"Why not?" Mrs. Leslie laughed merrily. "They just dropped in and
there's no time to send for him. Quite simple."
"Do you think I'm ashamed of him?" Helen asked, flushing.
Mrs. Leslie trimmed her sails to the squall. "Certainly not. He's a
dear. You know I always liked him. But--if your friends were to make a
long stay it would be different. You couldn't hide his light under a
bushel. But a two days' visit? What could they learn of him in that
time? The real him? They would no more than gather his departures from
the conventional. I wouldn't expose him to unfriendly criticism.
Frankly, I wouldn't, dear, at the cost of a little fib!"
The flush faded, yet Helen shook her head.
"As you will." Rising, the little cynic shrugged as she drew on her
riding-gloves. "But at least take a day to think it over."
"No!" Helen shook vigorous denial. "I shall tell him to-night."
She was perfectly sincere in her intention, and if Carter had returned
his usual good-natured self she would certainly have told him. But Mrs.
Leslie's presence had angered him and destroyed his native judgment. He
remembered that this was the outcome of Helen's invitation to Mrs.
Leslie at the picnic, and his heart swelled at the thought that she
should, of her own volition, go back to friends whom she knew that he
despised. He felt the folly of his brooding, even applied strong
language to himself for being many kinds of a fool. But his reasonable
intention to open his budget of good news on his return was never
carried out because of the coldness of her reception. Nervous from her
own news, piqued by his curt leave-taking, she served his supper in
silence or answered his few remarks in monosyllables. Nothing was said
that night, and he retired without offering the usual kiss.
There he offended greatly. Her woman's unreason would, for that, accept
no excuse. So when, after working off his own mood next morning, he
came in to breakfast, he found her still the same. Really offended, she
served him, as at the previous meal, in silence, and as, afterwards, she
went about her work, her lashes veiled her eyes, her lips pouting.
It was their first real quarrel, and the very strangeness, novelty of
her mood made it charming. But when, under urge of sudden tenderness,
he tried to encircle her waist, she drew away, and, afflicted with a
sense of injustice, he did not try again. There again he made a
mistake. Justice has no concern with love. It is empirical, knows no
law but its own. She wanted to be taken and kissed in spite of herself,
as have all women on similar occasions, from the cave maidens down.
It so happened that she was in the bedroom when he left the house, and
she did not see that he had taken with him the bundle she had packed the
preceding night. She still intended to mention the letter. Indeed, as
she heard his step on the threshold, she thought, "He'll stop at the
door for his clothes."
But he did not; and hurrying out at the sound of scurrying hoofs, she
was just in time to see him vanish behind a poplar bluff. She called,
called, and called, then sat down and wept, the more miserable because
of a secret, guilty feeling of relief.
*XII*
*THE BREAK*
For three days a brown smoke had hovered over the black line of distant
spruce. It was far away, fifty miles at least. Yet anxious eyes turned
constantly its way until, the evening of the fourth day, the omen faded.
Then a sigh of relief passed over the settlements. "Back-fired itself
out among the lakes," the settlers told one another. Then, being
recovered from their scare, they invidiously reflected on the Indian
agent who permitted his wards to start fires to scare out the deer. Nor
did the fact that the agent was blameless in the matter take from the
satisfaction accruing from their grumblings.
That evening five persons sat with Helen at supper, for she had invited
the Leslies and Danvers, Molyneux's farm pupil, to meet her guests. For
her this meal was the culmination of days of anxious planning. To set
out the table she and Mrs. Leslie had ransacked their respective
establishments, and she blushed when Kate Ravell enthused over the
result.
"What beautiful china!" she exclaimed, picking up one of Mrs. Leslie's
Wedgwood cups. "We have nothing like this." Then, glancing at the
white napery, crystal, and silver, she said, "Who would think that we
were two thousand miles from civilization?"
It was, indeed, hard to realize. Obedient to Mrs. Leslie's orders, her
husband and Danvers had fished--albeit with reluctance--forgotten
dress-suits from bottom deeps of leather portmanteaus. She herself
looked her prettiest in a gown of rich black lace superimposed on some
white material, and, carrying her imperative generosity to the limit,
she had forced one of her own dinner-dresses upon Helen. Of a filmy,
delicate blue, it brought out the young wife's golden beauty. From the
low corsage her slender throat and delicate face rose like a pink lily
from a violet calyx. Usually she wore her redundant hair coiled in a
thick braid around the crown of her head for comfort; but to-night it
was done upon her neck in a loose figure of eight that revealed its mass
and sheen. Looking from Mrs. Leslie to Helen, Kate Ravell had secretly
congratulated herself upon having, despite her husband's protest,
slipped one of her own pretty dresses into his valise.
His laugh, a wholesome peal that accorded with his good-humored face,
followed her remark. "She didn't think that at Lone Tree," he said. "A
lumber-wagon was the best the liveryman could do for us in the way of
conveyance, and when Kate asked if he hadn't a carriage he looked
astonished and scratched his head.
"'Ain't but one in town,' he answered, 'an' it belongs to Doc Ellis.
'Tain't been used sence he druv the small-pox case down to the Brandon
pest-house. I 'low he'd let you have it.'"
His wife echoed his laugh. "It was a little rough, but this--it's
great!" She pointed out through the open door over the wheat, golden
under the setting sun, to the dark green and yellow of woods and
prairies. "You are to be envied, Nell. Your house is so artistic. The
life must be ideal--"
Inwardly, Mrs. Leslie snorted: "Humph! If she could see her milking, up
to ankles in mud on rainy days--or feeding those filthy calves?" Aloud,
she said, "Unfortunately, Helen isn't here very often--spends most of
her time in Winnipeg." Ignoring Helen's pleading look, she ran on, "Did
you store your things, my dear, or let the house furnished?"
Thus entrapped, Helen could only answer that her goods were stored, and
her embarrassment deepened when Mrs. Leslie continued: "It is such a
pity, Mrs. Ravell, that you could not have met Mr. Carter! He is such a
dear fellow, so quiet and refined. Fred"--Leslie's grin faded under her
frown--"what is the matter?"
"A crumb, my dear," he apologized. "Excuse me, please."
"We shall have to return you to the nursery." Her glance returned to
Kate Ravell, and, oblivious of the entreaty in Helen's eyes, she ran on
in praise of Carter. He was so reserved! The reserve of strength that
goes with good-nature! Resourceful--and so she flowed on with her
panegyrics. She was not altogether insincere. Helen caught herself
blushing with pleasure whenever, leaving her fictions, Mrs. Leslie
touched on some sterling quality. Twice she was startled to hear put
into words subtilties that she herself had only felt, and on each
occasion she narrowly watched Mrs. Leslie, an adumbration of suspicion
forming in her mind. But each time it was removed by absurd praise of
hypothetical qualities or virtues Carter did not possess. So Mrs.
Leslie praised and teased.
What influenced her? It is hard to answer a question that inheres in
the complexities of such a frivolous yet passionate nature. Naturally
good-natured, she would help Helen out in all things that did not cross
her own purposes. The sequel proves that she had not yet got Carter out
of her hot blood. Given which two things, her action, teasings, and
panegyrics are at least understandable.
"We are very sorry," Kate Ravell said when Mrs. Leslie gave pause. "We
did wish to see him. Do you suppose, Helen, that we might if we stayed
another day?"
It was more than possible, but Ravell relieved Helen of a sudden deadly
fear. "Can't do it, my dear. We are tied down by schedule. Should
miss the Japan steamer and have to lay over in Vancouver two weeks."
Kate sighed. Newly married, she had all of a young wife's desire to see
her girl friend happy as herself; nor would aught but ocular
demonstration satisfy the longing. She was expressing the hope that
Carter and Helen should some day visit them in their Eastern home, when
she suddenly paused, staring out-doors. Following her glance, Mrs.
Leslie saw a man, a big fellow in lumberman's shirt and overalls. The
garments were burned in several places, so that blackened skin showed
through. His eyes were bloodshot, his face sooty, which accounted for
Mrs. Leslie's not recognizing him at once.
"Mr. Carter!" she exclaimed, after a second look.
Helen was pouring tea, but she sprang up at the name, spilling a cup of
boiling tea over her wrist. She did not feel the scald. Breathless,
she stood, a hand pressed against her bosom, until Mrs. Leslie, the
always ready, burst into merry laughter.
"What a blackamoor! How you frightened us! Where _have_ you been?"
Coming up from the stables, Carter had heard voices, laughter, the
tinkle of teacups, and the sound had afflicted him with something of the
feeling that assails the wanderer whose returning ears give him sounds
of revelry in the old homestead. He had suffered, during his absence,
remorse for his own obstinacy mingling in equal proportions with the
pain of Helen's coldness. Absence had been rendered endurable by the
thought that it would make reconciliation the easier; but now that he
was returned, ready to give and ask forgiveness, to pour his good news
into her sympathetic ear, he found her merrymaking.
His was a hard position. Between himself, rough, ragged, dirty, and
these well-groomed men in evening dress, there could be no more
startling contrast. He felt it. The table, with its snowy napery,
gleaming appointments, was foreign to his sight as the _decollete_
dresses, the white arms and necks. Yet his natural imperturbability
stood him bravely in place of sophistication.
"Been fighting fire," he answered, with his usual deliberation.
"Suppose I do look pretty fierce."
His glance moved inquiringly from the Ravells to his wife.
But she still stood, eyes wide, breath issuing in light gasps from her
parted lips. For her also the moment was full of bitterness. There was
no time for thought. She only felt--a composite feeling compounded of
the misgiving, discontent, humiliation, disappointment, disillusionment
of the last few months. It all culminated in that moment, and with it
mixed deep shame, remorse for her conduct. Also she had regret on
another score. If she _had_ told him, he would at least have been
prepared, have achieved a presentable appearance. Now she was taken in
her sin! Foul with smoke, soot, the dirt and grime of labor, he was
facing her guests.
Starting, she realized that they were waiting, puzzled, for
introductions--that is, Kate was puzzled. Ravell was busily employed
taking admiring note of Carter's splendid inches. Poor Helen! She
might have been easier in her mind could she have sensed the friendly
feeling that inhered in Ravell's cordial grip.
"We were just deploring the fact that we were not to meet you, Mr.
Carter," he said. "We felt sure of finding you home after the notice we
gave Mrs. Carter. We were really quite jealous of your affairs, but now
we shall go away satisfied."
Given a duller man, the word "notice" supplied the possibilities of an
unpleasant situation. But though he instantly remembered the letter,
Carter gave no sign till he and Helen had passed into their bedroom.
Even then he abstained from direct allusions.
"Friends of yourn?" he questioned, as she set out clean clothing.
"Kate is an old school-fellow. Wait; I'll get you clean towels." She
bustled about, hiding her nervousness from his gray inquisition. "They
are on their honey-moon. Going to the Orient--Japan, China, and the
island countries. They stayed off a couple of days to see us."
"To see you," he corrected.
She colored. Her glance fluttered away from his grave eyes. She
hurried again into speech. "Wait, dear! I'll get you some warm water."
He refused the service, he who had loved to take anything from her
hands. "Thanks. I think the lake fits my case. Give me the towels and
I'll change down there after my swim."
The meal was finished, and she, with the others, had carried her chair
outside before he came swinging back from the lake. He was wearing the
store clothes of her misgivings, but the ugly cut could not hide the
magnificent sweep of his limbs. She thrilled despite her misery. As she
rose to get his dinner, Mrs. Leslie also jumped up.
"Poor man, you must be famished!" she exclaimed. "No, Helen, you are
tired. Stay here and entertain the men. Mrs. Ravell and I will wait on
Mr. Carter. And you, Mr. Danvers, may act as cookee."
Thus saved from an uncomfortable tete-a-tete, Helen suffered a greater
misery than his accusing presence. While chatting with Ned Ravell, her
ears were strained to catch the conversation going on inside. She
listened for Carter's homely locutions, shivering as she pictured his
primitive table manners. As a burst of laughter followed his murmured
bass, she wondered whether they were laughing _with_ or _at_ him.
She might have been easy, for the laugh was on Danvers. As yet that
young gentleman was still in the throes of the sporting fever which
invariably assails Englishmen new to the frontier. Any day he might be
seen wriggling snakelike on the flat of his belly through mud towards
some wary duck, and an enthusiastic eulogium on the shooting qualities
of a new Greener gun had drawn from Carter the story of Danvers' first
kill.
"Prairie chicken's mighty good eating an' easy shooting," he remarked,
with a sly look at Kate Ravell. "But nothing would satisfy his soaring
ambitions but duck. Duck for his, sirree! an' he blazed away till the
firmament hereabouts was powder-marked and riddled. Burned up at least
three tons of powder before he got my duck."
"_Your duck?_" Danvers protested. "Just hear him, Mrs. Leslie. It was
a wild duck that I shot down here by the lake."
Carter chuckled and went on with his teasing. "I came near being called
as a witness to that cruel murder, for I was back-setting the thirty
acres down by the lake when I heard a shot an' a yell. I read it that
he'd got himself, an' was jes' going after the remains, when up he comes
on a hungry lope, gun in one hand and a mallard in the other. The bird
was that mussed up its own mother couldn't have told it from a cocoanut
door-mat. Looked like it had made foolish faces at a Gatling; yet he
tells me that he gets the unfortunate animal at eighty yards on the
wing."
"You know how close that old gun of mine used to shoot," Danvers
interrupted. "It was choke-bored, Mrs. Ravell. At eighty-yards it
would put every shot inside of a three-foot circle."
"The feather marking looked sort of familiar to me," Carter went calmly
on. "An' he admits, on cross-examination, that he murders this bird in
front of my cabin."
"What of it?" Danvers eagerly put in. "Wild ducks light any old place."
"But it jes' happens that the confiding critter has raised her brood in
the sedges there, being encouraged an' incited thereto by my wife, who
throws it bread an' other pickings. Taking Danvers' gun-barrel for some
new kind of worm, when he pokes it through the sedge she sails right up
and is examining the boring thereof, when, bang! she's blown into a
railroad disaster."
"Don't believe him, Mrs. Ravell," Danvers pleaded. "It was a wild duck,
and I shot it flying."
"So if the new gun's what you say it is," the tormentor finished, "you'd
better to practise on prairie chicken an' don't be misled by Mrs.
Leslie's hens."
"As though I couldn't tell a hen from a prairie chicken!"
Carter joined in the laugh which Danvers' indignant remonstrance drew
from the women, yet under the laugh, beneath his humorous indifference,
lay a sad heart. "She knew they were coming! She didn't tell me!"
Down by the lake he had reasoned the situation out to its cruel
conclusion--"She's ashamed of me!" How it hurt! Yet the flick on the
raw served him well in that it set him on his mettle, nerved him to
carry off the situation.
He did not try to transcend his limitations, to clog himself with
unfamiliar restrictions of speech or manners. But within those
limitations he did his best, and did it so well that neither woman was
conscious of social difference. He showed none of the bashfulness which
might be expected from a frontiersman sitting for the first time at
table with fashionable women in dinner-gowns. On the contrary, he
admired the pretty dresses, the white arms, the hands that handled the
teacups so gracefully; and when he spoke the matter so eclipsed the
manner that it is doubtful whether Kate Ravell noticed a single
locution. His shrewd common-sense, quaint humor, the quickness with
which he grasped a new point of view, and the freshness of his own
impressed her with his strong personality. Pleased and amused, she had
no time to notice grammatical lapses or small table gaucheries that had
irritated Helen by constant repetition.
"He's delightful," she told her husband, in a conjugal aside.
In the conversation which ensued after they joined the others outside,
Carter also took no mean part. Of things he knew, and these ranged over
subjects that were the more interesting because unfamiliar to the
town-bred folks, he spoke entertainingly; and on those foreign to his
experience he preserved silence. On every common topic his opinion was
sound, wholesome. His keen wit punctured several fallacies. The quaint
respect of his manner to the women served him as well with the men.
"Big brain," Ravell told his wife in that conference which all married
folk have held since the first pair retired to their bedroom under the
stars at the forks of the Euphrates. "That fellow will go far."
"So gentle and kind," Kate added. "I think Helen is lucky. Those
English people are nice," she went on, musingly; "but if I were Helen
I'd keep an eye on Mrs. Leslie."
"Yes," she answered his surprised look, nodding vigorously. "She is in
love with Mr. Carter. How do I know?" She sniffed. "Didn't I see her
eyes--the opportunities she made to touch him while handing him things
at supper? Helen is safe, though, so long as she treats him properly.
He doesn't care for Mrs. Leslie."
He shook his head reprovingly. "You shouldn't make snap judgments,
Kate."
Had he witnessed a little scene that occurred just before the Leslies
drove away! Good-byes had been said, and Helen had gone in-doors with
her guests. Danvers, who was riding, had galloped away. Then, at the
last moment, Leslie remembered that he had left his halters at the
stable. While he ran back Carter stood beside the rig. Brilliant
northern moonlight showed him Mrs. Leslie's eyes, dark, dilated, but he
ignored their knowledge till she spoke.
"_I_ wouldn't have done it."
"Done what?"
His stoicism could not hide the sudden flash of pain. She saw it writhe
over his face like the quivering of molten lead ere his features set in
stern immobility.
"It is very chivalrous of you." She smiled bitterly. "But why wear a
mask with me?"
"You have the advantage of me, ma'am," he stiffly answered, and moved
round to the ponies' heads.
Leslie was now returning, but she spoke again, quickly, eagerly, with
the concentration of passion. "It is always the way! The more we spurn
you the hotter your love, and--" She paused, then, hearing her
husband's foot-fall, whispered: "Vice versa. Remember! _I_ wouldn't
have done it!"
After their departing rattle had died, Carter threw himself on the grass
before the house and lay, head on clasped hands, staring up at the moon;
and Helen, who was using unnecessary time making a temporary bed, paused
and looked out from the open door. The dark figure loomed stern and
still as the marble effigy of some crusader. There was something awful
in his silence; the soft moonlight quivered around and about him, seemed
a sorrowful emanation. Frightened, remorseful, she sat locking and
unlocking her fingers. What was he thinking?
Part of his thought was easy to divine. It would be common to any man
in his situation--the hurt pride, jealous pain, misgiving, unhappiness,
but beyond these was an unknown quantity, the product of his own
peculiar individuality. His keen intellect had already analyzed the
cause of her shame. He was rough, crude, unpolished! Any man might
also have reached that conclusion. It was in the synthesis, the
upbuilding of thought from that conclusion, that he branched from the
common. He was humble enough in acknowledging his defects. Yet his
natural wit showed him that humility would not serve in these premises.
Forgiveness for the crime against his personality would not remove the
cause of the offence. Far-sighted, he saw down the vista of years his
and her love slowly dying of the same similar offences and causes.
That, at least, should never be! He had reached a decision before she
came creeping out in her night-dress.
"Aren't you coming to bed, dear?"
He sensed the remorse, sorrow, pity in her voice, but these were not the
feelings to move his resolution. Pity! It is the anodyne, the peaceful
end of love. Rising, he stretched his great arms and turned towards the
stables.
"Where are you going?" she called, sharply, under the urge of sudden
fear.
"To turn in on the hay."
She ran and caught his arm, and turned her pale face up to his. "Why?
I have made our bed on the couch. Won't you come in?"
"No!"
"Why?" she reiterated. "Oh, why?"
"Because it is shame to live together when love has fled."
She clasped his arm with both hands. "Oh, don't say that! How _can_
you say it? Who says I do not love you?"
"Yourself." His weary, hopeless tone brought her tears. "In love there
is no shame, an' you was ashamed of me."
"I did mean to tell you." Desperate, she caught his neck. How valuable
this love was becoming, now she felt it slipping from her! "I did! But
you went away without saying good-bye."
"There was opportunity, plenty. You could have sent for me."
His sternness set her trembling. "Then--I thought--I thought--they were
only to be here for one day. Such a short visit. I thought they might
misjudge--I didn't want to expose you to hostile criticism."
"You've said it. Love knows no fear. Good-night."
"Oh!--please--_don't_!" she called after him, as he strode away. Pity,
woman's weakness, the conservative instinct that makes against broken
ties, these were all behind her cry, and his keen sensibility instantly
detected them. He closed the stable door.
According to the canons of romance, it would have been very proper for
that jarring echo to have unstoppered the fountains of her love and all
things would have come to a proper ending. But, somehow, it did not.
After a burst of crying into her lonely pillow, she lay and permitted
her mind to hark back over her married life. Hardship, squalor,
suffering, misfortune passed in review till she gained back to the days
when Molyneux had also paid her court. What share had anger and pique
in affecting her decision? Angry pride was, just then, ready to yield
them the larger proportion. Later came softer memories. She was
troubled as she thought of his generous kindness. Under the thought
affection, if not love, revived, and conscience permitted no sleep until
she promised to beg forgiveness.
However, circumstance robbed her of the opportunity. Before the Ravells
retired, Carter had said good-bye, as he intended to start back for the
woods before sunrise. "You needn't to get up, either," he had told her.
"I'll take breakfast with Bender." But now she promised herself that
she would rise, get him a hot meal, and then make her peace. But at
dawn she was awakened by his wheels, and, running to the door, she was
just in time to see him go by. She would have called only, as the cry
trembled to her lips, his words of the night before recurred to
memory--"Marriage without love is shame!" Suddenly conscious of her
night-gear, she shrank as a young girl would from the eye of a stranger,
and the chance was gone.
"I'll tell him when he returns," she murmured, blushing.
But he did not return; and two days later Bender and Jenny Hines drove
up to the door.
In the neatly dressed girl, with hair done on top of her head, it was
difficult, indeed, to recognize the forlorn creature whom Bender had
picked up on that night trail. Though she was still small--a legacy
from her drudging years--she had filled and rounded out into a becoming
plumpness. Her pale eyes had deepened, were full of sparkle and color.
Two years ago she would have been deemed incapable of the smile she
turned on Helen.
"I'm so glad to see you, Mrs. Carter; an' I'm to stay with you all
winter while your husband's up at the camp. The doctor didn't want to
let me go," she said, not noting Helen's surprise, "an' he wouldn't to
any one but you."
"The camp? What camp?"
It was Jenny's turn to stare. As for Bender, he gaped, while his colors
rivalled those of a cooked beet. Sweating under her questions, he
looked off and away to escape the spectacle of her white misery as he
explained Carter's new enterprise and its glorious possibilities. He
finished with an attempt at comfort.
"I ain't surprised that he didn't tell you. I allow he was going to
spring it on you all hatched and full-fledged. Me an' Jenny here was
real stupid to give it away. Might just as well have said as she'd come
on a little visit. I allow he'll be hopping mad at the pair of us. An'
now I'll have to be going after the Cougar. He'll do the chores till we
kin get you a hired man."
If the fiction eased the situation, it deceived neither her nor them.
Having, a week later, delivered the new hired man, a strong young Swede,
Bender delivered his real opinion with dubious head-shakings while
carting the Cougar away. "Don't it beat hell, Cougar? Him that
straight an' good, her that sweet an' purty, yet they don't hitch. It's
discouraging."
"Well," the cynic grunted, "take warning."