CHAPTER THREE
FRANCES paid no heed to Campbell's last words, scarcely heard them, in fact. Her mind was too fully occupied with the thought of a cabin on Corona—a little home among the hills. The idea was so attractive to her, the mental picture it presented so pleasing, that she resolved to see Garvin about the matter early the next morning; but upon inquiry as to the best time to find him at home, she learned that he was usually early at his mines or mills and would probably be occupied at one place or another until late in the afternoon, so that it was nearing sunset on the following day before she started on her mission.
Leaving the Thorn House, she walked down Sunshine Avenue, the poetic name of the mountain road which served also as the one street of the straggling village. After ceasing to be an avenue the road continued for about a quarter of a mile through lush brown meadows, and ran across a little bridge over a creek which separated the higher flat from the waste land.
In spite of her eagerness to secure a cabin on Corona, Frances paused on the bridge nevertheless and, leaning upon the rail, watched the fast flowing waters of the mountain stream. So clear was it that she could count the pebbles in the narrow channel where the water ran. On either side of this rippling tide were several feet of ice, thin and crinkled, and jutting out over the water in sharp, broken points and arrowy spars. Along the banks were clumps of willows, whose long yellow-ochre wands were beginning to look alive, to swell and ripple with faint, tremulous undulations, ready to burst in a day, in an hour, into their tender, grey-green leaves. Frances drew in long breaths of the indescribably pure air. There was Spring in it, Spring with all its rapturous promises, its high, ethereal ecstasy. She longed to linger there; reluctantly, she turned her face westward, toward her destination, and paused again, arrested.
The "flat" stretched before her straight and level for a short distance, and ended in a growth of pines which rose tier on tier up a mountain side, regular, solemn, mysterious, and beyond them, through a gap in the hills, a flaming sun sank slowly behind two snow-crowned, sharp-cut peaks, which looked one, but were perhaps twenty miles apart. Frances forgot her errand, her eagerness to execute it, and stood silently with her uplifted gaze on the hills before her, until the last glow of the sunset had vanished and the grey twilight met and melted into the black shadows from the hills.
With the change, the one house on the "flat" which had during the splendour of the day been an inconspicuous feature of the landscape, now dominated it, as a many-facetted and brilliant jewel may shine upon a dark velvet gown. Lights gleamed from numerous windows. "A palace!" Old Alexander Campbell's words recurred to her. It was indeed a palace in Zenith; Zenith of the two- and three-roomed cabins.
Her ring at the door was answered by a Chinese servant, and upon her request to see Mr. Garvin, she was ushered into a large room so flooded with light that, coming from the soft twilight without, she was almost blinded; and she was further dazzled by a richness of fitting and furnishing which struck upon her eyes almost like a blow, and left her for the moment confused and bewildered.
The room was indeed garish and ostentatious to a degree. Heavy, flowered red curtains fell over inner ones of white lace before the windows. There were great upholstered red satin chairs and couches alternating with spindle-legged gilt ones. The lamps which were in profusion were covered with white and scarlet shades. There was a litter of bric-a-brac on tables and pedestals, and upon the walls were pictures representing various kinds of cheap sentiment—Watteau young men and women embracing in terraced gardens, or stout cardinals in gorgeous robes smiling upon Louis Quatorze waiting-maids.
Frances shrank back involuntarily from the glare, and then, as she became more accustomed to it, her glance fell upon a slight figure which had risen from one of the great chairs, pushing back a table before her to do so. It was a pale and weary girl. Her dull brown hair lay in one long plait down her back, and a tea-gown of some gauzy texture and of an extreme and eccentric mode fell from her thin shoulders. Her face, still pretty, showed that she had once possessed a radiant and flower-like beauty; but the skin had yellowed with ill-health, and was covered with many fine lines of weariness and pain. The brilliant eyes shone with a fitful and feverish light.
"How do you do?" she said in a weak, petulant voice. "Was you wanting to see me?"
"I am Frances Benson, a Missionary," said her uninvited guest, "and I came to see Mr. Garvin about renting a cabin."
"Oh, the Missionary!" She viewed Frances half respectfully, half resentfully. "Won't you sit down? I'll call him. Wa—lt!" lifting her voice; "say, Walt, come here!"
The curtains before the door parted, and a tall, thin man, with a worn and lined face and deeply sunken eyes, entered.
"What's the matter, Lutie? Oh," his eyes falling upon Frances, "excuse me. I'll get my coat."
The woman laughed. "Ain't Walt funny, though? He's got such manners as never was. I tell you what, I like it, just the same. Say"
But before she could finish her sentence Garvin had reappeared. He drew a chair near to Frances and sat down. His manner was quiet and simple, and struck her favourably.
"You wanted to see me?" he asked.
"Yes, Mr. Garvin. I have recently come to live in Zenith. I am a missionary, you know, and I want a cabin of my own. It isn't convenient for me to live at the Thorn House any longer."
"No, I can easily understand that," he said thoughtfully. His deep eyes had gazed at her steadily while she had been speaking. "Let me see. There's a little two-room cabin upon a ledge of rock on Corona. It's a kind of lonely place for you, though."
"Oh, I'm never lonely," she reassured him with a smile. "Never."
"Very well. I will give you the key and you can go up and look over it when you have time. I will be glad to have someone occupying it."
He left the room to get the proffered key, and Frances stood up, ready to go upon his return; but Lutie was gazing at her with a kind of eager excitement.
"Oh, don't go!" she cried, and there was a real earnestness in the petulant pleading of her voice. "Do stay and talk to me a while." She flicked a pile of fashion magazines and catalogues on the table before her. "Look," pointing to a heap of clippings, "I've been cutting out those for hours and hours—pictures, you know, of the latest gowns and hats and wraps and things. Here's a hat I'm going to send for. Say, Walt, I wish you'd write for this to-night." Garvin had entered while she had been talking, handed Frances the key, and disappeared again. "Oh," went on Lutie, glancing behind her, "he's gone. I don't care, I'm tired of 'em, anyway. I'm tired of everything." Her haggard gaze hung on the missionary. "Dead tired. Walt's going to take me on a trip as soon as I'm well enough to travel. The doctor says I'll be worse if I leave this dry air; but I know I'll be worse if I stay here in this dead old hole."
She had sunk back in her chair, and now she studied the quiet figure of the missionary through her half-closed eyes for a moment or two, and then lifted her chin with a sort of defiant bravado.
"I s'pose you think I'm something perfectly awful, don't you, because Walt and I aren't married? "
Frances shrank a little. She was not prepared for these intimate revelations. Her face flushed deeply.
"I—I didn't know that"
"We weren't?" finished Lutie, with a hard little laugh. "Well, we're not. How on earth could we be? I'm all tangled up with husbands," shrugging her thin shoulders impatiently. "I've got three of them around somewhere."
"But you're so young," cried the missionary, surprised into the exclamation.
"Twenty-five. I began young, you see," with another of her mirthless laughs. "But," sitting upright and speaking emphatically, her frail figure dilating with pride, "nobody needn't make any mistake about one thing. Walt would marry me like a shot, just like a shot, if he could. Oh, the law's an awful stupid thing. It makes me tired." Her head drooped. "Say," with sudden animation, "I tell you what. You want to see Angel. Wa—a—lt! say, Walt!" as he answered the summons, "tell one of those Chinamen to chase Angel in here. I want the lady to see her." Then to Frances. "Are you going to have Sunday school? Good!"—in answer to an affirmative reply. "You bet she'll go. She needs it bad enough."
"Say," warmly, her feverish vivacity continuing, "I believe you're a good sort. Ethel said you were; but I don't pay much attention to what she says. She splashes her religion around so. It's like my canary bird there taking a bath. Wait," holding up her hand and listening. "Here's Angel."
There was a patter of feet without, a little voice asking questions, and a child ran into the room, a girl of about six years. Her expensive and elaborate frock was stained with clay and wet to the waist, the sleeve was hanging in ribbons from one deeply scratched little arm. Her feet and legs were bare and scarlet. She stopped halfway in the room and stood still, gazing at Frances Benson, and under the regard of those baby eyes the missionary felt a shock and a thrill. An emotion she could hardly have defined as either awe or wonder swept over her, and yet it seemed compounded of both; for here was a personality.
The eyes regarding her so steadily were of a clear grey, with cold blue lights like one of the icy mountain brooks in sunlight and in shadow. The head was covered with tossed, brown curls and the face was a lovely little mask.
Caught under one arm, but held closely to her side, was an enormous striped cat, apparently the victor of many hard-fought battles, if one could judge from the number of scars it carried. One ear was half torn away, and across its particularly evil and sinister face was a broad white welt where the fur refused to grow. Its eyes glowered with a fierce and baleful light.
"Oh, Angel," wailed her mother, "don't let that beast loose. What did you mean by bringing him in here? He's half a coon cat, and likely to tear our eyes out."
"What's his name, dear?" asked Frances, although shrinking slightly from him herself.
"Lambie," replied the child gravely.
Her mother burst into her little hysterical, shrill laugh. "He looks like a lamb, don't he?"
"He catches rabbits and chipmunks," said the child, "wif these." She pressed one of the cat's paws until his long, curving claws shot out, "and wif these." She pushed back his lip, disclosing the pointed, carnivorous teeth. The animal, resenting such treatment, snarled and struggled to be free. Angel, holding him fast, laughed, and Frances, hearing that cold, gay, irresponsible ripple, thought again of mountain streams. Lambie, however, continued to snarl and struggle.
"Shut up!" said Angel, rapping him smartly over the head, "shut up, or I'll break your damn neck."
"Oh, Angel, how you talk!" expostulated Lutie. "And you're in your bare feet again. We can't keep shoes and stockings on her, even in winter," she complained. "And look at your new dress! That dress cost fifty dollars. Now what's happened to your arm?"
Angel looked indifferently at the torn little arm where the blood had scarcely dried. "Lambie scatched it," she explained to Frances. "He catched a rabbit, a live one. It was pretty, and I wanted it; so we fighted for it. I got it." She caught the cat up and held it as if it were a baby, looking triumphantly down into its blinking, evil eyes.
"Isn't she awful?" mourned Lutie. "Do put the beast out, Angel."
The child walked to the door, opened it, and threw Lambie out unceremoniously.
"Won't you shake hands with me?" asked Frances, rising to go and extending her hand.
But Angel made no response.
"She won't touch anybody," said her mother. "She'll hug her animals all day, but she won't even kiss Walt or me, and Walt would be awful fond of her if she'd let him. She ain't his, you know. My second husband was her father. Sometimes I kiss her when she's asleep; that's the only chance I get, and then you should see her toss and frown."
Frances looked down at the beautiful, unsmiling little face.
"What did you do with the rabbit Lambie caught?" she asked curiously.
"I let him go," said Angel laconically. "I get him again if I wants him."
"She will, too," affirmed Lutie. "Oh, she's awful queer. Say, Miss Benson, won't you come and see me again? I get so darned lonesome I don't know what to do. Ethel comes sometimes, and Mis' Nitschkan drops in every once in a while. I like that old pirate. She makes me laugh; and Landvetter, she brings her knitting once in so often; but Mis' Evans, never! Not she. She's awful proud, you know, and I don't sport no gay, gold wedding ring; but you'll come, won't you?"
Her voice had grown so weak that it was almost inaudible; the colour had risen on her cheeks, and she pressed her hand to her chest as if the mere effort to breathe distressed her.
"Yes," said Frances, filled with compassion; "yes, I'll come whenever you want me. Good-night."