Poor Man's Rock

by Bertrand W. Sinclair

  CHAPTER XIV

  The Swing of the Pendulum

  MacRae did himself rather well, as the English say, when he reachedVancouver. This was a holiday, and he was disposed to make the most ofit. He put up at the Granada. He made a few calls and presently foundhimself automatically relaunched upon Vancouver's social waters. Therewere a few maids and more than one matron who recalled pleasantly thisstraight up-standing youngster with the cool gray eyes who had comebriefly into their ken the winter before. There were a few fellows hehad known in squadron quarters overseas, home for good now thatdemobilization was fairly complete. MacRae danced well. He had thefaculty of making himself agreeable without effort. He found it pleasantto fall into the way of these careless, well-dressed folk whose greatestlabor seemed to be in amusing themselves, to keep life from seeming"slow." Buttressed by revenues derived from substantial sources, mines,timber, coastal fisheries, land, established industries, these sons anddaughters of the pioneers, many but one degree removed from pioneeringuncouthness, were patterning their lives upon the plan of equivalentclasses in older regions. If it takes six generations in Europe to makea gentleman, western America quite casually dispenses with five, and theresulting product seldom suffers by comparison.

  As the well-to-do in Europe flung themselves into revelry with thesigning of the armistice, so did they here. Four years of war had corkedthe bottle of gayety. The young men were all overseas. Life was a littletoo cloudy during that period to be gay. Shadows hung over too manyhomes. But that was past. They had pulled the cork and thrown it away,one would think. Pleasure was king, to be served with light abandon.

  It was a fairly vigorous place, MacRae discovered. He liked it, gavehimself up to it gladly,--for a while. It involved no mental effort.These people seldom spoke of money, or of work, or politics, the highcost of living, international affairs. If they did it was jocularly,sketchily, as matters of no importance. Their talk ran upon dances,clothes, motoring, sports indoors and afield, on food,--and sometimesgenially on drink, since the dry wave had not yet drained their cellars.

  MacRae floated with this tide. But he was not wholly carried away withit. He began to view it impersonally, to wonder if it were the realthing, if this was what inspired men to plot and scheme and strugglelaboriously for money, or if it were just the froth on the surface ofrealities which he could not quite grasp. He couldn't say. There was adash and glitter about it that charmed him. He could warm and thrill tothe beauty of a Granada ballroom, music that seduced a man's feet,beauty of silk and satin, of face and figure, of bright eyes andgleaming jewels, a blending of all the primary colors and every shadebetween, flashing over a polished floor under high, carved ceilings.

  He had surrendered Nelly Abbott to a claimant and stood watching theswirl and glide of the dancers in the Granada one night. His eyes wereon the brilliance a little below the raised area at one end of thefloor, and so was his mind, inquiringly, with the curious concentrationof which his mind was capable. Presently he became aware of some onespeaking to him, tugging at his elbow.

  "Oh, come out of it," a voice said derisively.

  He looked around at Stubby Abbott.

  "Regular trance. I spoke to you twice. In love?"

  "Uh-uh. Just thinking," MacRae laughed.

  "Deep thinking, I'll say. Want to go down to the billiard room andsmoke?"

  They descended to a subterranean chamber where, in a pit lighted bylow-hung shaded globes, men in shirt sleeves clicked the red and whiteballs on a score of tables. Rows of leather-upholstered chairs gavecomfort to spectators. They commandeered seats and lighted cigarettes."Look," Stubby said. "There's Norman Gower."

  Young Gower sat across a corner from them. He was in evening clothes. Heslumped in his chair. His hands were limp along the chair arms. He wasnot watching the billiard players. He was staring straight across theroom with the sightless look of one whose mind is far away.

  "Another deep thinker," Stubby drawled. "Rather rough going for Normanthese days."

  "How?" MacRae asked.

  "Funked it over across," Stubby replied. "So they say. Careful to stayon the right side of the Channel. Paying the penalty now. Girls ratherrub it in. Fellows not too--well, cordial. Pretty rotten for Norman."

  "Think he slacked deliberately?" MacRae inquired.

  "That's the story. Lord, I don't know," Stubby answered. "He stuck inEngland four years. Everybody else that was fit went up the line.That's all I know. By their deeds ye shall judge them--eh?"

  "Perhaps. What does he say about that himself?"

  "Nothing, so far as I know. Keeps strictly mum on the war subject,"Stubby said.

  Young Gower did not alter his position during the few minutes they satthere. He sat staring straight ahead of him, unseeingly. MacRae suddenlyfelt sorry for him. If he had told the truth he was suffering apeculiarly distressing form of injustice, of misconception. MacRaerecalled the passionate undertone in Gower's voice when he said, "I didthe only thing I could do in the way I was told to do it." Yes, he wassorry for Norman. The poor devil was not getting a square deal.

  But MacRae's pity was swiftly blotted out. He had a sudden uncomfortablevision of old Donald MacRae rowing around Poor Man's Rock, back andforth in sun and rain, in frosty dawns and stormy twilights, coming hometo a lonely house, dying at last a lonely death, the sordid culminationof an embittered life.

  Let him sweat,--the whole Gower tribe. MacRae was the ancient Roman, forthe moment, wishing all his enemies had but a single head that he mightdraw his sword and strike it off. Something in him hardened against thatfirst generous impulse to repeat to Stubby Abbott what Norman had toldhim on the cliff at Squitty. Let the beggar make his own defense. Yetthat stubborn silence, the proud refusal to make words take the place ofvaliant deeds expected, wrung a gleam of reluctant admiration fromMacRae. He would have done just that himself.

  "Let's get back," Stubby suggested. "I've got the next dance with BettyGower. I don't want to miss it."

  "Is she here to-night? I haven't noticed her."

  "Eyesight affected?" Stubby bantered. "Sure she's here. Looking like adream."

  MacRae felt a pang of envy. There was nothing to hold Stubby back,--noold scores, no deep, abiding resentment. MacRae had the conviction thatStubby would never take anything like that so seriously as he, JackMacRae, did. He was aware that Stubby had the curious dual code commonin the business world,--one set of inhibitions and principles forbusiness and another for personal and social uses. A man might beStubby's opponent in the market and his friend when they met on a commonsocial ground. MacRae could never be quite like that. Stubby could fightHorace Gower, for instance, tooth and toenail, for an advantage in thesalmon trade, and stretch his legs under Gower's dining table with nosense of incongruity, no matter what shifts the competitive struggle hadtaken or what weapons either had used. That was business; and a man lefthis business at the office. A curious thing, MacRae thought. Aphenomenon in ethics which he found hard to understand, harder still toendorse.

  He stood watching Stubby, knowing that Stubby would go straight to BettyGower. Presently he saw her, marked the cut and color of her gown,watched them swing into the gyrating wave of couples that took the floorwhen the orchestra began. Indeed, MacRae stood watching them until herecalled with a start that he had this dance with Etta Robbin-Steele,who would, in her own much-used phrase, be "simply furious" at anythingthat might be construed as neglect; only Etta's fury would consist ofshowing her white, even teeth in a pert smile with a challenging twinklein her very black eyes.

  He went to Betty as soon as he found opportunity. He did not quite knowwhy. He did not stop to ask himself why. It was a purely instinctivepropulsion. He followed his impulse as the needle swings to the pole; asan object released from the hand at a great height obeys the force ofgravity; as water flows downhill.

  He took her programme.

  "I don't see any vacancies," he said. "Shall I create one?"

  He drew his pencil through Stubby Abbott's name. St
ubby's signature wasrather liberally inscribed there, he thought. Betty looked at him atrifle uncertainly.

  "Aren't you a trifle--sweeping?" she inquired.

  "Perhaps. Stubby won't mind. Do you?" he asked.

  "I seem to be defenseless." Betty shrugged her shoulders. "What shall wequarrel about this time?"

  "Anything you like," he made reckless answer.

  "Very well, then," she said as they got up to dance. "Suppose we beginby finding out what there is to quarrel over. Are you aware thatpractically every time we meet we nearly come to blows? What is thereabout me that irritates you so easily?"

  "Your inaccessibility."

  MacRae spoke without weighing his words. Yet that was the truth,although he knew that such a frank truth was neither good form norpolicy. He was sorry before the words were out of his mouth. Betty couldnot possibly understand what he meant. He was not sure he wanted her tounderstand. MacRae felt himself riding to a fall. As had happenedbriefly the night of the _Blackbird's_ wrecking, he experienced thatfeeling of dumb protest against the shaping of events in which he movedhelpless. This bit of flesh and blood swaying in his arms in effortlessrhythm to sensuous music was something he had to reckon with powerfully,whether he liked or not. MacRae was beginning dimly to see that. When hewas with her--

  "But I'm not inaccessible."

  She dropped her voice to a cooing whisper. Her eyes glowed as they methis with steadfast concern. There was a smile and a question in them.

  "What ever gave you that idea?"

  "It isn't an idea; it's a fact."

  The resentment against circumstances that troubled MacRae crept into histone.

  "Oh, silly!"

  There was a railing note of tenderness in Betty's voice. MacRae felt hismoorings slip. A heady recklessness of consequences seized him. He drewher a little closer to him. Irresistible prompting from some wellspringof his being urged him on to what his reason would have called sheerfolly, if that reason had not for the time suffered eclipse, which is aweakness of rational processes when they come into conflict with agenuine emotion.

  "Do you like me, Betty?"

  Her eyes danced. They answered as well as her lips:

  "Of course I do. Haven't I been telling you so plainly enough? I've beenashamed of myself for being so transparent--on such slight provocation."

  "How much?" he demanded.

  "Oh--well--"

  The ballroom was suddenly shrouded in darkness, saved only from acavelike black by diffused street light through the upper windows. Ablown fuse. A mis-pulled switch. One of those minor accidents common toelectric lighting systems. The orchestra hesitated, went on. From amomentary silence the dancers broke into chuckles, amused laughter, abuzz of exclamatory conversation. But no one moved, lest they collidewith other unseen couples.

  Jack and Betty stood still. They could not see. But MacRae could feelthe quick beat, of Betty's heart, the rise and fall of her breast, atrembling in her fingers. There was a strange madness stirring in him.His arm tightened about her. He felt that she yielded easily, as ifgladly. Their mouths sought and clung in the first real kiss Jack MacRaehad ever known. And then, as they relaxed that impulse-born embrace, thelights flashed on again, blazed in a thousand globes in great frostedclusters high against the gold-leaf decorations of the ceiling. Thedancers caught step again. MacRae and Betty circled the polished floorsilently. She floated in his arms like thistledown, her eyes like twinstars, a deeper color in her cheeks.

  Then the music ceased, and they were swept into a chattering group, outof which presently materialized another partner to claim Betty. So theyparted with a smile and a nod.

  But MacRae had no mind for dancing. He went out through the lobby andstraight to his room. He flung off his coat and sat down in a chair bythe window and blinked out into the night. He had looked, it seemed tohim, into the very gates of paradise,--and he could not go in.

  It wasn't possible. He sat peering out over the dusky roofs of the city,damning with silent oaths the coil in which he found himselfinextricably involved. History was repeating itself. Like father, likeson.

  There was a difference though. MacRae, as he grew calmer, marked that.Old Donald had lost his sweetheart by force and trickery. His son mustforego love--if it were indeed love--of his own volition. He had nochoice. He saw no way of winning Betty Gower unless he stayed his handagainst her father. And he would not do that. He could not. It would belike going over to the enemy in the heat of battle. Gower had wrongedand persecuted his father. He had beaten old Donald without mercy inevery phase of that thirty-year period. He had taken Donald MacRae'swoman from him in the beginning and his property in the end. Jack MacRaehad every reason to believe Gower merely sat back awaiting a favorableopportunity to crush him.

  So there could be no compromising there; no inter-marrying andsentimental burying of the old feud. Betty would tie his hands. He wasafraid of her power to do that. He did not want to be a Samson shorn.His ego revolted against love interfering with the grim business ofeveryday life. He bit his lip and wished he could wipe out that kiss. Hecursed himself for a slavish weakness of the flesh. The night was oldwhen MacRae lay down on his bed. But he could find no ease for thethrobbing ferment within him. He suffered with a pain as keen as if hehad been physically wounded, and the very fact that he could so sufferfilled him with dismay. He had faced death many times with less emotionthan he now was facing life.

  He had no experience of love. Nothing remotely connected with women hadever suggested such possibilities of torment. He had known first-handthe pangs of hunger and thirst, of cold and weariness, of anger andhate, of burning wounds in his flesh. He had always been able to grithis teeth and endure; none of it had been able to wring his soul. Thisdid. He had come to manhood, to a full understanding of sex, at a timewhen he played the greatest game of all, when all his energies werefiercely centered upon preservation for himself and certain destructionfor other men. Perhaps because he had come back clean, having neverwasted himself in complaisant liaisons overseas, the inevitable focusingof passion stirred him more profoundly. He was neither a varietist nor amale prude. He was aware of sex. He knew desire. But the flame BettyGower had kindled in him made him look at women out of different eyes.Desire had been revealed to him not as something casual, but as animperative. As if nature had pulled the blinkers off his eyes and shownhim his mate and the aim and object and law and fiery urge of the matinginstinct all in one blinding flash.

  He lay hot and fretful, cursing himself for a fool, yet unable to findease, wondering dully if Betty Gower must also suffer as he should, orif it were only an innocent, piquant game that Betty played. Always inthe background of his mind lurked a vision of her father, sitting backcomplacently, fat, smug, plump hands on a well-rounded stomach,chuckling a brutal satisfaction over another MacRae beaten.

  MacRae wakened from an uneasy sleep at ten o'clock. He rose and dressed,got his breakfast, went out on the streets. But Vancouver had all atonce grown insufferable. The swarming streets irritated him. Hesmoldered inside, and he laid it to the stir and bustle and noise. Heconceived himself to crave hushed places and solitude, where he couldsit and think.

  By mid-afternoon he was far out in the Gulf of Georgia, aboard acoasting steamer sailing for island ports. If it occurred to him that hewas merely running away from temptation, he did not admit the fact.