The Impostor

Her aunt was a trifle less astonished than she would once have been, but before she could answer Witham, who had made a trifling change in his clothing, came in.

“I can give you some green tea, though I am afraid it might be a good deal better than it is, and our crockery is not all you have been used to,” he said. “You see, we have only time to think of one thing until the sowing is through.”

Miss Barrington’s eyes twinkled. “And then?”

“Then,” said Witham, with a little laugh, “there will be prairie hay to cut, and after that the harvest coming on.”

“In the meanwhile, it was business that brought me here, and I have a cheque with me,” said Maud Barrington. “Please let us get it over first of all.”

Witham sat down at a table and scribbled on a strip of paper. “That,” he said gravely, “is what you owe me for the ploughing.”

There was a little flush in his face as he took the cheque the girl filled in, and both felt somewhat grateful for the entrance of a man in blue jean with the tea. It was of very indifferent quality, and he had sprinkled a good deal on the tray, but Witham felt a curious thrill as he watched the girl pour it out at the head of the bare table. Her white dress gleamed in the light of a dusty window, and the shadowy cedar boarding behind her forced up each line of the shapely figure. Again the maddening temptation took hold of him and he wondered whether he had betrayed too much, when he felt the elder lady’s eyes upon him. There was a tremor in his brown fingers as he took the cup held out to him, but his voice was steady.

“You can scarcely fancy how pleasant this is,” he said. “For eight years, in fact, ever since I left England, no woman has ever done any of these graceful little offices for me.”

Miss Barrington glanced at her niece, and both of them knew that, if the lawyer had traced Courthorne’s past correctly, this could not be true. Still, there was no disbelief in the elder lady’s eyes, and the girl’s faith remained unshaken.

“Eight years,” she said, with a little smile, “is a very long while.”

“Yes,” said Witham, “horribly long, and one year at Silverdale is worth them all – that is, a year like this one, which is going to be remembered by all who have sown wheat on the prairie; and that leads up to something. When I have ploughed all my own holding I shall not be content, and I want to make another bargain. Give me the use of your unbroken land, and I will find horses, seed, and men, while we will share what it yields us when the harvest is in.”

The girl was astonished. This, she knew, was splendid audacity, for the man had already staken very heavily on the crop he had sown, and while the daring of it stirred her she sat silent a moment.

“I could lose nothing, but you will have to bring out a host of men and have risked so much,” she said. “Nobody but you, and I, and three or four others in all the province, are ploughing more than half their holdings.”

The suggestion of comradeship set Witham’s blood tingling, but it was with a little laugh he turned over the pile of papers on the table, and then took them up in turn.

“‘Very little ploughing has been done in the tracts of Minnesota previously alluded to. Farmers find wheat cannot be grown at present prices, and there is apparently no prospect of a rise,’” he said.

“‘The Dakota wheat-growers are mostly following. They can’t quite figure how they would get eighty cents for the dollar’s worth of seeding this year.’

“‘Milling very quiet in Winnipeg. No inquiries from Europe coming in, and Manitoba dealers generally find little demand for harrows or seeders this year. Reports from Assiniboia seem to show that the one hope this season will be mixed farming and the neglect of cereals.’”

“There is only one inference,” he said. “When the demand comes there will be nothing to meet it with.”

“When it comes,” said Maud Barrington quietly. “But you who believe it will stand alone.”

“Almost,” said Witham. “Still there are a few much cleverer men who feel as I do. I can’t give you all my reasons, or read you the sheaf of papers from the Pacific slope, London, New York, Australia; but, while men lose hope, and little by little the stocks run down, the world must be fed. Just as sure as the harvest follows the sowing, it will wake up suddenly to the fact that it is hungry. They are buying cotton and scattering their money in other nations’ bonds in the old country now, for they and the rest of Europe forget their necessities at times, but it is impossible to picture them finding their granaries empty and clamouring for bread?”

It was a crucial test of faith, and the man knew it, as the woman did. He stood alone, with the opinions of the multitude against him; but there was, Maud Barrington felt, a great if undefinable difference between his quiet resolution and the gambler’s recklessness. Once more the boldness of his venture stirred her, and this time there was a little flash in her eyes as she bore witness to her perfect confidence.

“You shall have the land, every acre of it, to do what you like with, and I will ask no questions whether you win or lose,” she said.

Then Miss Barrington glanced at him in turn. “Lance, I have a thousand dollars I want you to turn into wheat for me.”

Witham’s fingers trembled, and a darker hue crept into his tan. “Madam,” he said, “I can take no money from you.”

“You must,” said the little white-haired lady. “For your mother’s sake, Lance. It is a brave thing you are doing, and you are the son of one who was my dearest friend.”

Witham turned his head away, and both women wondered when he looked round again. His face seemed a trifle drawn, and his voice was strained.

“I hope,” he said slowly, “it will in some degree make amends for others I have done. In the meanwhile, there are reasons why your confidence humiliates me.”

Miss Barrington rose and her niece after her. “Still I believe it is warranted, and you will remember there are two women who have trusted you, hoping for your success. And now, I fancy, we have kept you too long.”

Witham stood holding the door open a moment, with his head bent, and then suddenly straightened himself.

“I can at least be honest with you in this venture,” he said, with a curious quietness.

Nothing further was said, but when his guests drove away Witham sat still awhile, and then went back very grim in face to his ploughing. He had passed other unpleasant moments of that kind since he came to Silverdale, and long afterwards the memory of them brought a flush to his face. The excuses he had made seemed worthless when he strove to view what he had done, and was doing, through those women’s eyes.

It was dusk when he returned to the homestead worn out in body but more tranquil in mind, and stopped a moment in the doorway to look back on the darkening sweep of the ploughing. He felt with no misgivings that his time of triumph would come, and in the meanwhile the handling of this great farm with all the aids that money could buy him was a keen joy to him; but each time he met Maud Barrington’s eyes he realized the more surely that the hour of his success must also see accomplished an act of abnegation, which he wondered with a growing fear whether he could find the strength for. Then as he went in a man who cooked for his hired assistants came to meet him.

“There’s a stranger inside waiting for you,” he said. “Wouldn’t tell me what he wanted, but sat right down as if the place was his and helped himself without asking to your cigars. Wanted something to drink, too, and smiled at me kind of wicked when I brought him the cider.”

The room was almost dark when Witham entered it and stood still a moment staring at a man who sat, cigar in hand, quietly watching him. His appearance was curiously familiar, but Witham could not see his face until he moved forward another step or two. Then he stopped once more, and the two, saying nothing, looked at one another. It was Witham who spoke first, and his voice was very even.

“What do you want here?” he asked.

The other man laughed. “Isn’t that a curious question when the place is mine? You don’t seem overjoyed to see me come to life again.”

Witham sat down and slowly lighted a cigar. “We need not go into that. I asked you what you want.”

“Well,” said Courthorne dryly, “it is not a great deal. Only the means to live in a manner more befitting a gentleman than I have been able to do lately.”

“You have not been prospering?” and Witham favoured his companion with a slow scrutiny.

“No,” and Courthorne laughed again. “You see, I could pick up a tolerable living as Lance Courthorne, but there is very little to be made at my business when you commence in new fields as an unknown man.”

“Well,” said Witham coldly, “I don’t know that it wouldn’t be better to face my trial than stay here at your mercy. So far as my inclinations go, I would sooner fight than have any further dealings with a man like you.”

Courthorne shook his head. “I fixed up the thing too well, and you would be convicted. Still, we’ll not go into that, and you will not find me unreasonable. A life at Silverdale would not suit me, and you know by this time that it would be difficult to sell the place, while I don’t know where I could find a tenant who would farm it better than you. That being so, it wouldn’t be good policy to bleed you too severely. Still, I want a thousand dollars in the meanwhile. They’re mine, you see.”

Witham sat still a minute. He was sensible of a fierce distrust and hatred of the man before him, but he felt he must at least see the consummation of his sowing.

“Then you shall have them on condition that you go away, and stay away, until harvest is over. After that I will send for you and shall have more to tell you. If in the meantime you come back here, or hint that I am Witham, I will surrender to the police or decide our differences in another fashion.”

Courthorne nodded. “That is direct,” he said. “One knows where he is when he deals with a man who talks as you do. Now, are you not curious as to the way I cheated both the river and the police?”

“No,” said Witham grimly, “not in the least. We will talk business together when it is necessary, but I can only decline to discuss anything else with you.”

Courthorne laughed. “There’s nothing to be gained by pretending to misunderstand you, but it wouldn’t pay me to be resentful when I’m graciously willing to let you work for me. Still, I have been inclined to wonder how you were getting on with my estimable relatives and connexions. One of them has, I hear, unbent a trifle towards you, but I would like to warn you not to presume on any small courtesy shown you by the younger Miss Barrington.”

Witham stood up and set his back to the door. “You heard my terms, but if you mention that lady again in connexion with me it would suit me equally well to make good all I owe you very differently.”

Courthorne did not appear in any way disconcerted, but before he could answer a man outside opened the door.

“Here’s Sergeant Stimson and one of his troopers wanting you,” he said.