Flower of the North Part 8

"If the people rise against us in a body--yes, we are ruined. That is what we must not permit. It is our one chance. I have done everything in my power to beat this movement against us down south, and have failed. Our enemies are completely masked. They have won popular sentiment through the newspapers. Their next move is to strike directly at us. Whatever is to happen will happen soon. The plan is to attack us, to destroy our property, and the movement is to be advertised as a retaliation for heinous outrages perpetrated by our men. It is possible that the attack will not be by northerners alone, but by men brought in for the purpose. The result will be the same--if it succeeds. The attack is planned to be a surprise. Our one chance is to meet it, to completely frustrate it--to strike an overwhelming blow, and to capture enough of our a.s.sailants to give us the evidence we must have."

Brokaw was excited. He emphasized his words with angry sweeps of his arms. He clenched his fists, and his face grew red. He was not like the old, shrewd, indomitable Brokaw, completely master of himself, never revealing himself beyond the unruffled veil of his self-possession, and Philip was surprised. He had expected that Brokaw's wily brain would bring with it half a dozen schemes for the quiet undoing of their enemies. And now here was Brokaw, the man who always hedged himself in with legal breast-works--who never revealed himself to the shot of his enemies--enlisting himself for a fight in the open! Philip had told Gregson that there would be a fight. He was firmly convinced that there would be a fight. But he had never believed that Brokaw would come to join in it. He leaned toward the financier, his face flushed a little by the warmth of the fire and by the knowledge that Brokaw was relinquis.h.i.+ng the situation entirely into his hands. If it came to fighting, he would win. He was confident of himself there. But--

"What will be the result if we win?" he asked.

"If we secure those who will give the evidence we need--evidence that the movement against us is a plot to destroy our company, the government will stand by us," replied Brokaw. "I have sounded the situation there. I have filed a formal declaration to the effect that such a movement is on foot, and have received a promise that the commissioner of police will investigate the matter. But before that happens our enemies will strike. There is no time for red tape or investigations. We must achieve our own salvation. And to achieve that we must fight."

"And if we lose?"

Brokaw lifted his hands and shoulders with a significant gesture.

"The moral effect will be tremendous," he said. "It will be shown that the entire north is inimical to our company, and the government will withdraw our option. We will be ruined. Our stockholders will lose every cent invested."

In moments of mental energy Philip was restless. He rose from his chair now and moved softly back and forth across the carpeted floor of the big room, shrouded in tobacco smoke. Should he break his word to Gregson and tell Brokaw of Lord Fitzhugh? But, on second thought, what good would come of it? Brokaw was already aware of the seriousness of the situation. In some one of his unaccountable ways he had learned that their enemies were to strike almost immediately, and his own revelation of the Fitzhugh letters would but strengthen this evidence.

He would keep his faith with Gregson for the promised day or two. For an hour the two men were alone in the room. At the end of that time their plans were settled. The next morning Philip would leave for Blind Indian Lake and prepare for war. Brokaw would follow two or three days later.

A heavy weight seemed lifted from Philip's shoulders when he left Brokaw. After months of worry and weeks of physical inaction he saw his way clear for the first time. And for the first time, too, something seemed to have come into his life that filled him with a strange exhilaration, and made him forgetful of the gloom that had settled over him during these last months. That night he would see Jeanne. His body thrilled at the thought, until for a time he forgot that he would also see and talk with Eileen. A few days before he had told Gregson that it would be suicidal to fight the northerners; now he was eager for action, eager to begin and end the affair--to win or lose. If he had stopped to a.n.a.lyze the change in himself he would have found that the beautiful girl whom he had first seen on the moonlit rock was at the bottom of it. And yet Jeanne was a northerner, one of those against whom his actions must be directed. But he had confidence in himself, confidence in what that night would bring forth. He was like one freed from a bondage that had oppressed him for a long time, and the fact that he might be compelled to fight Jeanne's own people did not destroy his hopefulness, the new joy and excitement that he had found in life.

As he hurried back to his cabin he told himself that both Jeanne and Pierre had read what he had sent to them in the handkerchief; their response was a proof that they understood him, and deep down a voice kept telling him that if it came to fighting they three, Pierre, Jeanne, and himself, would rise or fall together. A few hours had transformed him into Gregson's old appreciation of the fighting man.

Long and tedious months of diplomacy, of political intrigue, of bribery and dishonest financiering, in which he had played but the part of a helpless machine, were gone. Now he held the whip-hand; Brokaw had acknowledged his own surrender. He was to fight--a clean, fair fight on his part, and his blood leaped in every vein like marshaling armies.

That nights on the rock, he would reveal himself frankly to Pierre and Jeanne. He would tell them of the plot to disrupt the company, and of the work ahead of him. And after that--

He thrust open the door of his cabin, eager to enlist Gregson in his enthusiasm. The artist was not in. Philip noticed that the cartridge-belt and the revolver which usually hung over Gregson's bunk were gone. He never entered the cabin without looking at the sketch of Eileen Brokaw. Something about it seemed to fascinate him, to challenge his presence. Now it was missing from the wall.

He threw off his coat and hat, filled his pipe, and began gathering up his few possessions, ready for packing. It was noon before he was through, and Gregson had not returned. He boiled himself some coffee and sat down to wait. At five o'clock he was to eat supper with the Brokaws and the factor; Eileen, through her father, had asked him to join her an hour or two earlier in the big room. He waited until four, and then left a brief note for Gregson upon the table.

It was growing dusk in the forest. From the top of the ridge Philip caught the last red glow of the sun, sinking far to the south and west.

A faint radiance of it still swept over his head and mingled with the thickening gray gloom of the northern sea. Across the dip in the Bay the huge, white-capped cliff seemed to loom nearer and more gigantic in the whimsical light. For a few moments a red bar shot across it, and as the golden fire faded and died away Philip could not but think it was like a torch beckoning to him. A few hours more, and where that light had been he would see Jeanne. And now, down there, Eileen was waiting for him.

His pulse quickened as he pa.s.sed beyond the ancient fort, over the burial-place of the dead, and into Churchill. He met no one at the factor's, and the door leading into Miss Brokaw's room was partly ajar.

A great fire was burning in the fireplace, and he saw Eileen seated in the rich glow of it, smiling at him as he entered. He closed the door, and when he turned she had risen and was holding out her hands to him.

She had dressed for him, almost as on that night of the Brokaw ball. In the flas.h.i.+ng play of the fire her exquisite arms and shoulders shone with dazzling beauty; her eyes laughed at him; her hair rippled in a golden flood. Faintly there came to him, filling the room slowly, tingling his nerves, the sweet scent of heliotrope--the perfume that had filled his nostrils on that other night, a long time ago, the sweet scent that had come to him in the handkerchief dropped on the rock, the breath of the bit of lace that had bound Jeanne's hair!

Eileen moved toward him. "Philip," she said, "now are you glad to see me?"

IX

Her voice broke the spell that had held him for a moment.

"I am glad to see you," he cried, quickly, seizing both her hands.

"Only I haven't quite yet awakened from my dream. It seems too wonderful, almost unreal. Are you the old Eileen who used to shudder when I told you of a bit of jungle and wild beasts, and who laughed at me because I loved to sleep out-of-doors and tramp mountains, instead of decently behaving myself at home? I demand an explanation. It must be a wonderful change--"

"There has been a change," she interrupted him. "Sit down, Philip--there!" She nestled herself on a stool, close to his feet, and looked up at him, her hands clasped under her chin, radiantly lovely.

"You told me once that girls like me simply fluttered over the top of life like b.u.t.terflies; that we couldn't understand life, or live it, until somewhere--at some time--we came into touch with nature. Do you remember? I was consumed with rage then--at your frankness, at what I considered your impertinence. I couldn't get what you said out of my mind. And I'm trying it."

"And you like it?" He put the question almost eagerly.

"Yes." She was looking at him steadily, her beautiful gray eyes meeting his own in a silence that stirred him deeply. He had never seen her more beautiful. Was it the firelight on her face, the crimson leapings of the flames, that gave her skin a richer hue? Was it the mingling of fire and shadow that darkened her cheeks? An impulse made him utter the words which pa.s.sed through his mind.

"You have already tried it," he said. "I can see the effects of it in your face. It would take weeks in the forests to do that."

The gray eyes faltered; the flush deepened.

"Yes, I have tried it. I spent a half of the summer at our cottage on the lake."

"But it is not tan," he persisted, thrilled for a moment by the discoveries he was making. "It is the wind; it is the open; it is the smoke of camp-fires; it is the elixir of balsam and cedar and pine.

That is what I see in your face--unless it is the fire."

"It is the fire, partly," she said. "And the rest is the wind and the open of the seas we have come across, and the sting of icebergs. Ugh: my face feels like nettles!"

She rubbed her cheeks with her two hands, and then held up one hand to Philip.

"Look," she said. "It's as rough as sand-paper. Isn't that a change? I didn't even wear gloves on the s.h.i.+p. I'm an enthusiast. I'm going down there with you, and I'm going to fight. Now have you got anything to say against me, Mr. Philip?"

There was a lightness in her words, and yet not in her voice. In her manner was an uneasiness, mingled with an almost childish eagerness for him to answer, which Philip could not understand. He fancied that once or twice he had caught the faintest sign of a break in her voice.

"You really mean to hazard this adventure?" he cried, softly, in his astonishment. "You, whom wild horses couldn't drag into the wilderness, as you once told me!"

"Yes," she affirmed, drawing her stool back out of the increasing heat of the fire. Her face was almost entirely in shadow now, and she did not look at Philip. "I am beginning to--to love adventure," she went on, in an even voice. "It was an adventure coming up. And when we landed down there something curious happened. Did you see a girl who thought that she knew me--"

She stopped, and a sudden flash of the fire lit up her eyes, fixed on him intently from between her s.h.i.+elding hands.

"I saw her run out and speak to you," said Philip, his heart beating at double-quick. He leaned over so that he was looking squarely into Miss Brokaw's face.

"Did you know her?" she asked.

"I have seen her only twice--once before she spoke to you."

"If I meet her again I shall apologize," said Eileen. "It was her mistake, and she startled me. When she ran out to me like that, and held out her hands I--I thought of beggars."

"Beggars!" almost shouted Philip. "A beggar!" He caught himself with a laugh, and to cover his sudden emotion turned to lay a fresh piece of birch on the fire. "We don't have beggars up here."

The door opened behind them and Brokaw entered. Philip's face was red when he greeted him. For half an hour after that he cursed himself for not being as clever as Gregson. He knew that there was a change in Eileen Brokaw, a change which nature had not worked alone, as she wished him to believe. Then, and at supper, he tried to fathom her. At times he detected the metallic ring of what was unreal and make-believe in what she said; at other times she seemed stirred by emotions which added immeasurably to the sweetness and truthfulness of her voice. She was nervous. He found her eyes frequently seeking her father's face, and more than once they were filled with a mysterious questioning, as if within Brokaw's brain there lurked hidden things which were new to her, and which she was struggling to understand. She no longer held the old fascination for Philip, and yet he conceded that she was more beautiful than ever. Until to-night he had never seen the shadow of sadness in her eyes; he had never seen them darken as they darkened now, when she listened with almost feverish interest to the words which pa.s.sed between himself and Brokaw. He was certain that it was not a whim that had brought her into the north. It was impossible for him to believe that he had piqued at her vanity until she had leaped into action, as she had suggested to him while they were sitting before the fire. Could it be that she had accompanied her father because he--Philip Whittemore--was in the north?

The thought drew a slow flush into his face, and his uneasiness increased when he knew that she was looking at him. He was glad when it came time for cigars, and Eileen excused herself. He opened the door for her, and told her that he probably would not see her again until morning, as he had an important engagement for the evening. She gave him her hand, and for a moment he felt the clinging of her fingers about his own.

"Good night," she whispered.

"Good night."

She drew her hand half away, and then, suddenly, raised her eyes straight to his own. They were calm, quiet, beautiful, and yet there came a quick little catch in her throat as she leaned so close to him that she touched his breast, and said:

"It will be best--best for everything--everybody--if you can influence father to stay at Fort Churchill."

She did not wait for him to reply, but hurried toward her room. For a moment Philip stared after her in amazement. Then he took a step as if to follow her, to call her back. The impulse left him as quickly as it came, and he rejoined Brokaw and the factor.