Part 23 (1/2)
Your humble but sincere friend, JEAN HAY.
This letter Thora read to the last word but she was nearly blind when she reached it. All her senses rang inward. ”I am dying!” she thought, and she tried to reach the bed but only succeeded in stumbling against a small table full of books, knocking it down and falling with it.
Mistress Ragnor and her visitor heard the fall and they were suddenly silent. Immediately, however, they went to the foot of the stairway and called, ”Thora.” There was no answer, and the mother's heart sank like lead, as she hastened to her daughter's room and threw open the door. Then she saw her stricken child, lying as if dead upon the floor. Cries and calls and hurrying feet followed, and the unconscious girl was quickly freed from all physical restraints and laid at the open window. But all the ordinary household methods of restoring consciousness were tried without avail and the case began to a.s.sume a dangerous aspect.
At this moment Ragnor arrived. He knelt at his child's side and drew her closer and closer, whispering her name with the name of the Divine One; and surely it was in response to his heart-breaking entreaties the pa.s.sing soul listened and returned. ”Father,” was the first whisper she uttered; and with a glowing, grateful heart, the father lifted her in his arms and laid her on her bed.
Then Rahal gave him the two letters and sent him away. Thora was still ”far off,” or she would have remembered her letters but it was near the noon of the next day when she asked her mother where they were.
”Thy father has them.”
”I am sorry, so sorry!”
That was all she said but the subject appeared to distress her for she closed her eyes, and Rahal kissed away the tears that slowly found their way down the white, stricken face. However, from this hour she rallied and towards night fell into a deep sleep which lasted for fourteen hours; and it was during this anxious period of waiting that Ragnor talked to his wife about the letters which were, presumably, the cause of the trouble.
”Those letters I gave thee, Coll, did thou read both of them?”
”Both of them I read. Ian's was the happy letter of an expectant bridegroom. Only joy and hope was in it. It was the other one that was a death blow. Yes, indeed, it was a bad, cruel letter!”
”And the name? Who wrote it?”
”Jean Hay.”
”Jean Hay! What could Jean have to do with Thora's affairs?”
”Well, then, her conscience made her interfere. She had heard some evil reports about Ian's life and she thought it her duty, after yours and Thora's kindness to her, to report these stories.”
”A miserable return for our kindness! This is what I notice--when people want to say cruel things, they always blame their conscience or their duty for making them do it.”
”Here is Jean's letter. Thou, thyself, must read it.”
Rahal read it with constantly increasing anger and finally threw it on the table with pa.s.sionate scorn. ”Not one word of this stuff do I believe, Coll! Envy and jealousy sent that news, not grat.i.tude and good will! No, indeed! But I will tell thee, Coll, one thing I have always found sure, it is this; that often, much evil comes to the good from taking people out of their poverty and misfortunes. They are paying a debt they owe from the past and if we a.s.sume that debt we have it to pay in some wise. That is the wisdom of the old, the wisdom learned by sad experience. I wish, then, that I had let the girl pay her own debt and carry her own burden. She is envious of Thora. Yet was Thora very good to her. Do I believe in her grat.i.tude? Not I! Had she done this cruel thing out of a kind heart, she would have sent this letter to me and left the telling or the not telling to my love and best judgment. I will not believe anything against Ian Macrae!
Nothing at all!”
”Much truth is in thy words, Rahal, and it is not on Jean Hay's letter I will do anything. I will take only Ian's 'yes,' or 'no' on any accusation.”
”You may do that safely, Coll, I know it.”
”And I will go back to Edinburgh with him and see his father. Perhaps we have all taken the youth too far on his handsome person and his sweet amiability.”
”Thou wrote to his father when Thora was engaged to him, with thy permission.”
”Well, then, I did.”
”What said his father?”
”Too little! He was cursed short about all I named. I told him Thora was good and fair and well educated; and that she would have her full share in my estate. I told him all that I intended to do for them about their home and the place which I intended for Ian in my business, and referred him to Bishop Hedley as to my religious, financial, social and domestic standing.”
”Why did thou name Bishop Hedley to him? They are as far apart as Leviticus and St. John. And what did he say to thee in reply?”
”That my kindness was more than his son deserved, etc. In response to our invitation to be present at the marriage ceremony, he said it was quite impossible, the journey was too long and doubtful, especially in the winter; that he was subject to sea-sickness and did not like to leave his congregation over Sunday. Rahal, I felt the paper on which his letter was written crinkling and crackling in my hand, it was that stiff with ecclesiastic pomp and spiritual pride. I would not show thee the letter, I put it in the fire.”