by Bower, B M
A chill breath swept them like the memory of her father’s hate. A deep, basso rumble drowned whatever reply she stammered. He sheltered her in his arms, kissed her lips, her eyes, her hair, went back to her lips again.
“Oh, girl––when a Lorrigan loves––!” He cried softly, exultantly. “I tried not to––but I had to love you. It’s Fate. Are you afraid to love me back? Are you afraid?”
“No Lorrigan can cry coward to a Douglas,” Mary Hope panted. “But––but my mother will be that––”
“My mother will be that––all of that, and more,” Lance stopped her, still exulting in her love. “All the Lorrigans––what does it matter? Life’s for you and me to live, you girl with the bluest eyes in the world. When will you marry me? To-day? Tell me to-day!”
“Oh!” gasped Mary Hope, breathless still from the suddenness of it all. “Oh, not to-day––oh, but the headlong way you have! I––I canna think. I––”
“I don’t want you to think. I didn’t ask you to think. Just love me––that’s all. And marry me soon, Girl-with-the-blue-eyes. Soon. It must be soon––sooner than to-morrow––”
Splittingly the thunder crashed close behind them, a vivid white line cleaving sharply the snarling clouds. Like a sleeper Lance opened the eyes he had closed against her hair and lifted his head. “I must take you home,” he said more calmly. “It’s going to storm––hard. But let me tell you, sweetheart,––it can’t storm as hard as I can love. I’ll take you home, and then you’ll marry me.”
Mary Hope’s face was pale and radiant. She did not say that she would marry him––nor did she say that she would not. Her eyes were misty with tears until she winked hard, when they shone softly. Lance had never seen them so blue. She stood still, her hands clasped together tightly while he gathered up the reins and mounted. He pulled his foot from the left stirrup, reached down to her and smiled. Never had she seen him smile like that. Never had she seen that look in his eyes. She breathed deep, reached up and caught the saddle horn, put her foot in the stirrup and let him lift her beside him.
Against Coaley’s nervous pull at the bit Lance held a steadying hand and laughed. “It’s Fate, girl. Let the storm come. We’ll beat it––it can’t hurt us. Nothing can hurt us now.” He had to shout above the crashing thunder. “Do you love me, sweetheart?” His eyes, close to her own, flamed softly, making Mary Hope think dizzily of altar fires.
“I do––I do!” She gasped. “Oh, I cannot think how I love you––it scares me to think!” Her arm was around his neck, her face was turned to his.
He saw her lips form the words, guessed what it was she was saying. The crash on crash of thunder beat the sound of her voice to nothingness. The white glare of the lightning flashes blinded them. Coaley, quivering, his nostrils belling until they showed all red within, his big eyes staring, forged ahead, fighting the bit.
“He’s rinning away wi’ us!” shouted Lance, his lips close to her ear, and laughed boyishly.
“Mother––” he heard her say, and pulled her higher in his arms, so that he could be sure that she heard him.
“I’ll just pick your little old mother up in my arms and make her love me, too!” he cried. “Nothing can spoil our love––nothing!”
As though the gods themselves chided his temerity, the very heavens split and shattered all sound with rending uproar. Coaley squatted, stopped and stood shaking, his heart pounding so that Lance felt its tremulous tattoo against his thigh. The rumbling after-note of the thunder seemed like silence.
“It struck close. That shed––look!” Lance’s voice was no longer the voice of the young male whose love would override Fate itself. It was the voice of the man who will meet emergencies quietly, unflinchingly, and soothe the woman’s fear. “Don’t be afraid––it’s all right, sweetheart.”
He forced Coaley to go on. He smiled at Mary Hope’s pallor, he reassured her as they neared her home. A shed, sufficiently detached to keep its fire to itself, was blazing. The wind puffed suddenly from nowhere and waved the high, yellow flames like torn ribbons. Great globules of water splashed upon them from the pent torrent above. Coaley galloped through the gate, passed the house, shied at something lying on the ground, stopped abruptly when Lance pulled sharply on the bit.
“Girl––sweetheart––be game!” Lance said sternly when Mary Hope screamed.
He let her to the ground, swung off and passed her, running to the pitifully still little figure of Mother Douglas lying in the pathway, her checked apron flapping, its starchy stiffness showing limp dark spots where the raindrops splashed.
“She’s only shocked. She’s all right––stop that screaming! Good God, girl, where’s your nerve?”
His severity steadied her. Mary Hope stopped screaming, both hands held tightly over her mouth. Lance was already on his way to the house, carrying Mother Douglas like a sleeping child in his arms. And the rain came, a white curtain of water that drenched them to the skin in the first ten seconds.
On the bed where Aleck Douglas had stared at the ceiling, and raved, and died, Lance laid her carefully as though he feared to waken her. He tore open the faded calico dress at the throat, laid his ear upon her heart.
“She’s alive, sweetheart,” he said hearteningly. “It’s only a shock. Bring a basin of water. We’ll have her all right in no time.”
He worked over the old woman, using all the means he could remember or invent, while the house shook with the fury of the wind, and the lightning dazzled them and the rain drummed incessantly on the roof. Mary Hope watched him, her eyes wide, her lips refusing to form any words. For her own sake he sent her on many little errands, kept her busy at useless little tasks. After what seemed an interminable time he stood looking down at the gently heaving breast.
“How game is my girl?” he asked, taking Mary Hope in his arms. “Is she game enough to stay here while Lance goes for a doctor? It won’t be long––” He paused while he made a rapid mental calculation of the distance, and of what a horse may endure. “Three hours. Will my girl be brave enough to stay here three hours? I’ll call the man who was mowing––if I can find him. But that will take minutes. Three hours––and you won’t weaken, will you, dear?”
Mary Hope leaned against him, clutched him, shivered at the crashing thunder. “It’s awful,” she moaned. “I’m afraid you might be hit––”
“Afraid? A Douglas not as game as a Lorrigan?” He shook her, lifted his eyebrows at her, pursed his lips at her, shook her again and kissed her. “I can’t love a girl who’s afraid of thunder. Your mother’s all right, you know. We saw where that bolt struck––fifty yards, almost, from where she was. She got a shock, that’s all. But we’ll have a doctor here and make him take the responsibility. And I’ll be back in three hours, and you’re going to be game––just as game as you’ve always been.”
He pulled his hat down over his eyes, buttoned his wet coat to the chin, laid his hand for a minute over the faintly pulsating heart of Mother Douglas, swept Mary Hope up in his arms and kissed her again, pulled open the door and was gone.
Through a rain-blurred window Mary Hope saw him run to the stable, lead out Coaley who had taken refuge there, vault into the saddle without troubling about the stirrup, and come thundering back past the house and out of the gate, his head bent to the storm.
She looked at the clock. Three hours? He could never do it in three hours! She went back and knelt beside the bed, and prayed as her mother had taught her to pray. And not all of her petition was for her mother. Every lightning flash, every crack, every distant boom of the thunder made her cringe. Lance––Lance was out in the storm, at the mercy of its terrible sword-thrusts that seemed to smite even the innocent. Her mother––even her own mother, who had held unswervingly to her faith––even she had been struck down!
A mile down the road Lance was leaning forward, encouraging Coaley to more speed, because there the trail ran level and fairly free from rocks. Later, he pulled the horse down
to a walk, breathing him up a hill; let him trot down the slope beyond, picked him into a swift gallop when they again struck the level. He gauged, with coldblooded attention to certain rough miles in the journey, just how swiftly Coaley could cover ground and live. He knew horses. He knew Coaley, and he knew that never yet had Coaley been pushed to the actual limit of his endurance. But the girl Lance loved––ah, it was a Lorrigan who loved!––was back there alone, and she would be counting the minutes. It might be that he might return to find her weeping over her dead. So Lance counted miles and a horse’s strength, and bent to the storm and rode.
Ten minutes past the hour, and he was snapping orders to the telegraph operator. The storm, happily, had swept on down the canyon and had given Jumpoff little more than a wetting and a few lightning flashes.
“And order out a special engine and coach,––what do I care what it will cost? I’ll pay. Wire your Lava chief that the money is here. Send the doctor on ahead of the regular train––can’t wait for that.”
He had the Lorrigan habit of carrying a good deal of money on his person, and he counted out banknotes until the operator lifted his hand and said it was enough. He slammed out, then, mounted and rode to a livery stable and gave orders there.
“––And I’ll buy the damn team, so kill ’em if you have to. Only get the doctor out there.” He was in the saddle and gone again before the stableman had recovered from his sag-jawed astonishment.
“Guess there’s something in that talk of him and the Douglas girl,” the stableman gossiped to a friend while he harnessed his swiftest team.
In ten minutes under the three hours Lance stopped at the house, went in and saw that Mary Hope was still being game, and was very glad to be in his arms, and that Mother Douglas was alive and staring up at the ceiling, her face set in a deadly kind of calm.
“She moves her eyes to me, sometimes––she’s been awake for almost an hour. But she hasn’t moved––” Her voice broke.
“It’s all right––the doctor is on his way. And I’m here, sweetheart––you won’t be alone again. Where’s that man of yours? I’ll send him over with a note to Belle. She’ll come––she’s a wonder with sick folks.”
“Mother––I’m afraid mother wouldn’t let her––she’s that set!”
Lance looked at the corpse-like figure with the wide-open eyes and a flicker of the lids now and then to show that she was alive, and swallowed a lump in his throat. Mother Douglas would probably not know who was with her, he thought.
Coaley, the proud-spirited, shambled slowly to the stable, his head drooping, his eyes dulled with exhaustion. He had done his part. Lance rubbed him down, blanketed him, working swiftly, his thoughts with Mary Hope and her love and her fresh grief. He found Hugh, scribbled a note to Belle and got him started on Jamie.
Mother Douglas moved her eyes, stared at him sharply when he went to her. But she did not speak, did not move a muscle of her face. The heart of Lance went heavy, but he could smile still at Mary Hope and tell her that it was all right, and that the doctor ought to be there in an hour or so, and that Belle would come, and that he loved her, loved her, loved her.
* * *
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
BELLE LORRIGAN WINS
In the second-best suit of Aleck Douglas, with his wrists showing strong and shapely below the coat sleeves, and wrinkles across his back, Lance turned his own steaming apparel before the kitchen fire and waited to hear what the doctor had to say.
In his mind was a great wonder at the inscrutable operations of Fate, that had twice brought tragedy into the Douglas house while he himself was permitted to bring all his love, which without the tragedies might have been rejected; which had sent him hurrying to Mary Hope on this day of all the days when he had longed to come. He could not believe that blind Chance had irresponsibly twisted the threads of Mary Hope’s life so that these things had come upon her. He was abashed, humbled, filled with awe of the tremendous forces that rule our destinies. For perhaps the first time in his life he stood face to face with something beyond his understanding, something against which his arrogant young strength was powerless.
The doctor presently came to him, beckoned him to the doorway and preceded him into the rain-washed yard, where the late afternoon sun shone with dazzling brightness after the storm.
“I think she’ll live through this,” the doctor began abruptly. “It was not the lightning, altogether, though she undoubtedly did receive a severe shock. There has been a predisposition to paralysis, which is the true nature of this attack. Her right side is completely paralyzed, and so far as I can determine after a more-or-less superficial examination, her vocal chords are also affected, making speech impossible. Her left arm is not affected, and her mind seems fairly normal. Too much work, too much worry, too much monotony––and she has reached the time of life when these things are most apt to occur. Her husband’s death was undoubtedly a contributary cause. With proper medical attention she may recover from this attack––partially, at least. She should be removed to a good hospital, or a trained nurse placed in charge of the case here. That will be expensive. Do you know whether the family can afford––”
“The family can afford anything she needs, anything that will give her a chance,” Lance told him brusquely.
“She will probably be an invalid as long as she lives,” the doctor went on. “She will be a great care. Are there any relatives, other than the girl? It’s a tremendous burden to fall on her shoulders, Mr. Lorrigan.”
“The burden,” said Lance, “will not fall on her shoulders. I don’t mind telling you that Miss Douglas and I will be married very soon. As soon as possible.”
The doctor brightened visibly. “Congratulations, Mr. Lorrigan! I should strongly advise you, then, to have the old lady removed to a nice, quiet hospital. You will not want the care of her––young people should not be handicapped in that way. I can make the necessary arrangements. She should not be subjected to the discomforts of the journey just at present––it’s a long way by team, and a long way by train. I should like to have her as quiet as possible for a few days, at least.”
“We’ll look after that,” said Lance, and hurried in to tell Mary Hope that her mother was not going to die, and that Belle was coming––he could hear the rattle of the buckboard.
“I don’t know what mother will say,” Mary Hope began, and stopped and hid her eyes behind her hands. Her mother, poor soul, could not say anything. It seemed terrible to Mary Hope that her mother must lie there and endure the presence of the painted Jezebel in her home, and be unable to utter one word of denunciation, one bitter reproach. It was like a judgment; and she could not bear the thought that her mother must suffer it. A judgment, or treachery on her part,––the terrible treason of a child betraying her mother.
“It’s all right, girl; you don’t know our Belle. We’ll just leave it to her. She’ll find a way. And I’ll go out now and tell her all about it, and leave her to manage.”
“I’ll go,” Mary Hope decided unexpectedly. “I have things to say––you shall not go, Lance Lorrigan. You will please let me see her alone––first. I’m that afraid of Belle Lorrigan I could creep under the table and hide! And so I shall go alone to her.”
Lance surrendered, and rolled a cigarette and smoked it in the kitchen, and wondered if a cigarette had ever been smoked in that house before, and whether the ghost of Aleck Douglas was somewhere near, struggling vainly against the inevitable. It certainly was unbelievable that a Lorrigan should be there, master––in effect, at least––of the Douglas household, wearing the shoddy garments of Aleck Douglas, and finding them at least three sizes too small.
They were an unconscionably long time out there,––those two women who meant so much to him. He glanced in at Mother Douglas, in bed now and looking terribly shrunken and old. The doctor was with her, sitting close to the bed and leaning forward a little, watching her eyes while he talked soothingly. Lance was not wanted there, eith
er. He returned to the kitchen and put more wood in the stove, and felt tentatively his drying clothes.
Belle came in, holding Mary Hope by the hand. The eyes of both were moist, shining, blue as the sky outside.
“Lance, honey, I’m glad,” she whispered, kissing him on the cheek. “Hope told me. And don’t you two kids worry about me. I’ll win my way somehow. I always have––and I guess maybe you’ve got it in you, too, Lance. It sure took something more than Lorrigan nerve to win Mary Hope––though I’ll admit Lorrigan nerve won me. No, I won’t go in there now. Don’t tell her I’m here, we’ll wait awhile.”
It was dusk, and the lamp had not yet been lighted. Through the unshaded window Mother Douglas could look out at the first pale stars. The doctor had gone. The house was very quiet, the snapping of the kitchen fire, the steady tick-tock, tick-tock of the old-fashioned clock blending with, rather than breaking, the silence.
Mother Douglas closed her eyes. Her groping left hand ceased its aimless plucking at a yarn knot in the patchwork comforter. Her breath came evenly––Mary Hope wondered if she slept. A hand fell on Mary Hope’s shoulder, though she had not heard a footfall. She seemed prepared, seemed to know what she must do. She slipped out of the chair, and Belle slipped into it. Mother Douglas opened her eyes, turned them that way; infinite weariness marked the glance. Her left hand resumed again its vague groping, the work-worn fingers plucking at the coverlet.
Sitting there in the dusk, her fingers faintly outlined in the old wooden armchair in which Aleck Douglas had been wont to sit and brood somberly over his work and his wrongs, Belle began softly to sing: