CHAPTER XXII
A Business Offer
A fortnight slipped away. August had come in, with lengtheningnights, which sometimes had a touch of Arctic cold in them. But itwas glorious summer still, and although in those uncultivatedwastes there was little harvest from the land, the harvest of thesea went merrily on. Mary Selincourt was out and about again,limping a little at first, and leaning on a stick, but soon gainingstrength enough to go about as usual; only now, made wise byexperience, she took good care to avoid places of danger like thetideholes.
Since that evening of confidential talk with Katherine, Mary hadhonestly striven for the grace of self-forgetfulness; but thevirtue is not learned in one lesson, nor yet in two, and she wouldprobably have given up striving, through disgust at her ownfailures, if her pride had not been deeply stirred, and theobstinate part of her nature brought into full play.
Pleading hard work as an excuse, Katherine avoided her after thatevening, from a secret dread of any more confidences. This waseasier than it otherwise would have been, owing to Mrs. Burtonhaving taken the twins over to Fort Garry to spend a week with Mrs.M'Crawney, which left Katherine with the burden of housekeeping onher shoulders in addition to the business of the store.
Jervis Ferrars came up sometimes in the evening to sit and talkwith the invalid on every subject under the sun, from lunarrainbows to earthquakes, but he got little chance of speech withKatherine, who was always feverishly busy over some task whichabsorbed her whole attention.
The day after Mrs. Burton came back from Fort Garry another vesselarrived from Liverpool to anchor off Seal Cove. Only one more boatwould be likely to get in before winter came again, and when anoccasion is so rare it is likely to be made much of. The captainheld a sort of reception on board, to which everyone in Seal Covewas invited. The M'Krees came down from the second portage withall their babies; Mrs. Jenkin appeared in finery which no one evendreamed she possessed; and Oily Dave was magnificent in afrock-coat of shiny black cloth, worn over a football sweater ofoutrageous pattern.
Katherine and her father were the only stay-at-homes, but 'DukeRadford was not fit for excursions of that sort, and if Katherinehad gone Miles must have stayed at home, which would have beenrather hard on a boy as fond of ships as he was. But althougheveryone went to the reception, some of them did not stay long, andone of the first to leave was Mr. Selincourt, who had himself rowedup river and landed at the store to ask Katherine if she would givehim a cup of tea.
"With great pleasure. Please go in and talk to Father; I shall befree in a few minutes, and then I will come and make tea for youboth," Katherine answered, holding open the door between house andstore, while she smiled upon the visitor, who was more welcome thanhe knew. She was serving an Indian squaw, who demanded brightcalico, 'bacco, and as much of anything else as she could get, forfourteen beaver skins partly dressed, and as soft as velvet.
Beaver, even in that district, was becoming very scarce. Indeed,Katherine was sure that these skins must have come a long distance,probably seventy or eighty miles, from some part of unknownKeewatin, where no foot of white man ever trod, and where even thered man only went at trapping time. She bought the skins, ofcourse, adding to the purchase price a box of chocolates with apicture on the lid, a treasure which set the red woman in a stateof the most complacent satisfaction.
When the squaw had departed, Katherine carefully locked away theskins before going in to make tea, for the Indians were adepts atroguery, and if by any means the woman could have stolen them, shewould probably have returned to the store to offer them in barteragain within the next hour. Katherine had been caught like thatoften enough to have become exceedingly careful. She was talkingabout the exceeding beauty of the skins as she watched the kettlebeginning to boil, and Mr. Selincourt immediately said that heshould like to see them.
"Will you wait until to-morrow or the next day? Then I will showyou all that we have got. But it is rather dirty work pulling themout and unrolling them, and I have just put on a clean frock,"Katherine said, laughing at the idea of putting a possible customeroff in such a fashion.
"I will wait certainly, and if the day after tomorrow will suityou, I will come then and see if you have anything which Mary mightlike me to buy for her. By the way, my men are behind with themail this time, a week late, and I am still uncertain whether or nowe shall have to go down to Montreal for the winter," Mr.Selincourt said, as he helped Katherine to put cups and saucers onthe table.
"If they had come in time, would you have left by this boat?"Katherine asked. The question of winter quarters had beenconstantly talked of during the last week or two, but nothing hadas yet been decided upon, owing to the delay in the coming of thetwo men with the expected mail.
"No, this boat will go straight to Liverpool. The next will comeround from Quebec, and return there before going to England; andthat must be our way south, I think, unless we decide to return aswe came, by river and trail."
"We shall all miss you very much," Katherine said regretfully; forthe pleasant, kindly man whom she had feared so greatly at firsthad been such a good neighbour that his absence would be keenlyfelt.
"I should not like it if I were not missed; but I am not going forlong, remember. With the opening of the waters I shall be backagain, to settle for good, I hope. England is a fine country to beborn in, but Canada is the land of my choice, and I have never yetseen a part of it that I like better than these Keewatin wilds; itis unspoiled nature here," Mr. Selincourt said, rubbing his handswith great enthusiasm.
"Wait until you have tried a winter here, before speaking toopositively about it; you may find the isolation too dreadful to beborne. We who are used to it do not mind so much, but a personaccustomed to daily papers and frequent posts would seem entirelyout of the world," she said, thinking of the long, long nights,when the wolves howled in the woods, and the silent weeks when thefalls were frozen; and she wondered how this man, who had beenbrought up in cities, could bear to think of such a life.
He laughed in a cheery, unconvinced fashion. "I have thought ofall that: but I can live without daily papers, or letters either,if need be; although, if Roaring Water Portage develops as Ibelieve it is going to do, without doubt we shall get a regularpostal service of a sort. If it can't be done any other way, Iwill do it myself. Only I must have a bigger house, for in winterwe should be very much cramped in that little hut over the river."
Katherine nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, you would want a big room forgiving parties and entertainments. Mary would make a lovelyhostess, and the fisher folk would feel as if they were living in anew world. Oily Dave's dreadful whisky would have no chance at allagainst the attractions offered by your big house."
Mr. Selincourt frowned. "That drink-selling of his is the thornamong my roses of content, and I don't see how to put it down justat present. I can't, from sheer decency, send the man packing,just after he has helped to save my daughter from a dreadful death.Of course I know that he only helped, and that you could and wouldhave done it without him if he had not been there, still, he wasthere, and I must remember it in his favour, although he hascharged pretty heavily for his services."
"That is my fault, I fear," Katherine said in laughing apology."But I know what Oily Dave is, and that the one thing to move himis money; so when Mrs. Jenkin told me he was the only man about, Itold her to say to him he must come at once, for there was money inthe work."
"You were quite right, and if you had promised him a hundreddollars I would cheerfully have paid it," Mr. Selincourt replied;and then he turned to talk to 'Duke Radford, who had been sittingall this time with his head resting on his hand, and taking nonotice at all of what the others were talking about.
But when the tea-things were cleared away, and Katherine had goneback to the store again, Mr. Selincourt followed her and commencedtalking afresh of what he meant and hoped to make of thatparticular part of the world in the course of the next two or threeyears. He had a special purpose in comin
g up river that afternoon,for he wanted to consult Katherine on a business point, and did notfeel very sure of his ground.
Being a straightforward man in all things, however, he statedbluntly what he had to say. "I want to buy your land, if I can,Miss Katherine, and I am prepared to pay you any price in reasonthat you like to ask me for it. I understand that your father ownsthe river frontage for about a mile on this side of the water,which is practically from here to the swamps, and it is land that Ishould very much like to possess."
"But it is not mine to sell," she said blankly, too much taken bysurprise to know whether she felt pleased or offended by thesuggestion.
"I know it is not. But your father cannot be approached on anyquestion of buying or selling, so I had to come to you to see howyou felt about it, and I want you to think the matter over," Mr.Selincourt replied.
"All the thinking in the world cannot alter the position so far asI am concerned," said Katherine, with a little gesture ofweariness. "Our father is apparently a hopeless invalid, afflictedmore in mind than in body, yet no really qualified doctor has seenhim, to certify his unfitness for managing his own affairs. We,his children, are all under age, except Nellie. By the way, whydid you not go to her?--she is the eldest. Though, even if youhad, she could only have spoken as I have done."
"I came to you because you stand in your father's place, carryingon business in his name," Mr. Selincourt said quietly. "And if youfelt that it would be for the good of yourself and the others tohave some easier life than this, it would be very much my pleasureto help you in realizing your wishes."
"But how?" asked Katherine, who failed to see how her father'sproperty could be disposed of without consulting him, while he wasin life, and they, his children, were all under age save one.
Mr. Selincourt smiled. "Things can mostly be managed when onewants them to be done. If you and the others believed it would befor the good of the family to sell your father's property, we couldbring a doctor up here to certify to his unfitness for business.Your sister would have to be made acting trustee for the rest ofyou, and so the thing would be done."
Katherine shook her head in a dubious fashion, saying: "I will talkto the others about it if you wish, but I do not think it will makeany difference; we must just go on as we are doing, and make thebest of things as they are. Of course I don't know much aboutbusiness, except what I have picked up anyhow, for my profession isteaching; but we have done very well since the work has been dumpedinto our hands, and our profits this year are in excess of anypreceding one's."
"That is very encouraging. But then you would succeed in anythingyou undertook, because you put your whole heart into it, and thatis the secret of success," Mr. Selincourt said warmly. After amomentary hesitation he went on: "Mind you, this is a businessoffer that I am making you, and even though I might give you doubleor treble what your land would fetch in the open market at thepresent time, I should still look to get a fifty-per-cent return onmy invested capital, although I suppose it is very unbusinesslikeof me to tell you so."
"But how would you do it?" demanded Katherine.
"My dear young lady, I believe there is a fortune in every acre ofground on either side of the river," said Mr. Selincourt excitedly."Mary is keen on geology, as you know, and I have studied mineralspretty closely. We have found abundant traces of iron, of copper,and of coal. Now, the last is more important than the other two,for without it they would be practically useless, so far fromcivilization; but with it they may be worked to immense advantage."
"Would not the working be rather costly at the first?" Katherineasked, with a sensation as if her breath were being taken away.
"Doubtless! It has already been proved, over and over again, thatif you want to get a fortune from under the earth you must firstput a fortune in it," he replied.
"But suppose, after you had put it in, you found yourselfdisappointed in your returns--discovered, perhaps, that there wasno fortune awaiting you in the ground after all? What would you dothen?--for of course you could not get back what you had spent,"said Katherine, with an air of amusement, for to her the statementof there being a fortune in every acre of that barren groundsounded like fiction pure and simple.
"In that case I should probably have to take off my coat, roll upmy sleeves, and go to work to earn a living for myself and Mary;but I am not afraid of having to do it just yet," he answered,laughing. Then as a customer entered the store he went off to talkto 'Duke Radford, who was sitting outside in the sun, and Katherinedid not see him again that evening.
As in duty bound, she decided to take counsel with the others,although her own mind was fully made up with regard to Mr.Selincourt's offer. Life in some other more civilized place wouldprobably be easier and pleasanter for herself. Such work as shehad to do now was labour for men, and by no means suitable forwomen or girls. But it was not herself she had to think of firstin this case; Miles and Phil were the ones to be considered here,and she determined that the light in which Miles regarded thequestion should be the standpoint from which she would view it too.By this time she was quite satisfied in her own mind of her abilityto keep the business working in a profitable manner; but if shewere to venture upon earning a living for the six who weredependent upon her efforts in some other way, she would not be sosure of herself, and to doubt might be to fail.
It was not easy to get time to confer all together in that busyhousehold, but by good fortune a chance occurred that very evening,and Katherine took it thankfully enough, knowing that it might belong before such an opportunity came again. Her father had gone tobed, tired out with his day of sitting and walking in the sunshine,and was sleeping peacefully. The twins had also been put to rest,and were droning themselves to sleep in a drowsy sing-song duetwith which they always filled the house before subsiding into theirnightly slumber.
"Don't go to bed for a few minutes, Phil; I want to talk to you.We have got to have a family conclave," said Katherine, as Phil,with a mighty yawn, was turning his steps to the ladder which ledto the loft.
"What's a conclave? And it is no use going on at me about thatbucket of water I tilted over down the ladder on to Nick Jones; itstood so handy, and wanted such a little push, that I just couldnot help doing it," the boy answered in a sullen tone. He had beenin mischief on board the steamer, escaping with a warning from thecaptain and a lecture from Mrs. Burton; but he was by no meansrepentant yet, although perhaps a trifle apprehensive of the formof reprisal which Nick Jones might choose to take.
Katherine laughed. She had been in mischief herself too often whenat Phil's age not to feel sympathy with him on the score of theprank he had played that afternoon. It was this same sympatheticunderstanding of their moods and actions which gave her so muchinfluence with the boys, enabling her to twist them round herlittle finger, as Miles expressed it.
"A conclave is a talk, discussion, or argument, but it has nothingto do with your getting into mischief, Phil. It was a greattemptation, as you say, and I expect that in your place I shouldhave longed to do the same. Only there is another side from whichto view the business, and that is the side of Nick Jones. No doubthe feels a bit ruffled, and if he thrashes you for your impudence,or ducks you in the river, why, you will just have to take it lyingdown."
"He has got to catch me first," said Phil, with that disposition toswagger in which he delighted to indulge. Then he burst outeagerly, as he slid his arm round her waist and leaned his headback against her arm: "It was truly lovely, Katherine, and youwould have laughed until you choked if you had been there. Nickwas just setting his foot on the bottom of the ladder, and his facewas all smuts and smudges, so that he looked as if he had notwashed for a fortnight; he had got his mouth open too, wide open,and I guess that was the first mouthful of clean water that he hasswallowed for a good long while past."
"You are really a shocking boy, and if you get a ducking it will beonly what you deserve," said Katherine, who was laughing at thispicture of the discomfiture of Nick Jones. "
But sit down here andlet us get our business settled, because we are all tired andlonging for bed."
"I'm not tired," said Miles, shutting the book he had been readingwith a sigh. It always seemed to be time to go to bed when hewanted to sit up, just as it was always morning and time to get upwhen he was in the full enjoyment of being in bed.
"But you will be tired to-morrow, and no one who is weary can dothe best that is in him," said Katherine gently.