Читать книгу The Intriguers - Harold Bindloss - Страница 9

Dinner was over at the Windsor, in Montreal, and Mrs. Keith was sitting with Mrs. Ashborne in the square between the hotel and St. Catharine's Street. A cool air blew uphill from the river, and the patch of grass with its fringe of small, dusty trees had a certain picturesqueness in the twilight. Above it the wooded crest of the mountain rose darkly against the evening sky; lights glittered behind the network of thin branches and fluttering leaves along the sidewalk, and the dome of the cathedral bulked huge and shadowy across the square. Downhill, toward St. James's, rose towering buildings, with the rough-hewn front of the Canadian Pacific station prominent among them, and the air was filled with the clanging of street-cars and the tolling of locomotive bells. Once or twice, however, when the throb of the traffic momentarily subsided, music rose faint and sweet from the cathedral, and Mrs. Keith turned to listen. She had heard the uplifted voices before, through her open window in the early morning when the city was silent and its busy toilers slept, and now it seemed to her appropriate that they could not be wholly drowned by its hoarse commercial clamor.

The square served as a cool retreat for the inhabitants of crowded tenements and those who had nowhere else to go, but Margaret Keith was not fastidious about her company. She was interested in the unkempt immigrants who, waiting for a west-bound train, lay upon the grass, surrounded by their tired children; and she had sent Millicent down the street to buy fruit to distribute among the travelers. She liked to watch the French Canadian girls who slipped quietly up the broad cathedral steps. They were the daughters of the rank and file, but their movements were graceful and they were tastefully dressed. Then the blue-shirted, sinewy men, who strolled past, smoking, roused her curiosity. They had not acquired their free, springy stride in the cities; these were adventurers who had met with strange experiences in the frozen North and the lonely West. Some of them had hard faces and a predatory air, but that added to their interest. Margaret Keith liked to watch them all, and speculate about their mode of life; that pleasure could still be enjoyed, though, as she sometimes told herself with humorous resignation, she could no longer take a very active part in things.

Presently, however, something that appealed to her in a more direct and personal way occurred, for a man came down the steps of the Windsor and crossed the well-lighted street with a very pretty English girl. He carried himself well, and had the look of a soldier; his figure was finely proportioned; but his handsome face suggested sensibility rather than decision of character, and his eyes were dreamy. His companion, so far as Mrs. Keith could judge by her smiling glance as she laid her hand upon his arm when they left the sidewalk, was proud of him, and much in love with him.

"Whom are you looking at so hard?" Mrs. Ashborne inquired.

"Bertram Challoner and his bride," said Mrs. Keith. "They're coming toward us yonder."

Then a curious thing happened, for a man who was crossing the street seemed to see the Challoners and, turning suddenly, stepped back behind a passing cab. They had their backs to him when he went on, but he looked around, as if to make sure he had not been observed, before he entered the hotel.

"That was strange," said Mrs. Ashborne. "It looked as if the fellow didn't want to meet our friends. Who can he be?"

"How can I tell?" Mrs. Keith answered. "I think I've seen him somewhere, but that's all I know."

Looking around as Millicent joined them, she noticed the girl's puzzled

expression. Millicent had obviously seen the stranger's action, but

Mrs. Keith did not wish to pursue the subject then; and the next moment

Challoner came up and greeted her heartily, while his wife spoke to

Mrs. Ashborne.

"We arrived only this afternoon, and must have missed you at dinner," he said. "We may go West to-morrow, though we haven't decided yet. I've no doubt we shall see you again to-night or at breakfast."

After a few pleasant words the Challoners passed on, and Mrs. Keith looked after them thoughtfully.

"Bertram has changed in the last few years," she said. "I heard that he had malaria in India, and that perhaps accounts for it, but he shows signs of his mother's delicacy. She was not strong, and I always thought he had her highly strung nervous temperament, though he must have learned to control it in the army."

"He couldn't have got in unless the doctors were satisfied with him,"

Mrs. Ashborne pointed out.

"That's true; but both mental and physical traits have a way of lying dormant while we're young, and developing later. Bertram has shown himself a capable officer; but, to my mind, he looked more like a soldier when he was at Sandhurst than he does now."

Mrs. Ashborne glanced toward Millicent, who was distributing a basket of peaches among a group of untidy immigrant children. One toddling baby clung to her skirt.

"What a charming picture! Miss Graham fits the part well. You can see that she's sorry for the dirty little beggars. They don't look as if they'd had a happy time; and a liner's crowded steerage isn't a luxurious place."

Mrs. Keith smiled as Millicent came toward her with a few of the small children clustered round her.

"I have some English letters to write," she said; "and I think we'll go in."

The Challoners did not leave for the West the next day. About an hour before sunset they leaned upon the rails of a wooden gallery built out from the rock on the summit of the green mountain that rises close behind Montreal. It is a view-point that visitors frequent, and they gazed with appreciation at the wide landscape. Wooded slopes led steeply down to the stately college buildings of McGill and the rows of picturesque houses along Sherbrook Avenue; lower yet, the city, shining in the clear evening light, spread across the plain, dominated by its cathedral dome and the towers of Notre Dame. Green squares with trees in them checkered the blocks of buildings; along its skirts, where a haze of smoke hung about the wharves, the great river gleamed in a broad silver band. On the farther bank the plain ran on again, fading from green to gray and purple, until it melted into the distance, and the hills on the Vermont frontier cut, faintly blue, against the sky.

"How beautiful this world is!" Challoner exclaimed. "I have seen grander sights, and there are more picturesque cities than Montreal—I'm looking forward to showing you the work of the Moguls in India—but happiness such as I've had of late casts a glamour over everything. It wasn't always so with me; I've had my bad hours when I was blind to beauty."

Though Blanche Challoner was very young, and much in love, she ventured a smiling rebuke.

"You shouldn't wish to remember them; I'm afraid, Bertram, there's a melancholy strain in you, and I don't mean to let you indulge in it. Besides, how could you have had bad hours? You have been made much of, and given everything you could wish for, since you were a boy. Indeed, I sometimes wonder how you escaped from being spoiled."

"When I joined the army, I hated it; that sounds like high treason, doesn't it? However, I got used to things, and made art my hobby instead of my vocation. You won't mind if I confess that a view of this kind makes me long to paint?"

"Oh, no; I intend to encourage you. You mustn't waste your talent. When we stay among the Rockies we will spend the days in the most beautiful places we can find, and I shall take my pleasure in watching you at work. But didn't your fondness for sketching amuse the mess?"

"I used to be chaffed about it, but I repaid my tormentors by caricaturing them. On the whole, they were very good-natured."

"I am sure they admired the drawings; they ought to have done so, anyway. You have talent. Indeed, I never quite understood why you became a soldier."

"I think it was from a want of moral courage; you have seen that determination is not among my virtues. If you knew my father very well, you would understand. Though he's fond of pictures, he looks upon artists and poets as a rather effeminate and irresponsible set, and I must admit that he has met one or two unfavorable specimens. Then, he couldn't imagine the possibility of a son of his not being anxious to follow the family profession; and, knowing how my defection would grieve him, I let him have his way. There has always been a Challoner fighting or ruling in India since John Company's time."

"They must have been fine men, by their portraits. There's one of a Major Henry Challoner I fell in love with. He was with Outram, wasn't he? You have his look, though there's a puzzling difference. I think those men were bluffer and blunter than you are. You're gentler and more sensitive; in a way, finer drawn."

"My sensitiveness has not been a blessing," said Challoner soberly.

"But it makes you lovable," Blanche declared. "There must have been a certain ruthlessness about those old Challoners which you couldn't show. After all, their pictures suggest that their courage was of the unimaginative, physical kind."

A shadow crept into Challoner's face, but he banished it.

"I am happy in having a wife who won't see my faults." Then he added humorously: "After all, however, that's not good for one."

Blanche gave him a tender smile; but he did not see it, for he was gazing at a man who came down the steps from the neighboring cable railway. The newcomer was about thirty years old, of average height, and strongly made. His face was deeply sunburned and he had eyes of a curious dark blue, with a twinkle in them, and dark lashes, though his hair was fair. As he drew nearer, Blanche was struck by something that suggested the family likeness of the Challoners. He had their firm mouth and wide forehead, but by no means their somewhat austere expression. He looked as if he went carelessly through life and could readily be amused. Then he saw Bertram, and, starting, made as if he would pass the entrance to the gallery, and Blanche turned her surprised glance upon her husband. Bertram's hand was tightly closed on the glasses he held, and his face was tense and flushed, but he stepped forward with a cry:

"Dick!"

The newcomer moved toward him, and Blanche knew that he was the man who had brought dishonor upon her husband's family.

"This is a fortunate meeting," Bertram said, and his voice was cordial, though rather strained. "Blanche, here's my cousin, Dick Blake."

Blake showed no awkwardness. Indeed, on the whole, he looked amused; but his face grew graver as he fixed his eyes on Mrs. Challoner.

"Though I'm rather late, you'll let me wish you happiness," he said. "I believe it will be yours. Bertram's a good fellow; I have much to thank him for."

There was a sincerity and a hint of affection in his tone, and Bertram looked uncomfortable.

"But how did you come here?" Bertram asked, as if to turn the conversation from himself. "Where have you been since——"

He stopped abruptly, and Blake laughed.

"Since you surreptitiously said good-by to me at Peshawur? Well, after that I went to Penang, and from there to Queensland. Stayed a time at a pearl-fishing station among the Kanakas, and then went to England for a few months."

"But how did you manage?" Bertram inquired with some diffidence. "It raises a point you wouldn't let me talk about at Peshawur, but I've often felt guilty because I didn't insist. Traveling about as you have done is expensive."

"Not to me," Blake explained with a twinkle. "I've turned adventurer, and I have the Blake gift of getting along without money." He added in an explanatory aside to Blanche: "For two or three generations we kept open house and a full stable in Ireland, on a revenue derived from rents which were rarely paid, and if I hadn't been too young when a disaster gave the creditors their chance. I'd have given them a sporting run."

"But what did you do when you left England?" Bertram broke in.

"Went to East Africa; after that, to this country, where I tried my hand at prairie farming. Found it decidedly monotonous and sold the homestead at a profit. Then I did some prospecting, and now I'm here on business."

"On business!" Bertram exclaimed. "You could never be trusted to get proper value for a shilling!"

"I've learned to do so lately, and that's not going far. If you're in commerce in this country, you must know how to put down fifty cents and take up a dollar's worth. Anyhow, I'm here to meet an American whose acquaintance I made farther West. He's a traveler in paints and varnishes, and a very enterprising person, as well as an unusually good sort. But I've told you enough about myself; I want your news."

Blanche thought it cost her husband an effort to fall in with his cousin's casual mood. Blake, however, seemed quite at ease, and she was growing interested in him. He reminded her of the Challoner portraits in the dark oak gallery at Sandymere, but she thought him lighter, more brilliant, and, in a sense, more human than those stern soldiers. Then she remembered that his Irish blood explained something.

They talked a while about English friends and relatives; and then Blake asked rather abruptly:

"And the Colonel?"

"Well," said Bertram, "I heard that you saw him, Dick."

"I did, for half an hour. I felt that it was my duty, though the interview was hard on us both. He was fair, as he always was, and tried to hide his feelings. I couldn't blame him because he failed."

Bertram looked away, and Blake's face was troubled. There was a hint of emotion in his voice as he went on, turning to Blanche:

"Whatever he may think of me, I have a sincere respect for Colonel Challoner; and I owe him more than I can ever repay. He brought me up after my father's death and started me, like a son, in an honorable career." His tone grew lighter. "It's one of my few virtues that I don't forget my debts. But I've kept you some time. My American friend hasn't turned up yet and I may be here a few days. Where are you staying? I'll look you up before I leave."

"We go West to-morrow morning. Come down and have dinner with us at the Windsor," Bertram said; and when Mrs. Challoner seconded the request, they went up the steps to the platform from which the cable train started.