Chapter XIV: Marian’s Fear

“YES; Mr. Rutherford belongs to my young days,” slowly repeated Marian Brooke, as she sat in the little smoking parlor of the old farm-house, alone with her brother, Jervis Cairns. “I can remember him first as a big boy, when his father was alive—always so sunny looking, with his auburn hair. It wasn’t often I saw him, but when I did he always had a pleasant word for me. ‘Well, Polly, how are the lessons going on?’ he used to say; and I liked him to ask, though I was shy about answering him. And then he came of age, and his father died—I forget which of the two happened first. And when I was seventeen our troubles began, with William going wrong. It was a sad time. You can’t remember that, Jervis—such a mite of a child you were, only six or seven years old.”

“I can remember how mother used to cry,” said Jervis.

“Poor mother! Yes, that half broke her heart, and my going later broke it quite. I always feel I am rightly paid for that by my years of sorrow. I think we do get punished often by being paid back in the same coin we’ve paid to others. I broke her heart, and now I am nothing to my own child. Yes, I know that’s my own doing—my own folly, but still—still it is my punishment, Jervis. You don’t think it’s presumption in me, do you, to hope for God’s forgiveness? We have his word of promise, and it can’t be wrong to take him at his word. I’ve grieved and mourned for years, but something of light has come lately. I think I needn’t hold myself back from him now. If I had but known in those days how little I was to gain by my wilfulness! But I oughtn’t to have needed that to keep me back from wrong-doing.”

“If only you had told mother all about Mr. Brooke!” said Jervis.

“Hubert wouldn’t let me. There’s where it all hinged. If I had insisted on telling mother, I should have lost Hubert, and I couldn’t make up my mind to it. He was very good to me; I can say so much, though he did lead me into wrong-doing. While he lived I didn’t seem to feel how ill I had acted; that all came later. And what I went through—”

“Don’t you often wish for your child again, Polly?”

“‘Wish’ is no word for it,” she answered. “Sometimes it’s such awful longing that I feel almost as if I could lie down and die with the heart pain. It’s worst at night—the thirst to have her little arms round my neck once more. But they are not little any longer, and I’m nothing to her now. She is happy without me, and she doesn’t even know she has a mother living. I’ve not seen her since she was that high, Jervis—under four years old—with such pretty ways, and such a loving heart! But children soon forget you know. I don’t suppose she’d even know me if she saw me. No, of course she couldn’t. The trouble has been that I could so very, very seldom hear of her; and she might any time have died without my knowing. I never dared to write straight, and say I was alive, and ask. I was too ashamed and too unhappy; and there were those promises in the way.”

“You’ll manage to see her now,” said Jervis; and Marian flushed.

“Perhaps. I shouldn’t wonder. I’ll try some day. A mother does crave fer a look. But I shan’t tell her who I am, so long as she is happy and doesn’t need me.”

Voices presently sounded outside, and after a while Hannah came in.

“There’s been a bad train accident,” she said abruptly.

“Where?” asked Jervis.

“Near Woodleigh Station. Jim’s but just got back, and I asked him whatever he had been dawdling about. He says father sent him to the station for a parcel, and of course he wasted his time there, playing and gossiping. Anyway, there he was when the accident happened, and he stayed to see all he could—sure to do that, or he wouldn’t be a boy! Some sort of blunder about the train coming in; it got upon the wrong line, and ran into another just going out of the station.”

“A collision?” Marian said.

“Yes. Jim says it might have been a deal worse, if both trains had been going at the top of their speed, which they weren’t. But anyway it’s bad enough. One engine went right over, and a front carriage is smashed, and a lot of people are hurt. There’s a stoker with his leg broken.”

“That’s not the train, I hope, that Mr. Rutherford was expected back by?” Jervis suddenly said.

“Mr. Rutherford!” repeated Marian; and a sudden fear shot through her—not for George Rutherford.

“Yes, it is,” Hannah answered, “and they’re worst hurt of any. Mr. Rutherford’s said to be dying.”

Every trace of color left Marian’s face. Jervis looked at her in perplexity, as she said in changed, hoarse tones—“Mr. Rutherford’s daughters!”

“I don’t know everything,” said Hannah shortly. “They’re hurt, I believe. They were all in the first carriage, and that’s pretty well smashed up.”

Marian rose slowly, a dazed look in her eyes. “What are you after? What’s the matter, Polly?” asked Jervis.

“They’ll want me, perhaps. I mean I’m going to see if I can be of any use,” she said slowly. “I’m a good nurse, and some of the poor things might be needing help.”

“Stuff and nonsense,” said Hannah. “There’s any number of people to do all that’s wanted.”

“You can’t tell. I dare say I could be useful.”

“I dare say you couldn’t. Sit down and be quiet,” said Hannah curtly. But the order was not obeyed.

“It’s too late, Polly, my dear,” said. Jervis in his kindest tone. “You shall do as you like in the morning—only not to-night. It’s getting late, and the station is a long step off; and, as Hannah says, there’ll be people enough to do all that’s needed. A stranger going among them couldn’t be much good.”

“I don’t see that: and I’m not a stranger to Mr. Rutherford,” said Marian. Her look was very resolute. “You needn’t try to hinder me, Jervis, for my mind’s set on going. The walk’s nothing.”

“You always were set on anything you wanted to do,” said Hannah.

“But, Polly, it’s not needful. It would be better not,” urged Jervis. “In the morning, if you like—”

“Any one among them may be dead by the morning,” Marian answered. “I am going, Jervis. I couldn’t lie down and sleep to-night if I didn’t. Perhaps I shall come back presently but you needn’t sit up for me. More likely I’ll stay there till the morning.”

“At the hotel?” asked Jervis, giving in to what seemed inevitable.

“Yes.”

Marian moved away, not pausing at the door to hear Hannah’s very audible animadversions on her obstinacy. Presently she returned, wearing bonnet and shawl.

“I shall know my way,” she observed. “Though it’s years and years since I’ve walked those lanes I can remember every step of them, like yesterday. It’s clear moonlight, and I’m in no fear of going wrong. Don’t be anxious, Jervis.”

Once out of the house, away from observers, Marian’s calmness of manner forsook her. In the solitude and semi-darkness she could yield to her feelings, as she rarely permitted herself to do before the eyes of others.

A great fear was pressing on the mother’s heart. What if Joan—her child—were among the severely injured? What if Joan should die?

She hurried on with fevered and troubled steps, picturing to herself every possible kind of hurt which Joan might have received. Proximity to Joan seemed to waken into active life all the motherly dreads and desires and passionate affection which for long years had lain half dormant. Abroad she had been able to wait month after month, never hearing a whisper of Joan, only content in a quiet belief that her child was happy. Now every moment of uncertainty and delay seemed intolerable.

Visions of Joan hovered perpetually before her as she pressed forward—not of George Rutherford’s handsome adopted daughter, but of a little willful, loving child, with velvety, dark eyes and marked, black brows, and sweet, clinging arms. She could almost hear again the prattling utterance so frequent in those days—“Doan wants muvver! Doan does ’ove muvver so.” Did Joan love mother now?

“O, Joan, Joan, my darling!” sobbed Marian, pausing once to lean against a tree trunk. “To think that I could have ever given you up! But I was so alone, so friendless; I didn’t know what to do. If I had known God then I could have kept you, darling—I could have trusted him, and he would have cared for us both. O, Joan, I wish I had. How could I ever leave you?”

Then she was hurrying onward again, passing lane after lane, turn after turn, with never a moment’s hesitation as to the way.

Outside Woodleigh she paused once more, not this time to indulge in tears, but to master herself and subdue all signs of agitation. Calmness was an absolute necessity if she would not betray herself. She would perhaps see Joan, and she must see her as a stranger, manifesting no especial interest in her more than in others. If Joan might ever know her as a mother, this was not the time. So hard did Marian foresee her self-imposed task likely to prove that she could at this moment have turned and fled. Only she would not, and did not.