A Countess from Canada Part 29

"Poor Mary!" sighed Katherine again, then immediately felt ashamed of her own secret light-heartedness.

"Yes, it was poor Mary then," replied Mr. Selincourt, a shade coming over his pleasant face. "The worst of it was that she had only herself to thank for all the trouble that had come upon her, and as it was not a thing to be talked about, it had to be borne without any outside sympathy to make it easier."

"Has she never heard from him since?" asked Katherine softly, and now there were tears in her eyes, and a whole world of pity in her heart for this girl who had deliberately flung away the love she wanted, from pure obstinacy and self-will.

"Only once. Directly she knew that he had gone beyond recall she began to repent in good earnest, and sent him a cable to the only port where his vessel would be likely to stop, something to this effect; 'It is I who apologize; will you forgive?' And after weeks and weeks of waiting this answer came back: 'Yes, in two years' time'."

Katherine drew a long breath, and her eyes were still misty. "How long the waiting time must seem to Mary, and the months can bring her no tidings of what she most wants to know."

"That is true; but I am quite sure it is good for her," Mr. Selincourt answered. "Never before has there been anything in her life which called for waiting or patience, and it is the lessons which are hardest to learn which do us most good."

"Won't Mary be displeased because you have told me all this?" asked Katherine.

"It will make no difference to her if she does not know, and you are not the sort of girl to go about bragging of the things you have been told. But it seemed to me that it might help you to an understanding of Mary's character if you knew," Mr. Selincourt replied rather awkwardly.

Katherine flushed a sudden, uncomfortable red, and began measuring calico in a great hurry; only, as she had turned her work round, and was doing it all over again, it was rather wasted labour. A thought had flashed into her mind that perhaps this good, kindly man had heard some of the talk which was coupling the names of Miss Selincourt and Jervis Ferrars, and so had told her this about Mary of set purpose.

"Thank you for telling me," she said; then went on hurriedly: "I am so glad to know. It explains why sometimes Mary does not look happy. I had thought it just boredom and discontent."

"Most people would think so, but that is just because they don't understand her. She is made of fine, good stuff at the bottom, only sometimes it is rather hard to get at. This week she will be perfectly happy and charming to live with, because she will have to be at the fish sheds all the time, checking the incoming boats; and next week she will be down in the dumps, because she has nothing in the world to do."

"That at least is a complaint that I am in no danger of suffering from," laughed Katherine, as, realizing that she had been working twice on the calico, she folded it up and started on another length.

"And I have been wasting your time in a fearful fashion; but perhaps you will forgive me, because I like talking to you so much," he said, rising from his seat and laughing, as he looked at his watch, to think how the morning had flown. "Now I will go and talk to your good father for a little while, and then I will whistle for Pierre to come over and row me down to Seal Cove for lunch with Mary, to round off the morning."

Katherine rushed about the store with great vigour and much bustling energy after the visitor had betaken himself outside. Of course he had wasted her morning to a serious extent, but what mattered arrears of work compared with the peace of mind the talk had brought her? Never once since the day on which her father had confided to her the secret trouble which was weighing him down had Katherine been so light-hearted. Now, at least so far as she was concerned, that trouble, even the remembrance of it, might be put away for ever. Mr. Selincourt had said that he owed a debt of grat.i.tude to the person who had wronged him; so plainly there was no question of making up to him for any loss that he had suffered. True, the wrong was there, and nothing could undo the sin which had been committed; but it was the sinner who had suffered, not the sinned against. Katherine looked out through the open door of the store and saw her father walking up and down beside the man he had wronged, and a sharp pang of pity for the invalid smote her heart. His punishment was very heavy; but even she, his daughter, who loved him so well, could not deny that it was just that he who did the wrong should pay the penalty thereof.

"Poor darling Father!" she murmured. "But no one need ever know. Nothing could be gained by dragging the old, bad past to light, and so it shall be buried for ever." Then, covering her face with her hands, she prayed that the forgiveness of Heaven might rest upon the poor sinner, whose punishment had come to him on earth.

The hours of that day flew as if every one of them were holiday time, instead of being crammed to the full with even harder work than usual. The other matter of which Mr. Selincourt had spoken, Mary's engagement to the unknown Archie Raymond, Katherine buried deep in her heart, a thing to be gloated over in secret, a cause for happiness which she did not care to be frank over, even to herself. So the long, busy day went on to evening, and, in spite of all the work there had been to get through, Katherine found herself with half an hour of leisure before bedtime.

She was standing outside, fighting the mosquitoes, and wondering if she had sufficient energy left to go up the portage path to the high ground, to see the moon rise, when she saw the Selincourt boat shoot out from under the alder trees on the other side of the river, and make across for the store.

"It is Mary!" she whispered to herself; and Mary it was, with a weary, white face, and a fleecy white shawl wrapped about her head and shoulders.

"Will you come up the hill, Katherine, and see the moon rise?" she asked, in a tired tone.

"I was just thinking of doing so, only it seemed hardly worth the effort to go up alone; now you have come it will be pleasant," Katherine answered, and, although she knew it not, there was more friendliness in her tone than Mary had ever found there before.

"Do you know, I tried going up the hill on my side, a better hill than yours, and with a better view, but it was so lonely! Isn't it funny what a difference companionship makes?"

"Sometimes, and in some moods. But there are other times and other moods in which companionship is a nuisance, and solitude the only thing to be desired. At least, that is how I have felt," said Katherine. Then she added hastily: "To-night I felt as if I wanted someone to see the moon rise with me, so I am very glad you came."

They walked up the hill in silence, despite the desire for company which both had felt, and stood together at the top, watching the silver glory of the moon coming up over the black pine trees, with no speech at all until Mary asked with a ring of envy in her tone: "What has come to you to-night?"

Katherine flushed, answering in quick apology: "Please forgive me.

It is fearfully rude of me to be so silent and abstracted."

"It wasn't that. Speech is only one way of expressing one's thoughts, and very often not the most eloquent way either. But you look so light-hearted to-night; it shines from your eyes, and-and-well, it is awkward to express what I mean, but it is visible in every gesture. To put it briefly, you look like a person to be envied."

"I believe I am to be envied," Katherine answered, flushing again under the amused scrutiny in Mary's glance. "Everyone who has health and vigour, with an infinite capacity for enjoyment, should surely be envied by those not equally blessed, don't you think?"

Mary sighed. "I have health and vigour too. I am not so sure about the infinite capacity for enjoyment; but I like work, and plenty of it. Do you know, I thoroughly enjoyed myself at Seal Cove to-day. I went out on the landing wharf to help the men to count the take, then I entered it, wrote out the tokens, and worked as hard as if I were doing it for a weekly wage."

"Well?" There was gentle questioning in Katherine's tone, but no curiosity; happily there was need for none. She could understand something of Mary's moods without explanation now, and could give the sympathy, which was also better expressed without words.

"It isn't well; that is the trouble of it," Mary said wistfully. "The work is all very well while it lasts, but when it is done, one is tired, and there is nothing left but weariness and moods again-just these and nothing more."

"Oh yes, there is! You are leaving out the most important thing; there is rest. And when one is rested, really rested, the world is all new again for a time," Katherine answered brightly. She was speaking now from her own experience, for that was how she had felt when her trouble was at its blackest.

"I had forgotten rest; but then it won't always come, sometimes sleep is impossible." Mary sighed again, for to-night her mood verged on the morbid.

"Sometimes, but not often, when people are as healthy as we are," Katherine replied with a laugh; then, slipping her hand through Mary's arm, with a persuasive touch she drew her homeward. "Come! People who have to get up and work in the morning must go to bed at night, or suffer next day. I am fearfully sleepy, and to-morrow I have to go over to Fort Garry with all those furs which your father did not buy."

"I too must be at work in good time, for I want to be at Seal Cove before ten o'clock, and that does not leave much s.p.a.ce for one's housekeeping duties," Mary said, in a brighter tone, as the two came down the hill together.

"Let Mr. Selincourt keep house while you are so busy, or, better still, get Nellie to do what you want; she will be delighted," urged Katherine, who was disposed to the belief that Mary's morbid mood was largely the result of fatigue.

"Oh, Mrs. Burton is more than kind in making bread for me, and all that sort of thing; while, as everyone knows, my father spoils me all the time! But I like work, and just now I feel as if I could hardly have too much of it; so I don't mind how long Mr. Ferrars stays away at the fishing at the Twins," Mary said. Then, bidding Katherine good night at the foot of the hill, she got into her boat and was rowed across the river.

Katherine shook her head a little doubtfully as she went indoors; for in her heart she did not echo the other's last words.

CHAPTER XXVI

Fighting the Storm

The summer had been one of such almost unvarying fine weather that the next morning's outlook came as a disagreeable surprise to Katherine. The sun shone with a pale, watery gleam, grey clouds were piled along the horizon, and a moaning wind crept through the pine trees, made the birch leaves quiver, and thinned the foliage of the alders at the foot of the rapids.

"Phil, we shall have to be quick this morning, or we shall have to come crawling home round the sh.o.r.e instead of rowing straight across the bay," Katherine said, as she piled bundles of pelts into the boat, and tied over them a canvas sheet, for security from any chance wave.

"Oh, we can hustle, and very likely the storm won't break before night!" Phil said easily.

"More likely that it will break before noon," retorted Miles, who was helping to bring out the pelts from the stockroom. "Don't go to-day, Katherine; it is fearful work crossing from Fort Garry when there is a strong north-east wind. I came across with Father once, when we thought we must have been swamped every minute."

"Do not worry yourself, my dear boy," laughed Katherine, "I shall not attempt to cross if the weather is very rough; I shall skirt the sh.o.r.e all the way. It is miles farther, of course, but it is safe, and that is the main thing."

"I wish you were not going, or that I could come with you," Miles said in a worried tone. "Look here; couldn't Phil manage the store for one day with Nellie's help, then we would take an extra pair of oars, and I would help to row?"

Katherine shook her head. "It is not to be thought of, dear. I expect some of those Indians from Nackowa.s.set Creek will be over the portage to-day; then Wise Eye is in the neighbourhood, I know, and if he as much as caught a glimpse of both of us going down river in a boat he would fairly haunt the store until we came back, and Phil would have a tottering time of it."

"That Nackowa.s.set lot are a horrible set of thieves," said Miles.

"Yes, and neither Phil nor Nellie would be up to all their tricks; so, you see, you will be quite indispensable. I shall get on very well; don't worry about me in any case, for if the storm should prove terrifically bad we could even stay at Fort Garry all night," Katherine replied.

The last pelt was tucked away under the canvas sheet, Phil scrambled aboard and crouched down in the most convenient place he could find, and Katherine nodded a bright farewell to Miles, who lingered on the bank with a very dissatisfied look on his face; then the boat moved out into the current and began to slip quickly down river. At present they felt little or nothing of the wind, but when the hut of Oily Dave was in line with them they began to feel the influence of the freshening puffs of wind on their progress, and Katherine decided to take a middle course across the open water to the fort; that is, she would not venture so far out as usual, nor would she hug the sh.o.r.e entirely.

But although the wind came sighing and moaning over the water, it was nothing more at present than a fairly stiff breeze, and, finding it so much better than she had expected, Katherine took heart again, and was glad that she had persevered in her undertaking; for she was anxious to get the furs off her hands. Every place at the store was so crowded now, from the shipments which had recently come in, that it was really a relief to get these bundles of pelts cleared out of the way.

"Oily Dave's hotel is closed, so I suppose the proprietor has cleared off out to the fishing," Phil said, as the little brown hut on the left sh.o.r.e slid by, and they began to rock on the open water of the river's mouth.

"I expect he has," replied Katherine, who was pulling with long, steady strokes, the exercise and the wind between them bringing a bright glow into her face. "Do you know, I am sure he has worked harder and more honestly this summer than for many a year past; I believe he is beginning to be a reformed character."