Part 14 (1/2)
”You will have to stay in the Province, Jimmy. You can't go back to sea,” she said. ”Your father will need somebody beside him now.”
Jimmy only smiled, but the girl made a little gesture of comprehension.
”Oh,” she said, ”I know how hard it is for you. You will have to give up your career.”
”It can't be helped,” said the man simply, ”and I may make another here.”
Eleanor laid her hand on his arm, and pressed it. ”I knew you would face it like that. There's just one other thing. Hold on to that man Jordan; I think he will make you a good friend.”
”You like him?”
”That,” said Eleanor, ”is quite another matter. Anyway, he is a man who could be depended on--and I think he could be firm on points where you might waver. You are a little too good-natured, Jimmy.”
Jordan drove his team up before they had said much more, and Forster shook hands with Jimmy as he stood beside the vehicle.
”From what your sister has told us, I dare say you are a trifle anxious about--things in general--just now,” he said. ”If it is any relief to you, I would like to say that Mrs. Forster and I think very highly of your sister, and that so long as she cares to stay with us we should be very glad to do what we can for her.”
Jimmy thanked the rancher, and swung himself up into the vehicle, while Jordan turned to him as they drove away.
”They think very highly of her! They'd be--idiots if they didn't,” he said. ”Of course, I don't know if that's quite the kind of thing you appreciate from me.”
Jimmy said nothing, as was usual with him when he was not sure what he felt, but Jordan went on.
”I never expected to find you had a sister like that,” he said. ”She's very different from you in many ways. One feels that's a girl with 'most enough capacity for anything.”
Jimmy looked at him with a whimsical smile, and Jordan laughed.
”Now,” he said, ”I might have expressed myself differently. What I mean is that you're a good deal more like your father than she is.”
”Ah!” said Jimmy. ”Well, perhaps you're right. In fact, the same thing has struck me occasionally.”
CHAPTER XI
AT AUCTION
Jimmy went back to the ranch beside the Fraser once, but Jordan went without him several times, for Forster apparently found his company congenial. It happened that he contrived to see a good deal of Eleanor Wheelock during his visits, but neither of them mentioned this to Jimmy, who, indeed, would probably have concerned himself little about it had he heard of it, since he had other things to think about just then.
Merril had sent his father a formal notice that unless the money due should be paid by a certain time, the schooner would be sold as stipulated in the bond, and, though Tom Wheelock had expected nothing else, he apparently collapsed altogether under the final blow.
Jordan, who had just come back from Forster's ranch, arrived on board the _Tyee_ while the doctor was talking to Jimmy, and, strolling forward, he sat down on the windla.s.s and commenced a conversation with Prescott, with whom he had promptly made friends. In the meanwhile, Jimmy looked at the doctor a trifle wearily as he leaned on the rail.
”Perhaps my mind's not as clear as usual to-day, but these scientific terms don't convey very much to me,” he said.
”In plain English, then,” said the doctor, ”it is general break-down your father is suffering from, though it is intensified by a partial loss of control over the muscles on one side of him. The latter trouble is, perhaps, the result of what one might call const.i.tutional causes, but, as you seem to fancy, worry and nervous strain, or a shock of any kind, may have accelerated it or brought about the climax.”
”Well,” said Jimmy hoa.r.s.ely, ”the cure?”
The doctor's tone was sympathetic. ”To be quite frank, there is none. It is possible, even probable, that he may recover sufficiently to hobble about a little, but he will never be fit for any active occupation again.”
”Ah!” said Jimmy, with a little indrawing of his breath. ”Still, it is only what I expected, and I suppose I must face it. You are quite sure about that shock?”