THE COMPACT
After the first meeting of the Somasco Consolidated, Alton was
frequently absent from the ranch, and spent most of the nights shut up
with bulky books, while he also apparently became involved in an
extensive correspondence with the cities. There were, however, times
when Miss Deringham surprised him standing still and gazing into
vacancy, which was distinctly unusual with him, but the girl, who had
once or twice noticed his eyes fixed upon her and signs of an inward
conflict in his face, was not displeased. She could arrive at a
tolerably accurate deduction as well as most young women.
In the meanwhile Seaforth had gone down to Vancouver, and Deringham
still appeared content to linger at Somasco. He had, his daughter
knew, been ordered a lengthy rest, and it was evident that the
tranquillity of the mountain ranch was benefiting him physically,
though now and then the girl noticed that his face was anxious when
communications from England reached him. She was also, for no reason
she was willing to admit, content to remain a little longer at Somasco.
One night when she was sitting meditatively in the room set apart for
her use, Alton passed the half-opened door, and noticing the curious
slowness of his pace she signed him to enter. She had, somewhat to the
indignation of Mrs. Margery, taken the room in hand, and with the aid
of a few sundries surreptitiously brought from Vancouver with
Seaforth's connivance, made a transformation in its aspect. A red
curtain hung behind the door. There were a few fine furs which
Seaforth had collected here and there about the ranch upon the floor,
and Alton, who had just returned from a ride of forty miles through the
mire and rain, stopped a moment upon the threshold. He was a man of
quick perceptions, and all he saw seemed stamped with the personality
of its occupant.
It was dainty, and essentially feminine, and he became, for perhaps the
first time, uneasily conscious of his own solid masculine proportions
and bespattered garments as he glanced deprecatingly at the girl. She
lay with lithe gracefulness in a basket chair, very collected and very
pretty, while he dimly understood that the fact that she did not move
but only smiled at him implied a good deal. A brightness flashed into
his eyes and sank out of them again.
"Come in and sit down," she said, "I have seen very little of you
lately, and you seem tired. Half-an-hour's casual chatter will do you
no harm, although it may appear to you a terrible waste of time."
Alton came in and dropped into a chair which creaked beneath him. His
face was somewhat weary, and the girl noticed the stiffness of his
movements. He also looked about him with a curious expression which
seemed to suggest reverence in his eyes.
"No," he said gravely, "it wouldn't be a waste of time."
Alice Deringham smiled a little, and moved one foot a trifle nearer the
stove. It was little, and delicately moulded, and lost nothing from
being encased in a very open bronze slipper. Alton, noticing the
slight rustle of fabric which accompanied the movement, glanced towards
it, and then turned his eyes away.
"You see I have been taking liberties," said the girl. "All this is
very tawdry, isn't it?"
Alton's eyes were wistful. "No. Do you know, this place has quite an
effect on me. It makes me feel--as if I were in church," said he.
Miss Deringham's face was not responsive. There were times when she
was sensible of a curious compunction in this rancher's presence. "A
sensation of that kind is apt to become oppressive," she said. "When
we have gone you will throw these things away."
The man seemed to wince, as though the contemplation of something was
painful to him, but he looked at his companion gravely.
"I think I shall screw the door up tight," he said.
Alice Deringham laughed musically. "Now I think that was very pretty,"
she said. "It seems commonplace to offer you a cup of coffee after it,
and no doubt you will consider the indulgence in such luxuries a sign
of weakness. I have reasons for believing that Mrs. Margery does."
Alton smiled somewhat grimly. "I'm just about as fond of good things
as most other men," he said. "The difficulty was that I seldom had the
chance of getting them."
Miss Deringham busied herself with a spirit lamp, and Alton watched her
with a little glint in his eyes. Possibly the girl knew that her
movements were graceful as she bent over the lamp, and that the light
from the one above her struck a fine sparkle from her hair. She may
also have been aware that the picture had its attractions for a man who
had lived a grim life of toil and self-denial, as this one had done.
"It has occurred to me that this coffee is not the same that we had
when we first came to Somasco," she said.
Alton appeared a trifle embarrassed. "I had to go down and worry
Horton about one or two little things," he said. "It's good for him
occasionally, and he had been sending me flour we couldn't use lately."
Miss Deringham nodded, though she was quite aware that the storekeeper
was scarcely likely to supply axemen and ranchers, whose tastes were
simple and dollars scarce, with what she guessed by its bouquet was the
finest product of Costa Rica. If she had not been, she was capable of
deducing a little from the stamp upon the packets she had seen in Mrs.
Margery's store, which showed that they had come direct from Vancouver.
Alton took up the cup handed him, and leaned back in his chair with a
little gesture of content, while the girl smiled as she glanced at him.
[Illustration: Alton leaned back with a little gesture of content.]
"You bear it very well," she said.
The man looked at her with a bewildered expression for a moment or two.
Then he laughed. "No," he said, "I find it wonderfully nice."
There was an underlying sincerity in his voice, and Alice Deringham
driven by curiosity went a step farther.
"The coffee?" she said.
She was almost sorry next moment, for she had at other times called up
considerably more than she had expected or desired from the unsounded
depths of the man's nature. For a second or two there was a great
wistfulness, which changed into a little glow she shrank from, in his
eyes. He turned them upon her, and then away, and they were once more
grave when he looked back again. Still, she guessed what that effort
had cost him.
"No," he said quietly. "I did not mean the coffee. You see, I had
never until you came here been used to anything smooth or pretty."
Alice Deringham smiled a little, for she understood. The man, she
thought, was willing she should accept the somewhat pointless
compliment as the sequence of his former speech, to cover his mistake
if he had betrayed more than he thought desirable. It also increased
her liking for him, since it appeared that Alton was capable of
self-restraint. There was, however, no mistaking what she had seen,
and the girl remembered that one of the Winnipeg ladies she travelled
with, who had visited one of the weird valleys across the American
frontier, described to her the fascination of throwing stones into the
basin of a geyser to see how many it would take before it erupted.
During her intercourse with rancher Alton, Alice Deringham had
experienced the sensation.
"You have been working too hard lately, and worrying, too, I think,"
she said.
Alton laughed a little, and then glanced at the stove for a while in
silence, as though communing with himself. When he looked up again the
girl fancied that he had decided something. "Work hurts nobody. It's
the worry that leaves the mark," he said, with a smile. "Of course, a
good many people will have told you that before. Yes, I've been
thinking a good deal lately."
"It is occasionally a solace to tell one's friends one's thoughts,"
said Miss Deringham.
"Well," said Alton gravely, "there's a thing I feel I should do, and
yet I don't want to, because it would stand in the way of my doing
something else."
"That is a somewhat common difficulty," said Alice Deringham. "It
depends upon the importance to yourself, or others, of the first thing."
Alton nodded. "There are," he said, "men in this district who have
worked very hard, not for the bare living the ranch gives them, because
some have put a good deal more into the land than they have taken out
of it, but for what it will give them presently. Now, unless somebody
does the right thing for them, another man will walk right in and take
all they have worked for away. I wouldn't like that to happen, because
I am one of them, you see."
"No," said Miss Deringham. "Still, surmising that you are the
somebody, I wonder if you have a more convincing reason."
A little flush seemed to creep into Alton's bronzed face. "I find I
can talk to you as I never did to any one else," he said. "Well, this
valley's waiting to feed a host of people, and teeming with riches that
somebody is wanting, and I feel it's my task to do the best I can for
it. Now, when one feels that, and does nothing, he's putting a load he
was meant to carry on other people's shoulders."
"Yes," said Miss Deringham. "Still, isn't it slightly egotistical?
There may be other men who could do what is necessary better."
Alton laughed a little. "You get right home every time," he said.
"I've been thinking the same thing, but, though I wanted to, I couldn't
find the man, and there isn't much use in running away from the work
that's set out for you."
Alice Deringham understood him because she was a somewhat intellectual
young woman, though she had, and possibly fortunately, but seldom been
required to decide between inclination and duty in any affair of
importance hitherto. There was also something that touched her in the
man's simple faithfulness.
"And you are going to do a good deal?" she said.
"I don't know," said Alton gravely. "I should like to. You see, we
want roads and mills, and an office down there in the city."
"And," said the girl, "that means money."
"Yes," said Alton. "When a man goes round borrowing he finds out that
the folks who have got the dollars like to keep them. That's why I'm
going up to look for Jimmy's silver mine."
Miss Deringham shivered a little. "Winter is coming on," she said.
"The last man who looked for it was frozen--and there is Carnaby."
The girl's pulses throbbed a little faster as she spoke, and there was
nothing in the man's face which escaped her attention. Again the
curious glint became apparent in his eyes, and the warm bronze a little
deeper in tint.
"I might raise some dollars on Carnaby, but I don't want to," he said.
Miss Deringham had seen sufficient, and decided to change the topic.
"So you intend to find the silver?" she said.
"Yes," said Alton simply. "I feel I have got to do that--first."
There was a significant silence, and the girl leaned back in her chair,
conscious without resentment that the man was watching her. Her eyes
were softer than usual, the faintest trace of colour showed in her
cheek, while the light evening dress emphasized the fine sweep of curve
and line that was further accentuated by her pose. The lamp that hung
above her smote a track of brightness athwart her red-gold hair, until
she slightly moved her head so that while part of the full round neck
showed in its snowy whiteness her face was in the shadow.
"I think you will be successful. I hope you will," she said.
It was evident that the man understood all that was meant, but he rose
with an apparent effort. "And now I have a good deal to do," he said.
Alice Deringham also rose with a little stateliness, and when he had
gone out sank down contemplatively into the chair again. Her hands lay
open in her lap, and it is possible that she saw nothing of the sewing
they rested on as she grappled with the question why had the man told
her what he had done. There were two apparent reasons, for Alice
Deringham realized that there was a certain greatness behind his
simplicity. Granting that, she could see his standpoint clearly,
though it was more difficult to understand why such a man had made it
evident to her. He was, she knew, not one to stoop even to win a
woman's good opinion, and would have seen that in this direction
silence became him best, unless he felt that while so much was due to
honour there was something due to her.
He had told her simply that it was not to please himself he was going
out to look for the silver just then, and the deduction was that the
expedition had no attractions for him because he wished to stay at the
ranch. Allowing that, the revelation of his motive had not been
purposeless. It was only his responsibility drove him away from her,
and there was a vague but effective compliment in the implication that
she would recognize it. Still, this train of reasoning had led Alice
Deringham far enough, and she sought distraction from it in her
embroidery, which during the next hour progressed but indifferently.
It was a day or two later when Alton drew Deringham into his room when
he came in bemired all over from the settlement, and the financier
noticed that the table and most of the floor was littered with books,
survey plans, and miscellaneous papers.
"I'll have to leave this place for a little," he said. "I'm going up
to find the silver, but the ranch and all that's in it is at your
service just as long as it pleases you. If all goes as I expect it, I
shall be back in a month or so, and would be glad to find you still at
Somasco. Then, if you are ready, Charley and I will go back to the old
country with you. A lawyer in Vancouver has written to an English
accountant for me, and with him to help us we can fix up all about
Carnaby."
Now Deringham had up to that moment still retained a hope that he could
arrive at an understanding with Alton respecting Carnaby on the spot.
As it was, unless he could gain time, exposure and even worse things
stared him in the face. It had been comparatively simple to hoodwink
his co-trustee, but it would be very different with an accountant of
reputation, and he had also grown afraid of Alton's instinctive grasp
of whatever subject he turned his attention to. There was, of course,
much the rancher did not know, but that left him with attention the
more concentrated upon issues of importance.
Deringham, however, showed but little evidence of dismay or
astonishment. Had he been liable to do so, he would not have held his
own so long in the occupation he followed. His breath came a trifle
more quickly, and his hand trembled a little, but he rested it upon the
table, and all that Alton noticed was a curious little movement about
the corner of his eyes. The rancher, however, remembered it.
"Well," said Deringham, "I must endeavour if possible to return to
England with you. When you spoke of being away a month you seemed to
contemplate a possibility of being absent longer."
Alton nodded. "I did," he said. "The man who found the silver is
lying up there still, but I've provided for anything of that kind
happening to me, as you will see in a day or two. Now I don't think we
need worry any more until we get to Carnaby."
Deringham made a gesture of concurrence, but the grim irony of Alton's
speech occurred to him as he went out to grapple with his torturing
anxiety. At first he could scarcely think of anything consecutively,
and once more the picture of a man hanging by a juniper-bush with a
river frothing down the gorge below rose up persistently before his
memory. It was replaced by another of a grim silent figure keeping
watch with eyes that never ceased their fixed stare beside a frozen
trail.
On the second day afterwards he sauntered into Horton's store and found
Hallam there. The mining speculator appeared ironically amused, the
storekeeper flushed and savage, but when Hallam turned to Deringham
there was something in his manner that suggested they had not met by
accident.
"I've been telling the storekeeper not to lay in too many Somascos just
yet, and have got to put in the time here for an hour or two," he said.
"Know any reason why you shouldn't have a drink with me?"
They strolled into an adjoining room, and Horton, who supplied them
with a bottle and glasses, came back smiling sardonically. "Now if
Hallam hadn't put it that way I mightn't have thought anything," said
he. "Still, when a man of his kind takes the trouble to tell one
anything it's a blame good reason for not believing him."
In the meanwhile Hallam, who filled the glasses, glanced at Deringham.
"You think I can be of some use to you?" he said.
"Yes," said Deringham. "I presume you know Alton is going up to find
the silver he needs to help him traverse your schemes?"
"Oh, yes," said Hallam. "Still I should have figured he could have got
it out of Carnaby."
"I believe he intends to."
Hallam smiled unpleasantly. "Now I begin to understand you," he said.
"You lost a good many dollars over the Peveril."
"I think that is beside the question," said Deringham.
Hallam regarded his companion steadily. "Well, I don't know, but we
needn't argue. You don't want him to get those dollars out of Carnaby?"
"And you don't want him to find the silver."
Hallam laughed. "That's quite right," said he. "The same thing would
suit both of us."
"I scarcely think so," said Deringham. "In my case, I really do not
mind whether he gets the dollars from Carnaby or not."
"No?" said Hallam. "Then you'll have to tell me what you want."
"I don't want him to come over to England too soon. If anything kept
him up there among the mountains a month or so longer than he expected,
so that I should have time to straighten up things a little, I would
not complain."
"And," said Hallam, "you would be ready to pay for it?"
Deringham bent his head. "Yes. To a moderate extent."
Hallam sat silent for a time, and then looked up with a glint in his
beady eyes. "It could be done. Well, I don't want him to find that
silver, and if he doesn't get through his prospecting in the next month
or so he'll not find much of anything under six feet of snow, and I'll
have fixed things up as I want them before it's melted. Now you're
holding pretty heavy in the Aconada mine, and I've been wanting to get
my foot in there for a long while."
Deringham stood up, and thrust aside the bottle Hallam passed him.
"Before we go any further I want you to understand that if Alton is
held up there until December is over it is all I ask," he said.
Hallam nodded. "Oh, yes," he said. "All I want is so many of those
shares transferred to me."
They debated for a while, and then Deringham said, "I would sooner fix
it through a third party."
Hallam laughed unpleasantly. "That would suit, but I'd want your
cheque to buy them with made out payable to me."
"It would," said Deringham, "not suit me."
"Then we can't make a deal. It's me that's putting this thing through,
and if anything goes wrong I'm anxious to have somebody to stand in
with me as well as pick up the dollars if it doesn't. I'm talking
quite straight. There it is. Take it or leave it."
Deringham was silent again. Then he laughed a little. "Since I cannot
apparently do anything else, I'll take it."
Hallam filled up both glasses. "Then that's all," he said. "Here's my
respects to the Somasco Consolidated."
Deringham just touched his glass and went out, while Hallam, who sat
down and emptied his, smiled ironically. "That man might have kept his
dollars, and I'd be quite pleased if Alton stayed up there a good deal
more than two months," said he.
Deringham was in the meanwhile hastily writing out telegraphic messages
which were to cause a little astonishment on the London stock market,
and hamper the working of one or two companies. He would, so far as he
could see, be a much poorer man in a few months or so, but he fancied
he could gain time to save the reputation that would help him to
commence again, and to men of his attainments there are always
opportunities. Then he sent off a mounted messenger, and rode slowly
back towards Somasco, while Horton spent some time examining a
blotting-pad in his back store.
"I'm kind of sorry I can't make anything of that stuff," said he.
"What's the use of wiring any one the names of cities?"
During the next day Alton drew Deringham into his room, and laid a
document on the table. "I don't know if that's quite the usual thing,
but Horton and I have been worrying over a lawyer's book, and I think
it will hold," he said.
Deringham took up the paper, and again there was the little movement at
the corners of his eye as he read.
"I, Henry Alton, of Somasco ranch, being now in sound health, and as
clear of head as usual, but about to start on a journey to which there
are risks attached, hereby bequeath in the event of disaster overtaking
me the estate of Carnaby, England, with all its rents and revenues of
any kind whatever to which I am entitled, to Miss Alice Deringham,
daughter of ----. In case of my decease during the next six months,
the above-mentioned Ralph Deringham and my partner Charles Seaforth, of
Somasco, British Columbia, will, acting as trustees, either dispose of
the estate for the benefit of Miss Deringham or install her in
possession of it at her discretion."
There was a little more to the purpose, and Deringham read all of it.
"This is very generous," he said.
"No," said Alton, "it's only just, and it can't be very generous,
because Carnaby wouldn't be much use to me if I don't come back. I
could, of course, revoke this thing if I do."
Deringham said nothing. There was a good deal he wished to say, but
for once words failed him, and when he went out with the will in his
pocket his face had grown a trifle grey. Yet though he suffered
grievously in that moment, he was conscious of something in his brain
that throbbed in time to the refrain, "Alice Deringham, mistress of
Carnaby."