A Countess from Canada Part 23

"Miss Selincourt is not drowned, she has not been under water long enough," Jervis said faintly. "I think she has just swooned from sheer terror."

"That is what it looks like," said Mr. Selincourt, with a sudden great relief coming into his tone. Then he stripped off his jacket to wrap his daughter in: the other men stripped off their jackets also, the drenching rain wetting them to the skin in about two minutes; but Mary must be wrapped as warmly as possible, and some kind of a litter had to be improvised in which to carry her.

She stirred slightly, put up her hand, and showed signs of returning life, and then her father determined to wait no longer, but to carry her off to Seal Cove as quickly as possible, sending the men back afterwards to bring Jervis. But by this time, with the help of Oily Dave, Ferrars had managed to struggle to his feet, and declared that he would walk back to Seal Cove, if someone would help him.

Katherine came round to him then, saying simply: "If you will lean on me, the men can carry Miss Selincourt, and if you cannot get all the way I can stay with you until the men come back for you."

"Thank you, my dear, you are a brave, good girl," said Mr. Selincourt, and then he hurried away to help the two portage men and Oily Dave to carry Mary across the hills to Seal Cove.

The only litter they had was formed by spreading their jackets under her, then lifting her so and carrying her as best they could-no easy task, for she was well grown and well nourished, and in her present condition of collapse she lay a dead weight on their arms.

The progress of Jervis was at first but a feeble crawl, while the bitter wind seemed to go through him and the driving rain took his breath away. It was the middle of summer, but when the sun hid its face, and the wind blew from the north, it was hard to remember how hot it had been only yesterday.

"Can you bear it?" asked Katherine anxiously, as he shivered and shook, clinging to her because he had so little strength to stand against the blast.

"I must bear it," he answered; "at least it is safer than sitting still. Does the wind often come as chilly as this at midsummer?"

"There are occasional days like this, but the cold don't last long, and then the sun shines again. Do you think you would be a little warmer if I walked in front of you?" she asked wistfully, for his evident suffering, and her own impotence to relieve it, hurt her dreadfully.

"I don't think the gain of having you for a wind buffer would make up for losing you as a crutch," he said, as he hobbled slowly along in his stockinged feet. He had kicked off his shoes when he went to the aid of Mary, and the rising tide had floated them away.

"I am glad that I am so useful," she said, with a nervous little laugh. She was wet through herself, and shivering with cold and fright, yet despite these drawbacks the occasion was like a festival, and her heart was singing for joy.

"How did you know?" he asked, trying to understand how she chanced to be on hand at the critical moment with a rope.

"Mary had written a note and tied it round the dog's neck, then sent the creature for help. I found it howling on the other bank of the river, and went over to fetch the poor thing home; then I found the note, and came as quickly as I could," she answered.

"You came just in time for me," he said in a shaken voice. "I don't think that I could possibly have held out five minutes longer, because of cramp, and I could not lift Miss Selincourt out of the water."

"I don't think I could have done it either if it had not been for Oily Dave," Katherine answered, a quiver of mirth stirring her tones. "Fancy Oily Dave as a rescuer of people in direful straits!

We shall have him posing as a public benefactor soon!"

"He has long been a private benefactor, or at least I have regarded him as such," Jervis said slowly.

"What do you mean?" she asked, looking at him in surprise, and wondering if he had forgotten the grim incident of the flood.

"I feel grateful to him, and always shall, because he left me in the lurch that day when the water came in. I had to owe my life to you that day; and but for you and your rope I must have perished to-day, Katherine. I am really very much in your debt. Do you think I shall ever be able to repay you?"

"Of course; if not me, then someone else. Such things are always pa.s.sed on," she said lightly.

"Of choice I would rather pay my debt in this case, if indeed it can be paid, to the person to whom I owe it," he said, with a slow emphasis which made her heart beat tumultuously. Then she remembered that it was her duty to stand aside for Mary's sake, and that she must not let this man love her if Mary had set her own affections upon him, as Nellie had more than hinted.

A cold shiver shook Katherine then, for now the chill came from within as well as without, and the dreary day wrapped her exhausted body in its dismal discomfort.

"Don't talk," she said with a touch of authority in her tone. "Save your strength for enduring. See, here comes a man running down from the fish-flakes; he has come to help us, and now we shall get on faster, you will find."

CHAPTER XXI

Matter for Heartache

Three days had pa.s.sed away, and life had dropped into its accustomed monotony again. Mrs. Burton said there never was anything to vary the sameness of existence at Roaring Water Portage unless someone was in danger of his or her life, and really events had a way of proving her to be right. When Katherine had rushed off in such a hurry that day, to help Mary Selincourt out of her fix, Mrs. Burton had left her sewing, and, taking her sister's work in hand, had finished cleaning the shelves, then restored to them the various canisters and boxes according to her own ideas of neatness, instead of with any remembrance as to how they had been arranged previously.

On reaching home that afternoon, wet, cold, weary, and with chill foreboding in her heart, Katherine's first sensation was one of lively grat.i.tude to Nellie for having dispersed the confusion she had left behind when she departed so hurriedly. But when a customer came in a little later for a quarter of a pound of mustard, and it took half an hour of hard searching to find it, Katherine began to wonder whether after all it would not have been easier to have been left to deal singlehanded with the confusion on the floor, for at least she had known where to find things.

Then someone wanted corn-flour, which entailed a still longer search; but the culminating point came when Mrs. M'Kree sent down in hot haste for carbonate of soda and dried mint, to make some remedy for an unexpected attack of dyspepsia. It took exactly one hour and ten minutes by the clock to find the carbonate of soda, followed by ten minutes' active search for the mint. After this experience Katherine decided that tidiness might be too dearly bought, and set to work to re-arrange matters after a more practical pattern.

But all this took time, and, with her other work added on, effectually prevented her having time for moping, which was of course a very good thing. She had not seen Jervis since the slow walk from the rocks to Seal Cove; but she knew that he had spent the next day in bed with a bad chill and some fever. Mary was at Seal Cove for two days, but had been brought up river on the previous evening, and was now being looked after by Mrs. Burton, who was never quite so happy as when she had some invalid to care for.

Miles and Phil had gone over to Fort Garry that morning. Katherine ought to have gone, but in view of the confusion which still existed on the shelves it hardly seemed safe to leave Miles in charge, because he had a habit, when he could not find the right thing, of supplying something else which looked almost like it. So when Katherine found him tying up an ounce of caustic soda, in place of the tartaric acid which had been ordered, it seemed high time to interfere, and she had sent him off with Phil to do her work, while she remained at home sorting out the contents of the shelves.

Mrs. Burton had been over the river to look after Mary, and had come back again, leaving Hero as a sort of deputy nurse and caretaker, in addition to the portage man who was on duty that day. Mr. Selincourt had been down to Seal Cove, and had returned; then Katherine, at work on her knees in the far corner of the store, heard someone enter, and, coming out of her corner, found that one of the portage men had brought her a note from Mary. It ran:-

"Dear Katherine, Can you come over and spend an hour with me this evening when the store is closed? I feel that I want to see you more than anyone else in the world.

Please come.

MARY."

"Miss Selincourt said that a message would do for answer," said the man who had brought the note.

Katherine hesitated about what that answer should be. In her heart of hearts she knew very well that she did not want to go away that evening. Jervis had not been up the river for three days, so he would be almost sure to come that evening, and she wanted to be at home when he came, to see for herself that he was none the worse for the long immersion in the water, and the painful barefooted walk to Seal Cove.

But the hesitancy did not last long, and, setting her face in sterner lines than usual, Katherine told the man that she would certainly pay Miss Selincourt a visit that evening when her work was done.

If the work dragged a little after that, and the day lost something of the zest which had marked it before, no one guessed it but herself. She was bright and cheerful, teasing Miles, when he came home, about some fancied indignity which he had received at the hands of the Indians, and rallying Mrs. Burton on the awful confusion wrought by her reforms in the store.

Not even to herself would Katherine admit how much she dreaded the simple friendly visit she had promised to pay that evening. She was afraid that she would see some look or sign of what she feared most to know. Mary Selincourt was a reserved, self-controlled girl, but it is her sort of nature which sometimes betrays itself most completely in moments of emotional strain, and Katherine at this time was very much like an ostrich, being disposed to believe that the thing she could not see did not exist.

'Duke Radford spent most of his days sitting in the sunshine. He talked cheerfully, withal a trifle incoherently, to all of his friends and neighbours who came to gossip with him; but he was always at his best when Mr. Selincourt or Jervis Ferrars was there to talk to him, for they spoke of things right away from the ordinary course of daily life, and his mind was clearest about the matters which in other days had concerned him least. But neither Mr. Selincourt nor Jervis Ferrars had been near for three days, and the invalid plainly moped, missing the companionship that cheered him most.

"I am so glad you are going over to sit with Mary to-night, because that will probably mean that Mr. Selincourt will come here, and he will be sure to cheer Father up," Mrs. Burton said, when Katherine came in for a hurried cup of tea before finishing her work in the store.

"He does look tired and sad to-day," Katherine answered wistfully. She could bear her father's condition better when he was cheerful and at ease, but when, as to-day, life seemed a burden to him, then her heart ached at the sight of his suffering.

The last half-hour in the store that evening was harder than the whole of the day which had gone before. The heat was intense, the flies swarmed black in every direction, and, failing other food, appeared anxious to make a meal from Katherine's face; while the customers who thronged the store in unusual numbers seemed all to require the articles most awkward and uncomfortable to serve. There was a run on pickled pork, on brawn canned in Cincinnati, on soap, mola.s.ses, and lard; while at least four customers demanded rock brimstone, flour of sulphur, or some other variety of that valuable but homely remedy common to every back-country store.

They were all disposed of at last, however, and then, bidding Miles shut the door quickly before anyone else came, Katherine went away to change her dress and get ready for her visit to Mary. Her best frock went on to-night. She had so few frocks, and these few had to be chosen with so much regard to utility, that there was a uniformity about them which might well pall upon a girl who loved pretty things. The best frock was a severely plain garment of dark-blue woollen stuff, but it was relieved by a shirt of soft white muslin, and, because a pretty girl always looks charming in a plain frock, Katherine in her dark blue was simply bewitching.

Phil rowed her over the river, bragging all the way of the manner in which he was beginning to handle the oars. And then, at Katherine's suggestion, he waited to see if Mr. Selincourt would go over and visit the store for an hour or so.

Katherine found Mary lying on a couch under the open window, looking pale and worn, with a very tired expression. Mr. Selincourt was reading to her, but when Katherine suggested the waiting boat, and 'Duke Radford's loneliness, she at once declared her father ought to go over and pay the invalid a visit.

"You have been shut up with a fractious convalescent nearly the whole day, dear Daddy, and I am sure it will be a pleasant change to go and chat with Mr. Radford, who is always serene," she said urgently; and so, more to please her than himself, her father said he would go.

"Come down and see me into the boat, Miss Katherine; it won't hurt Mary to be alone, and I want to say thank you for coming to the rescue so promptly the other day," he said.

"I don't want to be thanked, but I will show you the way to the boat with pleasure, if you are afraid of getting lost en route," Katherine said with a laugh, but falling into his mood, because she saw he wished to say something to her alone.

When they were beyond earshot of the open window, he said anxiously: "Don't you think Mary looks very badly?"

"She looks fearfully tired," Katherine answered.