Chapter XXX: Bad News

A CURIOUS change came over Edgar Bradgate at the sight of Bertha’s breakdown, and, leaning forward, he gently touched the bowed shoulder that was nearest to him and asked, in a sympathetic tone: “Won’t you tell me all about it, and why you are so upset because the things are not mine?”

“But they must be yours. The case dropped out of your coat, the coat which you wrapped round me because I shivered so badly,” she said, with a little gasping sob, as she strove to get calm again and to argue the matter out on common-sense lines. She was fighting against the possibility of having to retain the stones longer in her own keeping; for, bad as it had been before, it would be much worse now, because the knowledge was shared by at least one more person.

“Then you are the girl who saved me, and you must have thought me worse than a heathen because I never stopped to thank you for your bravery,” he said, with such a thrill of genuine admiration in his tone, that Bertha felt the hot colour sweeping up over her face right up to the roots of her hair; then he went on in apology for his neglect: “But I was hard pressed. It meant everything to me to get clear away, so I did what I could and went. I did not remember the coat until the middle of the night, when I was far away from Mestlebury and, truth to tell, miserably cold; but there was no help for it, and it was rather an aged garment also, that is to say, it had seen considerable wear and tear of one sort and another.”

“It was a very good coat, indeed,” said Bertha, “and I brought it with me to restore it to you, only it was in the car, and is, of course, at the bottom of the river now. But as the diamonds fell out of your pocket, they must be your property. Perhaps being ill has made you forget all about it.”

He smiled and shook his head. “That does not follow, since someone may have put them in my pocket without my knowledge, unlikely though it seems.”

“But they fell out of the inside pocket, so they could hardly have been put there without your knowledge,” she objected.

“You are sure that it was my coat?” he asked quickly.

“I am quite sure that it was the coat which you wrapped round me in the boat,” she replied—“a dark-brown coat with a black velvet collar and the top button missing, it having been torn out by the roots.”

“The description is exact, even to the pulling off of the button,” he said, with a laugh, and then, becoming suddenly grave again, he asked, “But what are you going to do about these stones, which are certainly not mine, nor have I the remotest idea of where they came from. You will carry them back with you, of course?”

“Oh, will you not keep them?” she cried imploringly. “I am so tired of having to guard what is not my own, and they have cost me so much trouble and disappointment, that I should be only too thankful to be rid of them. Moreover, I am downright afraid for it to be known that I have such valuable things in my possession.”

Edgar Bradgate stiffened unconsciously, and his manner was suddenly cold and repellent when he replied: “I shall certainly not touch them. They came by accident into your possession, and you must keep them until time or chance reveals the rightful owner to you. There can scarcely be any danger to you from having them in your keeping, if no one knows of their existence.”

Bertha looked as she felt, utterly wretched, and as she thought of all that she had endured in her attempts to restore the stones to their rightful owner, the tears brimmed up in her eyes again, and it was only with great difficulty that she kept them from falling. It was silly to care so much, of course; but then she simply could not help it.

There was a long minute of strained silence which she was too miserable to break, then Edgar Bradgate spoke again, his tone being more masterful than she had heard it before.

“Mike Walford says that you are going back on the cars to Rownton to-night, and I shall go with you myself to see that no harm comes to you. And I shall go right through with you to Duck Flats; that is the very least that I can do for you after all the time and trouble you have spent in trying to restore to me what you supposed to be my own.”

“Pray, do not trouble,” cried Bertha, stung by what she deemed the disapproval of herself and her conduct expressed in his tone. “I can manage quite well, I assure you.”

“I do not doubt your power to take care of yourself, but all the same I am going, and I shall not leave you until I see you safe in the hands of your natural protectors,” he said, in that same tone of grave disapproval which had made her wince so badly only a few minutes before.

But at his mention of her natural protectors the comic side of the matter struck her, and she burst out laughing, then, seeing the look of offence on his face, made haste to explain her untimely merriment.

“Oh, please forgive me for being so rude as to laugh! But it really does seem strange for anyone to talk of taking care of me, seeing that all through this winter I have been in charge of my invalid cousin and her family. I have been the man of the house, you understand, and the woman too, for the matter of that, and when I reach Rownton to-morrow I have to drive a horse that I know very little of, for thirty miles.”

“If you are so valuable in ordinary life, that is all the more reason why you must be taken care of when you set forth on such adventurous journeys,” he said, smiling himself now; and his face softened so much that Bertha’s self-respect came back to her again.

It had been the most humiliating part of her experience that the man whom she had come so far to serve should receive her with such evident disapproval, and she had suffered acutely during that most disappointing interview.

“I must go now,” he said presently, when Bertha had told him all the story of how she had gone to Mrs. Saunders to find out where he lived, and how the old woman had refused to tell her anything, and how the fat German had given the key to her reticence. “I shall be back in good time, though, to start with you, and I will see that you are not allowed to ride in the rear car while you are in my care.”

A glow of happiness warmed Bertha’s heart. It was good to be cared for, though she did not think that it was right or even proper that this masterful man should be permitted to go such a long journey on her account, and she meant to consult Mrs. Walford on the subject the very first minute that she could get the stout woman alone. In the end, however, it was Mrs. Walford who broached the subject to her, speaking in a tone of great distress.

“Oh, my dear Miss Doyne, are you obliged to go back to Rownton to-night? Or could you manage to put in a few days with us until the cars come up next time? Mike and me would be most proud and glad to have you, and this hilly country would be a nice change after the flats round Pentland Broads.”

“You are very kind, and I would love to stay if only it were possible,” said Bertha, smiling into the face of the stout woman, and thinking how extraordinarily kind everyone was to her. “But it will be nothing short of a disaster if I cannot get through to-night, because I am wanted at home so badly.”

“I am afraid that you will have a dreadful journey; Mike says that there are a lot of rough fellows going out by the cars, and he is sure that it is not right for you, a young girl, to travel alone with such a lot, for they are safe to find something strong to drink, even if it is only perfumes or cough mixture; and when a crowd of that sort are tipsy, it is no place for a girl like you,” said Mrs. Walford anxiously.

“Shall I have to ride in the same car?” demanded Bertha, in dismay. “But I will not; I will travel in one of the open wagons first, and on such a long train I can be far enough away to be out of earshot of anything that they may say. But Mr. Bradgate said that he meant to take me back to Rownton himself, or all the way to Duck Flats, if necessary, and I wanted to ask you if I should be doing right to allow him to go with me. You see, I came up here on his business, or what I thought was his business, and he thinks that it is his duty to take me home.”

“What a mercy!” ejaculated Mrs. Walford fervently. “If you must go, there is no one to whom you could better trust yourself than Mr. Bradgate, who is a Christian and a gentleman, though a bit cold and stern—stand-offish, I call it—but it is easy to see that he is a down-east aristocrat.”

“Then you do not think that it would be imposing on his good nature to let him come with me?” asked Bertha, who knew too much about the value of time and the importance of sticking at daily toil, not to have some qualms of conscience about accepting such a sacrifice from a stranger, or almost a stranger.

“I think that, seeing you came up here on his account, the only thing that he can do is to take you safely back home again,” said Mrs. Walford, with decision. “Oh, it has taken a load off my mind, for I’d been seriously wondering whether I ought to go back with you myself, though at this minute I feel as if I would rather lie straight down and die than have to go through another night like the last.”

“Oh, it will not be as bad as that, I hope!” said Bertha, although she could not repress a little shudder at the remembrance of her climb down the trestling when she went to the help of Mrs. Walford.

“I should hope not too, but in these wild parts you can never tell what is going to happen next,” said the stout woman, with a windy sigh, and then she bundled Bertha off to get a sleep which would fit her for the long journey she would have to take in the night.

The bed was not a very clean one, the room was a little corner boarded off from one end of the bar, while the noise of coming and going was incessant; but as there was nothing in the shape of alcohol sold in the place, in accordance with Government regulations, there was no disorder, only the hum and clatter of ordinary business. But Bertha slept through it all as peacefully as an infant, and had to be awakened so that she might get some supper before the cars started back for Rownton.

The place was bright with electric light, the power for which was obtained from a waterfall close at hand, and the crowd of people coming and going was so great, that Bertha was fairly bewildered when she came out into the public room, and she marvelled that she could have slept through such a hubbub.

She was eating her supper—and a very good supper it was—at a little side table in company with Mrs. Walford, who was staying at the hotel until the cars left, in order to keep her company, when she heard a man behind her talking excitedly about Brown’s Expedition.

“Every man of the lot was dead, so Alf said, and it was evident that they must have died weeks, perhaps months ago, poor fellows!” said the man, with a ring of genuine pity in his tone.

Bertha dropped her knife and fork with a clatter, and suddenly stood straight up in her place and turned round.

The man who had been speaking became as suddenly silent. A girl of any kind was something of a rarity in a railhead hotel, and this one had a look on her face which fairly frightened him, and he shrank away as she approached, feeling as if he had been guilty of some crime against her.

“You were speaking of Brown’s Expedition,” she said, in a curiously still voice, while a hush dropped upon that part of the room and spread rapidly, until everyone ceased talking and listened eagerly to what the pale-faced girl was saying. “Do you mean the expedition which Mr. Brown of Winnipeg commissioned and sent off last August?”

“Yes, miss, that is the one, for it ain’t likely that there would be two Mr. Browns doing the same thing, both starting at the same time, and both hailing from Winnipeg,” he answered, talking as if he were trying to gain time.

Bertha caught her breath in a little gasp, but her voice was quiet and steady when she said, “Will you tell me, please, exactly what has happened, and how the news came? I have a right to know, for my cousin, Tom Ellis, is with them.”

There was a strained moment of utter silence, as if the man could not get out the tidings which were so evil in the presence of this girl to whom they meant so much, then he jerked out, unwillingly enough: “They are dead, miss, every man of the lot, Brown himself amongst them. An Indian brought the news to White Fox Creek last week telling how he had stumbled, with his tribe, on a white man’s camp, with dead white men sitting in the snow huts, frozen solid, and he brought a packet of papers which he found on the bodies.”

“Why did they die?” she asked, her voice ringing sharply through the hush of the room.

“Their provisions must have given out. There was a letter among the papers which stated that they had finished their survey and were coming back, but they had somehow failed to find the provisions which they had cached on the outward journey, and so they were dying of cold and starvation,” replied the man, talking as if the words were being dragged out of him.

Someone moved forward from among the group by the door and quietly took his place beside Bertha. She did not look round, but some instinct told her that it was Edgar Bradgate, and she was dumbly grateful to the man who had thus constituted himself her friend and champion. It took away something of the awful sense of desolation which had been upon her ever since she had started on her momentous journey.

Then she thought of poor Grace, and the helpless little ones, and of Eunice Long. Suppose this dreadful news were to reach Duck Flats while she herself was away! The misery of the thought was too great to be borne, and she faced quickly round upon Edgar Bradgate, who was standing close beside her. “Oh, can you tell me how soon we can start?” she cried distressfully. “I do not know what will happen if this bad news reaches home before I can get there.”

“I came to tell you that your car is ready, and we start in about twenty minutes,” he answered quietly, and with never a word about the tragic news which she had just heard; for he guessed that she had enough to bear, and that even a word of sympathy might prove the last straw in the burden of her endurance at that moment.

The groups of men parted silently to let her pass out, and talk was not resumed until it was made certain that she was out of hearing.

The best had been done for her comfort that could be done, and an empty box car close to the one occupied by the brakeman had been set aside for her use through the kindly offices of Mike Walford, who had done his very best for her, because of the manner in which she had helped his wife. There was a fresh-trimmed lamp in the car, and a hammock had been slung across one end to mitigate the shaking and jolting as much as possible.

“Are you not coming in this car too?” Bertha asked a little timidly, as, having seen her comfortably settled, Edgar Bradgate turned to leave the car.

“No, but I shall be in the next car with the brakeman, and if anything frightens you, pull this cord. I have fastened it through into our car, and if you give a good tug at it there will be a fine commotion in our car, and I will be with you inside of one minute. Now, I am going to lock you in, unless you have any serious objection. There are a rough lot on the cars to-night, and some of them are getting unpleasantly intoxicated.”

“Thank you; I would rather be locked in,” replied Bertha, and then she added, with a laugh, “But I dare say that I could pick the lock if I wanted to do so just as I picked the one in the other car.”

“I hope that you will not have the same reason for doing it,” he replied gravely, and then he bade her goodnight and shut the door.

It was something of a comfort to hear the lock shot and to know that whatever larking the half-drunken men on the cars might indulge in, they could not annoy her, and she swung herself into the hammock with a feeling of blessed security, which certainly would not have been hers, had it not been for the presence of Edgar Bradgate in the train.

Of course it was horrible that she must still carry those wretched diamonds about with her, and with no hope of getting rid of them either now or in the immediate future. But at least she was no worse off than she had been before, for although Mr. Bradgate knew that she had them in her possession, there was no danger that he would speak of the matter, and he was entirely to be trusted himself, seeing that he would have nothing whatever to do with them.

The hammock was a great comfort in saving her from the awful jolting of the car as it rolled and bumped over the unfinished track, and Bertha felt as if she could have been quite at ease about the journey, if it had not been for her dread of crossing the bridge on the Brocken Ridge side of Wastover, and the trouble of the rumour of Tom’s death.

At first she had not doubted the truth of the report, but Mrs. Walford at parting had told her not to take the news too seriously, for the Indians often grossly exaggerated ill news of this sort, and had been known to declare that a whole party had perished, when perhaps it was only one man who had died. Even the fact of the letters might have been coloured up too, and, as the stout woman had said with much kindly emphasis, it did not do to take a trouble seriously, until it was proved beyond a doubt that there was no other way out of it.

“At any rate, I cannot do anything until I get back, and if it is true that poor Tom did really die in the snow, why, I must just do the best that I can to earn a living for Grace and the children. I can manage it easily if I can only sell my stories as fast as I write them,” she murmured to herself, as she swayed gently to and fro in her hammock, and the clattering racket of the empty wagons rolling over the ill-made track lulled her into forgetfulness and slumber.