The Girl from Keller's. Harold Bindloss
“You forget one thing; I hadn't time. At the best, it would have taken me three or four years to get straight, and as you haven't much imagination, I suppose you don't realize what Helen's trials would have been in the meanwhile. An engaged girl's situation isn't easy when her lover is away. She stands apart, forbidden much others may enjoy, and Helen would have had to bear her friends' contemptuous pity for being bound to a man who had turned out a failure or worse.”
“I expect that's true,” Festing agreed. “However, there's another difficulty. Suppose I persuade Miss Dalton that you made a plucky fight and only gave her up when you were beaten? She may refuse to let you go, and insist on coming out to help.”
Charnock started, but with a rather obvious effort recovered his calm. “You must see your suggestion's stupid. Helen can't come out; I'm going to marry Sadie.”
“I forgot,” said Festing. “Well, since you urge me, I'll do what I can, although I don't like the job.”
He left the homestead shortly afterwards, but felt puzzled as he walked across the plain. When he suggested that Miss Dalton might resolve to join and help her lover, Charnock had looked alarmed. This was strange, because although Festing had, for a moment, forgotten Sadie, it was ridiculous to imagine that Bob had done so. Then why had he started. There were, however, one or two other things that disturbed Festing, who felt that he had made a rash promise. But the promise had been made, and he must do his best to carry it out.
He had a fine voyage, and a week after his arrival in the Old Country walked up and down the terrace of a house among the hills in the North of England. His host was an old friend of the family who had shown Festing some kindness when he was young, and his daughter, Muriel, approved her father's guest. She liked the rather frank, brown-skinned, athletic man, whom she had joined on the terrace. He was a new and interesting type; but although she was two or three years the younger and attractive, their growing friendship was free from possible complications. Muriel, as Festing had learned, was going to marry the curate.
After the roar of activity at the bridge, where the hammers rang all day and often far into the night, he found his new surroundings strangely pleasant. In Canada, he had lived in the wilds; on the vast bare plains, and among snowy mountains where man grappled with Nature in her sternest mood. Thundering snowslides swept away one's work, icy rocks must be cut through, and savage green floods threatened the half-built track when the glaciers began to melt. Every day had brought a fresh anxiety, and now he welcomed the slackening of the strain. The struggle had left its mark on him; one saw it in his lean, muscular symmetry, his quiet alertness, and self-confidence. But he could relax, and found the English countryside had a soothing charm.
The sun was low and rugged hills cut against the pale-saffron sky. The valley between was filled with blue shadow, but in the foreground a river twinkled in the fading light. Feathery larches grew close up to the house, and a beck splashed in the gloom among their trunks. Farther off, a dog barked, and there was a confused bleating of sheep, but this seemed to emphasize the peaceful calm.
“It's wonderfully quiet,” Festing remarked. “I can't get used to the stillness; I feel as if I was dreaming and would wake up to hear the din of the rivers and the ballast roaring off the gravel cars. However, I have some business to do to-morrow that I'm not keen about. Can one see Knott Scar from here?”
“It's the blue ridge, about six miles off. The dark patch on its slope is a big beech wood.”
“Then do you know the Daltons?”
“Oh, yes,” said Muriel. “Helen Dalton is a friend of mine. Although the Scar's some way off, I see her now and then. But are you going there?”
“I am; I wish it wasn't needful,” Festing answered rather gloomily.
“Ah!” said Muriel, giving him a sharp glance. “Helen was to have married a man in Canada, but the engagement was broken off. Do you know him?”
“I do. That's why I'm going to the Scar. I've promised to explain matters as far as I can.”
Muriel studied his disturbed face with a twinkle of amusement. “Well, I'm sorry for Helen; it must have been a shock. For all that, I thought the engagement a mistake.”
“Then you have seen Charnock?”
“Once. He's a friend of some people Helen used to stay with in the South, but I met him at the Scar. Handsome, and charming, in a way, but I thought him weak.”
“What are Miss Dalton's people like?”
“Don't you want to know what Helen is like?”
“No,” said Festing. “I know her already; that is, I've seen her picture.”
Muriel, glancing at him keenly, did not understand his look, but replied: “Helen lives with her mother and aunt, but it's hard to describe them. They are not old, but seem to date back to other times. In fact, they're rather unique nowadays. Like very dainty old china; you'd expect them to break if they were rudely jarred. You feel they ought to smell of orris and lavender.”
“Ah,” said Festing. “I was a fool to promise Charnock. I've never met people like that, and am afraid they'll get a jar to-morrow.”
“I don't think you need be afraid,” Muriel replied. “They're not really prudish or censorious, though they are fastidious.”
“And is Miss Dalton like her mother and aunt?”
“In a way. Helen has their refinement, but she's made of harder stuff. She would wear better among strains and shocks.”
Festing shook his head. “Girls like her ought to be sheltered and kept from shocks. After all, there's something to be said for Charnock's point of view. Your delicate English grace and bloom ought to be protected and not rubbed off by the rough cares of life.”
“I don't know if you're nice or not,” Muriel rejoined with a laugh. “Anyway, you don't know many English girls, and your ideas about us are old-fashioned. We are not kept in lavender now. Besides, it isn't the surface bloom that matters, and fine stuff does not wear out. It takes a keener edge and brighter polish from strenuous use. And Helen is fine stuff.”
“So I thought,” said Festing quietly, and stopped at the end of the terrace. The bleating of sheep had died away, and except for the splash of the beck a deep silence brooded over the dale. The sun had set and the landscape was steeped in soft blues and grays, into which woods and hills slowly melted.
“It's remarkably pleasant here,” he said. “Not a sign of strain and hurry; things seem to run on well-oiled wheels! Perhaps the greatest change is to feel that one has nothing to do.”
“But you had holidays now and then in Canada.”
“No,” said Festing. “Anyhow I've had none for a very long time. Of course there are lonely places, and in winter the homesteads on the plains are deadly quiet, but I was always where some big job was rushed along. Hauling logs across the snow, driving them down rivers, and after I joined the railroad, checking calculations, and track-grading in the rain. It was a fierce hustle from sunrise to dark, with all your senses highly strung and your efforts speeded up.”
“Then one can understand why it's a relief to lounge. But would that satisfy you long?”
Festing laughed. “It would certainly satisfy me for a time, but after that I don't know. It's a busy world, and there's much to be done.”
Muriel studied him as they walked back along the terrace. He wore no hat, and she liked the way he held his head and his light, springy step, though she smiled as she noted that he pulled himself up to keep pace with her. It was obvious that he was not used to moving leisurely. Then his figure, although spare, was well proportioned, and his rather thin face was frank. He had what she called a fined-down look, but concentrated effort of mind and body had given him a hint of distinction. He was a man who did things, and she wondered what Helen, who was something of a romantic dreamer, would think of him. Then she reflected