Greatheart, Ethel May Dell [children's books read aloud TXT] 📗

found herself in the care of Biddy and the doctor. Eustace left her with a low promise to return, and she had to be satisfied with that thought, though she would fain have clung to him still.

They undressed her and put her into a hot bath that did much to lessen the numb constriction of her limbs, though it brought also the most agonizing pain she had ever known. When it was over, the limit of her endurance was long past; and she lay in hot blankets weeping helplessly while Biddy tried in vain to persuade her to drink some scalding mixture that she swore would make her feel as gay as a lark.

In the midst of this, someone entered quietly and stood beside her; and all in a moment there came to Dinah the consciousness of an unknown force very strangely uplifting her. She looked up with a quivering smile in the midst of her tears.

"Oh, Mr. Greatheart," she whispered brokenly, "is it you?"

He smiled down upon her, and took the cup from Biddy's shaky old hand.

"May I give you this?" he said.

Dinah was filled with gratified confusion. "Oh, please, you mustn't trouble! But—how very kind of you!"

He took Biddy's place by her side. His eyes were shining with an odd brilliance, almost, she thought to herself wonderingly, as if they held tears. A sharp misgiving went through her. How was it they were bestowing so much care upon her, unless Isabel—Isabel—

She did not dare to put her doubt into words, but he read it and instantly answered it. "Don't be anxious!" he said in his kindly, tired voice. "All is well. Isabel is asleep—actually sleeping quietly without any draught. The doctor is quite satisfied about her."

He spoke the simple truth, she knew; he was incapable of doing anything else. A great wave of thankfulness went through her, obliterating the worst of her misery.

"I am so glad," she told him weakly. "I was—so dreadfully afraid. I—I had to go with her, Mr. Studley. I do hope everyone understands."

"Everyone does," he made answer gently. "Now let me give you this, and then you must sleep too."

She drank from the cup he held, and felt revived.

He did not speak again till she had finished; then he leaned slightly towards her, and spoke with great earnestness. "Miss Bathurst, do you realize, I wonder, that you saved my sister's life by going with her? I do; and I shall never forget it."

She was sure now that she caught the gleam of tears in the grey eyes. She slipped her hands out to him. "I only did what I could," she murmured confusedly. "Anyone would have done it. And please, Mr. Greatheart, will you call me Dinah?"

"Or Mercy?" he suggested smiling, her hands clasped close in his.

She smiled back with shy confidence. The memory of her dream was in her mind, but she could not tell him of that.

"No," she said. "Just Dinah. I'm not nice enough to be called anything else. And thank you—thank you for being so good to me."

"My dear child," he made quiet reply, "no one who really knows you could be anything else."

"Oh, don't you think they could?" said Dinah wistfully. "I wish there were more people in the world like you."

"No one ever thought of saying that to me before," said Scott.

CHAPTER XXII THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

After that interview with Scott there followed a long, long period of pain and weakness for Dinah. She who had never known before what it meant to be ill went down to the Valley of the Shadow and lingered there for many days and nights. And there came a time when those who watched beside her began to despair of her ever turning back.

So completely had she lost touch with the ordinary things of life that she knew but little of what went on around her, dwelling as it were apart, conscious sometimes of agonizing pain, but more often of a dreadful sinking as of one overwhelmed in the billows of an everlasting sea. At such times she would cling piteously to any succouring hand, crying to them to hold her up—only to hold her up. And if the hand were the hand of Greatheart, she always found comfort at length and a sense of security that none other could impart.

Her fancy played about him very curiously in those days. She saw him in many guises,—as prince, as knight, as magician; but never as the mean and insignificant figure which first had caught her attention on that sunny morning before the fancy-dress ball.

This man who sat beside her bed of suffering for hours together because she fretted when he went away, who held her up when the gathering billows threatened to overwhelm her fainting soul, who prayed for her with the utmost simplicity when she told him piteously that she could not pray for herself, this man was above and beyond all ordinary standards. She looked up to him with reverence, as one of colossal strength who had power with God.

But she never dreamed again that golden dream of Greatheart in his shining armour with the light of a great worship in his eyes. That had been a wild flight of presumptuous fancy that never could come true.

His was not the only hand to which she clung during those terrible days of fear and suffering. Another presence was almost constantly beside her night and day,—a tender, motherly presence that watched over and ministered to her with a devotion that never slackened. For some time Dinah could not find a name for this gracious and comforting presence, but one day when a figure clothed in a violet dressing-gown stooped over her to give her nourishment an illuminating memory came to her, and from that moment this loving nurse of hers filled a particular niche in her heart which was dedicated to the Purple Empress. She could think of no other name for her. That quiet and stately presence seemed to demand a royal appellation. In her calmer moments Dinah liked to lie and watch the still face with its crown of silvery hair. She loved the touch of the white hands that always knew with unerring intuition exactly what needed to be done. There seemed to be healing in their touch.

Very strangely the thought of Eustace never came to her, or coming, but flitted unrecorded and undetained across the surface of her mind. He had receded with all the rest of the world into the far, far distance that lay behind her. He had no place in this region of many shadows where these others so tenderly guided her wandering feet. No one else had any place there save old Biddy who, being never absent, seemed a part of the atmosphere, and the doctor who came and went like a presiding genie in that waste of desolation.

She did not welcome his visits, although he was invariably kind, for on one occasion she caught a low murmur from him to the effect that her mother had better come to her, and this suggestion had thrown her into a most painful state of apprehension. She had implored them weeping to let her mother stay away, and they had hushed her with soothing promises; but she never saw the doctor thereafter without a nervous dread that she might also see her mother's gaunt figure accompanying him. And she was sure—quite sure—that her mother would be very angry with her when she saw her helplessness.

Nightmares of her mother's advent began to trouble her. She would start up in anguish of soul, scarcely believing in the soothing arms that held her till their tenderness hushed her back to calmness.

"No one can come to you, sweetheart, while I am here." How often she heard the low words murmured lovingly over her head! "See, I am holding you! You are quite safe. No one can take you from me."

And Dinah would cling to her beloved empress till her panic died away.

On one of these occasions Scott was present, and he presently left the sick-room with a look in his eyes that gave him a curiously hard expression. He went deliberately in search of Billy whom he found playing a not very spirited game with the two little daughters of the establishment. The weather had broken, and several people had left in consequence.

Billy was bored as well as anxious, and his attitude said as much as he unceremoniously left his small playfellows to join Scott.

"Just amusin' the kids," he observed explanatorily. "How is she now?"

Scott linked his hand in the boy's arm. "She's pretty bad, Billy," he said. "Both lungs are affected. The doctor thinks badly of her, though he still hopes he may pull her through."

"You may you mean," returned Billy. "Can't say the de Vignes have put themselves out at all over her. There's Rose flirts all day long with your brother, and Lady Grace grumbling continually about the folly of undertaking other people's responsibilities. She swears she must get back at the end of next week for their precious house-party. And the Colonel fumes and says the same. I told him I shouldn't go unless she was out of danger, though goodness knows, sir, I don't want to sponge on you."

Scott's hand pressed his arm reassuringly. "Don't imagine such a thing possible!" he said. "Of course you must stay if she isn't very much better by that time. But now, Billy, tell me—if it isn't an unwelcome question—why doesn't your sister want your mother to come to her?"

Billy gave him one of his shrewd glances. "She's told you that, has she? Well, you know the mater is rather a queer fish, and I doubt very much if she'd come if you asked her."

"My good fellow!" Scott said. "Not if she were dying?"

"I doubt it," said Billy, unmoved. "You see, the mater hasn't much use for Dinah, except as a maid-of-all work. Never has had. It's not altogether her fault. It's just the way she's made."

"Good heavens!" said Scott, and added, as if to himself, "That little fairy thing!"

"She can't help it," said Billy. "She can't get on with the female species. It's like cats, you know,—a sort of jealousy."

"And your father?" questioned Scott, the hard look growing in his eyes.

"Oh, Dad!" said Billy, smiling tolerantly. "He's all right—quite a decent sort. But you wouldn't get him to leave home in the middle of the hunting season. He's one of the Whips."

Scott's hand had tightened unconsciously to a grip. Billy looked at him in surprised interrogation, and was amazed to see a heavy frown drawing the colourless brows. There was a fiery look in the pale eyes also that he had never seen before.

He waited in silence for developments, being of a wary disposition, and in a moment Scott spoke in a voice of such concentrated fury that Billy felt as if a total stranger were confronting him.

"An infernal and blackguardly shame!" he said. "It would serve them right if the little girl never went back to them again. I never heard of such damnable callousness in all my life before."

Billy opened his eyes wide, and after a second or two permitted himself a soft whistle.

Scott's hold upon his arm relaxed. "Yes, I know," he said. "I've no right to say it to you. But when the blood boils, you've got to let off the steam somehow. I suppose you've written to tell them all about her?"

"Oh yes, I wrote, and so did the Colonel. I had a letter from Dad this morning. He said he hoped she was better and that she was being well looked after. That's like Dad, you know. He never realizes a thing unless he's on the spot. I daresay I shouldn't myself," said Billy broadmindedly. "It's want of imagination in the main."

"Or want of heart," said Scott curtly.

Billy did not attempt to refute the amendment. "It's just the way you chance to be made," he said philosophically. "Of course I'm fond of Dinah. We're pals. But Dad's an easy-going sort of chap. He isn't specially fond of anybody. The mater,—well, she's keen on me, I suppose," he blushed a little; "but, as I said before, she hasn't much use for Dinah. Even when she was a small kid, she used to whip her no end. Dinah is frightened to death at her. I don't wonder she doesn't want her sent for."

Scott's face was set in stern