Eva Sommerton, of Boston, knew that she lived in the right portion of
that justly celebrated city, and this knowledge was evident in the
poise of her queenly head, and in every movement of her graceful form.
Blundering foreigners--foreigners as far as Boston is concerned,
although they may be citizens of the United States--considered Boston
to be a large city, with commerce and railroads and busy streets and
enterprising newspapers, but the true Bostonian knows that this view is
very incorrect. The real Boston is penetrated by no railroads. Even
the jingle of the street-car bell does not disturb the silence of the
streets of this select city. It is to the ordinary Boston what the
empty, out-of-season London is to the rest of the busy metropolis. The
stranger, jostled by the throng, may not notice that London is empty,
but his lordship, if he happens during the deserted period to pass
through, knows there is not a soul in town.
Miss Sommerton had many delusions, but fortunately for her peace of mind
she had never yet met a candid friend with courage enough to tell her
so. It would have required more bravery than the ordinary society person
possesses to tell Miss Sommerton about any of her faults. The young
gentlemen of her acquaintance claimed that she had no faults, and if her
lady friends thought otherwise, they reserved the expression of such
opinions for social gatherings not graced by the presence of Miss
Sommerton.
Eva Sommerton thought she was not proud, or if there was any tinge of
pride in her character, it was pride of the necessary and proper sort.
She also possessed the vain belief that true merit was the one
essential, but if true merit had had the misfortune to be presented
to Miss Sommerton without an introduction of a strictly unimpeachable
nature, there is every reason to fear true merit would not have had the
exquisite privilege of basking in the smiles of that young Bostonian.
But perhaps her chief delusion was the belief that she was an artist.
She had learned all that Boston could teach of drawing, and this thin
veneer had received a beautiful foreign polish abroad. Her friends
pronounced her sketches really wonderful. Perhaps if Miss Sommerton’s
entire capital had been something less than her half-yearly income, she
might have made a name for herself; but the rich man gets a foretaste of
the scriptural difficulty awaiting him at the gates of heaven, when he
endeavours to achieve an earthly success, the price of which is hard
labour, and not hard cash.
We are told that pride must have a fall, and there came an episode in
Miss Sommerton’s career as an artist which was a rude shock to her
self-complacency. Having purchased a landscape by a celebrated artist
whose work she had long admired, she at last ventured to write to him
and enclose some of her own sketches, with a request for a candid
judgment of them--that is, she _said_ she wanted a candid judgment of
them.
The reply seemed to her so ungentlemanly, and so harsh, that, in her
vexation and anger, she tore the letter to shreds and stamped her pretty
foot with a vehemence which would have shocked those who knew her only
as the dignified and self-possessed Miss Eva Sommerton.
Then she looked at her libelled sketches, and somehow they did not
appear to be quite so faultless as she had supposed them to be.
This inspection was followed by a thoughtful and tearful period of
meditation; and finally, with contriteness, the young woman picked up
from her studio floor the shreds of the letter and pasted them carefully
together on a white sheet of paper, in which form she still preserved
the first honest opinion she had ever received.
In the seclusion of her aesthetic studio Miss Sommerton made a heroic
resolve to work hard. Her life was to be consecrated to art. She would
win reluctant recognition from the masters. Under all this wave of
heroic resolution was an under-current of determination to get even with
the artist who had treated her work so contemptuously.
Few of us quite live up to our best intentions, and Miss Sommerton
was no exception to the rule. She did not work as devotedly as she had
hoped to do, nor did she become a recluse from society. A year after she
sent to the artist some sketches which she had taken in Quebec--some
unknown waterfalls, some wild river scenery--and received from him a
warmer letter of commendation than she had hoped for. He remembered
her former sketches, and now saw a great improvement. If the waterfall
sketches were not exaggerations, he would like to see the originals.
Where were they? The lady was proud of her discoveries in the almost
unknown land of Northern Quebec, and she wrote a long letter telling all
about them, and a polite note of thanks for the information ended the
correspondence.
Miss Sommerton’s favourite discovery was that tremendous downward plunge
of the St. Maurice, the Falls of Shawenegan. She had sketched it from a
dozen different standpoints, and raved about it to her friends, if such
a dignified young person as Miss Sommerton could be said to rave over
anything. Some Boston people, on her recommendation, had visited the
falls, but their account of the journey made so much of the difficulties
and discomforts, and so little of the magnificence of the cataract, that
our amateur artist resolved to keep the falls, as it were, to herself.
She made yearly pilgrimages to the St. Maurice, and came to have a kind
of idea of possession which always amused Mr. Mason. She seemed to
resent the fact that others went to look at the falls, and, worse than
all, took picnic baskets there, actually lunching on its sacred shores,
leaving empty champagne bottles and boxes of sardines that had evidently
broken some one’s favourite knife in the opening. This particular summer
she had driven out to “The Greys,” but finding that a party was going up
in canoes every day that week, she promptly ordered her driver to take
her back to Three Rivers, saying to Mr. Mason she would return when she
could have the falls to herself.
“You remind me of Miss Porter,” said the lumber king.
“Miss Porter! Who is she?”
“When Miss Porter visited England and saw Mr. Gladstone, he asked her if
she had ever seen the Niagara Falls. ‘Seen them?’ she answered. ‘Why, I
_own_ them!’”
“What did she mean by that? I confess I don’t see the point, or perhaps
it isn’t a joke.”
“Oh yes, it is. You mustn’t slight my good stories in that way. She
meant just what she said. I believe the Porter family own, or did
own, Goat Island, and, I suppose, the other bank, and, therefore,
the American Fall. The joke--I do dislike to have to explain
jokes, especially to you cool, unsympathising Bostonians--is the
ridiculousness of any mere human person claiming to own such a thing as
the Niagara Falls. I believe, though, that you are quite equal to it--I
do indeed.”
“Thank you, Mr. Mason.”
“I knew you would be grateful when I made myself clearly understood.
Now, what I was going to propose is this. You should apply to the
Canadian Government for possession of the Shawenegan. I think they would
let it go at a reasonable figure. They look on it merely as an annoying
impediment to the navigation of the river, and an obstruction which
has caused them to spend some thousands of dollars in building a slide
by the side of it, so that the logs may come down safely.”
“If I owned it, the slide is the first thing I would destroy.”
“What? And ruin the lumber industry of the Upper St. Maurice? Oh, you
wouldn’t do such a thing! If that is your idea, I give you fair warning
that I will oppose your claims with all the arts of the lobbyist. If
you want to become the private owner of the falls, you should tell the
Government that you have some thoughts of encouraging the industries of
the province by building a mill----”
“A mill?”
“Yes; why not? Indeed, I have half a notion to put a saw-mill there
myself. It always grieves me to see so much magnificent power going to
waste.”
“Oh, seriously, Mr. Mason, you would never think of committing such an
act of sacrilege?”
“Sacrilege, indeed! I like that. Why, the man who makes one saw-mill hum
where no mill ever hummed before is a benefactor to his species. Don’t
they teach political economy at Boston? I thought you liked saw-mills.
You drew a very pretty picture of the one down the stream.”
“I admire a _ruined_ saw-mill, as that one was; but not one in a state
of activity, or of eruption, as a person might say.”
“Well, won’t you go up to the falls to-day, Miss Sommerton? I assure you
we have a most unexceptionable party. Why, one of them is a Government
official. Think of that!”
“I refuse to think of it; or, if I do think of it, I refuse to be
dazzled by his magnificence. I want to see the Shawenegan, not a picnic
party drinking.
“You wrong them, really you do, Miss Sommerton, believe me. You have got
your dates mixed. It is the champagne party that goes to-day. The beer
crowd is not due until to-morrow.”
“The principle is the same.”
“The price of the refreshment is not. I speak as a man of bitter
experience. Let’s see. If recollection holds her throne, I think there
was a young lady from New England--I forget the name of the town at
the moment--who took a lunch with her the last time she went to the
Shawenegan. I merely give this as my impression, you know. I am open to
contradiction.”
“Certainly, I took a lunch. I always do. I would to-day if I were going
up there, and Mrs. Mason would give me some sandwiches. You would give
me a lunch, wouldn’t you, dear?”
“I’ll tell them to get it ready now, if you will only stay,” replied
that lady, on being appealed to.
“No, it isn’t the lunch I object to. I object to people going there
merely _for_ the lunch. I go for the scenery; the lunch is incidental.”
“When you get the deed of the falls, I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” put
in Mason. “We will have a band of trained Indians stationed at the
landing, and they will allow no one to disembark who does not express
himself in sufficiently ecstatic terms about the great cataract. You
will draw up a set of adjectives, which I will give to the Indians,
instructing them to allow no one to land who does not use at least three
out of five of them in referring to the falls. People whose eloquent
appreciation does not reach the required altitude will have to stay
there till it does, that’s all. We will treat them as we do our
juries--starve them into a verdict, and the right verdict at that.”
“Don’t mind him, Eva. He is just trying to exasperate you. Think of what
I have to put up with. He goes on like that all the time,” said Mrs.
Mason.
“Really, my dear, your flattery confuses me. You can’t persuade any one
that I keep up this brilliancy in the privacy of my own house. It is
only turned on for company.”
“Why, Mr. Mason, I didn’t think you looked on me as company. I thought I
enjoyed the friendship of the Mason family.”
“Oh, you do, you do indeed! The company I referred to was the official
party which has just gone to the falls. This is some of the brilliancy
left over. But, really, you had better stay after coming all this
distance.”
“Yes, do, Eva. Let me go back with you to the Three Rivers, and then you
stay with me till next week, when you can visit the falls all alone. It
is very pleasant at Three Rivers just now. And besides, we can go for a
day’s shopping at Montreal.”
“I wish I could.”
“Why, of course you can,” said Mason. “Imagine the delight of smuggling
your purchases back to Boston. Confess that this is a pleasure you
hadn’t thought of.”
“I admit the fascination of it all, but you see I am with a party that
has gone on to Quebec, and I just got away for a day. I am to meet them
there to-night or to-morrow morning. But I will return in the autumn,
Mrs. Mason, when it is too late for the picnics. Then, Mr. Mason, take
warning. I mean to have a canoe to myself, or--well, you know the way we
Bostonians treated you Britishers once upon a time.”
“Distinctly. But we will return good for evil, and give you warm tea
instead of the cold mixture you so foolishly brewed in the harbour.”
As the buckboard disappeared around the corner, and Mr. and Mrs. Mason
walked back to the house, the lady said--
“What a strange girl Eva is.”
“Very. Don’t she strike you as being a trifle selfish?”
“Selfish? Eva Sommerton? Why, what could make you think such a thing?
What an absurd idea! You cannot imagine how kind she was to me when I
visited Boston.”
“Who could help it, my dear? I would have been so myself if I had
happened to meet you there.”
“Now, Ed., don’t be absurd.”
“There is something absurd in being kind to a person’s wife, isn’t
there? Well, it struck me her objection to any one else being at the
falls, when her ladyship was there, might seem--not to me, of course,
but to an outsider--a trifle selfish.”
“Oh, you don’t understand her at all. She has an artistic temperament,
and she is quite right in wishing to be alone. Now, Ed., when she does
come again I want you to keep anyone else from going up there. Don’t
forget it, as you do most of the things I tell you. Say to anybody who
wants to go up that the canoes are out of repair.”
“Oh, I can’t say that, you know. Anything this side of a crime I am
willing to commit; but to perjure myself, no, not for Venice. Can you
think of any other method that will combine duplicity with a clear
conscience? I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I will have the canoe drawn up,
and gently, but firmly, slit it with my knife. One of the men can mend
it in ten minutes. Then I can look even the official from Quebec in the
face, and tell him truly that the canoe will not hold water. I suppose
as long as my story will hold water you and Miss Sommerton will not
mind?”
“If the canoe is ready for her when she comes, I shall be satisfied.
Please to remember I am going to spend a week or two in Boston next
winter.”
“Oh ho, that’s it, is it? Then it was not pure philanthropy----”
“Pure nonsense, Ed. I want the canoe to be ready, that’s all.”
When Mrs. Mason received the letter from Miss Sommerton, stating the
time the young woman intended to pay her visit to the Shawenegan, she
gave the letter to her husband, and reminded him of the necessity of
keeping the canoe for that particular date. As the particular date was
some weeks off, and as Ed. Mason was a man who never crossed a stream
until he came to it, he said, “All right,” put the letter in his inside
pocket, and the next time he thought of it was on the fine autumn
afternoon--Monday afternoon--when he saw Mrs. Mason drive up to the
door of his lumber-woods residence with Miss Eva Sommerton in the buggy
beside her. The young lady wondered, as Mr. Mason helped her out, if
that genial gentleman, whom she regarded as the most fortunate of men,
had in reality some secret, gnawing sorrow the world knew not of.
“Why, Ed., you look ill,” exclaimed Mrs. Mason; “is there anything the
matter?”
“Oh, it is nothing--at least, not of much consequence. A little business
worry, that’s all.”
“Has there been any trouble?”
“Oh no--at the least, not _yet_.”
“Trouble about the men, is it?”
“No, not about the men,” said the unfortunate gentleman, with a somewhat
unnecessary emphasis on the last word.
“Oh, Mr. Mason, I am afraid I have come at a wrong time. If so, don’t
hesitate to tell me. If I can do anything to help you, I hope I may be
allowed.”
“You have come just at the right time,” said the lumberman, “and you are
very welcome, I assure you. If I find I need help, as perhaps I may, you
will be reminded of your promise.”
To put off as long as possible the evil time of meeting his wife,
Mason went with the man to see the horse put away, and he lingered an
unnecessarily long time in ascertaining that everything was right in the
stable. The man was astonished to find his master so particular that
afternoon. A crisis may be postponed, but it can rarely be avoided
altogether, and knowing he had to face the inevitable sooner or later,
the unhappy man, with a sigh, betook himself to the house, where he
found his wife impatiently waiting for him. She closed the door and
confronted him.
“Now, Ed., what’s the matter?”
“Where’s Miss Sommerton?” was the somewhat irrelevant reply.
“She has gone to her room. Ed., don’t keep me in suspense. What is
wrong?”
“You remember John Trenton, who was here in the summer?”
“I remember hearing you speak of him. I didn’t meet him, you know.”
“Oh, that’s so. Neither you did. You see, he’s an awful good fellow,
Trenton is--that is, for an Englishman.”
“Well, what has Trenton to do with the trouble?”
“Everything, my dear--everything.”
“I see how it is. Trenton visited the Shawenegan?”
“He did.”
“And he wants to go there again?”
“He does.”
“And you have gone and promised him the canoe for to-morrow?”
“The intuition of woman, my dear, is the most wonderful thing on earth.”
“It is not half so wonderful as the negligence of man--I won’t say the
stupidity.”
“Thank you, Jennie, for not saying it, but I really think I would feel
better if you did.”
“Now, what are you going to do about it?”
“Well, my dear, strange as it may appear, that very question has been
racking my brain for the last ten minutes. Now, what would you do in my
position?”
“Oh, I couldn’t be in your position.”
“No, that’s so, Jennie. Excuse me for suggesting the possibility. I
really think this trouble has affected my mind a little. But if you had
a husband--if a sensible woman like you _could_ have a husband who got
himself into such a position--what would you advise him to do?”
“Now, Ed., don’t joke. It’s too serious.”
“My dear, no one on earth can have such a realisation of its seriousness
as I have at this moment. I feel as Mark Twain did with that novel he
never finished. I have brought things to a point where I can’t go any
further. The game seems blocked. I wonder if Miss Sommerton would accept
ten thousand feet of lumber f.o.b. and call it square.”
“Really, Ed., if you can’t talk sensibly, I have nothing further to say.”
“Well, as I said, the strain is getting too much for me. Now, don’t
go away, Jennie. Here is what I am thinking of doing. I’ll speak to
Trenton. He won’t mind Miss Sommerton’s going in the canoe with him. In
fact, I should think he would rather like it.”
“Dear me, Ed., is that all the progress you’ve made? I am not troubling
myself about Mr. Trenton. The difficulty will be with Eva. Do you think
for a moment she will go if she imagined herself under obligations to a
stranger for the canoe? Can’t you get Mr. Trenton to put off his visit
until the day after tomorrow? It isn’t long to wait.”
“No, that is impossible. You see, he has just time to catch his steamer
as it is. No, he has the promise in writing, while Miss Sommerton has no
legal evidence if this thing ever gets into the courts. Trenton has my
written promise. You see, I did not remember the two dates were the
same. When I wrote to Trenton----”
“Ed., don’t try to excuse yourself. You had her letter in your pocket,
you know you had. This is a matter for which there is no excuse, and it
cannot be explained away.”
“That’s so, Jennie. I am down in the depths once more. I shall not try
to crawl out again--at least, not while my wife is looking.”
“No, your plan will not work. I don’t know that any will. There is only
one thing to try, and it is this--Miss Sommerton must think that the
canoe is hers. You must appeal to her generosity to let Mr. Trenton go
with her.”
“Won’t you make the appeal, Jen?”
“No, I will not. In the first place she’ll be sorry for you, because you
will make such a bungle of it. Trial is your only hope.”
“Oh, if success lies in bungling, I will succeed.”
“Don’t be too sure. I suppose that man will be here by daybreak
to-morrow?”
“Not so bad as that, Jennie. You always try to put the worst face on
things. He won’t be here till sunrise at the earliest.”
“I will ask Eva to come down.”
“You needn’t hurry just because of me. Besides, I would like a few
moments to prepare myself for my fate. Even a murderer is given a little
time.”
“Not a moment, Ed. We had better get this thing settled as soon as
possible.”
“Perhaps you are right,” he murmured, with a deep sigh. “Well, if we
Britishers, as Miss S. calls us, ever faced the Americans with as faint
a heart as I do now, I don’t wonder we got licked.”
“Don’t say ‘licked,’ Ed.”
“I believe it’s historical. Oh, I see. You object to the word, not to
the allegation. Well, I won’t cavil about that. All my sympathy just now
is concentrated on one unfortunate Britisher. My dear, let the sacrifice
begin.”
Mrs. Mason went to the stairway and called--
“Eva, dear, can you come down for a moment? We want you to help us out
of a difficulty.”
Miss Sommerton appeared smilingly, smoothing down the front of the dress
that had taken the place of the one she travelled in. She advanced
towards Mason with sweet compassion in her eyes, and that ill-fated
man thought he had never seen any one look so altogether
charming--excepting, of course, his own wife in her youthful days. She
seemed to have smoothed away all the Boston stiffness as she smoothed
her dress.
“Oh, Mr. Mason,” she said, sympathetically, as she approached, “I am
so sorry anything has happened to trouble you, and I do hope I am not
intruding.”
“Indeed, you are not, Miss Eva. In fact, your sympathy has taken away
half the trouble already, and I want to beg of you to help me off with
the other half.”
A glance at his wife’s face showed him that he had not made a bad
beginning.
“Miss Sommerton, you said you would like to kelp me. Now I am going to
appeal to you. I throw myself on your mercy.”
There was a slight frown on Mrs. Mason’s face, and her husband felt that
he was perhaps appealing too much.
“In fact, the truth is, my wife gave me----”
Here a cough interrupted him, and he paused and ran his hand through
his hair. “Pray don’t mind me, Mr. Mason,” said Miss Sommerton, “if you
would rather not tell----”
“Oh, but I must; that is, I want you to know.”
He glanced at his wife, but there was no help there, so he plunged in
headlong.
“To tell the truth, there is a friend of mine who wants to go to the
falls tomorrow. He sails for Europe immediately, and has no other day.”
The Boston rigidity perceptibly returned.
“Oh, if that is all, you needn’t have had a moment’s trouble. I can just
as well put off my visit.”
“Oh, can you?” cried Mason, joyously.
His wife sat down in the rocking-chair with a sigh of despair. Her
infatuated husband thought he was getting along famously.
“Then your friends are not waiting for you at Quebec this time, and you
can stay a day or two with us.”
“Eva’s friends are at Montreal, Edward, and she cannot stay.”
“Oh, then--why, then, to-morrow’s _your_ only day, too?”
“It doesn’t matter in the least, Mr. Mason. I shall be most glad to put
off my visit to oblige your friend--no, I didn’t mean that,” she cried,
seeing the look of anguish on Mason’s face, “it is to oblige you. Now,
am I not good?”
“No, you are cruel,” replied Mason. “You are going up to the falls. I
insist on that. Let’s take that as settled. The canoe is yours.” He
caught an encouraging look from his wife. “If you want to torture me you
will say you will not go. If you want to do me the greatest of favours,
you will let my friend go in the canoe with you to the landing.”
“What! go alone with a stranger?” cried Miss Sommerton, freezingly.
“No, the Indians will be there, you know.”
“Oh, I didn’t expect to paddle the canoe myself.”
“I don’t know about that. You strike me as a girl who would paddle her
own canoe pretty well.”
“Now, Edward,” said his wife. “He wants to take some photographs of the
falls, and----”
“Photographs? Why, Ed., I thought you said he was an artist.”
“Isn’t a photographer an artist?”
“You know he isn’t.”
“Well, my dear, you know they put on their signs, ‘artist--photographer,
pictures taken in cloudy weather.’ But he’s an amateur photographer; an
amateur is not so bad as a professional, is he, Miss Sommerton?”
“I think he’s worse, if there is any choice. A professional at least
takes good pictures, such as they are.”
“He is an elderly gentleman, and I am sure----”
“Oh, is he?” cried Miss Sommerton; “then the matter is settled. He shall
go. I thought it was some young fop of an amateur photographer.”
“Oh, quite elderly. His hair is grey, or badly tinged at least.”
The frown on Miss Sommerton’s brow cleared away, and she smiled in a
manner that was cheering to the heart of her suppliant. He thought it
reminded him of the sun breaking through the clouds over the hills
beyond the St. Maurice.
“Why, Mr. Mason, how selfishly I’ve been acting, haven’t I? You really
must forgive me. It is so funny, too, making you beg for a seat in your
own canoe.”
“Oh no, it’s your canoe--that is, after twelve o’clock to-night. That’s
when your contract begins.”
“The arrangement does not seem to me quite regular; but, then, this
is the Canadian woods, and not Boston. But, I want to make my little
proviso. I do not wish to be introduced to this man; he must have no
excuse for beginning a conversation with me. I don’t want to talk
to-morrow.”
“Heroic resolution,” murmured Mason.
“So, I do not wish to see the gentleman until I go into the canoe. You
can be conveniently absent. Mrs. Perrault will take me down there; she
speaks no English, and it is not likely he can speak French.”
“We can arrange that.”
“Then it is settled, and all I hope for is a good day to-morrow.”
Mrs. Mason sprang up and kissed the fair Bostonian, and Mason felt a
sensation of joyous freedom that recalled his youthful days when a
half-holiday was announced.
“Oh, it is too good of you,” said the elder lady.
“Not a bit of it,” whispered Miss Sommerton; “I hate the man before I
have seen him.”