A Countess from Canada Part 32

Katherine stood listening while the chorus ended. Then Mrs. Jenkin started on afresh: "My love is a sailor clothed in blue".

But this was too much, and Katherine, pushing the door hurriedly open, forgetting the small ceremony of knocking, crossed the threshold and stood, a dripping figure, just inside the door.

"My dear Miss Radford, what is the matter?" cried the little woman, jumping up in such a hurry that she upset the baby on to the floor, where he lay and yelled, more from consternation than because he was hurt.

Katherine hesitated. Where could she begin? But then, to her surprise, Mrs. Jenkin burst out excitedly: "You surely haven't been putting any belief in that story that Oily Dave has been going round with this morning?"

"Isn't it true?" faltered Katherine; then, feeling suddenly weak, she dropped into the nearest seat, and tried to keep her lips from quivering.

"Did you ever know him speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" demanded Mrs. Jenkin scornfully, as she picked up the yelling infant and cuddled him into quiet again.

"But the others were with him, Jean Doulais, and Mickey White, and they found the boat of the Mary," faltered Katherine,

"What of that?" cried Mrs. Jenkin. "The Mary had two boats, and one might easily have got adrift through accident. I laughed in his face when he told about the water jar and the bag of biscuit. Nick Jones and Stee always keep water and biscuit in the little boats when they are hoping for a whale, for sometimes it is a long chase, and then the men get just about worn out."

"The fleet boats have been very safe so far," remarked Katherine, trying to find comfort from the little woman's cheery front, yet rather failing.

"Yes, the safest boats that go fishing in the bay, my man says, and he reckons it is because they are so small and well built," Mrs. Jenkin went on, plainly delighted to have a visitor, and evidently not much concerned about her husband's safety. "But slip that wet coat off, dear, and come closer to the stove; this damp makes us chilly, and reminds us that winter will soon be sneaking up at the back of the wind. You surely are not out delivering goods on a morning like this?"

"No, I came because I was so sorry for you," Katherine answered simply.

"Now, that is the real sort of friendship, and I thank you with all my heart," said Mrs. Jenkin, patting Katherine on the shoulder with a hand that was not too clean. Then she issued a command to her eldest daughter: "Take Percival, Gwendoline, and do you and Valerie go and play on my bed; you can have a lovely time rolling round in the blankets."

Shrieks of delight greeted this suggestion, and the three grandly named but very dirty babies promptly retired to the next room, leaving their mother and the visitor in peace, if not in quiet. The walls of the little house were very thin, and rolling round in the blankets appeared to be a very noisy pastime.

"If I believed that the Mary had gone down, it is a very miserable woman I should be to-day," said Mrs. Jenkin, who was swaying gently in a rocking-chair, "for Stee is a good husband, though perhaps he hasn't always been as straight as he ought to have been. But that was when Oily Dave was in power here. It is like master, like man, you know, and Stee is desperate easy led, either wrong or right."

"If only we knew that the Mary was safe!" moaned poor Katherine.

"I should know if it wasn't," Mrs. Jenkin answered confidently. Then she hesitated, turned very red in the face, and burst into impetuous speech: "I knew Stee was in danger that night last winter when he and Oily Dave went through the snow to steal goods from your cache, and the wolves set upon them. I perspired in sheer horror that night, though I knew nothing about what was afoot, and I knelt praying on the floor till Stee came home with his clothes all torn, and told me what he had been through. Ah! that was a dark and dreadful night; may I never see such another."

"I do not think you will," said Katherine softly. She spoke with conviction, too, for certainly Stee Jenkin had been a very different individual since that time.

Mrs. Jenkin wiped her eyes with a pinafore of Valerie's, which happened to lie handy. "I don't believe in that saying about love being blind," she remarked, with considerable energy. "I know that I have been able to see Stee's faults plain enough, and yet he is all the world to me. Yes, dear, you had better be wed to a faulty man that you really love, than be tied up to an angel that you don't love."

Katherine rose and began to struggle into her long wet mackintosh. "I would have stayed if you had really needed me," she said; "but all the while you can hope you are not to be pitied."

"Thank you, thank you, Miss Radford, good of you to come," said the little woman. Stee isn't dead yet, or I must have known it. believe he has been in danger even."

"If only I could feel like that!" murmured Katherine to herself, as she went out into the driving rain once more.

CHAPTER XXVIII

The Gladness

Six days went by. The weather had cleared as if by magic, a brilliant sun shone every day in a cloudless sky, and summer had returned again to cheer the northern land. But never a word had come from across the waste of grey, heaving waters, to let the anxious watchers at Seal Cove know whether the Mary still lived, or whether her crew had really gone to the bottom from the little boat which Oily Dave and his mates had found floating keel upwards.

Mrs. Jenkin still preserved her att.i.tude of determined cheerfulness, and persisted in her belief that no harm had come to the vessel or the men. But she was the only one who still hoped. Mrs. Jones, the wife of Nick Jones, a woman shunned by her neighbours, and of a disposition the reverse of friendly, had already put on black. Her mourning garments were of ancient make, for up-to-date mourning apparel was not regarded as one of the necessaries of life, and so it was not stocked by the store at Roaring Water Portage.

Mr. Selincourt said little, but it was easy to see how much he feared, while Mary went about wearing such a look of bereavement that the folk at Seal Cove were confirmed in their belief that some sort of engagement really had existed between her and the young man who managed the business of the fishing fleet.

Katherine, shielding herself behind this mistaken belief on the part of other people, carried her sore heart bravely through those days of hoping against hope and sick apprehension. The only two people who even suspected her suffering were her brother Miles and Mr. Selincourt; but neither gave any sign of understanding that there might be any personal sorrow hidden under her sympathy for Mrs. Jenkin and the unpleasant Mrs. Jones.

On the sixth day it became necessary for Katherine to do the long portage with supplies for the Indian encampment, which had about doubled in population during the last two or three weeks. There was the usual bustle of getting off-the scampering of dogs back along the portage path for fresh burdens, the shouting of Phil, and all the cheerful accompaniments of busy toil and work willingly done. But Katherine did her part with a mechanical precision, forcing herself to this task and to that, yet feeling no zest or pleasure in anything.

Although the days were so warm and sunny, the nights and early mornings showed already a touch of frostiness, a chilly reminder of the winter that was coming; and Katherine was glad to wear a coat even while she was rowing, until the second portage had been reached. Astor M'Kree met her himself this morning, his first question being the one she most dreaded to hear.

"Any news of the Mary yet, Miss Radford?"

"No," she answered sadly. "Mr. Selincourt's little flag was hanging at half-mast when we started this morning."

"If she has gone down, it is the first boat I've built that has cost a human life, that I know of," he said, "and it makes me feel as if I should never have the courage to build another. I've got one on the stocks, but I haven't touched her since this news came up river."

"But disasters at sea will come, do what you will, and the best boat ever built would go to pieces on those Akimiski rocks," Katherine said, trying to cheer him because he seemed so sad.

"It isn't clear to me why they were on Akimiski at all, when it was the Twins they were making for," he replied, in a gloomy tone. "Mr. Selincourt told me the other day that he believed it would be better if I did my boatbuilding down below the portages; but I said no. There is no difficulty in taking the boats down when the river is in flood, though of course it would not be possible now; and I've got the feeling that I like to take the first risk in them myself. It is a queer sensation, I can tell you, to feel a boat coming to life under your feet, and when I took the Mary over the falls it was just as if she jumped forward in sheer glee, when she felt the swing and the rush of the water swirling round her sides."

Katherine nodded, but did not speak. There was a rugged eloquence about the boatbuilder which always appealed to her, but this morning it was almost more than she could bear.

"Perhaps I will come in and see Mrs. M'Kree as I come back, but I must hurry now, for I am anxious to get my business done and turn my face homeward as soon as I can," she said, after a little pause. "Father did not seem quite so well yesterday, and Nellie thinks it is the gloom of other people which has upset him."

"Very likely: poor man, he'd be bound to be sensitive in unexpected places; afflicted people mostly are. I will tell my wife you may be in later; and look here, could you spare Phil to go to Ochre Lake swan-shooting this evening? My two lads and I are going, and it is always fun for a boy. I've got an old duck rifle he can use, and we'll send him down river in time to make himself useful to-morrow morning."

One glance at Phil's face was sufficient to make Katherine decide she could do quite well without him when she got back over the second portage, and so it was arranged.

The journey that day was got through sooner than usual, owing chiefly to Phil's tendency to "hustle" in order to be back in good time for the swan-shooting. He helped Katherine over the second portage, and tumbled bundles of pelts and packages of dried fish into the boat. Then, uttering a wild whoop of delight, he turned head over heels in the dried gra.s.s on the bank, and started back along the portage path to the boatbuilder's house at a run.

Being in good time, Katherine did not trouble to row herself down river, but, pushing the boat out in midstream, let it drift on the current. It was a great luxury to be alone-to let her face take on the saddest expression it could a.s.sume, to let her hands drop idly on her lap, while for a brief s.p.a.ce she let her grief have sway. She was thinking of the day when Jervis had come over the portage to meet her, and she had been so late that he was obliged to go back before she came. What had he come to say to her that day?

This was the question which had ceaselessly tortured Katherine through the days and nights since Oily Dave had brought the bad news about the Mary. Her heart whispered that he might have come that day to ask her to marry him, but she was not sure. If she could have been certain of this, then it seemed to her the worst of her suffering would have been removed, because then she would have had some shadow of a right to mourn for him.

But there was the portage looming in sight, and she could hear the water rushing round the bend in the river and over the falls. Then she turned round in the boat, and, taking up the oars, prepared to row in to the boathouse.

A figure, partly hidden by the cottonwood and the alders, stepped forward at this moment and prepared to moor the boat for her.

Was it instinct that made her turn her head then, or was she merely looking to see how much farther she had to row in? A frightened cry escaped her at what she saw, and the colour ebbed from her face, leaving it ghastly white.

"Katherine, did you take me for a ghost?" asked the voice of Jervis Ferrars.

"I think so," she said faintly, then sent the boat with a jerk against the mooring post, where he tied it up for her.

"Did you really think we had gone down, or had you the cheerful faith of Mrs. Jenkin?"

"I-I am afraid that I had no faith at all," she said with an effort, and never guessed how complete was her self-betrayal.

He looked at her keenly, was apparently satisfied with what he saw, then said cheerfully: "Will you row me up to Astor M'Kree's, or, rather, permit me to row you? I want to go and a.s.sure him that the Mary is quite safe, and the soundest boat that ever sailed the Bay. Shall we leave this luggage here, or row it up river for the sake of having a load?"

"Rowing is quite sufficient exercise without having an unnecessary load," replied Katherine, with a shake of her head, as she handed him the bundles to place on the bank. She was trembling so that she could hardly trust herself to speak, and was horribly afraid of breaking down like a schoolgirl, and crying from sheer joyfulness.

When the bundles were all out, Jervis got in, took the oars, and sent the boat's head round for up river again, then pulled steadily for a few minutes without speaking.