The Black Creek Stopping-House, and Other Stories Part 16

Things like that never last, but he'll be awfully nice to her, and give her a good time and take her around--you know what Bruce is like--he's so romantic and cynical, and such a perfect darling in his manners-- always ready to open a door or pick up a handkerchief!"

"I am sure he would--if he needed the handkerchief," Theodore put in, quietly.

"Oh, Ted! you're a funny bunny! You've never liked Bruce--and I know why--and it's perfectly horrid of you, just because he has always been particularly nice to me--he really can't help being dreamy and devoted to any woman he is with, if she is not a positive fright."

Mrs. Trenton, the President of the Arts and Crafts, received Mrs.

Banks' suggestion cautiously. Mrs. Trenton always asked, Is it right?

Is it wise? Is it expedient? It was Mrs. Trenton's extreme cautiousness that had brought her the proud distinction of being the first President of the Arts and Crafts, where it was considered necessary to temper the impetuosity of the younger members; and, besides, Mrs. Trenton never carried her doubts and fears too far. She raised all possible objections, mentioned all possible contingencies, but in the end allowed the younger members to carry the day, which they did, with a clear and shriven conscience, feeling that they had been very discreet and careful and deliberate.

Mrs. Banks introduced her subject by telling Mrs. Trenton that she had come to ask her advice, whereupon Mrs. Trenton laid aside the work she was doing and signified her gracious willingness to be asked for counsel. When Mrs. Banks had carefully laid the matter before Mrs.

Trenton, dwelling on the utter loneliness of the prairie woman's life, Mrs. Trenton called the Vice-President, Miss Hastings, who was an oil painter by profession, and a lady of large experience in matters of the heart. Mrs. Trenton asked Mrs Banks to outline her plan again.

When she had finished, Mrs. Trenton asked: "Is it wise--is it kind? She has chosen her life. Why bring her back? It will only fill her heart with vain repinings. This man, illiterate though he may be, is her lawful husband--she owes him a duty. Are we just to him?"

"Maybe she is perfectly happy," Miss Hastings said. "There is no accounting for love and its vagaries. Perhaps to her he is clothed in the rosy glow of romance, and all the inconveniences of her life are forgotten. I have read of it," she added in explanation, when she noticed Mrs. Trenton's look of incredulity.

Mrs. Trenton sighed, a long sigh that undulated the black lace on her capacious bosom.

"It has been written--it will continue to be written, but to-day marriage needs to be aided by modern--" she hesitated, and looked at Mrs. Banks for the word.

"Methods," Mrs. Banks supplied, promptly, "housemaids, cooks, autos, theatres, jewelry and chocolates."

"You put it so aptly, my dear," Mrs. Trenton smiled, as she patted her pearl bracelet, Mr. Trenton's last offering on the hymeneal altar. "It requires--" she paused again--Mrs. Trenton's pauses were a very important a.s.set in her conversation--"it requires--"

"Collateral," said Mrs. Banks.

Miss Hastings shook her head.

"I believe in marriage--all the same," she said heroically.

"Now, how shall we do it?" Mrs. Banks was anxious to get the preliminaries over. "You have decided to invite her, of course."

Mrs. Trenton nodded.

"I feel we have no choice in the matter," she said slowly. "She is certainly a woman of artistic temperament--she must be, or she would succ.u.mb to the dreary prairie level. I have followed her career with interest and predict great things for her--have I not, Miss Hastings?

We should not blame her if in a moment of girlish romance she turned her back on the life which now is. We, as officers of the Arts and Crafts, must extend our fellows.h.i.+p to all who are worthy. This joining of our ranks may show her what she lost by her girlish folly, but it is better for her to know life, and even feel regrets, than never to know."

"Better have a scarlet thread run through the dull gray pattern of life, even if it makes the gray all the duller," said Miss Hastings, who worked in oils.

And so it came about that an invitation was sent to Mrs. James Dawson, Auburn, Alberta, and in due time an acceptance was received.

From the time she alighted from the Pacific Express, a slight young woman in a very smart linen suit, she was a constant surprise to the Arts and Crafts. The princ.i.p.al cause of their surprise was that she seemed perfectly happy. There was not a shadow of regret in her clear grey eyes, nor any trace of drooping melancholy in her quick, business- like walk.

Naturally the Arts and Crafts had made quite a feature of the Alberta author and poet who would attend the Convention. Several of the enthusiastic members, anxious to advertise effectively, had interviewed the newspaper reporters on the subject, with the result that long articles were published in the Woman's Section of the city dailies, dealing princ.i.p.ally with the loneliness of the life on an Alberta ranch. Kate Dawson was credited with an heroic spirit that would have made her blush had she seen the flattering allusions. Robinson Crusoe on his lonely isle, before the advent of Friday, was not more isolated than she on her lonely Alberta ranch, according to the advance notices.

Luckily she had not seen any of these, nor ever dreamed she was the centre of so much attention, and so it was a very self-possessed and unconscious young woman in a simple white gown who came before the Arts and Crafts.

It was the first open night of the Convention, and the auditorium was crowded. The air was heavy with the perfume of many flowers, and pulsed with dreamy music. Mrs. Trenton, in billows of black lace and glinting jet, presided with her usual graciousness. She introduced Mrs. Dawson briefly.

Whatever the att.i.tude of the audience was at first, they soon followed her with eager interest as she told them, in her easy way, simple stories of the people she knew so well and so lovingly understood.

There was no art in the telling, only a sweet naturalness and an apparent honesty--the honesty of purpose that comes to people in lonely places. Her stories were all of the cla.s.s that magazine editors call "homely, heart-interest stuff," not deep or clever or problematical-- the commonplace doings of common people--but it found an entrance into the hearts of men and women.

They found themselves looking with her at broad sunlit s.p.a.ces, where struggling hearts work out n.o.ble destinies, without any thought of heroism. They saw the moonlight and its drifting shadows on the wheat, and smelled again the ripening grain at dawn. They heard the whirr of prairie chickens' wings among the golden stubble on the hillside, and the glamor of some old forgotten afternoon stole over them. Men and women country-born who had forgotten the voices of their youth, heard them calling across the years, and heard them, too, with opened hearts and sudden tears. There was one pathetic story she told them, of the lonely prairie woman--the woman who wished she was back, the woman to whom the broad outlook and far horizon were terrible and full of fear.

She told them how, at night, this lonely woman drew down the blinds and pinned them close to keep out the great white outside that stared at her through every c.h.i.n.k with wide, pitiless eyes--the mocking voices that she heard behind her everywhere, day and night, whispering, mocking, plotting; and the awful shadows, black and terrible, that crouched behind her, just out of sight--never coming out in the open.

It was a weird and gloomy picture, that, but she did not leave it so.

She told of the new neighbor who came to live near the lonely woman-- the human companions.h.i.+p which drove the mocking voices away forever-- the coming of the spring, when the world awoke from its white sleep and the thousand joyous living things that came into being at the touch of the good old sun!

At the reception after the programme, many crowded around her, expressing their sincere appreciation of her work. Bruce Edwards fully enjoyed the distinction which his former acquaintance with her gave him, and it was with quite an air of proprietors.h.i.+p that he introduced to her his friends.

Mrs. Trenton, Mrs. Banks and other members of the Arts and Crafts, at a distance discussed her with pride. She had made their open night a wonderful success--the papers would be full of it to-morrow.

"You can see how fitted she is for a life of culture," said Miss Hastings, the oil painter; "her shapely white hands were made for silver spoons, and not for handling b.u.t.ter ladles. What a perfect joy it must be for her to a.s.sociate with people who are her equals!"

"I wonder," said Mrs. Banks, "what her rancher would say if he saw his handsome wife now. So much admiration from an old lover is not good for the peace of mind of even a serious-minded author--and such a fascinating man as Bruce! Look how well they look together! I wonder if she is mentally comparing her big, sunburned cattleman with Bruce, and thinking of what a different life she would have led if she had married him!"

"Do you suppose," said Mrs. Trenton, "that that was her own story that she told us? I think she must have felt it herself to be able to tell it so."

Just at that moment Bruce Edwards was asking her the same question.

"Oh, no," she answered, quickly, while an interested group drew near; "people never write their own sorrows--the broken heart does not sing-- that's the sadness of it. If one can talk of their sorrows they soon cease to be. It's because I have not had any sorrows of my own that I have seen and been able to tell of the tragedies of life."

"Isn't she the jolly best bluffer you ever heard?" one of the men remarked to another. "Just think of that beautiful creature, born for admiration, living ten miles from anywhere, on an Albertan ranch of all places, and saying she is happy. She could be a top-notcher in any society in Canada--why, great Scott! any of us would have married that girl, and been glad to do it!" And under the glow of this generous declaration Mr. Stanley Carruthers lit his cigarette and watched her with unconcealed admiration.

As the Arts and Crafts had predicted, the newspapers gave considerable s.p.a.ce to their open meeting, and the Alberta author came in for a large share of the reporters' finest spasms. It was the chance of a lifetime --here was local color--human interest--romance--thrills! Good old phrases, clover-scented and rosy-hued, that had lain in cold storage for years, were brought out and used with conscious pride.

There was one paper which boldly hinted at what it called her "_mesalliance_," and drew a lurid picture of her domestic unhappiness, "so bravely borne." All the gossip of the Convention was in it intensified and exaggerated--conjectures set down as known truths--the idle chatter of idle women crystallized in print!

And of this paper a copy was sent by some unknown person to James Dawson, Auburn, Alberta.

The rain was falling at Auburn, Alberta, with the dreary insistence of unwelcome harvest rain. Just a quiet drizzle--plenty more where this came from--no haste, no waste. It soaked the fields, keeping green the grain which should be ripening in a clear sun. Kate Dawson had been gone a week, and it would still be a week before she came back. Just a week--seven days. Jim Dawson went over them in his mind as he drove the ten miles over the rain-soaked roads to Auburn to get his daily letter.

Every day she had written to him long letters, full of vital interest to him. He read them over and over again.

"n.o.body really knows how well Kate can write, who has not seen her letters to me," he thought proudly. Absence had not made him fonder of his wife, for every day he lived was lived in devotion to her. The marvel of it all never left him, that such a woman as Kate Marks, who had spent her life in the city, surrounded by cultured friends, should be contented to live the lonely life of a rancher's wife.

He got his first disappointment when there was no letter for him. He told himself it was some unavoidable delay in the mails--Kate had written all right--there would be two letters for him to-morrow. Then he noticed the paper addressed to him in a strange hand.

He opened it eagerly. A wavy ink-line caught his eye. "Western author delights large audience." Jim Dawson's face glowed with pride. "My girl!" he murmured, happily. "I knew it." He wanted to be alone when he read it, and, folding it hastily, put it in his pocket and did not look at it again until he was on the way home. The rain still fell drearily and spattered the page as he read.

His heart beat fast with pride as he read the flattering words--his girl had made good, you bet!

Suddenly he started, almost crus.h.i.+ng the paper in his hands, and every bit of color went from his face. "What's this? 'Unhappily married '-- 'borne with heroic cheerfulness.'" He read it through to the end.

He stopped his horses and looked around--he did not know, himself, what thought was in his mind. Jim Dawson had always been able to settle his disputes without difficulty or delay. There was something to be done now. The muscles swelled in his arms. Surely something could be done!...