Kitabı oku: «One Day's Courtship, and The Heralds of Fame», sayfa 2

“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.”

Chapter III

When John Trenton came in to breakfast, he found his friend Mason waiting for him. That genial gentleman was evidently ill at ease, but he said in an offhand way—

“The ladies have already breakfasted. They are busily engaged in the preparations for the trip, and so you and I can have a snack together, and then we will go and see to the canoe.”

After breakfast they went together to the river, and found the canoe and the two half-breeds waiting for them. A couple of rugs were spread on the bottom of the canoe rising over the two slanting boards which served as backs to the lowly seats.

“Now,” said Mason with a blush, for he always told a necessary lie with some compunction, “I shall have to go and see to one of my men who was injured in the mill this morning. You had better take your place in the canoe, and wait for your passenger, who, as is usual with ladies, will probably be a little late. I think you should sit in the back seat, as you are the heavier of the two. I presume you remember what I told you about sitting in a canoe? Get in with caution while these two men hold the side of it; sit down carefully, and keep steady, no matter what happens. Perhaps you may as well put your camera here at the back, or in the prow.”

“No,” said Trenton, “I shall keep it slung over my shoulder. It isn’t heavy, and I am always afraid of forgetting it if I leave it anywhere.”

Trenton got cautiously into the canoe, while Mason bustled off with a very guilty feeling at his heart. He never thought of blaming Miss Sommerton for the course she had taken, and the dilemma into which she placed him, for he felt that the fault was entirely his own.

John Trenton pulled out his pipe, and, absent-mindedly, stuffed it full of tobacco. Just as he was about to light it, he remembered there was to be a lady in the party, and so with a grimace of disappointment he put the loaded pipe into his pocket again.

It was the most lovely time of the year. The sun was still warm, but the dreaded black fly and other insect pests of the region had disappeared before the sharp frosts that occurred every night. The hilly banks of the St. Maurice were covered with unbroken forest, and “the woods of autumn all around, the vale had put their glory on.” Presently Trenton saw Miss Sommerton, accompanied by old Mrs. Perrault, coming over the brow of the hill. He attempted to rise, in order to assist the lady to a seat in the canoe, when the half-breed-said in French—:

“Better sit still. It is safer. We will help the lady.”

Miss Sommerton was talking rapidly in French—with rather overdone eagerness—to Mrs. Perrault. She took no notice of her fellow-voyager as she lightly stepped exactly in the centre of the canoe, and sank down on the rug in front of him, with the ease of one thoroughly accustomed to that somewhat treacherous craft. The two stalwart boatmen—one at the prow, the other at the stern of the canoe—with swift and dexterous strokes, shot it out into the stream. Trenton could not but admire the knowledge of these two men and their dexterous use of it. Here they were on a swiftly flowing river, with a small fall behind them and a tremendous cataract several miles in front, yet these two men, by their knowledge of the currents, managed to work their way up stream with the least possible amount of physical exertion. The St. Maurice at this point is about half a mile wide, with an island here and there, and now and then a touch of rapids. Sometimes the men would dash right across the river to the opposite bank, and there fall in with a miniature Gulf Stream that would carry them onward without exertion. Sometimes they were near the densely wooded shore, sometimes in the center of the river. The half-breed who stood behind Trenton, leant over to him, and whispered—

“You can now smoke if you like, the wind is down stream.”

Naturally, Mr. Trenton wished to smoke. The requesting of permission to do so, it struck him, might open the way to conversation. He was not an ardent conversationalist, but it seemed to him rather ridiculous that two persons should thus travel together in a canoe without saying a word to each other.

“I beg your pardon, madam,” he began; “but would you have any objection to my smoking? I am ashamed to confess that I am a slave to the pernicious habit.”

There was a moment or two of silence, broken only by the regular dip of the paddle, then Miss Sommerton said, “If you wish to desecrate this lovely spot by smoking, I presume anything I can say will not prevent you.”

Trenton was amazed at the rudeness of this reply, and his face flushed with anger. Finally he said, “You must have a very poor opinion of me!”

Miss Sommerton answered tartly, “I have no opinion whatever of you.” Then, with womanly inconsistency, she proceeded to deliver her opinion, saying, “A man who would smoke here would smoke in a cathedral.”

“I think you are wrong there,” said Mr. Trenton, calmly. “I would smoke here, but I would not think of smoking in a cathedral. Neither would I smoke in the humblest log-cabin chapel.”

“Sir,” said Miss Sommerton, turning partly round, “I came to the St. Maurice for the purpose of viewing its scenery. I hoped to see it alone. I have been disappointed in that, but I must insist on seeing it in silence. I do not wish to carry on a conversation, nor do I wish to enter into a discussion on any subject whatever. I am sorry to have to say this, but it seems to be necessary.”

Her remarks so astonished Trenton that he found it impossible to get angrier than he had been when she first spoke. In fact, he found his anger receding rather than augmenting. It was something so entirely new to meet a lady who had such an utter disregard for the rules of politeness that obtain in any civilized society that Mr. Trenton felt he was having a unique and valuable experience.

“Will you pardon me,” he said, with apparent submissiveness—“will you pardon me if I disregard your request sufficiently to humbly beg forgiveness for having spoken to you in the first place?”

To this Miss Sommerton made no reply, and the canoe glided along.

After going up the river for a few miles the boatmen came to a difficult part of the voyage. Here the river was divided by an island. The dark waters moved with great swiftness, and with the smoothness of oil, over the concealed rocks, breaking into foam at the foot of the rapids. Now for the first time the Indians had hard work. For quite half an hour they paddled as if in despair, and the canoe moved upward inch by inch. It was not only hard work, but it was work that did not allow of a moment’s rest until it was finished. Should the paddles pause but an instant, the canoe would be swept to the bottom of the rapids. When at last the craft floated into the still water above the rapids, the boatmen rested and mopped the perspiration from their brows. Then, without a word, they resumed their steady, easy swing of the paddle. In a short time the canoe drew up at a landing, from which a path ascended the steep hill among the trees. The silence was broken only by the deep, distant, low roar of the Shawenegan Falls. Mr. Trenton sat in his place, while the half-breeds held the canoe steady. Miss Sommerton rose and stepped with firm, self-reliant tread on the landing. Without looking backward she proceeded up the steep hill, and disappeared among the dense foliage. Then Trenton leisurely got out of the canoe.

“You had a hard time of it up that rapid,” said the artist in French to the boatmen. “Here is a five-dollar bill to divide when you get down; and, if you bring us safely back, I shall have another ready for you.”

The men were profusely grateful, as indeed they had a right to be, for the most they expected was a dollar each as a fee.

“Ah,” said the elder, “if we had gentlemen like you to take up every day,” and he gave an expressive shrug.

“You shouldn’t take such a sordid view of the matter,” said the artist. “I should think you would find great pleasure in taking up parties of handsome ladies such as I understand now and then visit the falls.”

“Ah,” said the boatman, “it is very nice, of course; but, except from Miss Sommerton, we don’t get much.”

“Really,” said the artist; “and who is Miss Sommerton, pray?”

The half-breed nodded up the path.

“Oh, indeed, that is her name. I did not know.”

“Yes,” said the man, “she is very generous, and she always brings us tobacco in her pocket—good tobacco.”

“Tobacco!” cried the artist. “The arrant hypocrite. She gives you tobacco, does she? Did you understand what we were talking about coming up here?”

The younger half-breed was about to say “Yes,” and a gleam of intelligence came into his face; but a frown on the other’s brow checked him, and the elder gravely shook his head.

“We do not understand English,” he said.

As Trenton walked slowly up the steep hillside, he said to himself, “That young woman does not seem to have the slightest spark of gratitude in her composition. Here I have been good-natured enough to share my canoe with her, yet she treats me as if I were some low ruffian instead of a gentleman.”

As Miss Sommerton was approaching the Shawenegan Falls, she said to herself, “What an insufferable cad that man is? Mr. Mason doubtless told him that he was indebted to me for being allowed to come in the canoe, and yet, although he must see I do not wish to talk with him, he tried to force conversation on me.”

Miss Sommerton walked rapidly along the very imperfect woodland path, which was completely shaded by the overhanging trees. After a walk of nearly a mile, the path suddenly ended at the top of a tremendous precipice of granite, and opposite this point the great hillside of tumbling white foam plunged for ever downward. At the foot of the falls the waters flung themselves against the massive granite barrier, and then, turning at a right angle, plunged downward in a series of wild rapids that completely eclipsed in picturesqueness and grandeur and force even the famous rapids at Niagara. Contemplating this incomparable scene, Miss Sommerton forgot all about her objectionable travelling companion. She sat down on a fallen log, placing her sketch-book on her lap, but it lay there idly as, unconscious of the passing time, she gazed dreamily at the great falls and listened to their vibrating deafening roar. Suddenly the consciousness of some one near startled her from her reverie. She sprang to her feet, and had so completely forgotten her companion that she stared at him for a moment in dumb amazement. He stood back some distance from her, and beside him on its slender tripod was placed a natty little camera. Connected with the instantaneous shutter was a long black rubber tube almost as thin as a string. The bulb of this instantaneous attachment Mr. Trenton held in his hand, and the instant Miss Sommerton turned around, the little shutter, as if in defiance of her, gave a snap, and she knew her picture had been taken, and also that she was the principal object in the foreground.

“You have photographed me, sir!” cried the young woman, with her eyes blazing.

“I have photographed the falls, or, at least, I hope I have,” replied Trenton.

“But my picture is in the foreground. You must destroy that plate.”

“You will excuse me, Miss Sommerton, if I tell you I shall do nothing of the kind. It is very unusual with me to deny the request of a lady, but in this case I must do so. This is the last plate I have, and it may be the one successful picture of the lot. I shall, therefore, not destroy the plate.”

“Then, sir, you are not a gentleman!” cried the impetuous young lady, her face aflame with anger.

“I never claimed to be one,” answered Trenton, calmly.

“I shall appeal to Mr. Mason; perhaps he has some means of making you understand that you are not allowed to take a lady’s photograph without her permission, and in defiance of her wishes.”

“Will you allow me to explain why it is unnecessary to destroy the plate? If you understand anything about photography, you must be aware of the fact—”

“I am happy to say I know nothing of photography, and I desire to know nothing of it. I will not hear any explanation from you, sir. You have refused to destroy the plate. That is enough for me. Your conduct to-day has been entirely contemptible. In the first place you have forced yourself, through Mr. Mason, into my company. The canoe was mine for to-day, and you knew it. I granted you permission to come, but I made it a proviso that there should be no conversation. Now, I shall return in the canoe alone, and I shall pay the boatmen to come back for you this evening.” With this she swept indignantly past Mr. Trenton, leaving the unfortunate man for the second or third time that day too much dumbfounded to reply. She marched down the path toward the landing. Arriving at the canoe, she told the boatmen they would have to return for Mr. Trenton; that she was going back alone, and she would pay them handsomely for their extra trip. Even the additional pay offered did not seem to quite satisfy the two half-breeds.

“It will be nearly dark before we can get back,” grumbled the elder boatman.

“That does not matter,” replied Miss Sommerton, shortly.

“But it is dangerous going down the river at night.”

“That does not matter,” was again the reply.

“But he has nothing—”

“The longer you stand talking here the longer it will be before you get back. If you are afraid for the safety of the gentleman, pray stay here with him and give me the paddle—I will take the boat down alone.”

The boatman said nothing more, but shot the canoe out from the landing and proceeded rapidly down the stream.

Miss Sommerton meditated bitterly on the disappointments and annoyances of the day. Once fairly away, conscience began to trouble her, and she remembered that the gentleman so unceremoniously left in the woods without any possibility of getting away was a man whom Mr. Mason, her friend, evidently desired very much to please. Little had been said by the boatmen, merely a brief word of command now and then from the elder who stood in the stern, until they passed down the rapids. Then Miss Sommerton caught a grumbling word in French which made her heart stand still.

“What is that you said?” she cried to the elder boatman.

He did not answer, but solemnly paddled onward.

“Answer me,” demanded Miss Sommerton. “What is that you said about the gentleman who went up with us this morning?”

“I said,” replied the half-breed, with a grim severity that even the remembrance of gifts of tobacco could not mitigate, “that the canoe belonged to him today.”

“How dare you say such a thing! The canoe was mine. Mr. Mason gave it to me. It was mine for to-day.”

“I know nothing about that,” returned the boatman doggedly; “but I do know that three days ago Mr. Mason came to me with this gentleman’s letter in his hand and said, ‘Pierre, Mr. Trenton is to have the canoe for Tuesday. See it is in good order, and no one else is to have it for that day.’ That is what Mr. Mason said, and when they were down at the canoe this morning, Mr. Mason asked Mr. Trenton if he would let you go up to the falls in his canoe, and he said ‘Yes.’”

Miss Sommerton sat there too horrified to speak. A wild resentment against the duplicity of Ed. Mason arose for a moment in her heart, but it speedily sank as she viewed her own conduct in the light of this astounding revelation. She had abused an unknown gentleman like a pickpocket, and had finally gone off with his canoe, leaving him marooned, as it were, to whose courtesy she was indebted for being there at all. Overcome by the thoughts that crowded so quickly upon her, she buried her face in her hands and wept. But this was only for an instant. Raising her head again, with the imperious air characteristic of her, she said to the boatman—

“Turn back at once, please.”

“We are almost there now,” he answered, amazed at the feminine inconsistency of the command.

“Turn back at once, I say. You are not too tired to paddle up the river again, are you?”

“No, madame,” he answered, “but it is so useless; we are almost there. We shall land you, and then the canoe will go up lighter.”

“I wish to go with you. Do what I tell you, and I will pay you.”

The stolid boatman gave the command; the man at the bow paddled one way, while the man at the stern paddled another, and the canoe swung round upstream again.