A Pair of Schoolgirls, Angela Brazil [unputdownable books TXT] 📗

Alison, in her effort to grasp the plantain, put her weight on her friend, and to support the strain Dorothy leaned backwards. Alison, snatching a piece of the flower, suddenly released the tension; the pair swayed for an instant, overbalanced, and then slipped, shrieking, down the sloping side of the weir. CHAPTER XV

A Confession

The two girls sank into the pool below, then, rising to the surface, caught with frantic fingers at a rotten willow bough that overhung the water. Neither could swim, and in desperate plight they clung to the frail and insecure support. Almost choked with their dipping, their hair and clothes streaming, they still managed to call vigorously for help. But already their weight was splitting the decayed old willow: there was an ominous crack, a sudden rending, a piteous cry, and, still clutching the severed branch, they went whirling down the river. Mercifully their first wild shriek had been heard, and a farmer who lived at the old millhouse by the weir had come running instantly from his garden. He arrived on the scene just as the branch broke, and wading into the water he contrived to catch Dorothy, who was the nearer, and to drag her into safety. But when he turned to look for her companion, Alison had drifted along with the stream, and was out of his reach. He could not swim, so he ran back towards the inn, shouting for help. At the sound of his cries the stable boy and several others came rushing down the field.

"Fetch a rope!"

"Where's the boat?"

"Cut a long pole!"

"She'll drown while you're doing it!"

"For Heaven's sake don't let her go down again!"

"I can only swim a few strokes, but I'll try if I can reach her," exclaimed the stable boy, flinging off his coat and plunging into the river, which was shallow for a yard or so at the edge.

Venturing out of his depth, he grasped Alison by her dress, then turned, floundering hopelessly towards the bank. For a moment it seemed as if both lives must surely be lost, but with a desperate effort the boy managed to keep himself afloat, and to reach the hand of one of the men who had waded out to meet him. Between them they pulled the unconscious girl from the water and laid her on the grass.

"She's gone!"

"No, no; I've seen worse than her as came round."

"Take 'em both into the inn and send Sam on his bike for the doctor."

The first intimation of the accident which Miss Carter received was the sight of Dorothy walking dripping wet up the garden, followed by a group of men carrying Alison. She was a woman of sound, practical common sense, and after the first momentary shock was over she set to work at once to administer treatment for the drowning, with the help of the other members of the Guild who were present. Their combined efforts were so successful that by the time the doctor arrived they had succeeded in restoring animation.

Dorothy, rolled up in hot blankets, was little the worse for her immersion, and did not need attention; but the medical man looked grave when he saw Alison.

"She is suffering from severe collapse. Have you sent for her mother?" he asked.

Miss Sherbourne and Mrs. Clarke had both been summoned by telegram. They drove up within five minutes of each other. Poor Mrs. Clarke's frantic, white-lipped agony was terrible to witness.

"You must save her! She's all I have in the world!" she cried, turning desperately, almost fiercely, upon the doctor.

"Madam, I use my utmost skill, but life and death are in greater hands than mine," he replied.

For many hours Alison's life trembled in the balance. The district nurse had been sent for, and with the doctor watched the case anxiously all night through. At length, when morning dawned, a turn came for the better.

"Let her sleep now and she'll do," said Dr. Hall to the nurse. "Can't we get her mother out of the room somehow?"

"Miss Sherbourne is downstairs. I know her, and I dare say she will help," suggested the nurse.

Aunt Barbara had also spent the night at the inn, partly because she thought it wiser to let Dorothy keep warm in bed, instead of attempting to remove her; and partly because she felt she could not leave till she knew that Alison was out of danger. She had sat up, hoping that she might be of assistance, though she had not liked to intrude her presence into the sick-room until she was asked. She came now at the nurse's request, and gently persuaded poor worn-out Mrs. Clarke to go downstairs and have some hot tea, which the inn-keeper's wife had made ready.

"It is better to leave the room in absolute quiet for a while," she said. "Nurse is keeping watch, and indeed the doctor says there is no further cause for anxiety."

Mrs. Clarke's hand shook as she held her cup.

"I can hardly realize yet that she is safe. Oh, if you knew how I have suffered! My head is on fire. I want to go out into the air," she replied pantingly.

The light was breaking clearly in the east, and Miss Sherbourne opened the front door. The two women stepped together into the garden.

"Everything seems quiet," said Mrs. Clarke, looking up at Alison's window. "You are sure, if there is the slightest change, that Nurse will call me? Then let us walk across the lawn. I want to talk to you. I must speak now—at once, while I have the courage."

"Shall we sit here?" said Miss Sherbourne, indicating a bench that faced the dawn.

The hour was strangely beautiful. The sky, flushing in tints of rose and mauve, heralded the rising sun; the bushes were still masses of rich, warm shadow, but a group of turn-cap lilies stood out fair and golden against the dark background, shedding their heavy fragrance around. A thrush had begun to stir in the laburnum tree, and piped his fine mellow notes; and a blackbird answered from the elm opposite. The world was waking to another day of wonderful, pulsing life.

"Weeping and heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning," murmured Aunt Barbara softly.

Mrs. Clarke sat for a few moments gazing at the quiet scene. She was still intensely agitated, and kept clasping and unclasping her hands nervously upon her knee.

"I must speak," she began again hurriedly. "If I do not tell you now, the resolution may go. When I saw my darling lie there, at the very gate of death, I knew it was a judgment upon me for my long silence—my criminal silence."

She paused, as if scarcely able to continue. She was weeping bitterly, and her restless fingers pulled to pieces a rose that she had plucked from a bush as she passed.

"I hardly know how to explain everything," she went on at last, "but perhaps it will make it clearer if I begin at the beginning, and relate the story of my life. Have you the patience to hear it? My sister Madeleine and I were twins. My mother died in our infancy, and left no other children, so we two were everything to each other. My father was a clever but eccentric man, a student and an astronomer. He had never been fond of company, and after my mother's death he shut himself up more closely than ever, and became quite a recluse, devoting himself entirely to his books and his telescope. Though he was fond of us in his way, we did not see much of him, and he was always so reserved and silent that we were shy and constrained in his presence. When we were old enough to leave school, our life at home, in a remote country grange, with little society to be had in the neighbourhood, was dull and triste in the extreme. Just after our twenty-first birthday, we made the acquaintance of two brothers who were staying at a house in the adjoining parish, and the friendship soon ripened into a warmer feeling on both sides.

"David Clarke, the elder, fell in love with my sister Madeleine, and Herbert, the younger, with myself. When we broached the subject to my father, however, he professed great indignation, and forbade either of the young Clarkes to come to the house. It was extremely arbitrary and unjust of him to behave thus, for he had no reasonable objections to raise against them. I can only imagine that he was annoyed that he had not been taken earlier into our confidence, and hurt that we wished to leave him. Perhaps, also, he may have had some other matrimonial projects in his mind for us, though he never made the slightest attempt to introduce us to any suitable friends. Can you imagine the situation? Two impulsive, motherless girls in the lonely old house, with no one to counsel us or help to smooth away any of our difficulties! Our lovers had business in India, and were shortly leaving the country; and the idea of parting from them was terrible to us. They pleaded and urged, so what wonder that there were clandestine meetings, and that one morning we took the law into our own hands and made a double runaway match of it? We were both of age, and could therefore legally marry whom we chose.

"We tried to make peace with our father after the weddings, but he utterly refused to see us, and we were obliged to start for India without having received his forgiveness. Within a year we had news of his death. I think he had been in failing health for some time, and perhaps on that account had been the more loath to part with us; but he had shown us so little tenderness that we had never realized that he wished for our sympathy or affection. Now that I have a child of my own, I regret that I was not a better daughter to him. In his will he showed that he had not pardoned either us or our husbands. He left only a small annuity each to Madeleine and myself, and the bulk of his estate in trust for his first grandchild. My sister Madeleine's little girl was born a fortnight before mine, so it was she, and not Alison, who inherited her grandfather's fortune. I was very angry at the injustice of the proceeding. It seemed to me monstrously unfair that my little one, because she came into the world a fortnight too late, should be deprived of what in all equity ought to have been hers. I was the elder of the twins, and I considered that any preference should have been in my favour. I was anxious to bring a lawsuit, and try to upset the will and cause the estate to be equally divided between my sister and myself, but our solicitor assured me I had no legal case, and should only involve myself in endless proceedings and costs. Madeleine and I were too much attached to each other to have an open quarrel, and before her I managed to hide my bitter disappointment. We were about to be separated, for my husband was returning to England, while hers was still remaining in India. I was thankful afterwards that we had parted on such good terms, for I never saw her again. Only a few days after our steamer started she succumbed to a sudden epidemic of cholera that swept over the place where they were living, and the telegram announcing her death met me at Port Said. I had loved her dearly, and the blow was cruel. But there was a harder one still in store for me. My husband, whose ill health had been the cause of our leaving India, became rapidly