Ottwell Binns
The Lady of North Star
CHAPTER XXV
A SNOW-BLIND MAN
WHEN the next day dawned, a soft warm day, holding in it all the promise of the Northland spring, Dick Bracknell was in no condition to travel. He was clearly much weaker, and at times he lapsed into delirium during which the hearts of two of those with him were wrung. The feverish babble was of nothing relating to his life in the North, but about his boyhood at Harrow Fell, and of his first meeting with Joy. More than once Joy was unable to restrain her tears, and as the day wore on, it was evident that the strain was telling upon her.
Several times Roger Bracknell begged her to leave the sick man and rest, but she shook her head.
“No,” she whispered on the last occasion. “No! Look at him. It will not be very long. I think I should like to be with him, when – when – It will help him, you know,” she concluded hastily.
“Yes,” he admitted, “you are quite right. He told me in that lucid interval that these moments with you by his side were among the happiest in his life.”
She looked down at the drawn face, her eyes flooding with sudden tears. She did not love him, but there was a great pity in her heart for the wayward man whose life had taken the wrong turn, and whose nature as she now knew was as full of generous good as of desperate evil. She prayed for him silently, and leaving her with bowed head, Roger Bracknell walked slowly away.
At the outer edge of the camp he met Sibou. The latter waved a hand towards the river, on the frozen surface of which tiny streams of water were beginning to run.
“It is the spring,” he said. “If we do not leave today the ice may not hold.”
“We cannot leave today, Sibou.”
“No,” replied the Indian. “We wait for death. Is it not so?”
“It is so!” agreed the corporal.
“And tomorrow comes the spring and new life,” said the Indian thoughtfully. “That is the way, always death on the heels of life, and life on the heels of death.” He jerked his head towards the camp. “The woman nurses the man who dies, what is she to him?”
“She is his wife.”
“But she loves him not. I have watched her, I have seen the light in her eyes.” He broke off abruptly, and again waved his hand towards the river. “But the spring comes, and with the spring comes life and the kindling of the heart.”
Roger Bracknell looked towards the river. He knew that the Indian’s words were true, but he offered no comment on them. Instead he watched the water running on the ice, and after a minute he asked abruptly, “How long will the ice hold, Sibou?”
The Indian shook his head.
“That is not to be told.” He pointed across the river to where a tributary stream flowed into the main river. “The water comes down there and adds to the strength of this. It may break the ice here, and spread over the surface. Listen.”
The corporal listened. The air was full of an indescribable sound, a moaning and growling, quite different to the sound of the soft wind in the trees.
“Already the water fights for the mastery,” said Sibou, “and tomorrow it may have won.”
“No – today!” cried the corporal quickly, as there came a sudden crash far out in front, and the next moment a gaping fissure showed in the ice.
“Yes, today!” assented the Indian as he watched. “That is the first, and there will be others. The break up has come. The spring has arrived.”
A cry from the camp startled them, and divining what had happened, the white man began to run. When he reached the fire he found Joy standing by his cousin. Her eyes were burning with tears. He looked at her, and as their eyes met, she answered the question in his.
“Yes,” she said, “a moment ago. He knew me again at the last.”
Roger Bracknell took a step forward, and looked into the still face of his cousin. To him it seemed extraordinarily peaceful, and the half-smile on the lips caught and held by death told its own story.
“He was happy in his death,” he said, “happier than in life. Poor old Dick!”
He turned away, leaving Joy alone with the dead for a little while. He knew that his cousin’s death meant release for her, and for himself also, since it would remove the bands of silence from him. But in that moment he refused to think of that aspect of the matter, and as with the help of Sibou he bent a couple of young spruces, that his cousin’s body might have the aerial sepulchre practised by the Northern tribes, he reflected how much of good there was in Dick, and how many such there are who having taken the wrong turn miss the full purpose of life.
Half an hour later the dead man was lashed to the young trees which were released, carrying the body high in the air. Such portions of the burial service as Roger could remember were recited, and then with Joy, he turned towards the camp.
“We will start in an hour, if you like,” he said. “The ice is not very good, but it will be worse tomorrow, and we can get some way towards Chief Louis’ camp. Once there, ice or no ice will not matter. We shall be able to get canoes.”
“Yes,” she said, “Yes, in an hour. There is no reason why we should linger here now.”
They started before the hour was out; and travelled hard until the edge of dark, avoiding fissures which were ever increasing, and pitched camp several miles away from their last resting-place. In the night the corporal was awakened by a crash somewhere on the river in front, and in the morning he knew that sled-travelling was over till the Northland winter should once more bind the rivers. A stream of water was flowing on the surface of the ice. There were fissures everywhere, and a distant rumble told him that somewhere the ice was breaking up, Sibou came and joined him, and together they looked across the river. Something caught the Indian’s keener eyes, something moving. He pointed it out to Bracknell.
“There is a man there. He is coming this way!” The corporal looked intently for a moment, then he agreed. “Yes, it is a man. He is alone. He has no dogs.”’
“Maybe they are lost,” said the Indian.
“He will never get across,” commented Bracknell, “and we cannot warn him. He will have to return.”
The Indian shaded his eyes against the rising sun and watched, then he said, “He walks strangely.”
Bracknell himself thought so. The man, whoever he was, seemed to be making an erratic course, and more than once just skirted a fissure. Twenty minutes passed and then the two were joined by Joy and her foster-sister. “What are you watching?” asked Joy.
The corporal pointed to the man, now little more than a hundred yards away. Joy looked and cried out, and just at that moment Sibou started.
“The man is blind,” he said. “See how he walks, hands in front groping for the way. Behold! He did not see the ice.”
The stranger, whoever he was, had stumbled over a cake of ice thrown out on the surface, and as he picked himself up, he took his next step into a stream running fast over the yielding surface. He withdrew the foot instantly and half turned to try another course.
“It is the snow-blindness,” said Sibou. “He cannot see. He only feels, and there is danger everywhere for him.”
“Oh,” cried Joy, “can nothing be done?”
“Something can be tried,” answered the corporal, beginning to get down the bank.
Sibou followed him, and they moved towards the blinded man in imminent risk of their lives. The ice seemed to be in movement everywhere, and the noise out on the river was increasing. Even as they stepped on the ice, it broke loose from the bank, and the rescuers felt it shake beneath their feet. Cracks appeared through which the water spurted, but they moved forward, for both were aware that the ice beneath them might be thrown into the air as by some living monster and themselves thrown into the swirling water.
A providence seemed to watch over the blind man. He had turned again and now was running towards them. With a luck that was almost uncanny he passed a couple of yawning cavities from which the water welled, and once, he put his foot on emptiness, he leaped from the other foot, and crossed the danger before him at a bound. They were but fifteen yards apart, when suddenly Sibou stood still and gripped his companion’s arm.
“Behold!” he said quickly. “The man who was with me when the trail was blown up before Mr. Gargrave.”
Roger Bracknell also stood still, and looked at the figure shambling towards them. There was a distraught look on the man’s face, a madness of fear that convulsed it, but in spite of that Roger Bracknell recognized it. It was the face of Adrian Rayner.
Whilst he stood there, stunned, and held inactive by the recognition, there was a sound of splintering at the corporal’s feet, and instinctively both he and Sibou leaped backward. The ice parted, and a little lane of turgid water appeared between them and the snow-blind man. The latter still came on. Roger Bracknell watched him like a man hypnotized; but when Rayner had almost reached the place where the fracture had occurred, he cried out suddenly, in agonized warning —
“Look out, Rayner! For God’s sake, look out!”
His cry must have been heard by Rayner, for the latter halted suddenly, and threw up his arm as if to ward off a blow. Then he gave a great cry of fear, and turning suddenly began to run away from the bank. He ran fast, helped by some great impulse of fear, but he ran only a little way. A stretch of open water appeared in the line he followed, and unconscious of its existence, he ran straight into it. They saw the plunge, and watched painfully. A moment later his head appeared above the water, and disappeared again, as the rush of water hurled him forward. There was no further sign of him, and as delay was dangerous both of them turned and raced for the bank.
As they gained it, the corporal saw a look of horror on Joy Gargrave’s face.
“Who was the man?” she asked. “I seemed to recognize something about him.”
“It was Adrian Rayner.”
“Ah, I guessed it! I knew it! You recognized him when you stopped?”
“Sibou recognized him first,” replied the corporal meaningly.
“Sibou! I did not know that he – Oh, I remember. He was with the man who was responsible for my father’s death.”
“Yes, and Adrian Rayner was the man.”
Joy was silent for a moment, her eyes fixed on the place where her cousin had met his death. There was an enigmatic look in them which made Roger Bracknell wonder. Then she spoke again.
“You halted when you recognized him? You would not help him?”
“It was not that,” he answered quickly. “It was just amazement that held me for a minute, amazement and a feeling of horror that my suspicions were proved right, though for weeks I have been sure that Adrian Rayner was the guilty man. He would have stepped into open water if I had not suddenly cried out. I think he heard me, I think he may have recognized my voice. He may have been startled, though I think he was afraid at hearing his name called out when he was without knowledge that any one was near. As you saw he turned and ran, but I saw his face as he stopped at my hail, and it was stark with fear.”
After a few seconds the girl spoke again, her eyes still on the tumult of the river.
“He was alone,” she said, “Snow-blind! I wonder how that came about. He had two Indians with him when he started.”
“He may have lost them, have wandered from the camp or something of that sort. Or they may have deserted him, carrying away the outfit. In any case what has happened, terrible as it is, is probably for the best. Rayner’s death saves him a trial for murder, and the past need not be raked up.”
Joy nodded, and looked once more to where the broken floes were grinding each other in the waters which had engulfed the guilty man.
“It is the judgment of God.”
*****
It was five and a half months later when Roger Bracknell, fresh from England, walked up the road from the river leading to North Star Lodge. There was a touch of frost in the air, and already the wild geese were moving southward, and he heard their honk! honk! as they flew over his head for the warmer lands of the South, but he never so much as lifted his eyes to look at them. His gaze was fixed on the place where the road turned, eagerly expectant, and from behind came the voyageurs’ song as his men unpacked the boat.
“What is there like to the laughing star,
Far up from the lilac tree?
A face that’s brighter and finer far,
It laughs and it shines, ci, ci! – ”
The honk of the geese overhead for a moment drowned the words, but they reached him again a moment later.
“ – Till I go forth and bring it home,
And house if within my door —
Row along, row along home, ci, ci!”
Then he turned the corner of the road. A girl was hurrying between the long lines of trees. It was Joy Gargrave. There was no laughter on her face, but the blood was warm in it, and her eyes were shining.
“Oh, my dear!” she said, half sobbing with gladness as he took her in his arms.
“At last,” he whispered, then together they turned and walked towards the lodge.
“Babette?” he inquired.
“She is well!” Then Joy laughed gaily. “She had the good sense to remain indoors. You know she is going to be married.”
“No?”
“It has been arranged a long time, before ever you came to North Star, but the little minx only told me the other day, when she knew that you were really coming back.”
“Who is the man?”
“An American engineer, James Sherlock. He came here once or twice in the old days when my father was alive. He is a very fine man.”
“I hope she will be happy.”
“There is no doubt of that,” answered Joy, “but she will not be as happy as we shall. But what news is there from England? My uncle?”
Roger Bracknell’s face grew a little graver as he looked at her, then he said quietly, “I think I had better tell you at once, and dismiss the unpleasantness once and for all… I told him of his son’s death, without telling him all that lay behind it. It was a great shock to him – and for a little time he broke down completely. He seemed to regard it as in some way a judgment on himself, and he made a confession to me.”
“A confession!” Joy stopped and looked at him with eyes that were wide with fear. “You do not mean that he knew that Adrian intended – ”
“He knew nothing, not even of your marriage with Dick, and even now he does not know that your father’s death was anything but accidental. He was, I could tell, in complete ignorance of the real object of his son’s journey here, and thought it had to do with his confessed infatuation for you. The confession he made had to do with his financial affairs. It appears that he has speculated rashly, that his affairs have become very much involved, and that absolute control of your money was needed to save him.”
“I gave it,” cried Joy.
“Yes! and it did save him. Some of his ventures turned out very well after all, but that matters nothing now. Adrian was the apple of his eye, and his loss, as I said, he regarded as a personal judgment on himself as he had first sent Adrian to North Star in the hope that the match he desired would come to pass.”
“But he did not know of Dick. He was not party to my cousin’s schemes – ”
“I am sure he was in absolute ignorance.”
“Thank God! He was always kind to me, and I could not bear to think that he was in my cousin’s confidence. He wanted me to marry Adrian, but he thought that I was free.”
“He is going out of business, and I have arranged with him to transfer your affairs to a firm that manages the Harrow Fell estates. When we go to England – ”
“When will that be?” asked Joy quickly.
Roger Bracknell smiled. “There is no hurry. I thought I might winter up here – that is if you are agreeable.”
She looked at him reproachfully. “You know – ”
“Wait! You have not heard everything, Joy! Down the river I passed the missionary priest, Father Doherty. He is going North – racing the winter. He knows he has already lost the race, and that he will have to finish his journey on the ice. I ventured to persuade him to break the journey at the Lodge, and he agreed to do so. It was very audacious of me – ”
“Why should it be audacious? Travellers are always welcome at North Star.”
“Well,” he answered smilingly, “he is a priest you know.”
For a couple of seconds she looked at him wonderingly, then comprehension came to her, and a blush mantled her face.
“It was very audacious of you,” she said. “Very! But – but – ”
“But what?” he asked.
“I am glad that – that – ”
“Yes?”
“That Father Doherty is a priest.”
She laughed with gladness as he stooped to kiss her; and when they resumed their way, she asked, “When will he arrive?”
“Tomorrow, I think.”
“So soon?”
“No – so long!” he corrected smilingly.
“And we shall have a winter honeymoon at North Star?”
“Yes!”
“That,” she said, “will be delightful!”
And as she spoke, through the trees the Lodge appeared in sight, and to them drifted a fragment of the boatman’s song —
“ – Till I go forth and bring it home,
And enter and close my door —
Row along, row along home, ci, ci!”