Thurston of Orchard Valley Part 6

"I found him in a great Canadian forest. He was looking very worn and tired," Helen answered, with a trace of color in her face. "I--I hired him to do some work for me, and it was hard work--much harder than I fancied--but he did it, and, as we afterwards discovered, spent all I paid him on the powder he found was necessary."

"Ay," said the old man. "That was Mr. Geoffrey. They were all hard and ill to beat, the Thurstons of Crosbie. And you'll kindly tell us, miss, you saw him again?"

"Yes," repeated Helen, "I saw him again. By good fortune the work he did for me procured him a contract he carried out daringly, and when I last saw him he was no longer hungry or ragged, but, I fancy, on the way to win success as an engineer."

Musker straightened his bent shoulders and smiled a slow, almost reluctant smile of pride, while his wife's eyes were grateful as she fixed them on the speaker. "Ay! What Mr. Geoffrey sets his heart on he'll win or ruin himself over. It was the way of all of them; and this is gradely news," he told her.

"Now," said Helen, nodding towards him graciously, "we don't wish to be unduly inquisitive, but--if you may tell us--why did Mr. Thurston emigrate to Canada?"

Musker was evidently tempted to embark upon a favorite topic, and his wife went out hurriedly. But he hesitated, sitting silent for a minute or two. Savine, rising under the arch of the great hearth, flung his cigar into the fire, as a young woman, wearing what Helen noticed was a decidedly antiquated riding habit, came forward out of the shadows.

"I hope we are not intruding here," said the Canadian. "We were tired out before the rain came down, and almost afraid to cross the moor."

"You are very welcome," said the stranger. "I am not, however, mistress, only a relative of the old place's owner, and, therefore, a kinswoman of Geoffrey Thurston. I heard that you had shown him a pa.s.sing kindness, and should like to thank you."

There was no apparent reason why the two young women should scrutinize each other, and yet both did so by the fading daylight and red blaze of the fire. Helen saw that the stranger was ruddy and blonde--frank by nature and impulsive, she imagined. The stranger noted only that the Colonial was pale and dark and comely, with a slightly imperious presence, and a face that it was not easy to read.

"I am Marian Thwaite of Barrow Hall, and regret I cannot stay any longer, having three miles to ride in the rain," she said. "Still, I may return to-morrow before you set out. Mrs. Forsyth will be pleased if she hears you have made these Canadian strangers comfortable, Musker, and I think you may tell them why Mr. Geoffrey left England.

May I ask your names?"

Helen told her, and after Miss Thwaite departed, Musker began the story of Thurston's Folly. It had grown quite dark. Driving rain lashed the windows. The ancient building was filled with strange rumblings and the wailing of the blast when the old man concluded: "Mr. Geoffrey was too proud to turn a swindler, and that was why he shook off his sweetheart, who tried to persuade him, though he knew old Anthony Thurston would have left him his money, if they married."

"Some said it was the opposite," interposed his wife; but Musker answered angrily, "Then they didn't tell it right. No woman born could twist Geoffrey Thurston from his path, and when she gave him bad counsel he turned his back on her. A fool these dolts called him. He was a leal, hard man, and what was a light woman's greediness to him?"

"And what became of the lady?" asked Helen, with a curious flash in her eyes.

"She married a London man, who came here shooting, married him out of spite, and has rued it many times if the tales are true. She was down with him fishing, looking sour and pale, and the Hall maids were say----"

"Just gossip and lies!" broke in his spouse; and Helen, who apparently had lapsed into a disdainful indifference, asked no further questions.

Mrs. Savine, however, made many inquiries, and Musker, who became unusually communicative, presently offered to show the strangers what he called the armory.

They followed him down a draughty corridor to the black-wainscoted gun-room at the base of the crumbling tower, and when he had lighted a lamp its glow revealed a modern collection of costly guns. There were also trout-rods hung upon the wall, and a few good sporting etchings, at all of which Musker glanced somewhat contemptuously. "These are Mr.

Forsyth's, and I take care of them, but he only belongs to the place by purchase and marriage. Those belonged to the Thurstons--the old, dead Thurstons--and they hunted men," he said.

He ran the lamp up higher by a tarnished bra.s.s chain, and pointed first to a big moldering bow. "A Thurston drew that in France long ago, and it has splitted many an Annandale cattle thief in the Solway mosses since. Red Geoffrey carried this long spear, and, so the story goes, won his wife with it, and brought her home on the crupper from beside the Nith. She pined away and died just above where we stand now in this very tower. That was another Geoffrey's sword; they hanged him high outside Lancaster jail. He was for Prince Charlie, and cut down single-handed two of King George's dragoons carrying a warrant for a friend's arrest when the Prince's cause was lost. His wife, she poisoned herself. Those are the spurs Mad Harry rode h.e.l.lfire on a wager down Crosbie Ghyll with, and broke his neck doing it, besides his young wife's heart. The women who married the Thurstons had an ill lot to grapple with. Even when they settled down to farming, the Thurstons were men who would walk unflinchingly into ruin sooner than lose their grip on their purpose, and Mr. Geoffrey favors them."

"They must have been just lovely," sighed Mrs. Savine. "Say, I've taken a fancy to some of those old things. That rusty iron lamp can't be much use to anybody, but it's quaint, and I'd give it's weight in dollars for it. Can't you tell me where Mr. Forsyth lives?"

Musker stared at her horrified, Thomas Savine laughed, and even Helen, who had appeared unusually thoughtful, smiled. Musker answered:

"No money could buy one of them out of the family, and if any but a Thurston moves that lamp from where it hangs the dead men rise and come for it when midnight strikes. It is falling to pieces, but once when they took it to Kendal to be mended, the smith sent a man back with it on horseback before the day had broken."

There was a few moments' silence when Musker concluded, and the ancient weapons glinted strangely as the lamp's flame wavered in the chilling draughts. A gale from the Irish Sea boomed about the crumbling tower, and all the lonely mosses seemed to swell it with their moaning. Helen shivered as she listened, for those clamorous voices of wind and rain carried her back in fancy to the old unhappy days of bloodshed and foray. The a.s.sociations of the place oppressed her. She had acquired a horror of those grim dead men whose mementos hung above her, and whose spirits might well wander on such a night vainly seeking rest.

Even Mrs. Savine became subdued, and her husband said:

"We can't tell tales like these in our country, and I'm thankful we can't. Still, I daresay it was such men as these who bred in us the grit to chase the whales in the Arctic, build our railroads through the snow-barred pa.s.ses, and master the primeval forest. Now we'll try to forget them, and go back out of this creepy place to the fire again."

An hour later Mrs. Musker escorted Helen to her quarters. A bright fire glowed in the rusty grate, and two candles burned on the dressing-table. "It's Mrs. Forsyth's own room, and the best in the house," the old caretaker a.s.sured the girl. "Musker has been telling you about the old Thurstons. He's main proud of them, but you needn't fear them--it's long since the last one walked. You have a kind heart, and nothing evil dare hurt you. See! I've tried to make you comfortable. You were kind to the old place's real master--many a time I've nursed him--G.o.d bless you!"

Helen was not in the least afraid of the dead Thurstons. She was filled with the common-sense courage which characterizes the inhabitants of her new country, but she had been affected by the stories, and she sat for a time with her feet on the hearth irons, gazing thoughtfully into the blaze. She had met a modern Thurston, and found the instincts of his forbears strong within him. She considered that strength, courage, and resolution well became a man, but that gentleness and chivalrous respect for women were desirable attributes, too. The Thurstons, however, had taken to bloodshed as a pastime, and broken most of their wives' hearts until it seemed that they had brought a curse upon their race. She suspected there was a measure of their brutality in the one she knew. Remembering something Geoffrey once had said, her face grew flushed and she clenched a little hand with an angry gesture, saying, "No man shall ever make a slave of me, and my husband, if I have one, must be my servant before he is my master."

Thereupon she dismissed the subject, tried to blot the stories from her memory, and presently buried her ears in the pillow to shut out the clamor of the storm. After a sound night's slumber, and an interview with Miss Thwaite she resumed her journey next morning.

Musker stood in the gate to watch the party ride away, and glancing at the coins in his hand said to Margery, "I wish they'd come often. Main interested in my stories they were all of them, and it's double what any of the shooting folks ever gave me. This one came from the young lady, and there's a way about her that puzzles me after seeing her."

CHAPTER VI

MILLICENT'S REWARD

The late Autumn evening was closing in. Millicent Leslie stood out on the terrace of the old North Country hall, where, the year before, she had first met her husband. A pale moon had climbed above the high black ridge of moor, which shut in one end of the valley, and the big beech wood that rolled down the lower hillside had faded to a shadowy blur, but she could still see the dim, white road running straight between the hedgerows, and could catch the faint gleam of a winding river. Twilight and night were meeting and melting into each other, the dew lay heavy upon the last of the dahlias beneath the terrace wall, and there was a chill of frost in the air. It was very still, though now and then the harsh call of a pheasant came up faintly through the murmur of the river from the depths of the wood. Millicent could hear no other sound, though she strained her ears to listen and it seemed to her that the rattle of wheels should carry far down the silent valley.

She was waiting somewhat anxiously for the return of her husband, who had set off that morning with three or four other men to walk certain distant stubble and turnip fields for partridges. They had pa.s.sed a week at the hall, for, although Millicent would have preferred to avoid that particular place, Leslie had said he did not know of any other place where one could obtain rough shooting, as well as a more or less congenial company, in return for what was little more than a first-cla.s.s hotel bill. He had also added that he needed a holiday, in which Millicent had agreed with him. There was no doubt that he had looked jaded and hara.s.sed.

Millicent knew little about her husband's business, except that it was connected with stocks and shares, and the flotation of companies; but she was quite aware that he had met with a serious reverse soon after he married her, since it had been necessary for them to give up their town house and install themselves temporarily in a London flat. Leslie had informed her that reverses were not uncommon in his profession, and he had appeared quite convinced of his ability to recover his losses in a new venture which had something to do with South African gold or diamonds. Of late, however, he had grown dejected and moody. On the previous evening she had seen his face set hard, as he read a letter which bore the London postmark. He had not given her any information about the contents of the letter, for there had been no great measure of confidence between them; but there were one or two telegrams for him among those a groom had brought over from the nearest station during the day, and she felt a little uneasy as she thought of them.

By and by, with a little shiver and a suppressed sigh, she glanced up at the highest part of the climbing wood. It was there she had had her last memorable interview with Geoffrey, almost a year ago. Though she had not cared to face the fact, she was troubled by a suspicion that she had made an unwise choice then. Leslie had changed since their marriage. He was harsh at times, and though he had, even in their more humble quarters, surrounded her with a certain amount of luxury, there was a laxity in his manners and conversation that jarred upon her.

Geoffrey, she remembered, had not been addicted to mincing words, but, at least, he had lived in accordance with a Spartan moral code.

Millicent was not a scrupulous woman, and her ideas of ethical justice were rudimentary, but she possessed in place of a conscience a delicate sense of refinement which her husband frequently offended.

Feeling chilly at length, and seeing no sign of the shooter's return, Millicent went back into the house. She stopped when she reached the square entrance hall which served the purpose of a lounging-room. The hall had been rudely ceiled and paneled at a time when skilled craftsmen were scarce in the North Country, and in the daylight it was more or less dim and forbidding, but with the lamps lighted and a fire blazing in the wide, old-fashioned hearth, the place looked invitingly comfortable. When she entered, Millicent was not altogether pleased to see another woman there. Marian Thwaite, whom she knew but had not expected to meet, lay in a big chair near the fire. The glow of health which the keen air of the moors had brought there was in her face. She wore heavy boots and severely simple walking attire. Her features suggested a decided character, and she had unwavering blue eyes.

"Mrs. Boone won't be down for some minutes, and I believe the rest are dressing," Marian said. "I haven't seen you since your marriage, and to tell the truth, you're not looking by any means as fresh as you did before you left us. I suppose it's one effect of living in London?"

She studied Millicent with a steady contemplative gaze, and there was no doubt that her comment was justified. Millicent's face was pallid, there was a certain weariness in her eyes, and on the whole, her expression was languidly querulous.

"I didn't know you were coming to-night," said Millicent, as she sank into a chair.

"I didn't know it myself," Marian explained. "I was out on the fells, and I met Boone as I came down this way. He said somebody would drive me home, if I'd stay. You have been here a week, haven't you? How is it you haven't come over to see us yet?"

"As a matter of fact, I didn't intend to call, and it was rather against my wishes that we came up here," said Millicent with the candor of an old acquaintance. "You were not very cordial when I last saw you, and I can't help a feeling that you are all of you prejudiced against me."

Quite unembarra.s.sed Marian looked at her with a reflective air. "Yes,"

she admitted, "to some extent that's true. We're closely connected with the Thurstons, and I've no doubt we make rather intolerant partisans. After all, it's only natural that we sympathize with Geoffrey. Besides--you can make what you like of it--he was always a favorite of mine. I suppose you haven't heard from him since he went to Canada?"

"Would you have expected him to write?"

Marian smiled. "Perhaps it would have been unreasonable, but taking it for granted that he hasn't been communicative, I've a piece of news for you. Some Canadian tourists stayed a night at the Ghyll, two or three months ago, and it seems they met him in British Columbia. I understand he is by no means prosperous, but at least getting a footing in the country, and the people apparently have rather a high opinion of him. Did I mention that one of the party was a girl?"

She saw the quickened interest in Millicent's eyes. With a.s.sumed indifference in her voice Millicent asked: "What kind of people were they?"

"The girl was handsome--well-finished, too. In fact, she struck me as rather an imperious young person of some consequence in the place she came from. She would pa.s.s in any circle that you or I are likely to get an entry to. I don't know whether it's significant, but I understand from Margery that she took some interest in Musker's stories of the Thurstons."

There was nothing to show whether Millicent was pleased with this or not. She did not speak for a moment or two.

"Did they mention what Geoffrey had been doing?" she inquired presently.