Murray"s remarkable eyes were steadily regarding her again. His mechanical smile had changed its character. It was spontaneous now.
But its spontaneity was without any joy.
"Oh, it"s in the interest of--things, or I wouldn"t ask it," he said.
"Y"see," he went on, "I got right back home here to get news of things happening north that want looking into. I"ve got to pull right away before summer settles down good, and get back again. That being so it sets everything on to your mother"s shoulders--with Alec away. Your mother"s good grit. We couldn"t find her equal anywhere when it comes to handling this proposition. But she doesn"t get younger. And it kind of seems tough on her." He sighed, and his eyes had sobered to a look of real trouble. "Y"see, Jessie, she"s a great woman. She"s a mother I"d have been proud to call my own. But she"s yours, and that"s why I"m asking that you"ll weigh in and help her out--the time I"m away. It"s not a lot when you see your mother getting older every day, is it? "Specially such a mother. She"s too big to ask you herself.
That"s her way. It makes me feel bad when I get back to find her doing and figgering at this desk when she ought to be sitting around at her ease after all she"s done in the past. It"s that, or get white help in from down south. And it don"t seem good getting white help in, not while we can keep this outfit going ourselves. There"s things don"t need getting "outside," or likely we"ll get a rush of whites that"ll leave us no better than a b.u.m trading post of the past. It wouldn"t be good for us sitting around at this old post, not earning a grub stake, while other folks were eating the--fruit we"d planted."
The girl had remained beside the window the whole time he was talking.
But her eyes were on him, and she was filled with wonder, and not untouched by the feeling he was displaying. This was a side to his character she had never witnessed before. It astounded. But it also searched every generous impulse she possessed.
Her answer came on the instant.
"You don"t need to say another word," she cried. "Nothing matters so I can help mother out. I know there"s secrets and things. I"ve every reason to know there are. The good G.o.d knows I"ve reason enough. We all have. What those secrets are I can only guess, and I don"t want even to do that--now. I hate them, and wish they"d never been."
"Your mother would never have been the wealthy woman she is without them."
"No, and I"d be glad if that were so."
There was a world of pa.s.sionate sincerity in the girl"s denial. It came straight from her heart. The loss of a father could find no compensation in mere wealth. She understood the grasping nature of this man. She understood that commercial success stood out before everything in his desires.
Her moment of more kindly feeling towards him pa.s.sed, and a breath of winter chilled her warm young heart.
"Would you?"
The man"s smile had returned once more. His questioning eyes had a subtle irony in their burning depths.
"Sure. A thousand times I"d have us be just struggling traders as we once were. Then I"d have my daddy with us, and mother would be the happy woman I"ve always remembered her--before those secrets."
The man stirred with a movement almost of irritation.
"There"s things I can"t just see, child," he said, with a sort of restrained impatience. "You"re talking as if you guessed life could be controlled at the will of us folk. You guess your father could have escaped his fate, if he"d left our trade on Bell River alone. Maybe he could, on the face of things. But could he have escaped acting the way he acted? Could any of us? We all got just so much nature. That nature isn"t ours to cut about and alter into the shape we fancy. What that nature says "do," we just got to do. Your nature"s telling you to get around and help your mother out. My nature says get busy and see to things up north. Well, a landslide, or a blizzard, or any old thing might put me out of business on the way. A storm, or fire might cost you your life right here in this Fort. It"s the chances of life. And it"s the nature of us makes us take the chances. We just got to work on the way we see, and we can"t see diff"rent--at will. If we could see diff"rent at will, there"s a whole heap I"d have changed in my life. There"s many things I"d never have done, and many things I figger to do wouldn"t be done. But I see the way I was born, and I don"t regret a thing--not a thing--except the shape Providence made me.
I"m going to live--not die--a rich man, doing the things I fancy, if Life don"t figger to put me out of business. And I don"t care a curse what it costs. It"s how I"m born, and it"s the nature of me demands these things. I"m going to do all I"ve set my mind to do, and I"ll do it with my last kick, if necessary. Do you understand me? That"s why I"m glad of those secrets we"re talking of. That"s why I"ll work to the last to hold "em. That"s why I don"t mean to let things stand in my way that can be shifted. That"s why I"m asking you to help us get busy. Our interests I guess are your interests."
It was another revelation of the man such as Jessie had had at intervals before, and which had somehow contrived to tacitly antagonize her. Her nature was rebelling against the material pa.s.sion of this man. There was something ruthlessly sordid underlying all he said.
"I"m glad it doesn"t need those feelings to make me want to help my mother," she said quietly. "Interests? Say, interests of that sort don"t matter a thing for me. Thought of them won"t put an ounce more into the work I"ll do to help--my mother. But she counts, and what you said about her is all you need say. The other talk--is just talk."
"Is it?" The man had risen from his chair. Jessie surveyed him with cool measuring eyes. His podgy figure was almost ludicrous in her eyes. His round, fleshy face became almost contemptible. But not quite. He was part of her life, and then those eyes, so strange, so baffling. So alive with an intelligence which at times almost overwhelmed her.
"It isn"t just talk, Jessie," he said approaching her, till he, too, stood in the full light of the window. "Maybe you don"t know it, but your interests are just these interests I"m saying. It"ll come to you the moment you want to do a thing against "em. Oh, I"m not bullying, my dear. I"ll show you just how. If a moment came in your life when you figgered to carry out something that appealed to you, and your sense told you it would hurt your mother"s proposition right here, you"d cut it out so quick you"d forget you thought of it. Why?
Because it"s you. And you figger that no hurt"s going to come to your mother from you. There isn"t a thing in the world to equal a good woman"s loyalty to her mother. Not even the love of a girl for a man.
There"s a whole heap of women-folk break up their married lives for loyalty to a--mother. That"s so. And that"s why your interests are surely the interests I got back of my head--because they"re the interests of your mother."
But the girl was uninfluenced by the argument. His words had come rapidly. But she saw underneath them the great selfish purpose which was devouring the man. Her antagonistic feeling was unabated. She shook her head.
"You can"t convince me with that talk," she said coldly. "I wouldn"t do a thing to hurt my mother. That"s sure. But interests to be personal need to be backed by desire. I hate all that robbed me of a father."
The man shook his head.
"We most always get crossways," he said. "And it"s the thing I just hate--with you." Suddenly he laughed aloud. "Say, Jessie, I wonder if you"d feel different to my argument if I didn"t carry sixty pounds too much weight for my size? I wonder if I stood six feet high, and had a body like a Greek statue, you"d see the sense of my talk."
The girl missed the earnestness lying behind the man"s smiling eyes.
She missed the pa.s.sionate fire he masked so well. She too laughed.
But her laugh was one of relief.
"Maybe. Who knows," she said lightly.
But, in a moment, regret for her unguarded words followed.
"Before G.o.d, Jessie, if I thought by any act of mine I could get you to feel diff"rent towards me, I"d rake out all the ashes of the things I"ve figgered on all these years, to please you. I"d break up all the hopes and objects, and ambitions I"ve set up, if it pleased you I should act that way. I"d live the life you wanted. I"d act the way you chose.
"Say, Jessie," he went on, with growing pa.s.sion, "I"ve wanted to tell you all there is in the back of my head for months. I"ve wanted to tell you the work I"m doing, the driving towards great wealth, is just because I"ve sort of built up a hope you"d some day help me spend it.
But you"ve never given me a chance. Not a chance. I had to tell you this to-day. It"s got to be now--now--or never. I"m going away on work that has to be done, and I can"t just wait another day till I"ve told you these things.
"If you"d marry me, Jessie," the man continued, while the girl remained mute, dumbfounded by the suddenness with which the pa.s.sionate outburst had come, "I"d hand you all you can ever ask in life. We"d quit this G.o.d-forgotten land, and set up home where the sun"s most always shining, and our money counts for all that we guess is life. Don"t turn me down for my shape. Think of what it means. We can quit this land with a fortune that would equal the biggest in the world. I know.
I hold the door to it. Your mother and I. I just love you with a strength you"ll never understand. All those things I"ve talked of are just nothing to the way I love you. Say, child----"
The girl broke in on him with a shake of the head. It was deliberate, final. Even more final than her spoken words which sought for gentleness.
"Don"t--just don"t say another word," she cried.
She started. For an instant her beautiful eyes flashed to the window.
Then they came back to the dark eyes which were glowing before her. In a moment it seemed to her they had changed from the pleading, burning pa.s.sion to something bordering on the sinister.
"I don"t love you. I never could love you, Murray," she said a little helplessly.
There was the briefest possible pause, and a sound reached them from outside. But the man seemed oblivious to everything but the pa.s.sion consuming him. And the manner of that seemed to have undergone a sudden change.
"I know," he broke out with furious bitterness and brutal force. "It"s because of that man. That Kars----"
"Don"t dare to say that," Jessie cried, with heightened color and eyes dangerously wide. "You haven"t a right to speak that way. You----"
"Haven"t I?" There was no longer emotion in the man"s voice. Neither anger, nor any gentler feeling. It was the tone Jessie always knew in Murray McTavish. It was steady, and calm, and, just now, grievously hurtful.
"Well, maybe I haven"t, since you say so. But I"m not taking your answer now. I can"t. I"ll ask you again--next year, maybe. Maybe you"ll feel different then. I hope so."
He swung about with almost electrical swiftness as his final words came with a low, biting emphasis. And his movement was in response to the swift opening of the door of the office.
John Kars was standing in its framing.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN
It was a moment of intensity such as rarely fails to leave a landmark in the lives of those concerned. For Murray McTavish it was as though every fear that had ever haunted him from the rivalry of John Kars had suddenly been translated into concrete form. For Jessie the hero of all her dreams had magically responded to her unspoken appeal for succor. John Kars felt something approaching elation at the unerring instinct which had prompted his visit to the Fort on the instant of arrival. Bill Brudenell looked on as usual with eyes calm in their pa.s.sionless wisdom. To him fortune"s wheel was distinctly revolving in their favor.
Pa.s.sing the window both he and Kars had caught and read the girl"s half terrified glance. Both of them had seen Murray standing before her, and realized something of the pa.s.sionate urgency of manner he was laboring under. Their interpretation of the scene remained each to himself. No word pa.s.sed between them. Only had Kars" gait increased as he hurried round towards the door.