"Let me take your mail out to little Pete," I said to the Doctor, who
was superscribing his last letter, when I came in from the morning's
sport.
"Thanks, very much."
He spoke abstractedly; ran over the addresses on several envelopes and
handed them to me. I could not help seeing that the one on top was
addressed to Delia Beaseley. I fancy he intended I should see it. I
felt sure he had written to her for some of the forgotten details of
that night in December more than twenty-six years ago.
"He's on the track of that child--me! Cale's story has given him the
clew," I said to myself, on noticing his absorption in his own thoughts
during dinner and his preoccupation in the afternoon. In the evening
he drove over with Cale to meet Mr. Ewart.
I rather enjoyed the course events were taking; it would interest me to
watch developments of the Doctor's detective work. In a way, it had
all the fascination of a drama of which I felt myself no longer to be
an actor, but a spectator.
Jamie cornered me, after the Doctor and Cale drove off to the junction.
"No, you don't!" he said, laughing, as he extended his long arms across
the doorway of the living-room to bar my exit. "You will act like a
Christian and love your neighbor as yourself this time. Sit down and
talk--or I sha'n't be able to finish my last chapter."
Of course I sat down, knowing perfectly well what I was about to
hear--at least, I thought I did.
"Marcia--"
"Yes?"
"The more I think of it, the more I am convinced that what Cale told
us, and what Doctor Rugvie told us, are two acts in a long
drama--tragedy, if you like."
"Well?"
"You _are_ cool, I must say!" He spoke with irritation. "Do you mean
to tell me that life, presented in such a manner as those two
men--opposite as the poles in standing--presented it, does n't interest
you?"
"I have n't the imagination of genius, Jamie."
"Now you know perfectly well there is no imagination about it. It's
life, just as Cale said; and it's my belief the Doctor will, in the
end, get some track of that girl. If he does, it will be all up with
the farm. Did you think of that?"
"No!" I spoke the truth. I was amazed. It never occurred to me to
connect the farm project with anything Cale had said.
"I 'll wager he 'll compare notes with Cale on the way over to the
station, and I 'm going to refer to the farm plan, if I have the chance
after they get back, to see what he 'll say."
"He won't think you 're interfering, will he?"
"He can't." He spoke decidedly. "The farm project affects _me_, don't
you see?"
"Not exactly; how?"
"Why, if--of course it's only an 'if'--the Doctor should find this
girl, he would n't for a moment think of taking that money, which in
justice if not in the law belongs to her, to further any of his plans.
He is n't that kind of a man."
"Of course not; but I don't see how--"
"That's where you are obtuse. Look here, Marcia, how long do you
suppose I can stand it to vegetate here in Canada? It's healthy, I
agree to that, and doing me no end of good; but I can't see myself
living here--existing, yes; but living, no! I'm better, stronger; and
even if I were n't, I would n't play the coward either in life or
death. As it is, I want to live my life full in my own way, among my
own. I want to be in the thick of the fray, even if by being there I
should go under a little sooner. I want to mingle with the multitude
of men--see into their lives, give them something of mine in reality
and through the imagination, and get their point of view into my life.
I can't stay on indefinitely here in Canada; and if--if--"
"If what?"
"If the girl should be found, the farm project would amount to nothing.
The Doctor sees, just as you and I see, that Ewart is not enthusiastic
about it, and he is n't going to settle on Ewart's land with an
unwelcome philanthropic scheme. And then--"
"What?" I was becoming impatient.
"Why, then, if it should fall through,--and I 'm selfishly hoping it
may,--I'm not in the least bound, don't you know, to stay on here as
Ewart's guest. I can go home."
"Home!" I echoed. The thought of losing Jamie had never occurred to
me. And if he went, then his mother, also, would go. If they both
went, I should have necessarily to leave Lamoral, for I was merely an
entail of their presence. Leave Lamoral! I sickened at the thought.
"Oh, no, no, Jamie!" I cried out, rebelling against the prospect of a
new upheaval in my life. "I can't spare you--I can't live here without
you--"
With every thought centered in Mr. Ewart at that moment, and
comprehending as I did the logical result of Mrs. Macleod's leaving the
manor and all that it would mean to me, I did not realize what
impression my impulsive words might make on her son. In the silence
that followed my protest, I had time to realize what I had said.
"I did n't for a moment suppose you felt like this, Marcia."
In a flash I understood the twist in his interpretation of my words and
feeling.
"You don't understand--" I began vehemently, then found myself
hesitating like a schoolgirl who does not know her lesson. I was
ashamed of myself, for Jamie was on the wrong track and must be put
right at all costs.
"I think I do." He spoke gently, almost pityingly as it seemed to me
then. I boiled inwardly.
"No, you don't; but there 's no time to explain now--I hear the bells--"
"You have good ears; I don't."
"They 're coming! Where 's Mrs. Macleod?"
"Well, they 're not returning from an ocean voyage, even if they are
coming; there is no need to run up the Union Jack-- Hold on a minute!"
He barred the door again with his long arms.
"Let me out--they 're at the door--"
"What if they are?"
I slipped quickly under his arm into the passageway. The dogs were
frantic with joy. I wanted to show mine as plainly, perhaps then Jamie
might understand! I flung open the door, and, as it happened my voice
was the only one to welcome them.
"You 're back so soon!"
"You may well say that," said the Doctor, running up the steps and
seeming to bring the whole Arctic region of cold in with him; "I drove
over and made good time, I thought; but Ewart took the reins on the way
back, and we came home at a clip--nine miles in fifty-two minutes!
That's a record. Now, Ewart," he turned to speak to his friend who had
stopped to give some order to Cale, "see how well I have heeded your
injunction to 'look out' for Miss Farrell."
"And the horses did n't bolt," I said, as I put my hand into his
outstretched one.
"Have you gotten over the effects of the aurora?"
The hearty gladness in his voice was reward enough for the restraint I
put on myself. I wanted to give him both hands and tell him in so many
words that, with his coming, I was "at home" again.
"No, and never shall," I responded joyfully.
"Nor I either.-- Where 's Jamie? Oh, Mrs. Macleod," he said, spying
her on the upper landing, "I 've taken you unawares for the first
time.--Down, comrades, down!--Jamie Macleod, is this the way you
welcome a wanderer to his own hearth?"
Jamie's hand grasped his and pumped it well.
"It's queer, Gordon, but you seem to look at your three days of absence
from the same point of view that Marcia does."
"How 's that?" he asked quickly, turning to me.
"Just Jamie's nonsense; it's only that I was on the lookout for you,
and heard the bells when he failed to."
I knew I was growing reckless, but I did not care--why should I?--if he
knew I was glad to see him at home again. I did not care if they all
knew it--I must put Jamie right somehow. And what was there to hide?
Not my gladness, not my joy, the new elements in my new life--this
something I had never before experienced. Somehow, all my resolutions
to keep this joy "to myself" went to the winds.
Mr. Ewart made no reply, but I knew I added to his evident pleasure in
his return, by my ready and frankly expressed acknowledgement that I
was "on the lookout" for him.
That evening was one never to be forgotten. It was a time when the
friendship of the four men, Mr. Ewart, Cale, Doctor Rugvie, and Jamie
Macleod, towards me, found expression both in jest and earnest; a time
when Mrs. Macleod's kindly, if always a little remote interest in me
was doubly grateful, for sure of it and its protection I could let the
new life, that shortly before had awakened in me, flood my whole being
and expand heart, soul and mind with its vital flux. I felt that I
made my own place in this household; that I pleased them all; that they
liked my speech, whether merry or grave; that they liked my ways
because mine, whether I was lighting cigars and pipes for them, or
frying griddlecakes at ten o'clock at night on the top of the soapstone
stove, in redemption of my promise made months past. The truth is I
felt at home, wholly, completely; and they, recognizing it, were glad
for me.
With Cale, that evening, I was tender, teasing, arrogant by turns; I
had him at my mercy--and his lips were sealed! With Jamie I was
absolutely nonsensical, as I dared to be in view of his twisted
interpretation of my apparently sentimental, "I can't live without you
here etc." I bothered and puzzled him, much to the others' amusement.
Into the Doctor's spirit of banter I entered with the enjoyment of a
not very "old" girl. I caught him looking at me with the same
perplexed expression that he wore when I first smiled at him three
months before--and I kept on smiling, as I had cause, hoping the
message, oft repeated, would carry in time to his consciousness the
recognition that I was, indeed, the daughter of her whom he had
befriended more than a quarter of a century ago. The emphatic
statement made by Cale and Delia Beaseley that I was her "living
image", encouraged me in this line of procedure. To the Master of
Lamoral I gave willing service, frying for him delectable griddlecakes,
turning them till a golden brown, flapping them over skilfully on his
warm plate, and deluging them with incomparable maple syrup from his
own sugar "bush". He received this service in the spirit in which I
gave it, and the cakes with the appreciation of a man and connoisseur.
Mrs. Macleod seconded my efforts in this special line of cooking and
enjoyed the fun as much as any one of us.
"There 's no use, I 'm 'full up'," said Jamie with a sigh of
exhaustion; he dropped into the sofa corner.
"I kept tally for you, Boy," said the Doctor.
"How many?"
"Eighteen! Apply to me if you 're in trouble at one-thirty to-night."
He looked at his watch.
"You scored seventeen fully ten minutes ago, mon vieux," said Mr. Ewart
laughing.
"Slander, Marcia! Don't believe it. Three of mine would make only one
of yours, Gordon Ewart;--I 've camped enough with you to know your
'capacity', as the freight cars have it. Marcia Farrell, your last
'batch' has been 'petering out', as we say at home. You dropped only
one small spoonful for each of the last twenty cakes; the ones you made
for Ewart had a complement of two big spoonfuls--they were corkers, no
mistake. Hold up your head, Boy!" he admonished the collapsed object
on the sofa. "Never say die--here are just four more for us four,
amen."
A dismal groan was his only answer. Mr. Ewart, taking turner and bowl
from me, declared a truce. The Doctor set the plates on the table.
When all was clear about the hearth, on which Cale laid a pine log for
a treat, Mr. Ewart announced that he had a surprise in his pocket.
"Jamie, your birthday falls on the twelfth of August, does n't it?"
"Yes; how did you remember that, Gordon?"
"You had a birthday when I was in Crieff with you seventeen years
ago--and we celebrated. Have you forgotten?"
"Forgotten!" Jamie came bolt upright, the cakes were as naught, the
remembrance of them faded. "Do you think I could ever forget that?
You took, or rather trotted me for a long walk over the moors--oh, the
pink and the purple heather of them, the black blackness of their bogs,
the green greenery of their bracken higher than my head!--to the
'Keltie'; and you held me over the pool to see the whirl and dash of
the plunging torrent. I remember the spray made me catch my breath.
Then you took me down to the bank of the 'burnie', and found a place to
camp--my first camp with you--under a big elm; and there you discovered
a flat stone, and two crooked branches for crotches. You took from
your mysterious game-basket a gypsy kettle and, filling it at the
'burnie' with the water that tastes like no other in the world, you
hung it from the crotch over the flat stone that was our hearth. You
made heaven on that spot for a seven-year-old boy, because you let him
touch off the fagots. You boiled the water, made tea--such tea!--and
brought out of that same basket bannocks and fresh gooseberry jam--
Oh, don't, don't mention that birthday! You make me homesick for it;
even Marcia's griddlecakes can't help me!"
"We 'll celebrate again this year in the wilds of the Upper Saguenay."
Mr. Ewart took from his pocket a paper and, unfolding it, read the
terms of a lease of a fish and game preserve in the northern wilderness.
"And the Andres, father and son, shall be our guides, our cooks, our
factotums. The son is half Montagnais; his mother was of that tribe."
"Oh, Ewart!" Jamie's eyes glistened, but his volubility was checked;
he felt his friend's thought of him too deeply.
"I secured it while I was away; I have wanted it for the last five
years. The Doctor has promised us six weeks, and the camp will be more
attractive"--he looked at Mrs. Macleod--"and keep us longer, if you and
Miss Farrell will be my guests, and make a home for us in the
wilderness. Will you?"
For once in her life Mrs. Macleod did not balk at this direct question
involving a decision. I record it to her credit.
"And you?" He turned to me without apparent eagerness, but I caught
the flash of pleasure in his eyes when I answered promptly, with
enthusiasm:
"It will be something to dream of till it is a reality. I 'll begin
making my camp outfit to-morrow; and Andre pere shall teach me to fish
and paddle a canoe; his son shall teach me woodcraft, and some
Montagnais squaw shall show me how to weave baskets. In those same
baskets I will gather the mountain berries for such of the family as
may crave them, and--and that wilderness shall be made to blossom like
the rose and prove to us, at least, a land flowing with milk and honey."
Mr. Ewart's question about a "home in the wilderness" was the motor
power for my flight.
"Amen and amen," cried the Doctor, approving of my soaring. "We 'll
return to the Arcadia of the woodsman's simple life."
"Humph!" said Cale. "You'd better add all them contraptions of veils,
an' nettin's, and smudge kettles, an' ointments, an' forty kinds of
made-up bait--so made-up thet I 've seen a trout, a three pounder, wink
at me when he see some of it and wag away up stream as sassy as you
please--an' a gross of joss sticks. By George, I 've seen mosquitoes
as big as mice--"
"Cale," I made protest; "you spoil all."
"Better wait till you are there, Marcia, before you rhapsodize any
more; you did it well, though, I 'll admit," said Jamie, with his most
patronizing air.
"So did you rhapsodize over Scotland," I retorted; "and I 'll
rhapsodize if I never go; and you 're not to quench my enthusiasm with
any of your Scotch mist that I am told is nothing less than a downpour."
"By the way, when is your birthday, Marcia?" said the Doctor,
carefully, oh, so carefully, knocking the ash from his cigar into the
fireplace. The act was so very cautious that it betrayed to me his
restrained expectancy of my answer! "I have an idea it's the last of
June."
How light I was of heart in answering him, in giving him the clew he
was seeking as I would have made him a gift, fully, freely--for what
was it to me now, whether he knew or not?
"Next December, when the north wind blows over the Canada snows, you
may remember me, if you will."
"What date?"
I waited intentionally for him to ask that question. I felt that Cale
was holding his breath; but I did n't care, and replied without
hesitation:
"The third--twenty-seven years. What an age!"
They laughed at me, one and all, the Doctor perhaps a little more
heartily than the others. After that he sat, with one exception,
silent; but Jamie spoke half impatiently:
"Why did n't you give us a chance to celebrate last December?"
"Nobody asked me about it."
The Doctor spoke for the only time then. "I 'll make a mem of it," he
said gayly, taking out his notebook and writing in it. And I saw
through his every move--the dear man!
"You might have given us the pleasure of remembering it," said Mrs.
Macleod reproachfully.
"Oh, I celebrated it in my own way--and for the first time in my life,"
I replied, treasuring in my heart that hour in the office with Mr.
Ewart when he took my gift of service "gratis".
"Might a common mortal, who has both eyes and ears and generally can
see through a barn door if it is wide open, ask in what manner you
celebrated that you escaped notice of every member of this household?"
Jamie spoke ironically.
"Jamie, I outwitted even you that time. Of course I 'll tell you: I
made a gift to some one, which was a good deal more satisfactory than
to receive one myself."
"The deuce you did! Perhaps you 'll tell me what it was and who was
the man? I was n't aware of any extra purchases in the village."
"Not now." I spoke decidedly. "Let's talk about the camp. I can't
wait for the spring. When can we go?" I asked Mr. Ewart.
"Not before the first of July, but we can remain until into September."
The words were commonplace enough; but the tone in which they were
spoken belonged to another day, another hour, to that moment when he
accepted my gift of service "gratis". He, at least, knew how I
celebrated that third of December!
Content, satisfied, I began to jest with Jamie. We made and enlarged
upon the most ideal plans it ever befell mortals to make. The others
listened to our chaffing and found amusement in it, for we tried to
outdo each other in camp-hyperbole. The Doctor, Mr. Ewart and Cale,
whose presence Mr. Ewart insisted upon having the entire evening,
smoked in silence. I knew where the Doctor's thoughts were. I would
have given a half-hour of that evening's enjoyment--at least I think I
would--to have read Mr. Ewart's.
Late, very late, Cale rose, put a chunk into the soapstone, and said
good night. I followed him into the kitchen. I wanted to speak with
him, for I saw something was out of gear.
"What's the matter, Cale?" I whispered, as he fumbled about for the
candle somewhere on the kitchen dresser.
"Marcia," he whispered in turn, "I 've pretty nigh lied myself inter
hell for you ter-night. On the way over ter the junction the Doctor
put his probe inter what's 'twixt you an' me mighty deep; but I was a
match fer him! An' then I come home jest ter hear you give yourself
all away! What in thun--"
"Sh, Cale! Somebody 's coming--"
"Wal, a gal's 'bout the limit when--" I heard him say in a tone of
utter disgust, and, laughing to myself, I ran up stairs.