A Bearer of Evil Tidings
In was a very tired Katherine who awoke to face the work of the
next day. It was storming still, with a driving rain, so journeys
of any kind were out of the question; and, yielding to the wisdom
of Mrs. Burton, she remained in bed until nearly noon. Her arms
ached so badly that she could scarcely move them, her body was
weary in every part, and the long night had been hideous for her by
reason of the nightmare dreams which broke her rest. Always it
seemed when she fell asleep that she was tormented with visions of
Jervis Ferrars struggling for his life in deep waters, falling from
beetling cliffs on to rugged rocks below, or being pursued by
enraged and vindictive walruses across slippery places, where no
one on two feet could hope to stand without falling.
Even when she awoke the dreams haunted her still, and it was not
until the new day came, and the rest of the household had gone to
their usual avocations, that any real sleep came to her. The twins
were singing when she awoke at noon; indeed, they almost always
were singing: but this morning it was a lilting baby song about
"The sun is always shining, somewhere, somewhere", and Katherine
took heart as she listened, then rose and dressed in great haste,
for it was years since she had remained in bed so late in the day,
and she was wondering what the others were doing without her to
help them.
Miles was standing at the store door looking out across the river
when she entered by the other door from the living-room, and he was
so absorbed that he did not hear her come up behind him, and only
started when she put her hand on his arm to shake him into
attention.
"What are you staring at?" she asked lightly.
"Someone in oilskins has just rowed up and stopped over the river
at Mr. Selincourt's. It looked like Oily Dave, but Phil said last
night that he was away at the fishing," Miles answered, as he
turned back into the store.
"So he was," said Katherine. "There was the usual legend in his
dirty windows that all drinks must wait until he came back, which
is a fearful temptation to temperance people to wish that he would
never come back at all."
"His sort is sure to turn up safe and sound, no matter how great
the danger; it is the best and worthiest that never come back,"
Miles said, so gloomily that Katherine took instant alarm.
"What do you mean? Has any bad news come?" she asked, gripping at
the rough deal counter for support, and wondering how she would be
able to bear it if he said yes.
"Mr. Selincourt went down to Seal Cove this morning and looked in
here on his way back," said Miles. "He wanted to see you, but we
told him that he could not; then he said that there was a good bit
of worry about the boats. One was blown clean into the swamps last
night, and will have to stick there until the weather is fine
enough for her to be towed off, and another came ashore, badly
damaged, at the fish sheds; and he is afraid that some of the other
boats may have been driven on to the rocks."
"The boats right out in the bay would be safe, wouldn't they?"
Katherine asked, with fear in her eyes.
"You never can say what will be safe in weather such as we had last
night," Miles answered; then he moved restlessly towards the door
of the store again, and stood looking out, eager to catch the man
whose boat was moored under the alders on the opposite bank of the
river, and to learn from him if there was news from the sea.
Katherine sat down suddenly. It was as if someone had already been
in to say that a boat was wrecked. Disasters which were expected
always came, so she told herself, and sat leaning her head against
a box of soap, the smell of which ever after suggested shipwreck to
her.
Ten minutes went past, then twenty minutes, and nearly half an hour
had gone before Miles cried out excitedly: "Here he comes down the
path; Mr. Selincourt is there too, without any hat, and it is
raining hard! Yes, it is Oily Dave, and there goes his hand up to
his mouth, just as if he were drinking!"
Katherine was at work by this time, packing stores into boxes,
bags, and bundles, which would have to be carried over the long
portage next day; but she left her task now and came round to the
door, where she stood behind Miles and looked over his shoulder.
"If Mr. Selincourt were not there I would go down and call to the
fellow to come over," said Miles impatiently.
"No need," rejoined Katherine quietly, "he is coming without any
calling; don't you see that he is turning his boat across the
river?"
Neither spoke after that until the boat grounded, and Oily Dave
stepped out on to the bank.
"Miles, you must serve him with what he wants: don't call me; I--I
am going to be busy," Katherine said hastily, then beat a rapid
retreat from the door. But she only went to the corner where a lot
of gay-coloured rugs were hanging, and stood there waiting to hear
what Oily Dave might have to tell.
How slowly he walked up from the bank! She could hear his heavy
seaboots squelching through the mud, then the deep, grunting noise
which always accompanied any of his movements.
"Good morning!" said Miles curtly, as the squelching boots crossed
the threshold.
"I don't call it a good morning," snarled Oily Dave.
Katherine drew yet closer into the shadow of the rugs, and clenched
her hands tightly to keep from screaming; something bad had got to
be told, she was sure, and she doubted her ability to bear it.
"What is wrong?" asked Miles.
"A good deal more than will ever be put right in this world, or the
next either, perhaps," replied Oily Dave. "We are afraid the
_Mary_ has gone down."
"Ah!" The involuntary moan escaped the listener who was out of
sight, but Oily Dave did not hear, or at any rate he did not heed,
and, after a brief pause, he went on:
"We was off Akimiski yesterday after walrus, but when it came on to
blow we turned home, for there is no anchorage to run to there in
dirty weather, but plenty of rocks to fall foul of, which are not
quite so pleasant. But we couldn't get home for a while, being
blown along the east coast of the island, with a lively chance of
being wrecked at any minute. We were beating along under the lee
of the island when we saw a boat drifting bottom up, and when we
hooked her we found she was the Mary's boat."
"It sounds bad, but it does not spell disaster quite, because,
don't you see? they might have lost their boat on the way out,"
retorted Miles, in a defiant tone, which meant that he did not
intend to believe bad news until it was proved beyond a doubt.
"There was a water jar and a bag of biscuits tied to the thwarts,"
replied Oily Dave. "It's true there wasn't nothing of the jar but
the handle, and the biscuits was pap, as was to be expected, but
the signs wasn't wanting of what had been taking place, don't you
see? If we'd found the boat with nothing in it we could have hoped
that it had just been washed adrift, and, though we should have
been anxious, there would have been room left for hope, which in
common sense and reason there ain't now."
"There is always room for hope until we know," objected Miles.
"Besides, Akimiski isn't the Twins by any means; why, they must be
fifty miles away, if not more."
"Nearer seventy. But who is to say that they ever got so far as
the Twins? If they'd run into any sign of walrus on Akimiski on
the way out, they would stop there for certain, a bird in hand
being worth two in a bush any day in the week, and though all is
fish that comes to our net, it is walrus we're keenest on, as
everyone knows. I've been to Mr. Selincourt with the news, and it
has about corked him up, poor gentleman! But the young lady was
worse still; she turned on me as spiteful as if I'd gone and
drowned the _Mary's_ crew myself."
There was a deeply injured note in Oily Dave's tone now. He
evidently resented keenly the fact that his bad tidings had not
received a more sympathetic hearing.
"Who was on the _Mary_?" asked Miles.
"The usual lot: Nick Jones, master, Stee Jenkin, Bobby Poole, and
Mr. Ferrars. A perfect Jonah that man is, and disaster follows
wherever he goes," said Oily Dave, with a melancholy shake of his
head.
"What do you mean?" demanded Miles, with a stare of surprise.
"What I say," retorted Oily Dave. "Mr. Selincourt sent him to me as
a lodger; the river came down in flood and tried to drown him, and
spoiled my house something fearful. Then he gets caught in a
tidehole, when out walking with his sweetheart, which Miss
Selincourt is, I suppose, though it passes me why a young lady with
dollars same as she has got don't look higher than a fisherman.
But the thing that strikes me is that the man must have done
something pretty bad, somewhere back behind, for the waters to be
following him round like this."
"Look here! don't you think it is a pretty low-down thing to be
taking a man's character away, directly there's a rumour going
round that he is dead?" asked Miles stormily.
"I ain't taking away his character. I'm only saying that if he was
fated to drown it is a great pity that he wasn't left to drown in
the first place, seeing that it would have saved a lot of bother,
and other precious lives also," replied Oily Dave, with the look
and pose of a man who is bitterly misunderstood.
"Why, you must be stark, staring mad to talk like this!" exclaimed
Miles, in doubt whether to heave the nearest article on which he
could lay hands at the head of Oily Dave, or to pity him as a
lunatic.
"I'm no more mad than you are, young 'un; but there's a deal of
what scholars call practical economy in me, and I can't bear waste
of no sort or kind, I can't. Why, when customers come to my hotel
and leaves any liquor in their mugs, which is but seldom, I always
goes and drains 'em down my own neck, to stop waste. And so I says
that if Mr. Ferrars hadn't been saved that first time, we should
have been spared trouble since."
"What trouble have you ever taken in the matter?" demanded Miles.
"Didn't I risk my life, and wet myself to the skin, pulling him and
Miss Selincourt out of the tidehole?" asked Oily Dave. "If you
misdoubt my word, ask your sister, who was there and helped as well
as a gal could, which isn't much anyhow. Well, there was three
lives in danger that time, him, and me, and Miss Selincourt, and I
dare say your sister got dampish at the feet. Now, this third and
last time, matters is a deal more serious still. Nick Jones leaves
a widow, though she don't much count. Stee Jenkin leaves a widow,
nice little woman too. Then there's the children, poor things,
orphans afore they are big enough to earn a penny for themselves.
Bobby Poole hadn't a wife certainly, but he would have had by and
by, most likely. It is a bad business altogether. And now I want
some tobacco."
Oily Dave jerked out this last statement with a swift change of
tone from mournful regret to cheerful business complacency, and
Miles served him in silence, too saddened by the heavy tidings from
the sea to break into resentful angry speech with this man, who
appeared devoid of either heart or feeling. Then the heavy boots
squelched out again, going towards the river bank, where the
waiting boat was tied to the mooring post. A moment of waiting to
make sure he did not return, and then Katherine, pale now as a
ghost, glided out from the shadow of the rugs.
"Miles, dear, can you do without me for the rest of the day if need
be? I am going down river to poor Mrs. Jenkin," she said, her
voice steady though strained.
"I can manage; but look at the rain!" he exclaimed, swinging his
hand towards the open door.
"All the more reason why I should go to her, poor little woman,"
Katherine answered, then passed with a quick step into the house,
in search of garments to keep out the weather.
Mrs. Burton was preparing the early dinner, and Katherine told her
of the news Oily Dave had brought, speaking in quiet, mournful
tones which yet lacked any note of personal loss. Not even to
herself would she admit the sorrow at this time, or it would have
broken her down completely. Her instinct of going to comfort
someone else was the outcome of the strife she was having not to
collapse in a miserable, selfish breakdown.
Mrs. Burton turned white and shivered. Just so had her heavy news
come to her, and in her sympathy for Mrs. Jenkin her own wounds
bled afresh. But Katherine could not stay to comfort her, the
other poor woman needed it so much more.
"Nellie, I am going down to Seal Cove, and if Mrs. Jenkin needs me
I shall stay until the morning," she said hurriedly.
"That is good of you, dear," sobbed the elder sister, and would
have said something more, only Katherine went out of the room so
hastily that there was no chance.
Poor Katherine had fled so precipitately through fear that Nellie
should say some word about Jervis, with possibly some commiseration
for Mary, and that just now would be a thing too hard to bear.
Wrapping herself from neck to heels in a mackintosh coat, with a
cap of the same, Katherine got into her boat and pulled down river
through the driving rain. She rowed as fast as she could, not so
much from haste to be at the end of her journey as from a desire to
have no time to think.
Tying her boat up at the foot of the path leading to Mrs. Jenkin's
house, she climbed to the house door, slipping at every step. A
moment she paused before knocking, expecting to hear sobs and
wailing from the inside; but instead there came a burst of childish
laughter and a great stamping of little feet, and then she heard
Mrs. Jenkin singing in a cheerful, if not very musical, voice: "My
love is a soldier dressed in red".
Katherine stood appalled. Was it possible that Oily Dave had not
told this poor woman of the trouble which had come to her? In that
case she would have to break the heavy news herself, and at the
thought she turned coward, and would gladly have slipped away again
by the way she had come.
Mrs. Jenkin reached the end of the verse, and shrill, childish
voices took up the chorus:
"In red, in red, he's all in red,
My love is a soldier dressed in red".
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. I don't
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.