MISS DERINGHAM MAKES FRIENDS
The Homeric supper was over, and Miss Deringham, who, sitting next to
Alton at the head of the long table, had watched the stalwart axeman
feed with sensations divided between disgust and wonder, was talking to
Seaforth on the verandah, when her father sat by a window of the room
his kinsman called his own. There were survey maps, tassels of oats,
and a great Wapiti head upon the wall, while Alton himself lay almost
full length in a deerhide chair. The window was open wide, and the
vista of lake, pine-shrouded hillside, and snow, framed by its log
casing, steeped in nocturnal harmonies of silver and blue. Out of the
stillness came the scent of balsam, and the sighing of a little breeze
amidst the pines.
Deringham held a good cigar, and there was a cup of coffee beside him,
while he was not wholly sorry that they sat in darkness. He had
realized that Alton of Somasco was by no means a fool, and waited his
questions with some anxiety. The rancher, however, had apparently no
present intention of asking any.
"So they've been wondering when I am coming over," he said
reflectively. "I don't know that I'll come at all." Deringham looked
down at his cigar to cover his astonishment. "But you are an Alton of
Carnaby," he said.
"Yes," said Alton slowly. "But that is one of the things I want to
forget. You see they drove my father out because he had the grit to
marry the woman who loved him instead of another one who had the money,
but you know all that?"
Deringham nodded, and Alton's face showed grim in the moonlight as he
continued: "But what you don't know is how he fought his way uphill in
this country, and what my mother suffered helping him. Oh, yes, I can
remember her well, gentle, brave, and patient as she was, and know what
it must have cost her to camp down alone in the bush, and fight through
the hard winter in the ice and snow. Well, she was too good for this
world, and she just faded out of it before the good time came. I think
they must have a special place for women of her kind in the other one."
Deringham only nodded again, because this type of man was new to him,
and he had learned to keep silent when in doubt; but Alton's big right
hand closed into a fist.
"And now, when I have Somasco, the man who had not a dollar for his
only son leaves me Carnaby," he said. "There. Look out and see.
Timber, lake and clearing, cattle, mills, and crops, the finest ranch
in the district. My father commenced it, and I have finished. The
Almighty made him a man, and he wouldn't sell his birthright to loaf
his days away, overfed, at Carnaby."
Alton dropped his cigar, and laughed a little. "Well, I'm talking like
a fool again. There are times when I can't help it. It's a way of
mine."
Deringham sat still smoking, and thinking rapidly. He had never had
dealings with a man of this description before, but while he surmised
that Alton of Somasco might under some conditions prove himself a
headstrong fool, it was evident that there were limits to his folly.
The man's handiwork spoke for him, and his energy and intentness had
not escaped Deringham's attentions, while the occasional utterances
that might have appeared bombastic coming from other men were redeemed
in his case by the tone of naive sincerity and imperious ring.
Deringham was becoming conscious of a vague respect for and fear of his
companion.
"We are apparently no nearer the answer to my question," he said at
length.
"No," said Alton, smiling. "This thing will take some thinking over.
Carnaby isn't exactly what you call a rich property?"
"It is heavily encumbered," said Deringham, almost too eagerly.
Alton nodded, "Still, it must be worth a little, and would give the
folks who lived there a standing in the old country?"
"Yes," said Deringham thoughtfully, and was once more astonished by his
companion's answer.
"Well," he said slowly. "I was thinking about your daughter. All
this, it seems to me, is mighty rough on her. It would hurt her to be
turned out of Carnaby?"
"Isn't that beside the question?" said Deringham with a trace of
stiffness.
Alton took up another cigar and lighted it. "I don't quite know that
it is," he said. "You see, I remember a good deal what my mother had
to put up with, and it has made me kind of sorry for women who have to
do without the things they have been used to. Now Miss Deringham has
had a pretty good time in the old country?"
Deringham moved his head very slightly. "I scarcely think we need go
into that, but it is incontrovertible that the loss of Carnaby would
make a difference to her," he said.
Alton sat silent a space, and then while Deringham wondered, smiled a
little. "And she might have kept it but for a very little thing that
happened a month or two ago," he said. "If the juniper-twigs had
broken it would have saved considerable trouble to everybody. I was
back there in the mountains looking for a silver lead, you see."
"Silver mines are, I understand, not always profitable to the man who
finds them, and I should have fancied you had already sufficient scope
for your energies," said Deringham dryly.
Alton laughed, but there was a trace of grimness in his voice. "If I
once get my stakes in on the lead this one's going to be, and if I
could get the dollars I could do a good deal for Somasco," he said.
"We want roads and mills, the biggest orchard in the province, and a
fruit cannery, and we're going to have them presently. That's why I
wanted the silver."
"You did not find it then?" said Deringham, who was not unwilling to
follow his companion from the former topic.
"No," said Alton, "not that time, but I will by and by. Well, there
was a good deal of snow up in the ranges, and my feet got away from me
one evening when we were crawling along the edge of a gully. There was
a river and big boulders some five hundred feet below, and I slipped
down, clawing at the snow, until I grabbed a little bunch of juniper
just on the edge. Part of it tore up, but I got a grip of a better
handful, and hung on to it, with most of me swinging over the gully.
Charley was stripping off the pack-rope on the slope above, and he was
mighty quick, but I knew that bush was coming away with me, and didn't
think he could be fast enough. I didn't feel exactly happy, but while
I've read that folks think of some astonishing things when they're
starting out on the long trail, it wasn't that way with me. I could
only remember there was a man I'd never got even with who'd badly
cheated me."
[Illustration: "There was a river and big boulders some five hundred
feet below."]
Deringham felt a little shiver run through him, for there was a grim
vindictiveness in the speaker's tone, and he felt that Alton of Somasco
would not lightly forgive an injury.
"You managed to crawl up?" he said.
"No," said Alton simply, "I didn't. I lay there watching Charley, and
felt the bush drawing out, until the rope came down and Charley hauled
me up. It would have made a big difference to Miss Deringham if he'd
been a second or two longer. Well, we'll have lots of time for
talking, because you're out for your health, and we'll keep you right
here until we see what Somasco can do for you, and just now I see Miss
Deringham alone on the verandah."
He rose, and left Deringham sitting by the window. The moon had swung
higher now, and the lake was a blaze of silver, but Deringham scarcely
noticed it or the ethereal line of snow. In place of it he saw a
shadowy figure hanging between earth and heaven with tense fingers
gripping a little bush, while a river frothed down the black hollow
five hundred feet below, and remembered that even in that moment the
man who hung there regretted he could not repay somebody who had
cheated him. Then he rose and moved once or twice up and down the
room, his fancy still dwelling upon the picture. If the juniper-twigs
had yielded it would have made a great difference to him as well as his
daughter. He sat down again presently and stared at the valley, seeing
nothing as he remembered that Alton of Somasco might go back to the
ranges again, and then with an effort shook the fancies from him. They
were not wholesome for a man hemmed in by difficulties as he was then.
In the meanwhile his daughter stood with one hand on the verandah
balustrade, listening to the song of the river which came sonorously
through the shadows of the bush. She also breathed in the scent of the
firs, and found it pleasant, but it was instinctively she did so, for
her thoughts were also busy. Alice Deringham had noticed her father's
fits of abstraction as well as the anxiety in his face, and had no
great difficulty in connecting them with the loss of Carnaby. She was
also fond of him, for Deringham had shown only his better side to her,
and sensible of a very bitter feeling towards the man who had
supplanted him. In addition to this, she remembered the faint
amusement in his eyes when he noticed the glint of a silver coin she
held half-covered in her hand, and her pulses throbbed a little faster.
The man had placed her in a ridiculous position, and had he guessed her
feelings towards him he would probably not have made his appearance as
he did just then.
The boards creaked behind her, and turning partly round she
straightened herself with a slow sinuous gracefulness, and stood drawn
up to her full height looking at the newcomer. He stood still a moment
with veiled admiration in his eyes, and this was not altogether
surprising in one who had dwelt for the most part far remote from
civilization in the lonely bush. Alice Deringham had been considered
somewhat of a beauty in London, and it was possible that she knew the
pale moonlight and the harmonies of blue and silver she stood out
against enhanced the symmetry of her outline. The man stood watching
her with his head bent a trifle, but Miss Deringham evinced a fine
indifference. She had formed a somewhat mistaken estimate of him
already.
"I want to tell you that I'm sorry," he said.
The girl fancied she understood him, and it increased her anger, for
the fact that this barbarian of the bush should venture to express pity
for her was galling. Still, she had no intention of admitting it, and
regarded him inquiringly with a half-contemptuous indifference which
she had found especially effective with presumptuous young men in
England. Somewhat to her astonishment it apparently had no result at
all, for Alton returned her gaze gravely and without embarrassment.
"I don't understand," she said.
"I was hoping you would, because I felt I must tell you, and I'm not
good at talking," said the man. "I can't help seeing that you are
vexed with me."
If Alton had intended to be conciliatory he had signally failed,
because Miss Deringham had no intention of admitting that anything he
could do would cause her anger.
"I am afraid you are taking things for granted," she said.
Alton smiled gravely, and the girl noticed that he accepted the onus of
the explanation she had forced upon him.
"I really don't think you should be," he said. "I can't help being
Tristan Alton's grandson, you see, and we are some kind of relations
and ought to be friendly."
Miss Deringham laughed a little. "Relations do not always love each
other very much," said she.
"No," said Alton. "Still, I think they should, and, even if it hurts,
I feel I've got to tell you I'm sorry. If you would only take it, it
would please me to give you back Carnaby."
The girl almost gasped with astonishment and indignation. "That is a
trifle unnecessary, since you know it is perfectly impossible," she
said.
She had at last roused the man, for the moonlight showed a darker
colour creeping into his tan. "I don't usually say more than I mean,"
he said. "Now we shall never understand each other unless you will
talk quite straight with me."
Alice Deringham had not lost her discretion in her anger, and, since
there was no avoiding the issue, decided it would be preferable to
blame him for the lesser of his offences.
"Then," she said coldly, "it was somewhat difficult to appreciate the
humour of the trick you played upon us. You may, however, have
different notions as to what is tasteful in the Colonies."
Again the darker colour showed in Alton's bronzed forehead, but he
spoke gravely. "I don't think that's quite fair," he said. "I am what
the Almighty made me, a plain bushman who has had to work too hard for
his living to learn to put things nicely, but I never came down to any
meanness that would hurt a woman, and there isn't any need for a dainty
English lady to point out the difference between herself and me."
"There may be less difference than you seem to fancy," said the girl a
trifle maliciously. "You are Alton of Carnaby."
"Pshaw!" said the man with a little gesture of pride and impatience,
which Miss Deringham was forced to admit became him. "I'm Alton of
Somasco, and nobody gave it me. I won it from the lake and the forest
that comes crawling in again--but I'm getting off the trail. I didn't
know your father was coming here, and hadn't any notion who you were."
"That's curious, because he wrote to tell you," said the girl.
Alton flushed a little, for he was somewhat quick-tempered, and too
proud to be otherwise than a veracious man. "Well," he said slowly, "I
have the honour of telling you I didn't get the letter. There's a
place called Somasco down in Vancouver."
Miss Deringham decided that she had ventured sufficiently far. Indeed,
on subsequent reflection she was forced to admit that she had gone
farther than was quite seemly, which somewhat naturally increased her
displeasure against the man. In the meanwhile she, however, made a
little gracious gesture. "Then I don't think the explanation was
necessary," she said.
Alton laughed a little, and held out his hand. "Do you know I'm
thankful that's over once for all, and now we can be friends," he said.
"There are lots of things I can show you in the valley, and a good deal
more that you can teach me."
Alice Deringham could not afterwards quite decide why she shook hands
with him, for she had no intention of teaching him anything, just then;
but she did, and felt as the hard brown fingers closed upon her own
that the friendship of this curious man could in time of necessity be
relied upon. In any case, and obeying some impulse, she shook off her
chilliness, and asking questions about the district evinced a gracious
interest in all he had to tell her, while presently induced by his
naive frankness she smiled at him as she noticed him regarding her
gravely.
"I presume a dress of this kind is scarcely suitable for the bush," she
said.
Alton laughed. "I wasn't looking at the dress, though it's a very
pretty one," he said. "You see, except my mother and Miss Townshead, I
have never spoken to an English lady."
"But you must have been very young when you lost her," said the girl.
Alton took off his hat, and pointed to a hillside shrouded with sombre
firs. "Yes," he said quietly. "She sleeps up there, and in a little
while my father followed her. He was lonely without her, and because
of what she had done for him, proud of his countrywomen. He often used
to talk about them."
"And," said Alice Deringham, "you wondered if he was mistaken?"
Alton made a little gesture that in a curious fashion implied a wide
chivalric faith. "No," he said gravely, "I believe he was right."
Miss Deringham felt a faint warmth creep into her cheek, and it was not
because the speech might have been deemed a personal compliment. She
saw a little deeper into the man's nature than that, and, if she had
not, the tone of grave respect would have enlightened her. Then she
turned with a little sense of relief as Deringham came out upon the
verandah.
"I am pleased to see you and Mr. Alton have made friends," he said, and
the girl, who noticed a faint twinkle in his eyes, turned quietly and
looked down the valley as she remembered one odious clause in the will.
She rose early next morning, and flinging the window open to let in the
glorious freshness heard a commotion below, while as she wondered as to
the cause of it several pairs of old boots went gyrating over the
balustrade of the verandah. A dilapidated saddle followed them, and
then a cloud of dust rolled up, while she saw the new owner of Carnaby
appear somewhat scantily attired out of the midst of it. He had a
brush in one hand and seemed disturbed about something.
"Where the brimstone does Mrs. Margery keep the scrubbing soap?" he
said.
Nobody answered him, and he moved back into the dust, while Seaforth
was coming up the stairway carrying a mop and pail when a big empty
oilcan smote him upon the chest. He dropped the pail and leaned a
moment, gasping and dripping, against the balustrade.
"You might notice where you're throwing things," he said.
The dust rolled more thickly, and Alton's voice came out of it. "I
hadn't time to be particular, and a sensible man would have got out of
the way of it. Don't stand there, anyway, but help me fix this place
fit for a lady before Miss Deringham gets up. Then you're going
through to the railroad with the new pack-horse to wire for Mrs.
Margery after breakfast."
"I don't think I am," said Seaforth. "Not on Julius Caesar, anyway.
He will need a little more taming before I'm fit to ride him."
"Then," said Alton, laughing, "I guess you can shove him, because
you'll want a horse to bring up the things you're going to wire
Vancouver for, and Tom's off with the teams up the valley. Fetch some
more water, and start in with the scrubbing. I don't want Miss
Deringham to guess we've been doing anything unusual."
"If she doesn't hear you," said Seaforth, "she must be very deaf."
"Now," said Alton regretfully, "I never thought of that. Sit right
down, Charley, and take your boots off."
"I am going to the well first," said Seaforth, who retired grinning,
and Miss Deringham laughed softly as she heard the cautious movements
of a big barefooted man floundering about clumsily with a brush or mop.
When she came down to breakfast, however, she was a little astonished.
The room was swept, and garnished with cedar sprays, while though it
smelled of some crude soap the aromatic sweetness of balsam was present
too, and there were signs of taste in its decoration and the
disposition of the splendid fruit upon the table. Alton had not
plucked it all, and the golden apples and velvety peaches lay with
their soft tinting enhanced amidst the leaves. When he came in, bright
of eye and apparently glowing from a plunge in the river, she glanced
at him with quiet amusement.
"You have been improving the place wonderfully," she said.
"You are pleased with it?" said the rancher, and the girl noticed the
contentment in his eyes when she smiled approvingly.
"I think," she said, "it is very pretty."