CHAPTER XIV.
MY WELCOME TO CANADA
The voyage across the Atlantic was long and uneventful. No whales,no icebergs, no excitement of any sort. My fellow-passengers saidit was as dull as it was calm. But as for me, I had plenty to occupymy mind meanwhile. Strange things had happened in the interval, andwere happening to me on the way. Strange things, in part, of my owninternal history.
For before I left England, as I sat with Aunt Emma in her littledrawing-room at Barton-on-the-Sea, discussing my plans and devisingroutes westward, she made me, quite suddenly, an unexpectedconfession.
"Una," she said, after a long pause, "you haven't told me, my dear,why you're going to Canada. And I don't want to ask you. I knowpretty well. We needn't touch upon that. You're going to hunt upsome supposed clue to the murderer."
"Perhaps so, Auntie," I said oracularly: "and perhaps not."
For I didn't want it to get talked about and be put into all thenewspapers. And I knew now if I wanted to keep it out, I must firstbe silent.
Aunt Emma drew nearer and took my hand in hers. At the same time,she held up the other scarred and lacerated palm.
"Do you know when I got that, Una?" she asked with a sudden burst."Well, I'll tell you, my child.... It was the night of your father'sdeath. And I got it climbing over the wall at The Grange, to escapedetection."
My blood ran cold once more. What on earth could this mean? HadAuntie--? But no. I had the evidence of my own senses that it wasCourtenay Ivor. I'd tracked him down now. There was no room fordoubt. The man on the wagon was the man who fired the shot. I couldhave sworn to that bent back, of my own knowledge, among a thousand.
I hadn't long to wait, however. Auntie went on after a short pause.
"I was there," she said, "by accident, trying for once to see you."
I looked at her fixedly still, and still I said nothing.
"I was stopping with friends at the time, ten miles off fromWoodbury," Aunt Emma went on, smoothing my hand with hers, "and Ilonged so to see you. I came over by train that day, and stoppedlate about the town in hopes I might meet you in the street. But Iwas disappointed. Towards evening I ventured even to go into thegrounds of The Grange, and look about everywhere on the chance thatI might see you. Perhaps your father might be out. I went roundtowards the window, which I now know to be the library. As I went, Isaw a bicycle leaning up against the wall by the window. I thoughtthat must be some visitor, but still I went on. But just as Ireached the window, I saw a flash of electric light; and by thelight, I could make out your father's head and beard. He looked asif he were talking angrily and loudly to somebody. The window wasopen. I was afraid to stop longer. In a sudden access of fear, I ranacross the shrubbery towards the garden-wall. To tell you the truth,I was horribly frightened. Why, I don't know; for nothing hadhappened as yet. I suppose it was just the dusk and the mean senseof intrusion."
She paused and wiped her brow. I sat still, and listened eagerly.
"Presently," she went on, very low, "as I ran and ran, I heardbehind me a loud crash--a sound as of a pistol-shot. That terrifiedme still more. I thought I was being pursued. Perhaps they took mefor a burglar. In the agony of my terror, I rushed at the wall inmad haste, and climbed over it anyhow. In climbing, I tore my hand,as you see, and made myself bleed, oh, terribly! However, Ipersevered, and got down on the other side, with my clothes verylittle the worse for the scramble. And, fortunately, I was carryinga small light dust-cloak: I put it on at once, and it covered upeverything. Then I began to walk along the road as fast as I couldin the direction of the station. As I did so, a bicycle shot outfrom the gate in the opposite direction, going as hard as it couldspin, simply flying towards Whittingham. Three minutes later, a mancame up to me, breathless. It was the gardener at The Grange, Ibelieve.
"'Have you seen anybody go this way?' he asked. 'A young man,running hard? A young man in knickerbockers?'
"'N--no,' I answered, trembling; for I was afraid to confess. 'Not asoul has gone past!'
"Of course, I didn't know of the murder as yet; and I only wanted toget off unperceived to the station.
"I'd bound up my hand in my handkerchief by that time, and held ittight under my cloak. I went back by train unnoticed, and returnedto my friends' house. I hadn't even told them I was going toWoodbury at all. I pretended I'd been spending the day atWhittingham. Next morning, I read in the paper of your father'smurder."
I stared hard at Aunt Emma.
"Why didn't you tell me this long ago?" I cried, in an agony ofsuspense. "Why didn't you give evidence and say so at the inquest?"
"How could I?" Aunt Emma answered, looking back at me appealingly."The circumstances were too suspicious. As it was, everybody wasrunning after the young man in knickerbockers. Nobody took anynotice of a little old lady in a long grey dust-cloak. But if onceI'd confessed and shown my wounded hand, who would ever havebelieved I'd nothing to do with the murder?--except you, perhaps,Una. Oh no: I came back here to my own home as fast as ever I could;for I was really ill. I took to my bed at once. And as nobody calledme to give evidence at the inquest, I said nothing to anybody."
"But the bicycle!" I cried. "The bicycle! You ought to havementioned that. You were the only one who saw it. It was a clue tothe murderer."
"If I'd told," Aunt Emma answered, "I should never have been allowedto take charge of you at all. I thought my one clear duty was to mysister's child: it was to take care of your health in your shatteredcondition. And even now, Una, I tell you only for this: if you findout anything new, in Canada or here, try not to drag me into it. Icouldn't stand the strain. Cross-examination would kill me."
"I'll remember it, auntie," I said, wearied out with excitement."But I think you did wrong, all the same. In a case like this, it'severybody's first duty to tell all he knows, in the interests ofjustice."
However, this confession of Aunt Emma's rendered one thing morecertain to me than ever before. I was sure I was on the right tracknow, after Courtenay Ivor. The bicycle clinched the proof.
But I said nothing as yet to the police, or to my friendlyInspector. I was determined to hunt the whole thing up on my ownaccount first, and then deliver my criminal, when fully secured, tothe laws of my country.
Not that I was vindictive. Not that I wanted to punish the man. No;I shrank terribly from the task. But to relieve myself from thispersistent sense of surrounding mystery, and to free others fromsuspicion, I felt compelled to discover him. It seemed to me like aduty laid upon me from without. I dared not shirk it.
On the way out to Quebec, the sea seemed to revive strange memories.I had never crossed it before, except long, long ago, on my way homefrom Australia. And now that I sat on deck, in a wicker-chair, andlooked at the deep dark waves by myself, I began once more, in vaguesnatches, to recall that earlier voyage. It came back to me all ofitself. And that was quite in keeping with my previous recollections.My past life, I felt sure, was unfolding itself slowly to me inregular succession, from childhood onward.
Sitting there on the quarter-deck, gazing hard at the waves, Iremembered how I had played on a similar ship years and yearsbefore, a little girl in short frocks, with my mamma in a longfolding-chair beside me. I could see my mamma, with a sort offrightened smile on her poor pale face; and she looked so unhappy.My papa was there too, somewhat older and greyer--very unlike thepapa of my first Australian picture. His face was so much hairier.Mamma cried a good deal at times, and papa tried to comfort her.Besides, what struck me most, there was no more baby. I wasn't evenallowed to speak about baby. That subject was tabooed--perhapsbecause it always made mamma cry so much, and press me hard to herbosom. At any rate, I remembered how once I spoke of baby to somefellow-passenger in the saloon, and papa was very angry, and caughtme up in his arms and took me down to my berth; and there I had tostop all day by myself (though it was rolling hard) and could haveno fruit for dinner, because I'd been naughty. I was strictlyenjoined never to mention baby to anyone again, either then or atany time. I was to
forget all about her.
Day after day, as we sailed on, reminiscences of the same sortcrowded thicker and thicker upon me. Never reminiscences of my laterlife, but always early scenes brought up by distinct suggestionof that Australian voyage. When we passed a ship, it burst upon mehow we'd passed such ships before: when there was fire-drill ondeck, I remembered having assisted years earlier at just suchfire-drill. The whole past came back like a dream, so that I couldreconstruct now the first five or six years of my life almostentirely. And yet, even so there was a gap, a puzzle, a difficultysomehow. I couldn't make the chronology of this slow-returningmemory fit in as it ought with the chronology of the facts given tome by Aunt Emma and the Moores of Torquay. There was a constantdiscrepancy. It seemed to me that I must be a year or two older atleast than they made me out. I remembered the voyage home far toowell for my age. I fancied I went back further in my Australianrecollections than would be possible from the dates Aunt Emmaassigned me.
Slowly, as I compared these mental pictures of my first childhoodone with the other, a strange fact seemed to loom forth,incomprehensible, incredible. When first it struck me, all unnervedas I was, my reason staggered before it. But it was true, none theless: quite true, I felt certain. Had I had two papas, then?--forthe pictures differed so. Was one, clean-shaven, trim, and in alinen coat, the same as the other, older, graver, and sterner, withmuch hair on his face, and a rough sort of look, whom I saw morepersistently in my later childish memories? I could hardly believeit. One man couldn't alter so greatly in a few short years. Yet Ithought of them both alike quite unquestioningly as papa: I thoughtof them too, I fancied, in a dim sort of way, as one and the sameperson.
These fresh mysteries occupied my mind for the greater part of thatuneventful voyage. To throw them off, I laughed and talked as muchas possible with the rest of the passengers. Indeed, I gained thereputation of being "an awfully jolly girl," so heartily did I throwmyself into all the games and amusements, to escape from the burdenof my pressing thoughts: and I believe many old ladies on board werethoroughly scandalised that a woman whose father had been brutallymurdered should ever be able to seem so bright and lively again. Howlittle they knew! And what a world of mystery seemed to oppress andsurround me!
At last, early one morning, we reached the Gulf, and took in ourpilot off the Straits of Belleisle. I was on deck at the time,playing a game called "Shovelboard." As the pilot reached the ship,he took the captain's hand, and, to my immense surprise, said in anaudible voice:
"So you've the famous Miss Callingham for a passenger, I hear, thisvoyage. There's the latest Quebec papers. You'll see you're lookedfor. Our people are expecting her."
I rushed forward, fiery hot, and with a trembling hand took one ofthe papers he was distributing all round, right and left, to thepeople on deck. It was unendurable that the memory of that one eventshould thus dog me through life with such ubiquitous persistence. Itore open the sheet. There, with horrified eyes, I read this hatefulparagraph, in the atrociously vulgar style of Transatlanticjournalism:
"The Sarmatian, expected off Belleisle to-morrow morning, bringsamong her passengers, as we learn by telegram, the famous UnaCallingham, whose connection with the so-called Woodbury Mystery isnow a matter of historical interest. The mysterious two-souled ladypossesses, at present, all her faculties intact, as before themurder, and is indeed, people say, a remarkably spry and intelligentyoung person; but she has most conveniently forgotten all the eventsof her past life, and more particularly the circumstances of herfather's death, which is commonly conjectured to have been due tothe pistol of some unknown lover. Such freaks of memory are common,we all know, in the matter of small debts and of newspapersubscriptions, but they seldom extend quite so far as the violentdeath of a near relation. However, Una knows her own business best.The Sarmatian is due alongside the Bonsecours Quay at 10 a.m. onWednesday, the 10th; and all Quebec will, no doubt, be assembled atthe landing-stage to say 'Good-morning' to the two-souled lady."
The paper dropped from my hand. This was too horrible for anything!How I was ever to go through the ordeal of the landing at Quebecafter that, I hadn't the faintest conception. And was I to be doggedand annoyed like this through all my Canadian trip by anonymousscribblers? Had these people no hearts? no consideration for thesensitiveness of an English lady?
I looked over the side of the ship at the dark-blue water. Oh, howI longed to plunge into it and be released for ever from thisabiding nightmare!