A Woman of Business
"What is the trouble, Miss Radford?"
Katherine started. She had been so busy in packing baking powder,
tobacco, currants, and things of that description into a box for
the fisher from Long Island Sound that she had not heard the
approach of Jervis Ferrars, who wore list slippers, and so made but
little noise in walking. The long hard day which had held so many
momentous happenings was wearing to a close, and so far she had
found no chance at all to speak to the stranger about what he had
to fear. Mrs. Burton had begged him with tears in her eyes to stay
a few days to help them in looking after their father, and Jervis
Ferrars had accepted with such evident pleasure at the prospect
that Katherine had troubled no further then, and had devoted
herself to the many things which called for her attention.
Her father still lay in the condition of absolute unconsciousness
into which he had fallen at first, and Mr. Ferrars did not think
there would be much change for a few days. He also did not
apprehend any immediate danger, and they all took courage from
this. Sickness and incapacity did not daunt them; but it was death
the separator of whom they were all so much afraid.
"I did not hear you come," Katherine said.
"No, my footgear is not noisy, as befits a sickroom; but then my
steps are not sprightly either, so you might have heard me
slouching across the floor if you had not been so absorbed in the
matter in hand. What is it you want to tell me?" he asked, with a
quick change of tone.
"You had better not go back to the house of Oily Dave again," she
began in a rather breathless style.
"Very much better not, I should say," he answered. "But why?"
"You have come to watch the fishing in the interest of Mr.
Selincourt, have you not?" she asked.
"Yes, the old company complained of considerable leakage in
profits, you see; indeed it was on this account that they decided
the fleet was an unworkable scheme for a company, and were willing
to sell to Mr. Selincourt."
Katherine nodded, then said in a low tone: "But your position will
make you enemies, and I have been warned to-day that it is
positively dangerous for you to remain in the house with that man."
"Did this warning reach you before you came to rescue me this
morning, or since?" he asked quickly.
"Since. We did not even know that you were there."
"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 title? 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
assumed 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
reassuring 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.
"God 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 latitudes 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 circumstances;" and Oily Dave
struck an attitude 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 shore, 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-cock 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 amusement 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.
"Would you like to have one of our boats? Miles will help you to
run it down," Katherine said. It was such a usual thing to lend a
customer a boat that one or two were always handy, and the customer
always understood that the loan was to be returned at his earliest
convenience.
"Thank you, I should be glad! The current will carry me down while
I smoke my pipe. Then I shall be rested enough to cook supper when
I get there," he answered. Then, bidding her good night, he went
out of the store, meeting Miles in the doorway, who went back to
help him to run the boat down into the water.
"Miles, I hope you didn't tell that old fraud that Mr. Ferrars was
staying here?" said Katherine, when the boy came in and locked the
door for the night.
"Of course I didn't. I never said a word good, bad, nor
indifferent to the old fellow. I haven't got over this morning,"
Miles said, in a tone which sounded sullen, but which was only a
cloak for feelings deeply stirred.
"Very well then, for this one night at least he will have the
satisfaction of believing that he was successful in drowning Mr.
Ferrars," Katherine replied.
"Don't worry yourself, Mrs. Jenkin will tell him," said Miles. "Or
some of the men will chaff him, because he has been outwitted by a
girl."
"It wasn't a girl this time; it was Mrs. Jenkin," objected
Katherine, letting a box go down with a bang, for she did not want
the listener in the other room to hear what Miles was saying.
"Mrs. Jenkin might have called out that there was someone in Oily
Dave's house that wanted saving, but I guess the poor man would
have had time to drown twice over if it hadn't been for you getting
on the ice and going to fetch him out," Miles said, sticking to his
own opinion with the obstinacy he was rather fond of displaying.
Katherine took refuge in silence, going out of the store as soon as
she could, and hurrying away to bed, because of the needs of the
next day. Neither she nor Mrs. Burton slept very well, however.
To both of them it was a grief beyond the power of words to
describe to leave their father to the care of a stranger, and they
were both thankful when morning came and the day's routine had to
begin again.
There was no change in the stricken man's condition, but Katherine,
who stayed with him while the others had breakfast, thought that he
looked more comfortable than on the previous evening. When Miles
came in to take her place, she went back to the kitchen, to hear
Mrs. Burton and Jervis Ferrars talking of the Selincourts.
"I suppose Mr. Selincourt is very rich," said Mrs. Burton with a
little wistful sigh, as if she thought that riches might detract
from his niceness.
"Yes, I expect he is very rich, but he is so thoroughly pleasant,
and so free from side, that one is apt to forget all about his
riches," Jervis said, then rose to set a chair for Katherine, and
bring her bowl of porridge from the stove, where it was keeping
warm for her.
"Is Miss Selincourt nice too, and is she pretty?" asked Mrs.
Burton, who to Katherine's secret disquiet was always asking
questions concerning the expected arrivals.
Jervis laughed. "I have never stopped to consider whether she is
pretty, but she is certainly very charming in her manners," he
said, with so much earnestness that Katherine instantly made up her
mind that Miss Selincourt was the kind of person she did not care
for and did not want to know.
Phil came in from the store at this moment, with a pucker of
amusement on his face.
"Stee Jenkin has brought our boat back," he said. "Oily Dave paid
him half a dollar to come, because he didn't feel like showing his
face up here just yet."
"Why not?" demanded Jervis Ferrars.
"Stee said the ice at the river mouth didn't give way until after
midnight, when it burst with a roar like cannon. When Oily Dave
got to Seal Cove last night, the water reached to the shingles of
his house; so the old fellow rowed across to Stee's hut and asked
to be taken in for the night, because he was flooded out and the
Englishman was drowned."
"But didn't Stee tell him that Mr. Ferrars was safe here with us?"
asked Mrs. Burton.
"Not a bit of it," replied Phil. "That would have spoiled sport,
don't you see? because Oily Dave was what Stee called most uncommon
resigned, and talked such a lot about going to find the body in the
morning, that they just made up their minds to let him go. He was
up by daybreak and went over to look; but when he saw the door
broken down he guessed there had been a rescue, and he was just mad
because no one had told him anything about it."
"It was rather too bad to leave him in suspense all night, poor
man," said Mrs. Burton gently.