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Chapter VI
Miss Eva Sommerton and Mr. John Trenton stood on opposite sides of the blazing fire and looked at each other. A faint smile hovered around the lips of the artist, but Miss Sommerton’s face was very serious. She was the first to speak.
“It seems to me,” she said, “that there is something about all this that smacks of false pretences.”
“On my part, Miss Sommerton?”
“Certainly on your part. You must have known all along that I was the person who had written the letter to you. I think, when you found that out, you should have spoken of it.”
“Then you do not give me credit for the honesty of speaking now. You ought to know that I need not have spoken at all, unless I wished to be very honest about the matter.”
“Yes, there is that to be said in your favour, of course.”
“Well, Miss Sommerton, I hope you will consider anything that happens to be in my favour. You see, we are really old friends, after all.”
“Old enemies, you mean.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I would rather look on myself as your friend than your enemy.”
“The letter you wrote me was not a very friendly one.”
“I am not so sure. We differ on that point, you know.”
“I am afraid we differ on almost every point.”
“No, I differ with you there again. Still, I must admit I would prefer being your enemy—”
“To being my friend?” said Miss Sommerton, quickly.
“No, to being entirely indifferent to you.”
“Really, Mr. Trenton, we are getting along very rapidly, are we not?” said the young lady, without looking up at him.
“Now, I am pleased to be able to agree with you there, Miss Sommerton. As I said before, an incident like this does more to ripen acquaintance or friendship, or—” The young man hesitated, and did not complete his sentence.
“Well,” said the artist, after a pause, “which is it to be, friends or enemies?”
“It shall be exactly as you say,” she replied.
“If you leave the choice to me, I shall say friends. Let us shake hands on that.”
She held out her hand frankly to him as he crossed over to her side, and as he took it in his own, a strange thrill passed through him, and acting on the impulse of the moment, he drew her toward him and kissed her.
“How dare you!” she cried, drawing herself indignantly from him. “Do you think I am some backwoods girl who is flattered by your preference after a day’s acquaintance?”
“Not a day’s acquaintance, Miss Sommerton—a year, two years, ten years. In fact, I feel as though I had known you all my life.”
“You certainly act as if you had. I did think for some time past that you were a gentleman. But you take advantage now of my unprotected position.”
“Miss Sommerton, let me humbly apologise!”
“I shall not accept your apology. It cannot be apologised for. I must ask you not to speak to me again until Mr. Mason comes. You may consider yourself very fortunate when I tell you I shall say nothing of what has passed to Mr. Mason when he arrives.”
John Trenton made no reply, but gathered another armful of wood and flung it on the fire.
Miss Sommerton sat very dejectedly looking at the embers.
For half an hour neither of them said anything.
Suddenly Trenton jumped up and listened intently.
“What is it?” cried Miss Sommerton, startled by his action.
“Now,” said Trenton, “that is unfair. If I am not to be allowed to speak to you, you must not ask me any questions.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Miss Sommerton, curtly.
“But really I wanted to say something, and I wanted you to be the first to break the contract imposed. May I say what I wish to? I have just thought about something.”
“If you have thought of anything that will help us out of our difficulty, I shall be very glad to hear it indeed.”
“I don’t know that it will help us out of our difficulties, but I think it will help us now that we’re in them. You know, I presume, that my camera, like John Brown’s knapsack, was strapped on my back, and that it is one of the few things rescued from the late disaster?”
He paused for a reply, but she said nothing. She evidently was not interested in his camera.
“Now, that camera-box is water-tight. It is really a very natty arrangement, although you regard it so scornfully.”
He paused a second time, but there was no reply.
“Very well; packed in that box is, first the camera, then the dry plates, but most important of all, there are at least two or three very nice Three Rivers sandwiches. What do you say to our having supper?”
Miss Sommerton smiled in spite of herself, and Trenton busily unstrapped the camera-box, pulled out the little instrument, and fished up from the bottom a neatly-folded white table-napkin, in which were wrapped several sandwiches.
“Now,” he continued, “I have a folding drinking-cup and a flask of sherry. It shows how absent-minded I am, for I ought to have thought of the wine long ago. You should have had a glass of sherry the moment we landed here. By the way, I wanted to say, and I say it now in case I shall forget it, that when I ordered you so unceremoniously to go around picking up sticks for the fire, it was not because I needed assistance, but to keep you, if possible, from getting a chill.”
“Very kind of you,” remarked Miss Sommerton.
But the Englishman could not tell whether she meant just what she said or not.
“I wish you would admit that you are hungry. Have you had anything to eat to-day?”
“I had, I am ashamed to confess,” she answered. “I took lunch with me and I ate it coming down in the canoe. That was what troubled me about you. I was afraid you had eaten nothing all day, and I wished to offer you some lunch when we were in the canoe, but scarcely liked to. I thought we would soon reach the settlement. I am very glad you have sandwiches with you.”
“How little you Americans really know of the great British nation, after all. Now, if there is one thing more than another that an Englishman looks after, it is the commissariat.”
After a moment’s silence he said—
“Don’t you think, Miss Sommerton, that notwithstanding any accident or disaster, or misadventure that may have happened, we might get back at least on the old enemy footing again? I would like to apologise”—he paused for a moment, and added, “for the letter I wrote you ever so many years ago.”
“There seem to be too many apologies between us,” she replied. “I shall neither give nor take any more.”
“Well,” he answered, “I think after all that is the best way. You ought to treat me rather kindly though, because you are the cause of my being here.”
“That is one of the many things I have apologised for. You surely do not wish to taunt me with it again?”
“Oh, I don’t mean the recent accident. I mean being here in America. Your sketches of the Shawenegan Falls, and your description of the Quebec district, brought me out to America; and, added to that—I expected to meet you.”
“To meet me?”
“Certainly. Perhaps you don’t know that I called at Beacon Street, and found you were from home—with friends in Canada, they said—and I want to say, in self-defence, that I came very well introduced. I brought letters to people in Boston of the most undoubted respectability, and to people in New York, who are as near the social equals of the Boston people as it is possible for mere New York persons to be. Among other letters of introduction I had two to you. I saw the house in Beacon Street. So, you see, I have no delusions about your being a backwoods girl, as you charged me with having a short time since.”
“I would rather not refer to that again, if you please.”
“Very well. Now, I have one question to ask you—one request to make. Have I your permission to make it?”
“It depends entirely on what your request is.”
“Of course, in that case you cannot tell until I make it. So I shall now make my request, and I want you to remember, before you refuse it, that you are indebted to me for supper. Miss Sommerton, give me a plug of tobacco.”
Miss Sommerton stood up in dumb amazement.
“You see,” continued the artist, paying no heed to her evident resentment, “I have lost my tobacco in the marine disaster, but luckily I have my pipe. I admit the scenery is beautiful here, if we could only see it; but darkness is all around, although the moon is rising. It can therefore be no desecration for me to smoke a pipeful of tobacco, and I am sure the tobacco you keep will be the very best that can be bought. Won’t you grant my request, Miss Sommerton?”
At first Miss Sommerton seemed to resent the audacity of this request. Then a conscious light came into her face, and instinctively her hand pressed the side of her dress where her pocket was supposed to be.
“Now,” said the artist, “don’t deny that you have the tobacco. I told you I was a bit of a mind reader, and besides, I have been informed that young ladies in America are rarely without the weed, and that they only keep the best.”
The situation was too ridiculous for Miss Sommerton to remain very long indignant about it. So she put her hand in her pocket and drew out a plug of tobacco, and with a bow handed it to the artist.
“Thanks,” he replied; “I shall borrow a pipeful and give you back the remainder. Have you ever tried the English birdseye? I assure you it is a very nice smoking tobacco.”
“I presume,” said Miss Sommerton, “the boatmen told you I always gave them some tobacco when I came up to see the falls?”
“Ah, you will doubt my mind-reading gift. Well, honestly, they did tell me, and I thought perhaps you might by good luck have it with you now. Besides, you know, wasn’t there the least bit of humbug about your objection to smoking as we came up the river? If you really object to smoking, of course I shall not smoke now.”
“Oh, I haven’t the least objection to it. I am sorry I have not a good cigar to offer you.”
“Thank you. But this is quite as acceptable. We rarely use plug tobacco in England, but I find some of it in this country is very good indeed.”
“I must confess,” said Miss Sommerton, “that I have very little interest in the subject of tobacco. But I cannot see why we should not have good tobacco in this country. We grow it here.”
“That’s so, when you come to think of it,” answered the artist.
Trenton sat with his back against the tree, smoking in a meditative manner, and watching the flicker of the firelight on the face of his companion, whose thoughts seemed to be concentrated on the embers.
“Miss Sommerton,” he said at last, “I would like permission to ask you a second question.
“You have it,” replied that lady, without looking up. “But to prevent disappointment, I may say this is all the tobacco I have. The rest I left in the canoe when I went up to the falls.”
“I shall try to bear the disappointment as well as I may. But in this case the question is of a very different nature. I don’t know just exactly how to put it. You may have noticed that I am rather awkward when it comes to saying the right thing at the right time. I have not been much accustomed to society, and I am rather a blunt man.”
“Many persons,” said Miss Sommerton with some severity, “pride themselves on their bluntness. They seem to think it an excuse for saying rude things. There is a sort of superstition that bluntness and honesty go together.”
“Well, that is not very encouraging, However, I do not pride myself on my bluntness, but rather regret it. I was merely stating a condition of things, not making a boast. In this instance I imagine I can show that honesty is the accompaniment. The question I wished to ask was something like this: Suppose I had had the chance to present to you my letters of introduction, and suppose that we had known each other for some time, and suppose that everything had been very conventional, instead of somewhat unconventional; supposing all this, would you have deemed a recent action of mine so unpardonable as you did a while ago?”
“You said you were not referring to smoking.”
“Neither am I. I am referring to my having kissed you. There’s bluntness for you.”
“My dear sir,” replied Miss Sommerton, shading her face with her hand, “you know nothing whatever of me.”
“That is rather evading the question.”
“Well, then, I know nothing whatever of you.”
“That is the second evasion. I am taking it for granted that we each know something of the other.”
“I should think it would depend entirely on how the knowledge influenced each party in the case. It is such a purely supposititious state of things that I cannot see how I can answer your question. I suppose you have heard the adage about not crossing a bridge until you come to it.”
“I thought it was a stream.”
“Well, a stream then. The principle is the same.”’
“I was afraid I would not be able to put the question in a way to make you understand it. I shall now fall back on my bluntness again, and with this question, are you betrothed?”
“We generally call it engaged in this country.”
“Then I shall translate my question into the language of the country, and ask if—”
“Oh, don’t ask it, please. I shall answer before you do ask it by saying, No. I do not know why I should countenance your bluntness, as you call it, by giving you an answer to such a question; but I do so on condition that the question is the last.”
“But the second question cannot be the last. There is always the third reading of a bill. The auctioneer usually cries, ‘Third and last time,’ not ‘Second and last time,’ and the banns of approaching marriage are called out three times. So, you see, I have the right to ask you one more question.”
“Very well. A person may sometimes have the right to do a thing, and yet be very foolish in exercising that right.”
“I accept your warning,” said the artist, “and reserve my right.”
“What time is it, do you think?” she asked him.
“I haven’t the least idea,” he replied; “my watch has stopped. That case was warranted to resist water, but I doubt if it has done so.”
“Don’t you think that if the men managed to save themselves they would have been here by this time?”
“I am sure I don’t know. I have no idea of the distance. Perhaps they may have taken it for granted we are drowned, and so there is one chance in a thousand that they may not come back at all.”
“Oh, I do not think such a thing is possible. The moment Mr. Mason heard of the disaster he would come without delay, no matter what he might believe the result of the accident to be.”
“Yes, I think you are right. I shall try to get out on this point and see if I can discover anything of them. The moon now lights up the river, and if they are within a reasonable distance I think I can see them from this point of rock.”
The artist climbed up on the point, which projected over the river. The footing was not of the safest, and Miss Sommerton watched him with some anxiety as he slipped and stumbled and kept his place by holding on to the branches of the overhanging trees.
“Pray be careful, Mr. Trenton,” she said; “remember you are over the water there, and it is very swift.”
“The rocks seem rather slippery with the dew,” answered the artist; “but I am reasonably surefooted.”
“Well, please don’t take any chances; for, disagreeable as you are, I don’t wish to be left here alone.”
“Thank you, Miss Sommerton.”
The artist stood on the point of rock, and, holding by a branch of a tree, peered out over the river.
“Oh, Mr. Trenton, don’t do that!” cried the young lady, with alarm. “Please come back.”
“Say ‘John,’ then,” replied the gentleman.
“Oh, Mr. Trenton, don’t!” she cried as he leaned still further over the water, straining the branch to its utmost.
“Say ‘John.’”
“Mr. Trenton.”
“‘John.’”
The branch cracked ominously as Trenton leaned yet a little further.
“John!” cried the young lady, sharply, “cease your fooling and come down from that rock.”
The artist instantly recovered his position, and, coming back, sprang down to the ground again.
Miss Sommerton drew back in alarm; but Trenton merely put his hands in his pockets, and said—
“Well, Eva, I came back because you called me.”
“It was a case of coercion,” she said. “You English are too fond of coercion. We Americans are against it.”
“Oh, I am a Home Ruler, if you are,” replied the artist. “Miss Eva, I am going to risk my third and last question, and I shall await the answer with more anxiety than I ever felt before in my life. The question is this: Will—”
“Hello! there you are. Thank Heaven! I was never so glad to see anybody in my life,” cried the cheery voice of Ed. Mason, as he broke through the bushes towards them.
Trenton looked around with anything but a welcome on his brow. If Mason had never been so glad in his life to see anybody, it was quite evident his feeling was not entirely reciprocated by the artist.
“How the deuce did you get here?” asked Trenton. “I was just looking for you down the river.”
“Well, you see, we kept pretty close to the shore. I doubt if you could have seen us. Didn’t you hear us shout?”
“No, we didn’t hear anything. We didn’t hear them shout, did we, Miss Sommerton?”
“No,” replied that young woman, looking at the dying fire, whose glowing embers seemed to redden her face.
“Why, do you know,” said Mason, “it looks as if you had been quarrelling. I guess I came just in the nick of time.”
“You are always just in time, Mr. Mason,” said Miss Sommerton. “For we were quarrelling, as you say. The subject of the quarrel is which of us was rightful owner of that canoe.”
Mason laughed heartily, while Miss Sommerton frowned at him with marked disapprobation.
“Then you found me out, did you? Well, I expected you would before the day was over. You see, it isn’t often that I have to deal with two such particular people in the same day. Still, I guess the ownership of the canoe doesn’t amount to much now. I’ll give it to the one who finds it.”
“Oh, Mr. Mason,” cried Miss Sommerton, “did the two men escape all right?”
“Why, certainly, I have just been giving them ‘Hail Columbia,’ because they didn’t come back to you; but you see, a little distance down, the bank gets very steep—so much so that it is impossible to climb it, and then the woods here are thick and hard to work a person’s way through. So they thought it best to come down and tell me, and we have brought two canoes up with us.”
“Does Mrs. Mason know of the accident?”
“No, she doesn’t; but she is just as anxious as if she did. She can’t think what in the world keeps you.”
“She doesn’t realise,” said the artist, “what strong attractions the Shawenegan Falls have for people alive to the beauties of nature.”
“Well,” said Mason, “we mustn’t stand here talking. You must be about frozen to death.” Here he shouted to one of the men to come up and put out the fire.
“Oh, don’t bother,” said the artist; “it will soon burn out.”
“Oh yes,” put in Ed. Mason; “and if a wind should happen to rise in the night, where would my pine forest be? I don’t propose to have a whole section of the country burnt up to commemorate the quarrel between you two.”
The half-breed flung the biggest brand into the river, and speedily trampled out the rest, carrying up some water in his hat to pour on the centre of the fire. This done, they stepped into the canoe and were soon on their way down the river. Reaching the landing, the artist gave his hand to Miss Sommerton and aided her out on the bank.
“Miss Sommerton,” he whispered to her, “I intended to sail to-morrow. I shall leave it for you to say whether I shall go or not.”
“You will not sail,” said Miss Sommerton promptly.
“Oh, thank you,” cried the artist; “you do not know how happy that makes me.”
“Why should it?”
“Well, you know what I infer from your answer.”
“My dear sir, I said that you would not sail, and you will not, for this reason: To sail you require to catch to-night’s train for Montreal, and take the train from there to New York to get your boat. You cannot catch to-night’s train, and, therefore, cannot get to your steamer. I never before saw a man so glad to miss his train or his boat. Good-night, Mr. Trenton. Good-night, Mr. Mason,” she cried aloud to that gentleman, as she disappeared toward the house.
“You two appear to be quite friendly,” said Mr. Mason to the artist.
“Do we? Appearances are deceitful. I really cannot tell at this moment whether we are friends or enemies.”
“Well, not enemies, I am sure. Miss Eva is a very nice girl when you understand her.”
“Do you understand her?” asked the artist.
“I can’t say that I do. Come to think of it, I don’t think anybody does.”
“In that case, then, for all practical purposes, she might just as well not be a nice girl.”
“Ah, well, you may change your opinion some day—when you get better acquainted with her,” said Mason, shaking hands with his friend. “And now that you have missed your train, anyhow, I don’t suppose you care for a very early start to-morrow. Good-night.”
