem "worth while." Yet she well repaid care in that direction. Though not strictly good-looking, she had a nice figure, and knew how to carry herself; and the mass of reddish-gold hair came out well, if properly dressed; and when she smiled and was pleased, her face would hardly have been recognised by one who had seen her only in one of her "November fogs." Rob looked her over, and signified approval by a quiet—"That's right." She expected no more. He never wasted unnecessary words.
Further confidential talk that day proved out of the question, for Rob was very much in request. But Magda waited patiently; for he had promised, and he always kept his promises. Bedtime arrived; and still she felt sure.
"I'm off early," he said, and he looked at her. "Seven-thirty train. Will you be down at seven, and walk to the station with me?"
"This weather!" demurred Mrs. Royston.
"It won't hurt her, mother. She's strong."
"I'm as strong as a horse. Of course it wont hurt me."
"Mayn't we come too?" begged Merryl.
"Only Magda." Rob's tone was final.
"She will never be down in time. Magda is always late," put in Penrose.
Magda's eyes flamed, but she had no need to speak.
"I don't think she will fail me," Rob said tranquilly.
[CHAPTER IV]
THE INEFFABLE PATRICIA
"THAT'S right," Robert remarked, finding Magda already in the breakfast-room, before a blazing fire. She had on a little round cap and motor-veil, and a heavy ulster lay at hand. "Awful morning. You'll have to let me go alone."
"No, indeed! You said I might."
"Well!" Rob shook his head dubiously. "Got thick boots on? We must hurry. I'm late, though you are not."
Breakfast claimed immediate attention, for only ten minutes remained. On leaving the front door, they found themselves in a smothering hail of small hard snow-pellets, driven by an icy gale, dead ahead. It took all their breath to bore through that opposing blast; and conversation by the way was a thing impossible. One or two gasping remarks were all that could be exchanged.
Umbrellas were out of the question; nor could they get along at the speed they wished. When two white-clad figures at length stumbled upon the platform, Rob's train, though not yet signalled, was three minutes over due.
"I might have missed it!" he said, trying to stamp himself free from a superabundant covering. They took refuge in a sheltered corner beside the closed bookstall, where the wind no longer reached them. "My plan has been a failure. I'm sorry. We must have our talk out next time I come."
"When will you?"
"Ah—that's the question."
Magda spoke abruptly. "Somebody said not long ago that my dream of living with you would never come true, because you were sure to marry."
Robert laughed. "I can't afford it. And my work leaves no leisure. And—I've never seen the girl. Three cogent reasons. So you may pretty well count upon me. I'm a non-marrying man."
Magda's sigh was one of relief. "I'm glad. I don't think I could endure all the home-worries, if I had not that to look forward to. I only wish I could come to you now!"
"Nobody is the worse for waiting. Don't let your life be empty meantime—that's all."
"I've been thinking since yesterday—but really and truly, I can't see what to take up. Father would never let me be trained as a nurse. And I do hate sick-rooms and sick people. And commonplace nursing is such awful drudgery."
"The cure for that is to put one's heart into it. No work is drudgery, if one loves it."
"I should love nursing soldiers in war-time. Or people in some great plague outbreak."
"If you were not trained beforehand, I rather pity the victims of war and plague."
"Of course I should have to learn. But, Rob—you needn't think I mind all drudgery. If I could see any use in hard work, I would work like a horse. But where's the good? Music and French and German are of no earthly use to any one except myself."
"You don't know how soon they may be of use. There are some nice girls who come every week to sing to our hospital patients. Suppose they had never learnt to sing! The other day I came across a poor German sailor, unable to speak a word of English. I would have given much for somebody good at German."
"But to work for years beforehand—just for the chance of things being needed—it seems so vague!"
"That's no matter. Make yourself ready, and there is small fear but that a use will some time be found for you. It is like preparing for an exam—not knowing what questions may be asked, and so having to study a variety of books."
Magda liked the idea, yet persisted—"I don't see, all the same, what I've got to do."
"You have to train yourself—your powers—your whole being—your character—your habits of body and mind. Don't you see? You have to get the upper hand over yourself—not to be a victim to moods—to be ready for whatever by-and-by you may be called to do."
"It isn't so easy!" she said resentfully.
"It's not easy at all. We are not put here to lounge in armchairs and to feel comfortable."
"I sometimes wonder what we are put here for."
"That is easily answered. To do the Will of God, whatever that Will may be. And one part of His loving Will for His children is that they must work—and fight—and conquer."
"If only everything wasn't so abominably humdrum! If there were any sort of a chance of doing anything worth doing!"
"There are hundreds of chances, Magda. They lie all round, in every direction. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, when lives are wasted, it is not the opportunity that is wanting, but the will."
"I'm sure I've got the will—if I could see what to do."
As she spoke the train came in. Rob opened a door, put in his bag, and turned for a last word.
"You harp on doing great things," he said. "But the very essence of greatness lies in simple duty and self-sacrifice. It is no question of what you like or don't like, but simply of what God has given you to do. Nothing short of the highest service is worth anything. Don't expect to find things easy. They are not meant to be easy. But we are meant to conquer; and in Christ our Lord, victory is certain. Life is a tremendous gift. See that you use it!"
The train had begun to move. He stepped in and was borne away, waving farewell. She stood motionless, forgetful of the piercing cold. "See that you use it!" rang still in her ears.
But how? Go home to chit-chat, to worries and vexations, to tiresome misunderstandings, to objectless study—which he said ought not to be objectless! Was that using the "tremendous gift" of life?
She was vexed with him for not taking her view of matters, and she was vexed with herself for being vexed; but also she was impressed by what he had said.
"How do you do? So glad to see you!" a pretty voice said. And she turned to meet no less a person than Patricia Vincent, in a fur-lined coat of dark silk, the grey "fox" of its high collar framing her delicate face, with its ivory and rose tinting, its smiling eyes, its fair hair clustering below a dainty fur cap. She might have come out of some old Gainsborough portrait.
"How do you do?" Magda rather shyly responded. Patricia alone had power to make her shy. She felt herself so inferior a creation in that fascinating presence.
"Cold—isn't it? I have been seeing off an old school friend; and she has to go all the way to Scotland. I don't envy her, in such weather. Why did you not come back yesterday? I wanted to see you again."
"I was in such a mess. I couldn't!"
"You had a lovely time in the snow, I dare say. I should have liked it too—only not in my quite new gloves!" The tactful little hint at an apology was perfect. "Is that your brother who is just gone?"
"Yes—Robert."
"I've not seen him before. Somebody was speaking about him yesterday."
"I'm desperately fond of Rob."
Patricia smiled her sympathy. "I'm sure you must be. I could not help noticing you two, though you were much too busy to see me. He looks like—somebody out of the common—if you don't mind my saying so."
"But he is just that. Rob never was the least scrap commonplace. I'm awfully proud of him. And they do like him so much in his parish—everybody does. Have you any brothers or sisters?"
"None at all. And I was left an orphan long ago. So you see I stand alone. Did you know that I had come to stay at Claughton—perhaps for months?"
"No. Oh, I'm glad! Then—I shall see you again!"
The glow of delight was not to be mistaken. Patricia at once recognised a new admirer. She was well used to adulation, and she had plenty, yet never too much, for she could not exist without it; and the earliest token of a fresh worshipper was always hailed with encouragement. Instinctively, she gazed into her companion's eyes, and her soft little hand squeezed Magda's.
"We shall meet very often, I hope. Why not? I think you and I will have to be friends."
"Oh!" Magda cried, breathless. "Oh, I've wanted it so much! I can't tell you how much! Ever since the very first time I saw you, I've longed to have you for a friend. There is nobody else here that I care for—in that way."
"And I have no friends here either. I shall miss all my London friends. But I am quite sure you and I will suit. I always know from the first."
"Oh, and so do I! But you couldn't have thought—yesterday—"
"Yes, I liked you yesterday. I wanted to see you again."
Magda devoured her in response with eager eyes; and Patricia smiled, well-pleased.
"I wonder whether you could come to tea with me to-morrow at four o'clock. My aunt will be out, and we could have a good chat. Can you manage the distance?"
"Oh, quite well. That's nothing. Only five miles. If I can't bicycle, I'll do it by train. There's one that reaches Claughton at ten minutes to four. I shall love to come. How good of you!"
"That will be charming. Now how are you going to get home? Walking! How plucky you are! I wish I could give you a lift, but I have to hurry back; and it is just the other way. So good-bye till to-morrow, Magda. Of course, if it is a 'blizzard,' I shall not expect you."
Magda privately resolved that, blizzard or no blizzard, she would not be deterred. She watched the brougham out of sight, then hurried home with the wind in her back, helping now instead of hindering. She trod upon air, so great was her exultation.
That Patricia should want her for a friend! Patricia, of all people! It was sublime! The impression made by Rob's words sank for a time into the background of her mind. She could think of nothing but this new delight.
After all—life was worth living—with such a prospect!
[CHAPTER V]
UNWELCOME NEWS
MAGDA, having removed her snowy garments, found the family round the breakfast-table; and she did not disdain a second course of tea and toast after her early outing.
She certainly looked no worse for the walk. Her face glowed with delight.
"Letters—letters!" quoth Merryl, next in age to Magda, and a complete child still, despite her fifteen years—plump and rosy, unformed in feature, but with a look of beaming good-nature and pure happiness, which must have transformed the plainest face into pleasantness. She was busily engaged in buttering her father's toast. From early infancy she had been his especial pet; and her seat was always by his side. Mr. Royston without Merryl was like a ship without its rudder—a helpless object.
"Lots of letters for everybody except Magda," piped Francie's small treble.
"So much the better for me! I haven't the bother of answering them," Magda said joyously.
"Seem to have liked your walk," Mr. Royston remarked in puzzled accents. For Magda, after parting with Rob, was usually what he described as "in the dumps" for hours.
"I just love a fight with the snow. And I've seen Patricia Vincent. She was at the station too. And she has asked me to tea to-morrow."
There was a note of triumph in the tone, for Magda was aware that Pen had been counting on some such invitation for herself.
"How did you manage to bring that about?" asked Pen, obviously not pleased.
"I didn't manage at all. She simply asked me."
"You must have said something. It is not the Claughton Manor way to invite people informally."
"I suppose it's her way. Now she has come to live there—"
"She has not."
"Well, anyhow, to stay for a long while—"
Penrose demurred again, and Mrs. Royston put in a word.
"Yes, dear. Mrs. Framley told me, and I forgot to mention it. Miss Vincent has lived for years with some London cousins; but the eldest daughter was lately married; and things now are not so comfortable. I fancy she and the second daughter do not much care for one another. And Mr. and Mrs. Framley have proposed that she should make the Manor her headquarters. The plan is to be tried."
"She has plenty of money. Why doesn't she live in a house of her own?"
"Too young, Pen. She is only twenty-two."
"She is the very sweetest—" began Magda rapturously, and checked herself at the sound of Pen's little laugh. Magda crimsoned.
"Heigh-ho! What's wrong now?" Mr. Royston stopped in the act of turning his newspaper inside-out, and fixed inquiring eyes upon his second daughter.
"Pen is so disagreeable."
"Come, come! You needn't complain of other people. Pen is a good girl—always was! I wish other girls were as good."
Pen wore an air of pretty and appropriate meekness.
"I know! I'm always the one in the wrong."
"Then, if I were you, I wouldn't be—that's all. I would take care to be in the right."
Mrs. Royston wisely rose, and a general move followed. Magda fled upstairs, only to find her room in process of being "done;" so she caught up a rough-coat and a tam-o'-shanter, and escaped into the garden. Already the snow had ceased to fall, and the sky was clearing.
To and fro on a white carpet in the kitchen garden she paced, pitying herself at first for home grievances, but turning soon to the thought of Patricia, going over the past interview, seeing again the dainty flower-like face, hearing afresh the pretty voice, picturing the joys of coming intimacy.
Now at last she would have a real friend, the sort of friend she had always wanted, a satisfying friend, one who would meet her needs, one who would understand her feelings, one who would enter into her dreams and aspirations, one to whom she could look up with unbounded admiration—different altogether from good little Beatrice Major, who was well enough in her way, but totally unlike this!
That word—"aspirations"—pulled up the recollection of Rob and of all that he had said. She was to begin at once to make ready for her future life with him.
Yes, of course; and she meant to do it. She was not going to "drift" any longer. She would hunt out her neglected plan of study, and would start with it afresh. That was all right. If once she really made up her mind, of course she would do it. She was not one of those weak creatures who could not carry out a resolution.
Only—not this morning. There was so much to think about!—and Pen was so annoying!—and she felt so unsettled! To seat herself down to a French translation or a German exercise in her present condition was impossible.
"You've got to get the upper hand over yourself. Not to be a victim to moods!" So Rob had said.
Oh, bother! what did Rob know about moods? He never had any. He was always the same—always calm and composed and steady; the dearest old fellow, but without a notion of what it meant to be made up of all sorts of opposite characteristics, and never in the same state for two consecutive quarters of an hour. People could not help being what they were made! She meant to get the upper hand of herself—in time. But it was absurd to expect impossibilities.
So the hours drifted by; and another day was added to the waste pile.
After the next night came a rapid thaw. The world around streamed with water, while a wet fog hung overhead. It made no difference to Magda. Go she would, no matter what the elements might say.
Mrs. Royston tried remonstrance, but Magda's agony at the notion of giving up was too patent, and she desisted. Bicycling was out of the question; so the train had to be resorted to and twenty minutes' walk through the soaking grounds brought her to the Manor with boots clogged in mud.
What did that matter? After an abnormal amount of boot-rubbing, she was shown upstairs into Patricia's special sanctum, a "study in blue," as she was presently informed, carpet, curtains, cretonne covers, all partaking of the same hue. Patricia, also in blue, welcomed her sweetly, exclaimed at her condition, set her down before the fire to dry, gave her tea, and gradually unlocked a tongue, which at first seemed tied.
However, once it was untied, the young hostess had no further trouble. Magda could talk; none faster! She poured out the contents of her mind for Patricia's inspection; and Patricia listened, with always those sweetly smiling eyes, and little pearly teeth just showing themselves. Once or twice a close observer might have detected a puzzled look at some of Magda's flights; but she was invariably sympathetic—or she seemed so, which did as well under the circumstances.
Magda was used to sympathy from Bee, though hardly of the same kind. Bee would sometimes differ from Magda; never otherwise than gently, yet with decision. Patricia disagreed with nothing. She had that captivating habit, possessed by some agreeable people, of managing always to say exactly what her listener would have wished to hear. Though not by birth Irish, she really might have been so; for this is one of the Green Isle's characteristics.
So, whatever Magda chose to utter, she found herself in the right; and if aught had been needed to complete the enchaining process, this was sufficient. When she went home that afternoon, she was wildly happy. In Patricia she had found an ideal friend; the dearest, the sweetest, the loveliest, ever seen. She had now all she wanted!
The fascination grew. Magda never did anything by halves; and during the next few weeks she had eyes, ears, thoughts, for Patricia only. When they parted, she could not be content unless the time and place of their next meeting were named. If she could not see her idol for two or three days, she sent rapturous notes by post. Every spare shilling of her pocket-money went in gifts for Patricia. Half her time was spent upon the road between Burwood and Claughton.
"It is getting to be a perfect craze," Mrs. Royston one day remarked to Penrose. "I really don't know what to do. The Framleys will be bored to death, if it goes on."
"Patricia herself is having rather too much of it, I suspect. I noticed her face yesterday afternoon when Magda was hanging round and would not leave her for a moment. Naturally she wanted to be free for other people."
"I thought she was affectionate to Magda. Still, the thing may go too far. Magda has no balance. Some day I shall have to give her a word of warning."
"I would, mother!"
But Mrs. Royston delayed. Magda seemed aboundingly happy; and she rather shrank from putting a spoke in the wheel. Matters might right themselves.
One morning, after an especially rapturous afternoon of intercourse with Patricia, Magda found on the breakfast-table a letter from Bee. She had not given much thought to Bee lately—had not written to her for weeks. She felt a little ashamed, and began to read under a sense of compunction.
Then a startled—"Oh!"—all but escaped her.
"Anything wrong?" asked Pen.
"Why should anything be wrong?"
"You looked the reverse of pleased."
Magda retreated into herself, and refused to discuss the question. Breakfast ended, she escaped to her favourite quarter, the kitchen garden, now a blaze of spring sunshine, and there she went through the letter a second time.
"Bother! I hoped that was all given up!" she sighed.
"Think, how lovely!" wrote Bee in her pretty ladylike hand. "We really are coming to Burwood. Do you remember my telling you that it was spoken about? My mother heard of a little house which she went to see; and she liked it so much that she made up her mind quickly. She did not tell me this till I got home; and there were one or two hitches, so I would not say any more to you till everything was arranged."
"Now papers are all signed, and the house will be ours in the end of June. It has to be painted and papered, and I suppose we shall not get in before August. It is near the Post Office in High Street—standing back in a little garden—and it is all grown over with Virginia creeper—so pretty, mother says. It is called 'Virginia Villa.'"
"I cannot hope that you will be as glad as I am; still I do feel sure that it will be a pleasure to my darling Magda to have her 'little Bee' within such easy reach. Only think of it! I often sit and dream of what it will be to have you always in and out—every day, I hope, and as often in the day as you can manage it. You will know that you cannot come too often."
"I'm hoping for a most lovely treat this summer. Isn't it sweet of Amy? She has been saving and laying by money all the last year, and now she is bent on taking me to Switzerland for three weeks in July. I can hardly believe it to be true. I've always had such a longing for Swiss mountains!"
"To-morrow I am going into the country for three weeks with Aunt Belle and Aunt Emma—mother's sisters, you know. If you should write to me then, please address—'Wratt-Wrothesley, —shire.' I am longing to hear from you again."
Magda was half touched, half aggrieved. She hardly knew how to take it. She and Beatrice had been friends through two long years of school-life; and though she might make little of the tie to Miss Mordaunt, it had been a close one. Bee had loved her devotedly; and she had been really fond of Bee. Yet, somehow, she did not take to the idea of having Bee permanently in Burwood, for reasons earlier explained.
Things looked even worse to her now than when she was at school. Her mother and Pen were so awfully critical and particular. She minded Pen's little laugh of disdain almost more than she minded anything. It would be horrid if that laugh were called forth by a friend of hers.
And then the small creeper-grown house in High Street, where till now a successful dressmaker had lived—it really was too dreadful! To think of her especial friend living there—in Virginia Villa! She was certain that nothing would ever induce her mother to leave a card at that door. And if not—if Mrs. Royston declined to call—it would be quite as objectionable. To have a friend in a different stratum, so to speak, just allowed in their house on occasions, just tolerated perhaps, but looked upon as belonging to a lower level—how unbearable! And Bee's relatives might be—well, anything! They might tread upon the sensitive toes of her people at every turn. If only Bee had never thought of the plan!
Worse still—much worse!—there was this delightful new friendship with Patricia Vincent. Most certainly neither Patricia nor her aunt, Mrs. Framley, would deign to look at any human being who should live in Virginia Villa. To them it would be an impossible locality. For a dressmaker, well enough—and nothing would exceed their gracious kindness to the said dressmaker. But—for a friend! Magda went hot and cold by turns. She had not haunted Patricia for weeks, without becoming pretty well acquainted with the Framley scales of measurement.
When the Majors should have settled in, she would have to keep her two friends absolutely apart—to segregate them in water-tight compartments, so to speak. But would this be possible? Suppose, some day, they should come together! Suppose that Patricia should find her chosen friend's other friend to be a mere nobody, living in that wretched little house! Why, it might squash altogether this new glorious friendship of hers!
And the more she considered, the more certain she felt that the two must sooner or later meet. Burwood was not a large town. Everybody there knew all about everybody else. To be sure, the Framleys lived apart, and held themselves very much aloof from the townsfolk generally. Still, accidental encounters do take place, even under such conditions, just when least desired.
And Bee was so simple; she would never understand. Nobody could call so gentle a creature "pushing;" but on the other hand it would never occur to her mind that anybody could object to know her, merely because she lived in an insignificant house. She had a pretty natural way of always expecting to find herself welcome. Magda had heard that way admired; but she felt at this moment that she could have dispensed with it.
She would have to make Bee understand—somehow. She would have to explain that not all her friends and acquaintances would be likely to call—in fact, that probably very few would. It would be very difficult and horrid; but since the Majors chose to come, they must take the consequences.
Always in and out! That was very fine; but neither her mother nor Pen would stand such a state of things—considering the position of Virginia Villa. Magda had a good deal of liberty, within limits; but those limits were clearly defined.
In this direction she did not want more liberty. She could not be perpetually going after Bee. Her time was already full—of Patricia.
True, Bee was the old friend, Patricia was the new. But she had always felt that Bee could not fully meet her needs, and Patricia could—which made all the difference. Patricia was more to her—oh, miles more!—than poor little Bee.
As she felt her way through this maze of difficulties, a thought suggested itself. Why need she say anything at present about the coming of the Majors to Burwood?
Nobody in the place knew them. It was nobody's business except her own. There was plenty of time. They would not arrive for weeks and weeks. And each week was of importance to her for the further cementing of her new friendship. She could at least—wait.
By-and-by, of course, it must be told; and her mother must be asked to call; and Pen's little laugh of disdain must be endured. But there was no hurry. For a while longer she might allow herself to revel in the Patricia sunshine, without fear of a rising cloud.
[CHAPTER VI]
SWISS ENCOUNTERS
TWO girls sat in a tiny verandah, outside the third storey of a Swiss hotel, facing a horseshoe group of dazzling peaks. Or rather, one of the two faced it, while the other faced her.
She who gazed upon the mountains, a slender maiden, pale, with brown eyes and wavy hair and rather heavy dark brows, did nothing else. It was enough to be there, enough to look, enough to study and absorb Nature's glories.
But the second—a girl only by courtesy, being many years the older—a short plump vigorous person, snub-nosed, with insignificant light eyes and tow-coloured hair—seemed to find an occasional glance at lofty peaks sufficient. For each glance sent in that direction, half-a-dozen glances went towards her companion; and in addition, she busily darned a dilapidated stocking.
Despite the difference in age, a difference amounting to over twelve years, those two were intimate friends. Yet it was a friendship of sorts; not alike on both sides. The younger girl's love for her senior was gentle and sincere. The elder's love for her junior amounted to an absorbing passion. Amy Smith would have done anything, given anything, endured anything, for the sake of Beatrice Major.
"Amy—if you could only know what a delight this trip has been to me!—has been and is!"
"My dear, one couldn't watch your face and not know."
"But to think that it is all you!—that you have saved and scraped and denied yourself—and just for my sake! And I never dreaming all those months, when you said you could not afford this and that and the other—never dreaming what you had in your mind!"
"It has been one long joy to me. You wouldn't wish to deprive me of it."
"But that you should have given up so much—for me!"
"Nobody minds giving up a shilling for the sake of a guinea."
"If I could feel that I deserved it—but I don't."
"I know, my dear!"
"You don't—and I can't make you."
She looked up to meet the steadfast gaze; a gaze which she understood. It meant that if Amy had her, there was no need for aught beside. And she could not return this devotion in kind or in degree. She did want something else.
"C'est toujours l'un qui aime, et l'autre qui se laisse aimé." Was it always so? Not altogether; for she did love dear kind Amy, truly and faithfully. But with the same love!—ah, no. And this seemed cruel for Amy.
"How I shall miss you in Burwood!" she said, with an earnest wish to give pleasure. And, indeed, it was true! She could not but miss the constant outpouring of affection which she had had from childhood, even though at times she might have felt its expression a trifle burdensome. But she would not miss as she would be missed.
"Will you—really?" Amy was generally blunt in speech and manner; yet she could be wistful. The plump plain face softened; the little snub nose flushed with the flushing of her freckled brow and tanned cheeks; and the pale grey eyes grew moist. "Bee—will you want me?"
"Of course I shall, at every turn. Think how long I have had you always."
"You will have Magda Royston now."
"Yes." Bee forgot to say more. She looked away at the lofty peaks opposite, where a ruby gleam lay athwart the snows. Yes, she would have Magda. She remembered in a flash her letter to Magda, telling her so eagerly of the settled plans; and her own hurt feeling at receiving no response.
In a month the response came; but before the close of that month another personality had entered her life. The three weeks at "Aunt Belle's" meant much to her. She had been in close touch with one whom she could never forget, who could never in the future be to her as a stranger. An impress had been made upon her life, transforming her at one touch into a woman. And if her love for Amy had paled a little before her warmer love for Magda, as starlight pales before moonlight, her love for Magda paled before this fresh experience, as moonlight pales before sunlight. Not that in either case her affection actually waned or altered, but that the lesser light became of necessity dim by comparison with the greater.
Nobody knew or suspected what had happened. Her gentle self-control prevented any betrayal of feeling on her part. The two had indeed been a great deal together, during those three weeks, but intercourse came about so simply and naturally, that she never could decide how far it was purely accidental, how far as a result of effort on his part. He seemed to enjoy being with her; and they seemed to suit; but whether he would remember her, whether he had any strong desire to meet her again, were questions which she had no power to decide. Their paths might lie permanently apart.
When the expected letter at last came from Magda, though she was a little grieved at the manifest lack of real delight in the prospect of having her at Burwood, it could not mean the same that it would have meant before that visit. For one who has been in strong sunshine, the brightest moonlight must seem pale.
"Bee, what are you cogitating about? I don't understand your face."
Bee smiled. "I was thinking over—varieties. These mountains make one think. Yes, I shall have Magda. But one friend does not fill another's place. You will always be you to me."
"And she will be she, I suppose."
"Yes; but she can never be you. Don't you see?"
Amy sighed profoundly. "All I know is that London will be a desert without you. And I'm torn in half—do you know that sensation?—between two longings. I long for you to be happy in Burwood; and if you weren't happy, I should be miserable. And yet I long for you to miss me so desperately that you can't be happy without me. There!—it's out! Horrid and mean of me! But it's true."
"Amy, you never could be mean. You are only too good—too unselfish."
"It's all selfishness. You don't understand. I love doing anything in the world for you, purely as a matter of self-gratification. Real unselfishness would only want you to be perfectly happy—apart from myself. And what I do want is that I should make you happy. Which means that, if I can't, I'd rather nobody else should. Isn't it disgusting?"
"But you have made me happy. I can't tell you half or a quarter of the joy this trip has been to me. I have so longed all my life to see Swiss mountains. And you have given me the joy! I do believe there is going to be an afterglow, and we shall miss it! Just time for table d'hôte."
Once before the glow had occurred when they were all engaged in what Amy disdainfully described as "gormandizing."
"We've got to be in bed early to-night, mind, Bee. I want you to get well rested for to-morrow's exertions. Sure you are fit for it?"
"I never was more fit in my life. It will be splendid."
"And to-morrow night we sleep at the Hut."
"Delightful! Such an experience! I don't believe I shall sleep a wink to-night, thinking about all we are going to see."
"You must, or you won't be up to the walking."
After two weeks of lesser practice, and divers small climbs, they were going on a real expedition—their first ascent, worthy of the name—under charge of Peter Steimathen, than whom they could have found no more dependable guide, and his son, Abraham. Both girls were of slight physique; both were by nature sure of foot; and both dearly loved climbing. Since both were Londoners, their opportunities hitherto had not been great in that line; but they had taken to it like ducklings to water. Peter Steimathen, after some consultation, pronounced that they might safely, under his guidance, make the attempt.
At table d'hôte Beatrice found a stranger by her side; a reticent young English clergyman, slim in make, with quiet observant eyes. She had never met him before; yet something once and again in his look seemed familiar, and she vainly tried to "locate" the resemblance. He and she fell easily into talk—strictly on the surface of things.
"Yes, we are going for a climb to-morrow," she said soon. "Nothing big, of course. We are only beginners. It is called the Rothstock—a lesser peak of the Blümlisalp group."
"You will want a guide for that, if you are beginners."
"We would not venture without Peter Steimathen."
"I know him. You couldn't do better."
"Are you going up somewhere too?"
"The Blümlisalphorn."
"Not alone! You have a guide."
"No, I have a friend. Not here—he has a room in a châlet close by. We are both well used to the mountains. No need for a guide."
"People say that is not safe."
"Depends!" And he smiled. "We've done a good deal together that way."
"Without guides?"
"Without guides."
"I hope you won't come to grief some day."
"I hope not!"
"You think it is wise?" dubiously.
"Extremely wise. But you must be careful—excuse me! There are traps for beginners that don't affect old hands."
"Peter Steimathen!" she suggested.
"He is excellent. But you must do as he tells you."
"Oh, I've learnt to obey," laughed Bee.
Then she saw that his attention was distracted; and her own became distracted also. Two new arrivals had just come in; a middle-aged lady, stout and handsomely dressed; and a girl, young, and quite lovely. She had one of those picture-faces which are seen two or three times in a half-century. Not Bee's gaze alone suffered distraction. The whole room gazed; and the object of all this attention received it calmly, without a change of colour or the flicker of an eyelid.
"She's used to it," Bee remarked to herself.
But it was impossible not to go on gazing. The face was one that nobody could glance at once and not glance again. Soft curly fair hair clustered about a fair brow; and the delicately tinted complexion made one think of snowflakes and rose-buds, or of early dawn in June. A slender figure, full of grace, shell-white arms and hands, features pretty enough not to detract from the exquisite colouring, helped to make up the tout-ensemble; and the forget-me-not blue eyes smiled graciously at the elder lady, at the waiters, at the table-cloth, at anything and everything that they happened to encounter.
Beatrice cast an involuntary side-glance towards her neighbour. He too was gazing; and in the quiet eyes she detected a subdued intensity, of which she would not have thought them capable.
"Isn't she sweet?" breathed Bee.
The remark was not even heard, and no reply came. Their broken talk was not renewed; and he disposed of eatables with the air of one who hardly knew what was before him. Dinner ended, the vision disappeared, and so did Bee's neighbour; but an hour later she was amused to see him at the further end of the saloon, in close talk with the pretty new arrival.
Meeting him still later in a passage, she paused and made some slight reference to the girl.
"I wonder who she is," Bee said.
"A friend of my sister's," he replied. "Singular, our meeting here. I have heard of her before."
Bee noted again a suppressed gleam in his eyes.
[CHAPTER VII]
A MOUNTAIN HUT BY NIGHT
THE Frauenbahn Hut, at last!
For eight hours and a half, including rests, they had been en route, with their guide and porter, making the steep ascent from Kandersteg, winding through pine-woods, pausing at the rough Oeschinen Hotel, skirting the deep-grey waters of the lake from which it took its name—then mounting again to the "Upper Alp," only to leave that also behind, as they yet more steeply zig-zagged onward over rough shale, with the glacier to their right and the Hut for their aim.
An experienced mountaineer would have covered in six hours the distance they had come; but, naturally, it took them a good deal longer, which meant arriving late.
Both were very tired and very happy, and in a state of mental exhilaration, which, despite fatigue, gave small promise of getting quickly to sleep amid such unwonted surroundings. Thus far, though the way had been steep, they had had a rugged path. On the morrow they would quit beaten tracks, and would do a "bit of the real thing," as Amy expressed it.
The guide, Peter Steimathen, had proved himself a pleasant companion all that day. Fortunately, since neither of the two was a practised German speaker, he had some command of English.
A rough little place was this Frauenbahn Hut, though better than most mountain refuges, for, in addition to the room on the ground-floor, it boasted a loft above, both being on occasions crammed with climbers. Nearly half the lower room consisted of a shelf, some three feet from the floor, covered with a bedding of straw; and on this the girls would spend their night, rolled up in rugs, provided for sleepers. High above their heads the guides would repose on another shelf, to reach which some agility was needed.
Beatrice and Amy counted themselves fortunate in finding the Hut empty. Apparently they would have the place to themselves. They looked round with interest at the wooden walls, the small window, and the stove at which the guide was preparing to boil water for their soup.
"But come—come outside," urged Amy. "Don't let us miss the sunset. It won't wait our pleasure. We can examine things inside by-and-by. Come!"
And they went, commandeering hut rugs for wraps, since it was "a nipping and an eager air" here, nine thousand feet above the sea-level.
"To think of it! Up in the very midst of the mountain amphitheatre!" murmured Amy.
When seated side by side on the bench, silence fell. They had chatted much in the early stage of their ascent; or rather, Amy had chatted and Bee had listened, which was a not unusual division of labour between them. Bee was a good listener. But more than once Amy had detected a wandering of attention, which was not common. At least, it had not been common till lately.
"Dreaming, Bee?" she had asked; and Bee blushed. Amy noted the blush, putting that down also as something new.
But Amy too for once became dumb, as they gazed from their Alpine Hut over the wide snowy expanse. It was hardly a scene to induce light chatter.
The track by which they had mounted from the Oeschinensee was already lost in darkness. But in front stood forth the roseate peaks of the Blümlisalp; notably the Weisse Frau, square-shouldered, and clothed in a mantle of ineffably delicate pink; and beyond her, almost bending over her like a devoted bridegroom, stood the yet loftier Blümlisalphorn, scarcely less pure, though broken by lines and ridges of rock which lay at too sharp an angle to retain snow. Nearer was the bare and rocky Blümlisalp-stock, cold and grim in the twilight, rising abruptly from the névé of the glacier.
Long lingered the mysterious radiance of the afterglow on the spurs and slopes of those great Gothic peaks, until the last filmy veil, sea-green in hue, faded before the onslaught of night. Then attendant stars began to twinkle in the vault over the Blümlisalphorn, forming a little crown above his head.
The two girls held their breath, clasping hands under the rugs.
"It's too lovely," murmured Amy. "What a splendid world ours is! Do you remember what Ruskin says—'Did you ever see one sunrise like another? Does not God vary His clouds for you every morning and every night?' Does He really—for us? Are you and I meant to enjoy this, Bee? And has nobody ever seen, and will nobody else ever see, just precisely what we are seeing now? Isn't it a perfectly extraordinary idea? Why, even a mile off—even half a mile off—it wouldn't be the same."
Bee did not answer at once. She could not so readily as Amy put her thoughts into words. After a pause she suggested—
"It makes one feel how small one's life is."
"Does it? No, no, Bee—just the other way. I always feel how terrifically full life is—absolutely brim-full! There's any amount, every day, of what one could do, and might do, and ought to do—and of what one doesn't do! Isn't that true?"
Then, with a change of tone—"Bee, do you ever look forward, and picture life in the future—think and dream of what may lie ahead!" Bee's imprisoned hand stirred, for did she not? Amy went on, unheeding the movement—"I do! I'm always and for ever dreaming of the time when you and I will live together; when we shall be just everything to each other. One knows that changes must come, as years pass on; and why shouldn't one think of the things that will lie beyond those changes? Do you remember my telling you last summer of this vision of mine?—Of the dear little home that is to be ours, and of how the days will fly, and of how I shall shelter and guard and pet my darling, and of how we shall want nothing and nobody except just our two selves! Think—how perfect it will be. You remember—don't you?"
Yes; Bee remembered, though, truth to tell, the said talk had made no very profound impression upon her mind. Amy had talked, and she had listened and had pleasantly assented, only to dismiss the subject later from her thoughts. Plainly, Amy had taken it much more seriously.
"When I'm vexed or worried, nothing comforts me like thinking about that sweet little future home of ours. Does it comfort you too?"
Bee hesitated, too truthful to say yes. "I don't know—" she murmured at length. "I haven't thought much about it."
"You haven't!"
"One can't look forward with any sort of certainty. Life is often so different—so unlike what one has fancied."
"That wasn't the way you took it last time."
"I'm older now."
"You're not twenty; and I'm over thirty."
"Yes, I know. But don't you think one learns to see things a little differently as time goes on?"
"Nothing could make me see that differently. I have always counted myself yours for life—and you mine. I have always felt sure that you did too."
"At all events—nothing can ever alter our friendship," remarked Bee cheerfully.
"It would be very much altered, if I believed that you didn't care for me as I care for you."
"I don't think it's a question of caring—but only—one never knows what life may be by-and-by."
Amy made an impatient movement. "Of course I see what all this means. I suppose you're thinking of marrying some day."
Another little pause, broken by Bee's soft tones.
"One can't shut one's eyes quite to possibilities," she said. "Either you or I might some day come across the right man. I dare say it isn't likely—but still—"
"So—that's it!" Amy drew a long breath. "Why didn't you tell me sooner? Who is the lucky person?"
"You are talking nonsense now, Amy. All I say is that the thing might some day happen for either of us. And then—I'm afraid the little house—"
"Would be tenantless! No doubt! And if this supposititious individual did turn up—you'd care for him, of course, a great deal more than you care for—"
Bee laughed a little. "I shouldn't think you could compare the two sorts of feeling. I shall always care for you, no matter what else happens. But I don't see the use of planning so far ahead."
Amy was busily thinking. "Somebody or other is at the bottom of this," she cogitated. "Who can it be? Let me think—Bee has not been her usual self since—since—that visit to her aunts! I know! There were two house-parties while she was there, and she saw no end of people. And—yes, she did mention one name several times—a great pet of the old ladies! I remember! He was there nearly as long as Bee. What was his name?"
"So you can't compare the two feelings!" she remarked aloud. "Which means that you know both, my dear! Ah, now you've given yourself away, you transparent person! Come—you may as well 'fess! Who is the objectionable individual?"
"You are talking nonsense again!"
"I'm not so sure! Let me think—whom have you been seeing lately? Wasn't there a very delightful person at your aunts' house—yes, you certainly spoke of somebody two or three times, and said he was nice. Which from you is high praise. What is the man's name?"
Bee was thankful for the darkness. She wished now that she had not been so foolish as to differ from Amy. Why had she not fallen in with her friend's mood, and allowed her to expatiate as long as she liked on that "sweet little home," which in Bee's eyes looked so far from attractive? It would have been wiser not to risk awakening her suspicions.
"A great many nice people were in the house. Amy, look at that gleam of light on the snow—just dying away."
"I'm more interested in the lights and shades of human beings. I suppose he didn't actually propose."
Bee stood up, and her tone held a touch of gentle dignity.
"Amy, you are talking in a very foolish way—in a way you have no right to talk. I am tired of listening, and I shall go inside."
Amy was in a perverse mood, at the root of which lay jealousy; and this offended her. She, too, jumped up.
"Just as you like! I'll come too. But you can't throw dust in my eyes, my dear. You never can hide things from me, you know. Much better confess that your poor little heart has been taken captive. I have it now! I remember his name! And I shall always owe a grudge to Wratt-Wrothesley after this. Of course—it's that Mr. Ivor! Wretched man, to rob me of my Bee!"
She slightly raised her voice that Bee might hear. And as the latter disappeared within the hut door, making no reply, a soft sound floated down from the loft, just over Amy's head—the unmistakable sound of a subdued masculine snore.
"Gracious!" uttered Amy under her breath. "Somebody must be up there! What a mercy he's asleep!"
She found Bee inside, looking pale, and disposed to hold coldly aloof. Amy, already ashamed of herself, was constrained to whisper—
"Never mind! I was only talking nonsense! I won't again! It's all right!"
[CHAPTER VIII]
IN AN AVALANCHE
THE Hut was not, as Amy and Beatrice had supposed, occupied only by themselves, their guide and their porter. Unknown to them all, two guideless climbers had arrived earlier—none other than the young English clergyman and his friend. They had retired to rest in the loft, purposing to ascend the Blümlisalphorn the next day. As they meant to start in the very small hours of the morning, they were glad to get to sleep without loss of time; and by thus retreating to the loft they hoped to secure an absence of interruptions.
Steimathen had quickly discovered, by the remains of a fire in the stove, that somebody had preceded them; but this fact he had not happened to name to the girls.
One of the two men, out of sight in the loft, was Robert Royston, now abroad for his short summer holiday. The other, strange to say, was actually Lancelot Dennis Ivor himself—with whom Bee had been thrown during her three weeks' visit to her aunts.
Bee had known, and had not forgotten, that he was an adept at mountaineering. Nay, it was he who had advised her to do a little scrambling in this very district, when she had mentioned her hope of a visit to Switzerland in the summer. She did not dream of coming across him, since he had said that Switzerland this year would be for him an impossibility, on account of certain engagements. Plans had changed, however; and here he was in company with his old college friend, Robert Royston.
At table d'hôte the evening before, though Robert alluded to his proposed ascent, he did not speak of the Hut; and she failed to deduce the fact that he and his friend were likely to sleep there. Neither did he utter his friend's name. Possibly, had Patricia not appeared just when she did, drawing off everybody's attention, he might have done either; in which case she and Amy would have been upon their guard. As things were, they had not the smallest suspicion that any human being was within earshot—the guide and his son being quite cut off by the solid wall of the Hut.
Voices under the open loft-window aroused Ivor from a light sleep. Not for some time fully. He lay in semi-consciousness—vaguely wishing that he had not been disturbed, envying the calm slumber of Rob, hearing partly as in a dream what was said, and regarding the same with the uncritical detachment and indifference of a dreamer.
The soft tones of one speaker sounded familiar; and though he was too far gone to attach a name, they transported him in imagination to Wratt-Wrothesley; and he saw himself again wandering through the lovely grounds with Bee.
A girlish argument of some sort seemed to be going on; and he took a drowsy dislike to Amy, as he rolled over and tried to forget himself once more.
Then the sounds grew clearer, more definite. That gentle-voiced girl was being pestered—worried—and he felt a touch of indignation. It dawned upon him that he was listening to something not meant for his ears; and he was rousing himself to give a loud cough of warning, when—
"Much better confess that your poor little heart has been taken captive," checked him abruptly, with a feeling that the listening girl must not know what he had heard. Then came the name of the place where he had met Bee Major, and his own name following.
In a moment he was wide awake. In a moment also he had the blankets over his ears, shutting out further sounds.
He recognised now well enough that soft voice. The only marvel was that he had not instantly known it. He had seen much of Bee during three weeks, had liked her much. If the impression made by him upon her was deep, the impression made by her upon him was not slight. He admired her; he enjoyed intercourse with her; he hoped some day before long to meet her again; he had even recognised as a possibility that he might by-and-bye find himself in love with her.
But he was not yet in love. He told himself so, almost angrily, as he clutched the blanket round his head. And of all wretched contretemps, what could be worse than this? That he and she should have come together, high in the mountains, away from the crowds, neither knowing of the other's presence, and that he should have overheard, without intending it, words which—whether truly or falsely—no doubt implied that he had somehow captured her heart! It was appalling!
Of course it might be all a mistake. Probably it was all a mistake. The girl was joking, teasing her companion, trying to get a rise out of her, as girls will; and Beatrice might never give the careless words another thought, if—it all hung upon that!—if she did not discover that he had been close at hand, and that he had or might have overheard. But if she did find this out—his whole being rose in revolt for Bee's sake. What would she not think? What would she not feel?
Small chance of sleep remained to him. He lay thinking the matter over, worrying himself, and planning how to escape in the early morning, before she should become aware of his presence.
An odd realisation crept over him, as he tossed and turned, that—if it were true—and no doubt it was not true, it was mere nonsense!—but if it were, then to be so loved would be a new and beautiful thing. Through his twenty-five years of life he had never yet known what it was to be first in a woman's heart. His mother had died in his infancy, and he had no sisters. He was well off, successful, and popular. Match-making mothers had courted him; and girls of a sort—the sort he would never dream of marrying, for he held a high ideal of what a woman should be—had flirted with him. But he knew Bee well enough to grasp that this would be altogether different. If Bee Major loved, hers would be a love worth having.
Of course it was all nonsense; a silly joke of that other unpleasant girl. Only—if it were—
He knew himself to be companionable and agreeable, liked by people in general, one who made and kept friends. But to be utterly and absolutely first with another—to be the one and only man to one only woman—that would put him on a new level, would give to life a fresh colouring.
No use dwelling on all that, he told himself impatiently. Bee Major had probably laughed at the silly words; and he himself was not in love. He was, however, very much concerned to prevent her from becoming aware of his presence in the Hut; and when one o'clock arrived, he wakened Robert, and impressed on him the need for abnormal caution, lest they should disturb two lady-climbers, sleeping on the ground-floor.
With exaggerated care, he set the example, creeping down the ladder like a mouse, and keeping as much as possible in shadow behind the stove, lest they also should have planned an early start, and should arouse themselves. Not likely, at one o'clock in the morning; but on such occasions nothing is impossible.
Besides, Beatrice might be awake, despite her stillness; and though she should catch no glimpse of his face, she might recognise his voice. So, in sombre silence, and not without some nervous glances towards the lower shelf, on which lay two dimly-outlined figures rolled in rugs, he drank his coffee. Rob kept equal silence.
It was a relief to Ivor to find himself safe outside the Hut. Quietly he and Rob started on their dark upward tramp, lighted only by stars, and by the glimmering lantern which swayed to and fro in the leader's hand. An hour later, as they were crossing the hard frozen neve, he received a fresh shock. Some words passed about their return route, and Rob remarked that he had entered a note as to their intentions in the Visitor's Book at the Hut.
"You didn't write our names!" Ivor involuntarily exclaimed.
"Yes, of course—why not?"
Why not, indeed? Ivor could offer no reason. He said only—
"I meant to do it on our way back."
"Always better to leave word of one's plans in case of an accident."
This was true enough; and Ivor made no further protest. He recalled that Rob had stayed behind for a minute or two, when he had made his way out of the Hut in readiness to start. He was very much annoyed—not with Rob for doing what was quite reasonable, but with the fact. Beatrice Major would undoubtedly look at the book, and she could not fail to see his name. She would at once surmise, not that he had actually heard her friend's foolish words, but that he might have done so. Too late now to do anything; but the day was more or less spoilt for him.
Such thoughts had to be put on one side, as the difficulties of the way increased. They were still there, lying as a weight at the back of his mind, though he had resolutely to ignore them and to bend all his energies to the task in hand. The ascent of the Blümlisalphorn is not exactly playwork, even for experienced climbers.
For a good while there was easy going over the frozen snow, and only for a few hundred yards was their route shadowed by the possibility—a slight one at such an early hour—of a falling avalanche. Breakfast on a pure white table-cloth followed; and after this began the exciting part of their ascent.
At first they mounted snow in good condition, lying on a foundation of rock, which here and there cropped through. Then it steepened and hardened, and the cutting of steps became necessary, till they reached the col or narrow neck, from which one looks down on the little Oeschinen Lake and the Valley of Kandersteg.
Thence the usual route is followed by the arête, now ice, now rock, not only narrow but steeply ascending. If the leader, as he cuts steps up the knife-edge of ice, should slip and fall, the instant duty of his companion on the rope is to fling himself over on the opposite side, where his weight would counterbalance that of his friend, and so prevent both from being dashed to pieces three thousand feet below. For such prompt action, in such a position, no little nerve is requisite; yet not to do it spells a double fatality. Both Ivor and Rob were men of calm nerve and quick decision.
While traversing the arête, no thinking about Beatrice could be allowed himself by Ivor; and he was hardly conscious of the scenery. Nothing but close and exclusive regard to each successive planting of the feet ensures safety, as, steadying himself with his ice-axe, a climber moves slowly upward and onward, till the summit is gained.
They stood there at length, side by side, triumphant,—just in time to revel in the magnificent sight of a cloudless panorama of peaks, each with its own wealth of golden light and azure shade, its morning glories and fleeting shadows, its crumpled and rifted glaciers, its uncountable revelations of beauty. Silent and entranced, they drank in the loveliness with supreme enjoyment; though perhaps neither could quite banish from his mind a recollection of that nerve-testing "knife-edge," which had soon to be descended.
Coming down such a mauvais pas is, as everybody knows, always far worse than going up it. Doubtless, it was as well that the Blümlisalphorn does not lend itself to a picnic or a lengthy rest upon the summit; for muscles are apt to stiffen with delay. A few minutes were all that could be safely spared.
As they gazed, neither of the two was thinking only and exclusively of the view.
In Rob's mind, together with the mountain glory, lay the picture of a girl's face, fair and smiling, which he could not banish. Patricia had laid her spell upon him; and even while his attention was most taken up with the perils of the way, that face remained. It sprang up now with a fresh insistence.
"If ever I marry—" he found himself saying, as his eyes roved from height to height, from glacier to glacier—"If ever I marry, she shall be my wife!" He was not conscious of haste in this decision—if a dream may be called a decision; and he did not even remember his words to Magda about not being a marrying man. He had not then "seen the girl." To-day he had seen her.
Ivor also, while his glance wandered hither and thither, was haunted by a presence. His chivalry had been troubled on behalf of Bee; and the thought of what she must go through, when she became aware of his nearness the evening before, pressed upon his mind. So soon as active exertion ceased, the burden made itself felt; and he began again to picture her state of mind.
If he did not really care for Bee, more than he was yet aware, it might seem singular that he should be so much disturbed. This view of the question did occur, and he had no answer ready—yet still he was disquieted. When, however, the moment arrived for starting; when the "knife-edge" had once more to be tackled—then he put her out of his thoughts; and then, too, Rob had for the time to forget Patricia. All their attention, all their nerve, were required.
Chip, chip, went the leader's axe, as he improved the steps made on their ascent; and when one was clean-cut, the nail-studded boot slid forward, and found good hold. Again the axe was at work; and the other boot crept to its place. So each in turn advanced; and never did the two climbers move together; and never was the rope that bound them in a bond of comradeship allowed to sag. Its tautness was their only insurance against the disaster which must otherwise have followed upon a slip. But, happily, no slip occurred.
They had come to a determination, on the preceding day, that if all went well they would return by another route from the col overlooking Kandersteg—a route rarely attempted, since the condition of an open couloir, a wide gully full of snow, which would have to be descended, was seldom tempting. In addition, there was always a possibility of the bergshrund below the couloir—a huge crevasse at the foot of the snow-slope—entirely stopping their further progress, and forcing them to re-ascend to the col, after half the descent had been done. But they hoped to find either a bridge of winter snow across the bergshrund, or else a place where they could turn it. And they were young and enthusiastic, and willing to run a certain amount of risk.
So they decided to venture on the attempt. And this was the scheme which Rob, the moment before they started, had scribbled in the Visitors' Book at the Hut, together with their two names.
The variation from the more ordinary route at first promised well; and the soft snow of the open couloir or gully allowed them, as they came down it, to kick for themselves deep and safe steps.
But gradually, almost imperceptibly, the character of the snow changed. It became powdery in substance; and each downward step started a miniature avalanche—so small as to discount precaution.
They were now hardly two hundred yards from the yawning bergshrund at the bottom of the slope; and to turn back without having examined it would be really too exasperating. Thus it was that the warning given by that shifting snow was allowed to pass almost unheeded. Rob, who was now the leader, did his best to pack it firmly, before trusting his weight to each foothold; and so far all seemed safe.
Ivor indeed felt so secure, as he plunged his foot into one deep step after another made by his friend, that he a little relaxed his watchful caution, and allowed his attention to wander, indulging in speculations whether he and Rob would find the two girls still at the Hut. But for that unfortunate remark overheard the evening before, he would have wished that it might be so. He would have liked nothing better than to see Bee Major again. He might never reach the point of actually falling in love with her; yet she was undoubtedly a very sweet and taking girl.
Such thoughts were travelling through his mind when something occurred, against which not all the acumen of the most experienced guides could have insured, had they ventured to trust themselves upon so treacherous a slope.
The sheet of snow which the two were descending began to stir! At first slightly—then more decisively.
Ivor, well behind Rob, the rope between them being nearly taut, was the first to awake to the awful fact that a wave had formed in front of him. Only too well he knew what that meant; and he instantaneously dug his ice-axe deep into the snow. This had small effect; for, as the snow-sheet slid downward, Rob was carried with it. For one second the rope tightened round Ivor; but, as the silent onrush of the avalanche fought for the mastery, he too felt himself gently yet irresistibly drawn into the white stream. Their eyes met, saying what their lips did not utter—"We are lost!"
Down and down, sliding, struggling, borne along by the moving mass, went both men; but Ivor was more in the actual stream than Rob, who happened to be swept to one side. It was a small avalanche, neither deep nor wide; and while Ivor remained near the centre, Rob was on the border. Though perforce moving with it, he was subject to less impetus; and as the white wave curled round a rib of rock outstanding from the snow, the rope caught firmly. On swirled the shallow snow, and he remained behind.
All might have been well with them both, had the rope held. But when Ivor's weight came on it with a heavy jerk, it severed on the sharp rock, as though cut by a knife.
Ivor was swept rapidly downwards; and without a sound, he disappeared over the edge, into the bergshrund. From that deep snow-prison, even if the hapless climber had not been at once killed by the fall, or smothered in the cataract of snow, Rob—barely escaping the same fate, and with only a short end of broken rope—was powerless to rescue him.
[CHAPTER IX]
FRIENDS IN PERIL
FOUR hours after the departure of the two men, the girls were up, starting for their smaller ascent of the little Rothstock. They had a delightful five-hours' scramble, at the end of which, they again reached the Hut.
No contretemps, no false step on the part of either, had marred the climb. Amy had, in the early hours, shown a slight tendency to moodiness; and Bee had been silent and grave. But as the charm of their expedition gripped them, the spirits of both girls improved. As yet Bee remained in complete ignorance of the presence of others in the loft through the night. She could not easily throw off her displeasure at Amy's conduct; but she did her best to hide it. After all Amy had not meant to be unkind. She had only been—silly! It was wiser on her part to treat the affair as nonsense. And as the day went on, the recollection sank out of mind.
They resolved to have an hour's rest, before tackling the easy descent to Kandersteg; and as Amy flung herself down outside the Hut, Bee went inside, returning with the Visitors' Book in her hands.
"We haven't taken a look at the list of climbers yet," she said.
Amy had hoped to avert this. The last thing she wished was for Bee to awake to the possibility of those imprudent words having been overheard by some chance tourist. Unknown to Bee, she had found out that, not one man only, but two men had slept in the loft; and all day she had been at pains to keep clear of the subject.
"Yes, of course. We must sign our own names as conquerors of the Rothstock," she said quickly. "I'll do that presently. You've got to rest now. Give me the book, and I'll read the list aloud."
"Thanks, but we can both look. I like to see." Bee turned to the latest page, and exclaimed in surprise—"Robert Royston!—Magda's brother—" and the last word remained only half-uttered, as her eyes fell upon the name following. A deep flush suffused her cheeks. Amy, glancing at the page and then, in dismay, at her face, knew in a moment that what she had half-jestingly surmised was true.
Bee's colour faded faster than it had arisen. She grew white to the lips as if on the verge of fainting.
"They were here—last night!" Her eyes met those of her companion. "Amy!—Did you know?"
"Of course I didn't know. How should I? We both felt sure there was nobody here except ourselves. I never dreamt of such a thing. But we talked so low—they couldn't have heard a word!"
"Oh, no—no! You called out—loudly!"
"Bee, I'm sure I didn't. It isn't my way. You are fancying. And the window would be shut—"
"They are English. It would be open."
"But they were sound asleep. Of course they were sound!" Amy was really grieved at Bee's pale distress. "Quite sound!"
"It is easy to say so! You do not know."
"But Peter told me they went to bed very early, on purpose to sleep. Yes, I asked him, because—just after you went in, I heard a snore. I didn't see any use in worrying you, but I did ask Peter, and he said there were two Herren in the loft, and they had gone off in the night. I wonder we didn't hear them go. But I heard the snore quite plainly."
"That might show that one was asleep. Not—both!"
"If they had chanced to overhear a few words, they would know it meant nothing—just fun! They would understand."
"If only, only you had not done it!" Bee despairingly murmured. "I feel as if I could never bear to see either of them again."
"Why, Bee, really you are making too much of a small matter. What does it signify? Just a jest between two girls! Any sensible man would know what it was worth. If I had had a notion that anybody was there, of course I wouldn't have teased you; but I had not. And till this moment I didn't know their names. But now we do know, we can be perfectly sure that if either of them was awake, he would never have listened. He would have done something to let us know he was there."
"Not if he were taken by surprise—if he woke just then and heard his own name! How could he speak? I dare say it isn't likely; but it might have happened! I do think that sort of joking is very very wrong and unkind."
"Well, I won't do it again; I promise I won't. And I wouldn't think any more about it if I were you. Things can't be helped now; and the only way is to take sensibly what's done and can't be undone. You may depend upon it Mr. Ivor heard nothing."
Bee felt that it was easy for one person to be philosophical about another's trouble. She bent over the book with a troubled face, and read aloud a short note scrawled after the two names—"Going to try the Blümlisalphorn, descending from the col to the alp above the Oeschinensee."
She carried the book inside the Hut, and drew their guide's attention to this memorandum. Steimathen uttered a gruff word of disapproval. It was in his opinion a difficult and dangerous deviation from the ordinary route. The Herren would have been better advised, he said, had they kept to that route—with the snow in none too sound a state. Naturally, Peter was not particularly pleased with the enterprise of guideless parties, on mountains which he looked upon as his preserve.
All the way down, as far as the Oeschinen Hotel, Beatrice walked in thoughtful silence. She was pondering, partly, the dread that Ivor might have been awake, and so might have heard Amy's imprudent utterance; but also her mind was a good deal occupied with Steimathen's observations. More and more the possibility took hold of her that those two were in danger. The guide's suggestion might, it was true, have been to some extent dictated by jealousy; yet such a suggestion from a first-rate guide, who was also a good and dependable man, could not be lightly dismissed.
What if things were as Peter seemed to fear—if they had chosen a perilous route—if the snow was in an unsafe state—if something should happen to them on their way down? Nay, what if something were happening at this moment? The fear came between her mind and Amy's talk. For once she wished that her friend were capable of silence.
She made an opportunity to tackle Peter anew on the subject, asking fuller details about the nature of the proposed descent, and the reasons for his uneasiness. Peter's explanations were the reverse of comforting.
Very much more quickly than they had gone up, they regained the little hotel on the shore of the Oeschinensee. No sooner were they there, than Bee made straight for the telescope. She called Peter, got him to show her by which way the English gentlemen had planned to descend, and found that, from her present position, the entire route from the col—including a risky descent towards a very undesirable bergshrund, the nature of which he had already enlarged upon—could be swept by the glass.
Whether they had yet passed in safety that yawning chasm, Bee could not know, Peter could not tell her. If they had not, there was no reason why she should not actually watch their progress, could she but once "locate" them—or, as she expressed it, "get hold of them."
A good hour went by, during which she searched in vain. The guide wished to continue their descent to Kandersteg; and Amy was growing impatient; but neither of them could induce Bee to stir.
"I can't just yet," she pleaded. "There is no hurry. I have such a feeling that something is wrong. Do let me try a little longer. Yes—it may be all fancy—but I want to make sure."
Remonstrances fell on deaf ears. The usually compliant girl was resolute. She said little, but she clung to her post.
"What an imagination you have!" pettishly complained Amy, who by this time was both tired and cross. Yet still Bee gazed, searching the white slopes, regardless of her own or the other's fatigue.
"Just a little longer, Amy! I shall find them soon. I am sure I shall. If you cannot wait, please go on with Abraham; and I'll follow with Peter."
"Thanks. If I go, I'd rather have Peter. Of course I don't mean to leave you. But it is such nonsense!"
"Peter must wait, in case anything is wrong. He would have to go and help them."
"Why on earth should anything be wrong? It's more than likely that they have kept to the usual route, and are at the Hut by now. It's ridiculous your bothering about them like this."
"I can't help it, Amy. If anything happened to Magda's brother—"
"Oh, you needn't pretend, my dear! It's not—'Magda's brother'—" mimicking her tone—"that exercises your mind."
Beatrice lifted her face for one moment to look steadily at the other girl.
"I don't think that is quite like you," she said gravely, and she went back to the telescope.
Amy broke a lengthy silence, as if it had not existed. "No; it isn't like me. At least, I hope not. It isn't like my better self. I'm in the grip of the Green-eyed Monster to-day. Can't you see? It's hateful."
Bee's hand came softly on hers.
"Yes; I know. I've got to conquer. But all the same—oh, bother—I wish they'd turn up and have done with it. I'm tired."
"I'm so sorry," was all Bee said; and another ten minutes of patient scanning went by. Then her attitude changed, as—"There they are!" escaped her lips.
"Really!" with awakened interest.
"I see them! I see them plainly. Two little dots on the snow. I'm sure it is they." She called eagerly to Peter. "Oh, come!—come and look. I've found the Herren. What are they doing?"
She relinquished her post as he eagerly advanced. "My lady, she has good eyesight. She is right. The Herren are there. Nicht wahr?"
"Let me see again. One moment, please. Just to make sure!"
Unwillingly the guide complied, for Bee could not control her impatience.
"I see them now—quite plainly. Is that the part you said was where the snow might be bad? How fast they are coming down! Is it safe? But they are not so very high up. It's all right, isn't it? Oh! Oh, what is happening? What is it?" She seized Peter, and thrust him vehemently into her seat. "Tell me—what does it mean?"
Peter drew a long audible breath. He was just in time to catch one clear glimpse of the rolling figure of Ivor, before it vanished.
"Something is—not right," he answered gravely. "Yes; there is a mishap. One of the Herren has fallen. It may be—not far—but he is gone down. Nein, nein, Mees—one moment," as she grasped his arm. "Permit me, Mees—it is better that I look. Mees will not understand. The second Herr does not move. He stays there. He does nothing."
"You will send help! You will go yourself! You will not leave him to die!" urged the girl. "Peter—what can be done? Oh, please make haste."
She wrung her hands together, waiting for his next words, which did not come at once. Peter's gaze was riveted.
"The fallen Herr is out of sight still. The Herr above stirs not. He stays in one spot."
"You will go—will you not?" implored Bee.
"It is so. Mees may rest assured. All shall be done that man can do. They shall not be left to perish." Three minutes longer he studied the far-off scene.
"Peter—tell me—which Herr is it that has fallen?" She put the question faintly; and in her heart she chided herself for hoping that it might be Magda's brother—poor Magda!—and not the other.
"Ach! How can I tell?"
"Is he—is he—dead?"
Peter stood up. "We must not waste the time, Mees, in talk. It is that we must act. You, ladies, will wait here—is it not so?—till a rescue-party shall return from going to the Herren?"
"Yes, yes—only don't delay!" pleaded Bee.
Two other guides had happily arrived within the last hour from an expedition with three ladies, who at once agreed to manage the rest of their descent under the leadership of their porter, since they were unable to wait. A hurried consultation then took place; and it was decided that the three guides should start immediately, taking ropes and restoratives, and going by the shortest possible route. Peter, from his intimate knowledge of the district, had divined that one of the "Herren" must have fallen into the bergshrund, though he would not say as much to Bee. He knew too well what it might mean.
For Beatrice there followed a period of suspense, such as she had never before gone through. The hours seemed endless. It was not her way to talk of what she felt. All she wanted was to be left alone, that she might carry on her watch, silently praying. Afterwards, when she looked back, she knew that her whole being had been concentrated into one continuous wordless petition.
Amy really was sorry, now that she knew true cause for fear to exist. But her anxiety was moderate and impersonal; while to Bee it seemed that all joy in life hung upon the result of the guides' expedition.
While daylight lasted, she sat at the telescope, searching and searching, till her eyes grew dim and dazzled with the strain. That one tiny dark figure was always there; moving from time to time, yet never straying far. Beatrice built much upon the fact. If the fallen man were dead, why should his friend stay? On the other hand, if the fallen man were alive, would not his friend go in quest of help? Hope was put to a severe test.
Amy, as she found her efforts to bestow comfort of small use, went indoors and fell asleep; but Bee could not rest. When darkness made the telescope of no avail, she walked up and down outside the hotel, scarcely conscious of the cold, turning gently from well-meant attempts on the part of the hotel people to cheer her up, and picturing to herself without cessation Ivor dying or dead, or at best waiting on the lone island of rock, in cold and hunger and discomfort, resolute not to quit his friend.
If only he might escape with life, she would be content to ask no more. He might never think of her; he might never care for her; they might never meet again; but still he would be alive. She did not know how to endure the thought of a world which would no longer contain him.
Mastered at length by Amy's entreaties, she too went into the hotel, and lay down under blankets, refusing to undress. When Amy again dropped soundly off, she arose and seated herself at the window, to gaze in the direction of the spot where, perhaps, Ivor still was; or looking up at the calm stars overhead, to wonder whether already his spirit might have taken flight to those sublime heights; and how soon—if indeed it were so—she might be permitted to follow. Would it be wrong to wish to go—not to have to wait very long?
Then, refusing to admit any such possibilities, she imagined the guides drawing near to the scene of disaster, and tried to see, as in a vision, how they would rescue the fallen man. Though Peter had not told her exactly what it was that he conjectured, she had been quick to put two and two together, quick to read his thoughts. He had spoken of the bergshrund before the accident; and she knew at least something of what might be involved. Scene after scene passed before her mind's eyes till her brain whirled.
Dawn at last began; and with the earliest gleams of light she again planted herself at the post of observation; long before she could hope to make out anything. Time slowly, slowly dragged by; and patience at length met with its reward.
As day grew into being, she found herself actually witnessing the cautious descent of the couloir by the rescue-party. They hugged the rocks on one side, avoiding the course of the avalanche; and Bee watched, with a trembling hope which could find no utterance, till they reached the islet of rock where that patient watcher had spent his night; and the solitary dark figure was reinforced by other little dark figures. They seemed to pause and consult; then movements took place. What actually happened was that one of the guides attached himself to the full length of the rope, and was let down towards the shrund by the others, till he vanished over its edge. Then, when he reached Ivor, he fastened the rope round him, and they were drawn up together, the guide undermost.
Bee, from her distant post, could make out something of this. She followed the descent of the small dark body, saw it disappear, and with shortened breath waited through interminable minutes till something became visible, coming up slowly out of the depth. Something! But was it one man or two men?
She strained her eyes to see. Yes, certainly—two specks, close together, yet distinct, where only one had been; both apparently being dragged upwards toward where the rest of the party stood. The second might be Lancelot Ivor—or Robert Royston—or only a lifeless form, taken from its snow-prison. Who could tell?
"Anyhow, they've got him," Amy remarked, when Bee in short murmurs told what she saw.
"If we had not waited—if I had not found them—"
"Yes. You were right. I'm glad now that you persisted."
"Nobody might have known till—too late! Amy, you were very patient."
"I didn't feel patient, I assure you."
More hours crept by, and still Bee watched. Amy at last protested—
"You are worn out, Bee. If you would but lie down for an hour!"
"I can't just yet. Please don't ask it."
Nearer and nearer drew the party; more and more distinct in the field of the telescope.
Then Amy heard one short sigh of relief. "Yes," she said. "I can count them now. They are resting. The three guides, and both the others. Both—both!"
"Yes, dear."
"He's not killed. He's—alive!"
She slid off her seat into Amy's arms; and for a moment Amy thought she had fainted away; but she pulled herself together.
"How stupid! What made me do that?"
"You felt dizzy. Come indoors now and lie down. They are all right; and they can't get here for ever so long."
"Yes; I think I will. I'm a little—tired."
She walked quietly, stumbling once or twice, as if uncertain of her footing. Amy put her on the bed, and covered her up.
"You are to go to sleep. You shall hear everything by-and-by."
Amy stooped for a kiss; and Bee held her down. "Dear—you have been so kind. Thank you. Please don't let anybody know that I have—minded!"
"No, of course not!" Amy did not add, as she felt tempted to do, that anybody might have seen. She knew that it would be easy to explain Bee's over-anxiety, by the fact that one of the two men was the brother of her intimate friend.
"He's safe!" dropped slowly from Bee's lips. She drew one long sigh; her arms slackened and fell; and already she was dead asleep. A look of childlike peace overspread her face.
Amy stood looking down upon her. "Poor little dear! That's all you care for now! He—not even 'they.' And will he ever care for you? And if not—will you break your poor little heart? People don't break their hearts now-a-days—some say. But Bee is not like the ordinary run."
Bee smiled in her sleep.
"I shall hate him if he does; and I shall hate him if he doesn't! A nice state of things! O you Green-eyed Monster!—How I despise you! But you've had the better of me to-day; though I don't believe Bee has found it out. And you've got to be squashed, you know!" Amy shook her fist as at an enemy.
[CHAPTER X]
THE RESCUED MAN
ONCE asleep, after her long watch, Beatrice slept profoundly—slept till long after the rescue-party and the two Englishmen had come in.
There could be no question of getting back that night to Kandersteg. Ivor was suffering from frostbite and bruises; and though, with a good deal of help, he had managed to walk part of the way down to the Oeschinen Hotel, he could do no more. Both he and Rob had to be warmed and fed; and for both a good night's rest was the first essential.
Bee saw nothing of them until next morning, by which time she was quite restored to her usual gentle self. That evening talk outside the Hut seemed to her dreamy and unreal, and as if it had happened years before. She had almost lost sight of it, under the great strain of anxiety; and she could not think of it now, for the joy of knowing Ivor to be safe. For this her heart sang a ceaseless song of thanksgiving.
Or at least, she would not let herself think of it. Probably, as Amy insisted, he had heard nothing. If he had caught a few words—the only course for her was to be utterly simple, utterly natural, free from self-consciousness. Then he would forget; he would think himself mistaken. Bee was capable of carrying out this rôle; as perhaps many girls, less practised in self-control, might not have been.
Ivor appeared last of an early party. He came to breakfast limping, and still pale, but with a smile.
"All right, old fellow?" Rob asked.
"Thanks—yes." His glance went straight to Bee, and without hesitation he crossed over, holding out his hand. "We have met before," he said; for he, like Bee, had resolved on complete simplicity as the only mode of "grasping the nettle."
She met the hand and smiled bravely; and before a word could be spoken, Peter Steimathen, who had followed Ivor in, to see how the "Herr" might be after his severe experience, made matters easier for both by breaking in—
"It is to the Mees here that you owe your life, Mein Herr!" He glanced at Bee with admiration. "The Fräulein she would have her way! She would not return to Kandersteg, till she should see where the English Herren were. Myself I had told her there might be difficulties for the Herren, and the Fräulein understood. Ach, but had she not so done, we should not so soon have gone in search. Nein, truly we should not."
"And that must have meant for me—just all the difference!" Ivor observed in a low voice.
He was not allowed then to say more. Rob insisted on attention to breakfast. But Bee had already heard from the others what was thought of her share in the rescue; and her feelings may be easily imagined. From Ivor she wanted no thanks. It was enough, and more than enough, to know that she had been the means of saving his life—as they all declared was the case.
After breakfast, when Amy was putting up their things and Peter was consulting with Rob how to get Ivor to Kandersteg—since he was clearly unable to walk any distance—she found herself, quite by accident, alone with the latter.
Bee took it simply; and her complete naturalness made the position of affairs easy for him.
"I am afraid you are suffering a good deal with your foot," she said.
"Rather numb still, thanks; but I'm getting back the proper circulation. No fear now, they tell me, that I shall lose even a toe." He smiled; then, putting aside his own hurts, he expressed his gratitude, in a few strong words, for what she had done.
"Neither Royston nor I can ever forget it. We owe our lives to your thoughtfulness. I—even more than he. I suppose he might have got back in safety; but I was helpless."
"Would not the guides have started in search of you—if I had done nothing?"
"Yes. The question is—whether they would have been in time."
"I am very, very glad!" The words sounded absurdly inadequate. She had never in her life been half so glad, half so thankful; yet she spoke quietly. "It was curious—I could not help waiting. Such a strong feeling came that something was wrong—that I had to wait!—Even before it actually happened."
"One may say, I suppose, that it was—Providential!" He spoke with shy English reserve, yet with real feeling; and this time her response was eager.
"Oh, I am quite, quite sure!" After a pause she went on. "I don't understand why Mr. Royston stayed there. Ought he not to have gone at once for help? Suppose we had not seen you? Suppose the guides had not started when they did?"
"That was the question—what he should do. The shrund was in no state to be crossed, especially by one man alone. He would have had to go back up the mountain, and round by the usual route."
"Could he not do it?"
"The danger of course is greater for a man by himself. But he is a cool hand, not soon flurried. He would have gone in the morning, if help had not come. Nothing would induce him to budge earlier, though I did my best. I knew that putting off must make the return alone much worse for him."
"Then it was for your sake that he waited?"
"Entirely. I could not persuade him to leave me. It would have pretty well settled matters, I suppose, so far as I was concerned; and that was what he felt."
Bee's eyes grew large. "You mean that he—?"
"He had made up his mind that, if I had to spend the night there by myself, I should be frozen before morning."
"But was it—was it—so bad as that?" Her breath grew short.
"I'm not sure that I could have held out, if it hadn't been for him."
"The cold—?" murmured Bee.
"Well, the cold was awful. Sometimes I seemed to be on the verge of slipping out of it all—losing hold of life. And then Rob's voice would rouse me, and I could fight on. But if he hadn't been there—don't you see?"
"Yes, I see." Bee had grown white, but she spoke quietly. "You might have just forgotten yourself, and not—not—"
"Not come to again," ended Ivor. "Yes, that was it. But of course I'd have given anything to make him go. I knew what it must mean, waiting hour after hour on that steep slope, with no shelter of any sort. He's a fine fellow! I wish you knew him better."
"Perhaps I shall some day. His sister is a friend of mine. Yes, he must be—splendid!" So was somebody else, thought Bee, and she did not mind the little glow which had come to her face, for he would only think it was called up by admiration of Mr. Royston. "And then—" she said—"then, I suppose, you saw the guides coming. I mean, Mr. Royston saw them."
"Yes; and his shout soon let me know. He had just been saying he must start soon. After that it was all right. I only had to be hauled up. But you understand now how much we owe to you—both of us."
"Not Mr. Royston!"
"Yes, both of us. I very much doubt whether, after that night, he would have been equal to the return by himself. He found it quite enough, even with the help of a guide. So I think we may pretty well say that you have saved both our lives!"
"I've always longed to be able some day to save somebody's life," she replied gently.
Much more he could have told her, and did not.
He might have described at length that interminable night in his dreary bergshrund prison, where he dared not stir, for fear of falling yet lower. He had found a lodgment on a narrow snow-shelf at one side of the great cleft. Black depths of mystery lay below; and steep snow-walls rose high before and behind him; and the projecting upper "lip" of the shrund overhung his head; and nothing was clearly visible except a strip of sky far, far above. At any moment a fresh fall of snow might overwhelm him; and time crawled on with leaden footsteps, as he waited in his constrained position, suffering acutely from the piercing cold.
He could not see Rob. He was without food, without restoratives, and in hourly peril of death. Vainly, from time to time, he urged his friend to escape while escape was possible, and to leave him to his fate. Or rather—and he put this forward for Rob's sake—to get help. But he knew well that such help must almost certainly arrive too late; and Rob, knowing the same, always cheerily refused, bidding him keep up a brave heart.
Through it all Ivor could not banish Bee from his mind. He saw her face; he was haunted by her soft tones; he recalled little talks with her in the spring; he heard again Amy's utterance outside the Hut. The consciousness of what she possibly felt for him, and floating visions of what in some future day they might become one to the other, alternated with a picture of his life cut short, his career abruptly ended. And with this came self-searchings as to the manner of life he had lived; not indeed a blameworthy life, weighed in ordinary scales; yet not all that it should have been, weighed in loftier scales, seen in the near prospect of the Life to follow. It had not been an irreligious or a prayerless life; yet now, looking back, he felt how much had been wanting in it of whole-hearted devotion to the service of God; and keen regrets for the past mingled with strong resolutions for the future—if he should be permitted to get through safely.
As the fierce numbing cold of night enveloped him, creeping from limb to limb, stiffening every muscle, gripping his very bones, he could hear Royston far above, stamping, stirring, ever and anon shouting words of encouragement.
And once—never after would Ivor lose the impression made!—once, without warning or introduction, in strong distinct tones, Rob repeated the General Confession. Heart and soul Ivor joined in, echoing each familiar petition, and finding in them the full utterance of his own deepest need.
A slight pause at the end; and then the emphatic tones went on, in words equally familiar, declaring that, "HE pardoneth and absolveth!" Sentence by sentence came soon the Lord's Prayer; the evening Collects; the General Thanksgiving; and the Blessing.
This, Ivor thought, was the end of their strange Evensong—a service amid unwonted surroundings, and with an unwonted audience. Silence fell upon the icy scene; and he thankfully felt that it had done him good. Death indeed might lie ahead; near at hand! But there was ONE Who "pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent and unfeignedly believe!" The words gained a new power and depth for Ivor in that hour.
Rob had not done. His voice pealed forth anew; and now in song. Words and tune were alike well-known. But never before had they carried such meaning to Ivor, as when he heard them from the depths of his snow-cavern.
"O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come;
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our Eternal Home!"
No wonder, as verse after verse rang through the still night-air, and rolled over the snowy slopes, and echoed from the rocks, that they brought a sound of hope and promise for the unfortunate prisoner below. At the end, Ivor had difficulty in controlling his voice, to shout a hearty—"Thank you!"
No, he would never forget! An experience such as this leaves its stamp on a man for life!
[CHAPTER XI]
PATRICIA'S AFFAIRS
"A LETTER from Magda, I declare! Again—already!"
Patricia laughed. She was lounging gracefully on a low chair, near the window of a good-sized first-floor bedroom. Outside lay that same mountain amphitheatre, which had enchained the gaze of Beatrice Major from two storeys higher. It did not enchain the forget-me-not eyes of Patricia Vincent—those eyes having been engrossed during an hour past with the latest "Tauchnitz" novel.
Opposite sat a good-looking and well-dressed elderly lady. She had in hand some light fancy-work, and she cast an occasional glance—like Amy Smith—at the view. Her chief desire was to talk, but Patricia was not in the mood for talk, preferring her novel, and the aunt had to wait.
An English maid brought in letters; and Patricia turned hers over, with the above remark.
"Three whole sheets. Gracious! And I shall have to wade through them. Magda always finds out if I miss a single sentence."
"I thought you heard from her two days ago."
"Well, about that. The day her brother turned up. This is another!" Patricia exhibited the trio of sheets, holding them up, fan-wise. "She writes an atrocious hand. It will have to wait."
"Till you have finished your novel, I suppose." Mrs. Norman had been resenting her niece's determined pre-occupation with the book.
"Till I have finished my novel," assented Patricia, quite understanding, and not in the least disposed to give way. She always expected, as a matter of course, that everybody else should give way to her.
"You and this Miss—what is the name?—seem to be great friends. How long have you known her?"
"Magda Royston. Oh, about—since March. She is years younger than I am; but she adores me."
"And you like to be adored!" There was a suspicion of irony in the level tones of the elder lady. Patricia failed to detect it; but she could always talk of herself, and the subject was of sufficient interest to make her lay down the book.
"Why, yes. Most people like adoration—when they can get it, aunt Ju! Magda's state is simply worshipping! You know the sort of thing."
"Perhaps I do. And you are fond of her?"
"Yes, of course." The manner was not enthusiastic. "She is a nice enough girl—in her way. School-girlish!"
"And that was her brother who was going up the Blümlisalp—the one you spoke to!"
Patricia had taken Mrs. Norman somewhat aback, after table d'hôte, by accosting Rob as the brother of her new Burwood friend. Mrs. Norman held certain rather old-fashioned notions, and objected to casual acquaintances.
"Yes. I had only seen him once before, in a freezing March blizzard; but I liked his face then—and there was no mistaking it!"
"Would you not have been wiser to wait for an introduction?"
Patricia yawned gracefully behind her hand, at the first suspicion of fault-finding; and to yawn gracefully is a feat possible to few. A widely-extended jaw shows most faces at their worst.
"People don't wait for introductions in foreign hotels."
"It might be as well if they did sometimes. Mrs. Framley is particular!"
"And practically I had an introduction, in knowing his sister. I assure you I am every inch as particular as aunt Anne. I know what I'm about, aunt Ju. The Roystons are right enough. Otherwise I should never have thought of noticing him." Patricia objected to the slightest implication that she had done wrongly.
"And his friend? You may find yourself in for him also."
"I don't mind. I know all about Mr. Ivor. He is a barrister—one of the most promising on the bench, they say—any number of briefs already. I believe he has money of his own, or else expectations—but he works like a horse, and he is tremendously liked. And he is a friend of those delightful people, the Wryatts of Wratt-Wrothesley."
"Rye—Ratt—Rott—what, my dear?"
"You may well ask! It is a mouthful of a name. Two unmarried sisters in a dear old country house; perfectly charming women. I don't know them well; I wish I did, for it is an ideal house to stay in. Anybody who goes there is sure to be all right. I met them once in a house-party, and heard all about them. Grand-daughters of an Earl, and cousins of a Duke, and all that sort of thing."
"Mr. Royston seemed to know that very sweet-looking girl nearly opposite to us—with the pretty delicate face, and nice brown eyes."
"No, he didn't. They were strangers, only they happened to be together, and people don't sit mum on those occasions. I shouldn't have called her 'pretty,' exactly!" Patricia seldom called any woman pretty. "But I liked her look—if only she had not such a queer little piece of goods for her travelling-companion!"
"Your friend, Miss Royston, will be interested to hear that you have met her brother."
"Magda! I'm not sure. I don't think I shall say anything about him till I get back. No use to rouse jealousies."
"Surely there can be nothing in that for jealousy."
"I can't tell. She is frantically jealous of every single person that I speak to. It is getting to be a bore. She wants to keep me as a close preserve for herself; and that is out of the question. Things were well enough for the first few weeks, when I knew very few people in the place; but I'm getting full up now with engagements, and I can't have Magda perpetually hanging round. However—I don't want to hurt her feelings. I wish girls wouldn't be so frightfully sensitive. But I like that brother of hers. There's something about him out of the common."
"Clergyman?"
"Curate in some big parish. I'm not sure where. South London, I believe." Patricia began to laugh. "Magda raves about him. She has made up her mind to live with him in the future—to keep house, and work among the poor. About as fit for it as our Persian cat! I never saw a more recklessly untidy person—and he is the very essence of orderliness. Every inch of the man shows it. If ever that plan came to pass, she would drive him demented. But of course it never will."
"Men don't invariably marry."
"Anyhow, Magda won't suit him for a housekeeper."
"What is all the stir about?" Mrs. Norman stood up to look out.
"One of the climbing parties coming back I should imagine. They have been away much longer than was expected." Patricia showed signs of interest. "Both parties together—yes, there are the two girls, and the two men. Mr. Ivor seems hardly able to get along. He must have had an accident."
She ran downstairs, followed more deliberately by her aunt. Everybody was hurrying out to welcome the returned climbers, and to hear the story of their doings.
Most of the way from the Oeschinen Hotel, Ivor had perforce submitted to be carried, but he insisted on walking into Kandersteg. It was as much as he could do, for his foot remained very painful; and a few days' rest would plainly be necessary before he could go farther.
To Beatrice this made no difference. She and Amy were leaving next morning; and of course they kept to their plan.
Bee had seen little of Ivor during their descent. The two girls had been together in front; Ivor coming behind with the guides; Rob taking turns with either. Nor did she see more of him this last evening. He had talked freely to her of his adventure, by the Oeschinen Lake; but he made no efforts to be thrown more in her path.
He recognised by this time the fact that he was very much drawn to Bee; that he had begun to look upon her as altogether different and apart from other girls; and he could not forget how she had haunted his imagination during this terrible time in the bergshrund. If not yet in love, he was fast nearing that condition.
But two strong reasons withheld him from immediate action. For one thing—she had saved his life; and it would not do to risk letting her think that he sought her out of gratitude. For another—she must be aware that he might have overheard Miss Smith's remark outside the Hut; and there again he sensitively feared that she would perhaps imagine his conduct to have been inspired by those careless words. His suit would have to come freely, naturally, spontaneously—if ever he did seek her.
Ivor put it thus cautiously to himself. Then, with a glow, he altered the words. "When I seek her—!" he said.
The farewell between himself and Bee next morning was entirely simple and commonplace. Bee said sadly in her mind—"I may never see him again!"
And Ivor went off to his room with a book, which he found supremely uninteresting. To make matters worse, he saw little of his hitherto constant friend. For the change in their plans which could mean nothing for Bee meant much to Rob, and something to Patricia. The two thereafter were perpetually coming together. They had endless talks, and Rob was captivated.
Patricia as usual welcomed with warmth another worshipper at her shrine. She lived for admiration, and she did not know how to get on without it. With her numerous devotees, both masculine and feminine, the question might always be asked whether what she really cared for was the person, or the person's devotion for herself. But she certainly did like Rob, and had liked him from the first. His personality took more hold upon her than was generally the case.
Mrs. Norman allowed matters to drift for three or four days, then suddenly awoke to the fact that this might mean something serious. Rob's absorption in her niece was patent to the most casual observer; and Patricia too showed signs of being for once touched. Mrs. Norman did not wish for the responsibility of an "affair," while Patricia was with her. Mr. Royston might be all that one could wish as a man, but a curate without private means or prospects would hardly meet with Mrs. Framley's approval. So she promptly decided to move on elsewhere, and she gave out this intention.
Patricia was not given to sulks, for sulks are not becoming; but she actually did treat her aunt to something not far removed from one of Magda's "November fogs" during the week that followed. Not of course in public, where she always smiled, but in private.
For obvious reasons Rob said nothing about Patricia, when he wrote to Magda; and for reasons perhaps less obvious, despite what she had said to her aunt, Patricia was equally silent. Beatrice followed the same course, simply because she did not write. Her last three letters to Magda had had no reply; and though hers was not a resentful nature, and she was slow to take offence, she had resolved to wait till she should hear.
Virginia Villa, in which she and her mother would now live, was within a quarter of an hour of Magda's home. It was clearly for Magda to take the next step.
[CHAPTER XII]
AN OPPORTUNITY LOST
MAGDA was unhappy, and distinctly cross.
She did not wish to be cross, and probably she would not have called herself so. But her world seemed all awry, and her temper suffered under the strain. Self-control was not one of Magda's prime virtues, as by this time you will have found out. It is quite possible for a person to feel desperately cross, and yet so to hold down the feeling that no one can guess its existence. But if Magda were cross, all around knew it.
Merryl certainly did. She came in, dragging her steps in an unwonted fashion, looking pale and heavy-eyed. Magda was alone, seated at a side-table of the school-room, with an ostentatious array of grammars and dictionaries. Since Patricia's departure for the Continent she had, in self-defence, taken violently to French and German.
"Please, Magda—"
"Oh, don't bother. I'm busy."
"Mother wants a note taken to Mrs. Hodgson."
"Well, I suppose you can take it." Merryl was the acknowledged family messenger.
"Yes—only—"
"Only what?"
"I thought perhaps you would—just for once."
"I can't, Merryl. I want to get this translation done before lunch."
"Couldn't you do it—after lunch?"
"No, I can't!" sharply. "I must bicycle over then to see if Patricia is back."
Merryl did not give up yet. "It's such a long way—and so hot!" she murmured.
"I don't see that it's any farther or hotter for you than for me!"
"No," rather faintly. "Only—if you could—only just this once."
"I've told you—I can't! That's enough."
Merryl said no more. She stood still looking at Magda. Then she dragged herself slowly from the room.
That was not like her. Ordinarily she was all sunshine, all readiness to do whatever anybody wished. Though not observant, Magda felt a little uncomfortable. It occurred to her that the child might for once be tired, and that she certainly ought to offer to go in her stead.
Instead of responding instantly to this inward suggestion, she sat still and debated with herself. Should she? Was it needful? It would be such a bother! She had made up her mind to do a certain amount that morning, and she hated having to change her plans. Besides, she felt cross and dissatisfied—unhappy, she called it to herself—and disinclined for a long hot bicycle ride in the sun. Such a dull straight road. And all the other way in the afternoon! She liked the idea quite as little as Merryl. Why should she have to do it, and not Merryl? Nothing ever hurt Merryl. And she couldn't put off going to Claughton. That must come first—sun or no sun, Merryl or no Merryl.
The translation was at a standstill. Magda leant back in her chair, lost in thought.
There was more than one trouble weighing on her mind.
Rob had written only a single short letter all the time he had been in Switzerland. True, he had sent a shower of picture-postcards; but what are picture-postcards when one wants a long delightful outpour? And since his return only one plain postcard! She felt deeply injured.
Worse still, she had written five long letters to the adored Patricia during her absence on the Continent; and only one scribbled note had come in response, with a list of places visited. She had poured out her soul for Patricia's benefit; giving the best gold that she had; and it brought in exchange a few coppers.
Nor was this all. Three days earlier, hearing casually that Patricia was expected, she had bicycled over beforehand, to leave flowers and an enthusiastic note of welcome, imploring to know how soon she might see her idol. No reply, no word of thanks, had yet arrived. It might be that Patricia's return had been delayed. She could not pass another night not knowing.
In addition to these worries was another, yet heavier. The Majors had arrived, and had taken possession of Virginia Villa. She had seen vans with luggage before the door ten days earlier; and by reference to Bee's last unanswered letter, she knew that Bee herself must now be there.
Action could no longer be put off. She would have to tell her mother and Penrose. She would have to ask them to call. She would have to explain somehow why she had kept silence so long. How she now wished that she had been brave and sensible, and had spoken earlier! It seemed so silly, so absurd, not to have done it—and so unkind to Bee. "Mean!" whispered a small accusing voice in her heart.
It was mean, and she knew it. Bee had been so good and true, always kind and helpful and ready to take trouble—surely, the least she could do now was to welcome her friend, and not to give way to foolish shame, merely because that friend lived in a small and unimportant house.
But—Pen's little contemptuous laugh!
If she could not stand a laugh for the sake of a friend, what was her friendship worth? And what was she worth? "Mean!" whispered again that accusing voice.
"Oh dear! I wish they had never come!" she sighed.
But they had come. It was sheer waste of time to sit wishing that her world had been ordered differently. The question was—not, how things might have been, but how she was going to meet them as they were?
Glancing out of the window, she saw Merryl bicycling down the road. So now it was too late to go in her stead. The matter was settled, and she might bend her attention to her work—that work, for the sake of which, ostensibly, she had refused to do a little kindness.
But the wandering attention failed to be bent. She had been beaten in one respect, and now she was beaten in another. The German translation made no further advance; and when the gong sounded for luncheon, she was still moodily nursing her grievances, still debating with herself what to do about the Majors—whether to put off, whether to speak, and if she did speak, what to say.
At luncheon she was to be taken by surprise—as one is apt to be, if one drifts along, waiting for circumstances to decide one's action, instead of simply resolving to do what is right.
Merryl did not appear. She had been some distance to take a note for Mrs. Royston, the latter said regretfully, and had not said that she was not well; and the heat had upset her. She was lying down upstairs. Mr. Royston was very much disturbed. He glared round angrily, and asked why on earth somebody else hadn't gone? It was too bad! They all made a regular Cinderella of Merryl, and nobody ever gave a thought to his poor little girl. What was Magda about not to do it, he wanted to know? He attacked the cold joint savagely, casting indignant glances.
Magda felt guilty and looked injured.
Pen tried to make a diversion. "I see that Virginia Villa is taken," she unexpectedly remarked. "People are arriving there."
"Oh, ever so long ago," piped Frip's little soprano. "There were two whole waggons there, and another next day. And, oh, such a funny lady, mummie—dressed all anyhow. She'd got a sort of big apron-pinafore all over her frock, and she stood outside the door in it giving orders. And she spoke in a sort of slow way, and made the men hurry, and told them just exactly where every single thing was to go. She was funny."
Magda writhed internally.
"And the Vicarage gardener was going by, just when they were getting the furniture down, and they couldn't manage the piano right. And she said to him—'Will you give a helping hand, my man?' John did it directly, and he didn't seem to mind. But it was funny of her, wasn't it? And there was one of those wicker things, like what Pen hangs her skirt on when she's making one."
"Another dressmaker, I suppose," Pen remarked. "I only hope she will be as good as the last. Such a pity she married and went away. I always liked her style. I wonder if this one will have any style."
Mrs. Royston half smiled. "Judging from Frip's description of her dress, that is doubtful."
"Any plate with a name on the door, Frip?"
Frip shook a wise little head. "I didn't see one, but she mightn't have had time to put it up yet, might she?"
Magda said nothing. She felt that she could say nothing. Not at all events just then. She wished with all her heart that she had spoken out sooner. Now—how could she? To have her friend's mother taken for a dressmaker! It was hopeless!
Luncheon ended, she felt scared and unhappy. The thought of Merryl went out of her head. She was bewildered, and perplexed what line to follow.
Claughton had to come first. Upon that point she was resolute. Nothing and nobody might interfere with it. But when she had been, when she had as she hoped seen Patricia, then no doubt it would be wise to go and see Bee. If she did not call soon, who could say whether Bee might not decide to come and see her? So she imagined, though no step was more unlikely on the part of Bee. She grew cold at the thought. What would Pen say?
There seemed to be nothing for it but to take the bull by the horns—by the wrong horn, be it remarked!—to go without further delay to Virginia Villa, and to put things right somehow.
She would have to make Bee and her mother understand the position of affairs. She would have to explain-or to hint—that though she herself would go to see Bee as often as she could spare the time, yet they must not expect to find themselves quite upon the same level, or look to have a welcome from all the circle of the Royston acquaintances. It was too horrid, too disgusting, to have to do anything of the sort. But how could she help it? Nothing else remained? After what had passed at luncheon, how could she ask her mother to call?
Was it really impossible? Even now, would not complete frankness be the wiser, the nobler, the better course? This thought came vividly; but Magda put it aside.
"I can't! I really can't!" she muttered impatiently. "I must wait! I must find out first what I can do with them. After that—perhaps—I suppose I must tell mother!"
And she did not see the cowardice of her decision.
[CHAPTER XIII]
VIRGINIA VILLA
IT was a broiling afternoon, and no mistake. No wonder Merryl had felt the sun too hot! Magda thought of this, and wished, with a touch of self-reproach, that she had gone to see her sister before starting. By the time she reached Claughton Manor, her face was the colour of a peony.
She rang and asked for Patricia. "Was Miss Vincent back yet?"
Miss Vincent had returned three days earlier.
"Could I see her?"
The man—an old family butler—was not sure. He believed that Miss Vincent had an engagement that afternoon, but he would enquire.
"I won't keep Miss Vincent long. Only just a minute!" pleaded Magda.
She was shown into the breakfast-room, and the man disappeared. Returning, he said that Miss Vincent would come presently, if Miss Royston could wait.
She was left in the breakfast-room, not taken upstairs, as she had hoped, into Patricia's boudoir—a sure sign that the interview was to be brief. There she sat, and waited long. Patricia often kept people waiting—those whom she counted to be of small social importance; but she had never kept Magda quite so long before. Gloomy forebodings attacked the girl. Did Patricia not care to see her, after all these weeks of separation? Had she said or done something that Patricia did not like? Could it be that some inkling had reached Patricia of the coming of the Majors to Burwood, and that she counted a friend of theirs no longer a fit friend for herself?
Magda had time enough in which to conjure up no end of direful imaginings. Nearly three-quarters of an hour passed, before a light step came down the passage, and Patricia appeared, wearing one of her daintiest frocks and most bewitching hats, evidently ready for some social function. She was drawing on a pair of white gloves.
"Well, Magda—how are you? So sorry to keep you waiting, dear, but I'm awfully busy since getting back. And I have had to dress early, so as to be ready in time. I can give you two or three minutes now." She just touched her lips to Magda's flushed cheek, eluding a proffered embrace. "Don't crumple me, dear, please. Well—are you quite well, and desperately busy too?"
"I'm never too busy to come here. Never!"
"You told me you were working very hard."
"Yes—but still—Patricia, when may I really see you? When may I come for a good long talk? I want to hear all about your travels and everything."
"Of course—yes. I have no end of things to tell you." Patricia slowly buttoned her left glove. "Let me see I'm afraid every single day this week is full. I must write, and name some afternoon—next week."
Magda's face fell, while Patricia was wondering whether and how much Robert Royston might have said to his sister as to their meeting abroad. It was her intention to avoid being catechised about it by Magda; but, perhaps, on the whole, some slight allusion now was desirable, all the more since there was no time for the said catechising. So, with a little laugh, she remarked—
"You must have been amused to hear of my coming across your brother at Kandersteg."
"Rob! Not Rob!" cried Magda, in deep amazement. "Why, he never told me!"
This meant a good deal to Patricia, as a token of Rob's feelings. She only said, with a smile—
"He did not think it important enough."
"Oh, it couldn't be that! It wasn't that! And you met—really! Were you in the same hotel?"
Patricia held out a hand. "Can you manage these buttons for me? They are rather difficult. Yes, the same hotel. Just for three or four days or so. It was when he went up the Blümlisalphorn with his friend, Mr. Ivor."
"He sent me a picture-card, I remember. But he did not say a word about you!"
"Too busy, my dear. Climbing takes a lot of time. And Mr. Ivor had a bad accident as they were coming down the mountain—fell into a crevasse, and might have been killed. That gave your brother more to do."
"I suppose so. But I do think he might have told me—if it was only half-a-dozen words."
"You shouldn't expect too much. Men hate writing letters on a holiday. By-the-by, thanks so much for those nice flowers, and for your note. So good of you! And now, I'm afraid, I really must say good-bye. But you will come again soon. I shall write and fix a day."
And that was all. Magda made her way out, mounted her bicycle, and set off for home; going slowly much of the way, and walking up the hills with a heavy step. She was puzzled by Rob's silence on what he must have known would be a great interest to her. She was conscious of a slight subtle change in Patricia—she did not use the word "subtle," but she felt it—which perplexed and weighed upon her. The manner was not less affectionate than usual; yet some new element seemed to have crept into their friendship.
Was it the Majors? Toiling up a long slope, she asked this question.
Anyhow, she would go at once to Virginia Villa, and would see how the land lay. No use putting off.
Thither she went direct, not calling at home by the way. She left her bicycle in the tiny front garden, and rang. A neat little maid opened the door and showed her into a drawing-room which took her by surprise. It was much larger than she had expected—yes, plainly, the front and back rooms had been thrown into one, making a room of good size, handsomely furnished. On an easel in the back window stood a half-finished painting; and work lay about carelessly. Magda recognised the tasteful fingers of her friend in the very sweep of the window-curtains, and in the mass of flowers piled upon a side-table. Bee was a born artist, and she carried with her an atmosphere of harmony.
Magda herself felt anything rather than harmonious this hour. She had never been more uncomfortable in her life.
The two ladies came in together; Bee, as always, gentle, slender, reticent, quietly affectionate, but rather holding back, as if not quite sure of Magda. The latter's constrained kiss was hardly of a nature to reassure.
There was no manner of constraint about Bee's mother. Of medium height, plain in feature, rather stout, wearing a short alpaca black skirt and a loose black jacket—she did in a fashion resemble the photograph with which Magda was familiar. Only, no photograph could reproduce the absolute ease and supreme composure of the original. In two points alone was she like her daughter—in the slender pretty hands, and the soft low-toned voice; but her speech was slower than Bee's, and she had the air of being much more sure of herself.
"So this is your particular friend, Bee!" Mrs. Major's eyes examined Magda kindly, as she shook hands.
Bee looked rather sad.
"I thought I had better come directly—though of course—though I was afraid—I thought you might be too busy—"
"Not at all, Magda. Mother was so good—only think, instead of waiting for me to come home and help her, as I expected, she did everything with the maids, and had the whole house straight before I arrived. It was such a surprise."
"Then Mrs. Major has been here some time."
"More than a fortnight. And how she must have worked!"
"Work does nobody harm. Sit down, Miss Royston. Tea is coming directly."
As Mrs. Major spoke, the neat young girl brought in a tray, placing it upon a small basket-table.
Magda murmured indistinct thanks, adding, "And you like Burwood?"
"It is not new to me. I used to visit in the neighbourhood when I was a child."
Magda was too much pre-occupied with her own line of thought to notice this, or to follow it out, as she might have done. How to bring in what she had to say she did not know; and the mental struggle kept her absent and dull. Bee waited on her, supplied her wants, and asked questions about things in general. Mrs. Major filled gaps with easy talk, never for a moment at a loss for something to say. She was evidently a well-read woman, and a clever one; much more so than Magda had been accustomed to consider Bee. She tried Magda on a variety of subjects, and had small response in any direction. For some time no loophole occurred for anything personal.
Tea was nearly over when Bee remarked—"I hope you will come in very often, Magda."
Magda seized upon the opening. "Yes—I should like it very much. Only, of course, when one is at home, there is a lot to do—and so many people to see—and—"
"We quite understand. I don't think you will find us at all unreasonable, dear."
Magda had an odd sense, of which she had never at school been conscious, that she was a good deal younger than Bee. The latter seemed, all at once, to have gained years in age. Not only was she older, but prettier, more dignified, more controlled in manner.
"But of course I do mean—" Magda came to a stop.
"No doubt you have a great many friends here, and perhaps not very much leisure," politely suggested Mrs. Major. It really seemed as if they were trying to help her out of her difficulty.
"And then, Magda, having Miss Vincent must make a great difference. You are always seeing her, are you not? And at first we shall not know all your friends, or they us."
The opportunity was not to be lost. Magda summoned up her courage. "I suppose—I suppose not," she said, with averted gaze. "People here are rather—are rather slow, you know—I mean, in calling on new-comers."
She looked up nervously to see the effect of her words, and intercepted one swift glance between mother and daughter. Not an unkind glance; not offended; but amused.
"No doubt," assented Mrs. Major. "It is always wise to be careful."
Bee laughed. "But even if we don't know your friends, dear, and even if we are out of it all, I hope we shall see you sometimes, when you can spare half-an-hour. You must not make a burden of it."
Magda felt ashamed. "Of course I shall come," she said. "And if—if my mother—" she stopped, hardly knowing what she had meant to say.
"I want so much to know your mother," Bee observed.
"But—but I'm not quite sure—" faltered Magda. "You see—mother isn't very strong—and she has so many calls to pay—and I'm not sure—if she—"
It was impossible to finish the sentence, in face of Bee's soft wondering eyes, still more in face of Mrs. Major's steady gaze and air of composed waiting. Magda found her feet awkwardly, with crimsoning cheeks.
"I'm so sorry, I can't stay longer now," she added. "I'll come again soon, if I may."
"Pray come any day that you feel inclined," Mrs. Major responded easily, with no apparent consciousness of what Magda had meant. "Bee's friends will always be welcome at Virginia Villa." She said the name in precisely the same tone that she might have used to say "Claughton Manor," or "Windsor Castle."
Bee went out to see Magda through the little front door, coming back with a shadow on her face.
"I'm rather disappointed in your friend, my dear. But she may improve on a further acquaintance. Is she always like this?"
"She was different at school. I don't understand her to-day—or what made her so. Unless—it is something perhaps that her mother has said."
"Probably. Mrs. Royston may not intend to call, till she has hunted out our antecedents."
"It may be that, mother."
"But after being your friend for two years, she might have said enough to satisfy even Burwood squeamishness."
"Yes—only—I never did tell Magda much."
"Not enough, perhaps."
"Mother, you have always hated snobbishness. And I know how you laughed at Miss Norris, for dragging in her rich relations at every corner."
"And you are your mother's own daughter." Mrs. Major's small dark eyes, clever and deep-set, rested lovingly on the girl. "However, one must take people as they are. Never mind. It will all come right. I have no doubt that there is a finer side to Magda Royston—and that this is a mere episode; not her fault."
"No. Only, I don't really think—if I had been in her place this afternoon—that I could have done just so!"
"I'm perfectly sure that you could not, Bee." Mrs. Major spoke with decision.
[CHAPTER XIV]
A REVERSION OF THOUGHT
LEAVING her machine in the bicycle-shed, Magda went indoors, to find herself face to face with her father. Up to that moment she had been entirely occupied with her own concerns—dissatisfied with herself, disappointed not to have seen more of Patricia, uncomfortable about Bee—and since leaving the house she had not once remembered Merryl.
The moment her eyes fell upon Mr. Royston she did remember. He was roving restlessly about, between hall and study and drawing-room, as if not knowing what to do with himself. At the sight of Magda, he faced round abruptly.
"So here you are at last! Time enough too! Where have you been all day?"
"I've only been away since lunch. Not all day."
"Pretty sharp you went off too, never stopping to see if you were wanted. Never a thought of your poor little sister, or how she might be!"
There was too much truth in this. She had hurried off, in fear that something might prevent that which she had set her mind on doing.
"Isn't Merryl well, father?"
"Well! Not likely!—treated in such a way! My poor little girl! Sent off in that hair-brained fashion, when she was only fit for bed! In this heat too! I'm not blaming your mother. She didn't know. Merryl took care she shouldn't! But you might have had more sense. Not a soul in the house sees to that child. She never complains—never thinks of herself—the most unselfish little darling that ever lived. And you—always so full of your own affairs, that you neither know nor care what becomes of anybody else!"
Magda swelled resentfully, for this of course was an exaggeration; but he went on wrathfully—"I'll take good care nothing of that sort ever happens again! I'll look after her myself in future—if—" and there was an ominous choke in his voice—"if—if she gets over—this!"
Magda's heart gave a great frightened throb.
"Is Merryl lying down still?"
"Lying down still!" growled Mr. Royston. "That's all you know! That's all you care!" He turned off, as if not trusting himself to say more, and disappeared in the study, shutting the door.
Magda stood feeling dazed. It was as if a small thunderbolt had fallen at her feet. If Merryl should get over this! She repeated the words to herself. Get over what? Something must have come to pass while she was away—something unlooked-for. All sorts of conjectures thronged up, none of which would fit the case. But Merryl was ill. Merryl must be ill. That "if she gets over this" could have no other meaning. She must have been ill in the morning—too ill for a long hot bicycle ride—and Magda had refused to go in her stead.
In one moment the world had changed; and she saw it from a new standpoint. No longer was Patricia the one and only person to be considered. Suddenly she found how much these home-ties really meant—how dear to her heart was this unselfish little sister, Merryl! Ill! Perhaps not to get over it! Oh, but that was impossible. It could not have come upon them with such frightful suddenness. And Mr. Royston was always an alarmist, especially in regard to Merryl.
Magda plucked up courage, and went to the school-room. She must hear more—must know what it all meant.
At first the room looked empty. Then she espied a small figure, curled up in one corner of the deep old window seat, with long hair falling like a veil and hiding the child's face.
"Frip!" The word came fearfully. Dread surged up anew.
Francie made no answer. Magda went close, putting an urgent arm round the little figure; and there was a slight shake of the shoulders, as if to repudiate her touch.
"Frip! what is it? Frip, tell me! I'm only just come in. What is the matter?"
Frip said one word—"Merryl!" and burst into tears.
"Go on! Go on!" commanded Magda.
"She is—oh, so bad!" sobbed Frip. "And the doctor has been. And he says—she never, never ought to have gone! Her head did ache so, and her throat was sore, and I begged her so to let you take the note. But she said you couldn't—you were busy—and she wouldn't let me worry mother—and I couldn't find Pen."
"She never told me her head ached," spoke Magda miserably.
"She didn't tell me; but I saw. Of course I saw. And I do wish now I'd told mother, though she said I mustn't. She said perhaps the ride would do her good. But it didn't. When she tried to get up, after lunch, she nearly fainted right off. And then she said she had tumbled off her bicycle twice, coming home; and the second time she banged her head against the gate-post, and it hurt her so dreadfully, she could hardly get indoors. And the doctor says nobody is to go into her room, except mother; and she's to be taken to the end spare room; and Pen has gone out to find a nurse. And I don't know what to do without Merryl!"
Magda felt guilty and unhappy. It was easy to see that even little Francie blamed her; and for once she had no words of self-defence to offer.
Penrose came in, grave and sad. "Is Frip here?" she said. Then—"So you have come back!" Magda heard reproach in the tone.
"Yes. What is the matter with Merryl?"
Pen did not at once reply. "Come, Frip, dear," she said. "You had better run into the garden."
"I don't want to go—without Merryl."
"Shall I come too? Run and get your garden-hat, and wait for me at the back-door. Don't go upstairs."
Frip obeyed, and Pen turned to Magda. "We don't want much said before Frip," she breathed. "Dr. Cartwright is afraid that it may be scarlet fever. There are one or two bad cases in the town."
"Then it wasn't going out in the sun that made her ill."
"That has made her worse. She never ought to have gone—if any one had had the least idea that she was so poorly. No one knew except Frip; and of course Frip did not understand. I can't think how it was that none of us saw; but mother and I were very busy; and she had such a colour. Frip says she turned quite white before she started—and when she asked you to go."
The words, though pointed, were not unkindly spoken; and Magda was too unhappy for vexation.
"I don't think I looked at her—particularly. And she never said she wasn't well. If I had known, of course I would have gone."
"It is such a pity you did not. She fell from her bicycle with her head against the gate-post, and it almost stunned her. That makes things so much worse. She was quite wandering before Dr. Cartwright came, and he found her in a high fever. He cannot know for some hours how much is due to the blow, and whether it really is scarlet fever; but he seems pretty sure. Poor dear little Merryl. If only we had known!"
Pen spoke tenderly and went away. Magda, left alone, with nothing to do, nobody wanting her, nobody turning to her, felt very wretched. When she thought of Merryl's plaintive petition, and of her own curt refusal, she hardly knew how to bear herself. It was too terrible to think that she might have refused Merryl's very last request—the very last time that she would ever see and speak with her sister. It was not her way to cry easily; but she sat long, looking straight before her, and feeling acutely that if that came to pass, she could never be happy again.
Yet nobody seemed to think that she was to be pitied. This dawned upon her with a sense of surprise. All the others were full of loving sympathy one for another; while towards herself there was only blame; and no one expected her to mind very much. It startled her to find things thus, and made her realise, more than she had ever done before, the manner of life she had been living.
For it was not that she meant to be unkind or selfish; not that she was wanting in real affection; but that she did not think, did not put others' happiness before her own, did not live for those around. There was any amount of real love and tenderness below the surface, but love of self had had the upper hand. And when she resented what they felt, she quite forgot how very little she had yet shown of what this trouble meant to her. The first impulse with Magda, as with many girls who pride themselves on their reserve, was to hide what she felt, and to put on an appearance of indifference.
This was only the beginning of a long stretch of anxiety. The doctor's fear proved correct. It was scarlet fever of a pronounced type; and the illness was greatly aggravated by the blow on the head, which had caused slight concussion. Day by day reports grew worse; and delirium was incessant.
The patient had been removed to a part of the house entirely separated from the rest, with a staircase of its own, and an outer door; so the segregation could be complete. There was at first some talk of the family going elsewhere for a time. But this was decided against. They had all been with Merryl; and any one among them might already have caught the complaint. So they remained where they were, all possible precautions being taken. Nothing could induce Mrs. Royston to remain away from the sick-room. A second nurse was a necessity, the case being so severe; so she and the nurse and child lived a separate existence from the household.
Complete isolation from friends and neighbours was involved for the whole party. It was a new experience for Magda. Everybody was most kind; notes and enquiries, supplies of beef-tea and jelly for the little invalid, arrived in profusion. But naturally and rightly, other people had to avoid infection for themselves and their children.
No going to church; no entering of shops; no seeing of friends; no engagements. The doctor of course came daily; before long twice and even three times in the day; but only Mr. Royston or Pen spoke with him; and though the Vicar called often, he and Magda did not happen to meet.
Patricia sent a little conventional note of sympathy, prettily expressed, and making it very clear that she intended to hold aloof as long as possible. Magda was requested not even to write to her, for fear of infection being conveyed through the post. Magda did think Patricia might have said less about the need for care on her own account, and more about her friend's trouble. It was the first real touch of disillusionment.
On the same day a letter arrived from Bee, so tender, so loving, so full of sympathy, that Magda could not but mark the contrast. Bee seemed to think of nothing, to remember nothing, except that Magda was in sorrow, and that she longed to comfort her. Magda could not but think of Miss Mordaunt's words—"Bee is a friend worth having, and worth keeping."
How little she had thought of late about kind Miss Mordaunt!—And still less of her own aims and aspirations, her desire to live a brave and useful life!
She quite longed to speak out, to tell her mother about the Majors, to confess her own folly in keeping silence. But Mrs. Royston was in the sick-room, out of reach. She had to wait; and meantime nothing could be thought of except that long life-and-death struggle going on upstairs in the distant end-room.
Then came a day when a few hours would decide the probable issue; when Merryl lay, powerless, feeble, unconscious, just breathing, and on the very borderland of the next world—when, hour by hour, they all knew that any moment might see the end. And of all in the house, none grieved more bitterly than Magda. For she knew, she could not help knowing, that her consenting to take the note might have made just all the difference. The great danger was that Merryl would sink from exhaustion. And but for the added complications, resulting from over-exertion and the fall from her bicycle, there could be no doubt that her rallying-power would have been greater.
If Magda had never prayed before—and probably she had at times, however fitfully—she did pray, fervently and passionately, in these days of suspense.
No one in the house thought now that she did not care. Little though she said, the burden was plainly written on her face. Even Mr. Royston had ceased to reproach her; and Pen was kind; and Frip often clung to her with childish pity. But there was no comfort. Magda felt that there never could be any comfort, if Merryl should die.
She saw life in truer colours than ever before. There are times when we get away from earth-mists, and gain clear views of the true proportions, the true values of things. This was one such time. Many a resolution she made in those sorrowful waiting hours—if only Merryl might recover!
Rob came down to see them. He thought nothing of infection for himself, being used to sick-rooms of all kinds; and he had hoped to see Merryl, but against this Mr. Royston laid an embargo. If Rob went to that room, he might not come back among the rest. Rob was about to agree, about to say that he would return home that evening, when his eyes fell upon Magda. He knew in a moment that she needed him more than Merryl.
No opportunity came before night for any word alone with her. Magda kept up and seemed resolutely to hold aloof.
And next morning the cloud lifted. Merryl was better. Definite improvement had set in; and the doctor, coming early, spoke in cheerful tones of recovery.
Until that moment Magda had not been seen to give way. But when Mr. Royston came in, radiant with the good news, and when she learnt that confident hopes might at last be indulged, she looked wildly round as if for escape. She rushed away, without a word, to the deserted school-room, and knelt down, hiding her face on folded arms, to sob out her vehement thanksgiving for this merciful escape from a life-long sorrow.
Pen found her thus; and she might as well have tried to stop a gale of wind with her hand, as to stay with words that tempest of weeping. As with many who seldom are mastered, when Magda was mastered, it was very completely. She did not even know that Pen had been, or was gone. But presently a strong quiet hand was on her shoulder, gently pressing it, and in time Rob's voice said—
"That will do!"
Magda sobbed on, and again came the words—
"That will do, Magda."
She was crumpled in a heap on the rug; and she allowed him to draw her to a sitting posture. With gasping efforts after self-control, she at length managed to stop.
"What is it all about?" he asked then. "Try to tell me—quietly."
"Rob—if—if she had died—"
"Yes. Go on."
"It would have been my doing."
"In what way? Hush—" as the storm threatened to return. "It would have been your doing—how?"
Gradually he induced her to pour out the whole—how she had failed all round, how she had lived for self only, how she had refused to help Merryl when asked, how that one ordinary slip in everyday kindness might have brought about tragic consequences. And when she had related her tale, she found that he knew it already at least in part, that he had divined what she must be going through, that he was here for the very purpose of bringing help.
Not help of his own. He was here to point her to ONE stronger than himself,—"mighty to save." Magda needed to be saved from her weakness of will, from her readiness to give in to temptation. For the past she needed forgiveness; for the future, power to fight and to conquer.
"But this must be no empty repentance," he urged. "You must let what has happened be a warning to you. It is in the small things of common life that we fail most grievously; it is in those small things that we often dishonour our Lord most, and do most harm to others. You have to make a fresh start now, to remember that you are bound to His service. It must not be any longer self-pleasing, self-indulgence—but—'Teach me to do the thing that pleaseth Thee!' When you get back into everyday life again, don't let yourself forget."
"I'll try," she whispered in a subdued tone.
[CHAPTER XV]
LIFE'S ONWARD MARCH
WEEKS and weeks had passed; all the long weeks of Merryl's acute danger, and of her slow recovery with its many drawbacks; and then of her absence at the sea-side with her mother. It seemed to Magda like years since the day that she had last called upon Patricia, for that short and disappointing interview from which she had hoped so much.
No one else had caught the fever; and it was now over a month that Mrs. Royston and Merryl had been away. The whole house had been thoroughly fumigated and disinfected; much painting and papering had taken place; and everything which could be suspected of conveying infection was destroyed. With the arrival of autumn, people were beginning to realise that the Roystons were once more "safe," though some of the more nervous still held aloof.
Mrs. Major and Bee had been for several weeks away from Burwood paying visits; otherwise, Magda could not doubt, she and Bee would have met. Not yet had she found opportunity to tell her mother about them; and she shrank from speaking first to her sister. Pen might set herself against the acquaintance, and might influence Mrs. Royston to refuse to call. A mistake again on the part of Magda!
The absentees were expected soon to return. Merryl was better, Mrs. Royston wrote, though not so much better as every one hoped; but they would not remain much longer away.
Patricia was among those who held longest aloof. If she chanced to meet any of the Roystons out-of-doors, she gave them a very wide berth; this, up to the last fortnight, during which she too had flitted elsewhere, Magda sometimes admitted to herself, though to no one else, that she in Patricia's place could not have shown quite such excessive caution to her greatest friend.
But was she Patricia's greatest friend? At one time she had felt sure. Doubts now troubled her often.
All these weeks of trouble, of anxiety, of self-searching, were good for Magda. It was one of those periods in life when one is taken apart from the ordinary round, and set upon a watch-tower on the mountainside, to gain new views of the landscape, new views of duty, new views of self. She had been compelled to pause, to think, to take stock of her own aims and objects, to examine her course. She had been humbled in her own eyes; had seen her failures; had made resolves for the future.