by Sandra Clark
Already snow was encrusted thickly round the eaves of the timber-framed building and for the last few days a biting wind had swept mercilessly and undeviatingly from the northern ice fields. Belinda's heart too felt as if swept by an icy wind, made cold with the dead fear of a longing which she dared not voice. Was she being foolish to expect anything from Amaruq now, after the way she had treated him? Had she made the urgency of her message via Taqaq as crystal clear as she might? Or would he push it to the back of his mind and only bring it up in casual conversation months later when she was already back in England, brokenhearted over the loss of her love? She shuddered. A future without Amaruq was impossible to contemplate. Again she went to the window, gripping the sill until her knuckles showed white. But again the track was bare of all human life and only the wild flurries of snow gave any movement to the desolate scene.
'Well,' said Mrs Mac, breaking into her thoughts late on the second morning as she stood for the hundredth time at the window, 'how's the packing coming along?' She paused and eyed the hollow-cheeked girl with pensive glance. The child looked lovelorn if she was any judge, and Mrs Mac knitted her brow with concern. She had always thought Amaruq strange and unpredictable and she found it difficult to fathom why a nice girl like Belinda should be so foolhardy as to fall for a man whose very glance seemed to spell danger. She sighed. It was lucky the child was going back to England the next day. No doubt she would soon forget her infatuation for such an unsuitable mate. Belinda turned pained eyes towards the older woman.
'If someone travelled back from—from…' the name died on her lips. She tried again. 'Taqaq said it would only take two sleeps at most—' but again her voice tailed away.
Mrs Mac put an arm round her shoulders. 'You have a long journey ahead of you,' she said, hugging the girl impulsively. 'Soon you'll be back in your old life with all your friends, your work. Think of the future, not the past.'
Belinda smiled wanly. 'I suppose you're right.'
She knew though, deep in her heart, that the prospect of her old life, now that she had known the passion of real love, was as desolate as the scene outside the window. In despair she glanced one last time through the snow-encrusted glass. So used to the empty track was she that at first her glance failed to take in the speck of a figure almost obscured by the scudding snow flurries. With a start she glanced back, peering more carefully through the window.
'Look—' she breathed, then more excitedly she turned to Mrs Mac, gripping her tightly by the arm and dragging her towards the window. 'Do you see someone?' she breathed, half dead with expectancy. 'Look, there! Coming up the track—' It was impossible to see who it was, but there was something familiar about the stance of the figure in the snowmobile so that even though she was at the same time telling herself not to be foolish, another more exultant voice was beginning to shout on a rising tide of certainty.
'It looks like a snowmobile,' said Mrs Mac when at last she had managed to make out the tiny figure fast approaching the settlement. She turned to the girl. But Belinda was not waiting for further discussion. Snatching her furs from the door-hook, she was already half into them and scrambling into her fur boots before Mrs Mac could put any further questions. With one word on her lips she was outside, stumbling and slipping in the drifts of new snow, unheeding now the cold and the sharp wind which was flinging bursts of snow into her face in joyful flurries.
Half-way down the track the driver of the snowmobile and Belinda came face to face. With a final roar the driver cut the engine and the machine came scudding to a halt in front of her. In the sudden silence that followed only the patter of snow granules could be heard striking their hoods like hard grains of rice, then the moment's silence was broken by one gruff word as the driver climbed swiftly down. 'Darling!' With one movement he had swept the girl into his arms, pressing his lips urgently against her cheek, searching out the warmth in her softly yielding lips.
At last, breathless, he held her at arm's length and let his eyes take in her tousled hair where her hood had fallen back and her shining eyes seemed to answer his in a look that swept away all the previous weeks of uncertainty. To Belinda it seemed as if her legs had turned to water and she hung weakly within the safety of his encircling arms as he tilted her lips to his once again. She gazed adoringly into his eyes as she told him in a faltering voice how Taqaq had said it would take two sleeps at most to get back to the settlement.
'Two sleeps?' smiled Amaruq tenderly. 'As if I'd waste time sleeping when I could be travelling back to you!' He hugged her close again. 'Why did you leave it so late?' he murmured between kisses. 'What made you change your mind about me?'
'I translated your drum song,' she faltered.
He pulled her close against his muscular chest, snow covered his fur parka, and his face was like ice as he pressed it close again on her warm skin. For a long time they stood encircled in each other's arms as if never to be parted, then Barron pushed her hair back from her flushed face and looked long and deeply into her smiling eyes. 'And that made such a difference?' he asked.
'If only you'd told me there was nothing between you and Ikluk,' she said at last by way of explanation. 'I thought she was your woman, bearing your child—'
She buried her face against his shoulder as relief at seeing him and being at last in his arms engulfed her.
'To come so close to losing you—' he murmured huskily, burying his face in her hair. 'I could never understand what was wrong. I'd no idea thoughts like that were going through your mind, my love.' He held her tighter. 'It seemed as if you were deliberately trying to drive me out of my mind—the look in your eyes seemed to say you wanted me, but whenever I tried to get close, you fought me off like a wildcat. I was in a turmoil of indecision. Promise me one thing, darling,' he bent to kiss her yet again, 'promise me that you'll never let unspoken worries come between us again.' His strong face looked pale and vulnerable as his eyes searched hers for reassurance.
'I promise,' she said simply, 'but only if you promise to take me with you wherever you go, even if I do happen to pass out if there's a bit of a blizzard.'
'I'll never let that happen again,' he vowed, pressing her close again. 'My trapline days are over.'
Belinda opened her eyes wide.
'I never did explain what I was doing out here, did I?' His lips curved in a wry smile. 'I'm afraid I have a confession to make.' He glanced apprehensively at the girl in his arms and Belinda in her turn felt a quiver of fear at the thought that all the rumours about his disreputable past were to be proved. 'Perhaps I -was just playing at Eskimos, like you said. Though four years is a long time to play—' he hesitated.
'Go on,' she urged in a low voice.
'Well, I happen to have a foot in the academic camp like you,' he shrugged almost apologetically. 'Before I came out here I was a junior lecturer in philology.'
She heaved a sigh of relief. 'Is that what your skeleton in the cupboard boils down to?' she grinned.
'That's not all,' he broke in. She felt his hold on her tighten and his lips hardened for a moment. 'There was a reason for my opting out of that life—a good reason. Or so I thought. Maybe even now—' he looked at her suddenly with that appraising glance which seemed to strip her and penetrate to the very heart of her being. 'No!' He gave a short laugh and the tension seemed to vanish in an instant from around his lips and eyes. 'I haven't travelled a day and a night through an Arctic blizzard to throw away the prize at the end of it all. There might have been a reason for opting out—but there's every reason in the world for opting in again. That's if you'll have me?'
Belinda hugged him closer as if to say could there be any doubt. 'But you're still being mysterious about your past. Not that it matters. Just so long as I'm here in your arms.'
He kissed her lightly on the forehead. 'You have a right to have your questions answered,' he told her. 'I'm not being deliberately secretive. It's just that I find it difficult to talk about that time now. It all seems so long ago. I'll tell you wh
at happened. It was like this. While I was out here, doing research in the summer vacation, some discrepancies were discovered in the departmental accounts and I was accused of embezzlement. Falsely, I might add—'
'You've no need to tell me that,' she broke in softly, hugging him closer.
'Luckily the truth finally came out, but not before several months had elapsed. I was so disgusted with the way the newspapers blew the whole thing up into a major academic scandal that I decided to stay out here. To tell you the truth, I didn't know where to go. I'd been suspended from my job. There was really nothing and no one by that time—to go back to.' For a moment his eyes clouded. 'I admit I felt very bitter that no one stood by me. For a long time I just wanted to cut myself off from white people. It seemed as if they were all the same— thoroughly corrupted by modern civilisation. I'd also grown to love and respect the people here.'
He touched the jacket she was wearing. 'This was one of the furs Ikluk's husband and I were bringing back with us when that terrible thing happened.' He bent to kiss her gently on the lips. 'It seems right that you should have it.' For a moment they clung together. When he released her there was a sign of the old devilish gleam in his eyes. 'That's all in the past. There's the future to think of now. What I'd like to do is marry you and take you home to England, but not necessarily in that order.' He paused. 'I've been offered the chance to go back and do research in my old department. They've been making overtures for some time and have awarded me quite a lot of money for the work I've done so far. Perhaps now's the time to take them up on their offer before they change their minds. When I finally publish I should have quite a tidy income one way or another.' A quizzical gleam came into his eyes. 'I shall have to start looking for a research assistant too, as soon as I get back. That's if I can find anyone well up enough in Eskimo affairs to be of any use.' He gave a wolfish grin. 'I suppose I shall have the chore of interviewing scores of ambitious young men for the job.'
'Or perhaps just one ambitious young woman?' asked Belinda, with a mischievous look.
He paused, a softening in his usually piercing glance. 'I take that to mean that you might feel like throwing in your lot with an old fur-trapper after all?'
'Describe paradise to me,' she murmured. 'It's the same thing.'
They had both boarded the plane a few days later on the first leg of their journey home. There had only been Chuck to face. But when he saw Belinda's shining eyes and Barron's arm protectively around her, there was no need for explanations. 'You win some, you lose some,' he'd grinned, and cuffed Barron on the shoulder. 'I guess we've more in common than I realised.' And as they climbed down out of the plane later that morning, he went up to Barron. 'Keep on making her happy,' he said.
'I will, or perish in the attempt,' replied Barron, a smile breaking across his face.
Now Belinda raised her lips to be kissed, oblivious to the bustle of the crowd in the departure lounge of the main airport in Toronto. Barron's arms were tight around her waist, and, after the heady rapture as his lips brushed hers, they walked like that towards the aircraft which was going to take them at last into a new life together.
