"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 in his wilderness." 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.
XIII
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 see this, 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.
XIV
"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 you sure you 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. He had no living to earn. He had 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 if you will 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.