A Knight of the Nets by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (christmas read aloud txt) 📖

enough to carry her forward.

At last, at last, she came in sight of Janet's cottage. The cliff terrified her; but she must get up it, somehow. And as she painfully made step after step, a light shone through the open door and seemed to give her strength and welcome. Janet had been spending the evening with her daughter, and had sat with her until near her bedtime. She was doing her last household duties, and the last of all was to close the house-door. When she went to do this, a little figure crouched on the door-step, two weak hands clasped her round the knees, and the very shadow of a thin, pitiful voice sobbed:--

"Janet! Take me in, Janet! Take me in to die! I'll not trouble you long--it is most over, Janet!"


CHAPTER XI


DRIVEN TO HIS DUTY

Toward this culmination of her troubles Archie had indeed contributed far too much, but yet not as much as Sophy thought. He had taken her part, he had sought for her, he had very reluctantly come to accept his mother's opinions. His trip had not been altogether the heaven Madame represented it. The Admiral had proved himself dictatorial and sometimes very disagreeable at sea; the other members of the party had each some unpleasant peculiarities which the cramped quarters and the monotony of yacht life developed. Some had deserted altogether, others grumbled more than was agreeable, and Marion's constant high spirits proved to be at times a great exaction.

Before the close of the pleasure voyage, Archie frequently went alone to remember the sweet, gentle affection of his wife, her delight in his smallest attentions, her instant recognition of his desires, her patient endeavours to please him, her resignation to all his neglect. Her image grew into his best imagination, and when he left the yacht at her moorings in Pittendurie Bay, he hastened to Sophy with the impatience of a lover who is also a husband.

Madame had heard of his arrival and was watching for her son. She met him at the door and he embraced her affectionately, but his first words were, "Sophy, I hope she is not ill. Where is she?"

"My dear Archie, no one knows. She left your home three weeks after you had sailed."

"My God, Mother, what do you mean?"

"No one knows why she left, no one knows or can find out where she went to. Of course, I have my suspicions."

"Sophy! Sophy! Sophy!" he cried, sinking into a chair and covering his face, but, whatever Madame's suspicions, she could not but see that Archie had not a doubt of his wife's honour. After a few minutes' silence, he turned to his mother and said:--

"You have scolded for once, Mother, more than enough. I am sure it is your unkindness that has driven my wife from her home. You promised me not to interfere with her little plans and pleasures."

"If I am to bear the blame of the woman's low tastes, I decline to discuss the matter," and she left the room with an air of great offence.

Of course, if Madame would not discuss the matter with him, nothing remained but the making of such inquiries as the rest of the household could answer. Thomas readily told all he knew, which was the simple statement that "he took his mistress to her aunt's and left her there, and that when he returned for her, Miss Kilgour was much distressed and said she had already left." Archie then immediately sought Miss Kilgour, and from her learned the particulars of his wife's wretchedness, especially those points relating to the appropriated letter. He flushed crimson at this outrage, but made no remark concerning it.

"My one desire now," he said, "is to find out where Sophy has taken refuge. Can you give me any idea?"

"If she is not in Pittendurie,--and I can find no trace of her there,--then I think she may be in Edinburgh or Glasgow. You will mind she had cousins in Edinburgh, and she was very kind with them at the time of her marriage. I thought of them first of all, and I wrote three letters to them; but there has been no answer to any of the three. She has friends in Glasgow, but I am sure she had no knowledge as to where they lived. Besides, I got their address from kin in Aberdeen and wrote there also, and they answered me and said they had never seen or heard tell of Sophy. Here is their letter."

Archie read it carefully and was satisfied that Sophy was not in Glasgow. The silence of the Edinburgh cousins was more promising, and he resolved to go at once to that city and interview them. He did not even return to Braelands, but took the next train southward. Of course his inquiries utterly failed. He found Sophy's relatives, but their air of amazement and their ready and positive denial of all knowledge of his lost wife were not to be doubted. Then he returned to Largo. He assured himself that Sophy was certainly in hiding among the fisher-folk in Pittendurie, and that he would only have to let it be known that he had returned for her to appear. Indeed she must have seen the yacht at anchor, and he fully expected to find her on the door-step waiting for him. As he approached Braelands, he fancied her arms round his neck, and saw her small, wistful, flushing face against his breast; but it was all a dream. The door was closed, and when it admitted him there was nothing but silence and vacant rooms. He was nearly distracted with sorrow and anger, and Madame had a worse hour than she ever remembered when Archie asked her about the fatal letter that had been the active cause of trouble.

"The letter was Sophy's," he said passionately, "and you knew it was. How then could you be so shamefully dishonourable as to keep it from her?"

"If you choose to reproach me on mere servants' gossip, I cannot prevent you."

"It is not servants' gossip. I know by the date on which Sophy left home that it must have been the letter I wrote her from Christiania. It was a disgraceful, cruel thing for you to do. I can never look you in your face again, Mother. I do not feel that I can speak to you, or even see you, until my wife has forgiven both you and myself. Oh, if I only knew where to look for her!"

"She is not far to seek; she is undoubtedly among her kinsfolk at Pittendurie. You may remember, perhaps, how they felt toward you before you went away. After you went, she was with them continually."

"Then Thomas lies. He says he never took her anywhere but to her aunt Kilgour's."

"I think Thomas is more likely to lie than I am. If you have strength to bear the truth, I will tell you what I am convinced of."

"I have strength for anything but this wretched suspense and fear."

"Very well, then, go to the woman called Janet Binnie; you may recollect, if you will, that her son Andrew was Sophy's ardent lover--so much so, that her marriage to you nearly killed him. He has become a captain lately, wears gold buttons and bands, and is really a very handsome and important man in the opinion of such people as your wife. I believe Sophy is either in his mother's house or else she has gone to--London."

"Why London?"

"Captain Binnie sails continually to London. Really, Archie, there are none so blind as those who won't see."

"I will not believe such a thing of Sophy. She is as pure and innocent as a little child."

Madame laughed scornfully. "She is as pure and innocent as those baby-faced women usually are. As a general rule, the worst creature in the world is a saint in comparison. What did Sophy steal out at night for? Tell me that. Why did she walk to Pittendurie so often? Why did she tell me she was going to walk to her aunt's, and then never go?"

"Mother, Mother, are you telling me the truth?"

"Your inquiry is an insult, Archie. And your blindness to Sophy's real feelings is one of the most remarkable things I ever saw. Can you not look back and see that ever since she married you she has regretted and fretted about the step? Her heart is really with her fisher and sailor lover. She only married you for what you could give her; and having got what you could give her, she soon ceased to prize it, and her love went back to Captain Binnie,--that is, if it had ever left him."

Conversation based on these shameful fabrications was continued for hours, and Madame, who had thoroughly prepared herself for it, brought one bit of circumstantial evidence after another to prove her suspicions. The wretched husband was worked to a fury of jealous anger not to be controlled. "I will search every cottage in Pittendurie," he said in a rage. "I will find Sophy, and then kill her and myself."

"Don't be a fool, Archibald Braelands. Find the woman,--that is necessary,--then get a divorce from her, and marry among your own kind. Why should you lose your life, or even ruin it, for a fisherman's old love? In a year or two you will have forgotten her and thrown the whole affair behind your back."

It is easy to understand how a conversation pursued for hours in this vein would affect Archie. He was weak and impulsive, ready to suspect whatever was suggested, jealous of his own rights and honour, and on the whole of that pliant nature which a strong, positive woman like Madame could manipulate like wax. He walked his room all night in a frenzy of jealous love. Sophy lost to him had acquired a sudden charm and value beyond all else in life; he longed for the morning; for Madame's positive opinions had thoroughly convinced him, and he felt a great deal more sure than she did that Sophy was in Pittendurie. And yet, after every such assurance to himself, his inmost heart asked coldly, "Why then has she not come back to you?"

He could eat no breakfast, and as soon as he thought the village was awake, he rode rapidly down to Pittendurie. Janet was alone; Andrew was somewhere between Fife and London; Christina was preparing her morning meal in her own cottage. Janet had already eaten hers, and she was washing her tea-cup and plate and singing as she did so,--

"I cast my line in Largo Bay, And fishes I caught nine; There's three to boil, and three to fry, And three to bait the line,"

when she heard a sharp rap at her door. The rap was not made with the hand; it was peremptory and unusual, and startled Janet. She put down the plate she was wiping, ceased singing, and went to the door. The Master of Braelands was standing there. He had his short riding-whip in his hand, and Janet understood at once that he had struck her house door with the handle of it. She was offended at this, and she asked dourly:--

"Well, sir, your bidding?"

"I came to see my wife. Where is she?"

"You ought to know that better than any other body. It is none of my business."

"I tell you she has left her home."

"I have no doubt she had the best of