AGATHA DOES NOT FLINCH
The next evening Wyllard sat with Mrs. Radcliffe in a big low-ceilinged
room at Garside Scar. He looked about him with quiet interest. He had
now and then passed a day or two in huge Western hotels, but he had
never seen anything quite like that room. The sheer physical comfort of
its arrangements appealed to him, but after all he was not one who had
ever studied his bodily ease very much, and what he regarded as the
chaste refinement of its adornment had a deeper effect than a mere
appeal to the material side of his nature. Though he had lived for the
most part in the bush and on the prairie, he had somehow acquired an
artistic susceptibility.
The furniture was old, and perhaps a trifle shabby, but it was of
beautiful design. Curtains, carpets and tinted walls formed a harmony of
soft coloring, and there were scattered here and there dainty works of
art, little statuettes from Italy, and wonderful Indian ivory and silver
work. A row of low, stone-ribbed windows pierced the front of the room.
Looking out he saw the trim garden lying in the warm evening light.
Immediately beneath the windows ran a broad graveled terrace, which was
evidently raked smooth every day, and a row of urns in which hyacinths
bloomed stood upon its pillared wall. From the middle of the terrace a
wide stairway led down to the wonderful velvet lawn, which was dotted
with clumps of cupressus with golden gleams in it, and beyond the lawn
clipped yews rose smooth and solid as a rampart of stone.
It all impressed him curiously--the order and beauty of it, the signs of
loving care. It gave him a key, he fancied, to the lives of the cultured
English people, for there was no sign of strain and fret and stress and
hurry here. Everything, it seemed, went smoothly with rhythmic
regularity, and though it is possible that many Englishmen would have
regarded Garside Scar as a very second-rate country house, and would
have seen in Major Radcliffe and his wife nothing more than a somewhat
prosy old soldier and a withered lady old-fashioned in her dress and
views, this Westerner had what was, perhaps, a clearer vision. Wyllard
could imagine the Major standing fast at any cost upon some minute point
of honor, and it seemed to him that Mrs. Radcliffe, with all the graces
of an earlier age and the smell of the English lavender upon her
garments, might have stepped down from some old picture. Then he
remembered that, after all, Englishwomen lived somewhat coarsely in the
Georgian days, and that he had met in Western Canada hard-handed men
grimed with dust and sweat who also could stand fast by a point of
honor. Though the fact did not occur to him, he had, for that matter,
done it more than once himself.
He recalled his wandering thoughts as his hostess smiled at him.
"You are interested in all you see?" she asked frankly.
"Yes," said Wyllard. "In fact, I'd like to spend some hours here and
look at everything. I'd begin at the pictures and work right around."
Mrs. Radcliffe's smile suggested that she was not displeased.
"But you have been in London?"
"I have," said Wyllard. "I had one or two letters to persons there, and
they did all they could to entertain me. Still, their places were
different; they hadn't the--charm--of yours. It's something which I
think could exist only in these still valleys and in cathedral closes.
It strikes me more because it is something I've never been accustomed
to."
Mrs. Radcliffe was interested, and fancied that she partly understood
his attitude.
"Your life is necessarily different from ours," she suggested.
Wyllard smiled. "It's so different that you couldn't realize it. It's
all strain and effort from early sunrise until after dusk at night.
Bodily strain of aching muscles, and mental stress in adverse seasons.
We scarcely think of comfort, and never dream of artistic luxury. The
money we make is sunk again in seed and extra teams and plows."
"After all, a good many people are driven rather hard by the love of
money here."
"No," Wyllard rejoined gravely, "that's not it exactly. At least, not
with the most of us. It's rather the pride of wresting another
quarter-section from the prairie, taking--our own--by labor, breaking
the wilderness. You"--and he added this as if to explain that he could
hardly expect her quite to grasp his views--"have never been out West?"
His hostess laughed. "I have stayed down in the plains through the hot
season in stifling cantonments, and have once or twice been in Indian
cholera camps. Besides, I have seen my husband sitting, haggard and worn
with fever, in his saddle holding back a clamorous crowd that surged
about him half-mad with religious fury. There were Hindus and Moslems to
be kept from flying at each other's throats, and at a tactless word or
sign of wavering, either party would have pulled him down."
"You'll have to forgive me"--Wyllard's gesture was deprecatory, though
his eyes twinkled. "The notion that we're the only ones who really work,
or, at least, do anything worth while, is rather a favorite one out
West. No doubt it's a delusion. I should have known that all of us are
born like that."
Mrs. Radcliffe forgave him readily, if only for the "all of us," which
struck her as especially fortunate. A few minutes later there were
voices in the hall, and then the door opened, and the girl whom he had
met at the stepping stones came in. She was dressed in trailing garments
which became her wonderfully, and he noticed now the shapely delicacy of
her hands and the fine, ivory pallor of her skin. Mrs. Radcliffe turned
to him.
"I had better present you formally to Miss Ismay," she said. "Agatha,
this is Mr. Wyllard, who I understand has brought you a message from
Canada."
There was no doubt that Wyllard was blankly astonished, and for a moment
the girl was clearly startled, too.
"You!" was all she said.
She held out her hand before she turned to speak to Mrs. Radcliffe. It
was a relief to both when dinner was announced.
Wyllard sat next to his hostess, and was not sorry that he was called
upon to take part only in casual general conversation. He thought once
or twice that Miss Ismay was unobtrusively studying him. It was nearly
an hour after the dinner when Mrs. Radcliffe left them alone in the
drawing-room.
"You have, no doubt, a good deal to talk about, and you needn't join us
until you're ready," she said. "The Major always reads the London papers
after dinner."
Agatha sat in a low chair near the hearth, and it occurred to Wyllard,
who took a place opposite her, that she was too delicate and dainty, too
over-cultivated, in fact, to marry Hawtrey. This was rather curious,
since he had hitherto regarded his comrade as a typical well-educated
Englishman; but it now seemed to him that there was a certain streak of
coarseness in Gregory. The man, it suddenly flashed upon him, was
self-indulgent, and the careless ease of manner, which he had once
liked, was too much in evidence.
Agatha turned to him.
"I understand that Gregory is recovering rapidly?" she said.
Wyllard assured her that Hawtrey was convalescing, and Agatha said
quietly, "He wants me to go out to him."
Wyllard felt that if a girl of that sort had promised to marry him he
would not have sent for her, but would have come in person, if he had
been compelled to pledge his last possessions, or crawl to the tideway
on his hands and knees. For all that he was ready to defend his friend.
"I'm afraid it's necessary," he said. "Gregory was quite unfit for such
a journey when I left, and he must be ready to commence the season's
campaign with the first of the spring. Our summer is short, you see, and
with our one-crop farming it's indispensable to get the seed in early.
In fact, he will be badly behind as it is."
This was not particularly tactful, since, without intending it, he made
it evident that he felt his comrade had been to some extent remiss; but
Agatha smiled.
"Oh," she replied, "I understand! You needn't labor with excuses. But
doesn't the same thing apply to you?"
"It certainly did. Now, however, things have become a little easier. My
holding is larger than Gregory's, and I have a foreman who can look
after it for me."
"Gregory said that you were a great friend of his."
Wyllard seized this opportunity. "He was a great friend of mine and I
like to think it means the same thing. In fact it's reasonably certain
that he saved my life for me."
"Ah!" exclaimed Agatha; "that is a thing he didn't mention. How did it
come about?"
Wyllard was glad to tell the story. He was anxious to say all he
honestly could in Hawtrey's favor.
"We were at work on a railroad trestle--a towering wooden bridge, in
British Columbia. It stretched across a deep ravine with great boulders
and there was a stream in the bottom of it. He stood high up on a
staging close beneath the rails. A fast freight, a huge general produce
train came down the track, with one of the new big locomotives hauling
it, and when the cars went banging by above us we could hardly hold on
to the bridge. The construction foreman was a hustler, and we had to get
the spikes in. I was swinging the hammer when I felt the plank beneath
me slip. The train, it seems, had jarred loose the bolt around which we
had our lashings. For a moment I felt that I was going down into the
gorge, and then Gregory leaned out and grabbed me. He had only one free
hand to do it with, and when he felt my weight one foot swung out from
the stringer he had sprung to. It seemed certain that I would pull him
with me, too. We hung like that for a space--I don't quite know how
long."
He paused for a moment, apparently feeling the stress of it again, and
there was a faint thrill in his voice when he went on.
"It was then," he said, "I knew just what kind of man Gregory Hawtrey
was. Anybody else would have let me go; but he held on. I got my hand on
some of the framing, and he swung me on to the stringer."
He saw the gleam in Agatha's eyes. "Oh!" she cried, "that is just what
he must have done. He was like that always--impulsive, splendidly
generous."
Wyllard felt that he had succeeded, though he knew that there were men
on the prairie who called his comrade slackly careless, instead of
impulsive. Agatha spoke again.
"But Gregory wasn't a carpenter," she said.
"In those days when money was scarce we had to be whatever we could.
There wasn't much specialization of handicrafts out there then. The
farmer whose crop was ruined took up the railroad shovel, or borrowed a
saw from somebody and set about building houses, or anything else that
was wanted."
"Of course!" replied Agatha. "Besides, he was always wonderfully quick.
He could learn any game by just watching it a while. He did all he
undertook brilliantly."
It occurred to Wyllard that Gregory had, at least, made no great success
of farming; but that occupation, as practiced on the prairie, demands a
great deal more than quickness and what some call brilliancy from the
man who undertakes it. He must, as they say out there, possess the
capacity for staying with it--the grim courage to hold fast the tighter
under each crushing blow, when the grain shrivels under the harvest
frost, or when the ragged ice hurtling before a roaring blast does the
reaping. It was, however, evident that this girl had an unquestioning
faith in Gregory Hawtrey, and once more Wyllard felt compassionate
towards her. He wondered if she would have retained her confidence had
Hawtrey spent those four years in England instead of Canada, for it was
clear from the contrast between her and her picture that she had grown
in many ways since she had given her promise to her lover. He had said
what he could in Hawtrey's favor, but now he felt that something was due
to the girl.
"Gregory told me to explain what things are like out there," he said. "I
think it is because they are so different from what you are accustomed
to that he has waited so long. He wanted to make them as easy as
possible for you, and now he would like you to realize what is before
you."
He was surprised at the girl's quick comprehension, for she glanced
around the luxurious room with a faint smile.
"You look on me as part of--this? I mean it seems to you that I fit in
with my surroundings, and would be in harmony only with them?"
"Yes," answered Wyllard gravely, "I think you fit in with them
excellently."
Agatha laughed. "Well," she said, "I was once, to a certain extent,
accustomed to something similar; though, after all, one could hardly
compare the Grange with Garside Scar. Still, that was some time ago, and
I have earned my living for several years now. That counts for
something, doesn't it?"
She glanced down at her dress. "For instance, this is the result of a
great deal of self-denial, though the cost of it was partly worked off
in music lessons, and the stuff was almost the cheapest I could get. I
sang at concerts--and it was part of my stock in trade. After all, why
should you think me capable only of living in luxury?"
"I didn't go quite that far."
She laughed again. "Then is Canada such a very dreadful place? I have
heard of other Englishwomen going out there as farmers' wives. Do they
all live unhappily?"
"No," replied Wyllard, "at least, they show no sign of it, and some of
them and the city-born Canadians are, I think, the salt of this earth.
Probably it's easy to be calm and gracious in such a place as
this--though naturally I don't know since I've never tried it--but when
a woman who toils from sunrise to sunset most of the year keeps her
sweetness and serenity, it's a very different and much finer thing. But
I'll try to answer the other question. The prairie isn't dreadful; it's
a land of sunshine and clear skies. Heat and cold--and we have them
both--don't worry one there. There's optimism in the crystal air. It's
not beautiful like these valleys, but it has its beauty. It is vast and
silent, and, though our homesteads are crude and new, once you pass the
breaking, it's primevally old. That gets hold of one somehow. It's
wonderful after sunset in the early spring, when the little cold wind is
like wine, and it runs white to the horizon with the smoky red on the
rim of it melting into transcendental green. When the wheat rolls across
the foreground in ocher and burnished copper waves, it is more wonderful
still. One sees the fulfillment of the promise, and takes courage."
"Then," asked Agatha, who had scarcely suspected him of such
appreciation of nature, "what is there to shrink from?"
"In the case of a small farmer's wife, the constant, never-slackening
strain. There's no hired assistance. She must clean the house, and wash,
and cook, though it's not unusual for the men to wash the plates."
The girl evidently was not much impressed, for she laughed.
"Does Gregory wash the plates?" she asked.
Wyllard's eyes twinkled. "When Sproatly won't," he said. "Still, in a
general way they do it only once a week."
"Ah," observed Agatha, "I can imagine Gregory hating it. As a matter of
fact, I like him for it."
"Then the farmer's wife must bake, and mend her husband's clothes.
Indeed, it's not unusual for her to mend for the hired man, too. Besides
that, there are always odds and ends of tasks, but the time when you
feel the strain most is in the winter. Then you sit at night, shivering
as a rule, beside the stove in an almost empty log-walled room, reading
a book you have probably read three or four times before. Outside, the
frost is Arctic; you can hear the roofing shingles crackle now and then;
and you wake up when the fire burns low. There's no life, no company,
rarely a new face, and if you go to a dance or a supper somewhere,
perhaps once a month, you ride back on a bob-sled and are frozen almost
stiff beneath the robes."
"Still," interposed Agatha, "that does not last."
The man understood her. "Oh!" he said, "one makes progress--that is, if
one can stand the strain--but, as the one way of doing it is to sow for
a larger harvest and break fresh sod every year, there can be no
slackening in the meanwhile. Every dollar must be guarded and plowed
into the soil again."
He broke off, feeling that he had done all that could reasonably be
expected of him, and Agatha asked one question.
"A woman who didn't slacken could make the struggle easier for the man,
couldn't she?"
"Yes," Wyllard assured her, "in every way. Still, she would have a great
deal to bear."
Agatha's face softened. "Ah," she commented, "she would not grudge the
effort in the case of one she loved."
She looked up again with a smile. "I wonder," she added, "if you really
thought I should flinch."
"When I first heard of it, I thought it quite likely. Then when I read
your letter my doubts vanished."
He saw that he had not been judicious, for there was, for the first
time, a trace of hardness in the girl's expression.
"He showed you that?" she asked.
"One small part of it," assured Wyllard. "I want to say that when I
first saw this house, and how you seemed fitted to it, my misgivings
about Gregory's decision troubled me once more. Now,"--and he made an
impressive gesture--"they have vanished altogether, and they'll never
come back again."
He spoke as he felt. This girl, he knew, would feel the strain; but it
seemed to him that she had strength enough to bear it cheerfully. In
spite of her daintiness, she was one who, in time of stress, could be
depended on. He often remembered afterwards how they had sat together in
the luxuriously furnished room, she leaning back in her big, low chair,
with the soft light on her delicately tinted face. By and by he looked
at her.
"It's curious that I had your photograph ever so long, and never thought
of showing it to Gregory," he observed.
Agatha smiled. "I suppose it is," she admitted. "After all, except that
it might have been a relief to Major Radcliffe if he had met you sooner,
the fact that you didn't show it to Gregory doesn't seem of any
particular consequence."
Wyllard was not quite sure of this. He had thought about this girl
often, and certainly had been conscious of a curious thrill of
satisfaction when he had met her at the stepping-stones. That feeling
had suddenly disappeared when he had learned that she was his comrade's
promised wife. He had, however, during the last hour or two made up his
mind to think no more of her.
"Well," he declared, "the next thing is to arrange for Mrs. Hastings to
meet you in London, or, perhaps, at the Grange. Her husband is a
Canadian, a man of education, who has quite a large homestead not far
from Gregory's. Her relatives are people of station in Montreal, and I
feel sure that you'll like her."
They decided that he was to ask Mrs. Hastings to stay a few days at the
Grange, and then he looked at the girl somewhat diffidently.
"She suggests going in a fortnight," he said.
Agatha smiled at him. "Then," she said, "I must not keep her waiting."
She rose and they went back together to join their hostess.