The Protector

He had expected nothing when he spoke, but there was a responsive look in the lady’s face which hinted that he had made a friend; and as a matter of fact, he owed a good deal to his host.

“So ye are meaning to stay with Chisholm,” Nairn exclaimed. “We had Evelyn here two years ago and Clara said something about her coming out again.”

“I never heard of that, but it’s nine years since I saw Evelyn.”

“Then there’s a surprise in store for ye,” said Nairn. “I believe they’ve a bonny place, and there’s no doubt Chisholm will make ye welcome.”

The slight pause was expressive. It implied that Nairn, who had a somewhat biting humour, could furnish a reason for Chisholm’s hospitality if he desired, and Vane was confirmed in this supposition when he saw the warning look which his hostess cast at her husband.

“It’s likely that we’ll have Evelyn again in the fall,” she broke in. “It’s a very small world, Mr. Vane.”

“It’s a far cry from Vancouver to England,” said Vane. “How did you come to know Chisholm?”

Nairn answered him. “Our acquaintance began with business, and he’s a kind of connection of Colquhoun’s.”

Colquhoun was a man of some importance, who held a Crown appointment, and Vane felt inclined to wonder why Chisholm had not sent him a letter to him. Afterwards he guessed at the reason, which was not flattering to himself or his host. The latter and he chatted awhile on business topics, until there was a sound of voices below, and going down in company with Mrs. Nairn they found two or three new arrivals in the entrance hall. More came in, and when they sat down to supper, Vane was given a place beside a lady whom he had already met.

Jessie Horsfield was about his own age; tall and slight of figure, with regular features, a rather colourless face, and eyes of a cold, light blue. There was, however, something which Vane considered striking in her appearance, and he was gratified by her graciousness to him. Her brother sat almost opposite to them, a tall, spare man, with an expressionless countenance, except for the aggressive hardness in his eyes. Vane had noticed this look in them, and it had roused his dislike; but he had not observed it in those of Miss Horsfield, though it was present now and then. Nor did he realise that while she chatted, she was unobtrusively studying him; She had not favoured him with much notice when she was in his company on a previous occasion; he had been a man of no importance then.

“I suppose you are glad you have finished your work in the bush,” she remarked presently. “It must be nice to get back to civilisation.”

“Yes,” Vane assented; “it’s remarkably nice after living for nine years in the wilderness.”

A fresh dish was laid before him, and his companion smiled. “You didn’t get things of this kind among the pines.”

“No,” said Vane. “In fact, cookery is one of the chopper’s trials. You come back dead tired, and often very wet, to your lonely tent, and then there’s a fire to make and supper to get before you can rest. It happens now and then that you’re too played out to trouble, and go to sleep instead.”

“Dreadful,” said the girl, sympathetically. “But you have been in Vancouver before.”

“Except on the last occasion, I stayed down near the water-front. We were not provided with luxurious quarters or suppers of this kind then.”

Jessie nodded. “It’s romantic, and though you must be glad it’s over, there must be some satisfaction in feeling that you owe the change to your own efforts. Doesn’t it give you a feeling that in some degree you’re master of your fate? I fancy I should like that.”

It was subtle flattery, and there were reasons why it appealed to the man. He had wandered about the province in search of employment, besides being beaten down at many a small bargain by more fortunately situated men. Now, however, he had resolved that there should be a difference: instead of begging favours, he would dictate terms.

“I should have imagined it,” he said, in answer to her last remark, and he was right, for Jessie Horsfield was a clever woman, who loved power and influence. Then she abruptly changed the subject.

“It was you who located the Clermont mine, wasn’t it?” she asked. “I read something about it in the papers; I think they said it was copper.”

This vagueness was misleading, because her brother had given her a good deal of information about the mine.

“Yes,” said Vane, who was willing to take up any subject she suggested; “it’s copper, but there’s some silver combined with it. Of course, the value of any ore depends upon two things – the percentage of the metal, and the cost of extracting it.”

She waited with flattering interest, and he added: “In both respects, Clermont produce is promising.”

After that he did not remember what they talked about; but the time passed rapidly and he was surprised when Mrs. Nairn rose and the company drifted away by twos and threes towards the verandah. Left by himself a moment, he came upon Carroll sauntering down a corridor, and the latter stopped him.

“I’ve had a chat with Horsfield,” he remarked.

“Well?” said Vane.

“He may have merely meant to make himself agreeable, and he may have wished to extract information about you. If the latter was his object, he was not successful.”

“Ah!” said Vane thoughtfully. “Nairn’s straight, anyway, and to be relied upon. I like him and his wife.”

“So do I,” Carroll agreed.

He moved away, and a few moments later Horsfield joined Vane, who had strolled out on to the verandah.

“I don’t know if it’s a very suitable time to mention it, but are you any nearer a decision about that smelter yet?” he said. “Candidly, I’d like the contract.”

“No,” said Vane. “I can’t make up my mind, and I may postpone the matter indefinitely. It might prove more profitable to ship the ore out for reduction.”

Horsfield examined his cigar. “Of course, I can’t press you; but I may perhaps suggest that as we’ll have to work together in other matters, I might be able to give you a quid pro quo.”

“That occurred to me,” said Vane, “On the other hand, I don’t know how much importance I ought to attach to the consideration.”

His companion laughed with apparent good-humour. “Oh, well!” he answered, “I must wait until you’re ready.”

He strolled away, and presently joined his sister.

“How does Vane strike you?” he asked. “You seem to get on with him.”

"I’ve an idea that you won’t find him easy to influence, and the girl looked at her brother pointedly.

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” said Horsfield. “In spite of that, he’s a man worth cultivating.”

He passed on to speak to Nairn, and by and by Vane sat down beside Jessie in a corner of a big room. It was simply furnished, but spacious and lofty and looked out across the verandah. It was pleasant to lounge there and feel that Miss Horsfield had good-naturedly taken him under her wing, which seemed to describe her attitude.

“As Mrs. Nairn tells me you are going to England, I suppose we shall not see you in Vancouver for some months,” she said presently. “This city really isn’t a bad place to live in.”

Vane felt gratified. She implied that he would be an acquisition and included him among the number of her acquaintances. “I fancy I shall find it a particularly pleasant one,” he responded. “Indeed, I’m inclined to be sorry I’ve made arrangements to leave it very shortly.”

“That is pure good-nature,” his companion laughed.

She changed the subject, and Vane found her conversation entertaining. She said nothing of any consequence, but she knew how to make a glance or a changed inflection expressive. He was sorry when she left him, but she smiled at him before she moved away.

“If you and Mr. Carroll care to call, I am generally at home in the afternoon,” she said.

She crossed the room, and Vane, who joined Nairn, remained near him until he took his departure.

It was late the next afternoon, and an Empress liner from China and Japan had arrived an hour or two earlier, when he and Carroll reached the C.P.R. station. The Atlantic train was waiting, and an unusual number of passengers were hurrying about the cars. They were, for the most part, prosperous people, business men and tourists from England, going home that way, and when Vane found Mrs. Marvin and Kitty, he was once more conscious of a stirring of compassion. Kitty smiled at him diffidently.

“You have been so kind,” she began, and, pausing, added with a tremor in her voice: “But the tickets – ”

“Pshaw!” said Vane. “If it will ease your mind, you can send me what they cost after the first full house you draw.”

“How shall we address you?”

“Clermont Mineral Exploitation. I don’t want to think I’m going to lose sight of you.”

Kitty turned away from him a moment, and then looked back.

“I’m afraid you must make up your mind to that,” she said.

Vane could not remember his answer, though he afterwards tried; but just then an official strode along beside the cars calling to the passengers, and when a bell began tolling Vane hurried the girl and her companions on to a platform. Mrs. Marvin entered the car, Elsie held up her face to kiss him before she disappeared, and he and Kitty were left alone. She held out her hand, and a liquid gleam crept into her eyes.

“We can’t thank you properly,” she said. “Good-bye.”

“No,” Vane protested. “You mustn’t say that.”

“Yes,” said Kitty firmly. “It’s good-bye. You’ll be carried on in a moment.”

Vane gazed down at her, and afterwards wondered at what he did; but she looked so forlorn and desolate, and the pretty face was so close to him. Stooping swiftly, he kissed her, and had a thrilling fancy that she did not recoil; then the cars lurched forward, and he swung himself down.

CHAPTER V – THE OLD COUNTRY

A month had passed since Vane said good-bye to Kitty, when he and Carroll alighted one evening at a little station in the north of England.

The train went on, and Vane stood still, looking about him with a poignant recollection of how he had last waited on that platform, sick at heart, but gathering his youthful courage for the effort that he must make. It all came back to him; the dejection, the sense of loneliness; for he was then going out to the Western Dominion in which he had not a friend. Now he was returning prosperous and successful. But once again the feeling of loneliness was with him – most of those whom he had left behind had made a longer journey than his.

Then he noticed an elderly man in livery approaching, and held out his hand with a smile of pleasure.

“You haven’t changed a bit, Jim,” he said.

“A bit stiffer in the joints, and maybe a bit sourer,” was the answer; then the man’s wrinkled face relaxed. “I’m main glad to see thee, Mr. Wallace. Master wad have come, only he‘d t’ gan t’ Manchester suddenly.”

Vane helped him to place their baggage in the trap, and then, gathering up the reins, bade him sit behind. After half an hour’s ride through a country rolled in ridge and valley, Vane pulled up where a stile path led across a strip of meadow.

“You can drive round; we’ll be there before you,” he said to the groom as he got down.

Carroll and he crossed the meadow, and passing round a clump of larches, came suddenly into sight of an old grey house with a fir wood rolling down the hillside close behind it. The building was long and low, weather-worn and stained with lichens where the creepers and climbing roses left the stone exposed. The bottom row of mullioned windows opened upon a terrace, and in front of the latter ran a low wall with a mossy coping on which was placed urns bright with geraniums. It was pierced by an opening approached by shallow stairs on which a peacock stood, and between them and the two men stretched a sweep of lawn. A couple of minutes later a lady met them in the hall, and held out her hand to Vane effusively. She was middle-aged, and had once been handsome, Carroll thought, but there were wrinkles about her eyes, which had a hint of hardness in them.

“Welcome home, Wallace,” she said. “It should not be difficult to look upon the Dene as that – you were here so often once upon a time.”

“Thank you,” said Vane. “I felt tempted to ask Jim to drive me round by the Low Wood; I wanted to see the place again.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” and the lady smiled sympathetically. “The house is shut up and going to pieces. It would have been depressing to-night.”

Vane presented Carroll. Mrs. Chisholm’s manner was gracious; but for no particular reason Carroll wondered if she would have extended the same welcome to either, had his comrade not come back the discoverer of a mine.

“Tom was sorry he couldn’t wait to meet you, but he had to leave for Manchester on some urgent business,” she informed Vane, and looked round as a girl with disordered hair came up to them.

“This is Mabel,” she said. “I hardly think you will remember her.”

“I’ve carried her across the meadow,” smilingly remarked Vane.

The girl greeted the strangers demurely, and favoured Vane with a critical gaze. “So you’re Wallace Vane – who found the Clermont mine. Though I don’t remember you, I’ve heard a good deal about you lately. Very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Vane’s eyes twinkled as he shook hands with her. Her manner was quaintly formal, but he fancied there was a spice of mischief hidden behind it, and in the meanwhile Carroll, watching his hostess, surmised that her daughter’s remarks had not altogether pleased her. She, however, chatted with them until the man who had driven them appeared with their baggage, when they were shown their respective rooms.

Vane was the first to go down, and reaching the hall found nobody there, though a clatter of dishes and clink of silver suggested that a meal was being laid out in an adjoining room. Sitting down near the hearth, he looked about him.

His eyes rested on many objects that he recognised, but as his glance travelled to and fro it occurred to him that much of what he saw conveyed a hint that economy was needful.

By and by he heard a patter of feet, and looking up saw a girl descending the stairs in the fading stream of light. She was clad in trailing white, which gleamed against the dark oak and rustled softly as it flowed about a tall, finely-outlined and finely-poised figure. She had hair of dark brown with paler lights in its curling tendrils, gathered back from a neck that showed a faintly warmer whiteness, than the snowy fabric beneath it. It was, however, her face which seized Vane’s attention; the level brows, the quiet, deep brown eyes, the straight, cleanly-cut nose, and the subtle suggestion of steadfastness and pride which they all conveyed. He rose with a cry that had pleasure and eagerness in it: “Evelyn!”

She came down, moving lightly but, as he noticed, with a rhythmic grace, and laid a firm, cool hand in his.

“I’m glad to see you back, Wallace,” she said. “But you have changed.”

“I’m not sure that’s kind. In some ways you haven’t changed at all; I would have known you anywhere.”

“Nine years is a long time to remember any one.”

Vane had seen few women during that period; but he was not a fool, and he recognised that this was no occasion for an attempt at gallantry. There was nothing coquettish in Evelyn’s words, nor were they ironical. She had answered in the tranquil, matter-of-fact manner which, as he remembered, usually characterised her.

“It’s a little while since you landed, isn’t it?” she added.

“A week,” said Vane. “I’d some business in London, and then I went on to look up Lucy. She had just gone up to town, and I missed her. I shall go up again to see her as soon as she answers my note.”

“It won’t be necessary. She’s coming here for a fortnight very soon.”

“That’s kind,” said Vane. “Whom have I to thank for suggesting it?”

“Does it matter? It was a natural thing to ask your only sister – who is a friend of mine. We have plenty of room, and the place is quiet.”

“It used not to be. If I remember, your mother generally had it full part of the year.”

“Things have changed,” said Evelyn quietly.

Vane was baffled by something in her manner. Evelyn had never been effusive – that was not her way – but now, while she was cordial, she did not seem disposed to resume their acquaintance where it had been broken off. After all, he could hardly have expected this.

“Mabel is like you, as you used to be,” he said. “It struck me as soon as I saw her; but when she began to talk there was a difference.”

“Yes,” she said. “I think you’re right in both respects. Mopsy has the courage of her convictions. She’s an open rebel.”

There was no bitterness in her tone. Evelyn’s manner was never pointed, but Vane fancied that she had said a meaning thing, one that might explain what he found puzzling in her attitude, when he held the key to it. Then she went on: “Mopsy was dubious about you before you arrived, but I’m pleased to say she now seems reassured.”

Then Carroll came down, and a few moments later Mrs. Chisholm appeared and they went in to dinner in a low-ceilinged room. Nobody said anything of importance, but by and by Mabel turned to Vane.

“I suppose you have brought your pistols with you,” she said.

“I never owned one,” Vane informed her.

The girl looked at him with an excellent assumption of incredulity. “Then you have never shot anybody in British Columbia?”

Carroll laughed, as if this greatly pleased him, but Vane’s face was rather grave as he answered her.

“No,” he said. “I’m thankful I haven’t.”

“Then the West must be getting what the Archdeacon – he’s Flora’s husband, you know – calls decadent,” the girl retorted.

“She’s incorrigible,” Mrs. Chisholm interposed with a smile.

Carroll, who was sitting next to Mabel, leaned towards her confidentially. “In case you feel badly disappointed, I’ll let you into a secret,” he said. “When we feel real savage, we take the axe instead.”

Evelyn fancied that Vane winced at this, but Mabel looked openly regretful.

“Can either of you pick up a handkerchief going at full gallop on horseback?” she inquired.

“I’m sorry I can’t, and I’ve never seen Wallace do so,” Carroll answered, laughing, and Mrs. Chisholm shook her head at her daughter.

“Miss Clifford complained of your inattention to the study of English last quarter,” she said severely.

Mabel made no answer, though Vane thought it would have relieved her to grimace, and by and by the meal came to an end. Some time afterwards, Mrs. Chisholm rose from her seat in the drawing-room.

“We keep early hours at the Dene, but you will retire when you like,” she said. “As Tom is away, I had better tell you that you will find syphons and whisky in the smoking-room. I have had the lamp lighted.”

“Thank you,” Vane replied with a smile. “I’m afraid you have taken more trouble on our account than you need have done. Except on special occasions we have generally confined ourselves to strong green tea.”

Mabel looked at him in amazement. “Oh!” she said, “the West is certainly decadent. You should be here when the otter hounds are out. Why, it was only – ”

She broke off abruptly beneath her mother’s withering glance, and when they were left alone, Vane and Carroll strolled out upon the terrace, pipe in hand.

“I suppose you could put in a few weeks here,” Vane remarked.

“I could,” Carroll replied. “There’s an – atmosphere – about these old houses that appeals to me, perhaps because we have nothing like it in Canada. Besides, I think your friends mean to make things pleasant.”

“I’m glad you like them.”

Carroll understood that his comrade would not resent a candid expression of opinion. “I do; the girls in particular. They interest me. The younger one’s of a type that’s common in our country, though it’s generally given room for free development into something useful there. Mabel’s chaffing at the curb. It remains to be seen if she’ll kick, and hurt herself in doing so, presently.”

Vane, who remembered that Evelyn had said something to the same effect, had already discovered that Carroll possessed a keen insight in certain matters.

“And her sister?” he suggested.

“You won’t mind my saying that I’m inclined to be sorry for her? She has learned repression – been driven into line. That girl has character, but it’s being cramped and stunted. You live in walled-in compartments in this country.”

Vane strolled along the terrace thoughtfully. He was not offended, and he understood his companion’s attitude. Like other men of education and good upbringing, driven by unrest or disaster to the untrammelled life of the bush, Carroll had gained sympathy as well as knowledge. Facing facts candidly, he seldom indulged in decided protest against any of them. On the other hand, Vane was on occasion liable to outbreaks of indignation.

“Well,” said the latter at length, “I guess it’s time to go to bed.”

CHAPTER VI – UPON THE HEIGHTS

Vane rose early next morning, as he had been accustomed to do, and taking a towel with him made his way across dewy meadows and between tall hedgerows to the tarn. Stripping where the rabbit-cropped sward met the mossy boulders, he swam out joyously, breasting the little ripples which splashed and sparkled beneath the breeze that had got up with the sun. Coming back where the water lay in shadow beneath a larch wood, which as yet had not wholly lost its vivid green, he disturbed the paddling moor-hens and put up a mallard from a clump of swaying reeds. Then he dressed and turned homewards.

Scrambling over a limestone wall tufted thick with parsley fern, he noticed Mabel stooping down over an object which lay among the heather where a rough cartroad approached a wooden bridge. On joining her, he saw that it was a finely-built canoe with a hole in one bilge she was examining. She looked up at him ruefully, as she said, “Very sad, isn’t it? That stupid Little did it with his clumsy cart.”

“I think it could be mended,” Vane replied.

“Old Beavan – he’s the wheelwright – said it couldn’t, and dad said I could hardly expect him to send the canoe back to Kingston. He bought it for me at an exhibition.” Then a thought seemed to strike her. “Perhaps you had something to do with canoes in Canada?”

“I used to pole one loaded with provisions up a river, and carry the lot round several falls. You’re fond of paddling.”

“I love it. I used to row the fishing-punt, but it’s too old to be safe, and now the canoe’s smashed I can’t go out.”

“Well,” said Vane, “we’ll walk across and see what we can find in Beavan’s shop.”

They crossed the heath to a tiny hamlet nestling in a hollow of a limestone crag. There Vane made friends with the wheelwright, who regarded him dubiously at first, and obtained a piece of larch board from him. The grizzled North countryman watched him closely as he set a plane, which is a delicate operation, and then raised no objection when Vane made use of his work bench. After that, Vane, who had sawn up the board, borrowed a few tools and copper nails, and he and Mabel went back to the canoe. On the way she glanced at him curiously.

“I wasn’t sure old Beavan would let you have the things,” she remarked. “It isn’t often he’ll lend even a hammer, but he seemed to take to you; I think it was the way you handled his plane.”

“It’s strange what little things win some people’s good opinion, isn’t it?”

“Oh! don’t,” she exclaimed. “That’s how the Archdeacon talks. I thought you were different.”

The man acquiesced in the rebuke, and after an hour’s labour at the canoe, scraped the red lead he had used off his hands, and sat down beside the craft. By and by he became conscious that his companion was regarding him with what seemed to be approval.

“I really think you’ll do, and we’ll get on,” she informed him. “If you had been the wrong kind you would have worried about your red hands. Still, you could have rubbed them on the heather, instead of on your socks.”

“I might have thought of that,” Vane agreed. “But, you see, I’ve been accustomed to wearing old clothes. Anyway, you’ll be able to launch the canoe as soon as the joint’s dry.”

“There’s one thing I should have told you,” the girl replied. “Dad would have sent the canoe away to be mended if it hadn’t been so far. He’s very good when things don’t ruffle him; but he hasn’t been fortunate lately. The lead mine takes a good deal of money.”