The Guinea Stamp Part 55

Miss Peck could see the girl's face in the long gla.s.s, the red spot burning on her cheeks, and the beautiful lips angrily quivering, and she became more and more perplexed. Of late Gladys had become a being difficult to understand.

'What is the use of talking in that manner, Gladys?' she said, with a faint show of sternness. 'I saw Mr. Fordyce in town the other day, and he told me it is quite likely the marriage will take place on the eighth of October. It is quite impossible that it could be definitely fixed without you.'

'I suppose so. And what did Walter say when you told him my marriage-day was fixed?' inquired Gladys, as she tied the ribbon on her hair.

'I shall not tell you what he said,' answered the little spinster, quite severely for her. 'You are in a mood which would make you laugh at an honest heart's suffering.'

'You think very highly of me, Guardy, I must say,' said Gladys a trifle unsteadily. 'But why do you speak of an honest man's suffering? Do you mean to say it made Walter suffer to hear I was going to be married?'

'My dear, he loves you as his own soul. I can never forget how he looked and spoke of you,' said the little spinster. 'He is a good and n.o.ble man, and G.o.d will bless him wherever he goes.'

There was a few minutes' silence, then Gladys walked over to the window, and drawing aside the lace hangings, allowed the red glory of the setting sun to flood the whole room. Standing there, with her white shapely arm against the delicate lace, she looked out in silence upon the lovely prospect which had so often filled her soul with delight. A shadow, dark as a storm-cloud, had fallen upon that sunny scene, and she saw no beauty in it.

'I have loved this place well, Guardy--loved and longed for it. It has been an idol to me, and my punishment is here. I wish I had never seen it. I wish I had never left the city, never been parted from the old friends. I am a miserable woman. I wish I had never been born.'

With a quick gesture she let the curtain drop, and throwing herself on the end of the couch, buried her face in the pillows.

Here again it was Miss Peck's privilege to administer some crumbs of comfort to the sad heart of the woman, even as she had once comforted the child. Stooping over her, she laid her hand tenderly on the bent golden head.

'My dear, it is not yet too late. If you do not love this man, it will be a great sin to marry him--a wrong done to yourself and to him. If there is a chord in your heart responsive to Walter's, don't stifle it.

What is anything in this world in comparison with happiness and peace of mind?'

'Nothing, nothing,' Gladys answered, with mournful bitterness. 'But it is too late. It is Walter's fault, not mine; he left me in my desolation, when I needed him most. I did everything I could to show him that I could never forget him, and he repulsed me every time, until it was too late. If he is unhappy, it is no more than he deserves, and I am not going to be so dishonourable as to draw back now from my plighted word. George has always been kind to me, he has never hurt my feelings, and I will try and repay him by being to him a good and faithful wife.'

'A good and faithful wife!'

The little spinster repeated these words in a half-mournful whisper, as she walked slowly to and fro the room.

Ah, not thus was it meet for a heart like Gladys Graham's to antic.i.p.ate the most momentous crisis of a woman's life. She felt powerless to help, but Heaven was still the Hearer and Answerer of prayer, and with Heaven Miss Peck left the case.

She prayed that her darling's way might be opened up, and that she might be saved from committing so great a wrong, which would bring upon her the curse of a loveless marriage.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE MAGDALENE.

Summer seemed no longer to smile upon Bourhill. That sunny evening was the last for many days. A wild, chill, wintry blast ushered in September, if the Lammas spates had tarried, when they came they brought destruction in their train. All over the country the harvest was endangered, in low-lying places carried away, by the floods. Whole fields lay under water, and there were many anxious hearts among those who earned their bread by tillage of the soil. These dull days were in keeping with the mood prevailing at Bourhill. Never had the atmosphere of that happy house been so depressed and melancholy; its young mistress appeared to have lost her interest in life. Many anxious talks had the little spinster and the faithful Teen upon the theme so absorbingly interesting to both--unsatisfactory talks at best, since none can minister to a mind diseased. One day a letter came which changed the current of life at Bourhill. How often is such an unpretending missive, borne by the postman's careless hand, fraught with stupendous issues? It came in a plain, square envelope, bearing the Glasgow post-mark, and the words 'Royal Infirmary' on the flap. Gladys opened it, as she did most things now, with but a languid interest, which, however, immediately changed to the liveliest concern.

'Why, Miss Peck, it is a letter, see, about poor Lizzie Hepburn. I must go to her at once, I and Teen. Where is she? If we make haste, we shall catch the eleven-o'clock train.'

She handed Miss Peck the letter, and sprang up from a half-finished breakfast. The little spinster perused the brief communication with the deepest concern.

WARD XII., ROYAL INFIRMARY, GLASGOW, '_September_ 6, 188 .

'MADAM,--I write to you at the request of one of the patients under my care, a young woman called Lizzie Hepburn, who, I fear, is dying. She appears very anxious to see you, and asked me to write and ask you to come. I would suggest that, if at all possible, you should lose no time, as we fear she cannot last many days, perhaps not many hours.--Yours truly,

'CHARLOTTE RUTHERFURD.'

'This is from one of the nurses, I suppose,' said the little spinster pityingly. 'Poor girl, poor thing! the end has come only a little sooner than we antic.i.p.ated.'

Gladys did not hear the last sentence. She was already in the hall giving her orders, and then off in search of Teen, whose duties were not very clearly defined, and who had no particular place of habitation in the house. It said a great deal for Teen's prudence and tact that her rather curious positions in the house--the trusted companion of the housekeeper and the friend of the young lady--had not brought her into bad odour with the servants. She was a favourite with them all, because she gave herself no airs, and was always ready to lend a hand to help at any time, disarming all jealousy by her unpretentious, willing, cheerful ways. Gladys found her in the drawing-room, dusting the treasures of the china cabinet.

'Oh, Teen, there is a letter about poor Lizzie at last!' she cried breathlessly. 'It is from the Infirmary; the nurse says she is very ill, perhaps dying, and she wishes to see me. You would like to go, I am sure, and if we make haste we can get the eleven train.'

Teen very nearly dropped the Sevres vase she held in her hand in her sheer surprise over this news.

'There is no time to talk. Make haste, if you wish to go; we must be off in fifteen minutes,' cried Gladys, and ran off to her own room to make ready for her journey, Miss Peck fussing about her as usual, anxious to see that she forgot nothing which could protect her from the storm. It was indeed a wild morning, a heavy rain scudding like drift before the biting wind, and the sky thickly overcast with ink-black clouds; but they drove off in a closed carriage, and took no hurt from the angry elements. They did not speak much during the journey. In addition to her natural excitement and concern for the poor lost girl, Gladys was also possessed by a strange prevision that that day was to be a turning-point in her history.

'Surely Walter will have seen his sister; he cannot have left Glasgow so soon,' she said, as they drove from St. Enoch's Station, by way of the old High Street, to the Infirmary. These streets, with their constant stream of life, were all familiar to the eyes of Gladys. Many an hour in the old days she had spent wandering their melancholy pavements, scanning with a boundless and yearning pity the faces of the outcast and the dest.i.tute, feeling no scorn of them or their surroundings, but only a divine compa.s.sion, which had betrayed itself in her sweet face and shining, earnest eyes, and had arrested many a rude stare, and awakened a vague wonder in many a hardened breast. She was not less compasionate now, only a degree more hopeless. Since she had been so far removed from the sins and sorrows, the degradations and grinding poverty of the great city, she had, while not thinking less seriously or sympathetically of it all, felt oppressed by the impotence of those standing on the outside to lift it up to any level of hope.

'The loud, stunning tide of human care and crime,' as Keble has it, beat more remorselessly and hopelessly on her ears as she looked up to the smoke-obscured sky that wet and dismal day. She felt as if heaven had never been so far away. Almost her faith had lost its hold. These sad thoughts, which gave a somewhat worn and wearied look to her face, were arrested by their arrival at the Infirmary gates. It was not the visiting hour, but a word of explanation to the porter secured them admittance, and they found their way to the portion of the old house where Lizzie Hepburn lay. The visiting surgeons and physicians had just left, so there were no impediments put in their way, and one of the housemaids speedily brought Nurse Rutherfurd to them. She was a pleasant-faced, brisk little body, whose very presence was suggestive of skill and patience and kindly thought for others.

'Oh yes, you are Miss Graham, and have come to see poor Lizzie,' she said. 'Will you just come in here a moment? Her brother is with her. I will tell her you have come.'

She took them into a little room outside the ward door, and lingered only a moment to give them some particulars.

'She has been here three weeks,' she explained; 'she was over in the surgical wards first, and then came to us; it was too late for us to do any good. The doctor said this morning that she will probably slip away to-day.'

The little seamstress turned away to the grey window and wept silently; Gladys remained composed, but very pale.

'And her brother is with her? Is this the first time?' she asked.

'Yes; it was only when we told her there was no hope that she mentioned the names of anybody belonging to her. She spoke of you yesterday, and asked only this morning that her brother might be sent for. Shall I tell her you have come?'

'If you please. Tell her her old chum is with me; she will quite understand,' said Gladys quietly, and the nurse withdrew. Not a word pa.s.sed between her and Teen while they were alone.

The nurse was not many moments absent, and the two followed her in to the long ward. It was a painful sight to Gladys, who had never before been within the walls of an hospital. Teen, however, looked about her with her usual calm self-possession, only her heart gave a great beat when the nurse stopped at a bed surrounded and shut off by draught-screens from sight of the other beds. She knew, though Gladys did not, why the screens had been placed there. The nurse drew one aside, and then slipped away. There was absolute silence there when these four met again. Walter, who had been sitting with his face buried in his hands, rose from the chair and offered it to Gladys, but he did not look at her, nor did any sort of greeting pa.s.s between them. Gladys mechanically sat down, then Walter walked away slowly out of the ward.

With a low cry, Teen flung herself on her knees, laying her face on the white, wasted hand of Liz as it lay outside the coverlet. The figure in the bed, raised up in a half-sitting posture, had an unearthly beauty in the haggard face, a brilliance in the eye, which struck her chilly to the heart; it was like Liz, and yet strangely unlike. Gladys felt a strange thrill pa.s.s over her as she bent towards her, trying to smile, and to say a word of kindly greeting. It brought no answering smile to the dying girl's face, and the only sign of recognition she betrayed was to raise her feeble hand and touch the bowed head of the little seamstress with a tender touch, never bestowed in the days of health and strength.

'Weel,' she said, looking at Gladys, and speaking in the feeblest whisper, 'I'm gled ye've come. I couldna dee withoot seem' ye. Ye bear me nae grudge for takin' French leave? Ye can see I've suffered for it.

I say, is't true that ye are to be mairried to George Fordyce? Tell me that plain. I must ken.'

These words were spoken with difficulty at intervals, and so feebly that Gladys had to bend forward to catch the sound. She felt that there was not only anxiety, but a certain solemnity in the question, and she did not evade it, even for a moment.

'They have fixed my marriage for the eighth of October,' she answered; and the manner of the reply struck even Liz, and her great hollow eyes dwelt yet more searchingly on the girl's sweet face.

'It'll no' be noo,' she said. 'I've lain here ever since the nurse telt me she heard it was to be, wonderin' whether I should tell. If ye hadna been what ye are I wad never hae telt; but, though I hae suffered, I wad spare you. It was him that brocht me to this.'

Gladys neither started nor trembled, but sat quite motionless, staring at the sad, beautiful face before her, as if not comprehending what was said to her.

'It was him that led me awa' first, an' when a la.s.sie yince gets on that road, it's ill keepin' straicht. He said he wad mairry me, an' I believed it, as mony anither has afore me. Wheesht, Teen; dinna greet.'