Mr. Selincourt is Confidential

The hot colour flamed in Katherine’s cheeks; but no one saw it, for her back was to the group of men talking by the store door, and Miles had turned round to put on the counter the box which she had reached down for him.

“Why did Mr. Ferrars wish to see me?” she asked, striving successfully to make her voice steady.  Of course it might have been that Jervis wanted to see her on some matter of business connected with the store; but in any case, and whatever his errand, it was pleasant to think that he had come up the river on purpose to see her.

“I don’t know, he didn’t say; but he carried himself with as much swaggering importance as if it were he, and not Mr. Selincourt, who intended buying up as much of Roaring Water Portage as he could lay hands upon,” Miles answered, in a grumpy tone.  The group of men at the door had moved outside, where it was cooler, so brother and sister were for the moment alone.

“I don’t think Mr. Ferrars ever put on much side,” protested Katherine, taking up the cudgels in defence of the absent one, although there was an increased heaviness in her heart as she reflected that perhaps, after all, he was betrothed to Mary Selincourt, and hence the inward elation resulting in the outward swagger.

“Oh, he could, sometimes!” went on Miles, who appeared to be in rather a bad temper just then.  “I suppose he is going to marry Miss Selincourt, and that is why he puts on such a fearful lot of cheek.  Downright horrid money-grubbing, I call it, for before she came he was always

“Always what?” demanded Katherine sharply.  Her voice sounded a trifle muffled, because for some reason or other she had stuffed her head and shoulders in a bean bin, and was measuring beans in a desperate hurry, which seemed a rather unnecessary task, as she had no orders to fill.

But Miles, who had stumbled perilously near to an indiscretion, plainly thought better of it, and ventured on no more speech concerning the matter, calling instead to one of the men standing outside the door to ask some question about goods which had been ordered for the next day, and had to be sent down to Seal Cove.

Katherine went to bed in a very mixed frame of mind that night.  At one moment she was sorry that she had not been at home when Mr. Ferrars came to see her; then, with a quick revulsion of feeling, she was heartily glad that she had been away, and shrank with very real reluctance from the thought of the next time she would have to see him.  But that would not be for another week; a good many things might happen before then, though she did not even guess how many were going to happen.

In the morning Mary came over to the store very early indeed, and her face was in a pucker of dissatisfaction and discontent.

“It is so truly horrid of things to fall out like this,” she began vehemently, bursting into the store, where Katherine and Miles were busy weighing and packing goods which had to be delivered that day.

“How have they fallen out?” asked Katherine with a smile.  She was used to Mary’s excitable outbursts, which were usually about trifles too small for notice; but this was a bigger matter.

“The men came up with the mail yesterday; the delay was owing to a breakdown on one of the portages, and they had to camp for a whole week whilst they were repairing their boat.  It is very vexing, coming as it does just now, because we should have known our fate so much earlier.  We have to go back to Montreal for the winter, and it is so tiresome!” sighed Mary.

“I’m afraid you won’t get much pity for your hard fate,” laughed Katherine, with a lightening of heart which made her secretly ashamed of herself.  “I found Montreal very pleasant for winter quarters, and I only wish it were possible for us to spare Miles to go for this next winter.”

“I don’t want to go!” interposed Miles hastily.

“Neither do I, Miles,” said Mary; “so we are both in the same boat.  Only the worst of it is I have got to go, whether I like it or not, because my father will not leave me here without him.  Such nonsense!  As if I were not old enough to take care of myself!”

“Which you are not.  Remember the tidehole,” Katherine remarked, in a tone of mock solemnity.

“Once bitten, twice shy!  No more tideholes for me,” Mary answered, with a shake of her head.  Then she went on:  “I have brought over some newspapers for Mr. Radford, but there was no public mail matter in this lot except some English letters for Mr. Ferrars which had come directed to our agent in Montreal; so we sent them straight down to Seal Cove yesterday afternoon without troubling the post office at all.”

“That was very kind of you.  If they had been sent here I should have had to deliver them last night after I got back from the long portage,” Katherine answered, as she took the bundle of papers which Mary put into her hand.

“Which would have been a great shame, for I am sure that you must have been tired out.  Besides, you would have been too late, for Mr. Ferrars sailed for the Twins last night with the evening tide; and I have got to be clerk and overseer whilst he is away, so I must be off.  Don’t you wish me joy of my work?”

“I certainly hope that you will enjoy it,” Katherine replied, and Mary went off in a bustle, calling for Hero, who was her constant companion morning, noon, and night, a sort of hairy shadow, and devotion itself.

When she had gone, Katherine sighed a little, then said to Miles, who still looked a trifle sullen:  “I do wish it had been possible for you to go to the city this autumn.  I know Father wished it so much, and here would have been a good opportunity for your journey, because you could have gone with the Selincourts, then you would not have felt so lonely.  I know that I nearly broke my heart when I went, because of feeling so solitary.”

“I am very glad that I can’t be spared, because I simply don’t want to go, and should not value the chance if I had it,” Miles answered.  “I will settle to work at books again directly winter comes, and will put as much time in as I can spare at them, especially at book-keeping.  Education is not much good to people who don’t want it; and I would rather work with my hands any day than work with my head.  But of course there are some things I must know to be a good man of business, and these I can learn at home, I am thankful to say.”

Katherine dropped the sugar scoop with which she had been shovelling out brown sugar, and, crossing over to where Miles was standing, gave him a hearty hug and a resounding kiss.

“What is that for?” he asked, with a wriggle of pretended disgust, although there was a lifting of the sullen look in his face.

“Because you are such a thoroughly good sort,” she answered.  “You have been such a comfort, Miles, ever since Father was taken ill; it was just as if you went to bed a boy and woke up a man.”

When the boys had been started off to Seal Cove with a boatload of goods, and Katherine had tidied away the litter in the store, she went into the stockroom at the back to spread out the furs in readiness for the coming of Mr. Selincourt.  In an ordinary way she would have taken them over to Fort Garry to-day, but with the prospect of a customer they could wait for a more convenient time.

She was still busy spreading out and arranging pelts of black fox, white fox, silver fox, beaver, skunk, and racoon (there were wolfskins in plenty, too, but these she did not produce, as they were commoner, and so would doubtless not appeal to the rich man’s fancy); then she heard a noise of knocking in the store, and, running out, found that Mr. Selincourt and an Indian had arrived together.

Neither of them was in the slightest hurry.  But Katherine attended to the red man first, being desirous of getting rid of him, then watched him down the bank and waited until he had embarked in his frail canoe before attending to her other and more important customer.

“Please pardon me for keeping you waiting,” she said, turning with smiling apology to Mr. Selincourt; “but that is Wise Eye from Ochre Lake, and he is the wiliest thief on the river.  Ah, I thought so!  He is coming back again.  Quick! stand back in that corner behind the stove, and you will see some fun.”

Mr. Selincourt promptly flattened himself into a small space between a bag of meal and a barrel of molasses, while Katherine dived into a recess by the bean bin, and then they waited, holding their breath as children do when playing hide-and-seek.

It was a good long wait, for Wise Eye was a shrewd rogue.  Then Mr. Selincourt from his corner saw a figure on all-fours coming over the doorstep.  At first he thought it was a dog, because of the peculiar sniffing sound it made, but a second glance showed it to be Wise Eye in search of plunder.  Gradually, gradually he edged himself inside, creeping so silently that there was no sound at all, and a thievish hand had just shot out to annex a bag of rice that stood within reaching distance, when Katherine emerged into view and said quietly:  “You can’t have that rice unless you pay for it, Wise Eye; we don’t give things away.”

The red man erected himself with a shocked look, as if insulted by the bare mention of stealing, and, opening a dirty hand, showed half a dollar tucked away in his palm.

“Wise Eye not want the rice, nor anything, but what he pay for,” he answered loftily; “but he drop his money here and come look for it, just to find it lying close to rice bag, and now he find it he say good morning and go.”

Katherine laughed, for, angry as Wise Eye’s depredations made her, it was amusing to find him bowled out once in a while.

“Had the fellow really lost his money?” asked Mr. Selincourt, coming out from his hiding-place very sticky on one side and very floury on the other.

“He has none to lose except that one bad coin, which is his greatest treasure, and which he has tendered in payment so often that I am quite sick of the sight of the thing,” Katherine replied.  “But he keeps the coin ready as an excuse, do you see?  I guessed he would try coming back, because you said that you had come to see the furs, and he knows we do not keep those out here in the store.”

“Well, he is a wily rogue!  What are you going to do now?” asked Mr. Selincourt, as she moved across to the door.

“Turn the key on him; it is the only thing to do.  These Indians are really a great trial; we have to keep such a sharp lookout always.  It is because of them that we never dare leave things outside unless there is someone to watch.”

“Your father is sitting out there in the sun,” said Mr. Selincourt, who could never seem to realize the extent of ’Duke Radford’s limitations.

“I know, but he would not understand, poor dear; he never notices things like that,” Katherine answered, with a mournful drop in her voice, as she turned the key and led the way to the stockroom.

Mr. Selincourt followed silently, and when Katherine first began to show him the furs he looked at them with an abstracted gaze, which showed his thoughts to be far away.  But his interest grew in the beautiful things after a time, and he selected with a judgment and discretion which showed that he knew very well what he was about.  When he had bought all that he required he turned away from them, and began to talk of the matter which was uppermost in his mind.

“Well, have you come to any decision about disposing of your land?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered Katherine, who was busy rearranging the pelts which Mr. Selincourt had rejected.  “We had a family consultation, and the majority settled the question, and decided that we did not want to sell, and that we had not sufficient reason for selling even if we had wanted it very much indeed.  Our business is paying very well, and there is no need to upset existing arrangements.”

Mr. Selincourt nodded his head thoughtfully, then he answered:  “I must say I think you have done wisely; although, of course, it is against my own interest to admit it, because I wanted to buy.  But it is a very hard life for a girl.”

“It will be easier in a few years, when Miles grows up; and he gets bigger and more capable every day.  Oh, I shall have a very easy time, I can assure you, when my brother is a man!” she said, with a laugh.

“I trust you will, and a good time too, for I am sure that no girl ever deserved it more than you do,” he replied warmly.  Then he went on:  “I had a very hard time myself when I was a young man, an experience so cruelly hard and wearing that sometimes I wonder that I did not lose faith and hope entirely.”

“But don’t you think that faith and hope are given to us in proportion to our need of them?” asked Katherine, a little unsteadily.  Her heart was beating with painful throbs, for she guessed only too well to what period of his life Mr. Selincourt was referring.

“Perhaps so.  Yes, indeed I think it must be so, otherwise I don’t see how I could have pulled through.  I have recalled a good deal about that time since I have been here at Roaring Water Portage, and have seen how you have had to work, and to sacrifice yourself for the good of others; and I have often thought that I should like to tell you the story of my struggle.  Would you care to hear it?”

“Yes, very much,” Katherine answered faintly, although, much as she wished to know all about it, she dreaded hearing the story of her father’s wrong-doing told by other lips than his own.

“When I was a very young man I was clerk in a Bristol business house, taking a good salary, and, as I believed, with an unblemished character.  My father was dependent on me, and two young sisters, and I was rather proud of being, as it were, the keystone of the home.  Then one day an old friend of my father’s came to see me, and paid me fifty pounds, which he said he had owed to my father for twenty years a gambling debt.  He begged and implored me to say no word about it to anyone, especially to my father.”

“Why not, if it was your father’s debt?” asked Katherine, who was keenly interested.

“Because my father would not have taken it, although twenty years before he had paid the fifty pounds out of his own pocket, to save this friend of his from exposure and ruin.  At first I was disposed not to take it either; but, as the man represented to me, I had others dependent on me, and for their sakes I was in duty bound to take it, and to do the best I could for them with it.”

“I think so too,” murmured Katherine; but Mr. Selincourt continued almost as if he had not heard her speak.

“I took the money and banked it with my other savings, feeling rather proud of having such a nest-egg, and making up my mind that when the summer came I would give the girls and the old man such a holiday as they had never even dreamed of before.  Then the blow fell.  I was called into the room of the chief one morning, and asked if I were a gambler.  Of course I said no, and that with a very clear conscience, for I had never been addicted to betting nor card playing in my life.  Then I was asked to explain the lump sum of fifty pounds which I had added to my banking account in the previous week.”

“But I thought that banking accounts were very private and confidential things,” said Katherine.

“So they are supposed to be; but the private affairs of a fellow in my position would be sure to get closely overhauled, and a shrewd bank manager might deem it only his duty to enquire how anyone with my salary and responsibilities could afford to pay in big sums like that,” Mr. Selincourt replied.  “Of course I could not explain how I had come by the money, and to my amazement I was curtly dismissed, and without a character.”

“How horribly cruel!” panted Katherine, whose hands were pressed against her breast, and whose face was deathly white.  No one knew how terribly she suffered then, as she stood there bearing, as it were, the punishment for her father’s guilty silence, while she listened to the story of what his victim had had to endure.

“It did seem cruel, as you say, horribly cruel!” Mr. Selincourt said, a grey hardness spreading over his kindly face, as if the memory of the bitter past was more than he could bear.  “The two years that followed were crammed with poverty and privation; there was almost constant sickness in the home, and I could get no work except occasional jobs of manual labour, at which any drayman or navvy could have beaten me easily, by reason of superior strength.  I left Bristol and went to Cardiff, hoping that I might lose my want of a character in the crowd.  But it was of no use.  ’Give a dog a bad name and hang him’, is one of the truest proverbs we’ve got.  What is the matter, child?” he asked, as an involuntary sob broke from poor Katherine.

“Nothing, nothing; only I am so sorry for you!” she cried, breaking down a little, in spite of her efforts after self-control.

“You need not be, as you will hear in a moment; and, at any rate, I don’t look much like an object of pity,” he said, with a laugh.  “I was on the docks one winter evening, wet, dark, and late, when I saw a man robbed of his purse.  I chased the thief, collared the purse, and took it back to its owner, who proved to be one of the richest merchants of the town.  He wanted to give me money.  I told him that I wanted work.  I told him, too, about my damaged reputation, and my inability to clear myself.”

“Did he believe you?” she asked eagerly.

“He did; or if he didn’t then, he did afterwards.  Years later he admitted that for the first twelve months of my time with him he paid to have me watched; but that was really to my advantage, as I came scatheless through the ordeal.”

“It was really good of him to take so much interest in you,” said Katherine.

“So I have always felt,” Mr. Selincourt answered.  “Christopher Ray stood to me for employer and friend.  In course of time he became still more, for he gave me his daughter, Mary’s mother, and when he died he left me his wealth.”

“It was not all a misfortune for you, then, that for a time you had to live under a cloud,” said Katherine eagerly.

“Rightly speaking it was not misfortune, but good fortune that came to me when I lost position and character at one blow.  I have often thought that perhaps I owed my downfall to someone who either said about me what was not true, or kept silent when a word might have put me straight; but, if so, that person was my very good friend, and it is to him, or to her, that I owe the first step to the success which came after.”

Poor Katherine!  One desperate effort she made after self-control, but it was of no use, and, covering her face with her hands, she burst into tears.