CHAPTER III – AN AFTERNOON ASHORE

Half the day had slipped by, when the breeze freshened further and the sun broke through. The sloop was then rolling wildly as she drove along with the peak of her mainsail lowered before a big following sea. Vane looked thoughtful as he gripped the helm, because a head ran out from the beach he was following three or four miles way, and he would have to haul the boat up to windward to get round it. This would bring the combers upon her quarter, or, worse still, abeam. Kitty Blake was below; Mrs. Marvin had made no appearance yet, and he spoke to Carroll, who was standing in the well.

“The sea’s breaking more sharply, and we’d get uncommonly wet before we hammered round yonder head,” he said. “There’s an inlet on this side of it where we ought to find good shelter.”

“The trouble is that if you stay there long you’ll be too late for the directors’ meeting,” Carroll answered.

“They can’t have the meeting without me, and, if it’s necessary, they can wait,” Vane pointed out. “I’ve had to. Many an hour I’ve spent cooling my heels in offices before the head of the concern could find time to attend to me. No doubt it was part of the game, and done to impress me with a due sense of my unimportance.”

“It’s possible,” Carroll agreed, smiling.

Kitty Blake made her appearance in the cabin entrance just then, and Vane smiled at her.

“We’re going to give you a rest,” he announced. “There’s an inlet close ahead where we should find smooth water, and we’ll put you all ashore until the wind drops.”

There was no suspicion in the girl’s face now, and she gave him a grateful glance before she disappeared below with the consoling news.

Soon afterwards, Vane luffed into a tiny bay, where the sloop rode upright in the sunshine, with loose canvas flapping softly in a faint breeze while the cable rattled down.

They got the canoe over, and when he had landed Mrs. Marvin and her little girl, both of whom looked very woebegone and the worse for the voyage, into her, Vane glanced round.

“Isn’t Miss Blake coming?” he asked.

Mrs. Marvin, who was suggestively pallid, smiled. “She’s changing her dress.” She glanced at her own crumpled attire and added: “I’m past thinking of such things as that.”

They waited some minutes, and then Vane called to Kitty, who appeared in the entrance to the cabin, “Won’t you look in the locker, and bring anything you think would be nice? We’ll make a fire and have supper on the beach; if it isn’t first-rate, you’ll be responsible.”

A few minutes later they paddled ashore, and Vane landed them on a strip of shingle with a wall of rock behind it, to which dark firs clung in the rifts and crannies. The sunshine streamed into the hollow, the wind was cut off, and not far away a crystal stream came splashing down a ravine.

Vane, who had brought an axe, made a fire of resinous wood, and Carroll and Kitty prepared a bountiful supper. After it was finished Carroll carried the plates away to the stream, towards which Mrs. Marvin and the little girl followed him, and Vane and Kitty were left beside the fire. She sat on a log of driftwood, and he lay on the warm shingle with his pipe in his hand. The clear green water splashed and tinkled upon the pebbles close at his feet, and a faint, elfin sighing fell from the firs above them. It was very old music, the song of the primeval wilderness, and though he had heard it often, it had a strange, unsettling effect upon him as he languidly watched his companion. There was no doubt that she was pleasant to look upon; but although he failed to recognise this clearly, it was to a large extent an impersonal interest he took in her. She was not so much an attractive young woman with qualities that pleased him, as a type of something that had so far not come into his life; something which he vaguely felt that he had missed. One could have fancied that by some deep-sunk intuition she surmised this fact, and felt the security of it.

“So you believe you can get an engagement if you reach Vancouver in time,” he said at length. Kitty assented, and he asked, “How long will it last?”

“I can’t tell. Perhaps a few weeks. It depends upon how the boys are pleased with the show.”

“It must be a hard life,” Vane broke out. “You must make very little – scarcely enough, I suppose, to carry you on from one engagement to another. After all, weren’t you as well off at the restaurant? Didn’t they treat you properly?”

She coloured a little at the question. “Oh, yes; at least, I have no fault to find with the man who kept it, or his wife.”

Vane made a hasty sign of comprehension. He supposed that the difficulty had arisen from the conduct of one or more of the regular customers. He felt he would very much like to meet the man whose undesired attentions had driven his companion from her occupation.

“Did you never try to learn keeping accounts or typewriting?” he asked.

“I tried it once, but the mill shut down.”

“I’ve an idea that I could find you a post,” Vane made the suggestion casually, though he was troubled by an inward diffidence.

He saw a tinge of warmer colour creep into the girl’s cheeks.

“No,” she said decidedly. “It wouldn’t do.”

The man knitted his brows, though he fancied that she was right. “Well,” he replied, “I don’t want to be officious – but how can I help?”

“You can’t help at all.”

Vane, who saw that she meant it, lay smoking in silence for a minute or two. Then Carroll came up with Mrs. Marvin and the child, and he felt strongly stirred when the little girl walked up to him shyly with a basket filled with shells. He drew her down beside him, with an arm about her waist, while he examined her treasures, and then glancing up met Kitty’s eyes and felt his face grow hot with an emotion he failed to analyse. The child was delicate; life had scanty pleasure to offer her, but now she was happy.

“They’re so pretty, and there are lots of them,” she said. “Can’t we stay here longer and gather some more?”

“Yes,” said Vane, conscious that Carroll, who had heard the question, was watching him. “You shall stay and get as many as you want. I’m afraid you don’t like the sloop.”

“No,” replied the child gravely, “I don’t like it when it jumps. After I woke up it jumped all the time.”

“Never mind,” said Vane. “The boat will keep still to-night, and I don’t think there’ll be any waves to roll her about to-morrow. We’ll bring you ashore first thing in the morning.”

He talked to her for a few minutes, and then strolled along the beach with Carroll.

“Why did you promise that child to stay here?” Carroll asked.

“Because I felt like doing so.”

“I needn’t remind you that you’ve an appointment with Horsfield about the smelter, and there’s a meeting of the board next day. If we started now and caught the first steamer across, you wouldn’t have much time to spare.”

“That’s correct. I shall have to wire from Victoria that I’ve been detained.”

Carroll laughed expressively. “Do you mean to keep your directors waiting to please a child?”

“I suppose that’s one reason. Anyway, I don’t propose to hustle the little girl and her mother on board the steamer helpless with sea sickness,” He paused and a gleam of humour crept into his eyes. “As I told you, I’ve no objection to letting the directors wait my pleasure.”

“But they set the concern on its feet.”

“Just so,” said Vane coolly. “On the other hand, they got excellent value for their services – and I found the mine. What’s more, during the preliminary negotiations most of them treated me very casually.”

“Well?” said Carroll.

“There’s going to be a difference now, I’ve a board of directors; one way or another, I’ve had to pay for the privilege pretty dearly; but I don’t intend that they should run the Clermont mine.”

Carroll glanced at him with open amusement. There had been a marked change in Vane since he had floated the company, but it was one that did not astonish his comrade. Carroll had long suspected him of latent capabilities, which had suddenly sprung to life.

“You ought to see Horsfield before you meet the board,” he pointed out.

“I’m not sure,” Vane answered. “In fact, I’m uncertain whether I’ll give Horsfield the contract, even if we decide about the smelter. I don’t want a man with too firm a hold up against me.”

“But if he put his money in with the idea of getting certain pickings?”

“He didn’t explain his intentions, and I made no promises,” Vane answered dryly. “He’ll get his dividends; that’ll satisfy him.”

They rejoined the others, and when the white mists crept lower down from the heights above and the chill of the dew was in the air, Vane launched the canoe.

“It’s getting late, and there’s a long run in front of us to-morrow,” he informed his passengers. “The sloop will lie as still as if moored in a pond, and you’ll have her all to yourselves. Carroll and I are going to camp ashore.”

He paddled them off to the boat, and coming back with some blankets cut a few armfuls of spruce twigs in a ravine and spread them out beside the fire. Then sitting down just clear of the scented smoke, he lighted his pipe and asked an abrupt question: “What do you think of Kitty Blake?”

“Well,” said Carroll cautiously, “I must confess that I’ve taken some interest in the girl; partly because you were obviously doing so. In a general way, what I noticed rather surprised me. It wasn’t what I expected.”

“You smart folks are as often wrong as the rest of us. I suppose you looked for cold-blooded assurance, tempered by what one might call experienced coquetry?”

“Something of the kind,” Carroll agreed. “As you say, I was wrong. There are only two ways of explaining Miss Blake, and the first’s the one that would strike most people. That is, she’s acting a part, possibly with an object; holding her natural self in check, and doing it cleverly.”

Vane laughed scornfully. “I wouldn’t have entertained that idea for five minutes.”

“Then,” said Carroll, “there’s the other explanation. It’s simply that the girl’s life hasn’t affected her. Somehow she has kept fresh and wholesome.”

“There’s no doubt of it,” said Vane shortly.

“You offered to help her in some way?”

“I did; I don’t know how you guessed it. I said I’d find her a situation. She wouldn’t hear of it.”

“She was wise,” said Carroll. “Vancouver isn’t a very big place yet, and the girl has more sense than you have. What did you say?”

“Nothing. You interrupted us. But I’m going to sleep.”

He rolled himself up in his blanket and lay down among the soft spruce twigs, but Carroll sat still in the darkness and smoked his pipe out. Then he glanced at his comrade, who lay still, breathing evenly.

“No doubt you’ll be considered fortunate,” he said, apostrophizing him half aloud. “You’ve had power and responsibility thrust upon you. What will you make of them?”

Then he, too, lay down, and only the soft splash of the tiny ripples broke the silence while the fire sank lower.

They sailed next morning and eventually arrived in Victoria after the boat which crossed the Strait had gone, but the breeze was fair from the westwards, and after dispatching a telegram Vane put to sea again. The sloop made a quick passage, and for most of the time her passengers lounged in the sunshine on her gently-slanted deck. It was evening when they ran through the Narrows into Vancouver’s land-locked harbour.

Half an hour later, Vane landed his passengers, and it was not until he had left them they discovered that he had thrust a roll of paper currency into the little girl’s hand. Then he and Carroll set off for the C.P.R. hotel.