CHAPTER VIII.
"IT IS A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH."
"And the Prince had the dearest face in all the world. It was notexactly handsome, but it was very strong, and when you looked at it,you knew that he was good. And his eyes were grey and very kind,and----"
"And did he wear white armour, all shining, and a silver crown on hishead?"
Baba's voice, clear and imperious, interrupted Christina's dreamytones, and her dimpled fingers seized and shook the girl's hand, inorder to attract her attention, which, as the baby was vaguely aware,had wandered from the fairy tale in process of being told. "Did thePrince have white armour?"
"Yes, I expect so," Christina answered, with momentary hesitation,flushing as a vision flashed into her mind of a tall figure in well-cutdark blue serge, that bore no resemblance whatever to silver armour;"he--he put on armour when he had to go and fight dragons, but when hewas in the Castle with the lovely Princess, he wore a velvet tunic,dark blue velvet, and a silver crown upon his head."
"And the Princess was just 'zactly like you," Baba said lovingly,pressing her golden head more closely against Christina's breast, andlooking into the girl's face with adoring eyes, "just 'zactly like mypretty lady."
Christina laughed softly, running her hands through the child's curls,and bending down to kiss the uplifted face.
"You are a little monkey, Baba," she said, "and a flatterer. Youmustn't call Christina a pretty lady. She isn't a bit pretty, andshe's only just your nurse."
"Baba will call Christina just 'zactly what she likes," the childanswered sturdily, enunciating her words with the clearness often foundin an only child who is constantly with grown-up people. "Christina'sa very pretty lady, and Baba loves her."
"Baba's a goose, and we must put on our things and go out in thesunshine and see what we can find in these nice lanes." She put thechild off her lap, and, going into an adjacent room, brought out thered cloak in which she had first seen her, and wrapped it round Baba'sgraceful little form, drawing the hood over the golden curls.
Barely a fortnight had gone by since Christina had first entered LadyCicely's service, after an interview which had ended precisely asRupert had laughingly declared it would end, in the engagement ofChristina as Baba's nurse. The references the girl had produced fromher late employer, Mrs. Donaldson, from an old clergyman who had knownher in Devonshire, and from her father's solicitor, had seemed toCicely to justify her in taking this step, even though the Donaldsonswere in Canada, the old clergyman dead, and the solicitor gone to SouthAfrica.
"She looks genuine; I am sure she _is_ genuine," the little lady saidafterwards to Rupert; "and she was so overwhelmed with delight andgratitude at the idea of coming to us."
"No doubt she was," Rupert responded drily; "well! no great harm cancome of giving her a month's trial. I am glad you had the saving graceto suggest that. And during the month you will be able to see what sheis made of."
But the month had not fallen out quite as Rupert had naturally supposedthat it would. Lady Cicely, driven nearly distracted by a scare ofscarlet fever in the near neighbourhood, and unable to use BramwellCastle, which was in the builder's hands, had sent Christina and Babaoff, almost at a moment's notice, to Graystone. In this remote hamleton a remote Sussex border, Mrs. Nairne, an old servant of the Staynesfamily, owned a small farmhouse, and also received lodgers; and here,for the past ten days, Christina and her little charge had beenrejoicing in the country sights and sounds, which even in earlyDecember had a fascination all their own.
To Baba, the farmyard was an unfailing source of delight; and toChristina, the great spaces of moorland, the deep lanes, the woodswhose soft brown hues gave colour to the hillsides, were a welcomechange from London streets, and the squalor of London lodgings. To thegirl who for so long had been tossing on a sea of struggle andprivation, her quiet life at Graystone was like a haven of rest; andher one passionate prayer was, that at the end of her month ofprobation, she might still find favour in Lady Cicely's eyes, and keepthe situation which seemed to her a more delightful one than she hadever dared to hope for in her wildest dreams. With the help of alittle pony cart, she and the child could make quite lengthy excursionsabout the country side, and Christina often found herself wondering whyit was the fashion to talk as if there were no beauties to be found inthe country in winter time. She revelled in the great sweeps ofmoorland that rolled away to far hills on the horizon, hills scarcelyless blue than the soft blue of the winter sky. And, if the moorlandswere no longer clad in their robe of purple heather, or pale pink ling,the duns and browns of heath and bracken, the dark green of fir-trees,and the brightly tinted leaves of the bilberry plants offered no lackof colour. On the oaks in the lanes bright brown leaves still hung;and the trees that were leafless--delicate birches, sturdy ashes,smooth-stemmed beeches, made so dainty a lacework of bare boughsagainst their background of sky, that the leaflessness was in itselfbeautiful. The sunlight poured a flood of radiance on the upland road,as Christina and Baba jogged peacefully along it, in the wake of thesmall black pony, who meandered on at his own pace, just as the fancytook him. Larks sang in the sunlight; in the copse under the hill thethrushes were already beginning to learn their songs of spring; andChristina, drinking in all the loveliness about her, laughed aloud forsheer gladness of heart.
They had driven for some distance along the main road, when they cameto a spot where four roads met, and towards one of them Baba pointed afat forefinger.
"Let's go along there," she said; "it's such a ducky wee road, andthere's a pond."
Christina was lain to confess that the road indicated had specialattractions of its own. It wound down from the upland, between hedgeswhich in summer must be a tangled loveliness of briar roses,honeysuckle, and clematis; and, skirting a common where a pondreflected the sunshine on its small ruffled waves, turned down againbetween woods that climbed steeply up the hill-side on either hand.The lane narrowed as it wound onwards, and Christina was beginning towonder whether it would end in a mere grassy track, when she saw aclearing in the woods on the right-hand side, and became aware ofchimney-pots showing above a very high wall.
"What an extraordinarily lonely place," the girl reflected, lookingwith a little shudder at the height of the wall, and at the dense woodswhich hemmed it in on every side. Excepting where the space for theactual house itself had been cleared, and where the lane meandered pastit, it was entirely shut in by woods--beech, oak, and birch on thelower levels, pines climbing upward to the summit, closing the buildingin from all observation. Thanks to the steep hills and the overhangingwoods, only a very small proportion of sunshine could filter into thelane, and Christina shivered again, feeling that there was somethingsinister about this secluded spot, and the house that was barelyvisible behind its encircling walls.
"Baba thinks p'raps the Princess lives behind there," said the baby,looking with round blue eyes at the frowning walls; "it's a awful,dreadful place; and p'raps the Dragon's got the Princess safe in there;and she's waiting for the Prince to come and get her out."
"The Prince will come in his shining armour," Christina answeredbrightly; "and then the Princess will come away, and be happy everafter."
At the moment they were driving past a green door in the wall; and asshe spoke these words, the door was hurriedly opened, and a tall womanstepped out into the lane. She was closely wrapped in a dark cloak,and some magnificent black lace draped her hair. But it was the sightof her face that made Christina draw in her breath sharply, for shethought she had never seen anything more beautiful than its whiteloveliness, anything more sad than the glance of the great dark eyes.She panted a little, as though she had been running; there was astrange mingling of fear and anguish in her expression, and she held upher hand with so pleading a gesture, that Christina pulled up, andleaning from the cart, said gently:
"Is there anything I can do for you?"
The dark eyes met hers, a startled look, one would almost have said alook of recogni
tion swept over the white face, then she exclaimedbreathlessly:
"Why--I thought--you were--I beg your pardon--it was foolish of me--ofcourse, I have never seen you before."
"No, never," Christina answered emphatically, knowing that the lovelyface of this woman, once seen, could never have faded from her memory;"but, I am afraid you are in trouble; can I help you?
"A doctor," the other panted. "I must have a doctor; and yet--I amafraid--I am afraid," she wrung her hands together, and her lipsquivered pitifully.
"We are driving back to Graystone. Can I send a doctor if there is onein the place? Or, can I send over to the nearest town?" Christinaasked, struck afresh by the anguish in the other's eyes, and realisingthat only some vital necessity could so have moved her.
"I must have a doctor," the words were reiterated, and the woman puther hands upon the cart, and leant heavily against it. "I can'tlet--him--die--and yet--no one must know if the doctor comes here," sheexclaimed, suddenly pulling herself upright, and speaking fast andearnestly; "not a living soul must ever know; and the doctor himself?If you find a doctor for me, promise to make him swear that he willnever divulge where he has been, or what he sees in this house."
Christina looked the bewilderment she felt, and a faint wonder flashedacross her mind whether this woman could be sane. Her speech savouredof melodrama, her hurried, breathless sentences, the nervous glancesshe cast over her shoulder, and the strangeness of the words she spoke,all tended to make the girl doubt the speaker's sanity. But the darkeyes, unfathomable and sad as they were, looked straight into herswithout a trace of madness; and though she was plainly afraid ofsomething or somebody, it was not the unreasoning fear of insanity.
"Is there someone ill in that house?" the girl questioned practically;"is it of great importance to have a doctor?"
"It is a matter of life and death," was the broken answer; "when Iheard wheels in the lane I came out, hoping it might be someone whowould help me. I--cannot leave him myself; I have no one to send--itis all that my servant and I can do to manage----" she pulled herselfup abruptly, adding after a moment, "for pity's sake help me if youcan."
"I will do the best I can," Christina answered, bewildered surprisestill her dominant sensation. "I am a stranger in Graystone. We areonly staying in a farmhouse there, but by hook or by crook I will get adoctor for you."
"I think you will carry through whatever you undertake," the otheranswered, a smile flitting across the wan misery of her face, as hereyes rested on the girl's square chin, and firmly cut lips; "you lookas if you would not easily be beaten."
Christina smiled back at her and shook her head.
"I was very nearly beaten a little while ago," she said, gathering upthe reins and preparing to turn the pony's head up the steep ascentagain; "when one is poor, and hungry, all the fight seems to go out ofone. But I don't like being beaten, and I shall find a doctor for you."
She nodded her head cheerily, and was touching the pony lightly withthe whip, when the stranger clutched the side of the cart again, andlaid a hand on the girl's shoulder.
"Remember, no one must be told that the doctor is coming here; and hehimself must be sworn--_sworn_ to secrecy. Promise me you will nottell a soul you have seen me, not a living soul." She was labouringunder strong excitement, and it alarmed Christina to notice how thewhiteness of her face had extended to her very lips, and what blackshadows of suffering and fear lay under her eyes.
"Promise," she repeated, her grasp tightening on Christina's shoulder.
"I--promise," Christina answered slowly. "I will not tell anyone thatI have seen you, or what you have said to me; and I will--do as youwish about the doctor."
Having received the girl's assurance, the woman drew back from thecart, and stood watching it retrace its way up the hill, her handswrung together in anguish, her dark eyes wide with pain.
Baba had been a silent spectator of the strange little scene,understanding very little of what passed between her two elders, butwatching the face of the beautiful stranger with an intent scrutiny,curious in one so young.
"That was a beautiful Princess," she said, after the cart had driven ashort distance. "Baba hopes the Prince will come soon, and take herright away."
"Perhaps he will," Christina answered absently, relieved that the childhad woven the strange lady into a fairy tale, thus obviating thepossibility that close attention would be paid to remarks Baba mightmake about their encounter with her; and speculating vainly over allthat she had just heard and seen, and over the striking personality ofthe woman who had commissioned her to do so strange an errand.
Resourceful as nature and necessity had made her, Christina wasnevertheless a little puzzled to think how she could make enquiriesabout a doctor, without betraying what she had been especially conjuredto keep secret; but during the drive home her plans were matured, and,having reached the farm, and put Baba into her cot for her afternoonnap, she went to the kitchen in search of Mrs. Nairne.
That worthy dame was engaged in making scones for tea, and turned aflushed but kindly face to Christina, who had already won her heart.
"Well, missy, you and the precious baby's had a nice drive; and I'msure you're wise and right to take her out early, in the sunshine, andlet her rest a bit before her tea--a prettier baby never was."
"She is a darling," Christina answered, "and if she hadn't thesweetest, most wholesome nature in the world, she would be spoilt,everybody adores her so!"
"There! and who can wonder, miss. The little dear! I was baking somescones for her tea and yours, miss, and----"
"That is very good of you, Mrs. Nairne. I was going to ask whether youwould be so kind as to look in upon Baba presently; she is asleep inher cot, and quite safe there. But, if you would look at her now andthen I should be so grateful. I haven't had the cart, sent round tothe stables, for I must go up to the post office."
"And I'll do it with pleasure, miss. You go out with a light heart; noharm shall come to that little dear, that I'll promise you."
The post office, which occupied one side of the tiny general shop, wasat the end of the straggling row of houses Graystone called its villagestreet; and Mr. Canning, the postmaster, besides watching over HisMajesty's mails, served customers with bacon and butter, sweets orstring, sugar or tea, as occasion required. He was weighing out verybrown and moist looking Demarara sugar when Christina entered the shop,and he looked at her over his spectacles, with all the absorbinginterest felt by a villager for the stranger in their midst.
"A shillingsworth of penny stamps, please," Christina said, when withmuch deliberation he had tied up the parcel of brown sugar and handedit to his customer, "and a packet of halfpenny cards." Then, when thecustomer had departed, she asked a few questions about theneighbourhood, adding, with well-feigned carelessness:
"I suppose in such a small place as this you have no resident doctor?"
"Well, no, miss," the man answered; "we have no one nearer than Dr.Stokes--Dr. Martin Stokes. He lives on the other side of the hill atManborough. I hope the little lady is not ailing?" Mr. Canning askedsympathetically, for Baba's gracious little personality had endeareditself to the postmaster, and to the rest of the villagers.
"No; oh, no!" Christina answered quickly; "she is very well, and welike this lovely place so much. It is a good thing, though, to knowwhere the doctor lives, isn't it?" she added, brightly and evasively.
"Ah! there you are right, miss. Getting the doctor in time savesfetching the undertaker, as I've said more than once," and Mr. Canningbowed Christina out of his shop, with all the empressement of acourtier.
"Manborough--the other side of the hill." It was, as the girl knew, atleast three miles off, and Sandro, the fat pony who stood lazilyflicking his tail before the shop door, was not to be hurried under anycircumstances.
"A matter of life and death!" Those words, and the anguished tones inwhich they had been uttered, recurred to her, as she stood lookingthoughtfully up the village street,
and before her eyes rose the white,agonised face of the woman who uttered them.
"I think you will carry through whatever you undertake." Other wordsspoken in that same voice, came back to the girl's thoughts, and shelooked with a puzzled frown at Jem, the farm boy, who stood at thepony's head.
"Taking the short cut over the moor, I believe I can walk there asquickly as Master Sandro would joggle along the main road," shereflected, saying aloud after that second of reflection:
"You can take the cart back, Jem; and please ask Mrs. Nairne if shewill be so very kind as to give Miss Baba her tea; and say I have beendetained."
The boy nodded and drove off, whilst Christina walked away in theopposite direction, following the main road to Manborough, until shereached a point some way beyond the village, where a steep path--theshort-cut she had recollected--struck across the open moorland. Shehad just reached this point, and was about to turn into the by-path,when the hoot of a motor sounded behind her, and turning, she saw alarge car coming slowly up the road. It contained only two occupants;and with a leap of the heart at her own audacity, Christina suddenlyresolved to stop them, and ask for their help.
"A matter of life and death!" the words still rang in her ears, andwith the resourcefulness in emergency which belonged to her character,she held up her hand to the two men in the car, and signalled to themto stop. The great car instantly slowed down, and Christina, flushingrosily at her own audacity, stepped forward to speak to one of the twomen who bent towards her. Both were gentlemen, she saw at once, andone of them she recognised, and her heart almost stopped beating, whenher eyes met the grey eyes of Lady Cicely's cousin.
He looked at her with grave courtesy, but evidently with no idea thathe had ever seen her before; and, indeed, on the one and only occasionwhen they had met in Lady Cicely's boudoir, he had paid very scantattention to the girl, beyond observing that she was white and thin,and very shabbily dressed. The girl who stood now beside his car wasneatly and becomingly gowned in garments of soft dark green, which hadthe effect of making her eyes look very deep and green; she wasflushing rosily and becomingly, and the wind blew her dark hair intofascinating little curls about her forehead.
"Oh! please forgive me for stopping you," she exclaimed breathlessly,"but--are you going to Manborough?"
"Yes," Rupert answered, "we are going through Manborough. Is thereanything we can do for you?"
Christina noticed again, as she had noticed on the occasion of theirfirst meeting, the peculiarly musical quality of his voice; its tonessent little thrills running along her pulses, and a dreamy convictioncrept over her, that, if only he would go on speaking, she couldwillingly stand here for ever, listening to his deep, vibrating voice.His question roused her to the absurdity of her thoughts, and, flushingmore vividly, she answered:
"I hardly dare ask you what flashed into my mind to ask, when I stoppedyou. But I am very anxious to get quickly over to Manborough to thedoctor; it is an urgent case, and I----"
"Of course we will drive you over," Rupert broke in quickly, openingthe door, and holding out his hand to help her into the back part ofthe car. "I am very glad we happened to be passing."
"It was dreadfully audacious of me to stop you," Christina answered,smiling in response to his smile, "but I do so want to get to thedoctor as fast as I can, and when I saw the car, I thought of nothingbut what I wanted to do."
Rupert glanced back at her, an amused twinkle in his grey eyes.
"You don't let obstacles hinder your attaining your goal?" hequestioned.
"I--don't think I do," was the reply; "and especially when it is amatter of real importance--one of life and death." By this time theywere whirling along the road at a pace which rendered conversationdifficult, and Christina sat back in her comfortable seat, lookingfirst at the man who had spoken to her, and was now steering themachine, then at his companion who sat beside him. Now that Rupert wasno longer smiling pleasantly at her, she observed how grave and wornwas his face, what new deep lines seemed to have carved themselvesabout his mouth, what a shadow of pain, or of some gnawing anxiety layin his eyes.
"He is in trouble," the girl thought, her heart contracting with pity,as her eyes rested on the strong, rugged face. "I wish I could helphim; he looks as if he had lost something he cared for with all hissoul, and it is breaking his heart!"
From the strong face, with its lines of pain, her eyes turned to hiscompanion--a slight, alert man, military in build--and with fair,good-humoured features devoid of any marked personality.
His blue eyes had brightened when Christina stopped the car, and whilstshe talked to Rupert, he watched her expressive face with growingadmiration. They had only proceeded a short distance on their journey,when he turned round to the girl, and said kindly:
"We are going a great pace, and you are not dressed for motoring; youmust be cold. Will you wrap yourself in this?" and, drawing frombehind him a heavy fur coat, which he had brought as an extra wrap, ifnecessary, he handed it to Christina, who gratefully rolled herself inits warm folds.
"By Jove! she looks more fetching than ever, with her face looking outof all that fur," the blue-eyed young man reflected, when he againglanced over his shoulder at her, "those green eyes of hers are like noothers I ever saw," and Christina, little as she was in the habit ofconsidering such things, could not help noticing how often during theirthree-miles' drive, the young man turned to look at her, or to shout aremark. The grey-eyed man looked round only once, to say shortly butkindly:
"Quite comfortable?" But even those two words in the vibrating voice,had, as before, an oddly thrilling effect on Christina's pulses.
That rapid drive across the moorland, in the low sunlight of theDecember afternoon, seemed to her for long afterwards, like part ofsome extraordinary dream--a dream in which she, and the grey-eyed man,and the beautiful white-faced woman, were all playing parts; a dreamwhich had no real relation at all to the commonplace details ofeveryday life.
"Here is Manborough," Rupert called out, when, over the brow of a steephill, they came in sight of clustering red-roofed houses amongst pinewoods; "now where does the doctor live? What is his name?"
"Doctor Martin Stokes is his name; I don't know what his house iscalled, but Manborough is only a small place," Christina answered. "Ifyou will very kindly put me down in the main street, I shall easilyfind the right house."
"Oh, no, we will drive you up in state," was the laughing rejoinder;and the car once more slowed down, whilst Rupert put a question to apassing rustic, who jerked his thumb to the right.
"Doctor's house be up among they pines," he said; "Doctor calls 'unPinewood Lodge."
"Unromantic and ordinary person, that doctor," said Rupert, with ashort laugh; "this country and those woods might inspire a man toinvent a name with some sort of poetry in it. Ah! here is the lodge inquestion--and as ordinary as its name," he concluded, stopping the carbefore a closed brown gate, through which a well-kept drive led to ared-brick house, that might have been transplanted bodily to theseheights, from a London suburb.
"I don't know how to say thank you properly," Christina said a littletremulously, when she stood by the brown gate, helped out of the car bythe blue-eyed young man, who had skilfully forestalled Rupert in thisact of gallantry; "it is very, very good of you to have helped me, andwill you please forgive me for being so bold and stopping you as I did?"
Rupert laughed and held out his hand.
"Don't think twice about it," he said heartily. "I am very glad youdid stop the car, and very glad we were able to save so much time foryou. I hope the doctor will pull your patient well through theillness." His hand closed over Christina's small one, the blue-eyedman likewise shook her by the hand, and before the door bell of thedoctor's house had been answered, the car had whirled out of sight.
"Poor little girl, she was very prettily grateful," Rupert said to hiscompanion. "I wonder whose illness she is agonising over. Pluckything to do, stopping us as she did."
"She is a young woman of resource," the other answered. "I like thatsort of 'git up and git' way of tackling a difficulty. Now, in herplace, I should have just begun to think what might have happened if I_had_ stopped somebody's car, by the time the car was two miles furtherdown the road."
"My dear Wilfred, you hit your own character to a nicety," Rupertanswered with a laugh; "but it's only your confounded laziness of mindthat prevents your being as much on the spot as that little green-eyedgirl."
"Very fetching eyes, too," Wilfred mused aloud, "and a smile that sheought to find useful. Can't we come back this way to-morrow, old man?We might find she wanted some errand done in the opposite direction,and I'll keep a sharp look-out for her all along the road!"
"As it happens, I have every intention of coming back this way," Rupertanswered drily, "though not in order to enable you to rescue distresseddamsels. You were not intended for a knight-errant, my good Wilfred;leave well alone. But I am bound to come back through Graystone. Ipromised Cicely that on my way home from Lewes, I would look in on Babaand her new nurse. They are lodging at old Mrs. Nairne's farm, andit's somewhere near Graystone village. Cicely wants to know whetherthe new nurse is all she should be; we will look in upon them on ourway back."
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