Lister's Great Adventure

by Harold Bindloss

  CHAPTER II

  IN THE DARK

  In the morning Cartwright told the porter to take his chair to the beachand sat down in a shady spot. He had not seen Barbara at breakfast andwas rather sorry for her, but she had not known Shillito long, andalthough she might be angry for a time, her hurt could not be deep.Lighting his pipe, he watched the path that led between the pines to thewater.

  By and by a girl came out of the shadow, and going to the smalllanding-stage, looked at her wrist-watch. Cartwright imagined she didnot see him and studied her with some amusement. Barbara lookedimpatient. People did not often keep her waiting, and she had notinherited her mother's placidity. She had a touch of youthful beauty,and although she was impulsive and rather raw, Cartwright thought hercharm would be marked when she met the proper people and, so to speak,got toned down.

  Cartwright meant her to meet the proper people, because he was fond ofBarbara. She had grace, and although her figure was slender and girlish,she carried herself well. Her brown eyes were steady, her small mouthwas firm, and as a rule her color was delicate white and pink. Now itwas high, and Cartwright knew she was angry. She wore boating clothesand had obviously meant to go on the lake. The trouble was, hercompanion had not arrived.

  "Hallo!" said Cartwright. "Are you waiting for somebody?"

  Barbara advanced and sat down on a rocky ledge.

  "No," she said, "I'm not waiting _now_."

  Cartwright smiled. He knew Barbara's temper, and his line was to keepher resentment warm.

  "You mean, you have given him up and won't go if he does arrive? Well,when a young man doesn't keep his appointment, it's the proper plan."

  She blushed, but tried to smile. "I don't know if you're clever or notjust now, although you sometimes do see things the others miss. I reallywas a little annoyed."

  "I've lived a long time," said Cartwright. "However, perhaps it'simportant I haven't forgotten I was young. I think your brother andsister never were very young. They were soberer than me when I knew themfirst."

  "Mortimer _is_ a stick," Barbara agreed. "He and Grace have a calmsuperiority that makes one savage now and then. I like human people, whosometimes let themselves go--"

  She stopped, and Cartwright noted her wandering glance that searched thebeach and the path to the hotel. He knew whom she expected, and thoughtit would give her some satisfaction to quarrel with the fellow.Cartwright did not mean to soothe her.

  "Mr. Shillito ought to have sent his apologies when he found he couldnot come," he said.

  Barbara's glance got fixed, and Cartwright knew he had blundered.

  "Oh!" she said, "now I begin to see! Mother kept me by her all theevening; but mother's not very clever and Mortimer's too fastidious tomeddle, unless he gets a dignified part. Of course, the plot was yours!"

  Cartwright nodded. Sometimes he used tact, but he was sometimes brutallyfrank.

  "You had better try to console yourself with the Wheeler boys; they'restraight young fellows. Shillito is gone. He went by the car thismorning and it's unlikely he'll come back."

  "You sent him off?" said Barbara, and her eyes sparkled. "Well, I'm nota child and you're not my father really. Why did you meddle?"

  "For one thing, he's not your sort. Then I'm a meddlesome old fellow andrather fond of you. To see you entangled by a man like Shillito wouldhurt. Let him go. If you want to try your powers, you'll find a numberof honest young fellows on whom you can experiment. The boys one meetsin this country are a pretty good sample."

  "There's a rude vein in you," Barbara declared. "One sees it sometimes,although you're sometimes kind. Anyhow, I won't be bullied andcontrolled; I'm not a shareholder in the Cartwright line. I don't knowif it's important, but why don't you like Mr. Shillito?"

  Cartwright's eyes twinkled. In a sense, he could justify his getting ridof Shillito, but he knew Barbara and doubted if she could be persuaded.Still she was not a fool, and he would give her something to thinkabout.

  "It's possible my views are not important," he agreed. "All the same,when I told the man he had better go he saw the force of my arguments.He went, and I think his going is significant. Since I'd sooner notquarrel, I'll leave you to weigh this."

  He went off, but Barbara stopped and brooded. She was angry andhumiliated, but perhaps the worst was she had a vague notion Cartwrightmight be justified. It was very strange Shillito had gone. All the same,she did not mean to submit. Her mother's placid conventionality had longirritated her; one got tired of galling rules and criticism. She was notgoing to be molded into a calculating prude like Grace, or a prig likeMortimer. They did not know the ridiculous good-form they cultivated wasout of date. In fact, she had had enough and meant to rebel.

  Then she began to think about Shillito. His carelessness was strangelyintriguing; he stood for adventure and all the romance she had known.Besides, he was a handsome fellow; she liked his reckless twinkle andhis coolness where coolness was needed. For all that, she would notacknowledge him her lover; Barbara did not know if she really wanted alover yet. She imagined Cartwright had got near the mark when he saidshe wanted to try her power. Cartwright was keen, although Barbarasensed something in him that was fierce and primitive.

  Perhaps nobody else could have bullied Shillito; Mortimer certainlycould not, but Barbara refused to speculate about the means Cartwrighthad used.

  Shillito ought not to have gone without seeing her; this was where ithurt. She was entitled to be angry--and then she started, for a page boycame quietly out of the shade.

  "A note, miss," he said with a grin. "I was to give it you when nobodywas around."

  Barbara's heart beat, but she gave the boy a quarter and opened theenvelope. The note was short and not romantic. Shillito stated he hadgrounds for imagining it might not reach her, but if it did, he beggedshe would give him her address when she left the hotel. He told herwhere to write, and added if she could find a way to get his letters hehad much to say.

  His coolness annoyed Barbara, but he had excited her curiosity and shewas intrigued. Moreover, Cartwright had tried to meddle and she wantedto feel she was cleverer than he. Then Shillito was entitled to defendhimself, and to find the way he talked about would not be difficult.Barbara knitted her brows and began to think.

  At lunch Mrs. Cartwright told her they were going to join the Vernons inthe woods and she acquiesced. Two or three days afterwards they started,and at the station she gave Cartwright her hand with a smiling glance,but Cartwright knew his step-daughter and was not altogether satisfied.Barbara did not sulk; when one tried to baffle her she fought.

  The Vernons' camp was like others Winnipeg people pitch in the lonelywoods that roll west from Fort William to the plains. It is a ruggedcountry pierced by angry rivers and dotted by lakes, but a gasolenelaunch brought up supplies, the tents were large and double-roofed, andfor a few weeks one could play at pioneering without its hardships. TheVernons were hospitable, the young men and women given to healthy sport,and Mrs. Cartwright, watching Barbara fish and paddle on the lake,banished her doubts. For herself she did not miss much; the people werenice, and the cooking was really good.

  When two weeks had gone, Grace and Barbara sat one evening among thestones by a lake. The evening was calm, the sun was setting, and theshadow of the pines stretched across the tranquil water. Now and thenthe reflections trembled and a languid ripple broke against thedriftwood on the beach. In the distance a loon called, but when its wildcry died away all was very quiet.

  Grace looked across the lake and frowned. She was a tall girl, andalthough she had walked for some distance in the woods, her clothes werehardly crumpled. Her face was finely molded, but rather colorless; herhands were very white, while Barbara's were brown. Her dress and voiceindicated cultivated taste; but the taste was negative, as if Grace hadbanished carefully all that jarred and then had stopped. It wascharacteristic that she was tranquil, although she had grounds fordisturbance. They were some distance from camp and it would soon bedark, but nothing broke the g
leaming surface of the lake. The boat thatought to have met them had not arrived.

  "I suppose this is the spot where Harry Vernon agreed to land and takeus on board?" she said.

  "It's like the spot. I understand we must watch out for a point oppositean island with big trees."

  "Watch out?" Grace remarked.

  "Watch out is good Canadian," Barbara rejoined. "I'm studying thelanguage and find it expressive and plain. When our new friends talk youknow what they mean. Besides, I'd better learn their idioms, because Imight stop in Canada if somebody urged me."

  Grace gave her a quiet look. Barbara meant to annoy her, or perhaps didnot want to admit she had mistaken the spot. Now Grace came to thinkabout it, the plan that the young men should meet them and paddle themdown the lake was Barbara's.

  "I don't see why we didn't go with Harry and the other, as hesuggested," she said.

  "Then, you're rather dull. They didn't really want us; they wanted tofish. To know when people might be bored is useful."

  "But there are a number of bays and islands. They may go somewhereelse," Grace insisted.

  "Oh well, it ought to amuse Harry and Winter to look for us, and ifthey're annoyed, they deserve some punishment. If they had urged us verymuch to go, I would have gone. Anyhow, you needn't bother. There's ashort way back to camp by the old loggers' trail."

  Grace said nothing. She thought Barbara's carelessness was forced;Barbara was sometimes moody. Perhaps she felt Shillito's going more thanshe was willing to own. For all that, the fellow was gone, and Barbarawould, no doubt, presently be consoled.

  "If mother could see things!" Barbara resumed. "Sometimes one feels onewants a guide, but all one gets is a ridiculous platitude from herold-fashioned code. One has puzzles one can't solve by out-of-daterules. However, since she doesn't see, there's no use in bothering."

  "I'm your elder sister, but you don't give me your confidence."

  Barbara's mood changed and her laugh was touched by scorn. "You areworse than mother. She's kind, but can't see; you don't want to see. I'dsooner trust my step-father. He's a very human old ruffian. I wish I hada real girl friend, but you tactfully freeze off all the girls I like.It's strange how many people there are whom virtuous folks don'tapprove."

  Grace missed the note of appeal in her sister's bitterness. She did notsee the girl as disturbed by doubts and looked in perplexity for aguiding light. Afterwards, when understanding was too late, Grace partlyunderstood.

  "Mr. Cartwright is not a ruffian." she said coldly.

  "I suppose you're taking the proper line, and you'd be rather noble,only you're not sincere. You don't like Cartwright and know he doesn'tlike you. All the same, it's not important. We were talking aboutgetting home, and since the boys have not come for us we had betterstart."

  The loon had flown away and nothing broke the surface of the lake; theshadows had got longer and driven back the light. Thin mist driftedabout the islands, the green glow behind the trunks was fading, and itwould soon be dark.

  "In winter, the big timber wolves prowl about the woods," Barbararemarked. "Horrible, savage brutes! I expect you saw the heads at thepacker's house. Still, one understands they stay North until the frostbegins."

  She got up, and when they set off Grace looked regretfully across thelake, for she would sooner have gone home on board the fishing bateau.She was puzzled. The bays on the lake were numerous, and islands dottedthe winding reaches, but it was strange the young men had gone to thewrong spot. They knew the lake and had told Barbara where to meet them.In the meantime, however, the important thing was to get home.

  Darkness crept across the woods, and as she stumbled along the uneventrail Grace got disturbed. She felt the daunting loneliness, the quietjarred her nerve. The pines looked ghostly in the gloom. They wereragged and strangely stiff, it looked as if their branches never moved,and the dark gaps between the trunks were somehow forbidding.

  Grace did not like Canada. Her cultivation was artificial, but Canadawas primitive and stern. In the towns, one found inventions thatlightened labor, and brought to the reach of all a physical comfort thatin England only the rich enjoyed, but the contrasts were sharp. One leftone's hotel, with its very modern furniture, noisy elevators andtelephones, and plunged into the wilderness where all was as it had beenfrom the beginning. Grace shrank from primitive rudeness and hatedadventure. Living by rule she distrusted all she did not know. Shethought it strange that Barbara, who feared nothing, let her go infront.

  They came to a pool. All round, the black tops of the pines cut the sky;the water was dark and sullen in the gloom. The trail followed its edgeand when a loon's wild cry rang across the woods Grace stopped. She knewthe cry of the lonely bird that haunts the Canadian wilds, but it had astrange note, like mocking laughter. Grace disliked the loon when itsvoice first disturbed her sleep at the fishing camp; she hated itafterwards.

  "Go on!" said Barbara sharply.

  For a moment or two Grace stood still. She did not want to stop, butsomething in Barbara's voice indicated strain. If Barbara were startled,it was strange. Then, not far off, a branch cracked and the pine-sprayrustled as if they were gently pushed aside.

  "Oh!" Grace cried, "something is creeping through the bush!"

  "Then don't stop," said Barbara. "Perhaps it's a wolf!"

  Grace clutched her dress and ran. At first, she thought she heardBarbara behind, but she owned she had not her sister's pluck and feargave her speed. She must get as far as possible from the pool before shestopped. Besides, she imagined something broke through the undergrowthnear the trail, but her heart beat and she could not hear properly.

  At length her breath got labored and she was forced to stop. All wasquiet and the quiet was daunting. Barbara was not about and when Gracecalled did not reply. Grace tried to brace herself. Perhaps she ought togo back, but she could not; she shrank from the terror that haunted thedark. Then she began to argue that to go back was illogical. If Barbarahad lost her way, she could not help. It was better to push on to thecamp and send men who knew the woods to look for her sister. She setoff, and presently saw with keen relief the light of a fire reflected oncalm water.