The Protector

CHAPTER VIII – LUCY VANE

Bright sunshine streamed down out of a cloudless sky when Vane stood talking with his sister upon the terrace in front of the Dene one afternoon shortly after his ascent of the Pike in Evelyn’s company. He leaned against the low wall, frowning, for Lucy had hitherto avoided a discussion of the subject which occupied their attention, and now, as he would have said, he could not make her listen to reason.

She stood in front of him, with the point of her parasol pressed firmly into the gravel, and her lips set, though there was a smile which suggested forbearance in her eyes. Lucy was tall and spare of figure; a year younger than her brother, and of somewhat determined character. She earned her living in a northern manufacturing town by lecturing on domestic economy for the public authorities. Vane understood that she also took part in Suffrage propaganda. She had a thin, forceful face, which was seldom characterised by repose.

“After all,” Vane broke out, “what I’ve been urging is a very natural thing. I don’t like to think of your being forced to work as you are doing, and I’ve tried to show that it wouldn’t cost me any self-denial to make you an allowance. There’s no reason why you should be at the beck and call of those committees any longer.”

Lucy’s smile grew plainer. “I don’t think that describes my position very accurately.”

“It’s possible,” Vane agreed with a trace of dryness. “No doubt you insist on the chairman or lady president giving way to you; but that doesn’t affect the question. You have to work, anyway.”

“But I like it, and it keeps me in some degree of comfort.”

The man turned half impatiently and glanced about him. The front of the old grey house was flooded with light, and the lawn below the terrace glowed luminously green. The shadows of the hollies and cypresses were thin and unsubstantial, but where a beach overarched the grass, Evelyn and Mrs. Chisholm, attired in light draperies, reclined in basket chairs. Carroll, who wore thin grey tweed, stood close by, talking to Mabel, and Chisholm sat a little apart upon a bench with a newspaper in his hand. He looked half asleep, and a languorous, stillness pervaded the whole scene.

“Wouldn’t you like this kind of thing as well?” he asked. “Of course, I mean what it implies – the power to take life easily and get as much enjoyment as possible out of it. It wouldn’t be difficult, if you would only take what I’d be glad to give you.” He indicated the languid figures in the foreground. “You could, for instance, spend your time among folks like these; and, after all, it’s what you were meant to do.”

“Well,” said Lucy, “I believe I’m more at home with the other kind of folks – those in poverty, squalor, and ignorance. I’ve an idea they’ve a stronger claim on me, but that’s not a point I can urge. The fact is, I’ve chosen my career, and there are practical reasons why I shouldn’t abandon it. I had a good deal of trouble in getting a footing, and if I fell out now, it would be harder still to take my place in the ranks again.”

“But you wouldn’t require to do so.”

“I can’t be sure. I don’t want to hurt you; but, after all, your success was sudden, and one understands that it isn’t wise to depend upon an income derived from mining properties.”

“None of you ever did believe in me.”

“I suppose there’s some truth in that; you really did give us some trouble. Somehow you were different – you wouldn’t fit in – though I believe the same thing applied to me, for that matter.”

“And now you don’t expect my prosperity to last?”

The girl hesitated, but she was candid by nature. “Perhaps I had better answer. You have it in you to work determinedly and, when it’s necessary, to do things that men with less courage would shrink from; but I doubt if yours is the temperament that leads to success. You haven’t the huckster’s instincts; you’re not cold-blooded enough. You wouldn’t cajole your friends or truckle to your enemies.”

“If I adopted the latter course, it would be very much against the grain,” Vane confessed.

Lucy laughed. “Well,” she said, “I mean to go on earning my living; but you can take me up to London for a few days and buy me some hats and things. Then I don’t mind you giving something to the Emancipation Society.”

“I don’t know if I believe in emancipation or not, but you can have ten guineas.”

“Thank you,” said Lucy, glancing round towards Carroll, who was approaching them with Mabel. “I’ll give you a piece of advice – stick to that man. He’s cooler and less headstrong than you are; he’ll prove a useful friend.”

Carroll came up just then. “What are you two talking about?” he asked. “You look animated.”

“Wallace has just promised me ten guineas to assist the movement for the emancipation of women,” Lucy answered pointedly. “I may mention that our society’s efforts are sadly restricted by the lack of funds.”

“He’s now and then a little inconsequential in his generosity,” Carroll rejoined. “I didn’t know he was interested in that kind of thing, but as I don’t like to be outdone by my partner, I’ll subscribe the same.”

“Thanks,” said Lucy, who made an entry in a pocket-book in a businesslike manner.

They strolled along the terrace together, and as they went down the steps to the lawn, Carroll inquired with a smile, “Have you tackled Chisholm yet?”

“I would have done so had it appeared likely to have been of any use, but I never waste powder and shot,” Lucy replied. “A man of his restricted views would sooner subscribe handsomely to put us down.”

Carroll turned to his comrade. “Are you regretting the ten guineas? You don’t look pleased.”

“No,” said Vane; “the fact is, I wanted to do something which wasn’t allowed. I’ve met with the same disillusionment here as I did in British Columbia.”

Lucy looked up at her brother. “Did you attempt to give somebody money there?”

“I did,” said Vane shortly. “It’s not worth discussing, and anyway she wouldn’t listen to me.”

They strolled on, Vane frowning, while Carroll, who had seen signs of suppressed interest in Lucy’s face, smiled unobserved. Neither he nor the others had noticed Mabel, who was following them.

They joined the rest, and some time afterwards, Mrs. Chisholm addressed Carroll, who was lying back in a deep chair with his eyes, which were half closed, turned in Lucy’s direction.

“Are you asleep, or thinking hard?” she asked.

“Not more than half asleep,” Carroll protested. “I was trying to remember ‘A Dream of Fair Women.’ It struck me as a suitable occupation for a drowsy summer afternoon in a place like this, but I must confess that it was Miss Vane who put it into my head. She reminded me of one or two of the heroines not long ago, when she was championing the cause of the suffragist.”

“You mustn’t imagine that English women in general sympathise with her, or that such ideas are popular at the Dene,” Mrs. Chisholm rejoined.

Carroll smiled reassuringly. “I wouldn’t have imagined the latter for a moment. But, as I said, on an afternoon of this kind one can be excused for indulging in romantic fancies; and don’t you see what brought those old-time heroines into my mind – I mean the elusive resemblance to their latter-day prototype?”

Mrs. Chisholm looked puzzled. “No,” she declared. “One of them was Greek, another early English, and the finest of all was the Hebrew maid. As they couldn’t even have been like one another, how could they have collectively borne a resemblance to anybody else?”

“That’s logical, on the surface. To digress, why do you most admire Jephthah’s daughter, the gentle Gileadite?”

His hostess affected surprise. “Isn’t it evident, when one remembers her patient sacrifice, her fine sense of family honour?”

Carroll felt that this was much the kind of sentiment one could have expected from her; and he did her justice in believing that it was genuine and that she was capable of acting up to her convictions. His glance rested on Vane for a moment, and the latter was startled as he guessed his comrade’s thought.

Evelyn sat near him, reclining languidly in a wicker chair. She had been silent and, now her face was in repose, the signs of reserve and repression were plainer than ever. There was, however, pride in it, and he felt that she was endowed with a keener and finer sense of family honour than her mother. Her brother’s career was threatened by the results of his own imprudence, and though her father could hardly be compared with the Gileadite warrior, there was, Vane imagined, a disturbing similarity between the two cases. It was unpleasant to contemplate the possibility of this girl’s being called upon to bear the cost of her relations’ misfortunes or follies. Carroll, however, looked across at Lucy with a smile.

“You don’t agree with Mrs. Chisholm?” he suggested.

“No,” said Lucy firmly. “Leaving the instance in question out, there are too many people who transgress and then expect somebody else – a woman as a rule – to serve as a sacrifice.”

“I don’t agree, either,” Mabel broke in. “I’d sooner have been Cleopatra or Joan or Arc – only she was burned, poor thing.”

“That was only what she might have expected. An unpleasant fate generally overtakes people who go about disturbing things,” Mrs. Chisholm said severely.

The speech was characteristic, and the others smiled. It would have astonished them had Mrs. Chisholm sympathised with the rebel idealist whose beckoning visions led to the clash of arms. Then Vane turned to his comrade.

“Aren’t you getting off the track?” he asked. “I don’t see the drift of your previous remarks.”

“Well,” said Carroll, with an air of reflection, “there must be, I think, a certain distinctive stamp upon those who belong to the leader type; I mean the folks who are capable of doing striking and heroic things. Apart from this, I’ve been studying you English – and it has struck me that there’s occasionally something imperious, or rather imperial, in the faces of your women in the most northern counties. I can’t define the thing, but it’s there – in the line of nose, the mouth, and I think most marked in the brows. It’s not Saxon, or Norse, or Danish. I’d sooner call it Roman.”

Vane was slightly astonished. He had seen that look in Evelyn’s face, and now, for the first time, he recognised it in his sister’s.

“I wonder if you have hit it,” he said with a laugh. “You can reach the Wall from here in a day’s ride.”

“The Wall?”

“The Roman Wall; Hadrian’s Wall. I believe one authority states they had a garrison of 100,000 men to keep it.”

Chisholm joined the group. He was a tall, rather florid-faced man with a formal manner, dressed immaculately in creaseless clothes.

“The point Carroll raises is interesting,” he remarked. “While I don’t know how long it takes for a strain to die out, there must have been a large civil population living near the wall, and we know that the characteristics of the Teutonic peoples, who followed the Romans, still remain.”

Nobody else had any comment to make, and when by and by the group broke up, Evelyn was left alone for a few minutes with Mabel.

“Gerald should have been sent to Canada instead of Oxford,” she said. “Then he might have got as rich as Wallace Vane and Mr. Carroll.”

“What makes you think they’re rich?” Evelyn asked with reproof in her tone.

“Oh!” said Mabel, “we all knew they were rich before they came, and they were giving Lucy guineas for the suffragists an hour ago. They must have a good deal of money to waste it like that. Besides, I think Wallace wanted her to take some more, and he seemed quite vexed when he said he’d tried to give money to somebody else in Canada, who wouldn’t have it. As he said – she – it must have been a woman – but I don’t think he meant to mention that. It slipped out.”

“You had no right to listen,” Evelyn retorted severely; but the information sank into her mind, and she afterwards remembered it.

CHAPTER IX – CHISHOLM PROVES AMENABLE

Vane spent a month at the Dene with quiet satisfaction, and when at last he left for London and Paris he gladly promised to come back for another few weeks before he sailed for Canada. He stayed some time in Paris, because Carroll insisted on it, but it was with eagerness he went north again. For one reason – and he laid some stress upon this – he longed for the moorland air and the rugged fells, though he also admitted that Evelyn’s society enhanced their charm for him.

At last, shortly before setting out on the journey, he took himself to task and endeavoured to determine what his feelings towards her were, but he signally failed to elucidate the point. It was only clear that he was more contented in her presence, and that, apart from her physical comeliness, she had a stimulating effect upon his mental faculties, although so far as he could remember she seldom said anything remarkable. Then he wondered how she regarded him, and to this question he could find no answer. For the most part there was a reserve he found more piquant than deterrent about her, and he was conscious that while willing to talk with him freely she was still holding him off at arm’s length.

On the whole, he could not be absolutely sure that he desired to get much nearer. Though he failed to admit this clearly, his attitude was largely one of respectful admiration with a vein of compassion in it. Evelyn was unhappy, and out of harmony with her relatives, which he could understand more readily because their ideas often jarred on him.

He had been back at the Dene a fortnight, when one morning he walked out of the hamlet where the wheelwright’s shop was with a telegram in his hand. Sitting down on the wall of a bridge close by, he turned to Carroll, who had accompanied him.

“I think you have Nairn’s code in your wallet,” he said. “We’ll decipher the thing.”

Carroll laid the message upon a smooth stone and set to work with a pencil.

“‘Situation highly satisfactory,’” he read aloud, and commented: “It must be, if Nairn paid for another word; ‘highly’s’ not in the code.” Then he went on with the deciphering: “‘Result of reduction exceeds anticipations. Stock, 30 premium. Your presence not immediately required.’”

“That’s distinctly encouraging,” said Vane. “Now they’re getting farther in, the ore must be carrying more silver.”

“It’s fortunate. I ran through the bank account last night, and you have spent a lot of money. It confirms my opinion that you have expensive friends.”

Vane frowned at this, but Carroll continued undeterred: “You want pulling up after the way you have been indulging in a reckless extravagance, which I feel compelled to point out is new to you. The cheque drawn in favour of Gerald Chisholm rather astonished me. Have you said anything about it to his relatives?”

“I haven’t,” Vane answered shortly.

“Then, judging by the little I saw of him, I should consider it most unlikely that he has made any allusion to the matter. The next cheque was more surprising; I mean the one you gave his father.”

“They were both loans.”

“Have you any expectation of getting the money back?”

“What has that to do with you?”

Carroll spread out his hands. “Only this – I think you need looking after. We can’t stay here indefinitely. Hadn’t you better get back to Vancouver before your English friends ruin you?”

“I’ll go in three or four weeks, not before.”

Carroll sat silent a minute or two; and then he looked his companion squarely in the face.

“Is it your intention to marry Evelyn Chisholm?”

“I don’t know what has put that into your mind.”

“I should be astonished if it hadn’t suggested itself to her family,” Carroll retorted.

“I’m far from sure it’s an idea they’d entertain with any great favour. For one thing, I can’t live here.”

“Try them, and see. Show them Nairn’s telegram when you mention the matter.”

Vane swung himself down from the wall.

“It’s very possible that I may do so,” he informed his comrade. “But we’ll get along.”

His heart beat more rapidly than usual as they turned back towards the house, but he was perfectly composed when, some little time later, he sat down beside Chisholm, who was lounging away the morning on the lawn.

“I’ve been across to the village for a telegram I expected,” he announced. “The news is encouraging.”

He read it to Chisholm, who had determined on the line he meant to follow.

“You’re a fortunate man,” he said. “There’s probably no reasonable wish that you can’t gratify.”

“There are things one can’t buy with dollars,” Vane replied.

“That is very true. They’re often the most valuable. On the other hand, some of them may now and then be had for the asking. Besides, when one has a sanguine temperament, it’s difficult to believe that anything one sets one’s heart upon is quite unattainable.”

Vane wondered if he had been given a hint. Chisholm’s manner was suggestive and Carroll’s remarks had had an effect on him. He sat silent, and Chisholm spoke again: “If I were in your place, I should feel I had all I could desire within my reach.”

Vane was becoming sure that his comrade had been right. Chisholm would not have harped upon the same idea unless he had intended to convey some particular meaning, but the man’s methods roused Vane’s dislike. He could face opposition, and he would sooner have been discouraged than judiciously prompted.

“Then if I offered myself as a suitor for Evelyn, you would not think me presumptuous?” he said.

Chisholm was somewhat surprised at his abruptness, but he smiled reassuringly.

“No,” he said; “I can’t see why I should do so. You are in a position to maintain a wife in comfort, and I don’t think anybody could take exception to your character.” He paused a moment. “I suppose you have some idea of how Evelyn regards you?”

“I haven’t the faintest notion,” Vane confessed. “That’s the trouble.”

“Would you like me to mention the matter?”

“No,” said Vane decidedly. “In fact, I must ask you not to do anything of the kind. I only wished to make sure of your good will, and now I’m satisfied on that point, I’d sooner wait, and speak – when it seems judicious.”

Chisholm nodded. “Yes,” he said indulgently, “I dare say that would be wisest.”

Vane, who thanked him, waited. He fancied that the transaction, which seemed the best name for it, was not complete yet; but he meant to leave what should follow to his companion. He would not help the man.

“There’s a matter which had better be mentioned now, distasteful as it is,” Chisholm said at length. “I can settle nothing upon Evelyn. As you must have guessed, my affairs are in a far from promising state. Indeed, I’m afraid I may have to ask your indulgence when the loan falls due, and I don’t mind confessing that the prospect of Evelyn’s making what I think is a suitable marriage is a relief to me.”

Vane’s feelings were somewhat mixed, but contempt figured prominently among them. He could find no fault with Chisholm’s desire to safeguard his daughter’s future, but he was convinced that the man looked for more than this. He felt he had been favoured with a delicate hint, to which his companion expected an answer.

“Well,” he said curtly, “you need not be concerned about the loan. To go a little farther, I should naturally take an interest in the welfare of my wife’s relatives. I don’t think I can say anything more in the meanwhile.”

He knew that he might have spoken more plainly without offence, when he saw Chisholm’s smile, but the latter looked satisfied.

“Those are the views I expected you to hold,” he declared. “I believe Mrs. Chisholm will share my gratification if you find Evelyn disposed to listen to you.”

Vane left him shortly afterwards with a sense of shame. He felt he had bought the girl and that, if she ever heard of it, she would find it hard to forgive him for the course he had taken. By and by he met Carroll, who looked at him inquiringly.

“I’ve had a talk with Chisholm,” said Vane. “It has upset my temper – I feel mean. There’s no doubt that you were right.”

Carroll smiled and showed that he could guess what was in his comrade’s mind. “I wouldn’t worry too much about the thing,” he replied. “The girl probably understands the situation. It’s not pleasant, but I expect she’s more or less resigned to it. She can’t help herself.”

Vane gazed at him with anger. “Does that make it any better? Is it any comfort to me?”

“Take her out of it. If she has any liking for you, she’ll thank you for doing so afterwards.”

Vane, who made no answer, strode away, and nobody saw any more of him for an hour or two.

He had her father’s consent, but he felt he could not plead his cause with Evelyn just then. With her parents on his side, she was at a disadvantage, and he shrank from the thought that she might be forced upon him against her will. This was not what he desired, and she might hate him for it afterwards. She was very alluring; there had been signs of an unusual gentleness in her manner, but he wanted time to win her favour, aided only by such gifts as he had been endowed with. It cost him a determined effort, but he made up his mind to wait.

CHAPTER X – WITH THE OTTER HOUNDS

A week or two had slipped away since Vane’s eventful interview, when he lounged upon the terrace after breakfast chatting with Carroll.

Suddenly a long, faint howl came up the valley, and was answered by another in a deeper note. Then a confused swelling clamour, which slightly resembled the sound of chiming bells, broke out, softened by the distance. Carroll stopped and listened.

“What in the name of wonder is that?” he asked. “The first of it reminded me of a coyote howling, but the rest’s more like the noise the timber wolves make in the bush at night.”

“You haven’t made a bad shot,” Vane laughed. “It’s a pack of otter hounds hot upon the scent.”

The sound ceased as suddenly as it had begun, but a few moments later Mabel came running towards the men.

“I knew the hounds met at Patten Brig, but Jim was sure they’d go down-stream,” she cried breathlessly. “They’re coming up, and I think they’re at the pool below the village. Get two poles – you’ll find some in the tool-shed – and come along at once.”

She clambered into the house through a window, calling for Evelyn, and Carroll smiled.

“We have our orders,” he remarked. “I suppose we’d better go.”

“It’s one of the popular sports up here,” said Vane. “You may as well see it.”

They set out a few minutes later, accompanied by Evelyn, while Mabel hurried on in front and reproached them for their tardiness.

At length, after crossing several wet fields, they came into a rushy meadow on the edge of the river, which spread out into a wide pool, fringed with alders which had not yet lost their leaves and the barer withes of osiers. There was a swift stream at the head of it, and a long rippling shallow at the tail, and a very mixed company was scattered along the bank and in the water.

A red-coated man with whip and horn stood in the tail outflow, and three or four more with poles in their hands were spread out across the stream behind him. These and one or two in the head stream appeared by their dress to belong to the hunt, but the rest, among whom were a few women, were attired in everyday garments and of different walks in life: artisans, labourers, people of leisure, and a belated tourist or two.

Three or four big hounds were swimming aimlessly up and down the pool; a dozen more or thereabouts trotted to and fro along the water’s edge, stopping to sniff and give tongue in an uncertain manner now and then; but there was no sign of an otter.

Carroll looked round with a smile when his companions stopped. “There’ll be very little work done in this neighbourhood to-day,” he said. “I’d no idea there were so many folks in the valley with time to spare. The only thing that’s missing is the beast they’re after.”

“An otter is an almost invisible creature,” Evelyn explained, “You very seldom see one, unless it’s hard pressed by the dogs. There are a good many in the river, but even the trout fishers, who are about at sunrise in the hot weather and wade in the dusk, rarely come across them. Are you going to take a share in the hunt?”

“No,” replied Carroll, glancing humorously at his pole. “I don’t know what I brought this thing for, unless it was because Mopsy sent me for it. I’d sooner stay and watch with you. Splashing through a river after a little beast which I don’t suppose they’d let an outsider kill doesn’t interest me, and I don’t see why I should want to kill it, anyway. Some of you English people have sporting ideas I can’t understand. I struck a young man the other day – a well-educated man by the look of him – who was spending the afternoon happily with a ferret by a corn stack, killing rats with a club. He seemed uncommonly pleased with himself because he’d got four of them.”