The long Transcontinental puffed steadily up toward the white-capped
peaks of a continent. They were a day out from Vancouver--a day during
which Desire had sat upon the observation platform, drugged with wonder
and beauty. She had known mountains all her life. They were dear and
familiar, and the sound of rushing water was in her blood. But these
heights and depths, these incredible valleys, these ever-climbing,
piling hills pushing brown shoulders through their million pines, the
dizzy, twisting track and the constant marvel of the man-made train
which braved it, held her spellbound and almost speechless.
Fortunately, Aunt Caroline was indisposed and had remained all day in
the privacy of their reserved compartment. Only one such reservation
had been available and the men of the party had been compelled to
content themselves with upper berths in the next car.
To Desire, who presented that happy combination, a good traveller still
uncloyed by travel, every deft arrangement of the comfortable train
provided matter for curiosity and interest--the little ladders for the
upstair berths, the tiny reading-lamps, the paper bags for one's new
hat, the queer little soaps and drinking cups in sealed oil paper--all
these brought their separate thrill. And then there was the
inexhaustible interest of the travellers themselves. When night had
fallen and the great Outside withdrew itself, she turned with eager
eyes to the shifting world around her, a human world even more
absorbing than the panorama of the hills.
What was there, for instance, about that handsome old lady, from Golden
(fascinating name!) which permitted her to act as if the whole train
were her private suite and all the porters servants of her person? She
was the most autocratic old lady Desire had ever seen and far younger
and more alert than the tired-looking daughter who accompanied her.
They were going to New York. They went to New York every year. Desire
wondered why.
She wondered, too, about the rancher's wife going home to Scotland for
the first time since her marriage. What did it feel like to be going
home--to a real home with a mother and brothers and sisters? What did
it feel like to be taking two dark-haired, bright-eyed babies, as like
as twins and with only a year between them, for the fond approval of
grand-parents across the seas? ... The rancher's wife looked as if
she enjoyed it. But women will pretend anything.
Desire's eyes shifted to the inevitable honeymoon couple who were going
to Winnipeg to visit "his" people. The bride was almost painfully
smart, but she was pretty and "he" adored her. Her mouth was small and
red. It fascinated Desire. She could not keep her eyes off it. It was
like--well, it was the kind of mouth men seemed to admire. She tried
honestly to admire it her-self, but the more she tried the less
admirable she found it. She wondered if Benis--
"What do you think of the bride?" she murmured, under cover of a
magazine.
"Where?" said Benis, in an unnecessarily loud voice, laying down his
paper.
"S-ssh! Over there. The girl in green."
"Pretty little thing," said Benis. His tone lacked conviction.
"Lovely eyes, don't you think? Nice hair and such a darling nose. But
her mouth--isn't her mouth rather small?"
"Regular 'prunes and prisms,'" agreed Benis.
"It is very red, though."
"Lipstick, probably."
"But I thought you liked small, red mouths."
"Hate 'em," said Benis, who had a shockingly bad memory.
Desire went to bed thoughtful. "I suppose," she thought as she lay
listening to the swinging train, "men like certain things because they
belong to certain people and not because they like them really at all."
This was not very lucid but it seemed to satisfy Desire for she stopped
thinking and went to sleep.
Morning found them on the top of the world. Desire was up and out long
before the mists had lifted. She watched the wonder of their going, she
saw the coming of the sun. She drew in, with great deep breaths, the
high, sweet air. The cream of her skin glowed softly with the tang of
it.
"Quite lovely!" said a voice behind her, and Desire turned to find her
solitude shared by the young old lady from Golden.
"Your complexion, I mean, my dear," said she, sitting down comfortably
in the folds of a fur coat. "I never use adjectives about the
mountains. It would seem impertinent. How old are you?"
Desire gave her age smiling. "Charming age," nodded the old lady.
"Youth is a wonderful thing. See that you keep it."
"Like you?" said Desire, her smile brightening.
The old lady looked pleased.
"Quite so," she said. "Never allow yourself to believe that silly folly
about a woman being as old as she looks. As if a mirror had more mind
than the person looking in it! I remember very well waking up on the
morning of my thirtieth birthday and thinking, 'I am thirty. I am
growing old.' But, thank heaven, I had a mind. I soon put a stop to
that. 'Not a day older will I grow!' I said. And I never have. What's a
mind for, if not to make use of?"
Desire looked a little awed at an audacity which defied time.
"Don't misunderstand me," went on her companion. "I don't mean that I
tried to look young. I was young. I am young still."
"Yes," said Desire. "I see what you mean. But--wasn't it lonely?"
The old lady patted her arm with an approving hand.
"Clever child!" she said. "Yes, of course it was lonely. But one can't
have everything. Pick out what you want most and cling to it. Let the
rest go. It's a good philosophy."
"Isn't it selfish?"
"Youth is always selfish," complacently. "I feel quite complimented now
when anyone calls me a selfish creature. You are a bride, aren't you?"
Desire blushed beautifully. But one couldn't resent so frank an
interest.
"Yes," she said.
"That thin, dark man is your husband? The one with the chin?"
"He has a chin," doubtfully. "Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, he is my
husband."
"Odd you never noticed his chin before," commented the old lady. "Well,
look out! That man has reserves. Who is the other one?"
"A friend."
The old lady shook a well-kept finger.
"Inconvenient things, friends!" said she. "Far better without them."
"Haven't you any?"
"Not one. They went on. All old fogies now." Her air of boredom was
unfeigned.
"But you have your daughter."
"Too old!" The youthful eyes twinkled maliciously. "Now you, my dear,
would be nearer my age. For you have youth within as well as without.
Keep it. It's all there is worth having."
Desire smiled. But the words lingered. She had never valued her youth.
She had been impatient of it. And now to be told that it was all there
was worth having! It was the creed of selfishness. And yet--had life
already given her one of her greatest treasures and had she come near
to missing the meaning of the gift?
At breakfast she observed her husband's chin so narrowly that he became
uneasy, wondering if he had forgotten to shave. She looked at John's
chin, too, with reflective eyes. Undoubtedly it was much inferior.
The train had conquered the mountains now and was plunging down upon
their farther side. Soon they were in the foot-hills and then nothing
but a flashing streak across an endless, endless tableland of wheat.
Desire, who had never seen the prairie, smiled whimsically.
"It is like coming from the world's cathedral to the world's
breakfast-table!" said she.
Aunt Caroline snorted. For her part, she said, she found train
breakfasts much the same anywhere except near the Great Lakes, where
one might expect better fish.
It grew very hot. The effortless speed of the train rolled up the
blazing miles and threw them behind, league on league. The sun set and
rose on a level sky. The babies of the rancher's wife grew tired and
sticky. They were almost too much for their equally tired mother, so
half of them sat on Desire's lap most of the time. Desire's half seemed
to bounce a great deal and gave bubbly kisses, but the rings around its
fat wrist and the pink dimples in its fingers were well worth while
keeping clean and cool just to look at. It was true, as Desire reminded
herself, that she did not care for children, but anyone might find a
round, fat one with cooey laughs a pleasant thing to play with! She did
it mostly when Benis was in the smoker with John.
At Winnipeg the honeymoon couple left them and the old lady from
Golden, much to her disgust, was also compelled to stay over for a day
because her middle-aged daughter was train-sick. Other and less
interesting faces took their places.
Desire watched them hopefully but the only one who seemed appealing was
a sturdy prairie school teacher going "home." Desire liked the school
teacher. She was so solid, so sure of herself, so wrapped up in and
satisfied with something which she called "education." She asked Desire
where she had been educated. Desire did not seem to know. "Just
anywhere," she said, "when father felt like it and had time. And I
taught myself shorthand."
"Then you aren't really educated at all?" said the teacher with frank
pity. "What a shame! Education is so important."
Benis was frankly afraid of her.
"But you need not be," Desire assured him. "She looks up to you. She
thinks that, being a professor, you have even more education than she
has."
"God forbid!" said Benis devoutly.
"Besides, she knows all about you. I found out today that she is an
Ontario girl. And she lives--guess where? In Bainbridge!"
Aunt Caroline (they were at dinner) looked up from her roast lamb and
remarked "Impossible."
"But she does, Aunt. She says so."
Aunt Caroline fancied that probably the young person was mistaken.
"Certainly," she said, "I have never heard of her."
"She lives," said Desire, "on Barker Street and she took her first
class teacher's certificate at Bainbridge Collegiate Institute."
Aunt Caroline fancied that they gave almost anyone a certificate there.
All one had to do was to pass the examinations. As to Barker
Street--there was a Barker Street, certainly. And this young person
might live on it. She, herself, was not acquainted with the
neighborhood.
"But she knows you," Desire persisted. "She said, 'Oh, is Miss Caroline
Campion your Aunt? I remember her from my youth up.'"
"Very impertinent," said Miss Campion. Her nephew's eyes began to
twinkle.
"Oh, everyone knows Aunt Caroline," he explained. "But then, everyone
knows the Queen of England."
Aunt Caroline was mollified. "Of course, in that sense--" She felt able
to go on with her roast lamb.
Dr. Rogers, who had listened to this interchange with delight, said now
that the young lady had been quite right about her place of residence.
She did live in Bainbridge, on Barker Street. He did not know her
personally but her older sister was a patient of his. The mother and
father were dead. Very nice, quiet people.
Desire was quite young enough to laugh and to point this with "Dead
ones usually are."
The school teacher, at another table, heard the laugh and felt a
passing sense of injustice. It seemed unfair that anyone so obviously
without education could feel free to laugh in that satisfying way. It
was plain that young Mrs. Spence scarcely realized her sad deficiency.
And it certainly was a little discouraging that the cleverest men
almost invariably....
Fort William came and passed and in the sparkling sunshine of another
morning the train dashed into the wild Superior country where the
wealth lies under the rock instead of above it. To Desire, her first
glimpse of the Great Lake was like a glimpse of home. The coolness of
the air was grateful after prairie heat but, scarcely had she welcomed
back the smell of pine and fir, before it, too, was left behind and
they swung swiftly into a softer land--a land of rolling fields and
fences and farmhouses; of little towns, with tree-lined roads; of
streams less noisy and more disciplined; of fat cows drowsy in the
growing heat.
"This," said Aunt Caroline with a breath of proprietary satisfaction,
"is Ontario."
Desire, always literal, pointed out that according to the map in the
time-table, they had been in Ontario for some considerable time.
Aunt Caroline thought that the map was probably mistaken. "For," she
added with finality, "it was certainly not the Ontario to which I have
been accustomed."
This settled the matter for any sensible person.
"We are nearly home now," she went on kindly. "I hope you are not
feeling very nervous, my dear."
"I am not feeling nervous at all," said Desire with surprise.
Fortunately Aunt Caroline took this proof of insensibility in a
flattering light.
"Yes, yes," she said. "It is not, of course, as if you were arriving
alone. You can depend upon me entirely. John, are you sure that your
car will be in waiting?"
"I wired it to wait," grinned John. "And usually it's a good waiter."
"Because," said Aunt Caroline, "we do not wish to be delayed at the
station. If Eliza Merry weather is there, the quicker we get away the
better. I am determined that she shall be introduced to Desire exactly
when other people are and not before. Please remember that, Benis.
Introduce Desire to no one at the station. I think, my dear, we may put
on our hats."
"It's an hour yet, Aunt."
"I know, but I do not wish to be hurried."
Desire put on her hat. It was because she was always willing to give
Aunt Caroline her way in small matters that she invariably took her own
in anything that counted. It is a simple recipe and recommended to
anyone with Aunts....
"There's Potter's wood!" said Benis, who had been somewhat silent.
Desire looked out eagerly. But Potter's wood was just like any other
wood and--
"There's Sadler's Pond!" said John.
"They've cut down the old elm!" Aunt Caroline voiced deep displeasure.
"And put up a bill-board," said Benis.
Desire felt a trifle lonely. These people, so close to her and yet so
far away, were going home.
"Oh, how I wish you weren't stopping off," said the rancher's wife, an
actual tear on her flushed cheek. "You've been so kind, Mrs. Spence.
And anyone more understanding with children I never saw. When you've
got a boy like my Sandy for your own--"
"By jove!" exclaimed Benis. "They're starting to cut down Miller's hill
at last."
Aunt Caroline rose flutteringly. "There is the water-tank," she
announced in an agitated voice. "Desire, where is your parasol? My
dear, don't kiss that child again, it's sticky. WHERE is my hand-bag?
John, do you see your car?"
"I don't SEE it," admitted John, "but--"
"Bainbridge!" shouted the brakeman.