Kitabı oku: «The Shadow of Victory: A Romance of Fort Dearborn», sayfa 7
She nodded, but did not take her hand away. "I was dreadfully frightened then, and you saved me."
His blood leaped in his veins. "That's nothing – I'd do more than that for you, any time. I had my reward before I had earned it."
The girl's violet eyes opened wide. "I don't understand."
"Have you forgotten that I had my arm around you, just for a minute? I have dreamed of it ever since – dear."
For an instant she saw him as if he had been a young Greek god, strangely met in the fields of Arcady; then the glamour passed and he was only an awkward soldier in a shabby uniform. She cut Queen with her riding-whip and went furiously ahead, but a boyish, troubled face was close beside her.
"Have I offended you?"
Beatrice smiled with calm superiority. "You shouldn't say such things," she replied; "you're far too young."
"Huh!" he retorted, with spirit, "I'm twenty-five!"
"Twenty-five?" she repeated incredulously; "I don't believe it. Why, I'm twenty myself, and I never thought you were more than eighteen."
She laughed wickedly as she saw him squirm. Through long experience she had found that shaft one of the most effective in her repertory, which was not by any means limited. More than once it had quenched an incipient declaration as effectually as if it had been a shower of cold water.
They rode in silence till they reached the Fort. "Shall I take you across?" he asked.
"No, thank you; I can go by myself, if there is no military order against it; but you may take Queen to the stables, if you like."
She dismounted, taking no note of his proffered assistance, and went to the river without another word. He watched her until she landed, then turned away, leading Queen. "A rose, a little rose," he said to himself; "but, oh, the thorns!"
When Beatrice arrived, she found the family in a state of high excitement. Mackenzie was just preparing to go over to the Fort and ask that a search party be sent out to look for her. He had surmised that she had returned to Fort Wayne until he found that none of her things were missing, and he received her explanation in stolid silence.
"Why didn't you tell us, Bee?" asked Mrs. Mackenzie. "You gave us all a fright."
"Dear Aunt Eleanor," she cooed, rubbing her soft cheek against Mrs. Mackenzie's, "I'm so sorry. I didn't know I was going till I got ready to start, – I never know, – and I did not dream that any one would care."
Robert had been conducting a private search on his own account, and a tell-tale relief crossed his face when he came in and found her at the breakfast table.
"Were you worried about me, Cousin Rob?"
The deep, vibrant contralto voice thrilled him, but he told his lie well. "No," he answered, carelessly, "of course not. Why should I be?"
The new mood of softness lasted all day. Beatrice did not stop to analyse, but she was dimly conscious that something strange had happened to her. At twilight she went out on the piazza, humming happily to herself, and Robert smiled at her as she came toward the open window of his room.
He had an old sword in his hand and was rubbing the thin blade with a handkerchief. "What are you doing?" she asked, curiously.
"Just cleaning this."
"Is it yours?"
"Yes, it is now; but it was my grandfather's." He straightened instinctively, as if in answer to some far-away bugle, and looked at her without seeming to see. "He fought at Lexington."
His voice betrayed his pride of blood, and his nostrils dilated with a quick, inward breath. His hands moved lovingly along the keen blade – and then Beatrice humbled herself.
"Cousin Rob," she began, impulsively, "I want to tell you something. I'm sorry and ashamed for – "
Scarlet signals were flaming in her cheeks, and he interrupted her. "Say no more about it," he said generously; "we were all unaccountably excited, and at such times we say and do things that otherwise we would not. Forget about it."
"I'll be glad to," she answered earnestly; but in her heart of hearts she knew she was not forgiven.
CHAPTER X
A GLEAM AFAR
As warm weather approached, the children grew restless under so much schooling, and Robert made Saturday a holiday. In order to help his uncle more efficiently, he was trying to learn the Indian tongue, but found it far more difficult than Greek and Latin, and made many ludicrous mistakes. Mackenzie was very patient with him, and Black Partridge made occasional comments and suggestions, being deeply flattered by the college man's desire to learn from him.
The trader had told him of the great school in the East, where Forsyth had learned everything that was written down in books, and yet could not talk with the Indians, or make a fire by rubbing sticks together; and the implied superiority of the chief had its own subtle gratification.
The women at the Fort were very fond of Beatrice, and she made daily visits there, but time began to hang heavily upon her hands. Without knowing why, she was restless and unhappy, and, after the manner of her sex, attributed it to some hidden illness of the body rather than the mind.
"I feel as if I simply must go somewhere or do something," she said to Doctor Norton, in a vain effort to explain her unrest.
He examined her pulse and tongue, then laughed at her. "You're all right," he said; "there's nothing on earth the matter with you."
"There is, too," she contradicted. "I don't feel right and I need medicine."
"Quinine?"
She made a wry face. "No, I don't need that."
"Sulphur and molasses?"
Beatrice turned up her nose in high disdain. "Is that all you can think of?"
"No," replied the Doctor, "I have other remedies, but I want to give you something that would please you. If you feel that you need medicine, my entire stock is at your service. I ask only for the right to supervise your selection, as we don't want you poisoned."
They were sitting on the piazza, and the girl's laugh reached the schoolroom and set the teacher's heart to throbbing. He could steel himself against her smiles and her playful pouting, but when she laughed, he was lost.
"I don't think you'd care much," observed Beatrice, "whether I was poisoned or not, just so you didn't have to give up any of your precious medicines. You're selfish – that's all."
"What more can I do, Miss Manning? I've offered you all my worldly goods. Which bottle do you want?"
"Thank you, I've decided not to rob you. I'll die, if I have to, without medical aid."
"Some people prefer it," murmured Norton.
"How did you happen to come here?" she asked abruptly.
He started slightly, remembering the face that led him, like a star, from one frontier post to another, but he merely said: "An army surgeon has no choice. We go where we are sent by the powers that be."
"I'd hate to be sent anywhere."
"I believe you," replied the Doctor, smiling; "and if you were told you couldn't go anywhere that place would immediately become desirable."
"Wonderful insight," commented Beatrice. "Or perhaps some one has told you?"
"No, I don't always have to be told. I can see some things, you know."
"That's what Katherine told me. She said you could see through anything or anybody, especially a woman. Your glance goes right through us and ties in a bow-knot behind. I can feel the strings dangling from my shoulders now."
Robert came to the door, followed by the children, who were eager to get outdoors for the short recess they had every day. Beatrice had a little insight of her own, and had noted the change in Norton's face when Katherine was mentioned, and the quick, inquiring look in Robert's eyes as he greeted them both.
"Forsyth," said the Doctor, "I'm going now, and I turn this refractory patient over to you. She needs to get outdoors and walk till she drops – it's the only cure for impudence. Will you see that she does it?"
"Certainly, if she will go with me."
"I'll go," put in Beatrice, "if I have to take medicine."
They watched the Doctor until he started across the river. "Perhaps," said Robert, "you'd rather some one else would go with you. If so, it can be easily arranged."
"Now, Cousin Rob," said the girl, coaxingly, "don't be horrid to me. You're the only cousin I have, except Katherine and the infants; and as long as I'm here you'd better make the best of me."
His heart suddenly contracted. "Are you going away?"
"I can't," she laughed. "I have nowhere to go."
Robert smiled curiously. "When do you want to go, and where?"
"Saturday morning," she replied; "to the woods, after flowers."
"Very well," he said, quietly, turning away.
To one of them the days passed slowly, but on Saturday, when Beatrice expressed surprise at the rapid flight of time, Forsyth unhesitatingly chimed in. She looked at him narrowly when she thought he did not know it, and put him down as a self-absorbed prig.
She was at odds with herself when they started, but it was one of those rare mornings which May sets like a jewel upon the rosary of the year. They walked north along the lake shore, and, since silence seemed to suit her, he wisely said nothing.
Gradually peace crept into her heart, and as they approached the woods they turned to the west, where white blossoms were set on thorny boughs and budded maples were crimson with new leaves.
"You were good to bring me here," she said gratefully; "it seems like an enchanted way."
"I am glad to give you pleasure," he replied conventionally.
The ground was still hidden under the brown leaves of October, that rustled gently with a passing breeze or echoed the fairy tread of the Little People of the Forest, playing hide-and-seek in the wake of Spring. As Beatrice walked ahead of him, it seemed to Forsyth that she belonged to the woods, as truly as did the nymphs and dryads of old.
Buttercups scattered garish gold around them, and beyond, among the trees, the wild geranium rose on its slender stalk, making a phantom bit of colour against the background of dead leaves. Between the mossy stumps budded mandrakes were huddled closely together, afraid to bloom till others had led the way. Beatrice looked around her and drew a long breath, then gently stroked a satin bud upon a bare stalk of hickory.
"Why don't you pick something?" asked Robert, with a laugh. "That's what we came for, isn't it?"
"No, I can't pick things. I feel as if I were hurting them. Suppose you lived here in this lovely place and a giant came along and broke you off at the waist to take your head home with him – how do you suppose you'd feel?"
"I don't think I'd feel anything after the break. Besides, that's not a fair hypothesis. There is no real analogy."
"Hy-poth-e-sis," repeated Beatrice, looking at him, mischievously; "did I pronounce it right?"
"Of course – why?"
"Because," she answered, with her eyes dancing, "it's a nice word and I'd like to learn it. I want to say it to Doctor Norton. Some of his words are as long at that, but they're not nearly so complicated, and I yearn to excel in his own specialty."
The girl's mock reverence for his learning irritated him unspeakably, and he closed his lips in a thin, tight line.
"Cousin Rob," she said, putting her hand on his arm, and with bewildering kindness in her tone, "can't you take me just as I am?"
The temptation to take her, just as she was, into his arms, made him draw back a step or two. "I always make a point of that," he said, clearing his throat.
Then a vista opened before them, which might have been a field of Paradise. Across the plain, where the dead goldenrod of Autumn still lingered, there were white blossoms on invisible branches, set against the turquoise sky, as still as stars of frost. It was as though a cloud of white butterflies had paused for an instant, with every dusty wing longing for flight.
Great white triliums bloomed in clusters farther on, with here and there a red one, lonely as a lost child. Far to the right was a little hollow filled with wild phlox, shading from white to deepest lavender, and breathing the haunting fragrance which no one ever forgets.
"Let's go to the lake," she said.
Tall bluffs rose on either side where they turned eastward, with triliums and dog-tooth violets within easy reach, and a robin's cheery chirp was answered by another far away. Slanting sunbeams came like arrows of light into the shadow of the woods, and at the shore line was an expanse of sand which shone like silver under the white light of noon.
"Why do you stand there?" asked Beatrice. "Why don't you sit down?"
"I was just looking at something."
"What?"
"Come here – perhaps you can see."
She strained her eyes in the direction he indicated, but unsuccessfully. "I don't see anything," she said; "what is it like?"
"I don't know. It's something shiny, but it isn't a bird, because it doesn't move."
"Birds aren't shiny, anyway," objected Beatrice. "Let's eat our lunch."
"I'm willing, for it's getting heavy, and I'd rather carry it inside."
Beatrice laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks. "That's the first time I ever heard you say anything funny," she said, wiping her eyes. "Mr. Ronald is always saying funny things."
A dubious smile crossed Robert's face, and there was a long silence. "I wish you'd show me that shiny thing again, Cousin Rob," she said at length; "I'm interested in it."
"You didn't seem to be."
"That's because I was hungry," she explained. "I feel better now, and by the time we've finished our lunch I'll be absorbingly interested in it."
Robert stood on the sand, in the same place as before, and saw the silvery gleam again. Then she took his place and saw it, too. "Why," she said, "isn't it queer? Do you think it's the sun on a birch?"
"No, it's too high, and birches don't often grow on the very edge of the shore."
"That isn't the edge."
"Well, it's near it. The light just hangs in the air. There doesn't seem to be anything behind it. I've often seen stray gleams in the woods and tried to find them, but I never found anything. It's a daylight will-o'-the-wisp."
"Let's follow this one," suggested Beatrice.
They walked along the hard sand, close to the water, stopping every few steps to find the gleam. Sometimes it was only a thread of light, detached and unrelated to anything around it, then in other places it was a white glare, like the reflection thrown from a mirror.
Often they lost it, but found it again a little farther on. Beatrice was tired but determined, and kept on for what seemed miles. Then they stopped several times without finding it. "Let's go up into the woods," she said; "perhaps we'll see it again from there."
They climbed the steep bluff of sand, with the aid of bushes and cotton wood saplings, and for an instant caught the light again, then it vanished. The girl was pale, and Robert feared they had come too far.
"We'll go back," he said, "as soon as you rest for a little while. Why didn't you tell me you were tired?"
"Because I'm not," she retorted. "I'm willing to rest a little while, but I'm going to find it."
They sat down under the spreading branches of an elm for a few minutes, then, in spite of his expostulations, Beatrice started north again. "We can walk till midnight," he pleaded, "without finding it, and it's foolish, anyway."
"No, it isn't; see there!"
In the air, between the bluff and the lake, hung a shimmering thread of light which seemed close by, and all at once he became as eager as she. They walked rapidly for a few moments, then Beatrice stopped.
"Why," she said, in a high key, "it's a house!"
"Be careful," warned Robert, "we'd better go back."
"I'm not going back till I see. I've come too far!"
A little farther on, they came to it. Set far back into the bluff, so that only the face of it was visible, was a little one-roomed cabin, built of logs. The door was open, but the place was empty, as Beatrice discovered. "Come in," she said hospitably.
"We'd better go back," said Forsyth, warningly. "Come!"
"I will, in just a minute."
She took a long look about the room, then came out. From the top of the cabin, which projected only a foot or so from the bluff, and suspended from a whittled branch not quite weather-worn, hung a silver cross, fully eight inches high, with a wondrously moulded figure of the Christ stretched upon it.
Robert's eyes followed hers, and for a few minutes neither spoke. "That's what we saw," she murmured, in a low tone; "that's the light that led us here – the sun upon the cross!"
"Come," said Robert, firmly, taking her by the arm.
Reluctantly she let him lead her away, and they turned south, keeping close to the lake shore, but out of the sand.
"Who lives there?" she asked.
"Why, I don't know – how should I?"
"It was neat inside, and there was blue clay and chips in the cracks, just as there is at home. There was a fireplace, too, but I didn't see any chimney."
"There was a chimney, though, of some dark-coloured stone. It looked like a stump on the bluff. I noticed it while you were inside."
"There's no dark-coloured stone around here."
"Then it must have been limestone darkened with mud. I didn't get near enough to see."
"Somebody lives there," said Beatrice. "There was a narrow bed, with a blue-and-white patchwork quilt upon it, and two chairs made out of barrels, and a little table and shelves, – do you think Indians live there?"
"It's possible. Some of them may be more civilised than the rest and prefer to live in a house – in the Winter, at least," he added, remembering the panes of glass in the front of the house, either side of the door.
"It's queer that a cross like that should be there."
"Stolen," he suggested promptly, "from some Catholic church in the wilderness."
"I'll tell you what," she said, after a long silence; "let's say nothing about it to any one – just keep it a secret for the present. What do you say?"
"I'm willing." The idea of a secret with his pretty cousin was far from unpleasant to Robert.
"Because, if the others knew, some of the soldiers would go there – Mr. Ronald would be the first one. Besides, I've noticed that if you really want to find out about anything, you always can, though it takes time. I'd rather we'd find out by ourselves, wouldn't you?"
Robert thought he would.
"I think," she continued, "that some of the Indians live there, as you said, and that the cross was stolen and hung over the door for an ornament. Perhaps Black Partridge lives there – he seems to know more than the rest."
"Yes; that's possible. Anyhow, we'll find out without asking anybody, – is that it?"
"That's a bargain. Whoever lives there doesn't want to be bothered, for you can't see the house at all except from the shore; and in Summer, when the canoes are passing, it must be pretty well hidden by the saplings and the undergrowth on the ledge in front of it. There's just one place there where anybody can get down – a steep little path, worn smooth."
"You saw a great deal in a few minutes, didn't you?" asked Robert, admiringly.
"Of course," she answered, with a toss of her head. "A woman can see more in one minute than a man can see in sixty – didn't you know that?"
"I didn't, but I do now."
Silver-winged gulls glistened in the sun for a moment, then plunged into the cool softness below. A rabbit track wound a leisurely way across the sand and disappeared at the bluff. Down a ravine came a tiny stream, murmuring sleepily all along its way to the lake.
Beatrice sighed and her eyes drooped. "Take me home," she said.
The blue of the water grew deeper, then changed to grey. The white clouds turned to rose and gold, touched with royal purple, and the wings of the gulls no longer shone. A bluejay with slow-beating wings sank to his nest in a lofty maple, and, somewhere, a robin chirped mournfully, as if he, too, were tired.
At last they came to the edge of the woods and saw the house, with the four tall poplars at the gate, the shimmering gold of sunset upon the river, and the Fort beyond. The exquisite peace of the woods had been like that of another sphere. There was a twittering of little birds in swaying nests, a sudden chill, a shadow, and a mist. The fairy patter was hurried and hushed, the rustling leaves were quiet, and she leaned wearily upon his arm.
"Tired?" he asked tenderly.
"Yes," she answered, smiling back at him, "but happy. Thank you for a perfect day."
