CHAPTER XX
For another day, a day of brilliant sunshine and roaring west wind,the fire marched up over the southern slope. Its flaming head, with atowering crest of smoke, went over a high ridge, and its lower flanksmoldered threateningly a little above the valley. The second nightthe wind fell to a whisper, shifting freakishly into the northeast,and day dawned with a mass formation of clouds spitting rain, which bynoon grew to a downpour. The fire sizzled and sputtered and died.Twenty hours of rain cleared the sky of clouds, the woods of smoke.The sun lifted his beaming face over the eastern sky line. The birdsthat had been silent began their twittering again, the squirrels tookup their exploration among the tree tops, scolding and chattering asthey went. Gentle airs shook the last rain drops from leaf and bough.The old peace settled on the valley. There was little to mark the tendays of effort and noise and destruction except a charred patch on thevalley floor and a mile-wide streak that ran like a bar sinisteracross the green shield of the slope south of the Big Bend. Even thatdesolate path seemed an insignificant strip in the vast stretch of theforest.
Hollister and his men went, after the rain, up across that ravagedplace, and when they came to the hollow where the great cedars andlesser fir had stood solemn and orderly in brown-trunked ranks, therudest of the loggers grew silent, a little awed by the melancholy ofthe place, the bleakness, the utter ruin. Where the good green foresthad been, there was nothing but ashes and blackened stubs, stretchesof bare rock and gravelly soil, an odor of charred wood. There was nogreen blade, no living thing, in all that wide space, nothing but afew gaunt trunks stark in the open; blasted, sterile trunks standinglike stripped masts on a derelict.
There was nothing left of the buildings except a pile of stone whichhad been the fireplace in the log house, and a little to one side therusty, red skeleton of the mess-house stove. They looked aboutcuriously for a few minutes and went back to the valley.
At the house Hollister paid them off. They went their way down to thesteamer landing, eager for town after a long stretch in the woods. Thefire was only an exciting incident to them. There were other camps,other jobs.
It was not even an exciting incident to Hollister. Except for a littlesadness at sight of that desolation where there had been so muchbeauty, he had neither been uplifted nor cast down. He had beenunmoved by the spectacular phases of the fire and he was stillindifferent, even to the material loss it had inflicted on him. He wasnot ruined. He had the means to acquire more timber if it should benecessary. But even if he had been ruined, it is doubtful if that factwould have weighed heavily upon him. He was too keenly aware of amatter more vital to him than timber or money,--a matter in whichneither his money nor his timber counted one way or the other, and inwhich the human equation was everything.
The steamer that took out his men brought in a letter from his wife,which Lawanne sent up by his Chinese boy. He had written to her theday before the fire broke out. He could not recall precisely what hewrote, but he had tried to make clear to her what troubled him andwhy. And her reply was brief, uncommonly brief for Doris, who had thefaculty of expressing herself fully and freely.
Hollister laid the letter on the table. The last line of that shortmissive kept repeating itself over and over, as if his brain were aphonograph which he had no power to stop playing:
"I shall be home next week on the Wednesday boat."
He got up and walked across the room, crossed and recrossed it half adozen times. And with each step those words thrust at him with deadlyimport. He had deluded himself for a while. He had thought he couldbeat the game in spite of his handicap. He had presumed for a year tosnap his fingers and laugh in the face of Fate, and Fate was to havethe last laugh.
He seemed to have a fatalistic sureness about this. He made adeliberate effort to reason about it, and though his reason assumedthat when a woman like Doris Cleveland loved a man she did not lovehim for the unblemished contours of his face, there was still thatdeep-rooted, unreasoning feeling that however she might love him asthe unseen, the ideal lover, she must inevitably shrink from thereality.
He stood still for a few seconds. In the living quarters of his housethere was, by deliberate intention, no mirror. Among Hollister'sthings there was a small hand glass before which he shaved off thehairs that grew out of the few patches of unscarred flesh about hischin, those fragments of his beard which sprouted in grotesquelyseparated tufts. But in the bedroom they had arranged for thehousekeeper there was a large oval glass above a dresser. Into thisroom Hollister now walked and stood before the mirror staring at hisface.
No, he could not blame her, any one, for shrinking from _that_. Andwhen the darting shuttle of his thought reminded him that Myra did notshrink from it, he went out to the front room and with his body sunkdeep in a leather chair he fell to pondering on this. But it led himnowhere except perhaps to a shade of disbelief in Myra and hermotives, a strange instinctive distrust both of her and himself.
He recognized Myra's power. He had succumbed to it in the old carelessdays and gloried in his surrender. He perceived that her compellingcharm was still able to move him as it did other men. He knew thatMyra had been carried this way and that in the great, cruel,indifferent swirl that was life. He could understand a great manythings about her and about himself, about men as men and women aswomen, that he would have denied in the days before the war.
But while he could think about himself and Myra Bland with a calmnessthat approached indifference, he could not think with that samedetachment about Doris. She had come, walking fearlessly in herdarkened world, to him in his darkened world of discouragement andbitterness. There was something fine and true in this blind girl,something that Hollister valued over and above the flesh-and-bloodloveliness of her, something rare and precious that he longed to keep.He could not define it; he simply knew that it resided in her, that itwas a precious quality that set her apart in his eyes from all otherwomen.
But would it stand the test of sight? If he were as other men he wouldnot have been afraid; he would scarcely have asked himself thatquestion. But he knew he would be like a stranger to her, a strangeman with a repellingly scarred face. He did not believe she couldendure that, she who loved beauty so, who was sensitive to subtletiesof tone and atmosphere beyond any woman he had ever known. Hollistertried to put himself in her place. Would he have taken her to hisarms as gladly, as joyously, if she had come to him with a facetwisted out of all semblance to its natural lines? And Hollister couldnot say. He did not know.
He threw up his head at last, in a desperate sort of resolution. In aweek he would know. Meantime--
He had no work to occupy him now. There were a few bolts behind theboom-sticks which he would raft to the mill at his leisure. He walkedup to the chute mouth now and looked about. A few hundred yards up thehill the line of green timber ended against the black ruin of thefire. There the chute ended also. Hollister walked on across the rockypoint, passed the waterfall that was shrinking under the summer heat,up to a low cliff where he sat for a long time looking down on theriver.
When he came back at last to the house, Myra was there, busy at herself-imposed tasks in those neglected rooms. Hollister sat down on theporch steps. He felt a little uneasy about her being there, uneasy forher. In nearly two weeks of fighting fire he had been thrown inintimate daily contact with Jim Bland, and his appraisal of Bland'scharacter was less and less flattering the more he revised hisestimate of the man. He felt that Myra was inviting upon herselfsomething she might possibly not suspect. He decided to tell her itwould be wiser to keep away; but when he did so, she merely laughed.There was a defiant recklessness in her tone when she said:
"Do you think I need a chaperone? Must one, even in this desolateplace, kow-tow to the conventions devised to prop up the weak anduntrustworthy? If Jim can't trust me, I may as well learn it now asany other time. Besides, it doesn't matter to me greatly whether hedoes or not. If for any reason he should begin to think evil ofme--well, the filthy thought in another's mind can't
defile me. Ican't recall that I was ever greatly afraid of what other people mightthink of me, so long I was sure of myself."
"Nevertheless," Hollister said, "it is as well for you not to comehere alone while I am here alone."
"Don't you like me to come, Robin?" she asked.
"No," he said slowly. "That wasn't why I spoke--but I don't think Ido."
"Why?" she persisted.
Hollister stirred uneasily.
"Call a spade a spade, Robin," she advised. "Say what you think--whatyou mean."
"That's difficult," he muttered. "How can any one say what he meanswhen he is not quite sure what he does mean? I'm in trouble. You'resorry for me, in a way. And maybe you feel--because of old times,because of the contrast between what your life was then and what it isnow--you feel as if you would like to comfort me. And I don't want youto feel that way. I look at you--and I think about what you said. Iwonder if you meant it? Do you remember what you said?"
"Quite clearly. I meant it, Robin. I still mean it. I'm yours--if youneed me. Perhaps you won't. Perhaps you will. Does it trouble you tohave me a self-appointed anchor to windward?"
She clasped her hands over her knees, bending forward a little,looking at him with a curious serenity. Her eyes did not waver fromhis.
Hollister made no answer.
"I brought a lot of this on you, Robin," she went on in the musical,rippling voice so like Doris in certain tones and inflections as tomake him wonder idly if he had unconsciously fallen in love with DorisCleveland's voice because it was like Myra's. "If I had stuck it outin London till you came back, maimed or otherwise, things would havebeen different. But we were started off, flung off, one might say,into different orbits by the forces of the war itself. That's neitherhere nor there, now. You may think I'm offering myself as a sort ofvicarious atonement--if your Doris fails you--but I'm not, really. I'mtoo selfish. I have never sacrificed myself for any man. I never will.It isn't in me. I'm just as eager to get all I can out of life as Iever was. I liked you long ago. I like you still. That's all there isto it, Robin."
She shifted herself nearer him. She put one hand on his shoulder, theother on his knee, and bent forward, peering into his face. Hollistermatched that questioning gaze for a second. It was unreadable. Itconveyed no message, hinted nothing, held no covert suggestion. It wasearnest and troubled. He had never before seen that sort of look onMyra's face. He could make nothing of it, and so there was nothing init to disturb him. But the warm pressure of her hands, the nearness ofher body, did trouble him. He put her hands gently away.
"You shouldn't come here," he said quietly. "I will call a spade aspade. I love Doris--and I have a queer, hungry sort of feeling aboutthe boy. If it happens that in spite of our life together Doris can'tbear me and can't get used to me, if it becomes impossible for us togo on together--well, I can't make clear to you the way I feel aboutthis. But I'm afraid. And if it turns out that I'm afraid with goodcause--why, I don't know what I'll do, what way I'll turn. But waituntil that happens--Well, it seems that a man and a woman who haveloved and lived together can't become completely indifferent--theymust either hate and despise each other--or else--You understand? Wehave made some precious blunders, you and I. We have involved otherpeople in our blundering, and we mustn't forget about these otherpeople. I _can't_. Doris and the kid come first--myself last. I'mselfish too. I can only sit here in suspense and wait for things tohappen as they will. You," he hesitated a second, "you can't help me,Myra. You could hurt me a lot if you tried--and yourself too."
"I see," she said. "I understand."
She sat for a time with her hands resting in her lap, looking down atthe ground. Then she rose.
"I don't want to hurt you, Robin," she said soberly. "I can't helplooking for a way out, that's all. For myself, I must find a way out.The life I lead now is stifling me--and I can't see where it will everbe any different, any better. I've become cursed with the twin devilsof analysis and introspection. I don't love Jim; I tolerate him. Onecan't go through life merely tolerating one's husband, and the sort offriends and the sort of existence that appeals to one's husband,unless one is utterly ox-like--and I'm not. Women have lived with menthey cared nothing for since the beginning of time, I suppose, becauseof various reasons--but I see no reason why I should. I'm a rebel--infull revolt against shams and stupidity and ignorance, because thosethree have brought me where I am and you where you are. I'm a disarmedand helpless _revolte_ by myself. One doesn't want to go from bad toworse. One wants instinctively to progress from good to better. Onemakes mistakes and seeks to rectify them--if it is possible. One seessuffering arise as the result of one's involuntary acts, and onewishes wistfully to relieve it. That's the simple truth, Robin. Only asimple truth is often a very complex thing. It seems so with us."
"It is," Hollister muttered, "and it might easily become more so."
"Ah, well," she said, "that is scarcely likely. You were always prettydependable, Robin. And I'm no longer an ignorant little fool to rushthoughtlessly in where either angels or devils might fear to tread. Weshall see."
She swung around on her heel. Hollister watched her walk away alongthe river path. He scarcely knew what he thought, what he felt, exceptthat what he felt and thought disturbed him to the point of sadness,of regret. He sat musing on the curious, contradictory forces at workin his life. It was folly to be wise, to be sensitive, to respond tooquickly, to see too clearly; and ignorance, dumbness of soul, was alsofatal. Either way there was no escape. A man did his best and it wasfutile,--or seemed so to him, just then.
His gaze followed Myra while his thought ran upon Doris, upon his boy,wondering if the next steamer would bring him sentence of banishmentfrom all that he valued, or if there would be a respite, a stay ofexecution, a miracle of affection that would survive and override theterrible reality--or what seemed to him the terrible reality--of hisdisfigured face. He had abundant faith in Doris--of the soft voice andthe keen, quick mind, the indomitable spirit and infinitepatience--but he had not much faith in himself, in his own power. Hewas afraid of her restored sight, which would leave nothing to thesubtle play of her imagination.
And following Myra with that mechanical noting of her progress, hiseyes, which were very keen, caught some movement in a fringe ofwillows that lined the opposite shore of the river some three hundredyards below. He looked more sharply. He had developed a hunter'sfaculty for interpreting movement in the forest, and although he hadnothing more positive than instinct and a brief flash upon which tobase conclusions, he did not think that movement of the leaves wasoccasioned by any creature native to the woods.
On impulse he rose, went inside, and taking his binoculars from theircase, focused the eight-power lenses on the screen of brush, keepinghimself well within the doorway where he could see without being seen.
It took a minute or so of covering the willows before he located thecause of that movement of shrubbery. But presently he made out thehead and shoulders of a man. And the man was Bland, doing preciselywhat Hollister was doing, looking through a pair of field glasses.Hollister stood well back in the room. He was certain Bland could notsee that he himself was being watched. In any case, Bland was notlooking at Hollister's house. It was altogether likely that he hadbeen doing so, that he had seen Myra sitting beside Hollister with herhand on his shoulder, bending forward to peer into Hollister's face.And Hollister could easily imagine what Bland might feel and think.But he was steadily watching Myra. Once he turned the glasses for afew seconds on Hollister's house. Then he swung them back to Myra,followed her persistently as she walked along the bank, on pastLawanne's, on towards their own rude shack. And at last Bland shifted.One step backward, and the woods swallowed him. One moment hisshoulders and his head stood plain in every detail, even to thebrickish redness of his skin and the curve of his fingers about theglasses; the next he was gone.
Hollister sat thinking. He did not like the implications of thatfurtive observance. A suspicious, watchful man is a jealous man. And ajealous
man who has nothing to do but watch and suspect and nurse thatmean passion was a dangerous adjunct to an unhappy woman.
Hollister resolved to warn Myra, to emphasize that warning. No onecould tell of what a dull egotist like Bland might be capable. Thevery fact of that furtive spying argued an ignoble streak in any man.Bland was stiff-necked, vain, the sort to be brutal in retaliation forany fancied invasion of his rights. And his conception of a husband'srights were primitive in the extreme. A wife was property, somethingthat was his. Hollister could imagine him roused to blind, blunderingfury by the least suspicious action on Myra's part. Bland was the typethat, once aroused, acts like an angry bull,--with about as muchregard or understanding of consequences. Hollister had been measuringBland for a year, and the last two or three weeks had given him thegreatest opportunity to do so. He had appraised the man as a dullardunder his stupid, inflexible crust of egotism, despite his veneer ofmanners. But even a clod may be dangerous. A bomb is a harmless thing,so much inert metal and chemicals, until it is touched off; yet itneeds only a touch to let loose its insensate, rending force.
Hollister rose to start down the path after Myra with the idea that hemust somehow convey to her a more explicit warning. As he stepped outon the porch, he looked downstream at Bland's house and saw a manapproach the place from one direction as Myra reached it from theother. He caught up his glasses and brought them to bear. The man wasMills,--whom he had thought once more far from the Toba with the restof his scattered crew. Nevertheless this was Mills drawing nearBland's house with quick strides.
Hollister's uneasiness doubled. There was a power for mischief in thatsituation when he thought of Jim Bland scowling from his hiding placein the willows. He set out along the path.
But by the time he came abreast of Lawanne's cabin he had begun tofeel himself acting under a mistaken impulse, an exaggeratedconclusion. He began to doubt the validity of that intuition whichpointed a warning finger at Bland and Bland's suspicions. Inattempting to forestall what might come of Bland's stewing in thejuice of a groundless jealousy, he could easily precipitate somethingthat would perhaps be best avoided by ignoring it. He stood, when hethought of it, in rather a delicate position himself.
So he turned into Lawanne's. He found Archie sitting on the shady sideof his cabin, and they fell into talk.
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