IN THE MOONLIGHT
There was a full moon in the clear blue heavens, and its silvery light
streamed into the pillared veranda where Nasmyth sat, cigar in hand,
on the seaward front of James Acton's house, which stood about an
hour's ride from Victoria on the Dunsmer railroad. Like many other
successful men in that country, Acton had begun life in a three-roomed
shanty, and now, when, at the age of fifty, he was in possession of a
comfortable competence, he would have been well content to retire to
his native settlement in the wilderness. There was, however, the
difficulty that the first suggestion of such a course would have been
vetoed by his wife, who was an ambitious woman, younger than he, and,
as a rule, at least, Acton submitted to her good-humouredly. That was
why he retained his seat on several directorates, and had built
Bonavista on the bluff above the Straits of Georgia, instead of the
ranch-house in the Bush he still hankered for.
Bonavista had cost him much money, but Mrs. Acton had seen that it was
wisely expended, and the long wooden house, with its colonnades of
slender pillars, daintily sawn scroll-work, shingled roof, and wide
verandas, justified her taste. Acton reserved one simply furnished
room in it for himself, and made no objections when she filled the
rest of it with miscellaneous guests. Wisbech had brought him a letter
from a person of consequence, and he had offered the Englishman and
his nephew the freedom of his house. He would not have done this to
everybody, though they are a hospitable people in the West, but he had
recognized in the unostentatious Wisbech one or two of the
characteristics that were somewhat marked in himself, and his wife, as
it happened, extended her favour to Nasmyth as soon as she saw him.
She had been quick to recognize something she found congenial in his
voice and manner, though none of the points she noticed would in all
probability have appealed to her husband. Acton leaned upon the
veranda balustrade, with a particularly rank cigar in his hand, a
gaunt, big-boned man in badly-fitting clothes. It was characteristic
of him that he had not spoken to Nasmyth since he stepped out from one
of the windows five minutes earlier.
"It's kind of pretty," he said, indicating the prospect with a little
wave of his hand.
Nasmyth admitted that it was pretty indeed, and his concurrence was
justified. Sombre pinewoods and rocky heights walled in the wooden
dwelling, but in front of it the ground fell sharply away, and beyond
the shadow of the tall crags a blaze of moonlight stretched eastwards
athwart the sparkling sea.
"Well," said Acton, "it's 'most as good a place for a house as I could
find anywhere the cars could take me into town, and that's partly why
we raised it here."
Then he glanced down at the little white steamer lying in the inlet
below. "That's one of my own particular toys. You're coming up the
coast with us next week for the salmon-trolling?"
Nasmyth said that he did not know what his uncle's intentions were,
but he was almost afraid they had trespassed on their host's kindness
already. Acton laughed.
"We have folks here for a month quite often--folks that I can't talk
to and who don't seem to think it worth while to talk to me. Now I can
get along with your uncle; I can mostly tell that kind of man when I
see him. You have got to let him stay some weeks yet. It would be in
one way a kindness to me. What makes the thing easier is the fact that
Mrs. Acton has taken to you, and when she gets hold of anyone she
likes, she doesn't let him go."
Nasmyth was content to stay, and he felt that it would be a kindness
to his host. Acton appeared willing to fall in with the views of his
wife, but Nasmyth fancied that he was now and then a little lonely in
his own house.
"Both of you have done everything you could to make our stay
pleasant," Nasmyth declared.
"It was quite easy in your case," and a twinkle crept into his host's
eyes. "Your uncle's the same kind of a man as I am, and one can see
you have been up against it since you came to this country. That's one
of the best things that can happen to any young man. I guess it's not
our fault we don't like all the young men they send us out from the
Old Country." He glanced down at his cigar. "Well, I've pretty well
smoked this thing out. It's the kind of cigar I was raised on, but I'm
not allowed to use that kind anywhere in my house."
In another moment Acton swung round, and stepped back through an
open window. He generally moved abruptly, and was now and then
painfully direct in conversation, but Nasmyth had been long enough
in that country to understand and to like him. He was a man with a
grip of essential things, but it was evident that he could bear
good-humouredly with the views of others.
Nasmyth sat still after Acton left him. There were other guests in the
house, and the row of windows behind him blazed with light. One or two
of the big casements were open, and music and odd bursts of laughter
drifted out. Somebody, it seemed, was singing an amusing song, but the
snatches of it that reached Nasmyth struck him as pointless and inane.
He had been at Bonavista a week, but, after his simple, strenuous life
in the Bush, he felt at times overwhelmed by the boisterous vivacity
with which his new companions pursued their diversions. There are not
many men without an occupation in the West, but Mrs. Acton knew where
to lay her hands on them, and her husband sometimes said that it was
the folks who had nothing worth while to do who always made the
greatest fuss. But Nasmyth found it pleasant to pick up again the
threads of the life which he had almost come to the conclusion that he
had done with altogether. It was comforting to feel that he could
sleep as long as he liked, and then rise and dress himself in whole,
dry garments, while there was also a certain satisfaction in sitting
down to a daintily laid and well-spread table when he remembered how
often he had dragged himself back to his tent almost too worn out to
cook his evening meal. On the whole, he was glad that Acton had urged
him to remain another week or two.
Then he became interested as a girl stepped out of one of the lighted
windows some little distance away, and, without noticing him, leaned
upon the veranda balustrade. The smile in her eyes, he fancied,
suggested a certain satisfaction at the fact that what she had done
had irritated somebody. Why it should do so he did not know, but it
certainly conveyed that impression. In another minute a man appeared
in the portico, and the manner in which he moved forward, after he had
glanced along the veranda, was more suggestive still. The girl who
leaned on the balustrade no doubt saw him, and she walked towards
Nasmyth, whom, apparently, she had now seen for the first time.
Nasmyth thought he understood the reason for this, and, though it was
not exactly flattering to himself, he smiled as he rose and drew
forward another chair. He believed most of Mrs. Acton's guests were
acquainted with the fact that he was an impecunious dam-builder.
The girl, who sat down in the chair he offered, smiled when he flung
his half-smoked cigar away, and Nasmyth laughed as he saw the twinkle
in her eyes, for he had stopped smoking with a half-conscious
reluctance.
"It really was a pity, especially as I wouldn't have minded in the
least," she observed.
Nasmyth glanced along the veranda, and saw that the man, who had
discovered that there was not another chair available, was standing
still, evidently irresolute. Probably he recognized that it would be
difficult to preserve a becoming ease of manner in attempting to force
his company upon two persons who were not anxious for it, and were
sitting down. Nasmyth looked at the girl and prepared to undertake the
part that he supposed she desired him to play. She was attired in what
he would have described as modified evening dress, and her arms and
neck gleamed with an ivory whiteness in the moonlight. She was slight
in form, and curiously dainty as well as pretty. Her hair was black,
and she had eyes that matched it, for they were dark and soft, with
curious lights in them, but, as she settled herself beside him in the
pale moonlight it seemed to him that "dainty" did not describe her
very well. She was rather elusively ethereal.
"I really don't think you could expect me to make any admission of
that kind about my cigar, Miss Hamilton," he said. "Still, it would
perhaps have been excusable. You see, I have just come out of the
Bush."
Violet Hamilton smiled. "You are not accustomed to throw anything away
up there?"
"No," answered Nasmyth, with an air of reflection; "I scarcely think
we are. Certainly not when it's a cigar of the kind Mr. Acton supplies
his guests with."
He imagined that his companion satisfied herself that the man she
evidently desired to avoid had not gone away yet, before she turned to
him again.
"Aren't you risking Mrs. Acton's displeasure in sitting out here
alone?" she inquired. "You are probably aware that this is not what
she expects from you?"
"I almost think the retort is obvious." And Nasmyth wondered whether
he had gone further than he intended, when he saw the momentary
hardness in his companion's eyes. It suggested that the last thing her
hostess had expected her to do was to keep out of the way of the man
who had followed her on to the veranda. He accordingly endeavoured to
divert her attention from that subject.
"Any way, I find all this rather bewildering now and then," he said,
and indicated the lights and laughter and music in the house behind
him with a little movement of his hand. "This is a very different
world from the one I have been accustomed to, and it takes some time
to adapt oneself to changed conditions."
He broke off as he saw the other man slowly turn away. He looked at
the girl with a smile. "I can go on a little longer if it appears
worth while."
Violet Hamilton laughed. "Ah," she said, "one should never put one's
suspicions into words like that. Besides, I almost think one of your
observations was a little misleading. There are reasons for believing
that you are quite familiar with the kind of life you were referring
to."
It was clear to Nasmyth that she had been observing him, but he did
not realize that she was then watching him with keen, half-covert
curiosity. He was certainly a well-favoured man, and though his
conversation and demeanour did not differ greatly from those of other
young men she was accustomed to; there was also something about him
which she vaguely recognized as setting him apart from the rest. He
was a little more quiet than most of them, and there were a certain
steadiness in his eyes, and a faint hardness in the lines of his face,
which roused her interest. He had been up against it, as they say in
that country, which is a thing that usually leaves its mark upon a
man. It endues him with control, and, above all, with comprehension.
"Oh," he said, "a man not burdened with money is now and then forced
to wander. He naturally picks up a few impressions here and there. I
wonder if you find it chilly sitting here?"
The girl rose, with a little laugh. "That," she said, "was evidently
meant to afford me an opportunity. I think I should like to go down to
the Inlet."
Nasmyth, who understood this as an invitation, went with her, and,
five minutes later, they strolled out upon the crown of the bluff,
down the side of which a little path wound precipitously. Nasmyth held
his hand out at the head of it, and they went down together
cautiously, until they stood on the smooth white shingle close by
where the little steamer lay. The girl looked about her with a smile
of appreciation.
A lane of dusky water, that heaved languidly upon the pebbles, ran
inland past them under the dark rock's side, and it was very still in
the shadow of the climbing firs. On the further shore a flood of
silvery radiance, against which the dark branches cut black as ebony,
streamed down into the rift, and beyond the rocky gateway there was
brilliant moonlight on the smooth heave of sea. The girl glanced at it
longingly, and then, though she said nothing, her eyes rested on a
little beautifully modelled cedar canoe that lay close by. In another
moment Nasmyth had laid his hands on it, and she noticed how easily he
ran it down the beach, as she had noticed how steady of foot he was
when she held fast to his hand as they came down the bluff. With a
curious little smile that she remembered afterwards, he glanced
towards the shadowy rocks which shut in the entrance to the Inlet.
"Shall we go and see what there is out yonder beyond those gates?" he
asked.
"Ah," replied the girl, "what could there be? Aren't you taking an
unfair advantage in appealing to our curiosity?"
Nasmyth made a whimsical gesture as he answered her, for he saw that
she could be fanciful, too. "Unsubstantial moonlight, glamour,
mystery--perhaps other things as well," he said. "If you are curious,
why shouldn't we go and see?"
She made no demur, and helping her into the canoe, he thrust the light
craft off, and, with a sturdy stroke of the paddle, drove it out into
the Inlet. It was a thing he was used to, for he had painfully driven
ruder craft of that kind up wildly-frothing rivers, and the girl
noticed the powerful swing of his shoulders and the rhythmic splash of
his paddle, though there were other things that had their effect on
her--the languid lapping of the brine on shingle, and the gurgle round
the canoe, that seemed to be sliding out towards the moonlight through
a world of unsubstantial shadow. She admitted that the man interested
her. He had a quick wit and a whimsical fancy that appealed to her,
but he had also hard, workman's hands, and he managed the canoe as she
imagined one who had undertaken such things professionally would have
done.
When the shimmering blaze of moonlight lay close in front of them, he
let his paddle trail in the water for a moment or two, and, turning,
glanced back at the house on the bluff. Its lower windows blinked
patches of warm orange light against the dusky pines.
"That," he said, "in one respect typifies all you are accustomed to.
It stands for the things you know. Aren't you a little afraid of
leaving it behind you?"
"I think I suggested that you were accustomed to them, too!"
Nasmyth laughed. "Oh," he said, "I was turned out of that world a long
while ago. We are going to see a different one together."
"The one you know?"
"Well," returned the man reflectively, "I'm not quite sure that I do.
It's the one I live in, but that doesn't go very far after all. Now
and then I think one could live in the wilderness a lifetime without
really knowing it. There's an elusive something in or behind it that
evades one--the mystery that hides in all grandeur and beauty. Still,
there's a peril in it. Like the moonlight, it gets hold of you."
The girl fancied that she understood him, but she wondered how far it
was significant that they should slide out into the flood of radiance
together when he once more drove the light craft ahead.
The smooth sea shimmered like molten silver about the canoe, and ran
in sparkling drops from the dripping paddle. The bluff hung high above
them, a tremendous shadowy wall, and the sweet scent of the firs came
off from it with the little land breeze. They swung out over the
smooth levels that heaved with a slow, rhythmic pulsation, and Nasmyth
wondered whether he was wise when he glanced at his companion. She sat
still, looking about her dreamily, very dainty--almost ethereal, he
thought--in that silvery light, and it was so long since he had talked
confidentially to a woman of her kind, attired as became her station.
Laura Waynefleet's hands, as he remembered, were hard and sometimes
red, and the stamp of care was plain on her; but it was very different
with Violet Hamilton. She was wholly a product of luxury and
refinement, and the mere artistic beauty of her attire, which seemed a
part of her, appealed to his imagination.
He did not remember how she set him talking, but he told her
whimsical, and now and then grim, stories of his life in the shadowy
Bush, and she listened with quick comprehension. She seemed to endow
him with that quality, too, since, as he talked, he began to realize,
as he had never quite comprehended before, the something that lay
behind the tense struggle of man with Nature and all the strenuous
endeavour. Perhaps he expressed it in a degree, for now and then the
girl's eyes kindled as he told of some heroic grapple with giant rock
and roaring river, gnawing hunger, and loneliness, and the beaten
man's despair. He found her attention gratifying. It was certainly
pleasant, though he had not consciously adopted the pose, to figure in
the eyes of such a girl as one who had known most of the hardships
that man can bear and played his part in the great epic struggle for
the subjugation of the wilderness. As it happened, she did not know
that those who bear the brunt of that grim strife are for the most
part dumb. Their share is confined to swinging the axe and gripping
the jarring drill.
It was an hour after they left the Inlet when the land breeze came
down a little fresher, and swinging the canoe round, he drove it back
over a glittering sea that commenced to splash about the polished side
of the light craft. Then both of them ceased talking until, as they
approached the shadowy rift in the rock, the girl looked back with a
laugh.
"It is almost a pity to leave all that behind," she said softly.
Nasmyth nodded as he glanced up at the lighted windows of the house.
"In one sense it is. Still, it's rather curious that I think I never
appreciated it quite so much before." He let his paddle trail as he
wondered whether he had gone too far. "I suppose you are going up the
coast with Mrs. Acton in the steamer?" he inquired.
"Yes," answered Violet Hamilton, with an air of reflection; "I was not
quite sure whether I would or not, but now I almost think I will."
Nasmyth was sensible of a little thrill of satisfaction, for he knew
it was understood at Bonavista that he was going too. He decided that
he could certainly go. He dipped his paddle strongly, and laughed as
they slid forward into the shadow.
"Now," he said, "you are safely back in your own realm again."
"You called it a world a little while ago," said the girl.
"I did," replied Nasmyth. "Still, I almost think the word I
substituted is justifiable."
Violet Hamilton said nothing as they climbed the bluff, but she
wondered how far the change he had made was significant. All the men
at Bonavista were her subjects, but until that night, at least,
Nasmyth had in that sense stood apart from them, and it is always more
or less gratifying to extend one's sovereignty.