Harold Bindloss - The Ghost of Hemlock Canyon

I

MRS. MARVIN LOOKS BACK

All was quiet at the Marvin ranch-house by the British Columbian lake, and across the shining water a tranquil sunset glimmered on the snow. The head of the lake was narrow, and for a space along the other shore, the dark pines’ reflections trembled on the glassy surface. The lake, however, was not at rest. Slow ripples splashed the gravel, and where a rock rose from the depths wrinkling lines curved about the stone. One sensed dynamic force, and behind the woods a river throbbed with a measured beat.

For two thousand feet from the water’s edge, the stiff pines went up. At the bottom, the dusky-green pyramids were large and distinct; farther back, they dwindled to dim, blue spires and melted in the rocks. Then white streaks crept up the gullies, and united in a broken-topped, majestic belt of snow. The belt was not all white. Warm, yellow beams touched the splintered peaks, and the hollows were ethereal blue. In the background, the sky was saffron, and a pale star began to shine.

The house was large, although Marvin had hauled the shiplap boards for forty miles over a mountain trail. The posts and beams were hewn from long, straight trunks, and one smelt the roofing shingles, hand-split from scented cedar bolts. On one side, a large, oblong clearing followed the beach; but when one looked the other way, the forest stopped, a hundred yards off, at the edge of the slashing, where massive logs were piled to burn.

For a British Columbian homestead, the living-room was spacious and, although the walls were plain matchboard, not remarkably austere. When the cold snaps were keen Mrs. Marvin liked the basement stove, but a big open fireplace occupied the end of the room, and she had fixed a large glass above the mantle. At the top of the glass was a noble wapiti head.

Mrs. Marvin was short and plump, and as a rule serene, although she had at one time used stern economy and borne some stress of mind. The strain had not yet altogether vanished, but Hannah Marvin’s pluck was good, and if she sometimes brooded nobody knew. Now she occupied an American rocking-chair, and, sewing mechanically, gave her husband an interested glance.

Marvin was at his roll-top desk by the window. His figure was thin but muscular and his hands were firm and large. In his youth he had swung the ax and pulled the cross-cut saw, although he was for long a business man and traded, with advantage to himself, in real estate. All the same, city-lot speculators did not doubt his honesty; when you dealt with Marvin, you got the ground for which you paid. Moreover, as a rule, civic development followed the lines he indicated, and that was something, since trustful investors not infrequently get stung. Yet, although Marvin’s customers were numerous, his friends were not. He was not the sort to give another his confidence, and he asked no man’s advice.

Now his hair was going white and his face was lined. His mouth was firm and his nose was large; his glance was keen and sometimes rather truculent. One pictured him swiftly resolute, hard, and impatient when others were cautiously slow. John Marvin sprang from pioneering stock. Fired by raw ambition to get rich quick, he left the primitive family homestead, and started for the settlements. Since his qualities were sternly utilitarian, he made good at business; and then, when he had conquered, resumed his proper job.

Marvin used courage and judgment, and bought where back-block land was cheap, although it implied his hiring expensive labor to chop the great trees. For a time, to haul in supplies was almost impossible, and only his cattle could reach a market on their feet; then a road crept up the valley, and speculators talked about mines and mills. When Marvin looked from the window all he saw by the darkening lake was his, and, but for the rows of stumps, much of the ground was cleared.

He, however, was thinking about the letters on his desk, and his emotions were mixed. One letter gave him a happy thrill he had not known for long; another was disturbing, although he tried to persuade himself his disturbance was ridiculous. By and by he put down the Victoria Colonist, in which he had studied the C.P.R. steamship and train time-table.

“Kate ought to be at Montreal to-morrow,” he said. “She’ll wire, but the message will lie at the office. I guess I’ll harness up the rig and start for the settlement Thursday morning.”

“Thursday’s soon enough,” Mrs. Marvin remarked in a tranquil, happy voice. “I must get the rooms fixed for her and her friend—it was lucky I bought the rugs and curtains at the Vancouver drygoods sale. Kate says I’m going to love Rhoda, and she hopes she’ll stay for good. Well, we have sure been lonely; but I don’t know— You’re not going to worry about it, Jake?”

“I’m a lonely man, Hannah, but since we shipped Kate off to Europe I’ve been sorry for you. Anyhow, Miss Staines is not going to bother me. If the girl is Kate’s friend, she’s certainly all right. I’ll be glad to have bright young folks about the house.”

Mrs. Marvin agreed. When the axes stopped in the evening and all one heard was the river, the homestead was bleakly quiet, and she and Jake got old. To let her daughter go had cost her much, but Kate had inherited her father’s talents and must enjoy a cultivation her mother had not known. Mrs. Marvin was ambitious for the girl, and when the Vancouver bank agent boasted about his daughter’s progress at a famous Old Country school, she had allowed Jake to fix things and tried to be resigned. Well, Kate knew England and France, but she declared the Western woods were home, and now she was coming back Mrs. Marvin rejoiced.

The other letter struck a different note. Mrs. Marvin knew it bothered Jake and he waited for her remarks. She, however, must use some tact, for under his surface hardness Jake was sensitive. The writer was the nephew of his partner, long since dead, and until the mail arrived they had not known Denis Aylward existed.

“The young fellow is going to look you up. Will he stay at the ranch?” she said.

“He will not,” Marvin replied in a harsh voice. “I could not stand for it, but maybe I can fix him up a job.”

“He wants a job? Looks as if he wasn’t rich. We thought the Aylward folks had money.”

“The boy was in France and says he cannot stick a lawyer’s office. He’s got about five hundred dollars and reckons he’d like to locate somewhere he could grow fruit, but he’s willing to take a post and learn his business.” Marvin laughed, a dry, impatient laugh. “Five hundred dollars! To locate him on an irrigation lot in the orchard belt! Well, his uncle talked like that. Old Country folks imagine they needn’t sweat. They’re sort of entitled to go where they want.”

“I’ve known some get there; your partner did,” Mrs. Marvin remarked.

“Tom had qualities. The boys liked him,” Marvin agreed and frowned. “He put up the money, but I planned and worked for both. When the washout carried him down the rapid, we were making good, and I got a smart accountant to value up Tom’s interest for his relations in the Old Country. Their lawyers were satisfied and I thought it done with; but sometimes I’ve felt Tom Aylward hadn’t done with me, and I’d better have gone down in the flood. Now his nephew is coming to the ranch!”

“Oh, Jake, there’s no use in worrying,” said Mrs. Marvin, but her voice was sympathetic, and she hesitated before she resumed: “Anyhow, since the young fellow is coming out to us, Tom’s Old Country relations knew you were not to blame.”

Marvin said nothing. He looked straight in front, and Mrs. Marvin knew his queer brooding glance. She had wanted to think about her daughter, but she could not. Like her husband, she sometimes felt Tom Aylward haunted them.