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Christina

<h3> CHAPTER XVII. </h3> <h4> "WHO DO YOU MEAN BY SIR ARTHUR?" </h4> Boxing Day had dawned bright and sunny, but before the afternoon, rain began to fall, and a rising wind was sweeping over the moor, when, between three and four o'clock, Denis Fergusson drove along the upland road. A case of pneumonia in a desolate hamlet had suddenly taken a grave turn, and as he sped across the open stretch of country, his thoughts were concentrated on his patient, and on the gravity of her condition. Having threshed out in his mind all the possibilities with regard to this anxious charge, he allowed his thoughts to drift back to his afternoon at Bramwell Castle two days before, to Baba's winsome ways, to the sweetness of Baba's mother, to his own dream idyll, the dreaming of which had, he was convinced, been such an absurdity, and yet—and yet, the dream had seemed so wonderful. "People may scoff at the bare idea of love at first sight," he mused, as the car passed on its rapid way in the gathering twilight, "but—sometimes it happens—even to the most prosaic of us." And out of the grey mists that crept over the brown expanse of heather and bracken, he seemed to see Cicely's face, smiling that fascinating smile of hers, which was so childlike, so appealing, so sweet. "And her eyes are like the speedwell in the June hedges," his thoughts ran on; "such a heavenly blue, and when she looks up into your face, and her eyes look at you, with the wistfulness of a lovely child's eyes, you want to take her in your arms, and kiss her—and kiss her——" "By Jove, my good fellow, you are a fool," he broke in upon his own inward colloquy, "an abject fool. The little lady of the speedwell eyes, is as far above you as the stars in heaven, and you know it. A struggling South London doctor might quite as well aspire to the planet Venus, as to the lady of Bramwell Castle. The less such ideas are encouraged, the better." Resolutely thrusting from him the thoughts that had obtruded themselves unbidden, he drove rapidly on, whilst the grey mists deepened upon the country side; the rain that had begun in a fine drizzle, began to come down in torrents, and the wind rose gradually to the fury of a hurricane. Across the open stretch of heathland, the gale broke with terrific force, the rain lashed Fergusson's face and ran in swift streams down his mackintoshed shoulders and arms; and it was with a little sigh of relief that he turned out of the main road, and into the lane at whose bottom stood the lonely house. Here there was a certain amount of shelter from the high hedges and overshadowing trees, though the great gusts of wind shook the trees until they creaked, and groaned, and bent beneath the blast; and even in the depths of the desolate valley itself, Fergusson found himself nearly lifted from his feet by the hurricane, when he alighted at the green gate in the wall. Elizabeth appeared quickly in answer to his ring, and her grave face made him say sharply— "She is not worse?" "She seems less like herself to-night," the servant answered, a little catch in her voice; "she doesn't always know where she is, or who is talking to her. I think—she has got to the end. She can bear no more." The expression used, struck the doctor strangely. "I think she has got to the end." The same feeling had been in his own mind when last he had visited the beautiful, lonely lady; it had seemed to him, too, as though she had come to the end of her powers of endurance—as though, having borne lash after lash from fortune, she could bear no more. When he entered her room, he found her lying very still, her face scarcely less white than the pillow against which it rested, her great eyes fixed on the leaping flames of the fire, her hands folded on the sheet, in a way which he had noticed was peculiar to her, the fingers of her right hand close clasped about the plain gold ring, that rested on the third finger of her left. "Whatever the poor chap who has gone to his account was or did, this woman loved him with an amazing love," Fergusson thought, as he had thought a hundred times before, whilst he spoke gently to his patient, seating himself beside her, and observing her closely, though he talked of everything and anything excepting her health. "Do you know," she said presently, her voice very low and dreamy. "I think I have come to the end." This repetition of Elizabeth's words, and of his own thoughts, startled Fergusson, but he did not betray his surprise, only answering gently— "You are worn out now. You have had a long strain, and you were not quite fit to stand it." She smiled up at him, an infinitely pathetic smile. "It is not only that. I don't want to be morbid. I don't mean to be morbid. But something—seems to have snapped inside me—some vitality, some power has gone, and—I have come to the end." "You feel that now, because of the shock and strain, and because, at the best of times, you are not strong. By and by——" "Ah! but I don't think there will be any by and by," she interrupted quietly, "and I am not sorry. Life has brought so much more pain than joy—that—I am not either sorry or afraid. Only I wish I could have done more for my world, before I went out of it," she added half whimsically, half sadly, a little smile breaking over her face. "Perhaps what you have been, has had even more influence over your world than what you have done," Fergusson said quietly; "it is not always the most apparently active people, who have the greatest effect on their fellows." She smiled at him again, but she did not continue the conversation, allowing it to drift away to other topics, until Fergusson, having given her his orders, and promised to send her a new medicine on the morrow, took his departure. "What a baffling mystery the woman is," he reflected, as he walked across the garden to the door in the wall. "I am not more curious than the average man, but I confess she has aroused my curiosity. What has her life been? And why has she——" At this point in his meditations he opened the door, and was on the point of passing out into the road, when he became aware of a figure, leaning against the wall close to the door itself. The last remnants of daylight had almost died away, the rain was falling in pitiless torrents, and Fergusson, peering through the twilight gloom, recognised with horror the face of Christina Moore, looking terribly white and exhausted in the dimness. Her crouching position seemed to indicate that she was tired out, and when Fergusson went quickly to her side, and put a hand on her shoulder, she shrank back and shivered from head to foot, lifting such frightened eyes to his, that he peered this way and that, thinking she must be fleeing from some dastardly pursuer. But, excepting for the moaning of the wind in the trees, and the swishing of the rain, no sound broke the silence, and save the girl herself, there was no sign of any other human being in the lane. "What has happened?" he asked, speaking very quietly, to calm her overmastering excitement; "come into the house out of the rain, and tell me what is the matter. Why, you are wet through," he added sharply, as he put his hand through the girl's arm, and drew her up the flagged path to the front door. "Yes, I'm wet through," she answered in slow, mechanical tones. "I—I believe it has rained ever since I left the station." "The station? Have you walked from the station?" They were standing in the hall now, and by the light of a hanging lamp in its centre, Fergusson could see that the wet was running from Christina's garments, and dropping in small pools on the floor, and that the look of exhaustion was deepening on her face. "Yes, I walked," she said. "I hadn't much money. I was afraid I shouldn't have enough for the cab. They might have called me a thief again—and—I am not a thief—indeed, indeed, I am not." Her eyes met his once more, with so strange and dazed a look, that he began to wonder whether some great shock had unhinged her brain, but he only said, more quietly than before:— "I am quite sure you are not a thief. I will call Elizabeth, and she will take care of you. Does Mrs. Stanforth expect you?" "Oh! no, no," Christina spoke breathlessly; "only I was so frightened, I didn't know what to do, when they said I was a thief, for I can't prove that I am not. I can't prove anything. I have only my bare word. Everybody who could help me is dead." Feeling more and more mystified by every word she spoke, Fergusson rang the bell, and when Elizabeth promptly answered his summons, and stared in mute surprise at the dripping figure standing under the lamp, he said tersely:— "Miss Moore has arrived unexpectedly, and she is very wet. Will you put her to bed with hot bottles, and give her something hot to drink? Don't let her talk to-night. I will come round and see her in the morning." Perhaps Elizabeth, in the long years of her service with Margaret, had learnt to accustom herself to surprises, and she expressed no astonishment now; but a look of compassion for the drenched and exhausted girl crossed her kindly face; and, with a comprehending nod to the doctor, she took Christina's hand and led her upstairs, the girl going with her, as unresistingly as a little child might have done. "Worn out, utterly worn out, and frightened to death," Fergusson commented inwardly; "now what can have happened to bring her here in this condition, and to make her say such extraordinary things about not being a thief. I must tell Mrs. Stanforth what liberties I have taken with her house, and come back as early as I can to-morrow." He ran lightly upstairs again to his patient's room, and told her of Christina's unlooked-for arrival, finding, to his relief, that she was in no wise startled or upset by what she heard. "Poor little girl," was her soft comment; "we will take great care of her. Elizabeth loves having a young thing to mother; we will do our best for her, and perhaps in the morning she will be able to explain herself. It is difficult to imagine what can have happened; she seemed to be so happy in her work." "It is impossible to suppose that Lady Cicely can have been unkind to her," Fergusson answered thoughtfully; "she could not be unkind to a living soul. However, speculation is a fruitless task; we must wait till Miss Moore can tell us her own story. I did not dare question her to-night, she was already completely overwrought." And it was still a very wan and white Christina, who was taken the next morning into Margaret's room by Elizabeth; and Margaret's observant eyes saw at once that all the girl's nerves were on the stretch, that she was in a condition of acute tension. The wish to help this young thing in her hour of need, the sudden necessity for stretching out a succouring hand to another human being, acted as a trumpet call to Margaret's own strong character, and she looked more herself this morning, than she had done for many weeks. "You poor child," she said to Christina, a motherly tenderness in her accents; "have you slept properly; and are you rested?" "I woke rather often," the girl answered with a nervous glance about her. "I kept on starting up, and fancying they had come with the police." "Why should anyone come with the police?" Margaret asked gently; "tell me what has happened—why are you afraid? Surely Lady Cicely cannot have treated you unfairly or unkindly?" "No—o," Christina faltered. "I think she believed in me, but—Sir Arthur——" "Sir Arthur," Margaret interrupted, a sudden sharp note in her voice; "who—do you mean by Sir Arthur?" "Sir Arthur Congreve. He is Lady Cicely's cousin—her husband's cousin." Margaret's white face flushed brightly, but she did not speak. "It was he who accused me of—being a thief; and I was so frightened, so dreadfully frightened, that I ran away." "Ran away? Oh! my dear; try to collect yourself, and tell me quietly all about everything. Why did Sir Arthur make such an accusation against you?" "He saw—a piece of jewellery I was wearing, and he—said it had belonged to his wife—that—Lady Congreve had been robbed, and that I had robbed her. He was sure of it, quite, quite sure, and I had nothing but my bare word to give him; I could prove nothing." "But—I can't understand. Why should Sir Arthur imagine you would wish to steal El—— I mean his wife's jewel. Had she lost it at Bramwell Castle?" "No; she lost it some weeks ago in a train. A young woman took it from her bag; and they are sure I was the young woman. You see, when I came to Lady Cicely, I only had references from people who were dead, or much too far off to be got at, like the solicitor who is I don't know where in Africa. She took me on trust, and—there isn't anybody here who can say I am honest, not anybody." Christina's words ended in a little wail; she put her head down upon the coverlet, and Margaret's hands softly caressed her dusky hair. "But why did you run away?" she asked. "Surely it would have been better to face the difficulty? They may think your running away is a sign of guilt." "I know," the girl answered, lifting her head, and looking into Margaret's face with despairing eyes. "I thought of that so often as I was coming along in the train, but I was afraid to go back. I am afraid to try to face it out, because you see I can prove nothing." "When did Sir Arthur make this accusation?" "Yesterday; I think it was yesterday," Christina frowned with the effort of memory. "It was on Christmas evening—yes, that was yesterday. And when Sir Arthur said he would send for the police, I ran out of the hall, and up to my room. I think I was almost mad. I tore off my frock—my pretty frock that Lady Cicely had given me, and when there came a knock at the door, and I heard Lady Cicely's voice, I would not let her in at first. And then I opened the door, and she came in, and begged me to tell just the whole truth. And I said I had told the truth—I couldn't make it any different. And she was so sad—her eyes looked all hurt, and she said she couldn't doubt me, and yet Sir Arthur was determined to send for the police. And—then she said she would send up my dinner to the nursery. It was Christmas Day, you know," the girl went on, a wistful look in her eyes; "and I had been looking forward so very much to Christmas, in a happy homely home like Bramwell Castle; and my new frock was so sweet; and then—to think of having to eat my Christmas dinner alone in the nursery, accused of being a thief," a little sob caught her breath. "But I didn't eat the dinner at all," she went on hurriedly. "After Lady Cicely had gone down again, I thought and thought about the police coming, until I couldn't bear it any more. So I just put on my serge frock, and my thick coat and hat; and whilst dinner was going on in the dining-room, I slipped away, and out of the house. I felt like a wild thing, mad with terror, my only wish was to get right away as fast as I could—I was afraid, I was so afraid. And I did not know where to go, or what to do; and, when the thought of you came into my head, I knew I must come straight to you." "But, my dear," Margaret's gentle voice broke in, "you say all this happened last night. Where did you sleep? How could you get away from Bramwell Castle, on Christmas night?" "I walked to one of the nearest stations; not the one they generally use, but another—Hansley—where no one knew me by sight, and there was no train till early in the morning. So I just stayed in the waiting-room all night. They let me—though it wasn't really allowed—but they let me do it, because there was nowhere else for me to stay; and in the morning I came away again, and because it was Boxing Day, the trains were very bad and very slow, and I did not get to Merlands Station till ever so late; and then I walked here." "Walked here? From Merlands? But, my dear, it must be seven miles." "It seemed like a hundred," Christina answered wearily. "I didn't know how to get myself along at last; and it blew and rained, and I thought I should die on the road. Only I wanted to get to you." Margaret's caressing hand again stroked the girl's dark hair. "You poor little thing," she said. "I am glad you came to me, but I am sorry you came away at all. It will make things so much worse for you." "But you will keep me here?" Christina pleaded, a look of panic terror in her eyes. "You won't make me go back to Bramwell? You won't let me be given up to the police?" "We must talk it all over with Dr. Fergusson," was the gentle rejoinder. "I don't feel that I am quite strong enough to decide what is best for you to do, but Dr. Fergusson will know. He has such a sound judgment, and he judges rightly, as well as soundly." "It was cowardly of me to run away," the girl exclaimed, clasping her hands together with a curiously childish gesture; "but—I felt so alone—so frightened—and I had no proof that what I said was true. I have no proofs now. I can't even make it clear to you, that I am not telling a pack of lies." "Can't you?" Margaret smiled. "I don't think I want proofs of your truthfulness; you carry truth in your face. All the same, for your own sake, and for the sake of justice, I am sorry you can produce no proofs of your statement." "I can't do anything but give my word," the girl said despairingly. "Mother gave me the jewel just before she died. It was a great treasure of hers; she valued it immensely. I think she meant to tell me something more when she gave it me, only—the sentence she began was never finished. The two last words she spoke, the very last, were, 'Tell Arthur'—and then—she died." "Tell—Arthur?" The same startled look which the mention of that name had before brought into Margaret's eyes, flashed into them again. "Who was—Arthur?" "I—don't know. I never knew anything about my mother's people. I do not even know her maiden name. And that sounds so improbable, that it made my story about the jewel seem more than ever ridiculous, when I told it at Bramwell Castle." "What a strange complication," Margaret's dark eyes fixed themselves thoughtfully on Christina's face. "I wonder why your mother kept you in ignorance of her maiden name, and of her family? Have you any idea what made her so reticent? "No; until lately it never struck me how odd and unusual it is that I should not know these things. I never mixed with other girls. We lived a very isolated life, my father and mother and I, and I accepted everything in it without question. But now I realise that it was not ordinary and normal. And I often wonder about it. But—I shall never know what it all meant. They are dead—my father and mother, and the clergyman who knew us in Devonshire is dead; and, as I told you, the solicitor went to Africa; and I don't know where he is." "But these people with whom you lived—the Donaldsons. Surely they must know something of your history?" "Oh! no, they would know nothing. I only knew Mrs. Donaldson at all, because she was staying in the village near our home, and mother was kind to her children, when they were ill. She was in no way an intimate friend of ours. And the people—the very few people we knew in the village, were only acquaintances. There is nobody in the whole world who could vouch for my innocence." "It is a curious predicament. We can only ask Dr. Fergusson's advice, and act upon it. I wish I could understand why there is something so oddly familiar about your face and voice." Her own low voice was puzzled. "I believe I have asked you this before; but are you sure, quite sure, we never met until you saw me here?" "Quite sure," Christina answered emphatically. "I couldn't have forgotten you. But I think I must be very like somebody, for last night"—she shivered—"just as I crossed the hall of the Castle, I saw Lady Congreve give a big start, and she said to Lady Cicely quite loud, I couldn't help hearing her—'My dear Cicely, who is she like?' I think I must have a double somewhere." "I think you must," Margaret replied slowly. "It is very curious. But, to go back to the more vital matter of the moment. Did you bring away the jewel which has caused all this trouble?" "Why, yes," Christina answered simply. "It was on my neck when Sir Arthur saw it, and I never took it off. I can show it to you now." Slipping her hand inside her frock, the girl unfastened the slender gold chain, drew out the pendant, and handed it to the woman in the bed. "You see," she said, "it is very beautiful and very unique; that wonderful emerald, with the twisted letters above it; the letters——" "Yes—I see," Margaret's voice was low and hoarse, and Christina, roused from her absorption in her own thoughts of the jewel, and of all that had happened, started when she saw the expression on the other's face. "I see," Margaret repeated; "the emerald—with brilliants round it, and above it the twisted letters—A.V.C. But how comes it that your mother possessed this pendant with the letters A.V.C.? What does it mean? My dear child, what does it mean?" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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