CHAPTER XVII
"Tired?"
Jacob Welse put both hands on Frona's shoulders, and his eyes spoke thelove his stiff tongue could not compass. The tree and the excitementand the pleasure were over with, a score or so of children had gonehome frostily happy across the snow, the last guest had departed, andChristmas Eve and Christmas Day were blending into one.
She returned his fondness with glad-eyed interest, and they droppedinto huge comfortable chairs on either side the fireplace, in which theback-log was falling to ruddy ruin.
"And this time next year?" He put the question seemingly to theglowing log, and, as if in ominous foreshadow, it flared brightly andcrumbled away in a burst of sparks.
"It is marvellous," he went on, dismissing the future in an effort toshake himself into a wholesomer frame of mind. "It has been one longcontinuous miracle, the last few months, since you have been with me.We have seen very little of each other, you know, since your childhood,and when I think upon it soberly it is hard to realize that you arereally mine, sprung from me, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Asthe tangle-haired wild young creature of Dyea,--a healthy, little,natural animal and nothing more,--it required no imagination to acceptyou as one of the breed of Welse. But as Frona, the woman, as you wereto-night, as you are now as I look at you, as you have been since youcame down the Yukon, it is hard . . . I cannot realize . . . I . . ."He faltered and threw up his hands helplessly. "I almost wish that Ihad given you no education, that I had kept you with me, faring withme, adventuring with me, achieving with me, and failing with me. Iwould have known you, now, as we sit by the fire. As it is, I do not.To that which I did know there has been added, somehow (what shall Icall it?), a subtlety; complexity,--favorite words of yours,--which isbeyond me.
"No." He waved the speech abruptly from her lips. She came over andknelt at his feet, resting her head on his knee and clasping his handin firm sympathy. "No, that is not true. Those are not the words. Icannot find them. I fail to say what I feel. Let me try again.Underneath all you do carry the stamp of the breed. I knew I riskedthe loss of that when I sent you away, but I had faith in thepersistence of the blood and I took the chance; doubted and feared whenyou were gone; waited and prayed dumbly, and hoped oftentimeshopelessly; and then the day dawned, the day of days! When they saidyour boat was coming, death rose and walked on the one hand of me, andon the other life everlasting. _Made or marred; made or marred_,--thewords rang through my brain till they maddened me. Would the Welseremain the Welse? Would the blood persist? Would the young shoot risestraight and tall and strong, green with sap and fresh and vigorous?Or would it droop limp and lifeless, withered by the heats of the worldother than the little simple, natural Dyea world?
"It was the day of days, and yet it was a lingering, watching, waitingtragedy. You know I had lived the years lonely, fought the lone fight,and you, away, the only kin. If it had failed . . . But your boatshot from the bluffs into the open, and I was half-afraid to look. Menhave never called me coward, but I was nearer the coward then than everand all before. Ay, that moment I had faced death easier. And it wasfoolish, absurd. How could I know whether it was for good or ill whenyou drifted a distant speck on the river? Still, I looked, and themiracle began, for I did know. You stood at the steering-sweep. Youwere a Welse. It seems so little; in truth it meant so much. It wasnot to be expected of a mere woman, but of a Welse, yes. And whenBishop went over the side, and you gripped the situation asimperatively as the sweep, and your voice rang out, and the Siwashesbent their backs to your will,--then was it the day of days."
"I tried always, and remembered," Frona whispered. She crept up softlytill her arm was about his neck and her head against his breast. Herested one arm lightly on her body, and poured her bright hair againand again from his hand in glistening waves.
"As I said, the stamp of the breed was unmarred, but there was yet adifference. There is a difference. I have watched it, studied it,tried to make it out. I have sat at table, proud by the side of you,but dwarfed. When you talked of little things I was large enough tofollow; when of big things, too small. I knew you, had my hand on you,when _presto_! and you were away, gone--I was lost. He is a fool whoknows not his own ignorance; I was wise enough to know mine. Art,poetry, music,--what do I know of them? And they were the greatthings, are the great things to you, mean more to you than the littlethings I may comprehend. And I had hoped, blindly, foolishly, that wemight be one in the spirit as well as the one flesh. It has beenbitter, but I have faced it, and understand. But to see my own redblood get away from me, elude me, rise above me! It stuns. God! Ihave heard you read from your Browning--no, no; do not speak--andwatched the play of your face, the uplift and the passion of it, andall the while the words droning in upon me, meaningless, musical,maddening. And Mrs. Schoville sitting there, nursing an expression ofidiotic ecstasy, and understanding no more than I. I could havestrangled her.
"Why, I have stolen away, at night, with your Browning, and lockedmyself in like a thief in fear. The text was senseless, I have beatenmy head with my fist like a wild man, to try and knock somecomprehension into it. For my life had worked itself out along one setgroove, deep and narrow. I was in the rut. I had done those thingswhich came to my hand and done them well; but the time was past; Icould not turn my hand anew. I, who am strong and dominant, who haveplayed large with destiny, who could buy body and soul a thousandpainters and versifiers, was baffled by a few paltry cents' worth ofprinted paper!"
He spilled her hair for a moment's silence.
"To come back. I had attempted the impossible, gambled against theinevitable. I had sent you from me to get that which I had not,dreaming that we would still be one. As though two could be added totwo and still remain two. So, to sum up, the breed still holds, butyou have learned an alien tongue. When you speak it I am deaf. Andbitterest of all, I know that the new tongue is the greater. I do notknow why I have said all this, made my confession of weakness--"
"Oh, father mine, greatest of men!" She raised her head and laughedinto his eyes, the while brushing back the thick iron-gray hair whichthatched the dome of his forehead. "You, who have wrestled moremightily, done greater things than these painters and versifiers. Youwho know so well the law of change. Might not the same plaint fallfrom your father's lips were he to sit now beside you and look uponyour work and you?"
"Yes, yes. I have said that I understand. Do not let us discussit . . . a moment's weakness. My father was a great man."
"And so mine."
"A struggler to the end of his days. He fought the great lonefight--"
"And so mine."
"And died fighting."
"And so shall mine. So shall we all, we Welses."
He shook her playfully, in token of returning spirits. "But I intendto sell out,--mines, Company, everything,--and study Browning."
"Still the fight. You can't discount the blood, father."
"Why were you not a boy?" he demanded, abruptly. "You would have beena splendid one. As it is, a woman, made to be the delight of some man,you must pass from me--to-morrow, next day, this time next year, whoknows how soon? Ah? now I know the direction my thought has beentrending. Just as I know you do, so do I recognize the inevitablenessof it and the justness. But the man, Frona, the man?"
"Don't," she demurred. "Tell me of your father's fight, the lastfight, the great lone fight at Treasure City. Ten to one it was, andwell fought. Tell me."
"No, Frona. Do you realize that for the first time in our lives wetalk together seriously, as father and daughter,--for the first time?You have had no mother to advise; no father, for I trusted the blood,and wisely, and let you go. But there comes a time when the mother'scounsel is needed, and you, you who never knew one?"
Frona yielded, in instant recognition, and waiting, snuggled moreclosely to him.
"This man, St. Vincent--how is it between you?"
"I . . . I do not know. H
ow do you mean?"
"Remember always, Frona, that you have free choice, yours is the lastword. Still, I would like to understand. I could . . . perhaps . . .I might be able to suggest. But nothing more. Still, a suggestion . . ."
There was something inexpressibly sacred about it, yet she foundherself tongue-tied. Instead of the one definite thing to say, amuddle of ideas fluttered in her brain. After all, could heunderstand? Was there not a difference which prevented him fromcomprehending the motives which, for her, were impelling? For all herharking back to the primitive and stout defence of its sanity andtruth, did his native philosophy give him the same code which she drewfrom her acquired philosophy? Then she stood aside and regardedherself and the queries she put, and drew apart from them, for theybreathed of treason.
"There is nothing between us, father," she spoke up resolutely. "Mr.St. Vincent has said nothing, nothing. We are good friends, we likeeach other, we are very good friends. I think that is all."
"But you like each other; you like him. Is it in the way a woman mustlike a man before she can honestly share her life with him, loseherself in him? Do you feel with Ruth, so that when the time comes youcan say, 'Thy people are my people, and thy God my God'?"
"N---o. It may be; but I cannot, dare not face it, say it or not sayit, think it or not think it--now. It is the great affirmation. Whenit comes it must come, no one may know how or why, in a great whiteflash, like a revelation, hiding nothing, revealing everything indazzling, blinding truth. At least I so imagine."
Jacob Welse nodded his head with the slow meditation of one whounderstands, yet stops to ponder and weigh again.
"But why have you asked, father? Why has Mr. St. Vincent been raised?I have been friends with other men."
"But I have not felt about other men as I do of St. Vincent. We may betruthful, you and I, and forgive the pain we give each other. Myopinion counts for no more than another's. Fallibility is thecommonest of curses. Nor can I explain why I feel as I do--I opposemuch in the way you expect to when your great white flash sears youreyes. But, in a word, I do not like St. Vincent."
"A very common judgment of him among the men," Frona interposed, drivenirresistibly to the defensive.
"Such consensus of opinion only makes my position stronger," hereturned, but not disputatively. "Yet I must remember that I look uponhim as men look. His popularity with women must proceed from the factthat women look differently than men, just as women do differphysically and spiritually from men. It is deep, too deep for me toexplain. I but follow my nature and try to be just."
"But have you nothing more definite?" she asked, groping for bettercomprehension of his attitude. "Can you not put into some sort ofcoherence some one certain thing of the things you feel?"
"I hardly dare. Intuitions can rarely be expressed in terms ofthought. But let me try. We Welses have never known a coward. Andwhere cowardice is, nothing can endure. It is like building on sand,or like a vile disease which rots and rots and we know not when it maybreak forth."
"But it seems to me that Mr. St. Vincent is the last man in the worldwith whom cowardice may be associated. I cannot conceive of him inthat light."
The distress in her face hurt him. "I know nothing against St.Vincent. There is no evidence to show that he is anything but what heappears. Still, I cannot help feeling it, in my fallible human way.Yet there is one thing I have heard, a sordid pot-house brawl in theOpera House. Mind you, Frona, I say nothing against the brawl or theplace,--men are men, but it is said that he did not act as a man oughtthat night."
"But as you say, father, men are men. We would like to have them otherthan they are, for the world surely would be better; but we must takethem as they are. Lucile--"
"No, no; you misunderstand. I did not refer to her, but to the fight.He did not . . . he was cowardly."
"But as you say, it is _said_. He told me about it, not longafterwards, and I do not think he would have dared had there beenanything--"
"But I do not make it as a charge," Jacob Welse hastily broke in."Merely hearsay, and the prejudice of the men would be sufficient toaccount for the tale. And it has no bearing, anyway. I should nothave brought it up, for I have known good men funk in my time--buckfever, as it were. And now let us dismiss it all from our minds. Imerely wished to suggest, and I suppose I have bungled. But understandthis, Frona," turning her face up to his, "understand above all thingsand in spite of them, first, last, and always, that you are mydaughter, and that I believe your life is sacredly yours, not mine,yours to deal with and to make or mar. Your life is yours to live, andin so far that I influence it you will not have lived your life, norwould your life have been yours. Nor would you have been a Welse, forthere was never a Welse yet who suffered dictation. They died first,or went away to pioneer on the edge of things.
"Why, if you thought the dance house the proper or natural medium forself-expression, I might be sad, but to-morrow I would sanction yourgoing down to the Opera House. It would be unwise to stop you, and,further, it is not our way. The Welses have ever stood by, in many alost cause and forlorn hope, knee to knee and shoulder to shoulder.Conventions are worthless for such as we. They are for the swine whowithout them would wallow deeper. The weak must obey or be crushed;not so with the strong. The mass is nothing; the individualeverything; and it is the individual, always, that rules the mass andgives the law. A fig for what the world says! If the Welse shouldprocreate a bastard line this day, it would be the way of the Welse,and you would be a daughter of the Welse, and in the face of hell andheaven, of God himself, we would stand together, we of the one blood,Frona, you and I."
"You are larger than I," she whispered, kissing his forehead, and thecaress of her lips seemed to him the soft impact of a leaf fallingthrough the still autumn air.
And as the heat of the room ebbed away, he told of her foremother andof his, and of the sturdy Welse who fought the great lone fight, anddied, fighting, at Treasure City.