Читать книгу Larry of Lonesome Lake - Harold Bindloss - Страница 6

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The twenty-four foot, half-decked sloop Pathfinder, rocking gently, rubbed against the wharf piles. Her mainsail and high club-topsail were hoisted, and Lawrence, looking up from the deck, saw his passenger and three of the hotel boarders on the guard beam above his head. One threw him a thin, waterproof hold-all, which Lawrence caught. Another threw a line.

"If you make fast we'll walk you along; but I don't just see how Ruby's going to get down," said the man.

"Then, if you can't help you might step back," the girl rejoined.

Leaning out, she seized the boat's wire shroud, and swung across until her shoe touched a sail hoop on the mast. She reached the next, lower, hoop, and then stopped. Since the shroud spread to the boat's side, to stretch across was awkward.

"Let go the wire. Swing and seize the mast," Lawrence ordered.

Her arm went out, but her hand was small, and the mast was greased. Lawrence jumped, and when her shoe slipped from the hoop she fell into his arms. Four years' labor had hardened him, and by contrast with loads he sometimes moved, her slender body was light. His impulse was to carry her to the seat in the well and for a moment she was passive. Then he knew himself ridiculous, and she slipped from his arms.

"There's your rope. Stand by and we'll start you!" shouted the man on the beam.

Feet beat the boards and the sloop forged ahead. Three hefty fellows, running along the wharf, strained the line, and when they reached the end Lawrence broke out the hoisted jib.

"So long and good luck, Ruby! Come back soon," one shouted.

"The boys were kind," she said. "Why are ranchers and choppers, on the whole, a better lot than city men?"

"I don't know," said Lawrence, hauling the line on board. "I hope you're accurate; but just now my business is to steer."

Under the high rocks flickering puffs of wind trailed dark ruffled smears across the smooth green tide. The boat was close-hauled, and sometimes her tall sails slanted and water gurgled at her bows; then she swayed languidly upright and almost stopped. Sometimes, when the stony beach was but three or four yards off, she turned on her centerboard and the long boom lurched across, just above Ruby's head. By and by, however, Lawrence pulled up the board, and rocks and pines rolled back. Sheet-blocks rattled, and, trailing a white wake, Pathfinder swept out across the strait. Spray tossed about her weather bow and little sparkling seas splashed her lifted side. The tide ran to windward, Cheemanco was under the lee bow, and Lawrence let her go. He sat on deck, a tiller line round his wrist, and rather awkwardly loaded his pipe.

"Kloosh chuck! Water's fairly smooth, but you perhaps know Chinook?" he remarked. "I myself don't know as much as I pretend when I swap the news with a Siwash Indian. I hope you're a sailor."

"If it's some comfort to you, I shall not be sick. The Lacoste Varieties move about by land and sea and lake, and I suppose I have used all the means of locomotion known in North America, except, of course, really first-class steamers and Pullman cars. Perry's gang, as a rule, went colonist. But you will perhaps allow me to present Ruby Desmond, première danseuse, sentimental soloist, and sometimes, when the orchestra was drunk, rag-time kid."

Smiling at Lawrence, she rested her back against the coaming ledge. She was lightly built, and now she was at rest one sensed a sort of physical slackness and something like fragility. The girl, at all events, was tired, and Lawrence was sorry for her. On the whole, he liked her rather cynical frankness; when one toured with a variety show, a touch of hardness was, no doubt, useful. Anyhow, nothing indicated coquetry, and that was something.

"How did you get left behind?" he asked.

"I have wondered—I rather think Pearl had something to do with it. Perry owed us all several weeks' pay, but I believe he'd sooner be honest, so long as it did not cost him very much. One meets men like that; they mean well, but, as a rule, do not make good. Pearl is another sort. It looks as if she had plans for Perry, and she perhaps thought I had. In same circumstances, women are not remarkably scrupulous, Mr. Bethune."

"Then, you know who I am?"

"Since I'm not altogether a fool, I inquired. The boys reckoned you were white; but my object is not to flatter you, and I'll resume my tale. On the Saturday the steamer was at the wharf, we played to three houses; in fact, so long as we took a few dollars we carried on. At twelve o'clock I went to bed; Perry and Bob began to load up our stuff and Pearl said she would help. They were going to sleep on board. You see, the steamer was billed to start at six o'clock, but the captain had agreed to wait for some cattle a rancher would drive across the mountain as soon as it was light. The cattle did not arrive, and when I woke at eight o'clock the boat was gone. Bob had put my trunk on board, all the money I had was two dollars, and my clothes, so to speak, were stage properties. For all she's a hard-shell Puritan, Mrs. Monroe gave me a job."

Lawrence nodded. He liked the girl's pluck; he rather liked her dispassionate coolness. Then she had taken the job.

"Yes, it was awkward. But, if I might inquire, why'd you join a third-class strolling company?"

"The answer, dear man, is obvious: a first-class show would have no use for me. I mustn't pretend to be modest, and at one time I was ambitious, but I know where I must be frank. However, since you keep a yacht, it looks as if your ranching paid."

"The boat is George Loudon's," Lawrence replied with a smile. "At Qualichan he's hiyu Tyee—Indian agent, Government surveyor, and so forth; in fact, the big boss. If you thought me impertinent, I am sorry."

Ruby turned her head and gave him a cool, scrutinizing glance. She approved his crooked smile, and although he was not at all handsome, he was strongly built and athletic, and carried a stamp she knew. Moreover, she got a hint of steadfastness and sincerity.

"I imagine you are rather a good sort," she said. "It accounts for my resolve to give you a chance to invite me to cross the strait with you. You see, if we reach Cheemanco before the Maud sails, I can go on with the only occupation in Canada for which I'm fit, and if Perry's luck turns he might pay up."

For a few moments she looked about. The sun had gone and in the northwest an island cut the green and orange glow; ragged pines ridged its top in hard, black silhouette. In the east, the Cascades' snowy tops yet shone rose-pink, but the forests below the timber line melted to dusky blue. The sea was dim green, flecked by rippling white lines, and although the wind got lighter, the sloop forged ahead with a rhythmic plunge and swing. Her tall sails slanted, spray tossed about her bows, and little, splashing waves broke along her weather side. Their urgent leap and white tops indicated that the tide yet went up the strait.

"In a way," she resumed, "you are entitled to know something about your passenger, and if I were quiet you might feel you ought to talk, although you would sooner steer the boat. Very well. Professionally, I'm Ruby Desmond, but my proper name is Alice Thorne, and at school in England I sometimes played the leading part in Bowdlerized acts from Shakespeare, and the sort of tableaux one supposes to be Greek. It explains my raw ambition to be a tragedy queen, and my efforts to cultivate my voice. When I met Perry Lacoste at Toronto I had once or twice earned a guinea for singing, and since he offered me a part I took the plunge—"

Lawrence noted the interlude. Since she was at the English school he reckoned six or seven years had gone; but to inquire was not his business, and she continued:

"Perry had begun to go downhill, but he was yet something of a favorite in Ontario and Quebec. I believe he cannot read music, but I've known him carry away a habitant audience by an old coureurs' song. Then he knows Louisiana French, and some Creole songs have a queer, haunting charm. In fact, I've felt that Perry somehow had missed his mark. He might have been a musician; he was a rather indulgent sentimentalist—"

She went on and Lawrence thought the portrait she drew lifelike. Anyhow, the picture he got was distinct. Perry was the sort of plausible, handsome fellow women liked; he thought Ruby had liked him and tried to be just. Lacoste, however, was getting fat and his voice began to go. When he was not sober, he talked much about his wife; Ruby imagined Angelique had ruled him firmly, and on the whole wisely, but she was dead, and Pearl was willing to console the widower. Ruby rather obviously did not like Pearl.

For a time they drew pretty good houses at small Ontario towns, but at Winnipeg their luck turned, and as they pushed on west got steadily worse. Florrie, who really could dance, married a wheat farmer; Bill, the conjurer, joined a tinhorn at a Calgary gambling joint, and, Ruby understood, was afterwards put out of town by the Royal North-West Police. She thought Perry might yet have pulled things straight, but for Pearl and liquor. Anyhow, when the company crossed the Rockies they were nearly broke.

Ruby narrated their adventures on the Pacific Slope. Lawrence saw she did not try to work on his sympathy; her tale was humorous, but he pictured the forlorn troupe going fast downhill. Ruby admitted she herself got slack and tired; and when they reached the settlement on the northwest coast, Pearl, who hated her, dominated Lacoste. The steamer sailed before the proper time, and Pearl had fixed it so that Ruby did not know.

She stopped, and shivered. Lawrence looked about. The sky was luminous green; the sea was dark. The wind got lighter, but the high topsail and running jib pulled nobly. He heard the water splash the planks and felt the dew on his skin.

"The night is going to be fine and we will carry all sail," he said. "I can give you a slicker coat, but if you crawl into the cabin you will find a candle lamp on the bulkhead. When you get a light, pull down the folding cot and fix the lanyard on the hooks. The blankets in the locker are, I think, pretty dry. While the large jib is up, the boat will not heave to, and if I leave the tiller, the sails will thrash about."

Ruby saw he thought she might not want him for a chamber maid, and when he gave her some matches she pushed back the sliding hatch. Pathfinder's cabin was not quite four feet high and the centerboard trunk occupied most of the floor. All the same, Ruby was not fastidious, and when she got into the folding cot she admitted she had occupied worse beds.

In a few minutes the reflection from the skylights vanished, and Lawrence pulled out his pipe. The sloop yet slipped along at four miles an hour, and Cheemanco was not very far off. In the morning he would land his passenger, but she was less of an embarrassment than he had thought, and he began to feel the sloop would be lonely when she was gone. Lawrence frowned. He mustn't be ridiculous, and he tried to think about the cattle he might perhaps have bought. By and by the jib flapped, and he hauled the sheet. It looked as if the wind veered west; it certainly was lighter, and his course to Cheemanco was about west by north.

At daybreak mist floated about the water and the dew-drenched sails hung slack. Lawrence pulled off his oilskin coat, and, hearing his passenger move, put a canvas bucket by the cabin hatch.

"Since we need breakfast, we must be frugal with the fresh water," he said. "However, Mrs. Loudon was on board not long since, and I dare say you will find a clean towel in the lockers."

The bucket vanished, and some time afterwards Ruby crawled from the hatch. Lawrence thought her skin was rather white and her face was pinched, but Pathfinder's low, dark cabin had not been planned for a lady's dressing-room. Moreover, woolly blue threads from the Hudson's Bay blanket stuck to her clothes. Lawrence wondered whether he ought to state that a looking-glass was in the port locker, but an up-to-date young woman presumably carried something of the sort.

"I am going under the counter for a sail and some rope," he said. "I expect to be four or five minutes. As a rule, the stuff you want is at the bottom of the dump."

Pulling a board from the stern transom, he crawled into a dark hole, and when all but his boots had vanished Ruby smiled. The rancher used some tact. At three o'clock in the morning one did not look one's best, particularly when one had slept in one's clothes. Well, she had five minutes, and she hurriedly unfastened her waterproof hold-all. In the meantime, Lawrence noisily pulled things about, and once she thought he swore. He probably had not planned to knock his head against a deck beam.

"If you have found the sail, you might perhaps come out. I don't know where the yacht is going," she at length remarked.

Lawrence crawled out backwards, and when he got on his feet it looked as if he had driven his hand into a grease pot. On the stage, the business one did not rehearse was sometimes the funniest.

"Do you know where we are?" Ruby asked.

"We are about nine miles from Cheemanco, and the sloop is going down the strait. The tide has turned and now runs north."

Ruby looked about. Behind the mist she saw blurred, dark hills. Using the boat's mast for a mark, she noted that the hills rolled slowly back, and although all was very quiet, faint wrinkling lines indicated that the water moved. For a moment or two she tried to calculate; and then she fronted Lawrence.

"You mean we might be carried past the port?"

"Yes; I'm sorry. I really thought the wind would hold until we were across."

Ruby tried for calm. She had not reckoned on the wind's dropping, and she believed he had not. His look was disturbed; in fact, she thought him annoyed. Well, that was comforting, but she had got a nasty knock.

"Cannot we row?" she asked in an anxious voice.

"I might scull, but I doubt if I could drive the boat a mile in an hour. She carries two or three tons of iron ballast. Her cable is not long enough for us to anchor."

Ruby sat down. She felt very slack, but she had fronted a crisis before.

"At seven or eight o'clock the steamer will start. Pearl, I expect, has got my clothes, and Perry has all the money I have earned for about two months. They will not stop at Vancouver, and I cannot chase them from town to town. Besides, there will not be another boat for a long time. Can you not do something?"

"I'm afraid all we can do is to get breakfast and hope a breeze will spring up," Lawrence replied. "The sky is dark and rain might start the wind. I ought not, of course, to have asked you on board—"

Ruby stopped him.

"You are not accountable. I meant you to ask me; sometimes one must run a risk, and I did not see another plan. I don't know if you are interested, but I was desperate. You see, for some time I felt I was getting tired and slack; to wander about with a dead-broke variety company is a tiring job. Mrs. Monroe is not an easy mistress, and I knew I could not keep my post at the Tecumseh. To rejoin Perry was my last chance. After all, his luck might turn and I'd get my pay."

"It's awkward," Lawrence agreed. "To some extent I entangled you, and as far as it is possible, I hope you will allow me to see you out."

Ruby gave him a level glance and a touch of color stained her skin.

"I mustn't claim to be fastidious, but I have not yet exploited strange young men. However, there is no use in talking, and if you are going to cook breakfast, I dare say I can help."