A Speckled Bird Part 47

"I am glad you have all been so good to him; you especially, who have a wife and children to claim you. I hope Mr. Herriott can soon be at home, and he will thank you. Now your responsibility ceases, because I have employed a good nurse, trained in a hospital, who will know what is best for him and make him obey the doctor's directions. David, I am sure you men will be considerate and respectful while she remains."

At the door of the gardener's house, Snap dashed out, barking viciously.

She called his name twice and held out her hand, but, eyeing her suspiciously, he growled and retreated across the threshold. Propped with pillows, Amos was on a cot near the hearth, and a newspaper lay across his knees. The room was bright with suns.h.i.+ne, and when Eglah entered, clad in black, her long crepe veil thrown back and falling nearly to the floor, the old man stared at her and almost shrieked:

"Has the Lord G.o.d taken my lad? You wear widow's black for him?"

"No, Amos. The Lord G.o.d took my father, and my mourning is for him."

He threw up his arms.

"G.o.d be praised!"

After a moment, he added apologetically:

"Madam, I mean I am thankful Noel is spared. You see, I think only of the boy."

She drew a chair to the cot and took one of the gardener's wasted, gnarled hands in hers.

"I did not hear of your sickness till three days ago, and I came at once, to see if I could not make you more comfortable while Mrs. Orr is away."

"It makes no difference about my worn-out old body--that is a crippled hulk. My mind is in torment because of the lad's danger. Where is he now? In the ice on land, or locked up in the s.h.i.+p of the unG.o.dly name, that can never break loose from the bergs leaning over her? Tell me, was your news later than my letter?"

He dragged from his bosom two worn, soiled envelopes and held them towards her. One was postmarked St. John, N. B., the other Dundee, Scotland. As she opened them a bunch of yellow poppies and a little square of moss fell into her lap. She glanced at the dates. The oldest was from Upernavik, soon after the vessel reached Greenland; the most recent was from off Cape Alexander, where the "Ahvungah" was frozen in.

"No, Amos, your news is the latest I have heard."

Her voice quivered, and replacing the flowers in an envelope, she laid the unread letters on the cot.

"Was your last letter from him the same date as mine?"

"No; it was earlier."

The cold, light-grey eyes in their deep, sunken sockets probed hers like steel.

"Madam, it was your fault he went away."

"No, his word was pledged before our marriage, and I am not responsible for this journey. I did all that was possible to keep him."

Amos leaned forward and grasped her wrist.

"You know you are to blame. What was it you did to him? That night you came--a bride--I saw when he took you from the carriage everything had gone wrong with him. I knew what that grip of his mouth and that red spark in his eyes meant. You did him some wrong."

She shook her head, and, even in his wrath, the hopeless sorrow in her eyes touched him.

"You struck him a bitter, hard blow somewhere. You see, since he was a year old and his mother died, I have watched him. His father was away with his railroads and his mines out West, and Susan and I had the care of him till he was put to his books and had a tutor to teach him Latin.

They set him at that stupid business too early. I made his kites, and played marbles with him, and sailed his little boats, and--" His voice broke, and he paused to steady it.

"He was always truthful, and honorable, and generous, but--may the Lord have mercy on him--he was born with the temper of Beelzebub. Not from his mother did he get it, but from his hard old father, Fergus Herriott, who somehow managed to keep himself under check-rein and bit. He never punished the lad but once, and that was when the devil possessed the child. He was barely ten years old. He fell into a terrible rage with Susan about the fit of a bathing suit she made for him, and kicked the clothes into the lake. Then he turned on her like a son of Belial with rough, ugly, sinful language till she cried. His father happened to be in the boat house near by. He came out, took him by the shoulders and shook him, ordering him to apologize instantly to his nurse. The boy set his teeth and shook his head.

"'If you do not apologize properly to her, I shall thrash you.'

"The lad's eyes blazed.

"'As you are my father, you will do as you like, sir.'

"Then and there he thrashed him, Susan howling, but not a sound from him. Mr. Herriott sent him to his room, and ordered Susan not to go near him. There were several railroad officials to dinner that day, and they staid late. Susan sat yonder by the window, crying fit to break her heart, when the lad walked in and went close to her. She held out her arms, and the tears ran down her cheeks.

"'Susan, I am sorry I was such a beast. I am ashamed of what I said, and I beg your pardon. Dear Susan, forgive me.'

"My poor wife, how she hugged and petted him, only he never would let any one kiss him on his lips. As he sat in her lap, with one arm around her neck, his face was deadly white and his eyes looked like two red stars; the devil had not loosed his grip. Then his father called at the doorstep, 'Amos, is Noel here?' When the old man came in, the boy was standing in the middle of the floor, with his hands behind him, and Susan ran forward.

"'If you please, Mr. Herriott, I am sure he is not well. I thought so at the lake side, and he is feverish. His head is hot.'

"'Yes, Susan. Truly his head is too hot. Come, my son.'

"He held out his hand, but Noel did not move. His father went to him, put an arm around him, and forced him away. Next morning the doctor was sent for, found him in a raging fever; said it was measles, but Susan knew better. For a week Mr. Herriott never left that room, even for his meals, and he chastised him no more. Each day he was prouder and fonder of the boy. Madam, I am telling you all this that you may be sure I make no mistakes about him. He was hard hit the day he went away. There is a place far around the beach bend, a stone bench, where he has fought battles with himself since he wore frilled s.h.i.+rts. It is his stamping-ground when his blood is up, and the devil squats at his ears.

Now I want to know why he spent his last night at home down there alone?"

His bony hand tightened its grip like the claw of an eagle on her wrist, and beneath the s.h.a.ggy white brows his keen, fiery eyes demanded answer.

"Madam, you drove him there."

"Mr. Herriott was very angry with me. Unintentionally I had wounded him, and he did not forgive me; I fear he never will. He is not to blame. I did what seemed right and necessary at the time, but afterward I found I had made a terrible mistake. It is all my fault, not his. Amos, I am very unhappy, far more so than Mr. Herriott; but some matters I discuss with no one, and you must ask me no more questions."

"Of course he was not to blame; he never is. You did not read his letters." He held them toward her.

"No, they were intended solely for you."

"But I am more than willing you should see what he says about the G.o.d-forsaken den of bears and wolves where he is blundering around in the dark."

"Thank you, Amos, but they would only distress me."

Watching her pale, beautiful face, the old man sighed.

"Madam, if you are not to blame for his going on this wild, G.o.dless chase, I must not feel so bitter against his young wife as I have done.

Dear lad! The very last words he spoke to me that day at the gate were, 'If I never come back, do all you can for Mrs. Herriott, for my sake.

Amos, I have loved her since she was ten years old.'"

There was a tap at the door, and the doctor entered. Eglah rose and drew her veil over her face, but Amos clutched her sleeve.

"Doctor, this is Mrs. Herriott, the lad's wife."

"I am glad to see you here, doctor. Knowing Mrs. Orr was called away, I have a trained nurse, who will help you get Amos Lea out of bed. I shall send her at once to you for instructions."

Without attempting to a.n.a.lyze her complex emotions, Eglah surrendered herself to the strange new comfort of wandering hour after hour about the house, where every nook and corner babbled of the owner. Despite her efforts to placate and win the dogs, they sullenly rejected her overtures, echoing the repudiation of their master, and watching her with suspicious enmity. On the second afternoon the doctor and nurse a.s.sured her the gardener would soon be relieved by electricity, ma.s.sage, and tonics, and when a letter from Mrs. Orr to Hawkins announced her expected return two days later, there seemed no reason for prolonging Eglah's visit. She wished to avoid an interview with the housekeeper, and arranged to start south a few hours earlier than the time fixed for her arrival. In the stone cottage she spent a portion of each day; had gone carefully over Arctic maps and charts with Amos, outlining the probable course of the exploring party. She explained some terms, and gave him a duplicate of the calendar she had made for herself, whereby he could tell when and how long the moon shone, what day the sun set, and when, after months, it would rise again. As the old man watched through his silver spectacles the sad, worn, pallid face, and realized that she too suffered, his resentful antipathy diminished, and Mr.

Herriott's farewell charge began to invest her with an unexpected sanct.i.ty.