Partners of the Out-Trail Part 29

Mordaunt said nothing. Bernard was often bitter, particularly when he had gout. When a servant came to help the old man in, Mordaunt went to the library where he wrote a note to Jim. He paused once or twice during its composition. Now he had time to ponder, he began to doubt if it was advisable to let Jim visit Dryholm and imagined he could so turn a polished phrase that it would keep him away. Mordaunt was clever at delicate implication and Jim's blood was red. Perhaps, however, it was not prudent to use his talent, since Bernard might want to see the note.

CHAPTER IV

AN OLD MAN'S CAPRICE

Jim went to Dryholm, although when he opened Mordaunt's note he meant to refuse. A line added in a shaky hand persuaded him, for Bernard had written, "I am lame and cannot come to you." Besides, the invitation was extended to his party and Jim wanted Bernard to see the Winters.

They were his friends and he rather hoped Mrs. Winter would talk about the store.

The evening was calm and the sun setting when the car rolled past a lodge half hidden by tall evergreens. A screen of ironwork cut in fine black tracery against the light, and Jake remarked: "That's a n.o.ble gate."

"Hand-forged in Belgium, I believe," Jim replied, and they rolled on down an avenue where sunshine and shadow checkered the smooth gra.s.s.

The avenue had been planted before the new house at Dryholm was built.

The spreading oaks were darkly green, but the beeches had begun to turn and their pale trunks glimmered among splashes of orange and red. On the hillside above the hollow, the birches hung sprays of shining yellow against a background of somber firs. All was very quiet and Carrie sensed a calm she had not remarked in the forests of Canada.

There one heard the Chinook in the pine-tops and the rapids brawl.

They sped past a tarn where swans floated among the colored reflections of ancient trees, and then Dryholm broke upon their view across its wide lawn. For a moment, Carrie was vaguely disturbed. She had seen Montreal and London, but the buildings there were crowded with occupants and this was one man's home. Jim, whose clothes she had mended, belonged to people who built such houses. She glanced at him, but his face was inscrutable until he seemed to feel her gaze and gave her a smile. Carrie felt braced. In some ways, Jim had got strangely English, but he was, for all that, the Jim she knew; and she studied the house with a pleasant thrill, as if she were embarking on a new adventure.

Dryholm was very large and modern, but it had dignity and glimmered in the sunset between shadowy woods. The stone was creamy white, with touches of soft pink and gray. Cornices and pillars broke the long, straight front, and there were towers at the ends. Carrie knew nothing about architecture, but she got a hint of strength and solidity.

Somehow, she felt relieved; Mordaunt and Mrs. Halliday would not have built such a house. On the whole, she distrusted them, but it looked as if the head of the family was different.

"It's very fine, Jim," she said. "There's something of Langrigg about it; something you don't feel at Whitelees. The stone is curious."

"I believe it was brought from a distance, but, in a sense, Bernard Dearham built Dryholm of iron."

"Somehow it looks like that," Carrie remarked.

The car stopped in front of a plain arch and Bernard received the party in the hall, where they found Mrs. Halliday, Evelyn, Mordaunt, and some others. Bernard gave Jim his hand and for a minute or two kept Mrs.

Winter and Carrie by him. When they went to dinner Mrs. Winter was put next to Bernard, and Carrie, sitting near, looked about with frank curiosity. The room was lofty and s.p.a.cious. She had not seen such a room except when she dined at a big Montreal hotel, but it had not the lavish decoration she had noted there. At Dryholm, one got a sense of s.p.a.ce and calm; nothing glittered and forced itself on one's glance.

Carrie thought it was somehow like a church, but rather the big quiet cathedral than the ornate Notre Dame. She had only seen big churches in Montreal.

The west window commanded distant hills that rose, colored dark-blue, against the yellow sky. Shining water touched their feet and one could hear the sea. It was getting dark, however, and soon electric lights began to glow on the paneled ceiling and along the deep cornice. The lamps were placed among the moldings and one scarcely noticed them until the soft light they threw on the table got stronger.

Then Carrie remarked that Mrs. Winter was talking, and Bernard laughed.

She had wondered whether she ought to give her mother a hint, and might have done so, for Jim's sake, although it would have hurt her pride; but she was glad she had not. Bernard Dearham did not smile politely, as Mrs. Mordaunt smiled; he laughed because he was amused. Carrie did not know much about English people, but the dinner was obviously a formal acknowledgment of the new owner of Langrigg; and she studied her host. She had at first remarked a puzzling likeness to somebody she knew, and now she saw it was Jim. The likeness was rather in Bernard's voice and manner than his face, although she found it there. Then he looked up and asked:

"Do you like Dryholm?"

"Oh, yes," said Carrie. "Almost as much as I like Langrigg."

Bernard smiled and nodded. "Langrigg has a touch that only time can give. A house matures slowly."

"I think that is so," Carrie agreed. "One feels it in England. A house matures by being used; the people who live there give it a stamp, and perhaps when they go they leave an influence. It's different in Canada. When our houses get out of date, we pull them down."

Bernard looked at her rather keenly. He was a shrewd judge of men and women and saw that she could think.

"You are something of a sentimentalist; I don't know if you are right or not. When I built Dryholm we tried to get the feeling Langrigg gives one, as far as it could be expressed by line. But do you like Whitelees?"

"Whitelees is pretty," Carrie replied with caution.

Bernard's eyes twinkled. "Very pretty. Something new, in fact, after Canada?"

"Yes," said Carrie, who saw he wanted her to talk. She knew he was studying her, but he was not antagonistic like Mordaunt and Mrs.

Halliday. "This is why I'd sooner have Langrigg, because I don't find Langrigg new in the way you mean," she resumed. "One gets the feeling you talk about in Canada; not in our houses but in the woods. They're different from the woods you have planted and trimmed. The big black pines grow as they want; sometimes they're charred by fire and smashed by gales. When it's quiet you hear the rivers and now and then a snowslide rolling down the hills."

"Rugged and stern? Well, I imagine the men who built Langrigg long since were rather like your pioneers."

Carrie thought Bernard had something of the spirit of the pioneers; this was why he was like Jim. She felt his strength and tenacity, but he did not daunt her.

"Why did you make Dryholm so big?" she asked.

"You don't think an old man needs so large a house?" he said. "Well, I built for others whom I thought might come after me, but that is done with." He paused and looked down the table at Mordaunt and Evelyn; and then Carrie imagined his eyes rested on Jim, as he added: "Sometimes I am lonely."

He began to talk to Mrs. Winter, who presently remarked: "Oh, yes, I like it in England. I knew it would be fierce in the jolting cars and on the steamer, but Jim insisted, and now I'm glad I let him persuade me."

"Then Jim insisted on your coming?"

"Why, yes. I meant to stay at home."

"Ah," said Bernard, "I think Jim took the proper line."

"Anyhow, I needed a holiday," Mrs. Winter resumed. "It's quiet and calm at Langrigg and I've worked hard. You folks don't get busy all the time, like us in Canada."

Bernard laughed. "There are a large number of busy people in this country, and for a long time I, myself, worked rather hard." He paused and looked down the table with ironical humor. "I was thought eccentric and my relations did not altogether forgive me until I got my reward. All approved then."

Mordaunt's face was inscrutable, but Mrs. Halliday smiled and Evelyn looked at Jim with faint amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I imagine he meant mother; they sometimes clash," she said. "You don't know Bernard yet. When you do, you will try to make allowances, like the rest of us."

"In the meantime, it does not seem needful. He is kind----"

"Remarkably kind," Evelyn agreed. "In fact, his kindness is puzzling.

How far would you go to keep his favor?"

"It would depend," said Jim. "Upon how much I liked him, for one thing. Of course, I would go no distance if he tried to drive."

Evelyn smiled. "Well, I suppose you can take a bold line. If one has pluck, it sometimes pays. At all events, it's flattering to feel one can be oneself. No doubt, you all develop your individuality in Canada."

"We are rather an independent, obstinate lot," Jim owned. "I expect this comes from living in a new country. When you leave the cities, you have n.o.body to fall back on. You have got to make good by your own powers and trust yourself."

"Ah," said Evelyn, "one would like to trust oneself! To follow one's bent, or perhaps, one's heart, and not bother about the consequences."

She was silent a moment and then resumed with a soft laugh: "But unless one is very brave, it's not often possible; there are so many rules."

Jim felt sympathetic. She had laughed, but he thought the laugh hid some feeling. She was generous and strangely refined; Mrs. Halliday was conventional and calculating, and the girl rebelled.

"I expect our host broke a number of the rules," he remarked.