One Day's Courtship, and The Heralds of Fame

“Don’t mind him, Eva. He is just trying to exasperate you. Think of what I have to put up with. He goes on like that all the time,” said Mrs. Mason.

“Really, my dear, your flattery confuses me. You can’t persuade any one that I keep up this brilliancy in the privacy of my own house. It is only turned on for company.”

“Why, Mr. Mason, I didn’t think you looked on me as company. I thought I enjoyed the friendship of the Mason family.”

“Oh, you do, you do indeed! The company I referred to was the official party which has just gone to the falls. This is some of the brilliancy left over. But, really, you had better stay after coming all this distance.”

“Yes, do, Eva. Let me go back with you to the Three Rivers, and then you stay with me till next week, when you can visit the falls all alone. It is very pleasant at Three Rivers just now. And besides, we can go for a day’s shopping at Montreal.”

“I wish I could.”

“Why, of course you can,” said Mason. “Imagine the delight of smuggling your purchases back to Boston. Confess that this is a pleasure you hadn’t thought of.”

“I admit the fascination of it all, but you see I am with a party that has gone on to Quebec, and I just got away for a day. I am to meet them there to-night or to-morrow morning. But I will return in the autumn, Mrs. Mason, when it is too late for the picnics. Then, Mr. Mason, take warning. I mean to have a canoe to myself, or—well, you know the way we Bostonians treated you Britishers once upon a time.”

“Distinctly. But we will return good for evil, and give you warm tea instead of the cold mixture you so foolishly brewed in the harbour.”

As the buckboard disappeared around the corner, and Mr. and Mrs. Mason walked back to the house, the lady said—

“What a strange girl Eva is.”

“Very. Don’t she strike you as being a trifle selfish?”

“Selfish? Eva Sommerton? Why, what could make you think such a thing? What an absurd idea! You cannot imagine how kind she was to me when I visited Boston.”

“Who could help it, my dear? I would have been so myself if I had happened to meet you there.”

“Now, Ed., don’t be absurd.”

“There is something absurd in being kind to a person’s wife, isn’t there? Well, it struck me her objection to any one else being at the falls, when her ladyship was there, might seem—not to me, of course, but to an outsider—a trifle selfish.”

“Oh, you don’t understand her at all. She has an artistic temperament, and she is quite right in wishing to be alone. Now, Ed., when she does come again I want you to keep anyone else from going up there. Don’t forget it, as you do most of the things I tell you. Say to anybody who wants to go up that the canoes are out of repair.”

“Oh, I can’t say that, you know. Anything this side of a crime I am willing to commit; but to perjure myself, no, not for Venice. Can you think of any other method that will combine duplicity with a clear conscience? I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I will have the canoe drawn up, and gently, but firmly, slit it with my knife. One of the men can mend it in ten minutes. Then I can look even the official from Quebec in the face, and tell him truly that the canoe will not hold water. I suppose as long as my story will hold water you and Miss Sommerton will not mind?”

“If the canoe is ready for her when she comes, I shall be satisfied. Please to remember I am going to spend a week or two in Boston next winter.”

“Oh ho, that’s it, is it? Then it was not pure philanthropy—”

“Pure nonsense, Ed. I want the canoe to be ready, that’s all.”

When Mrs. Mason received the letter from Miss Sommerton, stating the time the young woman intended to pay her visit to the Shawenegan, she gave the letter to her husband, and reminded him of the necessity of keeping the canoe for that particular date. As the particular date was some weeks off, and as Ed. Mason was a man who never crossed a stream until he came to it, he said, “All right,” put the letter in his inside pocket, and the next time he thought of it was on the fine autumn afternoon—Monday afternoon—when he saw Mrs. Mason drive up to the door of his lumber-woods residence with Miss Eva Sommerton in the buggy beside her. The young lady wondered, as Mr. Mason helped her out, if that genial gentleman, whom she regarded as the most fortunate of men, had in reality some secret, gnawing sorrow the world knew not of.

“Why, Ed., you look ill,” exclaimed Mrs. Mason; “is there anything the matter?”

“Oh, it is nothing—at least, not of much consequence. A little business worry, that’s all.”

“Has there been any trouble?”

“Oh no—at the least, not yet.”

“Trouble about the men, is it?”

“No, not about the men,” said the unfortunate gentleman, with a somewhat unnecessary emphasis on the last word.

“Oh, Mr. Mason, I am afraid I have come at a wrong time. If so, don’t hesitate to tell me. If I can do anything to help you, I hope I may be allowed.”

“You have come just at the right time,” said the lumberman, “and you are very welcome, I assure you. If I find I need help, as perhaps I may, you will be reminded of your promise.”

To put off as long as possible the evil time of meeting his wife, Mason went with the man to see the horse put away, and he lingered an unnecessarily long time in ascertaining that everything was right in the stable. The man was astonished to find his master so particular that afternoon. A crisis may be postponed, but it can rarely be avoided altogether, and knowing he had to face the inevitable sooner or later, the unhappy man, with a sigh, betook himself to the house, where he found his wife impatiently waiting for him. She closed the door and confronted him.

“Now, Ed., what’s the matter?”

“Where’s Miss Sommerton?” was the somewhat irrelevant reply.

“She has gone to her room. Ed., don’t keep me in suspense. What is wrong?”

“You remember John Trenton, who was here in the summer?”

“I remember hearing you speak of him. I didn’t meet him, you know.”

“Oh, that’s so. Neither you did. You see, he’s an awful good fellow, Trenton is—that is, for an Englishman.”

“Well, what has Trenton to do with the trouble?”

“Everything, my dear—everything.”

“I see how it is. Trenton visited the Shawenegan?”

“He did.”

“And he wants to go there again?”

“He does.”

“And you have gone and promised him the canoe for to-morrow?”

“The intuition of woman, my dear, is the most wonderful thing on earth.”

“It is not half so wonderful as the negligence of man—I won’t say the stupidity.”

“Thank you, Jennie, for not saying it, but I really think I would feel better if you did.”

“Now, what are you going to do about it?”

“Well, my dear, strange as it may appear, that very question has been racking my brain for the last ten minutes. Now, what would you do in my position?”

“Oh, I couldn’t be in your position.”

“No, that’s so, Jennie. Excuse me for suggesting the possibility. I really think this trouble has affected my mind a little. But if you had a husband—if a sensible woman like you could have a husband who got himself into such a position—what would you advise him to do?”

“Now, Ed., don’t joke. It’s too serious.”

“My dear, no one on earth can have such a realisation of its seriousness as I have at this moment. I feel as Mark Twain did with that novel he never finished. I have brought things to a point where I can’t go any further. The game seems blocked. I wonder if Miss Sommerton would accept ten thousand feet of lumber f.o.b. and call it square.”

“Really, Ed., if you can’t talk sensibly, I have nothing further to say.”

“Well, as I said, the strain is getting too much for me. Now, don’t go away, Jennie. Here is what I am thinking of doing. I’ll speak to Trenton. He won’t mind Miss Sommerton’s going in the canoe with him. In fact, I should think he would rather like it.”

“Dear me, Ed., is that all the progress you’ve made? I am not troubling myself about Mr. Trenton. The difficulty will be with Eva. Do you think for a moment she will go if she imagined herself under obligations to a stranger for the canoe? Can’t you get Mr. Trenton to put off his visit until the day after tomorrow? It isn’t long to wait.”

“No, that is impossible. You see, he has just time to catch his steamer as it is. No, he has the promise in writing, while Miss Sommerton has no legal evidence if this thing ever gets into the courts. Trenton has my written promise. You see, I did not remember the two dates were the same. When I wrote to Trenton—”

“Ed., don’t try to excuse yourself. You had her letter in your pocket, you know you had. This is a matter for which there is no excuse, and it cannot be explained away.”

“That’s so, Jennie. I am down in the depths once more. I shall not try to crawl out again—at least, not while my wife is looking.”

“No, your plan will not work. I don’t know that any will. There is only one thing to try, and it is this—Miss Sommerton must think that the canoe is hers. You must appeal to her generosity to let Mr. Trenton go with her.”

“Won’t you make the appeal, Jen?”

“No, I will not. In the first place she’ll be sorry for you, because you will make such a bungle of it. Trial is your only hope.”

“Oh, if success lies in bungling, I will succeed.”

“Don’t be too sure. I suppose that man will be here by daybreak to-morrow?”

“Not so bad as that, Jennie. You always try to put the worst face on things. He won’t be here till sunrise at the earliest.”

“I will ask Eva to come down.”

“You needn’t hurry just because of me. Besides, I would like a few moments to prepare myself for my fate. Even a murderer is given a little time.”

“Not a moment, Ed. We had better get this thing settled as soon as possible.”

“Perhaps you are right,” he murmured, with a deep sigh. “Well, if we Britishers, as Miss S. calls us, ever faced the Americans with as faint a heart as I do now, I don’t wonder we got licked.”

“Don’t say ‘licked,’ Ed.”

“I believe it’s historical. Oh, I see. You object to the word, not to the allegation. Well, I won’t cavil about that. All my sympathy just now is concentrated on one unfortunate Britisher. My dear, let the sacrifice begin.”

Mrs. Mason went to the stairway and called—

“Eva, dear, can you come down for a moment? We want you to help us out of a difficulty.”

Miss Sommerton appeared smilingly, smoothing down the front of the dress that had taken the place of the one she travelled in. She advanced towards Mason with sweet compassion in her eyes, and that ill-fated man thought he had never seen any one look so altogether charming—excepting, of course, his own wife in her youthful days. She seemed to have smoothed away all the Boston stiffness as she smoothed her dress.

“Oh, Mr. Mason,” she said, sympathetically, as she approached, “I am so sorry anything has happened to trouble you, and I do hope I am not intruding.”

“Indeed, you are not, Miss Eva. In fact, your sympathy has taken away half the trouble already, and I want to beg of you to help me off with the other half.”

A glance at his wife’s face showed him that he had not made a bad beginning.

“Miss Sommerton, you said you would like to kelp me. Now I am going to appeal to you. I throw myself on your mercy.”

There was a slight frown on Mrs. Mason’s face, and her husband felt that he was perhaps appealing too much.

“In fact, the truth is, my wife gave me—”

Here a cough interrupted him, and he paused and ran his hand through his hair. “Pray don’t mind me, Mr. Mason,” said Miss Sommerton, “if you would rather not tell—”

“Oh, but I must; that is, I want you to know.”

He glanced at his wife, but there was no help there, so he plunged in headlong.

“To tell the truth, there is a friend of mine who wants to go to the falls tomorrow. He sails for Europe immediately, and has no other day.”

The Boston rigidity perceptibly returned.

“Oh, if that is all, you needn’t have had a moment’s trouble. I can just as well put off my visit.”

“Oh, can you?” cried Mason, joyously.

His wife sat down in the rocking-chair with a sigh of despair. Her infatuated husband thought he was getting along famously.

“Then your friends are not waiting for you at Quebec this time, and you can stay a day or two with us.”

“Eva’s friends are at Montreal, Edward, and she cannot stay.”

“Oh, then—why, then, to-morrow’s your only day, too?”

“It doesn’t matter in the least, Mr. Mason. I shall be most glad to put off my visit to oblige your friend—no, I didn’t mean that,” she cried, seeing the look of anguish on Mason’s face, “it is to oblige you. Now, am I not good?”

“No, you are cruel,” replied Mason. “You are going up to the falls. I insist on that. Let’s take that as settled. The canoe is yours.” He caught an encouraging look from his wife. “If you want to torture me you will say you will not go. If you want to do me the greatest of favours, you will let my friend go in the canoe with you to the landing.”

“What! go alone with a stranger?” cried Miss Sommerton, freezingly.

“No, the Indians will be there, you know.”

“Oh, I didn’t expect to paddle the canoe myself.”

“I don’t know about that. You strike me as a girl who would paddle her own canoe pretty well.”

“Now, Edward,” said his wife. “He wants to take some photographs of the falls, and—”

“Photographs? Why, Ed., I thought you said he was an artist.”

“Isn’t a photographer an artist?”

“You know he isn’t.”

“Well, my dear, you know they put on their signs, ‘artist—photographer, pictures taken in cloudy weather.’ But he’s an amateur photographer; an amateur is not so bad as a professional, is he, Miss Sommerton?”

“I think he’s worse, if there is any choice. A professional at least takes good pictures, such as they are.”

“He is an elderly gentleman, and I am sure—”

“Oh, is he?” cried Miss Sommerton; “then the matter is settled. He shall go. I thought it was some young fop of an amateur photographer.”

“Oh, quite elderly. His hair is grey, or badly tinged at least.”

The frown on Miss Sommerton’s brow cleared away, and she smiled in a manner that was cheering to the heart of her suppliant. He thought it reminded him of the sun breaking through the clouds over the hills beyond the St. Maurice.

“Why, Mr. Mason, how selfishly I’ve been acting, haven’t I? You really must forgive me. It is so funny, too, making you beg for a seat in your own canoe.”

“Oh no, it’s your canoe—that is, after twelve o’clock to-night. That’s when your contract begins.”

“The arrangement does not seem to me quite regular; but, then, this is the Canadian woods, and not Boston. But, I want to make my little proviso. I do not wish to be introduced to this man; he must have no excuse for beginning a conversation with me. I don’t want to talk to-morrow.”

“Heroic resolution,” murmured Mason.

“So, I do not wish to see the gentleman until I go into the canoe. You can be conveniently absent. Mrs. Perrault will take me down there; she speaks no English, and it is not likely he can speak French.”

“We can arrange that.”

“Then it is settled, and all I hope for is a good day to-morrow.”

Mrs. Mason sprang up and kissed the fair Bostonian, and Mason felt a sensation of joyous freedom that recalled his youthful days when a half-holiday was announced.

“Oh, it is too good of you,” said the elder lady.

“Not a bit of it,” whispered Miss Sommerton; “I hate the man before I have seen him.”

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.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.