Thurston of Orchard Valley Part 10

After running many kinds of machines in my time, I'm willing to own that this particular specimen defies me."

Thurston had stripped and fitted various intricate mining appliances, but he had never struggled with a bicycle. So, when Helen accepted his offer of a.s.sistance, he wheeled the machine out upon the lawn and proceeded light-heartedly to dismantle it, while the Savine brothers lounged in cane chairs, encouraging him over their cigars. The dismantling was comparatively simple, but when the time for rea.s.sembling came, Thurston, who found that certain cups could not by any legitimate means be induced to screw home into their places, was perforce obliged to rest the machine upon two chairs and wriggle underneath it, where he reclined upon his back with grimy oil dripping upon his forehead. Red in the face, he crawled out to breathe at intervals, and Helen made stern efforts to conceal her mingled alarm and merriment, when Thomas Savine said:

"Will you take long odds, Thurston, that you never make that invention of his Satanic Majesty run straight again?"

Mrs. Savine cautioned the operator about sunstroke and apoplexy. When Thomas Savine caught Helen's eye, both laughed outright, and Geoffrey, mistaking the reason, felt hurt; he determined to conquer the bicycle or remain beneath it all night. When at last he succeeded in putting the various parts together and straightened his aching back, he hoped that he did not look so disgusted, grimy and savage as he undoubtedly felt.

"You must really let it alone," said Helen. "The sun is very hot, and perhaps, you might be more successful after luncheon. I have noticed that when mending bicycles a rest and refreshment sometimes prove beneficial."

"That's so!" agreed Thomas Savine. "Young Harry was wont to tackle it on just those lines. He used up several of my best Cubanos and a bottle of claret each time, before he had finished; and then I was never convinced that the thing went any better."

"You must beware of ruining your health," interposed Mrs. Savine.

"Mending bicycles frequently leads to an acc.u.mulation of malevolent humors. Did I interrupt you, Mr. Thurston?"

"I was only going to say that it is nearly finished, and that I should not like to be vanquished by an affair of this kind," said Geoffrey with emphasis. "Would it hurt the machine if I stood it upon its head, Miss Savine?"

"Oh, no, and I am so grateful," Helen answered a.s.suringly, noticing guiltily that there were oil and red dust, besides many somber smears, upon the operator's face and jacket, while the skin was missing from several of his knuckles.

It was done at last, and Geoffrey sighed, while the rest of the party expressed surprise as well as admiration when the wheels revolved freely without click or groan. Julius Savine nodded, with more than casual approval, and Helen was gracious with her thanks.

"You look quite faint," observed Mrs. Savine. "It was the hot sun on your forehead, and the mental excitement. Such things are often followed by dangerous consequences, and you must take a dose of my elixir. Helen, dear, you know where to find the bottle."

Julius Savine was guilty of a slight gesture of impatience. His brother laughed, while Helen seemed anxious to slip away. Geoffrey answered:

"I hardly think one should get very mentally excited over a bicycle. I feel perfectly well, and only somewhat greasy."

"That is just one of the symptoms. Yes, you have hit it--greasy feeling!" broke in the amateur dispenser, who rarely relaxed her efforts until she had run down her victim. "Helen, why don't you hunt round for that bottle?"

"I mean greasy externally," explained Geoffrey in desperation, and again Thomas Savine chuckled, while Helen, who ground one little boot-heel into the gra.s.ses, deliberately turned away. Mrs. Savine, however, cheerfully departed to find the bottle, and soon returned with it and a wine gla.s.s. She filled the gla.s.s with an inky fluid which smelt unpleasant, and said to Geoffrey:

"You will be distinctly better the moment you have taken this!"

Geoffrey took the goblet, walked apart a few paces, and, making a wry face, heroically swallowed the bitter draught, after which Mrs. Savine, who beamed upon him, said:

"You feel quite differently, don't you?"

"Yes!" a.s.serted Geoffrey, truthfully, longing to add that he had felt perfectly well before and had now to make violent efforts to overcome his nausea.

His heroism had its reward, however, for when Helen returned from her wheel ride, she said: "I was really ashamed when my aunt insisted on doctoring you, but you must take it as a compliment, because she only prescribes for the people she takes a fancy to. I hope the dose was not particularly nasty?"

"Sorry for you, Thurston, from experience!" cried Thomas Savine. "When I see that bottle, I just vacate the locality. The taste isn't the worst of it by a long way."

That night Julius Savine called Geoffrey into his study, and, spreading a roll of plans before him, offered terms, which were gladly accepted, for the construction of portions of several works. Savine said: "I won't worry much about references. Your work speaks for itself, and the Roads and Trails surveyor has been talking about you. I'll take you, as you'll have to take me, on trust. I keep my eye on rising young men, and I have been watching you. Besides, the man who could master an obstinate bicycle the first time he wrestled with one must have some sense of his own, and it isn't everybody who would have swallowed that physic."

"I could not well avoid doing so," said Geoffrey, with a rueful smile.

"I feel I owe you an apology, but it's my sister-in-law's one weakness, and you have won her favor for the rest of your natural life," Savine returned. "You have had several distinguished fellow-sufferers, including provincial representatives and railroad directors, for to my horror she physicked a very famous one the last time he came. He did not suffer with your equanimity. In fact, he was almost uncivil, and said to me, 'If the secretary hadn't sent off your trestle contract, I should urge the board to reconsider it. Did you ask me here that your relatives might poison me, Savine?'"

Geoffrey laughed, and his host added:

"I want to talk over a good many details with you, and dare say you deserve a holiday--I know I do--so I shall retain you here for a week, at least. I take your consent for granted; it's really necessary."

CHAPTER IX

GEOFFREY STANDS FIRM

Geoffrey Thurston possessed a fine const.i.tution, and, in spite of Mrs.

Savine's treatment and her husband's predictions, rose refreshed and vigorous on the morning that followed his struggle with the bicycle.

It was a glorious morning, and when breakfast was over he enjoyed the unusual luxury of lounging under the shadow of a cedar on the lawn, where he breathed in the cool breeze which rippled the sparkling straits. Hitherto, he had risen with the sun to begin a day of toil and anxiety and this brief glimpse of a life of ease, with the pleasures of congenial companions.h.i.+p, was as an oasis in the desert to him.

"A few days will be as much as is good for me," he told himself with a sigh. "In the meantime hard work and short commons are considerably more appropriate, but I shall win the right to all these things some day, if my strength holds out."

His forehead wrinkled, his eyes contracted, and he stared straight before him, seeing neither the luminous green of the maples nor the whispering cedars, but far off in the misty future a golden possibility, which, if well worth winning, must be painfully earned.

His reverie was broken suddenly.

"Are your thoughts very serious this morning, Mr. Thurston?" a clear voice inquired, and the most alluring of the visions he had conjured up stood before him, losing nothing by the translation into material flesh. Helen Savine had halted under the cedar. In soft clinging draperies of white and cream, she was a charming reality.

"I'm afraid they were," Geoffrey answered, and Helen laughed musically.

"One would fancy that you took life too much in earnest," she said.

"It is fortunately impossible either to work or to pile up money forever, and a holiday is good for everybody. I am going down to White Rock Cove to see if my marine garden is as beautiful as it used to be.

Would you care to inspect it and carry this basket for me?"

Thurston showed his pleasure almost too openly. They chatted lightly on many subjects as they walked together, knee-deep, at times, among scarlet wine-berries, and the delicate green and ebony of maidenhair fern. The scents and essence of summer hung heavy in the air. Shafts of golden sunlight, piercing the somber canopy of the forest isles, touched, and, it seemed to Geoffrey, etherealized, his companion. The completeness of his enjoyment troubled the man, and presently he lapsed into silence. All this appeared too good, too pleasant, he feared, to last.

"Do you know that you have not answered my last question, nor spoken a word for the last ten minutes?" inquired Helen with a smile, at length.

"Have these woods no charm for you, or are you regretting the cigarbox beneath the cedar?"

Geoffrey turned towards her, and there was a momentary flash in his eyes as he answered:

"You must forgive me. Keen enjoyment often blunts the edge of speech, and I was wis.h.i.+ng that this walk through the cool, green stillness might last forever."

Afraid that he might have said too much, he ceased speaking abruptly, and then, after the fas.h.i.+on of one unskilled in tricks of speech, proceeded to remedy one blunder by committing another.

"It reminds me of the evenings at Graham's ranch. There can surely be no sunsets in the world to equal those that flame along the snows of British Columbia, and you will remember how, together, we watched them burn and fade."

It was an unfortunate reference, for now and then Helen had recalled that period with misgivings. Cut off from all a.s.sociation with persons of congenial tastes, she had not only found the man's society interesting, but she had allowed herself to sink into an indefinite state of companions.h.i.+p with him. In the mountain solitude, such camaraderie had seemed perfectly natural, but it was impossible under different circ.u.mstances. It was only on the last occasion that he had ever hinted at a continuance of this intimacy, but she had not forgotten the rash speech. Had the recollections been all upon her own side she might have permitted a partial renewal of the companions.h.i.+p, but she became forbidding at once when Geoffrey ventured to remind her of it.

"Yes," she said reflectively. "The sunsets were often impressive, but we are all of us unstable, and what pleases us at one time may well prove tiresome at another. If that experience were repeated I should very possibly grow sadly discontented at Graham's ranch."

Geoffrey was not only shrewd enough to comprehend that, if Miss Savine unbent during a summer holiday in the wilderness, it did not follow that she would always do so, but he felt that he deserved the rebuke.

He had, however, learned patience in Canada, and was content to bide his time, so he answered good-humoredly that such a result might well be possible. They were silent until they halted where the hillside fell sharply to the verge of a cliff. Far down below Thurston could see the white pebbles s.h.i.+ne through translucent water, and with professional instincts aroused, he dubiously surveyed the slope to the head of the crag.

Julius Savine, or somebody under his orders, had constructed a zig-zag pathway which wound down between small maples and cl.u.s.ters of wine-berries s.h.i.+mmering like blood-drops among their glossy leaves. In places the pathway was underpinned with timber against the side of an almost sheer descent, and he noticed that one could have dropped a vertical line from the fish-hawk, which hung poised a few feet outside one angle, into the water. They descended cautiously to the first sharp bend, and here Geoffrey turned around in advance of his companion. "Do you mind telling me how long it is since you or anybody else has used this path, Miss Savine?" he inquired.

"I came up this way last autumn, and think hardly any other person has used it since. But why do you ask?" was the reply.