Читать книгу Because of Stephen (Romance Classic) - Grace Livingston Hill - Страница 4

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Margaret Halstead stood alone on the narrow board platform that seemed to float like a tiny raft in a sea of plains and darkness.

The train on which she had come her long and interesting journey had discharged her trunks, and taken up some freight, and wound its snakelike way out into the darkness, until now even the last glimmer of its red lights had faded from the mist that lay around.

The night winds swept about her, touching hair and cheek and gown, and peering solicitously into her face as if to inquire who this strange, sweet thing might be that had dropped, alien, among them, and then, deciding in her favor, softly kissed her on the cheek and ran away to tell the river of her coming.

A few lights dotted here and there the murk and gloom about her, and loud, uncultured voices sounded from the little shanty that served, she supposed, as a station. She dreaded to move a step toward it, for a strange new terror had seized upon her in the darkness since the friendly train had disappeared from view.

She remembered that the porter had been solicitous about leaving until her brother arrived to claim her, and had paused beside her until the last car swept slowly up and began to travel by; then, eying dubiously first the silver piece she had put in his hand, and then the fast-gliding train, he had finally touched his cap and swung himself onto the last car, calling back to her that he hoped she would be all right. She had not realized till then what it was going to be to be left alone at night in this strange place, with no assurance whatever, save her own undaunted faith, that her brother had even received her letter, much less, would meet her.

Apprehension and alarm suddenly rose and began to clamor for attention, while she suddenly realized how rash she had been to follow a fancy half across a continent, only to bring up in this wild way.

What should she do? She supposed she ought to go over to that dreadful group of rough men and ask some questions. What if, after all, she had been put off at the wrong station? She half turned to walk in that direction; but just then a wild shriek followed by a pistol-shot rang out in the air, and she stopped, frightened, a whispered prayer on her lips for help. Had she come all this way on what her heart had told her was a mission, to be forsaken now?

The clamor was heard by Philip as he rode through the night.

Stephen heard it also, and hastened his horse's footsteps.

Then from out the gloom and horror there came to the young girl's ears the soft regular thud, thud, thud, of horses' hoofs, and almost at once there loomed before her out of the mist two dark shapes which flung themselves apart, and appeared to be two men and two horses.

She started back once more, her heart beating wildly, and wondered which way to flee; but almost at once she heard a strong, pleasant voice say:

"Don't be afraid. We are coming!"and what seemed a giant landed before her. With a little gasp in her voice that sounded like a half-sob she said,

"O Stephen, you have come!" and put her hands in those of Philip Earle, hiding her face against his shoulder with a shudder.

Philip felt a sudden gladness in his strength, and it was revealed to him in a flash that there were sweeter things in life than those he had counted upon.

Instinctively his arm supported her for just an instant, and a great wave of jealousy toward her brother went over him. His impulse was to stoop and give her the welcoming kiss that she was evidently expecting; but he held himself with a firm grasp, though the blood went in hot waves over his face in the darkness.

To have the unexpected and most unwelcome guest of his partner thus suddenly precipitated upon him, and to find that she was not altogether undesirable, after all, was a circumstance most embarrassing, as well as extremely delicate to handle. He blessed the darkness for its hiding. It was but an instant and Stephen was beside them, and he managed in someway—he never could describe it to himself afterward— to get the young woman faced about toward the real brother and her attention turned in that direction, and then stood watching while Stephen, the impressible, welcomed the new sister with open arms.

It was like Stephen, though he had grumbled all the way to the railroad about what a nuisance it was going to be to have her come, that he should succumb at once to a sweet voice and a confiding way.

Philip's lips were dry, and his throat throbbed hot and chokingly. He felt the pressure of little, soft, gloved hands in his hard ones. He turned away angry with himself that he should be so easily affected and by someone whom he had never met except in the pitch dark. Yet even as he said this to himself he knew the face would fit the voice and the hands when he should see them.

So, after all, though Philip, because he rode the fleeter horse, had been the first to greet her, and though his was the cool head, and he had expected to have to explain why they had been so late to meet her, it was Stephen's eager voice that made the explanations.

"You see I never got your letter until an hour ago. It was miscarried or something, and then we don't get to the office often when we're busy. So, when I took it in that you were really coming and looked at the time, your train was already overdue; and, if it had not been for their habit of being always two hours behind time, you might have stood here alone all this time."

Stephen said it gayly. He was beginning to think it a nice thing to have a sister. He had forgotten utterly how Philip had to insist on his coming at once to meet her, and that he had been most reluctant and ungracious.

It occurred to him at this juncture to introduce his partner.

Philip came to himself as he heard his name mentioned, and was glad again for the darkness. Margaret Halstead blushed, and wondered whether this giant knew how extremely near she had come to greeting him with a kiss, and hoped that he had not noticed how her head had rested against his shoulder for an instant when she was frightened. What would he think of her?

Her voice trembled just a little as she acknowledged the introduction; but her words were few and frigid, and made Philip feel as if she had suddenly held him off at arm's length and bade him come no nearer. She said:

"I did not know you had a partner, Stephen. You never said anything about it in your letters. I am afraid I have been wrong in coming without waiting to hear from you before I started."

But Philip had noticed the tremble in her voice, and he hastened to make her most welcome as far as he was concerned.

Nevertheless, a stiffness hung about the trio which made it hard for them to be natural; and, had it not been for another pistol-shot from the shanty down the road and another clamor of voices, they might have stood still some time longer.

Margaret started in spite of herself, and asked nervously:

"Oh! what can be the matter? What a dreadful place this must be!" And Philip found in himself a new instinct of protection.

"We must get your sister out of this, Steve," he said. "We must take her home."

And somehow the word "home" sounded a haven as he pronounced it. The thoughts of the two young men galloping furiously on their way to the station had been but of how they should reach there as soon as the train. They had made no plans. It was impossible for them to realize the importance of the charge that was about to be put upon them.

But now the manners of the world from which they had come some years before, and from which this young woman had but just come, suddenly dropped down upon them as a forgotten garment, and they knew at once the wretchedness of their limitations.

"It isn't much of a place to call home," said the brother, apologetically, "but I guess it's better than this. If we had only known before, we'd have had something fine fixed up some way."

He made the statement airily, and perhaps he thought it was true. Philip found himself wondering what it would have been. There was not a house where she might have been lodged comfortably within fifty miles.

"How do you think we'd better arrange the journey?" said Stephen, suddenly brought face to face with a problem.

"You see," said he in explanation to his sister, "we had no time to hitch up, if we had thought of it, though I'm blamed if it occurred to me but that we could carry you in our pockets. Say, Phil, guess I'll go over and see if I can get Foxy's buckboard."

"Foxy's gone over to Butte in his buckboard with his mother. I saw him go this afternoon," answered Philip.

Stephen whistled.

"I'll ask Dunn for his wagon," said Stephen starting off.

"Hold on!" said Philip shortly. "I’ll go myself. You stay here."

"Couldn't we go down to the station and see after my trunk, Mr. Earle?" said Margaret timidly. And to his ears the name never had so sweet a sound.

"Give me your checks, and stay here, please," he said in quite a different tone from that in which he had addressed Stephen; and, turning, he left them standing in the dark, while the mist closed in behind him and shut him from their sight as if he had left the world.

Alone with her brother, Margaret suddenly put out her hands appealingly to him.

"You are a little bit glad I've come, aren't you, Stephen?" she said.

"I'm no end of glad," he answered, rousing out of his sulkiness that Philip would not let him go. He knew that Philip had good reason for making him stay. "But we're a rough lot out here. I don't know how you'll stand it."

His voice had lost a shade of the gayety, and she thought it was touched with anxiety. She hastened to assure him.

"O, I shall not mind a bit. And I shall try to make things a little pleasanter for you. You think I can, don't you?" This in an anxious voice.

"I'm sure you can," said Stephen heartily. There was something in her voice that appealed to his better self, and reminded him strangely of his childhood. It could not be his father; for his father had always been silent and grave, and this voice was sweet and enthusiastic, and flowed out as if it loved to speak. And yet it must be the likeness to the father's voice he noticed.

"I am so anxious to get you in the light and see how you look," she said ardently, and then added softly, "My dear brother."

Stephen slid his arm about her awkwardly, and kissed her on the forehead. He felt embarrassed in doing this; yet it was by no means the first time he had kissed a girl. Perhaps it was the memory of those other kisses hovering near that shamed him now. He half felt this, and it made him awkward. He was glad to hear Philip's step coming toward them.

"Dunn's wagon has broken down, and both the front wheels are off for repairs. There isn't a thing we can get in town tonight," said Philip anxiously. "Miss Halstead, can you ride? Horseback, I mean."

"Why, I can try," said Margaret a little tremulously. This was a rather startling proposition to even her dauntless courage. Involuntarily she glanced down at her city-made gown in the darkness. She felt hampered by it.

"It's too bad, Miss Halstead," he said apologetically, while Stephen in the dark wondered at his new tone and manner. "But there's no other way, and I think you'll enjoy getting out of this, anyway. There's going to be a big row over there," he added in a low tone to Stephen. "Jim Peters is on his high horse. Hurry!"

Then in a cheery tone he said:

"It won't be so bad. You can rest your foot in the stirrup, and Steve and I'll take turns walking beside the horse. She'd better ride your horse, Steve. He's the gentler of the two."

Margaret Halstead felt herself suddenly lifted in the dark by strong arms and seated on a horse. She clung to the saddle, and left her foot obediently in the stirrup where it was placed by a firm hand; but she was not certain whether her brother or his friend had put her there. It was bewildering, all in the dark that way, and neither of them spoke till both were standing by her side. She was glad the horse stood quite still. She expected him to start nervously. She felt timid about Western horses. They had a reputation for wildness. But it was Stephen who after a moment of low talk came and stood by her side and placed his arm about her as they started.

"My suitcase and my bag," she murmured.

"Phil has them all safe," said her brother.

"And the trunks?"

"They are locked safe in the station, Miss Halstead, and we will get them early in the morning," said a voice out of the mist before her.

Then there was silence as she looked anxiously into the darkness, and could not see a spot of road for the horse to place his foot.

The road was rough and her seat unsteady. A man's saddle is not the surest thing to ride sideways upon. She put her hand timidly on her brother's shoulder, and the touch seemed to give her courage. It gave Stephen a strange new sense of his power of protection.

They went slowly, for the night was dark and the mist lay thick about them. The road was so rough that horse and leader could keep together only by moving slowly. The sounds of disturbance behind them grew fainter as they went on, but now and then a shriek or a fragment of an oath would reach them as if it had been flung out wildly in the night and lost its way.

Margaret shuddered when this happened, and said in a half-frightened tone:

"What awful people they must be, Stephen! Isn't it unpleasant to live in their neighborhood?"

And Stephen somewhat uneasily answered:

"O, they never bother us. They've got a little too much tonight, that's all; and, when they get like that, they can't stand a difference of opinion."

"How dreadful!" said Margaret in low, awestruck tones. Then after a minute she added:

"O Stephen, I'm so glad my brother is not like that. Of course it wouldn't be likely, but they must be somebody's brothers, and how their sisters must feel—and their mothers!"

Stephen felt his face grow hot. He said nothing for a long time. He could not think of anything to say. There was a strange feeling about his throat, and he tried to clear it. The mist kept getting in his eyes. He was glad when his sister began to tell of her aunt's illness and the long, weary months when she had been chained to the sickroom at the beck and call of a whimsical, wandering mind.

She did not say much about herself, but he felt touched by her sweet self-sacrifice and her loneliness. It reminded him of his own lonely boyhood, and his heart went out in sympathy. He decided that it was a nice thing, after all, to have a sister. It was like Stephen to forget all about the end of their journey and the poor accommodations he had to offer her, utterly unfit for a woman, much less fit for one who had been brought up in luxury. He grew gay as they went on, and talked more freely with her. When Philip suddenly appeared out of the silent darkness ahead of them, and said it was time to change guides, he was almost loath to leave his sister.

Margaret, too, would rather not have had the change; but she could scarcely ask her brother to walk the whole of the five miles. There was something about him that reminded her, even in the dark, of their father, and so he did not seem strange; but this other tall man, who had taken control of the entire expedition, frightened her a little. She wished she could get a glimpse of his face and know what kind of a man he was. It was hard to know what to say to him, and still more embarrassing to keep entirely still.

But the road was growing rougher. The new guide had to give a good deal of attention to the horse, and she to keeping her unsteady seat. The road was steadily rising before them now. She could feel that by the inclination of the saddle. It seemed to be stony also.

Once she slipped, and would have fallen from the saddle if Philip had not caught her. After that he placed his arm about her and steadied her. She could not object, for there was nothing intimate or personal in the touch.

She concluded that Philip was a gentleman, whatever else he might not be.

She gripped the saddle in front of her a little tighter, and looked into the darkness, wondering whether this journey would ever end. She essayed one or two sentences of conversation, but the young man beside her was distraught, and seemed to be more interested in looking ahead and guiding the horse.

The road was even steeper now. Margaret wondered whether they were going up the Rocky Mountains. It seemed as if they had come far enough to have almost reached them, according to her vague notion of the geography of that land.

"Wouldn't it be better if I were to get off and walk?" she asked timidly, after the horse had almost stumbled to his knees.

"No," answered Philip shortly; "we'll soon be over this. Put your arm around my neck and hold on now. Don't be afraid! Steady, there, steady, Jack!"

The horse scrambled, and seemed to Margaret to be walking on his hind legs up into the air. She gave a little scream, and threw her arm convulsively about her companion's neck. But she was held firmly, and seemed to riding upon Philip's shoulder with the horse struggling under her for a moment. Then like a miracle they reached upper ground, and she was sitting firmly on the horse's back, Philip walking composedly beside her, his arm no more about her.

It was lighter too, here; and all the mist seemed to have dropped away and to be melting at their feet.

"It's all over now," said Philip, and there was a joyous ring in his voice quite different from the silent, abstracted man who had walked beside her for so long. "I hope you weren't much frightened. I've been afraid how Jack would act there. That is an ugly place. It must be fixed before you come this way again. You see the bridge was broken down the way we usually go, and we had to come around another way. You were perfectly safe, you know; only it was bad to frighten you when you have just come, and you are tired, too. But we are almost there now. And look! Look ahead!"

Margaret looked, and saw before her a blaze of light flare up till it made a great half-circle on the edge of the horizon. Not until it rose still higher—like a human thing, she thought—did the girl recognize the moon.

"O, it is the moon!" she said awestruck. "Is it always so great out here?"

Philip watched her as she looked. He felt that for the first time in his life he had companionship in this great sight of which he never tired.

"It is always different," he said musingly, "and yet always the same," and he felt as he was saying it that she would understand. He had never talked to Stephen about the moon. Stephen did not care for such things except as they were for his personal convenience or pleasure. Moonlight might be interesting if one had a long ride to take, in Stephen's economics, but not for purposes of sentiment.

"I see," said Margaret. "Yes, I recognize my old friend now. It seems as if it wore a smile of welcome."

"Do you mean the man in the moon, or the lady? Which do you claim?"

"O, both!" laughed Margaret, turning toward him for the first time since there had been any light. And now she could see his fine profile outlined against the moon, the firm chin, the well-molded forehead and nose, and the curve of the expressive lips.

"Now, look down there, back where we have come!" said Philip, as she looked.

The mist was glorified like an expectant one waiting to be redeemed from the state where it was put till its work was done.

"O!" breathed the girl in wonder. "You can fairly see the darkness flee away!"

"So you can," said Philip, looking off. "I never noticed that before."

And they started forward round the turn in the road where Stephen was waiting impatiently for them to come up with him, and almost at once they saw before them the outlines of the rude building the two young men called home, lying bathed in the new-risen moonlight.