Kitabı oku: «The Protector», sayfa 4
CHAPTER VII – STORM-STAYED
The weather was not the only thing that troubled Vane as he stumbled on through the mist. Any unathletic tourist from the cities could have gone up without much difficulty by the way they had ascended, but it was different coming down on the opposite side of the mountain. There, their route laid across banks of sharp-pointed stones that rested lightly on the steep slope, interspersed with out-cropping rocks which were growing dangerously slippery; and a wilderness of crags pierced by three great radiating chasms lay beneath.
After half an hour’s arduous scramble, he decided that they must be close upon the top of the last rift, and stood still for a minute looking about him. The mist was now so thick that he could scarcely see thirty yards ahead, but the way it drove past him indicated that it was blowing up a hollow. On one hand a rampart of hillside loomed dimly out of it; in front there was a dark patch that looked like the face of a dripping rock; and between the latter and the hill a boggy stretch of grass ran back into the vapour. Then he turned, and glanced at Evelyn with some concern. Her skirt was heavy with moisture, and the rain dripped from the brim of her hat, but she smiled at him reassuringly.
“It’s not the first time I’ve got wet,” she said.
Vane felt relieved on one account. He had imagined that a woman hated to feel draggled and untidy, and he was willing to own that in his case fatigue usually tended towards shortness of temper. Though the scramble had scarcely taxed his powers, he fancied that Evelyn, had already done as much as one could expect of her.
“I must prospect about a bit,” he said. “Scardale’s somewhere below us; but if I remember, it’s an awkward descent to the head of it, and I’m not sure of the right entrance to the Hause.”
“I’ve only once been down this way, and that was a long while ago,” Evelyn replied.
Vane left her, and plodded away across the grass. When he had grown scarcely distinguishable in the haze, he turned and waved his hand.
“I know where we are; the head of the beck’s close by,” he cried.
Evelyn joined him at the edge of a trickle of water splashing in a peaty hollow, and they followed it down, seeing only odd strips of hillside amidst the vapour, until at length the ground grew softer and Vane, going first, sank among the long green moss almost to his knees.
“That won’t do. Stand still, please,” he said. “I’ll try a little to the right.”
He tried in one or two directions; but wherever he went he sank over his boots, and, coming back, he informed his companion that they had better go straight ahead.
“I know there’s no bog worth speaking of; the Hause is a regular tourist track,” he added, and suddenly stripped off his jacket. “First of all, you’ll put this on; I’m sorry I didn’t think of it before.”
Evelyn demurred, and he rolled up the jacket. “You have to choose between doing what I ask and watching me pitch it into the beck,” he declared. “I’m a rather determined person, and it would be a pity to throw the thing away, particularly as the rain hasn’t got through it yet.”
She yielded, and after he had held up the garment while she put it on, he spoke again:
“There’s another thing; I’m going to carry you for the next hundred yards, or possibly farther.”
“No,” said Evelyn firmly. “On that point my determination is as strong as yours.”
Vane made a sign of acquiescence. “You can have your way for a minute; I expect it will be long enough.”
He was correct, Evelyn moved forward a pace or two, and then stopped with the skirt she had gathered up brushing the quivering emerald moss, and her boots, which were high ones, hidden in the latter. She had some difficulty in pulling them out. Then Vane coolly picked her up.
“All you have to do is to keep still for the next few minutes,” he informed her in a most matter-of-fact voice.
Evelyn did not move, though had he shown any sign of self-conscious hesitation she would at once have shaken herself loose. He was conscious of a thrill and a certain stirring of his blood, but this, he decided, must be sternly ignored, and his task occupied most of his attention. It was not an easy one, and he stumbled once or twice, but he accomplished it and set the girl down safely on firmer ground.
“Now,” he said, “there’s only the drop to the dale, but we must endeavour to keep out of the beck.”
His voice and air were unembarrassed, though he was breathless, and Evelyn fancied that in this and the incident of the jacket he had revealed the forceful, natural manners of the West. It was the first glimpse she had had of them, though she had watched for one, and she was not displeased. The man had merely done what was most advisable, with practical sense.
A little farther on, a shoot of falling water swept out of the mist above and came splashing down a crag, spread out in frothing threads. It flowed across their path, reunited in a deep gully which they sprang across, and then fell tumultuously into the beck, which was now ten or twelve feet below on one side of them. They clung to the rock as they traced it downwards, stepping cautiously from ledge to ledge. At times a stone plunged into the mist beneath them, and Vane grasped the girl’s arm or held out a steadying hand, but he was never fussy or needlessly concerned. When she wanted help, it was offered at the right moment; but that was all, and she thought that had she been alarmed, which was not the case, her companion’s manner would have been more comforting than persistent solicitude. He was, she decided, one who could be relied upon in an emergency.
Though caution was still necessary, the next stage of the journey was easier, and by and by they reached a winding dale. They followed it downwards, splashing through water part of the time, and at length came into sight of a cluster of little houses standing between a river and a big fir wood.
“It must be getting on towards evening,” said Evelyn. “Mopsy and Carroll probably went down the Ridge, and as it runs out lower down the valley, they’ll be almost at home.”
“It’s six o’clock,” said Vane, glancing at his watch. “You can’t walk home in the rain, and it’s a long while since lunch. If Adam Bell and his wife are still at the ‘Golden Fleece,’ we’ll get something to eat there and borrow you dry clothes. He’ll drive us home afterwards.”
Evelyn made no objections. She was very wet and beginning to feel weary, and they were some distance from home. She restored him his jacket, and a few minutes later they entered an old hostelry which, like many others among these hills, was a farm as well as an inn. The landlady, who recognised Vane with pleased surprise, took Evelyn away with her, and afterwards provided Vane with some of her husband’s clothes. Then she lighted a fire, and when she had laid out a meal in the guest-room, Evelyn came in, attired in a dress of lilac print.
“It’s Maggie Bell’s,” she explained demurely. “Her mother’s things were rather large. Adam is away at a sheep auction, and they have only the trap he went in, but they expect him back in an hour or so.”
“Then we must wait,” said Vane. “Worse misfortunes have befallen me.”
They made an excellent meal, and then Vane drew up a wicker chair to the fire for Evelyn and sat down opposite to her. Outside, the rain dripped from the mossy flagstone eaves, and the song of the river stole in monotonous cadence into the room.
Evelyn was silent and Vane said nothing for a while. He had been in the air all day, and though this was nothing new to him, he was content to sit lazily still and leave the opening of conversation to his companion. In the meanwhile it was pleasant to glance towards her now and then. The pale-tinted dress became her, and he felt that the room would have looked less cheerful had she been away.
The effect she had on him was difficult to analyse, though he lazily tried. She appealed to him by the grace of her carriage, the poise of her head, her delicate colouring, and the changing lights in her eyes; but behind these points something stronger and deeper was expressed through them. He fancied she possessed qualities he had not hitherto encountered, which would become more precious when they were fully understood. He thought of her as wholesome in mind; one who sought for the best; but she was also endowed with an ethereal something that could not be defined.
Then a simile struck him: she was like the snow that towers high into the empyrean in British Columbia; in which he was wrong, for there was warm human passion in the girl, though it was sleeping yet. By and by, he told himself, he was getting absurdly sentimental, and he instinctively fumbled for his pipe and stopped. Evelyn noticed this and smiled.
“You needn’t hesitate,” she said. “The Dene is redolent of cigars, and Gerald smokes everywhere when he is at home.”
“Is he likely to turn up?” Vane asked. “It’s ever so long since I’ve seen him.”
“I’m afraid not. In fact, Gerald’s rather under a cloud just now. I may as well tell you this, because you are sure to hear of it sooner or later. He has been extravagant, and, as he assures us, extraordinarily unlucky.”
“Stocks and shares?” suggested Vane, who was acquainted with some of the family tendencies.
Evelyn hesitated a moment. “That would have been more readily forgiven him. I believe he has speculated on the turf as well.”
Vane was surprised, since he understood that Gerald Chisholm was a barrister, and betting on the turf was not an amusement he would have associated with that profession.
“Then,” he said thoughtfully, “I must run up and see him later on.”
Evelyn felt sorry she had spoken. Gerald needed help, which his father was not in a position to offer. She was not censorious of other people’s faults; but it was impossible to be blind to some aspects of her brother’s character, and she would have preferred that Vane should not meet Gerald while the latter was embarrassed by financial difficulties. She changed the subject.
“Several of the things you told me about your life in Canada interested me,” she said. “It must have been bracing to feel that you depended upon your own efforts and stood on your own feet, free from all the hampering customs that are common here.”
“The position has its disadvantages. You have no family influence behind you; nothing to fall back upon. If you can’t make good your footing you must go down. It’s curious that just before I came over here a lady I met in Vancouver expressed an opinion very like yours. She said it must be pleasant to feel that one was, to some extent at least, master of one’s fate.”
“Then she merely explained my meaning more clearly than I have done.”
“One could have imagined that she has everything she could reasonably wish for. If I’m not transgressing, so have you. It’s strange you should both harbour the same idea.”
“I don’t think it’s uncommon among young women nowadays. There’s a grandeur in the thought that one’s fate lies in the hands of the high unseen powers; but to allow one’s life to be moulded by – one’s neighbours’ prejudices and preconceptions is a different matter. Besides, if unrest and human striving were sent, was it only that they should be repressed?”
Vane sat silent a moment or two. He had noticed the brief pause and fancied that she had changed one of the words that followed it. He did not think it was her neighbours’ opinions she most chafed against.
“It’s not a point I’ve been concerned about,” he replied at length. “In a general way, I did what I wanted.”
“Which is a privilege that is denied to us.” Evelyn spoke without bitterness, and added a moment later: “What do women who are left to their own resources do in Western Canada?”
“Some of them marry; I suppose that’s the most natural thing,” said Vane with an air of reflection that amused her. “Anyway, they have plenty of opportunities. There’s a preponderating number of unattached young men in the newly-opened parts of the Dominion.”
“Things are different here, or perhaps we want more than they do across the Atlantic,” said Evelyn. “What becomes of the others?”
“They wait in the hotels; learn stenography and typewriting, and go into offices and stores.”
“And earn just enough to live upon meagrely? If their wages are high, they must pay out more. That follows, doesn’t it?”
“To some extent.”
“Is there nothing better open to them?”
“No,” said Vane thoughtfully; “not unless they’re trained for it and become specialised. That implies peculiar abilities and a systematic education with one end in view: you can’t enter the arena to fight for the higher prizes unless you’re properly armed. The easiest way for a woman to acquire power and influence is by a judicious marriage. No doubt it’s the same here.”
“It is,” replied Evelyn smiling. “A man is more fortunately situated.”
“I suppose he is. If he’s poor, he’s rather walled in, too; but he breaks through now and then. In the newer countries he gets an opportunity.”
Vane abstractedly examined his pipe, which he had not lighted yet. It was clear that the girl was dissatisfied with her surroundings, and had for some reason temporarily relaxed the restraint she generally laid upon herself; but he felt that if she were wise, she would force herself to be content. She was of too fine a fibre to plunge into the struggle that many women had to wage, and though he did not doubt her courage, she had not been trained for it. He had noticed that among men it was the cruder and less developed organisations that proved hardiest in adverse situations; one needed a strain of primitive vigour. There was, it seemed, only one means of release for her, and that was a happy marriage. But a marriage could not be happy unless the suitor was all that she desired, and Evelyn would be fastidious, though her family would, no doubt, only look for wealth and station. He imagined that this was where the trouble lay. He would wait and keep his eyes open. Shortly after he arrived at this decision, there was a rattle of wheels outside and the landlord, who came in, greeted him with rude cordiality. In another minute or two Vane handed Evelyn into the gig, and Bill drove them home through the rain.
CHAPTER VIII – LUCY VANE
Bright sunshine streamed down out of a cloudless sky when Vane stood talking with his sister upon the terrace in front of the Dene one afternoon shortly after his ascent of the Pike in Evelyn’s company. He leaned against the low wall, frowning, for Lucy had hitherto avoided a discussion of the subject which occupied their attention, and now, as he would have said, he could not make her listen to reason.
She stood in front of him, with the point of her parasol pressed firmly into the gravel, and her lips set, though there was a smile which suggested forbearance in her eyes. Lucy was tall and spare of figure; a year younger than her brother, and of somewhat determined character. She earned her living in a northern manufacturing town by lecturing on domestic economy for the public authorities. Vane understood that she also took part in Suffrage propaganda. She had a thin, forceful face, which was seldom characterised by repose.
“After all,” Vane broke out, “what I’ve been urging is a very natural thing. I don’t like to think of your being forced to work as you are doing, and I’ve tried to show that it wouldn’t cost me any self-denial to make you an allowance. There’s no reason why you should be at the beck and call of those committees any longer.”
Lucy’s smile grew plainer. “I don’t think that describes my position very accurately.”
“It’s possible,” Vane agreed with a trace of dryness. “No doubt you insist on the chairman or lady president giving way to you; but that doesn’t affect the question. You have to work, anyway.”
“But I like it, and it keeps me in some degree of comfort.”
The man turned half impatiently and glanced about him. The front of the old grey house was flooded with light, and the lawn below the terrace glowed luminously green. The shadows of the hollies and cypresses were thin and unsubstantial, but where a beach overarched the grass, Evelyn and Mrs. Chisholm, attired in light draperies, reclined in basket chairs. Carroll, who wore thin grey tweed, stood close by, talking to Mabel, and Chisholm sat a little apart upon a bench with a newspaper in his hand. He looked half asleep, and a languorous, stillness pervaded the whole scene.
“Wouldn’t you like this kind of thing as well?” he asked. “Of course, I mean what it implies – the power to take life easily and get as much enjoyment as possible out of it. It wouldn’t be difficult, if you would only take what I’d be glad to give you.” He indicated the languid figures in the foreground. “You could, for instance, spend your time among folks like these; and, after all, it’s what you were meant to do.”
“Well,” said Lucy, “I believe I’m more at home with the other kind of folks – those in poverty, squalor, and ignorance. I’ve an idea they’ve a stronger claim on me, but that’s not a point I can urge. The fact is, I’ve chosen my career, and there are practical reasons why I shouldn’t abandon it. I had a good deal of trouble in getting a footing, and if I fell out now, it would be harder still to take my place in the ranks again.”
“But you wouldn’t require to do so.”
“I can’t be sure. I don’t want to hurt you; but, after all, your success was sudden, and one understands that it isn’t wise to depend upon an income derived from mining properties.”
“None of you ever did believe in me.”
“I suppose there’s some truth in that; you really did give us some trouble. Somehow you were different – you wouldn’t fit in – though I believe the same thing applied to me, for that matter.”
“And now you don’t expect my prosperity to last?”
The girl hesitated, but she was candid by nature. “Perhaps I had better answer. You have it in you to work determinedly and, when it’s necessary, to do things that men with less courage would shrink from; but I doubt if yours is the temperament that leads to success. You haven’t the huckster’s instincts; you’re not cold-blooded enough. You wouldn’t cajole your friends or truckle to your enemies.”
“If I adopted the latter course, it would be very much against the grain,” Vane confessed.
Lucy laughed. “Well,” she said, “I mean to go on earning my living; but you can take me up to London for a few days and buy me some hats and things. Then I don’t mind you giving something to the Emancipation Society.”
“I don’t know if I believe in emancipation or not, but you can have ten guineas.”
“Thank you,” said Lucy, glancing round towards Carroll, who was approaching them with Mabel. “I’ll give you a piece of advice – stick to that man. He’s cooler and less headstrong than you are; he’ll prove a useful friend.”
Carroll came up just then. “What are you two talking about?” he asked. “You look animated.”
“Wallace has just promised me ten guineas to assist the movement for the emancipation of women,” Lucy answered pointedly. “I may mention that our society’s efforts are sadly restricted by the lack of funds.”
“He’s now and then a little inconsequential in his generosity,” Carroll rejoined. “I didn’t know he was interested in that kind of thing, but as I don’t like to be outdone by my partner, I’ll subscribe the same.”
“Thanks,” said Lucy, who made an entry in a pocket-book in a businesslike manner.
They strolled along the terrace together, and as they went down the steps to the lawn, Carroll inquired with a smile, “Have you tackled Chisholm yet?”
“I would have done so had it appeared likely to have been of any use, but I never waste powder and shot,” Lucy replied. “A man of his restricted views would sooner subscribe handsomely to put us down.”
Carroll turned to his comrade. “Are you regretting the ten guineas? You don’t look pleased.”
“No,” said Vane; “the fact is, I wanted to do something which wasn’t allowed. I’ve met with the same disillusionment here as I did in British Columbia.”
Lucy looked up at her brother. “Did you attempt to give somebody money there?”
“I did,” said Vane shortly. “It’s not worth discussing, and anyway she wouldn’t listen to me.”
They strolled on, Vane frowning, while Carroll, who had seen signs of suppressed interest in Lucy’s face, smiled unobserved. Neither he nor the others had noticed Mabel, who was following them.
They joined the rest, and some time afterwards, Mrs. Chisholm addressed Carroll, who was lying back in a deep chair with his eyes, which were half closed, turned in Lucy’s direction.
“Are you asleep, or thinking hard?” she asked.
“Not more than half asleep,” Carroll protested. “I was trying to remember ‘A Dream of Fair Women.’ It struck me as a suitable occupation for a drowsy summer afternoon in a place like this, but I must confess that it was Miss Vane who put it into my head. She reminded me of one or two of the heroines not long ago, when she was championing the cause of the suffragist.”
“You mustn’t imagine that English women in general sympathise with her, or that such ideas are popular at the Dene,” Mrs. Chisholm rejoined.
Carroll smiled reassuringly. “I wouldn’t have imagined the latter for a moment. But, as I said, on an afternoon of this kind one can be excused for indulging in romantic fancies; and don’t you see what brought those old-time heroines into my mind – I mean the elusive resemblance to their latter-day prototype?”
Mrs. Chisholm looked puzzled. “No,” she declared. “One of them was Greek, another early English, and the finest of all was the Hebrew maid. As they couldn’t even have been like one another, how could they have collectively borne a resemblance to anybody else?”
“That’s logical, on the surface. To digress, why do you most admire Jephthah’s daughter, the gentle Gileadite?”
His hostess affected surprise. “Isn’t it evident, when one remembers her patient sacrifice, her fine sense of family honour?”
Carroll felt that this was much the kind of sentiment one could have expected from her; and he did her justice in believing that it was genuine and that she was capable of acting up to her convictions. His glance rested on Vane for a moment, and the latter was startled as he guessed his comrade’s thought.
Evelyn sat near him, reclining languidly in a wicker chair. She had been silent and, now her face was in repose, the signs of reserve and repression were plainer than ever. There was, however, pride in it, and he felt that she was endowed with a keener and finer sense of family honour than her mother. Her brother’s career was threatened by the results of his own imprudence, and though her father could hardly be compared with the Gileadite warrior, there was, Vane imagined, a disturbing similarity between the two cases. It was unpleasant to contemplate the possibility of this girl’s being called upon to bear the cost of her relations’ misfortunes or follies. Carroll, however, looked across at Lucy with a smile.
“You don’t agree with Mrs. Chisholm?” he suggested.
“No,” said Lucy firmly. “Leaving the instance in question out, there are too many people who transgress and then expect somebody else – a woman as a rule – to serve as a sacrifice.”
“I don’t agree, either,” Mabel broke in. “I’d sooner have been Cleopatra or Joan or Arc – only she was burned, poor thing.”
“That was only what she might have expected. An unpleasant fate generally overtakes people who go about disturbing things,” Mrs. Chisholm said severely.
The speech was characteristic, and the others smiled. It would have astonished them had Mrs. Chisholm sympathised with the rebel idealist whose beckoning visions led to the clash of arms. Then Vane turned to his comrade.
“Aren’t you getting off the track?” he asked. “I don’t see the drift of your previous remarks.”
“Well,” said Carroll, with an air of reflection, “there must be, I think, a certain distinctive stamp upon those who belong to the leader type; I mean the folks who are capable of doing striking and heroic things. Apart from this, I’ve been studying you English – and it has struck me that there’s occasionally something imperious, or rather imperial, in the faces of your women in the most northern counties. I can’t define the thing, but it’s there – in the line of nose, the mouth, and I think most marked in the brows. It’s not Saxon, or Norse, or Danish. I’d sooner call it Roman.”
Vane was slightly astonished. He had seen that look in Evelyn’s face, and now, for the first time, he recognised it in his sister’s.
“I wonder if you have hit it,” he said with a laugh. “You can reach the Wall from here in a day’s ride.”
“The Wall?”
“The Roman Wall; Hadrian’s Wall. I believe one authority states they had a garrison of 100,000 men to keep it.”
Chisholm joined the group. He was a tall, rather florid-faced man with a formal manner, dressed immaculately in creaseless clothes.
“The point Carroll raises is interesting,” he remarked. “While I don’t know how long it takes for a strain to die out, there must have been a large civil population living near the wall, and we know that the characteristics of the Teutonic peoples, who followed the Romans, still remain.”
Nobody else had any comment to make, and when by and by the group broke up, Evelyn was left alone for a few minutes with Mabel.
“Gerald should have been sent to Canada instead of Oxford,” she said. “Then he might have got as rich as Wallace Vane and Mr. Carroll.”
“What makes you think they’re rich?” Evelyn asked with reproof in her tone.
“Oh!” said Mabel, “we all knew they were rich before they came, and they were giving Lucy guineas for the suffragists an hour ago. They must have a good deal of money to waste it like that. Besides, I think Wallace wanted her to take some more, and he seemed quite vexed when he said he’d tried to give money to somebody else in Canada, who wouldn’t have it. As he said – she – it must have been a woman – but I don’t think he meant to mention that. It slipped out.”
“You had no right to listen,” Evelyn retorted severely; but the information sank into her mind, and she afterwards remembered it.
