CHAPTER XV
Hearts are Not Always Trumps
If MacRae reckoned on tranquillity in his island seclusion he failed inhis reckoning. A man may fly from temptation, run from a threateningdanger, but he cannot run away from himself. He could not inhibitthought, reflection, surges of emotion generated mysteriously withinhimself.
He did his best. He sought relief in action. There were a great manythings about his freehold upon which he bestowed feverish labor for atime. He cleared away all the underbrush to the outer limits of hisshrunken heritage. He built a new enclosing fence of neatly split cedar,installed a pressure system of water in the old house.
"You goin' to get married?" old Peter inquired artlessly one day. "Yougot all the symptoms--buzzin' around in your nest like a bumblebee."
And Dolly smiled her slow, enigmatic smile.
Whereupon MacRae abandoned his industry and went off to Blackfish Soundwith Vincent in the _Bluebird_. The salmon run was long over, but thecoastal waters still yielded a supply of edible fish. There were alwaysa few spring salmon to be taken here and there. Ling, red and rock codknew no seasons. Nor the ground fish, plaice, sole, flounders, halibut.Already the advance guard of the great run of mature herring began toshow. For a buyer there was no such profit in running these fish tomarket as the profit of the annual salmon run. Still it paid moderately.So MacRae had turned the _Bluebird_ over to Vin to operate for a time ona share basis. It gave Vin, who was ambitious and apparently tireless, achance to make a few hundred dollars in an off season.
Wherefore MacRae, grown suddenly restless beyond all restraining uponhis island, made a trip or two north with Vin--a working guest on hisown vessel--up where the Gulf of Georgia is choked to narrow passagesthrough which the tidal currents race like mountain streams pent in agorge, up where the sea is a maze of waterways among wooded islands.They anchored in strange bays. They fared once into Queen CharlotteSound and rode the great ground swell that heaves up from the far coastof Japan to burst against the rocky outpost of Cape Caution. Theydoubled on their tracks and gathered their toll of the sea from fishingboats here and there until the _Bluebird_ rode deep with cargo, freshfish to be served on many tables far inland. MacRae often wondered ifthe housewife who ordered her weekly ration of fish and those who pickeddaintily at the savory morsels with silver forks ever thought how theycame by this food. Men till the sea with pain and risk and infinitelabor, as they till the land; only the fisherman with his nets and hooksand gear does not sow, he only reaps. Nature has attended diligently tothe sowing, from the Cape of Good Hope to Martha's Vineyard, from BeringStrait to Botany Bay.
But MacRae soon had enough of that and came back to Squitty, to hisfireplace and his books. He had been accustomed to enjoy the winters,the clear crisp mornings that varied weeks of drenching rain whichwashed the land clean; to prowl about in the woods with a gun when heneeded meat; to bask before a bed of coals in the fireplace through longevenings when the wind howled and the rain droned on the roof and thesea snored along the rocky beaches. That had been in days before helearned the weight of loneliness, when his father had been there to sitquietly beside the fire smoking a pipe, when Dolly Ferrara ran wild inthe woods with him or they rode for pure sport the tumbling seas in adugout canoe.
Now winter was a dull inaction, a period of discontent, in which thoughtgnawed at him like an ingrowing toenail. Everything seemed out of joint.He found himself feverishly anxious for spring, for the stress andstrain of another tilt with Folly Bay. Sometimes he asked himself wherehe would come out, even if he won all along the line, if he made money,gained power, beat Gower ultimately to his knees, got back his land. Hedid not try to peer too earnestly into the future. It seemed a littlemisty. He was too much concerned with the immediate present, looming bigwith possibilities of good or evil for himself. Things did not seemquite so simple as at first. A great many complications, whollyunforeseen, had arisen since he came back from France. But he wascommitted to certain undertakings from which he neither wished norintended to turn aside,--not so long as he had the will to choose.
Christmas came again, and with it the gathering of the Ferraras fortheir annual reunion,--Old Manuel and Joaquin, young Manuel and Ambroseand Vincent. Steve they could speak of now quite casually. He had diedin his sea boots like many another Ferrara. It was a pity, of course,but it was the chance of his calling. And the gathering was stronger innumbers, even with Steve gone. Ambrose had taken himself a wife, amerry round-cheeked girl whose people were coaxing Ambrose to quit thesea for a more profitable undertaking in timber. And also Norman Gowerwas there.
MacRae did not quite know how to take that young man. He had had straycontacts with Norman during the last few weeks. For a rich man's son hewas not running true to form. He and Long Tom Spence had struck up apartnership in a group of mineral claims on the Knob, that conicalmountain which lifted like one of the pyramids out of the middle ofSquitty Island. There had been much talk of those claims. Years ago BillMunro--he who died of the flu in his cabin beside the Cove--had stakedthose claims. Munro was a young man then, a prospector. He had inveigledother men to share his hopes and labors, to grubstake him while he drovethe tunnel that was to cut the vein. MacRae's father had taken a hand inthis. So had Peter Ferrara. But these informal partnerships had alwayslapsed. Old Bill Munro's prospects had never got beyond the purelyprospective stage. The copper was there, ample traces of gold andsilver. But he never developed a showing big enough to lure capital.When Munro died the claims had been long abandoned.
Long Tom Spence had suddenly relocated them. Some working agreement hadincluded Uncle Peter and young Gower. Long Tom went about hintingmysteriously of fortunes. Peter Ferrara even admitted that there was agood showing. Norman had been there for weeks, living with Spence in ashack, sweating day after day in the tunnel. They were all beginning tospeak of it as "the mine."
Norman had rid himself of that grouchy frown. He was always singing orwhistling or laughing. His fair, rather florid face glowed with aperpetual good nature. He treated MacRae to the same cheerful, carelessair that he had for everything and everybody. And when he was aboutUncle Peter's house at the Cove he monopolized Dolly, an attitude whichDolly herself as well as her uncle seemed to find agreeable and proper.
MacRae finally found himself compelled to accept Norman Gower as part ofthe group. He was a little surprised to find that he harbored no decidedfeeling about young Gower, one way or the other. If he felt at all, itwas a mild impatience that another man had established a relation withDolly Ferrara which put aside old friendships. He found himselfconstrained more and more to treat Dolly like any other pleasant youngwoman of his acquaintance. He did not quite like that. He and DollyFerrara had been such good chums. Besides, he privately considered thatDolly was throwing herself away on a man weak enough to make the tragicblunder young Gower had made in London. But that was their own affair.Altogether, MacRae found it quite impossible to muster up any abidinggrudge against young Gower on his own account.
So he let matters stand and celebrated Christmas with them. Afterwardthey got aboard the _Bluebird_ and went to a dance at Potter's Landing,where for all that Jack MacRae was the local hero, both of the great warand the salmon war of the past season, both Dolly and Norman, heprivately conceded, enjoyed themselves a great deal more than he did.Their complete absorption in each other rather irritated him.
They came back to the Cove early in the morning. The various Ferrarasdisposed themselves about Peter's house to sleep, and MacRae went on tohis own place. About an hour after daybreak he saw Norman Gower pass upthe bush trail to the mine with a heavy pack of provisions on his back.And MacRae wondered idly if Norman was bucking the game in earnest,strictly on his own, and why?
Late in January the flash of a white skirt and a sky-blue sweater pasthis dooryard apprised MacRae that Betty was back. And he did not want tosee Betty or talk with her. He hoped her stay would be brief. He evenasked himself testily why people like that wanted to come to a summerdwelling in
the middle of winter. But her sojourn was not so brief as hehoped. At divers times thereafter he saw her in the distance, faring toand fro from Peter Ferrara's house, out on the trail that ran to theKnob, several times when the sea was calm paddling a canoe or rowingalongshore. Also he had glimpses of the thickset figure of Horace Gowerwalking along the cliffs. MacRae avoided both. That was easy enough,since he knew every nook and bush and gully on that end of the island.But the mere sight of Gower was an irritation. He resented the man'spresence. It affected him like a challenge. It set him always ponderingways and means to secure ownership of those acres again and forever barGower from walking along those cliffs with that masterful air ofpossession. Only a profound distaste for running away from anything kepthim from quitting the island while they were there, those two, one ofwhom he was growing to hate far beyond the original provocation, theother whom he loved,--for MacRae admitted reluctantly, resentfully, thathe did love Betty, and he was afraid of where that emotion might leadhim. He recognized the astonishing power of passion. It troubled him,stirred up an amazing conflict at times between his reason and hisimpulses. He fell back always upon the conclusion that love was anirrational thing anyway, that it should not be permitted to upset aman's logical plan of existence. But he was never very sure that thisconclusion would stand a practical test.
The southern end of Squitty was not of such vast scope that two peoplecould roam here and there without sometime coming face to face,particularly when these two were a man and a woman, driven by a spiritof restlessness to lonely wanderings. MacRae went into the woods withhis rifle one day in search of venison. He wounded a buck, followed himdown a long canyon, and killed his game within sight of the sea. He tookthe carcass by a leg and dragged it through the bright green salalbrush. As he stepped out of a screening thicket on to driftwood piled bystorm and tide, he saw a rowboat hauled up on the shingle above reach ofshort, steep breakers, and a second glance showed him Betty sitting on alog close by, looking at him.
"Stormbound?" he asked her.
"Yes. I was rowing and the wind came up."
She rose and came over to look at the dead deer.
"What beautiful animals they are!" she said. "Isn't it a pity to killthem?"
"It's a pity, too, to kill cattle and sheep and pigs, to haul fish bythe gills out of the sea," MacRae replied; "to trap marten and mink andfox and beaver and bear for their skins. But men must eat and women mustwear furs."
"How horribly logical you are," Betty murmured. "You make a naturalsympathy appear wishy-washy sentimentalism."
She reseated herself on the log. MacRae sat down beside her. He lookedat her searchingly. He could not keep his eyes away. A curiousinconsistency was revealed to him. He sat beside Betty, responding tothe potent stimuli of her nearness and wishing pettishly that she were athousand miles away, so that he would not be troubled by the magic ofher lips and eyes and unruly hair, the musical cadences of her voice.There was a subtle quality of expectancy about her, as if she sat therewaiting for him to say something, do something, as if her mere presencewere powerful to compel him to speak and act as she desired. MacRaerealized the fantasy of those impressions. Betty sat looking at himcalmly, her hands idle in her lap. If there were in her soul any of theturmoil that was fast rising in his, it was not outwardly manifested byany sign whatever. For that matter, MacRae knew that he himself wasplacid enough on the surface. Nor did he feel the urge ofinconsequential speech. There was no embarrassment in that mutualsilence, only the tug of a compelling desire to take her in his arms,which he must resist.
"There are times," Betty said at last, "when you live up to yournickname with a vengeance."
"There are times," MacRae replied slowly, "when that is the only wisething for a man to do."
"And you, I suppose, rather pride yourself on being wise in your day andgeneration."
There was gentle raillery in her tone.
"I don't like you to be sarcastic," he said.
"I don't think you like me sarcastic or otherwise," Betty observed,after a moment's silence.
"But I do," he protested. "That's the devil of it. I do--and you know Ido. It would be a great deal better if I didn't."
Betty's fingers began to twist in her lap. The color rose faintly in hersmooth cheeks. Her eyes turned to the sea.
"I don't know why," she said gently. "I'd hate to think it would."
MacRae did not find any apt reply to that. His mind was in an agonizedmuddle, in which he could only perceive one or two things with anydegree of clearness. Betty loved him. He was sure of that. He could tellher that he loved her. And then? Therein arose the conflict. Marriagewas the natural sequence of love. And when he contemplated marriage withBetty he found himself unable to detach her from her background, inwhich lurked something which to MacRae's imagination loomed sinister,hateful. To make peace with Horace Gower--granting that Gower waswilling for such a consummation--for love of his daughter struck MacRaeas something very near to dishonor. And if, contrariwise, he repeated toBetty the ugly story which involved her father and his father, she wouldbe harassed by irreconcilable forces even if she cared enough to sidewith him against her own people. MacRae was gifted with acuteperception, in some things. He said to himself despairingly--nor was itthe first time that he had said it--that you cannot mix oil and water.
He could do nothing at all. That was the sum of his ultimateconclusions. His hands were tied. He could not go back and he could notgo on. He sat beside Betty, longing to take her in his arms and stillfighting stoutly against that impulse. He was afraid of his impulses.
A faint moisture broke out on his face with that acute nervous strain. Alump rose chokingly in his throat. He stared out at the white-crestedseas that came marching up the Gulf before a rising wind until his eyesgrew misty. Then he slid down off the log and laid his head on Betty'sknee. A weight of dumb grief oppressed him. He wanted to cry, and he wasashamed of his weakness.
Betty's fingers stole caressingly over his bare head, rumpled his hair,stroked his hot cheek.
"Johnny-boy," she said at last, "what is it that comes like a fogbetween you and me?"
MacRae did not answer.
"I make love to you quite openly," Betty went on. "And I don't seem tobe the least bit ashamed of doing so. I'm not a silly kid. I'm nearly asold as you are, and I know quite well what I want--which happens to beyou. I love you, Silent John. The man is supposed to be the pursuer. ButI seem to have that instinct myself. Besides," she laughed tremulously,"this is leap year. And, remember, you kissed me. Or did I kiss you?Which was it, Jack?"
MacRae seated himself on the log beside her. He put his arm around herand drew her close to him. That disturbing wave of emotion which hadbriefly mastered him was gone. He felt only a passionate tenderness forBetty and a pity for them both. But he had determined what to do.
"I do love you, Betty," he said--"your hair and your eyes and your lipsand the sound of your voice and the way you walk and everything that isyou. Is that quite plain enough? It's a sort of emotional madness."
"Well, I am afflicted with the same sort of madness," she admitted. "AndI like it. It is natural."
"But you wouldn't like it if you knew it meant a series of mental andspiritual conflicts that would be almost like physical torture," he saidslowly. "You'd be afraid of it."
"And you?" she demanded.
"Yes," he said simply. "I am."
"Then you're a poor sort of lover," she flung at him, and freed herselffrom his arms with a quick twist of her body. Her breast heaved. Shemoved away from him.
"I'll admit being a poor lover, perhaps," MacRae said. "I didn't want tolove you. I shouldn't love you. I really ought to hate you. I don't, butif I was consistent, I should. I ought to take every opportunity to hurtyou just because you are a Gower. I have good reason to do so. I can'ttell you why--or at least I am not going to tell you why. I don't thinkit would mend matters if I did. I dare say I'm a better fighter than alover. I fight in the open, on the square. And because I happen
to careenough to shrink from making you risk things I can't dodge, I'm a poorlover. Well, perhaps I am."
"I didn't really mean that, Jack," Betty muttered.
"I know you didn't," he returned gently. "But I mean what I have justsaid."
"You mean that for some reason which I do not know and which you willnot tell me, there is such bad blood between you and my father that youcan't--you won't--won't even take a chance on me?"
"Something like that," MacRae admitted. "Only you put it badly. You'deither tie my hands, which I couldn't submit to, or you'd find yourselftorn between two factions, and life would be a pretty sad affair."
"I asked you once before, and you told me it was something that happenedbefore either of us was born," Betty said thoughtfully. "I am going toget at the bottom of this somehow. I wonder if you do really care, orif this is all camouflage,--if you're just playing with me to see howbig a fool I _will_ make of myself."
That queer mistrust of him which suddenly clouded Betty's face and madeher pretty mouth harden roused Jack MacRae to an intolerable fury. Itwas like a knife in a tender spot. He had been stifling the impulse toforget and bury all these ancient wrongs and injustices for whichneither of them was responsible but for which, so far as he could see,they must both suffer. Something cracked in him at Betty's words. Shejumped, warned by the sudden blaze in his eyes. But he caught her with amovement quicker than her own. He held her by the arms with fingers thatgripped like iron clamps. He shook her.
"You wonder if I really care," he cried. "My God, can't you see? Can'tyou feel? Must a man grovel and weep and rave?"
Betty whitened a little at this storm which she had evoked. But she didnot flinch. Her eyes looked straight into his, fearlessly.
"You are raving now," she said. "And you are hurting my arms terribly."
MacRae released his hold on her. His hands dropped to his sides.
"I suppose I was," he said in a flat, lifeless tone. "But don't say thatto me again, ever. You can say anything you like, Betty, except that I'mnot in earnest. I don't deserve that."
Betty retreated a little. MacRae was not even looking at her now. Hiseyes were turned to the sea, to hide the blur that crept into them inspite of his will.
"You don't deserve anything," Betty said distinctly. She moved warilyaway as she spoke. "You have the physical courage to face death; but youhaven't the moral courage to face a problem in living, even though youlove me. You take it for granted that I'm as weak as you are. You won'teven give me a chance to prove whether love is strong or weak in theface of trouble. And I will never give you another chance--never."
She sprang from the beach to the low pile of driftwood and from thatplunged into the thicket. MacRae did not try to follow. He did not evenmove. He looked after her a minute. Then he sat down on the log againand stared at the steady march of the swells. There was a sense offinality in this thing which made him flounder desperately. Still, heassured himself, it had to be. And if it had to be that way it wasbetter to have it so understood. Betty would never look at him againwith that disturbing message in her eyes. He would not be troubled by afutile longing. But it hurt. He had never imagined how so abstract athing as emotion could breed such an ache in a man's heart.
After a little he got up. There was a trail behind that thicket, an oldgame trail widened by men's feet, that ran along the seaward slope toCradle Bay. He went up now to this path. His eye, used to the practiceof woodcraft, easily picked up tiny heel marks, toe prints, read theirmessage mechanically. Betty had been running. She had gone home.
He went back to the beach. The rowboat and the rising tide caught hisattention. He hauled the boat up on the driftwood so that it should notfloat away. Then he busied himself on the deer's legs with a knife for aminute and shouldered the carcass.
It was a mile and a half across country to the head of Squitty Cove. Hehad intended to hang his deer in a tree by the beach and come for itlater with a boat. Now he took up this hundred-pound burden for thelong carry over steep hills and through brushy hollows in the spirit ofthe medieval flagellantes, mortifying his flesh for the ease of hissoul.
An hour or so later he came out on a knoll over-looking all thesoutheastern face of Squitty. Below, the wind-harassed Gulf spread itsruffled surface. He looked down on the cliffs and the Cove and CradleBay. He could see Gower's cottage white among the green, one chimneyspitting blue smoke that the wind carried away in a wispy banner. Hecould see a green patch behind his own house with the white headboardthat marked his father's grave. He could see Poor Man's Rock bare itskelp-grown head between seas, and on the point above the Rock a solitaryfigure, squat and brown, that he knew must be Horace Gower.
MacRae laid down his pack to rest his aching shoulders. But there was noresting the ache in his heart. Nor was it restful to gaze upon any ofthese things within the span of his eye. He was reminded of too muchwhich it was not good to remember. As he sat staring down on the distantRock and a troubled sea with an intolerable heaviness in his breast, herecalled that so must his father have looked down on Poor Man's Rock inmuch the same anguished spirit long ago. And Jack MacRae's mind reactedmorbidly to the suggestion, the parallel. His eyes turned withsmoldering fire to the stumpy figure on the tip of Point Old.
"I'll pay it all back yet," he gritted. "Betty or no Betty, I'll makehim wish he'd kept his hands off the MacRaes."
* * * * *
About the time Jack MacRae with his burden of venison drew near his owndooryard, Betty Gower came out upon the winter-sodden lawn before theircottage and having crossed it ran lightly up the steps to the wideporch. From there she saw her father standing on the Point. She calledto him. At her hail he came trudging to the house. Betty was piling woodin the living-room fireplace when he came in.
"I was beginning to worry about you," he said.
"The wind got too much for me," she answered, "so I put the boat on thebeach a mile or so along and walked home."
Gower drew a chair up to the fire.
"Blaze feels good," he remarked. "There's a chill in this winter air."
Betty made no comment.
"Getting lonesome?" he inquired after a minute. "It seems to me you'vebeen restless the last day or two. Want to go back to town, Betty?"
"I wonder why we come here and stay and stay, out of reach of everythingand everybody?" she said at last.
"Blest if I know," Gower answered casually. "Except that we like to.It's a restful place, isn't it? You work harder at having a good time intown than I ever did making money. Well, we don't have to be hermitsunless we like. We'll go back to mother and the giddy whirl to-morrow,if you like."
"We might as well, I think," she said absently.
For a minute neither spoke. The fire blazed up in a roaring flame.Raindrops slashed suddenly against the windows out of a storm-clouddriven up by the wind. Betty turned her eyes on her father.
"Did you ever do anything to Jack MacRae that would give him reason tohate you?" she asked bluntly.
Gower shook his head without troubling to look at her. He kept his facesteadfastly to the fire.
"No," he said. "The other way about, if anything. He put a crimp in melast season."
"I remember you said you were going to smash him," she saidthoughtfully.
"Did I?" he made answer in an indifferent tone. "Well, I might. And thenagain I might not. He may do the smashing. He's a harder propositionthan I figured he would be, in several ways."
"That isn't it," Betty said, as if to herself. "Then you must have hadsome trouble with his father--long ago. Something that hurt him enoughfor him to pass a grudge on to Jack. What was it, daddy? Anything real?"
"Jack, eh?" Gower passed over the direct question. "You must be gettingon. Have you been seeing much of that young man lately?"
"What does that matter?" Betty returned impatiently. "Of course I seehim. Is there any reason I shouldn't?"
Gower picked up a brass poker. He leaned forward, digging aimlessly atthe fire, s
tirring up tiny cascades of sparks that were sucked glowinginto the black chimney throat.
"Perhaps no reason that would strike you as valid," he said slowly."Still--I don't know. Do you like him?"
"You won't answer my questions," Betty complained. "Why should I answeryours?"
"There are plenty of nice young fellows in your own crowd," Gower wenton, still poking mechanically at the fire. "Why pick on young MacRae?"
"You're evading, daddy," Betty murmured. "Why _shouldn't_ I pick onJack MacRae if I like him--if he likes me? That's what I'm trying tofind out."
"Does he?" Gower asked pointblank.
"Yes," Betty admitted in a reluctant whisper. "He does--but--why don'tyou tell me, daddy, what I'm up against, as you would say? What did youever do to old Donald MacRae that his son should have a feeling that isstronger than love?"
"You think he loves you?"
"I know it," Betty murmured.
"And you?" Gower's deep voice seemed harsh.
Betty threw out her hands in an impatient gesture.
"Must I shout it out loud?" she cried.
"You always were different from most girls, in some things," Gowerobserved reflectively. "Iron under your softness. I never knew you tostop trying to get anything you really wanted, not while there was achance to get it. Still--don't you think it would be as well for you tostop wanting young MacRae--since he doesn't want you bad enough to tryto get you? Eh?"
He still kept his face studiously averted. His tone was kind, full of apeculiar tenderness that he kept for Betty alone.
She rose and perched herself on the arm of his chair, caught and drewhis head against her, forced him to look up into eyes preternaturallybright.
"You don't seem to understand," she said. "It isn't that Jack doesn'twant me badly enough. He could have me, and I think he knows that too.But there is something, something that drives him the other way. Heloves me. I know he does. And still he has spells of hating all usGowers--especially you. I know he wouldn't do that without reason."
"Doesn't he tell you the reason?"
Betty shook her head.
"Would I be asking you, daddy?"
"I can't tell you, either," Gower rumbled deep in his throat.
"Is it something that can't be mended?" Betty put her face down againsthis, and he felt the tears wet on her cheek. "Think, daddy. I'mbeginning to be terribly unhappy."
"That seems to be a family failing," Gower muttered. "I can't mend it,Betty. I don't know what young MacRae knows or what he feels, but I canguess. I'd make it worse if I meddled. Should I go to this hot-headedyoung fool and say, 'Come on, let's shake hands, and you marry mydaughter'?"
"Don't be absurd," Betty flashed. "I'm not asking you to _do_ anything."
"I couldn't do anything in this case if I wanted to," Gower declared."As a matter of fact, I think I'd put young MacRae out of my head, if Iwere you. I wouldn't pick him for a husband, anyway."
Betty rose to her feet.
"You brought me into the world," she said passionately. "You have fed meand clothed me and educated me and humored all my whims ever since I canremember. But you can't pick a husband for me. I shall do that formyself. It's silly to tell me to put Jack MacRae out of my head. Heisn't in my head. He's in my--my--heart. And I can keep him there, if Ican't have him in my arms. Put him out of my head! You talk as if lovingand marrying were like dealing in fish."
"I wish it were," Gower rumbled. "I might have had some success at itmyself."
Betty did not even vouchsafe reply. Probably she did not even hear whathe said. She turned and went to the window, stood looking out at therising turmoil of the sea, at the lowering scud of the clouds, dabbingsurreptitiously at her eyes with a handkerchief. After a little shewalked out of the room. Her feet sounded lightly on the stairs.
Gower bent to the fire again. He resumed his aimless stirring of thecoals. A grim, twisted smile played about his lips. But his eyes were assomber as the storm-blackened winter sky.