CHAPTER XXIXA Great Embarrassment
Themen had seen the two huddled figures high up in the trestling, and were climbing as fast as they could go to reach them. Bertha ceased to shout when she saw them coming. Her voice was strained, and her throat was sore from the efforts she had made to attract attention, ever since she had first heard the engine coming on to the bridge. But the wind roared so loudly, and the engine was noisy too, that it was little wonder she could make no headway against it, and when the engine went slowly back again she had almost given up hope of getting help.
Then she saw the men go scrambling down the bank towards the water, and guessed that they were making for the box car, which just showed sticking up in the bed of the river, and the sight had given her courage to shout her loudest, and so she had made them hear at last. But she was dreadfully spent and almost perished with cold, for the raging wind seemed to blow right through her; moreover it had required every atom of will power that she possessed to prevent poor Mrs. Walford from flinging herself headlong from the trestling into the river down below.
The trouble was that although it would have been quite possible for them to have climbed upward on to the track, after the manner in which Bertha had climbed down from the platform where they were, it was not possible to get lower save by a drop of four or five feet, and that Mrs. Walford could not face. Equally she declared that she could not climb higher—her head would not stand it—so, seeing the dangerous state of excitement under which she laboured, Bertha dared not urge her to move, being afraid that if she were to get any higher she would lose self-control entirely.
She had wrapped the poor woman in a blanket and urged her to shut her eyes, even to sleep, if she could, knowing that sleep, more than anything else, would rest the nerves and quiet down the wild agitation. But sleep was impossible to Mrs. Walford just then, and every time a blast of wind roared down the valley, she shrieked out that they would be blown away.
It was a terrible experience for Bertha. Never, never had she faced a situation calling for more strength of mind and quiet self-control. She was sick and giddy herself with all she had gone through, and from the awful height at which they were perched. She was faint, too, from want of food, and so thoroughly chilled that she could scarcely keep her hold on the timber against which she leaned for shelter. By drawing Mrs. Walford close to one of the uprights on the windward side, she had sheltered her a little from the force of the wind; but it was necessary to hold her there, or the poor woman, in her excitement, might easily have made an incautious move which would have sent her hurtling downwards through the network of crossbeams into the muddy water of the river.
It was that four or five feet of distance from the last crossbars on to the platform where the two were crouching which proved a serious obstacle to the men who were climbing up to the rescue, and for a few minutes it looked almost as if they might have to climb down again, then scramble up the bank, and come down from above. But after a moment spent in silently surveying the situation, Edgar Bradgate solved it for the others by flinging his arms round a bit of the trestling and calling out to Mike Walford to step on to him, and so mount upward to the crossbar immediately above.
“It is to be hoped that you have something extra tough in the way of a backbone, then, for I’m rather more than feather-weight,” said Mike grimly; but he sprang up without a moment’s delay, and, letting down the rope he carried, fastened it so that the others could climb up in that fashion.
When they were all up, there was still another section of the bridge to be mounted in the same fashion, and again Edgar offered himself as a human step-ladder, but this time he was good-humouredly pushed aside by one of the others, who said that it was share and share alike on that venture. Mike was the first up again; but this time, instead of stopping to fix the rope for the next man, he hurried along the open planking, walking with the fearlessness of a cat on a roof ridge to the place where Bertha knelt with her arms round Mrs. Walford.
“The Good Lord be praised that you are safe, wife!” he exclaimed, his voice breaking unsteadily now for the first time since the knowledge of his wife’s danger had come to him.
“Mike! Mike! is it really and truly you?” cried the poor woman, lifting her head and gazing at her husband with a yearning light in her eyes, as if even now she could scarcely believe the good news true, despite the evidence of eyes and ears.
“Yes, yes, I’m here right enough; but how you two got up here is more than I can think. Why, it is nothing short of a miracle. Were you flung out of the car when it fell, or what happened to you?”
“We were not in the car when it toppled over, or it is a widower that you would have been at this moment,” said Mrs. Walford, with a shudder. “I was flung out of the car in trying to shut the door, and I was caught on this platform as I fell; then Miss Doyne crawled out after me, and climbed down to help me up to the track again. But, bless you! I couldn’t do that; my head was not strong enough. Indeed, my senses would have left me altogether, and I should have flung myself down into the river long ago, if she had not stopped me.”
“Poor soul! you have had a bad scare, and no mistake. But the fall saved your life, and Miss Doyne (God bless her!) saved hers when she came to your help,” said Mike, bowing low to Bertha, as if she were a royal princess. Then he went on, and the grim note came back to his tone: “But you’ve got to buck up, wife, for we shall have to haul you up on to the track somehow, and it rests with you whether you will climb up on your own two feet, like a decent Christian woman, or whether we have got to tie you like a calf and swing you out, to be dragged up hand over hand by sheer strength of arm. The rope is fairly strong, I know, but then you are not a light weight. There are only seven of us and the young lady, and it will be a tight job and a risky one to get you up that way.”
“I can’t go up, I can’t! I feel just like a fly walking on a ceiling, and my head gets lighter than a feather,” moaned the poor woman, hiding her head against her husband’s shoulder and sobbing like a baby.
“Funny creatures women are,” said Mike, in a tone of rueful apology, as he looked across at Bertha. “To see my wife going on like this, you might think her an awful coward; but she ain’t, not a bit of it. Why, when we were living at Denver, just after we were married, a hut caught fire, and there was a baby inside. Its own father and mother stood shrieking outside, but my wife, she dashed right in and fetched the poor mite out, though the gown was burnt off her back, and she hadn’t a hair on her head for six months afterwards. Then, five years ago, when I first joined the police, and we was stationed wide of Edmonton, there was a poor fellow down with smallpox; she nursed him through it all, and saved his life, too, though grown men were scared to fits at the thought of going near him.”
“There, do be quiet, Mike. I wonder what you will be saying next?” cried Mrs. Walford, but with a thrill of so much gratification in her tone, that Mike looked across at Bertha, and was actually guilty of something approaching a wink, for which indiscretion he promptly apologized by coughing violently.
“I was only telling the truth. Women are most dreadfully one-sided creatures; ready to go through fire and water one minute, the next afraid of their own shadows, and screaming at the sight of a mouse,” he answered, following up his advantage with a skill that was the result of long practice.
“I’m not to say really afraid of a mouse, though I will admit that I do go queer if I know that there is a rat anywhere about,” said Mrs. Walford, with a flash of her old spirit; and then she said, “I’ll have a try at climbing, if you will tie a rope to me, but I simply can’t do it on my own.”
“We wouldn’t trust you to do it on your own; there isn’t enough ballast in your head for it,” replied her husband, as he slipped a rope round her without a moment’s loss of time, one end of which he fastened to himself and one to another man.
Then he ordered Bertha to be fastened in a similar fashion, and when she was roped to Edgar Bradgate and a fair-haired young Swede, whose mastery of the English tongue was, so far, limited to “T’ank you”, the upward climb was begun.
Oh, the horror of it! As she was pulled, almost without effort of her own, from point to point on the trestling, sometimes swinging right out over space, Bertha wondered more than ever how it was she had managed to get down to where Mrs. Walford had fallen without breaking her neck.
And in all that dreadful upward way Edgar Bradgate never spoke to her, save when she hesitated once just before they had to make the last bit of climb up on to the ties, and, chancing to look down, she turned so giddy that, if she had not been securely roped, she must have fallen, and then he said sternly: “Shut your eyes, and do not open them until I give you permission, or you may drag us both down with you.”
She writhed under the words, and did not even guess that he had spoken like that on purpose to sting her pride into doing her very best. He knew very well that it was as much as they could do to mount the trestling with any chance of safety in such an awful gale, and every possible precaution had been taken. Bertha’s skirt had been roped so tightly round her that she could only move her feet a few inches, and when it came to climbing up the last bit of the way, she had to be lifted from point to point, and only the gasping breath of the two men who helped her betrayed to her how heavy their task must be. Then a fiercer blast of wind took her, and she thought she would have been torn from the grip of the two who held her so firmly. But no; foot by foot she was guided along the stretch of railway track until the shelter of the embankment was reached, where the engine was waiting for them.
Mike Walford and the other men were behind, although they had started first. Mrs. Walford’s nerves had been unequal to the strain of that fearful climb, and she had fainted, having to be borne to the top in a state of limp unconsciousness. Her husband was in a state of acute worry about her; for it is sometimes very dangerous to a person in a fainting condition to be hauled about like a bale of dry goods. But as there was a fearful risk in her remaining where she was, he had to choose between two evils, and so he decided to take the risk and get her to the top as soon as possible.
So she was hauled and swung from point to point, the efforts of five men being necessary to the task, and when at length they reached the shelter of the embankment, where Bertha and the other two men were awaiting them, there was not a man of the five who was not dripping with perspiration.
Bertha, who by this time was unroped and able to move freely once more, at once went to the aid of Mrs. Walford, and, thanks to the knowledge she had gained in taking care of Grace, was soon able to bring the poor woman round again.
“Are we still on that dreadful trestling?” asked Mrs. Walford, with a shudder.
“No, no; we are safely on the track now, and the bridge is behind us. Look down at your feet and see the good honest dirt and stones on which they are resting,” said Bertha, in a cheery tone, forcing herself to make light of what they had gone through, just because the horror of it would have entirely unnerved her if she had let herself dwell upon it.
Mrs. Walford burst into tears of sheer thankfulness, and the men stood round in miserable embarrassment, not liking to disturb her, and yet feeling that something ought to be done.
Then Bertha ventured a remonstrance. “Don’t you think that it is a pity to cry now that all the danger is over? It looks a little ungrateful, too, when these kind people have worked so hard to save us.”
“Of course it is dreadfully silly, and I would not have done it if I had not been all of a twitter with what we have gone through,” said Mrs. Walford, giving herself a shake, and wiping her eyes in token that she was restored to normal. “I am more obliged to everybody than I can say for helping us up from that awful trestling, and no one can guess what we have been through since I fell out of the car.”
“It was falling out of the car that saved your lives, anyhow, so you have reason to be grateful for it,” said her husband; then he hurried them into the tender, the men climbed in after, and the engine started on its way back to Brocken Ridge.
Very little was said on the way there. Neither Mrs. Walford nor Bertha was fit to discuss their adventures; indeed, it took every scrap of endurance that Bertha possessed to sit that dreadful ride out. But there was one thing about which she had to make sure before she allowed herself to be carried off for rest and refreshment at the end of the journey, and that was, she had to know at what time the long train of empty wagons would start back to Rownton, for it would never do for her to be left behind, seeing that it might be two or even three days before another train came through.
“We can’t possibly get off much before midnight, miss, and it may be later than that,” said the brakeman to whom she had put her question. “But we will not forget to call for you, never fear, and you shan’t ride in the last car next time, I will see to that.”
Mike Walford looked at Bertha in surprise, and he wondered more than ever who she was, and why she had come up to Brocken Ridge in a freight car just to return by the same train. It was certainly no pleasure trip under the best of circumstances, and, as things had turned out, it had been an experience of dire peril. But he was so grateful to her for the way in which she had helped his wife, that he felt he must do as much as he possibly could to further whatever business she might have on hand.
“Is there anything that I can do for you, Miss Doyne?” he asked, as he piloted her and his wife across to the hotel.
Bertha turned a grateful face towards him. His uniform was comforting, and then Mrs. Walford had said so much in his praise during the long and weary journey, that she knew he was to be trusted apart from his official position.
“Oh, could you manage that I have a chance to see Mr. Edgar Bradgate alone for ten minutes as soon as possible?” she asked, turning her white, weary face eagerly towards him.
Mike Walford stared at her in blank amazement. “Mr. Bradgate, did you say? Why, it was he who helped you up the trestling. Didn’t you know him then?”
A wave of hot, distressful colour swept over Bertha’s face. Surely no girl was ever forced into a position so strange and horrid as this in which she found herself! But she took the shortest way out, by speaking with direct simplicity.
“Mr. Bradgate does not remember me, and he has no idea that there is any reason why I should come so far to see him on business which could not be settled otherwise than by a personal interview, and although I tried I simply could not get up enough courage to ask him to let me see him alone, and so I thought that I would ask you to manage it for me.”
“I’ll do it; you trust me. If there is no other way, I will arrest him and run him in,” said Mike, with a jolly laugh at his own joke, and then he stalked into the hotel and ordered the very best meal obtainable for his wife and Bertha. But he would not stay to share the meal, for he had promised to get Bertha the interview she wanted, and he guessed that there might be difficulties if he let the matter wait, for the workers at Brocken Ridge had scanty leisure, and the work of rescue had already made serious inroads into the day of toil.
It was nearly an hour before he appeared again, and then he was smiling and victorious, and he did not choose to tell Bertha how near it had come to his being compelled to resort to force to induce Edgar Bradgate to come back to the hotel for an interview with a girl who had come all the way from Rownton, no, thirty miles wide of Rownton, for the sole purpose of interviewing him in private.
“Miss Doyne, did you say? I don’t seem to remember having heard the name before, and if she wanted to see me, why couldn’t she have said so when I was helping her up the framework of the bridge,” he had said, when Mike told him what Bertha had come for. “The private interview could even have taken place then, seeing that Jan has next to no English, and then my time need not have been wasted.”
“Oh, if it is a question of a dollar or so, the time you lose can be put down to me,” said Mike Walford. “I’m too grateful to Miss Doyne for standing by my wife to begrudge that much in her service.”
So Edgar Bradgate had been forced to come, and because he was a gentleman first and a workman second, he even washed his hands and face before appearing at the hotel.
There was some little difficulty about a private room for the interview, but even this was secured, thanks to the good offices of Mike Walford, who took refuge with his wife in the bedroom of the proprietor, so that Bertha might have the room known as the “parlour” free for her interview with Edgar Bradgate, which she waited with a breathless impatience.
She was fumbling with a little calico bag, which she had pulled from the front of her blouse when he entered the room, and it was immediately evident to him that she was most painfully nervous, although when she spoke her voice was quiet and steady.
“I am sorry to have given you so much trouble and to seem so mysterious withal, but it was better for you that no one else should have any knowledge of what I have to give you. Of course you will remember your own property,” she said, as she slipped the little morocco case from the calico bag and laid it in his hand.
She had expected to see his face light up and to hear him exclaim: “Where did you get this from?” but, to her utter surprise and dismay, he only shook his head as he surveyed the case with mild curiosity, saying, in an indifferent tone:
“I think that you must have made a mistake. I don’t smoke, and I have never possessed a cigar case.”
“Look inside and then you will remember!” she cried, in a perfect agony of impatience. “It is not a cigar case—I mean, there are no cigars inside. No, that is not the way to open it. You press the spring like this. There! Now, do you remember it?” she asked, as the case flew open, revealing the stones inside.
“What are they?” he asked, looking at her now with such a genuine bewilderment in his face, that Bertha’s dismay rose almost to the point of actual panic.
“They are diamonds, your diamonds that you lost at Mestlebury in Nova Scotia,” she said, with a little catch coming into her voice.
“Ah, pardon, they are not mine, for I have never possessed a diamond, never even seen one in this state. If you had not told me they were diamonds, I should not have known them from pebbles,” he said, touching them now with a cautious forefinger, as if the thought of their value interested him.
Bertha drew her breath in a gasp of dismay and asked abruptly: “But are you not that Mr. Bradgate who nearly lost his life on the Shark’s Teeth rocks at Mestlebury, and was saved by a girl swimming out to him with a rope?”
“That is my name, and the drowning would have been an accomplished fact if it had not been for the extraordinary pluck of a girl,” he said, with a keen look at her distressed face. “Is it possible that you——”
But Bertha had reached the end of her power of endurance, and, overcome by the disappointment and perplexity of it all, she put down her head and burst into miserable tears.
CHAPTER XXXBad News
A curiouschange came over Edgar Bradgate at the sight of Bertha’s breakdown, and, leaning forward, he gently touched the bowed shoulder that was nearest to him and asked, in a sympathetic tone: “Won’t you tell me all about it, and why you are so upset because the things are not mine?”
“But they must be yours. The case dropped out of your coat, the coat which you wrapped round me because I shivered so badly,” she said, with a little gasping sob, as she strove to get calm again and to argue the matter out on common-sense lines. She was fighting against the possibility of having to retain the stones longer in her own keeping; for, bad as it had been before, it would be much worse now, because the knowledge was shared by at least one more person.
“Then you are the girl who saved me, and you must have thought me worse than a heathen because I never stopped to thank you for your bravery,” he said, with such a thrill of genuine admiration in his tone, that Bertha felt the hot colour sweeping up over her face right up to the roots of her hair; then he went on in apology for his neglect: “But I was hard pressed. It meant everything to me to get clear away, so I did what I could and went. I did not remember the coat until the middle of the night, when I was far away from Mestlebury and, truth to tell, miserably cold; but there was no help for it, and it was rather an aged garment also, that is to say, it had seen considerable wear and tear of one sort and another.”
“It was a very good coat, indeed,” said Bertha, “and I brought it with me to restore it to you, only it was in the car, and is, of course, at the bottom of the river now. But as the diamonds fell out of your pocket, they must be your property. Perhaps being ill has made you forget all about it.”
He smiled and shook his head. “That does not follow, since someone may have put them in my pocket without my knowledge, unlikely though it seems.”
“But they fell out of the inside pocket, so they could hardly have been put there without your knowledge,” she objected.
“You are sure that it was my coat?” he asked quickly.
“I am quite sure that it was the coat which you wrapped round me in the boat,” she replied—“a dark-brown coat with a black velvet collar and the top button missing, it having been torn out by the roots.”
“The description is exact, even to the pulling off of the button,” he said, with a laugh, and then, becoming suddenly grave again, he asked, “But what are you going to do about these stones, which are certainly not mine, nor have I the remotest idea of where they came from. You will carry them back with you, of course?”
“Oh, will you not keep them?” she cried imploringly. “I am so tired of having to guard what is not my own, and they have cost me so much trouble and disappointment, that I should be only too thankful to be rid of them. Moreover, I am downright afraid for it to be known that I have such valuable things in my possession.”
Edgar Bradgate stiffened unconsciously, and his manner was suddenly cold and repellent when he replied: “I shall certainly not touch them. They came by accident into your possession, and you must keep them until time or chance reveals the rightful owner to you. There can scarcely be any danger to you from having them in your keeping, if no one knows of their existence.”
Bertha looked as she felt, utterly wretched, and as she thought of all that she had endured in her attempts to restore the stones to their rightful owner, the tears brimmed up in her eyes again, and it was only with great difficulty that she kept them from falling. It was silly to care so much, of course; but then she simply could not help it.
There was a long minute of strained silence which she was too miserable to break, then Edgar Bradgate spoke again, his tone being more masterful than she had heard it before.
“Mike Walford says that you are going back on the cars to Rownton to-night, and I shall go with you myself to see that no harm comes to you. And I shall go right through with you to Duck Flats; that is the very least that I can do for you after all the time and trouble you have spent in trying to restore to me what you supposed to be my own.”
“Pray, do not trouble,” cried Bertha, stung by what she deemed the disapproval of herself and her conduct expressed in his tone. “I can manage quite well, I assure you.”
“I do not doubt your power to take care of yourself, but all the same I am going, and I shall not leave you until I see you safe in the hands of your natural protectors,” he said, in that same tone of grave disapproval which had made her wince so badly only a few minutes before.
But at his mention of her natural protectors the comic side of the matter struck her, and she burst out laughing, then, seeing the look of offence on his face, made haste to explain her untimely merriment.
“Oh, please forgive me for being so rude as to laugh! But it really does seem strange for anyone to talk of taking care of me, seeing that all through this winter I have been in charge of my invalid cousin and her family. I have been the man of the house, you understand, and the woman too, for the matter of that, and when I reach Rownton to-morrow I have to drive a horse that I know very little of, for thirty miles.”
“If you are so valuable in ordinary life, that is all the more reason why you must be taken care of when you set forth on such adventurous journeys,” he said, smiling himself now; and his face softened so much that Bertha’s self-respect came back to her again.
It had been the most humiliating part of her experience that the man whom she had come so far to serve should receive her with such evident disapproval, and she had suffered acutely during that most disappointing interview.
“I must go now,” he said presently, when Bertha had told him all the story of how she had gone to Mrs. Saunders to find out where he lived, and how the old woman had refused to tell her anything, and how the fat German had given the key to her reticence. “I shall be back in good time, though, to start with you, and I will see that you are not allowed to ride in the rear car while you are in my care.”
A glow of happiness warmed Bertha’s heart. It was good to be cared for, though she did not think that it was right or even proper that this masterful man should be permitted to go such a long journey on her account, and she meant to consult Mrs. Walford on the subject the very first minute that she could get the stout woman alone. In the end, however, it was Mrs. Walford who broached the subject to her, speaking in a tone of great distress.
“Oh, my dear Miss Doyne, are you obliged to go back to Rownton to-night? Or could you manage to put in a few days with us until the cars come up next time? Mike and me would be most proud and glad to have you, and this hilly country would be a nice change after the flats round Pentland Broads.”
“You are very kind, and I would love to stay if only it were possible,” said Bertha, smiling into the face of the stout woman, and thinking how extraordinarily kind everyone was to her. “But it will be nothing short of a disaster if I cannot get through to-night, because I am wanted at home so badly.”
“I am afraid that you will have a dreadful journey; Mike says that there are a lot of rough fellows going out by the cars, and he is sure that it is not right for you, a young girl, to travel alone with such a lot, for they are safe to find something strong to drink, even if it is only perfumes or cough mixture; and when a crowd of that sort are tipsy, it is no place for a girl like you,” said Mrs. Walford anxiously.
“Shall I have to ride in the same car?” demanded Bertha, in dismay. “But I will not; I will travel in one of the open wagons first, and on such a long train I can be far enough away to be out of earshot of anything that they may say. But Mr. Bradgate said that he meant to take me back to Rownton himself, or all the way to Duck Flats, if necessary, and I wanted to ask you if I should be doing right to allow him to go with me. You see, I came up here on his business, or what I thought was his business, and he thinks that it is his duty to take me home.”
“What a mercy!” ejaculated Mrs. Walford fervently. “If you must go, there is no one to whom you could better trust yourself than Mr. Bradgate, who is a Christian and a gentleman, though a bit cold and stern—stand-offish, I call it—but it is easy to see that he is a down-east aristocrat.”
“Then you do not think that it would be imposing on his good nature to let him come with me?” asked Bertha, who knew too much about the value of time and the importance of sticking at daily toil, not to have some qualms of conscience about accepting such a sacrifice from a stranger, or almost a stranger.
“I think that, seeing you came up here on his account, the only thing that he can do is to take you safely back home again,” said Mrs. Walford, with decision. “Oh, it has taken a load off my mind, for I’d been seriously wondering whether I ought to go back with you myself, though at this minute I feel as if I would rather lie straight down and die than have to go through another night like the last.”
“Oh, it will not be as bad as that, I hope!” said Bertha, although she could not repress a little shudder at the remembrance of her climb down the trestling when she went to the help of Mrs. Walford.
“I should hope not too, but in these wild parts you can never tell what is going to happen next,” said the stout woman, with a windy sigh, and then she bundled Bertha off to get a sleep which would fit her for the long journey she would have to take in the night.
The bed was not a very clean one, the room was a little corner boarded off from one end of the bar, while the noise of coming and going was incessant; but as there was nothing in the shape of alcohol sold in the place, in accordance with Government regulations, there was no disorder, only the hum and clatter of ordinary business. But Bertha slept through it all as peacefully as an infant, and had to be awakened so that she might get some supper before the cars started back for Rownton.
The place was bright with electric light, the power for which was obtained from a waterfall close at hand, and the crowd of people coming and going was so great, that Bertha was fairly bewildered when she came out into the public room, and she marvelled that she could have slept through such a hubbub.
She was eating her supper—and a very good supper it was—at a little side table in company with Mrs. Walford, who was staying at the hotel until the cars left, in order to keep her company, when she heard a man behind her talking excitedly about Brown’s Expedition.
“Every man of the lot was dead, so Alf said, and it was evident that they must have died weeks, perhaps months ago, poor fellows!” said the man, with a ring of genuine pity in his tone.
Bertha dropped her knife and fork with a clatter, and suddenly stood straight up in her place and turned round.
The man who had been speaking became as suddenly silent. A girl of any kind was something of a rarity in a railhead hotel, and this one had a look on her face which fairly frightened him, and he shrank away as she approached, feeling as if he had been guilty of some crime against her.
“You were speaking of Brown’s Expedition,” she said, in a curiously still voice, while a hush dropped upon that part of the room and spread rapidly, until everyone ceased talking and listened eagerly to what the pale-faced girl was saying. “Do you mean the expedition which Mr. Brown of Winnipeg commissioned and sent off last August?”
“Yes, miss, that is the one, for it ain’t likely that there would be two Mr. Browns doing the same thing, both starting at the same time, and both hailing from Winnipeg,” he answered, talking as if he were trying to gain time.
Bertha caught her breath in a little gasp, but her voice was quiet and steady when she said, “Will you tell me, please, exactly what has happened, and how the news came? I have a right to know, for my cousin, Tom Ellis, is with them.”
There was a strained moment of utter silence, as if the man could not get out the tidings which were so evil in the presence of this girl to whom they meant so much, then he jerked out, unwillingly enough: “They are dead, miss, every man of the lot, Brown himself amongst them. An Indian brought the news to White Fox Creek last week telling how he had stumbled, with his tribe, on a white man’s camp, with dead white men sitting in the snow huts, frozen solid, and he brought a packet of papers which he found on the bodies.”
“Why did they die?” she asked, her voice ringing sharply through the hush of the room.
“Their provisions must have given out. There was a letter among the papers which stated that they had finished their survey and were coming back, but they had somehow failed to find the provisions which they had cached on the outward journey, and so they were dying of cold and starvation,” replied the man, talking as if the words were being dragged out of him.
Someone moved forward from among the group by the door and quietly took his place beside Bertha. She did not look round, but some instinct told her that it was Edgar Bradgate, and she was dumbly grateful to the man who had thus constituted himself her friend and champion. It took away something of the awful sense of desolation which had been upon her ever since she had started on her momentous journey.
Then she thought of poor Grace, and the helpless little ones, and of Eunice Long. Suppose this dreadful news were to reach Duck Flats while she herself was away! The misery of the thought was too great to be borne, and she faced quickly round upon Edgar Bradgate, who was standing close beside her. “Oh, can you tell me how soon we can start?” she cried distressfully. “I do not know what will happen if this bad news reaches home before I can get there.”
“I came to tell you that your car is ready, and we start in about twenty minutes,” he answered quietly, and with never a word about the tragic news which she had just heard; for he guessed that she had enough to bear, and that even a word of sympathy might prove the last straw in the burden of her endurance at that moment.
The groups of men parted silently to let her pass out, and talk was not resumed until it was made certain that she was out of hearing.
The best had been done for her comfort that could be done, and an empty box car close to the one occupied by the brakeman had been set aside for her use through the kindly offices of Mike Walford, who had done his very best for her, because of the manner in which she had helped his wife. There was a fresh-trimmed lamp in the car, and a hammock had been slung across one end to mitigate the shaking and jolting as much as possible.
“Are you not coming in this car too?” Bertha asked a little timidly, as, having seen her comfortably settled, Edgar Bradgate turned to leave the car.
“No, but I shall be in the next car with the brakeman, and if anything frightens you, pull this cord. I have fastened it through into our car, and if you give a good tug at it there will be a fine commotion in our car, and I will be with you inside of one minute. Now, I am going to lock you in, unless you have any serious objection. There are a rough lot on the cars to-night, and some of them are getting unpleasantly intoxicated.”
“Thank you; I would rather be locked in,” replied Bertha, and then she added, with a laugh, “But I dare say that I could pick the lock if I wanted to do so just as I picked the one in the other car.”
“I hope that you will not have the same reason for doing it,” he replied gravely, and then he bade her goodnight and shut the door.
It was something of a comfort to hear the lock shot and to know that whatever larking the half-drunken men on the cars might indulge in, they could not annoy her, and she swung herself into the hammock with a feeling of blessed security, which certainly would not have been hers, had it not been for the presence of Edgar Bradgate in the train.
Of course it was horrible that she must still carry those wretched diamonds about with her, and with no hope of getting rid of them either now or in the immediate future. But at least she was no worse off than she had been before, for although Mr. Bradgate knew that she had them in her possession, there was no danger that he would speak of the matter, and he was entirely to be trusted himself, seeing that he would have nothing whatever to do with them.
The hammock was a great comfort in saving her from the awful jolting of the car as it rolled and bumped over the unfinished track, and Bertha felt as if she could have been quite at ease about the journey, if it had not been for her dread of crossing the bridge on the Brocken Ridge side of Wastover, and the trouble of the rumour of Tom’s death.
At first she had not doubted the truth of the report, but Mrs. Walford at parting had told her not to take the news too seriously, for the Indians often grossly exaggerated ill news of this sort, and had been known to declare that a whole party had perished, when perhaps it was only one man who had died. Even the fact of the letters might have been coloured up too, and, as the stout woman had said with much kindly emphasis, it did not do to take a trouble seriously, until it was proved beyond a doubt that there was no other way out of it.
“At any rate, I cannot do anything until I get back, and if it is true that poor Tom did really die in the snow, why, I must just do the best that I can to earn a living for Grace and the children. I can manage it easily if I can only sell my stories as fast as I write them,” she murmured to herself, as she swayed gently to and fro in her hammock, and the clattering racket of the empty wagons rolling over the ill-made track lulled her into forgetfulness and slumber.
CHAPTER XXXIThe Tidings Confirmed
Rowntonwas not reached until nearly noon on the following morning, and Bertha’s first care was to discover if the wagon which Bill Humphries had left for repair was finished and ready for her. She must get to Pentland Broads before dark if possible, and when she reached that place she would know whether the bad news had got before her. But Edgar Bradgate, who seemed uncommonly good at getting his own way, told her to go straight to Mrs. Smith’s and get a meal, while he went to see about the wagon, which should be ready at the door of Mrs. Smith’s boarding-house in half an hour if he could compass it.
“You have had no food yourself. Won’t you come to Mrs. Smith’s also?” asked Bertha, who was rather disposed to revolt at having herself arranged for in this summary fashion.
“A cup of coffee, which I can swallow while you are tucking yourself into the wagon, and a piece of bread in my hand, which I can eaten route, will do quite well for me, thank you,” he answered, and then hurried away, leaving her undecided whether to be most relieved or most vexed at being looked after so thoroughly.
However, she was thankful not to be obliged to pick her way along the muddy sidewalks, or rather apologies for sidewalks, in search of her wagon, and as she was desperately hungry, she made the best of her way to Mrs. Smith’s, where she was able to pay some very needful attention to her toilet, while a hasty but substantial meal was prepared for her.
“You are surely not thinking of driving all the way to Pentland Broads to-day!” exclaimed Mrs. Smith, her hands uplifted in horror at the bare idea. “You will get benighted, and then you will have to put up at the halfway house, and that is certainly no place for a girl.”
Bertha smiled happily—she was thinking of the long journey down from Brocken Ridge with that lot of rough and mostly intoxicated men. Not a hint of vexation had been allowed to come near her, thanks to the quiet intervention of Edgar Bradgate, and she knew that she could trust to him to shield her still, if such shielding were necessary.
“I don’t think that there will be any need to put in at the halfway house on this trip,” she replied. “You see, the horse did no work yesterday. Mr. Bradgate is driving over with me too, so if it is nearly dark before I get in it will not matter so much, and I am anxious to get back as quickly as I can.”
“I am sure that you must be,” answered Mrs. Smith, with quiet sympathy in her tone. “I was sure that it must be very uncommonly serious business which took you on a journey to Brocken Ridge, but when I heard about Brown’s Expedition having come to grief, of course I guessed directly that you had gone up there to verify the rumours.”
Bertha turned pale, and a cold chill crept into her heart; but she had the good sense to keep quiet, for she had heard that Mrs. Smith was one of those women who simply cannot help gossiping, and it was something of a comfort to know that for once she had got hold of an entirely wrong impression, and could talk it out to her heart’s content without doing anyone the least harm.
“I declare that it knocked me all of a heap when Inspector Grant came back here from Ardley End and told me of the tragedy which had overtaken Brown’s Expedition,” went on Mrs. Smith. “It seems to bring things so close home to one when it is people that you know who are mixed up in a disaster of that sort. And there is your cousin, as well as poor Miss Long’s brother, and oh! how she will feel it, for she thought the world of him, though somehow I never could see where his perfections lay; but there they say that love is blind, and perhaps it is just as well, or some folks would get no love at all.”
“Here is the wagon!” exclaimed Bertha, with secret relief. She was finding the conversation of Mrs. Smith very wearying, and was in fear as to the good woman’s next move from a talking point of view, for well she knew that she was no match for her if she began to ask questions.
“And there is Inspector Grant talking to the driver. Who did you say it was, my dear? Oh, I remember, that Mr. Bradgate who was ill so long at the police barracks. How dreadfully shabby his clothes are! and yet, in spite of it, he looks a gentleman, every inch of him. Ah! I have always maintained that you can tell the real thing at a glance,” said Mrs. Smith, who had so much to say upon every subject, that the marvel was she ever got through between dawn and dark.
“I must speak to the Inspector,” said Bertha, jumping up in a great hurry, and then, as she hurried out of the house, she said to her hostess, “Will you please give Mr. Bradgate a cup of coffee and something to eat as quickly as you can, because we want to start.”
This request had the effect of keeping Mrs. Smith indoors and busy at the stove, so that Bertha had a moment alone with Inspector Grant when Edgar went into the house to get his coffee.
“Is it really true about the Expedition?” she asked, with quivering lips. “I heard the rumour just before I left Brocken Ridge, but Mrs. Walford told me not to put too much faith in hearsay.”
“I am afraid that there is no room for doubt this time,” replied the Inspector. “I have seen the papers which the Indian brought down, and they were plainly genuine documents. A very hard time the poor fellows had, and they bore it to the end like heroes.”
“But I cannot understand why they sat there and waited for death to take them when they knew that they had no provisions,” said Bertha. “Why did they not set out to try and reach civilization, or even an Indian encampment, where food might be obtained?”
“Well, it seems there was food somewhere near them, only they did not know where to find it. There had been some ghastly blundering somewhere, only just at present we cannot put our finger on the spot. However, we have sent two of our best men to investigate the story of the Indian and to bury the bodies, and when they return we shall know more about it,” said the Inspector.
“How long will that be?” asked Bertha, who was sick at heart at the thought of the waiting which must ensue for Grace, who would know no rest or peace until the details of the tragedy were to hand.
“Say it takes them three weeks to reach the place, they must be there at least a week, perhaps ten days, and then the journey back—well, it must be seven weeks or two months before anything can be known for a certainty. It is a case for long patience, Miss Doyne, and it will need every ounce of fortitude that you possess to weather through this hard time and to help Mrs. Ellis to bear up in the face of her heavy bereavement.”
Bertha nodded; she had no words with which to reply to the kindly inspector, and then, as Edgar came out of the house at this moment with a great wedge of oatcake in his hand, she clambered into the wagon and waited for him to take the driving lines in his own hands.
“I think that you will have to do the driving this trip,” he said, with a smile. “I am merely escort to the expedition, not the expedition itself.”
“I shall hate to drive while you sit and look on. I shall feel as if you are criticizing my way of doing it, and I do not want to be made nervous,” she said, hesitating still, as if she thought that he would immediately take the lines if he saw that she did not want to do it.
“Oh, I will do my criticizing aloud, and so it will have all the effect of a lesson in driving,” he answered easily; and she had to take the lines, which he handed to her, and then, as he climbed into the wagon after her, he asked a question of the Inspector, who was waiting to see them start. “Do you think that we should be wise in driving straight to Duck Flats, instead of turning off to Pentland Broads? Miss Doyne is very anxious to reach home before this bad news about the Brown Expedition, especially as Miss Long is there looking after Mrs. Ellis.”
“That is a very good idea, and by taking the cross-trail through Benson’s wheat you will save at least three miles; at the worst, Bill Humphries will only think that the repairs to his wagon took a little longer than he bargained for, unless, indeed, he thinks that Miss Doyne has run away with his wagon,” said the Inspector; and then the black horse, refusing to be held in any longer, dashed away down the street and out along the muddy trail, ploughing through soft places and pounding along at such a wild rate, that Bertha was thankful, indeed, to have someone with her to whom she could turn if the task of driving became more than she could manage.
Her companion munched his oatcake in silence until it was gone, and even then he did not speak, leaving it to her to talk if she wished, or to sit in silence if that was what she preferred. Meanwhile, he had letters to read which had come to the police barracks for him, and had been given to him by Inspector Grant. Presently he jerked up his head and spoke with so much brisk energy in his tone, that Bertha, who had been very much absorbed, gave a little jump of astonishment.
“Do you care to hear some good news? At least, it is news that is very good for me.”
“Yes, indeed, I care, and good news will be a treat, seeing how rare it has been of late,” she replied wearily.
He gave her a keen glance, but made no comment on her words, only asked a question. “How much do you know of the disasters which have driven me into doing navvy work, or anything else which gave promise of an honest dollar?”
Bertha flushed, but looked steadily at him. “I do not know anything except what Mrs. Fricker said in her letter to her son, that you had been manager or agent to a company which failed, and the shareholders believed you to be guilty of deceiving them, and treated you accordingly.”
“Then Mrs. Fricker let me down very gently, which is like her, for she is a kind and very noble woman,” he said, smiling, although his eyes were sad. “However, it seems that I am to be cleared at last, after having lain under a cloud for more than two years. I have a letter here from Mr. Mallom, my stepfather, who tells me that one of the directors has just died, and, at the end, confessed to having thrown the entire blame on me for making certain investments, when all the time I was only working under orders, and very stringent orders at that. I came very near having to stand my trial for embezzlement also. Indeed, seeing the charges against me, I never quite understood how it was that I was not arrested; but this confession, of course, explains that the real culprits feared to go quite so far, lest a criminal enquiry might reveal that I was only the scapegoat. So they stopped at taking away my character, making me a byword among honest men, so that I have found it impossible to get work of a responsible sort. It has been a bitter experience, and I have been an Ishmael among my kind, until I have almost forgotten what it feels like to be able to hold up my head in public, or to walk abroad without having the finger of scorn pointed at me.”
“But some people have always believed in you,” she reminded him gently.
“Thank God, yes; and first among these has always been my stepfather, who offered to spend every dollar he possessed in the attempt to clear me. But I would not have it, for I knew that the people who were shielding themselves behind me had longer purses than we had, and so it would be victory to those who could hold out longest, and my good stepfather would have been left penniless in his old age. Moreover, I have always believed in the ultimate triumph of right, and this result proves my belief to be justified.”
“What will you do now?” asked Bertha, expecting to hear him say that as soon as he had seen her safe at Duck Flats he should go east as fast as steam could get him there.
But he only gave a low, quiet laugh of intense satisfaction as he replied, “Why, just at first I shall do nothing at all, save enjoy the fact that no one any longer will call me thief, swindler, and the like. Then I shall look round for the most responsible post that I can find, and boldly ask for it. I find that really to appreciate the fact of having a good name, one needs to live under a cloud for a while.”
Bertha was silent for a little time, and then she said, “I suppose that you will not go back to work on the railway again?”
“No; but that settled itself yesterday when the contractor’s man told me that if I was not at my work this morning I need not trouble to come again. Kind man, he has saved me the trouble of sending him a civil resignation!”
“Oh, and it was on my account that you lost your work. I was afraid that you would have to suffer for doing so much for me,” said Bertha, in distress.
Edgar laughed again. It was impossible not to feel light-hearted when such a cloud had been lifted from him.
“You did me a real kindness in coming up to Brocken Ridge to fetch me away, for otherwise I might have had to wait at least another week for this news, and think what that means to a man in my position,” he said earnestly.
But Bertha was not disposed to sit passive under an imputation of such a kind, and so she said spiritedly: “You are quite wrong in thinking that I came so far to fetch you away. Nothing was further from my thoughts than that you would take the trouble to come back with me. Indeed, I would not have permitted it in any case, had it not been for Mrs. Walford’s trouble about me. She had got it into her head that she would have to come back as far as Rownton with me herself, and the mere prospect of another railway journey, after her experience on the bridge, was more than she could stand, poor thing.”
“All the same, it was manifestly my duty to do what I could for you, seeing how carefully you had guarded what you deemed to be my property, and it was a pleasure also,” he answered, with such a sudden softening in his tone, that Bertha coloured hotly in spite of herself, and then was intensely ashamed because of her silliness.
The horse had its own notions of what was required of it in the matter of pace, and went ahead in a fashion that was so satisfactory as to leave Bertha but little to do in the way of driving. The halfway house was passed, and they just stopped to leave a message which might be given to anyone from Pentland Broads, to the effect that the wagon belonging to Bill Humphries was returning by way of Duck Flats instead of by the direct trail, and then the horse went on again with unabated vigour, until the place was reached where the cross-trail forked through Benson’s wheat.
Then, indeed, the horse did object, and was disposed to fight for its own ideas in the matter of route. But Bertha had not been compelled to bear with old Pucker’s obstinacy so long without learning a good deal about the whims and fancies to which horseflesh is liable, so she humoured and coaxed the big creature, even getting down from the wagon, and with her arms round its neck talked to it as if it had been a troublesome child, until it was soothed and convinced that one way would do as well as another; then she clambered back into the wagon again, and the animal went forward at its old eager pace, while the number of miles to be travelled grew speedily less and less.
Edgar had watched the little tussle without offering to interfere. It was easy to see that the girl was not in difficulties, or he would have come to her assistance at once. As it was, the incident was interesting, revealing as it did the force of character which could influence by persuasion, when no amount of scolding or whip could possibly have been so effectual. But he was very silent afterwards, and Bertha, supposing him to be absorbed in thoughts about his own affairs, was very careful not to disturb him by any attempt at conversation, and so she was considerably surprised when he asked an abrupt question about a matter which concerned herself.
“How will Mrs. Ellis and her children be supported, now that her husband is dead?”
“We shall manage somehow,” said Bertha rather vaguely, for she could not tell this man, who was almost a stranger, that she deemed it her duty to be breadwinner for the family as far as she could.
“That means, I suppose, that you intend to work yourself to a skeleton in order to provide for them,” he said, with that curious directness which characterized him.
Bertha coloured, and replied with a nervous laugh: “And if I do, it will be no more than paying back an old debt which my sisters and I owe to Mrs. Ellis, who gave up a good position to come and take care of us when our mother died, and one good turn deserves another, you know.”
“I thought that was what you would say,” he remarked, with an air of great satisfaction, and then he relapsed into a silence which lasted almost until they reached the ugly little framehouse, which stood solitary in the wide brown wilderness.
“Why, there is someone here; look at that wagon drawn up by the veranda post!” said Bertha, in surprise, pointing to a wagon standing before the house. The horses were still hitched to it, but covered with red blankets to keep them from being chilled by the cold wind drawing across the prairie, for night was coming down, and winter had as yet been pushed but a very little way into the background.
“A visitor, most likely,” answered Edgar, and then he looked grave, guessing what the visitor’s errand most likely amounted to, for ill news flies fast, and people are uncommonly keen in spreading the tidings of disaster.
“Why could they not have waited until I got home? It will be enough to kill poor Grace to have such tidings blurted out to her!” cried Bertha.
“Run in and do your best to stave off the telling until you can do it in your own way—you may be in time. I will see to the horse,” he said, taking the lines from her hands as she sprang down without waiting for the creature to stop.
“Thanks!” she murmured, and then she ran up the steps and opened the house door, to be confronted by an amazing sight.