Nobody's Child Part 30

Baird had not thought it would be this way. He had not considered what Ann would say when she spoke; all he had thought was that, if only she could speak, he would know whether or not she was injured, whether she was in pain. Baird's native quickness and coolness almost forsook him; he retained only presence of mind enough to grasp the fact that it was Edward she loved, and that he dared not thrust the truth upon her suddenly and abnormally active brain.

He parleyed until he could think. "Who told you that, dear?"

Her speech came quickly and thickly: "Garvin. He came for me. He said Edward's horse threw him an' he was dyin' an' wanted me."

Baird had done his thinking, and had hazarded a guess as well. "He didn't tell you the truth," he said clearly and decidedly. "He simply wanted you to come with him."

She said nothing, but she relaxed; the rigid muscles in her face softened into relief and her eyes grew cloudy and slowly closed. The spurt of abnormal animation pa.s.sed.

With a new fear tugging at him, Baird watched the moisture gather on her forehead and about her lips and noted the utter laxness of her hands and the weighted heaviness of her eyelids. Was she slipping into unconsciousness again? He bent over her.

"Ann, does your back hurt?" he begged.

She breathed rather than spoke the word, "No--"

"Do you feel any pain?"

She moved her head in denial.

"You're sleepy--that's all?"

She did not answer.

If she had fainted, it was a warm breathing unconsciousness like the sleep of exhaustion. And she had said she was not in pain.... As he listened to her regular breathing Baird gradually lost his fear; nature was helping her now. He loosened the hot thing in which she was wrapped, and sat with her hand in his; if she grew feverish he would know it.

There was nothing over which he could exert himself; he must simply wait; sit there till morning, if no one came.

For the first time since the struggle had begun Baird thought of himself. He was fearfully tired, sore and aching and wet; he was wet and caked with mud almost to his waist. He was experiencing the reaction.

Depression settled upon him.... So it was Edward she loved. That sort of love would hold for a long time; there was no hope for him.... That she had not been crushed or broken was one of the wonders, but she was not out of danger--her spine might be injured.... A wave of anger swept Baird, arousing him a little from depression: where were her people throughout all this tragedy? Why had they left her alone in the house for Garvin to mislead? For that must have been the way of it--he had told her a half-truth in order to get her away.... Then he sank back into depression.

When the clock struck two, Baird looked up at the slowly-traveling hands; the next would be the deadest hour of the night.

x.x.xIV

BEN BROKAW EXPLAINS

"Does she know about Edward?" Baird asked of Ben. He had followed Ben to the barn, and that was his first anxious question.

"Yes. I tol' her. She had to be told--I couldn't keep it from her. I tol' her before Sue come."

"G.o.d! How did she take it?"

Ben's eyes lighted. "Like a Penniman--or a Westmo' would take it!"

"You had courage," Baird breathed in relief. "I didn't dare tell her."

"I knowed who I talked to," Ben returned deeply. "Ann growed up under my han'--I know the blood that's in Ann. She's got courage, Ann has--I weren't afraid."

It was Ben Brokaw, not the Penniman family, who had come in out of the darkness and the rain and had watched over Ann while Baird had gone for the doctor. Between three and four o'clock, the sleeping collie had roused and gone out, and a few minutes later Baird had heard the approach of some one. When he sprang up, it was Ben who had confronted him, dripping wet, splashed with mud, small eyes peering and amazed. He had looked at Ann, prostrate, an instant of partial comprehension, then he had looked, as redly as any enraged animal, at Baird.

Baird's explanation had been succinct, and, after a moment of grief-stricken understanding, Ben had shown even a shrewder grasp of the situation than Baird himself. Their consultation had been a hurried one, but when Baird galloped off through the rain he had been supported by the certainty that he had left both love and wisdom watching over Ann.

There was a capable brain and a father's tender heart in Bear Brokaw's grotesque body--and a dog's faithfulness.

It was after sunrise when Baird had brought the doctor to the Pennimans'

door, and it was Sue Penniman, haggard but collected, not Ben, who had opened to them.

"How is she?" had been Baird's instant question.

"We think she's better. She's awake an' able to talk."

Baird had held Sue's eye. "I've told the doctor Ben sent me for him. I couldn't tell him anything about the accident, only that she must have lain unconscious for a long time."

Sue met his look steadily. "We'll tell him about it," she said.

"Where is Ben?" Baird had asked.

"He just went out to the barn."

Baird had followed and had found Ben seated on a box in the wagon-shed, whittling and swaying as he worked. Any one who knew Ben well could have told Baird that Ben always whittled and swayed when thinking deeply or when perturbed; that he always carried bits of pine in his pockets, and that under his handling they usually became figure-fours. Ben had heard Baird's hasty approach, but he had not looked up until Baird was upon him with his anxious question.

Ben thought, as he watched Baird's partial relief, that the young fellow looked pretty thoroughly "done." The rain had washed most of the mud from his trousers, but he was still well smudged with it and soaking wet, his face gray-white and his eyes red-rimmed.

"You better set down while you wait fo' what the doctor has to say," he advised in a kindly growl. "Emergencies had oughter be met standin' and suspense sittin'. You've stood up pretty good against the first, reckon you can do the right thing by the second.... There's a box strong enough to hol' you, over there."

Baird brought it and sat down opposite Ben.

"You're about as wet and all in as I am," he remarked, in answer to the kindly note in Ben's voice. The big creature was just as Baird had seen him last, wet and muddy and queerly mottled about his cheeks and nose, red patches upon the nearest approach to pallor his tanned face could attain.

"A wettin' ain't nothin' to me," Ben said, "but I done somethin' the same things you done last night." Then, either to ease Baird's suspense or for some other reason, he continued: "I was tellin' you last night it was me foun' the hole in the bridge an' what was below, an' we agreed I must have come on it a little after you'd took Ann away.... You see, when I run to Westmo' to tell Judith about Edward, she says, 'Ben, Garvin ain't here. You take the word to the Copeleys first, go quick, then try to meet up with Garvin.' I done what she says. I had a hard time findin' Garvin, though. I got the first word of him at the club.

Everybody were gone from there to tell everybody else what a Westmo' had done to hisself, an' the cook were the only one left. He said a while befo' he'd heard some one gettin' out Garvin's automobile from the shed--seems he'd been keepin' it there, at the club. The cook reckoned it was Garvin that some one must have tol' Garvin what had happened, an'

he'd took the automobile so's to get to Westmo' in a hurry. I started down the Post-Road then, an' I come upon what had happened. My lord!"

Ben paused, then went on. "Well, I dragged some rails acrost the road an' went fo' help, an' we got the las' man bearin' the name of Westmo'

back to his house."

In spite of his efforts, Ben's voice had grown unsteady, and he whittled violently and in silence for a few moments, until speech escaped him: "It begun to rain on us befo' we got to Westmo', like the sky were weepin' over the sins of them that brung us into the world. That po'

thing we was carryin'--'tweren't none of his fault. An' we builds jails an' madhouses fo' the like of him, an' jest goes right on fillin'

them.... Garvin weren't never jest right, Mr. Baird. Them two youngest Westmo's--Sarah an' Garvin--'twere their pa should answer fo' them ...

an' yet, what right hev I talkin' like that! There didn't no one teach sense to men like the ole colonel an' ole Mr. Penniman. I've jest got one big pity fo' every one of them--particular fo' them that's left."

"He nearly did for Ann--I'm not thinking of his forebears," Baird said bitterly.

Ben collected himself. "He was jest out of his mind--you can't judge him like you would a sane man.... You know, of co's', that Edward cared a lot for Ann and she fo' him, an' that Garvin were mad over her, like he would be, an' that she wouldn't have him. If you don't know, I'm telling you, an' fo' Ann's sake, it's a thing we ain't goin' to speak about to others. I'll tell you, too, what Ann tol' me when her an' me were talkin', befo' Sue come back. Ann tol' me she was sittin' in the dark on the porch an' Garvin come up sudden an' tol' her Edward were hurt an'

dyin' an' askin' fo' her to come. He'd brought his automobile to the cedar road, an' that's what he must have been doin' when the cook heard him. I know his horse was at the club barn when I was there, because I seen it there. Ann says she went off quick with him, she weren't thinkin' of n.o.body but Edward, an' they started fo' the Post-Road. She didn't suspicion at first that Garvin weren't in his right mind, but when they began to tear down the Post-Road he spoke queer, an' jest befo' they struck the bridge she was sure he was clean mad. She was so scart she stood up, an' the next thing they was throwed. It was her standin' up saved her, I reckon. Jest what drove Garvin mad we'll never know. How much he knowed of what's happened, or jest what he intended to do, it's beyond us to tell, but that he was clean beside hisself, that's certain."

Baird had listened to Ben's explanation. It fitted in with much that he knew and with much that he had suspected, and he guessed that Ben could have told him a great deal more had he chosen to do so. Ben loved Ann, as a father loves his daughter, so much Baird had discovered during the night, and, also, that Ben was faithful to both the Pennimans and the Westmores. In his weariness and anxiety, Baird refused to think of it.

What did it matter--if only Ann pulled through unshattered?