V.
BARBARA RENEWS AN ACQUAINTANCE.
There was an amateur concert for a commendable purpose in the Vancouveropera-house, which, since the inhabitants of the mountain province donot expect any organized body to take over their individualresponsibilities, was a somewhat unusual event, and Miss BarbaraHeathcote, who had not as yet found it particularly entertaining, wasleaning back languidly in her chair.
"There are really one or two things they do a little better in the OldCountry," she said.
The young man who sat beside her laughed. "There must be, or you neverwould have admitted it," he said. "Still, I'm not sure you would findmany folks who would believe you here."
"One has to be candid occasionally," and Barbara made a little gestureof weariness. "There is still another hour of it, but, I sincerely hope,not another cornet solo. What comes next? We were a little late, andnobody provided me with a programme. They are inconsistent. Milly, Inotice, has several."
The man opened the paper which a girl Barbara glanced at handed him.
"A violin solo," he said. "I think they mean Schumann, but it's notaltogether astonishing that they've spelt it wrong. A man called Brookeis put down for it."
"Brooke!" said Barbara, a trifle sharply. "Where does he come from? Doyou know him?"
"I can't say I do----" the man commenced reflectively, and stopped amoment when he saw the little smile in the girl's brown eyes. "What wereyou thinking?"
"I was wondering whether that means he can't be worth knowing."
"Well," said the man, good-humoredly, "there are, I believe, one or twodecent folks in this city I haven't had the pleasure of meeting, but youwere a trifle too previous. I don't know him, but if he's the man Ithink he is, I've heard about him. He came down from the bush lately,and somebody put him on to Naseby, the surveyor. Naseby's busy just now,doing a good deal for the Government--Crown mineral lands, I think, orsomething of that kind--and he took the man. I understand he's quitesmart at the bush work, and Naseby's pleased with him. That's about allI can tell you. You're scarcely likely to know him."
Barbara sat silent a space, looking about her while the amateurorchestra chased one another through the treacherous mazes of anoverture. The handsome building was well filled, but there were one ortwo empty places at hand, for the man who had sent her there had taken arow of them and sent tickets to his friends, as was expected from acitizen of his importance. It was, in the usual course, scarcely likelythat she would know a man who had lately been installed in a subordinateplace in a surveyor's service, for her acquaintances were people ofposition in that province, and yet she had a very clear recollection ofa certain rancher Brooke who played the violin.
"I once met a man of that name in the bush," she said, with almostoverdone indifference. "Still, he is scarcely likely to be the sameone."
Her companion started another topic, and neither of them listened to theorchestra, though the girl was a trifle irritated at herself for wishingthat the overture had been shorter. At last, when the second violinswere not more than a note behind the rest, the music stopped, andBarbara sat very still with eyes fixed on the stage while the usuallittle stir and rustle of draperies ran round the building. Then therewas silence for a moment, and she was sensible of a curious littlethrill as a man who held a violin came forward into the blaze of light.He wore conventional evening-dress in place of the fringed deerskin shehad last seen him in, and she decided that it became his somewhat spare,symmetrical figure almost as well. The years he had spent swinging axeand pounding drill had toughened and suppled it, and yet left him freefrom the coarsening stamp of toil, which is, however, not as a rule anecessary accompaniment of strenuous labor in that country. Standingstill a moment quietly at his ease, straight-limbed, sinewy, with alittle smile in his frost-bronzed face, he was certainly a personableman, and for no very apparent reason she was pleased to notice that twoof her companions were regarding him with evident approbation.
"I think one could call him quite good-looking," said the girl besideher. "He has been in this country a while, but I wouldn't call him aCanadian. Not from this side of the Rockies, anyway."
"Why?" asked Barbara, mainly to discover how far her companion'sthoughts coincided with her own.
"Well," said the other girl, reflectively, "it seems to me he takes ittoo easily. If he had been one of us he'd have either been grim andserious or worrying with the strings. We're most desperately in earnest,but they do things as though they didn't count in the Old Country. Nowhe has got the A right off without the least fussing, as if he couldn'thelp doing it."
The explanation was rather suggestive than definite, but Barbara wassatisfied with it. She was usually a reposeful young woman herself, andthe man's graceful tranquillity, which was of a kind not to be met withevery day in that country, appealed to her. Then he drew the bow acrossthe strings, and she sat very still to listen. It was not music that agood many of his audience were accustomed to, but scarcely a dressrustled or a programme fluttered until he took the fiddle from hisshoulder. Then, while the plaudits rang through the building, his eyesmet Barbara's. Leaning forward a trifle in her chair, she saw the suddenintentness of his face, but he gazed at her steadily for a momentwithout sign of recognition. Then she smiled graciously, for that waswhat she had expected of him, and again felt a faint thrill of content,for his eyes were fixed on her when as the tumult of applause increasedhe made a little inclination.
He was not permitted to retire, and when he put the fiddle to hisshoulder again she knew why he played the nocturne she had heard in thebush. It was also, she felt, in a fashion significant that it had now,in place of the roar of a snow-fed river, the chords of a grand pianofor accompaniment, though the latter, it seemed to her, made anindifferent substitute. The bronze-faced man in deerskin had fitted thesurroundings in which she had seen him, and they had been close comradesin the wilderness for a week. It could, she knew, scarcely be the samein the city, but she saw that he was, at least, equally at home there.It was only their relative positions that had changed, for the guide wasthe person of importance in the primeval bush, and the fact that he hadwaited without a sign until she smiled showed that he had not failed torecognize it. When at last he moved away she turned to the man at herside.
"Will you go down and ask Mr. Brooke to come here?" she said. "You cantell him that I would like to speak to him."
The young man did not express any of the astonishment he certainly felt,but proceeded to do her bidding, though it afforded him no particularpleasure, for there was a certain imperiousness about Barbara Heathcotewhich was not without its effect. Brooke was putting away his fiddlewhen he came upon him.
"I haven't the pleasure of your acquaintance, Mr. Brooke, but it seemsyou know a friend of mine," he said. "If you are at liberty, MissHeathcote would like to see you."
"Miss Heathcote?" said Brooke, for it had happened, not unnaturally,that he had never heard the girl's full name. Her companions, of whom hehad not felt warranted in inquiring it, had called her Barbara in thebush, and he had addressed her without prefix.
"Yes," said the other, who was once more a trifle astonished. "MissBarbara Heathcote."
He glanced at Brooke sharply, or he would not have seen the swiftcontent in his face, for the latter put a sudden restraint upon himself.
"Of course! I will come with you at once," he said, and a minute or twolater took the vacant place at Barbara's side.
"You do not appear very much surprised, and yet it was a long way fromhere I saw you last," she said.
Brooke fancied she meant that it was under somewhat differentcircumstances, and sat looking at her with a little smile. She was also,he decided, even better worth inspection than she had been in the bush,for the rich attire became her, and the garish electric radianceemphasized the gleam of the white shoulder the dainty laces clung aboutand of the ivory neck the moonlight had shone upon when first they met.
"No," he said. "The fact is, I have seen you already on severaloccasions
in this city."
Barbara glanced at him covertly. "Then why did you not claimrecognition?"
"Isn't the reason obvious?"
"No," said Barbara, reflectively, "I scarcely think it is--unless, ofcourse, you had no desire to renew the acquaintance."
"Does one usually renew a chance acquaintance made with a packer in thebush?"
"It would depend a good deal on the packer," said Barbara, quietly. "Nowthis country is----"
There was a trace of dryness in Brooke's smile. "You were going to say ademocratic one. That, of course, might to some extent explain theanomaly."
"No," said Barbara, sharply, with a very faint flush of color in herface, "I was not. You ought to know that, too. Explanations areoccasionally odious, and almost always difficult, but both Major Humeand his daughter invited you to their house if you were ever inEngland."
"The Major may have felt himself tolerably safe in making that offer,"said Brooke, reflectively. "You see, I am naturally acquainted with myfellow Briton's idiosyncrasies."
The girl looked at him with a little sparkle in her eyes. "I do not knowwhy you are adopting this attitude, or assigning one to me," she said."Did we ever attempt to patronize you, and if we had done, is there anyreason why you should take the trouble to resent it?"
Brooke laughed softly. "I scarcely think I could afford to resent akindness, however it was offered; but there is a point you don't quiteseem to have grasped. How could I be certain you had remembered me?"
The girl smiled a little. "Your own powers of recollection might havefurnished a standard of comparison."
Brooke looked at her steadily. "The sharpness of the memory depends uponthe effect the object one wishes to recollect produced upon one'smind," he said. "I should, of course, have known you at once had it beentwenty years hence."
The girl turned to her programme, for now she had induced him to abandonhis reticence his candor was almost disconcerting.
"Well," she said. "Tell me what you have been doing. You have left theranch?"
Brooke nodded and glanced at the hand he laid on his knee, which, as thegirl saw, was still ingrained and hard.
"Road-making for one thing," he said. "Chopping trees, quarrying rock,and following other useful occupations of the kind. They are, onepresumes, healthy and necessary, but I did not find any of themespecially remunerative."
"And now?"
Brooke's face, as she did not fail to notice, hardened suddenly, and hefelt an unpleasant embarrassment as he met her eyes. He had decided thathe was fully warranted in taking any steps likely to lead to therecovery of the dollars he had been robbed of, but he was sensible thatthe only ones he had found convenient would scarcely commend themselvesto his companion. There was also no ignoring the fact that he would verymuch have preferred her approbation.
"At present I am surveying, though I cannot, of course, become asurveyor," he said. "The legislature of this country has placed thatout of the question."
Barbara was aware that in Canada a man can no more set up as a surveyorwithout the specified training than he can as a solicitor, though shedid not think that fact accounted for the constraint in the man's voiceand attitude. He was not one who readily betrayed what he felt, but shewas tolerably certain that something in connection with his occupationcaused him considerable dissatisfaction.
"Still," she said, "you must have known a little about the profession?"
"Yes," said Brooke, a trifle unguardedly. "Of course, there is adifference, but I had once the management of an estate in England. Whatone might call the more useful branches of mathematics were also, a goodwhile ago, a favorite study of mine. One could find a use for them evenin measuring a tree."
The girl had a question on her lips, but she did not consider itadvisable to ask it just then.
"You would find a knowledge of timber of service in Canada?" she said.
"Not very often. You see the only apparent use of the trees on mypossessions was to keep me busy two years attempting to destroy them,and of late I have chiefly had to do with minerals."
"With minerals?" said the girl, quickly, and then, as he volunteered noanswer, swiftly asked the question she had wished to put before. "Whosewas the estate in England?"
Brooke did not look at her, and she fancied he was not sorry that thenecessity of affecting a show of interest in the music meanwhile madecontinuous conversation difficult. His eyes were then turned upon aperformer on the stage.
"The estate--it belonged to--a friend of mine," he said. "Of course, Ihad no regular training, but connection and influence count foreverything in the Old Country."
Barbara watched him covertly, and once more noticed the slight hardeningof his lips, and the very faint deepening of the bronze in his cheeks.It was only just perceptible, but though the sun and wind had darkenedits tinting, Brooke had a clear English complexion, and the blood showedthrough his skin. His companion remembered the old house in the Englishvalley, with its trim gardens and great sweep of velvet lawn, where hehad admitted that he had once been long ago. The statement she hadfancied at the time was purposely vague, and she wondered now if he hadmeant that he had lived there, for Barbara possessed the not unusualfeminine capacity for putting two and two together. She, however,naturally showed nothing of this.
"I suppose it does," she said. "I wonder if you ever feel any faintlonging for what you must have left behind you there. One learns to dowithout a good deal in Canada."
Brooke smiled curiously. "Of course! That is one reason why I am pleasedyou sent for me. This, you see, brings it back to me."
He glanced suggestively round the big, brilliantly-lighted building,across the rows of citizens in broadcloth, and daintily-dressed women,and then turned and fixed his eyes upon his companion's face almost toosteadily. The girl understood him, but she would not admit it.
"You mean the music?" she said.
"No. The music, to tell the truth, is by no means very good. It is youwho have taken me back to the Old Country. Imagination will do a greatdeal, but it needs a fillip, and something tangible to build upon."
Barbara laughed softly.
"I fancy the C. P. R. and an Allan liner would be a much more reliablemeans of transportation. You will presumably take that route some day?"
"I scarcely think it likely. They have, in the Western idiom, no use forpoor men yonder."
"Still, men get rich now and then in this country."
The man's face grew momentarily a trifle grim. "It would apparently bedifficult to accomplish it by serving as assistant survey, and the meansemployed by some of them might, if they went back to the old life, tendto prevent them feeling very comfortable. I"--and he paused for asecond--"fancy that I shall stay in Canada."
Barbara was a trifle puzzled, and said nothing further for a space,until when the singer who occupied the stage just then was dismissed,the man turned to her.
"How long is a chance acquaintance warranted in presuming on a favorshown him in this country?"
Barbara smiled at him. "If I understand you correctly, until the otherperson allows him to perceive that his absence would be supportable. Inthis case, just as long as it pleases him. Now you can tell me about theroad-making."
Brooke understood that she wished to hear, and when he could accomplishit without attracting too much attention, pictured for her benefit hislife in the bush. He also did it humorously, but effectively, withoutany trace of the self-commiseration she watched for, and her fancy dweltupon the hardships he lightly sketched. She knew how the toilers livedand worked in the bush, and had seen their reeking shanties andrain-swept camps. Labor is accounted honorable in that land, but it isnone the less very frequently brutal as well as strenuous, and she couldfancy how this man, who, she felt certain, had been accustomed to livesoftly in England, must have shrunk from some of his tasks, and pictureto herself what he felt when he came back at night to herd close-packedwith comrades whose thoughts and his must always be far apart. That manypossibly better men had certainly bo
rne with as hard a lot longer, afterall, made no great difference to the facts. She also recognized thatthere was a vein of pathos in the story, as she remembered that he hadtold her it was scarcely likely he would ever go back to England again.That naturally suggested a good deal to her, for she held him blameless,though she knew it was not the regularity of their conduct at home whichsent a good many of his countrymen out to Canada.
At last he rose between two songs, and stood still a moment looking downon her.
"I'm afraid I have trespassed on your kindness," he said. "I am goingback to the bush with a survey expedition to-morrow, and I do not knowwhen I shall be fortunate enough to see you again."
Barbara smiled a little. "That," she said, "is for you to decide. We are'At home' every Thursday in the afternoon--and, in your case, in theevening."
He made her a little inclination, and turned away, while Barbara satstill, looking straight in front of her, but quite oblivious of themusic, until she turned with a laugh, and the girl who sat next to herglanced round.
"Was the man very amusing?" she said.
"No," said Barbara, reflectively. "I scarcely think he was. I gave himpermission to call upon us, and never told him where we lived."
"Still, he would, like everybody else in this city, know it already."
"He may," said Barbara. "That, I suppose, is what I felt at the time,but now I scarcely think he does."
"Then one would fancy that to meet a young man of his appearance whodidn't know all about you would be something quite new," said hercompanion, drily.
Barbara flushed ever so slightly, but her companion noticed it. She wasquite aware that if she was made much of in that city it was, in part,at least, due to the fact that she was the niece of a well-known man,and had considerable possessions.