CHAPTER VII
Hollister stowed his pack in the smoking room and stood outside by therail, watching the Toba Valley fall astern, a green fissure in thewhite rampart of the Coast Range. Chance, the inscrutable arbiter ofhuman destinies, had directed him that morning to a man cutting woodon the bank of the river close by that cluster of houses where othermen stirred about various tasks, where there must have been wives andmothers, for he saw a dozen children at play by a snow fort.
"Steamer?" the man answered Hollister's inquiry. "Say, if you want tocatch her, you just about got time. Two fellows from here left awhileago. If you hurry, maybe you can catch 'em. If you catch 'em beforethey get out over the bar, they'll give you a lift to the float. Ifyou don't, you're stuck for a week. There's only one rowboat downthere."
Hollister had caught them.
He took a last, thoughtful look. Over the vessel's bubbling wake hecould see the whole head of the Inlet deep in winter snows,--a whiteworld, coldly aloof in its grandeur. It was beautiful, full of themajesty of serene distances, of great heights. It stood forth clothedwith the dignity of massiveness, of permanence. It was as it had beenfor centuries, calm and untroubled, unmoved by floods and slides, byfires and slow glacial changes. Yes, it was beautiful and Hollisterlooked a long time, for he was not sure he would see it again. He hada canoe and a tent cached in that silent valley, but for these alonehe would not return. Neither the ownership of that timber which he nowesteemed of doubtful value nor the event of its sale would require hispresence there.
He continued to stare with an absent look in his eyes until a crook inthe Inlet hid those white escarpments and outstanding peaks, and theInlet walls--themselves lifting to dizzy heights that were shrouded inrolling mist--marked the limit of his visual range. The ship's belltinkled the noon hour. A white-jacketed steward walked the decks,proclaiming to all and sundry that luncheon was being served.Hollister made his way to the dining saloon.
The steamer was past Salmon Bay when he returned above decks to leanon the rail, watching the shores flit by, marking with a little wonderthe rapid change in temperature, the growing mildness in the air asthe steamer drew farther away from the gorge-like head of Toba withits aerial ice fields and snowy slopes. Twenty miles below Salmon Baythe island-dotted area of the Gulf of Georgia began. There a snowfallseldom endured long, and the teeth of the frost were blunted byeternal rains. There the logging camps worked full blast the yeararound, in sunshine and drizzle and fog. All that region bordering onthe open sea bore a more genial aspect and supported more people andindustries in scattered groups than could be found in any of thoselonely inlets.
Hollister was not thinking particularly of these things. He had eatenhis meal at a table with half a dozen other men. In the saloonprobably two score others applied themselves, with more diligence thanrefinement, to their food. There was a leavening of women in this malemass of loggers, fishermen, and what-not. A buzz of conversationfilled the place. But Hollister was not a participant. He observedcasual, covert glances at his disfigured face, that disarrangement ofhis features and marring of his flesh which made men ill at ease inhis presence. He felt a recurrence of the old protest against this. Heexperienced a return of that depression which had driven him out ofVancouver. It was a disheartenment from which nothing in the future,no hope, no dream, could deliver him. He was as he was. He wouldalways be like that. The finality of it appalled him.
After a time he became aware of a young woman leaning, like himself,against the rail a few feet distant. He experienced a curious degreeof self-consciousness as he observed her. The thought crossed his mindthat presently she would look at him and move away. When she did not,his eyes kept coming back to her with the involuntary curiosity ofthe casual male concerning the strange female. She was of mediumheight, well-formed, dressed in a well-tailored gray suit. Under theedges of a black velvet turban her hair showed glossy brown in asmooth roll. She had one elbow propped on the rail and her chinnestled in the palm. Hollister could see a clean-cut profile, thesymmetrical outline of her nose, one delicately colored cheek abovethe gloved hand and a neckpiece of dark fur.
He wondered what she was so intent upon for so long, leaning immobileagainst that wooden guard. He continued to watch her. Would shepresently bestow a cursory glance upon him and withdraw to some otherpart of the ship? Hollister waited for that with moody expectation. Hefound himself wishing to hear her voice, to speak to her, to have hertalk to him. But he did not expect any such concession to a whimsicaldesire.
Nevertheless the unexpected presently occurred. The girl movedslightly. A hand-bag slipped from under her arm to the deck. Shehalf-turned, seemed to hesitate. Instinctively, as a matter of commoncourtesy to a woman, Hollister took a step forward, picked it up.Quite as instinctively he braced himself, so to speak, for the shockedlook that would gather like a shadow on her piquant face.
But it did not come. The girl's gaze bore imperturbably upon him as herestored the hand-bag to her hand. The faintest sort of smile lurkedabout the corners of a pretty mouth. Her eyes were a cloudy gray. Theyseemed to look out at the world with a curious impassivity. That muchHollister saw in a fleeting glance.
"Thanks, very much," she said pleasantly.
Hollister resumed his post against the rail. His movement had broughthim nearer, so that he stood now within arm's length, and his interestin her had awakened, become suddenly intense. He felt a queerthankfulness, a warm inward gratefulness, that she had been able toregard his disfigurement unmoved. He wondered how she could. Formonths he had encountered women's averted faces, the reluctant glancesof mingled pity and distaste which he had schooled himself to expectand endure but which he never ceased to resent. This girl's uncommonself-possession at close contact with him was a puzzle as well as apleasure. A little thing, to be sure, but it warmed Hollister. It waslike an unexpected gleam of sunshine out of a sky banked deep withclouds.
Presently, to his surprise, the girl spoke to him.
"Are we getting near the Channel Islands?"
She was looking directly at him, and Hollister was struck afresh withthe curious quality of her gaze, the strangely unperturbed directnessof her eyes upon him. He made haste to answer her question.
"We'll pass between them in another mile. You can see the westernisland a little off our starboard bow."
"I should be very glad if I could; but I shall have to take your wordfor its being there."
"I'm afraid I don't quite understand."
A smile spread over her face at the puzzled tone.
"I'm blind," she explained, with what struck Hollister as infinitepatience. "If my eyes were not sightless, I shouldn't have to ask astranger about the Channel Islands. I used to be able to see them wellenough."
Hollister stared at her. He could not associate those wide gray eyeswith total darkness. He could scarcely make himself comprehend a worlddevoid of light and color, an existence in which one felt and breathedand had being amid eternal darkness. Yet for the moment he was selfishenough to feel glad. And he said so, with uncharacteristicimpulsiveness.
"I'm glad you can't see," he found himself saying. "If you could----"
"What a queer thing to say," the girl interrupted. "I thought everyone always regarded a blind person as an object of pity."
There was an unmistakably sardonic inflection in the last sentence.
"But you don't find it so, eh?" Hollister questioned eagerly. He wassure he had interpreted that inflection. "And you sometimes resentthat attitude, eh?"
"I daresay I do," the girl replied, after a moment's consideration."To be unable to see is a handicap. At the same time to have pitydrooled all over one is sometimes irritating. But why did you just sayyou were glad I was blind?"
"I didn't mean that. I meant that I was glad you couldn't see _me_,"he explained. "One of Fritz's shells tore my face to pieces. Peopledon't like to look at the result. Women particularly. You can't see mywrecked face, so you don't shudder and pass on. I suppose that is whyI said that the way
I did."
"I see. You feel a little bit glad to come across some one who doesn'tknow whether your face is straight or crooked? Some one who acceptsyou sight unseen, as she would any man who spoke and actedcourteously? Is that it?"
"Yes," Hollister admitted. "That's about it."
"But your friends and relatives?" she suggested softly.
"I have no relatives in this country," he said. "And I have no friendsanywhere, now."
She considered this a moment, rubbing her cheek with a glovedforefinger. What was she thinking about, Hollister wondered?
"That must be rather terrible at times. I'm not much given to sloppingover, but I find myself feeling sorry for you--and you are only adisembodied voice. Your fix is something like my own," she said atlast. "And I have always denied that misery loves company."
"You were right in that, too," Hollister replied. "Misery wantspleasant company. At least, that sort of misery which comes fromisolation and unfriendliness makes me appreciate even chancecompanionship."
"Is it so bad as that?" she asked quickly. The tone of her voice madeHollister quiver, it was so unexpected, so wistful.
"Just about. I've become a stray dog in this old world. And it used tobe a pretty good sort of a world for me in the old days. I'm notwhining. But I do feel like kicking. There's a difference, you know."
He felt ashamed of this mild outburst as soon as it was uttered. Butit was true enough, and he could not help saying it. There wassomething about this girl that broke down his reticence, made him wantto talk, made him feel sure he would not be misunderstood.
She nodded.
"There is a great difference. Any one with any spirit will kick ifthere is anything to kick about. And it's always shameful to whine.You don't seem like a man who _could_ whine."
"How can you tell what sort of man I am?" Hollister inquired. "Youjust said that I was only a disembodied voice."
She laughed, a musical low-toned chuckle that pleased him.
"One gets impressions," she answered. "Being sightless sharpens otherfaculties. You often have very definite impressions in your mind aboutpeople you have never seen, don't you?"
"Oh, yes," he agreed. "I daresay every one gets such impressions."
"Sometimes one finds those impressions are merely verified by actualsight. So there you are. I get a certain impression of you by thelanguage you use, your tone, your inflections--and by a something elsewhich in those who can see is called intuition, for lack of somethingmore definite in the way of a term."
"Aren't you ever mistaken in those impressionistic estimates ofpeople?"
She hesitated a little.
"Sometimes--not often. That sounds egotistic, but really it is true."
The steamer drew out of the mouth of Toba Inlet. In the wideningstretch between the mainland and the Redondas a cold wind camewhistling out of Homfray Channel. Hollister felt the chill of itthrough his mackinaw coat and was moved to thought of his companion'scomfort.
"May I find you a warm place to sit?" he asked. "That's anuncomfortable breeze. And do you mind if I talk to you? I haven'ttalked to any one like you for a long time."
She smiled assent.
"Ditto to that last," she said.
"You aren't a western man, are you?" she continued, as Hollister tookher by the arm and led her toward a cabin abaft the wheelhouse on theboat deck, a roomy lounging place unoccupied save by a fat womantaking a midday nap in one corner, her double chin sunk on her amplebosom.
"No," he said. "I'm from the East. But I spent some time out hereonce or twice, and I remembered the coast as a place I liked. So Icame back here when the war was over and everything gone to pot--atleast where I was concerned. My name is Hollister."
"Mine," she replied, "is Cleveland."
Hollister looked at her intently.
"Doris Cleveland--her book," he said aloud. It was to all intents andpurposes a question.
"Why do you say that?" the girl asked quickly. "And how do you happento know my given name?"
"That was a guess," he answered. "Is it right?"
"Yes--but----"
"Let me tell you," he interrupted. "It's queer, and still it's simpleenough. Two months ago I went into Toba Inlet to look at some timberabout five miles up the river from the mouth. When I got there Idecided to stay awhile. It was less lonesome there than in the racketand hustle of a town where I knew no one and nobody wanted to know me.I made a camp, and in looking over a stretch of timber on a slope thatruns south from the river I found a log cabin----"
"In a hollow full of big cedars back of the cliff along the south sideof the Big Bend?" the girl cut in eagerly. "A log house with tworooms, where some shingle-bolts had been cut--with a bolt-chuteleading downhill?"
"The very same," Hollister continued. "I see you know the place. Andin this cabin there was a shelf with a row of books, and each one hadwritten on the flyleaf, 'Doris Cleveland--Her Book.'"
"My poor books," she murmured. "I thought the rats had torn them tobits long ago."
"No. Except for a few nibbles at the binding. Perhaps," Hollister saidwhimsically, "the rats knew that some day a man would need those booksto keep him from going crazy, alone there in those quiet hills. Theywere good books, and they would give his mind something to do besidesbrooding over past ills and an empty future."
"They did that for you?" she asked.
"Yes. They were all the company I had for two months. I often wonderedwho Doris Cleveland was and why she left her books to the rats--andwas thankful that she did. So you lived up there?"
"Yes. It was there I had my last look at the sun shining on the hills.I daresay the most vivid pictures I have in my mind are made up ofthings there. Why, I can see every peak and gorge yet, and the valleybelow with the river winding through and the beaver meadows in theflats--all those slides and glaciers and waterfalls--cascades likeribbons of silver against green velvet. I loved it all--it was sobeautiful."
She spoke a little absently, with the faintest shadow of regret, hervoice lingering on the words. And after a momentary silence she wenton:
"We lived there nearly a year, my two brothers and I. I know everyrock and gully within two miles of that cabin. I helped to build thatlittle house. I used to tramp around in the woods alone. I used to sitand read, and sometimes just dream, under those big cedars on hotsummer afternoons. The boys thought they would make a little fortunein that timber. Then one day, when they were felling a tree, a flyinglimb struck me on the head--and I was blind; in less than two hours ofbeing unconscious I woke up, and I couldn't see anything--like thatalmost," she snapped her finger. "On top of that my brothersdiscovered that they had no right to cut timber there. Things weregoing badly in France, too. So they went overseas. They were bothkilled in the same action, on the same day. My books were left therebecause no one had the heart to carry them out. It was all such amuddle. Everything seemed to go wrong at once. And you found them andenjoyed having them to read. Isn't it curious how things that seem soincoherent, so unnecessary, so disconnected, sometimes work out intoan orderly sequence, out of which evil comes to some and good toothers? If we could only forestall Chance! Blind, blundering, witlessChance!"
Hollister nodded, forgetting that the girl could not see. For a minutethey sat silent. He was thinking how strange it was that he shouldmeet this girl whose books he had been poring over all these weeks.She had a mind, he perceived. She could think and express her thoughtsin sentences as clean-cut as her face. She made him think, thrust himface to face with an abstraction. Blind, blundering, witless Chance!Was there nothing more than that? What else was there?
"You make me feel ashamed of myself," he said at last. "Your luck hasbeen worse than mine. Your handicap is greater than mine--at least youmust feel it so. But you don't complain. You even seem quitephilosophic about it. I wish I could cultivate that spirit. What'syour secret?"
"Oh, I'm not such a marvel," she said, and the slight smile came backto lurk around the corners of her mouth. "There are times whe
n Irebel--oh, desperately. But I get along very nicely as a generalthing. One accepts the inevitable. I comfort myself with the selfishreflection that if I can't see a lot that I would dearly love to see,I am also saved the sight of things that are mean and sordid anddisturbing. If I seem cheerful I daresay it's because I'm strong andhealthy and have grown used to being blind. I'm not nearly so helplessas I may seem. In familiar places and within certain bounds, I can getabout nearly as well as if I could see."
The steamer cleared the Redondas, stood down through Desolation Soundand turned her blunt nose into the lower gulf just as dark came on.Hollister and Doris Cleveland sat in the cabin talking. They went todinner together, and if there were curious looks bestowed upon themHollister was too engrossed to care and the girl, of course, could notsee those sidelong, unspoken inquiries. After dinner they found chairsin the same deck saloon and continued their conversation until teno'clock, when drowsiness born of a slow, rolling motion of the vesseldrove them to their berths.
The drowsiness abandoned Hollister as soon as he turned in. He laywakeful, thinking about Doris Cleveland. He envied her courage andfortitude, the calm assurance with which she seemed to face the worldwhich was all about her and yet hidden from her sight. She was reallyan extraordinary young woman, he decided.
She was traveling alone. For several months she had been living withold friends of the family on Stuart Island, close by the roaringtiderace of the Euclataw Rapids. She was returning there, she toldHollister, after three weeks or so in Vancouver. The steamer woulddock about daylight the following morning. When Hollister offered tosee her ashore and to her destination, she accepted without anyreservations. It comforted Hollister's sadly bruised ego to observethat she even seemed a trifle pleased.
"I have once or twice got a steward to get me ashore and put me in ataxi," she said. "But if you don't mind, Mr. Hollister."
And Hollister most decidedly did not mind. Doris Cleveland had shotlike a pleasant burst of colorful light across the grayest period ofhis existence, and he was loath to let her go.
He dropped off to sleep at last, to dream, strangely enough and withastonishing vividness, of the cabin among the great cedars with thesnow banked white outside the door. He saw himself sitting beside thefireplace poring over one of Doris Cleveland's books. And he was nolonger lonely, because he was not alone.
He smiled at himself, remembering this fantasy of the subconsciousmind, when the steward's rap at the door wakened him half an hourbefore the steamer docked.
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