CHAPTER XVI
FEARFUL DISCLOSURES
It was with a strange mixture of emotion that Donald McTavish
approached the rough log cabin where lay Angus Fitzpatrick. The
morning was one of bitter cold, and the smoke from the campfires
hung low about the tops of trees, a sure sign of fearful frost.
During the past night, he had slept as of old, his feet to a blaze,
other men snoring about him. Jean had been led away as soon as they
reached the camp. Their innocent, childlike play at keeping house
was over; those two inexpressibly sweet weeks would never be
repeated, yet their sacred associations would be forever in his
mind, like some beautiful thing caught imperishably at the moment
of its full expression. When would he see her again? Not even a
parting hand-clasp had lightened the separation of the night before.
She had gone to her father; he to the camp-fire and the rough men.
Pleading exhaustion, he had refused to tell his story in reply to
eager questions. Where had he found her? How? When? The thought of
even sketching to these plain-minded fellows the ground-work on
which had been reared such a structure of poetry seemed sacrilege.
No, he would keep silent.
At the door, a loafing trapper, smoking a pipe, greeted him by
name. The factor, even in this wilderness, maintained some show of
his rank, and demanded a guard to his dwelling. No doubt the
diplomatic and silent Tee-ka-mee was inside. McTavish waited until
the sentry had announced his presence, and had returned with the
word for him to enter.
The interior scarcely offered fitting surroundings for the lord of
a domain as big as England. Unsoftened, squared logs formed the
walls, and the roof consisted of slabs and branches which, with
the sifted and frozen snow, formed an impenetrable covering. In
the corner away from the wind, a bunk, made soft with blankets and
spruce-boughs, supported the factor.
Donald was struck by the autocrat's appearance. The old buffalo-head,
with its shaggy white hair and beard, did not seem to have the
poise of former times; the cheeks were hollow, and the whole body
thinner. But the eyes, burning as of old, looked fiercely out from
under their beetling white brows. Evidently, the grief over Jean's
disappearance had eaten away the body, although the spirit burned
like a flame, proud, strong, invincible.
Tee-ka-mee, who had just turned away from his master, greeted
McTavish with his pleasant smile, and then went outside, closing
the rough door. The two men were face to face.
For a little while, there was silence, as the older one pierced
the younger with his glance.
“I have so much to say to you, Captain McTavish, that I hardly know
where to begin,” he said finally, speaking in a calm, but strong,
voice. “I see you here under most peculiar circumstances.”
“Yes, sir, you do, and, because of their nature, I am both glad
and sorry.”
“I am only sorry,” came back the stern reply. “However, I have
been busy thanking heaven all night that you were deserted in the
right spot to drag my little girl from the water, and save her
life. It was a brave act, McTavish, and I appreciate it.”
“Thank you, sir. I thought I was saving Charley Seguis until
afterward.”
“You would have been a fool not to throw him back in the water, if
it had been he.” The factor's tones dripped venom like a snake's
mouth at the mention of the half-breed. “But will you kindly explain
to me why you broke out of Fort Severn?
“Because I considered my imprisonment there an injustice. But that
is only my feeling in the matter. There was, also, a duty side to
the question. I could not remain there longer, and feel that I was
a man.”
“And what was this duty, pray?” The voice was sarcastic.
“The finding of J—your daughter.”
“What right have you to consider yourself so duty-bound in that
direction that you overturn discipline, disregard my commands, and
make a laughing-stock of me?”
“Only the right of a lover, Mr. Fitzpatrick. To that right, I set
no limits.”
“You are very quick to find an imagined right, young man,”
Fitzpatrick said, grimly. “How about myself, the girl's father,
the one who, most of all, should give up everything to such a
search? Did I leave the Company's business to take care of itself?”
“No, but it is well I did, or else you would never have seen Jean
again. I don't think, Mr. Fitzpatrick, that there is anything gained
arguing in this circle. What else have you to say to me?”
“My daughter has told me everything,” went on the factor painfully,
shifting on his rough bed. “In fact, she got quite excited over
your chivalrous treatment of her, while you were together. Of course
I believe my daughter, and, when she tells me that you acted merely
as friends, I take her word. At the same time, Captain McTavish,
there does not come to my mind the slightest reason why you should
have forced yourself into the same cabin with her.”
Donald briefly explained the situation, outlining the treachery of
Maria and her Indian son, Tom, who should, by this time, be safe
in Fort Severn.
“If I had not done as I did, I should have frozen to death,” he
concluded.
“Better you should,” cried the factor passionately, “than that my
little girl should be ruined for life before the whole world.”
“How will she be ruined?” demanded the young man, crisply. “No one
knows the story except Braithwaite and his two men, and I think we
can keep their mouths closed easily enough.”
“It is impossible!” said the other. “You know yourself that Napoleon
Sky's tongue is swiveled two ways, and is the only successful
perpetual-motion machine ever invented. If we bribed them, we could
be held up regularly for blackmail, and even that would fail; the
news would leak out somewhere. I know these wild places; I know
what rumor can do. Perhaps, the wind whispers it; perhaps, the
birds carry it, or the streams call it out at night. Whatever is
done, I know this: that rumor will leap across a practically
uninhabited country like wild-fire, and, by the time the brigades
come down in the spring, I could not hold my head up among the
curious eyes, jerked thumbs, and tongues in cheek. What I want to
know, Captain McTavish, is, what can you do about it?”
“Is the Reverend Mr. Gates in the camp?”
“Yes.”
“I'll marry Jean this afternoon, providing she will have me?”
“You shall not!” cried the factor suddenly, with great fierceness,
turning his fiery eyes upon the younger man in an expression of
hate. “You shall not—ever!”
“Really, Mr. Fitzpatrick,” replied Donald, gently, “I cannot agree
to that, and I might as well tell you now that I intend to marry
Jean somewhere, some time, if human effort can bring it about, and
the sooner the better.”
“You wouldn't dare say that to me, if I weren't laid up,” hissed
Fitzpatrick, his hands clenching and unclenching.
“Yes, sir, I would! I have never said it before, because I hadn't
the right. Jean loves me, and will marry me; that is all I want
to know.”
“And you leave me, her father, out of it? You don't even ask my
permission?”
“Why should I? You said I should never marry her. If that is your
attitude, I don't care to consult you; I shall go ahead with this
matter in my own way.”
“Look here, McTavish!” The voice was suddenly calm, but its timbre
held a note that drew Donald's immediate attention. “Do you realize,
when you say that, that you are deliberately, and to my face, riding
over all authority, not only from the Company's standpoint, but
from a father's? I am talking to you now in coolness, and I ask
well-considered replies. Do you realize that you are damning yourself
forever in my sight by your words and your attitude?”
“I am sorry, sir,” replied the other, with genuine regret; “but,
in matters of this kind, I can only consult my own feelings and
determinations. You ask what is impossible of me; I ask what is
impossible of you. I think we had better separate while outwardly
calm to avoid any more useless and bitter words.”
“I am glad to know your attitude,” retorted the factor, dryly.
“Now, let me put to you one more question. I beseech you, for your
own good and happiness, to answer it as I wish. You may have a
week, if you like to think it over. I ask you, for the last time:
Will you give up all hope or thought of ever marrying Jean? Will
you promise never to see her or communicate with her again? Will
you retire to your post, and stay there until I can get you shifted
to the West?”
With the lover, there could be but one answer, but, for some almost
occult reason, he hesitated. The tone, grave, portentous, almost
menacing, the paternal, kindly attitude, the pleading that
unconsciously crept through the other's words; all these gave Donald
to know that some crisis was at hand. For an instant, he thought
of the silent, heavy moment before the breaking of a summer
thunder-storm; and, mentally, he prepared himself for some sort of
a shock—what, he did not know. Then, finally, he answered the
factor's questions.
“I do not need a week, a day, or an hour, to think these matters
over,” he said. “All I can give is a final and inclusive, 'No!' to
all of them.”
The factor stirred in his place, as much as his wounded shoulder
would permit. All the paternal was gone from him now, and all the
pleading. The eye that regarded the young man glittered balefully,
and the lips were parted in a cruel smile.
“Well, sir,” he cried, almost triumphantly, “I shall have to tell
you then that it is impossible for you to marry Jean under any
circumstances.”
“Why?”
“Because, sir, you are not the legitimate son of Donald McTavish,
chief commissioner of this company. You have no standing, and can
inherit no money. If you are lucky, you may marry the daughter of
a half-breed some time; but a white girl, even a poor white trapper's
daughter, wouldn't have you.” He stopped, and watched cunningly
the effect of his words... This was the sweetest moment of his life.
Donald, for his part, smiled easily. This was merely the fabrication
of a feverish brain, he told himself.
“Will you kindly explain your assertion, sir?” he asked. “You
haven't yet made yourself quite clear.”
“I mean,” said Fitzpatrick bluntly, “that, before your father
married your mother in Montreal, he had contracted a previous
marriage in the hunting-ground; a marriage amply attested, of which
the certificate still exists. That, of course, makes his second
marriage in Montreal illegal, makes him a bigamist, and you
illegitimate. Moreover (and this is the best joke of all), unknown
to him a son was born, to his first marriage, and that son, according
to law, should inherit the family wealth and position. Now—”
“Stop! Stop! You fiend!” shouted Donald, his hands to his ears,
and a look of fury on his face. “Oh, God! If you weren't lying
there, if your white hairs didn't protect you, I swear to heaven
I'd kill you, if I swung for it. What you have made of my mother!
What you have made of her!” It was characteristic of his nature
that he thought of some one else in a crisis. So it had been in
his boyhood; so it was now when the structure of his life came
tumbling about his ears, just when it had seemed for a little while
most beautiful.
The triumph died out of Fitzpatrick's face, and was supplanted by
an expression of fear. But few times had he ever felt fear, bodily
fear. This was one of them. Yet, since there was nothing to say,
he kept silent. Donald walked up and down aimlessly, until he had
won some measure of control over himself, his body shuddering with
the struggle. Then, he faced his persecutor.
“How do you know this?” he asked, in a thin voice he scarcely
recognized as his own. “What proof have you? Where did you learn
it? If you can't show indisputable proofs for every word you say,
I'll have you bounded out of the Company like a dog. I'll hound
you over the face of the earth. I'll never let you rest, until
you drop into your grave, and then I'll keep your stinking memory
green as long as I live.”
Fitzpatrick smiled evilly beneath his mustache.
“And, if you do,” he asked, “how about—Jean?”
Trapped by his own vindictiveness, Donald could only groan aloud.
“Jean, Jean!” he muttered in desolation of spirit, “I wish she were
here now.” Then, to Fitzpatrick: “You said there was a certificate.
Where is it? Who has it? Who is the woman?”
“That I won't tell you.”
In one bound, Donald had leaped to the side of the bunk. He seized
the factor by his wounded shoulder, and shook savagely, growling
between his teeth: “You won't, eh, you won't tell me? I'll see
about that!”
The old man, in mortal agony, strove to writhe out of the iron
clutch. He tried to call for help, but the pain was too great for
words. Finally, a bellow like that of a wounded bull escaped from
between his grinding teeth.
“Ye-es, stop—I'll tell—oh, my God—stop!”
Donald released his hold, and the factor, with closed eyes, dropped
back, half-fainting, upon the bunk, where he lay breathing
stertorously.
“Speak! Who is the woman?” Donald commanded.
“Maria, the old squaw,” came the gasping reply.
“Has she the certificate?”
“Yes, I think so; I'm not sure. She had it last summer.”
“And this—this son you speak of, is—?” Donald could not say the
name.
“Charley Seguis.”
Bewildered, distraught, blinded, Donald turned on his heel, and,
groping for support, staggered from the cabin.
