JEAN PUTS IT UP TO HER FATHER
Jean Fitzpatrick rose from the breakfast-table at Fort Severn, and
asked for the Winnipeg papers. Three days before, the mail-carrier
had dashed in with dogs on the gallop, and ever since the white
folk at the fort had been having a riot of joy. Months-old letters
from almost forgotten friends, and papers many weeks behind their
dates had been perused over and over again, until they could almost
be recited from memory.
Tongues wagged in gossip over personages perhaps dead by this time,
and sage opinions settled questions that had long since passed from
the minds of men in the glamourous cities of far-off civilization.
Jean passed from the dining-room into the drawing-room, where many
days before she had sent Donald McTavish from her presence. Her
father, who, had eaten earlier, had retired into his private study,
pleading business matters of urgency, and the girl settled herself
luxuriously near a square, snow-edged window, with a pile of
newspapers beside her easy chair.
She had not been reading long when voices raised in argument at
the front door distracted her attention.
"No," the servant of the house was saying, "you can't see the
factor. He has given orders that he cannot be disturbed."
"But I must see him!" replied a croaking voice, using the Ojibway
dialect. "I have come many miles to see him, and must go away
to-day."
"Who are you?" asked Butts, the British butler, who served the
factor's table with all the ceremony to be found in an English
manor.
"Maria."
"Maria who?
"Just Maria. I don't need any other name."
"Tell me your message, and I'll give it to him. Then, you can come
around later in the day for your answer."
"No, I can't do that. This is something I must say to him myself,
and in private," croaked the voice.
"Well, you can't see him, and that's all there is about it," snapped
Butts with finality, and he slammed the door full in the old Indian
woman's face.
At that, Jean sprang up and hurried from the drawing-room into the
hallway, her eyes flashing with resentment.
"Here, Butts," she said sharply, "call that woman back, and bring
her to me in the sitting-room. I will hear what she has to say,
if she will tell me.
"Yes, miss," and the butler, showing vast disapproval in his tone,
opened the door.
A minute later, Jean looked up to see a bent, wizened old hag
standing in the doorway, bobbing respectfully.
"Come in close to the fire. You must be cold," suggested the girl
kindly, noting the pinched brown features. "Then I will talk to you."
A leer of thanks and gratitude spread over the ugly, wrinkled face,
and the creature acted on the suggestion.
"Can't you wait to see my father until later? asked Jean.
"No, I go with my son to the hunting-grounds this afternoon," the
woman answered.
"Well, if you will tell your message to me, I will see that he gets
it."
The squaw made no reply, but searched Jean's face with her bright
little eyes. Then, she said suddenly:
"So, you're the one he is in love with?" The girl, taken aback,
bristled at the words and tone.
"To whom do you refer?" she asked.
"Captain McTavish. Ha, you start and blush! Then, there are two
sides of the matter. It's a pity! It's a pity!"
Jean, now thoroughly angered, both by the woman's temerity and her
own involuntary coloring at the mention of Donald McTavish's name,
turned on her visitor sharply.
"You will kindly keep to the matter that brought you here, Maria,"
she said, "and leave both myself and Captain McTavish out of it."
"I can leave you out of it, but not McTavish," was the stolid reply.
"What do you mean?"
"Ha, ha! That's it. What do I mean? Sometimes I hardly know myself,
but at others it conies back to me clearly enough. But I warn you,
pretty miss," and the squaw suddenly pointed a shaking finger at
the girl. "Never marry him, this McTavish. Never marry him!
"I haven't the slightest intention of doing so," returned the girl
coldly; "but I would like to know why you say what you do, and why
you wanted to see my father and tell him all this nonsense."
"Nonsense, you say!" The old woman chuckled. "No, it ain't nonsense.
Your father knows something already, but probably he won't tell
you; such things aren't for the ears of young girls, particularly
when they blush and grow angry at the mention of a man. But he'll
marry you if he can, stain or no stain. That's a man's way."
Jean Fitzpatrick's hands wandered to her throat as though to ease
her dress. Her eyes were wide with wonder and her fear of something
half-hinted, and the color had gone out of her face. Here they were
again, these rumors that had disturbed her mind from time to time.
But, now, they were almost definite--and they were not pleasant!
And her father knew I She had suspected the fact, and yet he had
not told her anything, even denying his knowledge when forced to
the point.
What was it, this thing that was the prized property of a
glittering-eyed Indian hag? She dared hear no more from the crafty,
insinuating creature. She would go to her father himself, and find
out. She turned to the old woman, who was watching her closely.
"Maria," she said, "I will do what I can to have my father see you
before you leave this afternoon. If he will not, then you may know
that everything possible has been done. If he will see you, I'll
send a boy to find you."
The squaw knew enough of white etiquette to realize that this was
a dismissal, and started toward the door.
"He knows, he knows!" she croaked. "Tell him this time that there
is money in it, and, if he won't see me now, I'll be back in the
spring."
She went out, leaving Jean bewildered and spent with emotion, trying
to collect her scattered thoughts. Knowing that her father was
busy, she returned to the papers, and tried to read. But the words
passed in front of her eyes without meaning, and, after fifteen
minutes of this, she rose determinedly.
The knock on her father's study door elicited a growl of inquiry,
and she went in without answering. Old Angus Fitzpatrick sat bent
over his desk writing, his white beard sweeping the polished wood.
He wore large horn spectacles.
"Father," began the girl, coming straight to the point, "do you
know an old Ojibway squaw by the name of Maria?"
Neither the bulk of the man nor his stolidity could hide the
involuntary start the words gave him. He looked searchingly at his
daughter from beneath his beetling brows.
"Yes, I have seen her, I think," he replied cautiously after a
moment. "Why?"
"She came here to-day, and insisted, almost violently, on seeing
you. Butts was about to send her away when I interfered and talked
to her myself. I don't like her; she frightens me."
"You talked with her?" asked the factor hastily, his agitation
undisguised this time.
"Yes, but I couldn't learn anything definite. She has a lot of
nasty rumors in her head. Maybe they're facts, but she only spoke
in hints. She said the facts she would tell only to you."
Angus Fitzpatrick heaved an inaudible sigh of relief. The old
squaw, then, had been discreet.
"What was the subject of her conversation?" he asked, sharply.
The girl hesitated and flushed.
"Horrid hints regarding Don--Captain McTavish," she said, finally.
Then, her indignation rising once more, she went on swiftly: "Just
the sort of thing I have heard from you, from Tee-ka-mee, from
every one who has a right or privilege to mention such things. Now,
father, I have come in here to find out just what this thing is.
You can tell me in five minutes, if you will. Ah, yes, you can,"
she insisted, as the factor started to deny. "Yes, you can; old
Maria said so, and I believe her. After last summer when he was
here, and I--when I grew to be very fond of his company, you
suddenly began putting things into my mind, uncertain hints, slurring
intimations, significant gestures--all the things that can damage
a character without positively defaming it. Something had happened!
Something had come to your notice that made you do all that. You
never liked Donald, but you didn't really oppose him before that
time. Now, I want to know what this is." Her voice hardened. "I'm
tired of being treated like a schoolgirl; I'm twenty-four, and old
enough to think for myself, and I demand to know what mystery has
forced a black shadow between us."
She stopped, breathless, the color going and coming in her cheeks
like the ebb and flow of northern lights in the sky.
Old Angus Fitzpatrick, amazed at the vehemence of his usually
passive daughter, had risen to his feet. To make him furious, it
was only necessary to demand something. This the girl, in excellent
imitation of his own manner, had done, and he resented it highly,
glaring at her through his spectacles.
"Do you mean to stand there and say that you demand that I tell
you something?" he roared. "Well, I refuse, that's all."
And he turned angrily away from her. The girl mastered herself,
and asked in a cold, even voice:
"Will you tell me this? Is there anything definite against Donald
McTavish?
"Do you demand to know?
"No, I ask it."
"Well, then, there is. A perfectly good reason why you can never
marry him."
"What is it?"
"I can't tell you. And, if I can't, no one else can. Respect him
all you will for himself, but don't love him. I tell you this to
spare you pain later. And, if you please, Jean," he added more
gently as his temper went down, "never let us speak of this painful
subject again."
"Very well, father," she replied, calmly. "Oh, by the way, do you
wish to see that woman? She leaves this afternoon."
"No, I never want to see her again."
"She said for me to tell you there was money in it this time,"
added the girl, a slight note of contempt in her tone.
The factor hesitated.
"No," he said finally; and, without another word, Jean left the
room.