Possibly this indifference piqued Miss Thayer. Possibly she considered it refreshing after the servile adulation of the M.P.s. At any rate, when all the latter were gathered about the piano singing a chorus with gusto, she shook Madison off and went over to the corner where Spencer, deserted by the Major, whose bass was wanted, was sitting in solitary state.
He looked up indifferently as Violet shimmered down on the divan beside him. Sergeant Robinson, who was watching them jealously from the corner beyond the palms, and would have given his eyes, or at least one of them, for such a favour, mentally vowed that Spencer was the dullest fellow he had ever put those useful members on.
“Don’t you sing, Mr. Spencer?” asked Violet by way of beginning a conversation, as she turned her splendid eyes full upon him. Robinson would have lost his head under them, but Spencer kept his heroically.
“No,” was his calmly brief reply, given without any bluntness, but with no evident intention of saying anything more.
In spite of her social experience Violet felt disconcerted.
“If he doesn’t want to talk to me I won’t try to make him,” she thought crossly. No man had ever snubbed her so before.
Spencer listened immovably to the music for a time. Then he turned to his companion with a palpable effort to be civilly sociable.
“How do you like the west, Miss Thayer?” he said.
Violet smiled — the smile most men found dangerous.
“Very much, so far as I have seen it. There is a flavour about the life here that I like, but I dare say it would soon pall. It must be horribly lonesome here most of the time, especially in winter.”
“The M.P.s are always growling that it is,” returned Spencer with a slight smile. “For my own part I never find it so.”
Violet decided that his smile was very becoming to him and that she liked the way his dark hair grew over his forehead.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you at Lone Poplar Villa before?” she said.
“No. I haven’t been here for some time. I came up tonight to see the Major about the Loon Lake trouble.”
“Otherwise you wouldn’t have come,” thought Violet. “Flattering — very!” Aloud she said, “Is it serious?”
“Oh, no. A mere squabble among the Indians. Have you ever visited the Reservation, Miss Thayer? No? Well, you should get some of your M.P. friends to take you out. It would be worth while.”
“Why don’t you ask me to go yourself?” said Violet audaciously.
Spencer smiled again. “Have I failed in politeness by not doing so? I fear you would find me an insufferably dull companion.”
So he was not going to ask her after all. Violet felt piqued. She was also conscious of a sensation very near akin to disappointment. She looked across at Madison. How trim and dapper he was!
“I hate a bandbox man,” she said to herself.
Spencer meanwhile had picked up one of Mrs. Hill’s novels from the stand beside him.
“Fools of Habit,” he said, glancing at the cover. “I see it is making quite a sensation down east. I suppose you’ve read it?”
“Yes. It is very frivolous and clever — all froth but delightful froth. Did you like it?”
Spencer balanced the novel reflectively on his slender brown hand.
“Well, yes, rather. But I don’t care for novels as a rule. I don’t understand them. The hero of this book, now — do you believe that a man in love would act as he did?”
“I don’t know,” said Violet amusedly. “You ought to be a better judge than I. You are a man.”
“I have never loved anybody, so I am in no position to decide,” said Spencer.
There was as little self-consciousness in his voice as if he were telling her a fact concerning the Loon Lake trouble. Violet rose to the occasion.
“You have an interesting experience to look forward to,” she said.
Spencer turned his deep-set grey eyes squarely upon her.
“I don’t know that. When I said I had never loved, I meant more than the love of a man for some particular woman. I meant love in every sense. I do not know what it is to have an affection for any human being. My parents died before I can remember. My only living relative was a penurious old uncle who brought me up for shame’s sake and kicked me out on the world as soon as he could. I don’t make friends easily. I have a few acquaintances whom I like, but there is not a soul on earth for whom I care, or who cares for me.”
“What a revelation love will be to you when it comes,” said Violet softly. Again he looked into her eyes.
“Do you think it will come?” he asked.
Before she could reply Mrs. Hill pounced upon them. Violet was wanted to sing. Mr. Spencer would excuse her, wouldn’t he? Mr. Spencer did so obligingly. Moreover, he got up and bade his hostess good night. Violet gave him her hand.
“You will call again?” she said.
Spencer looked across at Madison — perhaps it was accidental.
“I think not,” he said. “If, as you say, love will come some time, it would be a very unpleasant revelation if it came in hopeless guise, and one never knows what may happen.”
Miss Thayer was conscious of a distinct fluttering of her heart as she went across to the piano. This was a new sensation for her, and worthy of being analyzed. After the M.P.s had gone she asked Mrs. Hill who Mr. Spencer was.
“Oh, John Spencer,” said Mrs. Hill carelessly. “He’s at the head of the Land Office here. That’s really all I know about him. Jack says he is a downright good fellow and all that, you know. But he’s no earthly good in a social way; he can’t talk or he won’t. He’s flat. So different from Mr. Madison, isn’t he?”
“Very,” said Violet emphatically.
After Mrs. Hill had gone out Violet walked to the nearest mirror and looked at herself with her forefinger in the dimple of her chin.
“It is very odd,” she said. She did not mean the dimple.
Spencer had told her he was not coming back. She did not believe this, but she did not expect him for a few days. Consequently, when he appeared the very next evening she was surprised. Madison, to whom she was talking when Spencer entered, does not know to this day what she had started to say to him, for she never finished her sentence.
“I wonder if it is the Loon Lake affair again?” she thought nervously.
Mrs. Hill came up at this point and whisked Madison off for a waltz. Spencer, seeing his chance, came straight across the room to her. Sergeant Robinson, who was watching them as usual, is willing to make affidavit that Miss Thayer changed colour.
After his greeting Spencer said nothing. He sat beside her, and they watched Mrs. Hill and Madison dancing. Violet wondered why she did not feel bored. When she saw Madison coming back to her she was conscious of an unreasonable anger with him. She got up abruptly.
“Let us go out on the verandah,” she said imperiously. “It is absolutely stifling in here.”
They went out. It was very cool and dusky. The lights of the town twinkled out below them, and the prairie bluffs behind them were dark and sibilant.
“I am going to drive over to Loon Lake tomorrow afternoon to look into affairs there,” said Spencer. “Will you go with me?”
Violet reflected a moment. “You didn’t ask me as if you really wanted me to go,” she said.
Spencer put his hand over the white fingers that rested on the railing. He bent forward until his breath stirred the tendrils of hair on her forehead.
“Yes, I do,” he said distinctly. “I want you to go with me to Loon Lake tomorrow more than I ever wanted any thing in my life before.”
Later on, when everybody had gone, Violet had her bad quarter of an hour with Mrs. Hill. That lady felt herself aggrieved.
“I think you treated poor Ned very badly tonight, Vi. He felt really blue over it. And it was awfully bad form to go out with Spencer as you did and stay there so long. And you oughtn’t to flirt with him — he doesn’t understand the game.”
�
�I’m not going to flirt with him,” said Miss Thayer calmly.
“Oh, I suppose it’s just your way. Only don’t turn the poor fellow’s head. By the way, Ned is coming up with his camera tomorrow afternoon to take us all.”
“I’m afraid he won’t find me at home,” said Violet sweetly. “I am going out to Loon Lake with Mr. Spencer.”
Mrs. Hill flounced off to bed in a pet. She was disgusted with everything, she declared to the Major. Things had been going so nicely, and now they were all muddled.
“Isn’t Madison coming up to time?” queried the Major sleepily.
“Madison! It’s Violet. She is behaving abominably. She treated poor Ned shamefully tonight. You saw yourself how she acted with Spencer, and she’s going to Loon Lake with him tomorrow, she says. I’m sure I don’t know what she can see in him. He’s the dullest, pokiest fellow alive — so different from her in every way.”
“Perhaps that is why she likes him,” suggested the Major. “The attraction of opposites and all that, you know.”
But Mrs. Hill crossly told him he didn’t know anything about it, so, being a wise man, he held his tongue.
During the next two weeks Mrs. Hill was the most dissatisfied woman in the four districts, and every M.P. down to the rawest recruit anathemized Spencer in secret a dozen times a day. Violet simply dropped everyone else, including Madison, in the coolest, most unmistakable way.
One night Spencer did not come to Lone Poplar Villa. Violet looked for him to the last. When she realized that he was not coming she went to the verandah to have it out with herself. As she sat huddled up in a dim corner beneath a silkily rustling western maple two M.P.s came out and, not seeing her, went on with their conversation.
“Heard about Spencer?” questioned one.
“No. What of him?”
“Well, they say Miss Thayer’s thrown him over. Yesterday I was passing here about four in the afternoon and I saw Spencer coming in. I went down to the Land Office and was chatting to Cribson when the door opened about half an hour later and Spencer burst in. He was pale as the dead, and looked wild. ‘Has Fyshe gone to Rainy River about those Crown Lands yet?’ he jerked out. Cribson said, ‘No.’ Then tell him he needn’t; I’m going myself,’ said Spencer and out he bolted. He posted off to Rainy River today, and won’t be back for a fortnight. She’ll be gone then.”
“Rather rough on Spencer after the way she encouraged him,” returned the other as they passed out of earshot.
Violet got up. All the callers were gone, and she swept in to Mrs. Hill dramatically.
“Edith,” she said in the cold, steady voice that, to those who knew her, meant breakers ahead for somebody, “Mr. Spencer was here yesterday when I was riding with the Major, was he not? What did you tell him about me?”
Mrs. Hill looked at Violet’s blazing eyes and wilted.
“I — didn’t tell him anything — much.”
“What was it?”
Mrs. Hill began to sob.
“Don’t look at me like that, Violet! He just dropped in and we were talking about you — at least I was — and I had heard that Harry St. Maur was paying you marked attention before you came west — and — and that some people thought you were engaged — and so — and so—”
“You told Mr. Spencer that I was engaged to Harry St. Maur?”
“No-o-o — I just hinted. I didn’t mean an-any harm. I never dreamed you’d really c-care. I thought you were just amusing yourself — and so did everybody — and I wanted Ned Madison—”
Violet had turned very pale.
“I love him,” she said hoarsely, “and you’ve sent him away. He’s gone to Rainy River. I shall never see him again!”
“Oh, yes, you will,” gasped Mrs. Hill faintly. “He’ll come back when he knows — you c-can write and tell him—”
“Do you suppose I am going to write and ask him to come back?” said Violet wildly. “I’ve enough pride left yet to keep me from doing that for a man at whose head I’ve thrown myself openly — yes, openly, and who has never, in words at least, told me he cared anything about me. I will never forgive you, Edith!”
Then Mrs. Hill found herself alone with her lacerated feelings. After soothing them with a good cry, she set to work thinking seriously. There was no doubt she had muddled things badly, but there was no use leaving them in a muddle when a word or two fitly spoken might set them straight.
Mrs. Hill sat down and wrote a very diplomatic letter before she went to bed, and the next morning she waylaid Sergeant Fox and asked him if he would ride down to Rainy River with a very important message for Mr. Spencer. Sergeant Fox wondered what it could be, but it was not his to reason why; it was his only to mount and ride with all due speed, for Mrs. Hill’s whims and wishes were as stringent and binding as the rules of the force.
That evening when Mrs. Hill and Violet — the latter very silent and regal — were sitting on the verandah, a horseman came galloping up the Rainy River trail. Mrs. Hill excused herself and went in. Five minutes later John Spencer, covered with the alkali dust of his twenty miles’ ride, dismounted at Violet’s side.
The M.P.s gave a concert at the barracks that night and Mrs. Hill and her Major went to it, as well as everyone else of any importance in town except Violet and Spencer. They sat on Major Hill’s verandah and watched the moon rising over the bluffs and making milk-white reflections in the prairie lakes.
“It seems a year of misery since last night,” sighed Violet happily.
“You couldn’t have been quite as miserable as I was,” said Spencer earnestly. “You were everything — absolutely everything to me. Other men have little rills and driblets of affection for sisters and cousins and aunts, but everything in me went out to you. Do you remember you told me the first time we met that love would be a revelation to me? It has been more. It has been a new gospel. I hardly dared hope you could care for me. Even yet I don’t know why you do.”
“I love you,” said Violet gravely, “because you are you.”
Than which, of course, there could be no better reason.
The Waking of Helen
Robert Reeves looked somewhat curiously at the girl who was waiting on him at his solitary breakfast. He had not seen her before, arriving at his summer boarding house only the preceding night.
It was a shabby farmhouse on the inland shore of a large bay that was noted for its tides, and had wonderful possibilities of light and shade for an impressionist. Reeves was an enthusiastic artist. It mattered little to him that the boarding accommodations were most primitive, the people uncultured and dull, the place itself utterly isolated, as long as he could revel in those transcendent sunsets and sunrises, those marvellous moonlights, those wonderful purple shores and sweeps of shimmering blue water.
The owner of the farm was Angus Fraser, and he and his wife seemed to be a reserved, uncouth pair, with no apparent interest in life save to scratch a bare living out of their few stony acres. He had an impression that they were childless and was at a loss to place this girl who poured his tea and brought in his toast. She did not resemble either Fraser or his wife. She was certainly not beautiful, being very tall and rather awkward, and dressed in a particularly unbecoming dark print wrapper. Her luxuriant hair was thick and black, and was coiled in a heavy knot at the nape of her neck. Her features were delicate but irregular, and her skin was very brown. Her eyes attracted Reeves’s notice especially; they were large and dark and full of a half-unconscious, wistful longing, as if a prisoned soul behind them were vainly trying to reveal itself.
Reeves could find out nothing of her from herself, for she responded to his tentative questions about the place in the briefest fashion. Afterwards he interviewed Mrs. Fraser cautiously, and ascertained that the girl’s name was Helen Fraser, and that she was Angus’s niece.
“Her father and mother are dead and we’ve brought her up. Helen’s a good girl in most ways — a little obstinate and sulky now and then — but generally she’s steady enough,
and as for work, there ain’t a girl in Bay Beach can come up to her in house or field. Angus calculates she saves him a man’s wages clear. No, I ain’t got nothing to say against Helen.”
Nevertheless, Reeves felt somehow that Mrs. Fraser did not like her husband’s niece. He often heard her scolding or nagging Helen at her work, and noticed that the latter never answered back. But once, after Mrs. Angus’s tongue had been especially bitter, he met the girl hurrying along the hall from the kitchen with her eyes full of tears. Reeves felt as if someone had struck him a blow. He went to Angus and his wife that afternoon. He wished to paint a shore picture, he said, and wanted a model. Would they allow Miss Fraser to pose for him? He would pay liberally for her time.
Angus and his wife had no objection. They would pocket the money, and Helen could be spared a spell every day as well as not. Reeves told Helen of his plan himself, meeting her in the evening as she was bringing the cows home from the low shore pastures beyond the marsh. He was surprised at the sudden illumination of her face. It almost transfigured her from a plain, sulky-looking girl into a beautiful woman.
But the glow passed quickly. She assented to his plan quietly, almost lifelessly. He walked home with her behind the cows and talked of the sunset and the mysterious beauty of the bay and the purple splendour of the distant coasts. She listened in silence. Only once, when he spoke of the distant murmur of the open sea, she lifted her head and looked at him.
“What does it say to you?” she asked.
“It speaks of eternity. And to you?”
“It calls me,” she answered simply, “and then I want to go out and meet it — and it hurts me too. I can’t tell how or why. Sometimes it makes me feel as if I were asleep and wanted to wake and didn’t know how.”
She turned and looked out over the bay. A dying gleam of sunset broke through a cloud and fell across her hair. For a moment she seemed the spirit of the shore personified — all its mystery, all its uncertainty, all its elusive charm.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 618