The Protector Part 41

Evelyn did not know what to make of the question, and she answered coldly: "No; we do not expect any word for some time."

"I'm sorry," said Kitty. "We're anxious about Mr. Vane."

On the surface, the announcement appeared significant, but the girls'

boldness in coming to her for news was unexplainable to Evelyn. Puzzled as she was, her att.i.tude became more discouraging.

"You know him, then?" she said.

Something in her tone made Celia's cheeks burn and she drew herself up.

"Yes," she said; "we know him, both of us; I guess it's astonishing to you; but I met him first when he was poor, and getting rich hasn't spoiled Mr. Vane."

Evelyn was once more puzzled--the girl's manner savoured less of a.s.surance than of wholesome pride which had been injured. Kitty, however, broke in:

"We had no cards to send in; but I'm Kathleen Blake, and this is Celia Hartley--it was her father sent Mr. Vane off to look for the spruce."

"Ah!" said Evelyn, a little more gently, addressing Celia; "I understand your father died."

Kitty flashed a commanding glance at Celia, who spoke: "Yes; that is correct. He left me ill and worn out, without a dollar, and I don't know what I should have done if Mr. Vane hadn't insisted on giving Drayton a little money for me, on account, he said, because I was a partner in the venture. Then Miss Horsfield got me some work to do at home among her friends. Mr. Vane must have asked her to: it would be like him."

Evelyn sat silent for a few moments. Celia had given her a good deal of information in answer to a very simple remark; but she was most impressed by the statement that Jessie, who had prejudiced her against Vane, had helped the girl at his request. It was difficult to believe she would have done so had there been any foundation for her insinuations. If Celia spoke the truth, and Evelyn somehow felt this was the case, the whole thing was extraordinary.

"Now," said Celia, "it's no way surprising I'm grateful to Mr. Vane and anxious to hear if Mr. Carroll has reached him." This was spoken with a hint of defiance, but the girl's voice changed. "I am anxious. It's horrible to think of a man like him freezing in the bush."

Her concern was so genuine and yet somehow so innocent that Evelyn's heart softened.

"Yes," she said; "it's dreadful." Then she asked a question: "Who's the Mr. Drayton you mentioned?"

Kitty blushed becomingly; this was her lead. "He's a kind of partner in the lumber scheme; I'm going to marry him. He's as firm a friend of Mr.

Vane's as any one. There's a reason for that--I was in a very tight place once, left without money in a desolate settlement where there was nothing I could do, when Mr. Vane helped me. But, perhaps, that wouldn't interest you."

For a moment her doubts still clung to their hold in Evelyn's mind; and then she suddenly drove the last of them out, with a stinging sense of humiliation. She could not distrust this girl; it was Jessie's suggestion that was incredible.

"It would interest me very much," she said.

Kitty told her story effectively, but with caution, laying most stress upon Vane's compa.s.sion for the child and her invalid mother. She was rather impressed by Miss Chisholm, but she supposed the latter was endowed with some of the failings common to human nature.

Evelyn listened to her with confused emotions and a softened face. She was convinced of the truth of the simple tale, and the thought of Vane's keeping his monied friends and directors waiting in Vancouver in order that a tired child might rest and gather sh.e.l.ls upon a sunny beach stirred her deeply. It was so characteristic; exactly what she would have expected him to do.

"Thank you," she said quietly when Kitty had finished; and then, flinging off the last of her reserve, she asked a number of questions about Drayton and Celia's affairs. Before her visitors left all three were on friendly terms, but Evelyn was glad when they took their departure.

She wanted to be alone to think, though, in spite of the relief she was conscious of, her thoughts were far from pleasant, and foremost among them figured a crushing sense of shame. She had wickedly misjudged a man who had given her many proofs of the fineness of his character; the evil she had imputed to him was born of her own perverted imagination. She was no better than the narrow-minded, conventional Pharisees she detested, who were swift to condemn out of the uncleanness of their self-righteous hearts. Then, as she began to reason, it flashed upon her that she was, perhaps, wronging herself. Her mind had been cunningly poisoned by an utterly unscrupulous and wholly detestable woman, and she flamed out into a fit of imperious anger against Jessie. She had a hazy idea that this was not altogether reasonable, since she was to some extent fastening the blame she deserved upon another person; but it did not detract from the comfort the indulgence in her indignation brought her.

When she had grown calmer, Mrs. Nairn came in, and Mrs. Nairn was a discerning lady. It was not difficult to lead Evelyn on to speak of her visitors, for the girl's pride was broken and she felt in urgent need of sympathy; but when she had described the interview she felt impelled to avoid any discussion of its more important issues.

"I was surprised at the girl's manner," she concluded. "It must have been embarra.s.sing to them; but they were really so delicate over it, and they had so much courage."

Mrs. Nairn smiled. "Although one has travelled with third-rate strolling companies and the other has waited in an hotel? Weel, maybe your surprise was natural. Ye cannot all at once get rid of the ideas and prejudices ye were brought up with."

"I suppose that was it," said Evelyn thoughtfully.

Her companion's eyes twinkled. "Then, if ye're to live among us happily, ye'll have to try. In the way ye use the words, some of the leading men in this country were no brought up at all."

"Do you imagine that I'm going to live here?"

Mrs. Nairn gathered up one or two articles she had brought into the room with her and moved towards the door, but before she reached it she looked back at the girl.

"It occurred to me that the thing was no altogether impossible," she said.

An hour afterwards, Evelyn went down into the town with her, and in one of the streets they came upon Jessie leaving a store. The latter was not lacking in a.s.surance and she moved forward to meet them, but Evelyn gazed at her with a total disregard of her presence and walked quietly on. There was neither anger nor disdain in her att.i.tude; to have shown either would have been a concession she could not make. The instincts of generations of gently-reared Englishwomen were aroused, as well as the revulsion of an untainted nature from something unclean.

Jessie's cheeks turned crimson and a malevolent light flashed into her eyes as she crossed the street. Mrs. Nairn noticed her expression and smiled at her companion.

"I'm thinking it's as weel ye met Jessie after she had got the boat for Carroll," she said.

The remark was no doubt justified, but the fact that Jessie had been able to offer valuable a.s.sistance failed to soften Evelyn towards her.

It was merely another offence.

In the meanwhile the tug had steamed northwards, towing the sloop which would be required, and, after landing the rescue party at the inlet, steamed away again. Before she had disappeared Carroll began his march, and his companions long remembered it. Two of them were accustomed to packing surveyors' stores through the seldom-trodden bush, and the others had worked in logging camps and chopped new roads; but though they did not spare themselves, they lacked their leader's stimulus.

Carroll, with all his love of ease, could rise to meet an emergency, and he wore out his companions before the journey was half done. He scarcely let them sleep; he fed them on canned stuff to save delay in lighting fires, and he grew more feverishly impatient with every mile they made.

He showed it chiefly by the tight set of his lips and the tension in his face, though now and then, when fallen branches or thickets barred the way, he fell upon the obstacles with the axe in silent fury. For the rest, he took the lead and kept it, and the others, following with shoulders aching from the pack straps, and laboured breath, suppressed their protests.

Like many another made in that country, it was an heroic journey, one in which mind and body were taxed to the limit. Delay might prove fatal; the loads were heavy. Fatigue seized the shrinking flesh, but the unrelenting will, trained in such adventures, mercilessly spurred it on.

Toughened muscle is useful and in the trackless North can seldom be dispensed with; but man's strength does not consist of that alone; there are occasions when the stalwart fall behind and die.

In front of them, as they progressed, lay the unchanging forest, tangled, choked with fallen wreckage, laced here and there with stabbing thorns; appalling and almost impenetrable to the stranger. They must cleave their pa.s.sage, except where they could take to the creek for an easier way and wade through stingingly cold water or flounder over slippery fangs of rock and ice-encrusted stones. There was sharp frost among the ranges and the brush they broke through was generally burdened with clogging snow. They went on, however, and on the last day Carroll drew away from those who followed him. It was dark when he discovered that he had lost them, but that did not matter, for now and then faint moonlight came filtering down and he was leaving a plain trail behind.

His shoulders were bleeding beneath the biting straps; he was on the verge of exhaustion; but he struggled forward, panting heavily, and rending his garments to rags as he smashed through the brakes in the darkness.

The night--it seemed a very long one--was nearly over, when he recognised the roar of a rapid that rang in louder and louder pulsations across the snow-sprinkled bush. He was not far from the end now, and he became conscious of an unnerving fear. The ground was ascending sharply and when he reached the top of the slope the question he shrank from would be answered for him; if there was no blink of light among the serried trunks, he would have come too late.

He reached the summit and his heart jumped; then he clutched at a drooping branch to support himself, shaken by a reaction that sprang from relief. A flicker of uncertain radiance fell upon the trees ahead and down the bitter wind there came the reek of pungent smoke. After that, for the bush was slightly more open, Carroll believed he ran, and presently came crashing and stumbling into the light of the fire. Then he stopped, too stirred and out of breath to speak, for Vane lay where the red glow fell upon his face, smiling up at him.

"Well," he said, "you've come. I've been expecting you, but on the whole I got along not so badly."

Carroll flung off his pack and sat down beside the fire; then he fumbled for his pipe and began to fill it hurriedly with trembling fingers.

"Sorry I couldn't get through sooner," he explained. "The stores on board the sloop were spoiled; I had to go on to Vancouver. But there are things to eat in my pack."

"Hand it across," said Vane. "I haven't been faring sumptuously the last few days. No, sit still; I'm supple enough from the waist up."

He proved it by the way he leaned to and fro as he opened the pack and distributed part of its contents among the cooking utensils, while Carroll, who a.s.sisted now and then, did not care to speak. The sight of the man's gaunt face and the eagerness in his eyes prompted him to an outbreak of feeling which was rather foreign to his nature and which he did not think Vane would appreciate. When the meal was ready, the latter looked up at him.

"I've no doubt this journey cost you something, partner," he said.

Then they ate cheerfully, and Carroll, who watched his friend's efforts with appreciation, told his story in broken sentences--sometimes with his mouth rather full, for he had not troubled about much cooking since he left the inlet. Afterwards, they lighted their pipes, but by and by Carroll's fell from his relaxing grasp.

"I can't get over this sleepiness," he explained. "I believe I disgraced myself in Vancouver by going off in the most unsuitable places."

"I dare say it was natural," said Vane with some dryness. "Anyway, hadn't you better hitch yourself a little farther from the fire?"