CHAPTER VI
A Wild Journey
It was over at last, and Bertha was on board the train which was to take her through to Winnipeg. In a certain sense it was a huge relief when the last goodbye was said and the long train of westward-bound cars drew away from the depot, leaving Hilda standing white-faced on the platform, while Bertha, with a smile which seemed frozen on her face, stood at the rear end of the car, watching until there was nothing more to be seen.
But the parting with Hilda, bad though it was, could not be compared with the pain of saying goodbye to Anne, who had been the head of the family and the mainstay of the home for so long. If Bertha had been the ordinary sort of girl, who looks upon change and upheaval as a welcome sort of diversion, she might not have suffered so keenly at this breaking up of home. Being cast in a different mould, and hating change as much as the domestic cat, she had to endure an exquisite torture of regret and longing in those last days at Mestlebury.
She had never even anticipated change, nor even supposed that any of them would marry. There were not very many educated young men in Mestlebury, and both Anne and Hilda had a trick of looking down upon the men with whom they came in contact as rather inferior sort of creatures; so it is not wonderful that Bertha had not taken their getting married into serious consideration. But Roger Mortimer was so different from any of the men she had been in the habit of meeting, that she did not wonder Anne liked him well enough to give up her sisters for his sake.
“But I—oh, I really believe that I hate him!” said Bertha to herself, with a little vindictive snap of her jaws, as the cars bore her out of sight of Hilda standing white and rigid on the platform, and the wide, wide world yawned to take her in.
“Hush, my dear, it ain’t right to hate anyone, specially when you are so young,” said a motherly body, who sat in the seat opposite, and who reached out a comforting hand to pat Bertha’s arm, as the poor girl dropped in a limp heap now that the strain of parting was over.
“Did I speak aloud? Oh, I am sorry; and you are quite right, I ought not to hate anyone, especially a good, kind man, but it is so horrid to say goodbye,” faltered Bertha, her lips quivering piteously, for she had much ado to keep from breaking down in childish crying.
“Ah, that it is!” The voice of the woman was wholly sympathetic, for she too had known what it was to suffer in similar fashion, and during the three days and nights they were together on the cars no one could have been kinder than she was to poor Bertha.
It was after Winnipeg was past, and she had changed into the cars that were to take her out to Rownton, which was the nearest point of railway to Mr. Ellis’s place, when the real loneliness began. The cars into which she had changed were not so comfortable as those she had left, the people were not so kindly, while, chiefest discomfort of all, a blizzard had set in which threatened to snow them up before they reached Rownton.
It was prairie now—a limitless stretch of snow as far as the eye could see on every side. But when the blizzard began it was not possible to see anything beyond the white smother which shut them in, while their progress was so slow that sometimes they hardly appeared to be moving at all. They had passed the Gilbert Plains Junction, and another three hours should have found Bertha at Rownton, when the train came to a standstill. A great buzz of talk broke out then, and everyone had some story to tell of snowed-up trains and the sufferings incidental to such a condition. But the conductor came along presently to give them what comfort he could, telling them that the engine had been taken off to drive the snow-plough, and that probably three or four hours would see them on the move again. There was an old man in the cars who aroused Bertha’s compassion; he was so very frail and feeble, and he looked so unfit to be travelling alone. He had a topcoat, but no scarf, and the keen wind which would penetrate the cars, despite red-hot stoves and shut windows, seemed to wither the poor old fellow with its rigours.