Sisters

by Ada Cambridge

He slackened speed at this spot, touched by the beauty of the scene, which could hardly have appealed in vain to any man who had just had a good dinner. How peacefully the still water lay under the shining moon—that moon which is capable of making, not soft young lovers only, but the toughest old stagers sentimental—nay, maudlin—at times; an intoxicant purged of the grossness of spirituous liquors, but acting on the brain in precisely the same way. Mr Goldsworthy, already uplifted by good Redford wine, felt the effect of the lovely night in dim poetic stirrings of his sordid little soul. He mused of God and heaven, and the other things that he made sermons out of, in a disinterested, unprofessional way, these being the lines along which his imagination worked. "Surely the Lord is in this place," was the unspoken thought, elevating and inspiring, with which he surveyed the placid lake and the dreaming hills; and "it is good for me to be here," he felt, even at the cost of a Redford bed and breakfast, and the choice vegetables that the gardener would have put into his buggy in the morning.

But what was this? A boat adrift! From out of the shadow of the white shed on the further shore a black spot moved—one of the boats that should have been locked up, since no one was allowed to use them without Mr Pennycuick's permission. It came into the open moonlight, into the middle of that silver mirror, and he saw that oars propelled it, and saw the figure of the person wielding them. Who had dared to take this liberty with sacred Redford property? he wondered, with the indignation of a co-proprietor; and he assumed a poacher after the fish that Mr Pennycuick had been trying with characteristic perseverance and unsuccess to naturalise in his dam. But looking harder, the clergyman saw the figure rise in the boat, and that it was a woman's. Almost at the same instant he saw that it had disappeared. Seizing whip and reins, he lashed his mare to a gallop along the embankment and down its steep side, where she nearly upset him, and round the lake shore—the buggy rocking like a cradle—to the point nearest to the boat, now visibly adrift and empty. He jumped to the ground, tore off his coat and vest (which had a valuable watch attached), flinging them and his hat, and presently his boots, into the buggy; and with a word of warning to the mare, he plunged into the water to the rescue of some poor fool whom as yet he had not identified.

He returned to shore with Mary Pennycuick in his arms. Spent and panting from his struggle, and awed by the tragical significance of the affair, his heart exulted at his deed. He thanked God that he had been in time—with a fervour proportionate to her rank and consequence—and anticipated the splendid reward awaiting him as the benefactor of the great family, entitled to their full confidence and eternal gratitude. But also he was filled with solicitude for the poor girl.

She was unconscious when he laid her down on the grass, but choked and moaned when he set to work to revive her, and realised that she was back in life and misery after he had succeeded in getting some whisky down her throat—contents of the flask he always carried, as a preventive of chills and remedy for undue fatigues, and from which he had first helped himself. They sat upon the ground side by side, his arm round her waist, her head—feeling only that it was cushioned somewhere—on his shoulder. The night was so warm and windless that their wet clothes were little discomfort to them, but he kept grasping and wringing handfuls with the hand at liberty, while he supported her with the other. The danger of damp "things" was more terrifying to him now than the danger of death had been a few minutes ago.

"There, there," he said soothingly, "you feel better now—don't you? Then I'll just put on my coat, if you don't mind. I'll wrap you up in the buggy rug—and we'll get back to Redford as soon as we can. And in the morning, dear, you'll wake up sorry for this—this madness, and you'll never do it again, will you?"

"Hysteria," he said to himself. "Her head turned by this love affair. He's treated her badly, whatever they may say, and it has unhinged her mind."

This thought disposed him to be gentle with her when she positively refused to be taken back to Redford.

"Leave me here," she implored him. "I cannot go home! I will not go home! My father told me he wished I was dead. Oh, I should have been dead now if you had left me alone, and then they would have been satisfied, and I should have been out of my misery, which is more than I can bear. Oh, Mr Goldsworthy, don't—don't!" "Mad as a hatter, poor thing," he thought, as he desisted from his effort to raise her. "Why, her father thinks the world of her!"

But something had to be done. It was unwise to use force in these cases—nor could he have brought himself to use it—and of course he could not leave her at the dam, or leave her at all, while she was in her present mood, and without other protection; at the same time, it was imperatively necessary that he should get out of his wet clothes—her also. He mentioned this latter fact, and it was touching to see her own careful housewifely instincts assert themselves through all her mental agony.

"Oh, you ARE wet," she mourned, feeling him—it did not matter about herself; "oh, I am so sorry! Do—do go home at once, and take them off, and have something hot before you go to bed."