CHAPTER X.
When the night train left Turrifs Station it thundered on into the darkness slowly enough, but, what with bumping over its rough rails and rattling its big cars, it seemed anxious to deceive its passengers into the idea that it was going at great speed. A good number of its cars were long vans for the carriage of freight; behind these came two for the carriage of passengers. These were both labelled "First Class." One was devoted to a few men, who were smoking; the other was the one from which Trenholme had descended. Its seats, upholstered in red velvet, were dusty from the smoke and dirt of the way; its atmosphere, heated by a stove at one end, was dry and oppressive. It would have been impossible, looking at the motley company lounging in the lamplight, to have told their relations one to another; but it was evident that an uncertain number of young people, placed near the lady who held the baby, were of the same party; they slept in twos and threes, leaning on one another's shoulders and covered by the same wraps. It was to seats left vacant near this group that the man and his wife who had procured the milk returned. The man, who was past middle life, betook himself to his seat wearily, and pulled his cap over his eyes without speaking. His wife deposited the mug of milk in a basket, speaking in low but brisk tones to the lady who held the baby.
"There, Sophia; I've had to pay a shilling for a cupful, but I've got some milk."
"I should have thought you would have been surer to get good milk at a larger station, mamma." She did not turn as she spoke, perhaps for fear of waking the sleeping baby.
The other, who was the infant's mother, was rapidly tying a shawl round her head and shoulders. She was a little stout woman, who in middle age had retained her brightness of eye and complexion. Her features were regular, and her little nose had enough suggestion of the eagle's beak in its form to preserve her countenance from insignificance.
"Oh, my dear," she returned, "as to the milk—the young man looked quite clean, I assure you; and then such a large country as the cows have to roam in!"
Having delivered herself of this energetic whisper, she subsided below the level of the seat back, leaving Sophia to sit and wonder in a drowsy muse whether the mother supposed that the value of a cow's milk would be increased if, like Io, she could prance across a continent.
Sophia Rexford sat upright, with the large baby in her arms and a bigger child leaning on her shoulder. Both children were more or less restless; but their sister was not restless, she sat quite still. The attitude of her tall figure had the composure and strength in it which do not belong to first youth. Hers was a fine face; it might even be called beautiful; but no one now would call it pretty—the skin was too colourless, the expression too earnest.
Her eyes took on the look that tells of inward, rather than outward, vision. Her thoughts were such as she would not have told to any one, but not because of evil in them.
This was the lady to whom Robert Trenholme, the master of the college at Chellaston, had written his letter; and she was thinking of that letter now, and of him, pondering much that, by some phantasy of dreams, she should have been suddenly reminded of him by the voice of the man who had passed through the car with the milk.
Her mind flitted lightly to the past; to a season she had once spent in a fashionable part of London, and to her acquaintance with the young curate, who was receiving some patronage from the family with whom she was visiting. She had been a beauty then; every one danced to the tune she piped, and this curate—a mere fledgeling—had danced also. That was nothing. No, it was nothing that he had, for a time, followed lovesick in her train—she never doubted that he had had that sickness, although he had not spoken of it—all that had been notable in the acquaintance was that she, who at that time had played with the higher aims and impulses of life, had thought, in her youthful arrogance, that she discerned in this man something higher and finer than she saw in other men. She had been pleased to make something of a friend of him, condescending to advise and encourage him, pronouncing upon his desire to seek a wider field in a new country, and calling it good. Later, when he was gone, and life for her had grown more quiet for lack of circumstances to feed excitement, she had wondered sometimes if this man had recovered as perfectly from that love-sickness as others had done. That was all—absolutely all. Her life had lately come again into indirect relations with him through circumstances over which neither he nor she had had any control; and now, when she was about to see him, he had taken upon him to write and pick up the thread of personal friendship again and remind her of the past.
In what mood had he written this reminder? Sophia Rexford would surely not have been a woman of the world if she had not asked herself this question. Did he think that on seeing her again he would care for her as before? Did he imagine that intervening years, which had brought misfortune to her family, would bring her more within his grasp? Or was his intention in writing still less pleasing to her than this? Had he written, speaking so guardedly of past friendship, with the desire to ward off any hope she might cherish that he had remained unmarried for her sake? Sophia's lips did not curl in scorn over this last suggestion, because she was holding her little court of inquiry in a mental region quite apart from her emotions.
This woman's character was, however, revealed in this, that she passed easily from her queries as to what the man in question did, or would be likely to, think of her. A matter of real, possibly of paramount, interest to her was to wonder whether his life had really expanded into the flower of which she had thought the bud gave promise. She tried to look back and estimate the truth of her youthful instinct, which had told her he was a man above other men. And if that had been so, was he less or more now than he had been then? Had he been a benefit to the new country to which he had come? Had the move from the Old World to this—the decision in which she had rashly aided with youthful advice—been a good or a bad thing for him and for the people to whom he had come?
From this she fell a-thinking upon her own life as, in the light of Trenholme's letter, the contrast of her present womanly self with the bright, audacious girl of that past time was set strongly before her. It is probably as rare for any one really to wish to be the self of any former time—to wish to be younger—as it is really to wish to be any one else. Sophia certainly did not dream of wishing to be younger. We are seldom just to ourselves—either past or present: Sophia had a fine scorn for what she remembered herself to have been; she had greater respect for her present self, because there was less of outward show, and more of reality.
It might have been a quarter of an hour, it might have been more, since the train had last started, but now it stopped rather suddenly. Sophia's father murmured sleepily against the proximity of the stations. He was reclining in the seat just behind her.
Sophia looked out of her window. She saw no light. By-and-by some men came up the side of the track with lanterns. She saw by the light they held that they were officials of the train, and that the bank on which they walked looked perfectly wild and untrodden. She turned her head toward her father.
"We are not at any station," she remarked.
"Ay!" He got up with cumbrous haste, as a horse might rise. He, too, looked out of the window, then round at his women and children, and clad himself in an immense coat.
"I'll just go out," he whispered, "and see how things are. If there's anything wrong I'll let you know."
He intended his whisper to be something akin to silence; he intended to exercise the utmost consideration for those around him; but his long remark was of the piercing quality that often appertains to whispers, and, as he turned his back, two of the children woke, and a young girl in the seat in front of Sophia sat up, her grey eyes dilated with alarm.
"Sophia," she said, with a low sob, "oh, Sophia, is there something wrong?"
"Be quiet!" said Sophia, tartly.
The snoring mother now shut her mouth with a snap. In a twinkling she was up and lively.
"Has your father got on his overcoat, Sophia? Is there danger?" She darted from one side of the carriage to another, rubbing the moisture off each window with a bit of her shawl and speaking with rapidity.
Then she ran out of the car. Two of the children followed her. The others, reassured by Sophia's stillness, huddled together at the windows, shivering in the draught of cold air that came from the open door.
After some minutes Sophia's father came in again, leading his wife and children with an old-world gallantry that was apparent even in these unsatisfactory circumstances. He had a slow impressive way of speaking that made even his unimportant words appear important. In the present case, as soon as he began to speak most of the people in the car came near to hear.
Some obstruction, he said, had fallen across the line. It was not much; the men would soon remove it. An Indian woman, who lived near, had heroically lit a fire, and thus stopped the train in time. There was no other train due upon the road for many hours. There was no danger. There might have been a bad accident, but they had been providentially preserved.
His utterance greatly impressed the bystanders, for he was an important-looking gentleman; but long before he had finished speaking, the bright-eyed little mother had set her children into their various seats again, pulled their jackets close in front, rolled up their feet, patted their caps down on their heads, and, in fact, by a series of pokes and pulls, composed her family to sleep, or, at least, started them as far on the way to sleep as a family can be sent by such a method.
Quiet settled on the car again. Soon the train went on. Sophia Rexford, looking out, could dimly discern the black outline of wood and river. At length the window grew thicker and opaque. There was no sound of rain or hail, and yet something from without muffled the glass. Sophia slept again.
When the dawn of day at length stole upon them she found that snow had been upon the glass and had melted. Snow lay thick on the ledges of the windows outside. Yet in that part of the country in which they now were there was none on the ground. They seemed to have run a race with a snowstorm in the night, and to have gained it for the nonce. But the sight struck her sadly. The winter, which she dreaded, was evidently on their track.
It was in the first grey hour of dawn that the train steamed into the station, which was the junction for Quebec, and passengers bound for the English settlements south of that city were obliged to change.
For a few minutes before the train stopped the Rexford family had been booted and spurred, so to speak, ready for the transfer. Each young person was warmly buttoned up and tied into a warlike-looking muffler. Each had several packages in charge. A youth came in from the smoking-car and attached himself to them. When the train had come to a standstill the little French conductor was energetic in helping them to descend.
The family was very large, and, moreover, it was lively; its members were as hard to count as chickens of a brood. Sophia, holding the youngest child and the tickets, endeavoured to explain their number to the conductor.
"There are three children that go free," she said. "Then two little boys at half fare—that makes one ticket. Myself and three young ladies—make five tickets; my brother and father and mother—eight."
The sharp Frenchman looked dubious. "Three children free; two at half fare," he repeated. He was trying to see them all as he spoke.
Sophia repeated her count with terse severity.
"There was not another young lady?"
"Certainly not."
And Sophia was not a woman to be trifled with, so he punched the tickets and went back into his car.
Wooden platforms, a station hotel built of wood, innumerable lines of black rails on which freight trains stood idle, the whole place shut in by a high wooden fence—this was the prospect which met the eyes of the English travellers, and seen in the first struggling light of morning, in the bitter cold of a black frost, it was not a cheerful one. The Rexford family, however, were not considering the prospect; they were intent only on finding the warm passenger-car of the train that was to take them the rest of their journey, and which they had been assured would be waiting here to receive them.
This train, however, was not immediately to be seen, and, in the meantime, the broad platform, which was dusted over with dry frost crystals, was the scene of varied activities.
From the baggage-car of the train they had left, a great number of boxes and bags, labelled "Rexford," were being thrown down in a violent manner, which greatly distressed some of the girls and their father.
"Not that way. That is not the way. Don't you know that is not the way boxes should be handled?" shouted Captain Rexford sternly, and then, seeing that no one paid the slightest attention to his words, he was fain to turn away from the cause of his agitation. He took a brisk turn down the empty end of the platform, and stood there as a man might who felt that the many irritations of life were growing too much for his self-control.
The little boys found occupation because they observed that the white condensed vapour which came from their mouths with each breath bore great resemblance to the white steam a slowly moving engine was hissing forth. They therefore strutted in imitation of the great machine, emitting large puffs from their little warm mouths, and making the sound which a groom makes when he plies the curry-comb. The big brother was assisting in the unloading of a large carriage from an open van in the rear of the train, and Mrs. Rexford, neat, quick-moving, and excitable, after watching this operation for a few minutes and issuing several orders as to how it was to be done, moved off in lively search of the next train. She ran about, a few steps in each direction, looking at the various railway lines, and then accosted a tall, thin man who was standing still, doing nothing.
"Is the train for the Eastern Townships here? We were told it would be here waiting to receive us at daybreak. Is it here? Is it ready?"
Seeing from the man's face, as she had already seen from the empty tracks, that no such train was in readiness, she ran at one of the puffing and strutting children whose muffler was loose, and tied it up again. Then, struck by another thought, she returned to the impassive man whom she had before addressed.
"This is really the actual dawn, I suppose?" she asked, with an air of importance. "I have read that in some countries there is what is called a 'false dawn' that comes before the real one, you know."
Compelled now to speak, the man, who was a New Englander, took a small stick from between his teeth and said: "As far as I know, marm, this morning is genuine."
"Oh really"—with abatement of interest in her tone—"I thought perhaps there might be that sort of thing in Canada, you know—we certainly read of Northern Lights. Very strange that our train isn't here!"
The Yankee took the trouble to reply again, hardly moving a muscle of his face. "Keep a good heart, marm; it may come along yet, a-ridin' on these same Northern Lights."
"Riding on—? I beg your pardon—on what, did you say?" she asked eagerly.
At this the grey-eyed girl who had been frightened in the night plucked her by the sleeve and pulled her away. "Don't you see he's making fun of you, mamma?"
Besides the grey-eyed girl, who wore short frocks, there were two other girls in the first bloom of young-womanhood. One of these, having overheard the conversation, ran and told the other.
"Just because we happened to read of such a thing in that book of Asiatic travel! Isn't it absurd? And there's papa fuming at the other end of the station."
Both girls giggled.
"I know quite well that people will think us all crazy," urged the first speaker. Then they laughed again, not unhappily.
"There's not a doubt of it," gasped the other.
These two girls were very much alike, but one wore a red cloak and the other a blue one. In spite of the fact that they were somewhat bloused and a little grimy, and their pretty little noses were now nipped red by the icy morning, they looked attractive as they stood, pressing their handkerchiefs to their mouths and bending with laughter. The extent of their mirth was proportioned to their youth and excitement, not to the circumstances which called it forth.
The train they had left now moved off. Most of the other passengers who had alighted with them had taken themselves away in various directions, as travellers are apt to do, without any one else noticing exactly what had become of them.
Sophia, with the child in her arms, made her way to a mean waiting-room, and thither the children followed her. The mother, having at last ascertained the train would be ready in the course of time, soon came in also, and the father and brother, hearing it would not be ready for at least a quarter of an hour, went away to see the town.
There was a stove burning hotly in the small waiting-room. The only other furniture was a bench all round the wall. The family, that had entered somewhat tumultuously, almost filled it. There was only one other traveller there, a big girl with a shawl over her head and a bundle under her arm. When Sophia had come into the room alone with the baby, she had asked the girl one or two questions, and been answered civilly enough; but when the rest of the family followed, the girl relapsed into silence, and, after regarding them for a little while, she edged her way out of the room.
Mrs. Rexford, who in the excitement of change and bustle was always subject to being struck with ideas which would not have occurred to her mind at other times, suddenly remembered now that they were dependent upon the resources of the new country for domestic service, and that she had heard that no chance of securing a good servant must be lost, as they were very rare. Stating her thought hastily to Sophia, and darting to the narrow door without waiting for a reply, she stretched out her head with an ebullition of registry-office questions.
"My good girl!" she cried, "my good girl!"
The girl came back nearer the door and stood still.
"Do you happen to know of a girl about your age who can do kitchen work?"
"I don't know any one here. I'm travelling."
"But perhaps you would do for me yourself"—this half aside—"Can you make a fire, keep pots clean, and scour floors?"
"Yes." She did not express any interest in her assent.
"Where are you going? Would you not like to come with me and enter my service? I happen to be in need of just such a girl as you."
No answer.
"She doesn't understand, mamma," whispered the grey-eyed girl in a short frock, who, having wedged herself beside her mother in the narrow doorway, was the only one who could see or hear the colloquy. "Speak slower to the poor thing."
"Looks very stupid," commented Mrs. Rexford, hastily pulling in her head and speaking within the room. "But still, one must not lose a chance." Then with head again outside, she continued, "Do you understand me, my good girl? What is your name?"
"Eliza White."
"That is a very good name"—encouragingly. "Where do you live?"
"I used to live a good bit over there, in the French country." She pointed with her arm in a certain direction, but as the points of the compass had no existence for Mrs. Rexford's newly immigrated intelligence, and as all parts of Canada, near and remote, seemed very much in the same place in her nebulous vision of geography, the little information the girl had given was of no interest to her and she took little note of it.
"Did you come from Quebec just now?"
"Yes," replied the girl, after a moment's pause.
Then, in answer to further questions, she told a succinct tale. She said that her father had a farm; that he had died the week before; that she had no relatives in the place; that, having seen her father buried, she thought it best to come to an English-speaking locality, and wait there until she had time to write to her father's brother in Scotland.
"Sad, sad story! Lonely fate! Brave girl!" said Mrs. Rexford, shaking her head for a minute inside the waiting-room and rapidly repeating the tale.
"Yes, if it's true," said Sophia. But Mrs. Rexford did not hear, as she had already turned her head out of the door again, and was commending Eliza White for the course she had taken.
The grey-eyed Winifred, however, still turned inside to combat reproachfully Sophia's suspicions. "You would not doubt her word, Sophia, if you saw how cold and tired she looked."
Mrs. Rexford seemed to argue concerning the stranger's truthfulness in very much the same way, for she was saying:—
"And now, Eliza, will you be my servant? If you will come with me to Chellaston I will pay your fare, and I will take care of you until you hear from your uncle."
"I do not want to be a servant." The reply was stolidly given.
"What! do you wish to be idle?"
"I will work in your house, if you like; but I can pay my own fare in the cars, and I won't be a servant."
There was so much sullen determination in her manner that Mrs. Rexford did not attempt to argue the point.
"Take her, mamma," whispered Winifred. "How ill she seems! And she must be awfully lonely in this great country all alone."
Mrs. Rexford, having turned into the room, was rapidly commenting to Sophia. "Says she will come, but won't be called a servant, and can pay her own fare. Very peculiar—but we read, you know, in that New England book, that that was just the independent way they felt about it. They can only induce slaves to be servants there, I believe." She gave this cursory view of the condition of affairs in the neighbouring States in an abstracted voice, and summed up her remarks by speaking out her decision in a more lively tone. "Well, we must have some one to help with the work. This girl looks strong, and her spirit in the matter signifies less." Then, turning to the girl without the door: "I think you will suit me, Eliza. You can stay with us, at any rate, till you hear from your uncle. You look strong and clean, and I'm sure you'll do your best to please me"—this with warning emphasis. "Come in now to the warmth beside us. We can make room in here."
The place was so small and the family so large that the last assurance was not wholly unnecessary. Mrs. Rexford brought Eliza in and set her near the stove. The girls and children gathered round her somewhat curiously, but she sat erect without seeming to notice them much, an expression of impassive, almost hardened, trouble on her pale face. She was a very tall, strong girl, and when she dropped the shawl back a little from her head they saw that she had red hair.