Читать книгу Larry of Lonesome Lake - Harold Bindloss - Страница 10

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Alice, balancing a tin plate on her knee, rested her back against a balsam trunk; the spruce branches Lawrence had cut for a seat were springy and soft. He had pulled off his overall jacket, and his blue shirt strained against his chest and arms. Although he was not heavily built, Alice noted his muscular development and his firm brown neck. He lay in the stones, but their hardness did not seem to bother him, and his pose was restful. Well, he had admitted that a rancher's job was strenuous, and she had noted his easy balance on the sloop's inclined deck and the slippery rocks. When one lived with dancers and acrobats, one did note things like that.

His brown face was firmly modeled and rather attractive. Sometimes his brown eyes twinkled; sometimes his look was thoughtful. One remarked a sort of calm control. Alice could not fix his age, but she guessed thirty. It appeared that he had fought in the war from the beginning, and although he did not state his rank, she imagined he had used command. She thought he might be generous, but he was not a generous fool. However, to speculate about him was not her business. In the meantime, he obviously approved the dinner she had cooked.

"I'm sorry all is gone, and I hope you had enough," he said. "If I had expected a passenger, I'd have loaded up supplies, but you made a first-class job with the stuff you had."

"If my cooking satisfies you, you are not fastidious."

"Oh, well, I suppose a bush rancher eats because he must. Circumstances do not encourage him to be an epicure; but if you're not properly fed, you cannot work. All the same, when you have raked oat-hay for twelve hours in the scorching sun, and fed and watered the ox team, to get busy at the stove is rather a bore. In fact, I admit I have sometimes smashed a pot I could not clean. To hear the thing break was worth the extravagance!"

"It looks like a Spartan life. A bachelor's freedom is, no doubt, worth something; but I expect it has drawbacks."

"The drawbacks are obvious," Lawrence agreed. "The trouble is, the sort of girl one would like to marry would not have much use for a back-block rancher."

Alice saw he knew where to stop, since she imagined the girl who might be happy and useful in the wilds was not the sort for him. He, however, began to pick up the knives and plates.

"At a log shack and on board a small boat to leave things about does not pay," he remarked. "If you smoke, I could roll you a cigarette."

"No, thanks! I smoke when I'm forced. A variety actress must be up-to-date, but I do not really like cigarettes. Although it's probably not important, I do not like cocktails."

"But you'd indulge your host? Well, in the woods you would not be bothered. One is satisfied with green tea, and sometimes does not wait for the water to boil. However, I think I'll take a smoke; and then I must mend my jacket. When I was reefing, a block-hook tore the sleeve."

"Then, you mend the clothes you tear?"

"As long as it is possible, although, as a rule, a good Canadian throws old stuff away. In fact, I now and then mend my boots. I'd rather like you to examine my workmanship, but it would imply my pulling off the boot."

Alice supposed he was humorous, but she did not know. His look was sober. She replied that to have his jacket mended for him might be something fresh, and when he agreed she got to work. Lawrence smoked his cigarette and watched her languidly. The girl was attractive, and since they landed she was somehow different. She had perhaps done something to her hair and clothes. Anyhow, when he met her at the settlement, he had remarked a queer hard frankness. Pert was not the word; gamine was the best he knew. He imagined the quality part of her professional equipment and in a way a shield. Now it was gone, and she was gentler. Well, she had declared that Ruby was done with!

"Thank you," he said when she gave him the jacket. "You are a bully cook and a first-class tailor. Two useful talents! But d'you, by chance, know something about sheep?"

Alice looked at him in surprise. She wondered where he led, or if he led nowhere. Then she began to laugh.

"I expect I was ridiculous," he said in an apologetic voice.

"Not at all. At one time, my dear man, I knew much more about sheep than I wanted to know, particularly about foot-rot and fluke. To some extent, a speculation in Border-Leicester accounts for my emigrating. At all events, it accounts for my doing so without proper funds."

"It's strange. Sheep are rather my hobby, and I have a small flock. You see, when you raise beef cattle, a steer must grow for about two years before you begin to feed him up, and in the woods to get him fat is hard. Lambs, of course, are soon ready for market, and can get a living on the hills where cattle cannot. Then since I take an English livestock newspaper, the Border-Leicester interests me. If you can combine the hill sheep's hardiness and the large sheep's weight—"

"My father thought it possible, but he was an optimist," Alice rejoined. "In our bleak dale, where the Pennine moors join the Cheviots, the black-faced Leicesters did not thrive."

Perhaps it was strange, but she felt she might give Lawrence Bethune her confidence. Although he did not urge her, she knew him interested and sympathetic, and in the Canadian balsams' shade she talked about her home in the Old Country.

Her father was not properly a farmer. When he inherited Rainshope he was a lawyer at a market town, where Alice imagined he did not transact much business. The Rainshope sheepwalk was not large or prosperous, but after all, the Thornes were statesmen, and he shut his office.

Lawrence looked up, and Alice nodded.

"Yeomen, independent farmers! The oldest son gets the estate; the next, if funds permit, is articled to a lawyer, or perhaps keeps a shop. My brother soon had enough and went for an architect; Tom, I rather think, will make his mark, particularly since he married a rich contractor's daughter. Miriam married a fashionable high-church clergyman. Our mother was dead, and my part, like Cinderella's, was to stop at home."

For a few moments she was quiet, and Lawrence wondered whether she thought she had been rash. Her look got hard and her mouth went tight. The wind touched the balsams' tops; sparkling ripples streaked the cove and splashed against the rocks. Then all was quiet, and Alice said:

"We began to talk about black-faced sheep and I expect I am boring you."

Lawrence declared he was interested, and she resumed her tale. At the school to which she went girls were expected to cultivate ornamental rather than useful qualities, but they were taught how to speak and walk. The classical plays and tableaux they got up were perhaps well done. Lawrence, no doubt, knew the sort of stuff, and all that mattered was, it excited her ambition to be an actress. Her relations, of course, did not approve. Tom and Miriam were some years older, and took it for granted that she would stop at Rainshope. Since her father needed somebody, and the others' careers were already fixed, Alice agreed.

She pictured a kind, indulgent gentleman, but Lawrence imagined Thorne was not remarkably competent. Alice said he had not the Northern dalesman's qualities. A dalesman stuck to all he had, and as a rule got some more. Tom was that sort; Alice, rather obviously, did not admire her prosperous brother.

Picturing her father and the bleak house on the moors, she, to some extent unconsciously, drew her own portrait. Lawrence imagined her stanch and rather hard. The hardness was perhaps acquired in Canada, but she refused to cheat or be cheated.

Thorne had sent his son and daughters to expensive schools, and when it looked as if the sheepwalk did not pay Alice admitted her duty was to keep his house and help him economize. For a lawyer, he was a trustful optimist, and, thinning out his flock, he resolved to speculate in heavy sheep. Alice thought him foolish. The little black-faces got their living on the moorland heaf, and in winter needed but a little hay. The large sheep needed much, and for the most part must be pasture fed. Turnips grew only in the lower dale, and corn was a risky crop. Lawrence perhaps knew the Pennine range's northern end was England's darkest, bleakest spot.

Although Tom came home from Newcastle to expostulate, Thorne in-took fresh moor. To drain, plow, and lime the in-take cost a useful sum, and Alice wondered where the money was got. Anyhow, the thin corn was blighted, and the seed grass that followed was hardly worth mowing. Then for two or three bad years the meadow hay went down the becks, and Thorne was forced to buy in the low country.

The bad years broke him. Crossing the fell in a snowstorm, he got pneumonia, and when he was gone the bank seized the farm. Alice imagined other creditors were not paid; Tom and Miriam claimed that all they had got was theirs. She went to Toronto. If she had but gone three years sooner, when she was urged—

"Then you had friends at Toronto?" Lawrence remarked.

"I had not much claim on their kindness. They were kind, but when I arrived I knew I ought not to have gone. In three years one changes, and perhaps one gets fastidious. My talents were not commercially useful and I joined the Lacoste show."

"But when you knew the show was going down, why did you hold on? Your brother and sister could support you until you got a proper post. They might have helped you get a post in England."

Alice smiled, a rather bleak smile.

"One hates to be beaten. Then Tom's wife might not approve a relation who had danced at Wild West mining towns. Hannah is the sort to imagine the West is wild, and inhabited by pistol-shooting swashbucklers and painted courtesans. Miriam married a clergyman, and I did not see myself fitting in at a high-church vicarage. Besides, when we played the Sultan's Favorite I sent her my portrait, and since she did not acknowledge the present, I expect my humor jarred."

Lawrence thought it possible, but he liked Alice's pluck. She had stuck to her father, and she had refused to ask for help. She certainly had not told him much about the grounds for her resolve to leave Toronto, but his business was not to inquire. After a few moments she got up and he looked about.

A large canoe with a bow cut like a bird's head steered up the bay. Two wet spritsails swelled in the eddying wind and flapped. A woman threw water overboard, and the tin bailer sparkled in the sun. The long paddles splashed and the canoe, forging ahead, stopped a few yards from the rock. The people on board were dressed like white men, but their skin was yellow-brown, their noses were flat, and their eyes were narrow. Alice thought them rather a Chinese than Indian type. One shouted to Lawrence in a friendly voice, and when they had talked for a few minutes the paddles splashed and the canoe crossed the bay.

"Siwash! We talked in Chinook," he said. "They are going north to smoke salmon and dry berries, but the sea was bad, and they will bring up at a beach they know. They stopped to inquire if we had seen another lot. Anyhow, the Siwash are first-class sailors and their big canoes are able craft. If the sea is too bad for them, I doubt if we ought to risk a passage. I wonder whether you would like to scramble to the top of the island?"

Alice agreed. Under the big trees the fern was thick, and at some spots Lawrence broke a path through tangled brush. Where the woods stopped, the rocks were steep. He noted that Alice was not awkward and he did not think her afraid, but she went slowly and now and then stopped for breath. At length they reached the top and braced themselves against the wind.

The spot commanded a wide view, and looking south, they saw the sea roll in white-topped, parallel ridges, across which thin spray blew. A hundred feet below, creaming surf washed about the rocks. One need not be a sailor to know the little sloop must keep the bay. Alice jumped from the ledge, and, sitting down behind the stones, looked the other way. On her right hand, but some distance off, the Coast Range towered above climbing forests. In front, angry water, broken by islands and high-wooded heads, rolled back until rocks and trees got indistinct in the north. The ridge cut the wind and the sun was on the warm stones. Alice turned and gave Lawrence a humorous glance.

"You have satisfied me that we must wait for smoother water. I suppose that was your object when you proposed the excursion?"

"In the circumstances, I thought you ought to see for yourself," Lawrence agreed.

Alice laughed. "The circumstances certainly are unusual, but I am not keen to be shipwrecked, nor remarkably dull. Your good intentions are rather obvious, Mr. Bethune. However, let's be practical. The landscape is majestic, but I am not a summer tourist. Are there settlements in the North where a girl who has no particularly useful talents might get a job?"

"On the whole, I think not," said Lawrence. "I do not know much about Rupert and the Alaska ports, but I believe you ought to go the other way. You'd have a better chance to get a post in the populated Fraser River belt and the American cities on Puget Sound. If the wind drops, or changes in the night, I dare say I could carry you to a lumber wharf where you might get a steamer south, but you might be forced to wait, fares are not cheap, and I believe your capital is the two weeks' pay you got at the Tecumseh House."

He pulled out a pocketbook. Alice remembered that before they started from the cove he had jumped on board the boat.

"I expected to buy some cattle, but did not do so, and I hope you will take the wallet," he resumed. "When you get a good post, you can send me the money."

A touch of color stained Alice's skin, but she gave him a steady glance.

"You are a very good sort. All the same, I have not yet taken presents from men, and you probably know I could not pay you back. I believe some fashionable women are not squeamish, but for a variety actress it's risky. Thank you, Mr. Bethune; but put up your wallet."

Lawrence did so. He knew she was firm, and when he weighed the circumstances he thought her firmness something one must admire. For a time they engaged in careless talk, and then started for the cove.