IMPORTANT LETTERS.
"Circumstances are like clouds, continually gathering and bursting."
Keats.
The manager of the A1 Shipping and Transportation Company was sitting in his office in the largest building in the main street of the town of Skaguay in the far-away North-West. That office was the centre of the business activities of an immense district, and the work of its manager demanded much time and energy.
He was not an old man, but his hair was gray and his forehead lined and furrowed. A pair of piercing dark eyes looked from beneath thick grizzled eyebrows. It was a strong and striking face, severe in its lines, but when lit up by one of its rare smiles the hardness disappeared in a wonderful way. He was sitting at his desk apparently studying some papers that lay before him, but there was a dreamy, far-away look in his eyes which told that his thoughts had travelled beyond the walls of his office and the business of the day.
"Two of them," he muttered, turning over the papers. He took one up and began to read as follows:—
"Dear Davidson,—You were good enough to say that you would be glad to hear from me when I had reached home again, and the suggestion was one more addition to the numerous kindnesses I received from you during my visit to your part of the world, and for which I once more thank you most heartily. Through your instrumentality I was enabled to see into the life of the country and to catch the spirit of its people in a way which I could not otherwise have done, and I am very grateful to you.
"I do not intend to talk about myself, however, but about you. Do you remember the one and only occasion on which you allowed me to see something of the real man beneath the outer shell of the genial manager of the A1 S. and T. Co.? Pardon me if I hurt your feelings by alluding to a painful subject, but I have my reasons, as you will see later. On that occasion I remember that I, like a blundering fool, got on to the subject of my return home to my wife and child, and I began telling you of my Maud—her sweet ways, her looks, her cleverness, and all that. You had confessed to feeling a bit 'under the weather' that day, and I said, 'Why don't you take a holiday and pay a visit to the old country with me?' 'The old country!' you said. 'Why, man, I haven't seen it for fifteen years. It has no attractions for me now. If I had a child living, I would be a different man.' And there was such a world of sadness in your tone that I'm blest if I didn't have to get up and look out of the window. Then you told me how your wife had died, back in the old country, and how all your hopes had died with her; and from the way you spoke I guessed that you were not in the habit of telling your story, and I felt honoured by your confidence. Then you showed me a locket with a picture of your wife inside it, and attached to the locket was the half of a coin. 'We split this for luck when we were young and foolish,' you said, and your laugh was one of the most heartbreaking sounds I ever heard in my life. Well now, having got to my point at last, it is my firm belief that you have a child living, and by all accounts as sweet a little maiden as the heart of man could wish, and the discovery came about in a very simple way.
"Some two years ago my brother took a place in Scotland, at Heathermuir, near Morristown. While I was on my travels my wife and daughter went up there to visit them twice, and Maud made the acquaintance of a girl named Marjory Davidson. She goes by the nickname of 'Hunter's Marjory'—I suppose, because she lives with an old uncle at his place called Hunters' Brae. I did not pay much attention to Maud's chatter, for it was a great mixture of shut-up rooms, ghosts, old houses, oak chests, boating, drowning, and all the rest of it. Of course I never for one moment connected this child with you in any way—that is, not until yesterday. There had been some talk about summer holiday plans, and wonderings as to what my brother was going to do, for there had been vague rumours of his coming south with his wife and girl.
"'By the way, Maud,' said my wife, 'before we leave town I want to buy a really nice present for Marjory.'
"'A reward for saving my precious life, I suppose,' said mischievous Maud. This Marjory did some very plucky thing when they were out boating together. I don't quite know what it was, but it doesn't matter at present.
"'No,' said my wife, 'not that exactly, but a little keepsake—something that will last.'
"'You're afraid she'll forget, like you do, mother dear.'
"At this juncture, with a feeble attempt at correction, I intimated to Miss Maud that she was impertinent to her mother.
"'Mother understands—don't you, darling?' was the reply; and mother was immediately nearly hugged to death, and I got nothing but a crushing look. But to resume.
"'What would you think of a gold chain?' asked my wife.
"'She's got one.'
"'No; because she wears it inside her dress. She showed it to me once, and there is a dear little locket on it, with a picture of her mother inside, and a half coin with a hole in it—a Jubilee one.'
"I started up at this, and gave those two such a cross-examining as they never had in their lives. They thought at first that I had taken leave of my senses. But I've got the whole story now, and I am quite convinced that this Marjory Davidson, whose father's name was Hugh, and who has lived in hopes, ever since she could think, that her father might turn up, is your daughter, though it is a mystery to me why you did not know of her existence. But come and see for yourself. I made my wife and daughter promise to say nothing. I gather that there was some trouble between you and the old man, so it's best for us to keep our own counsel for the present. I hope you won't think me an interfering ass, but I haven't a doubt in my mind that it is as I say—you have got a child to live for, and the sooner you come and see her the better. Let me know when to expect you, and I'll come and look after you. Make your headquarters with us as long as you like.—Believe me yours faithfully,
Hilary Forester."
Mr. Davidson laid this letter aside and took up another one. It was written in a large, irregular hand, and ran as follows:—
"The Low Farm, Heathermuir,
Northshire, Scotland.
"Dear Sir,—I take the liberty of writing you this letter, hoping it finds you well, as it leaves me at present. I wish to tell you that it's all serene now with me and my wife, she having forgiven all bygones and let them be. Your kindness to me whilst I was laid up at your God-forsaken place—begging your pardon, sir, but I was anxious to be off again, as you know—but your kindness, as I say, and good advice, was such that I make bold to dare and ask you to forgive bygones, like as my good wife has done. I'm sure your Miss Marjory is as sweet a young lady as you could wish to see, and your living image, eyes and hair and all. It is said about here—begging your pardon, sir—that, because the old man was rough on you, you won't acknowledge or take notice of your child. They say he's too proud to ask you to come home; and she, poor lamb, don't even know that she has a father. Things ain't as they ought to be altogether in this world, but you can do a deal to put some of them straight, sir, if I may make bold to say so. It is some time since I seen you, but directly my wife told me Miss Marjory's name and story, I knew you was her father. I haven't breathed of this to any one, let alone Miss Marjory herself, but I am sure that if you was to come you would see that I am right. I do beg your pardon if anything I have written is not as it should be betwixt you and me, sir; but I am now so happy myself through the forgiving of old bygones that I am all for trying to make things straight; which, hoping you will soon do, I am your obedient servant,
"Samuel Higgs Shaw."
Mr. Davidson smiled as he put down Captain Shaw's letter. He had received both the communications within a mail of each other, and one supplied information that the other lacked. He had turned the matter over in his mind this way and that, and he now felt very little doubt that this Marjory Davidson was indeed his child. And yet why should the fact that he had a child have been kept from him all these years? What reason could his brother-in-law have had for withholding the knowledge from him? It was all a mystery. He looked back over the lonely years since his wife's death, remembering how in the bitterness of his grief he had thrown himself heart and soul into his work, and had laid the foundations of a fortune. He thought of the time when the rush of gold-seekers to the Klondike had first started, and he had left the company he then represented to start on his own account in the shipping and transportation business, seeing at once that here was a certain road to success. And so it had proved, for to-day his was the best-known and most highly-respected name in all that broad region. But there had been times such as that to which Mr. Hilary Forester had alluded in his letter—when money, success, popularity, all seemed as nothing compared with a wife, a home, a child to love him. He envied the poorest labourer with these blessings. He now felt like a man in a dream. Fifteen years! He saw in fancy the little child he would have loved to take upon his knee; the growing girl learning her first lessons. How he would have cared for her and watched over her, trying to be both father and mother to the motherless child! Now she was growing quickly to womanhood, and he knew nothing of her, nor she of him. A great wave of indignation against his brother-in-law swept over him; it was a downright crime to have kept him in ignorance all these years, and the man should be brought to book. All the old bitterness against his wife's unreasonable brother took hold of him, and Captain Shaw's suggestion as to the forgetting of bygones seemed for a time little likely to be acted upon. But this mood passed, and then a great tenderness towards this unknown daughter of his welled up in his heart, and he made up his mind. He would go as soon as he could, and find out the truth.
Other influences were at work to bring about this meeting of father and child. Dr. Hunter, yielding at last to the voice of conscience, had written to Hugh Davidson, but he had sent the letter to the care of the company to which he had belonged in the old days. This company had since gone out of existence, and the letter had come back, as Mary Ann had told Marjory, and nothing more was done for a time.
Mrs. Forester, ever since the beginning of their acquaintance, had made periodical attacks upon the doctor, declaring that it was his duty to take steps to bring back Marjory's father. It must be remembered that Mrs. Forester knew nothing of the part Dr. Hunter had played, and blamed the cold-heartedness of a man who could leave his child unclaimed for fifteen years.
While Marjory was ill, Mrs. Forester renewed the attack with many arguments. At last one day, in a moment of expansion, the doctor confessed what he had done. In the face of Mrs. Forester's amazed displeasure, his reasons for his conduct seemed absurdly inadequate. She told him in no measured terms exactly what she thought of him, and indignantly reproached him for the course which he had taken. She quite pooh-poohed the suggestion that Hugh Davidson might be dead, as the letter had come back.
"I know he isn't dead," she protested. "I feel it as strongly as if he were standing before me at this moment. That child's father is alive, Dr. Hunter, and you have got to find him!"
The doctor made a mental reflection as to the "queerness" of women, with their intuitions and unfounded assertions, without reason or logic to guide them, but before he and Mrs. Forester parted that day he had promised to take steps at once. In the end he decided to go to America and meet face to face the man he had wronged, and ask his forgiveness. It was the least he could do. One stipulation he made: Marjory must not know the real object of his journey, in case nothing came of it.
The first step was to find out where Hugh Davidson was likely to be found, if alive. Dr. Hunter felt as though he were beginning to search for the proverbial needle in a haystack; but by Mrs. Forester's advice he entrusted the matter to his lawyers, and in an incredibly short space of time he heard from them that the man he wanted was now the manager of the A1 Shipping and Transportation Company at Skaguay, Alaska, the largest organization of its kind in that part of the world.
So the doctor made up his mind to go in search of his brother-in-law. His friends the Foresters (he told no one else of his real intentions) tried to dissuade him, representing to him the length of the journey and its fatigues, the heat at that time of the year, and any and every reason they could think of to alter his purpose. But the doctor did nothing by halves, and having once realized the great wrong he had done, he would not spare himself anything till he had tried to make reparation, and it seemed that a personal meeting could do more in that direction than any number of letters.
"Besides," he said, "it'll do me good. I begin to think that I've kept myself and Marjory shut up too long. I shall never be anything but an old fogey, but a little change and knocking about may make me a more agreeable one."
The scientific meetings at New York served as a plausible excuse for his going, and the Foresters kept his secret.
Marjory felt as if she were living in a dream, such impossible things seemed to be happening. Could it be true that she was going to London, and her uncle to New York? One thing she begged of the doctor: that they might both be at home again in time for her birthday—that important fifteenth one when she was to see and know so much; and her uncle promised that it should be so if possible.
If the skies had suddenly fallen, Lisbeth and Peter could hardly have been more surprised than they were when the doctor announced his plans for his and Marjory's departure. Such a thing had never happened before, and they felt doubtful that they would ever see their master again if he went to "foreign parts." But when they became more accustomed to the idea, it lost some of its terrors, and they began to take a keen interest in the preparations for departure.
The house was to be left in charge of Lisbeth and Peter, who, as their master knew, would take care of it as if it were their own.
"Look after Miss Marjory's room," he said to Lisbeth one day.
"Ay, an' I will that," responded the old woman. "It's to be Marjory's ain come she's fifteen, an' that's no sae lang."
The doctor had always spoken of his sister as Miss Marjory; he had never got into the habit of speaking of her as Mrs. Davidson to his servants, and it was always "Miss Marjory's room" to them.
There was quite a little crowd at the station to see them off on the day of their departure. The Foresters and Marjory and her uncle all went together to Liverpool, so that Marjory might be able to see the doctor start on his voyage.
It was a time of wonder to the country girl, who had never seen any place larger than Morristown. The long journey, as it seemed to her, the many crowded streets of the city, the noise and bustle of the docks, bewildered her, and she hardly knew whether she enjoyed these new sensations or not, they were so overpowering.
When at last it was time to say good-bye to her uncle, she clung to him, begging him not to go and leave her. "Take me with you," she sobbed. Poor Marjory! it was her first parting, and she had not realized what it would mean. This great ship towering above her like a monster ready to swallow her uncle out of her sight, the unknown miles of ocean that lay between him and his destination—all this seemed terrible to the girl. She could not let him go without her.
The doctor folded her in his arms, kissing her many times. "There, there, my child; it won't be very long before I come back, and I hope you will be very glad to see me. Be brave now, and wish me a good voyage. Good-bye, my own little girl." And he was obliged to put her from him. She was led down the gangway by Mr. Forester; blinded by her tears, she could not see the way before her. People crowded behind them, there was much shouting of good-byes, the clatter of gangways being withdrawn, a straining and creaking of ropes, a throbbing of engines, and the great ship began to move—stealthily, it seemed to Marjory, as though it knew the heartaches it was causing, and felt ashamed of its part in tearing so many people away from their friends.
"Come, cheer up, Marjory," urged Mrs. Forester. "Give your uncle a smile to take with him. Wave your handkerchief—quick! they're off!"
Marjory's kind friends stayed with her until nothing more could be seen. She watched the tall, bent figure standing at the rail until it merged into the misty outline of the ship. She strained her eyes to the very last, and then she turned away, white and trembling and tearful.
"I didn't know I should care so much," she whispered half apologetically to Mrs. Forester.
"You see, you are such good friends with your uncle now, dear, that it is very hard to part with him, I know; but cheer up, and look forward to his coming home. It won't be very long."
Blanche had thoroughly enjoyed her visit to the docks. Mr. Forester had taken her over the ship; she had seen the saloons and staterooms, and had been on to the captain's bridge, and thought it great fun. She was sorry for Marjory's trouble, but she could hardly see the reason for its intensity. She had often been parted from her father for more than two months, which was all the time the doctor expected to be away. Dr. Hunter never made much fuss over Marjory that she could see—"Nothing like daddy does over me," she reflected. Still, it was very sweet of Marjory to care so much.
Yes, Marjory did care. She had grown to love dearly the silent, stern man who had been father and mother to her. He was gone. Her life would be strangely empty without him, and she would count the days until he came back to her.