Vane of the Timberlands Part 14

"A thing beyond definition. A germ that lies in wait in the lonely places and breeds fantasies when it gets into your blood. Anyway, you can never quite get rid of it."

Evelyn was interested. The man was endowed with a trick of quaint and almost poetical imagination, which she had not suspected him of possessing.

"It conduces to unrest?" she suggested.

"Yes. One feels that there's a rich claim waiting beyond the thick timber through which one can hardly scramble, across the icy rivers, or over the snow-line."

"But you found one."

"At last I found it easily. After ranging the wildest solitudes, we struck it in a sheltered valley near the warm west coast. Curious, isn't it?"

"But didn't that banish the unrest and leave you satisfied?"

The man looked at her with a flicker of grim amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes.

"As I explained, it can't be banished. There's always a richer claim somewhere that you haven't found. Our prospectors dream of it as the Mother Lode, and some spend half their lives in search of it; it was called El Dorado three hundred years ago. After all, the idea's a deeper thing than a miner's fantasy: in one shape or another it's inherent in optimistic human nature. Are you sure the microbe hasn't bitten you and Mopsy?"

He was too shrewd. Turning from him, she looked down at the eddying mist.

For several years she had chafed at her surroundings and the restraints they laid upon her, with a restless longing for something wider and better: a freer, sunnier atmosphere where her nature could expand. At times she fancied there was only one sun which could warm it to a perfect growth, but that sun had not risen and scarcely seemed likely to do so.

Vane broke the silence deprecatingly.

"Now that you're rested, we'd better get on. I'm sorry I've kept you so long."

Though caution was still necessary, the rest of the descent was easier, and after a while they reached a winding dale. They followed it downward, splas.h.i.+ng through water part of the time, and at length came into sight of a cl.u.s.ter of little houses standing between a river and a big fir wood.

"It must be getting on toward evening. 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," replied 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 some dry clothes. I've no doubt he'll drive us back afterward."

Evelyn made no objections. She was very wet and was beginning to feel weary, and they were some distance from home. She returned his jacket, and a few minutes later they entered an old hostelry which, like many others among those hills, was a farm as well as an inn. The landlady recognized Vane with pleased surprise. When she had attended to Evelyn she 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," smiled 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 her. The room was low and shadowy, and partly paneled. Against one wall stood a black oak sideboard, with a plate-rack above it, and a great chest of the same material with ponderous hand-forged hinge-straps stood opposite it. A clock with an engraved metal dial and a six-foot case, polished to a wonderful l.u.s.ter by the hands of several generations, ticked in one corner; and here and there the firelight flickered upon utensils of burnished copper. There was little in the place that looked less than a century old, for there are nooks in the North that have still escaped the ravages of the collector. Outside, the rain dripped from the ma.s.sy 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 toward 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; though this by no means comprised the whole of his sensations. After living almost entirely among men, he had of late met three women who had impressed him in different ways, and they had all been pleasant to look upon.

First, there was Kitty Blake, little, graceful and, in a way, alluring; and it was she who had first roused in him a vague desire for a companion who could be more to him than a man could be. Beyond that, pretty as she was, she had only moved him to chivalrous pity and a wider sympathy.

Then he had met Jessy Horsfield, whom he admired. She was a clever woman and a handsome one, but she had scarcely stirred him at all.

Last, he had met Evelyn, as well endowed with physical charm as either; and there was no doubt that the effect she had on him was different again. It was one that was difficult to a.n.a.lyze, though he lazily tried.

She appealed to him by the grace of her carriage, the poise of her head, her delicate coloring, and the changing lights in her eyes; but behind these points there was something stronger and deeper expressed through them. He fancied that she possessed qualities he had not hitherto encountered, which would become more precious when they were fully understood. He thought of her as steadfast and wholesome in mind; one who sought for the best; but beyond this there was an ethereal something that could not be defined. Then a simile struck him: she was like the snow that towered high into the empyrean in British Columbia. In this, however, he was wrong, for there was warm human pa.s.sion in the girl, though as yet it was sleeping.

He realized suddenly that he was getting absurdly sentimental, and instinctively he fumbled for his pipe, then stopped. Evelyn noticed this and smiled.

"You needn't hesitate. 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, so he a.s.sures us, extraordinarily unlucky."

"Stocks?" suggested Vane. He was acquainted with some of the family tendencies.

Evelyn hesitated a moment.

"That would more readily have been forgiven him. I believe he has speculated on the turf as well."

Vane was surprised. He understood that Gerald Chisholm was a barrister, and betting on the turf was not an amus.e.m.e.nt he would have a.s.sociated with that profession.

"I must run up and see him by and by," he said thoughtfully.

Evelyn felt sorry she had spoken. Gerald needed help, which his father was not in a position to offer. Evelyn 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 embarra.s.sed by financial difficulties.

She abruptly changed the subject.

"Several of the things you have told me about your life in Canada interest me. It must have been bracing to feel that you depended upon your own efforts and stood on your own feet, free from the hampering customs that are common here."

"The position has its disadvantages. You have no family influence behind you--nothing to fall back on. 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 much like yours. She said it must be pleasant to feel that one is, 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 had everything she could reasonably wish for. If I'm not transgressing, so have you. It's strange you should both harbor the same idea."

Evelyn smiled.

"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 molded by the prejudices and preconceptions of one's--neighbors 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 that it was the opinions of her neighbors against which she chafed most.

"It's something that I've never experienced," he replied at length. "In a general way, I've done what I wanted."

"Which is a privilege that is denied us."

Evelyn spoke without bitterness.

"What do women who are left to their own resources do in western Canada?"

she asked presently.

"Some of them marry; I suppose that's the most natural thing," answered 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 require more than they do across the Atlantic. What becomes of the others?"

"They are waitresses in the hotels; they learn stenography and typewriting, and go into offices and stores."

"And earn just enough to live upon meagerly? If their wages are high, they must pay out more. That follows, doesn't it?"