There was more art talk after Len’s work had been sufficiently analyzed—recent news of Chace Woirheye and other area artists’ accomplishments, as well as their own current projects and ideas. But Willy had a surprise. “Not to steal your thunder, Len,” he said after a suitable length of time, “but I have something here I’d like your opinions on.” And from out of nowhere he presented Sevana’s latest homework assignment.
“Willy!” Sevana sat straight up. The cognac wasn’t the only thing he’d smuggled in under his coat.
“You left it in the classroom.” Willy slanted her an unrepentant grin. “I knew you wouldn’t care if I borrowed it for the evening.”
The accolades were unanimous and unsparing. Sevana looked around at each artist genuinely commending her talent, and knew she had been accepted among them on the basis of her own merit. It was a moment she’d been waiting for, and it should have lifted her to the heights of happiness.
But as the talk and gaiety continued, the whirl of the evening slid away and she found herself face to face with a memory peculiarly unmoved by it all—the recollection of a dark-haired man come to say goodbye, seeming too big and undomesticated to be confined inside the walls of a city apartment. A man who carried in his experience a whole unspoiled world most people had never seen—who, no matter where he went, would always have the song of a thousand outdoor wonders playing through his soul.
And she knew with profound clarity that art could never be her whole life again. If all she wanted was to paint, then she could be content with this life as Willy and his friends were. But art alone did not consume her—there was the unexpected wealth she had discovered in another place, there was the incomparable friendship she had known with Joel. There was beauty that could not ever be put down on canvas, and had to be enjoyed just for beauty’s sake. The merriment continued, but she felt apart from it—a strange thing for someone who had gone there wanting to be included in it.
It was late when Willy took her home, in a snowstorm that was just beginning to whiten the city. He was too euphoric from the cognac and art conversation to notice her preoccupation as she thanked him for the evening. But as she went inside, quickly closing the door before Willy could invite himself in, she was wondering what good it was to realize that life was not enough, when it was the only one she could have.
The storm wind rose again to a high-pitched wail, and inside the little house Sevana paced from room to room, looking for something she couldn’t find.
CHAPTER 43
Picking her way down the drifted stairs next morning, Sevana met Willy on the walk shoveling a path through the ankle-deep snow. Business was slow that day, for few people ventured out in the first snowfall of the season. In one of the many quiet stretches of the morning, Willy cleared more of the sidewalk. Sevana could see him out by the curb talking to Len in his sedan. In a few minutes Willy stuck his head in the door. “I’m going over to Len’s for a while.”
“His garden,” Sevana suddenly remembered. “It must be buried.”
“That’s why I’m going. He needs help moving all forty trellises and the bower into the shed. Ralf made himself scarce—I have no idea why.”
During the day the wind lost its vehemence and fell to a nomadic wandering over the plain. It was still bitingly cold after work but Sevana bundled up anyway, and with the snow crunching under her boots walked far into the drifted fields—out where there was only flat white land under a flat white sky—having nowhere to go but not wanting to go back.
A car—a tiny toy of one—was coming along the unplowed road, slower and slower as it approached, until it finally stopped altogether and David got out. He walked across the stretch of field to her, struggling to tie down his flapping overcoat. “Sevana! What are you doing out here on such a polar day?” he exclaimed.
“Just walking,” she replied. “Tired of being cooped up inside.”
“Bad storm, wasn’t it? Let me give you a ride into town.”
“That would defeat the purpose of my walk.” She evinced a transitory smile. “But I’ll start back now.”
A gust of wind clashed against the ground and whipped up a shower of snow, so that for a minute they were lost in the swirling crystals. Instinctively they turned their backs to the blast and began walking toward the road. “Did Joel find you the other night?” asked David.
“Yes.” She had to work to keep her voice unaffected. “He told me he saw you.”
“Unexpected, wasn’t it? There wasn’t a lot of time to talk, but I was glad to see him at all. Although I didn’t like the idea of him setting out on such a long trip by himself.”
“Neither did I.” She didn’t add that she would have gladly volunteered to go with him. “It just doesn’t seem fair that he should have to help out his father, when his father’s never done anything for him!” she burst out, expressing the thought that had bothered her ever since she’d first learned of it.
“Well, Sevana,” David said mildly, “there’s no rule that says you should help only those who help you.”
“Yes, I know.” She felt ashamed for being less good-hearted than David, but still was not entirely satisfied.
“It’s no easy thing, is it?” David’s smile was understanding. “Have you heard from him since he left?”
“No, but he said he’d call when he got to Mammoth Creek if he could.”
“He probably had to drive through this same storm.” David brushed the snow from his coat front as they stopped by the car. “Well, Joel’s capable of doing anything he has to.”
She wondered how much Joel had told him about the big events in his life, but it wasn’t her place to ask. “Where are you coming back from just now?”
“I have a few places I like to visit after a storm—Mr. Stackpole, and several others who live alone. Everybody came through it all right, although Mrs. Wagner’s washing machine froze up.”
“Don’t you mind looking after so many people all the time?” she asked curiously, catching back the hair blowing in her eyes.
“Oh no, I enjoy it.” He smiled candidly. “No different than a shepherd looking after his sheep.”
“Just like Joel,” she whispered, staring at him. “He liked it, too.”
“Let me give you a ride,” David insisted again.
“I’ll be fine, David. But it’s nice of you to offer.”
“All right, Sevana, hurry home. I’ll be at the church if you want to stop and warm up.” Briefly she read concern in his face before he got back in the car and left her there on the snowy road.
Throughout each day of the week Sevana wondered about Joel—where he was, if he was all right. She jumped every time the phone rang, but it was never him. Finally she gave up expecting it. If he’d been able to call, he would have done so by now. She would probably have to wonder for months before she found out if he’d made it safely. It was just something she had to live with.
Just as she had to live with the way she felt about him. All the emotions she had suppressed for so long had come to light, insisting to be recognized. One evening looking through her flower book she’d been overcome by a paralyzing alarm, wondering how she had let him go without telling him how she felt about him—thinking frantically she had to find him and let him know before it was too late. She’d made it down to the sidewalk before the cold air had brought her back to her senses.
But after some very long nights and some very long walks—at least one of which prompted Willy to mention the city bus system to her again—she came to terms with some things. How she felt about Joel simply didn’t factor. He was in love with someone else—had been ever since she’d known him. She hadn’t lost him, because she’d never had him. She couldn’t deny her feelings for him, but that was as far as it could go. She couldn’t act on them, nor could she give them up; they had to remain a part of her, unspoken and unpursued.
And then she would stand at the side of her balcony while the moon swung up from the horizon to shine across the city, as if sh
e might catch a clue of how he was doing if she looked north into that blue-lit landscape long enough. And almost, she could be persuaded he was thinking about her in those very same moments.
Out of these heart-agonies and psychic fancies came a new and stern resolve to throw herself into other things. Impatient for wanting something to which she had no right, she told herself the only choice was to live for her job and art lessons, so she’d better do it wholeheartedly. She was thankful she at least had useful ways to occupy her time. And Willy was always there, ready to entertain her with his irrepressible spirits. She didn’t know how she could have endured it without him.
Neither Willy nor painting could divert her from her disquieting thoughts entirely, however, and she could be found silent and a little downcast on occasions when nothing was going on at the shop. Willy noticed, and one day he asked her about it. “I don’t know,” she said hopelessly. It was too much to explain—or maybe there was no explanation after all.
Willy tried to console her. All artists were subject to fits of despondency, he told her—it was part of the artistic temperament. Once again he tried to get her to forget painting, forget everything, and come out to the Roadhouse for a good time. And once again Sevana had to turn him down.
Still, Willy was a lifesaver in many ways. If all artists were subject to despondency, she wondered where he kept his hidden. Only infrequently did something set him in a bad mood, and he was quickly over it, like an afternoon thunderstorm soon spent of its fury. He was slightly zany, she thought affectionately. She came to count on him—for whether it was her newly completed picture hanging on the wall with a million dollar price tag, a rubber snake on top of a picture frame she was dusting, or the phony thousand-dollar bill he slipped into the cash register to see her face when she counted the money at the end of the day, he could make her laugh.
In return for the benefit she unspokenly received from him, she tried harder to hide the hopelessness that came upon her so strongly at times, and threw herself into her assignments with a zeal that delighted him. In her spare time she finished the picture from his book, using the principles he’d taught her to make it a dramatic study of color and light. She was glad it was so beautiful, glad the Lindfords should have one of the best she’d ever done.
Willy praised it as he did all her efforts, and continually assured her she was destined for greatness. It pleased her, but it didn’t mean as much to her as it once would have. Although she tried her best to devote her energies to it, art could not in any adequate measure fill the empty spaces of her heart.
And at the same time, her desire to return to the mountains had taken on a life of its own. For if the one thing restraining it had been her determination to make a success of her life there, the faltering of that determination had broken the only barrier holding it in its bonds. Once rejected for its sheer impracticality, the idea was back full-force in her daydreams. Furthermore, the knowledge that Joel could never be hers, made her rebound rebelliously with the thought that Cragmont still could be.
One Sunday afternoon while she sat at the top of the stairs in jeans and a shirt-jacket, her curled hair tied up carelessly with a ribbon, pondering a walk to occupy her day now that church was over—Willy drove up. He hailed her with a sunny look that brightened her spirits immediately, and climbed the stairs to sit beside her. “Came by to ask if you wanted to go for a hike,” he said—which suggestion was met by a prompt and energetic bounce of her precarious ponytail.
They drove north to a park in the riverbreaks. “There’s a maze of trails down here if you like to walk. Oh, that’s right, you do,” he teased as they got out of the car.
“Let’s go!” she cried, running ahead in a little burst of speed.
They took a maintained trail through a dry side-gorge. No one else was around. Willy pointed out a few late-blooming flowers and even, curiously, some little cactuses that grew on the barren hillsides. They stopped at a viewpoint to look over the river. “Not bad for December, eh?” Willy gloated. For all the snow had melted in a chinook, and except for the leafless trees, it could have been October.
At another observation point he asked casually, “So, are you coming with me when I move the shop?”
“You’ve decided to do it?”
“Still thinking about it. If I did, would you come?”
“I would certainly consider it.”
“Don’t run me over with your enthusiasm.”
“I’m sorry, Willy.” She was instantly contrite. “It’s just that I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently, about what direction my life should take.”
“You told me not so long ago you knew exactly what you wanted.”
“Yes, I know. But lately I’ve been questioning everything—who I am and where I belong.” She bent to touch a little cactus beside the path to see if the spines were as real as they looked. “It seems so out of place here,” she mused, snatching back her finger. She straightened again. “I’m not too sure of anything right now, Willy.”
“You’re young, Sevana, and it’s typical to ask those kinds of questions.” Willy’s response was prompt and unhesitating. “But—lucky for you—in your case the answers are easy. You have what it takes to be a great artist, and you belong where those skills can best be let to flourish. There’s no better place than Calgary for that, for it’s the center of all kinds of art and culture—with as many opportunities and contacts for your work as you could wish.”
“I know I’m meant to be an artist,” she agreed, thinking out loud. “And I don’t mean to seem ungrateful, Willy, for I know how much you’ve done for me. But as much as I look ahead, all I really want to do is go back to Cragmont.” The longstanding ache in her heart made her reckless—less concerned with the right thing to say, and knowing only what she wanted.
“Cragmont!” His reaction was as overwhelmingly negative as she could have predicted. “That little hick town? What would possess—oh, I know. It’s your friends-only friend, isn’t it?” he concluded suspiciously.
“No. I told you he’s getting married. And he won’t even be there—he’s moving to Vancouver.” She began to pace the observation area. “My brother is there, of course, although I doubt he’d be glad to see me. It’s mostly—I just can’t get that place out of my mind,” she stopped to admit revealingly. “I keep thinking of those high mountain ridges, and the river running so clear you can see every stone on the bottom, and the great, tall trees—trees so big you wouldn’t believe it, Willy!—until I feel I simply must get back and find myself in their shelter once again.”
“Sevana,” Willy said patiently, guiding her into the path with a hand on her elbow, “everybody likes big trees and high mountains. But in Calgary you can have a position that will put you at the leading edge of the art world—and whenever you want to see mountains, you can jump in your gold-plated sportscar and drive one hour west to some of the most spectacular ranges in the world.”
What he said made sense—all except for the gold-plated car. She wanted to agree with him. Instead, her mood of truth-telling made her say: “Visiting the mountains isn’t the same as living in them day-to-day, though. If you’d ever lived there, Willy, you would know there’s a sort of magic that gets into your thinking and makes you believe it’s the only life you’ll ever want.”
Willy realized this was going to be more difficult than he’d anticipated. “All right, I understand, Sevana,” he said generously. “I’m sure that life does possess a certain appeal for you. But you’ve got to realize it can’t do anything for you. I can! I’m going places and you can, too, if you’ll just come with me. You’ve got the talent to be famous, you’ve got me to help you, and a position that can put you in the very heart of the art world. Those aren’t things to be taken lightly.”
“I know,” she said in a troubled way. She stopped in the path, the up-canyon wind tossing the loose curls at her throat. “It’s just what I always thought I wanted.”
If Willy caught the intimation in
her voice, he chose to ignore it. “Of course it is,” he said engagingly. “It’s perfect for you; it’s easy to see that. I don’t know if I’ve told you this in so many words, but I’m proud of you. You’ve taken off in your painting, and now there’s nothing to hold you back. And you’re doing a marvelous job at the shop. I don’t know how I ever managed without you.”
“Thank you, Willy.” Her heart warmed at his generous praise. “It has all worked out better than I hoped, and I owe it all to you.”
Willy smiled at her. “It’s only the beginning,” he assured her. “Your talent can take you beyond anything you now think possible.”
“Sometimes I’m afraid of that.” Her voice dropped low. “Sometimes I’m afraid I’m being swept into a current that is taking me somewhere I don’t want to go, and there’s no way to change its course.”
Willy’s carefully crafted castle came crashing down, and he had to pull himself back from the brink of his thin patience. “Did you hear what you just said, Sevana?” he demanded. “You’re afraid. You’re frightened because everything is happening so fast, and you want to run back to the time when things were slow-paced and your biggest worry was chopping enough wood to keep the fire going,”—for she had told him a few of her exploits. “That’s all this is. But if you just trust me, you’ll have nothing to worry about. I told you I’d help you every inch of the way.”
Sevana looked into his kindly earnest eyes and knew he would do just that. “Maybe you’re right, Willy.” She disliked hurting him by her reluctance. “Maybe it is just cold feet. I’m not really planning to go back to Cragmont. It’s just that I’m having a harder time than I expected, adjusting to this life. Sometimes it seems the greatest happiness I’ve found lies behind me. What if I never find anything equal to it in this new life I’ve chosen?”
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