Complete Works of Bram Stoker (61 page)

You wouldn’t leave me, Dick, if it was I who was hurt - would you, now?’

“Wall, I should smile!’ said Dick.

Then why should I leave you?’ Dick scratched his head; logic and reason failed him as they have failed many a man when arraying them against the strength of a woman’s resolve. Besides, Esse had a very forcible argument on her side; in his helpless condition it was utterly impossible that he should oppose any of her wishes. Accordingly, when Esse bent over to lift him, he gave the best aid in his power by throwing his strong arms round her shoulders, and so placing his weight that she could most easily carry him.

And, strange to say, she did carry him all the way home. It is true that the struggle seemed an endless one, and that over and over again she felt that she could have lain down and died of sheer fatigue. But it was for life and death, and to men and women who have true grit great needs give great endeavour. They bring out all that is royal in their natures, from physical strength to highest nerve and psychic power, so that such strength as Nature has manifested to them can be used to the full. Dick suffered a simple martyrdom; for the constant struggle of the weary girl, and her want of usage in such effort, seemed to thrill through the very marrow of his bones, and made the broken leg a veritable torture. But he was a generous and chivalrous soul, and never once in all the long weary hours that followed their outset for home did he utter a groan. Even when, every now and again, the pain overmastered him to such a degree that he swooned, he did not make any sign, but took his swoon like a gentleman, and sank into it, and awoke from it, without a sign to add to the torture, both mental and physical, which the poor devoted girl, who was struggling on his behalf, endured. Over and over and over again had Esse to set down her burden and rest, her heart panting wildly, and her knees trembling so sorely that she felt that she would be unable even to raise her precious burden again. But each time her spirit rose to the new endeavour, and she attacked the task before her with a fresh energy which surprised herself as much as it did Dick, who helped her loyally to the very best of his power. His heart seemed never to flag or falter, and at times, whilst she sat beside him panting and in almost utter collapse, his ready laugh would ring out to cheer her. She was not even conscious of his swooning, for each time she spoke to him her voice seemed to recall him to waking sense, and he resumed the thread of his own endeavour to cheer her up.

The sun had long set, and the forest paths were dim - like cathedral aisles in the night, when the light through great windows just steals in to show the gloom as an existing thing - when they began to emerge from the depths of the wood and to enter on the steep rise that led to the plateau. Here the moon rose, sailing high in the heavens, and its cheering light gave Esse, now tired almost to unconsciousness, a new lease of strength. With feverish energy she toiled up the steep incline, spurred on by something of the same feeling which quickens the pace of a returning horse, or cheers a spent swimmer who hears the dash of waves on a welcome shore. At the top her arms relaxed, and Dick, now quite unconscious, sank to the ground; and for a little while she lay beside him almost as unconscious as he was.

Suddenly she seemed to wake to the fact that Dick was deathly still, and, forgetting for the moment her own awful tiredness, she sprang to her feet, and, putting her hands to her mouth, sent out a shout for help which rang across the plateau and reached the anxious household, which awaited her with vague apprehension, shared by all, but which none dared to utter.

With answering shouts they all ran out, some bearing lanterns, and came to where she stood beside Dick’s body. Her mother screamed when she saw her, for she was indeed but a sorry sight.

The struggle, and the constant forcing a way through undergrowth, had tumbled her hair and thrown it, wild and dishevelled, over her shoulders, and the dust of the forest had grimed her damp face, which also was smeared with blood. The hours of strong effort had kept her own wounds and Dick’s open, and from top to toe the white dress in which she had started out - all that was left of it - was smeared, if not drenched, with blood. The flashing lanterns threw into harsh relief the red stains which the falling moonlight had softened, and though the wild picturesqueness of her figure seemed to heighten the effect of her manifest vitality, it could not comfort the heart of her mother, who saw in every item of it danger and pain, and all sorts of unknown possibilities of horror. Recognising the look in her mother’s face, Esse said quickly:

‘I am all right, mother. It was the bears, but they are both dead. Look to Dick! he is badly wounded, and I had to carry him home!’ and even as she spoke she reeled and would have fallen, only that the strong arms of her old nurse held her up. By this time Le Maistre was kneeling by Dick. Presently he turned round and said:

‘He is not dead! I can feel his heart beat! Run for some Indians to carry him to the house!’ And without a word, off started Miss Gimp - who up to now had stood wringing her hands - glad of an opportunity to be of some service. Mrs Le Maistre murmured to Mrs Elstree:

‘Some Indians to carry him, and the dear child carried him all by her poor self up the mountain!’

The Indians were on the spot in a very few minutes, but by this time Dick had recovered his senses, under the stimulant of a little whiskey, and was telling in his own way of the accident and his rescue. At first Esse had tried to put in a word of protest when his praise seemed excessive, but she was by far too exhausted to argue, and Dick’s words seemed to have a far-away, pleasing music of their own as he went on:

‘I followed the b’ar an’ missed him, but see his mate eatin’ honey. As I seen her, an’ fired, I see Little Missy sittin’ beside the log, an’ that put out my aim, an’ the old lady came jumpin’ for me before I could draw a bead on her. She hit out, and crumpled up my shootin’-iron quicker nor I could see; so I had just time to whip out my bowie, and drive at her before she came at me, an’ busted my leg into matches, an’ tumbled over me with my knife in her heart, pinning me down everlastingly. Then while Little Missy was tryin’ to raise me up the old-man b’ar came whirlin’ along; but Little Missy went boldly up to him, and threw her nose-rag in his eye, and while he was clawin’ it off, she up with her derringer, and gave it him in the face. He’d just got near enough to rip her tucks out, and scratch her a bit before he went under. Then Little Missy she tackled me like a little hero, as she is, an’ dragged the b’ar off my sore leg, an’ took an’ splinted me up and carried me here like I was a rabbit. Blest, but she’s the all-firedest, bravest, kindest, staunchest comrade from the Rockies to the sea! She wouldn’t leave me, no, sir! but took me up here all by her little self; an’ I’d have died any way, only for her, half-a-dozen different ways - God bless her!’ then he said in a whisper to Le Maistre:

‘Take me home, quick, old man! I’m racked with pain, and nigh dead, and its torture keepin’ it up afore the women folks. I’ll be better when I get to my cabin!’ Mrs Elstree, who was just bending over, heard the last word, and said:

‘You’ll go to no cabin, but to my house, and be nursed. I’d like to know what Esse would have done if you hadn’t killed the bear; and, whether or no, I wouldn’t let you go anywhere else. So that ends it!’

‘All right, all right; thank ye much!’ said Dick resignedly. Te’ll forgive me marm, for my manners, but I ain’t pannin’ out much in that way just now, owin’ to contrairey circumstances!’ And so the Indians took him up, and carried him to the house, previous to their going off to the glade, by his emphatic instructions, to get the skins and claws of the two grizdies, and to bring back the cubs.

For the next few days Esse was obliged to keep her bed, so that she did not know, and was barely in a condition to know, exactly how Dick progressed. The terrible strain, both mental and physical, which she had undergone, brought on a sort of fever; but good nursing, and a little antipyrine, finally ousted the fever, and she was allowed to get up. She had of course heard in the interim of Dick’s condition, and was anxious to be allowed to assist in the nursing. When she was seated in the balcony, and felt the freshness of the breeze sweeping down from the white summit of Shasta, she had a long talk with her mother on all the events that had passed. First, she learned that Dick was going on as well as could be expected, for his wound was a terrible one, and the hardship of his home-bringing, which she had effected with such nobility of purpose, had much aggravated the original evil. When he had been taken into the house, Le Maistre, who had some little knowledge of surgical dressing, had unbound the bandaging in order to reset it in a more finished manner, but, finding it in good order, waited more skilled assistance. An Indian runner had been sent with a letter to the Doctor at Ashland, and twenty-four hours later he had appeared on the plateau, and had brought to Dick’s aid the latest academic skill. When he saw Esse’s improvised splint he shook his head, but on his unwinding the bandage, and seeing how well his patient was getting on, he grew enthusiastic on the subject of the mechanical ability displayed in the improvisation. With genuine amazement he learned that it had been effected, under unheard-of conditions, by a young lady who had never seen a broken limb in her life. His wonderment increased when he was told that the slight, pale girl whose pulse he had just felt in the veranda had herself carried the huge bulk of the wounded man up the side of the mountain.

Dick’s splendid physique stood him in good stead, and the ruthless stretching of his leg when he was pulled from under the bear, combined with the almost miraculous accident of the rude splints being placed in exact position, had already begun the cure. The Doctor happily prognosticated that within a month, if all went well, Dick would be on the high road to recovery, if not able to move about a little.

‘We can never tell,’ he said ‘what will happen in the way of recovery with a man like that. His simple life, with his great energy and his plain living, make recovery seem extraordinary to town-bred men. But we must not judge of his health and recovery by the standard of the towns, but rather by the animals, who simply lie quiet and lick their wounds, and are running about again when a man is beginning to realise that he is helpless!’

Miss Gimp had been up to this the head-nurse, with Mrs Elstree as a relief; but Esse now joined the nursing staff. Her mother was not altogether satisfied about it, but did not like to make any objection just at present. She was beginning to have an uneasy feeling that perhaps Esse had seen too much of Dick at her impressionable age, though, as yet, she did not imagine that there could be anything serious arising out of their unchecked companionship. But out of her uneasiness came one certain thing - the complete realization that Esse was no longer the child that she had hitherto considered her. She was a woman now, for good or ill; and whatever she thought or did was from the standpoint of a woman, and would have to be adhered to with a woman’s constancy, or abandoned with a woman’s resolve. Esse had by this time told her mother all the incidents at the killing of the bears, and she could not but see that the circumstance of her own life being saved by Dick - for, with woman’s imagination, she realised more than any other episode the agonised waiting till the bear should discover her before Dick came - was an important step in the growth of a romantic affection. She realised as a still stronger one the fact, as Dick repeated to all over and over again, with increasing freedom of speech and added emphasis of delivery, about her saving his life. Mrs Elstree therefore thought that to forbid the girl the sick room would be to beget or increase a desire to see the man, which might develop later into something more serious.

So Esse sat with Dick daily, reading or talking to him whilst he was awake, which was always charming to her; and watching him whilst he slept, which was a much more dangerous pleasure, for then her memory and imagination worked together to weave romances which she durst not think when his eyes were on her, and which were not nearly so real when she was alone. The closed eyelids could not take note of blush or pallor, and had no terror for the maiden spirit in its hour of stress.

Dick was distinctly an interesting invalid. There are men who look their worst under such circumstances, and whose natural petulance under pain or restraint destroys any charm which their weakness may have for the feminine mind, but Dick was not such. There was about him a large-hearted patience and a masculine dominance, on which illness seemed to have no effect. Miss Gimp, who was a born nurse, kept him so clean, and his room so picturesque with summer flowers, that even the memory of his personal carelessness died away from Esse’s mind. More than ever the man who had saved her, and whom she had saved, and with whom she had undergone the adventure so sweet to look back upon, became idealised in all those smaller details with which the romantic simulacrum in a woman’s mind is in some degree built up. His great amusement at this time was to polish the bears’ claws, and to drill them in a particular way, until finally he made a magnificent necklace of them, which he handed over to Esse, telling her that they were fairly hers as she had won them.

When the time of convalescence came, Esse became herself head-nurse. At least, all the labour of amusing the patient seemed to devolve on her. She sat by his side in the veranda reading to him and playing draughts or chess, all of which pastimes were dangerous enough; or often listening to his stories of adventure, which was a thousand times more dangerous. After a while Mrs Elstree came to understand something of the feelings of Brabantio, as he afterwards reflected on the method of Desdemona’s wooing by Othello - with the exception that she assured herself that in no way had Dick the smallest intention of making love. Had she known the deeper strata of human passion she would not have so easily thrown aside her fears with a sigh of relief, for the very indifference of the man to the girl’s preference, so palpable to the mother’s eye, was perhaps the one element remaining to complete the daughter’s fascination. Mrs Elstree was, however, a wise woman within her own limitations, and as the summer was drawing to a close she determined not to take any notice at present of what was going on, but to let affairs run their course till the return to San Francisco. She felt that it would be a less dangerous course than doing anything whilst there was present the opportunity, in the shape of Dick, of matters coming to a head prematurely.