Christina Part 11

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

The dark eyes met hers, a startled look, one would almost have said a look of recognition swept over the white face, then she exclaimed breathlessly:

"Why--I thought--you were--I beg your pardon--it was foolish of me--of course, I have never seen you before."

"No, never," Christina answered emphatically, knowing that the lovely face of this woman, once seen, could never have faded from her memory; "but, I am afraid you are in trouble; can I help you?

"A doctor," the other panted. "I must have a doctor; and yet--I am afraid--I am afraid," she wrung her hands together, and her lips quivered pitifully.

"We are driving back to Graystone. Can I send a doctor if there is one in the place? Or, can I send over to the nearest town?" Christina asked, struck afresh by the anguish in the other's eyes, and realising that only some vital necessity could so have moved her.

"I must have a doctor," the words were reiterated, and the woman put her hands upon the cart, and leant heavily against it. "I can't let--him--die--and yet--no one must know if the doctor comes here," she exclaimed, suddenly pulling herself upright, and speaking fast and earnestly; "not a living soul must ever know; and the doctor himself?

If you find a doctor for me, promise to make him swear that he will never divulge where he has been, or what he sees in this house."

Christina looked the bewilderment she felt, and a faint wonder flashed across her mind whether this woman could be sane. Her speech savoured of melodrama, her hurried, breathless sentences, the nervous glances she cast over her shoulder, and the strangeness of the words she spoke, all tended to make the girl doubt the speaker's sanity. But the dark eyes, unfathomable and sad as they were, looked straight into hers without a trace of madness; and though she was plainly afraid of something or somebody, it was not the unreasoning fear of insanity.

"Is there someone ill in that house?" the girl questioned practically; "is it of great importance to have a doctor?"

"It is a matter of life and death," was the broken answer; "when I heard wheels in the lane I came out, hoping it might be someone who would help me. I--cannot leave him myself; I have no one to send--it is all that my servant and I can do to manage----" she pulled herself up abruptly, adding after a moment, "for pity's sake help me if you can."

"I will do the best I can," Christina answered, bewildered surprise still her dominant sensation. "I am a stranger in Graystone. We are only staying in a farmhouse there, but by hook or by crook I will get a doctor for you."

"I think you will carry through whatever you undertake," the other answered, a smile flitting across the wan misery of her face, as her eyes rested on the girl's square chin, and firmly cut lips; "you look as if you would not easily be beaten."

Christina smiled back at her and shook her head.

"I was very nearly beaten a little while ago," she said, gathering up the reins and preparing to turn the pony's head up the steep ascent again; "when one is poor, and hungry, all the fight seems to go out of one. But I don't like being beaten, and I shall find a doctor for you."

She nodded her head cheerily, and was touching the pony lightly with the whip, when the stranger clutched the side of the cart again, and laid a hand on the girl's shoulder.

"Remember, no one must be told that the doctor is coming here; and he himself must be sworn--_sworn_ to secrecy. Promise me you will not tell a soul you have seen me, not a living soul." She was labouring under strong excitement, and it alarmed Christina to notice how the whiteness of her face had extended to her very lips, and what black shadows of suffering and fear lay under her eyes.

"Promise," she repeated, her grasp tightening on Christina's shoulder.

"I--promise," Christina answered slowly. "I will not tell anyone that I have seen you, or what you have said to me; and I will--do as you wish about the doctor."

Having received the girl's a.s.surance, the woman drew back from the cart, and stood watching it retrace its way up the hill, her hands wrung together in anguish, her dark eyes wide with pain.

Baba had been a silent spectator of the strange little scene, understanding very little of what pa.s.sed between her two elders, but watching the face of the beautiful stranger with an intent scrutiny, curious in one so young.

"That was a beautiful Princess," she said, after the cart had driven a short distance. "Baba hopes the Prince will come soon, and take her right away."

"Perhaps he will," Christina answered absently, relieved that the child had woven the strange lady into a fairy tale, thus obviating the possibility that close attention would be paid to remarks Baba might make about their encounter with her; and speculating vainly over all that she had just heard and seen, and over the striking personality of the woman who had commissioned her to do so strange an errand.

Resourceful as nature and necessity had made her, Christina was nevertheless a little puzzled to think how she could make enquiries about a doctor, without betraying what she had been especially conjured to keep secret; but during the drive home her plans were matured, and, having reached the farm, and put Baba into her cot for her afternoon nap, she went to the kitchen in search of Mrs. Nairne.

That worthy dame was engaged in making scones for tea, and turned a flushed but kindly face to Christina, who had already won her heart.

"Well, missy, you and the precious baby's had a nice drive; and I'm sure you're wise and right to take her out early, in the sunshine, and let her rest a bit before her tea--a prettier baby never was."

"She is a darling," Christina answered, "and if she hadn't the sweetest, most wholesome nature in the world, she would be spoilt, everybody adores her so!"

"There! and who can wonder, miss. The little dear! I was baking some scones for her tea and yours, miss, and----"

"That is very good of you, Mrs. Nairne. I was going to ask whether you would be so kind as to look in upon Baba presently; she is asleep in her cot, and quite safe there. But, if you would look at her now and then I should be so grateful. I haven't had the cart, sent round to the stables, for I must go up to the post office."

"And I'll do it with pleasure, miss. You go out with a light heart; no harm shall come to that little dear, that I'll promise you."

The post office, which occupied one side of the tiny general shop, was at the end of the straggling row of houses Graystone called its village street; and Mr. Canning, the postmaster, besides watching over His Majesty's mails, served customers with bacon and b.u.t.ter, sweets or string, sugar or tea, as occasion required. He was weighing out very brown and moist looking Demarara sugar when Christina entered the shop, and he looked at her over his spectacles, with all the absorbing interest felt by a villager for the stranger in their midst.

"A shillingsworth of penny stamps, please," Christina said, when with much deliberation he had tied up the parcel of brown sugar and handed it to his customer, "and a packet of halfpenny cards." Then, when the customer had departed, she asked a few questions about the neighbourhood, adding, with well-feigned carelessness:

"I suppose in such a small place as this you have no resident doctor?"

"Well, no, miss," the man answered; "we have no one nearer than Dr.

Stokes--Dr. Martin Stokes. He lives on the other side of the hill at Manborough. I hope the little lady is not ailing?" Mr. Canning asked sympathetically, for Baba's gracious little personality had endeared itself to the postmaster, and to the rest of the villagers.

"No; oh, no!" Christina answered quickly; "she is very well, and we like this lovely place so much. It is a good thing, though, to know where the doctor lives, isn't it?" she added, brightly and evasively.

"Ah! there you are right, miss. Getting the doctor in time saves fetching the undertaker, as I've said more than once," and Mr. Canning bowed Christina out of his shop, with all the empress.e.m.e.nt of a courtier.

"Manborough--the other side of the hill." It was, as the girl knew, at least three miles off, and Sandro, the fat pony who stood lazily flicking his tail before the shop door, was not to be hurried under any circ.u.mstances.

"A matter of life and death!" Those words, and the anguished tones in which they had been uttered, recurred to her, as she stood looking thoughtfully up the village street, and before her eyes rose the white, agonised face of the woman who uttered them.

"I think you will carry through whatever you undertake." Other words spoken in that same voice, came back to the girl's thoughts, and she looked with a puzzled frown at Jem, the farm boy, who stood at the pony's head.

"Taking the short cut over the moor, I believe I can walk there as quickly as Master Sandro would joggle along the main road," she reflected, saying aloud after that second of reflection:

"You can take the cart back, Jem; and please ask Mrs. Nairne if she will be so very kind as to give Miss Baba her tea; and say I have been detained."

The boy nodded and drove off, whilst Christina walked away in the opposite direction, following the main road to Manborough, until she reached a point some way beyond the village, where a steep path--the short-cut she had recollected--struck across the open moorland. She had just reached this point, and was about to turn into the by-path, when the hoot of a motor sounded behind her, and turning, she saw a large car coming slowly up the road. It contained only two occupants; and with a leap of the heart at her own audacity, Christina suddenly resolved to stop them, and ask for their help.

"A matter of life and death!" the words still rang in her ears, and with the resourcefulness in emergency which belonged to her character, she held up her hand to the two men in the car, and signalled to them to stop. The great car instantly slowed down, and Christina, flushing rosily at her own audacity, stepped forward to speak to one of the two men who bent towards her. Both were gentlemen, she saw at once, and one of them she recognised, and her heart almost stopped beating, when her eyes met the grey eyes of Lady Cicely's cousin.

He looked at her with grave courtesy, but evidently with no idea that he had ever seen her before; and, indeed, on the one and only occasion when they had met in Lady Cicely's boudoir, he had paid very scant attention to the girl, beyond observing that she was white and thin, and very shabbily dressed. The girl who stood now beside his car was neatly and becomingly gowned in garments of soft dark green, which had the effect of making her eyes look very deep and green; she was flushing rosily and becomingly, and the wind blew her dark hair into fascinating little curls about her forehead.

"Oh! please forgive me for stopping you," she exclaimed breathlessly, "but--are you going to Manborough?"

"Yes," Rupert answered, "we are going through Manborough. Is there anything we can do for you?"

Christina noticed again, as she had noticed on the occasion of their first meeting, the peculiarly musical quality of his voice; its tones sent little thrills running along her pulses, and a dreamy conviction crept over her, that, if only he would go on speaking, she could willingly stand here for ever, listening to his deep, vibrating voice.

His question roused her to the absurdity of her thoughts, and, flushing more vividly, she answered:

"I hardly dare ask you what flashed into my mind to ask, when I stopped you. But I am very anxious to get quickly over to Manborough to the doctor; it is an urgent case, and I----"

"Of course we will drive you over," Rupert broke in quickly, opening the door, and holding out his hand to help her into the back part of the car. "I am very glad we happened to be pa.s.sing."