One morning Trafford found the footmarks of some catlike creature in the
snow near the bushes where he was accustomed to get firewood; they led
away very plainly up the hill, and after breakfast he took his knife and
rifle and snowshoes and went after the lynx--for that he decided the
animal must be. There was no urgent reason why he should want to kill a
lynx, unless perhaps that killing it made the store shed a trifle safer;
but it was the first trail of any living thing for many days; it
promised excitement; some primordial instinct perhaps urged him.
The morning was a little overcast, and very cold between the gleams of
wintry sunshine. "Good-bye, dear wife!" he said, and then as she
remembered afterwards came back a dozen yards to kiss her. "I'll not be
long," he said. "The beast's prowling, and if it doesn't get wind of me
I ought to find it in an hour." He hesitated for a moment. "I'll not be
long," he repeated, and she had an instant's wonder whether he hid from
her the same dread of loneliness that she concealed. Or perhaps he only
knew her secret. Up among the tumbled rocks he turned, and she was still
watching him. "Good-bye!" he cried and waved, and the willow thickets
closed about him.
She forced herself to the petty duties of the day, made up the fire from
the pile he had left for her, set water to boil, put the hut in order,
brought out sheets and blankets to air and set herself to wash up. She
wished she had been able to go with him. The sky cleared presently, and
the low December sun lit all the world about her, but it left her spirit
desolate.
She did not expect him to return until mid-day, and she sat herself down
on a log before the fire to darn a pair of socks as well as she could.
For a time this unusual occupation held her attention and then her hands
became slow and at last inactive, and she fell into reverie. She thought
at first of her children and what they might be doing, in England across
there to the east it would be about five hours later, four o'clock in
the afternoon, and the children would be coming home through the warm
muggy London sunshine with Fraulein Otto to tea. She wondered if they
had the proper clothes, if they were well; were they perhaps quarrelling
or being naughty or skylarking gaily across the Park. Of course Fraulein
Otto was all right, quite to be trusted, absolutely trustworthy, and
their grandmother would watch for a flushed face or an irrational
petulance or any of the little signs that herald trouble with more than
a mother's instinctive alertness. No need to worry about the children,
no need whatever.... The world of London opened out behind these
thoughts; it was so queer to think that she was in almost the same
latitude as the busy bright traffic of the autumn season in Kensington
Gore; that away there in ten thousand cleverly furnished drawing-rooms
the ringing tea things were being set out for the rustling advent of
smart callers and the quick leaping gossip. And there would be all sorts
of cakes and little things; for a while her mind ran on cakes and little
things, and she thought in particular whether it wasn't time to begin
cooking.... Not yet. What was it she had been thinking about? Ah! the
Solomonsons and the Capeses and the Bernards and the Carmels and the
Lees. Would they talk of her and Trafford? It would be strange to go
back to it all. Would they go back to it all? She found herself thinking
intently of Trafford.
What a fine human being he was! And how touchingly human! The thoughts
of his moments of irritation, his baffled silences, filled her with a
wild passion of tenderness. She had disappointed him; all that life
failed to satisfy him. Dear master of her life! what was it he needed?
She too wasn't satisfied with life, but while she had been able to
assuage herself with a perpetual series of petty excitements, theatres,
new books and new people, meetings, movements, dinners, shows, he had
grown to an immense discontent. He had most of the things men sought,
wealth, respect, love, children.... So many men might have blunted their
heart-ache with--adventures. There were pretty women, clever women,
unoccupied women. She felt she wouldn't have minded--_much_--if it made
him happy.... It was so wonderful he loved her still.... It wasn't that
he lacked occupation; on the whole he overworked. His business
interests were big and wide. Ought he to go into politics? Why was it
that the researches that had held him once, could hold him now no more?
That was the real pity of it. Was she to blame for that? She couldn't
state a case against herself, and yet she felt she was to blame. She had
taken him away from those things, forced him to make money....
She sat chin on hand staring into the fire, the sock forgotten on her
knee.
She could not weigh justice between herself and him. If he was unhappy
it was her fault. She knew if he was unhappy it was no excuse that she
had not known, had been misled, had a right to her own instincts and
purposes. She had got to make him happy. But what was she to do, what
was there for her to do?...
Only he could work out his own salvation, and until he had light, all
she could do was to stand by him, help him, cease to irritate him,
watch, wait. Anyhow she could at least mend his socks as well as
possible, so that the threads would not chafe him....
She flashed to her feet. What was that?
It seemed to her she had heard the sound of a shot, and a quick brief
wake of echoes. She looked across the icy waste of the river, and then
up the tangled slopes of the mountain. Her heart was beating very fast.
It must have been up there, and no doubt he had killed his beast. Some
shadow of doubt she would not admit crossed that obvious suggestion.
This wilderness was making her as nervously responsive as a creature of
the wild.
Came a second shot; this time there was no doubt of it. Then the
desolate silence closed about her again.
She stood for a long time staring at the shrubby slopes that rose to the
barren rock wilderness of the purple mountain crest. She sighed deeply
at last, and set herself to make up the fire and prepare for the mid-day
meal. Once far away across the river she heard the howl of a wolf.
Time seemed to pass very slowly that day. She found herself going
repeatedly to the space between the day tent and the sleeping hut from
which she could see the stunted wood that had swallowed him up, and
after what seemed a long hour her watch told her it was still only
half-past twelve. And the fourth or fifth time that she went to look out
she was set atremble again by the sound of a third shot. And then at
regular intervals out of that distant brown purple jumble of thickets
against the snow came two more shots. "Something has happened," she
said, "something has happened," and stood rigid. Then she became active,
seized the rifle that was always at hand when she was alone, fired into
the sky and stood listening.
Prompt come an answering shot.
"He wants me," said Marjorie. "Something----Perhaps he has killed
something too big to bring!"
She was for starting at once, and then remembered this was not the way
of the wilderness.
She thought and moved very rapidly. Her mind catalogued possible
requirements, rifle, hunting knife, the oilskin bag with matches, and
some chunks of dry paper, the rucksack--and he would be hungry. She took
a saucepan and a huge chunk of cheese and biscuit. Then a brandy flask
is sometimes handy--one never knows. Though nothing was wrong, of
course. Needles and stout thread, and some cord. Snowshoes. A waterproof
cloak could be easily carried. Her light hatchet for wood. She cast
about to see if there was anything else. She had almost forgotten
cartridges--and a revolver. Nothing more. She kicked a stray brand or so
into the fire, put on some more wood, damped the fire with an armful of
snow to make it last longer, and set out towards the willows into which
he had vanished.
There was a rustling and snapping of branches as she pushed her way
through the bushes, a little stir that died insensibly into quiet again;
and then the camping place became very still....
Scarcely a sound occurred, except for the little shuddering and stirring
of the fire, and the reluctant, infrequent drip from the icicles along
the sunny edge of the log hut roof. About one o'clock the amber sunshine
faded out altogether, a veil of clouds thickened and became greyly
ominous, and a little after two the first flakes of a snowstorm fell
hissing into the fire. A wind rose and drove the multiplying snowflakes
in whirls and eddies before it. The icicles ceased to drip, but one or
two broke and fell with a weak tinkling. A deep soughing, a shuddering
groaning of trees and shrubs, came ever and again out of the ravine, and
the powdery snow blew like puffs of smoke from the branches.
By four the fire was out, and the snow was piling high in the darkling
twilight against tent and hut....