CHAPTER SIX
EARLY the next morning, long before the sun had begun to make its tardy appearance over the peaks, Frances, with a little covered basket on her arm, walked up the hill to "Old Man Beebee's" cabin, occupied at the present by Silas Evans.
It was a dreary, unpainted little shack, close beside a great slate-coloured ore-dump from one of the mines, while behind it stretched a steeply rising and desolate expanse of bare hillside. The Missionary knocked two or three times, and finally, meeting with no response, lifted the latch and entered. The cabin was cold and still. As her eyes became accustomed to the dim light which fell through the small window, she saw that Evans lay in a profound, if restless, sleep upon a bunk in the corner, his arms tossed above his head, his browned face a sickly clay colour. There was no fire in the broken, rusty stove, no furniture save an old chair and a table covered with a few greasy, battered cooking utensils; the ceaseless mountain wind whistled through the cracks of the rough, board walls—an eerie continuous sigh.
As noiselessly as possible, Frances began to build a fire; but in spite of her precautions Evans roused and, lifting himself on one elbow, gazed at her with dazed eyes, muttering incoherent words. As he gradually comprehended her simple explanations of her presence—she was a neighbour and had heard that he was ill—he ventured gruff and shamefaced remonstrance, and would evidently have been well pleased to have her leave him; but, unheeding his protests, she continued to build the fire, tidy up the cabin, and prepare his breakfast in so matter-of-fact a way, with so few words, and a demeanour of such calm cheerfulness, that the wretched and forlorn man was visibly heartened and encouraged. Gradually his nervous apprehension that she might refer to the difficulty between his wife and himself wore away, and when Frances finally left him, with his breakfast on the chair by his side and yesterday's newspaper in his hand, his dreary dejection was unmistakably lightened.
And she, too, walked down the hill with a pleasant sense of satisfaction, almost of exhilaration. The sun had by this time surmounted the peaks and shone in the deep blue sky, the young leaves were fluttering in the breeze, the bluejays and magpies flew from tree to tree. And as Frances drew in great draughts of the delicious air there was a fresh spring to her step and an almost gay light in her eye. She sang a little under her breath as she walked.
But just as she reached her own door and was somewhat reluctantly entering, she heard a footstep behind her on the little bridge, and turning, met Garvin's gaze.
"Good-morning, Mr. Garvin! You were coming to see me? Come in." She threw open the door. "You have never seen my home since I rented it from you, have you?"
He did not restrain an exclamation of surprise as he followed her across the threshold. "Why, I never would have known the place! It don't look much as it did when the boys 'bached' here. Well, well, what a woman can do!" He looked about him and then at her, and was struck by the fitness of her surroundings to herself. He was a man with an instinctive love of order and simplicity, and the things which spoke of a disciplined and ordered life appealed to him.
Frances, divesting herself of her hat and coat, had taken a chair opposite him, and now waited to hear his reasons for calling upon her, for this, she felt intuitively, was not the mere conventional visit of landlord to tenant; but whatever the importance of his errand might be, Garvin had apparently forgotten it. He sat gazing absently, if earnestly, at the missionary, noting the full sweep of her dark hair from her brow, the smooth, shining braids at the back of her head, the neat black gown, severe and devoid of ornamentation as a nun's robe, and the fresh white linen collar at her throat.
He could not understand his first impression of her, could not reconcile it with the varying one of the present. The first night he had seen her she had struck him as a plain, dark, insignificant woman with a pleasing manner. Insignificant! Was it possible that he had ever thought that? Insignificant! With that poise, that composure, which spoke of a perfectly controlled nervous energy! And what a picture she made now! Garvin loved pictures. Sitting there in her black gown in the straight chair, the rough, whitewashed wall behind her, and the open window with the muslin curtain fluttering in the spring breeze, the spring sunshine flooding the velvety green leaves and the scarlet blossoms of the geraniums on the sill. There was one crimson cluster just beyond the sweep of her dark hair. He liked the steady directness of her gaze, that clear, pale cheek. How nice a woman's face was without paint!
"Well, Mr. Garvin?" She was looking at him in some surprise.
"Oh!" starting and flushing darkly. "Oh, I beg your pardon—I—I—got to thinking. Miss Benson, I came to speak to you about Lutie." The harassed lines showed again upon his face. "She's in a bad way, poor girl. She had an attack yesterday, a more violent one than she has yet suffered from, and I telegraphed a lung specialist in Denver last night. He'll be here this morning at twelve and go back on the two o'clock train. I had his answer a short time ago," fingering a yellow slip of paper, "and I thought I would come up here before I went home and ask you if you couldn't come in and see her a few minutes after he's gone, just as if you'd happened to come in of your own accord, you know. Poor girl!" with a sigh. "It's pretty rough on her. I'm hoping the doctor will think she can be moved. I'd take her away at once then. You see, there's so little to amuse and interest her here, and she gets so tired of everything. That is her disease, of course. She's taken a great fancy to you, Miss Benson. Lutie's only a child, you know."
The words, but far more than the words, the tone, were at once a defence and a plea, and Frances's heart went out to him in sudden, spontaneous gratitude. Then she felt those gentler emotions chill and congeal. Why should he not defend Lutie and plead for her? Was it not through him that the plea and the defence had become a necessity? She remembered the insinuations made by Herries and accepted by Ethel the night before, and gazing at him, she unconsciously followed his previous example and fell to musing. How impossible it was to judge by appearances. Garvin, harassed by anxiety and worn with sleepless nights, looked almost ascetic, and yet, Herries and even Ethel"
"Then you will come?"
It was her turn to start. "Of course," hastily. "I will spend all afternoon with her if she cares to have me."
"Thank you." His gratitude, quietly expressed, was yet so sincere as to be touching. He fingered the cover of a book on the table.
"You are fond of reading?"
"I think so," she replied, raising her candid eyes to his. "I would be if I let myself. I never have much time to read."
"I have a great many books," he said. "I would be pleased to have you feel at perfect liberty to use them. I got a new box last night, but they are mostly scientific works." He purposely strove to prolong the conversation, the rest that her little room afforded him, the easing of unceasing nervous tension, the content that swept over him, made him realise that he was a desperately tired man.
"You are very fond of reading, are you not?"
He drew his hand across his brow. "Yes—oh, yes. It's about all I care for. I'm a pretty busy man. I've got a lot of interests that require almost constant looking after; but I've got to read, I suppose," with a smile, "that I take my reading as some men do drugs. Well," rising reluctantly, "I must go."
"And I will see Mrs. Garvin this afternoon soon after two."
"Thank you," he said again. "Good-bye."
After he had closed the door behind him Frances sat with her chin on her hand, looking rather vaguely before her. The first time she had seen Garvin she had regarded him as a man with a strong, plain face. Strong it assuredly was; but could a face revealing so much character ever be called plain? It expressed courage, endurance, the power of clear, steady judgment and the focussed will; but there was the cynicism of the eyes, the suggestion of recklessness, or—or hardness, she could not quite define it—about the mouth. It was a face that suggested a thousand histories to her and revealed none. She fancied that he was a man who had once possessed illusions and ideals and had suffered keenly at their departure. She was not a woman, however, who allowed herself much time for dreaming, and she caught up her sewing with a feeling of impatience at herself. There were other matters that needed her attention far more than a study of Walter Garvin's characteristics. There was the estrangement of the Evanses and the wretched situation of Silas. That was a problem demanding solution.
These were enough to occupy her mind until she set out on her promised visit to Lutie that afternoon; but after crossing her little bridge, she turned back to secure heavier wraps and an umbrella. The sky had grown grey, the air cold, and the clouds were trailing long, fleecy streamers across the foot of the peaks; the wind, too, had risen, and it was with difficulty that she made her way against it to Garvin's door.
Once within, and surrounded by its heavily upholstered splendours, her mind reverted to old Andrew Campbell's phrase—"the palace of his light-o'-love"—cruelly ironical, it seemed to her now, after being admitted into the scarlet and white boudoir with the Watteau young men and maidens and the merry cardinals smiling from the walls. The room was full of the odour of stimulants, and high among her scarlet cushions lay the poor, fading light-o'-love, her feeble flame almost snuffed out. At first sight of her, Frances barely repressed an exclamation. She was like some ghastly mummer in a morbid masquerade, Death leading the dance, with roses crowning his skull and his jaws fixed in a grin of terrible mirth.
In honour of the great specialist who had journeyed up to see her for an incredible fee, Lutie had decked herself as if for a ball. A delicate pink robe fell about her in long folds, elaborately embroidered with a border of apple blossoms, and from this depended a foam of laces that a duchess might envy. Her hair, dressed by Ethel's hands, was piled high on her head, and in it sparkled diamonds which dazzled the eye with their white blaze. About her wasted throat and all over the bosom of her gown were gleaming jewels; but they were scarcely more glittering than her eyes, and the hectic flush of fever flamed under the paint that lay thick on her sunken cheeks.
As Frances entered she ceased to finger the long rope of jewels about her neck and turned to her guest with an eager joy.
"My Lord! But I'm glad to see you," she cried, struggling to rise, and then falling back on her pillows. "They've bothered the life out of me to-day," fretfully. "Walt," with a kind of impatient pride, "got frightened about me because he didn't think I was improving as fast as I ought to, and nothing would do but he had to telegraph for Adams down to Denver. Crazy! I'm gettin' better every day. Adams was an awful nice man, though. He told me all about the opera and the theatres and all, and he says there ain't a society woman in Denver that's got jewels that can touch mine. Oh, how nice you feel!" She held Frances's cool, firm hands between her own moist, restless palms, and then laid them against her fevered cheek. "Oh, you don't know how you rest me! I can breathe easier the minute you come into the room."
"Then rest," urged Frances, drawing a chair beside her. "I shall be here for two or three hours. Try and sleep a little, Lutie."
"I believe I could, if you sit right there. I feel sort of restless, and yet—I'm—so—tired," Lutie's eyes drooped heavily. Then she reached out, and again clutching Frances's hand laid it against her cheek. From time to time she broke her increasing drowsiness with muttered phrases; but at last she slept—more or less fitfully, for perhaps an hour. Frances's arm grew numb to the shoulder, but still she sat motionless as a statue. Suddenly Lutie awoke with a nervous start, a look of fright in her eyes. "Oh!" with a sigh of relief. "I thought you'd gone. I guess I dreamed it. Well, I feel better. Say," with a return of animation, "did I tell you that that big doctor said there wasn't a woman in Denver had stones that's a patch on mine? He ought to know, oughtn't he? I guess if he only knew it, there's mighty few of 'em that's got the clothes I got, either. Did Ethel tell you about the big box that come the other night? Hats and evening wraps an' dresses an' everything. Ethel went crazy over 'em, like she always does, an' then she remembered her conscience and wouldn't look at them any more. I call that silly, don't you? I wish Walt would come, I want him to show you some of 'em. You know there's been an almost complete alteration in the styles this spring. If Walt was only here! I don't like those Chinamen to handle them with their dirty fingers."
It was evident that nothing really interested her but her frocks and jewels. It was as though, in the decline of her physical strength, some fierce and counteracting energy gained life, expressing itself in this strange persistence of frivolous and futile passions.
Frances, who had little knowledge of toilettes and less interest in them, regarded it as a phase of disease and listened patiently. Presently, in the midst of these broken and gasping descriptions, the door opened softly and Angel entered, her elaborate and expensive frock, as usual, mud-splashed and torn.
"For pity's sake! " exclaimed her mother. "At last! Well, I think it's about time. Miss Benson, she hasn't been near me for two whole days. Now, what do you think of that? Come here."
Angel paid no more heed to this request than if it had not been voiced, but walked over and stood before the Missionary, regarding her steadily with her limpid eyes. She had evidently just come in from the open air. Her brown curls were tossed over her head, the colour of wild roses was on her cheek, and she bore into the drug-laden chamber the fresh fragrance of all out-doors.
"Where's Lambie?" asked Frances politely, to open the conversation.
"I don't know," she replied indifferently. "Hunting or fishing, I guess. He told me dis morning he wouldn't be back all day, not till evening."
"Now, Angel, don't tell lies," admonished Lutie.
"He did," affirmed the child. She looked at Frances with inscrutable eyes, which suddenly became incredibly sly, and thrust a pointed, pink tongue between her teeth; her whole expression seemed full of feline suggestion. "He says, 'Miew-ow-ow.'"
The Missionary was so plainly taken aback by this uncanny exhibition that Angel, feeling the gratification of the artist at the effect produced, was stirred to fresh efforts.
"Wang talks sis way." Her eyes narrowed and seemed to slant upward, her mouth became a slit, she swayed her head slightly to and fro after the manner of Wang, and poured forth a flood of "pidgin English," with every intonation faultlessly reproduced.
Frances and her mother both burst into laughter.
"Did you ever see such a mimic?" asked Lutie. "And she'll hardly ever show off, either. Come, Angel, now you're started, show how old Campbell looks and talks."
Angel was in one of her rare, complaisant moods, and, ruffling her curls over her brow and cheeks, she peered from this mass of simulated whiskers, while from her baby lips rang a curiously exact representation of the old man's rich, bell-like tones. She even drew a chair opposite Frances, and seating herself, leaned forward, thrusting out her lower jaw, and drawing down the corners of her mouth until it assumed bitter curves, a harsh laugh meanwhile issuing from her lips; "Mr. Herries," she announced, although Frances needed no explanation.
"Ain't she a wonder!" said her mother with pride. "My! you ought to seen her the other day. Mis' Nitschkan was here, and Angel just sat and stared at her like she was fascinated. Well, after Nitschkan had gone, that child took her off, and I d'clare, you couldn't have told that the old gipsy wasn't in the room. An' she's got a memory a yard long. She can remember everything she hears. I tell you what, that kid's going to be an actress—one of the real headliners—ain't you, Angel? With her looks, and her talent, and all Walt can give her, I bet she'll live on Easy Street all her life, even if her mother didn't—what's that?" nervously, as a soft whining and scratching at the door became audible. "Now, Angel, don't you let any of your beasts in here."
Angel listened intently a moment. "It's White Puppy," she said. "I know his scratch. He wants me to come out. He talks to me sis way: 'Bow-wow!'" She barked and whined a second like a little dog, eyeing Frances the while with an elfin malice and mischief; then apparently satisfied with the astonishment and appreciation of her audience, she yielded to the insistent demands for her presence on the other side of the door and joined the only companion for which she ever showed anything approaching affection.
Frances, too, arose, as the afternoon was growing late, and there was still something she intended to do.
"You're awful good to stay with me so long," said Lutie gratefully. "You'll come often, won't you? Why, Miss Benson, I just felt drawn to you the first moment I saw you; but you didn't like me at first, did you? No," shaking her head, "you didn't. You kind o' drew back from me, I could see it. I suppose," with the effort to appreciate another point of view, "that to anyone that looks at things like you got to, being a Missionary—it seems awful for people not to be married. I suppose you couldn't help blaming me."
She spoke with a pathos which revealed that she knew the deep, eternal, feminine anguish of being her sex's scorn; and in an illuminating flash, Frances realised that her pride in her laces and jewels—all her flaunting possessions—lay deeper than mere trivial vanity. She prized and clung to them because they served to restore her self-esteem, and in a measure effected her social rehabilitation. She was but following, unconsciously perhaps, her feminine instinct for retaliation, and on the only lines which might avail. If contemned, she would also be envied.
"Oh, Lutie; poor, dear Lutie, I never blamed you!" Frances knelt beside her and held her thin hands closely in hers. "Never." Her eyes glowed sombrely, her mouth shut in a hard line. There were hot rebellion and resentment in her heart. She seemed to see a long, an unending line of Luties, butterflies with the iridescent dust brushed rudely from their torn and bedraggled wings, those gossamer wings made to float on sun-beams.
"I blame him," she cried involuntarily.
"Not Walt?" Lutie dragged away her hands and struggled to a half-sitting position. "I guess you're on the wrong tack. Huh," with a short laugh, "you don't know Walt, nor what he took me from. You ain't got an idea how Angel and me happen to be here. Why, while Walt was down prospecting in Nevada, he was dickering with my husband for a mine. He stopped at our cabin, and I cooked for 'em, so, of course, I saw a good deal of him." She paused a moment, her eyes dilating curiously, as she gazed into that past whence she had escaped; then, with a hard little laugh, she went on: "I could tell you things that'd make you sit up and take notice, Missioner, about what my life was; but what's the use? Put it all in a nutshell and let it go at one word—hell. I was beginning to get sick even then, and one day Walt come in and found me, all knocked black and blue. Well, you ought to seen him! He wasted no time in tying on my hat and cloak, and the same for Angel, and he says: 'I can't stand it any longer, Lutie. You and the child got to come with me, and come now!' Say, I can hear the whistle of that train yet—'way, far in the distance, and when we got on and fairly started and Walt put some pillows round me in the seat, I knew I was in heaven. I can't think of heaven in any other way—just that little old parlour car. We went to Southern California, and we certainly had an awful fine time. Walt bought me jewels and everything, and I always did love pretty things, but I didn't seem to get well. The doctors said it would take a long time, 'cause I'd had such bad treatment. But do you know, Miss Benson," lifting piteous eyes, "I ain't never spoke of this to anybody but you; I don't even like to think of it, 'cause it makes me so unhappy; but even at first, spite of his being so good to me and all, I had a kind of an idea that Walt didn't really love me. I don't believe he really loves me now; he just feels sorry for me." She threw her arms out upon the pillow, and burying her face in them, sobbed.
"Lutie, Lutie," soothed Frances, her whole heart going out to the bruised, dependent creature. "He does love you—I know it. You get such ideas because you are ill. It's just a sick fancy."
"Maybe," sighed Lutie. "But you'll come to-morrow? Promise."
"I'll come whenever you want me."
"Listen!" exclaimed Lutie, lifting her head. "That's Walt's step." She carefully wiped away all traces of tears, her handkerchief showing, as a result, heavy smears of rouge. "He's just come down from the mines."
In verification of her words, Garvin entered presently in his high boots and corduroys. His worn face brightened when he saw Frances still there.
"Miss Benson, it is good of you to come in and cheer up Lutie while I had to be away." He shook hands with her, exchanging a smile of mutual comprehension over their innocent deception, although, to do the Missionary justice, hers was faintly deprecating.
"Wasn't it?" smiled Lutie. "Say, Walt," with pouting coquetry, " you ain't noticed my swell getup."
"Goodness! You're fine!" admired Garvin. "And all your jewels! You must have been trying to dazzle the doctor, weren't you? Oh, that dress 's a beauty!"
"Did you notice the apple blossoms and the lace?" she asked eagerly.
He lifted a corner of the robe and examined the delicately embroidered flowers. "They're great, aren't they? Sure, they're not real?" affecting to smell them.
"Oh, Walt, ain't you crazy!" she laughed delightedly. "And the lace—you ought to scold me about that lace, Walt. It cost twenty-five hundred dollars. But that's nothing to you, is it?"
"No," he replied laconically, "that's nothing. You can't spend it as fast as it pours in, child, no matter how hard you try."
His face had fallen again into its sad, granite-like repose, and Frances apprehended in some way that he brooded over the thought of how little his wealth could really bring him. Meeting her glance suddenly, he smiled, and then gazed at her keenly. She looked a little tired. "Come, Miss Benson," he said, rising, "I want you to see my library; Lutie has been exhibiting her jewels, now I want you to see mine."
"Yes, go," urged Lutie. "Maybe you like books; I don't care much about them, except some of the picture magazines."
As Frances and Garvin walked down the hall together to his library, she felt a new respect and a real admiration for him. His kindness toward Lutie, his unfailing tenderness and patience with her, aroused a sentiment of vicarious gratitude in the Missionary's heart, and she showed her change of feeling by casting aside the rather cold reserve of manner with which she had formerly met him.
"Does the doctor think Lutie can be moved?" she asked in a low voice just as they reached the library door.
He shook his head. "He considers her worse even than I feared," he sadly replied. "He has ordered a change of treatment, however, and will be up again in a few days' time. But you have had enough to bother you to-day. Come."
The library was a large and lofty room, austerely furnished in dark leather, with walls almost completely covered with bookshelves, beginning at the floor and running up to the ceiling; the tables, too, were covered with books, papers, and the graver reviews.
Frances could not fail to notice that, here in his own domain, Garvin became a different man; the weariness vanished from his face, his whole expression lightened and brightened, he was alert and interested. He showed her his various editions with an affectionate pride, handling them lovingly, as he explained their beauties to her, and she, listening with rapt attention, felt as if the gates of a new world had opened to her—the calm, lofty, secluded world of the intellect.
Here was evidently Garvin's real treasure, and here, too, was his heart. This library of his was a source of riches to him, beside which the yellow stream which ran from his golden treasure-houses in the bowels of the earth afforded him no commensurate return.
"I love to hear about these things," cried Frances, with one of her rare outbursts of enthusiasm. "I—I am very ignorant. I've been too busy always to read much."
"As I told you this morning," he said, evidently gratified by her pleasure, "I am delighted to have you come here and read, or take any of the books as often as you choose."
"Thank you." She held out her hand with one of her attractive smiles. "I must go now. I have stayed far longer than I should. I have a matter on hand which must be attended to to-night."