_ PART III CHAPTER XVII. AN OLD FRIEND
"There!" said Daisy, standing back from the table to review her handiwork with her head on one side. "I may be outrageously childish, but if Blake fails to appreciate this masterpiece of mine, I shall feel inclined to turn him out-of-doors, and leave him to spend the night on the step."
Muriel, curled up in the old-fashioned window-seat, looked round with her low laugh. "It's snowing hard," she remarked.
Daisy did not heed her. "Come and look at it," she said.
The masterpiece in question consisted of an enormous red scroll bearing in white letters the words: "Welcome to the Brave."
"It never before occurred to me that Blake was brave," observed Daisy. "He is so shy and soft and retiring. I can't somehow feel as if I am going to entertain a lion. He ought to be here by this time. Let's go and hang my work of art in the hall."
She slipped her hand through Muriel's arm, and glanced at her sharply when she felt it tremble.
"It will be good to see him again, won't it?" she said.
"Yes," Muriel agreed, but there was a little tremor in her voice as well.
Very vividly were the circumstances under which she had last seen this man in her mind that night. Eight months that were like as many years stretched between that tragic time and the present, but the old wild horror had still the power to make her blood turn cold, the old wound had not lost its ache. These things had made a woman of her before her time, but yet she was not as other women. It seemed that she was destined all her life to live apart, and only to look on at the joys of others. They did not attract her, and she had no heart for gaiety. Yet she was not cold, or Daisy had not found in her so congenial a companion. But even Daisy seldom penetrated behind the deep reserve that had grown over the girl's sad young heart. They were close friends, but their friendship lay mainly in what they left unsaid. For all her quick warmth, Daisy too had her inner shrine--a place so secret that she herself never entered it save as it were by stealth.
But something of Muriel's mood she understood on that bitter night in January on which they awaited the coming of Blake Grange, and her close hand-pressure conveyed as much as they passed out together into the little hall that glowed so snugly in the firelight.
"He is sure to be frozen, poor boy," she said. "I hope Jim Ratcliffe won't forget to send the motor to the station as he promised."
"I am quite sure he never forgets anything," Muriel declared, with reassuring confidence.
Daisy laughed lightly. "Yes, he's very dependable, deliciously solid, isn't he? A trifle domineering perhaps, but all doctors are. They rule us weak women with a rod of iron. I am a little afraid of Dr. Jim myself, and most unfortunately he knows it."
Muriel's silence expressed a certain scepticism that provoked another laugh from Daisy. She was almost frivolously light-hearted that night.
"It's a fact, I assure you. Have you never noticed how docile I am in his presence? I always feel as if I want to confess all my sins to him. I should like intensely to have his opinion upon some of them. I think it would do me good."
"Then why not ask for it?" suggested Muriel.
"For the reason aforementioned--a slavish timidity." Daisy broke off to carol a few bars of a song. "I've known the Ratcliffe family ever since I became engaged to Will," she said presently. "Jim Ratcliffe, you know, was left his guardian, and he was always very good to him. Will made his home with them and he and Nick are great pals, just like brothers. I should think Dr. Jim had his hands full with the two of them." Again Daisy stopped to sing. Muriel was stooping over the fire. It was seldom that Nick's name was mentioned between them, though the fact that Daisy had placed herself and her baby in the hands of his half-brother formed a connecting link which could not always be ignored. She always dropped into silence when a reference was made to him. Not in the most casual conversation had Daisy ever heard her utter his name.
Having successfully fixed her message of welcome in a prominent position, she joined the girl in front of the fire. Her face was flushed and her eyes were sparkling. Muriel thought that she had never seen her look so well or so happy.
"You're quite excited," she said.
Daisy put up a hand to her hot cheek. "Yes, isn't it absurd? I hope Dr. Jim won't come with him, or he will be cross. But I can't help it. Blake and I have been chums all our lives, and of course I am glad to see him after all this while. So nice, too, not to have Lady Bassett looking on."
There was a spice of venom in this, over which Muriel smiled in her sad way.
"Does she disapprove?" she asked.
Daisy nodded impatiently. "She chose altogether to overlook the fact that we are first cousins. It was intolerable. But--" again came her light laugh--"everything is intolerable till you learn to shrug your shoulders and laugh. Hark! Surely I heard something!"
Both listened intently. Footsteps were approaching the door. Daisy sprang to open it.
But it was only the evening post, and she came back holding a letter with a very unwonted expression of disappointment.
"From Will," she said. "I forgot it was mail night. I don't suppose there is anything very exciting in it."
She pushed the flimsy envelope into the front of her dress and fell again to listening.
"Can he have missed the train? Surely it's getting very late. A fog on the line perhaps. No! What's that? Ah! It really is this time. That's the horn, and, yes, Jim Ratcliffe's voice."
In a moment she had the door open again, and was out upon the step crying welcome to her guest.
Muriel crouched a little lower over the fire. Her hands were fast gripped together. It was more of an ordeal than she had thought it possibly could be.
An icy blast blew in through the open door, and she heard Dr. Ratcliffe's voice, sharp and curt, ordering Daisy back into the house. Then came another voice, slow and soft as a woman's, and for an instant Muriel covered her face, overwhelmed by bitter memory.
When she looked up they were entering the hall together, Daisy, radiant, eager, full of breathless questioning; Blake, upright, soldierly, magnificent, wearing the shy, pleased smile that she so well remembered.
He did not at once see her, and she stood hesitating, till Daisy, who was clinging to her cousin's arm, turned swiftly round and called her.
"Muriel, dear, where are you? Why are you hiding yourself? See, Blake! Here is Muriel Roscoe! You knew we were living together?"
He saw her then, and came across to her, with both hands outstretched.
"Forgive me, Miss Roscoe," he said, with his pleasant smile. "You know how glad I am to meet you again."
He looked down at her with eyes full of frank and friendly sympathy, and the grasp of his hands was such that she felt it for long after. It warmed her through and through, but she could not speak just then, and with ready understanding he turned back to Daisy.
"Dr. Ratcliffe told me you had sent him to fetch me from the station," he said. "I am immensely grateful to you and to him."
Daisy was greeting the doctor with much animation and a hint of mischief.
"I knew you would come," she laughed. "You never trust me to take care of myself, do you?"
He brushed some flakes of snow from her dress. "Events prove me to be justified," he remarked dryly. "Since Will has put you in my care, I labour under a twofold responsibility. What possessed you to go out in that murderous north-easter?"
He frowned at her heavily, his black brows meeting, but notwithstanding her avowal of a few minutes before, Daisy only grimaced in return. He was generally regarded as somewhat formidable, this gruff, square-shouldered doctor, with his iron-grey hair and black moustache, and keenly critical eyes. There was no varnish in his curt speech, no dissimulation in any of his dealings. It was said of him that he never sugared his pills. But his popularity was wide-spread nevertheless. His help was sought in a thousand ways outside his profession. To see his strong face melt into a smile was like sunshine on a gloomy day, the village mothers declared.
But Daisy's gay effrontery did not manage to provoke it at that moment.
"You have no business to take risks," he said. "How's the boy?"
Daisy sobered instantly. "His teeth have been worrying him rather to-day. _Ayah_ is with him. I left her crooning him to sleep. Will you go up?"
Jim Ratcliffe nodded and turned aside to the stairs. But he had not reached the top when Muriel overtook him, moving more quickly than was her wont.
"Let me come with you, doctor," she said.
He put his hand on her arm unceremoniously. "Miss Roscoe," he said, "I have a message for you--from my scapegrace Olga. She wants to know if you will play hockey in her team next Saturday. I have promised to exert my influence--if I have any--on her behalf."
Muriel looked at him in semi-tragic dismay. "Oh, I can't indeed. Why, I haven't played for ages,--not since I was at school. Besides--"
"How old are you?" he cut in.
"Nearly twenty," she told him. "But--"
He brought his hand down sharply on her shoulder. "I shall never call you Miss Roscoe again. You obtained my veneration on false pretences, and you have lost it for ever. Now look here, Muriel!" Arrived at the top of the stairs, he stood still and confronted her with that smile of his that so marvellously softened his rugged face. "I am thirty years older than you are, and I haven't lived for any part of them with my eyes shut. I've been wanting to give you some advice--medical advice--for a long time. But you wouldn't have it. And now I'm not going to offer it to you. You shall take the advice of a friend instead. You join Olga's hockey team, and go paper-chasing with her too. The monkey is a rare sportswoman. She'll give you a good run for your money. Besides, she has set her heart on having you, and she is a young woman that likes her own way, though, to be sure, she doesn't always get it. Come, you can't refuse when a friend asks you."
It was difficult, certainly, but Muriel plainly desired to do so. She had escaped from the whirling vortex of life with strenuous effort, and dragged herself bruised and aching to the bank. She did not want to step down again into even the minutest eddy of that ruthless flood. Moreover, in addition to this morbid reluctance she lacked the physical energy that such a step demanded of her.
"It's very kind of your little daughter to think of asking me," she said. "But really, I shouldn't be any good. I get tired so quickly. No, there's nothing the matter with me," seeing his intent look. "I'm not ill. I never have been actually ill. Only--" her voice quivered a little--"I think I always shall be tired for the rest of my life."
"Skittles!" he returned bluntly. "That isn't what's the matter with you. Go out into the open air. Go out into the north-east wind and sweep the snow away. Shall I tell you what is wrong with you? You're stiff from inaction. It's a species of cramp, my dear, and there's only one remedy for it. Are you going to take it of your own accord, or must I come round with a physic spoon and make you?"
She laughed a little, though the deep pathos of her shadowed eyes never varied. Daisy's merry voice rose from the lower regions gaily chaffing her cousin.
"Goodness, Blake! I shouldn't have known you. You're as gaunt as a camel. Haven't you got over your picnic at Fort Wara yet? You're almost as scanty a bag of bones as Nick was six months ago."
Blake's answer was inaudible. Dr. Ratcliffe did not listen for it. He had seen the swift look of horror that the brief allusion had sent into the girl's sad face, and he understood it though he made no sign.
"Very well," he said, turning towards the nursery. "Then I take you in hand from this day forward. And if I don't find you in the hockey-field on Saturday, I shall come myself and fetch you."
There was nothing even vaguely suggestive of Nick about him, but Muriel knew as surely as if Nick had said it that he would keep his word. _