A LEAP IN THE DARK
By James T. Mckay,
Author of "Stella Grayland," "Larcone's Little Chap," and other stories.
The Windhams and Mandisons were old neighbors, and Phil Windham had always been very much at home among the Mandisons, and especially with Mary, the oldest daughter, who was like a wise, kind sister to him. Now his own house began to break up—his brothers went West; his sisters married; his father, who was a chemist and inventor, was killed one day by an explosion. In these trying times the Mandison household was his chief resource, and Mary most of all.
Then the Mandisons moved away. That seemed to Windham like the end of things. He was awfully lonely, and thought a great deal about Mary in the months that followed, but was not quite sure of himself; though he was certain there was no one else he liked and admired half so much. But in the following winter he went to spend the holidays with the Mandisons, and when he came away he and Mary were engaged.
The next summer the Mandisons took a cottage at the shore, and Windham went to spend some weeks with them. Idly busy and calmly happy in the pleasant company of Mary and all the friendly house, the sunny days slipped by till one came that disturbed his dream. An aunt of Mary's arrived with her husband, Dr. Saxon, and his niece, Agnes Maine. At the first glance Miss Maine challenged Windham's attention. She was a tall and striking person, with a keen glance that he felt took his measure at the first look. She piqued his curiosity, and interested him more and more.
One day he saw her and Mary together, and caught himself comparing them, not in Mary's favor. Panic seized him, and he turned his back on Miss Maine and devoted himself to Mary. Miss Maine went to stay with some neighbors, the Colemans. One night she was caught at the Mandisons by a storm. Mary asked Windham to entertain her, and he went and asked her to play chess. She declined coldly, and Windham turned away with such a look that Mary wondered what Agnes could have said so unkind. And the next day Miss Maine spoke so gently to him that it warmed him all through. Still he persistently avoided her.
The Colemans got up a play in the attic of their large old house. On the night of the performance the place was crowded. The first two acts went off smoothly.
Windham had been helping to shift the scenes, and was standing alone, looking over the animated spectacle as the audience chatted and laughed. Something in the play had made him think of Agnes Maine, though she was not in the cast, and he had not seen her. Suddenly, without any notice of her approach, she stood close to him, looking in his face. Her face was paler than usual, and her eyes had a startling light in them. She said only half a dozen low words, but they made him turn ghastly white. What she said was:
"The house is on fire down-stairs."
He stood looking at her an instant, long enough to reflect that any alarm would result in piling those gay people in an awful mass at the foot of the one steep and fragile stairway. The stage entrance was little better than an enclosed ladder, and not to be thought of.
"Go and stand at the head of the stairs," he said to her.
The bell rang for the curtain to rise, but he slipped back behind it, and it did not go up. Instead, Jeffrey Coleman appeared before it, bowing and smiling with exaggeration, and announced that the continuation of the performance had been arranged as a surprise below-stairs, and would be found even more exciting and interesting than the part already given. The audience were requested to go below quickly, but at the same time were cautioned against crowding, as the stair was rather steep and temporary. As they did not start at once, he came off the stage and led the way, going on down the stairs, and calling gayly to the rest to follow.
Windham had got to the stairhead by this time. Agnes Maine stood there, on one side, looking calm and contained, and he took up his position on the other, and followed the cue given by young Coleman. He began to call out, extolling the absorbing and thrilling character of the performance down-stairs, with the extravagant epithets of the circus posters, laughing all the while. He urged them on when they lingered, and restrained them when they came too fast, addressing one and another with jocularity, laying his hands on some and pushing them on with assumed playfulness, keeping up the fire of raillery with desperate resistance. When screams were heard now and then from below, he made it appear to be only excited feminine merriment, directing attention to it, and calling out to those yet to come:
"You hear them? Oh, yes; you'll scream, too, when you see it!"
All the time, though his faculties were sufficiently strained by the effort he was making, he was watching Agnes Maine, who stood opposite, doing nothing, but looking her calm, pale self, and now and then smiling slightly at his extravagant humor. And he thought admiringly that her simple quiet did more to keep up the illusion than all his labored and violent simulation.
It seemed as if there never would be an end to the stream of leisurely people who answered his banter with laugh and joke. But finally the last of them were fairly on the stair, and he turned to Agnes Maine with a suddenly transformed face.
"Now—be quick!" he called.
But she gave a low cry, looking away toward the farther end, where she caught sight of a young couple still lingering. She ran toward them, calling to them to hurry, and as they did not understand, she took hold of the girl, and made her run. Windham had followed her, and the four came together to the stairhead, but there they stopped, and the young girl broke into wild screams. The foot of the stairway was wrapped in smoke and flames.
There was an observatory upon the house, into which Windham had once gone with Jeffrey Coleman, and he turned to it now, and made the three go up before him. He stopped and cut away a rope that held some of the hangings, and took it up with him. Miss Maine was standing with her arm about Fanny Lee, whom she had quieted.
"Had she better go first?" he asked.
"Yes, of course," Miss Maine answered.
He fastened the rope about the girl, assured her they would let her down safely, and between them they persuaded her, shrinkingly, to let herself be swung over, and lowered to the ground. In this Miss Maine gave more help than young Pritchard, who shook and chattered so much as to be of little use. And as soon as the girl was down and Windham turned toward Miss Maine, Pritchard took a turn of the rope around the railing, with a hasty knot, went over, and slid down it, out of sight. But before he reached the ground, the rope broke loose, and slipped out of Windham's grasp as he tried to catch it.
A cry came up from below. Windham turned toward Miss Maine, and they looked at one another, but said nothing. She was very pale and still. Windham glanced down and around; the fire was already following them up the tower. He made her come to the other side, where the balcony overhung the ridge of the sloping roof, got over the railing, and helped her to do the same, and to seat herself on the narrow ledge outside, holding on by the bars with her arms behind her. He let himself down by his hands till within two or three feet of the roof, and dropped safely upon it. Then he stood up, facing her just below, braced himself with one foot on each side of the ridge, and told her to loosen her hold and let herself fall forward. She did so, and he caught her in his arms as she fell.
It was a struggle for a minute to keep his balance; and whether in the involuntary stress of the effort, or by an instinctive impulse, conscious or otherwise, he clasped her close for a moment, till her face touched his own. Then he put her down, and they sat on the ridge near each other, flushed, and short of breath. Below, on the lawn, a throng of people looked up at them, some motionless, some gesticulating, and some shouting in dumb show, their voices drowned in the fierce roar and crackling that raged beneath the roof and shut in the two above it in a kind of visible privacy. They were still a while; then Agnes asked: "Can we do anything more?"
"No," he answered, "nothing but wait."
Both saw that men were running for ladders and ropes. Presently he asked quietly:
"Why did you come to me?"
She looked up at him for a moment, then answered:
"I suppose I thought you would know what to do."
"Thank you," he said, in a grave, low voice.
After a little the tower blazed out above them, and they moved along the ridge till stopped by a chimney, against which he made her lean. Then they sat still again. The flames rose above the eaves on one side, and flared higher and hotter. Soon they grew scorching, and Agnes said, with quickened breathing:
"We couldn't stay here long."
He looked at her, and the side of her face toward the fire glowed bright red. He took off his coat, moved close to her, and held it up between their faces and the flames; and they sat together so, breathing audibly, but not speaking, till the head of a ladder rose suddenly above the eaves, and a minute later the head and shoulders of Jeffrey Coleman. He flung a rope to Windham, who in another minute had let Miss Maine slip down by it to the ladder; then, throwing a noose of it over the chimney, he slid down himself to the eaves, and so to the ground.
Miss Maine stood waiting for him, pale and trembling now, but said nothing. Mary Mandison was with her; she had made no scene, and made none now.
But there were sharper eyes than Mary's. That night, as Windham strolled on the lawn alone, Dr. Saxon confronted him, grimly puffing at his pipe. Then he said:
"I thought you were an honest fellow."
Windham leaned against a tree.
"I want to be," he said feebly.
"Then you'll have to look sharp," the doctor retorted. "You'd better go fishing with me up-country in the morning."
He went, Mary making him promise to return in time for an excursion to Blackberry Island which he had helped her plan. He got back the night before; and in the morning the party set out, some going round the shore by stage, and some in the boat down the bay.
Miss Maine went with those in the boat, and Windham went with Mary in the stage. Both on the way and after their arrival, he stayed by her, and did all he could to be useful and amusing.
They lunched on a grassy bank, in the shade of a cliff, by a tumbling brook that streamed down from the rocks. By and by Mary remarked that she would like to see where the little torrent came from, and Windham said he would try and find out for her. He scrambled up, and soon passed out of sight among the bowlders. He found some tough climbing, but kept on, and after a while traced the stream to a clear pool where a spring bubbled out of a rock wall in a cave-like chamber near the top.
As he reached its edge, he caught sight of the reflection in the pool of a woman's white dress; and, glancing up, saw Agnes Maine standing a little above him, on a sort of natural pedestal, in a rude niche at one side. She looked so like a statue that she smiled slightly at the confused thought of it which she saw for an instant in his face, but she turned grave then as their eyes met for a moment in a look of intimate recognition. Then he turned his away, with a sudden terror at himself, and leaned back against the wall, white in the face.
She stepped down and passed by him. He half put out his hand to stop her, but drew it back, and she partly turned at the gesture, but went on out of his sight.
He stood there for some time; then climbed down the rocks again, shaping his features into a careless form as he went, and came back to Mary with a forced smile on his face. But he forgot what he had gone for, and looked confused when Mary asked him if he had found it. And she commented:
"Why, Philip, what has happened? You look as if you had seen a ghost."
"I have," he answered.
Mary asked no more, except by her look. Some one came and proposed a sail, and Windham eagerly agreed, and went out in the boat with Mary and others.
They sailed down the bay. On the return the wind died away, and when they got back, the stage had gone with more than half the party, and Agnes Maine was not among those who were waiting. They came on board, and the boat headed away for home.
After landing they had to walk across some fields. When near the house, Mary missed something, and Windham went back for it. He had to cross the road, and as he came near it the stage passed along, with its merry company laughing and singing. They did not notice him among the trees, but he distinctly saw all who were in the open vehicle, and Miss Maine was not among them.
She had climbed up the cliff by a gradual, roundabout path; and after Windham saw her, she had wandered on, lost herself for a while, and got back after both stage and boat had left, each party supposing she had gone with the other.
Windham found a row-boat and started back. He knew nothing about boats; but the bay was very smooth, it was yet early, and he got across in due time. As he neared the island he saw her, in her white dress, standing on the bluff, and looking out toward him.
Off the shore, rocks and bowlders stood thickly out of the water, and Windham threaded his way in among them, thinking nothing of those underneath. The skiff was little better than an egg-shell, being built of half-inch cedar; and before he knew what had happened, the point of a sunken rock had cut through the bows, and the boat was filling with water. With a landsman's instinct, he stood up on a thwart; the boat tipped over and went from under him. In the effort to right it, he made a thrust downward with one of the oars, but found no bottom; and the next minute Agnes saw him clinging to the side of a steep rock, with only his head and shoulders out of water.
She did not cry out; but after he had struggled vainly to get up the rock, and found no other support for foot or hand than the one projection just above him, by which he held, he looked toward her as he clung there out of breath, and saw her eagerly watching him from the water's edge. And her voice showed the stress of her feeling, though it was quite clear when she called:
"Can't you climb up?"
"No, there is nothing to hold by."
"Can you swim?"
"No."
She looked all about, then back to him. There was no one in sight; the island was out of the lines of communication, and a point just north of them shut off the open water. But she saw that the reef to which Windham clung trended in to the shore a little way off, and she called:
"I think I can get out to you—keep hold till I come."
She ran along the beach, but not all the way. As soon as she was opposite a part of the reef that seemed accessible, she walked straight into the water, and made her way through it, though it was two or three feet deep near the rocks. He saw her clamber upon them and start toward him, springing from one to another, wading across submerged places, climbing around or over the higher points. And even there, in his desperate plight, as he watched her coming steadily toward him, her eyes fixed on the difficult path, and her skirt instinctively gathered a little in one hand, the sight of her fearless grace thrilled through him, and filled him with despairing admiration.
She came presently to the edge of a wider gap with clear water beneath, and paused for an instant. Windham called out:
"Don't jump; you'll be lost!"
She looked at him a moment, studied the rocks again, stepped back, then forward quickly, and sprang across. She slipped and fell, but got to her feet again, and came on as before. She went out of Windham's sight, but in another minute he heard a rustle above him, looked up, and saw her standing very near the edge, and looking down at him, panting a little, but otherwise calm.
"Don't stand there; you will fall!" he called to her.
She kneeled down and tried to reach over, but could not. She raised herself again, and looked all around anxiously, but saw no one; she had not seen any one since she left him hours before on the cliff. She looked down at him and asked:
"Can you hold on long?"
"No," he answered, "not very long."
She moved back and lay down on the rock, with her face over the edge. It was wet and slippery, and inclined forward, so that she had to brace herself with one hand by a projection just below the brink. Lying so, she could reach down very near him.
"Take hold of my hand," she said.
He raised one arm with an effort, so that she caught him by the wrist, and his fingers closed about hers. She tried to pull him up slowly, but he felt that it was hopeless, and would only result in drawing her off the rock; so he settled back as before. He noticed that she had given him her left hand, and saw that there was another reason besides the necessity of bracing herself with her right. Her wrist was cut and bleeding.
"Oh, you are hurt!" he exclaimed.
"Never mind," she replied; "that is nothing."
He looked up in her face with passionate regret. Her lips were parted, and her breathing came quick and deep. He felt in her wrist the hot blood with which all her pulses throbbed, and it went through him as though one current flowed in their veins. Her eyes looked full into his, and did not turn away till the lashes trembled over them suddenly, and tears gushed out upon her face. An agony of yearning took hold of Windham and wrung his heart.
"Agnes, do you know?" he asked.
And she answered, "Yes."
When she could see him again, drops stood out on his forehead, and his eyes looked up at her with a despairing tenderness. Her lips closed, and her features settled into a look of answering resolve.
"You must not give up," she urged. "Don't let go of my hand."
"Oh, I must!" he answered. "You couldn't hold me; I should only draw you down."
She neither looked away nor made any reply.
"It would do no good," he went on. "I should only drown you too."
"I don't care," she answered. "I will not let you go."
"Oh, Agnes!" he responded, the faintness of exhaustion creeping over him, and mingling with a sharp but sweet despair.
Mary was standing at the door when the stage arrived, and she saw that Agnes was not there. She took one of her brothers who was a good boatman, and started back at once. When their boat rounded the point of the island she was on the lookout, and was the first to see the two they came to succor none too soon. And before they saw her she caught sight, with terrible clearness, of the look in the two faces that were bent upon one another. It was she who supported Windham until Agnes could be taken off, and preparations made for getting him on board; but she turned her eyes away, and did not speak to him.
On the way back she hardly noticed the dreary and draggled pair, who had little to say for themselves. Many things that had puzzled and troubled her ranged themselves in a dreadful sequence and order now in her unsuspicious mind. On their arrival she made some arrangements for their comfort, quietly; then went to her room, and did not come down again.
Windham left early in the morning, went straight back to Dr. Saxon, and told him the whole story.
"I hardly know whether I'm a villain or not," Windham concluded.
"You might as well be," the doctor growled. "You've been a consummate fool, and one does about as much harm as the other. Go home now and stay there; and don't do anything more, for heaven's sake, until you hear from me."
Windham went home, and was very miserable, as may be supposed. Hearing nothing for some time, he could not bear it, and wrote to Mary that he honored and admired her, and thought everything of her that he ever had or could. In a week he got this reply:
"Mary Mandison has received Philip Windham's letter, and can only reply that there is nothing to be said."
This stung him more deeply than silence, and he wrote that he was going to see her on a certain day, and begged her not to deny him. He went at the time, and she saw him, simply sitting still, and hearing what he had to say. He hardly knew what to say then, but vowed and protested, and finally complained of her coldness and cruelty. She replied that she was not cold or cruel, but only, as she had told him, there was nothing to be said. In the end he found this was true, and rushed away in despair.
Mary had seemed calm; but when her mother came in that afternoon and looked for her, she found her in her room, lying on her face.
When she knew who it was, she raised herself silently, looked in her mother's face a moment, put her arms about her neck, and hid her hot, dry eyes there as she used to do when a child.
Late that night those two were alone together in the same place, and, before they parted, the mother said:
"You were always my brave child, and you are going to be my brave Mary still."
And Mary answered with a low cry:
"Yes—yes; but not now—not now!"
For a good while Windham felt the sensation of having run headlong upon a blank wall and been flung back and crippled. But the feeling wore itself out as the months passed.
It was nearly a year before he heard from Dr. Saxon, and he had given up looking for anything from him, when he received a cold note, inviting him to call at the doctor's home, if he chose, at a certain date and hour. At the time set he went to the city, and rang the doctor's bell as the hour was striking.
He was shown into the library, and when the door closed behind him, he fell back against it. Dr. Saxon was not the only person in the room; at the farther end sat Agnes Maine. She knew nothing of his coming; and when she glanced round and saw him, she stood up and faced him, with her hands crossed before her, her breathing quickened, and her face flushed blood-red.
The old doctor leaned back and looked from one to the other, studying them openly and keenly. When he was satisfied, he ordered Windham to take a chair near the window and told Agnes she might go out. She faced him a moment; then went away with her straight, proud carriage. The doctor finished something he was at, then got his pipe and filled and lighted it, backed up against the chimney-piece, and stood eying Windham with something more than his usual scowl.
"Well, young man," he asked, finally, "what did you come here for?"
"I came here because you asked me to."
"No, sir; you didn't," the old man retorted. "I said you might come if you liked."
Windham stood up, trembling, and replied with suppressed passion:
"I came on your invitation. I did not come to be insulted."
"Tut, tut," the doctor rejoined. "You needn't be so hoity-toity; you haven't much occasion; sit down. Have you been making any more of your 'mistakes,' as you call them?"
Windham answered emphatically: "No!"
"Are you going to?" the doctor continued.
"No, sir; I am not," Windham replied, with angry decision.
"Well, I wouldn't; you've done enough," the doctor commented roughly. "You call it a mistake, but I call it blind stupidity, worse than many crimes. Mary is worth three of Agnes, to begin with; but it would be just as bad if she were a doll or a dolt. Any fellow out of swaddling-clothes, who has brains in his body, and isn't made of wood, ought to know that passion is as hard a fact as hunger, and no more to be left out of account. You were bound to know the chances were that it would have to be reckoned with, first or last, and you deliberately took the risk of wrecking two women's lives. I don't say anything about your own; you richly deserve all you got, and all that's coming to you. If law could be made to conform to abstract justice, it would rank your offence worse than many for which men pay behind bars."
He went out abruptly, and after a few minutes returned with Agnes, who came in lingering, and apparently unwilling.
"Here, Agnes, I am going out," he said. "I've been giving this young man my opinion of him, and haven't any more time to waste. You can tell him what you think of him, and send him off."
He went out, and banged the door after him. Agnes leaned against it, and stood there downcast and perfectly still. Windham sat sunk together, as the doctor had left him, waiting for her to speak. But she did not, and after a while he got up and stood by the high desk, looking at her. Finally he spoke low:
"Are you going to scold me, too? Mary has discarded me, and your uncle says I am a miserable sinner, and ought to be in the penitentiary. I don't deny it; but if I went there it would be for your sake. Do you condemn me, too? Have you no mercy for me?"
A flush spread slowly over her pale face. Then she replied softly:
"No, I have no right. I am no better than you."
Two or three hours later Dr. Saxon sat at his desk, when Agnes entered and came silently and stood beside him. He did not look up, but asked quietly:
"Well, have you packed him off?"
"No," she answered under her breath; "you know I haven't."
He smiled up at her. This gruff old man had a rare smile on occasion for those he liked. And he said:
"Well, he isn't the worst they make; he's got spirit, and he can take a drubbing, too, when it's deserved. I tried him pretty well. Didn't I fire into him, though, hot shot!" He fairly grinned at the recollection. "I had to, you know, to keep myself in countenance. I suppose I said rather more than I meant—but don't you tell him so."
She smiled. "I have told him so already; I told him you didn't mean a word you said."
"You presumptuous baggage!" The doctor scowled now. "Then you told him a tremendous fib. I meant a deal of it. Well, he'll get his deserts yet, if he gets you, you deceiving minx. I told him one thing that was true enough, anyway"—he smiled broadly again—"I told him Mary was worth half a dozen of you."
Agnes turned grave, and put down her head so that she hid her face.
"So she is," she answered. "Oh, I'm very sorry—and ashamed!"
"Well, well," the old doctor responded soberly, stroking her cheek, "it is a pity; but I suppose it can't be helped. Mary's made of good stuff, and will pull through. It wouldn't do her any good if three lives were spoiled instead of one. It's lucky she found out before it was too late."