The House Of Fulfilment Part 9

Whatever the cause, Friday came, with the strained relations between sister and brother unrelieved.

The town was in the midst of its social season, the Blair reception being one of several crowding each other. On this Friday Harriet and Alexina were to attend an afternoon affair, and later Alexina was to go to an evening occasion with her uncle, who had consented icily, as though to emphasize the fact that it was Harriet's engagement which made it necessary for him to take the girl.

Alexina, coming down a little before five, found Harriet standing in the parlour, ready, gloves on and wrap on a chair. To be young is to be ardent. Not all youthful things are young. Alexina was young.

"You are beautiful, Aunt Harriet," she declared.

But it was as if Harriet did not hear. Was it premonition, that strained absorption?

"A moment, Alexina," she was saying. "Listen, was that the bell?"

"John, probably," said Alexina, "to let us know the carriage is waiting."

But it was Major Rathbone who came in upon them in his quick fashion a moment later. His overcoat was a cape affair which somehow seemed to suit his personality, and ever after Alexina could see him throwing the cavalier-like drapery back with impatient gesture.

"You are not gone then, Harriet," he said; "I am glad for that."

Quickly as the words were spoken, the Harriet on his lips was not lost upon Alexina. She turned to go, quite hot and with impulsive haste, but the Major, putting out a hand, detained her.

"No, Miss Alexina; I'd really rather you would stay if you will be so kind," he said, then turned to the older woman. "I have just had some words with your brother on the club-house steps and I knocked him down. I came on straight here, preferring you should hear my regret from myself. I lost my temper."

He was facing Harriet, who had taken a step towards him at his entrance, then had stopped. Looking at her he went on rapidly:

"There is this I want to say. Yesterday I thought never to have the right to say it since I was too poor to ask you to listen. To-night I came here to say that I love you from my soul, and near you or away from you, alive or dead, will go on loving you and wanting you. Had you been poor I would have fought like any man to make you care; as it is I knocked your brother down for saying I was trying to do it because you are rich, to further my political ambition. I knocked him down for that, and for some other, older reasons. There is nothing more to say; no, in the divine bigness of your nature don't think you have to speak. I cannot come here any more, even if you would permit me, after what has happened, and I can't expect you to go to-night of course. But if ever I can serve you I am yours, soul and body, and will be while there is life in me. That's all at last. What," as he turned, "crying, Miss Alexina? For me? Or for him? I a.s.sure you there was little hurt but his arrogance. Dare I ask you to shake hands?"

And he was gone in his abruptly quick fashion and the latch of the outer door was heard clicking behind him.

It aroused Harriet and she came to herself. She was trembling, but on her face was a look of one who has entered Heaven. Then it seemed to come to her that he was gone.

"I must--oh, stop him, Alexina. He must know--"

The girl ran into the hall, but the outer door was heavy, and in her haste she was awkward getting it open. As it gave finally the rush of wind drove her inward. The steady rainfall of the day, freezing as it touched the ground, had changed to finely driven sleet. The steps glared with ice. But already the Major was at the gate, and through the dusk she could see his umbrella lowered against the wind as he turned and started up the street. She called after him impulsively, beseechingly, but realized the futility of it through the fierce rush of wind and sleet. John was just driving out the carriage-way from the stable. Indeterminate, she closed the door and turned back to the parlour.

Harriet had sunk upon a chair, and in her eyes, looking far off, was a light, a smile, or was it tears?

She sprang up and turned, her face one heavenly blush, as Alexina entered. Had she thought it would be he?

"Gone? Oh, Alexina, I must--I have to tell him. Ring the bell. John must go for him. After what has happened I cannot stand it that the knowledge should all be mine."

But she was already pulling the bell-cord herself, then turned to Alexina blushing and radiant.

"I am thirty-eight years old, Alexina; I am not even young, and yet he cares for me."

The bell had rung; both had heard the far-off sound of it, but no one answered, maid or man-servant.

She rang again. "I had no time, the words would not come, I tried to tell him," she said pleadingly to Alexina, as if the girl were arraigning her, then suddenly dropped into the chair by the bell-cord, and with her face in her hands against its back went into violent weeping.

Alexina stood hesitant. There are times for silence. She would go and find Katy.

But she met her hurrying from the kitchen towards the parlour, the shawl over her head full of sleet and wet. She was panting and her eyes were large. Alexina was vaguely conscious of the cook, breathing excitement, somewhere back in the length of the hall, and behind her some trades-boy, his basket on his arm, his mouth gaping.

"It's Major Rathbone," said Katy, panting; "John ran into him coming out the carriage gate. The horses slipped and he had his umbrella down and didn't see. I was coming from the grocery."

"Oh," said Alexina; "Katy, oh--"

Harriet had heard and was already in the hall and struggling with the outer door. "I can't--it won't--oh, Alexina, help me!"

Katy had reached the door too, and put her hand on the k.n.o.b. "They've already started to the infirmary with him, Miss Harriet, John and that young doctor across the street, before I came in. He told them to take him there himself. He was half up, holding to the fence, before John was off the box. 'Stop the doctor there getting in his buggy,' he said to John, 'and get me around to the infirmary.'"

"And the doctor--what did he say?" demanded Alexina.

"He said 'Good Lord, man!' and he swore just awful at John being so slow helping get him in the carriage."

Harriet all at once was herself, perfectly controlled.

"Go get me my long cloak, please, Katy," she said.

"Oh, Miss Harriet," from Katy; "you ain't thinking of goin' out--it's sleetin' awful--without the carriage!"

But Harriet already had reached the stairs going for the wrap herself.

Alexina followed her. "What is it, Aunt Harriet?" she begged. "Where are you going?"

Harriet answered back from her own doorway. "To the infirmary."

Action is the one thing always understood by youth. Alexina entirely approved. "I'll go, too," she said, and ran into her room to change her wrap for a darker one.

There was but one infirmary at the time in the city, and that a Catholic inst.i.tution. They could walk a square and take a car to the door. Alexina, in her haste, never thought of money, but Harriet, as she came down, had her purse.

Neither spoke on the way; it was all they could do to keep umbrellas open in the fierce drive of wind and sleet. Alexina bent her head to catch breath; the sleet whipped and stung her face, the wind seized her loose cape, her light skirts, bellying them out behind her. But Harriet, ahead, tall, poised, went swiftly on, and, in the light from the street gas-post as they waited for a car, her face showed no consciousness of storm or of aught about her. Yet it was Harriet who stopped the car, who made the change, and paid the fares. The ride into town was in silence. It was Harriet who rang the bell before the infirmary building, who led the way over the icy pavement, up the wide brick walk through the grounds; it was Harriet who rang the bell at the big central door, and it was she who entered first past the little Sister who opened that door.

Not that the little Sister meant to permit it--it was against rules, she a.s.sured them, visiting hours were over. She could tell them nothing. The doctors were with the gentleman now.

But she let them in. Prison doors must have opened to Harriet that night, she would have put the little Sister aside if need be and walked in, Alexina felt that. Perhaps the little Sister felt it too.

She glanced at Harriet furtively, timidly, and, murmuring something about going to see, glided away.

The two stood in the hall, Alexina gazing at the patron Saint of the place, in marble on his pedestal. After a time the little Sister returned and told them the doctor would see them presently and said something about the parlour, but Harriet shook her head.

Again they waited, the woman and the girl sitting in chairs against the painted wall, facing the Saint in his niche. The instincts of long ago arose within Alexina, and unconsciously her lips moved for comfort to herself in a prayer to the benign old Saint before her, there being nothing incongruous to her that she was using a little form of child's prayer taught her by her Presbyterian aunt.

And still they waited, so long that Alexina felt she could not stand the silence longer, or the waiting. She looked at Harriet, who was gazing before her, her face colourless, her eyes unseeing. Alexina began to wonder if the Sister had forgotten they were there.

But at last she came stealing noiselessly back, and, following her, a young man.

Alexina recognized him at once as the young doctor she had seen going in and out the cottage, and whose name she remembered was Ransome.

Harriet arose to meet him. He was young and boyish and looked unnerved. "The others will be down in a moment--the other doctors"--he told her; "when I saw it was bad--you know I'm just beginning--I turned it over."