Faithful Margaret: A Novel
"_Diable!_ what mean you? Out with your excuses!" screamed the
chevalier, passionately.
"I--I am--I have been an actor," stammered the old valet, with
chattering teeth and a glare of hatred. "I was doing a Dromio of Ephesus
with Colonel Brand for model."
"With me for your Dromio of Syracuse, you varlet?" mocked St. Udo. "Pity
we are in truth not twin brothers; you might be less of a paradox to me
then."
Thoms suddenly turned his convulsed face away. It was well for him he
did not permit the angry chevalier a view of his half-closed, furious
eyes, blazing like two corpse lights.
"Away with you to rest," ordered Calembours. "We have had enough of you
for to-night, by gar! A little more might be bad for you."
Away sneaked the shivering wretch, and lay down among the soldiers at a
neighboring camp-fire, and, apparently, fell fast asleep. The brother
colonels abused him with mutual heartiness for a while, and then parted
to seek their own slumbers.
Toward the morning a yellow mist drifted from the neighboring cypress
swamp and brooded over the camp. St. Udo stirred in his sleep at the
touch of its clammy breath, and opened his eyes.
And over him hung a face, its wolfish eyes fastened upon his, a thievish
hand creeping into his bosom, almost touching him with his gray hair,
almost stifling him with a damp hand held an inch above his nostrils.
Thoms knelt beside him!
In a moment St. Udo had sprung to his feet and caught him by the throat.
A book fell from the long brown hand--his little pocket-album.
"What the duce do you want, confound you?" thundered St. Udo.
Thoms lifted his weary old face supplicatingly, and held up his shaking
hands for mercy.
"Are you a thief, or an assassin?" demanded St. Udo, releasing him as
unworthy of his wrath, in his age and weakness.
"I--I thought you were dead, colonel," stammered the wretched old
creature. "You lay so still that I--I felt your heart to find if it
beat."
"Another lie, you old fool," mocked St. Udo. "What did you want with my
private album? Answer me, sir."
The old man's speechless look of mock wonder at the album lying upon the
ground, his thin, gray locks damp with perspiration, his abject terror
and abject helplessness, all appealed to the haughty St. Udo's
forbearance. He pushed him contemptuously away with his foot.
"Get up; you are merely a skulking villain. You are not worth my ire!"
exclaimed St. Udo. "And mind that you never approach me again, on peril
of your life."
"Don't--don't order me away. Let me stay near to watch--to save you!"
whined the miserable Thoms.
"Confound safety! if I am to get it at the hands of a worm like you!"
shouted St. Udo. "Why do you haunt me day and night? Why do you run upon
my trail like a sleuth-hound? The next time I detect anything like this,
by all the gods, I'll shoot you down!"
Away stole the trembling Thoms, and was met and stared at by the little
chevalier, coming to have an early breakfast with his friend.
"Another raid into Thoms, _mon ami_?" questioned he, anxiously.
"Who is that devil?" cried St. Udo, passionately.
"Heaven knows! _ma foi_. I wish we did," quoth the chevalier.
CHAPTER IV.
A LIFE SAVED.
The letter of St. Udo Brand astonished the executors of Ethel Brand's
will; and their chagrin was intense when Miss Walsingham decisively
informed them that they must find means to convey the property to the
rightful heir, as she would never become mistress of Seven-Oak Waaste.
They earnestly tried to combat her "quixotic" resolve. But she remained
immovable. She would, she said, become a teacher, a companion in some
family, or even a stewardess aboard ship--anything but the mistress of
Seven-Oak Waaste.
And so, at an early hour next morning, Margaret Walsingham, with all her
worldly possessions in a small valise, and bearing letters of unmeasured
recommendation from Dr. Gay and Mr. Davenport, entered a railway
carriage. She was on her way to London, in the hope of getting a
situation that would take her out of the country.
She sat absorbed in reverie until the train passed at a village station,
and a lady, escorted by a young naval officer, entered the car and took
the seat opposite Margaret. Then with a shriek the train dashed on
again.
Margaret's eyes lingered wistfully on the blooming face, the sylph-like
form, the pure golden hair of the beautiful and bright young being
before her. How she loved beauty, and for its sake loved this rare
creature. She gazed through a mist of admiring tenderness, and forgot
her troubles.
And then a piercing shriek of engines filled the air; a few seconds'
hard snorting and unsteady jolting, a mighty crash, a sense of being
hurled against the sky, utter chaos and oblivion.
* * * * *
A bricklayer, clad in a stained smock, the color of mud, was placidly
eating his dinner in the midst of his family, when a scared face
appeared at the open door, and a woman in torn black garments beckoned
to him.
"Please come immediately," panted the woman at the door. "Life or death
depends upon your haste."
She sped away at that, and the bricklayer followed her rapid feet which
scarce seemed to stir the dust of the road and breathed as if he carried
his load full on his back.
They had a quarter of a mile to go before they reached the scene of
disaster, and on the way John Doane elicited the following particulars
from his excited guide.
The up train from London and the down express had run into each other by
a few seconds on the part of one of the conductors. She knew nothing
beyond the crash of the engines meeting, until she found herself upon a
bank--some fifty feet upon the upper side of the track uninjured, though
at first stunned. In looking for her fellow-passengers she found the
carriage in which she had been, lying at the foot of the bank, bottom
up, and she supposed the train had hurled on for some distance with the
other carriages.
By the time she had explained thus far they had arrived upon the scene.
It was melancholy enough to warrant the woman's white looks and
faltering tongue.
Here and there a figure half raised itself and sank to the ground again
with rolling head and helplessly outstretched hands. Detached pieces of
wheels, and windows and twisted frames, and shattered roofs strewed the
line. A first-class carriage lay upside down, its wheels idly revolving
in the air, and a mass of golden curls were clustered on the broken
frame of one of the windows.
"Force open the door if you can; that lady is crushing to death," said
the young woman kneeling by the golden mass and raising a heavy head,
which they shrouded.
The man found a beam and began methodically to batter in the door. It
was done, the strange jumble of crushed and sleeping humanity were
unlocked from their prison, and the two succorers made their way in,
treading warily upon the gayly-painted ceiling, and both bent over a
figure clad in silken draperies of diaphanous sheen.
"Lift that crushing head gently. Ah, it must be too late. There, there
she is free. Put her head upon my shoulder--so. Now I will carry her
myself; clear a way for me that I may not trip and fall with her. Spread
that cloak upon the grass--so. Ah, is she dead?"
The Samaritan under orders assisted to lay the burden down, and then ran
for some water, with which he quickly returned, and began to sprinkle
copiously the insensible lady.
The young naval officer, who looked rather ghastly, now approached
Margaret.
He knelt down and gazed with horror upon her set face.
"Good gracious! I am afraid she's gone, poor girl," he ejaculated.
"Julie--Cousin Julie! Do you think she is dead, madam? Oh, Julie, dear,
speak to me!"
"She is not dead," answered Margaret. "If we could have her removed to
some house, there might be some help for her."
"A poor man's hut ain't for such as her," said the bricklayer, drawing
his hand over his heated face; "but she's welcome to the best bed in
it."
"Thank you. We shall convey her there at once," replied the young man.
They constructed a hasty litter of branches, and, calling a brawny-armed
boy, Doane set off with his burden.
In a few minutes they reached the bricklayer's cottage, and a clean bed
was hastily prepared for the victim of the disaster.
The young gentleman waited in the little kitchen until Margaret could
give him a report of the lady's state. In a very short space of time she
joined him.
"Lady Juliana is still insensible. I fear her injuries are dangerous,
but I can only use my best skill until some physician comes," she said,
trying to speak cheerfully.
"I will send the best one I can find from Lynthorpe, and telegraph
immediately to the Marquis of Ducie. He could reach us to-night, I
think. May I ask the name of the lady under whose kind charge I leave
Lady Julie?"
Margaret crimsoned, and drew back. Until then it had not struck her that
she would stand a better chance of getting rid of the old life by taking
an assumed name.
"Margaret Blair," she faltered, at random.
"Miss Blair?"
She bowed.
"I cannot express my admiration of Miss Blair's brave conduct," said the
young gentleman, with a return bow. "But my uncle, the Marquis of Ducie,
shall hear that it was through you that his daughter is saved, if she
should recover. Allow me to introduce myself."
He handed her a daintily embossed card, with a coat of arms upon which
was engraved,
"_Lieutenant Harry Faulconcourt,
H. M. S. Utopia._"
With another profound bow he left her.
It was long before Margaret could hope that her prayer was to be
answered; the beautiful face of the lady showed no ripple of
consciousness, and the heart beat with muffled and uncertain throbs.
A physician called in on his way to the scene of the accident, but his
examination was hurried, and his directions brief, for others were
waiting, with broken limbs to be splintered, and gaping wounds to be
sewed up. So Margaret and the bricklayer's wife did what they could
alone.
And the first beam of the full moon stole through the cracked window
pane, and silvered over the pale, set countenance until it gleamed with
lustrous purity, and the faint breath of returning life parted the
marble lips, and Margaret saw that Heaven had consented to her prayer.
Lady Juliana looked up fixedly, and saw a tender face bending over her,
with gray eyes glimmering in the moonlight, through their burden of glad
tears. Lady Juliana, in her pain and weakness, wondered what heavenly
countenance this was which soared above her, and smiled in answer,
thinking at first--poor little soul!--that she was with her mother in
heaven.
"How did I come to be here? Tell me about it."
"There was a railway accident, you remember? Everybody was more or less
hurt--I excepted--so I am taking care of you. Mr. Faulconcourt has gone
to the village of Lynthorpe to telegraph for your papa. He will perhaps
be here to-night."
"And who are you?" asked the innocent voice again.
"Margaret Blair," she stammered, turning away.
"Do you belong to Lynthorpe?"
"No. I was on my way to London. You remember the person who sat opposite
you in the cars?"
"Oh, yes. When I began to scream and jump up, you held me, didn't you?"
"I was afraid you would dash yourself out at the door. Are you in pain?"
My lady's pretty face was a net-work of petulant lines.
"I have such a weary, crushed feeling," she complained; "and I don't
like lying here in this odd place without my maid to take care of me. Of
course you will be going away in the morning?"
"Not unless your father arrives to-night to take charge of you."
"Don't then, there's a dear Miss Blair," murmured the lady, coaxingly.