A Dozen Ways Of Love Part 15

Everywhere over the land birds big and little were fluttering and flying.

Zilda did not notice any of these things; she had only learned to observe two things in nature, both of which Gilby had pointed out to her--the red or yellow rose of the winter sunset, the depth of colour in the petals of her flowers. Nature was to her like a language of which she had only been told the meaning of two words. In the course of the next month she learned the meaning of a few more; she never made further progress, but what she learned she learned.

The river which, farther on, had done damage to the line, here ran close to it for some distance, consequently Zilda came to the river before she reached the scene of the disaster. The river banks at this season were marshy, green like plush or velvet when it is lifted dripping from green vats of the brightest dye. There were some trees by the river bank, maples and elms, and every twig was tipped with a crimson gem. Zilda did not see the beauty of the river bank either; she regarded nothing until she came to a place where a foot-track was beaten down the side of the embankment, as if apparently to entice walkers to stray across a bit of the meadow and so cut off a large curve of the line. At this point Zilda heard a loud chirpy voice calling,'Hi! hi! who's there? Is any one there?'

Zilda did not know from whence the voice came, but she knew from whom it came. It was Gilby's voice, and she stopped, her soul ravished by the music. All the way along, bobolinks, canaries, and song-sparrows had been singing to her, the swallows and red-throats had been talking; everywhere among the soft spongy mosses, the singing frog of the Canadian spring had been filling the air with its one soft whistling note. Zilda had not heard them, but now she stopped suddenly with head bent, listening eager, enraptured.

'Hi! hi!' called the voice again. 'Is any one there?'

Zilda went down the bank halfway among the bushes and looked over. She saw Gilby sitting at the edge of the meadow almost in the river water.

She saw at once that something was wrong. His att.i.tude was as natural as he could make it, such an att.i.tude as a proud man might a.s.sume when pain is chaining him in an awkward position, but Zilda saw that he was injured. Her heart gave a great bound of pleasure. Ah! her bird was wounded in the wing; she had him now, for a time at least.

'You! Mam'selle Zilda,' he said in surprise; 'how came you here?'

'I wished to see the broken road, monsieur.' There was nothing in her voice or manner then or at any other time to indicate that she took a special interest in him.

'Do you often take such long walks?' he asked with curiosity.

Zilda shrugged her shoulders. 'Sometimes; why not?'

She could not have told why she dissembled; it was instinct, just as it was the instinct of his proud little spirit to hate to own that he was helpless. 'Look here,' he said, 'I slipped on the bank--and I--I think I have sprained my ankle.'

'Oui, monsieur,' said Zilda.

Her manner evinced no surprise; her stolidity was grateful to him.

Stooping down, she took his foot in her hand, gently, but as firmly as if it had been a horse's hoof. She straightened it, unlaced his muddy boot, and with strong hands tore the slit further open until she could take it off.

'Look here,' he said, with a little nervous shout of laughter, 'do you not know you are hurting me?' It was the only wince he gave, although he was faint with pain.

'Oui, monsieur'--with a smile as firm and gentle as her touch.

She took off her hat, and, heedless of the ribbon upon it, filled it with water again and again and drenched the swollen leg. It was so great a relief to him that he hardly noticed that she stood ankle-deep in the river to do it. She wore a little red tartan shawl upon her shoulders, and she dipped this also in the river, binding it round and round the ankle, and tying it tight with her own boot-lace.

'Thank you,' said he; 'you are really very good, Mam'selle Zilda.'

She stood beside him; she was radiantly happy, but she did not show it much. She had him there very safe; it mattered less to her how to get him away; yet in a minute she said--

'Monsieur had better move a little higher up; he is very uncomfortable.'

He knew that much better than she, but he had borne all the pain he could just then. He nodded as if in dismissal of the idea. 'Presently.

But, in the meantime, Zilda, sit down and see what a beautiful place this is; you have not looked at it.'

So she found a stone to sit on, and immediately her eyes were opened and she saw the loveliness around her.

The river was not a very broad one, but ah! how blue it was, with a glint of gold on every wave. The trees that stood upon either bank cast a lacework of shadow upon the carpet of moss and violets beneath them.

The buds of the maples were red. On a tree near them a couple of male canaries, bright gold in the spring season, were hopping and piping; then startled, they flew off in a straight line over the river to the other sh.o.r.e.

'See them,' said Gilby; 'they look like streaks of yellow light!'

'I see,' said Zilda, and she did see for the first time.

Now Gilby had a certain capacity for rejoicing in the beauties of nature; it was overlaid with huge conceit in his own taste and discernment and a love of forcing his observations on other people, but the flaws in his character Zilda was not in a position to see. The good in him awakened in her a higher virtue than she would otherwise have known; she was unconscious of the rest, just as eyes which can see form and not colour are unconscious of the bad blending of artificial hues.

Presently Zilda rose up. 'I will make monsieur more comfortable,' she said, and she lifted him to a drier place upon the bank.

This was mortifying to little Gilby; his manner was quite huffy for some minutes after.

Zilda had her own ideas of what she would do. She presently left him alone and walked on swiftly to the place of the breakdown. There she borrowed a hand-car; it was a light one that could be worked easily by two men, and Zilda determined to work it alone. While she was coming back along the iron road on the top of the narrow embankment, Gilby could see her from where he sat--a stalwart young woman in homespun gown, stooping and rising with regular toilsome movement as she worked the rattling machine that came swiftly nearer.

When the carriage thus provided for him was close at hand, the almost breathless Zilda actually proposed to exert her strength to carry Gilby up to it. He insisted upon hopping on one foot supported by her arm; he did not feel the slightest inclination to lean upon her more than was needful, he was too self-conscious and proud. Even after she had placed him on the car, he kept up an air of offence for a long time just because she had proved her strength to be so much greater than his own.

His little rudenesses of this sort did not disturb Zilda's tranquillity in the least.

Gilby sat on the low platform of the hand-car. He looked like a bantam c.o.c.k whose feathers were much ruffled. Zilda worked at the handles of the machine; she was very large and strong, all her att.i.tudes were statuesque. The May day beamed on the flat spring landscape through which they were travelling; the beam found a perfect counterpart in the joy of Zilda's heart.

So she brought Gilby safely to the hotel and installed him in the best room there. The sprain was a very bad one. Gilby was obliged to lie there for a month. Sometimes his friends came out from the town to see him, but not very often, and they did not stay long. Zilda cooked for him, Zilda waited upon him, Zilda conversed with him in the afternoons when he needed amus.e.m.e.nt. This month was the period of her happiness.

When he was going home, Gilby felt really very grateful to the girl. He had not the slightest thought of making love to her; he felt too strongly on the subject of his dignity and his principles for that; but although he haggled with Chaplot over the bill, he talked in a bombastic manner about making Zilda a present.

It did not distress Zilda that he should quarrel with her father's bill; she had no higher idea in character than that each should seek his own in all things; but when Gilby talked of giving her a present she shrank instinctively with an air of offence. This air of offence was the one betrayal of her affection which he could observe, and he did not gather very much of the truth from it.

'I will give you a watch, Zilda,' he said, 'a gold watch; you will like that.'

'No, monsieur.' Zilda's face was flushed and her head was high in the air.

'I will give you a ring; you would like that--a golden ring.'

'No, monsieur; I would not like it at all.'

Gilby retired from the discussion that day feeling some offence and a good deal of consternation. He thought the best thing would be to have nothing more to do with Zilda; but the next day, in the bustle of his departure, remembering all she had done for him, he relented entirely, and he gave her a kiss.

Afterwards, when the train was at the station, and Chaplot and Zilda had put his bags and his wraps beside him on a cushioned seat, Gilby turned and with great politeness accosted two fine ladies who were travelling in the same carriage and with whom he had a slight acquaintance. His disposition was at once genial and vain; he had been so long absent from the familiar faces of the town that his heart warmed to the first townsfolk he saw; but he was also ambitious: he wished to appear on good terms with these women, who were his superiors in social position.

They would not have anything to do with him, which offended him very much; they received his greeting coldly and turned away; they said within themselves that he was an intolerably vulgar little person.

But all her life Zilda Chaplot lived a better and happier woman because she had known him.

VII

THE SYNDICATE BABY

Some miles above the city of La Motte, the blue Merrian river widens into the Lake of St. Jean. In the Canadian summer the sh.o.r.es of this lake are as pleasant a place for an outing as heart could desire. The inhabitants of the city build wooden villas there, and spend the long warm days in boats upon the water. The families that live in these wooden villas do not take boarders; that was the origin of 'The Syndicate.' It consisted of some two dozen bachelors who were obliged to sit upon office stools all day in the hot city. 'If,' said they, 'we could live upon the lake, we could have our morning swim and our evening sail; and the trains would take us in and out of the city.'

The one or two uncomfortable hotels of this region were already overcrowded, so these bachelors said to each other--'Go to; we will put our pence together, and build us a boat-house with an upper story, and live therein.'