CHAPTER IX
DRIED ROSE-LEAVES
The house that Prosper Gael had built for himself and for the womanwhom Joan came to think of as the "tall child," stood in a canyon, adeep, secret fold of the hills, where a cliff stood behind it, andwhere the pine-needled ground descended before its door, under thefar-flung, greenish-brown shade of fir boughs, to the lip of a greenlake. Here the highest snow-peak toppled giddily down and rearedgiddily up from the crystal green to the ether blue, firs massed intothe center of the double image. In January, the lake was a glare ofsnow, in which the big firs stood deep, their branches heavilyweighted. Prosper had dug a tunnel from his door through a big driftwhich touched his eaves. It was curious to see Wen Ho come patteringout of this Northern cave, his yellow, Oriental face and slant eyespeering past the stalactite icicles as though they felt their ownincongruity almost with a sort of terror. The interior of thefive-room house gave just such an effect of bizarre and extravagantcontrast; an effect, too, of luxury, though in truth it was furnishedfor the most part with stuffs and objects picked up at no very greatexpense in San Francisco shops. Nevertheless, there was nothing tawdryand, here and there, something really precious. Draperies on thewalls, furniture made by Wen Ho and Prosper, lacquered in black andred, brass and copper, bright pewter, gay china, some fur rugs, agorgeous Oriental lamp, bookcases with volumes of a sober richness, infact the costliest and most laborious of imports to this wilderness,small-paned, horizontal windows curtained in some heavy green-goldstuff which slipped along the black lacquered pole on rings of jade;all these and a hundred other points of softly brilliant color gave tothe living-room a rare and striking look, while the bedrooms werematted, daintily furnished, carefully appointed as for a bride. Muchthought and trouble, much detailed labor, had gone to the making ofthis odd nest in a Wyoming canyon. Whatever one must think of ProsperGael, it is difficult to shirk heartache on his account. A man of histemperament does not lightly undertake even a companioned isolation ina winter land. To picture what place of torment this well-appointedcabin was to him before he brought to it Joan, as a lonely man bringsin a wounded bird to nurse and cherish, stretches the fancy on a rackof varied painfulness.
On that night, snow was pouring itself down the narrow canyon in acrowded whirl of dry, clean flakes. Wen Ho, watchful, for his masterwas already a day or so beyond the promised date of his return, hadstarted a fire on the hearth and spread a single cover on the table.He had drawn the green-and-gold curtains as though there had beenanything but whirling whiteness to look in and stood warming himselfwith a rubbing of thin, dry hands before the open blaze. The real heatof the house, and it was almost unbearably hot, came from the stovesin kitchen and bedrooms, but this fire gave its quota of warmth andmore than its quota of that beauty so necessary to Prosper Gael.
Wen Ho put his head from one side to the other and stopped rubbing hishands. He had heard the packing of snow under webs and runners. Afterlistening a moment, he nodded to himself, like a figure in apantomime, ran into the kitchen, did something to the stove, thenlighted a lantern and pattered out along the tunnel dodging the iciclestalactites. Between the firs he stopped and held his lantern high sothat it touched a moving radius of flakes to silver stars. Back of himthrough the open door streamed the glow of lamp and fire filling theicicles with blood and flushing the walls and the roof of the cave.
Down the canyon Prosper shouted, "Wen Ho! Wen Ho!"
The Chinaman plunged down the trail, packed below the new-fallen snowby frequent passage, and presently met the bent figure of his masterpulling and breathing hard. Without speaking, Wen Ho laid hold of thesled rope and together the two men tugged up the last steep bit of thehill.
"Velly heavy load," said Wen.
Prosper's eyes, gleaming below the visor of his cap, smiledhalf-maliciously upon him. "It's a deer killed out of season," hesaid, "and other cattle--no maverick either--fairly marked by itsowner. Lend me a hand and we'll unload."
Wen showed no astonishment. He removed the covering and peepedslantwise at the strange woman who stared at him unseeingly withlarge, bright eyes. She closed them, frowning faintly as though sheprotested against the intrusion of a Chinese face into her disturbedmental world.
The men took her up and carried her into the house, where they dressedher wound and laid her with all possible gentleness in one of the twobeds of stripped and lacquered pine that stood in the bedroom facingthe lake. Afterwards they moved the other bed and Prosper went in tohis meal.
He was too tired to eat. Soon he pushed his plate away, turned hischair to face the fire, and, slipping down to the middle of his spine,stuck out his lean, long legs, locked his hands back of his head, lethis chin fall, and stared into the flames.
Wen Ho removed the dishes, glancing often at his master.
"You velly tired?" he questioned softly.
"It was something of a pull in the storm."
"Velly small deer," babbled the Chinaman, "velly big lady."
Prosper smiled a queer smile that sucked in and down the corners ofhis mouth.
"She come after all?" asked Wen Ho.
Prosper's smile disappeared; he opened his eyes and turned a wicked,gleaming look upon his man. What with the white face and drawn mouththe look was rather terrible. Wen Ho vanished with an increase ofspeed and silence.
Alone, Prosper twisted himself in his chair till his head rested onhis arms. It was no relaxation of weariness or grief, but an attitudeof cramped pain. His face, too, was cramped when, a motionless hourlater, he lifted it again. He got up then, broken with weariness, andwent softly across the matted hall into the room where Joan slept, andhe stood beside her bed.
A glow from the stove, and the light shining through the door, dimlyillumined her. She was sleeping very quietly now; the flush of feverhad left her face and it was clear of pain, quite simple and sad.Prosper looked at her and looked about the room as though he felt whathe saw to be a dream. He put his hand on one long strand of Joan'sblack hair.
"Poor child!" he said. "Good child!" And went out softly, shutting thedoor.
In the bedroom where Joan came again to altered consciousness of life,there stood a blue china jar of potpourri, rose-leaves dried and spicedtill they stored all the richness of a Southern summer. Joan's firstquestion, strangely enough, was drawn from her by the persistence ofthis vague and pungent sweetness.
She was lying quietly with closed eyes, Prosper looking down at her,his finger on her even pulse, when, without opening her long lids, sheasked, "What smells so good?"
Prosper started, drew away his fingers, then answered, smiling, "It'sa jar of dried rose-leaves. Wait a moment, I'll let you hold it."
He took the jar from the window sill and carried it to her.
She looked at it, took it in her hands, and when he removed the lid,she stirred the leaves curiously with her long forefinger.
"I never seen roses," she said, and added, "What's basil?"
Prosper was startled. For an instant all his suppositions as to Joanwere disturbed. "Basil? Where did you ever hear of basil?"
"Isabella and Lorenzo," murmured Joan, and her eyes darkened with hermemories.
Prosper found his heart beating faster than usual. "Who are you, youstrange creature? I think it's time you told me your name. Haven't youany curiosity about me?"
"Yes," said Joan; "I've thought a great deal about you." She wrinkledher wide brows. "You must have been out after game, though 't was outof season. And you must have heard me a-cryin' out an' come in. Thatwas right courageous, stranger. I would surely like you to know why Icome away with you," she went on, wistful and weak, "but I don't knowas how I can make it plain to you." She paused, turning the blue jarin her hand. "You're very strange to me," she said, "an' yet,someways, you takin' care of me so well an' so--so awful kind--" hervoice gave forth its tremolo of feeling--"seems like I knowed youbetter than any other person in the world."
A flush came into his face.
"I wouldn't like you to be thinkin
'--" She stopped, a littlebreathless.
He took the jar, sat down on the bed, and laid a hand firmly over bothof hers. "I 'won't be thinking' anything," he said, "only what youwould like me to think. Listen--when a man finds a wounded bird out inthe winter woods, he'll bring it home to care for it. And he 'won't bethinking' the worse of its helplessness and tameness. Of course Iknow--but tell me your name, please!"
"Joan Landis."
At the name, given painfully, Joan drew a weighted breath, another,then, pushing herself up as though oppressed beyond endurance, shecaught at Prosper's arm, clenched her fingers upon it, and bent herblack head in a terrible paroxysm of grief. It was like a tempest.Prosper thought of storm-driven, rain-wet trees wild in a wind ... ofmusic, the prelude to "Fliegende Hollander." Joan's weeping bent androcked her. He put his arm about her, tried to soothe her. At her cryof "Pierre! Pierre!" he whitened, but suddenly she broke from him andthrew herself back amongst the pillows.
"'T was you that killed him," she moaned. "What hev I to do with you?"
It was not the last time that bitter exclamation was to rise betweenthem; more and more fiercely it came to wring his peace and hers. Thistime he bore it with a certain philosophy, calmed her patiently.
"How could I help it, Joan?" he pleaded. "You saw how it was?" As shegrew quieter, he talked. "I heard you scream like a person beingtortured to death--twice--a gruesome enough sound, let me tell you, tohear in the dead of a white, still night. I didn't altogether want tobreak into your house. I've heard some ugly stories about menventuring to disturb the work of murderers. But, you see, Joan, I've afear of myself. I've a cruel brain. I can use it on my own failures.I've been through some self-punishment--no! of course, you don'tunderstand all that.... Anyway, I came in, in great fear of my life,and saw what I saw--a woman tied up and devilishly tortured, a mangloating over her helplessness. Naturally, before I spoke my mind, asa man was bound to speak it, under the pain and fury of such aspectacle, I got ready to defend myself. Your--Pierre"--there was abiting contempt in his tone--"saw my gesture, whipped out his gun, andfired. My shot was half a second later than his. I might more readilyhave lost my life than taken his. If he had lived, Joan, could youhave forgiven him?"
"No," sobbed Joan; "I think not." She trembled. "He said terrible hardwords to me. He didn't love me like I loved him. He planned to put abrand on me so's I c'd be his own like as if I was a beast belongin'to him. Mr. Holliwell said right, I don't belong to no man. I belongto my own self."
The storm had passed into this troubled after-tossing of thought.
"Can you tell me about it all?" asked Prosper. "Would it help?"
"I couldn't," she moaned; "no, I couldn't. Only--if I hadn't 'a' leftPierre a-lyin' there alone. A dog that had onct loved him wouldn't 'a'done that." She sat up again, white and wild. "That's why I must goback. I must surely go. I must! Oh, I must!"
"Go back thirty miles through wet snow when you can't walk across theroom, Joan?" He smiled pityingly.
Her hands twisting in his, she stared past him, out through thewindow, where the still, sunny day shone blue through shadowy pinebranches. Tears rolled down her face.
"Can't you go back?" She turned the desolate, haunted eyes upon him."Oh, can't you?--to do some kindness to him? Can you ever stopa-thinkin' of him lyin' there?"
Prosper's face was hard through its gentleness. "I've seen too manydead men, less deserving of death. But, hush!--you lie down and go tosleep. I'll try to manage it. I'll try to get back and show him somekindness, as you say. There! Will you be a good girl now?"
She fell back and her eyes shone their gratitude upon him. "Oh, youare good!" she said. "When I'm well--I'll work for you!"
He shook his head, smiled, kissed her hand, and went out.
She was entirely exhausted by her emotion, so that all her memoriesfell away from her and left her in a peaceful blankness. She trustedProsper's word. With every fiber of her heart she trusted him, assimply, as singly, as foolishly as a child trusts God.