Neighbours Part 33

"Some parliament," I said to myself. "Perhaps. If I had Jean to goad me on I might do--anything."

Spoof sc.r.a.ped a corner clear on the window pane, and said some lines about "Snow cold--in snow." It was something about a soldier dying in the trenches; not wounded, or fighting, but just dying in the snow. I saw Jean's wrapt attention; the glisten of her eyes; the gulp of her white throat. What power was this the man had over her? Was this all a thing of mind, or was it body, too? I had told myself that, animal for animal, Jean would prefer me. As I looked at Spoof's strong figure, well knit, well clad, I wondered.

In some way we put in the hour. I did not press the subject, the question, the suspicion which was turmoiling my mind. It was Jean's move. I waited for her.

CHAPTER XXII.

Spoof set his little table with a linen cloth and napkins and amazingly good dishes. The meal was to consist of stewed rabbit, with potatoes and carrots; bread and cheese and tea. Jean sprang up to cut the bread and make the tea. There was something poignantly domestic in their two figures, shoulder to shoulder--although his shoulder came high over hers--studying the inside of the teapot as though they were crystal gazing (and perhaps they were) while they disputed as to the exact amount of tea for three. It was a new problem for Spoof, but a common one for Jean, and she had her way.

It was not until we had finished lunch, and Spoof had rolled me a cigarette, and the dishes were cleared away and some sort of tapestry cover subst.i.tuted on the table, that Jean saw fit to refer to her behavior.

"I promised you that if you didn't quizz I would tell you all about it, Frank," she said, suddenly. "You have been a good boy, and I will keep my word."

"By Jove, I haven't fed the bullocks," Spoof exclaimed. "That's what comes of having company. I really should have a man. If the Governor saw me leave my guests to feed a pair of ungracious old bulls he would be permanently humiliated. You won't mind, will you?"

We wouldn't, and in a moment Spoof was plowing toward his stables.

"You think I'm a wild woman, and pretty much of a fool," said Jean.

"Come, this bench is a sad invention. Let's sit on the floor."

She went back to her station in the corner, and made me sit down beside her. "There, that's better," she said. "You think I'm a wild woman, and pretty much of a fool. Let's pa.s.s the first count. On the second we agree. Now I'll give you the whole story without frills.

"You know, of course, why I cancelled our engagement. We've covered that ground; no use plowing it again. I believed I loved Spoof; I hoped he loved me. But since Jack's wedding he had avoided us. I have been in a torture of uncertainty. After our talk yesterday I couldn't stand it any longer.

"I woke up this morning, about five o'clock, thinking of him, and as I thought a vague, wild plan which had been haunting me took form. If Mohammed wouldn't come to the mountain, the mountain would go to Mohammed. You see, I have reversed the figure, as is right in this case.

It was a wild idea, but once I got it clearly in my head there was nothing to do but go through with it. I knew I would be found out; I knew all that you and Jack and Marjorie would think, even if you didn't say it. But there comes a time when none of these things matter--do you understand? . . .

"So I dressed as quietly as I could, and slipped out. It wasn't snowing then; the stars were bright and numberless; I got my bearings and struck out. As I pa.s.sed your shanty I stopped at your window. All was dark and still. 'Dear old boy,' I whispered against your window pane, 'I wish things were different--but they're not.'"

She had laced her fingers again about her knees, but now she dropped the hand next to me, and it fell on mine. There was nothing surrept.i.tious about it; it was deliberate, designed, aggressive.

"I had covered most of the distance before it began to snow. Then I was in danger for a while, but I made it all right. Unfortunately, Spoof is not an early riser. He was surprised to see me."

She stopped, and for a long while gazed into s.p.a.ce, as though studying what she would say next.

"Well, I proposed to him. He refused me," she said quietly.

"Refused you? . . . Do you mean that's the whole story?"

"That's the substance; I told you I would leave out the frills. You can decorate it to your liking. One of the secrets of art is to not over-state yourself--leave something to the imagination. The more intelligent the audience, the more may be left to the imagination. You are an intelligent audience, Frank."

Through my absurd concern for, I hardly knew what, her adorable tantalization seethed in me like an electric current. And so selfish am I--and all men--that it was some minutes before I realized that Jean had received a knock-out blow; that she had humiliated herself to this man Spoof; that she had placed her womanhood at his feet, and he had spurned it. Just what it was for me to lose Jean, just that same must it be for Jean to lose Spoof.

"And he refused you--refused you," I repeated, when this thought had settled clearly in my mind. "Jean, I don't see how--any man--could do that."

"He was kind--considerate," she said, quietly. "Said he was sorry; appreciated the compliment; any man might be flattered, he said, but it was quite impossible. So I am left dangling in s.p.a.ce."

"Well, what next?" I asked, after a long silence in which, consciously or unconsciously, she was drawing her finger tips slowly up and down between the backs of mine. "What next?"

"Go home," she said, decisively. "Jack and Marjorie will be uneasy. You will see me home, won't you?"

Spoof took an inordinately long time to feed the oxen, but when he returned, with great blowing and stamping before opening the door, we were ready for the road. We took leave without much in the way of explanations, but with his promise to come and see us at least once a week.

Our long walk home was taken in almost complete silence. Once I suggested to Jean that we should let it be understood that she had gone to Brown's, not Spoof's.

"Just as you like," she said. "I don't care."

I took her arm in places where the crust broke easily; where it was solid we walked separately, swinging out into easy strides. I was studying the new situation; trying to a.n.a.lyze the new atmosphere; seeking to locate myself in a chart of the universe in which the two objects were Jean and me. But some fine instinct kept me from any word of love.

As we neared Twenty-two Jean took my arm, although here the path was good.

"Thank you so much," she said. "I thought you would, perhaps,--that you would go back to what we talked of yesterday. I couldn't stand that, just now. Do you understand? You are considerate; you are--an artist,"

and her face smiled wanly into mine.

Jack had just returned from Mrs. Alton's. He had found her in a rather bad way, much in need of a man to do up rough work about the place, and even in his anxiety over Jean he had stayed to lend a hand. Something about the widow's loneliness had touched him almost as deeply as our own shadow of tragedy.

I lied glibly about having found Jean at Mrs. Brown's; Mrs. Brown was well, but one of the children had a sore throat; Brown had slipped on the ice and hurt his hip, not badly; they were longing for English mail.

I knew all this duplicity must be found out, but I was content to delay the evil day. By some sort of telegraphic understanding we did not discuss Jean's behavior. We were glad enough to have her back safe and sound; we were willing to agree that the stress of winter had perhaps been too much for her. She would be all right presently.

The days that followed were busy times for me. I immediately began to glean the neighbourhood for books, and the harvest was much more liberal than I expected. Spoof lent me Byron and the Decline and Fall; Brown supplied a complete Shakespeare, in one volume; Bella Donna contributed a Life of Lincoln; Burke, much to my surprise, had a copy of Whitman, from which he quoted copiously, gesticulating to me in an empty stall,--he was a deep pool where I had looked for shallow water; Andy Smith was equally insistent upon rehearsing Burns, and particularly to the effect that the rank is but the guinea's stamp, etc. I did not call upon Mrs. Alton, nor venture into the unguessed possibilities of Hansen's and Sneezit's, although after my experiences I was almost prepared to find Ole Hansen buried in The Wealth of Nations, and Sneezit poring over Carlyle. Neither did I, at the time, enlist the good offices of the Reverend Locke. In a community that I had supposed dest.i.tute of anything of the sort I had unearthed more books than I could read.

At first I had to drive myself to it, but presently I began to be carried away in the spirit in the new world which was opening before me.

With joy I noted, suddenly, that I had forced my boundaries far beyond the corner stakes of Fourteen, beyond even the prairies, the continent, the times in which we live. My mind, from sluggishly hibernating for the winter, became a dynamo of activity. As soon as the morning ch.o.r.es were done I was at my books, and I felt it almost a hardship when Jack would drop in for a game of checkers or a chat about nothing. Late into the night I followed my heroes and heroines, my theories and philosophies, until at last I drew off grudgingly to bed. I had made a resolve that I would not read in bed; there must be a limit somewhere. It was hard to realize that these flying hours were the same as those which had dragged so leadenly only a few short days ago.

Tremendously I wanted someone to whom I might talk. I was so filled with thoughts that I threatened to burst. I began to be primed for unbounded arguments. Jean was the one with whom I wanted most to talk, but I was keeping my explorations a strict secret from the neighbours on Twenty-two. I had contrived to damage my door lock in such a way that I had to bar the door from the inside to keep it shut; this gave me an opportunity to hide my book when Jack came b.u.mping in, or when Jean and Marjorie called on their frequent visits. To all of them I had become something of an enigma; Jean particularly regarded me with a strange questioning.

My pressure of ideas became so threatening that at last I burst out into the neighbourhood to relieve it. I found my safety valve in the most unexpected place--Andy Smith. The little Scotsman was amazingly read and belligerently eager for argument. It seemed that I was as much a surprise and G.o.dsend to him as he to me. He would carry me continually beyond my depth, but it is in deep water that one learns to swim. And occasionally my irregular reading enabled me to punch him into a hole from which he came up spluttering.

"Man, man!" he would exclaim, "I never thoct ye would ha' kened aboot that. I must be brushin' up. . . . Hall, ye're a lad o' pairts. Why do ye no take a hand in the makin' o' this new Province we're tae ha' oot here, all tae oorsel's? I'll be nominatin' ye yet, ye'll see."

I laughed, but the plump of his suggestion left a pleasant ripple in my mind. After all, hadn't Jean and Spoof said something about that? Of course it was out of the question, but----

One day Jean came over to Fourteen, alone. I buried my Shakespeare under a pair of old overalls and opened the door. Perhaps she saw me glancing about, as though looking for Marjorie.

"Unchaperoned, to-day," she said. "You don't mind?" She began to draw off her gloves; new knitted gloves which I had not seen before.

"New gloves, Jean?" I queried.

"Yes, just finished knitting them, from yarn mother sent. Feel them.

Aren't they soft?"

"I envy them very much," I said, and was much pleased with my subtlety.

"Envy them--why? . . . Oh, you mean because they're--they're always holding my hands," and a happy wave of color flushed into her cheeks.