Chilcote

“ But Chilcote sat staring in silence. The domination of the other's personality and the futility of his achievements baffled him.
Loder saw his bewilderment. “You wonder what the devil I came into the world for,” he said. “I sometimes wonder the same myself.”
At his words a change passed over Chilcote. He half rose, then dropped back into his seat.
“You have no friends?” he said. “Your life is worth nothing to you?”
Loder raised his head. “I thought I had conveyed that impression.”
“You are an absolutely free man.”
“No man is free who works for his bread. ”

“ The vicar of Chilcote had read the prayers for the dying, and not without deep emotion, for he was a warm-hearted old man; and after placing the book in Alison's hand, with certain pages marked for her perusal, had departed also; and she—declining all offers of feminine assistance from the vicarage—remained alone, and choked with emotion by the bedside, with one of her father's passive hands clasped in hers, to wait and to watch. ”

“ Five minutes later he was in the open air and walking steadily eastward, his hat drawn forward and his overcoat buttoned up.
As he traversed the streets he allowed himself no thought, Once, as he waited in Trafalgar Square to find a passage between the vehicles, the remembrance of Chilcote's voice coming out of the fog on their first night made itself prominent, but he rejected it quickly, guarding himself from even an involuntary glance at the place of their meeting. The Strand, with its unceasing life, came to him as something almost unfamiliar. ”

“ Chilcote repeated, nervously but with distinctness. “Do you accept?”
For an instant Loder was at a loss to find a reply sufficiently final. Chilcote broke in upon the pause.
“After all,” he urged, “what I ask of you is a simple thing. Merely to carry through my routine duties for a week or two occasionally when I find my endurance giving way—when a respite becomes essential. The work would be nothing to a man in your state of mind, the pay anything you like to name.” In his eagerness he had followed Loder to the desk. ”

“ Half-way across Trafalgar Square he overtook the stranger. He had paused on one of the small stone islands that break the current of traffic, and was waiting for an opportunity to cross the street. In the glare of light from the lamp above his head, Chilcote saw for the first time that, under a remarkable neatness of appearance, his clothes were well worn—almost shabby. The discovery struck him with something stronger than surprise. The idea of poverty seemed incongruous is connection with the reliance, the reserve, the personality of the man. ”

“ Whether he had hoped for or dreaded it, Chilcote was conscious.
As Loder entered he was sitting by the cheerless grate, the ashes of yesterday's fire showing charred and dreary where the sun touched them. His back was to the light, and about his shoulders was an old plaid rug. Behind him on the table stood a cup, a teapot, and the can of milk; farther off a kettle was set to boil upon a tiny spirit-stove.
In all strong situations we are more or less commonplace. Loder's first remark as he glanced round the disordered room seemed strangely inefficient. ”

“ Loder walked slowly across the room, and, taking up his position by the mantel-piece, looked at his companion. The similarity between them as they faced each other seemed abnormal, defying even the closest scrutiny. And yet, so mysterious is Nature even in her lapses, they were subtly, indefinably different. Chilcote was Loder deprived of one essential: Loder, Chilcote with that essential bestowed. The difference lay neither in feature, in coloring, nor in height, but in that baffling, illusive inner illumination that some call individuality, and others soul. ”

“ Left alone in the sitting-room after Chilcote's departure, his first sensation was one of physical discomfort and unfamiliarity. His own clothes, with their worn looseness, brought no sense of friendliness such as some men find in an old garment. Lounging, and the clothes that suggested lounging, had no appeal for him. ”

“ In silence Loder brought out the whiskey and set it on the table; then instinctively he turned aside. As plainly as though he saw the action, he mentally figured Chilcote's furtive glance, the furtive movement of his fingers to his waistcoat-pocket, the hasty dropping of the tabloids into the glass. For an instant the sense of his tacit connivance came to him sharply; the next, he flung it from him. The human, inner voice was whispering its old watchword. The strong man has no time to waste over his weaker brother! ”

“ At Chilcote the first day of death stole quietly on. Prostrate with grief, Alison remained in her own room, leaving all that was to be done with the vicar, the doctor, and Archie, who, plunged in sorrow great as any could feel who shared not the blood of the dead man, hovered about her in a helpless kind of way, as if he would have striven to console—yea, almost to caress her. Was she not the child he had carried often in his arms? ”

“ On the same day that Chilcote had parted with Lillian—but at three o'clock in the afternoon—Loder, dressed in Chilcote's clothes and with Chilcote's heavy overcoat slung over his arm, walked from Fleet Street to Grosvenor Square. He walked steadily, neither slowly nor yet fast. ”

“ But she did not repine, as her father did, that she should be debarred from all these sights and circles, so she replied,
'Papa, as I have often said, one can live without these accessories and surroundings. I have before urged you to quit even Chilcote, and let us go home—home to Essilmont—or what remains of it,' she added, in a broken voice, as she thought of Bevil Goring, and how a new light, bright as summer sunshine, had fallen on her life at Chilcote now. ”

“ The habit of self-deceit is as insidious and tenacious as any vice. For one moment on the night of his great speech, as he leaned out of Chilcote's carriage and met Chilcote's eyes, Loder had seen himself—and under the shock of revelation had taken decisive action. But in the hours subsequent to that action the plausible, inner voice had whispered unceasingly, soothing his wounded self-esteem, rebuilding stone by stone the temple of his egotism ”

“ Chilcote paled a little, as he always did in face of a reality. Then he extended his hand.
“My dear fellow,” he said, with a touch of hauteur, “a man can generally be trusted to look after his own life.”
Extricating his hand almost immediately, he turned towards the door and without a word of farewell passed into the little hall, leaving Loder alone in the sitting-room.
XII
On the night of Chilcote's return to his own, Loder tasted the lees of life poignantly for the first time. Before their curious compact had been entered upon he had been, if not content, at least apathetic ”

“ Unsuspecting and inoffensive as the laugh was, it startled Chilcote. With a sudden alarm he pulled himself up.
“I—?” He tried to echo the laugh, but the attempt fell flat. “Oh, I merely speak from—from De Quincey. But I believe this fog is shifting—I really believe it is shifting. Can you oblige me with a light? I had almost forgotten that a man may still smoke though he has been deprived of sight.” ”

“ Till the advent of Bevil Goring, how drearily dull her life seemed to have been at Chilcote! It was all very well to cull and arrange bouquets with all an artist's eye to colour and form, to warble the old songs her mother had taught in brighter days at Essilmont and elsewhere, with all that sweetness which she inherited from her, and vary these occupations by attendance on her fowls and other pets, hunting with old Archie for the eggs when the hens had taken to laying under the hedges ”

“ Chilcote moved slightly when necessary, but otherwise retained his attitude. The servant, having finished his task, replenished the fire and left the room. Chilcote still sat on.
At last, feeling numbed, he rose and crossed to the fireplace. The clock on the mantel-piece stared him in the face. He looked at it, started slightly, then drew out his watch. Watch and clock corresponded. Each marked twelve o'clock. With a nervous motion he leaned forward and pressed the electric bell long and hard.
Instantly a servant answered.
“Is Mr. Blessington in the study?” Chilcote asked. ”

“ Loder responded, and as he did so a flicker of curiosity touched his mind for the first time. He wondered for an instant who this woman was who aroused so much comment. And with the speculation came the remembrance of how she had assured Chilcote that on one point, at least he was invulnerable. He had spoken then from the height of a past experience—an experience so fully passed that he wondered now if it had been as staple a guarantee as he had then believed. Man's capacity for outliving is astonishingly complete. ”

“ What is to prevent John Chilcote from realizing forty or fifty thousand pounds and then making himself scarce?”
“You won't do that,” Chilcote said, with unusual decision. “I told you your weakness last night; and it wasn't money. Money isn't the rock you'll split over.”
“Then you think I'll split upon some rock? But that's beyond the question. To get to business again. You'll risk my studying your signature?”
Chilcote nodded.
“Right! Now item two.” Loder counted on his: fingers. “I must know the names and faces of your men friends as far as I can. Your woman friends don't count. ”

“ One of those fine, unostentatious figures—strong in action, a little narrow in outlook, perhaps, but essential to a country's staying power. You have every reason to be proud of your father.”
Chilcote laughed suddenly. “How easily we sum up, when a matter is impersonal! My father may have been a fine figure, but he shouldn't have left me to climb to his pedestal.”
Loder's eyes questioned. In his newly awakened interest he had let his pipe go out.
“Don't you grasp my meaning?” Chilcote went on. “My father died and I was elected for East Wark. ”

“ Loder, engrossed in the check to his own schemes, incensed at the suddenness of Chilcote's recall, and still more incensed at his own folly in not having anticipated it, was oblivious for the moment of both her movement and her words. Then, quite abruptly, they obtruded themselves upon him, breaking through his egotism with something of the sharpness of pain following a blow. Turning quickly from the fireplace, he faced the shadowy room across which she had passed, but simultaneously with his turning she gained the door. ”

“ First, a secret understanding had been established between her and a gentleman friend—as yet deemed only a visitor at Chilcote—unknown to her father and to others. Second, it had not been discovered as yet, but might not always remain so, and thus eventually cause an esclandre; and to her it seemed that to make and keep successive appointments—sweet and delicious though they were—that must be kept secret was in itself something wrong and unlady-like; but she was the victim circumstances had made her. ”

“ The suggestion that had been hovering in his mind took sudden and definite shape. “All right!” he said, in a lower voice. “All right! Stay as you are.”
He crossed to where the empty tumbler stood and hastily mixed the whiskey and water; then crossing to the mantel-piece where lay the small glass tube containing the tightly packed tabloids, he paused and glanced once more towards the bed. “How many?” he said, laconically.
Chilcote lifted his head. His face was pitiably drawn, but the feverish brightness in his eyes had increased. “Five,” he said, sharply. “Five. Do you hear, Loder?” ”

“ The Chilkoot was more than a mountain, more than an obstacle of nature; it was a Presence, a tremendous and a terrifying Personality which overshadowed the minds of men and could neither be ignored at the time nor forgotten later. No wonder, then, that Sheep Camp, which was a part of the Chilkoot, represented, a sort of acid test; no wonder that those who had moved their outfits thus far were of the breed the Northland loves—the stout of heart and of body. ”

“ The pitch of Chilkoot was all he had heard of it, and many were the occasions when he climbed with hands as well as feet. But when he reached the crest of the divide in the thick of a driving snow-squall, it was in the company of his Indians, and his secret pride was that he had come through with them and never squealed and never lagged. To be almost as good as an Indian was a new ambition to cherish. ”

“ The Chilcats have, until within a few years, forcibly kept the natives of the interior away from the coast and the white men, thus monopolizing the land fur-trade by acting as middle-men, so to speak, but this embargo is now entirely removed. By this and some other means, being naturally thrifty and saving, they have come to be the richest and most independent tribe of Indians in the Northwest. Their women manufacture the famous and really very fine Chilcat blankets, which are slowly woven by hand on a primitive loom. ”

“ The Chilcats have come from far. They know that the white men are here, and would take the pelts from the Ayana Indians. They know, too, that Klitonda's heart is one with the traders from beyond the mountains of the rising sun. Will the Chilcats allow this? Will they hide like jack-rabbits among the trees, and let the white men take the furs? No. They have come for revenge. They are ready to drive back the white people. Then let the chief of the Ayana beware, for he cannot escape them. The Chilcats are swift as wolves, and their fangs are long and sharp. ”