Thrice Armed Part 28

ANTHEA MAKES A DISCOVERY

While Merril discussed the prospects of the pulp-mill with his companions, Anthea sat by the open window of an upper room. There was an open book on her knee, but it lay face downward, and she leaned back in a cane chair, looking out upon the Inlet across the cl.u.s.tering roofs of the city. The still water lay s.h.i.+ning under the evening light, with a broad smear of smoke trailing athwart it from the steamer which had just vanished behind the dark pines that overhang The Narrows. It drifted across the tall spars of the _Agapomene_, and through it a big pa.s.senger boat's tier of deck-houses showed dimly white. Further up the Inlet another dingy cloud drifted out from behind the piles of stacked lumber about the Hastings mill, while the clatter of an Empress liner's winches came up through the clear evening air with the tolling of locomotive bells and the grind of freight-car wheels.

All this had a certain interest as well as a significance for Anthea Merril. In England the business man, as a rule, endeavors to leave his commercial affairs behind him when he turns his back on the city; but it is different in the West, where he has no privacy and his calling is his life. Mills and mines, freight rates and timber rights, are seldom debarred as topics at social functions, and Anthea had acquired a considerable knowledge of these things, though she had not lived very long in that city. It was, of course, also evident to her that her father was regarded as a man of influence and one who had a share in directing the activities of the Province, and this afforded her a certain pleasure. Several expressions overheard and facts that had lately been forced on her attention might, perhaps, have rudely dissipated that satisfaction had she not resolutely endeavored to attach a more favorable meaning to them than a good many people would have considered justifiable. She had spent most of her life with her mother's relatives in the East, and it was not altogether astonis.h.i.+ng that there was a good deal in her father's character with which she was unacquainted. Merril had a desire to stand well with his daughter, and he had sufficient ability to accomplish what he wished, in most cases.

By and by, as she glanced at the s.h.i.+ning Inlet, the fading smoke-trail led Anthea's thoughts away to the man who was then doubtless standing on the _Shasta_'s bridge, and her eyes softened curiously. She could now admit that she knew what he felt for her, because, although he had never told her, there had been occasions when his face had, perhaps against his will, made it very plain. What the result of it would be, she did not know, but she could wait, and be sure of his steadfastness, in the meanwhile, for circ.u.mstances which were unpropitious now might change, as, indeed, they were rather apt to do with almost disconcerting suddenness in that country. Then she tried to reconstruct the interview she had had with his sister, an occupation in which she had indulged somewhat frequently of late, although it troubled her; and that, by a natural transition, once more led her thoughts back to her father.

It was impossible to doubt that Eleanor Wheelock believed she had grounds for bitterness against him, and a curious something in her brother's manner had once or twice suggested that he shared it too; but Anthea endeavored to a.s.sure herself that they had merely adopted their father's views without sufficient investigation. She was aware that men who failed were frequently apt to blame somebody else for it instead of their own supineness, while it was clear that both parties could not always expect a bargain to be advantageous. For all that, the girl's a.s.sertions had been startling, and once more Anthea wished that she had not heard them. They vaguely troubled her, since she would not have her father's probity left open to doubt.

Then, rising somewhat abruptly, she flung the book aside, and went down the wide cedar stairway to search for another that might, perhaps, hold her attention more firmly. When she reached the foot of it she turned into a corridor, and stopped a moment when she heard a murmur of angry voices. She was aware that a member of the Provincial Legislature had reached the house not long ago, and that the rest of her father's guests had come there to discuss something with him, while as the door of the room reserved for them had been left open a foot or so she could see within from where she stood.

The house stood high, and the sunlight still streamed into the room, while there was something in the pose of the men that seized and held her attention. She had heard nothing clearly yet, but the strung-up att.i.tudes and intent faces had their dramatic suggestiveness, and she lingered. She could see her father sitting at the head of the table with one hand closed hard on the edge of it, and a grim smile that was quite new to her in his eyes; the member supporting himself by the big lounge and apparently shrinking from his gaze; and one of the others leaning forward in his seat with his fist clenched. In fact, the scene burned itself into her memory, and she never forgot the look in her father's face.

Then the voices suddenly became intelligible, and she heard Merril say, "It's rather a pity you didn't make sure of that before you took what we offered you."

She caught the legislator's answer, and saw the man who leaned forward shake his fist at him, while the latter's exclamation sent a little thrill of dismay through her.

"You know what you meant, and you got your price," he said.

This was sufficiently plain in connection with what had gone before it, and she waited in tense suspense to see whether her father would discountenance it, though she felt that he would not do so. She saw him make a little sign of concurrence, and once more was sensible of an enervating dismay when he flung his answer at the shrinking member of the Legislature.

"A perfectly understood bargain, and he got his price," he said. "He would never have been elected if we had not set certain influences to work."

Then she roused herself with an effort, and, thinking no more of the book she had come for, turned softly and flitted back up the stairway to the room she had left. She made sure the door was fast, with a vague, instinctive feeling that she must be quite alone, then sat down by the window again, a trifle colorless in face, with both hands clenched. She was a woman of keen intelligence, and realized that there was no room for doubt. Her father, the man she had endeavored to look up to, had openly condemned himself.

It was perhaps strange, considering that she was his daughter, that she had wholesome thoughts as well as mental ability, and that honesty formed a prominent part of her morality. The fact made the blow more cruel, for it was clear that her father and his a.s.sociates had been engaged in an infamous conspiracy. They had bought a member of the Legislature--bribed him to betray the confidence the people had placed in him; and though she did not know whether the bribe had been actual money, that, as she recognized, scarcely affected the question. He had, at least, promised to do something that was against the interests of the country, for which, as one had declared, they cared nothing, and would evidently have kept his promise if circ.u.mstances had not been too strong for him. Anthea had sense enough to attach as little credence to his a.s.sertions as the others had done.

She supposed that things of the kind were sometimes done, but only by men without morality, and it was almost intolerable to realize that her father had been the instigator of one of them. The fact seemed to bear out all the newspaper had charged him with, and made it more than probable that Eleanor Wheelock's a.s.sertions, too, had been well-founded. It was with a little s.h.i.+ver that Anthea realized that in such a case the father of the man who loved her had in all probability been ruined by a nefarious conspiracy. His daughter had told her plainly that his death was the direct result of it, and if that were so, Jimmy must hold her father accountable. The thing was becoming altogether horrible.

She did not know how long she sat there after she heard the guests take their leave, but at last she realized that since she must meet him on the morrow there was little to be gained by keeping out of her father's sight that night. She was not deficient in courage, but it was with an effort that she nerved herself to go down, knowing that she could not meet him as though nothing unusual had come to her knowledge. He was still sitting in the room where he had spoken with his guests, with a litter of papers in front of him, when she went in, but on hearing the rustle of her dress he looked up. The lamps were lighted now, and he started slightly when he saw her face. Then he brushed aside the papers, and sat still, looking at her with a little grim smile. Anthea felt her heart beat, for she saw that he understood.

"Ah!" he said. "Sprotson fancied he heard somebody. It was you?"

Anthea nodded, standing very straight in the middle of the big room and wondering, with a fierce desire that he should do so, whether he would offer any explanation in which she could place a little credence. Almost a minute pa.s.sed, and the man never took his eyes off her. She longed that he would speak, for the tension was growing unendurable.

"You heard--something--at least?" he said.

"Yes," replied Anthea, with a cold quietness at which she almost wondered. "Enough, I think, to make me understand the rest."

Again Merril said nothing for a while, though he still kept his keen eyes fixed on her face, and at last it was without any sign of anger, and in a tone of grave inquiry, he broke the silence.

"Well?" he said.

There was an appeal in Anthea's voice. "Can't you say anything that will drive out what I think?" she asked. "I want to believe that I could not have heard or understood aright."

Merril raised one hand, and for a moment she could have fancied that there was pain in his face. "I almost think you are too clever, and, perhaps, I am too wise. By and by you would not believe me. I have known this moment would come since I brought you to Vancouver, and--though you may scarcely credit this--almost dreaded it. The thing has to be faced now."

This time it was Anthea who said nothing, and Merril went on again. "You might never have had to face it had you been a pretty fool, but that could hardly have been expected. You are my daughter. Still, intelligence, as other people have no doubt discovered, is not always a blessing to a woman."

Again he made a little abrupt movement. "You see, I offer no palliation.

The one question is simply--do you mean to turn your back on me?"

Anthea looked at him steadily. "No," she said, "I could never do that.

Still, must you continue what you are doing? Can't you give it up?"

"Sit down," said Merril quietly, and, rising, drew her a chair. "I think we must understand each other now and altogether. To commence with, I should have liked you to continue to think well of me, though, considering what you are, I knew the thing was hardly likely. Now you have made a discovery that hurts you."

He stopped a moment, and though there had been a certain elusive gentleness in his voice, the girl was sensible that she shrank from him.

He was, she realized, without compunction, and had no regret for what he had done. Indeed, his pa.s.sionless quietness conveyed the impression that some of the usual attributes of humanity had been left out of him. A trace of confusion or anger would have appeared more natural, and invective would have been easier to bear than this suggestive tranquillity.

"Well," he said, "you asked a very natural question. What I am doing--my view of life, in fact--displeases you. You ask, can't I give it up? I ask why? Can you offer me any reason?"

Anthea said nothing. Reasons occurred to her, but they were rather felt than concretely formulated, and, as she realized, would suffer from being forced into shallow and inadequate expression. She also naturally shrank from an unsuccessful attempt to play the teacher to her father, and had sense enough to know that trite maxims and virtuous plat.i.tudes would have very small effect on such a man. It was, perhaps, not an unusual feeling in one respect, for the deep optimistic faith of the wise cannot be rashly formulated without its suffering in the process.

It is, as a rule, the people with shallow beliefs who have the ready tongues, and the result of their well-meaning efforts is seldom the one they desire. Anthea, at least, recognized her disabilities, and kept silence. She also saw that her father understood her, for he nodded.

"It is clear that you are not a fool," he said. "If you had been, the thing would have been easier for both of us. I allowed you to be brought up in the conventional morality, knowing that you would grow above what was spurious in it, and cling to what you felt was real. If you felt that, it would be sufficient for you. Still, that morality was never mine. I had to face life as I found it, without the money that might have made it easier to regard it virtuously, and scruples would have insufferably handicapped me. As a matter of fact, I do not think I ever had any. This existence is a struggle, as no doubt you have heard often without realizing it, and it is the strong and cunning who get out of it what is worth having. That, at least, is my point of view. It may be the wrong one, but I am satisfied with it, and, what is more to the purpose, quite content to leave you yours."

He broke off once more, and smiled before he went on. "We have done with that subject. I would not influence you against your belief--which is the prettier one--if I could, and I do not think you could influence me.

In fact, one feels diffident about having said so much. Well, it is the days to come we have to consider. I am not likely to change my code, and you do not wish to leave me?"

Again, for just a moment, the faint tenderness crept into his voice, and the girl's nature stirred in answer.

"No," she said, "there is nothing that could make me wish to do that."

"Well," said the man, with a dry smile, "we will try to avoid offending each other, and I should have been sorry had you gone away. In fact, it is a relief to know that you will be with me. My affairs have not been going well lately."

This was sufficiently matter-of-fact, but in spite of the vague shrinking from him of which she was still sensible, Anthea was touched.

She could not, however, concretely realize what she felt, and wisely made no attempt to express it. Instead, she spoke of something else, seizing on an immaterial point that casually occurred to her.

"I fancied you were a prosperous man," she said.

"So do many people," said Merril dryly. "It was by leading them to believe it that I've done what I have done. My operations are for the most part conducted with other people's money. Still, one has to face reverses now and then, and when two or three of them come together the people who support one commence to doubt their wisdom. Then they are apt to back down and become virtuously scrupulous, while the men with a grudge against one waken up and fancy their turn has come. In my case there are evidently quite a few of them."

He laughed softly, but in a fas.h.i.+on that jarred on the girl. "Still, it is very probable that I shall keep ahead of them, after all. In any case, I won't offend you by suggesting that the odd chance of your having to dispense with what I have been able to offer you so far would count for very much."

"Thank you for that," said Anthea softly.

Merril turned to the papers before him. "Well," he said, "now we understand, and, as you see, I am busy."

Anthea went out, not rea.s.sured, but more tranquil. She realized what her duty was, and purposed to do it; but while there was still a tenderness for the man in her, there was also something about him besides his avowed point of view and the actions it led to, that repelled her. He had, it seemed, an intellect that was unhampered by the usual pa.s.sions and affections of humanity.

CHAPTER XXI

JIMMY GROWS RESTLESS