The Major Part 32

Together they removed the coat. The shirt sleeve was hanging in a tangled, b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.s from the arm.

"Awful!" groaned Kathleen. "Sit down."

"Oh, nonsense, it is not serious."

"Sit down, Jack, dear," she entreated, clasping her hands about his sound arm.

"Say it again," said Jack.

"Oh, Jack, won't you sit down, please?"

"Say it again," he commanded sternly.

"Oh, Jack, dear, please sit down," she cried in a pitiful voice.

He sat down, then lay back reclining on his arm. "Now your knife, Jack,"

she said, feeling hurriedly through his pockets.

"Here you are," he said, handing her the knife, biting his lips the while and fighting back a feeling of faintness.

Quickly slipping behind him, she whipped off her white petticoat and tore it into strips. Then cutting the b.l.o.o.d.y shirt sleeve, she laid bare the arm. The wound was superficial. The shot had torn a wide gash little deeper than the skin from wrist to shoulder, with here and there a bite into the flesh. Swiftly, deftly, with fingers that never fumbled, she bandaged the arm, putting in little pads where the blood seemed to be pumping freely.

"That's fine," said Jack. "You are a brick, Kathleen. I think--I will--just lie down--a bit. I feel--rather rotten." As he spoke he caught hold of her arm to steady himself. She caught him in her arms and eased him down upon the stubble. With eyes closed and a face that looked like death he lay quite still.

"Jack," she cried aloud in her terror. "Don't faint. You must not faint."

But white and ghastly he lay unconscious, the blood still welling right through the bandages on his wounded arm. She knew that in some way she must stop the bleeding. Swiftly she undid the bandages and found a pumping artery in the forearm. "What is it that they do?" she said to herself. Then she remembered. Making a tourniquet, she applied it to the upper arm. Then rolling up a b.l.o.o.d.y bandage into a pad, she laid it upon the pumping artery and bound it firmly down into place. Then flexing the forearm hard upon it, she bandaged all securely again. Still the wounded man lay unconscious. The girl was terrified. She placed her hand over his heart. It was beating but very faintly. In the agony and terror of the moment as in a flash of light her heart stood suddenly wide open to her, and the thing that for the past months had lain hidden within her deeper than her consciousness, a secret joy and pain, leaped strong and full into the open, and she knew that this man who lay bleeding and ghastly before her was dearer to her than her own life. The sudden rush of this consciousness sweeping like a flood over her soul broke down and carried away the barrier of her maidenly reserve. Leaning over him in a pa.s.sion of self-abandonment, she breathed, "Oh, Jack, dear, dear Jack."

As he lay there white and still, into her love there came a maternal tender yearning of pity. She lifted his head in her arm, and murmured brokenly, "Oh, my love, my dear love." She kissed him on his white lips.

At the touch of her lips Jack opened his eyes, gazed at her for a moment, then with dawning recognition, he said with a faint smile, "Do--it--again."

"Oh, you heard," she cried, the red blood flooding face and neck, "but I don't care, only don't go off again. You will not, Jack, you must not."

"No--I won't," he said. "It's rotten--of me--to act--like this and--scare you--to death. Give me--a little--time. I will be--all right."

"If they would only come! If I could only do something!"

"You're all right--Kathleen. Just be--patient with me--a bit. I am feeling--better every minute."

For a few moments he lay quiet. Then with a little smile he looked up at her again and said, "I would go off again just to hear you say those words once more."

"Oh, please don't," she entreated, hiding her face.

"Forgive me, Kathleen, I am a beast. Forget it. I am feeling all right.

I believe I could sit up."

"No, no, no," she cried. "Lie a little longer."

She laid his head down, ran a hundred yards to the wheat field, returning with two sheeves, and made a support for his head and shoulders. "That is better," she said.

"Good work," he said. "Now I am going to be fit for anything in a few moments. But," he added, "you look rather badly, as if you might faint yourself."

"I? What difference does it make how I look? I am quite right. If they would only come! I know what I will do," she cried. "Where are your cartridges?" She loaded the gun and fired in quick succession half a dozen shots. "I think I see them," she exclaimed, "but I am not sure that they heard me." Again she fired several shots.

"Don't worry about it," said Jack, into whose face the colour was beginning to come back. "They are sure to look us up. Just sit down, won't you please, beside me here? There, that's good," he continued, taking her hand. "Kathleen," he cried, "I think you know my secret."

"Oh, no, no, please don't," she implored, withdrawing her hand and hiding her face from him. "Please don't be hard on me. I really do not know what I am doing and I am feeling dreadfully."

"You have reason to feel so, Kathleen. You have been splendidly brave, and I give you my word I am not going to worry you."

"Oh, thank you; you are so good, and I love you for it," she cried in a pa.s.sion of grat.i.tude. "You understand, don't you?"

"I think I do," he said. "By the way, do you know I think I could smoke."

"Oh, splendid!" she cried, and, springing up, she searched through his coat pockets, found pipe, pouch, matches, and soon he had his pipe going. "There, that looks more like living," said Kathleen, laughing somewhat hysterically. "Oh, you did frighten me!" Again the red flush came into her face and she turned away from him.

"There they are coming. Sure enough, they are coming," she cried with a sob in her voice.

"Steady, Kathleen," said Jack quietly. "You won't blow up now, will you?

You have been so splendid! Can you hold on?"

She drew a deep breath, stood for a minute or two in perfect silence, and then she said, "I can and I will. I am quite right now."

Of course they exclaimed and stared and even wept a bit--at least the ladies did--but Jack's pipe helped out amazingly, and, indeed, he had recovered sufficient strength to walk unhelped to the car. And while Tom sent the Packard humming along the smooth, resilient road he kept up with Nora and his sister a rapid fire of breezy conversation till they reached their own door. It was half an hour before Tom could bring the doctor, during which time they discussed the accident in all its bearings and from every point of view.

"I am glad it was not I who was with you," declared Nora. "I cannot stand blood, and I certainly should have fainted, and what would you have done then?"

"Not you," declared Jack. "That sort of thing does not go with your stock. G.o.d knows what would have happened to me if I had had a silly fool with me, for the blood was pumping out all over me. But, thank G.o.d, I had a woman with a brave heart and clever hands."

When the doctor came, Mrs. Waring-Gaunt went in to a.s.sist him, but when the ghastly b.l.o.o.d.y spectacle lay bare to her eyes she found herself grow weak and hurried to the kitchen where the others were.

"Oh, I am so silly," she said, "but I am afraid I cannot stand the sight of it."

Kathleen sprang at once to her feet. "Is there no one there?" she demanded with a touch of impatience in her voice, and pa.s.sed quickly into the room, where she stayed while the doctor snipped off the frayed patches of skin and flesh and tied up the broken arteries, giving aid with quick fingers and steady hands till all was over.

"You have done this sort of thing before, Miss Gwynne?" said the doctor.

"No, never," she replied.

"Well, you certainly are a brick," he said, turning admiring eyes upon her. He was a young man and unmarried. "But this is a little too much for you." From a decanter which stood on a side table he poured out a little spirits. "Drink this," he said.

"No, thank you, Doctor, I am quite right," said Kathleen, quietly picking up the b.l.o.o.d.y debris and dropping them into a basin which she carried into the other room. "He is all right now," she said to Mrs.

Waring-Gaunt, who took the basin from her, exclaiming,

"My poor dear, you are awfully white. I am ashamed of myself. Now you must lie down at once."

"No, please, I shall go home, I think. Where is Nora?"