Chapter XXXII: The Man at Last

GRACE was not on the couch where she had lain so long, but was sitting in a chair by the stove. Her face was hidden in her hands, and she appeared to be weeping bitterly. Plainly the bad news had already been told to her, and Bertha clenched her hands hard at the thought of the pain she must be suffering. But the amazing thing was that a frail old man knelt at her feet, his straggling white hair hanging down on the collar of his coat, his hands clasped in entreaty, while he was speaking in a high-pitched wavering voice, pleading as if his life depended on his gaining the thing for which he asked.

“Say, is there enough goodness and charity in your heart to enable you to forgive an old man who has sinned so sorely, that if you will not forgive him, perchance he will lack forgiveness from heaven also? I was mad with jealousy that Tom should prefer an invalid wife and a houseful of little helpless children to me and the power my money could give him. I have had so little love in my life, and by my folly I have flung away what I might have had. But now, if you will forgive me for the sake of the holy dead, I promise you that want shall never touch you nor those children who call him father. Ah, I would not help him when I could, and now it is my punishment that he will not know how sorely I have repented my hardness towards him.” The old man’s white head dropped lower on his upraised hands, and a choking sob broke from him which was echoed by Grace.

Eunice and the children were not to be seen, but from the sounds which came to the ears of Bertha, as she stood hesitating on the threshold, she guessed that Eunice was trying to keep them quiet in the bedrooms until the visitor had had his interview with their mother.

But who could this old man be? Then at the same moment she recognized him as the old man whom she had taken care of when he was ill on the train during her journey out west, and at once she knew that he must be Tom’s Uncle Joe, the queer old man who had cast his nephew off, yet who seemed to be always hanging round on the offchance of making up with him again.

Grace must be comforted. That was the one thought in Bertha’s mind, as she stepped quickly across the floor and, pushing the old man to one side with very little ceremony, knelt down and wound her arms with a loving pressure about Grace.

“Oh, my dear! my dear! I have tried so hard to get home to tell you all about it myself, and it is dreadful to think that you should have had to hear it from someone else! But, Grace, dear Grace, don’t believe it all just at the first, because it might not be true, you know,” said Bertha, bringing her words out in a great hurry, and speaking of the hope to which she herself clung, yet without any previous intention of doing so; for both she and Edgar Bradgate had decided that it was not kind to let Grace indulge in any hope which had no chance of proving true.

“Bertha, Bertha, it can’t surely be true! It is too ghastly and horrible! Why, I have been expecting Tom every day since the snow went away, and now to be told that he will never come home at all—oh, it is too hard to bear!” wailed the invalid, clinging to the girl’s slight figure with the desperation of despair.

“Then keep on expecting him until we are quite sure,” whispered Bertha, in loving encouragement. “There can be no harm in hoping until there is no longer anything to hope for. Of course it was a kind thought of this—this gentleman to come and tell you the bad news, but on the whole it will be kinder not to insist on your believing it just yet.”

“I did not come solely to tell the bad news, but to assure the widow of my dear nephew that I would take care of her and her helpless children for the sake of the dear dead,” said the old man, with trembling tones, it is true, but with so much arrogance of manner, because of the favour he had it in his power to bestow, that Bertha was stung into impetuous speech.

“Grace will not be an object of charity, nor will she need that you should take care of her for the sake of her husband. I shall take care of her for her own sweet sake, and because, when my mother died, she came and took care of me,” she said, tumbling her words out in a great hurry, and getting very red in the face from indignation at what she deemed the horrible patronage in the old man’s manner.

He held up his hands in a meekly protesting fashion.

“Oh, my dear, you have a long life before you in which you may do kind acts to anyone you please, and lay up for yourself a harvest of blessedness for the years to come. But I have only a few years to live at the most, and there is no time for me to make amends for all the wrong things that I have done, but I want to gather just a little love for myself before my barren life comes to an end, so do not refuse to let me help at least in providing the necessary money to keep the home going.”

The note of wistful pleading in the old man’s tone at once melted Bertha’s resentment against him, and she gently guided him to a chair on the other side of the stove. “Sit down and rest a little; there will be plenty of time in which to decide what it is best to do when we are quite sure that Tom really died in that frozen-out camp. But just now Grace is tired, and must stay quiet for a while.”

“Thank you, yes; and I will rest too, for I also am tired,” he answered, submitting to be put into the chair as if he were a child, and then he sat leaning back with his eyes closed, and looking so frail that Bertha became suddenly anxious on his account; for this was just how he had looked that day when he was taken ill on the train.

“Oh, Bertha, what a comfort it is to have you back again!” cried Grace; and then she said anxiously, “But poor Eunice is in there with the children. I asked her to take them out of the way when Uncle Joe first began to speak, and I do not think that she heard anything about it. But she must be told. Can you tell her, dear?”

Bertha nodded, and, crossing the room, opened the bedroom door, where Eunice was doing her best to keep the children from making a forcible rush out upon the visitor who was talking to their mother.

“Dicky, there is a gentleman out in the barn trying to unhitch that black horse which Bill Humphries drives over here sometimes. I wish that you would go and help him. Take Molly with you, and ask the gentleman if he will unhitch the pair as well,” said Bertha, and, nothing loath, the two eldest dashed straight through the kitchen and out-of-doors without staying to bestow a single glance upon their mother or the frail old man who sat in the chair on the far side of the stove. They were followed by the twins and sturdy little Noll, so Bertha and Eunice were left alone.

“Bertha, what has that old man come to tell Mrs. Ellis? Is it anything about the Expedition?” asked Eunice, her face sharpened into anxious lines.

“Yes, there is news, and bad news, but Inspector Grant is sending reliable men to investigate, and it will be seven weeks, or perhaps two months, before we can know for certain,” said Bertha, coming to the point without any delay, because she realized that it was the kindest thing to do.

Eunice shivered and turned white, but she did not faint or give way to hysterical ravings. Those women of the west had to face grave issues too often to be strangers to death or disaster, so she was silent for a little time, and then she said: “I am so thankful that you have come home, because now I can go back to Pentland Broads to—to be ready for anything that may come.”

“Yes, you will be able to go back now, that is, to-morrow morning; but, unless I am much mistaken, you and I shall have our hands full to-night with that poor old man out yonder. He is an old uncle of Tom’s. He is nearly frantic about this bad news, and I have seen him like this before, for he is the old man who was so ill on the train when we were snowed up on my journey out west.”

Bertha had struck a right note when she spoke of the need there might be for the help of Eunice in taking care of Uncle Joe; for it seemed to quiet her directly and to take away the eager desire to be gone which had come to her on hearing the evil tidings.

“I was just beginning to get supper ready when he came, and oh, Bertha, he behaved like a man distraught,” said Eunice, in a whisper, and then she followed Bertha back to the outer room, where the two of them laid Grace back on her couch, and then began active preparations for supper, for with extra people to feed it was necessary to set about preparing the meal for them.

“How did you come?” asked Eunice, putting aside her own pain and anxiety, which must perforce wait for seven or eight weeks before it could be made into certainty of any kind. It was there all the time, but was pushed into the background for the sake of other people.

The old man took no notice of either of them, but sat with his eyes shut, while they moved softly to and fro between the stove and the table, until the daylight began to merge into the shades of night. Then the door burst open and the children trooped in, dragging Edgar Bradgate with them.

“I have unhitched all the horses, and, if you will permit me to shake down in the barn, I think it will be better for me not to attempt the journey on to Pentland Broads to-night,” he said, addressing himself in courteous tones to Bertha, after he had been duly presented to Eunice. “That horse of Mr. Humphries has done a heavy day’s work, and is rather the worse for it, and the pair are just about spun out. Where have they been driven from, do you know?”

But Bertha only shook her head with a warning glance at the old man, who seemed to be dozing in the corner, and then she said that she feared Mr. Bradgate would find it very uncomfortable in the barn.

“It is a decidedly more palatial lodging than I had at Brocken Ridge,” he answered cheerfully. “Why, the men in the State prisons are far more comfortably lodged than we were. Now, if you will give me the pail, I will go and milk. I have already fed the pigs and the poultry under the guidance of Dicky.”

“It is very kind of you,” said Bertha, but she accepted his services without any protest; for where there was so much to be done it was only fair that each one should take his or her part, and she was anxious to spare Eunice as much as she possibly could.

It was not until supper was ready on the table that the old man roused himself, and then he appealed to Grace, as the head of the household, to know whether he might stay there all night, because he felt too ill and worn out to go any farther.

Grace gave one swift, imploring look at Bertha, and, reading what she wanted there, answered, with sweet cordiality: “Why, yes, Uncle Joe, of course we shall be very glad to have you, and I hope that you will not find the children too noisy for your comfort.”

“Thank you, my dear niece, thank you,” he said, then sat with his head drooped forward as before, while Bertha watched him uneasily, for just so had he sat on that day in the train before he had been taken ill.

Then Edgar Bradgate came in, carrying the pail with the evening’s milk, and she went with him into the little pantry, which was also storeroom, to put it away, then when he came back with her they sat down to supper.

“Don’t trouble; Noll and I can share chairs,” said Edgar, with a laugh, as he lifted the youngest of the Ellis children on to his knee, to save Eunice the trouble of fetching another chair from the bedroom.

It was then that the old man lifted his head, opened his eyes, and looked straight at Edgar. A curious change came over him then, and Bertha, who was looking at him, thought that he was going to have a fit.

For a moment he sat speechless, his face working strangely, then he sprang to his feet and hurled himself upon the astonished young man, who was nursing Noll, crying out in incoherent rage: “You—you thief, you thief! What have you done with my property, which you stole before my very eyes?”

Bertha sprang up also, her face very white. “Hush, hush, you will feel better soon!” she said soothingly.

But he pushed her aside with an impatient hand and, gripping Edgar by the coat, shook him savagely, as a dog shakes a rat which he is worrying to death.

“Where is my case of diamonds that you stole?” he shouted, his voice rising to a shriek of fury. “I say, what have you done with my diamonds? Worth two hundred thousand dollars they were, and you walked off with them as calmly as if they were your own, though I shouted and yelled until I was hoarse! What have you done with them? I say, what have you done with them?”

“Look here, try to be a little quieter, if you can, and tell me what you mean,” said Edgar, standing quite still and speaking in a soothing tone, for it was easy to see that the old man was in a state of dangerous excitement.

“Haven’t I told you already?” shrieked Uncle Joe, more furious than before. “I have searched for you everywhere! Your description has been posted up in every police barracks between here and Nova Scotia, and I knew that I should run you to earth at last, and you cannot escape me now!”