A Countess from Canada Part 11

"Well, it is a comfort to know that, although I have enemies, I have friends too; for such a warning could have come only from a friend," Jervis Ferrars remarked, frowning heavily.

"It was certainly meant in a friendly spirit, and, now you know, you will be careful," she said, and there was more entreaty in her tone than she guessed at, for she was remembering how indifferent to danger he had seemed when she was trying to rescue him from the flood that morning.

"Yes, I shall be careful. And, since to be forewarned is to be forearmed, thank you for telling me. I suppose this accounts for the old rascal going off this morning with the key of the hotel in his pocket."

"Did he do that?" she asked in a startled tone.

"Yes, I had been awake all night with the pain in my feet and in my limbs, and I was disposed to lie and sleep when morning came," Jervis Ferrars replied. "I heard him getting up very early, and asked him what was amiss, for I could hear a great row outside with the ice. He said there was nothing to be afraid of, for his house stood too high ever to be caught in a flood; but he had left a boat in an awkward place and must go and look after it. Then he went out. I heard him lock the door when he was outside. After that I went to sleep, and did not wake again until I heard you shouting, and found the water was nearly on a level with my bed."

Katherine shuddered. "It is too horrible even to think of! We should not have known that anyone was in the house who needed saving, if it had not been for Mrs. Jenkin screaming so loudly from the other bank."

"Then that is another friend; so apparently I have more friends than enemies after all, in which case I am not to be pitied," he said lightly; then asked: "Is that all the trouble-I mean so far as it concerns me?"

"It is all that I know, but I beg you to be careful, for Oily Dave is such a cowardly foe, who only strikes in the dark," she said earnestly.

"In which case I shall be safest when I keep in the light," the Englishman answered with a laugh. "By the way, how did the old fellow earn his t.i.tle? Was it given to him because he practically lives on lard?"

"I think it was given to him because he was known to help himself so largely to the fish oils which should have been the property of the fleet," she replied. "I did not even know that he was fond of lard, although I have suspected him nearly all winter of having stolen two pails of it from the store one night, when Miles had his back turned for a minute."

"That accounts for the bill of fare at his hotel then," Mr. Ferrars said with a laugh. "I have had nothing but lard and bread, sour heavy bread too, or lard and biscuit, or biscuit without the lard, since I arrived at Seal Cove. But I think he need not have charged such high prices for the stuff if he stole it!"

"No indeed!" exclaimed Katherine, with a thrill of indignation in her tone. "But why did you go to such a place? You would surely have been better off on one of the boats, or Mrs. Jenkin would have made room for you somehow, although her house is very small and fearfully crowded."

"It was part of the programme, don't you see? I came to be on the spot to stop the leakage, and, having given a pretty good guess as to where the leaky spot was, Mr. Selincourt told me to lodge, if possible, in the abode of Oily Dave."

"But you will not go back? Mr. Selincourt would not expect it of you," she said, a swift terror leaping into her eyes.

"No, I shall not reside under the roof of Oily Dave any longer," he answered. "But I shall remind him of that locked door, and various other things, some day when it suits me."

"What are you doing? Are you going to put it down in a book?" Katherine asked in surprise, as he drew out a pocket-book and began to write.

"Certainly! You are a woman of business, and must know that it is best to have facts down in black and white," he answered. Then, having finished with Oily Dave, he turned to the other side of the same book, and began questioning her about her father's condition before his seizure, and entering the answers in the same way.

"You think that Father will really rally again?" she asked, with a fear lest his former hopefulness about his patient was merely a.s.sumed to cheer Mrs. Burton, who had been plunged in dreadful grief all day.

"I am inclined to believe that he may recover to a certain extent, but I should have a much better idea of his chances if I knew more of his condition beforehand, especially his state of mind. Your sister says that he had no particular worries, nor anything to induce apprehension or acute anxiety. Is that your opinion also?"

The question found Katherine unprepared; she winced, then hesitated, not knowing what to say. He saw the trouble in her eyes, and paused with the pencil held between two fingers. "I am not asking from any desire to know the nature of the worry, if there was one; that would be quite immaterial in its effect on the issues. The thing that counts is to know if he were suffering from acute mental torture. If this be so, then it probably accounts for the seizure, and leaves him with a fair hope of recovery to a limited extent. If, on the other hand, his mind was perfectly placid and peaceful, then I am afraid you must expect the end in a few days, or a week at the furthest, for that would mean that nature is completely worn out, instead of just broken down by worry."

Katherine was white to the lips, and her voice sank to a whisper as she faltered: "Yes, he had acute anxiety, and a worry which wore him all the more because he hid it so carefully; but none of the others knew about it, only myself."

"Thank you! that sets matters on a more satisfactory basis," he said, "and I feel sure we shall see improvement in a few days."

"Will you please not mind telling the others what you have told me about the causes of his condition?" Katherine asked hurriedly. "Miles and Phil are so young, while Mrs. Burton has had too many troubles of her own. That was why Father talked more freely to me."

"There is no need to speak of it any more," he answered, with rea.s.suring kindness. "Now I want to know what arrangements we can make about the sickroom. Do you think the boys can sleep in the loft? Or, if that is too cold, shall we give them a shakedown here in the store?"

"I don't think the loft will be cold now the frost has gone," Katherine answered. "But Mrs. Burton meant that for you, because it is really the only quiet place we have."

"I am going to sit up with your father for the next few nights, but I can get a nap in the loft during the day. When my feet are better I shall have to be away in the boats a great deal, but until then I can be nurse in chief, and so free Mrs. Burton's hands for her other work," he said, gripping the needs of the situation as plainly as if he had known them all for months instead of hours.

"I had meant to stay with Father to-night," said Katherine, flushing a little, and not feeling quite certain whether she entirely approved of having matters taken out of her hands in this fashion.

"That would not do at all. You will have to be business head of the establishment now for a permanency, and the sooner you get your shoulders fitted to the burden the better," he said decidedly.

"But I have practically been the business head all the winter, so the burden is familiar already," she protested, with a wan smile and a sinking at her heart, for she did not like business, and always shrank from the bother of bargaining, which afforded such keen zest to some people's buying and selling.

"That was quite different from what lies before you now," he replied. "You may have had the work to do, but you had always your father's judgment to rely upon. In future you will have to stand alone and judge for yourself."

Katherine bowed her head in token that she understood, then turned away too crushed to utter a word. Jervis Ferrars went back to the sickroom, wincing at the pain he had been compelled to inflict as if the blow had fallen on himself. There were no tears in Katherine's eyes, only the terrible black misery in her heart. She had filled in all the blanks in what, the Englishman had said, and she understood perfectly well that henceforth her father would be only as a child who needed guarding and shielding, instead of a man whose judgment could be relied upon. She had no deception in her mind concerning what would be required of her; the family living must depend on her in the future, and it would rest upon her skill and industry whether the living she earned were merely subsistence, or the decent comfort in which they had all been reared.

"G.o.d helping me, they shall want for nothing-nothing!" she exclaimed vehemently, and the very energy with which she spoke seemed to give her back her courage.

It had been a momentous day in her life, a day calling for rare courage and endurance, and the demands on her strength had left her so tired that the other hard days looming in the near distance seemed all the more terrible because of the present exhaustion of body and mind. It was nearly time for shutting up the store, but it was twilight still, for in those northern lat.i.tudes the afterglow on clear nights lasts for hours. Katherine was busy at her father's desk in the corner doing the necessary writing which comes to every storekeeper at the close of the day, and she was just wondering when Miles was coming to lock the door and fold the shutter over the one small window, when she heard a slouching step outside, and, glancing up, saw Oily Dave entering at the door. He looked more shifty and slippery than usual, but his manner was bland, even deferential, when he spoke.

"Good evening, Miss Radford! Nice thaw, ain't it? but a bit rapid.

How's 'Dook?"

Katherine winced. Of course every man at Roaring Water Portage and Seal Cove called every other man by his Christian name, and she had always been used to hearing "'Duke", but nevertheless it grated horribly, so her manner was a trifle more haughty than usual when she announced that her father was not so well, although she did not choose to inform this man that he was very ill.

"Well, well, poor chap, he don't seem to get on fast, no, that he don't. It's downright lucky for him that he's got sech a bright gal as you to look after things. He is a smart sight better off than I should have been under the circ.u.mstances;" and Oily Dave struck an att.i.tude of respectful admiration, leering at Katherine from his half-closed eyes.

"What do you wish, for to-night?" she asked coldly.

"A good many things, my supper most of all, for I've had nothing but a mouthful of biscuit all day. But I shall have to wait for that till I get back to Seal Cove, and then I shall have to cook it myself, for that swell lodger of mine ain't no good about a house," said Oily Dave, with a shake of his head.

Katherine put her hand to her throat with a quick movement, to check a hysterical desire for laughter. She and Mrs. Burton had both marvelled that day at the exceeding handiness displayed by Jervis Ferrars. He had made the bed for the stricken head of the house as deftly as a woman might have done, and had helped in the kitchen at supper time as if he had been getting meals regularly for the last two or three years; but of this she was not disposed to speak, and waited in silence for Oily Dave to state his requirements.

"I want some canned tomatoes. Have you got any?"

"We have plenty of two-pound tins, but we are sold out of the smaller ones," she answered, then made a mental note that in future she would buy all small tins, because they sold so much more easily.

"That's a nuisance, but I suppose I'll have to put up with it," he said, with a sigh and another shake of his head. "Fact is, I want to take home a relish for supper. My lodger don't take to simple food such as we are used to in these parts. It is a downright swell tuck-in he looks to get, same as you might expect to have in one of the Montreal hotels."

Again Katherine wanted to laugh, but checked the impulse resolutely, and asked: "Is the flood at Seal Cove as bad as ever, or has the barrier given way at the mouth of the river?"

"I didn't know there was a flood!" announced Oily Dave, with an air of innocence which sat awkwardly upon him, it was so palpably put on for the occasion. "Fact is, I've been off all day on the cliffs along the bay sh.o.r.e, looking for signs of walrus and seal on the ice floes. Then when it got near sunset I just struck inland, so as to call here on my way home. Who told you there was a flood?"

"I saw it," she answered quietly.

"I hope my lodger is all right," said the old hypocrite, with an air of concern. "That house of mine ain't well situated for floods, as most folks know. If I'd got the time and the money I'd move it up beside Stee Jenkin's hut, which is really in a bootiful situation."

"I wonder you have not done it before," said Katherine, as she went up the steps and fetched the tin of tomatoes from the top shelf.

"Ah, there are a good many things that get left undone for want of time and money!" remarked Oily Dave. "But I'm afraid Mr. Selincourt has made a big mistake in sending that languid swell of a Mr. Ferrars here to boss the fishing. A reg'lar drawing-room party he is and no mistake. Gives himself as many airs as a turkey-c.o.c.k in springtime, and seems to think all the rest of the world was created on purpose to black his boots."

"We don't sell much boot blacking here. Most of the people grease their boots with fish oil," Katherine said, laughing in spite of herself, only now her amus.e.m.e.nt was because she knew Jervis Ferrars to be in her father's room, where he could hear every word which was spoken in the store.

"Best thing, too. There is nothing like grease for making leather wear well. Well, I must be going, though I'm that tired. However I'll manage the walk is more than I can say;" and Oily Dave heaved a sigh which this time was not lacking in sincerity.