A SEVERE TEST
Winter ended suddenly, as it generally does on the plains, and rain and
sunshine melted the snow from the withered grass. Then the northwest
wind awoke, and rioting across the wide levels dried the spongy sod,
while goose and crane and duck, beating their northward way, sailed down
on tired wings to rest a while among the sloos. For a week or two, when
no team could have hauled a load over the boggy trails, Harding was busy
mending harness and getting ready his implements. The machines were
numerous and expensive, but he had been forced to put off their
adjustment because it is risky to handle cold iron in the Canadian
frost. He had been unusually silent and preoccupied of late; but Hester,
knowing his habits, asked no questions. When he was ready, Craig would
tell her what was in his mind, and in the meantime she had matters of
her own to think about. All the work that could be done went forward
with regular precision, and, in spite of Harding's reserve, there was
mutual confidence between the two. Hester was quietly happy, but she was
conscious of some regret.
In a few more months she must leave her brother's house and transfer to
another the care and thought she had given him. She knew he would miss
her, and now and then she wondered anxiously whether any other woman
could understand and help him as she had done. Craig had faults and he
needed indulging.
Then, too, he sometimes gave people a wrong impression. She had heard
him called hard. Although in reality generous and often compassionate,
his clear understanding of practical things made him impatient of
incompetence and stupidity. He needed a wider outlook and more
toleration for people who could not see what was luminously plain to
him. Life was not such a simple matter with clean-cut rules and duties
as Craig supposed. Grasping its main issues firmly, he did not perceive
that they merged into one another through a fine gradation of varying
tones and shades.
Rather late one night Hester sat sewing while Harding was busy at his
writing table, his pipe, which had gone out, lying upon the papers. He
had left the homestead before it was light that morning to set his
steam-plow to work, though nobody at Allenwood had taken a team from the
stable yet. Devine had told her of the trouble they had encountered: how
the soft soil clogged the moldboards, and the wheels sank, and the
coulters crashed against patches of unthawed ground. This, however, had
not stopped Harding. There was work to be done and he must get about it
in the best way he could. At supper time he came home in very greasy
overalls, looking tired, but as soon as the meal was finished he took
out some papers, and now, at last, he laid down his pen and sat with
knitted brows and clenched hand.
"Come back, Craig!" Hester called softly.
He started, threw the papers into a drawer, and looked at his watch.
"I thought I'd give them half an hour, and I've been all evening," he
said, feeling for his pipe. "Now we'll have a talk. I told Fred to order
all the dressed lumber he wanted, and I'd meet the bill. The house he
thought of putting up wasn't half big enough; in a year or two he'd have
had to build again. Then we want the stuff to season, and there's no
time to lose if it's to be ready for you when the harvest's in."
Hester blushed prettily.
"You have given us a good deal already, Craig. We would have been
satisfied with the smaller homestead."
"Shucks!" returned Harding. "I don't give what I can't afford. You and
Fred have helped to put me where I am, and I'd have felt mean if I
hadn't given you a good start off when I'm going to spend money
recklessly on another plan. Now that all I need for the summer's paid
for, I've been doing some figuring."
"Ah! You think of buying some of the Allenwood land?"
"Yes," he said gravely. "It will be a strain, but now's the time, when
the falling markets will scare off buyers. I hate to see things go to
pieces, and they want a man to show them how the settlement should be
run. They have to choose between me and the mortgage broker. It will
cost me a tough fight to beat him, but I think I see my way."
"But what about Colonel Mowbray?"
"He's the trouble. I surely don't know what to do with him; but I guess
he'll have to be satisfied with moral authority. I might leave him
that."
Hester felt sorry for the Colonel. He was autocratic and arbitrary, his
ways were obsolete, and he had no place in a land that was beginning to
throb with modern activity. She saw the pathetic side of his position;
and, after all, the man was of a finer type than the feverish money
makers. His ideals were high, though his way of realizing them was out
of date.
"Craig," she said, "it may be better for Allenwood that you should take
control, but you're running a big risk, and somehow your plan looks
rather pitiless. You're not really hard----"
She paused and Harding smiled.
"I'm as I was made, and to watch Allenwood going to ruin is more than I
can stand for. It would be worse to let the moneylender sell it out to
small farmers under a new mortgage and grind them down until they and
the land were starved. Broadwood and one or two more will help me all
they can, but they haven't the money or the grip to run the place
alone."
"And you feel that you can do it. Well, perhaps you can, but it sounds
rash. You are very sure of yourself, Craig."
"How can I explain?" he said with a half amused, half puzzled air. "The
feeling's not vanity. I have a conviction that this is my job, and now
that I begin to see my way, I have to put it through. I'm not swaggering
about my abilities--there are smarter men in many ways at Allenwood; my
strong point is this: I can see how things are going, and feel the drift
of forces I didn't set in motion and can't control. All I do is to fall
into line and let them carry me forward, instead of standing against the
stream. The world demands a higher standard of economical efficiency;
in using the best tools and the latest methods I'm obeying the call."
"What was it that first fixed your thoughts on Allenwood?" she asked.
"Beatrice Mowbray. I'm going to marry her if I make good."
"You have no doubts about that either?"
"Oh, yes; I have plenty. I know what I'm up against; but human nature's
strongest in the end. She likes me as a man."
Hester understood him. She was to marry a man of her own station, which
would save her many perplexities, but Craig, respecting no standard but
personal merit, would have married above or beneath him with equal
boldness. It was not because he was ambitious, but because he loved her
that he had chosen Beatrice Mowbray. Yet Hester was anxious on his
account.
"It's a big risk," she said. "The girl is dainty and fastidious. There's
nothing coarse in you, but you have no outward polish. Perhaps the
tastes you have inherited may make things easier."
"Well, sometimes I have a curious feeling about these Allenwood people.
I seem to understand them; I find myself talking as they do. There was
something Kenwyne said the other night about an English custom, and I
seemed to know all about it, though I'd never heard of the thing
before."
He got up and knocked out his pipe.
"All that doesn't matter," he said whimsically. "What's important now is
that it's late, and I must have steam up on the plow by daybreak."
For the next week Harding was very busy; and then, coming back to the
house one afternoon for some engine-packing, he found Beatrice alone in
their plain living-room. She noticed the quick gleam of pleasure in his
eyes and was conscious of a response to it, but she was very calm as she
explained that Hester had gone to saddle a horse on which she meant to
ride with her to Mrs. Broadwood's.
"That should give us ten minutes," Harding said. "There's something I
once promised to show you and I may not have a better chance."
Unlocking a drawer, he took out a small rosewood box, finely inlaid.
"This was my father's. Hester has never seen it. I found it among his
things."
"It is beautiful."
Harding opened the box and handed her a photograph.
"That is my mother," he said.
Beatrice studied it with interest. The face was of peasant type, with
irregular features and a worn look. Beatrice thought the woman could not
have been beautiful and must have led a laborious life, but she was
struck by the strength and patience the face expressed.
Harding next took out a small Prayer-book in a finely tooled binding of
faded leather and gave it to her open. The first leaf bore a date and a
line of writing in delicate slanted letters: _To Basil, from his
mother._
"My father's name was Basil," Harding explained, and taking up another
photograph he placed it with its back beside the inscription in the
book. It was autographed: _Janet Harding_.
"I imagine it was sent to him with the book, perhaps when he was at
school," Harding resumed. "You will note that the hand is the same."
This was obvious. The writing had a distinctive character, and Beatrice
examined the faded portrait carefully. It was full length, and showed a
lady in old-fashioned dress with an unmistakable stamp of dignity and
elegance. The face had grown very faint, but on holding it to the light
she thought she could perceive an elusive likeness to Hester Harding.
"This lady must have been your grandmother," she remarked.
"Yes," said Harding. "I have another picture which seems to make the
chain complete."
He took it from the box and beckoned Beatrice to the window before he
gave it to her, for the photograph was very indistinct. Still, the front
of an English country house built in the Georgian style could be made
out, with a few figures on the broad steps to the terrace. In the center
stood the lady whose portrait Beatrice had seen, though she was
recognizable rather by her figure and fine carriage than her features.
She had her hand upon the shoulder of a boy in Eton dress.
"That," said Harding, "was my father."
Beatrice signified by a movement of her head that she had heard, for she
was strongly interested in the back-ground of the picture. The wide lawn
with its conventionally cut border of shrubbery stretched beyond the
old-fashioned house until it ended at the edge of a lake, across which
rounded masses of trees rolled up the side of a hill. All this was
familiar; it reminded her of summer afternoons in England two or three
years ago. Surely she had walked along that terrace then! She could
remember the gleaming water, the solid, dark contour of the beechwood on
the hill, and the calm beauty of the sunlit landscape that she glimpsed
between massive scattered oaks. Then she started as she distinguished
the tower of a church in the faded distance, its spires rising among the
tall beech-trees.
"But this is certainly Ash Garth!" she cried.
"I never heard its name," Harding answered quietly.
Beatrice sat down with the photograph in her hand. Her curiosity was
strongly roused, and she had a half disturbing sense of satisfaction.
"It looks as if your father had lived there," she said.
"Yes; I think it must have been his home."
"But the owner of Ash Garth is Basil Morel! It is a beautiful place. You
come down from the bleak moorland into a valley through which a river
winds, and the house stands among the beechwoods at the foot of the
hill."
"The picture shows something of the kind," agreed Harding, watching her
with a reserved smile.
Beatrice hesitated.
"Perhaps I could find out what became of your father's people and where
they are now."
"I don't want to know. I have shown you these things in confidence; I'd
rather not have them talked about."
"But you must see what they might mean to you!" Beatrice exclaimed in
surprise.
He moved from the window and stood facing her with an air of pride.
"They mean nothing at all to me. My father was obviously an exile,
disowned by his English relatives. If he had done anything to deserve
this, I don't want to learn it, but I can't think that's so. It was more
likely a family quarrel. Anyway, I'm quite content to leave my relatives
alone. Besides, I promised something of the kind."
He told her about the money he had received, and she listened with keen
interest.
"But did he never tell you anything about his English life?"
"No," said Harding. "I'm not sure that my mother knew, though Hester
thinks she meant to tell us something in her last illness. My father was
a reserved man. I think he felt his banishment and it took the heart out
of him. He was not a good farmer, not the stuff the pioneers are made
of, and I believe he only worked his land for my mother's sake, while it
was she who really managed things until I grew up. She was a brave,
determined woman, and kept him on his feet."
Beatrice was silent for a few moments. The man loved her, and although
she would not admit that she loved him, it was satisfactory to feel that
he really belonged to her own rank. This explained several traits of his
that had puzzled her. It was, however, unfortunate that he held such
decided views, and she felt impelled to combat them.
"But you need ask nothing from the people except that they should
acknowledge you," she urged. "Think of the difference this would make to
you and Hester. It would give you standing and position."
"Hester is going to marry a man who loves her for herself, and the only
position I value I have made. What would I gain by raking up a painful
story? The only relatives I'm proud to claim are my mother's in
Michigan, and they're plain, rugged folks."
There was something in his attitude that appealed to Beatrice. He had no
false ambitions; he was content to be judged on his own merits--a severe
test. For all that, she set some value upon good birth, and it was
distasteful to see that he denied the advantages of his descent. Then
she grew embarrassed as she recognized that what really troubled her was
his indifference to the opinion of her relatives. He must know that he
had a means of disarming her father's keenest prejudice, but he would
not use it.
"I understand that Hester knows nothing about these portraits," she
said.
"No; I've never mentioned them. It could do no good."
"Then why have you told me?"
"Well," he answered gravely, "I thought you ought to know."
"I have no claim upon the secrets you keep from your sister."
Harding was silent, and Beatrice felt annoyed. After all, she understood
why he had told her and she recognized that he had acted honestly in
doing so. Still, if he really loved her, she felt, he should not let
pride stand in the way of removing every obstacle to get her.
Hester came in and announced that the horses were ready; and soon
afterward she and Beatrice were riding together across the prairie while
Harding went doggedly back to his work.