Читать книгу Larry of Lonesome Lake - Harold Bindloss - Страница 14

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Under the big trees the trail was dark, and Alice's thin shoes sank in the mud; where fir roots crossed the path she stumbled and might have fallen but for Lawrence's support. Although she hated herself for her weakness, she dared not refuse his steadying hand. From the beginning, her adventure was ridiculous, and now she thought about it, humiliating. She had forced him to invite her on board his yacht, and she hoped he was satisfied that all her object had been to rejoin her party at Cheemanco.

All the same, it was not very important. Fatigue and cold had banished her scruples. She must get shelter from the pitiless rain, and she drearily plowed along. In the dark, she heard a river and chiming bells. Lawrence stopped and looked about.

"Cowbells! My oxen, Jerry and Bob. If I could catch them, I'd carry you to Mrs. Colman's on the sledge; but I expect they'd baffle me in the brush, and I have no rope."

The clanging notes got faint and Alice wondered whether Lawrence was annoyed. She herself was not. To be jolted for three or four miles through the dripping woods was unthinkable. She could hardly keep her feet and she must soon collapse. The thing was strange; she had not thought the cold and fatigue could altogether knock her out.

"They've gone," said Lawrence. "Buck up! In ten minutes we'll be home."

By and by the woods rolled back and they plowed across a clearing where tall grass grew. The wet heads brushed Alice's clothes, but the thin material already carried all the water it could hold. At the other side of the clearing a small house loomed against dark trees, and when Lawrence stopped Alice saw the walls were logs. After a few moments, he pushed back the door and got a light. The lamp was a good lamp, and she noted the clay cement between the logs; the floor was slightly uneven. Alice did not know the pine was split by hand. For a minute or two, Lawrence occupied himself by the square stove. When he got up resinous billets snapped and the smell of burning wood floated about.

"You are shivering," he said pityingly. "The room will soon be hot, but in the meantime pull off your shoes."

Alice tried. There was no use in pretending to be squeamish, but the straps had swollen and her fingers seemed powerless. Lawrence took her foot in his hands and pulled off the soaked shoe. Then he crossed the floor, and getting a light in another room, came back with an armful of clothes.

"I am going to the barn to change," he said. "The top drawer in the bureau is open, and if you haven't got all you want in your folder bag, you might find something useful. The stockings, at all events, are pretty good."

Alice lifted her head and her control went.

"I believe I told you the clothes in my hold-all are the sort of things Perry imagined an Eastern dancing girl might wear. And you perhaps begin to see where you have led me? I'm soaked and starved and draggled; and a girl hates to look like a scarecrow, particularly when a man of any kind is about. Then I don't suppose a steamer ever touches at this desolate spot, and if one did, I'm broke. When we knew the Maud was gone, I ought to have jumped overboard. I think I nearly went; but I suppose if I had done so, you'd have pulled me out."

Lawrence tried to soothe her, but fatigue and strain had banished all reserve.

"Oh, I dare say your object was good! To feel you were chivalrous was rather nice? In some circumstances, one hates to be pitied, and people who meddle where they oughtn't to meddle don't know the harm they do. Men, in particular, are generally fools. I know I'm talking like a vulgar little adventuress, and you meant to be kind; but my temper never was serene, and if you had trailed about the mining towns with a dead-broke variety show—"

At length she stopped, and leaning forward, her arms across the table, frankly wept. Lawrence put a kettle on the stove and some bacon in a frying-pan. Then he touched her.

"If you do not get out of your soaked clothes, you will be ill, and I am not much of a nurse. I am going to the barn, and you will find some stuff you can put on in the open drawer. The Hudson's Bay blanket might do for a kimono and anyhow, it's warm. When you move the lamp to the window ledge, I'll come back and we'll get supper."

He waited for half an hour, and when he returned he imagined Alice had put on his overalls, but she was, for the most part, muffled in a large blue blanket, fastened by his cartridge belt. The important thing was, he thought, her calm. Alice remarked that he put on the stove a large square can; in the Canadian woods, a coal-oil can is commonly used for a flour bin and for boiling shirts.

"I must apologize, Mr. Bethune," she said in a quiet, cultivated voice. "Ever since I forced myself upon you, you have taken the proper line. I, of course, was nasty; but sometimes you feel you have reached the limit. However, I expect you know?"

Lawrence nodded and his mouth curved humorously.

"Yes; a man swears and sometimes throws things about! Absurd, of course, but one feels better afterwards. When we built the house, I chopped my foot, cut my hands with a drawknife, and then missed a nail and hit my thumb. I felt it was too much, and I threw the hammer as far as it would go. The hammer was expensive and went into thick brush. I mowed the stuff for half a day, but never found the confounded tool. Calm is economical, but sometimes it's hard."

Alice wondered whether he wished to banish her embarrassment. She was not as much embarrassed as he perhaps thought, but she played up, and when he served supper tried to eat. Although she had thought herself hungry, she shrank from food, and after swallowing a few morsels of greasy bacon she was satisfied by a mug of strong, sweet tea. By and by Lawrence put an obviously home-made deerskin chair by the stove, and while he cleaned the plates, in a bucket, she looked about.

The stove was in the middle of the kitchen; its pipe and a ladder went up to the roof, in which she imagined there was another room. Two rifles, a shotgun, and a rude bookcase occupied the wall. Overalls, oilskin clothes, and long boots hung from pegs in a corner. All, however, was clean, and she thought Lawrence a competent housekeeper.

"If you like, you might smoke," she said. "I do not want to feel I have taken possession of your house. But why do you call it Bourlon ranch?"

Lawrence lighted his pipe. Alice was not much interested, but she would sooner he talked. Sometimes, when a man talked in his own house, he unconsciously revealed his true character. Yet she had already weighed him, and on the whole was satisfied. Perhaps all she really wanted was to be allowed to indulge her queer languidness. The little room got delightfully warm, and the deerskin chair was easy. She did not want to move; she did not even want to lift her head.

"Loudon needed a name for his survey plans. Canada, you know, is measured off by range, township, and section, and at Qualichan George is Government boss. He's one of the best, and when I take you to the house you will like his wife."

"You said something like that before," Alice languidly remarked. "Since you must dispose of me somehow, I'd sooner you tried Mrs. Colman. If you think about it earnestly, you might see my reason. However, you began to tell me why you called your ranch Bourlon."

Although her pose was slack and she rested her head against the chair, Lawrence noted that she had resumed her gamine mood. When he was nearly knocked out he had known warmth and food work on his dull brain.

"One day when we burned the slashing, George came across. The fire had run into the growing timber and the trunks smoked. Where we had chopped, little fires flickered about between the broken branches and the big black logs. A tenderfoot's slashing is a horrible, tangled wreck, and my block looked very like Bourlon wood, after the tanks had galloped about and both sides' artillery had registered on the spot."

"Then you were at the famous wood?"

"I was there three times," said Lawrence. "We were not allowed to stop, but some of us came back—" He occupied himself with his pipe and resumed in an apologetic voice: "The convention is, one forgets. I hate to pretend, and so long as the picture is distinct, the politicians will be bothered to start us on a fresh crusade. Then the boys who followed the tanks across the battered, smoking wreck were not the sort one forgets. They're gone, but when we fired the slashing a big maple burned. The maple leaves dropped faster at Bourlon in September 'eighteen—"

He got up. "In up-to-date circles, I believe sentiment is barred, and you are tired. I have made up a bed at the barn and I'll go across. You will use the room where the light is. The water in the coal-oil can ought to be getting hot."

Lawrence went off and Alice smiled. He had thought she might be cold, and although his housekeeping was primitive, he gave her the best he had. Half an hour afterwards she turned out the lamp. Rain beat the roof, the woods murmured like the sea, but the hot coal-oil can was soothing and she was soon asleep.

A sharp metallic note disturbed her, and she lifted her head in alarm. Mrs. Monroe was ringing the bell at the bottom of the stairs, and Alice ought to have got up an hour since. The boarders would soon want breakfast, but the stove was not lighted, and she had not yet washed the nasty shining oilcloth on the long table. When she was a few minutes late, Mrs. Monroe stated she had no use for lazy slobs. If she lost her post, she might not get another; but her head throbbed and she was horribly languid.

Then she remembered she was not at Tecumseh House; she was at Bourlon ranch, in the woods. Something tapped on the window, and she slackly turned her head. A bright sunbeam touched the wall, and an arrowhead bush grew near the glass. Two or three hummingbirds hovered about the flowers. One could not see their throbbing wings; their tiny bodies sparkled with an iridescent gleam.

Again a bell called, but the note was farther off and musical. Cowbells, chiming in the woods! Alice got up, and going to the window, leaned against the frame. The Tecumseh House smelt of greasy food, soap and stale tobacco; now the scent of balsams and cedars floated about the room. The morning was calm and fresh, and across the clearing a lake shone like a looking-glass. Behind the forest a peak, veined at the top by snow, cut the sky.

Then somebody began to whistle. Alice knew the famous minuet, but she had not thought to hear it in the Canadian wilds. The time was good; one, two, three, and the turn on the last note distinct; but the slide in the trio might bother him. It did not. Lawrence Bethune knew something about music as well as sailing-boats.

An ax crashed. The noise was ringing and measured; two strokes, a pause, and two strokes again. Bethune perhaps meant to indicate that he was about and wanted breakfast. Alice must get her clothes from the kitchen, although she somehow hated the effort. The clothes were dry, and she found a wash-basin, but her hands shook, her head swam, and to dress was hard. All the same, she must brace up, and she pulled on the shrunk and salt-stained clothes. Then she sat down, slackly, in the deerskin chair and was horribly afraid. The kitchen revolved, her skin got cold, and she knew she was going to be ill. Yet her host must get his breakfast, and after a minute or two she pulled back the kitchen door.

Lawrence arrived and got to work about the stove. On board the sloop Alice had helped; now she kept her chair. Lawrence noted that her face was pinched and her skin colourless. The run to Qualichan had been too much for her; he himself had thought the boat might swamp. Her slackness moved his pity, but since she could not stay at the ranch, he must get breakfast and start for Colman's. If he went first, he could explain the circumstances, and perhaps save Alice some embarrassment by carrying Minnie Colman's invitation. Now he thought about it, however, to explain might be awkward, and he did not want Alice to go. Yet she must go, and in the meantime his line was to talk as casually and cheerfully as possible. He noted that Alice did not play up.

Although she drained a mug of tea, he could not persuade her to eat, and he began to be disturbed.

"In the woods, we are rather a primitive lot and I'm not much of a cook," he said. "However, you will be all right at Colman's."

Alice looked up with a queer smile.

"Your cooking is not the drawback, and I'm afraid you are going to get a shock. I very much doubt if I can get to the Colman ranch. Anyhow, I cannot walk there."

Lawrence pushed back his plate and stood up.

"You are ill? Really, properly ill?"

"Really, but improperly," Alice rejoined. "I am very sorry, Mr. Bethune, but you ought to have pushed me overboard."

She turned her head to the deerskin. She had tried to joke, but weakness conquered, and Lawrence and the stove got indistinct. After a few moments he touched her, and his touch was comforting and kind.

"You mustn't bother! At Qualichan nobody is ill for long, and we are going to see you out. But let's be practical—"

He pondered. To jolt a sick girl to Colman's over the forest trail would not help her recovery. Besides, she was his guest.

"I have got it!" he remarked. "Since you cannot go to Colman's, Minnie must come here, and I can bring her across on the sledge. To begin with, I must catch the bulls, and if you don't mind—"

Alice let him go. Now she was not forced to try for calm, calm was easier. Since Lawrence was a man, he had not at the beginning seen the obvious line; he advanced by argument. Mrs. Colman must come to his ranch, and he was going to bring her. Bring was the word; Alice pictured him firmly putting the woman on his sledge. Then she clenched her fist. She must brace up, weakness must not conquer her, but the kitchen revolved and all got dark.