When I joined them an hour after supper, they were talking about the heater that had been put up in the living-room while we were away. The warmth from it was delightful, but the blazing fire in the fireplace gave the true cheer to the room, added charm for the eye. The Doctor looked up as I came in.
"Have you ever seen a stove like this—Marcia?" There was a twinkle both in his voice and his eye, as he called me for the first time by my Christian name. He was tease enough to try it in the presence of the rest of the household.
"Oh, yes, my grandfather had two in his farmhouse. There is nothing like them for an even heat; it never burns the face. The top is a lovely place to fry griddlecakes."
"You seem to know this species root and branch, Miss Farrell," said Mr. Ewart. "After that remark may I challenge you to make a few for us some night for supper?"
"You won't have to challenge, for I like them myself; and if you 'll trust me we 'll have a griddlecake party here in this room some evening."
"My first innings, Marcia!" cried Jamie.
"I 'll have to let that go unchallenged, Macleod, seeing I 'm host; but you took unfair advantage of me. I 'll get even with you sometime."
"Where did you get your idea, Gordon?" The Doctor turned to his friend.
"I was born with it, you might say. I don't remember the time when we did n't have two or three in my father's house, and I 've never found anything equal to them for heating. They 're all out of date now; there is no manufactory for them. I had trouble in finding these, but I unearthed three last spring when I was in northern Vermont. I knew we should need them, and they keep all night, you know. I 'm going to have one put up in the bathroom—these oil stoves are an abomination."
"Amen," said the Doctor.
"So say we all of us.— Hark, hear that wind!" said Jamie.
The stove was of soapstone, square, with hinged top that, opening upward, gave room for the insertion of a "chunk"—a huge, unsplittable, knotty piece of maple, birch, or beech. Cale came in with one while we were listening to the roar of the gale; it was a section of a maple butt.
"There, thet 'll last all night an' inter the forenoon," he said, lowering it carefully into the glowing brands in the box. "I 'll shet up the drafts, an' you 'll have a small furnace with no dust nor dirt to bother with; an' the ashes is good fertilizer—can't be beat for clover."
"Let's take a household vote on the subject of modern improvements for the manor," said Mr. Ewart, helping himself to a cigar and then passing the box to Cale who had turned to leave the room.
Cale took one with an "I thankyou" this being a habit of speech to emphasize the last word, and was about to go out.
"Stay a while with us, Cale," said Mr. Ewart, speaking as a matter of course; "I want the opinion of every member of my household—my Anglo-Saxon one, I mean."
The two men stood facing each other, and between them I saw a look pass that bespoke mutual confidence. I thought they must have made rapid progress in one short day.
"Wal, I don't mind if I do. It's flatterin' to a man, say what you 've a mind ter, ter have his advice asked on any subject—let alone what interests him."
"That's a fine back-handed compliment for you, Ewart," said Jamie, whose delight in Cale's acquiescence was very evident.
"I took it so," said Mr. Ewart quietly, drawing up a chair beside his and motioning to Cale who, after a slight hesitation, sat down.
How cosy it was around the fire! Since our return from the pung ride, the wind had risen, keen and hard in the northwest and, crossing the Laurentians, was swooping down upon the river lands, swaying the great spruces in the woods all about us till it seemed as if ocean surf were breaking continuously just without the walls of the manor and, now and then, spending its force upon them until the great beams quivered under the impact. Every blast seemed to intensify our comfort within.
"The telephone will be a great convenience," Mrs. Macleod remarked from the corner of the sofa, looking up from her knitting; "it will save so many trips to the village in weather like this."
"Is it a long distance one, Gordon?" said Jamie who was lolling on the other end.
"Yes; I thought we might as well connect with almost anywhere. Our household is rather cosmopolitan. Does this suit you?"
"Suits me to a dot. I can talk with my 'best girl', as they call her in the States, when she is on the wing—as she is now."
"Oh, ho, Boy! Has it come to this so soon?" The Doctor sighed audibly, causing us to laugh.
"Jamie's 'best girl' changes with the season and sometimes the temperature, Doctor," said Mrs. Macleod, smiling at some remembrance. "Do you recall a little girl who with her mother had lodgings at Duncairn House, just opposite ours in Crieff?"
The Doctor nodded. "Yes, and how Jamie Macleod enticed her away one summer afternoon to the meadows and banks of the Earn just below the garden gate, and the hue and cry that was raised when the two failed to make their appearance at supper time? Somebody—I won't say who—went to bed without porridge that night. What was her name, Boy?"
I saw, we all saw, just the least hesitation on Jamie's part to answer with his usual assurance. We saw, also, the touch of red on his high cheek bones deepen a little.
"Bess—Bess Stanley."
"There is a Miss Stanley who visited at the new manor last summer—any relation, do you know?" asked Mr. Ewart.
"Same," Jamie answered concisely, meanwhile puffing vigorously at his pipe.
"The plot thickens, Mrs. Macleod," said the Doctor dubiously.
"Is she tall and slender and fair, Jamie?" I put what I considered an opportune question; I knew it would both surprise and irritate him as well as rouse his curiosity of which he has an abundance. I really spoke at a venture because the name recalled to me the two girls in the sleeping-car and their destination: Richelieu-en-Bas.
He turned to me with irony in his look. "She is all you say. May I make so bold as to enquire of you whether you speak from knowledge, or if you simply made a good guess?"
"From knowledge—first hand, of course," I said with assurance.
He sat up then, eyeing me defiantly, much to the others' amusement.
"Perhaps you can give me further information about the young lady—all will be gratefully received."
"No, nothing—except that I believe it was she through whom you obtained Cale, was n't it?" I heard Cale chuckle.
"Look here, Marcia," he began severely enough, then burst into one of his hearty laughs that dissolves his irritation at once; "you 'll be telling me what she wrote me in my last letter if you 're such a mind reader. I say," he said, settling himself into a chair beside me, "let up on a man once in a while in the presence of such a cloud of witnesses, won't you? Take me when I 'm alone. The truth is, Ewart, Marcia gives herself airs because she is three years my senior. She takes the meanest kind of advantage; and I can't hit back because she 's a woman. But about that telephone, Ewart; are they going to run it on the trees."
"It's the only way at this season."
"Could n't it remain so the year round?" I asked.
"Why?" said Mr. Ewart.
"Because the poles will just spoil everything; as it is, it is—"
"Is what, Marcia? Out with it," said Jamie encouragingly.
"Perfect as it is," I said boldly, willing they should know what I thought of this wilderness of neglect that surrounded us in the heart of French Canada.
"Guess we can keep it perfect, as you say, Marcia, 'thout havin' to rub the burrs off'n our coats every time we go round the house," said Cale. "We 're going to do some pretty tall cuttin' inter some of this underbrush and dead timber next week if the snow ain't too deep."
"Oh, Cale, it will spoil it!"
"Wal, thet 's as you look at it; but 't ain't good policy to keep a fire-trap quite so near to a livin'-place; makes insurance rates higher."
"How would you feel then about having a modern hot water heater put into the old manor, Miss Farrell?" Mr. Ewart put the question to me.
"Put it to a vote," I replied.
"All in favor, aye," he continued.
There was silence in the room except for one of the dogs that, asleep under the table, stirred uneasily and whined as if rousing from a dream of an unattainable bone.
"It's a vote against. How about piping in gas?"
"No!" we protested as one.
"Settled," he said smiling. We saw that our decision pleased him.
"Confess, now, Gordon, you did n't want any such innovations yourself," said the Doctor.
"I did n't, for I like my—home, as it is," he said simply.
"I like to hear you use that word 'home', Gordon," said the Doctor, looking intently into the fire; "as long as I 've known you, I think I 've never heard you use it."
"No." The man on the opposite side of the hearth spoke decidedly, but in a tone that did not invite further confidence. "I 've never intended to use it until I could feel the sense of it."
"Another who has felt what it is to be a stranger in this world," I thought to myself. And the fact that there were others, made me, for the moment, feel less a stranger. I was glad to hear him speak so frankly.
The Doctor looked up, nodding understandingly.
"Now I want some advice from all this household," he said earnestly, and I thought to change the subject; "it's about the farm I 've hired and the experiment with it. Give it fully, each of you, and, like every other man, I suppose I shall take what agrees with my own way of looking at it. My plans were so indefinite when I wrote to you to hire it, Gordon, that I went into no detail; and I 'm not at all sure that they are so clear to me now. Here 's where I want help."
"That's not like you, John; what's up?" said his friend.
"I want to start the thing right, and I 'm going to tell you just how I 'm placed; a deuce of a fix it is too."
Cale put on a log and left the room, saying good-night as he passed out. I gathered up my sewing—I was hemming some napkins—and made a motion to follow him.
The Doctor rose. "Marcia,"—he put out a hand as if to detain me; he spoke peremptorily,—"come back. There are no secrets among us, and I want you to advise with."
There seemed nothing to do but to obey, and I was perfectly willing to, because I wanted to hear all and everything about the farm project that threatened to break up my pleasant life in the manor.
I took up my work again.
"Put down your work, Marcia; fold your hands and listen to me. I want your whole attention."
I obeyed promptly. Jamie gleefully rubbed his hands.
"It takes you, Doctor, to make Marcia mind."
"I 'm a man of years, Boy," the Doctor retorted, thereby reducing Jamie to silence.
We sat expectant; but evidently the Doctor was in no hurry to open up his subject. After a few minutes of deep thought, he spoke slowly, almost as if to himself:
"I'm wondering where to begin, what to take hold of first. The ordering of life is beyond all science—we 've found that out, we so-called 'men of science'. The truth is, I believe I have a 'conscience fund' in the bank and on my mind. I know I am speaking blindly, and perhaps reasoning blindly, and it's because I want you to see things for me more clearly than I do, and through a different medium, that I am going to tell you, as concisely as I can—and without mentioning names—of an experience I had more than a quarter of a century ago. I 've had several of the kind since, they are common in our profession—but the result of this special experience is unique." He paused, continuing to look steadfastly into the fire.
In the silence we heard the sweep of the wind through the woods, now and then the scraping swish of a pine branch brushing the roof beneath it.
"I recall that it was in December. I was twenty-nine, and had just got a foothold on the first round of the professional ladder. Near midnight I was called to go down into one of the slum districts—I don't intend to mention names—of New York. There in a basement, I found a woman who had just been rescued from suicide."
He paused, still keeping his gaze fixed intently on the fire. And I?
At the first words a faint sickness came upon me. Was I to hear this again?—here, remote from the environment from which I had so recently fled? Could it be possible that I was to hear again that account of my mother's death? I struggled for control. They must not know, they should not see that struggle. Intent on keeping every feature passive, hoping that in the firelight whatever my face might have shown would pass unnoticed, I waited for the Doctor's next word.
"It seems unprofessional, perhaps, to enter into any detail, but we are far away from that environment now—and in time, too, for it was over a quarter of a century ago. She was very young, nineteen perhaps, and about to become a mother. I remained with her till morning. I knew she would never come through her trial alive. I went again in the evening and stayed with her till her child was born and—to the end which came an hour afterwards. During all those twenty-four hours she spoke but twice. She gave me no name, although I asked her; no name of friends even—God knows if she had any, or why was she there?
"Now, here is my dilemma: in the morning, I signed the death certificate and then went out of the city on a case that kept me forty-eight hours. On my return, the woman, who had rescued this poor girl,—a woman who took in washing and ironing in that basement—told me a man had appeared at the house to claim the body he said was his wife's. She gave me the man's name, but the name of this man was not the name of the husband according to a marriage certificate which I found in an envelope the young woman entrusted to me for her child. At any rate, he had claimed the body and taken it away.
"Now, ordinarily the living waves of existence close very soon over such an episode—all too common; and, so far as I am concerned, in such and other similar cases I forget; it is well that I can. But I 've never been permitted to forget this!"
He made this announcement emphatically, looking up suddenly from the fire, and glancing at each of us in turn.
"And, moreover, I don't believe I am ever going to be permitted to forget. Some one intends I shall remember!
"With me it was merely a charity case—one, it is true, that called forth my deepest sympathy. The circumstances were peculiar. The woman was young, rarely attractive in face, refined, well dressed. Her absolute silence concerning herself during all that weary time; her heroic endurance and, I may say, angelic acceptance of her martyrdom—and all this in such an environment! How could it help making a deep impression? Still, I am convinced I should have forgotten it, had it not been for a constant reminder.
"In the first week of the next February, I received a notification from a national bank in the city that five hundred dollars had been deposited to my credit. The woman who lived in that basement received during the first week of the New Year a draft on that bank—and mailed by the bank—for the same amount. She consulted me about accepting it. When I attempted to investigate at the bank, I found that no information would be given and no questions answered—only the statement made that the money was mine to do with what I might choose. Next December, and a year to a day from the death of that young woman, I received a similar notification, and the woman a draft for one hundred. Since that time, now over twenty-five years ago, no December has ever passed that the regular notification has not been mailed to me and to the woman. I wrote to the man who had claimed the body, and whose name and address the woman, who lived in the basement, remembered. The letter was never answered. I waited a year, and wrote the second time. The letter came back to me from the dead letter office. I invested the increasing amount after two years and let it accumulate at compound interest. As you will see, these donations have amounted now to a tidy sum. I believe it to be 'conscience money'—either from the man who claimed the body as that of his wife, or from the woman's husband according to the marriage certificate. Or are both men one and the same?
"I hired the farm of you, Gordon, merely telling you it was one of my many philanthropic plans that, thus far, I have been unable to carry out. As yet I have not used that money for any benefactions. Would you hold it longer, or would you apply it to my farm project which is to provide a home for the homeless, and for those whose home does not provide sufficient change for them? I have thought sometimes I would limit the philanthropy to those who need up-building in health.— What do you say, Gordon?"
He looked across the hearth to his friend who was leaning back in his chair, his arm resting on the arm, his hand shading his eyes from the firelight.
"I should like to think it over, John; it is a peculiar case. Have you ever thought of the child? Do you know anything about it? Was it a boy or a girl?"
"A girl. No, I never thought of the child—poor little bit of life's flotsam. We don't get much time to think of all those we help to float in on the tide. Now this is what I am getting, by looking at the matter through others' eyes—you mean she should be looked up, and the money go to her?"
"That was my first thought, but, as I said, I must think it over. The two men, at least, the two names of possibly the same man, complicate matters."
"That's what puzzles me," said Jamie. The Doctor turned to him.
"How do you look at it, Boy, you, with your twenty-three years? The world where such things happen is n't much like that world of André's Odyssey, is it?"
Jamie answered brightly, but his voice was slightly unsteady:
"Yes, it's the same old world; it's a wilderness, you know, for all of us, only there are so many paths through it, across it, and up and down it—paths and trails and roads that cross and recross; so many that end in swamp and bog; so many that lead nowhither; so many that are lost on the mountain. And so few guideposts—I wish there were more for us all! You may bet your life that man—whether the girl's husband or lover—has had to tread thorns until his feet bled before he could clear his way through. Those five hundred dollars, in yearly deposits, he intends shall be guideposts, and he trusts you to put them up in the wilderness where they will do the most good.—I 'd hate to be that man! Would you mind telling me, Doctor, how she attempted to make way with herself?"
"Tried to drown herself from one of the North River piers."
"And her child too," said Jamie musingly; "there came near being two graves inhiswilderness." He thought a moment in silence. "Make the home on the farm with the money, Doctor Rugvie; use the interest in helping others who have lost their way in the wilderness."
"Good advice, Boy, I 'll remember to act on it." The Doctor spoke gratefully, heartily. His glance rested affectionately upon the long figure on the sofa. Was he wondering, as I was, how Jamie at twenty-three could reach certain depths which his particular plummet could never have sounded? I intended to ask him what he thought of Jamie's outlook on life, sometime when we should be alone together.
"Mrs. Macleod," he said, "do you think with your son?"
She hesitated. It is her peculiarity that a direct question, the answer to which involves a decision, flusters her painfully.
"I shall have to think it over, like Mr. Ewart," she replied.
"And you, Marcia," he turned to me. Out of my knowledge I answered unhesitatingly:
"It's not of the child I 'm thinking; she could n't accept the money knowing for what it is paid. Nor am I thinking about those women who need 'guide-posts', Jamie. I 'm thinking of that other woman who lived in the basement and took in washing and ironing, the one who rescued that other from her misery and cared for her with your help, Doctor Rugvie—should n't she be remembered? She, who is living? If I had that money at my disposal, I would found the farm home and put that woman at the head of it. You may be sure she would know how to put up the guideposts—and in the right places too."
I spoke eagerly, almost impulsively.
The Doctor looked at me comprehendingly—he knew that I knew that it was of Delia Beaseley he had been speaking—and smiled.
"Another idea, Marcia, also worth remembering and acting upon with Jamie's."
I turned suddenly to Mr. Ewart, not knowing why I felt impelled to; perhaps his silence, his noticeable unresponsiveness to his friend's proposition, impressed as well as surprised me; at any rate I looked up very quickly and caught the look he gave me. It half terrified me. What had I said to offend him? The steel gray eyes were almost black, and the look—had it possessed physical force, I felt it would have crushed me. It was severe, indignant, uncompromising. I was mystified. The look was more flashed at me than directed at me for the space of half a second—then he spoke to Jamie.
"You are right, Jamie, about the wilderness; we 'll talk this matter over sometime together before John goes,"—I perceived clearly that Mrs. Macleod and I were shut out of future conferences,—"and I know we can make some plan satisfactory to him and to us all. Count on me, John, to help you in carrying out the best plan whatever it may be. In any case, it will mean that we are to have more of your company, and that's what I want." He spoke lightly.
Doctor Rugvie smiled, then his features grew earnest again.
"Gordon, I want to put a question to you, and after you to Jamie."
"Yes; go ahead."
"I have given you the mere outlines of a bare and ugly episode of New York city. That man, or those two men, or that dual entity, has never ceased to perplex me. How does it look to you, knowing merely the outlines?"
"As if the woman had been dealing with two different men," he replied almost indifferently.
The Doctor looked at him earnestly, and I saw he was puzzled by his friend's attitude. "That may be—one never can tell in such cases," he answered quietly; but I could feel his disappointment.
"That's queer, Ewart," said Jamie, gravely; "to me it looks as if two men had done a girl an irreparable wrong." Perhaps we all felt that the conversation had been carried a little too far in this direction. The Doctor turned it into other channels, but it lagged. I felt uncomfortable, and wished I had insisted upon going up to my room when the subject of the farm was broached. After all, we had come to no decision, and I doubted if the Doctor was much the wiser for all our opinions.
Marie's entrance with the porridge relieved the tension somewhat, and I was glad to say good night as soon as I had finished mine.
Doctor Rugvie had opened an easy way of approach for me to ask him what I would, but that question put by Mr. Ewart in regard to the child, whether it was a boy or a girl, seemed to block the way, for a time at least, impassably. If I were to make inquiry now of the Doctor concerning my identity and ask the name of my father, naturally he would infer, after Mr. Ewart's remark, that the question of the property was my impelling motive. My reason told me the time was ripe to settle this personal question, but something—was it intuition? I believe in that, if only we would follow its lead and leave reason to lag in chains far behind it—seemed to paralyze my power of will in making any move to ascertain my paternal parentage. And yet I had dared to respond to that demand in Jamie's advertisement "of good parentage"!
"Well, I am myself," I thought, half defiantly, "and after all, it's not what those who are dead and gone stood for that counts. It's what I stand for; and what I am rests with my will to make. They 'll have to accept me for what I am."
I was in the kitchen, concocting an old-fashioned Indian pudding and showing Angélique about the oven, as these thoughts passed through my mind. At that moment Jamie opened the door and looked in.
"I say, Marcia—awfully busy?"
"No, not now; what do you want?"
"You—I 'm lonesome. Come on into the living-room—I 've built up a roaring fire there—and let's talk; nobody 's around."
"Where 's Doctor Rugvie?"
"Gone off with Cale to the farm. He 'll get pneumonia if he does n't look out; the place is like an ice-house at this season."
I slipped the pudding into the oven. "Now look out for it and keep enough milk in it till it wheys, Angélique." I turned to Jamie. "Where's Mr. Ewart?"
"Oh, Ewart's off nosing about in Quebec for some old furniture for his den. Pierre drove him to the train just after breakfast. He told mother he would be back in time for supper."
"That's queer," I said, following him through the bare offices, one of which was to be the den, into the living-room where stale cigar smoke still lingered. "Whew! Let's have in some fresh air."
I opened the hinged panes in the double windows; opened the front door and let in the keen crisp air.
"There, now," I closed them; "we can 'talk' as you say in comfort. I did n't air out early this morning, for when I came in I found Mr. Ewart writing. He looked for all the world as if he were making his last will and testament. I beat a double-quick retreat."
"I 'll bet you did. I 'd make tracks if Ewart looked like that." He drew up two chairs before the fire. "Here, sit here by me; let's be comfy when we can. I say, Marcia—"
He paused, leaning to the fire in his favorite position: arms along his knees, and clasped hands hanging between them. He turned and looked at me ruefully.
"We all got beyond our depth, did n't we, last night?"
"I thought so."
"The Doctor 's a dear, is n't he?"
"He 's the dearest kind of a dear, and I could n't bear to see him snubbed by your lord of the manor."
Jamie nodded. "That was rather rough. I don't understand that side of Ewart—never have seen it but once before, and I would n't mind, you know, Marcia," he lowered his voice, "if I never saw it again. It made no end of an atmosphere, did n't it?"
"Thick and—muggy," I replied, searching for the word that should express the mental and spiritual atmospheric condition, the result of Mr. Ewart's attitude in last evening's talk. "And it has n't wholly cleared up yet."
He nodded. "I believe that's why he took himself out of the way this morning. Look here—I 've a great overpowering longing to confide in you, Marcia." He laughed.
"Confide then; I 'm a regular safe deposit and trust company. Tell me, do; I'm dying to talk."
"Oh, you are!" He turned to me with his own bright face illumined. "Is n't it good that we 're young, Marcia? I feel that forcibly when I am with so many older men."
"I 'm just beginning to feel young, Jamie; to see my way through that wilderness you spoke of."
I knew his sympathy, his understanding, not of my life but of the condition of mind to which that life had brought me. It is this quick understanding of another's "sphere", I may call it, that makes the young Scotsman so wonderfully attractive to all who meet him.
"You know what the Doctor said about the world of which he told us last night and of André's world?"
I nodded.
"Well, one night in camp—last summer, you know, it was just before Ewart left me there—old André told us what happened years ago up there in the wilds of the Saguenay. He said one day two Indian guides, Montagnais, came to his camp. The oldest, Root-of-the-Pine, a friend of André's, brought him word from old Mère Guillardeau, André's sister—you know her—who is living here in Lamoral. She told him to receive two of the English, a man and a woman, as guests for a month. The Indian told André they were waiting across the portage.
"André said he went over to meet them, and they stayed with him not only one month, but four. He told us the girl had a voice as sweet as the nightingale's; that her eyes were like wood violets, her laugh like the forest brook. He said they loved each other madly, so madly that even his old blood was stirred at times. He was alone with them there in that wilderness for all those months, caring for them, fishing, hunting, picking the mountain berries, till the first snow flew. Then they took their flight.
"Mère Guillardeau had sent in her message: 'Ask no questions. You can confess and be shriven when you come to Richelieu-en-Bas.' He obeyed to the letter.
"He knew, he said, that they were not married, but he caught enough of their English to know they were looking forward to being married when it should be made possible for them. Whence they came, he never knew; whither they went, he never asked. They came, as birds come that mate in the spring; they went, as the late birds go after the mating season is over, with the first snow-fall; but, Marcia—"
"Yes, Jamie."
"You won't mind my speaking out after what was said last evening?"
"I mind nothing from you."
"André told us that before they left he knew a nestling was on its way; the slender form, like a willow shoot, as he expressed it, was rounder, and the face of the girl was the face of a tender doe. You should have heard him tell it—there in the setting of forest, lake and mountain!
"'All this happened long, long ago,' he said, 'but still I hear her voice in the forest; still I see her eyes in the first wood violets; see her smile that made sunshine in the darkest woods. Still I hear her light steps about the camp and follow her still in thought across the last portage when we carried her in our arms; still see her waving her hand to me from the canoe that floated like a brown leaf on the blue lake waters. Wherever she may be, may the Holy Virgin, Our Lady of the Snows, guard her—and her child! I have waited all these years for her to come again.'
"Marcia—André called their love 'forest love'. Sometimes I think he spoke truly; untaught, he knew the difference."
I listened, caught by the pathos of the tale, the charm of old André's words; but in love I was untaught. I wondered how Jamie could know the "difference".
"But now to my point. Of course I listened all eyes and ears to André. When he finished, the camp fire was low. The full moon had risen above the waters of the lake and lighted the tree-fringed shore. I turned to Ewart, and caught the same look on his face that I saw last night when the Doctor was telling his story: the look of a man who is seeing ghosts—more than one. For three days I scarce got a decent word when he was with me, which was seldom; he was off by himself in the forest. So you seethis, last night's occurrence, does not wholly surprise me."
We sat for a while without talking. Jamie took his pipe, filled and lighted it with a glowing coal.
"Jamie," I said at last. He nodded encouragingly.
"You know you told me about that queer rumor that crops out at such odd times and places—about Mr. Ewart's having been married and divorced, and the boy he is educating, 'Boy or girl?' you know he said—"
"Yes, I know."
"Might n't it be—I know you did n't believe it, but would n't it be possible that there is some truth in that, distorted, perhaps, but enough to make him suffer when there is any reference to love that has brought with it misery and suffering?"
"It may be you 're right; I had n't thought of it in that light. Of course, I never heard of the rumor till I came back from camp in September; then it seemed to be in the air. I wonder if the Doctor has ever heard anything."
"Probably his coming home so soon and making his home here started the gossip. Jamie—"
"Yes."
"You said he never spoke much to you about his personal affairs—that you don't know so very much of his intimate personal life. Does n't that prove that he has had some trouble, some painful experience?"
"Woman's logic, but I suppose he has. Most men have been through the wilderness, or been lost in it, by the time they are forty. I should think if—mind you, I say 'if'—he was ever married, ever divorced, ever had a child somewhere, he might find his special trail difficult at times; but he has n't lost it! Ewart does not lose a trail so easily! Look at his experience—Oxford, London, Australian sheep-ranchman, forester here in Lamoral! And he 's so tender with everything and everybody. That's what makes him so beloved here in this French settlement."
"Except towards the Doctor last night."
"That's so; but he is tender just the same. I 've seen that trait in him so many times."
"I should think he might be—and like adamant at others," I said, and began to put the room to rights.
"We shall miss the Doctor no end," said Jamie ruefully.
We caught the last wave of his hand; the pung's broad fur-behung back could no longer be seen; the jingle of the bells grew fainter; soon there was silence.
"He promised to come again in February. And, now, what next?" I turned to Mrs. Macleod who was standing with Jamie at the window.
"There does n't seem to be any 'next'?" she answered with such evident dejection that Jamie and I laughed at her.
"Take heart, mither," her son admonished her, using for the first time in my presence the softer Scotch for mother.
"It's been such a pleasant week for us—and I find Mr. Ewart so different; not that I mean to criticize our host," she added hastily and apologetically. She seemed to take pleasure in refusing to be comforted for the loss of the Doctor's cheering presence.
"Of course he 's different; there can't be two Doctor Rugvies in this needy world; but you wait till you know Ewart better, mother. Talk about 'what next'! You 'll find as soon as Ewart sets things humming here there 'll be plenty of the 'next'; Cale can give you a point or two on that already. By the way, he seems to have sworn allegiance to Ewart; he does n't have time for me now."
"But what are we women to do here?" I exclaimed half impatiently. My busy working life in the city, with the consequent pressure that made itself felt every hour of the day, and burdened me at night with the dreadful "what next if strength and health should fail?", had unfitted me in part for the continued quiet of domesticity. I found myself beginning to chafe under it, now that the house was settled. I wanted more work to fill my time.
"Better ask Ewart," said Jamie to tease me.
"I will." I spoke decidedly and gave Jamie a surprise. "I 'll speak to him the very first time I get the chance. He has n't given me one yet."
"You 're right there, Marcia. I noticed you and the Doctor were great chums from the first, but Ewart has n't said much to you—he is so different, though, as mother says. It takes time to know Ewart, and sometimes—"
"What 'sometimes'?"
"Sometimes when I think I know him, I find I don't. That interests me. You 'll have the same experience when you get well acquainted with him."
"There is no monotony about that at any rate."
"I should say not." He spoke emphatically.
Mrs. Macleod turned to me.
"I 'm sure I feel just as you do, Marcia, about the 'what next'. I don't know of anything except to keep house and provide for the meals—"
"That's no sinecure in this climate, mother. Such appetites! Even Marcia is developing a bank holiday one."
"And gaining both color and flesh," said Mrs. Macleod, looking me over approvingly. I dropped her a curtsey which surprised her Scotch staidness and amused Jamie.
"Are yousureyou are twenty-six?" He smiled quizzically.
"As sure as you are of your three and twenty years."
Jamie turned from the window, took a book and dipped into it. I thought he was lost to us for the next two hours. Mrs. Macleod left the room.
"Sometimes I feel a hundred." Jamie spoke thoughtfully.
"And I a hundred and ten." I responded quickly to his mood.
"You 're bound to go me ten better. But no—have you, though?"
I nodded emphatically.
"Where?"
"Oh, in New York."
"Why in New York?"
"You don't know it?"
"No; but I mean to."
"I wish you joy."
"Tell me why in New York."
"You would n't understand."
"Would n't I? Try me."
I looked up at him as he stood there thoughtful, his forefinger between the leaves of the book.Hehad no living to earn.Hehad not to bear the burden and heat of an earned existence. How could he understand? So I questioned in my narrowness of outlook.
"I felt the burden," I answered.
"What burden?"
"The burden of—oh, I can't tell exactly; the burden of just that terrible weight of life as it is lived there. Before I was ill it weighed on me so I felt old, sometimes centuries old—"
Jamie leaned forward eagerly, his face alive with feeling.
"Marcia, that's just the way I felt when I was in the hospital. I was bowed down in spirit with it—"
"You?" I asked in amazement.
"Yes, I; why not? I can't help myself; I am a child of my time. Only, I felt the burden of life as humanity lives it, not touched by locality as you felt it."
"But you have n't really lived that life yet, Jamie."
"Yes, I have, Marcia."
"How?"
"I wonder now ifyouwill understand? I get it—I get all that through the imagination."
"But imagination is n't reality."
"More real than reality itself sometimes. Look here, I 'm not a philanthropic cad and I don't mean to say too much, but I can say this: when a thinking man before he is twenty-five has run up hard against the only solid fact in this world—death, he somehow gets a grip on life and its meaning that others don't."
I waited for more. This was the Jamie of whom the depth of simplicity in "André's Odyssey" had given me a glimpse.
He straightened himself suddenly. "I want to say right here and now that if I have felt, and feel—as I can't help feeling, being the child of my time and subject to its tendencies—the burden of this life of ours as lived by all humankind, thank God, I can even when bowed in spirit, feel at times the 'rhythm of the universe' that adjusts, coordinates all—" He broke off abruptly, laughing at himself. "I 'm getting beyond my depth, Marcia?"
I shook my head. He smiled. "Well, then, I 'll get down to bed rock and say something more: you won't mind my mooning about and going off by myself and acting, sometimes, as if I had patented an aeroplane and could sustain myself for a few hours above the heads of all humanity—"
I laughed outright. "What do you mean, Jamie?"
"I mean that as I can't dig a trench, or cut wood, or run a motor bus, or be a member of a life-saving crew like other men, I 'm going to try to help a man up, and earn my living if I can, by writing out what I get in part through experience and mostly through imagination. There! Now I 've told you all there is to tell, except that I 've had something actually accepted by a London publisher; and if you 'll put up with my crotchets I 'll give you a presentation copy."
"Oh, Jamie!"
I was so glad for him that for the moment I found nothing more to say.
"'Oh, Jamie,'" he mimicked; then with a burst of laughter he threw himself full length on the sofa.
"What are you laughing at?" I demanded sternly.
"At what Ewart and the Doctor would say if they could hear us talking like this so soon as their backs were turned on the manor. I believe the Doctor's last word to you was 'griddlecakes', and Ewart's to me: 'We 'll have dinner at twelve—I 'm going into the woods with Cale'. Well, I 'm in for good two hours of reading," he said, settling himself comfortably in the sofa corner. I had come to learn that this was my dismissal.
Before Mr. Ewart's return, I took counsel with myself—or rather with my common-sense self. If I were to continue to work in this household, I must know definitely what I was to do. The fact that I was receiving wages meant, if it meant anything, that I received them in exchange for service rendered. The Doctor left the matter in an unsatisfactory, nebulous state, saying, that if Ewart insisted on paying my salary it was his affair to provide the work; and thereafter he was provokingly silent.
I had been too many years in a work-harness to shirk any responsibility along business lines now, and when, after supper, I heard Jamie say just before we left the dining-room: "I'm no end busy this evening, Gordon, I 'll work in here if you don't mind; I 'll be in for porridge," I knew my opportunity was already made for me. I told Mrs. Macleod that, as she could not tell me what was expected of me, I should not let another day go by without ascertaining this from Mr. Ewart. Perhaps she intentionally made the opening for my opportunity easier, for when I went into the living-room an hour later, I found Mr. Ewart alone with the dogs. He was at the library table, drawing something with scale and square.
"Pardon me for not rising," he said without looking up; "I don't want to spoil this acute angle; I 'm mapping out the old forest. I 'm glad you 're at liberty for I need some help."
"At liberty!" I echoed; and, perceiving the humor of the situation, I could not help smiling. "That's just what I have come to you to complain of—I have too much liberty."
"You want work?"
It was a bald statement of an axiomatic truth, and it was made while he was still intent upon finishing the angle. I stood near the table watching him.
"Yes." I thought the circumstances warranted conciseness, and my being laconic, if necessary.
"Then we can come to an understanding without further preliminaries." He spoke almost indifferently; he was still intent on his work. "Be seated," he said pleasantly, looking up at me for the first time and directly into my face.
I did as I was bidden, and waited. I am told I have a talent for waiting on another's unexpressed intentions without fidgetting, as so many women do, with any trifle at hand. I occupied myself with looking at the man whom Jamie loved, who "interested" him. I, too, found the personality and face interesting. By no means of uncommon type, nevertheless the whole face was noticeable for the remarkable moulding of every feature. There were lines in it and, without aging, every one told. They added character, gave varied expression, intensified traits. Life's chisel of experience had graven both deep and fine; not a coarse line marred the extraordinary firmness that expressed itself in lips and jaw; not a touch of unfineness revealed itself about the nose. Delicate creases beneath the eyes, and many of them, mellowed the almost hard look of the direct glance. Thought had moulded; will had graven; suffering had both hardened and softened—"tempered" is the right word—as is its tendency when manhood endures it rightly. But joy had touched the contours all too lightly; the face in repose showed absolutely no trace of it. When he smiled, however, as he did, looking up suddenly to find me studying him, I realized that here was great capacity for enjoying, although joyousness had never found itself at home about eyes and lips. He laid aside the drawing and turned his chair to face me.
"Doctor Rugvie—and Cale," he added pointedly, "tell me you were for several years in a branch of the New York Library. Did you ever do any work in cataloguing?"
"No; I was studying for the examinations that last spring before I was taken ill."
"Then I am sure you will understand just how to do the work I have laid out for you. I have a few cases still in storage in Montreal—mostly on forestry. Before sending for them, I wanted to see where I could put them."
"Cut and dried already! I need n't have given myself extra worry about my future work," I thought; but aloud I said:
"I 'll do my best; if the books are German I can't catalogue them. I have n't got so far."
"I 'll take care of those; there are very few of them. Most of them are in French; in fact, it is a mild fad of mine to collect French works, ancient and modern, on forestry. I 'll send for the books after the office has been furnished and put to rights. I am expecting the furniture from Quebec to-morrow. And now that I have laid out your work for you for the present, I 'll ask a favor—a personal one," he added, smiling as he rose, thrust his hands deep into his pockets and jingled some keys somewhere in the depths.
"What is it?" I, too, rose, ready to do the favor on the instant if possible, for his wholly businesslike manner, the directness with which he relied upon my training to help him pleased me.
"I 'd like to leave the settling of my den in your hands—wholly," he said emphatically. "You have been so successful with the other rooms that I 'd like to see your hand in my special one. How did you know just what to do, and not overdo,—so many women are guilty of that,—tell me?"
He spoke eagerly, almost boyishly. It was pleasant to be able to tell him the plain truth; no frills were needed with this man, if I read him rightly.
"Because it was my first chance to work out some of my home ideals—my first opportunity to make a home, as I had imagined it; then, too,—"
I hesitated, wondering if I should tell not only the plain truth, but the unvarnished one. I decided to speak out frankly; it could do no harm.
"I enjoyed it all so much because I could spend some money—judiciously, you know,"—I spoke earnestly. He nodded understandingly, but I saw that he suppressed a smile,—"without having to earn it by hard work; I 've had to scrimp so long—"
His face grew grave again.
"How much did you spend? I think I have a slight remembrance of some infinitesimal sum you mentioned the first evening—"
"Infinitesimal! No, indeed; it was almost a hundred—eighty-seven dollars and sixty-three cents, to be exact."
"Now, Miss Farrell!" It was his turn to protest. He went over to the hearth and took his stand on it, his back to the fire, his hands clasped behind him. "Do you mean to tell me that you provided all this comfort and made this homey atmosphere with eighty-seven dollars and sixty-three cents?—I'm particular about those sixty-three cents."
"I did, and had more good fun and enjoyment in spending them to that end, than I ever remember to have had before in my life. You don't think it too much?"
I looked up at him and smiled; and smiled again right merrily at the perplexed look in his eyes, a look that suddenly changed to one of such deep, emotional suffering that my eyes fell before it. I felt intuitively I ought not to see it.
"Too much!" he repeated, and as I looked up again quickly I found the face and expression serene and unmoved. "Well, as you must have learned already, things are relative when it comes to value, and what you have done for this house belongs in the category of things that mere money can neither purchase nor pay for."
"I don't quite see that; I thought it was I who was having all the pleasure."
His next question startled me.
"You are an orphan, I understand, Miss Farrell?"
"Yes." Again I felt the blood mount to my cheeks as I restated this half truth.
"Then you must know what it is to be alone in the world?"
"Yes—all alone."
"Perhaps to have no home of your own?"
"Yes."
"To feel yourself a stranger even in familiar places?"
"Oh, yes—many times."
"Surely, then, you will understand what it means for a lonely man to come back to this old manor, which I have occupied for years only at intervals, and more as a camping than an abiding place, and find it for the first time a home in fact?"
"I think I can understand it."
"Very well, then," he said emphatically and holding out his hand into which I laid mine, wondering as I did so "what next" was to be expected from this man, "I am your debtor for this and must remain so; and in the circumstances," he continued with an emphasis at once so frank and merry, that it left no doubt of his sincerity as well as of his appreciation of the situation, "I think there need be no more talk of work, or wages, or reciprocal service between you and me as long as you remain with us. It's a pact, is n't it?" he said, releasing my hand from the firm cordial pressure.
"But I want my wages," I protested with mock anxiety. "I really can't get on without money—and I was to have twenty-five dollars a month and 'board and room' according to agreement."
He laughed at that. I was glad to hear him.
"Oh, I have no responsibility for the agreement or what the advertisement has brought forth; it was one of the great surprises of my life to find you here. By the way, I hear you prefer to receive your pay from the Doctor?"
"Did he tell you that?" I demanded, not over courteously.
"Professionally," he replied with assumed gravity. "I insisted on taking that pecuniary burden on myself, as I seemed to be the first beneficiary; but I 've changed my mind, and, hereafter, you may apply to the Doctor for your salary. I 'll take your service gratis and tell him so. Does this suit you?"
"So completely, wholly and absolutely that—well, you 'll see! When can I take possession of the office? It needs a good cleaning down the first thing." I was eager to begin to prove my gratitude for the manner in which he had extricated me from the anomalous position in his household.
"From this moment; only—no manual labor like 'cleaning down'; there are enough in the house for that."
"Oh, nonsense!" I replied, laughing at such a restriction. "I 'm used to it—
"I intend you to be unused to it in my house—you understand?"
There was decided command in these words; they irritated me as well as the look he gave me. But I remembered in time that, after all, the old manor of Lamoral was his house, not mine, and it would be best for me to obey orders.
"Very well; I 'll ask Marie and little Pete to help me."
Marie appeared with the porridge, a little earlier than usual on Jamie's account, and Mr. Ewart asked her to bring a lighted candle.
"Come into the office for a moment," he said, leading the way with the light.
He stopped at the threshold to let me pass. The room was warm; the soapstone heater was doing effective work. The snow gleamed white beneath the curtainless windows, and the crowding hemlocks showed black pointed masses against the moonlight. There was some frost on the panes.
"It looks bare enough now," he said, raising the candle at the full stretch of his arm that I might see the oak panels of the ceiling; "I leave it to you to make it cheery. Here 's something that will help out in this room and in the living-room."
He took a large pasteboard box from the floor, and we went back into the other room. Jamie and Mrs. Macleod were there.
"Now, what have you there, Gordon?" said the former, frankly showing the curiosity that is a part of his make-up.
"Something that should delight your inner man's eye," he replied. Going to the table, he opened the box and took from it some of the exquisite first and second proofs of those wonderful etchings by Meryon.
We looked and looked again. Old Paris, the Paris of the second republic, lay spread before us: bridges, quays, chimney-pots, roofs, river and the cathedral of Notre Dame were there in black and white, and the Seine breathing dankness upon all! I possessed myself of one, the Pont Neuf, and betook myself to the sofa to enjoy it.
"You know these, Miss Farrell?"
"Only as I have seen woodcuts of them in New York."
"They are my favorites; I want nothing else on my walls. Will you select some for this room and some for the den? I will passepartout them; they should have no frames."
"You 're just giving me the best treat you could possibly provide," I said, still in possession of the proof, "and how glad I am that I 've had it—"
"What, Marcia?" This from Jamie.
"I mean the chance to extract a little honey from the strong."
Mrs. Macleod and Jamie looked thoroughly mystified, not knowing New York; but Mr. Ewart smiled at my enthusiasm and scripture application. He understood that some things during the years of my "scrimping" had borne fruit.
"I believe you 're more than half French, Ewart," said Jamie, looking up from the proof he was examining; "I mean in feeling and sympathy."
"No, I am all Canadian."
"You mean English, don't you?"
"No, I mean Canadian."
This was said with a fervor and a decision which had such a snap to it, that Jamie looked at him in surprise. Without replying, he continued his examination of the proof, whistling softly to himself.
Mr. Ewart turned to Mrs. Macleod and said, smiling:
"I want all members of my household to know just where I stand; in the future we may have a good many English guests in the house.—Please, give me an extra amount of porridge, Mrs. Macleod."