Heriot's Choice Part 53

The sunset had quite died away, but some angry, lurid clouds still lingered westward; the air was heavy and oppressed, no breeze stirred the birches and aspens; below them lay Coop Kernan Hole, black and fathomless, above them the pent-up water leaped over the rocks with white resistless force.

'We shall have a storm directly; this place looks weird and uncanny to-night; let us go.'

'Yes, let us go,' returned Mildred, with a slight s.h.i.+ver. 'What is there to wait for?' What indeed?

She did not now refuse the a.s.sistance that Dr. Heriot offered her; her energy was spent, she looked white and somewhat weary when they reached the little gate. Dr. Heriot noticed it.

'You look as if you had seen a ghost. I shall not bring you to this place again in the gloaming,' he said lightly; and Mildred had laughed too.

What had she seen?

Only a sunless pool, with night closing over it; only gray rocks, washed evermore with a foaming torrent; only a yawning chasm, through which churning waters seethed and worked their way, where a dying light could not enter; and above thunder-clouds, black with an approaching storm.

'Yes, I shall come again; not now, not for a long time, and you shall bring me,' she had answered him, with a smile so sweet and singular that it had haunted him.

True prophetic words, but little did Mildred know when and how she would stand beside Coop Kernan Hole again.

CHAPTER XXII

DR. HERIOT'S WARD

'I can pray with pureness For her welfare now-- Since the yearning waters Bravely were pent in.

G.o.d--He saw me cover, With a careless brow, Signs that might have told her Of the work within.'--Philip Stanhope Worsley.

The pretty shaded lamps were lighted in the drawing-room; a large gray moth had flown in through the open windows and brushed round them in giddy circles. Polly was singing a little plaintive French air, Roy's favourite. _Tra-la-la, Qui va la_, it went on, with odd little trills and drawn-out chords. Olive's book had dropped to her lap, one long braid of hair had fallen over her hot cheek. Mildred's entrance had broken the thread of some quiet dream,--she uttered an exclamation and Polly's music stopped.

'Dear Aunt Milly, how late you are, and how tired you look!'

'Yes, I am tired, children. I have been to Stenkrith, and Dr. Heriot found me, and we have had a long talk. I think I have missed my tea, and----'

'Aunt Milly, you look dreadful,' broke in Polly, impulsively; 'you must sit there,' pus.h.i.+ng her with gentle force into the low chair, 'and I shall go and bring you some tea, and you are not to talk.'

Mildred was only too thankful to submit; she leant back wearily upon the cus.h.i.+ons Polly's thoughtfulness had provided, with an odd feeling of thankfulness and unrest;--how good her girls were to her. She watched Polly coming across the room, slim and tall, carrying the little tea-tray, her long dress flowing out behind her with gentle undulating movement. The lamplight shone on the purple cup, and the softly-tinted peach lying beside it, placed there by Polly's soft little fingers; she carried a little filagree-basket, a mere toy of a thing, heaped up with queen's cakes; a large creamy rose detached itself from her dress and fell on Mildred's lap.

'This is the second time you have s.h.i.+vered, and yet your hands are warm--oh, so warm,' said the girl anxiously, as she hung over her.

Mildred smiled and roused herself, and tried to do justice to the little feast.

'They had all had a busy day,' she said with a yawn, and stretching herself.

The vicarage had been a Babel since early morning, with all those noisy tongues. Yes, the tea had refreshed her, but her head still ached, and she thought it would be wiser to go to bed.

'Please do go, Aunt Milly,' Olive had chimed in, and when she had bidden them good-night, she heard Polly's flute-like voice bursting into _Tra-la-la_ again as she closed the door; _Qui va la_ she hummed to herself as she crept wearily along.

The storm had broken some miles below them, and only harmless summer lightning played on the ragged edges of the clouds as they gleamed fitfully, now here, now there; there were sudden glimpses of dark hills and a gray, still river, with some cattle grouped under the bridge, and then darkness.

'How strange to s.h.i.+ver in such heat,' thought Mildred, as she sat down by the open window. She scarcely knew why she sat there--'Only for a few minutes just to think it all out,' she said to herself, as she pressed her aching forehead between her hands; but hours pa.s.sed and still she did not move.

Years afterwards Mildred was once asked which was the bitterest hour of her life, and she had grown suddenly pale and the answer had died away on her lips; the remembrance of this night had power to chill her even then.

A singular conflict was raging in Mildred's gentle bosom, pa.s.sions. .h.i.therto unknown stirred and agitated it; the poor soul, dragged before the tribunal of inexorable womanhood, had pleaded guilty to a crime that was yet no crime--the sin of having loved unsought.

Unconsciousness could s.h.i.+eld her no longer, the beneficent cloak of friends.h.i.+p could not cover her; mutual sympathy, the united strength of goodness and intellect, her own pitying woman's heart, had wrought the mischief under which she was now writhing with an intolerable sense of terror and shame.

And how intolerable can only be known by any pure-minded woman under the same circ.u.mstances! It would not be too much to say that Mildred absolutely cowered under it; tranquillity was broken up; the brain, calm and reasonable no longer, grew feverish with the effort to piece together tormenting fragments of recollection.

Had she betrayed herself? How had she sinned if she had so sinned? What had she done that the agony of this humiliation had come upon her--she who had thought of others, never of herself?

Was this the secret of her false peace? was her life indeed robbed of its sweetest illusion--she who had hoped for nothing, expected nothing?

would she now go softly all her days as one who had lost her chief good?

And yet what had she desired--but to keep him as her friend? was not this the sum and head of her offending?

'Oh, G.o.d, Thou knowest my integrity!' she cried from the depths of her suffering soul.

Alas! was it her fault that she loved him? was it only her fancy that some sympathy, subtle but profound, united them? was it not he who deceived himself? Ah, there was the stab. She knew now that she was nothing to him and he was everything to her.

Her very unconsciousness had prepared this snare for her. She had called him her friend, but it had come to this, that his step was as music in her ear, and the suns.h.i.+ne of his presence had glorified her days. How she had looked for his coming, with what quiet welcoming smiles she had received her friend; his silence had been as sweet to her as his words; the very seat where he sat, the very reels of cotton on her little work-table with which he had played, were as sacred as relics in her eyes.

How she had leant on his counsel; his yea was yea to her, and his nay, nay. How wise and gentle he had ever been with her; once she had been ill, and the tenderness of his sympathy had made her almost love her illness. 'You must get well; we cannot spare you,' he had said to her, and she had thanked him with her sweetest smiles.

How happy they had been in those days: the thought of any change had terrified her; sometimes she had imagined herself twenty years older, but Mildred Lambert still, with a gray-haired friend coming quietly across in the dusk to sit with her and Arnold when all the young ones were gone--her friend, always her friend!

How pitiable had been her self-deception; she must have loved him even then. The thought of Margaret's husband marrying another woman, and that woman the girl that she had cherished as her own daughter, tormented her with a sense of impossibility and pain. Good heavens, what if he deceived himself! What if for the second time in his life he worked out his own disappointment, pa.s.sion and benevolence leading him equally astray.

Sadness indescribable and profound steeped the soul of this n.o.ble woman; pitiful efforts after prayer, wild searching for light, for her lost calmness, for mental resolve and strength, broke the silence of her anguish; but such a struggle could not long continue in one so meek, so ordinarily self-controlled; then came the blessed relief of tears; then, falling on her knees and bowed to the very dust, the poor creature invoked the presence of the Great Sufferer, and laid the burden of her sorrow on the broken heart of her Lord.

One who loved Mildred found, long afterwards, a few lines copied from some book, and marked with a red marginal line, with the date of this night affixed:--

'So out in the night on the wide, wild sea, When the wind was beating drearily, And the waters were moaning wearily, I met with Him who had died for me.'

Had she met with Him? 'Had the wounded Hand touched hers in the dark?'

Who knows?

The lightnings ceased to play along the edges of the cloud, the moon rose, the long shadows projected from the hills, the sound of cattle hoofs came crisply up the dry channel of the beck, and still Mildred knelt on, with her head buried on her outstretched arms. 'I will not go unless Thou bless me'--was that her prayer?

Not in words, perhaps; but as the day broke, with faint gleams and tints of ever-broadening glory, Mildred rose from her knees, and looked over the hills with sad, steadfast eyes.

The conflict had ceased, the conqueror was only a woman--a woman no longer young, with pale cheeks, with faded, weary eyes--but never did braver hands gird on the cross that must henceforth be carried unflinchingly.

'Mine be the pain, and his the happiness,' she whispered. Her knees were trembling under her with weakness, she looked wan and bloodless, but her soul was free at last. 'I am innocent; I have done no wrong. G.o.d is my witness!' she cried in her inmost heart. 'I shall fear to look no man in the face. G.o.d bless him--G.o.d bless them both! He is still my friend, for I have done nothing to forfeit his friends.h.i.+p. G.o.d will take care of me.

I have duty, work, blessings innumerable, and a future heaven when this long weariness is done.'

And again: 'He will never know it. He will never know that yesterday, as I stood by his side, I longed to be lying at the bottom of the dark, sunless pool. It was a wicked wish--G.o.d forgive me for it. I saw him look at me once, and there was surprise in his eyes, and then he stretched out his kind hand and led me away.'

And then once more: 'There is no trouble unendurable but sin, and I thank my G.o.d that the shame and the terror has pa.s.sed, and left me, weak indeed, but innocent as a little child. If I had known--but no, His Hand has been with me through it all. I am not afraid; I have not betrayed myself; I can bear what G.o.d has willed.'