CHAPTER XVI
THE WOMAN'S HEART
That upper earth on which they lived was covered with a thick blanket ofsnow. The lakes and pools were frozen from shore to shore. The mountainbrooks, if they flowed at all, ran under thick arches of ice. Thedeepest canyons were well nigh impassable from huge drifts that sometimesalmost rose level with the tops of the walls. In every sheltered spotgreat banks of white were massed. The spreading branches of the tallpine trees in the valleys drooped under heavy burdens of snow. Only hereand there sharp gaunt peaks were swept clean by the fierce winter windsand thrust themselves upward in the icy air, naked and bare. The coldwas polar in its bitter intensity.
The little shelf, or plateau, jutting out from the mountain side uponwhich the lonely cabin stood was sheltered from the prevailing winds,but the house itself was almost covered with the drifts. The constantfire roaring up the huge stone chimney had melted some of the snow atthe top and it had run down the slanting roof and formed huge icicleson what had been the eaves of the house. The man had cut away the driftsfrom doors and windows for light and liberty. At first every stormynight would fill his laborious clearings with drifting snow, but as itbecame packed down and frozen solid he was able to keep his various waysopen without a great deal of difficulty. A little work every morning andevening sufficed.
Every day he had to go down the mountain stairway to the bottom of thepocket to feed and water the burros. What was a quick and simple task inmilder, warmer seasons, sometimes took him half a day under the presentrigorous conditions. And the woman never saw him start out in the stormwithout a sinking heart and grave apprehension. On his return to thecabin half frozen, almost spent and exhausted, she ever welcomed himwith eager gratitude and satisfaction which would shine in her eyes,throb in her heart and tremble upon her lips, control it as she might.And he thought it was well worth all the trouble and hardships of histask to be so greeted when he came back to her.
Winter had set in unusually early and with unprecedented severity. Anykind of winter in the mountains would have amazed the girl, but even theman with his larger experiences declared he had never before known suchsharp and sudden cold, or such deep and lasting snow. His daily recordshad never shown such low temperatures, nor had his observation evernoted such wild and furious storms as raged then and there. It seemed asif Nature were in a conspiracy to seal up the mountains and all theycontained, to make ingress and egress alike impossible.
A month had elapsed and Enid's foot was now quite well. The man hadmanaged to sew up her boot where his knife had cut it, and although thejob was a clumsy one the result was a usable shoe. It is astonishing thecomfort she took when she first put it on and discarded for good theshapeless woolen stocking which had covered the clumsy bandage, happilyno longer necessary. Although the torn and bruised member had healed andshe could use it with care, her foot was still very tender and capableof sustaining no violent or long continued strain. Of necessity she hadbeen largely confined to the house, but whenever it had been possible hehad wrapped her in his great bear skin coat and had helped her out tothe edge of the cliff for a breath of fresh air.
Sometimes he would leave her there alone, would perhaps have left heralone there always had she not imperiously required his company.
Insensibly she had acquired the habit--not a difficult one for a womanto fall into--of taking the lead in the small affairs of theircircumscribed existence, and he had acquiesced in her dominance withouthesitation or remonstrance. It was she who ordered their daily walk andconversation. Her wishes were consulted about everything; to be sure nogreat range of choice was allowed them, or liberty of action, orfreedom, in the constraints with which nature bound them, but wheneverthere was any selection she made it.
The man yielded everything to her and yet he did it without in any wayderogating from his self respect or without surrendering his naturalindependence. The woman instinctively realized that in any great crisis,in any large matter, the determination of which would naturally affecttheir present or their future, their happiness, welfare, life, he wouldassert himself, and his assertion would be unquestioned andunquestionable by her.
There was a delightful satisfaction to the woman in the whole situation.She had a woman's desire to lead in the smaller things of life and yetcraved the woman's consciousness that in the great emergencies she wouldbe led, in the great battles she would be fought for, in the greatdangers she would be protected, in the great perils she would be saved.There was rest, comfort, joy and satisfaction in these thoughts.
The strength of the man she mastered was evidence of her own power andcharm. There was a sweet, voiceless, unconscious flattery in hisdeference of which she could not be unaware.
Having little else to do, she studied the man and she studied him with awarm desire and an enthusiastic predisposition to find the best in him.She would not have been a human girl if she had not been thrilled to thevery heart of her by what the man had done for her. She recognized thatwhether he asserted it or not, he had established an everlasting andindisputable claim upon her.
The circumstances of their first meeting, which as the days passed didnot seem quite so horrible to her, and yet a thought of which wouldbring the blood to her cheek still on the instant, had in some wayturned her over to him. His consideration of her, his gracioustenderness toward her, his absolute abnegation, his evident overwhelmingdesire to please her, to make the anomalous situation in which theystood to each other bearable in spite of their lonely and unobservedintimacy, by an absolute lack of presumption on his part--all thosethings touched her profoundly.
Although she did not recognize the fact then, perhaps, she loved himfrom the moment her eyes had opened in the mist and rain after thatawful battle in the torrent to see him bending over her.
No sight that had ever met Enid Maitland's eyes was so glorious, so aweinspiring, so uplifting and magnificent as the view from the verge ofthe cliff in the sunlight of some bright winter morning. Few women hadever enjoyed such privileges as hers. She did not know whether she likedthe winter crowned range best that way, or whether she preferred thesnowy world, glittering cold in the moonlight; or even whether it wasmore attractive when it was dark and the peaks and drifts were onlylighted by the stars which shone never so brightly as just above herhead.
When he allowed her she loved to stand sometimes in the full fury of thegale with the wind shrieking and sobbing, like lost souls in some icyinferno, through the hills and over the pines, the snow beating uponher, the sleet cutting her face if she dared to turn toward the storm.Generally he left her alone in the quieter moments, but in the tempesthe stood watchful, on guard by her side, buttressing her, protectingher, sheltering her. Indeed, his presence then was necessary; withouthim she could scarce have maintained a footing. The force of the windmight have hurled her down the mountain but for his strong arm. Whenthe cold grew too great he led her back carefully to the hut and thewarm fire.
Ah, yes, life and the world were both beautiful to her then, in night,in day, by sunlight, by moonlight, in calm and storm. Yet it made nodifference what was spread before the woman's eyes, what gloriouspicture was exhibited to her gaze, she could not look at it more than amoment without thinking of the man. With the most fascinating panoramathat the earth's surface could spread before human vision to engage herattention she looked into her own heart and saw there this man!
Oh, she had fought against it at first, but lately she had luxuriated init. She loved him, she loved him! And why not? What is it that womenlove in men? Strength of body? She could remember yet how he had carriedher over the mountains in the midst of the storm, how she had been sobravely upborne by his arms to his heart. She realized later what a taskthat had been, what a feat of strength. The uprooting of that sapling,and the overturning of that huge grizzly were child's play to the longportage up the almost impassable canyon and mountain side which hadbrought her to this dear haven.
Was it strength of character she sought, resolution, determination? Thisman ha
d deliberately withdrawn from the world, buried himself in thismountain; and had stayed there deaf to the alluring call of man orwoman; he had had the courage to do that.
Was it strength of mind she admired? Enid Maitland was no mean judge ofthe mental powers of her acquaintance. She was just as full of life andspirit and the joy of them as any young woman should be, but she had notbeen trained by and thrown with the best for nothing. _Noblesse oblige!_That his was a mind well stored with knowledge of the most varied sortshe easily and at once perceived. Of course the popular books of thelast five years had passed him by, and of such he knew nothing, but hecould talk intelligently, interestingly, entertainingly upon the greatclassics. Keats and Shakespeare were his most thumbed volumes. He hadgraduated from Harvard as a Civil Engineer with the highest honors ofhis class and school and the youngest man to get his sheepskin! EnidMaitland herself was a woman of broad culture and wide reading and shedeliberately set herself to fathom this man's capabilities. Notinfrequently, much to her surprise, sometimes to her dismay, butgenerally to her satisfaction, she found that she had no plummet withwhich to sound his greater depths.
Did she seek in him that fine flower of good breeding, gentleness andconsideration? Where could she find these qualities better displayed?She was absolutely alone with this man, entirely in his power, shut offfrom the world and its interference as effectually as if they had bothbeen abandoned on an ice floe at the North Pole or cast away on somelonely island in the South Seas, yet she felt as safe as if she had beenin her own house, or her uncle's, with every protection that human powercould give. He had never presumed upon the situation in the leastdegree, he never once referred to the circumstances of their meeting inthe remotest way, he never even discussed her rescue from the flood, henever told her how he had borne her through the rain to the lonelyshelter of the hills, and in no way did he say anything that the mostkeenly scrutinizing mind would torture into an allusion to the pool andthe bear and the woman. The fineness of his breeding was never so wellexhibited as in this reticence. More often than not it is what he doesnot rather than what he does that indicates the man.
It would be folly to deny that he never thought of these things. Had heforgotten them there would be no merit in his silence; but to rememberthem and to keep still--aye, that showed the man! He would close hiseyes in that little room on the other side of the door and see again thedark pool, her white shoulders, her graceful arms, the lovely face withits crown of sunny hair rising above the rushing water. He had listenedto the roar of the wind through the long nights, when she thought himasleep if she thought of him at all, and heard again the scream of thestorm that had brought her to his arms. No snow drop that touched hischeek when he was abroad but reminded him of that night in the cold rainwhen he had held her close and carried her on. He could not sit and mendher boot without remembering that white foot before which he would fainhave prostrated himself and upon which he would have pressed passionatekisses if he had given way to his desires. But he kept all these thingsin his heart, pondered them and made no sign.
Did she ask beauty in her lover? Ah, there at last he failed. Accordingto the canyons of perfection he did not measure up to the standard. Hisfeatures were irregular, his chin a trifle too square, his mouth athought too firm, his brow wrinkled a little; but he was good to lookat, for he looked strong, he looked clean and he looked true. There wasabout him, too, that stamp of practical efficiency that men who can dothings always have. You looked at him and you felt sure that what heundertook, that he would accomplish; that decision and capability wereincarnate in him.
But after all the things are said, love goes where it is sent, and I, atleast, am not the sender. This woman loved this man neither because norin spite of these qualities. That they were might account for heraffection, but if they had not been, it may be that that affection, thatthat passion, would have sprung up in her heart still. No one can say,no one can tell how or why those things are. She had loved him while sheraged against him and hated him. She did neither the one nor the otherof those two last things, now, and she loved him the more.
Mystery is a great mover, there is nothing so attractive as a problem wecannot solve. The very situation of the man, how he came there, what hedid there, why he remained there, questions to which she had yet noanswer, stimulated her profoundly. Because she did not know shequestioned in secret; interest was aroused and the transition to lovewas easy.
Propinquity, too, is responsible for many an affection. "The ivy clingsto the first met tree." Given a man and woman heart free and throw themtogether and let there be decent kindness on both sides, and it isalmost inevitable that each shall love the other. Isolate them from theworld, let them see no other companions but the one man and the onewoman and the result becomes more inevitable.
Yes, this woman loved this man. She said in her heart--and I am not oneto dispute her conclusions--that she would have loved him had he beenone among millions to stand before her, and it was true. He was thecomplement of her nature. They differed in temperament as much as incomplexion, and yet in such differences as must always be to makeperfect love and perfect union, there were striking resemblances,necessary points of contact.
There was no reason whatever why Enid Maitland should not love this man.The only possible check upon her feelings would have been her ratheranomalous relation to Armstrong, but she reflected that she had promisedhim definitely nothing. When she had met him she had been heart whole,he had made some impression upon her fancy and might have made more withgreater opportunity, but unfortunately for him, luckily for her, he hadnot enjoyed that privilege. She scarcely thought of him longer.
She would not have been human if her mind had not dwelt upon the worldbeyond the skyline on the other side of the range. She knew how thosewho loved her must be suffering on account of her disappearance, butknowing herself safe and realizing that within a short time, when thespring came again, she would go back to them and that their mourningwould be turned into joy by her arrival, she could not concern herselfvery greatly over their present feelings and emotions; and besides, whatwould be the use of worrying over those things. There was subject moreattractive for her thoughts close at hand. And she was too blissfullyhappy to entertain for more than a moment any sorrow.
She pictured her return and never by any chance did she think of goingback to civilization alone. The man she loved would be by her side, thechurch's blessing would make them one. To do her justice in thesimplicity and purity of her thoughts she never once thought of what theworld might say about that long winter sojourn alone with this man. Shewas so conscious of her own innocence and of his delicate forbearance,she never once thought how humanity would elevate its brows and fairlycry upon her from the house tops. She did not realize that were she everso pure and so innocent she could not now or ever reach the highposition which Caesar, who was none too reputable himself, would fainhave had his wife enjoy?
The Chalice Of Courage: A Romance of Colorado Page 20