Loe raamatut: «The Lady of North Star», lehekülg 3

“Miss Gargrave, you are in trouble. I wonder if I can be of any assistance?”

Startled by the sound of his voice, the girl looked up, and for one fleeting moment he had a vision of the beautiful face, tear-stained, and of the blue eyes full of trouble. Then the face was hidden in the handkerchief again, and a succession of sobs was the only answer vouchsafed to him. He stood for a little while in silence, looking down at the shaking shoulders. His own eyes filled with sympathetic concern, then he spoke again.

“Please, Miss Gargrave. Let me help. I am sure your trouble is very grave.”

At that she looked up again, her face expressive of deep misery.

“I am in deepest trouble,” she said brokenly, “I do not think that you or any one else can be of help to me.”

“Tell me,” he urged. “At least let me try.”

She sat for a moment in thought, her eyes veiled by the long lashes, then she lifted her head and looked at him as if she would measure his quality. Then she broke, out impulsively.

“Yes,” she cried, “I will trust you, I will tell you all. Perhaps you can help me, at least you can give me advice.”

“Then let us walk,” he said quickly. “You will freeze if you sit there long.”

He offered her his hand, and as she took it, their eyes met, and in the corporal’s there flashed a new light, and as he turned and fell into step at her side his heart was beating tumultuously, and his blood was running as if heated with a generous wine.

CHAPTER V
A REVELATION

JOY GARGRAVE did not begin her story immediately. For a full two minutes they walked on, environed by the solemn pinewoods, and enveloped in the strange, white silence of the North. The corporal waited, and at last the girl spoke.

“You wonder why I was sitting on the bank, crying?”

“Yes,” he replied frankly. “I am wondering why you should do that, though I may tell you that I already have an idea.”

“You already have an idea?” the girl’s tones, as she echoed his question, betrayed surprise.

“Yes,” he answered, and thrusting a hand inside his fur parka, he produced the note which he had found, and held it towards her. He saw from her face that she recognized it, and he continued slowly: “You see, I found this last night – not far from the place where Koona Dick was lying. I did not know to whom it had been written; and if I had known, I am afraid duty would have compelled me to read it. If I am not mistaken, it was written to you; at any rate it bears your Christian name.”

“It was written to me,” answered the girl quickly. “It is mine.”

“And the writer of it? Was he Koona Dick?”

“Yes,” was the reply.

Corporal Bracknell glanced at the note, and his eyes were fixed upon the half-erased signature. “Tell me,” he said, “what is Koona Dick’s name? – I mean the second half of his name which he had begun to write apparently from force of habit, and then crossed out?”

“I am afraid it will be something of a surprise to you,” said the girl.

“Perhaps not so great a surprise as you think,” was the reply. “I think I have already guessed.”

“His name is the same as your own, Corporal. It is Bracknell!”

“Ah!” said the corporal in the tone of a man who had found his thoughts confirmed. “Richard Ascham Bracknell, of course.”

“You have the name perfect,” answered Joy quietly.

“Of Harrow Fell, Westmorland, England?” inquired the corporal.

“He was born there,” replied the girl, “and Sir James is his father, as you are his cousin.”

The corporal walked on a few paces without speaking, his eyes staring at a distant hill, and from the vacancy of their gaze it was evident that he was lost in thought. Joy Gargrave watched him curiously, and, after a little time, she spoke again.

“You did not know – you did not guess until you saw that note?”

“I had not the slightest idea. I knew that Koona Dick was an Englishman – that was all. But when I read the note last night, and recalled your acknowledged acquaintance with Harrow Fell and Sir James, I suspected.”

“If you had known you would not have undertaken to follow him – to take him prisoner, I mean?”

“I could not very well have refused, without resigning from the force. Perhaps you know how the oath of allegiance runs?”

Joy shook her head, and he quoted – ”And will well and truly obey and perform all lawful orders and instructions, which I shall receive as such, without fear, favour or affection of or towards any person. So help me, God!”

The girl shivered a little. “It is a hard service, yours,” she said. “And you would have arrested your cousin?”

“My cousin, or any other man – or woman. I have no choice in the matter. Duty, after all, is the greatest word in the language.”

Joy considered him thoughtfully. His lean face was stern, and there was a hard light in the unwavering grey eyes. It was clear to her that he meant just what he said, and that he would do whatever duty dictated without fear or favour.

“It is not every one who would agree with you,” she replied. “Your cousin, for instance, he – ”

“Tell me,” he interrupted. “What was Dick Bracknell to you? This letter suggests an intimacy beyond that of mere acquaintance or friendship.”

“You are right,” the girl answered quickly. “He was my husband.”

“Good God!”

As that expression of extreme amazement broke from him, Corporal Bracknell halted abruptly, looking at the beautiful girl by his side, with incredulous eyes.

“It is quite true,” she said. “I am Koona Dick’s wife – or widow.”

Still he did not speak, and watching him the girl saw a flash of something like horror come into his eyes.

“And you went to meet him – last night?” he said, at last, in a shaking voice.

“I have not said so,” answered the girl quickly. “You have read that note, but you must not surmise – ”

“I saw you,” broke in the corporal quickly.

“You saw me?” It was Joy Gargrave’s turn to be astonished, and as he looked at her it seemed to him that fear was shining in her eyes.

“Yes, I saw you,” he answered mechanically.

“Where?” she demanded.

“You were coming out of the path between the woods. You had a rifle in your hand. There was a strange look upon your face. I was standing with my dogs in the shadow of a spruce and you passed me without seeing me. I was about to speak to you, but the sight of your face kept me silent. It was that, and the thought of two shots which I had heard, which sent me along the path you had just left to investigate. At the end of it, I found Koona Dick!”

“Dead?” asked the girl sharply.

“He seemed so to me!” was the reply. “Indeed, I was quite sure that there was no life left in him, or I should have done my best to revive him, and not have left him lying there in the snow.”

“If he were dead, where is he now?” came the swift question.

“I do not know,” replied the corporal. “The thing is a mystery to me. When I returned to the place with Mr. Rayner last night the body had already disappeared.”

“But how could it do that, if he were really dead?” objected his companion.

“Some one must have removed – ” Corporal Bracknell stopped suddenly.

It was clear to Joy that some new thought had just occurred to him. She saw that he was looking at her thoughtfully, and she wondered what was in his mind.

“What is it?” she asked quickly. “What are you thinking?”

“Tell me,” he countered, “did you see your husband last night?”

“I did,” she answered frankly.

“And when I had said that Koona Dick was lying dead in the snow, you left the table. You went out of the room, and you did not return.”

He spoke like a man pursuing a thought which seemed to him almost incredible, but which was thrust upon him by force of circumstances, and the girl divined what that thought was.

“You do not think that I went back?” she cried. “You cannot think that I am responsible for the disappearance?”

“It is a natural thought,” he answered, “though I am loathe to believe it. You must remember that I saw your face as you came out of the path; and that the man was your husband, though apparently your friends do not know it. My cousin – your husband – ”

“Oh! but you do not understand!” cried the girl quickly. “You do not realize that I would give all I have to know that the body of the man who was my husband was still where you first saw it. It is the uncertainty of the fact which troubles and worries me, and not his death.”

“Not his death!”

“No!” was the almost appalling reply. “The certainty of that would be like a deliverance.”

For a little time Corporal Bracknell stared at her, too much amazed for speech. It was clear to him that she was in deadly earnest and that she meant every word she said. He wondered what marital tragedy was behind her attitude, and was still wondering, when she spoke again in a hard voice.

“You seem surprised,” she said; “you know your cousin fairly well?”

“Yes,” he answered, nodding his head.

“Then you cannot suppose that I loved him, even though he was my husband! No girl could love Dick Bracknell when she knew him for what he was, and any woman, married as I was, would almost rejoice to know that – that she was released.”

“You do not know what you are saying,” protested the corporal quickly. “You cannot realize what implication your words may have to any one who knows what I know. It would almost seem that you had wished for Dick Bracknell’s death, and that fact in view of the circumstances in which I found him last night might assume a terrible significance.”

“You mean that people might think I shot my husband?”

“Yes,” was the reply. “At least many people would ask that question.”

“And you?” inquired the girl. “You have asked yourself that question?”

“Naturally,” replied Bracknell. “You must remember that I saw you coming from the place where he was lying.”

“I wonder what conclusion you have reached,” said Joy, looking at him keenly.

“None,” was the prompt reply.

“You are in doubt, then?”

“I am very loath to believe what the circumstances would seem to indicate,” answered the corporal quietly. “As you must see, they are terribly against you, and your visit to the place this morning – ”

“You know of that?”

“I saw you and Miss La Farge come in whilst Mr. Rayner and I were at breakfast, and whilst you were supposed to be still in your rooms. I found your tracks in the snow.”

“And you cannot guess why I – why we went?”

“No.”

“We went to look for that note which you showed me just now. I had meant to destroy it, and missed it this morning. Then I remembered that I had put it in my pocket last night, and naturally concluded that I had lost it outside. That is the explanation of the journey this morning. No one here but Miss La Farge has any idea that Dick Bracknell is my husband, and I did not want any of them to know.”

Corporal Bracknell was conscious of a sense of relief. The explanation was so simple that he felt it to be altogether true. But there were questions that still required answering, and he proceeded to ask them.

“I can well believe, that,” he answered slowly. “I suppose Mr. Rayner was among them from whom you wished to keep this knowledge?”

“Yes,” was the reply, given frankly. “I did not wish him to know how foolish I had been.”

The corporal remembered what Rayner had hinted as to his hopes of making Joy Gargrave his wife, and the girl’s answer started fresh questions in his mind. Did she love Rayner and favour his aspirations, and knowing herself to be already a wife, had she deliberately removed the barrier which lay between them, but of which Rayner had no knowledge? He could not tell, and looking steadily at the girl he proceeded to ask his next question.

“Miss Gargrave – I mean Mrs. Brack – ”

“No! No!” interrupted the girl. “Do not give me that name. I do not want it. I hate it. Call me Gargrave.”

He bowed. “As you please, Miss Gargrave. There is a question I wish to ask you. Tell me, did you have speech with Dick Bracknell last night?”

“Not a word.”

“But you saw him?”

“Yes,” she agreed quietly. “I saw him.”

“You stood in the shadow of the trees at a point which would give you a clear view of the place where you knew your husband would be waiting for you, and you took a rifle with you. Why did you take that rifle, Miss Gargrave?”

As he asked that question he saw the pallor of the beautiful face grow more pronounced. The frank blue eyes wavered, and for a second or two he thought she was going to faint. Then she drew a quick, gasping breath.

“You know these woods,” she said unsteadily. “There are wolves and – and bears. To carry a rifle is the merest prudence.”

A frown came on the corporal’s face. He knew that the answer was a mere evasion, and he was not pleased. But he did not challenge the answer directly.

“Miss Gargrave,” he asked, “were you afraid of Dick Bracknell?”

“Not afraid, exactly,” was the reply candidly given, “but I loathed him, and hated the thought of his coming into my life again.”

The corporal considered for a few seconds, and then asked his next question bluntly.

“Tell me, did you fire your rifle at all whilst you were out, or whilst you were waiting for your husband?”

As he made the inquiry the girl came to a sudden standstill, her lips trembling, her pale face working strangely, the blue eyes expressive of awful fear. He waited in far more distress than his impassive face indicated, and at last the answer came in a shaking whisper.

“Yes, I did. But, oh, believe me, I – I did not know that I had done so till afterwards. I do not know what happened… I saw him fall in the snow, and I waited. Then I went up to him. He seemed to be dead – and after that I must have fled homeward.”

As he listened the corporal visioned the tragedy of the night before, and as he looked into her troubled face, his heart smote him. His voice was almost sympathetic as he asked the next question.

“You say you saw your husband fall? Was it after your rifle was discharged or before?”

“I – do not know,” the girl replied. “This morning the whole thing is like a disordered nightmare dimly remembered. I know there was a moment when I was tempted to wickedness. There was a terrible hatred in my heart for my husband, and as I saw him standing there, it flashed on me how easy it would be to free myself from him for ever. It was only a moment – like a sudden madness, and then I saw him drop in the snow… I do not know what happened, but this morning I examined my rifle.”

Her voice quivered and failed, and suddenly she bent her face in her mittened hand and broke into a storm of weeping. The corporal himself was greatly moved by her distress, but the sight of it somehow relieved his worst fears.

“Miss Gargrave,” he said hopefully, “you examined your rifle this morning. Tell me what you found?”

“An empty shell in the chamber,” said the girl, sobbing bitterly.

“Yes,” he said quickly, a touch of excitement in his manner, “and in the magazine? Tell me, quick.”

“There was a full clip – but for the shell which had been fired.”

“Ah!” said Bracknell with a sigh of relief. “I thought so. Now think carefully, and tell me, did you hear another shot fired?”

The trouble in the girl’s face cleared suddenly, and a light of hope flashed in her eyes. “Why do you ask?” she cried. “I thought I did, but this morning I could not be sure. I thought it might be the echo of my own rifle – ”

“It was not an echo,” interrupted the corporal quickly. “It was the discharge of a rifle. I was a little distance away, and I distinctly heard the reports, one so close on the heels of the other that the two seemed almost like one.”

Wonder mingled with the hope in the girl’s face.

“You are sure,” she cried. “Yes! Then there must have been some one else, some one who fired at my husband, and perhaps I did not kill him after all. Oh! thank God! Thank God! I hated him, and though I was tempted, it was only a flaming moment of madness, from which I was saved. You think that? Say you think that, Mr. Bracknell?”

“Indeed I do,” answered the corporal reassuringly, “I feel convinced of it. At first, I was doubtful, and will own I suspected you. But your frankness in the matter has set the whole affair in a new light.”

A thoughtful look came on his face. For a full minute he stood there without speaking, and the girl watched him, wondering what was in his mind. Then he spoke again.

“The affair is very mysterious. There certainly were two reports and one only came from your rifle. It is evident to me that a third person was in the neighbourhood when your husband was shot. I have found the place where he stood, and I was following the track of a sled, when I came upon you just now. The track is a fairly recent one, made, I should say, no later than last night.”

“Possibly it was my husband’s team,” suggested the girl.

The corporal nodded. “That of course is just possible, but the man who took it away cannot have been Dick Bracknell. If he were not dead – and I am sure he was – he certainly was in no condition to walk away. And the team did not go away of itself, for there is the track of a man’s feet, both going and returning.”

“If he should not be dead – ” faltered the girl. The corporal looked at her, and the sight of her distress moved him to a deeper sympathy. He knew his cousin, and Koona Dick’s record in the territory was not an attractive one. He wondered how this beautiful girl had been induced to marry Dick Bracknell, and frowned at the thought that if he were not dead, she was still his wife. The girl noticed the frown.

“What are you thinking, Mr. Bracknell?”

“I was wondering however you came to marry such a scally-wag as I know Dick Bracknell to have been.”

Joy Gargrave flushed and then grew pale. “I am not surprised that you should wonder… If you will walk on I will tell you how – how it happened.”

Without speaking he fell into step by her side, and waited for her to begin.

CHAPTER VI
THE CORPORAL HEARS A STORY

A LITTLE time passed before the girl spoke, and Corporal Bracknell, to avoid embarrassing her, looked steadily at the snowy waste ahead. The frozen river, bordered by the sombre pinewoods, was visible for some two miles, and where it turned round a high rampart of the cliff, a moving figure, clearly visible on the snow, caught his eyes. He watched it attentively as it came to a halt, and wondered idly who it might be. A wandering Indian possibly, or – The girl’s voice broke on his speculations.

“I met your cousin first, whilst I was staying in the neighbourhood of Harrow Fell. There was a shooting party, and Dick Bracknell made himself very agreeable to me. You are to understand that I was rather lonely, and that I was new to English ways, having lived most of my life up here.”

She was silent for a moment, and Corporal Bracknell nodded.

“I think I understand how you must have felt, Miss Gargrave, and I know that Dick could make himself attractive.”

As he spoke his eyes looked in the direction of the bluff where the river turned. The small black figure which he had observed was moving again, and if he were not mistaken was coming down the river. He kept an observant eye upon it, whilst his companion resumed.

“You are quite right. All the vacation, which I spent in Westmorland, your cousin was very attentive to me, and knowing that he was Sir James Bracknell’s heir, I was flattered by his attentions, and a little proud that he should find me attractive, when there were others who – who might have meant more to him.”

“You were too humble, Miss Gargrave,” said the corporal.

“Perhaps I was,” replied the girl, smiling wanly. “But that is how I felt at the time… At the end of the autumn, just before I went back to Newnham for the Michælmas term, he proposed to me.”

Again for a moment she was silent, and the corporal glancing at her caught a pensive look upon her face, and guessed that she was reviewing that occasion in her mind. He waited for what seemed quite a long time, then he said encouragingly, “Yes?”

“I did not accept him then.”

“Why not?”

“For two reasons; the first because I was not quite sure that I loved him, and the second because I was not prepared to take such a step without first consulting my father.”

“They were both very excellent reasons.”

“So they seemed to me, but Lady Alcombe, under whose care I was whilst in England, did not agree with me.”

“You were under the care of Lady Alcombe?”

There was an accent of surprise in the young man’s voice, which the girl was quick to note.

“You know her?” she asked quickly. “You are surprised that I should have been under her chaperonage?”

“Yes,” he admitted frankly. “I know Lady Alcombe, and I know her set. It is a fast and exclusive one. I am a little surprised that any one should have selected her to chaperone a young girl.”

“My father did not understand,” was the quick reply. “He had known Lady Alcombe before her marriage, and she was a distant relation of ours. He did not know the set to which she belonged, and it was perhaps natural that he should have looked to her to watch over me… For myself, I was young, I had no experience, and though there were things that I did not understand, things that shocked me, I did not mention them to my father, or indeed to any one.”

“And Lady Alcombe approved of my cousin Dick?”

“She did. She laughed at my scruples, and urged me to accept him, declaring that my father would be only too ready to see me the wife of a man who would some day be the Squire of Harrow Fell. But I did not yield – then. I knew there was plenty of time, and as my father was expecting to visit England a few months later, I said that I would wait until he arrived.”

“And afterwards?” asked the corporal.

“Afterwards!” A tragic look came on the girl’s face, and to his surprise she broke again into tears.

He waited patiently, and as he did so noted that the figure up the river was certainly drawing nearer. After a little time the girl recovered her composure, and when she resumed there was a tragic note in her voice.

“I was very ignorant, and your cousin and Lady Alcombe presumed upon my ignorance. I was to stay with her at Alcombe Manor for the Christmas season, and towards the end of the term she sent word that she and Dick were going to fetch me by car, as the rail journey was rather an awkward one… When the day came, your cousin showed up alone, explaining that Lady Alcombe had an attack of influenza which, of course, had made it impossible for her to accompany him. It was all so natural that I thought nothing of it until afterwards, and I set out on the journey accompanied only by your cousin.”

A stern look came on the corporal’s face, though the girl, looking straight ahead and absorbed in her thoughts, did not notice it.

“We missed the way, and went astray, I say missed the way, though now I am quite sure that it was done of deliberate purpose, and that your cousin knew our whereabouts all the time. It began to snow, and late in the evening we reached a little village in Wiltshire when something went wrong with the engine. I do not believe now that there was anything at all the matter with the car, but Dick said there was, and as it was impossible to proceed further, and there was no train service on the little local line five miles away, there was nothing for it but to stay the night at the little inn, half tavern, half farm, which was all the accommodation that the village afforded… There was a motherly woman there who did her best to make me comfortable, and I shared a room with her two daughters, whilst your cousin was accommodated with a settle in the kitchen. Next morning, Dick tinkered at the car, and about noon we started afresh, and reached the Manor just before dinner time… Lady Alcombe, who had apparently recovered from her influenza, was in a great state of perturbation, and when I entered the hall, where a number of guests were assembled, she rushed to me. ‘My dear Joy,’ she cried, ‘where have you been? I have been worried almost to death about you, and have been telegraphing and telephoning all over the place.’

“I laughingly explained, and whilst I was doing so, one of the men gave a whistle of surprise, and a girl whom I had never liked began to giggle. Lady Alcombe allowed me to finish my explanation, there before all her guests, then she said icily —

“‘After so many adventures you must be tired. You had better go to your room. I will come to you.’

“As I went, I knew there was something wrong somewhere. One or two of the men looked at me in an unpleasant way, and the girl whom I have mentioned was giggling hatefully… Lady Alcombe came to me before I had changed, and ordered the maid out of the room, then she said, ‘My dear Joy, you have behaved most indiscreetly… I do not know what to say … what to think. And to tell a story like that before all those people not one of whom will believe it! It is dreadful, positively dreadful!’

“I was bewildered. I did not know what was wrong, and I said so, adding that I had only told the simple truth.

“‘They will not believe it,’ she said. ‘You and Dick will be the talk of the place. I really do not know what to say. I am surprised at Dick Bracknell, and at you for being so simple as to tell… That Jolivet girl was openly laughing at you.’

“Her tone and manner told me better than her words the vile thing she was hinting at, and when I realized it, I broke down and cried.”

She paused, and as the corporal recalled what Lady Alcombe was, and visioned that scene between the fast woman of the world and the innocent girl in her care, he ground his teeth, and looked away from the beautiful face which was working with emotion.

“… When I did that Lady Alcombe changed her tone. ‘There’s only one thing to do,’ she said, ‘and that is to make the best of it. Thank goodness! Dick is over head and ears in love with you, and, as you know, he is only too anxious to marry you. You will have to take him now – to save your good name, Joy. It is the only way, for no one will believe your story, however true it may be, and so I advise you to make up your mind to the inevitable… Things might be a great deal worse. Dick will be a baronet some day, and his wife will have a position that no one will challenge. Just think it over, my dear, and you will see that I am altogether right.’

“I did think it over,” said the girl slowly, “and in the end I agreed to marry Dick privately, making up my mind to explain the matter to my father, later. What else was there that I could do? I had no suspicion of anything at the time. Dick wanted me, and I liked him, whilst there were people at Alcombe who did not fail to let me see what they thought, and Lady Alcombe did not stint persuasion.”

“When did you find out that the delay in arriving at Alcombe was anything but an accident?” asked the corporal thoughtfully.

“On the very morning I was married. We had returned from the church, just Dick and myself and Lady Alcombe, and I was in the library writing a note to a friend at Newnham, when I heard two people enter. The library is a little draughty, and a footman had placed a screen for me, and this completely hid me from any one entering at the door. The two who entered were Lady Alcombe and Dick. I heard her laugh and say —

“‘You owe me five thousand pounds, Dick. I hope you won’t be very long in paying, for the truth is, I am beastly hard up, and I daren’t ask Sir Alfred for a penny at the present time.’

“Dick laughed also, and I caught his answer. ‘As soon as that old duffer in the Klondyke makes his settlements I’ll pay you, Mary. You deserve it. That was a pretty little scheme of yours, and it has gone like clockwork…’

“It came on me like a flash then. I saw how everything had been arranged, and how I had been trapped and hustled into marrying your cousin. In that moment I hated him, and I have done so ever since… I sat there too startled to make my presence known, and after a little time they went out, without learning that I had overheard them. I continued to sit there thinking. I scarcely knew what to do. It was arranged that we were to go to Paris for the honeymoon; and I was afraid that they would somehow make me accept that arrangement, and bewildered though I was, I was determined that I would not do so, that I would never allow Dick Bracknell to be in fact what he was in name… I went to my room, secured my travelling coat and some money, and fled from the house, without leaving so much as a note to indicate where I was going – I went to Cambridge to the friend to whom I had been writing, and who was staying there reading through the vacation. I told her everything, and on her advice wrote to Lady Alcombe, explaining the situation, and averring that I would never live with Dick Bracknell. In reply I got a telegram from him saying that he would be down to see me the next day, and praying me to grant him an interview. He never came. Something happened and he had to leave England. Do you know what it was? I have never heard.”

“Yes,” answered the corporal slowly. “I know, and I think it is only right that you should know. You knew perhaps that Dick was in the Artillery?”

“Yes!” answered the girl.

“He was interested in his job. He was a good officer. It is the one thing to his credit that I know. There was a new gun, and he had access to the plans. He stole a copy, and sold them to the agent of a foreign government. The theft was discovered and traced, but a friend dropped Dick a telegram which was forwarded to Alcombe Manor – and he ran for it, and got clear away. I imagine that explains why he did not visit you at Cambridge. Of course, the affair was hushed up, as such affairs are, and it is nearly forgotten now, though England would not be a safe place for him. Did you ever hear from him afterwards?”

“Not until last night,” was the reply. “When his note came to me, it was a great shock.”

The corporal nodded. “I can readily imagine that it would be… Did your father ever know of your marriage?”

“No, thank God! I wrote to him, but before he received the letter the accident occurred by which he lost his life. I found the letter here unopened, when I came here to comply with the terms of his will. I was glad to get here. I was so overborne by the deceit and vileness of those I had thought were my friends in England!”