A Daughter of Fife Part 25

"Is very ill. He took a severe cold in a night journey over the Novgorod Steppe, and he is prostrate with rheumatic fever at Riga. I had just told Luggan to be ready to leave by to-night's train for Hull. I think that will be the quickest route."

"I can catch the noon train. I will call in an hour for money and advices, and go myself."

"That is what I expected as soon as I saw you. Have you heard that Miss Campbell is very ill?"

"No. Is she at Drumloch? Who is caring for her?"

"She is at Drumloch. Dr. Fleming goes from Glasgow every day to consult with the Ayr doctor. Her housekeeper, Mrs. Leslie, is an old servant, she was with Miss Campbell's mother; forbye, Fleming says, she has with her a young lady friend who never leaves the sick room night or day."

"I was just going out to Drumloch, but that is now neither possible nor desirable. I could be of no use to Miss Campbell, I can be everything to my father."

Allan had only one call to make. It was upon a middle-aged man, who had long been employed by their house in affairs demanding discernment and secrecy. Few words pa.s.sed between them. Allan laid a small likeness of Maggie on the table with a 100 Bank of England note, and said, "Simon Fraser, I want you to find that young lady for me. If you have good news when I return, I will give you another hundred pounds."

"Have you any suggestions, Mr. Allan? Is she in Glasgow?"

"I think so. You might watch churches and dressmakers."

"Am I to speak to her?"

"Not a word."

"Shall I go to the office with reports?"

"No. Keep all information until I come for it. Remember the lady is worthy of the deepest respect. On no account suffer her to discover that you are doing for me what unavoidable circ.u.mstances prevent me from doing myself."

An hour after this interview Allan was on his way to Riga. In every life there are a few sharp transitions. People pa.s.s in a moment, as it were, from one condition to another, and it seemed to Allan as if he never could be quite the same again. That intangible, un-namable charm of a happy and thoughtless youth had suddenly slipped away from him, and he was sure that at this hour he looked at things as he could not have looked at them a week before. And yet extremities always find men better than they think they are. His love and his duty set before Allan, he had not put his own happiness for one moment before his father's welfare and relief. Without delay and without grudging he had answered his call for help and sympathy.

But while he was hurrying on his journey of love and succor, Maggie was watching in an indescribable sickness of delayed hope. If Allan got her letter on the 29th she thought he would surely be at Drumloch on the 30th.

She gave him until the evening. She invented excuses for his delay for several more wretched days. Then she resigned all hope of seeing him. Her letter had missed him, and perhaps he would never again visit Pittenloch.

What a week of misery she spent! One morning Dr. Fleming turned her sharply to the light. "Miss Promoter," he said, "you are very near ill.

Go away and cry. Take a good cry. It may save you a deal of suffering. I will stay by Miss Campbell an hour. Run into the garden, my brave woman, and have it out with yourself."

She was thankful to do so. She wrapped her plaid around her and almost fled to the thick laurel shrubbery. As she walked there she cried softly, "Oh, Allan, Allan, Allan, it wasna my fault, dearie! It wasna Maggie's fault! It wasna Maggie's fault!" Her bit of broken sixpence hung by a narrow ribbon round her neck. She laid it in her hand, kissed it, and wept over it. "He'll maybe come back to me! He'll maybe come back to me! And if he never comes back I'll be aye true to him; true till death to him. He'll ken it some time! He'll ken it some time!" She cried pa.s.sionately; she let her quick nature have full way; and sobbed as she had been used to sob upon the beach of Pittenloch, or in the coverts of its bleak, black rocks.

The cruelty of the separation, the doubt, the injustice that must mingle in Allan's memory with her, this was what "rent her heart." Oh, words of terrible fidelity! And how was she to conceal, to bear this secret wound?

And who should restore to her the dear face, the voice, the heart that wrapped her in its love? In that sad hour how prodigal she was of tender words! Words which she would perhaps have withheld if Allan had been by her side. What pa.s.sionate avowals of her affection she made, so sweet, so thrilling, that it would be a kind of profanation to write them.

When she went back to the house she was weary, but calm. Only hope seemed to have gone forever. There are melancholy days in which the sun has no color, and the clouds hang in dark ma.s.ses, gray upon darker gray. Life has the same pallors and glooms; we are weary of ourselves and of others, we have the sensation of defeat upon defeat, of hopeless struggles, of mortal languors that no faith can lift. As Maggie watched that day beside her friend she felt such prostration. She smiled scornfully to herself as she remembered that ever in the novels which she had read the lover and the hero always appeared in some such moments of extremity as she had gone through. But Allan had not found her in the laurel walk, and she did not believe he would ever try to find her again. Sorrow had not yet taught her that destiny loves surprises.

About midnight she walked into an adjoining dressing room and looked out.

How cold and steely the river wound through the brown woods until it mingled with the ghostly film on the horizon! Through what cloudy crags,

The moon came rushing like a stag, With one star like a hound,

behind it! As she watched the solemn, restless picture, she was called very softly--"Maggie."

The word was scarce audible, but she stepped swiftly back, and kneeling by Mary's side lifted her wasted hand. The eyes that met hers had the light of reason in them at last.

"I am awake, Maggie."

"Yes, dear. Do not talk, you have been ill; you are getting better."

Mary smiled. The happiest of pillows is that which Death has frowned on, and pa.s.sed over. "I am really getting well?"

"You are really getting well. Sleep again."

There was a silence that could almost be felt; and Maggie sat breathless in it. When it became too trying, she rose softly and went to the next room. There was a small table there, and on it a shaded lamp and a few books. One of them was turned with its face downward and looked unfamiliar; she lifted it, and saw on the fly-leaf, Cornelius Fleming, A.D. 1800. It was a pocket edition of the Alcestis in English, and the good man had drawn a pencil opposite some lines, which he doubtless intended Maggie to read:--

"Manifold are the changes Which Providence may bring.

Many unhoped for things G.o.d's power hath brought about.

What seemeth, often happeneth not; And for unlikely things G.o.d findeth out a way."

She smiled and laid the little volume down. "The tide has turned," she thought, "and many an ill wind has driven a ship into a good harbor. I wonder what was the matter with me this morning!" And she sat quiet with a new sense of peace in her heart, until the moon was low in the west, and the far hills stood clear and garish in the cold white light of morning.

Then Mary called her again. There was a look of pitiful anxiety on her face; she grasped Maggie's hand, and whispered "The 29th? Is it come?"

"Yes, dear."

"Your tryst, Maggie?"

"I will keep it some other time."

"Now, Maggie. To-day. At once. Oh Maggie! Go, go, go! I shall be ill again if you do not."

It was useless to reason with her. She began to cry, to grow feverish.

"I will go then."

"And you will come back?"

"In three or four days."

"Spare no money. He will be waiting. I know it. Haste, Maggie! Oh dear, you don't know--oh, be quick, for my sake."

Then Maggie told Mrs. Leslie such facts as were necessary to account for Mary's anxiety, and she also urged her to keep the appointment. "Better late than ever," she said, "and you may not be too late; and anyhow the salt air will do you good, and maybe set you beyond the fit o' sickness you look o'er like to have."

So within an hour Maggie was speeding to the coast of Fife, faintly hoping that Allan might still be there; "for he must ken by his own heart," she thought, "that it would be life or death, and naething but life or death, that could make me break a promise I had made to him."

CHAPTER XIV.

THE MEETING PLACE.

"Love's a divinity that speaks 'Awake Sweetheart!' and straightway breaks A lordlier light than sunshine's glow, A sweeter life than mortals know.

I bow me to his fond command, Take life's great glory from his hand; Crowned in one moment's sweet surprise, When Somebody and I--changed eyes."