STORM-STAYED.
The weather was not the only thing that troubled Vane as he stumbled on
through the mist. Any unathletic tourist from the cities could have gone
up without much difficulty by the way they had ascended, but it was
different coming down on the opposite side of the mountain. There, their
route laid across banks of sharp-pointed stones that rested lightly on
the steep slope, interspersed with out-cropping rocks which were growing
dangerously slippery; and a wilderness of crags pierced by three great
radiating chasms lay beneath.
After half an hour's arduous scramble, he decided that they must be
close upon the top of the last rift, and stood still for a minute
looking about him. The mist was now so thick that he could scarcely see
thirty yards ahead, but the way it drove past him indicated that it was
blowing up a hollow. On one hand a rampart of hillside loomed dimly out
of it; in front there was a dark patch that looked like the face of a
dripping rock; and between the latter and the hill a boggy stretch of
grass ran back into the vapour. Then he turned, and glanced at Evelyn
with some concern. Her skirt was heavy with moisture, and the rain
dripped from the brim of her hat, but she smiled at him reassuringly.
"It's not the first time I've got wet," she said.
Vane felt relieved on one account. He had imagined that a woman hated to
feel draggled and untidy, and he was willing to own that in his case
fatigue usually tended towards shortness of temper. Though the scramble
had scarcely taxed his powers, he fancied that Evelyn, had already done
as much as one could expect of her.
"I must prospect about a bit," he said. "Scardale's somewhere below us;
but if I remember, it's an awkward descent to the head of it, and I'm
not sure of the right entrance to the Hause."
"I've only once been down this way, and that was a long while ago,"
Evelyn replied.
Vane left her, and plodded away across the grass. When he had grown
scarcely distinguishable in the haze, he turned and waved his hand.
"I know where we are; the head of the beck's close by," he cried.
Evelyn joined him at the edge of a trickle of water splashing in a peaty
hollow, and they followed it down, seeing only odd strips of hillside
amidst the vapour, until at length the ground grew softer and Vane,
going first, sank among the long green moss almost to his knees.
"That won't do. Stand still, please," he said. "I'll try a little to the
right."
He tried in one or two directions; but wherever he went he sank over his
boots, and, coming back, he informed his companion that they had better
go straight ahead.
"I know there's no bog worth speaking of; the Hause is a regular tourist
track," he added, and suddenly stripped off his jacket. "First of all,
you'll put this on; I'm sorry I didn't think of it before."
Evelyn demurred, and he rolled up the jacket. "You have to choose
between doing what I ask and watching me pitch it into the beck," he
declared. "I'm a rather determined person, and it would be a pity to
throw the thing away, particularly as the rain hasn't got through it
yet."
She yielded, and after he had held up the garment while she put it on,
he spoke again:
"There's another thing; I'm going to carry you for the next hundred
yards, or possibly farther."
"No," said Evelyn firmly. "On that point my determination is as strong
as yours."
Vane made a sign of acquiescence. "You can have your way for a minute; I
expect it will be long enough."
He was correct, Evelyn moved forward a pace or two, and then stopped
with the skirt she had gathered up brushing the quivering emerald moss,
and her boots, which were high ones, hidden in the latter. She had some
difficulty in pulling them out. Then Vane coolly picked her up.
"All you have to do is to keep still for the next few minutes," he
informed her in a most matter-of-fact voice.
Evelyn did not move, though had he shown any sign of self-conscious
hesitation she would at once have shaken herself loose. He was conscious
of a thrill and a certain stirring of his blood, but this, he decided,
must be sternly ignored, and his task occupied most of his attention. It
was not an easy one, and he stumbled once or twice, but he accomplished
it and set the girl down safely on firmer ground.
"Now," he said, "there's only the drop to the dale, but we must
endeavour to keep out of the beck."
His voice and air were unembarrassed, though he was breathless, and
Evelyn fancied that in this and the incident of the jacket he had
revealed the forceful, natural manners of the West. It was the first
glimpse she had had of them, though she had watched for one, and she was
not displeased. The man had merely done what was most advisable, with
practical sense.
A little farther on, a shoot of falling water swept out of the mist
above and came splashing down a crag, spread out in frothing threads. It
flowed across their path, reunited in a deep gully which they sprang
across, and then fell tumultuously into the beck, which was now ten or
twelve feet below on one side of them. They clung to the rock as they
traced it downwards, stepping cautiously from ledge to ledge. At times a
stone plunged into the mist beneath them, and Vane grasped the girl's
arm or held out a steadying hand, but he was never fussy or needlessly
concerned. When she wanted help, it was offered at the right moment; but
that was all, and she thought that had she been alarmed, which was not
the case, her companion's manner would have been more comforting than
persistent solicitude. He was, she decided, one who could be relied upon
in an emergency.
Though caution was still necessary, the next stage of the journey was
easier, and by and by they reached a winding dale. They followed it
downwards, splashing through water part of the time, and at length came
into sight of a cluster of little houses standing between a river and a
big fir wood.
"It must be getting on towards evening," said Evelyn. "Mopsy and Carroll
probably went down the Ridge, and as it runs out lower down the valley,
they'll be almost at home."
"It's six o'clock," said Vane, glancing at his watch. "You can't walk
home in the rain, and it's a long while since lunch. If Adam Bell and
his wife are still at the 'Golden Fleece,' we'll get something to eat
there and borrow you dry clothes. He'll drive us home afterwards."
Evelyn made no objections. She was very wet and beginning to feel weary,
and they were some distance from home. She restored him his jacket, and
a few minutes later they entered an old hostelry which, like many others
among these hills, was a farm as well as an inn. The landlady, who
recognised Vane with pleased surprise, took Evelyn away with her, and
afterwards provided Vane with some of her husband's clothes. Then she
lighted a fire, and when she had laid out a meal in the guest-room,
Evelyn came in, attired in a dress of lilac print.
"It's Maggie Bell's," she explained demurely. "Her mother's things were
rather large. Adam is away at a sheep auction, and they have only the
trap he went in, but they expect him back in an hour or so."
"Then we must wait," said Vane. "Worse misfortunes have befallen me."
They made an excellent meal, and then Vane drew up a wicker chair to the
fire for Evelyn and sat down opposite to her. Outside, the rain dripped
from the mossy flagstone eaves, and the song of the river stole in
monotonous cadence into the room.
Evelyn was silent and Vane said nothing for a while. He had been in the
air all day, and though this was nothing new to him, he was content to
sit lazily still and leave the opening of conversation to his companion.
In the meanwhile it was pleasant to glance towards her now and then. The
pale-tinted dress became her, and he felt that the room would have
looked less cheerful had she been away.
The effect she had on him was difficult to analyse, though he lazily
tried. She appealed to him by the grace of her carriage, the poise of
her head, her delicate colouring, and the changing lights in her eyes;
but behind these points something stronger and deeper was expressed
through them. He fancied she possessed qualities he had not hitherto
encountered, which would become more precious when they were fully
understood. He thought of her as wholesome in mind; one who sought for
the best; but she was also endowed with an ethereal something that could
not be defined.
Then a simile struck him: she was like the snow that towers high into
the empyrean in British Columbia; in which he was wrong, for there was
warm human passion in the girl, though it was sleeping yet. By and by,
he told himself, he was getting absurdly sentimental, and he
instinctively fumbled for his pipe and stopped. Evelyn noticed this and
smiled.
"You needn't hesitate," she said. "The Dene is redolent of cigars, and
Gerald smokes everywhere when he is at home."
"Is he likely to turn up?" Vane asked. "It's ever so long since I've
seen him."
"I'm afraid not. In fact, Gerald's rather under a cloud just now. I may
as well tell you this, because you are sure to hear of it sooner or
later. He has been extravagant, and, as he assures us, extraordinarily
unlucky."
"Stocks and shares?" suggested Vane, who was acquainted with some of the
family tendencies.
Evelyn hesitated a moment. "That would have been more readily forgiven
him. I believe he has speculated on the turf as well."
Vane was surprised, since he understood that Gerald Chisholm was a
barrister, and betting on the turf was not an amusement he would have
associated with that profession.
"Then," he said thoughtfully, "I must run up and see him later on."
Evelyn felt sorry she had spoken. Gerald needed help, which his father
was not in a position to offer. She was not censorious of other people's
faults; but it was impossible to be blind to some aspects of her
brother's character, and she would have preferred that Vane should not
meet Gerald while the latter was embarrassed by financial difficulties.
She changed the subject.
"Several of the things you told me about your life in Canada interested
me," she said. "It must have been bracing to feel that you depended upon
your own efforts and stood on your own feet, free from all the hampering
customs that are common here."
"The position has its disadvantages. You have no family influence behind
you; nothing to fall back upon. If you can't make good your footing you
must go down. It's curious that just before I came over here a lady I
met in Vancouver expressed an opinion very like yours. She said it must
be pleasant to feel that one was, to some extent at least, master of
one's fate."
"Then she merely explained my meaning more clearly than I have done."
"One could have imagined that she has everything she could reasonably
wish for. If I'm not transgressing, so have you. It's strange you should
both harbour the same idea."
"I don't think it's uncommon among young women nowadays. There's a
grandeur in the thought that one's fate lies in the hands of the high
unseen powers; but to allow one's life to be moulded by--one's
neighbours' prejudices and preconceptions is a different matter.
Besides, if unrest and human striving were sent, was it only that they
should be repressed?"
Vane sat silent a moment or two. He had noticed the brief pause and
fancied that she had changed one of the words that followed it. He did
not think it was her neighbours' opinions she most chafed against.
"It's not a point I've been concerned about," he replied at length. "In
a general way, I did what I wanted."
"Which is a privilege that is denied to us." Evelyn spoke without
bitterness, and added a moment later: "What do women who are left to
their own resources do in Western Canada?"
"Some of them marry; I suppose that's the most natural thing," said Vane
with an air of reflection that amused her. "Anyway, they have plenty of
opportunities. There's a preponderating number of unattached young men
in the newly-opened parts of the Dominion."
"Things are different here, or perhaps we want more than they do across
the Atlantic," said Evelyn. "What becomes of the others?"
"They wait in the hotels; learn stenography and typewriting, and go into
offices and stores."
"And earn just enough to live upon meagrely? If their wages are high,
they must pay out more. That follows, doesn't it?"
"To some extent."
"Is there nothing better open to them?"
"No," said Vane thoughtfully; "not unless they're trained for it and
become specialised. That implies peculiar abilities and a systematic
education with one end in view: you can't enter the arena to fight for
the higher prizes unless you're properly armed. The easiest way for a
woman to acquire power and influence is by a judicious marriage. No
doubt it's the same here."
"It is," replied Evelyn smiling. "A man is more fortunately situated."
"I suppose he is. If he's poor, he's rather walled in, too; but he
breaks through now and then. In the newer countries he gets an
opportunity."
Vane abstractedly examined his pipe, which he had not lighted yet. It
was clear that the girl was dissatisfied with her surroundings, and had
for some reason temporarily relaxed the restraint she generally laid
upon herself; but he felt that if she were wise, she would force herself
to be content. She was of too fine a fibre to plunge into the struggle
that many women had to wage, and though he did not doubt her courage,
she had not been trained for it. He had noticed that among men it was
the cruder and less developed organisations that proved hardiest in
adverse situations; one needed a strain of primitive vigour. There was,
it seemed, only one means of release for her, and that was a happy
marriage. But a marriage could not be happy unless the suitor was all
that she desired, and Evelyn would be fastidious, though her family
would, no doubt, only look for wealth and station. He imagined that this
was where the trouble lay. He would wait and keep his eyes open. Shortly
after he arrived at this decision, there was a rattle of wheels outside
and the landlord, who came in, greeted him with rude cordiality. In
another minute or two Vane handed Evelyn into the gig, and Bill drove
them home through the rain.