The Protector Part 10

"It's Maggie Bell's," she explained demurely. "Her mother's things were rather large. Adam is away at a sheep auction, and they have only the trap he went in, but they expect him back in an hour or so."

"Then we must wait," said Vane. "Worse misfortunes have befallen me."

They made an excellent meal, and then Vane drew up a wicker chair to the fire for Evelyn and sat down opposite to her. Outside, the rain dripped from the mossy flagstone eaves, and the song of the river stole in monotonous cadence into the room.

Evelyn was silent and Vane said nothing for a while. He had been in the air all day, and though this was nothing new to him, he was content to sit lazily still and leave the opening of conversation to his companion.

In the meanwhile it was pleasant to glance towards her now and then. The pale-tinted dress became her, and he felt that the room would have looked less cheerful had she been away.

The effect she had on him was difficult to a.n.a.lyse, though he lazily tried. She appealed to him by the grace of her carriage, the poise of her head, her delicate colouring, and the changing lights in her eyes; but behind these points something stronger and deeper was expressed through them. He fancied she possessed qualities he had not hitherto encountered, which would become more precious when they were fully understood. He thought of her as wholesome in mind; one who sought for the best; but she was also endowed with an ethereal something that could not be defined.

Then a simile struck him: she was like the snow that towers high into the empyrean in British Columbia; in which he was wrong, for there was warm human pa.s.sion in the girl, though it was sleeping yet. By and by, he told himself, he was getting absurdly sentimental, and he instinctively fumbled for his pipe and stopped. Evelyn noticed this and smiled.

"You needn't hesitate," she said. "The Dene is redolent of cigars, and Gerald smokes everywhere when he is at home."

"Is he likely to turn up?" Vane asked. "It's ever so long since I've seen him."

"I'm afraid not. In fact, Gerald's rather under a cloud just now. I may as well tell you this, because you are sure to hear of it sooner or later. He has been extravagant, and, as he a.s.sures us, extraordinarily unlucky."

"Stocks and shares?" suggested Vane, who was acquainted with some of the family tendencies.

Evelyn hesitated a moment. "That would have been more readily forgiven him. I believe he has speculated on the turf as well."

Vane was surprised, since he understood that Gerald Chisholm was a barrister, and betting on the turf was not an amus.e.m.e.nt he would have a.s.sociated with that profession.

"Then," he said thoughtfully, "I must run up and see him later on."

Evelyn felt sorry she had spoken. Gerald needed help, which his father was not in a position to offer. She was not censorious of other people's faults; but it was impossible to be blind to some aspects of her brother's character, and she would have preferred that Vane should not meet Gerald while the latter was embarra.s.sed by financial difficulties.

She changed the subject.

"Several of the things you told me about your life in Canada interested me," she said. "It must have been bracing to feel that you depended upon your own efforts and stood on your own feet, free from all the hampering customs that are common here."

"The position has its disadvantages. You have no family influence behind you; nothing to fall back upon. If you can't make good your footing you must go down. It's curious that just before I came over here a lady I met in Vancouver expressed an opinion very like yours. She said it must be pleasant to feel that one was, to some extent at least, master of one's fate."

"Then she merely explained my meaning more clearly than I have done."

"One could have imagined that she has everything she could reasonably wish for. If I'm not transgressing, so have you. It's strange you should both harbour the same idea."

"I don't think it's uncommon among young women nowadays. There's a grandeur in the thought that one's fate lies in the hands of the high unseen powers; but to allow one's life to be moulded by--one's neighbours' prejudices and preconceptions is a different matter.

Besides, if unrest and human striving were sent, was it only that they should be repressed?"

Vane sat silent a moment or two. He had noticed the brief pause and fancied that she had changed one of the words that followed it. He did not think it was her neighbours' opinions she most chafed against.

"It's not a point I've been concerned about," he replied at length. "In a general way, I did what I wanted."

"Which is a privilege that is denied to us." Evelyn spoke without bitterness, and added a moment later: "What do women who are left to their own resources do in Western Canada?"

"Some of them marry; I suppose that's the most natural thing," said Vane with an air of reflection that amused her. "Anyway, they have plenty of opportunities. There's a preponderating number of unattached young men in the newly-opened parts of the Dominion."

"Things are different here, or perhaps we want more than they do across the Atlantic," said Evelyn. "What becomes of the others?"

"They wait in the hotels; learn stenography and typewriting, and go into offices and stores."

"And earn just enough to live upon meagrely? If their wages are high, they must pay out more. That follows, doesn't it?"

"To some extent."

"Is there nothing better open to them?"

"No," said Vane thoughtfully; "not unless they're trained for it and become specialised. That implies peculiar abilities and a systematic education with one end in view: you can't enter the arena to fight for the higher prizes unless you're properly armed. The easiest way for a woman to acquire power and influence is by a judicious marriage. No doubt it's the same here."

"It is," replied Evelyn smiling. "A man is more fortunately situated."

"I suppose he is. If he's poor, he's rather walled in, too; but he breaks through now and then. In the newer countries he gets an opportunity."

Vane abstractedly examined his pipe, which he had not lighted yet. It was clear that the girl was dissatisfied with her surroundings, and had for some reason temporarily relaxed the restraint she generally laid upon herself; but he felt that if she were wise, she would force herself to be content. She was of too fine a fibre to plunge into the struggle that many women had to wage, and though he did not doubt her courage, she had not been trained for it. He had noticed that among men it was the cruder and less developed organisations that proved hardiest in adverse situations; one needed a strain of primitive vigour. There was, it seemed, only one means of release for her, and that was a happy marriage. But a marriage could not be happy unless the suitor was all that she desired, and Evelyn would be fastidious, though her family would, no doubt, only look for wealth and station. He imagined that this was where the trouble lay. He would wait and keep his eyes open. Shortly after he arrived at this decision, there was a rattle of wheels outside and the landlord, who came in, greeted him with rude cordiality. In another minute or two Vane handed Evelyn into the gig, and Bill drove them home through the rain.

CHAPTER VIII

LUCY VANE.

Bright suns.h.i.+ne 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 gra.s.s, 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."