Towards the sky-line, across the level country, stumbling and crawling over the deep-hewn dikes, wading sometimes through the mud-oozing swamp, Tavernake, who had left the small railway terminus on foot, made his way that night steadily seawards, as one pursued by some relentless and indefatigable enemy. Twilight had fallen like a mantle around him, fallen over that great flat region of fens and pastureland and bog. Little patches of mist, harbingers of the coming obscurity, were being drawn now into the gradual darkness. Lights twinkled out from the far-scattered homesteads. Here and there a dog barked, some lonely bird seeking shelter called to its mate, but of human beings there seemed to be no one in sight save the solitary traveler.
Tavernake was in grievous straits. His clothes were caked with mud, his hair tossed with the wind, his cheeks pale, his eyes set with the despair of that fierce upheaval through which he had passed. For many hours the torture which had driven him back towards his birthplace had triumphed over his physical exhaustion. Now came the time, however, when the latter asserted itself. With a half-stifled moan he collapsed. Sheer fatigue induced a brief but merciful spell of uneasy slumber. He lay upon his back near one of the broader dikes, his arms outstretched, his unseeing eyes turned toward the sky. The darkness deepened and passed away again before the light of the moon. When at last he sat up, it was a new world upon which he looked, a strange land, moonlit in places, yet full of shadowy somberness. He gazed wonderingly around—for the moment he had forgotten. Then memory came, and with memory once more the stab at his heart. He rose to his feet and went resolutely on his way.
Almost until the dawn he walked, keeping as near as he could to that long monotonous line of telegraph posts, yet avoiding the road as much as possible. With the rising of the sun, he crept into a wayside hovel and lay there hidden for hours. Hunger and thirst seemed like things which had passed him by. It was sleep only which he craved, sleep and forgetfulness.
Dusk was falling again before he found himself upon his feet, starting out once more upon this strangely thought-of pilgrimage. This time he kept to the road, plodding along with tired, dejected footsteps, which had in them still something of that restless haste which drove him ceaselessly onward as though he were indeed possessed of some unquiet spirit. He was recovering now, however, a little of his natural common sense. He remembered that he must have food and drink, and he sought them from the wayside public-house like an ordinary traveler, conquering without any apparent effort that first invincible repugnance of his toward the face of any human being. Then on again across this strange land of windmills and spreading plains, until the darkness forced him to take shelter once more. That night he slept like a child. With the morning, the fever had passed from his blood. A great wind blew in his face even as he opened his eyes, touched to wakefulness by the morning sun, a wind that came booming over the level places, salt with the touch of the ocean and fragrant with the perfume of many marsh plants. He was coming toward the sea now, and within a very short distance from where he had spent the night, he found a broad, shining river stealing into the land. With eager fingers he stripped himself and plunged in, diving again and again below the surface, swimming with long, lazy strokes backwards and forwards. Afterwards he lay down in the warm, dry grass, dressed himself slowly, and went on his way. The wind, which had increased now since the early morning, came thundering across the level land, bending the tops of the few scattered trees, sending the sails of the windmills spinning, bringing on its bosom now stronger than ever the flavor of the sea itself, salt and stimulating. Tavernake told himself that this was a new world into which he was coming. He would pass into its embrace and life would become a new thing.
Towards evening with many a thrill of reminiscence, he descended a steep hill and walked into a queer time-forgotten village, whose scattered red-tiled cottages were built around an arm of the sea. Boldly enough now he entered the one inn which flaunted its sign upon the cobbled street, and, taking a seat in the stone-floored kitchen, ate and drank and bespoke a bed. Later on, he strolled down to the quay and made friends with the few fishermen who were loitering there. They answered his questions readily, although he found it hard at first to pick up again the dialect of which he himself had once made use. The little place was scarcely changed. All progress, indeed, seemed to have passed it by. There were a handful of fishermen, a boat-builder and a fish-curer in the village. There was no other industry save a couple of small farmhouses on the outskirts of the place, no railway within twelve miles. Tourists came seldom, excursionists never. In the half contented, half animal-like expression which seemed common to all the inhabitants, Tavernake read easily enough the history of their uneventful days. It was such a shelter as this, indeed, for which he had been searching.
On the second night after his arrival, he walked with the boatbuilder upon the wooden quay. The boatbuilder's name was Nicholls, and he was a man of some means, deacon of the chapel, with a fair connection as a jobbing carpenter, and possessor of the only horse and cart in the place.
“Nicholls,” Tavernake said, “you don't remember me, do you?”
The boat-builder shook his head slowly and ponderously.
“There was Richard Tavernake who farmed the low fields,” he remarked, reminiscently. “Maybe you're a son of his. Now I come to think of it, he had a boy apprenticed to the carpentering.”
“I was the boy,” Tavernake answered. “I soon had enough of it and went to London.”
“You'm grown out of all knowledge,” Nicholls declared, “but I mind you now. So you've been in London all these years?”
“I've been in London,” Tavernake admitted, “and I think, of the two, that Sprey-by-the-Sea is the better place.”
“Sprey is well enough,” the boat-builder confessed, “well enough for a man who isn't set on change.”
“Change,” Tavernake asserted, grimly, “is an overrated joy. I have had too much of it in my life. I think that I should like to stay here for some time.”
The boat-builder was surprised, but he was a man of heavy and deliberate turn of mind and he did not commit himself to speech. Tavernake continued.
“I used to know something of carpentering in my younger days,” he said, “and I don't think that I have forgotten it all. I wonder if I could find anything to do down here?”
Matthew Nicholls stroked his beard thoughtfully.
“The folk round about are not over partial to strangers,” he observed, “and you'm been away so long I reckon there's not many as'd recollect you. And as for carpentering jobs, there's Tom Lake over at Lesser Blakeney and his brother down at Brancaster, besides me on the spot, as you might say. It's a poor sort of opening there'd be, if you ask my opinion, especially for one like yourself, as 'as got education.”
“I should be satisfied with very little,” Tavernake persisted. “I want to work with my hands. I should like to forget for a time that I have had any education at all.”
“That do seem mightily queer to me,” Nicholls remarked, thoughtfully.
Tavernake smiled.
“Come,” he said, “it isn't altogether unnatural. I want to make something with my hands. I think that I could build boats. Why do you not take me into your yard? I could do no harm and I should not want much pay.”
Matthew Nicholls stroked his beard once more and this time he counted fifty, as was his custom when confronted with a difficult matter. He had no need to do anything of the sort, for nothing in the world would have induced him to make up his mind on the spot as to so weighty a proposal.
“It's not likely that you're serious,” he objected. “You are a young man and strong-limbed, I should imagine, but you've education—one can tell it by the way you pronounce your words. It's but a poor living, after all, to be made here.”
“I like the place,” Tavernake declared doggedly. “I am a man of small needs. I want to work all through the day, work till I am tired enough to sleep at night, work till my bones ache and my arms are sore. I suppose you could give me enough to live on in a humble way?”
“Take a bite of supper with me,” Nicholls answered. “In these serious affairs, my daughter has always her say. We will put the matter before her and see what she thinks of it.”
They lingered about the quay until the light from Wells Lighthouse flashed across the sea, and until in the distance they could hear the moaning of the incoming tide as it rippled over the bar and began to fill the tidal way which stretched to the wooden pier itself. Then the two men made their way along the village street, through a field, and into the little yard over which stood the sign of “Matthew Nicholls, Boat-Builder.” At one corner of the yard was the cottage in which he lived.
“You'll come right in, Mr. Tavernake,” he said, the instincts of hospitality stirring within him as soon as they had passed through the gate. “We will talk of this matter together, you and me and the daughter.”
Tavernake seemed, on his introduction to the household, like a man unused to feminine society. Perhaps he did not expect to find such a type of her sex as Ruth Nicholls in such a remote neighborhood. She was thin, and her cheeks were paler than those of any of the other young women whom he had seen about the village. Her eyes, too, were darker, and her speech different. There was nothing about her which reminded him in the least of the child with whom he had played. Tavernake watched her intently. Presently the idea came to him that she, too, was seeking shelter.
Supper was a simple meal, but it was well and deftly served. The girl had the gift of moving noiselessly. She was quick without giving the impression of haste. To their guest she was courteous, but her recollection of him appeared to be slight, and his coming but a matter of slight interest. After she had cleared the cloth, however, and produced a jar of tobacco, her father bade her sit down with them.
“Mr. Tavernake,” he began, ponderously, “is thinking some of settling down in these parts, Ruth.”
She inclined her head gravely.
“It appears,” her father continued, “that he is sick and tired of the city and of head-work. He is wishful to come into the yard with me, if so be that we could find enough work for two.”
The girl looked at their visitor, and for the first time there was a measure of curiosity in her earnest gaze. Tavernake was, in his way, good enough to look upon. He was well-built, his shoulders and physique all spoke of strength. His features were firmly cut, although his general expression was gloomy. But for a certain moroseness, an uncouthness which he seemed to cultivate, he might even have been deemed good-looking.
“Mr. Tavernake would make a great mistake,” she said, hesitatingly. “It is not well for those who have brains to work with their hands. It is not a place for those to live who have been out in the world. At most seasons of the year it is but a wilderness. Sometimes there is little enough to do, even for father.”
“I am not ambitious for over-much work or for over-much money, Miss Nicholls,” Tavernake replied. “I will be frank with you both. Things out in the world there went ill with me; it was not my fault, but they went ill with me. What ambitions I had are finished—for the present, at any rate. I want to rest, I want to work with my hands, to grow my muscles again, to feel my strength, to believe that there is something effective in the world I can do. I have had a shock, a disappointment,—call it what you like.”
The old man Nicholls nodded deliberately.
“Well,” he pronounced, “it's a big change to make. I never thought of help in the yard before. When there's been more than I could do, I've just let it go. Come for a week on trial, Leonard Tavernake. If we are of any use to one another, we shall soon know of it.”
The girl, who had been looking out into the night, came back.
“You are making a mistake, Mr. Tavernake,” she said. “You are too young and strong to have finished your battle.”
He looked at her steadily and sighed. It was only too obvious that hers had been fought and lost.
“Perhaps,” he replied softly, “you are right. Perhaps it is only the rest I want. We shall see.”
So Tavernake became a boat-builder. Summer passed into winter and this hamlet by the sea seemed, indeed, as though it might have been one of the forgotten spots upon the earth. Save for that handful of cottages, the two farmhouses a few hundred yards inland, and the deserted Hall half-hidden in its grove of pine trees, there was no dwelling-place nor any sign of human habitation for many miles. For eight hours a day Tavernake worked, mostly out of doors, in the little yard which hung over the beach. Sometimes he rested from his labors and looked seaward, looked around him as though rejoicing in that unbroken solitude, the emptiness of the gray ocean, the loneliness of the land behind. What things there were which lay back in the cells of his memory, no person there knew, for he spoke of his past to no one, not even to Ruth. He was a good workman, and he lived the simple life of those others without complaint or weariness. There was nothing in his manner to denote that he had been used to anything else. The village had accepted him without question. It was only Ruth who still, gravely but kindly enough, disapproved of his presence.
One day she came and sat with him as he smoked his after-dinner pipe, leaning against an overturned boat, with his eyes fixed upon that line of gray breakers.
“You spend a good deal of your time thinking, Mr. Tavernake,” she remarked quietly.
“Too much,” he admitted at once, “too much, Miss Nicholls. I should be better employed planing down that mast there.”
“You know that I did not mean that,” she said, reprovingly, “only sometimes you make me—shall I confess it?—almost angry with you.”
He took his pipe from his mouth and knocked out the ashes. As they fell on the ground so he looked at them.
“All thought is wasted time,” he declared, grimly, “all thought of the past. The past is like those ashes; it is dead and finished.”
She shook her head.
“Not always,” she replied. “Sometimes the past comes to life again. Sometimes the bravest of us quit the fight too soon.”
He looked at her questioningly, almost fiercely. Her words, however, seemed spoken without intent.
“So far as mine is concerned,” he pronounced, “it is finished. There is a memorial stone laid upon it, and no resurrection is possible.”
“You cannot tell,” she answered. “No one can tell.”
He turned back to his work almost rudely, but she stayed by his side.
“Once,” she remarked, reflectively, “I, too, went a little way into the world. I was a school-teacher at Norwich. I was very fond of some one there; we were engaged. Then my mother died and I had to come back to look after father.”
He nodded.
“Well?”
“We are a long way from Norwich,” she continued, quietly. “Soon after I left, the man whom I was fond of grew lonely. He found some one else.”
“You have forgotten him?” Tavernake asked, quickly.
“I shall never forget him,” she replied. “That part of life is finished, but if ever my father can spare me, I shall go back to my work again. Sometimes those work the best and accomplish the most who carry the scars of a great wound.”
She turned away to the house, and after that it seemed to him that she avoided him for a time. At any rate, she made no further attempt to win his confidence. Propinquity, however, was too much for both of them. He was a lodger under her father's roof. It was scarcely possible for them to keep apart. Saturdays and Sundays they walked sometimes for miles across the frost-bound marshes, in the quickening atmosphere of the darkening afternoons, when the red sun sank early behind the hills, and the twilight grew shorter every day. They watched the sea-birds together and saw the wild duck come down to the pools; felt the glow of exercise burn their cheeks; felt, too, that common and nameless exultation engendered by their loneliness in the solitude of these beautiful empty places. In the evenings they often read together, for Nicholls, although no drinker, never missed his hour or so at the village inn. Tavernake, in time, began to find a sort of comfort in her calm, sexless companionship. He knew very well that he was to her as she was to him, something human, something that filled an empty place, yet something without direct personality. Little by little he felt the bitterness in his heart grow less. Then a late spring—late, at any rate, in this quaint corner of the world—stole like some wonderful enchantment across the face of the moors and the marshes. Yellow gorse starred with golden clumps the brown hillside; wild lavender gleamed in patches across the silver-streaked marshes; the dead hedges came blossoming into life. Crocuses, long lines of yellow and purple crocuses, broke from waxy buds into starlike blossoms along the front of Matthew Nicholls's garden. And with the coming o spring, Tavernake found himself suddenly able to thin of the past. It was a new phase of life. He could sit down and think of those things that had happened to him, without fearing to be wrecked by the storm. Often he sat out looking seaward, thinking of the days when he had first met Beatrice, of those early days of pleasant companionship, of the marvelous avidity with which he had learned from her. Only when Elizabeth's face stole into the foreground did he spring from his place and turn back to his work.
One day Tavernake sat poring over the weekly local paper, reading it more out of curiosity than from any real interest. Suddenly a familiar name caught his eye. His heart seemed to stop beating for a moment, and the page swam before his eyes. Quickly he recovered himself and read:
THE QUEEN'S HALL, UNTHANK ROAD,NORWICHTWICE DAILY.PROFESSOR FRANKLINassisted by his daughter,MISS BEATRICE FRANKLIN,will give his REFINED and MARVELOUSENTERTAINMENT, comprising HYPNOTISM, featsOf SECOND SIGHT never before attempted onany stage, THOUGHT-READING, and a BRIEFLECTURE upon the connection between ANCIENTSUPERSTITIONS and the EXTRAORDINARYDEVELOPMENTS OF THE NEW SCIENCE.PROFESSOR FRANKLIN Can be CONSULTED PRIVATELY,by letter or by appointment. Address for thisweek—The Golden Cow, Bell's Lane, Norwich.
Twice Tavernake read the announcement. Then he went out and found Ruth.
“Ruth,” he told her, “there is something calling me back, perhaps for good.”
For the first time she gave him her hand.
“Now you are talking like a man once more,” she declared. “Go and seek it. Comeback and say good-bye to us, if you will, but throw your tools into the sea.”
Tavernake laughed and looked across at his workshop.
“I don't believe,” he said, “that you've any confidence in my boat.”
“I'm not sure that I would sail with you,” she answered, “even if you ever finished it. A laborer's work for a laborer's hand. You must go back to the other things.”
The professor set down his tumbler upon the zinc-rimmed counter. He was very little changed except that he had grown a shade stouter, and there was perhaps more color in his cheeks. He carried himself, too, like a man who believes in himself. In the small public-house he was, without doubt, an impressive figure.
“My friends,” he remarked, “our host's whiskey is good. At the same time, I must not forget—”
“You'll have one with me, Professor,” a youth at his elbow interrupted. “Two special whiskies, miss, if you please.”
The professor shrugged his shoulders—it was a gesture which he wished every one to understand. He was suffering now the penalty for a popularity which would not be denied!
“You are very kind, sir,” he said, “very kind, indeed. As I was about to say, I must not forget that in less than half an hour I am due upon the stage. It does not do to disappoint one's audience, sir. It is a poor place, this music-hall, but it is full, they tell me packed from floor to ceiling. At eight-thirty I must show myself.”
“A marvelous turn, too, Professor,” declared one of the young men by whom he was surrounded.
“I thank you, sir,” the professor replied, turning towards the speaker, glass in hand. “There have been others who have paid me a similar compliment; others, I may say, not unconnected with the aristocracy of your country—not unconnected either, I might add,” he went on, “with the very highest in the land, those who from their exalted position have never failed to shower favors upon the more fortunate sons of our profession. The science of which I am to some extent the pioneer—not a drop more, my young friend. Say, I'm in dead earnest this time! No more, indeed.”
The young man in knickerbockers who had just come in banged the head of his cane upon the counter.
“You'll never refuse me, Professor,” he asserted, confidently. “I'm an old supporter, I am. I've seen you in Blackburn and Manchester, and twice here. Just as wonderful as ever! And that young lady of yours, Professor, begging your pardon if she is your daughter, as no doubt she is, why, she's a nut and no mistake.”
The professor sighed. He was in his element but he was getting uneasy at the flight of time.
“My young friend,” he said, “your face is not familiar to me but I cannot refuse your kindly offer. It must be the last, however, absolutely the last.”
Then Tavernake, directed here from the music-hall, pushed open the swing door and entered. The professor set down his glass untasted. Tavernake came slowly across the room.
“You haven't forgotten me, then, Professor?” he remarked, holding out his hand.
The professor welcomed him a little limply; something of the bombast had gone out of his manner. Tavernake's arrival had reminded him of things which he had only too easily forgotten.
“This is very surprising,” he faltered, “very surprising indeed. Do you live in these parts?”
“Not far away,” Tavernake answered. “I saw your announcement in the papers.”
The professor nodded.
“Yes,” he said, “I am on the war-path again. I tried resting but I got fat and lazy, and the people wouldn't have it, sir,” he continued, recovering very quickly something of his former manner. “The number of offers I got through my agents by every post was simply astounding—astounding!”
“I am looking forward to seeing your performance this evening,” Tavernake said politely. “In the meantime—”
“I know what you are thinking of,” the professor interrupted. “Well, well, give me your arm and we will walk down to the hall together. My friends,” the professor added, turning round, “I wish you all a good-night!”
Then the door was pushed half-way open and Tavernake's heart gave a jump. It was Beatrice who stood there, very pale, very tired, and much thinner even than the Beatrice of the boardinghouse, but still Beatrice.
“Father,” she exclaimed, “do you know that it is nearly—”
Then she saw Tavernake and said no more. She seemed to sway a little, and Tavernake, taking a quick step forward, grasped her by the hands.
“Dear sister,” he cried, “you have been ill!”
She was herself again almost in a moment.
“Ill? Never in my life,” she replied. “Only I have been hurrying—we are late already for the performance—and seeing you there, well, it was quite a shock, you know. Walk down with us and tell me all about it. Tell us what you are doing here—or rather, don't talk for a moment! It is all so amazing.”
They turned down the narrow cobbled street, the professor walking in the middle of the roadway, swinging his cane, a very imposing and wonderful figure, with the tails of his frock-coat streaming in the wind, his long hair only half-hidden by his hat. He hummed a tune to himself and affected not to take any notice of the other two. Then Tavernake suddenly realized that he had done a cowardly action in leaving her without a word.
“There is so much to ask,” she began at last, “but you have come back.”
She looked at his workman's clothes.
“What have you been doing?” she asked, sharply.
“Working,” Tavernake answered, “good work, too. I am the better for it. Don't mind my clothes, Beatrice. I have been mad for a time, but after all it has been a healthy madness.”
“It was a strange thing that you did,” she said,—“you disappeared.”
He nodded.
“Some day,” he told her, “I may, perhaps, be able to make you understand. Just now I don't think that I could.”
“It was Elizabeth?” she whispered, softly.
“It was Elizabeth,” he admitted.
They said no more then till they reached the hall. She stopped at the door and put out her hand timidly.
“I shall see you afterwards?” she ventured.
“Do you mind my coming to the performance?” he asked.
She hesitated.
“A few moments ago,” she remarked, smiling, “I was dreading your coming. Now I think that you had better. It will be all over at ten o'clock, and I shall look for you outside. You are living in Norwich?”
“I shall be here for to-night, at any rate,” he answered.
“Very well, then,” she said, “afterwards we will have a talk.”
Tavernake passed through the scattered knot of loiterers at the door and bought a seat for himself in the little music-hall, which, notwithstanding the professor's boast, was none too well filled. It was a place of the old-fashioned sort, with small tables in the front, and waiters hurrying about serving drinks. The people were of the lowest order, and the atmosphere of the room was thick with tobacco smoke. A young woman in a flaxen wig and boy's clothes was singing a popular ditty, marching up and down the stage, and interspersing the words o f her song with grimaces and appropriate action. Tavernake sat down with a barely-smothered groan. He was beginning to realize the tragedy upon which he had stumbled. A comic singer followed, who in a dress suit several sizes too large for him gave an imitation of a popular Irish comedian. Then the curtain went up and the professor was seen, standing in front of the curtain and bowing solemnly to a somewhat unresponsive audience. A minute later Beatrice came quietly in and sat by his side. There was nothing new about the show. Tavernake had seen the same thing before, with the exception that the professor was perhaps a little behind the majority of his fellow-craftsmen. The performance was finished in dead silence, and after it was over, Beatrice came to the front and sang. She was a very unusual figure in such a place, in a plain black evening gown, with black gloves and no jewelry, but they encored her heartily, and she sang a song from the musical comedy in which Tavernake had first seen her. A sudden wave of reminiscence stirred within him. His thoughts seemed to go back to the night when he had waited for her outside the theatre and they had had supper at Imano's, to the day when he had left the boarding-house and entered upon his new life. It was more like a dream than ever now.
He rose and quitted the place immediately she had finished, waiting in the street until she appeared. She came out in a few minutes.
“Father is going to a supper,” she announced, “at the inn where he has a room for receiving people. Will you come home with me for an hour? Then we can go round and fetch him.”
“I should like to,” Tavernake answered.
Her lodgings were only a few steps away—a strange little house in a narrow street. She opened the front door and ushered him in.
“You understand, of course,” she said, smiling, “that we have abandoned the haunts of luxury altogether.”
He looked around at the tiny room with its struggling fire and horsehair sofa, linoleum for carpet, oleographs for pictures, and he shivered, not for his own sake but for hers. On the sideboard were some bread and cheese and a bottle of ginger beer.
“Please imagine,” she begged, taking the pins from her hat, “that you are in those dear comfortable rooms of ours down at Chelsea. Draw that easy-chair up to what there is of the fire, and listen. You smoke still?”
“I have taken to a pipe,” he admitted.
“Then light it and listen,” she went on, smoothing her hair for a minute in front of the looking-glass. “You want to know about Elizabeth, of course.”
“Yes,” he said, “I want to know.”
“Elizabeth, on the whole,” Beatrice continued, “got out of all her troubles very well. Her husband's people were wild with her, but Elizabeth was very clever. They were never able to prove that she had exercised more than proper control over poor Wenham. He died two months after they took him to the asylum. They offered Elizabeth a lump sum to waive all claims to his estate, and she accepted it. I think that she is now somewhere on the Continent.”
“And you?” he asked. “Why did you leave the theatre?”
“It was a matter of looking after my father,” she explained. “You see, while he was there with Elizabeth he had too much money and nothing to do. The consequence was that he was always—well, I suppose I had better say it—drinking too much, and he was losing all his desire for work. I made him promise that if I could get some engagements he would come away with me, so I went to an agent and we have been touring like this for quite a long time.”
“But what a life for you!” Tavernake exclaimed. “Couldn't you have stayed on at the theatre and found him something in London?”
She shook her head.
“In London,” she said, “he would never have got out of his old habits. And then,” she went on, hesitatingly, “you understand that the public want something else besides the hypnotism—”
Tavernake interrupted her ruthlessly.
“Of course I understand,” he declared, “I was there to-night. I understood at once why you were not very anxious for me to go. The people cared nothing at all about your father's performance. They simply waited for you. You would get the same money if you went round without him.”
She nodded, a trifle shamefacedly.
“I am so afraid some one will tell him,” she confessed. “They nearly always ask me to leave out his part of the performance. They have even offered me more money if I would come alone. But you see how it is. He believes in himself, he thinks he is very clever and he believes that the public like his show. It is the only thing which helps him to keep a little self-respect. He thinks that my singing is almost unnecessary.”
Tavernake looked into that faint glimmer of miserable fire. He was conscious of a curious feeling in his throat. How little he knew of life! The pathos of what she had told him, the thought of her bravely traveling the country and singing at third-rate music-halls, never taking any credit to herself, simply that her father might still believe himself a man of talent, appealed to him irresistibly. He suddenly held out his hand.
“Poor little Beatrice!” he exclaimed. “Dear little sister!”
The hand he gripped was cold, she avoided his eyes.
“You—you mustn't,” she murmured. “Please don't!”
He held out his other hand and half rose, but her lips suddenly ceased to quiver and she waved him back.
“No, Leonard,” she begged, “please don't do or say anything foolish. Since we do meet again, though, like this, I am going to ask you one question. What made you come to me and ask me to marry you that day?”
He looked away; something in her eyes accused him.
“Beatrice,” he confessed, “I was a thick-headed ignorant fool, without understanding. I came to you for safety. I was afraid of Elizabeth, I was afraid of what I felt for her. I wanted to escape from it.”
She smiled piteously.
“It wasn't a very brave thing to do, was it?” she faltered.
“It was mean,” he admitted. “It was worse than that. But, Beatrice,” he went on, “I was missing you horribly. You did leave a big empty place when you went away. I am not going to excuse myself about Elizabeth. I lived through a time of the strangest, most marvelous emotions one could dream of. Then the thing came to an end and I felt as though the bottom had gone out of life. I suppose—I loved her,” he continued hesitatingly. “I don't know. I only know that she filled every thought of my brain, that she lived in every beat of my heart, that I would have gone down into Hell to help her. And then I understood. That morning she told me something of the truth about herself, not meaning to—unconsciously—justifying herself all the time, not realizing that every word she said was damnable. And then there didn't seem to be anything else left, and I had only one desire. I turned my back upon everything and I went back to the place where I was born, a little fishing village. For the last thirty miles I walked. I shall never forget it. When I got there, what I wanted was work, work with my hands. I wanted to build something, to create anything that I could labor upon. I became a boat builder—I have been a boatbuilder ever since.”
“And now?” she asked.
“Beatrice!”
She turned and faced him. She looked into his eyes very searchingly, very wistfully.
“Beatrice,” he said, “I ask you once more, only differently. Will you marry me now? I'll find some work, I'll make enough money for us. Do you remember,” he went on, “how I used to talk, how I used to feel that I had only to put forth my strength and I could win anything? I'll feel like that again, Beatrice, if you'll come to me.”
She shook her head slowly. She looked away from him with a sigh. She had the air of one who has sought for something which she has failed to find.
“You mustn't think of that again, Leonard,” she told him. “It would be quite impossible. This is the only way I can save my father. We have a tour that will take us the best part of another year.”
“But you are sacrificing yourself!” he declared. “I will keep your father.”
“It isn't that only,” she replied. “For one thing, I couldn't let you; and for another, it isn't only the money, it's the work. As long as he's made to think that the public expect him every night, he keeps off drinking too much. There is nothing else in the whole world which would keep him steady. Don't look as though you didn't understand, Leonard. He is my father, you know, and there isn't anything more terrible than to see any one who has a claim on us give way to anything like that. You mayn't quite approve, but please believe that I am doing what I feel to be right.”
The little fire had gone out. Beatrice glanced at the clock and put on her jacket again.
“I am sorry, Leonard,” she said, “but I think I must go and fetch father now. You can walk with me there, if you will. It has been very good to see you again. For the rest I don't know what to say to you. Do you think that it is quite what you were meant for—to build boats?”
“I don't seem to have any other ambition,” he answered, wearily. “When I read in the paper this morning that you and your father were here, things seemed suddenly different. I came at once. I didn't know what I wanted until I saw you, but I know now, and it isn't any good.”
“No good at all,” she declared cheerfully. “It won't be very long, Leonard, before something else comes along to stir you. I don't think you were meant to build boats all your life.”
He rose and took up his hat. She was waiting for him at the door. Again they passed down the narrow street.
“Tell, me, Beatrice,” he begged, “is it because you don't like me well enough that you won't listen to what I ask?”
For a moment she half closed her eyes as though in pain. Then she laughed, not perhaps very naturally. They were standing now by the door of the public house.
“Leonard,” she said, “you are very young in years but you are a baby in experience. Mind, there are other reasons why I could not—would not dream of marrying you, other reasons which are absolutely sufficient, but—do you know that you have asked me twice and you have never once said that you cared, that you have never once looked as though you cared? No, don't, please,” she interrupted, “don't explain anything. You see, a woman always knows—too well, sometimes.”
She nodded, and passed in through the swinging-doors. Standing out there in the narrow, crooked street, Tavernake heard the clapping and applause which greeted her entrance, he heard her father's voice. Some one struck a note at the piano—she was going to sing. Very slowly he turned away and walked down the cobbled hill.
Late in the afternoon of the following day, Ruth came home from the village and found Tavernake hard at work on his boat. She put down her basket and stopped by his side.
“So you are back again,” she remarked.
“Yes, I am back again.”
“And nothing has happened?”
“Nothing has happened,” he assented, wearily. “Nothing ever will happen now.”
She smiled.
“You mean that you will stay here and build boats all your life?”
“That is what I mean to do,” he announced.
She laid her hand upon his shoulder.
“Don't believe it, Leonard,” she said. “There is other work for you in the world somewhere, just as there is for me.”
He shook his head and she picked up her basket again, smiling.
“Your time will come as it comes to the rest of us,” she declared, cheerfully. “You won't want to sit here and bury your talents in the sands all your days. Have you heard what is going to happen to me?”
“No! Something good, I hope.”
“My father's favorite niece is coming to live with us—there are seven of them altogether, and farming doesn't pay like it used to, so Margaret is coming here. Father says that if she is as handy as she used to be I may go back to the schools almost at once.”
Tavernake was silent for a moment. Then he got up and threw down his tools.
“Great Heavens!” he exclaimed. “If I am not becoming the most selfish brute that ever breathed! Do you know, the first thought I had was that I should miss you? You are right, young woman, I must get out of this.”
She disappeared into the house, smiling, and Tavernake called out to Nicholls, who was sitting on the wall.
“Mr. Nicholls,” he asked, “how much notice do you want?”
Matthew Nicholls removed his pipe from his mouth.
“Why, I don't know that I'm particular,” he replied, “being as you want to go. Between you and me, I'm gettin' fat and lazy since you came. There ain't enough work for two, and that's all there is to it, and being as you're young and active, why, I've left it to you, and look at my arms.”
He held them up.
“Used to be all muscle, now they're nothin' but bloomin' pap. And no' but two glasses of beer a day extra have I drunk, just to pass the time. You can stay if you will, young man, but you can go out fishin' and leave me the work, and I'll pay you just the same, for I'm not saying that I don't like your company. Or you can go when you please, and that's the end of it.”
Matthew Nicholls spat upon the stones and replaced his pipe in his mouth. Tavernake came in and sat down by his side.
“Look here,” he said, “I believe you are right. I'll stay another week but I'll take things easy. You get on with the boat now. I'll sit here and have a smoke.”
Nicholls grunted but obeyed, and for the next few days Tavernake loafed. On his return one afternoon from a long walk, he saw a familiar figure sitting upon the sea wall in front of the workshop, a familiar figure but a strange one in these parts. It was Mr. Pritchard, in an American felt hat, and smoking a very black cigar. He leaned over and nodded to Tavernake, who was staring at him aghast.
“Hallo, old man!” he called out. “Run you to earth, you see!”
“Yes, I see!” Tavernake exclaimed.
“Come right along up here and let's talk,” Pritchard continued.
Tavernake obeyed. Pritchard looked him over approvingly. Tavernake was roughly dressed in those days, but as a man he had certainly developed.
“Say, you're looking fine,” his visitor remarked. “What wouldn't I give for that color and those shoulders!”
“It is a healthy life,” Tavernake admitted. “Do you mean that you've come down here to see me?”
“That's so,” Pritchard announced; “down here to see you, and for no other reason. Not but that the scenery isn't all it should be, and that sort of thing,” he went on, “but I am not putting up any bluff about it. It's you I am here to talk to. Are you ready? Shall I go straight ahead?”
“If you please,” Tavernake said, slowly filling his pipe.
“You dropped out of things pretty sudden,” Pritchard continued. “It didn't take me much guessing to reckon up why. Between you and me, you are not the first man who's been up against it on account of that young woman. Don't stop me,” he begged. “I know how you've been feeling. It was a right good idea of yours to come here. Others before you have tried the shady side of New York and Paris, and it's the wrong treatment. It's Hell, that's what it is, for them. Now that young woman—we got to speak of her—is about the most beautiful and the most fascinating of her sex—I'll grant that to start with—but she isn't worth the life of a snail, much less the life of a strong man.”
“You are, quite right,” Tavernake confessed, shortly. “I know I was a fool—a fool! If I could think of any adjective that would meet the case, I'd use it, but there it is. I chucked things and I came here. You haven't come down to tell me your opinion of me, I suppose?”
“Not by any manner of means,” Pritchard admitted. “I came down first to tell you that you were a fool, if it was necessary. Since you know it, it isn't. We'll pass on to the next stage, and that is, what are you going to do about it?”
“It is in my mind at the present moment,” Tavernake announced, “to leave here. The only trouble is, I am not very keen about London.”
Pritchard nodded thoughtfully.
“That's all right,” he agreed. “London's no place for a man, anyway. You don't want to learn the usual tricks of money-making. Money that's made in the cities is mostly made with stained fingers. I have a different sort of proposal to make.”
“Go ahead,” Tavernake said. “What is it?”
“A new country,” Pritchard declared, altering the angle of his cigar, “a virgin land, mountains and valleys, great rivers to be crossed, all sorts of cold and heat to be borne with, a land rich with minerals—some say gold, but never mind that. There is oil in parts, there's tin, there's coal, and there's thousands and thousands of miles of forest. You're a surveyor?”
“Passed all my exams,” Tavernake agreed tersely.
“You are the man for out yonder,” Pritchard insisted. “I've two years' vacation—dead sick of this city life I am—and I am going to put you on the track of it. You don't know much about prospecting yet, I reckon?”
“Nothing at all!”
“You soon shall,” Pritchard went on. “We'll start from Winnipeg. A few horses, some guides, and a couple of tents. We'll spend twenty weeks, my friend, without seeing a town. What do you think of that?”
“Gorgeous!” Tavernake muttered.
“Twenty weeks we'll strike westward. I know the way to set about the whole job. I know one or two of the capitalists, too, and if we don't map out some of the grandest estates in British Columbia, why, my name ain't Pritchard.”
“But I haven't a penny in the world,” Tavernake objected.
“That's where you're lying,” Pritchard remarked, pulling a newspaper from his pocket. “See the advertisement for yourself: 'Leonard Tavernake, something to his advantage.' Well, down I went to those lawyers—your old lawyer it was—Martin. I told him I was on your track, and he said—'For Heaven's sake, send the fellow along!' Say, Tavernake, he made me laugh the way he described your bursting in upon him and telling him to take your land for his costs, and walking out of the room like something almighty. Why, he worked that thing so that they had to buy your land, and they took him into partnership. He's made a pot of money, and needs no costs from you, and there's the money for your land and what he had of yours besides, waiting for you.”
Tavernake smoked stolidly at his pipe. His eyes were out seaward, but his heart was beating to a new and splendid music. To start life again, a man's life, out in the solitudes, out in the great open spaces! It was gorgeous, this! He turned round and grasped Pritchard by the shoulder.
“I say,” he exclaimed, “why are you doing all this for me, Pritchard?”
Pritchard laughed.
“You did me a good turn,” he said, “and you're a man. You've the pluck—that's what I like. You knew nothing, you were as green and ignorant as a young man from behind the counter of a country shop, but, my God! you'd got the right stuff, and I meant getting even with you if I could. You'll leave here with me to-morrow, and in three weeks we sail.”
Ruth came smiling out from the house.
“Won't you bring your friend in to supper, Mr. Tavernake?” she begged. “It's good news, I hope?” she added, lowering her voice a little.
“It's the best,” Tavernake declared, “the best!”