The Rift in the Clouds
"My dear child, I can never forgive myself for having made you cry
like this!" exclaimed Mr. Selincourt; for Katherine was sobbing as
vigorously as she did most other things, and he was genuinely
distressed.
"Oh, I am glad to cry! I mean, I am so happy, because it came out
all right. And oh, please do forgive me for having been so
foolish! I wonder whatever you must think of me!" and, heaving a
deep sigh of relief, Katherine sat up and wiped her eyes.
"I think you are a very charming and tender-hearted young lady.
But I shall have to be very careful how I tell you sad things, if
this is the way you are going to receive my confidences," he said,
with a rather rueful air; for she was by no means the sort of girl
he would have expected to indulge in the weakness of tears.
Katherine laughed. She was desperately ashamed of having been so
foolish; but those words of gratitude, spoken by Mr. Selincourt
about the person who had wronged him were like balm to her sore
heart. It was as if her father had confessed his fault, and had
been forgiven on earth as well as in heaven.
"You must pay the penalty of your eloquence by seeing your audience
drowned in tears," she said lightly. Then, rolling up the
remainder of the furs, she left the stockroom and returned to the
store, whither Mr. Selincourt followed her; and as there were no
customers he sat on a box and talked on, as if it were a real
pleasure to have found a sympathetic listener.
"Those two years of struggle, of disappointment and bitter poverty,
have had their uses," he said, in a meditative fashion, as he sat
looking out through the door, which Katherine had unlocked again.
His gaze was on the river, which sparkled and gleamed in the
sunshine, but his thoughts were far away.
Katherine answered only by a splitting, rending noise, as she tore
a piece of calico. But that did not matter, because he was too
much absorbed in his own thoughts to need other speech just then.
"Perhaps if I had not been poor myself I should not have had
sympathy with other men who were in the slough and couldn't get
out," he said, speaking as much to himself as to Katherine.
"It is fine to be able to help other people," she replied, cutting
the next piece of calico to avoid making so much noise.
"Yes, but I think no one realizes the full blessing of it who has
not known in his own person what it is to be in trouble and to be
helped himself," he said, his tone still dreamy, and his gaze on
the hurrying water.
"Have you helped a great many?" she asked softly.
"A few," he answered. "Some have been disappointments, of course,
and once or twice I have been robbed for my pains; but I have had
my compensations, especially in Archie Raymond and Jervis Ferrars."
"Who is Archie Raymond?" demanded Katherine, who was measuring
calico as rapidly, and with as much dexterity, as if she had served
an apprenticeship behind a drapery counter, instead of having been
trained for teaching.
Mr. Selincourt brought his gaze from the river, jerking his head
round to get a good view of Katherine; then he asked, in a
surprised tone: "Hasn't Mary told you about him? I thought girls
always talked to each other about such things."
"What things?" asked Katherine.
"Why, sweethearts, and all that sort of stuff," he answered vaguely.
Katherine flushed, caught her breath in a little gasp, and,
clenching the hand which held the calico, said rather unsteadily:
"Mary and I have certainly not discussed sweethearts and that sort
of stuff, as you call it."
Mr. Selincourt laughed in great amusement, then said more gravely:
"Mary has been very much spoiled, and in all her life she has never
been denied anything save one, as I told you before, and I am
hoping very much that it will all come right for her yet, when she
has learned her lesson of patient waiting."
Katherine dropped her calico, and, nerving herself for a great
effort of endurance, said: "Won't you tell me what you mean? I
never could understand hints and vague suggestions about things."
"It is like this," began Mr. Selincourt, who was only too pleased
to get a listener as sympathetic as Katherine: "a year ago last
winter Mary fell in love with Archie Raymond, or else he fell in
love with her; anyhow they became engaged, although I demurred a
little, on account of his inability to support a wife. But I gave
way in time, for he was a thoroughly good fellow, and one of the
sort who was bound to rise when he got a chance. Mary was
exacting, however--I told you she had been spoiled--and Archie
wasn't the sort to be led about on a string like a lapdog; so
naturally they quarrelled."
"Poor Mary!" exclaimed Katherine softly.
"And poor Archie too, I guess," returned Mr. Selincourt. "It was
his misfortune that he cared so much for her. I believe she would
have treated him better if he had not been so much her slave; but
even slaves can't endure too much, so he revolted after a time.
Jervis Ferrars, who was Archie's friend, came to Mary and begged
that she would see Archie, if only for ten minutes, because there
was something to be said between them which could not be put into a
letter. But my girl is made of obstinate stuff that crops up in
awkward places sometimes; so she sent word by Jervis that if Archie
liked to send her a letter of apology she would read it, but she
would not see him until that had been done."
"Did he do it?" asked Katherine eagerly. A white light of
illumination had suddenly flashed into her mind concerning the
nature of the boon which Jervis Ferrars had begged at the hands of
Mary, and been denied.
Mr. Selincourt laughed. "I told you that he was a man and not a
lapdog. That sort don't go crawling round asking pardon for wrongs
they have not committed. The next we heard of Archie Raymond was
that he had joined Max Bohrnsen's Arctic Expedition in place of a
man who had fallen out through sickness, and that he had sailed for
the Polar Seas on a two years' absence."
"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
gratitude 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 space 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.