A Countess from Canada Part 35

"The store seems to me an ideal place for the ceremony, seeing that we have no church. How do you feel about it yourself?" he asked abruptly.

"I should prefer it there. Only, I wanted to be sure you would not mind," she said, flinging her head up with a proud gesture, although the laughing light had come back to her eyes.

"I think, my dear, that the man who marries you will be so supremely fortunate that it will matter nothing whether the ceremony is performed in a cathedral or an Indian dug-out," he said, with a gravity that showed the words to be no empty compliment, but the sincere expression of what he felt.

Katherine's lips quivered, but it was a day for smiles, not tears; so she laughed in the nervous fashion with which she was apt to cloak all deep emotion, and said: "I suppose the store may be regarded as the middle way between the cathedral and the dug-out; anyhow, it will be cleaner than the latter by a good long way. I shall tell Nellie to-night that you are quite satisfied to be married in the store, and then perhaps her scruples will vanish."

"We will hope so, at all events," he answered. "The easiest way to issue invitations will be to chalk a notice on the board outside the store, inviting anyone who wishes to be present at the wedding of Miss Katherine Radford with Jervis Ferrars, date to be fixed later on. That had better be attended to to-morrow, so that the intending guests may have time to get their finery all in readiness."

"Oh, what finery it will be!" exclaimed Katherine, with a ripple of amused laughter. "There will be the oddest a.s.sortment of garments that anyone can imagine. I believe Oily Dave possesses a 'top' hat, and that will be certain to appear."

"Never mind; we shall survive, I dare say, and so will the bishop if he comes," Jervis answered; and then the talk of the two wandered on to the golden future which they were to spend together, while the glad sunshine filtered down upon them through the pine boughs, and the world was a joyous place because of the love which made everything beautiful.

Jervis chalked the general invitation to the wedding on the board outside the store next day, and great was the satisfaction which the announcement produced. If everyone was invited, then no one felt left out in the cold; and immediately there ensued a great bustle of preparation for the function, which certainly would be the event of the year to the dwellers on the bay sh.o.r.e.

Katherine and Mrs. Burton were busier than anyone, for they had the store to spring-clean, and that was a task calling for hard work and careful management. There was also the question of wedding garments; but these, in consideration of the limited stock of materials at their disposal, could not amount to much. For a bridal dress, Katherine had decided on a white embroidered muslin which had been her one extravagance when she was in Montreal, and which was made with a high neck and long sleeves. Sometimes she wondered if embroidered muslin were quite the right material for the wedding dress of a fisherman's wife; but as she had no other frock which would serve, it had to be that or nothing.

The days slipped away one by one, and at last they were watching hourly for the return of the men who had been sent to Maxohama for the clergyman. It was a glorious day early in June when Katherine, who had been over to Fort Garry with Phil, was rowing up the back creek, and came suddenly upon quite a procession of small boats which was pa.s.sing up river.

"Hurrah! It is Mr. Selincourt!" yelled Phil, pulling off his cap and waving it like mad.

"And Mary!" exclaimed Katherine, who suddenly went rosy red, for in the last boat of all was an elderly man, with a kind face and a clerical air, whom she instantly recognized as the bishop from the description Jervis had given her of him.

"Katherine, Katherine, how bonny you look!" cried Mary, and then the boats came nearer together, and greetings became general.

Katherine was introduced to the bishop, who bowed and smiled in a kindly fashion, although introductions at fifteen or twenty yards apart are rather awkward affairs. Then Mary insisted on being transferred to Katherine's boat, and as unceremoniously ordered Phil to occupy the place she was leaving.

"Oh, my dear, I am glad to be back again!" she cried, as she settled herself on the seat from which she had just turned Phil.

"We are very glad to see you back," Katherine answered soberly. The sight of the bishop had set her pulses fluttering wildly, and she was hardly mistress of herself again, as yet.

"The journey has been delightful," Mary rattled on, understanding the cause of Katherine's fluctuating colour, and anxious to give her time to recover from her confusion. "We are such a large party, too, that it has been like a perpetual picnic, with only two drawbacks which really mattered."

"What were they?" asked Katherine, supposing the drawbacks to be some item of portage discomfort, or rainstorms which came at the wrong time.

"The first was a horrid little man, a Mr. Clay, who has come all the way from England to see Mr. Ferrars, and begged to be allowed to attach himself to our party. A perfect little kill-joy he is, so prim, so proper and precise, that one is tempted to believe he must have been born a grown-up, and so has had no childhood at all."

"Where is he now? I did not notice that there was another stranger beside the bishop," said Katherine, turning her head to look at the other boats, which were leading.

"We left him behind at the fish sheds with Mr. Ferrars," said Mary. "He has his own boat and his own men. He turns his aristocratic little nose up at everything Canadian, and loudly pities anyone who is fated to live two or three hundred miles from a railway depot. But he apparently has the most utter admiration for Mr. Ferrars, and the fright he was in the day we found the bones was, I am quite sure, entirely due to a fear he had lest it was Mr. Ferrars who had come to grief."

"What bones, and where did you find them?" asked Katherine, with a start.

Mary shrugged her shoulders and answered: "Two days ago we did a portage on the Albany, and came, at camping time, upon the gruesome spectacle of two skeletons lying side by side under a little shelter formed of snowshoes and spruce boughs. We supposed that they must have been the Indians dispatched from Maxohama months ago with mails, only there were no mail bags, and no food bags either; so, of course, they might have been only ordinary Indians on a journey. Our portage men insisted that the remains were those of Indians, to the intense relief of Mr. Clay. The poor man was plainly in a great state of worry about the remains, and kept questioning Father as to whether there would be any likelihood of Mr. Ferrars trying to work his way down to the railroad in midwinter."

"I should think those Indians must have been the men who were bringing the mail, and probably they were caught in a snowstorm and died in their sleep," said Katherine.

"In that case what had become of the mail bags and the food sacks?" asked Mary.

"Stolen, doubtless, by other Indians," replied Katherine, who then told Mary of the discovery she had made of the fragment of a letter in the hands of a child at the Ochre Lake encampment.

"So you never had that mail? Oh, you poor things, what a long time you have been without any news of the outside world!" cried Mary.

"But we have survived it, you see," Katherine answered with a laugh. Then she asked Mary if she would not like to be rowed to the store first, before going to inspect the new house.

"Yes, please; I want to see your father and Mrs. Burton, to say nothing of the twins and Miles," Mary answered eagerly. Then she said, with a wistful note in her voice: "You will let me be bridesmaid tomorrow?"

"To-morrow?" repeated Katherine in surprise. Then, blushing vividly, she answered: "But I am not sure that it will be to-morrow."

"I am," replied Mary calmly, "for the simple reason that the bishop starts the day after for Marble Island, which he hopes to reach before the whalers are all broken out of the ice. Father is going to send him up the bay in the best available boat. You will let me be bridesmaid, won't you?"

"If you wish, certainly," said Katherine; then the boat b.u.mped against the mooring post and was made fast, after which the two girls walked up to the store together.

'Duke Radford was sitting in the sunshine, looking dreamily out over the river, which at this time of the year was at its widest and highest. He rose with a pleased exclamation when Mary came into view, and took off his hat with a courtly air.

"I remember you quite well, and your coming always used to make me happy, but I have forgotten your name," he said, apologetically.

"Call me Mary; it is easy to remember," she answered in a gentle tone. Then she stayed in the sunshine talking to him, until Mrs. Burton and the twins rushed out to carry her off by force.

It was Miles who rowed Mary over the river, for a fit of shyness came upon Katherine, and she was not visible to many people except her own family for the remainder of that day. Jervis came over in the evening, and there was a troubled look on his face which Katherine noticed at once.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, a chill of fear creeping into her heart lest even at this eleventh hour something was coming to stand between her and her happiness.

"I have only had a few more cares and responsibilities dumped upon me than I had bargained for," he answered. "Do you feel equal to helping me to bear them?"

"Of course," she answered brightly.

"Did they tell you about Mr. Clay's arrival?" he asked, holding her hands, and looking down into her face with an expression she could by no means fathom.

"Yes; Mary told me about him. She said he was a horrid little man. Is it true?" Katherine asked, smiling at the remembrance of Mary's energetic utterances.

"I think he means to be very kind," Jervis answered; "but the journey has got on his nerves rather. However, I helped him to a hot bath, and now he has gone to bed in a happier frame of mind; and he wants to be best man to-morrow, so I have squared matters with Miles. Do you mind?"

"Of course not," she answered brightly, thrusting back the feeling of not wanting any more strangers to intrude themselves into that holy of holies which was to take place to-morrow.

"Mr. Clay is the--I mean, he is a friend of the family, and he has been good to my mother," Jervis went on, a curious air of constraint showing itself in him, which might have been due to nervousness, although he was not wont to be troubled in that fashion. "Cousin Samuel died in February, and affairs have been at sixes and sevens since, wanting my presence in England."

"You will have to go, then?" she asked quickly.

"We must start next week, I think," he answered, with an emphasis on the p.r.o.noun that set her heart at rest. "Mr. Clay is going on to Marble Island with the bishop to-morrow. He wants to see if there is any boat there which will serve to take us round to Halifax when the Strait is open. If not, we shall have to go by river and trail to Maxohama; but I want to spare you that fatigue if I can, for you have done quite enough portage work already."

"I would just as soon face the portages as the sea-sickness which will inevitably be my portion going through the Strait," she answered, with a laugh. "But where do the troubles come in, Jervis? Did your cousin die poor?"

"Time enough to hear about the troubles when to-morrow comes. I am not going to worry you with them to-night."

CHAPTER x.x.xI

The Wedding