A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill
engineer with his hand on the throttle, released the brakes, and sent
his train thundering down the grade to destruction.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Myrtella, having finished her visit in a grand finale of
pyrotechnics, in which she displayed Phineas to his wife in a number
of blazing lifelike portraits, took her departure. It was not the first
time she had faced the alternative of paying the rent, or seeing her
only relative turned into the street, nor was it the first time that,
after giving innumerable pieces of her mind to Maria, she had followed
them up with the rent.
All the way home she discussed the matter audibly with herself, and was
still muttering darkly when she reached the Queeringtons'. So absorbed
was she in her own wrongs that she did not notice that the front door
stood open, and figures were hurrying about in the hall.
As she let herself into the side door, a white-faced young girl, with
her hair brushed straight back into a long braid, rushed through the
pantry.
“What's the matter, Miss Hattie?”
The girl steadied herself by the banister. “It's father!” she said
with chattering teeth. “There's been an awful accident just below the
Junction. They can't even bring him home. They are taking him to a place
out there, a Colonel Carsey's. Colonel Carsey was killed. He was sitting
right by father. Oh! Myrtella, I'm so afraid father's going to die!”
Myrtella standing helplessly before the terror-stricken girl, could
find no words of sympathy. In fact she appeared even more formidable and
bristling than usual.
“Well, he ain't dead yet,” she said shortly, “and any how, there ain't
no reason why you shouldn't have supper. Trouble always sets heavy on a
empty stomach.”
CHAPTER VII
The fatal accident which Phineas Flathers' misguided patriotism had
precipitated, changed the course of many a life, but to none did it
bring more far-reaching consequences than to the daughter of old Bob
Carsey.
Miss Lady could never clearly recall those first days after her father's
death. They seemed to her a confused nightmare of strange doctors
and nurses, of a strange man hovering between life and death in the
guest-room bed, of strange people coming and going, or sitting in hushed
groups on the stiff horsehair chairs in the hall, waiting for news. Two
facts alone remained fixed in the whirling chaos of unrealities; her
father was dead, and no letter had come from Donald Morley.
Each day when the mail arrived she roused from her apathy, and with
trembling fingers sorted out the letters, going over them again and
again, and never finding the one she sought. Gradually beneath the
poignant grief for her father, came the dull persistent pain of a first
disillusion. The belief and loyalty with which she had started out to
defend Donald began to weaken before his silence. In his trouble she had
been ready to rush to him, to succor and forgive, but he had not called
upon her. Now in her great need, she was calling to him, and he did not
come. Suspicion began to crowd on the heels of doubt.
Had he not acknowledged his instability? Had her father not seen it from
the first? Was his desire to settle down in the country but one of the
whims of which his life seemed made up? Perhaps she herself had
only been a passing fancy, something wanted for the moment, but soon
forgotten. At the end of a week her pride rushed to arms. Whatever
reason he might offer now would come too late.
The sudden plunge from irresponsible girlhood into this mysterious
region of grief and doubt, where one must tread the thorny path alone,
terrified and bewildered her. She did all the last sad, futile things
one can do for the dead; then when all was over, fled from the confusion
at Thornwood, and sought the silence of the woods. Here fierce outbursts
of rebellious grief were followed by hours of apathy when she tramped
for miles, seeing and hearing nothing, but urged on by an insistent
desire to be in motion.
It was at the end of one of these tramps that Noah Wicker found her late
one evening, on the grass by the river, sobbing out her heart at the
spot where the Colonel used to fish.
Noah's words of comfort were as scarce as his other words, so he sat on
a log near by and waited silently until she was ready to go home. At the
stile, where he left her, he handed her a letter.
“I got it at the station this noon,” he said. “Thought I'd be over
earlier, but didn't know if you wanted me.”
She did not hear him, the letter had come! Her fingers thrilled at its
touch, and the warm blood surged to her heart. Without another thought
for Noah, she sped up the walk to the house, where she locked herself
into the living-room. Match after match sputtered and went out in her
nervous fingers, before the lamp was lighted.
He had written! He cared! He was coming! Over and over she whispered the
words to herself. Then she looked at the postmark on the heavy envelope,
and her heart sank. San Francisco! After all he was not coming back!
Her eager finger was at the seal, when her eyes fell upon a briar-wood
pipe that lay on the table beside a half-filled pouch of tobacco. In an
instant she seemed to see a stubby brown hand reaching for it, the quick
spurt of the match, the flare of light on an old weather-beaten face,
then a deep-drawn breath of contentment as the Colonel settled back and
held out his other hand to his little girl.
And her last promise to him had been to do nothing until Donald's name
should be cleared. She could keep her promise now, but could she after
she had read Donald's letter? If the mere touch of it in her hand plead
for him, what would the living words do?
She looked hopelessly around the cheerful, homely room, every foot of
which spoke to her of her father, and of his love for her. On the white
door-frame were penciled the proud records he had made of her height
on each successive birthday. On the walls were pictures of her he had
treasured, from the time she was a round-eyed baby, to the present day.
In the cupboard was a green box containing her first shoes, her little
dresses, her first letter, her baby curls.
Over the harpsichord was a portrait of the Colonel himself, painted
before she was born. It represented a dashing, young sportsman,
surrounded by his pack of hounds. Twenty years ago this gallant hunter
had given up the chase, with many another joy, to minister to her
baby needs, to share her joys and sorrows, and be father, mother,
play-fellow, all in one.
She clasped Donald Morley's letter tightly and closed her eyes. Never
in her short life had she wanted to do anything so desperately as
she wanted to read that letter, and yet the reading of it would mean
breaking a promise to one whom she could never promise anything again.
Her newly awakened love and her sense of justice pleaded hotly for
Donald, but the empty room and her empty heart, and a passionate sense
of loyalty to the dead, spoke mutely for her father.
After all, nothing could justify those long days of silence, that
failure on Donald's part to come to her in her trouble. Her father's
judgment was probably right after all, and it was best she should put an
end to the matter once and for all.
Sobbing like a child, she kissed the letter again and again, and
kneeling by the fire, held it to the flame, and watched it burn to ashes
on the hearth.
After that one dreary week followed another, with the same invasion
of strangers, the same varying reports from the sick room. Gradually,
however, the reports became more favorable, the tension eased, visitors
became less frequent, and Thornwood began to settle down to its normal
state.
Owing to the nature of Doctor Queerington's injury, and the severe shock
he had sustained, it was not thought best to move him to the city until
he was stronger. The quiet country house was an excellent place for
convalescence, and under the direction of his trained nurse he could be
allowed to read and write, free from the annoyance that must beset him
when once he returned home.
This arrangement was listlessly agreed to by Miss Lady, who had no plans
for the future, and dreaded another adjustment. She was singularly alone
in the world, and too dazed for the present to know what her next step
should be. The only thing of which she was certain, was that she would
never leave Thornwood.
On one of the first days that Doctor Queerington was allowed to sit up,
she went in to see him. Her first impression in the darkened room was
the kindly clasp of a hand, and a wonderful low voice that spoke words
of comfort. Then gradually she saw the slender, over-serious face of a
middle-aged man, with small eyes somewhat too close together, a broad
intellectual forehead, and a firm, well-formed mouth that seemed a
stranger to smiles.
From that time on she found his room a refuge. He had been the unknown
object of her admiration since she was a child, he was her father's
friend, the last to be with him before his death, and he talked to her
for hours about the great mysteries of life and death. He was the only
person to whom she talked who never seemed to be in doubt.
It was not the first time that the Doctor had proven a consoling
presence in time of affliction. Where others conjectured, or evaded,
he boldly affirmed. The universe to him was an open book, from which he
enjoyed reading aloud.
One morning, six weeks after the accident, Miss Lady came into his room
with a handful of flowers and found him propped up in bed, his books
about him, and a note in his hand.
“I have a communication from my cousin, Mrs. Sequin,” he said with the
polite formality that was habitual to him. “It seems that she is going
to honor me with a visit.”
“Mrs. Sequin?” Miss Lady wheeled so suddenly that she overturned the
vase in which she was arranging the flowers. “Now see what I've done!
I'll fix it, Miss Wuster; don't bother.”
It apparently required little self-control for the trained nurse to
refrain from bothering. She was sitting with her heels firmly hooked
under the rung of a straight-back chair, crocheting with passionate
abandon. Filling hot-water bottles, taking temperatures, feeding
patients, were mere interruptions to her real vocation of converting
spools of linen thread into yards of linen lace.
“She states her intention of coming to see me,” the Doctor continued,
“but I cannot decipher her hieroglyphics sufficiently to find out the
time. Perhaps you can assist me.”
“Is this a D?” asked Miss Lady, looking over his shoulder.
“I judge so; an adaptation of the Greek character. Why the art of
handwriting should be considered obsolete, I am at a loss to--”
“Oh, she says she is coming to-day,” interrupted Miss Lady, “on the
eleven train. I must go down and tell Uncle Jimpson to be at the
station, and have Aunt Caroline put on another plate for dinner.”
“Then what are you going to do, my dear?”
“I was going to the cemetery.”
“You would better come up here instead. In your mental state a person is
very sensitive to environment. You should avoid everything that excites
the emotions. I think you can trust me to know what is best for you just
now?”
“Indeed I can,” Miss Lady said impulsively; “you have helped me more
than anybody. Daddy would be so grateful if he knew.”
“He does know,” announced the Doctor with the finality of one to whom
all things have been revealed. “But we must not discuss these things
now. Miss Wuster has just been reading me the account of young
Dillingham's trial. Perhaps you have been following it?”
“Yes,” said Miss Lady without looking up.
“It is a matter of especial interest to me,” continued the Doctor;