THE UNEXPECTED VISITOR
At Fort Enterprise a busy time followed. The big steamboat ("big" of
course only for lack of anything bigger than a launch to compare with)
had to be put in the water and outfitted, and the season's catch of fur
inventoried, baled and put aboard. By Victoria Day all was ready. They
took the day off to celebrate with games and oratory (chiefly for the
benefit of the helpless natives) followed by a big bonfire and dance at
Simon Grampierre's up the river.
Next morning the steamboat departed up-stream, taking Captain Stinson,
Mathews, and most of the native employees of the post in her crew. Doc
Giddings and Stonor watched her go, each with a little pain at the
breast; she was bound towards the great busy world, world of infinite
delight, of white women, lights, music, laughter and delicate feasting;
in short, to them the world of romance. They envied the very bales of
fur aboard that were bound for the world's great market-places. On the
other hand, John Gaviller watched the steamboat go with high
satisfaction. To him she represented Profit. He never knew homesickness,
because he was at home. For him the world revolved around Fort
Enterprise. As for Gordon Strange, the remaining member of the quartette
who watched her go, no one ever really knew what he thought.
The days that followed were the dullest in the whole year. The natives
had departed for their summer camps, and there was no one left around
the post but the few breed farmers. To Stonor, who was twenty-seven
years old, these days were filled with a strange unrest; for the coming
of summer with its universal blossoming was answered by a surge in his
own youthful blood--and he had no safety-valve. A healthy instinct urged
him to a ceaseless activity; he made a garden behind his quarters; he
built a canoe (none of your clumsy dug-outs, but a well-turned
Peterboro' model sheathed with bass-wood); he broke the colts of the
year. Each day he tired himself out and knew no satisfaction in his
work, and each morning he faced the shining world with a kind of groan.
Just now he had not even Tole Grampierre to talk to, for Tole, following
the universal law, was sitting up with Berta Thomas.
The steamboat's itinerary took her first to Spirit River Crossing, the
point of departure for "outside" where she discharged her fur and took
on supplies for the posts further up-stream. Proceeding up to Cardigan
and Fort Cheever, she got their fur and brought it back to the Crossing.
Then, putting on supplies for Fort Enterprise, she hustled down home
with the current. It took her twelve days to mount the stream and six to
return. Gaviller was immensely proud of the fact that she was the only
thing in the North that ran on a pre-arranged schedule. He even sent out
a timetable to the city for the benefit of intending tourists. She was
due back at Enterprise on June 15th.
When the morning of that day broke a delightful excitement filled the
breasts of those left at the post. As in most Company establishments, on
the most prominent point of the river-bank stood a tall flagstaff, with
a little brass cannon at its foot. The flag was run up and the cannon
loaded, and every five minutes during the day some one would be running
out to gaze up the river. Only Gaviller affected to be calm.
"You're wasting your time," he would say. "Stinson tied up at Tar Island
last night. If he comes right down he'll be here at three forty-five;
and if he has to land at Carcajou for wood it will be near supper-time."
The coming of the steamboat always held the potentialities of a dramatic
surprise, for they had no telegraph to warn them of whom or what she was
bringing. This year they expected quite a crowd. In addition to their
regular visitors, Duncan Seton, the Company inspector, and Bishop
Trudeau on his rounds, the government was sending in a party of
surveyors to lay off homesteads across the river, and Mr. Pringle, the
Episcopal missionary, was returning to resume his duties. An added spice
of anticipation was lent by the fact that the latter was expected to
bring his sister to keep house for him. There had been no white woman at
Fort Enterprise since the death of Mrs. Gaviller many years before. But,
as Miss Pringle was known to be forty years old, the excitement on her
account was not undue. Her mark would be Gaviller, the younger men said,
affecting not to notice the trader's annoyance.
Gaviller had put a big boat's whistle on his darling _Spirit River_, and
the mellow boom of it brought them on a run out of the store before she
hove in sight around the islands in front of Grampierre's. Gaviller had
his binoculars. He could no longer keep up his pretence of calmness.
"Three twenty-eight!" he cried, excitedly. "Didn't I tell you! Who says
we can't keep time up here! She'll run her plank ashore at three
forty-five to the dot!"
"There she is!" they cried, as she poked her nose around the islands.
"Good old tub!"
"By God! she's a pretty sight--white as a swan!"
"And floats like one!"
"Some class to that craft, sir!"
Meanwhile Gaviller was nervously focussing his binoculars. "By Golly!
there's a big crowd on deck!" he cried. "Must be ten or twelve beside
the crew!"
"Can you see the petticoat?" asked Doc Giddings. "Gee! I hope she can
cook!"
"Wait a minute! Yes--there she is!--Hello! By God, boys, there's two of
them!"
"Two!"
"Go on, you're stringing us!"
"The other must be a breed."
"No, sir, she's got a white woman's hat on, a stylish hat. And now I can
see her white face!"
"John, for the lova Mike let me look!"
But the trader held him off obdurately. "I believe she's young. She's a
little woman beside the other. I believe she's good-looking! All the men
are crowding around her."
Stonor's heart set up an unaccountable beating. "Ah, it'll be the wife
of one of the surveyors," he said, with the instinct of guarding against
a disappointment.
"No, sir! If her husband was aboard the other men wouldn't be crowding
around like that."
"No single woman under forty would dare venture up here. She'd be
mobbed."
"Might be a pleasant sort of experience for her."
Doc Giddings had at last secured possession of the glasses. "She _is_
good-looking!" he cried. "Glory be, she's a peach! I can see her smile!"
The boat was soon close enough for the binoculars to be dispensed with.
To Stonor the whole picture was blurred, save for the one slender,
fragile figure clad in the well-considered dress of a lady, perfect in
detail. Of her features he was aware at first only of a beaming, wistful
smile that plucked at his heartstrings with a strange sharpness. Even at
that distance she gave out something that changed him for ever, and he
knew it. He gazed, entirely self-forgetful, with rapt eyes and parted
lips that would have caused the other men to shout with laughter--had
they not been gazing, too. The man who dwells in a world full of
charming women never knows what they may mean to a man. Let him be
exiled, and he'll find out. In that moment the smouldering uneasiness
which had made Stonor a burden to himself of late burst into flame, and
he knew what was the matter. He beheld his desire.
As the steamboat swept by below them, Stonor automatically dipped the
flag, and Gaviller touched off the old muzzle-loader, which vented a
magnificent roar for its size. The whistle replied. The _Spirit River_
waltzed gracefully around in the stream, and, coming back against the
current, pushed her nose softly into the mud of the strand. They ran
down to meet her. Hawsers were passed ashore and made fast, and the
plank run out.
Gaviller and the others went aboard, and first greetings were exchanged
on the forward deck of the steamboat. Stonor, afflicted with a sudden
diffidence, hung in the background. He wished to approach her by
degrees. Meanwhile he was taking her in. He scarcely dared look at her
directly, but his gaze thirstily drank in her outlying details, so to
speak. Her small, well-shod feet were marvellous to him; likewise her
exquisite silken ankles. He observed that she walked with stiff, short,
delicate steps, like a high-bred filly. He was enchanted with the
slight, graceful gesticulation of her gloved hand. When he finally
brought himself to look at her eyes he was not disappointed; deep blue
were they, steady, benignant, and of a heart-disquieting wistfulness.
Other items, by the way, were a little straight nose, absurd and
lovable, and lips fresh and bright as a child's. All the men were
standing about her with deferential bared heads, and the finest thing
(in Stonor's mind) was that she displayed no self-consciousness in this
trying situation; none of the cooings, the gurglings, the flirtatious
flutterings that bring the sex into disrepute. Her back was as straight
as a plucky boy's and her chin up like the same.
When Stonor saw that his turn was approaching to be introduced, he was
seized outright with panic. He slipped inside the vessel and made his
way back to where the engineer was wiping his rods. He greeted Mathews
with a solicitude that surprised the dour Scotchman. He stood there
making conversation until he heard everybody in the bow go ashore.
Afterwards he was seized with fresh panic upon realizing that delaying
the inevitable introduction could not but have the effect of singling
him out and making him more conspicuous when it came about.
John Gaviller carried Miss Pringle and the charming unknown up to the
clap-boarded villa until the humble shack attached to the English
mission could be made fit to receive them. Stonor went for a long walk
to cool his fevered blood. He was thoroughly disgusted with himself. By
his timidity, not to use a stronger word, he had lost precious hours;
indeed, now that he had missed his first opportunity, he might be
overlooked altogether. The other men would not be likely to help him out
at all. A cold chill struck to his breast at the thought. He resolved to
march right up to the guns of her eyes on his return. But he made a
score of conflicting resolutions in the course of his walk. Meanwhile he
didn't yet know whether she were Miss or Mrs., or what was her errand at
Fort Enterprise. True, he could have gone back and asked any of the men
who came on the boat, but nothing in the world could have induced him to
speak of her to anyone just then.
When he got back, it was to find the post in a fever of preparation.
John Gaviller had asked every white man to his house to dinner to meet
the ladies. It was to be a real "outside" dinner party, and there was a
sudden, frantic demand for collars, cravats and presentable foot-wear.
Nobody at the post had a dress-suit but Gaviller himself.
Of them all only Stonor had no sartorial problems; his new uniform and
his Strathcona boots polished according to regulations were all he had
and all he needed. He surveyed the finished product in his little mirror
with strong dissatisfaction. "Ornery-looking cuss," he thought. But a
man is no judge of his own looks. A disinterested observer might have
given a different verdict. A young man less well favoured by nature
would have gazed at Stonor's long-limbed ease with helpless envy. He had
that rare type of figure that never becomes encumbered with fat. The
grace of youth and the strength of maturity met there. He would make a
pattern colonel if he lived. Under the simple lines of his uniform one
apprehended the ripple and play of unclogged muscles. If all men were
like Stonor the tailor's task would be a sinecure.
As to his face, mention has already been made of the sober gaze
lightened by a suggestion of sly mirthfulness. In a company where
sprightliness was the great desideratum, Stonor, no doubt, would have
been considered slow. Men with strong reserves are necessarily a little
slow in coming into action; they are apt, too, as a decent cover for
their feelings, to affect more slowness than they feel. A woman can
rarely look at that kind of man without feeling a secret desire to rouse
him; there is so clearly something to rouse. It was Stonor's hair which
had given rise to the quaint name the native maidens had applied to him,
the "Gold-piece." It was not yellow hair, as we call it, but a shiny
light brown, and under the savage attack of his brushes the shine was
accentuated.
The guests were received in the drawing-room of Enterprise House, which
was rarely opened nowadays. It had a charming air of slightly
old-fashioned gentility, just as its dead mistress had left it, and the
rough Northerners came in with an abashed air. John Gaviller,
resplendent in the dress-suit, stood by the piano, with the little lady
on one hand and the large lady on the other, and one after another the
men marched up and made their obeisances. The actual introduction proved
to be not so terrible an ordeal as Stonor had feared--or perhaps it is
more proper to say, that it was so terrible he was numbed and felt
nothing. It was all over in a minute. "Miss Starling!" the name rang
through his consciousness like the sound of silver bells.
Face to face Stonor saw her but dimly through the mist of too much
feeling. She treated him exactly the same as the others, that is to say,
she was kind, smiling, interested, and personally inscrutable. Stonor
was glad that there was another man pressing close at his heels, for he
felt that he could stand no more just then. He was passed on to Miss
Pringle. Of this lady it need only be said that she was a large-size
clergyman's sister, a good soul, pious and kindly. She has little to do
with this tale.
In Stonor's eyes she proved to have a great merit, for she was disposed
to talk exclusively about Miss Starling. Stonor's ears were long for
that. From her talk he gathered three main facts: (a) that Miss
Starling's given name was Clare (enchanting syllable!); (b) that the two
ladies had become acquainted for the first time on the way into the
country; (c) that Miss Starling was going back with the steamboat. "Of
course!" thought Stonor, with his heart sinking slowly like a
water-logged branch.
"Isn't she plucky!" said Miss Pringle enthusiastically.
"She looks it," said Stonor, with a sidelong glance at the object of her
encomium.
"To make this trip, I mean, all by herself."
"Is it just to see the country?" asked Stonor diffidently.
"Oh, don't you know? She's on the staff of the _Winnipeg News-Herald_,
and is writing up the trip for her paper."
Stonor instantly made up his mind to spend his next leave in Winnipeg.
His relief was due in October.
John Gaviller could do things in good style when he was moved to it. The
table was gay with silver under candle-light. Down the centre were
placed great bowls of painter's brush, the rose of the prairies. And
with the smiling ladies to grace the head of the board, it was like a
glimpse of a fairer world to the men of the North. Miss Pringle was on
Gaviller's right, Miss Starling on his left. Stonor was about half-way
down the table, and fortunately on the side opposite the younger lady,
where he could gaze his fill.
She was wearing a pink evening dress trimmed with silver, that to
Stonor's unaccustomed eyes seemed like gossamer and moonshine. He was
entranced by her throat and by the appealing loveliness of her thin
arms. "How could I ever have thought a fat woman beautiful!" he asked
himself. She talked with her arms and her delightfully restless
shoulders. Stonor had heard somewhere that this was a sign of a warm
heart. For the first time he had a view of her hair; it was dark and
warm and plentiful, and most cunningly arranged.
Stonor was totally unaware of what he was eating. From others, later, he
learned of the triumph of the kitchen--and all at three hours' notice.
Fortunately for him, everybody down the table was hanging on the talk at
the head, so that no efforts in that direction were required of him. He
was free to listen and dream.
"Somewhere in the world there is a man who will be privileged some day
to sit across the table from her at every meal! Not in a crowd like
this, but at their own table in their own house. Probably quite an
ordinary fellow, too, certainly not worthy of his luck. With her eyes
for him alone, and her lovely white arms!--While other men are batching
it alone. Things are not evenly divided in this world, for sure! If that
man went to hell afterwards it wouldn't any more than square things."
In answer to a question he heard her say: "Oh, don't ask me about
Winnipeg! All cities are so ordinary and usual! I want to hear about
your country. Tell me stories about the fascinating silent places."
"Well, as it happens," said Gaviller, speaking slowly to give his words
a proper effect, "we have a first-class mystery on hand just at
present."
"Oh, tell me all about it!" she said, as he meant her to.
"A fellow, a white man, has appeared from nowhere at all, and set
himself up beside the Swan River, an unexplored stream away to the
north-west of here. There he is, and no one knows how he got there.
We've never laid eyes on him, but the Indians bring us marvellous tales
of his 'strong medicine,' meaning magic, you know. They say he first
appeared from under the great falls of the Swan River. They describe him
as a sort of embodiment of the voice of the Falls, but we suspect there
is a more natural explanation, because he sends into the post for the
food of common humans, and gets a bundle of magazines and papers by
every mail. They come addressed to Doctor Ernest Imbrie. Our poor Doc
here is as jealous as a cat of his reputation as a healer!"
Gaviller was rewarded with a general laugh, in which her silvery tones
were heard.
"Oh, tell me more about him!" she cried.
Of all the men who were watching her there was not one who observed any
change in her face. Afterwards they remembered this with wonder. Yet
there was something in her voice, her manner, the way she kept her chin
up perhaps, that caused each man to think as her essential quality:
"She's game!"
The whole story of Imbrie as they knew it was told, with all the
embroidery that had been unconsciously added during the past months.