Читать книгу The Professor's Mystery - Hastings Wells - Страница 6

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I lay for a moment half stunned, my face buried in the moist depths of the grass. It was as if Earth had been suddenly engulfed in a wandering star, as if all known and familiar things had come to an instant end and I must gather my vague soul to face unimagined eternities.

Cautiously I raised my head and looked about. A meadow stretched blooming before me. To my left loomed the absurd bulk of the upturned trolley, on its back with wheels in air, looking for all the world a stupid mastodon puppy. A very much frightened conductor stood near by.

"Say," he asked hoarsely, "is yous all right? Kin you look after things till Joe an' me git back?"

"Look after things?" I repeated dully.

"Sure, the lydies, I mean. Sure you kin. We'll beat it right off, an' I hope to gosh Joe sobers up on the way! So long."

He was gone before I could gather my wits for a question, and uncomprehendingly I watched the two blue-coated figures scrambling up the steep, scarred sides of the viaduct. Frantically they scaled the top and made off down the tracks without so much as another glance in my direction.

Then of a sudden memory came upon me, and my heart contracted with a greatness of fear that I had never known.

For a moment I could see her nowhere, then as I staggered to uncertain feet I found her. She lay behind me, her hand pillowing her cheek as if she slept. And as I knelt beside her to listen fearfully at her heart I laughed with half a sob, for the beat came surely and with growing strength.

The sudden easing of my fear came over me drowsily until it seemed as if all the world lay in the hollow of the meadow about me and time had been blotted out. In the grass beside her I sat down to wait.

To my bewildered sense we were two shadowy people in an impossible dream. A wayward tendril of dark hair had fallen across her eyes. I smoothed it softly back and my fingers brushed her hair lightly and strayingly, as my mother's had mine in bygone days, tenderly and as if we shared in the secret of sleep.

I do not know when her eyes opened, but looking down I found them turned to mine. She smiled, sighed softly, and closed them. Then again they opened.

"I think that I should like to sit up," she said.

I helped her carefully. "Are you all right?" I asked.

She smiled uncertainly. "I think so. I am very dizzy."

My arm was half about her, and for a long moment her head rested against me. Then she sat up very straight and a little apart, busying herself about her dress, giving a practised touch to her hair and the laces at her neck, and smoothing the scarcely ruffled breadths of her skirt.

I gazed out across our meadow to where three black and white cows stood sleepily knee-deep in a small pool. A meadow-lark rose and crossed the field in erratic, wavering flight. A little cloud tempered the brightness and passed.

"What happened?" she asked softly at last.

I pointed to where the trolley lay towering behind her.

She lost color a little and sprang to her feet, then she turned to me laughing.

"I never saw anything look so ashamed of itself in my life," she said. "Speak to it kindly, Mr. Crosby; it can't lie there with its feet in the air for ever."

I shook my head ruefully. "I am afraid that it will have to stay there for the afternoon, at least."

"But how are we—how am I—going to get home? Where are the crew, and wasn't there another passenger?"

I gasped. I had absolutely forgotten the other woman.

She was lying not far from us in a little hollow of the long grass, and for the moment I thought that she was dead. The sallow, foreign face was yellow white, the plump hands were gripped, as if in some past convulsive agony, above her head, and this same muscular rigidity seemed to underlie incongruously every formless line of the flabby body.

Miss Tabor's hand trembled upon my arm. "Do you think that she—that she is dead?" she whispered.

I stooped to the woman's wrist. The pulse came faintly with a dull throb that was unbelievably slow. But as I still fumbled the pulpy hand caught mine in a grip that made me wince, the bloodless lips stirred in a shuddering moan, and without opening her eyes she spoke.

"It is hard, hard," she said, "there is too much light. Will some one turn down the light?" A long convulsive tremor ran over the entire body and the hand in mine struggled in anguish.

Miss Tabor shivered.

"I am afraid that she is very much hurt," I said as gently as I could. I was ashamed of myself, but fear seemed to clutch me. Then I gave myself a mental shake and caught my hat from the ground. "You will have to stay with her, I suppose, while I get some water. You might loosen her dress." It was all that I could think of.

Miss Tabor knelt to the work without a word, and I made off across the meadow to the pool, running at my best speed.

In a moment I was back again and dashed what little water my hat still held over the twitching, yellow face.

The eyelids fluttered and lack-luster eyes looked into mine. The woman gasped and sat up.

"That is a very dangerous thing to do, young man." The voice beneath its severity of tone was softly unctuous and vaguely Latin. "A very dangerous thing, indeed. Sudden shock has killed us many times. That is well known."

Miss Tabor looked at her with pity. Evidently the woman was still out of her head.

"If you will sit quietly for a little while you will be better," I said.

She nodded, looking curiously about her. Comprehension was coming back. She took out a crumpled handkerchief and wiped the water from her face.

"What on earth are we to do now?" Miss Tabor whispered. "We must do something, for they are expecting me home already." She glanced anxiously at the little watch at her wrist. "But I don't see how we can leave this poor woman here all by herself."

"No, I don't see how we can," I answered, "but perhaps she can walk. Do you think that she could climb that bank, even if you could?"

Miss Tabor shook her head. "We must walk back and look for an easier place. But I am afraid that the car will come before we can find one."

We had spoken in very low voices, but the woman looked up.

"You have ten minutes before the car will arrive. I will be myself by then."

"Are you sure?" I asked, for I had not seen her look at a watch.

She smiled scornfully. "You have ten minutes. The car will arrive then. Have you lost anything in your fall?"

Mechanically I put my hand in my pocket, to find it empty. For a second I was thunderstruck, then I stepped over to the place where I had fallen and poked about in the grass. My pocketbook, I found immediately, and after a moment came upon my keys and change in a scarcely scattered pile.

Miss Tabor was watching me. "Nothing missing," I said. "How about you?"

"Oh, all my things are in my bag." And she pointed to where it lay near mine, in a tangle of blackberry vines.

But when I turned from rescuing them I found her standing with her hand at her neck, searching distractedly among her laces.

"What! you have lost something?" I cried.

"Yes," she said, and it seemed to me that her eyes were afraid, "there was a little gold chain that I wore. Oh, it can't be lost, it can't be!"

Her manner surprised me. To all my knowledge she had been so unruffled, had borne herself with such a certain serenity, that to see her now, with frightened eyes staring and full of tears, pain written clear between the lovely brows, and with hands that trembled at her breast, startled me out of my own composure.

"Certainly it's not lost," I said harshly, for I was puzzled. After all, there was nothing so tragic in the loss of a little chain. Then I knew better, knew that if she valued it so I would find it if it took me my vacation. "Come," I said more gently, "we will look."

She had gained some control over herself, and now began to search the ground where we had fallen, carefully and on her knees. I thought that she was crying softly and glanced to see if the other woman noticed.

Her back was turned to us and her face seemed buried in her hands. As I looked at her she spoke.

"If you seek a small chain," she said listlessly, "you will find it close beside the fallen car."

And there as I walked directly to it I saw the glimmer of a strand of gold straggling from beneath the upturned roof.

"Here it is," I cried wonderingly and drew it forth. Then I stood dumbly, the thing in my hands, my mind reeling. For from the mangled clasp hung a woman's wedding-ring.