Christina Part 15

"Watch them go; tell me when they have gone. Tell me when you and I are alone."

Christina moved from the fire to the bedside.

"You want me to see them off from the gate?" she asked, and the other nodded.

"Yes. Lock and bolt the gate after them. When the doctor comes back, we shall hear him. But the door must be locked behind them now." Her voice rose in feverish excitement, her hands moved restlessly on the sheet, her eyes were bright with eagerness, and Christina could have sworn that fear looked out of them, too.

"Of course I will go and do as you wish," she said very gently, her hand stroking the restlessly moving hands; "you will lie very quietly here whilst I am gone?"

"Yes, oh yes!" the accents were impatient. "Only go--go down now.

They must be ready to start."

Slipping on her cloak again, Christina ran downstairs, pausing half-way as she heard a sound of voices and footsteps coming from the corridor that intersected the hall, and that was just out of her sight.

"Carefully--lift her feet a little--take care round this corner--so,"

she heard the sentence jerked out in the doctor's voice, and from her post of observation, she presently saw him emerge slowly into the hall, walking backwards, and holding an inanimate woman's head and shoulders in his arms. Holding her feet, bearing half the burden of her unconscious form, was a tall woman of the servant cla.s.s, upon whose face the rays of the hall lamps fell fully, and Christina could see all the shrewd kindliness of the plain features.

"Gently--wait a moment to rest. There--that's right--now then. Ah!

the lantern," he exclaimed; "we must have the lantern across that dark garden."

"I will bring the lantern," Christina called out, rather tremulously, but running down the stairs without delay. "I was sent to lock the gate after you; I can light you across the garden."

She picked up the lantern from the hall table upon which Fergusson had placed it; and, with one shuddering glance at the flushed, heavily-breathing woman, who was being carried from the house, she put herself at the head of the strange little procession, lighting their footsteps as well as she was able. It was no easy task to lift the unfortunate creature, first through the green door, and then into the car, but Fergusson being an athletic man, with muscles in excellent order, and the tall servant being strong and well-built, their joint efforts succeeded in laying their burden along the cushions.

Christina stood at the door for a moment, watching the car turn up the lane, but when its brilliant lights were engulfed by the darkness, she turned back with a shiver into the garden, locking and bolting the door with trembling fingers, and running up the dark path as though all the powers of evil were at her heels. The front door of the house she secured as firmly as the other, then, more than half-ashamed of the nameless terror that shook her, she sat down for a moment on an oak chest by the fire.

"You silly coward," she said to herself; "you know you and a sick woman are alone in the house, and what are you afraid of?" But for all her attempt at courage, as she flew up the stairs again, she repeatedly looked over her shoulder, with a nervous dread of she knew not what.

"Have they gone--safely gone? And is the door locked?" The words greeted her ears directly she entered the bedroom upstairs, and the dark eyes of the woman in the bed looked at her, with agonised questioning and dread.

"Yes; they have driven away, and everything is locked up, and now I want to make you comfortable, and poke up the fire, and we shall be quite cosy in this nice warm room." Christina spoke cheerfully, all trace of her own nervous fears had vanished; she was intent on calming the troubled woman, whose feverish excitement was still only too apparent.

"Nice and cosy?" the woman laughed drearily. "I can't rest quietly until I know:--he---- Can I trust you?" She pulled herself bolt upright in the bed, and looked fixedly at Christina; "will you be silent about everything you see, everything you hear?"

"Why, of course. But, you will try and go to sleep now, won't you?"

Christina said soothingly, with a startled certainty that her beautiful charge must be delirious.

"Go to sleep?" The dreary laugh came again. "How could I sleep? I must lie here; there is no help for that. Marion has done her work well, though, poor soul! she did not mean to harm me. But I can't lie here whilst he--you will promise to keep silence?"

"I promise," Christina said hastily, intent only on quieting her at any cost; "is there something you want me to do?"

The other nodded.

"Go along the pa.s.sage that leads off this landing," she said, "knock at the third door on the left; and ask--my--the person who is there if there is anything he needs. He may need--food--we could do nothing for him whilst Marion--and the doctor----"

She dropped back upon the pillow with closed eyes, and so exhausted a look, that Christina bent over her, too anxious about her well-being to think of her own surprise at the order just given her.

"Never mind me," the dark eyes opened, the brows drew together in a frown; "only go to him--and do what he needs. I shall be all right; it is only he who matters."

Unfeignedly puzzled, and with all her nervous tremors trooping back upon her, Christina went across the landing, and turned along the pa.s.sage as directed. Who and what was she going to find in that third room on the left? And why was there a necessity for all this secrecy?

Her heart beat very fast, so fast that it nearly suffocated her, as she pa.s.sed on and paused at the third door, wondering again with a sinking dread, what new mystery was to be revealed to her? To her soft knock, a man's voice responded:

"Come in," and she entered a warm and luxuriously-furnished apartment, which appeared to be sitting-room and bedroom combined. Closely wrapped in a thick dressing-gown, and seated in an armchair by the fire, was a man whose cadaverous face and sunken eyes seemed to show recent recovery from some severe illness; and his efforts to rise, when he saw a stranger at the door, only resulted in his sinking back with a groan.

"Who are you?" he asked; "why have you come? Where is Madge?"

Christina fancied she detected a faint foreign accent in his words, though he spoke fluent English.

"I was sent by--by the lady of the house," Christina answered.

"I--don't know her name, but she is--very tired." She subst.i.tuted that word for "ill," when she saw how the sick man started and flushed.

"She asked me to come and see if there is anything you need."

"Madge tired?" he said in a slow, dreamy voice; "it is so difficult to think that Madge can be tired. She used to be such a tower of strength, always such a tower of strength."

His sunken eyes glanced wistfully at Christina; she felt compelled to utter some words of comfort.

"Perhaps she is only tired--just for the time," she answered, though in uttering the words a remorseful remembrance smote her of the fragile white face of the woman she had left. "She will feel stronger again soon."

"Do you think so? Do you really think so." He leant forward, and Christina saw how his hands were trembling; "you see, I feel--I can't help feeling--that it is my fault--all my fault. First, the old trouble; and then, my coming back to burden---- But you are a stranger to us," he exclaimed, breaking off and looking at her with a new alertness; "why did Madge send a stranger? Where is Elizabeth?"

Christina, jumping to the conclusion that Elizabeth must be the kindly-faced servant, and anxious to check the sick man's rising excitement, said gently:

"She is busy just now, and they sent me because I am a friend; and you may be quite sure that I shall never speak a word to anyone of what I see or hear in this house."

"Then you don't know----" he began, breaking off again, and looking at her almost furtively.

"I know nothing," was the grave response. "I came here just for to-night, to help--because--because Elizabeth is busy. That is all."

To her great relief, he accepted her explanation without further questioning, the truth being that his brain, exhausted by illness, refused to work with any rapidity, being ready enough to accept whatever was put before it; and, with a weary sigh, he turned away from the girl, and held out his thin hands to the fire.

"Now, can I fetch you anything, or do anything for you?" Christina asked brightly; "try to look upon me as--as Elizabeth, and let me do for you what she would do if she were here."

His eyes turned to her again; he smiled.

"You are not very like Elizabeth," he said, his glance taking in the slight figure in its neat green gown--the girlish face, the eager eyes; "a very fertile imagination would be needed to see Elizabeth in you."

"I am afraid I am not half so capable as Elizabeth," she said, ignoring the subtle compliment, "but I will do my best."

"Will you give me your arm to the bed then? I am too much of a cripple to walk there alone, but I can get myself into it when I am there. And if you would further be good enough to bring me from next door some milk, and whatever other eatables Elizabeth has prepared for me, I shall be very grateful. Though I cannot imagine why Elizabeth is leaving me to a stranger to-night," he went on, with the petulance of a sick child.

Christina thought it best to ignore the latter half of this sentence, and having fetched from the dressing-room next door, a tray of appetising viands, which she deposited on a table by the bed, she came to the sick man's side to give him the help he needed. It was with great difficulty that he dragged himself from his chair, and the girl's strength was taxed to the utmost to support his weight, when he leant heavily upon her shoulder. He was considerably taller than he had looked when sitting in the chair; and he was so weak, and apparently so crippled, that his progress across the room was a slow and painful one.

Short though the transit was from chair to bed, his breath came fast as he sank down upon the pillow, and for several seconds he looked so worn and exhausted, that Christina did not dare to leave him. Into the milk put ready for him, she poured some brandy from a flask on the tray, and, holding the gla.s.s to his lips, was thankful to see that he could drink its contents, and that having done so, the colour gradually returned to his face.

"Better now," he said slowly, opening his sunken eyes and looking at Christina with a smile that gave his face a pathetic wistfulness. "I shall be all right soon."

"Can't I do anything more for you?" Christina asked, still troubled by his exhausted looks.

"No, nothing more. Come back in half an hour to see if I am all right--just to console Madge," he answered, smiling again, as she softly stole away.