Susan Morrow Jones

“ One day she went, in her canoe, up a stream, until she reached a chain of lakes where she could paddle on and on—far away into space—where the stillness was maddening yet restful.
The peace of autumn, of approaching death, lay on the woods. The maples, with their gorgeous colouring, shone and flamed in the bright sun; the birches were yellow, almost gold, in the brilliant light; occasionally a leaf fell slowly, it reminded Launa of a ghost of the end; there was dread in the creeping slowness, as of the invincible, powerful march of a quiet enemy. ”

“ It had been a solid prop to hold to in ugly places where a man might slip if he had not clean love and a girl in his head. And now, at seven-and-twenty, I wanted my child's game to come true: just my own fire, and my own girl, and a life that held more than mere slaving for money. And it had come true, as far as the fire and the welcome home; only the girl was another man's.
I knew what I ought to do was to get out of La Chance, but I could not screw myself up to the acceptance of the obvious fact that there were other girls in the world than Paulette Brown. ”

“ Wainbridge during his journey to Paddington were unpleasant. There was his uncle to face, and he must make explanations to him.
Nothing was so disquieting as Launa’s cry for help to Paul. Why Paul? Why not to Sylvia or Lily or anyone? And the sound of relief in her voice—relief—was there joy? She had never loved him; if she had, she would have loved him married or dead. She was the sort of woman who does not—who cannot change. Therefore if she had loved him she could have risked all for him. ”

“ When I waded out into the swirling white dusk of snow and wind between me and the shack I was just cautious enough, after the Halfway business, to stare hard through the blinding storm at the house I was making for, though I did not think Macartney was ripe to dare anything open against me at La Chance. But with that stare I knew abruptly that he was! Massed just inside the open door of Dudley's shack, that was black dark but for one light in the living-room window, were a crowd of men that looked like nothing in the world but our own miners, that I knew now for Hutton's—or Macartney's—gang! ”

“ Will he ever know how I love him? Will he, Launa? Say something. Don’t stare at me. Will he? Do you believe it?”
“Many waters cannot quench love, nor death, nor parting, nor marriage, nor anything.”
“No,” said Sylvia, “nor marriage. He was married to a devil. A reputation never brought a woman comfort. You never say to yourself ‘I am respectable!’ You do not feel as if respectability were a new frock in which to rejoice. Would you, Launa, have received me if I had been—what would my label be?” ”

“ I lay in heaven, in the dark of a frowsy cave we might be hunted out [Pg 246] of any minute, with the dying glow of the fire in my eyes and my dream girl's hand in mine. And suddenly, like a blow, I heard her whisper in her sleep, "Dudley! Oh, dear Dudley!"
I was only Nicky Stretton, and a fool. I lay in the dark with a heart like a stone and a girl's warm, clinging hand in mine. ”

“ Mr. Wainbridge appeared. It was late, and he had been at his uncle’s. The room was full of poppies; the heavy odour was oppressive, and the flowers were falling—slowly, slowly they tumbled down every few minutes.
“They are the ghosts of the past,” said Launa at last, as one or two flowers fell simultaneously, and yet as it were with reluctance. “Do you hear the slow sound they make as they fall? I am very tired.”
“Your tea-gown is like moonlight, and you look divine.”
“And unearthly? I would rather be human.” ”

“ I stowed away Thompson's deuce of hearts, that no boy had ever come for, in the case with those other pitiful cards he had told me to search, and got on my feet with only one thought in my head,—to get back to La Chance and my dream girl that Macartney was alone with, except for Dudley,—Dudley whom he hated, who had threatened him for Paulette Valenka, for Thompson, till it was no wonder I had found him with the face of a devil where he lurked eavesdropping in the shack hall. ”

“ During all these long, long days of sorrow and direful longing, Mr. Wainbridge wrote to her. Almost every day a letter came, and she began to look for them and to answer them. At first she had only sent him scrawls, but he had gradually drifted into an intimate—a most intimate friend.
She often re-read his letters, and there was more in them than the actual words said. She gave him credit for an intuition which he did not possess. He loved her, and he divined that she did not love him; she could almost love him for that. Women usually love men for imaginary qualities. ”

“ She was lovelier than I had ever seen her, with her gold-bronze hair shining over the sable collar of Dudley's coat. I fancied her eyes shone, too, for one second, at seeing me. But there I was wrong.
"I thought you'd started for Caraquet," she exclaimed hastily. "You needn't come with us. There won't be any wolves in the daytime, and—you know there's no need for you to come!"
There was not. Even if her voice had not so significantly conveyed the fact that there was no bottle in her wagon this time, Mrs. Billy Jones—to put a hard fact politely—was about the most capable lady I had ever met. ”

“ Lady Blake was keeping time with her head and her foot. Time in the Waldstein! Launa felt a great wave of longing, of desire for the woods, lakes, and the vastness of the real forest, and for the air. Oh! that air! Keen sometimes, sweet, full of the smell of wild flowers, of the pine woods—and where was Paul?
The Waldstein went on and on. To her it meant spring days, movement, hope, but not in the overcrowded old land. To the others it meant different things—music always does—and Launa’s mind returned to the impression of the afternoon. It could not have been Paul alive that she had seen? ”

“ What she hardly dared acknowledge to herself was her husband’s daily increasing indifference. He had been away since the 16th, and he had not told her where he was going.
Was he often with Launa? Jealousy, a raging, burning hatred of the woman who was liked so much, filled her mind, and she stamped her foot with rage. Then she wanted to cry. To feel herself powerless, to know herself mistaken, both were new emotions, both were uncomfortably true and horrible.
Marriage, she reflected, was always a failure; to keep one’s husband as a lover is impossible. At this moment Mr. Herbert came in. ”

“ But in the bitterest winter it was never frozen further than to form surging masses of frazil ice that would neither let a canoe push through them, nor yet support the weight of a man. It was on that frazil ice, that some people called lolly, that I meant to run for my life now, trusting to the resistance of the two feet of snow that lay on the lake in the mysterious way snow does lie on lolly, and to the snowshoes on my feet. And as I slithered on to the soft snow of the lake, from the crackling, breaking shell ice on the La Chance shore, I knew I had done well. ”

“ For love is not an institution.”
“Sometimes; well, you know as well as I do that we can get on without love.”
“Love,” said Launa, “is the thing in life, it is—”
“What do you love?”
“Whom? What? I love life and movement—the wind and the sea. The being alive to-day is joy. Look at the grass, the river, the water! If I could only be at ‘Solitude,’ to smell the air as it comes across that sweep of woods!” ”

“ The Wilbrahams had been out, and Paulette Brown, left alone, had taken her chance to speak to some one. That she had happened to mistake her man and spoken to me made no difference in the fact, and it came too aptly on Marcia's suspicions about her. But "My good heavens, I won't care what she did," I thought fiercely. My dream girl's eyes were honest, if they were deep blue lakes a man might drown his soul in, too. If she were Dudley's twice over I was going to stand by her, because by all my dreams of her she was more mine. ”

“ She knew her father would never consent to any marriage between herself and Paul. Launa had cultivated an ideal of women’s behaviour to other women; they should always support the wronged woman, even when it means losing a hearts desire. Until it meant losing her own heart’s desire she had derived much joy from this theory, now she realised that no one can be happy on a theory.
She played a Chopin study: relentless fate—a chilling, creeping fiend of Impossibility—went through it, which mocked the delusive sound of far-away joy and happiness somewhere—the indefinite somewhere. ”

“ It was a lake that was no lake; that should have been our water-way out of the bush instead of miles of expensive road; and was no more practicable than a rope ladder to the stars. For the depth of Lac Tremblant, or its fairway, were two things no man might count on. It would fall in a night to shallows a child might wade through, among bristling rocks no one had ever guessed at; and rise in a morning to the tops of the spruce scrub on its banks,—a sweet spread of water, with never a rock to be seen. ”

“ My husband was nice; we never quarrelled, but we never made it up. Nice men do not love women; they ask us to marry them, to be mothers to their children. Devils love us and often leave us.”
For some time there was silence.
“You like Mr. Herbert?” again asked Mrs. Phillips.
“He wants to marry you,” said Launa.
“He thinks he does. I am afraid of marriage. I am four-and-twenty and I feel fifty; he is thirty and seems twenty.”
“If I were a man,” said Launa, “I would love you. You are not merely beautiful; you are more—not only attractive, you will never grow old.” ”

“ An obstinate, matter-of-fact devil got up in my heart instead and prompted me to stay just where I was. I looked at Dudley—little, fat, pompous, and so self-opinionated that it fairly stuck out of him—and thought that if I had a fair chance I could take my dream girl from him. I might be dark as an Indian and without a cent to my name except the few dollars I had sunk in the mine, but I did not drink or eat drugs; and I knew Dudley did one and guessed he did the other. Interfering with him was out of the question, of course; it was not a thing any man could do to his friend, deliberately. ”

“ His keen eyes glanced into one’s inner consciousness, and seemed hard, until he smiled. He walked with the Indian stride, which is quick and quiet. Of course he could ride, and he had the strong capable hands of a man who has been brought up to do things, and who could do them well. Paul Harvey and Launa soon became firm friends, for they understood each other. They loved the same things; the witchery of the woods, of the canoe, and of the sea was real and tangible to them both, and he loved music, as did she. ”

“ I heard myself say out loud: "His heart was rotten: that was why he fainted in the assay office. But——Oh, the man was mad besides! He must have been." And over my words came another voice. It was Marcia's, and it made me sick.
"Macartney," she was screaming, "Macartney!" She ran round and round like a hen in a road, before me, Dudley, all of us; then flung herself on her brother as if she had only just realized him. "You're alive—you're not dead! Can't you see he never stole any emeralds nor loved that girl, any more than he killed you? ”

“ Launa came as a change and a relief. She had intense vitality and energy; a waltz always affected her; it made her glad or sad. She loved the music, the motion, and she looked so desirable.
Captain Carden was not sure whether she was beautiful or not. He wanted to hear someone else say it; he distrusted his own opinion; he had no self-confidence. She was eligible, virtue of virtues; he was a man, she a woman, and as such glad to get him. Did a woman ever refuse a man with his advantages? Never.
Dancing gave Launa more colour. ”

“ For I could not see Paulette. Suddenly, past belief, I heard her scream: "Nicky!" [Pg 274]
I fought blindly to the sound of her voice, wormed between my screening rocks, and shouted as I stood up. She was not even in slush! She had gone through shell ice to bare ground, a long strip of bare ground that led straight to the Halfway shore; roofed, high above my head, with shell ice and lolly that filtered a silver-green light. My dream girl lay there in her little blue sweater with the wind knocked out of her—and that was all. ”

“ You are a brute, Paul. Let me look into your eyes; they are true. It is your eyes I see when I talk to him, your voice I hear, your kisses I feel. . . . Paul, don’t tempt me. I have degraded myself enough. Leave me—go. I am wicked, I am wrong.”
“Tempt you? My God, Launa! Am I not tempted?”
“When you hold me I am strong. A woman loves a man who has a strong arm for her.”
He bent down and kissed her face, then her lips, a long, long kiss.
“Launa, can you marry any other man? Be true, dear.”
“Sit down, Paul, by me. Let me hold your hand. I feel so weak and so afraid. ”

“ The horses had calmed to a flying trot up the long hill along whose side we had been crawling when the pole went. Once over the crest of it we should have done two miles since we heard the first wolf howl; which meant we were nearer to Billy Jones's than I had remembered. If the pole held to get us down the other side of the long hill there was nothing before us but a mile of corduroy road through a jungle-thick swamp of hemlock, and then the one bit of really excellent going my road could boast,—three clear miles, level as a die, straight to the Halfway stables. ”

“ Music took the place of her out-of-door life, and she became so absorbed in it that she only occasionally missed and regretted her former wanderings. It was as if she had experienced its wonderful power for the first time, and drank from a cup of intoxicating sweetness.
She went to dances, and discovered that men found her attractive, and naturally she soon learned how to make herself agreeable. At the same time she realised that most men love a woman for her bodily charm.
“Men are very animalish, Whitey,” said Launa one day, after having made a successful appearance at an evening reception. ”

“ I was certain I should know my dream girl—first—by that. And that was the girl—I forgot it was all made-up child's play—who somewhere in the world was waiting for me, Nick Stretton; a fool with nothing on earth but six feet of a passably good body, and a dark, high-nosed face like an Indian's, who was working in the bush for Wilbraham instead of sieving creation for her. ”

“ They talked about clothes, while Launa remembered the queer dark evening, the half-pretty Indian girl, and heard the wailing sobs of her baby, and then she saw Paul’s face full of anger. Love was there, hatred as well, as he said, “Go away,” to the girl. She shuddered, and he thought her angry—simply angry—good that he could think she felt so slight an emotion. Women are angry every day with their maids, and their dressmakers, and their rivals, and it leaves no impression, not even a wrinkle; there remains no ache whatever, unless it be weariness.
“I love crepon,” she said to Mrs. Montmorency. ”

“ I knocked it flying across her, and it smashed to flinders on the near fore wheel, drenching it and splashing over Danny's hind legs. I grabbed the reins from Paulette, and I thought of skunks, and a sulphide factory,—and dead skunks and rotten sulphide at that. Even in the freezing evening air the smell that came from that smashed bottle was beyond anything on earth or purgatory, excepting the stuff I had spilt over myself at Skunk's Misery. "What on earth," I began stupidly. "Why, that's that Skunk's Misery filth again!" ”

“ For some days Launa stayed with her. Lily was more than miserable; she was crushed, and could not bear to be alone.
There was so much inaction, none of those details which have to be fulfilled when anyone dies at home, no work was to be done except the purchasing of black, no beautiful flowers to arrange, no farewell look, painful, yet a comfort, for in the last sleep the wayfarer appears at peace. ”