Kitabı oku: «The Protector», sayfa 11

CHAPTER XXI – VANE YIELDS A POINT

The short afternoon was drawing towards its close when Vane came out of a building in Hastings Street, Vancouver.

“The meeting went satisfactorily, taking it all round,” he remarked to Carroll, who was with him.

“I think so,” agreed his companion. “But I’m far from sure that Horsfield was pleased with the stockholders’ decision.”

Vane nodded in a thoughtful manner. After returning from the mine, he had gone inland to examine a new irrigation property he had been asked to take an interest in, and had only got back in time for a meeting of the Clermont shareholders, which Nairn had arranged in his absence. The meeting was just over, and though Vane had been forced to yield to a majority on some points, he had secured the abandonment of a proposition he considered dangerous.

“Though I don’t see what the man could have gained by it, I’m inclined to believe that if Nairn and I had been absent he’d have carried his reconstruction scheme,” he said. “That wouldn’t have pleased me.”

“I thought it injudicious,” Carroll commented.

“It was only because we must raise more money I agreed to the issue of the new shares,” Vane went on. “We ought to pay a fair dividend on such a moderate sum.”

“You think you’ll get it?”

“I’ve not much doubt.”

Vane was capable and forceful; but his abilities were rather of a practical than a diplomatic order, and he was occasionally addicted to headstrong action. Knowing that he had a very cunning antagonist intriguing against him, his companion had misgivings.

“Shall we walk back to the hotel?” he asked.

“No,” said Vane; “I’ll go across and see how Celia Hartley’s getting on. I’m afraid I’ve been forgetting her.”

“Then I’ll come too. You may need me; there are matters you’re not to be trusted with alone.”

Just then Nairn came down the steps and waved his hand to them. “Ye will no forget that Mrs. Nairn is expecting both of ye this evening.”

He passed on, and they set off together across the city towards the district where Celia lived. Though the quarter in question may have been improved out of existence since, some little time ago rows of low-rented shacks stood upon mounds of sweating sawdust which had been dumped into a swampy hollow. Leaky, frail, and fissured, they were not the kind of places any one who could help it would choose to live in; but Vane found the sick girl still installed in one of the worst of them. She looked pale and haggard; but she was busily at work upon some millinery, and the light of a tin lamp showed Drayton and Kitty Blake sitting near her.

“You oughtn’t to be at work; you don’t look fit,” Vane said to Celia, and hesitated a moment before he continued: “I’m sorry we couldn’t find that spruce; but, as I told Drayton, we’re going back to try again.”

The girl smiled bravely. “Then you’ll find it next time. I’m glad I’m able to do a little; it brings a few dollars in.”

“But what are you doing?”

“Making hats. I did one for Miss Horsfield, and afterwards friends of hers sent me some more to trim. She said she’d try to get me some work from one of the big stores.”

“But you’re not a milliner, are you?” said Vane, who felt grateful to Jessie for the practical way in which she had kept her promise to assist.

“Celia’s something better,” Kitty broke in. “She’s a genius.”

The others laughed, and Vane, anxious to turn the conversation away from Miss Horsfield’s action, led them on to general chatter, under cover of which he drew Drayton to the door.

“The girl looks far from fit,” he said. “Has the doctor been over lately?”

“Two or three days ago,” answered Drayton. “We’ve been worried about her. It’s out of the question that she should go back to the hotel, and she can only manage to work a few hours daily. There’s another thing – the clerk of the fellow who owns these shacks has just been along for his rent. It’s overdue.”

“Where’s he now?”

Drayton laughed, for the sounds of a vigorous altercation rose from farther up the unlighted street. “I guess he’s yonder, having some more trouble with his collecting.”

“I’ll fix that matter, anyway,” said Vane, who disappeared into the darkness.

It was some time later when he re-entered the shack, and waited until a remark of Celia’s gave him a lead.

“You’re really a partner in the lumber scheme,” he said. “I can’t see why you shouldn’t draw some of your share of the proceeds beforehand.”

“The first payment isn’t to be made until you find the spruce and get your lease,” the girl reminded him. “You’ve already paid a hundred dollars we had no claim upon.”

“That doesn’t matter; I’m going to find it.”

“Yes,” said Celia, with a look of confidence, “I think you will. But,” and a flicker of colour crept into her thin face – “I can’t take any more money until it’s done.”

Vane, failing in another attempt to shake her resolution, dropped the subject, and soon afterwards he and Carroll took their departure. They were sitting in their hotel, waiting for dinner, when Carroll, who lay in a luxurious chair, looked up lazily.

“What are you thinking about so hard?” he inquired.

Vane glanced meaningly round the elaborately furnished room. “There’s a contrast between all this and that rotten shack. Did you notice that Celia never stopped sewing while we were in?”

“I did,” said Carroll. “I suppose you’re going to propound another conundrum of a kind I’ve heard before – why you should have so many things you don’t particularly need while Miss Hartley must go on sewing, when she’s hardly able for it, in her most unpleasant shack? I don’t know if the fact that you found a mine answers the question; but if it doesn’t the thing’s beyond your philosophy.”

“Come off,” Vane bade him with signs of impatience. “Your moralising gets on one’s nerves. Anyhow, I straightened out one difficulty – I found the rent man, who’d been round worrying her, and got rid of him.”

Carroll groaned in mock dismay, which covered some genuine annoyance with himself.

“What’s the matter?” Vane inquired. “Do you want a drink?”

“I’ll get over it,” Carroll informed him. “It isn’t the first time I’ve suffered from the same complaint. But I’d like to point out that your chivalrous impulses may be the ruin of you some day. Why didn’t you let Drayton settle with the man? You gave him a cheque, I suppose?”

“I did; I’d only a few loose dollars on me. Now I see what you’re driving at, and I want to say that any little reputation I possess can pretty well take care of itself.”

“Just so. No doubt it will be necessary; but you’re not the only person concerned.”

“But who’s likely to take notice of the thing?”

“I can’t tell; but you make enemies as well as friends, and you’re walking in slippery places which you’re not altogether accustomed to. You can’t meet your difficulties with the axe here.”

“That’s true,” assented Vane, and they went in to dinner.

After the meal, they walked across to Nairn’s, and when they had been ushered into a room in which several other guests were assembled, Vane sat down on a sofa, beside Jessie Horsfield.

“I want to thank you; I was over at Miss Hartley’s this afternoon,” he began.

“I understood you were at the mining meeting.”

“So I was; your brother would tell that – ”

Vane broke off, remembering that he had defeated Horsfield.

“You were opposed to him; but it doesn’t follow that I share all his views. Perhaps I ought to be a stauncher partisan.”

“If you’ll be just to both of us, I’ll be satisfied.”

“I suppose that means you’re convinced of the equity of your cause,” she suggested.

“I expect I deserve the rebuke, but aren’t you trying to switch me off the subject?” Vane answered with a laugh. “It’s Celia Hartley I want to talk about.”

He did her injustice; Jessie felt that she had earned his gratitude, and she had no objection to his expressing it.

“It was a happy thought of yours to give her hats and things to make; I’m ever so much obliged to you. I felt you could be trusted to think of the right thing. An ingenious idea of that kind would never have occurred to me.”

“It was very simple; I noticed a hat and dress of hers which she owned she had made. The girl has some talent; I’m only sorry I can’t keep her busy.”

“Couldn’t you give her an order for a dozen hats? I’d be glad to be responsible.”

“The difficulty would be the disposal of them. They would be of no use to you, and I couldn’t allow you to present them to me.”

“I wish I could,” Vane declared. “You certainly deserve them.”

This was satisfactory, so far as it went, though Jessie would have preferred that his desire to bestow the favour should have sprung from some other motive than a recognition of her services to Celia Hartley. She was, however, convinced that his only feeling towards the girl was one of compassion. Then she saw that he was looking at her with half-humorous annoyance in his face.

“Are you grieved I won’t take those hats?” she asked.

“I am,” Vane confessed and proceeded to explain with unnecessary ingenuousness: “I’m still more vexed with the state of things its typical of – I suppose I mean the restrictedness of this civilised life. When you want to do anything in the bush, you take the axe and set about it; but here you’re continually running up against some artificial obstacle.”

“One understands that it’s worse in England,” said Jessie. “But in regard to Miss Hartley, I’ll recommend her to my friends as far as I can.”

Just then Vane made an abrupt movement, and Jessie realised by his expression that he had suddenly become oblivious of her presence. She had no doubt about the reason for this, because Evelyn Chisholm entered the room. The lamplight fell upon her as she crossed the threshold, and Jessie recognised unwillingly that she looked surprisingly handsome. Handsome, however, was not the word Vane would have used. He thought Evelyn looked exotic, highly cultivated, strangely refined, as though she had grown up in a rarefied atmosphere in which nothing rank could thrive. Though Evelyn had her faults, the impression she made on him was, perhaps, more or less justifiable.

Then he remembered that the girl had been offered to him and he had refused the gift. He wondered how he had exerted the necessary strength of will, for he was conscious that admiration, respect, pity, had now changed and melted into sudden passion. His blood tingled and, as it happened, no change of his expression was lost upon his companion.

Laying a check upon his thoughts, he resumed a desultory conversation with Jessie, though he betrayed himself several times during it, and at length she let him go. It was, however, some time before he secured a place beside Evelyn. He was now quiet and self-contained.

“Nairn promised me a surprise this evening, but it has exceeded all my expectations,” he said. “How are your people?”

Evelyn informed him that their health was satisfactory, and added, watching him the while: “Gerald sent his best remembrances.”

“Ah!” said Vane in a casual manner, “I’m glad to have them.”

Evelyn was now convinced that Mabel had been correct in concluding that he had assisted Gerald financially, though she was aware that nothing would induce either of the men to acquaint her with the fact.

“I understood from Mrs. Nairn that you were away in the bush,” she said.

He turned and regarded her steadily. “That was the case, and I’m shortly going off again. Perhaps it’s fortunate that I may be away some time. It will leave you more at ease.”

The last remark was more of a question than an assertion, and Evelyn knew the man could be direct. She also esteemed candour.

“No,” she said; “I wouldn’t wish you to think that – and I wouldn’t like to believe that I had anything to do with driving you away.”

Vane saw a faintly warmer tone show through the clear pallor of her skin; but while his heart beat faster than usual he felt that she meant just what she said and nothing more. He must proceed with caution, which was, on the whole, foreign to him; and shortly afterwards he left her.

When he had gone, Evelyn sat thinking about him. She had shrunk from the man in rebellious alarm when her parents would have bestowed her hand on him; but even then, and undoubtedly afterwards, she had felt that there was something in his nature which would have attracted her, had she been willing to allow it to do so. Now, though he had said nothing to rouse it, the feeling was stronger. Then she remembered with a rather curious smile her father’s indignation when Vane had withdrawn from the field. He had done this because she had appealed to his generosity, and she had been grateful to him; but, unreasonable as she admitted the faint resentment she was conscious of to be, the recollection of the fact that he had yielded to her wishes was somehow bitter.

In the meanwhile, Carroll had taken his place by Jessie’s side.

“I understand you steered your comrade satisfactorily through the meeting to-day,” she began.

“No,” objected Carroll, “I can’t claim any credit for doing so. In matters of the kind, Vane takes full control, and I’m willing to own that he drove us all, including your brother, on the course he chose.”

“Then it’s in other matters you exercise a little judicious pressure on the helm?”

The man looked at her in well-assumed admiration of her keenness. “I don’t know how you guessed it, but I suppose it’s a fact. It’s, however, an open secret that Vane’s now and then unguardedly ingenuous; indeed, there are respects in which he’s a babe by comparison, we’ll say, with either of us.”

“That’s rather a dubious compliment,” Jessie informed him. “What do you think of Miss Chisholm? I suppose you saw a good deal of her in England?”

“I spent a month or two in her company; so did Vane. I fancy she’s rather like him in several ways; and there are reasons for believing that he thinks a good deal of her.”

Having watched Vane carefully when Evelyn came in, Jessie was inclined to agree with him, and she glanced round the room. One or two people were moving about and the rest were talking in little groups; but there was nobody very near, and she fancied that she and her companion were safe from interruption.

“What were some of the reasons?” she asked.

Carroll had expected some question of this description, and had decided to answer it plainly, because it seemed probable that Jessie would get the information out of him in one way or another. He had also another motive, which he thought a commendable one. Jessie had obviously taken a certain interest in Vane, but it could not have gone very far as yet, and Vane did not reciprocate it. The latter was, however, impulsive, while Jessie was calculating and clever, and Carroll, who was slightly afraid of her, foresaw that complications might follow any increase of friendliness between her and his comrade. He thought it would be better if she left Vane alone.

“Well,” he said, “since you have asked, I’ll try to tell you.”

He proceeded to recount what had passed at the Dene and Jessie listened, with an expressionless face.

“So he gave her up – because he admired her?” she said at length.

“That’s my view of it,” Carroll agreed.

Jessie made no comment, but he felt that she was hardly hit, which was not what he had anticipated. He began to wonder if he had acted judiciously and he glanced about the room. It did not seem considerate to study her expression then. A few moments later she turned to him with a smile in which there was the faintest hint of strain.

“I daresay you are right; but there are one or two people I haven’t spoken to,” she said and moved away from him.

Some time after this Mrs. Nairn came upon Carroll standing for the moment alone. “It’s no often one sees ye looking moody,” she informed him. “Was Jessie no gracious?”

“That,” said Carroll, smiling, “is not the difficulty. I’m an unsusceptible and somewhat inconspicuous person, not worth powder and shot, so to speak, for which I’m sometimes thankful. I believe it saves me a good deal of trouble.”

“Then, is it something Vane has done that is on your mind? Doubtless, ye feel him a responsibility?”

“He’s all that,” Carroll confessed. “Still, you see, I’ve constituted myself his guardian; I don’t know why, because he’d probably be very vexed if he suspected it.”

“The gods give ye a good conceit o’ yourself!” Mrs. Nairn exclaimed.

“I need it,” said Carroll humbly. “This afternoon I let him do a most injudicious thing, and now I’ve done another which I fear is worse. On the whole, I think I’d better take him away to the bush. He’d be safer there.”

“Ye will not, no just now,” declared his hostess firmly.

Carroll made a sign of resignation. “Oh, well,” he said, “if you say so, I’m quite willing to stand out and let things alone. Too many cooks are apt to spoil the kail.”

Mrs. Nairn left him, but she afterwards once or twice glanced thoughtfully at Vane and Evelyn, who had once more drawn together.

CHAPTER XXII – EVELYN GOES FOR A SAIL

It was about the middle of the morning and Vane sat in Nairn’s office. Specimens of ore lately received from the mine were scattered about a table, and Nairn had some papers in his hand.

“Weel?” he said, when Vane, after examining two or three of the stones abruptly flung them down.

“The ore’s running poorer,” Vane admitted. “On the other hand, I partly expected this, and there’s better stuff in the reef. We’re a little too high; I look for more encouraging results when we start the lower heading.”

He went into details of the new operations and, when he had finished, Nairn, who had been jotting down some figures, looked up.

“Yon workings will cost a good deal,” he pointed out. “Ye’ll no be able to make a start until we’re sure of the money.”

“We ought to get it.”

“A month or two ago I would have agreed with ye, but general investors are kittle cattle, and the applications for the new stock are no numerous.”

“The plain English of it is that the mine is not so popular as it was,” said Vane impatiently.

“I’m thinking something of the kind,” Nairn agreed, and then proceeded with a cautious explanation: “The result of the first reduction and the way ye forced the concern on the market secured ye notice. Folks put their money on ye, looking for sensational developments, and when the latter are no forthcoming they feel a bit sore.”

“There’s nothing discouraging in our accounts. Even if the ore all ran as poor as that” – Vane pointed to the specimens on the table – “the mine could be worked on a paying basis. We have issued no statements that could spread alarm.”

“Just so,” said Nairn. “What was looked for was mair than a paying basis – ye have no come up to expectations. Forby, it’s my opinion that damaging reports have somehow leaked out from the mine. I see clouds on the horizon.”

“Bendle pledged himself to take up a big block of the shares,” pointed out Vane. “If Howitson does the same, as he said he would, our position would be secure. As soon as it was known that they were largely interested, others would follow them.”

“Now ye have it in a nutshell – it would put a wet blanket on the project if they both backed down. In the meanwhile we cannot hurry them.”

Vane rose. “We’ll leave it at that. I’ve promised to take Mrs. Nairn and Miss Chisholm for a sail.”

He went out and had got rid of the slight uneasiness the interview had occasioned him before he reached the water-front, where he found Mrs. Nairn and Evelyn awaiting him with Carroll in attendance. In another few minutes they were rowing off to the sloop, and as they approached her the elder lady glanced with approval at the craft, which swam, a gleaming ivory shape, upon the shining green brine.

“Ye have surely been painting the boat,” she said. “Was that for us?”

Vane disregarded the last question. “She wanted it, and paint’s comparatively cheap.”

It was a little thing, but Evelyn was pleased. The girls had not been greatly considered at the Dene, and it was flattering to recognise that the man had thought it worth while to decorate his craft in her honour. She did not ask herself if he had wished to please her; he had invited her for a sail some days ago, and he was thorough in everything he did. He handed her and Mrs. Nairn on board and when they sat down in the well, he and Carroll proceeded to hoist the mainsail. It looked exceedingly large as it thrashed and fluttered above their heads, and there seemed to be a bewildering quantity of ropes, but Evelyn was chiefly interested in watching Vane.

He was wonderfully quick, but no movement was wasted. His face was intent, his glances sharp, and she liked the crisp, curt way in which he spoke to Carroll. The man’s task was, in one sense, not important, but he was absorbed in it. Then, while Carroll slipped the moorings, he ran up the headsails, and springing aft, seized the tiller as the boat, slanting over, began to forge through the water. It was the first time Evelyn had ever travelled under sail and, receptive as she was of all new impressions, she sat silent a few minutes rejoicing in the sense of swift and easy motion. The inlet was crisped by small white ripples, and the boat with her boom broad off on her quarter drove through them; a sparkling wedge of foam on her lee bow and a stream of froth sluicing past her sides. Overhead, the great inclined sail cut, sharply white, against the dazzling blue, and close by her Vane sat gripping the tiller.

They swept out through the gate of the Narrows, and Vane luffed the boat up to a moderately fresh breeze. “It’s off the land, and we’ll have fairly smooth water,” he explained, and added: “How do you like sailing?”

“It’s glorious on a day like this,” she declared and looked back towards the distant snow. “If anything more were wanted, there are the mountains, too.”

Vane smiled, but there was a suggestive sparkle in his eyes. “Yes,” he said; “we have them both, and that’s something to be thankful for. The sea and the mountains: the two grandest things in this world.”

“If you think that, how did you reconcile yourself to the city?”

“I’m not sure I’ve done so.” He indicated the gleaming heights. “I’m going back up yonder very soon.”

Mrs. Nairn glanced at Carroll, who affected to be busy with a rope; then she turned to Vane. “It will no be possible with winter coming on.”

“It’s not really so bad then,” Vane declared. “Besides, I expect to get my work done before the hardest weather’s due.”

“But ye cannot leave Vancouver until ye have settled about the mine.”

“I don’t want to,” Vane admitted. “That’s not quite the same thing.”

“It is with a good many people,” Carroll interposed with a smile.

In the meanwhile, they were driving out to the southwards, opening up the Strait, with the forests to port growing smaller and the short seas increasing in size. The breeze was cold, but the girl was warmly clad and the easy motion in no way troubled her. The rush of keen salt air stirred her blood, and all round her were spread wonderful harmonies of silver-laced blue and green, through which the straining fabric that carried her swept on. The mountains were majestic, but except when tempests lashed their crags or torrents swept their lower slopes they were wrapped in eternal repose; the sea was filled with ecstatic motion.

“The hills have their fascination; it’s a thing I know,” she said, to draw the helmsman out. “I think I should like the sea, too; but at first sight its charm isn’t quite so plain.”

“You have started him,” interposed Carroll. “He won’t refuse that challenge!”

Vane accepted it with a smile which meant more than good-humoured indulgence. “Well,” he began, “the sea’s the same everywhere, unbridled, unchanging; a force that remains as it was in the beginning. Once you’re out of harbour, under sail, you have done with civilisation. It has possibly provided you with excellent gear, but it can do no more; you stand alone, stripped for the struggle with the elements.”

“Is it always a struggle?” Evelyn asked, to prompt him.

“Always. The sea’s as treacherous as the winds that vex it; pitiless, murderous. When you have only sail to trust to, you can never relax your vigilance; you must watch the varying drift of clouds and the swing of the certain tides. There’s nothing and nobody to fall back upon when the breeze pipes its challenge; you have sloughed off civilisation and must stand or fall by the raw natural powers man is born with, and chief among them is the capacity for brutal labour. The thrashing sail must be mastered; the tackle cracking with the strain must be hauled in. Perhaps that’s the charm of it for some of us whose lives are pretty smooth – it takes one back, as I said, to the beginning.”

“But haven’t human progress and machines made everybody’s lives more smooth?”

Vane laughed somewhat grimly. “Oh, no; I think that can never be done. So far, somebody pays for the other’s ease. At sea, in the mine, and in the bush, man still grapples with a rugged, naked world.”

The girl was pleased. She had drawn him out, and she thought he had in speaking kept a fair balance between too crude a mode of colloquial expression and poetic elaboration. There was, she knew, a vein of poetic conception in him, and the struggle he had hinted at could only be described fittingly in heroic language. It was, in one sense, a pity that those who had the gift of it and cultivated imagination had, for the most part, never been forced into the fight; but that was, perhaps, not a matter of much importance. There were plenty of men, such as her companion, endowed with endurance, who if they seldom gave their thoughts free rein, rejoiced in the struggle; and by them the world’s sternest work was done.

“After all,” she said, “we have the mountains in civilised England.”

Vane did not respond with the same freedom this time. He was inclined to think he had spoken too unrestrainedly.

“Yes,” he agreed, smiling; “you can walk about them – where you won’t disturb the grouse – and they’re grand enough; but if you look down you can see the motor dust trails and the tourist coaches in the valleys.”

“But why shouldn’t people enjoy themselves in that way?”

“I can’t think of any reason. No doubt, most of them have earned the right to do so. But you can’t rip up those hills with giant-powder where you feel inclined, or set to work to root out some miles of forest. The Government encourages that kind of thing here.”

“And that’s the charm?”

“Yes,” said Vane. “I suppose it is.”

“I’d better explain,” Carroll broke in. “Men of a certain temperament are apt to fall a prey to fantasies in the newer lands; any common sense they once possessed seems to desert them. After that they’re never happy, except when they’re ripping things – such as big rocks and trees – to pieces, and though they’ll tell you it’s only to get out minerals or clear a ranch, they’re wrong. Once they get the mine or ranch they don’t care about it, and set to work wrecking things again. Isn’t that so, Mrs. Nairn?”

“There are such crazy bodies,” agreed the-lady. “I know one or two, but if I had my way with them they should find one mine, or build one saw-mill.”

“And then,” said Carroll, “you would chain them up for good by marrying them.”

“I would like to try, but I’m no sure it would act in every case. I have come across some women as bad as the men; they would drive their husbands on. Maybe” – and she smiled in a half-wistful manner – “it’s as well to do something worth the remembering when ye are young. There’s a long time to sit still in afterwards.”

Half in banter, and half in earnest, they had given Evelyn a hint of the master passion of the true colonist, whose pride is in his burden. Afterwards, Mrs. Nairn led the conversation, until Carroll laid out in the saloon a somewhat elaborate lunch which he had brought from the hotel. Then the others went below, leaving Vane at the helm; and Carroll looked at him ruefully when they came up again.

“I’m afraid Miss Chisholm’s disappointed,” he explained.

“No,” said Evelyn; “that would be most ungrateful. I only expected a more characteristic example of sea cookery. After what Mr. Vane told us, a lunch like the one you provided, with glass and silver, struck me as rather an anachronism.”

“It’s better to be broken in to sea cookery gently,” Vane interposed with some dryness.

“It’s a poor compliment to take it for granted that we’re afraid of a little hardship. Besides, I don’t think you’re right.”

Vane, who left the helm to Carroll, went below, and the latter smiled at Evelyn.

“He won’t be long,” he informed her. “He hasn’t got rid of his primitive habits yet.”

Vane came up satisfied in about ten minutes, and glancing about him before he resumed the helm, noticed that it was blowing fresher, but it did not inconvenience the party, and as they ran homewards the breeze gradually died away. The broad inlet lay still in the moonlight when they crept across it with the water lapping very faintly about the bows, and it was over a mirror-like surface they rowed ashore. Nairn was waiting at the foot of the steps, and Evelyn walked back with him, feeling, she could not tell exactly why, that she had been drawn closer to the sloop’s helmsman.