CHAPTER VI THE CORPORAL HEARS A STORY

A LITTLE time passed before the girl spoke, and Corporal Bracknell, to avoid embarrassing her, looked steadily at the snowy waste ahead. The frozen river, bordered by the sombre pinewoods, was visible for some two miles, and where it turned round a high rampart of the cliff, a moving figure, clearly visible on the snow, caught his eyes. He watched it attentively as it came to a halt, and wondered idly who it might be. A wandering Indian possibly, or—The girl’s voice broke on his speculations.

“I met your cousin first, whilst I was staying in the neighbourhood of Harrow Fell. There was a shooting party, and Dick Bracknell made himself very agreeable to me. You are to understand that I was rather lonely, and that I was new to English ways, having lived most of my life up here.”

She was silent for a moment, and Corporal Bracknell nodded.

“I think I understand how you must have felt, Miss Gargrave, and I know that Dick could make himself attractive.”

As he spoke his eyes looked in the direction of the bluff where the river turned. The small black figure which he had observed was moving again, and if he were not mistaken was coming down the[59] river. He kept an observant eye upon it, whilst his companion resumed.

“You are quite right. All the vacation, which I spent in Westmorland, your cousin was very attentive to me, and knowing that he was Sir James Bracknell’s heir, I was flattered by his attentions, and a little proud that he should find me attractive, when there were others who—who might have meant more to him.”

“You were too humble, Miss Gargrave,” said the corporal.

“Perhaps I was,” replied the girl, smiling wanly. “But that is how I felt at the time.... At the end of the autumn, just before I went back to Newnham for the Mich?lmas term, he proposed to me.”

Again for a moment she was silent, and the corporal glancing at her caught a pensive look upon her face, and guessed that she was reviewing that occasion in her mind. He waited for what seemed quite a long time, then he said encouragingly, “Yes?”

“I did not accept him then.”

“Why not?”

“For two reasons; the first because I was not quite sure that I loved him, and the second because I was not prepared to take such a step without first consulting my father.”

“They were both very excellent reasons.”

“So they seemed to me, but Lady Alcombe, under whose care I was whilst in England, did not agree with me.”

“You were under the care of Lady Alcombe?”

[60]

There was an accent of surprise in the young man’s voice, which the girl was quick to note.

“You know her?” she asked quickly. “You are surprised that I should have been under her chaperonage?”

“Yes,” he admitted frankly. “I know Lady Alcombe, and I know her set. It is a fast and exclusive one. I am a little surprised that any one should have selected her to chaperone a young girl.”

“My father did not understand,” was the quick reply. “He had known Lady Alcombe before her marriage, and she was a distant relation of ours. He did not know the set to which she belonged, and it was perhaps natural that he should have looked to her to watch over me.... For myself, I was young, I had no experience, and though there were things that I did not understand, things that shocked me, I did not mention them to my father, or indeed to any one.”

“And Lady Alcombe approved of my cousin Dick?”

“She did. She laughed at my scruples, and urged me to accept him, declaring that my father would be only too ready to see me the wife of a man who would some day be the Squire of Harrow Fell. But I did not yield—then. I knew there was plenty of time, and as my father was expecting to visit England a few months later, I said that I would wait until he arrived.”

“And afterwards?” asked the corporal.

“Afterwards!” A tragic look came on the girl’s face, and to his surprise she broke again into tears.

He waited patiently, and as he did so noted that[61] the figure up the river was certainly drawing nearer. After a little time the girl recovered her composure, and when she resumed there was a tragic note in her voice.

“I was very ignorant, and your cousin and Lady Alcombe presumed upon my ignorance. I was to stay with her at Alcombe Manor for the Christmas season, and towards the end of the term she sent word that she and Dick were going to fetch me by car, as the rail journey was rather an awkward one.... When the day came, your cousin showed up alone, explaining that Lady Alcombe had an attack of influenza which, of course, had made it impossible for her to accompany him. It was all so natural that I thought nothing of it until afterwards, and I set out on the journey accompanied only by your cousin.”

A stern look came on the corporal’s face, though the girl, looking straight ahead and absorbed in her thoughts, did not notice it.

“We missed the way, and went astray, I say missed the way, though now I am quite sure that it was done of deliberate purpose, and that your cousin knew our whereabouts all the time. It began to snow, and late in the evening we reached a little village in Wiltshire when something went wrong with the engine. I do not believe now that there was anything at all the matter with the car, but Dick said there was, and as it was impossible to proceed further, and there was no train service on the little local line five miles away, there was nothing for it but to stay the night at the little inn, half tavern, half farm, which was all the accommodation[62] that the village afforded.... There was a motherly woman there who did her best to make me comfortable, and I shared a room with her two daughters, whilst your cousin was accommodated with a settle in the kitchen. Next morning, Dick tinkered at the car, and about noon we started afresh, and reached the Manor just before dinner time.... Lady Alcombe, who had apparently recovered from her influenza, was in a great state of perturbation, and when I entered the hall, where a number of guests were assembled, she rushed to me. ‘My dear Joy,’ she cried, ‘where have you been? I have been worried almost to death about you, and have been telegraphing and telephoning all over the place.’

“I laughingly explained, and whilst I was doing so, one of the men gave a whistle of surprise, and a girl whom I had never liked began to giggle. Lady Alcombe allowed me to finish my explanation, there before all her guests, then she said icily—

“‘After so many adventures you must be tired. You had better go to your room. I will come to you.’

“As I went, I knew there was something wrong somewhere. One or two of the men looked at me in an unpleasant way, and the girl whom I have mentioned was giggling hatefully.... Lady Alcombe came to me before I had changed, and ordered the maid out of the room, then she said, ‘My dear Joy, you have behaved most indiscreetly.... I do not know what to say ... what to think. And to tell a story like that before all those[63] people not one of whom will believe it! It is dreadful, positively dreadful!’

“I was bewildered. I did not know what was wrong, and I said so, adding that I had only told the simple truth.

“‘They will not believe it,’ she said. ‘You and Dick will be the talk of the place. I really do not know what to say. I am surprised at Dick Bracknell, and at you for being so simple as to tell.... That Jolivet girl was openly laughing at you.’

“Her tone and manner told me better than her words the vile thing she was hinting at, and when I realized it, I broke down and cried.”

She paused, and as the corporal recalled what Lady Alcombe was, and visioned that scene between the fast woman of the world and the innocent girl in her care, he ground his teeth, and looked away from the beautiful face which was working with emotion.

“... When I did that Lady Alcombe changed her tone. ‘There’s only one thing to do,’ she said, ‘and that is to make the best of it. Thank goodness! Dick is over head and ears in love with you, and, as you know, he is only too anxious to marry you. You will have to take him now—to save your good name, Joy. It is the only way, for no one will believe your story, however true it may be, and so I advise you to make up your mind to the inevitable.... Things might be a great deal worse. Dick will be a baronet some day, and his wife will have a position that no one will challenge. Just think it over, my dear, and you will see that I am altogether right.’

[64]

“I did think it over,” said the girl slowly, “and in the end I agreed to marry Dick privately, making up my mind to explain the matter to my father, later. What else was there that I could do? I had no suspicion of anything at the time. Dick wanted me, and I liked him, whilst there were people at Alcombe who did not fail to let me see what they thought, and Lady Alcombe did not stint persuasion.”

“When did you find out that the delay in arriving at Alcombe was anything but an accident?” asked the corporal thoughtfully.

“On the very morning I was married. We had returned from the church, just Dick and myself and Lady Alcombe, and I was in the library writing a note to a friend at Newnham, when I heard two people enter. The library is a little draughty, and a footman had placed a screen for me, and this completely hid me from any one entering at the door. The two who entered were Lady Alcombe and Dick. I heard her laugh and say—

“‘You owe me five thousand pounds, Dick. I hope you won’t be very long in paying, for the truth is, I am beastly hard up, and I daren’t ask Sir Alfred for a penny at the present time.’

“Dick laughed also, and I caught his answer. ‘As soon as that old duffer in the Klondyke makes his settlements I’ll pay you, Mary. You deserve it. That was a pretty little scheme of yours, and it has gone like clockwork....’

“It came on me like a flash then. I saw how everything had been arranged, and how I had been trapped and hustled into marrying your cousin.[65] In that moment I hated him, and I have done so ever since.... I sat there too startled to make my presence known, and after a little time they went out, without learning that I had overheard them. I continued to sit there thinking. I scarcely knew what to do. It was arranged that we were to go to Paris for the honeymoon; and I was afraid that they would somehow make me accept that arrangement, and bewildered though I was, I was determined that I would not do so, that I would never allow Dick Bracknell to be in fact what he was in name.... I went to my room, secured my travelling coat and some money, and fled from the house, without leaving so much as a note to indicate where I was going—I went to Cambridge to the friend to whom I had been writing, and who was staying there reading through the vacation. I told her everything, and on her advice wrote to Lady Alcombe, explaining the situation, and averring that I would never live with Dick Bracknell. In reply I got a telegram from him saying that he would be down to see me the next day, and praying me to grant him an interview. He never came. Something happened and he had to leave England. Do you know what it was? I have never heard.”

“Yes,” answered the corporal slowly. “I know, and I think it is only right that you should know. You knew perhaps that Dick was in the Artillery?”

“Yes!” answered the girl.

“He was interested in his job. He was a good officer. It is the one thing to his credit that I know. There was a new gun, and he had access to the plans. He stole a copy, and sold them to the agent[66] of a foreign government. The theft was discovered and traced, but a friend dropped Dick a telegram which was forwarded to Alcombe Manor—and he ran for it, and got clear away. I imagine that explains why he did not visit you at Cambridge. Of course, the affair was hushed up, as such affairs are, and it is nearly forgotten now, though England would not be a safe place for him. Did you ever hear from him afterwards?”

“Not until last night,” was the reply. “When his note came to me, it was a great shock.”

The corporal nodded. “I can readily imagine that it would be.... Did your father ever know of your marriage?”

“No, thank God! I wrote to him, but before he received the letter the accident occurred by which he lost his life. I found the letter here unopened, when I came here to comply with the terms of his will. I was glad to get here. I was so overborne by the deceit and vileness of those I had thought were my friends in England!”

“They were not all deceitful, surely?” expostulated the young man.

“No! Some are my friends still. I am going to England very shortly, and I shall stay with one of them in Westmorland.”

“Will you ever return here?”

“Most certainly. North Star is my home—I love it, and I have always felt myself safe here—until last night.”

Bracknell understood that she meant that she had felt that in this lodge in the wilderness she was safe from his cousin, and nodded his head.

[67]

“I understand,” he said, but forbore to add what was in his mind; namely, that if Dick Bracknell had not died on the previous night, North Star would be no longer the sanctuary it had been.

They walked forward for a moment without speaking. A rise in the ground covered with snow-laden saskatoon bushes hid the river from them for a little time, and as they breasted it, and the river came into view again, they surprised a pedestrian climbing up the bank. It was Mr. Rayner.

He was obviously a little startled by the meeting, but a moment later recovered himself.

“Been out for a constitutional,” he explained, “as far as the bend of the river, and I’ve had quite sufficient. Are you ready to return?”

The girl nodded, but the corporal, whose eyes were surveying the empty landscape in front, shook his head.

“I shall walk on a little,” he said, “I may be going up stream tomorrow. The Elkhorn falls in somewhere about here, doesn’t it?”

“Just beyond the bluff there,” answered Joy.

“Then I’ll take a look at it, and see what the trail is like.”

He nodded and walked on leaving Joy Gargrave to return with Rayner. He waited until they were out of sight and then descended to the frozen surface of the river, where the going was easier, the trail having been packed by prospectors moving up and down. He reached the bluff in a short time, but did not go round it. His gaze was arrested by the trail of a sled which had come down the bank to the river at a point just below the bluff, and by[68] recent footmarks. He remembered the figure he had seen whilst walking with Joy Gargrave, unquestionably that of Rayner, for there were his footmarks turning south from the bluff. A thought struck him, and examining the snow carefully, he found no tracks running northward. A little puzzled he looked at the sled trail again, and there made the discovery that the single footmarks that ran side by side with the sled-trail, had been made not by one pair of feet but by two, some one having quite recently adapted his stride to the tracks already made. Puzzled and interested he followed the sled trail up the bank and began to trace it through the wood at the top.

An hour later, still following the sled-trail he struck the river again, and found himself exactly opposite the landing which led to North Star Lodge. As he realized this he nodded thoughtfully. The sled trail he had been following, when he had encountered Joy Gargrave, led directly across the river. But whose sled was it? And why had Rayner traced it so carefully, at the same time endeavouring to cover his own trail? The first question was one for which he had no answer, and the second was an equal puzzle. Clearly Rayner had been interested in the sled-trail since he had followed it for two miles; and plainly he was anxious to conceal his interest, since he had walked so carefully in the footsteps of the unknown driver, and had made no reference to the matter whatever. Did he know something—something that he did not wish to make known?

[69]

The corporal thought that very likely he did, but could not even conjecture what the secret knowledge might be. There was a puzzled frown on his face, as he turned in the direction of the Lodge, and when he came in sight of the house he became aware of a considerable bustle. In the open space in front two sleds were drawn up, and a considerable number of dogs were lying about or nosing in the snow for lost fragments of food. Two Indians and a half-breed were standing near the sleds smoking and talking. Bracknell recognized the half-breed for a man who had been in the service of the police as a driver.

“Hallo, Jacques,” he asked, “what brings you to North Star?”

Jacques grinned responsively. “I bring a letter—I and dese, Co’pral. Yees two dog teams to deleever one petite lettre. But we take sometings else back weeth us, I tink.”

“Indeed!” laughed the corporal. “What may that be?”

“I tink we take a lady, de lady of North Star!” The corporal gave vent to a whistle of surprise, and after a few more words passed into the house. There he met Mr. Rayner, who smiled at him.

“We have news for you, Corporal. We start for England tomorrow. A message has just reached us from my father, and Miss Gargrave’s presence is urgently required on a matter of business.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, and I think we shall all be glad to get[70] away. That mysterious affair of last night would be rather a disturbing thing to reflect upon in a lonely place like this.”

The corporal nodded, made some casual remark, and passed to his own room, where he sat for quite a long time, smoking, with a very thoughtful look upon his face.