"Natalie!" called the old lady, with a hint of irritation.
"Come and meet Mrs. Mabyn," she said quickly; and led the way.
"This is Mr. Pevensey, Mrs. Mabyn," she said.
The old lady regarded Garth with a sharp scrutiny; and Garth looked with
interest at her. She was a fragile, elegant, plaintive little person
of the old "lady-like" regime; but for all her gentleness, Garth was
somehow conscious that he faced a woman of an iron will. She had the
impatient, inattentive manner of one possessed by a single idea. With
the result of her examination she appeared but half satisfied; she
held out a delicate, wrinkled hand, dubiously.
"How do you do?" she said. "Please sit down."
"I am Natalie Bland," further explained the girl, who had again
retreated to the window embrasure. "Mrs. Mabyn and I are travelling
together."
"Dear Natalie is a daughter to me," murmured Mrs. Mabyn with commendable
feeling.
The two women exchanged a glance which Garth was at a loss to interpret.
He was looking at Natalie and he thought he saw patience, real
affection, and perhaps a little kindly amusement--but there was
something beyond; something grimmer and more determined, a hint
of rebellion.
"My husband, Canon Mabyn, was the rector of Christ's Church Cathedral
in Millerton, Ontario, up to the time of his death," murmured Mrs.
Mabyn in her dulcet tones, with the air of one delivering all-sufficient
credentials.
Garth murmured to show that he was suitably impressed.
"You are from New York, I believe," said Mrs. Mabyn.
Garth acknowledged the fact.
"So the newspaper said," she remarked. "Of course, I know very few
Americans, still it is possible we may have common friends. You--er--"
She paused invitingly.
"Hadn't we better explain why we asked Mr. Pevensey to call?" put in
Natalie quietly.
"My dear, Mr. Pevensey was just about to tell me of his people," Mrs.
Mabyn said in tones of gentle reproof.
Garth saw what the old lady would be after. "My father, Lieutenant
Raymond Pevensey, was in the Navy," he said. "He was killed by a powder
explosion on the gunboat _Arkadelphia_, twelve years ago."
"Dear me, how unfortunate!" murmured Mrs. Mabyn sympathetically; but
it rang chillingly, and her abstracted eyes dwelt throughout upon that
relentless thought of hers, whatever it was.
"I am related distantly to the Buhannons of Richmond, and the
Mainwarings of Philadelphia," continued Garth, willing to humour her.
"There was a Mainwaring at Chelsea with my husband as a boy," remarked
Mrs. Mabyn.
"Probably my great-uncle," he said. "In this part of the world," he went
on, "there is no one who knows me beyond mere acquaintanceship, except
the Bishop of Miwasa--"
"Pray say no more, Mr. Pevensey," interrupted Mrs. Mabyn. "The mere fact
that the Bishop invited you to accompany him is, after all, sufficient."
She turned to the girl. "You may continue, dear Natalie."
"We read in this evening's paper," began that young lady with a directness
refreshing after Mrs. Mabyn's circumlocutions; "that you were starting for
Miwasa Landing to-morrow morning, to join the Bishop on his annual tour.
We wished particularly to see you before you started; and that is why
I--why Mrs. Mabyn wrote."
"We thank you for coming so promptly," put in Mrs. Mabyn with her
gracious air.
Garth murmured truthfully that the pleasure was his. He felt himself on
the breathless verge of a discovery. Intuition warned him of what was
coming; but he could not believe it yet.
"Mr. Pevensey," resumed the young lady as if with an effort; she had the
humility of a proud soul who stoops to ask a favour; "we are going to
make a very strange request, as from total strangers."
Mrs. Mabyn raised an agitated hand. "Wait, wait, my dear Natalie," she
objected. "Perhaps after all, we had better go no further. I--I think we
had better give the plan up," she said in apparently the deepest
distress.
The girl turned a patient shoulder, and looked into the street again,
abstractedly playing with the cord of the blind.
"It is really too much to ask of you," continued Mrs. Mabyn distressfully;
"and I am so afraid for Natalie! Natalie is so very dear to me. The
situation is _so_ unusual!" she wailed.
Poor Garth was sadly perplexed and exasperated by all this. The discovery
he anticipated was now apparently in retreat.
"We are glad, anyway, to have had the pleasure of making your
acquaintance," said Mrs. Mabyn with an air of finality.
Suddenly it was borne in upon Garth, partly from the girl's patient
attitude, partly from the other's emphasis upon her distress, that it
was simply, in newspaper parlance, all a bluff on the part of the older
woman. Her fanatic eyes seemed to tell him that she was still bent on
her object, whatever it might be. Experience had taught him that the
quickest way to find out if he were right was to seem to fall in
with her desire. So he promptly rose as if to leave. It worked.
Mrs. Mabyn's eyes snapped. She did not relish being taken up so quickly.
"One moment, Mr. Pevensey," she said plaintively--and hastily. "Overlook
the distraction of an old woman; I am torn two ways!"
Garth understood by this that the matter was reopened; and sat down
again. There was a pause, while the old lady struggled, with the air of
a martyr, to regain her composure. The girl continued to look stolidly
out of the window; and Garth simply waited for what was coming.
"You may continue, Natalie," said Mrs. Mabyn at length, faintly.
The girl resumed her explanation at the exact point where she left off.
"We expected--that is, we hoped you were an older man--" Garth looked
so disappointed she immediately added: "For that would make the request
seem less strange." She hesitated.
"What is it?" asked Garth.
But she parried awhile. "What sort of a man is the Bishop?" she asked.
Garth described his modesty and his manliness.
"A very proper person to be Bishop in a wild country," remarked Mrs.
Mabyn, patronizingly.
"And his wife?" asked Natalie.
Garth pictured a homely, unassuming body, with a great heart.
"Of course!" said Mrs. Mabyn. A whole chapter might be devoted to the
analysis of the tone in which she said it.
"We had heard she accompanies her husband," said Natalie.
"Yes," said Garth.
"That simplifies matters!" exclaimed Mrs. Mabyn.
"Their route takes in Spirit River Crossing, I believe," pursued
Natalie.
Garth affirmed it, wondering.
Natalie paused before she went on. "Whatever you may think of what I am
going to tell you, Mr. Pevensey," she said with the same proud appeal in
her voice, "we may count on you, I am sure, not to speak of it to any
one for the present."
"Indeed you may!" he said warmly.
"I am obliged to get to Spirit River Crossing at the earliest possible
moment," she said simply.
Through the wilderness with _her_! Garth had to wait a moment before he
could trust himself to reply with becoming coolness.
"Have you considered the kind of a journey it is?" he asked quietly.
"That is the worst of it!" complained Mrs. Mabyn. "I had expected to go
with her; but we find it is out of the question."
Garth hastened to assure her that it was.
"I have considered everything," said Natalie.
"But do you know that you will have to travel two or three weeks in an
open boat in all weathers, a mere canoe in fact; that you will have to
sleep out of doors, and live on the very roughest of fare? Could you
stand it?" he demanded almost sternly.
"I am perfectly well and strong," answered Natalie.
"That is quite so, happily," said Mrs. Mabyn. "Otherwise, I would not
hear of it for a moment."
"If the Bishop's wife can stand it, certainly I can," said Natalie.
"But she is obliged to do it," said Garth.
"So am I!" said Natalie quickly.
There was an awkward pause. Garth said nothing, but his question was
felt.
"Naturally you wonder what forces me to undertake such a journey," said
Natalie uncomfortably.
"Couldn't I help you more intelligently if I knew?" suggested Garth.
"But I cannot tell you," she said. "That is, not yet. Believe me, it is
nothing I need be ashamed of----"
"Natalie!" exclaimed Mrs. Mabyn indignantly. "Is it not I who urge you
to go?"
"Yes, I am doing what will be considered a most praiseworthy thing,"
said Natalie with what sounded strangely like--bitterness.
"Yes, indeed!" urged Mrs. Mabyn, who seemed to have forgotten her late
anxiety on Natalie's account.
"But in telling you," objected Natalie gently, "I would have to trust
you to a far greater extent than you would be trusting me, in lending
me, without knowing my reasons, the assistance of one traveller to
another."
Garth was ready enough to throw himself at her feet without this
affecting appeal. "Please count on me," he said, moved more than he
would let them see, especially the old woman. "How can I help you?"
"See me as far as Miwasa Landing," she said simply. "I will then throw
myself on the goodness of the Bishop and his wife; and trust to them
to take me with them the rest of the way--that is, if I wish to go.
The Bishop may be able to give me information," she added darkly.
"Natalie!" put in Mrs. Mabyn, warningly. "I--I will give her letters to
those good people," she added hastily, to divert Garth's mind from the
strangeness of Natalie's last words.
But Garth was in no temper to be deflected by a mystery. "I am thankful
for the chance to be of service," he said fervently, having a keen sense
of the poverty of words.
"Thank you," said Natalie, simply. "Let us talk of ways and means," she
added decisively. "What should I take?"