Looking into her father’s room, she saw that he slept, while Tatters, his hurt paw comfortably stretched out, lay on the rug. Her mother was writing letters at the old desk; and going out to the barn she found the Cub, with Pam of course close by, mending some spring traps that he discovered in an old barrel, and preparing to set them, for mink or weasel tracks, he could not tell which, had been seen that morning about the chicken house. He was so absorbed and fascinated with his occupation that he only grunted answers to his sister’s questions, so she returned to the house, realizing that the change was doing wonders for the Cub, which was one consolation.
“What is the matter with me?” she said, half aloud. “Is it an illness coming on? or can it be the painting fever? The air seems to sparkle and rush through me like electricity! Oh, why did I not work harder when I had the time? for now if the desire comes I cannot stop,” and Brooke wrung her hands, and then laughed hysterically at her tragic action.
Going to her room, she unpacked palette and paint box, and took the maul stick from the closet, where it had remained all winter tied to some umbrellas. Of canvas she had none, but hunting up some bits of manila board from between her books, she took them to the kitchen and spread them on the table, where she had left the turpentine and oil. What should she try? The snow and rock bit from the window lacked colour and was too harsh in outline to be seductive to her mood. A scarlet geranium in a pot against the dark window frame caught her eye, and seating herself, she began to draw it in rapidly with chalk—anything, if it would only find vent for the fever of action that tingled in her finger tips.
She was surprised to find that a certain accuracy as well as facility of touch had not left her, in spite of stiffened fingers and lack of practice. For her colour sense she claimed no credit; it was born with her. But after the outline took shape and she began to paint and give it texture, she dropped her brush again as the words of Lorenz seemed whispered in her ears, “You have not yet had the awakening, for it you must wait; it is the same with me; you must interpret your vision and see it on the canvas before you can create; but first of all you must know and feel, even if you suffer.”
The awakening had not come to her, and still she waited; did she not now know and feel, and had she not suffered enough? The stiff geranium cramped in its pot bore her no message to interpret, and as a snow-squall darkened her window she cast the brush aside. Shivering at the utter silence of the house, she fled to her room and, throwing herself face downward on her bed, was abandoning herself to the spirits of darkness, when the thought of her other self, radiating light as Lorenz had painted her, crossed her wild mood, checking it, and she lay quite still until her pounding heart calmed to its regular beating, when bodily fatigue claimed its dole and she fell asleep.
When she awoke it was after five o’clock; the squall had passed away and sunset light was warming the whole sky, even taking the chill from the full moon, which it had worn on its apparent rise from the river ice.
Below stairs everything was as she had left it, and yet a different atmosphere pervaded the place, and the tension left her throat. The Cub came in with the news, at which he seemed to think she would rejoice, that Robert Stead was better and would be out again on the morrow. Her mother expressed unfeigned pleasure, and Brooke was almost ashamed of the fact that she had for the moment forgotten that he was ill. Yet she always enjoyed his visits and watched for them, for he was a travelled and well-read man, and, when off his guard, most entertaining, and not without a certain compelling magnetism.
“Let’s hurry supper,” said the Cub, when he had brought in the milk. “I’ve had the last milking lesson I need, and I can do it all right now without pulling too hard, or squirting, or laming my wrists. Larsen says I’ll be worth twenty a month and board by summer if I keep on steady,—just as if I wouldn’t! But I’ve got to keep the other end up besides, and I’ve some reading to do to-night, if I’m going up to the shack again in the morning.” Crossing the kitchen, he picked his mother up as if she had been a feather, and whirling her about, gave her a hearty kiss that sent a glow to her heart and cheeks at the same time, before he seated her, like a small child, on the table edge, where she struggled, laughed, and was sublimely happy at his rough caress. Then, further to carry out his genial mood, he bounced into his father’s room and, wheeling him to the kitchen, pushed the chair close to the table, and thus they all supped together, a circumstance that had seemed impossible in Mrs. Peck’s presence.
After Adam Lawton had gone to bed, the Cub helping him as usual, the boy settled himself by the bright lamp in the kitchen with his books, while Mrs. Lawton and Brooke sat by the firelight in the library, talking quietly. Brooke, hunched on the rug, leaned her head back against her mother’s knee, and yielded to the soothing touch of gentle fingers upon her eyes and brow.