CHAPTER XV
"Music Hath Charms—"
He left me at the wharf without a word. I went into the house, threw off my dirty overalls and indulged in the luxury of a bath. Not a salt-water apology for one,—a real, live, remove-the-dirt, soapy, hot-water bath;—and it did me a world of good both mentally and bodily.
I dressed myself in clean, fresh linen, donned my breeches, a pair of hand-knitted, old-country, heather hose and a pair of white canvas shoes. I shaved and brushed my hair to what, in my college days, I had considered its most elegant angle.
The remainder of the afternoon and evening was my own. I was just at that agreeable stage of body-weariness where a book and a smoke seemed angels from heaven. I had the books,—lots of them,—I had tobacco and my pipe, I had a hammock to sling from the hooks on the front veranda,—so, what care had I?
I chose a volume of "Macaulay's Essays" and, with a sigh,—the only articulate sign of an unutterable content,—I stretched myself in the hammock, blew clouds of smoke in the air and resigned myself to the soothing influences.
I had lain thus for perhaps an hour, when a shadow intervened between the page I was reading and the glare of the sun.
It was Miss Grant.
She had come by the back path and, in her noiseless rubber shoes, I had not heard her.
I sprang out of the hammock, loosed the ring from the hook and threw the canvas aside to make way for her.
She appeared a perfect picture of glorious loveliness and contagious health. She did not speak for a moment, but her eyes took me in from head to heel.
I felt confident in the knowledge that the figure I presented was decidedly more pleasing than when last she had seen me.
I was glad, for I knew, even with my small acquaintance with the opposite sex, that the woman is not alive who does not prefer to see a man clean, tidy and neat.
I pushed the store doors open and followed her in.
Again, that bewitching little uplifting of the eyebrows; again the alluring relaxation of her full lips; silent ways, apparently, of expressing her pleasure. The appearance of my store, on this occasion, met with her approval.
She laid aside her sunshade and handed me a long, neatly written list of groceries which she required; not all, but most of which, I was able to fill.
"Make up the bill,—please. I wish to pay it now. I shall not wait until you make up the goods. If not too much trouble, would you——"
I was listening to the soft cadences of her voice, when she stopped.
She was leaning lightly with her elbow on the counter. I was on the inner side, bending over my order book.
When her voice stopped, I felt that she was looking at the top of my head. I raised my face suddenly and, to her, unexpectedly. For the first time, I saw clearly into her eyes. My breath caught, as, like a flash, I saw myself standing in the doorway of Modley Farm, along with my old chum, Tom Tanner; his mother beside us, with her arms round our shoulders; and I remembered the flippant conversation we had at that time.
The young lady before me had eyes of a liquid, golden-brown, lighter in colour than her hair, yet of wondrous depth and very attractive; inexpressibly attractive.
I averted my gaze quickly, but not quickly enough for her to miss the admiration I had so openly shown.
She picked up a tin from the counter and scanned the label.
"The delivery wagon is at your service, my lady," I put in lightly.
"Thank you!" she answered in relief.
I totted up the bill and handed it to her. "Eight dollars and thirty-five cents," I said.
"Now, Mr. Bremner,—please add your charge for the conveying of my piano, so that I may pay my debts altogether."
I gasped in amazement. I straightened myself indignantly, for the idea of making a charge for that work had never entered my head. And I knew Jake had never thought of such a thing either. It had been simply a little neighbourly assistance.
The mention of payment annoyed me.
"There is no charge, Miss Grant," was all I could trust myself to say.
"What do you mean?" she asked. "Surely you must understand that it is not my habit to engage men to work for me without payment!"
"We did not look upon it in the nature of ordinary work," I put in. "It was a pleasure, and we did it as any neighbours would do a favour."
Her eyes closed a little angrily.
"I do not accept favours from men I am unacquainted with," she retorted unreasonably. "How much do I owe,—please?"
"And I do not hire myself out, like a dock labourer or a mule, to any one who cares to demand my services," I replied, in equally cold tones.
She stood in hesitation, then she stamped her rubber-soled foot petulantly. "But I will not have it. I insist on paying for that work."
I shook my head.
"If you wish to insult me, Miss Grant,—insist."
I could see that she was suffering from conflicting lines of reasoning. Her haughtiness changed and her eyes softened.
"Mr. Bremner,—what do I owe for the work,—please?" she pleaded. "You are a gentleman,—you cannot hide that from me."
Discovered! I said to myself.
"Surely you understand my position? Surely you do not wish to embarrass me?"
Ah, well! I thought. If it will please her, so be it. And I'll make it a stiff charge for spite.
"Thirty dollars!" I exclaimed, as if it had been three. "Our labour was worth that much." I looked straight at her in a businesslike way.
It was her turn to gasp, but she recovered herself quickly.
"The cost of labour is, I presume, high, up here?" she commented.
"Yes!—very high,—sky-high! You see, I shall have to pay that old Jew-rascal assistant of mine at least two and a half dollars for his share, so that it will not leave very much for the master-mind that engineered the project."
She turned her eyes on me to ascertain if I were funning or in earnest, but my face betrayed nothing but the greatest seriousness.
She counted out her grocery money and I gave her a receipt. Then she laid three ten dollar bills on the counter to pay for the piano moving.
"Thank you!" I said, as I walked round the counter to a little box which was nailed on the wall near the door; a box which the Rev. William Auld had put up with my permission on the occasion of his last visit, a box which I never saw a logger pass without patronising if he noticed it. On the outside, it bore the words:—"Sick Children's Aid." I folded the notes and inserted them in the aperture on top.
Miss Grant watched me closely all the while.
When I got back behind the counter, she went over to the box and read the label. She opened her purse, with calm deliberation, and poured all it contained into her hand. She then inserted the coins, one by one, in the opening of the box and, with honours still even, if not in her favour, she sailed out of the store.
I was annoyed and chagrined at the turn of events, yet, when I came to consider her side of the argument, I could not blame her altogether for the stand she had taken.
I put up her order in no very pleasant frame of mind.
When I saw her and her chaperon row out from the wharf into the Bay, I carried over the groceries, piecemeal, and placed them in a shady place on their veranda. I then turned back to the house and prepared my evening meal.
When the sun had gone down and darkness had crept over Golden Crescent, I returned to my hammock and my reading, setting a small oil lamp on the window ledge behind me. It was agreeably cool then and all was peace and harmony.
From where I lay, I could cast my eyes over the land and seascapes now and again. I commanded a good view of the house across the creek. The kitchen lamp was alight there and I could see figures passing backward and forward.
Suddenly an extra light travelled from the kitchen to the front parlour and, soon after, a ripple of music floated on the evening air.
I listened. How I listened!—like a famished cougar at the sound of a deer.
The music was sweet, delicious, full of fantastic melody. It was the light, airy music of Sullivan; and not a halt, not even a falter did the player make as she tripped and waltzed through the opera. One picture after another rose before me and dissolved into still others, as the old, haunting tunes caught my ears, floating from that open window.
I could see the lady under the soft glow of the lamp, sitting at the piano, smiling and all absorbed,—the light gleaming gold on her coils of luxuriant hair.
After a time the mood of the pianist changed. She drifted into the deeper, the more sombre, more impressive "Kamennoi-Ostrow" of Rubinstein. She played it softly, so softly, yet so expressively sadly, that I was drawn by its alluring to leave my veranda and cross over the wooden bridge, in order to be nearer and to hear better.
Quietly, but quite openly, I took the path by the house, on to the edge of the cliffs, where I could hear every note, every shade of expression; where I could follow the story:—the Russian setting, the summer evening, the beautiful lady, the pealing of the bells calling the worshippers to the chapel for midnight mass; the whispered conversations, the organ in solemn chant, the priests intoning the service, the farewell, and, lastly, the lingering chords of the organ fading into the deep silence of slumber.
Just as I was about to sit down, I descried the solitary, shadowy outline of a figure seated a few yards away.
It was Jake,—poor, old, lonely, battle-scarred Jake. His head was in his hands and he was gazing out to sea as if he were dreaming.
I walked over to him and sat by his side. His blue eyes were filled with tears, tears that had not dimmed his eyes for years and years; tears in the eyes of that old Klondike tough, calloused by privation and leather-hided by hard drinking; tears, and at music which he did not understand any more than that it was something outside of his body altogether, outside of the material world, something that spoke only to the soul of him.
I did not speak,—I dared not speak, for the moment was too sacred.
So we two sat thus, knowing of each other's presence, yet ignoring it, and listening, all absorbed, entranced, almost hypnotised by the subtleties of the most charming of all gifts, the perfect interpretation of a work of art.
We listened on and on,—after the chilly night wind had come up from the sea, for we did not know of its coming until the music ceased and the light faded away from the parlour of the house behind us.
"Gee!" exclaimed Jake at last, spitting his mouthful of tobacco over into the water and wiping his eyes with his coat sleeve, "but that dope pulls a gink's socks off,—you bet.
"Guess, if a no-gooder like me had of heard that stuff oftener when he was a kid, he wouldn't be such a no-gooder;—eh! George."
I followed Jake to his boat and, somewhere out of the darkness, Mike the dog appeared and tailed off behind us.
I accompanied the old fellow to his shack, for this love of music in him was a new phase of his temperament to me and somehow my heart went out to him in his loneliness, in his apparent heart-hunger for something he could hardly hope to find.
We talked together for a long time, and as we talked I noticed that Jake made no effort to start his usual drinking bout, although Mike the dog reminded him of his neglect as plainly as dog could, by tugging at his trousers and going over to the whisky keg and whimpering.
This sudden temperance in Jake surprised me more than a little.
I noticed also that the brass-bound chest still lay under Jake's bunk. Several times I had been going to speak to him about that trunk and its contents, and the questionable security of a shack like his, but I had always evaded the subject at the last minute as being one in which I was not concerned.
But that night everything was different somehow.
"Look here, Jake," I said, in one of the quiet spells, "don't you think this old shack of yours isn't a very safe place to keep your money in?"
"How do you mean?" he asked suspiciously.
"There are lots of strange boats put in here of a night; some of them containing beach-combers who do not care who they rob or what they do so long as they get a haul. Besides, the loggers are not all angels and they generally pay you a visit every time they come in. Some of the worst of them might get wind that you keep all your savings here and might take a fancy to some of it."
"Guess all I got wouldn't pay the cost of panning," grunted Jake. "They ain't goin' to butt in on me. Anyway,—I got a pair of good mits left yet."
"Yes!—that is all right, Jake, but nowadays a man does not require to run the risk. The banks are ready and willing to take that responsibility, and to pay for the privilege, too. The few dollars I have are safely banked in Vancouver."
"Banks be damned!" growled Jake. "I ain't got no faith in banks,—no siree. First stake I made went into a bank, Goodall-Towser Trust Co. of 'Frisco. 'Four per cent interest guaranteed,' it said on the front of the bank book they gave me. That book was all they ever gave me; all I ever saw of my five thousand bucks. I thought because it said 'Trust' on the window, it was right as rain. I ain't trustin' 'Trust' any more.
"I raised Cain in that Trust outfit. Started shootin' up. Didn't kill anything, but got three months in the coop. Lost my five thousand plunks and got three months in the pen, all because I put my dough in the bank.
"Banks be damned, George. Not for mine,—no siree."
Jake puffed his pipe reflectively, after his long tirade.
"That's all very well, but there are good banks nowadays and good Trust Companies, too, although I prefer regular chartered banks every time. Those banks are practically guaranteed by the country and the wealthiest men in Canada use them. Why!—Mr. Horsfal has thousands in the Commercial Bank of Canada now. Here is the bank book,—see for yourself! I send in a deposit every week for him."
Jake was impressed, but not unduly. He suddenly switched.
"Say, George,—who told you I had any dough?"
"Oh! I knew you had, Jake. Everybody in Golden Crescent knows. But, to be honest, the minister told me,—in the hope that I would be able to induce you to place it in safety somewhere."
Jake became confident, a most unusual condition for him.
"Well, George,—I can trust you,—you're straight. I got something near ten thousand bucks in that brass chest. I don't need it, but still I ain't givin' it away. I had to grub damned hard to get it. It's kind o' good to know you ain't ever likely to be a candidate for some Old Men's Home."
"It is indeed," I replied, "and I admire you for having saved so much. But won't you put it into the bank, where it is absolutely safe for you? It is a positive temptation to some men, lying around here.
"The bank will give you a receipt for the money; you can draw on it when you wish and it will be earning three per cent or three hundred dollars a year for you all the time it is there."
He pondered for a while, then he dismissed the subject.
"No! Guess I'll keep it by me. No more banks for mine. I ain't so strong as I used to be and I guess three months in the coop would just about make me cash in. I ain't takin' no more chances."
Jake's method of reasoning was amusing. After all, it was no affair of mine and, now that I had unburdened myself, I felt conscience clear.
As I rose to leave, he started to talk again.
"George,—guess you'll think I'm batty,—but I'm goin' to cut out the booze."
"You are!" I exclaimed in astonishment.
"Ya! Guess maybe you think I'll make a hell of a saint, but I ain't goin' to try to be no saint; just goin' to cut out the booze, that's all."
"What has given you this notion?" I could not help inquiring.
"Oh! maybe one thing, maybe another. Anyhow, I ain't had a lick to-night. My stomach's on fire and my head's givin' me Hail Columbia, but—I ain't had a drink to-night."
"Go easy with it, Jake," I cautioned. "You know a hard drinker like you have been can't stop all at once without hurting himself."
"I can. You just watch me," he said with determination.
"Well, then,—I think the best thing you can do in these circumstances is to take that keg in the corner there, roll it outside, pull out the stop-cock and pour the contents on to the beach."
"No! I ain't spoilin' any booze,—George. If I can't stop it because a keg of whisky is sittin' under my nose, then I can't stop boozin' nohow. And, if I can't stop boozin' nohow, what's the good of throwin' away the good booze I already got, when I'd just have to order another keg and maybe have to go thirsty waitin' for it to come up."
"All right, old man," I laughed, slapping him between the shoulders, "please yourself and good luck to your attempt, anyway."
"Say!—George."
"Yes!"
"You won't say anything about this to the young lady that plays the pianner? Because, you see, I might fall down."
"I won't say a word, Jake."
"And—not to Rita, neither?" he asked plaintively, "because Rita's about the only gal cares two straws for me. She comes often when nobody knows about it. She brings cake and pie, and swell cooked meat sometimes. When I find anything on the table,—I know Rita's been. I've knowed Rita since she was a baby and I've always knowed her for a good gal."
"Well, Jake;—I will keep your secret as if I had never heard it. But don't allow that drunken chum of yours, Mike, to lead you astray."
"Guess nit! Mike's got to sign the pledge same's me," he laughed in his guttural way.
I stood at the door. "And you are not going to put that money of yours in the bank, Jake?"
He spat on the ground.
"To hell with banks," he grunted and turned inside.