A NEW ACQUAINTANCE
The moment we reached the quay at Quebec, some two days later, a
dozen young men, with little notebooks in their hands, jumped on
board all at once.
"Miss Callingham!" they cried with one accord, making a dash for the
quarter-deck. "Which is she? Oh, this!--If you please, Miss
Callingham, I should like to have ten minutes of your time to
interview you!"
I clapped my hands to my ears, and stood back, all horrified. What I
should have done, I don't know, but for a very kind man in a big
rough overcoat, who had jumped on board at the same time, and made
over to me like the reporters. He stepped up to me at once, pushed
aside the young men, and said in a most friendly tone:
"Miss Callingham, I think? You'd better come with me, then. These
people are all sharks. Everybody in Quebec's agog to see the
Two-souled Lady. Answer no questions at all. Take not the least
notice of them. Just follow me to the Custom House. Let them rave,
but don't speak to them."
"Who are you?" I asked blindly, clinging to his arm in my terror.
"I'm a policeman in plain clothes," my new friend answered; "and
I've been specially detailed by order for this duty. I'm here to
look after you. You've friends in Canada, though you may have quite
forgotten them. They've sent me to help you. Those are two of my
chums there, standing aside by the gangway. We'll walk you off
between us. Don't be afraid.--Here, you sir, there; make way!--No
one shall come near you."
I was so nervous, and so ashamed that I accepted my strange escort
without inquiry or remonstrance. He helped me, with remarkable
politeness for a common policeman, across to the Custom House, where
I sat waiting for my luggage. Reporters and sightseers, meanwhile,
pressed obtrusively around me. My protector held them back. I was
half wild with embarrassment. I'm naturally a reserved and somewhat
sensitive girl, and this American publicity made me crimson with
bashfulness.
As I sat there waiting, however, the two other policemen to whom my
champion had beckoned sat one on each side of me, keeping off the
idle crowd, while my first friend looked after the luggage and saw
it safely through the Customs for me. He must be an Inspector, I
fancied, or some other superior officer, the officials were so
deferential to him. I gave him my keys, and he looked after
everything himself. I had nothing, for my part, to do but to sit and
wait patiently for him.
As soon as he had finished, he called a porter to his side.
"Vite!" he cried, in a tone of authority, to the man. "Un fiacre!"
And the porter called one.
I started to find that I knew what he meant. Till that moment, in my
Second State, I had learned no French, and didn't know I could speak
any. But I recognised the words quite well as soon as he uttered
them. My lost knowledge reasserted itself.
They bundled on my boxes. The crowd still stood around and gaped at
me, open-mouthed. I got into the cab, more dead than alive.
"Allez!" my policeman cried to the French-Canadian driver, seating
himself by my side.
"A la gare du chemin de fer Pacific! Aussi vite que possible!"
I understood every word. This was wonderful. My memory was coming
back again.
The man tore along the streets to the Pacific railway station. By
the time we reached it we had distanced the sightseers, though some
of them gave chase. My policeman got out.
"The train's just going!" he said sharply. "Don't take a ticket for
Palmyra, if you don't want to be followed and tracked out all the
way. They'll telegraph on your destination. Book to Kingston
instead, and then change at Sharbot Lake, and take a second ticket
on from there to Palmyra."
I listened, half dazed. Palmyra was the place where Dr. Ivor lived.
Yet, even in the hurry of the moment, I wondered much to myself how
the policeman knew I wanted to go to Palmyra.
There was no time to ask questions, however, or to deliberate on my
plans. I took my ticket as desired, in a turmoil of feelings, and
jumped on to the train. I trusted by this time I had eluded
detection. I ought to have come, I saw now, under a feigned name.
This horrid publicity was more than I could endure. My policeman
helped me in with his persistent politeness, and saw my boxes
checked as far as Sharbot Lake for me. Then he handed me the checks.
"Go in the Pullman," he said quietly. "It's a long journey, you
know: four-and-twenty hours. You've only just caught it. But if
you'd stopped in Quebec, you'd never have been able to give the
sightseers the slip. You'd have been pestered all through. I think
you're safe now. It was this or nothing."
"Oh, thank you so much!" I cried, with heartfelt gratitude, leaning
out of the window as the train was on the point of starting. I
pulled out my purse, and drew timidly forth a sovereign. "I've only
English money," I said, hesitating, for I didn't know whether he'd
be offended or not at the offer of a tip--he seemed such a perfect
gentleman. "But if that's any use to you--"
He smiled a broad smile and shook his head, much amused.
"Oh, thank you," he said, half laughing, with a very curious air.
"I'm a policeman, as I told you. But I don't need tips. I'm the
Chief Constable of Quebec--there's my card; Major Tascherel,--and
I'm glad to be of use, I'm sure, to any friend of Dr. Ivor's."
He lifted his hat with the inborn grace of a high-born gentleman. I
coloured and bowed. The train steamed out of the station. As it
went, I fell back, half fainting, in the comfortable armchair of the
Pullman car, hardly able to speak with surprise and horror. It was
all so strange, so puzzling, so bewildering! Then I owed my escape
from the stenographic myrmidons of the Canadian Press to the polite
care and attention of my father's murderer!
Major Tascherel was a friend, he said, of Dr. Ivor's!
Then Dr. Ivor knew I had come. He knew I was going to Palmyra to
find him. And yet he had written to Quebec, apparently, expecting
this crush, and asking his friend the Chief Constable to protect and
befriend me. Had he murdered my father, and was he in love with me
still? Did he think I'd come out, not to track him down, but to look
for him? Strange, horrible questions! My heart stood still within me
at this extraordinary revelation. Yet I was so frightened at the
moment, alone in a strange land, that I felt almost grateful to the
murderer himself for his kindness in thinking of me and providing
for my reception.
As I settled in my seat and had time to realise what these things
meant, it dawned upon me by degrees that all this was less
remarkable, after all, than I first thought it. For they had
telegraphed from England that I sailed on the Sarmatian; and Dr.
Ivor, like everybody else, must have read the telegram. He might
naturally conclude I would be half-mobbed by reporters; and as it
was clear he had once been fond of me--hateful as I felt it even to
admit the fact to myself--he might really have desired to save me
annoyance and trouble. It was degrading, to be sure, even to think I
owed anything of any sort to such a wretch as that murderer; yet in
a certain corner of my heart I couldn't help being thankful to him.
But how strange to feel I had come there on purpose to hunt him
down! How horrible that I must so repay good with evil!
Then a still more ghastly thought surged up suddenly in my mind. Why
on earth did he think I was going to Palmyra? Was it possible he
fancied I loved him still--that I wanted to marry him? Could he
imagine I'd come out just to fling myself at his feet and ask him to
take me? Could he suppose I'd forgotten all the rest of my past
life, and his vile act as well, and yet remembered alone what
little love, if any, I ever had borne him? It was incredible that
any man, however wicked, however conceited, should think such folly
as that--that a girl would marry her father's murderer; and yet what
might not one expect from a man who, after having shot my father,
had still the inconceivable and unbelievable audacity to take
deliberate steps for securing my own comfort and happiness? From
such a wretch as that, one might look for almost anything!
For ten minutes or more, as we whirled along the line in the Pullman
car, I was too dazed and confused to notice anything around me. My
brain swam vaguely, filled full with wild whirling thoughts; the
strange drama of my life, always teeming with mysteries, seemed to
culminate in this reception in an unknown land by people who
appeared almost to know more about my business than I myself did. I
gazed out of the window blankly. In some vague dim way I saw we were
passing between rocky hills, pine-clad and beautiful, with deep
glimpses now and then into the riven gorge of a noble river. But I
didn't even realise to myself that these were Canadian hills--those
were the heights of Abraham--that was the silver St. Lawrence. It
all passed by like a living dream. I sat still in my chair, as one
stunned and faint; I gazed out, more dead than alive, on the
unfamiliar scene that unrolled itself in exquisite panorama before
me. Quebec and the Laurentian hills were to me half unreal: the
inner senses alone were awake and conscious.
Presently a gentle voice at my side broke, not at all unpleasantly,
the current of my reflections. It was a lady's voice, very sweet and
musical.
"I'm afraid," it said kindly, with an air of tender solicitude, "you
only just caught the train, and were hurried and worried and
flurried at the last at the station. You look so white and tired.
How your breath comes and goes! And I think you're new to our
Canadian ways. I saw you didn't understand about the checks for the
baggage. Let me take away this bag and put it up in the rack for
you. Here's a footstool for your feet; that'll make you more
comfortable."
At the first sound of her sweet voice, I turned to look at the
speaker. She was a girl, perhaps a year or two younger than myself,
very slender and graceful, and with eyes like a mother's. She wasn't
exactly pretty, but her face was so full of intelligence and
expression that it was worth a great deal more than any doll-like
prettiness.
Perhaps it was pleasure at being spoken to kindly at all in this
land of strangers; perhaps it was revulsion from the agony of shame
and modesty I had endured at Quebec; but, at any rate, I felt drawn
at first sight to my sweet-voiced fellow-traveller. Besides, she
reminded me somewhat of Minnie Moore, and that resemblance alone was
enough to attract me. I looked up at her gratefully.
"Oh, thank you so much!" I cried, putting my bag in her hand. "I've
only just come out from England; and I'd hardly time at Quebec to
catch the train; and the people crowded around so, that I was
flustered at landing; and everything somehow seems to be going
against me."
And with that my poor overwrought nerves gave way all at once, and
without any more ado I just burst out crying.
The lady by my side leant over me tenderly.
"There--cry, dear," she said, as if she'd known me for years,
stooping down and almost caressing me. "Jack,"--and she turned to a
tall gentleman at her side,--"quick! you've got my black bag; get me
out the sal volatile. She's quite faint, poor thing; we must look
after her instantly."
The person to whom she spoke, and who was apparently her husband or
her brother, took down the black bag from the rack hastily, and got
out the sal volatile, as my friend directed him. He poured a little
into a tumbler and held it quietly to my lips. I liked his manner,
as I'd liked the lady's. He was so very brotherly. Besides, there
was something extremely soothing about his quick, noiseless way. He
did it all so fast, yet without the faintest sign of agitation. I
couldn't help thinking what a good nurse he would make; he was so
rapid and effective, yet so gentle and so quiet. He seemed perfectly
accustomed to the ways of nervous women.
I dried my eyes after a while, and looked up in his face. He was
very good-looking, and had a charming soft smile. How lucky I should
have tumbled upon such pleasant travelling companions! In my present
mental state, I had need of sympathy. And, indeed, they took as much
care of me, and coddled me up as tenderly, as if they'd known me for
years. I was almost tempted to make a clean breast of my personality
to them, and tell them why it was I had been so worried and upset by
my reception at Quebec: but I shrank from confessing it. I hated my
own name, almost, it seemed to bring me such very unpleasant
notoriety.
In a very few minutes, I felt quite at home with my new friends. I
explained to them that when I landed I had no intention of going on
West by train at once, but that news which I received on the way had
compelled me to push forward by the very first chance; and that I
had to change my ticket at a place called Sharbot Lake, whose very
position or distance I hadn't had time to discover. The lady smiled
sweetly, and calmed my fears by telling me we wouldn't reach Sharbot
Lake till mid-day to-morrow, and that I would have plenty of time
there to book on to my destination.
Thus encouraged, I went on to tell them I had no Canadian money,
having brought out what I needed for travelling expenses and hotels
in Bank of England 20 pound notes. The lady smiled again, and said
in the friendliest way:
"Oh, my brother'll get them changed for you at Montreal as we pass,
won't you, Jack? or at least as much as you need till you get
to"--she checked herself--"the end of your journey."
I noticed how she pulled herself up, though at the moment I attached
no particular importance to it.
So he was her brother, not her husband, then! Well, he was a very
nice fellow, either way, and nobody could be kinder or more
sympathetic than he'd been to me so far.
We fell into conversation, which soon by degrees grew quite
intimate.
"How far West are you going?" the man she called Jack asked after a
little time, tentatively.
And I answered, all unsuspiciously:
"To a place called Palmyra."
"Why, we live not far from Palmyra," the sister replied, with a
smile. "We're going that way now. Our station's Adolphus Town, the
very next village."
I hadn't yet learned to join the wisdom of the serpent to the
innocence of the dove, I'm afraid. Remember, though in some ways I
was a woman full grown, in others I was little more than a
four-year-old baby.
"Do you know a Dr. Ivor there?" I asked eagerly, leaning forward.
"Oh, yes, quite well," the lady answered, arranging my footstool
more comfortably as she spoke. "He's got a farm out there now, and
hardly practises at all. How queer it is! One always finds one knows
people in common. Is Dr. Ivor a friend of yours?"
I recoiled at the stray question almost as if I'd been shot.
"Oh, no!" I cried, horrified at the bare idea of such treason. "He's
anything but a friend... I--I only wanted to know about him."
The lady looked at Jack, and Jack looked at the lady. Were they
telegraphing signs? I fancied somehow they gave one another very
meaning glances. Jack was the first to speak, breaking an awkward
silence.
"You can't expect everyone to know your own friends, or to like them
either, Elsie," he said slowly, with his eyes fixed hard on her, as
if he expected her to flare up.
My heart misgave me. A hateful idea arose in it. Could my sweet
travelling companion be engaged--to my father's murderer?
"But he's a dear good fellow, for all that, Jack," Elsie said
stoutly; and strange as it sounds to say so, I admired her for
sticking up for her friend Dr. Ivor, if she really liked him. "I
won't hear him run down by anybody, not even by YOU. If this lady
knew him better, I'm sure she'd like him, as we all do."
Jack turned the conversation abruptly.
"But if you're going to Palmyra," he asked, "where do you mean to
stop? Have you thought about lodgings? You mustn't imagine it's a
place like an English town, with an inn or hotel or good private
apartments. There's nowhere you can put up at in these brand-new
villages. Are you going to friends, or did you expect to find
quarters as easily as in England?"
This was a difficulty which, indeed, had never even occurred to me
till that moment. I stammered and hesitated.
"Well," I said slowly, "to tell you the truth, I haven't thought
about that. The landing at Quebec was such a dreadful surprise to
me, and"--tears came into my eyes again--"I had a great shock
there--and I had to come on so quick, I didn't ask about anything
but catching the train. I meant to stop a night or two either at
Quebec or in Montreal, and to make all inquiries: but circumstances,
you see, have prevented that. So I really don't know what I'd better
do when I get to Palmyra."
"I do," my new friend answered quickly, her soft sweet voice having
quite a decisive ring in it. "You'd better not go on to Palmyra at
all. There's no sort of accommodation there, except a horrid
drinking-saloon. You'd better stop short at Adolphus Town and spend
the night with us; and then you can look about you next day, if you
like, and see what chance there may be of finding decent quarters.
Old Mrs. Wilkins might take her in, Jack, or the Blacks at the
tannery."
I smiled, and felt touched.
"Oh, how good of you!" I cried. "But I really couldn't think of it.
Thank you ever so much, though, for your kind thought, all the same.
It's so good and sweet of you. But you don't even know who I am. I
have no introduction."
"You're your own best introduction," Elsie said, with a pretty nod:
I thought of her somehow from the very first moment I heard her name
as Elsie. "And as to your not knowing us, never mind about that. We
know YOU at first sight. It's the Canadian way to entertain Angels
unawares. Out here, you know, hospitality's the rule of the
country."
Well, I demurred for a long time; I fought off their invitation as
well as I could: I couldn't bear thus to quarter myself upon utter
strangers. But they both were so pressing, and brought up so many
cogent arguments why I couldn't go alone to the one village
saloon--a mere whisky-drinking public-house, they said, of very bad
character,--that in the long run I was fain almost to acquiesce in
their kind plan for my temporary housing. Besides, after my horrid
experience at Quebec, it was such a positive relief to me to meet
anybody nice and delicate, that I couldn't find it in my heart to
refuse these dear people. And then, perhaps it was best not to go
quite on to Palmyra at once, for fear of unexpectedly running
against my father's murderer. If I met him in the street, and he
recognised me and spoke to me, what on earth could I do? My head was
all in a whirl, indeed, as to what he might intend or expect: for I
felt sure he expected me. I made one last despairing effort.
"If I stop at your house, though," I said, half ashamed of myself
for venturing to make conditions, "there's one promise you must make
me--that I sha'n't see Dr. Ivor unless you let me know and get my
consent beforehand."
Jack, as I called him to myself, answered gaily back with a rather
curious smile:
"If you like, you need see nobody but our own two selves. We'll
promise not to introduce anybody to you without due leave, and to
let you do as you like in that and in everything."
So I yielded at last.
"Well, I must know your name," I said tentatively.
And Jack, looking queerly at me with an inquiring air, said:
"My sister's name's Elsie; mine's John Cheriton."
"And yours?" Elsie asked, glancing timidly down at me.
My heart beat hard. I was face to face with a dilemma. These were
friends of Courtenay Ivor's, and I had given myself away to them. I
was going to their house, to accept their hospitality--and to
betray their friend! Never in my life did I feel so guilty before.
Oh! what on earth was I to do? I had told them too much; I had gone
to work foolishly. If I said my real name, I should let out my whole
secret. I must brazen it out now. With tremulous lips and flushed
cheek, I answered quickly, "Julia Marsden."
Elsie drew back, all abashed. In a moment her cheek grew still
redder, I felt sure, than my own.
"Oh, Marsden!" she cried, eyeing me close. "Why, I thought you were
Miss Callingham!"
"How on earth did you know that?" I exclaimed, terrified almost out
of my life. Was I never for one moment to escape my own personality?
"Why, they put it in the papers that you were coming," Elsie
answered, looking tenderly at me, more in sympathy than in anger.
"And it's written on your bag, you know, that Jack put up in the
rack there... That's why we were so sorry for you, and so grieved at
the way you must have been hustled on the quay. And that's also why
we wanted you to come to us... But don't be a bit afraid. We quite
understand you want to travel incognita. After the sort of reception
you got at Quebec, no wonder you're afraid of these hateful
sightseers!... Very well, dear," she took my hand with the air of an
old friend, "your disguise shall be respected while you stop at our
house. Miss Marsden let it be. You can make any inquiries you like
about Dr. Ivor. We will be secrecy itself. We'll say nothing to
anyone. And my brother'll take your ticket at Sharbot Lake for
Adolphus Town."
I broke down once more. I fairly cried at such kindness.
"Oh, how good you are!" I said. "How very, very good. This is more
than one could ever have expected from strangers."
She held my hand and stroked it.
"We're not strangers," she answered. "We're English ourselves. We
sympathise deeply with you in this new, strange country. You must
treat us exactly like a brother and sister. We liked you at first
sight, and we're sure we'll get on with you."
I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed it.
"And I liked you also," I said, "and your brother, too. You're both
so good and kind. How can I ever sufficiently thank you?"