I Was Not In Love With Her, But Extremely Curious
To Know Who She Really Was And How She Came To Be A "Daughter," Or In
The Hands Of These Unlikely People.
For it was really one of the
strangest things I had ever come across up to that early period of my
life.
Since then I have met with even more curious things; but being
then of an age when strange things have a great fascination I was bent
on getting to the bottom of the mystery. However, it was in vain;
doubtless the fat woman suspected my motives in calling on her and
sipping mate and listening to her talk, for whenever I mentioned her
daughter in a tentative way, hoping it would lead to talk on that
subject, she quickly and skilfully changed it for some other subject.
And at last seeing that I was wasting my time, I dropped calling, but
to this day I am rather sorry I allowed myself to be defeated.
And now once more I must return for the space of two or three pages to
the brother white house before saying good-bye to both.
For it had come to pass that while my investigations into the mystery
of Dovecot House were in progress I had by chance got my foot in Cannon
House. And this is how it happened. When the old Admiral whose ghostly
image haunted me had received his message and vanished from this scene,
the house was sold and was bought by an Englishman, an old resident in
the town, who for thirty years had been toiling and moiling in a
business of some kind until he had built a small fortune. It then
occurred to him, or more likely his wife and daughters suggested it,
that it was time to get a little way out of the hurly-burly, and they
accordingly came to live at the house. There were two daughters, tall,
slim, graceful girls, one, the elder, dark and pale like her old
Cornish father, with black hair; the other a blonde with a rose colour
and of a lively merry disposition. These girls happened to be friends
of my sisters, and so it fell out that I too became an occasional
visitor to Cannon House.
Then a strange thing happened, which made it a sad and anxious home to
the inmates for many long months, running to nigh on two years. They
were fond of riding, and one afternoon when there was no visitor or any
person to accompany them, the youngest girl said she would have her
ride and ordered her horse to be brought from the paddock and saddled.
Her elder sister, who was of a somewhat timid disposition, tried to
dissuade her from riding out alone on the highway. She replied that she
would just have one little gallop - a mile or so - and then come back.
Her sister, still anxious, followed her out of the gate and said she
would wait there for her return. Half a mile or so from the gate the
horse, a high-spirited animal, took fright at something and bolted with
its rider. The sister waiting and looking out saw them coming, the
horse at a furious pace, the rider clinging for dear life to the pummel
of the saddle. It flashed on her mind that unless the horse could be
stopped before he came crashing through the gate her sister would be
killed, and running out to a distance of thirty yards from the gate she
jumped at the horse's head as it came rushing by and succeeded in
grasping the reins, and holding fast to them she was dragged to within
two or three yards of the gate, when the horse was brought to a
standstill, whereupon her grasp relaxed and she fell to the ground in a
dead faint.
She had done a marvellous thing - almost incredible. I have had horses
bolt with me and have seen horses bolt with others many times; and
every person who has seen such a thing and who knows a horse - its power
and the blind mad terror it is seized with on occasions - will agree
with me that it is only at the risk of his life that even a strong and
agile man can attempt to stop a bolting horse. We all said that she had
saved her sister's life and were lost in admiration of her deed, but
presently it seemed that she would pay for it with her own life. She
recovered from the faint, but from that day began a decline, until in
about three months' time she appeared to me more like a ghost than a
being of flesh and blood. She had not strength to cross the rooms - all
her strength and life were dying out of her because of that one
unnatural, almost supernatural, act. She passed the days lying on a
couch, speaking, when obliged to speak, in a whisper, her eyes sunk,
her face white even to the lips, seeming the whiter for the mass of
loose raven-black hair in which it was set. There were few doctors,
English and native, who were not first and last called into
consultation over the case, and still no benefit, no return to life,
but ever the slow drifting towards the end. And at the last
consultation of all this happened. When it was over and the doctors
were asked into a room where refreshments were placed for them, the
father of the girl spoke aside to a young doctor, a stranger to him,
and begged him to tell him truly if there was no hope. The other
replied that he should not lose all hope if - then he paused, and when
he spoke again it was to say, "I am, you see, a very young man, a
beginner in the profession, with little experience, and hardly know why
I am called here to consult with these older and wiser men; and
naturally my small voice received but little attention."
By-and-by, when they had all gone except the family doctor, he informed
the distracted parents that it was impossible to save their daughter's
life.
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