The Girl from Keller's Part 6

CHAPTER V

A RASH PROMISE

A few days before he started for England, Festing went over to Charnock's homestead, which was shortly to be sold. The evenings were getting light, and although Festing had finished his day's work before he left the bridge, the glow of sunset flooded Charnock's living-room.

The strong red light searched out the signs of neglect and dilapidation, the broken boots and harness that needed mending, the dust sticking to the resin-stains on the cracked walls, and the _gumbo_ soil on the dirty floor. As Charnock glanced up a level ray touched his face and showed a certain sensual coa.r.s.eness that one missed when the light was normal.

Festing, however, knew the look, and although he had not remarked it when he first met Charnock, thought it had always been there.

The change he had noted in his friend was only on the surface. Charnock had not really deteriorated in Canada; the qualities that had brought him down had been overlaid by a spurious grace and charm, but it now looked as if moral slackness might develop into active vice. On the whole, he thought Sadie would have trouble with Bob, but this was not his business.

"I've come to say good-bye," he remarked. "I won't see you again until my return, and expect you'll be married then."

"Yes," said Charnock, shortly. "I suppose you have made some plans for your trip. Where are you going to stop in England?"

Festing told him and he looked surprised. "I didn't know you had friends in that neighborhood. Will you be with them some time?"

"A month, anyway. Then I may come and go."

Charnock pushed his chair back out of the light. "Well, this makes it easier; there's something I want to ask. We are friends and I've let you give me good advice, though I haven't always acted on it. I don't know if this gives me a claim."

"If there's anything I can do----"

"There is," said Charnock, who hesitated for a few moments. "I want you to go and see Helen Dalton. She's the girl I ought to have married, and doesn't live very far from your friends."

"Ah!" said Festing with a start. "It was her portrait you meant to burn?"

Charnock gave him a sharp glance. "Just so. I imagine I did burn it, because I couldn't find it afterwards."

There was silence for a few moments while Festing wondered whether the other suspected him. Bob had an air of frankness, but was sometimes cunning. This, however, was not important, and Festing was strongly moved by the thought that he might see the girl.

"Why do you want me to go?" he asked.

"In order that you can tell her how I was situated. I want her to know why I was forced to give her up."

"But you have written and stated your reasons."

"Of course. But I've no talent for explanation, and in a letter you say too little or too much; probably I didn't say enough. Then you can't tell how far the person written to will understand, and questions rise.

But will you go?"

Festing wanted to go, although he saw his task might be embarra.s.sing. He had been some time in Western Canada, where people are frank and do not shrink from dealing with delicate matters. Then Charnock was his friend.

"It will be an awkward job, but you can indicate the line you think I ought to take."

"The line is plain. You will tell Helen what it means to lose one's crop, and try to make her understand the struggle I've had--how the weather was against me, and the debts kept piling up until I was ruined.

You can describe the havoc made by drought, and frost, and cutting sand.

Then there's the other side of the matter; the hardships a woman must bear on the plains when money's scarce. The loneliness, the monotonous drudgery, the heat, the Arctic cold."

"Miss Dalton looks as if she had pluck. She wouldn't be easily daunted."

"Do you think I don't know? But when you meet her you'll see that the life we lead is impossible for a girl like that."

"It looks as if you wanted me to be your advocate," Festing remarked rather dryly. "I'm to make all the excuses for you I can, and prove that you were justified in breaking your engagement. I doubt if I'm clever enough--"

Charnock stopped him. "No! Perhaps I used excuses, but my object is not to clear myself." He paused and colored. "We'll admit that Helen lost nothing when I gave her up; but a girl, particularly a young, romantic girl, feels that kind of thing, and it might hurt worse if she thought she had loved a wastrel. I want her to feel that I broke my engagement for her sake, when nothing else was possible. That might soften the blow, and I really think it's true."

"How much of it is true?" Festing asked bluntly.

"Ah," said Charnock, "you're an uncompromising fellow. You meant that if you'd had my debts and difficulties, you could have made good?"

"I might; but we both know two or three other men whom I'd have backed to do so."

"For all that, you'll admit that the thing was impossible for me?"

Festing knitted his brows. "I believe you could have overcome your difficulties; that is, if you had really made an effort and faced the situation earlier. But since you hadn't nerve enough, I dare say it was impossible."

"You forget one thing; I hadn't time. At the best, it would have taken me three or four years to get straight, and as you haven't much imagination, I suppose you don't realize what Helen's trials would have been in the meanwhile. An engaged girl's situation isn't easy when her lover is away. She stands apart, forbidden much others may enjoy, and Helen would have had to bear her friends' contemptuous pity for being bound to a man who had turned out a failure or worse."

"I expect that's true," Festing agreed. "However, there's another difficulty. Suppose I persuade Miss Dalton that you made a plucky fight and only gave her up when you were beaten? She may refuse to let you go, and insist on coming out to help."

Charnock started, but with a rather obvious effort recovered his calm.

"You must see your suggestion's stupid. Helen can't come out; I'm going to marry Sadie."

"I forgot," said Festing. "Well, since you urge me, I'll do what I can, although I don't like the job."

He left the homestead shortly afterwards, but felt puzzled as he walked across the plain. When he suggested that Miss Dalton might resolve to join and help her lover, Charnock had looked alarmed. This was strange, because although Festing had, for a moment, forgotten Sadie, it was ridiculous to imagine that Bob had done so. Then why had he started.

There were, however, one or two other things that disturbed Festing, who felt that he had made a rash promise. But the promise had been made, and he must do his best to carry it out.

He had a fine voyage, and a week after his arrival in the Old Country walked up and down the terrace of a house among the hills in the North of England. His host was an old friend of the family who had shown Festing some kindness when he was young, and his daughter, Muriel, approved her father's guest. She liked the rather frank, brown-skinned, athletic man, whom she had joined on the terrace. He was a new and interesting type; but although she was two or three years the younger and attractive, their growing friendship was free from possible complications. Muriel, as Festing had learned, was going to marry the curate.

After the roar of activity at the bridge, where the hammers rang all day and often far into the night, he found his new surroundings strangely pleasant. In Canada, he had lived in the wilds; on the vast bare plains, and among snowy mountains where man grappled with Nature in her sternest mood. Thundering snowslides swept away one's work, icy rocks must be cut through, and savage green floods threatened the half-built track when the glaciers began to melt. Every day had brought a fresh anxiety, and now he welcomed the slackening of the strain. The struggle had left its mark on him; one saw it in his lean, muscular symmetry, his quiet alertness, and self-confidence. But he could relax, and found the English countryside had a soothing charm.

The sun was low and rugged hills cut against the pale-saffron sky. The valley between was filled with blue shadow, but in the foreground a river twinkled in the fading light. Feathery larches grew close up to the house, and a beck splashed in the gloom among their trunks. Farther off, a dog barked, and there was a confused bleating of sheep, but this seemed to emphasize the peaceful calm.

"It's wonderfully quiet," Festing remarked. "I can't get used to the stillness; I feel as if I was dreaming and would wake up to hear the din of the rivers and the ballast roaring off the gravel cars. However, I have some business to do to-morrow that I'm not keen about. Can one see Knott Scar from here?"

"It's the blue ridge, about six miles off. The dark patch on its slope is a big beech wood."

"Then do you know the Daltons?"

"Oh, yes," said Muriel. "Helen Dalton is a friend of mine. Although the Scar's some way off, I see her now and then. But are you going there?"

"I am; I wish it wasn't needful," Festing answered rather gloomily.

"Ah!" said Muriel, giving him a sharp glance. "Helen was to have married a man in Canada, but the engagement was broken off. Do you know him?"

"I do. That's why I'm going to the Scar. I've promised to explain matters as far as I can."

Muriel studied his disturbed face with a twinkle of amus.e.m.e.nt. "Well, I'm sorry for Helen; it must have been a shock. For all that, I thought the engagement a mistake."