Chapter 23

MISS DERINGHAM DECIDES

It was a clear winter day, when a big side-wheel steamer bound for way ports down the Sound lay at the wharf at Vancouver waiting for the mail. Towering white in the sunshine high above the translucent brine, she looked with her huge wheel-casings, lines of winking windows, and triple tier of decks more like a hotel set afloat than a steamer, and the resemblance was completed by the long tables set out for breakfast in the white and gold saloon. No swarm of voracious passengers had, however, descended upon them as yet, for though winter touches the southern coast but lightly, it is occasionally almost Arctic amidst the ranges of the mountain province, and the Pacific express was held up somewhere by the snow.

Bright though the sunshine was, a bitter wind came down across the inlet from the gleaming hills that stretched back, ridged here and there by the sombre green of pines, towards the frozen North, and Deringham and his daughter, who were setting out on a visit to a town of Washington, had sought shelter in the saloon. Alice Deringham leaned back in a corner, a very dainty picture in her clinging furs, with the ivory whiteness of the panelling behind her. Her father sat close by, with a face that was slightly puckered, and thoughtful eyes, turning over a packet of letters that had reached him from England the day before, and his daughter fancied that their contents by no means pleased him. There were a few of her passengers in the saloon, and one couple attracted her languid attention.

She could see the man plainly, and he was one of the usual type of Western citizen, keen-eyed, quick and nervous of movement and gesture, and incisive of speech. He had a bundle of papers before him, and appeared to be making calculations in pencil while he dictated to his companion. Now and then she caught disjointed fragments of his conversation.

"Got that quite straight? Fall in securities, silver depreciating. Now did I put in anything about the Democrats going in?"

Miss Deringham could make but little of this, and had always cherished a faint contempt, which she may have inherited from her mother, who had been born at Carnaby, for anything connected with business. Still, she was mildly interested in the man's companion, whose face she could not see. The girl was dressed very plainly, and Miss Deringham decided that the fabric had not cost much to begin with and was by no means new. It, however, set off a pretty, slender figure, and the girl had fine brown hair, while the little ungloved fingers on pencil were white and shapely. Alice Deringham wondered with a languid curiosity what her face was like, and felt a half contemptuous pity for her. She did not consider such an occupation fitting for a woman.

Then her attention was diverted as a boy with a satchel calling out "_Colonist_," in a shrill nasal drawl, came in, and she vacantly watched a man who purchased a paper spread out the sheet.

"They've got that fellow up at Slocane," he said to a companion. "Yes, sir, sent him down for trial, and it took a special guard to keep the boys off him. I guess if he'd done it down our way they wouldn't have worried, but put him in a tar-keg and set a light to him. They're way behind the times in the Dominion."

"Killed him in his sleep for a hundred dollars," said another man, glancing over the reader's shoulder, but Miss Deringham was not interested in the murder she remembered having heard about. She was, however, a trifle astonished to see that her father was watching the gathering group with a serious look in his eyes, but he glanced down somewhat hastily at his papers when he met her gaze. Then the voices grew less distinct, and that of the man dictating broke monotonously through them until a steward approached her father with an envelope in his hand.

"Mr. Forel has just sent it down, sir," he said. "You're Mr. Deringham?"

Deringham tore the envelope open, and while he sat staring at the paper inside it his daughter noticed that there was a little pale spot in his cheek. His hand also appeared to tremble slightly when, saying nothing, he passed the telegram across to her.

"Regret to inform you that my partner met with accident in the ranges, and his condition is critical," it read. "Can you send us nurse or capable woman? Mrs. Margery ill. Seaforth, Somasco."

Alice Deringham shivered a little. "He is evidently dangerously injured."

"It appears so," said Deringham, and his daughter afterwards remembered that his voice was hoarse and strained.

The girl, however, said nothing for a while. She was not impulsive, and her face remained almost as cold in its clear whiteness as the panelling behind it, but her heart beat a little faster than usual, and she was trying somewhat unsuccessfully to analyze her sensations. In the meanwhile the voices of the men who now surrounded the one with the paper reached her, and she noticed vacantly that her father seemed to be listening to them.

"They'll hang him, anyway," said one.

"Made no show at all when they got him hiding in the bush," said another. "Still, you couldn't expect much from that kind of man. Killed him for a hundred dollars in his bed."

"Yes, sir," said the first speaker. "And he didn't get all of them. The man was his own cousin, and too sick to do anything. Well, thank God, we haven't got many vermin of that kind in the Dominion."

Deringham, who had picked up the telegram, let it slip from his fingers as he rose, and the girl wondered at the change in him. He seemed to have grown suddenly haggard, and the lines upon his face were much more apparent than usual.

"You will excuse me a minute," he said, and the girl noticed the curious deliberation of his movements and the stoop in his shoulders as he crossed the saloon.

Deringham had faced more than one crisis in the past, and the difference in his pose might not have attracted a stranger's notice, though it was evident to his daughter that something had troubled him. Why he should be so disturbed by the news of Alton's condition she could not quite see, but that appeared of the less importance, because she was endeavouring to evade the question why the telegram should also have caused her a curious consternation. He was a half-taught rancher, and she had been accustomed to the homage of men of mark and polish in England--but it was with something approaching dismay she heard that the man who had supplanted her father was, though she could scarcely contemplate the possibility, dying.

In the meanwhile Deringham walked into the bar, and leaned somewhat heavily upon the counter as he asked for a glass of brandy. He spilled a little of it, and the steward, who saw that his fingers shook, glanced at him curiously as he set it down.

"I guess that will fix you, sir," he said. "You're not feeling well?"

Deringham made a little gesture of assent, and the man drew him out a chair. "That is good brandy," he said. "You'd better sit down there quietly and have another. Here's _The Colonist_. They've got that fellow up at Slocane, but one feels sorry the boys didn't get hold of him. Hanging's not much use for that kind of man."

Deringham's fingers trembled as he thrust the journal aside, but his voice was even. "The brandy is rather better than any I've had of late," he said. "You can give me another glass of it."

For at least ten minutes he lay somewhat limply in the chair, and his reflections were not pleasant. He had speculated with another man's money and lost most of it, as well as profited by several transactions which were little better than a swindle; but that was as far as he had gone hitherto, and he had in a curious fashion, retained through it all a measure of inherited pride. Now, however, the disguise was for a moment torn aside, and he saw himself as he was, a thief and a miscreant, no better than the brutish bushman who had slain his sick kinsman for a hundred dollars. There was, as he had read already, nothing to redeem the sordid, cowardly treachery of that crime.

Deringham was, however, proficient at finding excuses for himself and shutting his eyes to unpleasant facts, and the phase commenced to pass. He had, he recollected, plainly stated that he merely desired Alton to be detained a little amidst the ranges, and it became evident to him that what had happened was the result of Hallam's villainy. Hallam had injured him as well as Alton, while there was no controverting the fact that the rancher's decease would relieve him of a vast anxiety, and his first indignation against Hallam also melted when he rose composedly from the chair. He felt that Seaforth expected something of him, and it appeared advisable to consider what could be done, while a project already commended itself to him. In another five minutes he had rejoined his daughter, looking more like the man who urbanely presided over the not always contented shareholders' meetings. He realized, however, that he had a slightly difficult task before him.

"You seem to take the news rather badly, father," said the girl.

Deringham smiled deprecatingly. "I have not been quite so well lately, and it upset me a trifle," said he. "I have a regard for our Canadian kinsman and have been inclined to fancy that you shared it with me."

"Of course," said the girl indifferently. "Mr. Alton has been especially kind to us."

"Yes," said Deringham. "Mr. Seaforth must also be very helpless up there alone, with his comrade seriously ill. Now there is no great necessity for my journey down the Sound, and I have no doubt that the business could be handled almost as well by letter. I do not know that there is very much that would please you to be seen in the Washington townships either."

Alice Deringham glanced at him thoughtfully. "And?" she said.

Deringham glanced down a moment at his shoes. "I was wondering if you could be of any use up there."

His daughter laughed a little. "I think that is readily answered. I cannot cook, and neither can I wash, while I have never attended to a sick person in my life."

"No," said her father with a trace of embarrassment. "Still, one understands that it comes naturally to women. In any case your mere presence would in a fashion be an advantage."

Alice Deringham watched him in silence for a few seconds and then smiled again. "It is somewhat difficult to believe it. I am sincerely sorry for Mr. Alton, but I can see no reason for intruding at Somasco now."

Deringham regarded her steadily, and the girl knew it would be advisable for her to yield. This did not displease her, for, though she had negatived his suggestion, her father's wishes coincided with her own. She, however, desired to visit Somasco as it were under compulsion, and to feel that she had not done so of her own inclination.

"I think there is a reason--and it would please me," he said.

"Then I should be pleased to hear it."

Deringham appeared to consider, because the motives which influenced him were ones he could not well reveal. "We are his only relatives in this country--and there is the look of the thing," he said.

The girl moved a little, and her father watching her noticed her fine symmetry, and how her red-gold hair gleamed against the white panelling. It was possibly because of this background he also noticed the faint flicker of warmth that crept into her face and neck, and that there was a glow in her eyes he had not seen there previously.

"That," she said with a cold distinctness, "is precisely what I object to."

Deringham laughed a little. "I think that aspect of the question will not be evident to Alton."

"No?" said the girl, while the tinge of colour deepened a little. "Still, it is very plain to me."

Deringham said nothing, and the two sat still while the voice of the man dictating jarred upon one of them. "Very little interest taken in mineral claims, no inquiries for ranching properties."

Alice Deringham turned, and saw the girl's fingers flittering across the paper, but her face was still hidden and the monotonous voice continued, "We made a few advances during the last week or two."

The other passengers had gone out of the saloon, and it was very quiet save for the soft flow of words and rattle of the pencil, when Deringham once more unfolded the telegram.

"I am afraid it is going hardly with the man," he said suggestively. "'My partner met with accident--his condition is critical.' The message left Somasco yesterday."

There was a rustle at the adjoining table, and the girl's pencil fell to the floor.

"Will you wait a moment, please?" a voice said, and the dictation broke off abruptly, while when the girl rose Alice Deringham found herself suddenly confronted with Miss Townshead. Deringham, who stood up, made her a little decorous inclination.

"I am pleased to see you again," he said.

The speech was apparently lost upon the girl, who did not seem to notice his daughter's greeting.

"I could not avoid hearing a few words of yours," she said. "Mr. Alton--or his partner--is seriously ill."

Deringham handed her the telegram, and stood watching her curiously while she read it. He saw her lips set a trifle, and a slight lowering of her eyes, but though the girl seemed to draw in her breath he fancied it was not with consternation.

"That is all we know," he said.

Miss Townshead gave him back the message, but Deringham did not see her face, for she and his daughter seemed to be looking at each other. They formed a somewhat curious contrast, for Alice Deringham appeared taller and more stately than she was in her costly furs, and Nellie Townshead very slight and almost shabby in her thin and well-worn dress. Neither spoke for a moment, but the half-amiable condescension in Miss Deringham's attitude was a trifle too marked.

"I am afraid that is all we can tell you," she said. "Mr. Alton has evidently met with a serious accident, and we are going up at once to Somasco to see what we can do for him."

Deringham moved a trifle and glanced at his daughter. She had said very little, but there was a subtle something in her tone and bearing which implied a good deal, and he fancied it was not lost upon Miss Townshead.

The latter, however, glanced round towards her employer, and her face was once more expressionless as she said, "Then I hope you will find him progressing favourably, and it would be a kindness to my father and myself if you or Mr. Seaforth would send us word."

She went back to her duties, and Deringham smiled a little as the monotonous voice commenced again. "That's all right, Miss Townshead. Now where was I? Oh, yes, we should not recommend any further advances. Did I tell him we had to negotiate Tyrer's bond at a discount?"

"You seem to have reversed your decision somewhat suddenly," he said. "I had not noticed it before, but Miss Townshead is distinctly pretty. She was, I believe, on tolerably good terms with our afflicted kinsman."

Miss Deringham laughed as she answered him. "That is one of our privileges, but you had better inquire about my baggage. I think I hear the train coming in."

She turned a moment as she went out of the saloon, and glanced back towards the table. She could only see that Miss Townshead's head was bent lower over the paper than it had been, but she had a suspicion as to what the girl was feeling. It was also partly, but not more than partly justified, for Nellie Townshead was writing mechanically just then, though now and then she drove the pencil somewhat viciously into the paper when the hasty words grew faster. "Don't consider your recommendation workable. We are sending you ore to test. Finish it up in the usual way."

Then the locomotive bell on the wharf was answered by the roar of the steamer's whistle, and the man folded up his papers. "You will have to get ashore, but we have done a good morning's work," said he. "Those were friends of yours from the old country?"

"No," said Nellie Townshead with a curious expression. "They are from the old country, but I only met them once or twice at Somasco."

The man glanced at her thoughtfully. "Yes," he said. "I kind of fancied the lady didn't mean to be nice to you."

Miss Townshead smiled, though there was an ominous brightness in her eyes. "I scarcely think she would take the trouble to make me feel that," she said. "Miss Deringham is, I understand, a lady of some importance in the old country."

The man once more regarded her with grave kindliness. "Folks of that kind can be very nasty prettily. I've met one or two of them. Well, you're one of the smartest business ladies I've come across yet in this country, and I should figure that's quite as good as the other. Now--well, of course, we held back a little when we engaged you, and you can tell the cashier to hand you out another two dollars every Saturday."

Nellie Townshead felt that the colour was in her cheeks, but she thanked the man, and gathering up her papers hastened down the gangway at the last moment. She stopped a moment breathless when she reached the wharf and saw Deringham and his daughter drive away, and shut one little hand. Then she laughed, and turned towards the city with a gesture of impatience. "The two dollars are badly needed--and I'm a little fool, but it hurt, all of it," she said.