Would They Be Friends?
When Mrs. Burton had gone, Mary set to work to inspect the little
loghouse, and make things comfortable for the night. But there was
not very much that needed doing, and their weeks of river travel
had shorn away so many habits which are the outcome of too much
civilization, that they had come down to a primitive simplicity of
living. The hut contained two small bedrooms, scarcely bigger than
cabins on board ship, one sitting-room, and a lean-to kitchen in
the rear. There was not an atom of paint about the place; it was
all bare, brown wood, restful to the eyes, and in perfect harmony
with the surrounding wilderness.
The boatmen had pitched their tent at the down-river side of the
house, and were sitting round a fire on the ground smoking their
pipes in great comfort and content. Mary had finished her survey
of the inside of her new home, and now wandered outside the house
to see what manner of country lay in the immediate neighbourhood of
Roaring Water Portage. Her father was sitting on a bench by the
hut door, drowsily comfortable with a cigar, and busy with
numberless plans for the future. He was not in a mood for talking
just then, and Mary was glad to be alone for a while.
It was broad daylight still, although the evening was getting on;
but the trees grew so thickly all about the hut that she could see
little beyond trunks and foliage, so, finding a little path which
led upward, she commenced to climb. Great boulders strewed the
ground here between the trees, and although by the sound she knew
herself to be near the river, she could not see it until after a
stiff climb of twenty minutes or so she emerged on an open space
above the falls. Here indeed was beauty enough to satisfy even her
desire for it. The undulating ground all about and below her was
mostly forest-clad, the larches showed in their vivid green against
the sombre hue of the pines, while giant cedars stood out black
against the evening sky. On one side, right away in the distance,
the waters of the bay reached to the horizon, but for to-night Mary
turned her back on the sea; it was the land that charmed her most.
Presently, just where the glory of the sunset reflected itself in
the river, she saw a boat coming skimming down the current. It was
just the touch of life that was necessary to lift the weird
solemnity from those silent forest reaches. From where she stood,
leaning against the trunk of a tree on the hilltop, Mary could see
without being seen; for she still wore the travelling dress which
so nearly matched the tree stem in colour, and a brown veil was
over her face, a necessary precaution against the mosquitoes which
swarmed everywhere.
There was a girl in the boat, with soft, wavy hair, pretty and
feminine in appearance, but with strength and decision in every
movement, which made Mary whisper to herself: "That must be
Katherine; and how graceful she is! I had quite expected her to be
a great, clumping creature, because Mrs. Burton said she did a
man's work."
There was a boy in the boat as well, but it was the girl who
claimed Mary's attention now. The boat drew in at a point above
the falls where a little shed served as boathouse, and then the boy
and the girl rapidly unloaded various packages and bundles, which
were dumped in a heap on the bank, while the boat was drawn in and
secured under the shed.
"Phil, we shall have to make two journeys--we can never do it in
one," the girl said, and her voice had a tired ring which made the
unseen listener on the hilltop pity her exceedingly.
"Just you sit down for five minutes while I whistle for the dogs,"
said the boy. "They will hear if Miles doesn't, and there will be
such a clamour that everyone will know we are close home."
As he spoke he hooked two fingers between his lips, and the
resultant whistles were so piercing and shrill that Mary would have
been glad to thrust her fingers in her ears, only now she would not
move through fear of drawing attention to herself.
The whistles had scarcely ceased to vibrate through the quiet air
when in the distance there arose a mighty clamour of barking. Mary
caught her breath and waited now to see what was coming, and in
less than five minutes two huge dogs came bounding down the portage
path to the shed where the girl and boy were waiting.
"I must make friends with those dogs before I am many hours older,
or I shall be afraid to stir away from the house," Mary said to
herself, with a little shiver, as she watched the big brutes
careering round.
But they were wanted for work, not play, so their gambols came to a
speedy end. The boy loaded each one with packages, and, picking up
a couple of bundles himself, started up the portage path, closely
followed by the dogs, which perfectly understood the work that was
required of them.
Then the girl rose to her feet, and stood for a moment gazing at
the golden glories of the setting sun. She stretched her arms out
with a quick, eager movement, as if asking for something she
yearned to possess, then dropped them to her side again, and
turning, proceeded to load the remainder of the packages and
bundles on to her own shoulders.
If only the river had not flowed between, Mary might have gone to
her assistance. As it was, she stood watching the bowed figure go
slowly up the portage path to disappear among the bushes, then she
also turned to retrace her steps to the hut. But the tired girl
was very much in Mary's thoughts that evening. Why had she
stretched out her arms to the glowing west with such a gesture of
entreaty? Of course it might have been just girlish
dissatisfaction with a toilsome, colourless life, or it might be
that there were ambitions and desires which had to be sternly
repressed.
"I wonder if we shall be friends?" she said presently, speaking
aloud because she had entirely forgotten that she was not alone.
"Friends with whom?" asked her father sleepily. He was still
sitting on the bench by the hut door, and Mary was leaning against
the doorpost. She had been standing so ever since she came down
the hill, and her thoughts were still busy with the girl who had
looked so tired and carried such heavy burdens.
"I have seen a girl this evening, such a pretty girl, and so
graceful in her movements, but she was doing a portage as if she
were a man, and I felt that I should like to know her," Mary
answered, her voice and manner more dreamy than usual. Indeed, it
seemed as if the place had laid a spell upon her already.
"Probably you will have what you want, and then you will find
yourself disappointed. You must not expect to find much refinement
and culture in a wild place like this," Mr. Selincourt said.
"I do not look for it. But however rough or illiterate this girl
may be, I think she has a soul, a longing for something she does
not possess," went on Mary, who was weaving fancies and theories
together in quite a remarkable fashion for her.
"Most women long for what they don't possess, and some men do the
same," replied Mr. Selincourt, laughing a little. Then he rose and
stretched himself, saying: "I believe I will go to bed, for I am so
tired that I can hardly keep my eyes open. It is so late that
Jervis Ferrars will hardly come to-night now, although I should
have been glad to see him, for I am really anxious to know how the
fishing is going."
"Well, you won't have to wait long, for here he comes, I
fancy--although it seems funny that I should remember his step
after so many months," said Mary, as a firm tread sounded on the
path coming up through the bushes from the water's edge.
"Is that you, Ferrars?" asked Mr. Selincourt eagerly, his
sleepiness vanishing as if by magic.
"Yes, sir," responded a voice, and the next moment Jervis Ferrars
appeared in sight.
"I'm sorry that I was not on hand to welcome you when you arrived,"
he said.
"No matter, no matter at all!" exclaimed Mr. Selincourt, shaking
hands with him; but Mary only vouchsafed a nod in response to the
young man's courteous salutation.
"My welcome is only a little belated, but it could not be more
sincere. You have come just at the right time, I think," Jervis
went on; and at the suggestion of Mr. Selincourt the two sat down
on the bench side by side, while Mary remained leaning against the
doorpost as before.
"How is the fishing?" asked Mr. Selincourt.
"It is going very well indeed, and you will get a very good return
for your money this year, and a much better one next season. I
have been away on Akimiski all day, and I have been simply amazed
at the amount of fish which could be caught, cured, and marketed if
only we had the necessary plant."
"What sort of fish? Everyone is saying that Hudson Bay is played
out for seal and walrus, while whales are getting scarcer every
year," said Mr. Selincourt, who had bought out the old company
cheaply because of this growing scarcity.
"That may be," replied Jervis, "although, being a stranger to these
waters, I'm not in a position to give a reliable opinion. But of
lesser fish, such as cod, halibut, lobster, salmon, and that sort
of thing, there is enough going to waste to feed a nation."
"I tell you what we will do!" exclaimed Mr. Selincourt. "We will
order the necessary plant, and we will start a curing factory. Of
course we are out of the world for nine months in every year, but
that won't make much difference in the end; and we got our fishing
rights cheaply enough to enable us to make a very good thing indeed
out of our venture before we have done."
"Don't you think it is rather grasping of you to want to make more
money, Daddy, when you have got so much already?" broke in Mary, in
a playful tone, yet with some underlying seriousness of purpose.
"Not a bit of it, my dear. Because I have got some money should be
no barrier to my getting more, if I get it honestly," her father
answered with soothing toleration; for Mary had ideas, and was apt
to air them in rather unmeasured language when she was roused.
"It seems so ignoble to spend all one's time and energy in making
money when there are so many wrongs which need righting, and so
many people who need helping," she said, with a note of pathos in
her tone.
"The most effectual way of helping people is to assist them in
helping themselves," broke in Jervis. "If Mr. Selincourt develops
this fishing as it is capable of being developed, he will do more
real good than if he spent hundreds of pounds in charity."
"If you were really a Canadian you would have said dollars, not
pounds," she interrupted, with mock gravity, just as if she were
making fun of him to his face.
"I am an Englishman," he said quietly, too much in earnest just
then to resent her levity, "so it is most natural to me to speak of
pounds. But that makes no difference to the question at issue.
When your father gets his factory going he will employ twenty men
where he now employs one. They in turn will be able to support
wives and families, which will mean employment for storekeepers,
school teachers----"
"Oh, spare me any more, I beg!" she implored penitently, "and I
promise never, never to object to money-making schemes again. I
know you were going to add that the twenty men's wives would want
twenty new hats, and so there would be an opening for a first-class
millinery establishment at Roaring Water Portage."
"I had not thought of that, but of course it is quite true," he
said, adding with a laugh: "and there would be an opening for a
dressmaker also, don't you see?"
"I don't want to see. I don't want to hear anything more about it
at all. It is all too much in the future, too practical and
commonplace altogether to fit such a twilight as this," she said,
with a touch of petulance. "I want to know about the people here.
What sort of a man is Oily Dave? He looks a veritable old rascal."
"And for once appearances are not deceptive," replied Jervis.
"Since I have been here he has tried to quietly do for me about
once a week upon an average. He so nearly succeeded the first time
that it has encouraged him to persevere."
"How truly horrid!" she cried with a shiver. "But there are nicer
people to compensate for him, I hope. Who is that delightfully
hospitable woman who lives in the house on the bluff, with a
boatlike projection at one end?"
"That is Mrs. Jenkin, my landlady, and the boat-like projection is
my abode. It is very comfortable, too," he answered.
"Then who is the very pretty girl who moves with as much grace as
if she had been brought up in drawing-rooms all her life, yet has
to carry heavy burdens over a portage like a man?" asked Mary
eagerly, her other questions having been intended only to lead up
to this.
Jervis Ferrars stood up with a quick movement, and a feeling that
the questioning had become suddenly intolerable; but his voice was
quiet and steady as he answered: "That would be Miss Radford, whose
father has the store over the river. But he has been ill for a
long time, poor man, and with little hope of recovery, so his
daughter has a very hard life. I am going over to see him now, if
you will excuse me. There is no doctor here, of course, so I have
done what I could for him."
"It was another daughter, a dear, delightful little person named
Mrs. Burton, who was here when we came," said Mary. "I am glad to
find there are such nice people here, and I hope we shall be
friends."
Jervis flung up his head with a haughty movement, almost as if he
resented the kindly overture, but he replied civilly enough; only
the thought in his mind as he went down to the river was that poor
Katherine, with her hard, drudging life for the good of others, was
so much more noble than this girl, who lived only to please
herself, that it would be a condescension on Katherine's part to be
friendly with her. When he reached the store it was to find no one
about but Mrs. Burton and the invalid.
"Ah, I am late to-night!" he said apologetically, and with a
feeling of sharp disappointment. "But Mr. Selincourt has come, and
I had to go over to report progress to him."
"What very nice people they are!" exclaimed Mrs. Burton with
enthusiasm. "I was charmed with Miss Selincourt. She will be a
great acquisition here this summer."
"Yes," Jervis remarked in an abstracted fashion, but not paying
much heed to what was being said, for he was in perplexity as to
why Katherine was not visible; and seeing no prospect of finding
out without a direct question, he made the plunge and asked: "Where
is your sister? Isn't she well?"
"Katherine has gone to bed, because she is so tired to-night. She
and Phil have done the backache portage, as they call it, and it
always wears her so much, poor girl," Mrs. Burton answered with a
sigh. Then she said, with an involuntary lowering of her voice as
she glanced at her father: "Katherine does not like the idea of our
telling Father that Mr. Selincourt has come. She says it may
excite him, and be very harmful. What do you think about it?"
Jervis glanced at the invalid, who sat in a chair by the open door,
gazing out at the evening sky, where the twilight still lingered.
'Duke Radford was sitting with his head stooped a little forward,
and smiling placidly as if his thoughts pleased him.
"I don't think it would hurt him; he takes so little notice," the
young man answered slowly. Then he added: "But Miss Radford would
know better about that than I do, and if she is afraid of the
effect upon him, it would be well to be careful."
"I don't think Katherine knows more about Father than I do, because
you see she is not much with him, and I don't think he understands
the difference between one person and another," said Mrs. Burton.
"He seems to find as much pleasure in talking to Oily Dave as to
Astor M'Kree, and that is certainly different from what he used to
be. But it will be very hard if we have to shut nice people like
the Selincourts out of the house just because it may upset Father,
who probably won't even realize that they are strangers at all."
"Well, we can but try him. Let us see if the name brings any worry
to him," said Jervis, and going across to the door he began to talk
to the invalid. "Mr. Selincourt and his daughter have come to
spend the summer here; they live in the hut across the river that
Astor M'Kree has done up so nicely. Would you like them to come
and see you?"
'Duke Radford looked at him curiously, as if not understanding what
he was talking about; then he said slowly: "Oh yes, I like to see
people, nice people; where do they come from?"
"England," replied the young man.
The invalid shivered, then said more haltingly than before: "I
don't like to think of England, it makes me sad; but Selincourt is
a pretty name--a very pretty name indeed!"