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 led across banks of sharp-pointed stones that rested lightly on the
steep slope, interspersed with outcropping 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 he stood still for a minute looking
about him. The mist was now so thick that he could see scarcely 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 that and the hill a boggy stretch of grass ran back
into the vapor. Vane glanced at his companion 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 cheeringly; "and you're
not responsible--it's Mopsy's fault."
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 toward 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. 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, sinking ankle-deep in
the spongy moss among the roots of it When he had grown scarcely
distinguishable in the haze he turned and waved his hand.
"I know where we are--almost to the head of the beck!" he called.
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
amid the vapor. At length the ground grew softer, and Vane, going first,
sank among the long green moss almost to his knees. It made a bubbling,
sucking sound as he drew out his feet.
"That won't do! Stand still, please! I'll try a little to the right."
He tried in one or two directions; but wherever he went he sank over his
boots. Coming back he informed his companion that they would better go
straight ahead.
"I know there's no bog worth speaking of--the Hause is a regular
tourist track."
He stopped and stripped off his jacket.
"First of all, you must put this on; I'm sorry I didn't think of
it before."
Evelyn demurred, and Vane rolled up the jacket.
"You have to choose between doing what I ask and watching me pitch
it into the beck. I'm a rather determined person. It would be a
pity to throw the thing away, particularly as the rain hasn't got
through it yet."
She yielded, and he held the jacket while she put it on.
"There's another thing," he added. "I'm going to carry you for the next
hundred yards, or possibly farther."
"No," replied Evelyn firmly. "On that point, my determination is as
strong as yours."
Vane made a sign of acquiescence.
"You may have your way for a minute; I expect that 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 mire. 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 she recognized that had he shown any sign of
self-conscious hesitation she would at once have shaken herself loose. As
it was, the fact that he appeared perfectly at ease and unaware that he
was doing anything unusual was reassuring. Then as he plodded forward she
wondered at his steadiness, for she remembered that when she had once
fallen heavily when nailing up a clematis her father, who was a vigorous
man, had found it difficult to carry her upstairs. Vane had never carried
any woman in his arms before, but he had occasionally had to pack--as it
is termed in the West--hundred-and-forty-pound flour bags over a rocky
portage, and, though the comparison did not strike him as a happy one, he
thought the girl was not quite so heavy as that. He was conscious of a
curious thrill and a certain stirring of his blood, but this, he decided,
must be sternly ignored. His task 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 endeavor
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 at last
revealed the forceful, natural manners of the West. It was the first
glimpse she had had of them, 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, and then fell tumultuously
into the beck, which was now ten or twelve feet below them. They clung to
the rock as they traced it downward, stepping cautiously from ledge to
ledge and from slippery stone to stone. At times a stone plunged into the
mist beneath them, and Vane grasped the girl's arm and held out a
steadying hand, but he was never fussy nor needlessly concerned. When she
wanted help, it was offered at the right moment; but that was all. Had
she been alarmed, 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.
"You are sure-footed," she remarked, when they stopped a minute or two
for breath.
Vane laughed as he glanced into the vapor-rilled depths beneath. They
stood on a ledge, two or three yards in width, with a tall crag behind
them and the beck, which had rapidly grown larger, leaping half seen from
rock to rock in the rift in front.
"I was born among these fells; and I have helped to pack various kinds of
mining truck over much rougher mountains."
"Have you ever gone up as steep a place as this with a load?"
"If I remember rightly, the top of the Hause drops about three hundred
feet, and we'll probably spend half an hour in reaching the valley. There
was one western divide that it took us several days to cross, dragging a
tent, camp gear and provisions in relays. Its foot was wrapped in tangled
brush that tore most of our clothes to rags, and the last pitch was two
thousand feet of rock where the snow lay waist-deep in the hollows."
"Two thousand feet! That dwarfs our little drop to the Hause. What were
you doing so far up in the ranges?"
"Looking for a copper mine."
"And you found one?"
"No; not that time. As a rule, the mineral trail leads poor men to
greater poverty, and sometimes to a grave; but once you have set your
feet on it you follow it again. The thing becomes an obsession; you feel
forced to go."
"Even if you bring nothing back?"
Vane laughed.
"One always brings back something--frost-bite, bruises, a bag of
specimens that assayers and mineral development men smile at. They're
the palpable results, but in most cases you pick up an intangible
something else."
"And that is?"
"A thing beyond definition. A germ that lies in wait in the lonely places
and breeds fantasies when it gets into your blood. Anyway, you can never
quite get rid of it."
Evelyn was interested. The man was endowed with a trick of quaint and
almost poetical imagination, which she had not suspected him of
possessing.
"It conduces to unrest?" she suggested.
"Yes. One feels that there's a rich claim waiting beyond the thick timber
through which one can hardly scramble, across the icy rivers, or over the
snow-line."
"But you found one."
"At last I found it easily. After ranging the wildest solitudes, we
struck it in a sheltered valley near the warm west coast. Curious,
isn't it?"
"But didn't that banish the unrest and leave you satisfied?"
The man looked at her with a flicker of grim amusement in his eyes.
"As I explained, it can't be banished. There's always a richer claim
somewhere that you haven't found. Our prospectors dream of it as the
Mother Lode, and some spend half their lives in search of it; it was
called El Dorado three hundred years ago. After all, the idea's a
deeper thing than a miner's fantasy: in one shape or another it's
inherent in optimistic human nature. Are you sure the microbe hasn't
bitten you and Mopsy?"
He was too shrewd. Turning from him, she looked down at the eddying mist.
For several years she had chafed at her surroundings and the restraints
they laid upon her, with a restless longing for something wider and
better: a freer, sunnier atmosphere where her nature could expand. At
times she fancied there was only one sun which could warm it to a perfect
growth, but that sun had not risen and scarcely seemed likely to do so.
Vane broke the silence deprecatingly.
"Now that you're rested, we'd better get on. I'm sorry I've kept
you so long."
Though caution was still necessary, the rest of the descent was easier,
and after a while they reached a winding dale. They followed it
downward, 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 toward evening. 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," replied 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 some dry clothes. I've no doubt he'll drive us back
afterward."
Evelyn made no objections. She was very wet and was beginning to feel
weary, and they were some distance from home. She returned his jacket,
and a few minutes later they entered an old hostelry which, like many
others among those hills, was a farm as well as an inn. The landlady
recognized Vane with pleased surprise. When she had attended to Evelyn
she 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," smiled 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 her. The room was low and shadowy,
and partly paneled. Against one wall stood a black oak sideboard, with a
plate-rack above it, and a great chest of the same material with
ponderous hand-forged hinge-straps stood opposite it. A clock with an
engraved metal dial and a six-foot case, polished to a wonderful luster
by the hands of several generations, ticked in one corner; and here and
there the firelight flickered upon utensils of burnished copper. There
was little in the place that looked less than a century old, for there
are nooks in the North that have still escaped the ravages of the
collector. Outside, the rain dripped from the massy 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 toward 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; though this by no means comprised the
whole of his sensations. After living almost entirely among men, he had
of late met three women who had impressed him in different ways, and they
had all been pleasant to look upon.
First, there was Kitty Blake, little, graceful and, in a way, alluring;
and it was she who had first roused in him a vague desire for a companion
who could be more to him than a man could be. Beyond that, pretty as she
was, she had only moved him to chivalrous pity and a wider sympathy.
Then he had met Jessy Horsfield, whom he admired. She was a clever woman
and a handsome one, but she had scarcely stirred him at all.
Last, he had met Evelyn, as well endowed with physical charm as either;
and there was no doubt that the effect she had on him was different
again. It was one that was difficult to analyze, though he lazily tried.
She appealed to him by the grace of her carriage, the poise of her head,
her delicate coloring, and the changing lights in her eyes; but behind
these points there was something stronger and deeper expressed through
them. He fancied that she possessed qualities he had not hitherto
encountered, which would become more precious when they were fully
understood. He thought of her as steadfast and wholesome in mind; one who
sought for the best; but beyond this there was an ethereal something that
could not be defined. Then a simile struck him: she was like the snow
that towered high into the empyrean in British Columbia. In this,
however, he was wrong, for there was warm human passion in the girl,
though as yet it was sleeping.
He realized suddenly that he was getting absurdly sentimental, and
instinctively he fumbled for his pipe, then stopped. Evelyn noticed this
and smiled.
"You needn't hesitate. 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, so he assures us,
extraordinarily unlucky."
"Stocks?" suggested Vane. He was acquainted with some of the family
tendencies.
Evelyn hesitated a moment.
"That would more readily have been forgiven him. I believe he has
speculated on the turf as well."
Vane was surprised. He understood that Gerald Chisholm was a barrister,
and betting on the turf was not an amusement he would have associated
with that profession.
"I must run up and see him by and by," he said thoughtfully.
Evelyn felt sorry she had spoken. Gerald needed help, which his father
was not in a position to offer. Evelyn 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 abruptly changed the subject.
"Several of the things you have told me about your life in Canada
interest me. It must have been bracing to feel that you depended upon
your own efforts and stood on your own feet, free from the hampering
customs that are common here."
"The position has its disadvantages. You have no family influence behind
you--nothing to fall back on. 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 much like yours. She said it
must be pleasant to feel that one is, 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 had everything she could reasonably
wish for. If I'm not transgressing, so have you. It's strange you should
both harbor the same idea."
Evelyn smiled.
"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 molded by the prejudices and
preconceptions of one's--neighbors 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 that it was the opinions of her neighbors against which she
chafed most.
"It's something that I've never experienced," he replied at length. "In a
general way, I've done what I wanted."
"Which is a privilege that is denied us."
Evelyn spoke without bitterness.
"What do women who are left to their own resources do in western Canada?"
she asked presently.
"Some of them marry; I suppose that's the most natural thing," answered
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 require more than they do
across the Atlantic. What becomes of the others?"
"They are waitresses in the hotels; they learn stenography and
typewriting, and go into offices and stores."
"And earn just enough to live upon meagerly? 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; not unless they're trained for it and become specialized. 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," laughed Evelyn. "A man is more fortunately situated."
"Probably; but if he's poor, he's rather walled in, too. He breaks
through now and then; and 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 fiber to plunge into the struggle that
many women had to wage. 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 organizations that proved hardiest in adverse situations;
one needed a strain of primitive vigor. There was, it seemed, only one
means of release for Evelyn, and that was a happy marriage. But a
marriage could not be happy unless the suitor should be all that she
desired; and Evelyn would be fastidious, though her family would, no
doubt, look only for wealth and station. Vane imagined that this was
where the trouble lay, and he felt a protective pity for her. He would
wait and keep his eyes open.
Presently there was a rattle of wheels outside and the landlord came in
and greeted them with rude cordiality. Shortly afterward Vane helped
Evelyn into the rig, and Bell drove them home through the rain.