Читать книгу The Broken Trail - Harold Bindloss - Страница 8
ОглавлениеANNE HARDEN
Cool shadows trembled on the sunny grass in a checkered pattern of gold and green. The turf at Copshope was old and very smooth. Bees haunted the massed flowers at the bottom of the terrace wall, and their tranquil humming harmonized with the splash of a burn. In the background, behind the shining beech-wood, the Border hills were serenely blue. Emerson, in a big basket-chair, felt that all struck a note of deep, and rather strange, tranquillity.
Canada was not tranquil. One was forced to hustle, and where cultivation went one remarked a sort of utilitarian harshness. Boisterous winds swept the plains, and in summer thunderstorms rolled across the woods. Angry rivers throbbed in the tangled pines. Nature, so to speak, was dynamic, and she and man were locked in stubborn conflict. Axes crashed in the woods, and along the rapids clanging turbines revolved. Where one got one's food—anyhow at the restaurants Garnet used—electric organs blared. As a rule, the North American frankly likes a noise.
At Copshope one obviously did not, and sitting under a spreading beech, Garnet sensed the spot's calm beauty and felt himself exotic. When he looked out from the shady corner, he thought the sunshine lovingly touched the old house's front. Copshope was rather small and not at all ambitious. The soft stone was checkered brown and yellow, and the main lines were horizontal. A sort of weathered cornice went along the top, and a broken molding about half-way up. The casement windows were low and wide. Behind the beech wood, light clouds floated horizontally. The level lines and soft color were soothing. In Canada the clouds were round; they rolled across the sky. On the plains the grass rippled; in the woods the dark pines tossed.
In a sense, perhaps, Emerson was exotic, although he was not at all remarkable and his type is common in springing Western towns. His clothes were good, his tall figure was rather firmly than strongly built, and his glance was quick. One sensed alertness and driving force. He might not keep the path cautious people used; one felt his habit was to shove ahead. Moreover, he had not cultivated the superficial carelessness that sometimes masks British energy. At the Scottish country house he was not altogether raw, but his rather obvious sincerity and keen interest marked him a stranger. He had arrived an hour or two since, and now the formalities of his welcome were over, he studied his hosts.
Harden's hair was white and his face was lined. Keith had said he was for some time a Glasgow merchant, but Emerson felt the old house and the blue hills were his proper background. Garnet remarked his rather formal, old-fashioned politeness and queer touch of dignity. His talk was quiet, as if he weighed words and hated to exaggerate. Sometimes he used a Scottish idiom that was like an epigram. Emerson thought him shrewd and kind, and he was rather a handsome old fellow. His step was not quick, but he carried himself well.
Garnet did not know about Mrs. Harden. Her clothes were fashionable and one felt her important; Mrs. Harden was rather obviously the laird's lady. Her figure was short, and as round as fashion allowed; her color was yet white and pink, and Emerson imagined at one time her physical charm was marked. He did not know much about Old Country ladies, but somehow he felt her languidness was cultivated. Harden's queer judicial calm was not. Yet she was a polite hostess and he felt he interested her. In a way, perhaps, his doing so was strange.
For a time their talk was careless, but Emerson imagined the others waited for him to satisfy their curiosity, and at length Mrs. Harden inquired for Keith.
"We got his letter, but it was not long. He stated you would soon arrive and give us full particulars," she said.
Emerson began to narrate Keith's fishing excursion; but after a few minutes a small car sped across a break in the trees and a girl crossed the lawn. Her white clothes seemed to indicate that she had been playing tennis, and her lines were boyishly straight, but a filmy motor veil flowed about her slender figure in an attractive curve. Emerson got an impression of lightness and grace, but when he was presented to Anne Harden he noted that her glance was searching and her mouth was firm. Although Mrs. Harden gave her a meaning look, she smiled.
"You were talking about Keith," she said. "Well, I'm interested and I am going to stop."
Emerson was rather embarrassed. Harden was entitled to know all he knew, but his narrative might puzzle the girl and she perhaps did not yet realize her brother's misfortune. He, however, went on as if he did not know she was about, and somehow he thought she approved. The others were very quiet, but when he stopped Harden looked up.
"You imply that somebody personated my son. To cheat his friends and his clerk would be difficult."
"Although the summer night was clear, they saw him in the dark," Emerson replied. "Then sometimes one does meet a man strangely like another whom one knows. For example, Keith himself——"
He began to talk about Keith's meeting the gambler, and Harden's chair cracked, as if he had suddenly moved. Emerson thought Mrs. Harden's mouth was tight. She glanced at her husband, who looked straight in front. Garnet got a hint of disturbed surprise, but the incident he narrated was perhaps remarkable. All the same, he thought her relations' disturbance puzzled Anne.
"The fellow was banker at a red-light saloon card-table?" said Harden in a quiet voice.
"Keith thought him a tinhorn, sir. A common adventurer whose play is not always straight."
"But why was Keith at a place like that?" Mrs. Harden inquired.
"It is not important; he no doubt indulged his tourist's curiosity," Harden replied. "I have known your friends boast about adventures of the sort at Paris and Cairo; but on the Pacific Slope the performance is not staged for excursionists. Did Keith think the likeness distinct, Mr. Emerson?"
"His companion, the gambler himself, and one or two more noticed it. I believe he said there were differences, but a stranger might take the fellow for his relation."
Mrs. Harden said nothing; Harden smiled.
"Oh, well, sometimes one remarks a puzzling resemblance, as if Nature had used the same mold more than once. But go on. Do you think the tinhorn afterwards used the queer similarity in order to rob the bank?"
"It's possible, sir; I feel that is all. Vancouver is a long distance from Miscana and some years had gone."
Emerson thought his reply satisfied his hosts and he resumed his tale. When he stopped, Harden gave him a grateful look.
"Thank you, Mr. Emerson! I like your loyalty, and I think my son has got a trusty friend."
"All Keith's friends are loyal. Nobody who knows him imagines he was in any way accountable for the bonds' vanishing. The thing is altogether ridiculous."
"Very well; we must wait for some fresh light. In the meantime, the suspense is hard to bear and you may find us dull. We would like you to be happy at Copshope, and Anne, no doubt, can fix for a few tennis matches and picnics at romantic spots. Now I dare say she will show you the gardens and all that might interest you in the house."
Anne got up and they went off across the grass. Emerson imagined his hosts would sooner be alone, and so long as Anne was content to be his guide he was willing to indulge them. He saw roses and massed tall delphiniums, tinting the changing blue of the sky, and water-lilies floating in rock-pools; but he knew Anne's object was not altogether to show him the flowers. Although her talk, so far, was careless, he felt as if she weighed him.
By and by they went to the house and up the stairs at the side of the big square hall to a gallery at the top. Two or three crossed lances, a battered steel cap, and a few pictures occupied the paneled wall, and Anne, sitting down on a carved oak bench, signed Emerson to an old chair opposite. Her clothes were white and creamy yellow; her slender figure and delicately tinted skin were distinct against the dark wood. She was light and finely drawn, and somehow thoroughbred, but Emerson got a sense of nervous strength. He imagined Anne's eyes sometimes sparkled and the red blood stained her skin.
"You can smoke. I myself do not, but I'd sooner you did, because we must talk," she said. "Perhaps I'm not grammatical, and you needn't bother to be polite. Since you mean to stick to Keith and I'm his sister, the main thing is to be frank."
Emerson imagined Anne did not always talk like that. Her object perhaps was to help him out, but he did not know——He rather thought Anne would not use a plan that he might see.
"All who properly know your brother mean to stick to him——" he said, and stopped, for Anne smiled.
"I wonder," she remarked. "Well, modesty is attractive, but you said something like that before, and you mustn't exaggerate. You see, Keith's friends are at Miscana, but you're at Copshope——In the Old Country we are not rashly trustful; we reserve our judgment. Well, my father is a Scot and tries to hide his hurt, although he has got a cruel knock. Your believing in Keith is some comfort, particularly since one knows you are sincere."
Emerson said nothing, but he was flattered. He thought Anne's trust was not careless; Miss Harden was keen. After a moment or two she resumed:
"Perhaps you felt a remark of Madam's jarred? At all events, you noted my father's impatience?"
"Mrs. Harden's remark? Now I recollect, Keith called her Madam."
"Mrs. Harden is rather formal, but she is not our mother, and the title is an acknowledgement of her authority. The Borderers are a clannish lot and she belongs to us."
It looked as if Miss Harden's loyalty sometimes was strained; but she went on: "When you talked about Keith's visiting the red-light saloon I, at all events, did not wonder why he went. Father's explanation, so to speak, was superfluous."
Emerson looked up. His movement was mechanical, and when he met Anne's rather amused glance he stopped. He had not reckoned on her admitting she knew what the red lights implied.
"You see, I know Keith's soberness," she said, and indicated a portrait on the wall. "His mother and mine! Her people were for long stern supporters of the Scottish kirk, and we believe she sprang from Cameronian stock. The Cameronians were the Covenanters' fanatical left wing."
Studying the picture, Emerson thought it possible. The first Mrs. Harden was a handsome woman. Her brow was wide and her eyes were calm, but their calm was austere and her mouth was thin. One could not doubt her sincerity; one felt she must be just. All the same, her justice might be merciless. In fact, Mrs. Harden was the sort of woman one would rather respect than love.
"Keith is hardly his mother's stamp and I think you are not at all," he said.
"One inherits inherited qualities," Anne remarked, and getting up stopped in front of another picture. "I am a Harden, and although father's doubtful, we like to believe the old fellow on the wall was an ancestor of ours."
The picture interested Emerson. A moss-trooper on a shaggy pony held up a hooped wooden cup. His steel cap shone, as if in torchlight, and red reflections touched his lined face and slanted lance. His look was grimly humorous.
"I like him!" said Emerson. "His blood was red; you feel he could take hard knocks and use his long spear, but I think he loved a joke. Well, it looks as if there were two sorts of Scots."
Anne laughed, a frank, musical laugh.
"I begin to think you keen; but he's rather theatrical, and I expect he was not our relation. Perhaps all he really stands for is the spirit of his time. We were merchant adventurers and mended our fortunes on the exchanges at London and Montreal. Since I think none got very rich, the queer thing is, there was always a Harden at Copshope——"
She hesitated, and then went on as if she resolved to give Emerson her confidence:
"Well, I mustn't bore you. At one time, we were freebooters, and perhaps the virile, lawless strain is not yet run out. When father got Keith's letter he was strangely disturbed and I almost think he doubted——Then, of course, the bleak suspicion went; he knew Keith, in a sense, was our mother's son. Now there is but one thing to be said: you are my brother's champion, and if you see a useful plan, all the help I'm able to give is yours."
She gave Emerson a smile that moved him, and began to talk about something else; but soon afterwards a bell called them to tea in the shade on the lawn.
