A Canadian Bankclerk Part 46

Evan laughed until his companion caught the contagion.

"They're well mated, Hazel--Castle and she."

"Yes, indeed."

When they were skimming through the bay in a canoe, Miss Morton's mind again reverted to Castle.

"Hasn't he always been a sn.o.b?" she asked.

"Don't mention him--it makes me sick to think of him. He takes it after his uncle, I think."

Nevertheless, Evan kept on thinking about the Castles, as he faced Hazel in the canoe, until at last and by degrees his story came out.

"Oh, the criminals!" cried Hazel. "Why do so many boys put up with it!.... Evan," she said earnestly, after a pause, "you have confided in me, now I want to confide in you." A canoe, it is said, affects people like that.

"It's something about Billy," she continued. "Will you tell me what I want to know?"

"If you ought to know, Hazel."

"Well, I should.... I--he--" The tears filled her eyes, and she seemed undecided whether to give them vent or wipe them away and be brave. She wiped them away.

"I left a good home and came here to work just so that I could be near him and help him. I've told him that I'll wait as long as I need to.

I didn't want to go to Toronto, because I knew everyone in Mt. Alban would then say I tagged Billy. I'm willing to wait, but Billy seems so discouraged at times I am often afraid he'll run away or do something rash. Tell me, Evan, is he all right? Does he drink or--anything?"

Evan tried to recall something Bill had said that would cheer the waiting girl, but could not think of anything. He did remember the lectures Watson had delivered on the follies of clerkship; but to Hazel they would only indicate recklessness and dissatisfaction. And, too, Bill did take a drink frequently; in fact, Evan suspected that he made a night of it occasionally to "drown his sorrow."

"Hazel," he said seriously, "Bill is one of the finest fellows I ever worked with. I'm sure he's honest and true. He hates Castle and Castle hates him: that's something to his credit--but it may keep him back in the bank. But he'll never be false to a friend or a girl, I'm sure of that."

The girl in the canoe looked wistfully at Nelson. "Somehow I wish you were working in the same office with him. I always felt as though you were--a solid sort of a chap, Evan."

The last few words were accompanied by a little laugh, to counteract the suspicion of flattery that clung to them. But for that feminine interpretation Evan might not have so fully appreciated her meaning.

He got a suggestion from her words: would it not be a good idea to write Bill and tell him of the evening spent with Hazel? It might give the slaving city-teller new vim for the eternity of figures and celibacy before him.

On Sunday Evan did write to Watson. He described Sat.u.r.day's pleasure excursions with Hazel, dwelling on the enjoyment it gave himself and upon the sincerity with which she spoke of "Billy." Evan meant the letter to appeal. He knew that Bill knew him and would not resent perfect candor, when properly mixed with the right brand of sympathy.

He thought, as he wrote, of the peculiar independence of character and cynicism of Watson; the combined traits amounting almost to recklessness. But he could not conceive of Bill's going wrong. He reflected that Hazel must love Bill, in spite of her fear that he was weak, and wondered at the tenderness of woman. Why was she so little considered in this world of business?

The Morton girl's companionship, quite naturally, took Nelson back to Mt. Alban, and Mt. Alban was only a few miles from Hometon and Frankie.

He did not consider it likely that Julia Watersea or Lily Allen were still thinking of him; but he sighed when a vision of Frankie, with blue skirt and cheap white waist like Hazel's, rose before him. He wrote her a letter, the first in months, wishing her well, but saying nothing of love. A dollar a day with board wasn't much, truly, to apply against the great debit of matrimony, and why mention love at all if it could not be consummated?

To Robb, the vegetable-man also wrote, and to A. P. Henty at his home village.

Sunday night Lizzie j.a.pers again fluttered her ribbons, and dropped a hint about church. Afraid of losing his job, Evan accepted the bait and walked with the fair Liz toward the altar. It must have been hard for the organist to keep his fingers off a wedding march when he saw, in his mirror, the pair walking up the aisle.

Days sped again. June was come. Blossoms were falling and berries grew larger on the vines and bushes. A forwarded note came from Hometon, rejoicing in the promotion Mrs. Nelson had read between the lines of her son's letter, and in the miraculous recuperation spoken of. Lou had enclosed a slip of paper confiding to her brother the opinion that she should have a fellow, being now eighteen, and asking him to seek out an eligible and bring him home for the summer holidays.

There was no word from Frankie. A fat, scrawly letter came from Henty.

"Dear Evan," it said, "after you left Banfield, old Penton was like a bear-cat. He tore around the office like something with the pip, took to chewing tobacco and spitting in the waste-baskets, and raised proper ---- with the pups. He came up to me one day with Uncle Harry looking out of his eyes and gave me a short biography of myself. I stood it as long as I could, and then I seemed to be pitching in an exciting ball game. My right hand shot out, and before I knew it Penton was lying down at my feet. When he got up he almost cried, and tried to tell me he was just fooling. I noticed that night that the guns were missing from the cage drawer, and fearing that Penton had them in store for me, I packed my grip and beat it. A fellow's foolish to take a chance with a guy like W. W. My father was glad to have me home. He consulted a lawyer about my bond, and the lawyer said the bank wouldn't dare do anything about it under the circ.u.mstances; he said it would make too much of a stir and would hurt business. I imagine they'll fire Penton over the head of it; but I hope Filter doesn't lose his job--it would kill him. I wish you were farming like me; it feels mighty good after office work. Write soon. A. P."

When his muscles had grown until he felt the vigor of school days returning, Evan began to look higher than rhubarb and asparagus tops; he even looked beyond the Mountain, and saw himself in an easy chair with a telephone at his elbow and a stenographer in front of him. He wrote an answer to quite a few advertis.e.m.e.nts in Toronto papers; those to which he got a reply asked for references, as did those written in answer to his own insertions. Disgusted, he stopped advertising and answering ads.

"By j.a.pers," he said to himself one day, "I'll beat it to Buffalo--there are no Canadian Banks over there!"

The idea took root in him. Also, he was counselled to leave the happy home of the Hamilton gardener by the actions of Elizabeth. She not only persisted in her cream-and-sugar attentions, but wheedled the "hired man" into taking her places, and finally began to speak of him as her "friend." Evan was willing to be friendly with most people, but the significant proprietorship implied in the tone with which Liz said "friend" was extremely discomfiting. The ex-clerk saw plainly that he must make a get-away.

Toronto offered nothing, neither did Hamilton; they were both bank strongholds. Buffalo, on the other hand, was in another country--a country to which almost every young Canadian turns his face, if not his steps, at one time or another. It was free from Canadian influence, a new world in fact, and yet only a short distance away. Inquiring at the ticket office as to fare, Evan learned that in two days there was an excursion to New York for only twice as much as the regular fare to Buffalo. New York! The name suggested adventure. Why not go there instead of Buffalo? It was only a night's or a day's journey from Toronto!

New York it would be! Evan sent the news sailing to Henty and Robb, but not home. Hometon would find it out when he had a position in the American metropolis. He called and bade Hazel Morton good-bye, and insisted on taking her out to the theatre. On their way home they dropped into a cafe for ice-cream. Again they met Miss Hall of Mt.

Alban. She stared hard at Evan while he was not looking, and kept whispering to her lady companion.

"We don't care, Hazel, do we?" said Nelson.

Miss Morton smiled:

"What if she should go back to the Mount and tell Julia?"

Evan felt his heart sink.

"Hazel," he said, with awe, "you're not serious, are you?"

"Are you, Evan?"

"No. Why, I haven't heard from her in months."

The Morton girl looked at him in surprise.

"Do you think," she asked, wide-eyed, "that months mean anything to a woman?"

He showed his distress unmistakably. Hazel at last began to laugh, softly, with increasing merriment.

"My dear boy," she said, "what a serious fellow you are! The girl who falls in love with you for good and all, well--"

He gazed at her questioningly, gradually feeling a load leave him, a load that he did not know he carried. Hazel was speaking:

"Julia had a habit of juggling with bankers' hearts. She's married now, you know."

CHAPTER XVIII.

_IN THE COUNTRY OF OUR COUSINS._

Hall's lawn was decorated with j.a.panese lanterns. The little Mt. Alban boys who pa.s.sed in the dusk wondered if the time would ever come in their lives when they should be eligible for a real garden-party. Such a wondrous condition seemed very far off, like Heaven. And the little girls who pa.s.sed peeked through the hedge, like fairies seeking admittance to a nymph gathering. There was no music as yet, for the evening had scarcely set in, but the tables were set and the lanterns threw a glimmer over the flower-beds and through the trees.

The party was, ostensibly, a welcome to the newly-married couple, James and Julia Watersea Simpson; actually it was to announce that Miss Sadie Hall had returned from Hamilton to accept the boredom of Mt. Alban again for a little season.

It is not for this bank story to enter upon details of that garden party; to spy on the sons of villagers behind dark balsams devouring cigarettes borrowed from the village cut-up; to play dictagraph to the gossips, or to hang around where the girls are chattering. However, there were characters at that lawn social more or less concerned in our story, and of whom we therefore ought to make mention.

Those characters occupied a place of prominence at the function, being seated close to Miss Hall herself. She was paying them flattering attention.