"Oh, you may take my word for it I am wholly respectable--always have
been. I could n't have answered your advertisement if I had n't been."
"The deuce you are! Well, young lady, I 'll ask you not to answer a
man's thoughts again before he has given them expression; it's
uncanny." He was growling a little.
I laughed aloud, for it delighted me to puzzle him a bit, especially
with the revelation of my identity in prospect. I was enjoying the
pung ride too. We were on the river road. The black tree trunks,
standing out against the white snow-covered expanse of the St.
Lawrence, seemed to speed past us. The sharp bits of ice-snow flew
from the fleet horses' hoofs, and now and then one stung my cheek.
"Cale informed me that you worked in the New York Library; may I ask
how you happened to answer the advertisement?"
"I wanted to get away from the city--far away."
"Tired of it--like the rest of us?"
"Yes--and I was ill." He gave me a look that was suddenly wholly
professional.
"Long?"
"Ten weeks."
"What was it?"
"Typhoid pneumonia with pleuri--"
"And you were going to come out with me for a spin in that ulster!"
He roared so at me that the horses, taking fright at the sound of his
voice, plunged suddenly and gave him plenty to do to calm them into a
trot again. I enjoyed the equine gymnastics so promptly provided for
his diversion.
"I was at St. Luke's." I volunteered this information when he was free
to receive it.
"St. Luke's, eh? That's where you heard of this old curmudgeon."
"Yes, there; and from Delia Beaseley, and Jamie, and Mrs. Macleod."
"By the way, you and Jamie seem to be great friends."
"I love him," I said emphatically.
"H'm, lucky dog; better not tell him so."
"Why not?" I asked, at once on the defensive.
The Doctor compressed his lips in a fashion that said as plainly as if
he had spoken, "Unsophisticated at twenty-six; I don't believe her!"
"I love Cale, too, and he is my own kind."
"Cale 's all right; I 'm going to know him better before the week is
out. And how about Mrs. Macleod?"
"Mrs. Macleod is Jamie's mother, and I like her and respect her--but
she 's not easy to love."
"That's true--she is not easy to love. About the salary," he said
changing the subject; "I intended to pay it myself until you were
installed on the farm; it is a favor to me to be allowed to help out
Mrs. Macleod. I knew from private sources that she needed someone to
cheer her here in this Canadian country; it's a great change from her
home in Crieff, and then she carries Jamie on her heart all the time.
I insisted this morning on taking charge of the whole business, you
included," he smiled ruefully, "but Ewart would n't hear to it. He
argues that so long as you are in his house, and your work is--well, we
'll call it home-making, he, being the beneficiary has the sole right
to pay for his benefits."
"That's just what I told Mrs. Macleod and Jamie I would try to make of
you and him--"
"The dickens you did! A beneficiary of me, eh?"
"Yes, and I shall try to," I said earnestly. The Doctor grew serious
at once.
"It will not be a hard task, Miss Farrell; I begin to dream of what the
farm will be like with you to help make it a home for me and, in time,
many others, as I hope."
"Doctor Rugvie, would you mind calling me by my first name?"
"Yes, I should mind very much, because it's exactly what I have wanted
to do, but did not feel at liberty to."
"In my position it is better that all in the house should call me
Marcia."
"Your position?" He looked around at me with a queer twist of his
upper lip. "What is your position?"
"According to the advertisement it was for service on a farm in Canada."
"And now you find yourself in an anomalous one? Is that the trouble?"
"Yes, just it. I don't know what is to be required of me--I really
don't see how I am to earn my salt."
"Don't bother yourself about that." He frowned slightly. "I confess
this insistence on Ewart's part to pay you, complicates matters a
little. _I_ wanted to be boss this time."
"And I hoped you would be mine, anyway," I said mutinously. "I am far
from satisfied to have my business dealings with Mr. Ewart, a stranger
and an alien."
"It will be only for a time; I am going to tell you, all of you, about
my farm plans this evening. I have n't spoken yet to Ewart very freely
about them."
The horses were turned homewards, and I felt that little time was left
me to ask any intimate questions of the Doctor concerning myself. I
could not find the right word--and I knew I was not trying with any
degree of earnestness. "I 'll put it off till the last of the week," I
said to myself; then I began to speak of that self, for I knew the
Doctor was waiting for this and, wisely, was biding my time. I was
grateful to him.
I told him of my hard-worked young years and my longing to get away to
independence. I entered into no family details; it was not necessary.
I told him something of my struggle in New York and of my place in the
Branch Library; of my long illness and how it had left me: tired out,
listless, practically homeless and in need of immediate money. I told
him how I sought Delia Beaseley on the strength of the advertisement;
how she helped me; how I felt I had found release from the city and its
burden of livelihood, and how happy I was with my new duties in the old
manor house; how the fact that it was an old manor fed the vein of
romance in me which neither hard work nor illness had been able to work
out; how I enjoyed Jamie and Mrs. Macleod, Angelique, and Pierre and
all the household--and how I had dreaded his coming, yet longed for it,
because it would unsettle my future which was not to be in the manor
house of Lamoral.
I told him all this, freely; but to speak of my mother, of my birth, of
the papers, and of what I wanted them for, was beyond me. The secret
of the Past, projected on the possible Future, loomed gigantic,
threatening. I would let well enough alone.
"You poor child," he said, when I finished. That was all; but I knew
that henceforth I should have a friend in Doctor Rugvie. He drove the
rest of the way in silence.