IN England there were several thousand acres which Keble would one day automatically take over. In Canada, creating his own estate, he could enjoy a satisfaction known only to the remotest of his ancestors. And as his wilderness became productive he acquired, atavistically, the attitude of a squire towards the people whose livelihood depended on him. He housed them comfortably; he listened to their claims and quarrels; he hired, discharged, and promoted with conscientious deliberation; and every so often he wrote letters to the provincial parliament about the state of the roads.
"Now it's time to amuse them," Louise had suggested. "People don't remember that you have installed expensive lighting plants for their benefit, but they never forget a lively party."
Thus was sown the seed of the New Year's dance which was to be held in the hall and reception rooms of the empty new house. Invitations were issued to every soul at Hillside, and a poster tacked to the bulletin board of the Valley post office announced that anybody who cared to make the journey would be welcome.
Preparations for this evening revived Louise's spirits as nothing had done in months. No detail was left to chance. Keble, held responsible for the music, endeavored for days to whip up the sluggish dance rhythms of the Valley bandmaster. "I've done everything but stand on my head and beat time with my feet," he reported in desperation, "and they still play the fox-trots as though they were dirges. Fortunately the Valley knows no better."
Miriam superintended the decorating of the rooms, aided by the "hands", who, like Birnam Wood, advanced across the white meadow obliterated under a mass of evergreens.
Only one contretemps occurred. A few days after Christmas Mrs. Boots, the minister's wife, accompanied by Mrs. Sweet, wife of the mail carrier, made her way to the Castle and warned Louise that her dance would conflict with the "watchnight service" at the Valley church.
New Year's fell on a Saturday, and to postpone the ball one night would involve dancing into the early hours of the Day of Rest. Keble had made arrangements to leave on Saturday for the east, on a short business trip to London. To hold the entertainment over until Monday would therefore be out of the question.
Louise had a characteristic inspiration. "Why not turn the library into a chapel!" she exclaimed, kindling at the prospect of an extra dramatic item on her program, "And pause at midnight for spiritual refreshments! I'll make everybody file in and kneel, Mr. Boots can say a prayer, and we'll all sing a little hymn—perfect!"
"And then go on dancing!" cried Mrs. Boots, in horror.
Mrs. Sweet reflected the horror on her friend's face. Then her disapproving glances traveled to a corner of the hall where some noisy girls were making paper chains and lanterns under the direction of Pearl Beatty.
Louise saw that she had given pain to the minister's wife. "Forgive me," she said impulsively. "I'm such a heathen! But if I were a Christian I'm sure it wouldn't disturb my conscience to dance and pray alternately; indeed each would gain by the contrast. What's the point of a religion that has to be kept in a cage?"
Mrs. Boots could have found answers if she had been given time to catch her breath, but before she had a word ready Louise was shaking her cordially by the hand and consigning her to a maid who was to take the ladies to the cottage and comfort them with tea and a sight of the baby before the mail sleigh returned to the Valley.
Whatever the concourse of the faithful at the watch-night service, there was never an instant's doubt as to the triumph of the forces of evil. From the moment when Keble and the wife of the Mayor of Witney, followed by Louise and the Mayor, stepped out at the head of a "grand march" until daybreak on the first of January when a winded band played a doleful version of "God Save the King", the festivities went forward with irresistible momentum. Keble made a speech, and then with true British fortitude danced with every female guest. Miriam, acting on orders, solicited dances from bashful cowboys, and once, in the grip of an honest lad who seemed to have mistaken her for a pump, she caught the eyes of Keble, in the grip of the new laundress, who was bolting towards a wall with him. And they hadn't dared to burst out laughing.
Louise darted in and out, setting everything on fire, making the dour laugh and the obstreperous subside, launching witty sallies and personal broadsides, robbing Pearl of her plethora of partners and leading them captive to the feet of girls who, after living for days on the exciting prospect, were now sitting against the wall with their poor red hands in their laps, enjoying it, vicariously.
For Louise the evening would have been perfect but for one disturbing remark which she overheard in the supper room. Minnie Swigger, whose brand new "Kelly green" satin had lost something of its splendor when contrasted with the simple black velvet in which Louise was sheathed, had watched Miriam pass by in company with Pearl Beatty and Jack Wallace, the proprietor of the Valley livery stable, and had vouchsafed her criticism in an ungrateful voice which carried to Louise's ears: "She's supposed to be his secretary. Either Weedge is blind, or she holds Miss Cread over his head as an excuse for her own little game. Nobody but her could get away with it."
Louise wheeled about and walked up to Minnie. "Get away with what?" she inquired evenly.
Minnie was too startled to reply for a moment, then with the defiance born of a bad conscience she said, "I don't care if you did hear me. It certainly looks funny, and that's not my fault. And Pearl Beatty there, as big as life! When you make a fuss over her decent fellows like Jack Wallace get the idea she's all right."
"Isn't she?"
"If you call that all right!"
"Being all right is minding your own business. You're a nice little thing, Minnie, but you don't. Not always. Don't try to mind mine; it's far too much for you."
What the natives thought was in itself a matter of indifference, but if "things," as Minnie alleged, did "look funny", it was just conceivable that the natives, for all their ignorance, saw the situation at Hillside in a clearer perspective than any of the actors. Keble's departure was, therefore, in a sense opportune.
Although it meant twenty-four hours without sleep, Louise and Miriam next morning insisted on accompanying Keble as far as the Valley. The four took breakfast, along with Dr. Bruneau, at the Canada House as Miriam's guests. They were weary, a little feverish, and inclined to be silent. Keble alone chatted with a volubility that betrayed his nervousness, his regret at the separation, and his excitement at the prospect of revisiting the home he had long ago abandoned. Louise was pale, and kept hiding in the depths of her fur coat. Miriam and the doctor sustained Keble's talk, but could not relax the tension. The stage was due in fifteen minutes.
Suddenly Louise jumped up from the table, which was being cleared by an ill-kempt waitress with whom Keble had danced a few hours previously. "I nearly forgot . . . the snapshots of Baby for his grandmother. They're still at the drug-store. I'll run over and get them."
"Let me go, dear," Keble had risen.
"We'll go together," Louise proposed, and Miriam noted an eager light in his eyes.
On the snowy road he tucked his glove under Louise's arm, and they picked their way across in silence to the drug-store.
When she had obtained the photographs and thrust them into an inner pocket of his coat, they returned more slowly towards the hotel.
"It will seem very strange," he said, "without you and the monkey. I can't tell you how disappointed I am at your refusing to come home with me."
"A change from us will do you good . . . You're to give my love and the monkey's to everybody, and tell them I'm looking forward very much to their visit."
Keble stopped in the middle of the deserted street, to face her with appealing eyes, and rested a hand on her arm. "Weedgie, that's all so pathetically trite, for you! Tell me, sans facons, why wouldn't you come, and why wouldn't you let me take the snapshots of you as well as the monkey?"
She was a little timid. This was the Louise with whom he had originally fallen love, and whom he remembered even through her noisiest performances. "Because I'm perverse. I want your people, if they are going to make my acquaintance at all, to get their first impression of me in my own setting." She couldn't confess that she would have been gratified if his people had been a few degrees more pressing in their invitations to her. "If they like me in spite of it, or even if they don't, I shall feel at least square with myself. But if they were to find me passable in their setting, then come out here and pooh-pooh the Valley, I should be—oh, hurt and angry."
Keble shook her gently. "Rubbish!"
"Mrs. Windrom thought me crude," she said, entirely without rancor. In her heart she thought Mrs. Windrom crude.
"Walter didn't," Keble retorted. "And Walter's little finger is worth more than his mother's eternal soul."
"Walter is a man, dear. Mrs. Boots doesn't like me, and her soul is worth thousands of little fingers,—or toes, rather." She was stroking his coon-skin coat.
"Toes, rather? . . . Oh, I see—Boots, toes."
Without warning he caught her in his arms and kissed her. "You preposterous person!" he laughed, a little abashed by his flare of passion.
They returned silently to the hotel porch, where they were joined by Miriam and the doctor. The stage had arrived and they were discussing the state of the mountain road. Keble climbed into the sleigh.
When everyone had said good-bye, and the horses had been set into motion, Keble turned to Miriam with a parting admonition regarding business letters, then added, "Keep an eye on Louise, now that she's come to life again. And do give the monkey an occasional piece of sugar."
The last injunction was a facetious allusion to a remark made some weeks previously by Mr. Brown, who had declared that Keble was spoiling the baby as much as his wife spoiled her circus horse.
When the stage had disappeared, Louise turned to Miriam with an air of being lost. "Isn't it strange," she said, "to think of going back alone! I never realized before how completely it's Keble that makes the ranch go round. I feel like la délaissée,—you know the girl in the ditty: qui pleure nuit et jour."
"Good gracious, Louise, don't tell me you're turning sentimental on top of everything."
"It would only be re-turning. I've always been sentimental under the surface. At least I used to be with my dolls. And for some reason I've felt like a little girl this morning."
A cloud passed over Miriam's sky. Lack of sleep and the dissipation of the last week would sufficiently account for it. Faint lines indicated the inner boundaries of her cheeks, and her eyes had lost their agate-like clarity.
"You look like a tired little girl," she said sadly. "I feel all of eighty."