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XVI
A HOUSE-PARTY

One morning, some three weeks after Molyneux's departure, Helen sat in her doorway reading, as certain an indication of coming spring as the honk of the wild geese speeding northward on the back of the amorous south wind. As yet the prairie sloughs wore mail of ice, but from dizzy heights those keen-eyed voyagers discerned tricklings and wee pools under sheltered forest banks, sufficient till the laggard sun should smite the snows and fill the air with tinklings and gurglings, loose the strange sound of running waters on the frozen silence. Another month would do it. Already the drifts were packing, and the hard trails traversed the sinking snows like mountain chains on a relief map. In Helen's door-yard stratas of yellow chips, debris of the winter's furious firing, were beginning to appear; with them, lost articles; indeed, Nels was gobbling joyously over the retrieval of an axe, when Leslie's team and cutter came swinging into the yard.

Mrs. Leslie was driving, and, seeing Helen, she screamed from a hundred yards: "They are coming! All of 'em!"

"Who?" Helen asked, when the ponies stopped at the door.

"Why, Edith Newton, Mrs. Jack Charters, Sinclair Rhodes – you remember? I told you that I should give a house-party for the Regis folks when the frosts let up. Hurry and pack up your war-paint! They'll be here to-morrow, and I need your help. No refusal! Fred is going in to Lone Tree to-morrow and Jenny can go down with him. Nels will cook for himself, won't you, Nels?"

"I tank I can cook, yes." Nels ceased his jubilations over the axe long enough to season his assent with a bleached grin.

"There! It's all fixed." Bustling inside, she talked volubly while assisting in Helen's selections. "Yes, take that; you look your sweetest in it; and I imported Captain Chapman especially for you. That also; you'll need it evenings. No, Captain Charters isn't coming. Some Indian trouble called him west. Oh, Mrs. Jack won't care – I'm the loser, for he was always my cavalier."

Driving home, she rattled steadily, entertaining Helen with descriptions of her expected guests, giving their pedigrees, aristocratic connections, while she spiced her discourse with malicious fact. Sinclair Rhodes had secured his appointment as land agent at Regis through distant cousinship to the governor-general. And why not? The offices ought to go to well-bred people! He had money, must have, for his salary and expenses were out of all proportion – so much so as to cause comment by malicious people, envious souls! What if he did make a little, as they said, on the side? The government could afford it; and every one knew what Canadians were in office! People who live in glass houses, and so forth! It was simply racial envy! She was also becomingly indignant over the action of certain Canadians who had made trouble for Captain Chapman in the matter of mounted-police supplies. What figure did a few tons of provisions cut in a gentleman's accounts? These commercial intellects, with their mathematical exactness, were horrid. Newton? He was an appointee of Rhodes. No, no relation. She waived further description of the Newtons, omitted the pregnant fact that Charles Newton's presence cut as little figure in his wife's social calculations as Captain Charters' absence did in those of Mrs. Jack.

Caution, doubtless, counselled the omission. The quail is not flushed till the net be spread. Yet the reservation was hardly necessary in the light of Helen's condition. Judgment of another's action is colored by one's own mental state, and she was not so likely to be shocked by one who had defied the conventions against which she herself was in open mutiny. Anyway, she liked Mrs. Jack at first sight, despite the scandalous manner in which she flirted with Charles Newton the first night at table. Big, tall, and fair, large eyes expressed her saving grace, an unparalleled frankness that seemed to sterilize her flirtations and rob them of impropriety. Twice during the meal she retailed Newton's tender asides to his wife, asking, laughingly, if she recognized the vintage.

However, being as yet in happy ignorance of many things that would soon cause her serious disquiet, Helen thoroughly enjoyed that first evening. The well-appointed table, with its sparkling glass, silver, snowy napery; the well-groomed people and their correct speech alike fed her starved æsthetic senses while they aroused dormant social qualities. She laughed, chattered, capped Mrs. Jack's sallies, displaying animation and wit that simply astonished Mrs. Leslie. Her wonder, indeed, caused Edith Newton to whisper in Mrs. Jack's ear:

"Elinor looks as though she had imported a swan in mistake for a duckling. Look at Sinclair – positively smitten. Giving her all his attention, though he took Elinor in. The girl seems to like him, too."

Mrs. Jack's big eyes turned to the laughing face that was raised up to Rhodes. "Don't believe a word he says, my dear," she suddenly called across the table. "And look out for him. He's dangerous."

Though she laughed, Rhodes must have sensed a serious motive, for he glanced up in quick annoyance. "Do I look it?" he asked, turning again to Helen.

Nature does not lie. His narrowly spaced eyes, salient facial angles, dull skin, heavy lips carried her certificate of degeneracy. A physiognomist would have pronounced him dangerous to innocence as a wild beast on less evidence, but to Helen's inexperience he appeared as a man unusually handsome, profile or front face. The significant angles did not alter the good modelling of his nose and chin or affect the regularity of his features. Tall, slim, irreproachable in manner and dress, there was no scratch to reveal the base metal beneath his electroplate refinement.

"You certainly don't," she answered, laughing.

"Then," he said, with mock gravity, "I can patiently suffer the sting of calumny."

"Calumny?" Mrs. Jack echoed, teasingly. "Calumny? What's that?"

"Synonyme for conscience," Edith Newton put in, with a spice of malice. For though the conquest of Rhodes – to which Regis gossip wickedly laid Newton's presence in the land office – was now stale with age and tiresome to herself, she was selfish enough to resent his defection.

"Sinclair found it while rummaging Fred's coat for matches," her husband added. Leslie's simplicity was as much of a joke to them as it was with the Canadian settlers, and, under cover of the laugh, Chapman – a big blond of that cavalry, mustached type which wins England's cricket matches while losing all her wars – leaned over and whispered in Newton's ear: "Leslie will lose more than his conscience if he doesn't look out. La belle Elinor is madly smitten." Aloud, he said, "Sinclair would hardly know what to do with it, Mrs. Newton."

"Hearken not to the tongue of envy, Mrs. Carter," Rhodes retaliated upon his tormentors. "I'm a very responsible person, I assure you."

She laughed at his mock seriousness, and, believing it all fooling, gave him so much of her attention that evening as to cause more than one comment. "Rhodes is making heavy running," Newton remarked once to Chapman, who replied, conceitedly stroking his mustache, "Wait till I get in my innings."

"After me," Newton answered. "I come next at the bat."

Ignorant of this and other by-play, however, Helen thoroughly enjoyed the first days of the party. On the frontier, amusement is a home-made product, and shares the superiority of domestic jams, jellies, and pickles over the article of commerce. They caught the fickle damsel Pleasure coming and going, reaping the satisfaction of both spectator and entertainer. By day they skated, drove, or curled on a rink which the male guests laid out; nights, they sang, danced, played games, and romped like children.

Apart from a certain freedom in their intercourse, which she attributed to long acquaintance, Helen found nothing objectionable in the demeanor of her new friends during those first few days. On the contrary, she thought them a trifle dull. Their preglacial and ponderous humor excited her risibility; she laughed as often at as with them. At other times she could not but feel that they regarded her as alien, a pretty pagan without their social pale, and she would revolt against their enormous egotism, insolent national conceit. She broke many a lance on that impregnable shield.

"You English," she flashed back when, one evening, Newton reflected on American pronunciation of certain English family names – "you English remind me of the Jews, with their sibboleth and shibboleth. Is your aristocracy so doubtful of its own identity that it is compelled to hedge itself against intrusion by the use of passwords. You may call 'Cholmondeley' 'Chumley,' if you choose, but we commit no crime in pronouncing it as spelled."

Again, when Edith Newton rallied her on some crude custom which she maintained was peculiarly American, Helen delivered a sharp riposte. "No, I never saw it done at home; but I have heard that it is quite common among English emigrants on transatlantic liners." Such tiffs were, however, rare; and, to do them justice, men and women hastened to sacrifice national conceit on the altars of her wounded susceptibilities.

Offence came later, and on quite another score. At first she liked the attentions paid her; the gallantry of the men put her on better terms with herself, renewed the confidence which had diminished to the vanishing-point during her months of loneliness. But when constant association thawed the reserve natural to first acquaintance, and freedom evolved into familiarity, her instincts took alarm. Distressed, she observed the other women to see if she had been singled out. But no, they seemed quite comfortable under similar attentions, and they rallied her when she unfolded her misgivings at afternoon tea.

"You shouldn't be so pretty, my dear," Mrs. Jack said, laughing. "What can the poor men do?" Then they made fun of her scruples, satirizing conventions and institutions which she had always regarded as necessary, if not God-ordained.

"Marriage," Edith Newton once cynically exclaimed, "is merely a badge of respectability, useful as a shield from the slings and arrows." Then, from the depths of her own degeneracy, she evolved the utterance: "Men are all beasts beneath the skin. Wise women use them for pleasure or profit."

Helen revolted at that; it transcended her mutiny. But few people are made of martyr stuff – perhaps fortunately so; martyrs are uncomfortable folk, and, wise in her eternal generation, nature sprinkles them lightly over the mass of common clay. The average person easily takes the color of environment, so why not Helen? Thinking that perhaps she was a little prudish, she stifled her fears, tried to imitate the nonchalance of the others. She even made a few tentative attempts at daring. Alas! as well expect a rabbit to ruffle it with wolves. Such immediate and unwelcome results followed that she retired precipitously behind ramparts of blushing reserve. But the damage was done. Thereafter Chapman, Newton, Rhodes, one or another, was constantly at her elbow; she was unpleasantly conscious that, having let down her fences, they looked upon her as free game.

The thought stirred her to fight. Chapman she disposed of with a single rebuff that sent him back to Mrs. Jack's side. But Newton proved unmanageable. Impervious to snubs, his manner conveyed his idea that her modesty was simply a blind for the others. His familiarities bordered on license. A good singer, he always asked her to play his accompaniments of evenings, and she would sicken as he used the pretence of turning a leaf to lean heavily upon her shoulder. At other times he made occasion to touch her – would pick threads from her jacket; lean across her to speak to her neighbor at table.

By such tactics he brought her, one morning, to great confusion. A Cree Indian had driven in from the Assiniboin reserve with bead-work, moccasins, and badger-skin mittens which he wished to trade for flour or bacon. With the other women Helen was bending over to examine his wares, when Newton entered the kitchen. Stepping quietly up from behind, he laid a hand on Helen's hair. Taking him for one of the other women, she suffered his fondling till Mrs. Leslie, who knew he was there, asked his opinion on a tobacco-pouch. Then, before she could move, speak, cast off his hand, he pressed her head against his wife's dark curls.

"Just look at the contrast!" he admiringly exclaimed, and so robbed her anger.

Yet so evident was the intent behind the excuse that even the Cree detected the sham. From Helen his dark glance travelled to Newton and back again. "He your man?" he asked.

Vexed to the point of tears, she shook her head and bent over the bead-work to hide her embarrassment. But the Cree's rude notions of etiquette had been jarred. "He touch your hair!"

So simple, his comment yet pierced to the heart of the matter. Newton had fondled her hair, crown and symbol of her womanhood, a privilege of marriage. In an Indian tribe the offence would have loosed the slipping knife; a settler would have resented it with knarled fist. But here the women tittered, while Chapman, who just then sauntered in, laughed.

Emboldened, perhaps, by immunity, the man's offensiveness developed into actual insult the evening of that same day. They had all been pulling taffy in the kitchen, and, passing through a dark passage to the living-room, Helen felt an arm slip about her waist. Newton's face was still tingling from a vigorous slap when she confronted him before them all in the living-room. Even his hardihood quailed before her flushed and contemptuous anger; he was not quite so ready with his excuse.

"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Carter! Really, I mistook you for my wife."

It was a lie on the face of it, and, barbed with stinging truth, her retort drew a peal of laughter from the others. "Indeed? Your excuse is more remarkable than your mistake."

Offended as much by the laugh as the insult, she seated herself on a lounge by Leslie, the one man with whom she always felt safe. In him the stigma of degeneracy took another form; the tired blood expressed itself in a prodigious simplicity. He lacked even the elements of vice. As his wife put it, "Fred is too stupid to be wicked." Yet, withal, he was very much of a man as far as his chuckleheadedness permitted, and now he offered real sympathy.

"It was a caddish trick, Mrs. Carter, and I mean to tell him so."

"Oh no!" she pleaded. "It wouldn't improve matters to make a scene, and he's not likely to offend again. Please don't? Stay here – with me."

"But I'm your host. Really, he deserves a thrashing."

"No, no! Stay here! I don't feel equal to the others."

"I never do." Sitting again, he turned on her a look of beaming fellowship. "The girls all yawn and look terribly bored when I try to amuse them – except you. They don't seem to care for horses and dogs, the things that interest me."

If, as a conversationalist, he did not shine, he at least brought her the first easy moments she had known that day, and she turned a sympathetic ear to some of his prattle. Indicating Rhodes, who was leaning over Mrs. Leslie, he said: "You know I don't like that sort of thing. Elinor says I'm old-fashioned, and I suppose she knows. Of course she wouldn't do anything that wasn't proper, but a fellow has his feelings, and it doesn't take a crime to hurt them, does it? She's up on the conventions; but it does seem to me that if a fellow has anything to say to another fellow's wife he ought to say it aloud."

Astonished that his dulness should have sensed the pervading sensualism, she studied him while he watched his wife, in his eyes something of that pitiful pleading one sees in those of a beaten dog. His words banished her doubts as to whether her own misgivings did not root in hypercritical standards – restored her viewpoint. All week the atmosphere had thickened, as constant association banished reserve, and to-day freedom had attained its meridian. It was not the matter but the manner of conversation that filled her with a great uneasiness – the whispers, asides, smiling stares, conscious laughter. The vitiated atmosphere caused her a feeling of suffocation, and in the midst of her sick revulsion Leslie dropped a remark that came to her like a breath of ozone.

"I was awfully sorry to hear of the trouble between you and Carter. I always thought him such a fine fellow. He hadn't much use for me – any of us – still I liked him. He was a bit on the rough, of course; but, I tell you, character counts more than culture, strength than refinement."

Character counts more than culture, strength than refinement? To his simplicity had been vouched wisdom worthy of a philosopher. The phrase stabbed her. Before her rose a vision of her husband as she had seen him that last miserable night, cold, stern, inexorable, in the loom of the moonlight. In view of that colossal memory, the Englishmen about her dwarfed to effeminate insignificance. Vividly her own doubting recurred. And she had traded him – for this! The thought brought wretchedness too great for concealment. Her uneasiness was so manifest as to form the theme of a bedroom conversation.

Though comfortable – the one frame house in the settlements, a palace to Canadian eyes – Leslie's house boasted only two bedrooms; so while the men made shift on shake-downs, Helen shared Mrs. Leslie's rooms, Edith Newton and Mrs. Jack the other.

As she braided her hair for the night, the latter lady opened the conversation. "Did you notice how uncomfortable little Carter was this evening? She is a nice little thing, but she doesn't mix. I don't see why Elinor invited her."

"You don't, eh?" Edith Newton mumbled a mouthful of pins. "You are slow, Maud."

"No – only lazy. Why should I puzzle over things when you are here? I'll bet you have pumped everybody dry long ago. Now – dispense!"

"I don't go round with my eyes shut," the other calmly answered. "To begin: Calvert Molyneux is completely gone on little Carter, whose husband, it seems, left her because of some slight."

"Hum!" Mrs. Jack elevated her straight brows. "Foolish man to leave her to Calvert. So that is why he went home! Exits till the tarnished pearl be regulped by the conjugal oyster? Clever!"

"On the contrary" – she curled a full red lip – "he contemplates honorable marriage – dalliance, Dakota, divorce, everything that begins with D, down to eventual desertion, if I know anything of Calvert. But fancy – HE!"

"'The devil in love, the devil a husband would be,'" Mrs. Jack misquoted.

"'The devil married, the devil a husband was he,'" Edith Newton finished. "But he is not married yet. She holds him off – foolishly. For you know Calvert, good in streaks, but ruled by his emotions and ruthless when they command. If she turns him down – "

"She'll need to keep him at longer distance than this house affords. But Elinor? – this doesn't explain her. She's beastly selfish under her jolly little skin. Why is she posing as aid and advocate of love?"

"In love with Carter hubby – or was would be more correct, in view of her carryings-on with Sinclair. But the Carter attack, I understand, was very severe while it lasted. Think of it, Maud, Elinor to fall in love with a settler!"

Mrs. Jack elevated naked shoulders. "Not at all surprising. Just the itch of her rotten blood for a few sound corpuscles. I've felt it myself at times. Don't look so shocked – you know we are rotten."

"Maud! Maud!"

Humming a bar of "La Boheme," Mrs. Jack regarded her companion through narrowed lids. "I believe, Edith, you keep up appearances with yourself. Why not be natural for a change? But, as you say, Elinor seems to have made a complete convalescence. Did you ever see a woman make such a projectile of herself? Positively hurls herself at Sinclair. But tell me more about the Carter man. How did he treat her rabies?"

"Cold-water cure. Turned her down – flat."

"So in revenge she's trying to besmirch the wife? The little devil! I call that pretty raw, Edith."

The other shrugged. "Oh, well, it is her pie, and if she prefers it uncooked it is none of our business. Better keep your fingers out of it, Maud. Struggle with your good intentions."

Mrs. Jack smiled sweetly. "My dear, am I in the habit of messing alien pies?"

"Not unless you covet the meat."

"Well, I'm not hankering after either Calvert or Carter hubby, though I must say that I like his specifications. Showed awfully good taste both in selecting his wife and rejecting Elinor. Fancy! a virtuous man – in this day!"

By this time Edith Newton was disposed in bed. A sleepy answer came from under the clothing. "Proves he hadn't the honor of your acquaintance."

"Nor yours," Mrs. Jack retorted.

Her flippancy masked a disquiet so grave as to drive away the desire for sleep. Clad only in her bed-gown, she drew a chair up to the stove, which returned her thoughtful gaze through two red monocles of isinglass. In her fair-play was associated with its companion virtue frankness, and in no wise could she read a mite of the former quality into Elinor Leslie's intent towards Helen. After many uneasy shruggings, she rose, took the lamp, and walked into the other bedroom.

"Misplaced my comb," she answered Mrs. Leslie's sleepy inquiry. "Lend me yours." Then she paused at the foot of the bed.

Helen had coiled her hair for the night, but its unruly masses had loosened and ran, a perfect cataract of gold, over her pillow. Against that auriferous background lay her head and face, with its delicate creams and pinks sinking into the plumpness of one white arm. The other was folded over the softness of her bosom. Mrs. Jack thought her asleep till her eyes opened, then, returning the girl's smile, she tiptoed back to her fire.

"It's a damned shame," she told herself, profanely, but truly, and with such vigor that Edith Newton sleepily asked: "What's the matter? Aren't you ever coming to bed, Maud?"

"Saying my prayers. Go to sleep."

"Put in a word for me," the other murmured.

"The Lord knows that you need it." Mrs. Jack glanced at the bed, then returned to her musings. "Of course she's a little fool. If she goes back to her husband she will have to settle down to the humdrum of settler life – raise calves, chickens, pigs, and children in the fear of the Lord, with only a church picnic or some such wild dissipation to break the deadly monotony. A pleasing prospect, I must say. But if it suits her – well, I'm not going to see her delivered, bound and bleating, into the hands of the devil, alias Calvert Molyneux. It seems a shame, either way, but she undoubtedly loves her settler hubby, and she's just the kind to eat her heart out through remorse and shame. And here is Elinor blackening her reputation with the pig settlers to whom she must look for a living, making reconciliation impossible! Well, I'm going to speak to the little fool to-morrow."

This she did, making her opportunity by carrying Helen off to her bedroom, where, having disposed her victim in a comfortable chair, she herself snuggled down upon the bed and went with customary frankness straight to the heart of her subject. "I want to know, Helen Carter, why you are here?"

Puzzled, Helen stared; then, interpreting by the smile, she answered, "I – really, I – don't know."

"A – pretty – poor – reason!" She shook her finger in affected anger. "Don't you know that you don't belong? Now don't flare up! If I were Edith Newton, or Elinor, the cat, you might suspect a reflection. It isn't that you are below grade – just the opposite. Frankly, my dear, we are a rotten lot. A sweet girl, with conscience and morality has no business among us. We couldn't scrape up enough of either article to outfit a respectable cat. Don't blush. I'm not envying you your conscience. It is a most uncomfortable asset, and, given choice of two evils, I'd take a harelip. But, as you have one – well, you'd better mizzle – go home, you know."

Having eased herself by this delivery, Mrs. Jack sighed, sat up, rolled herself a cigarette, and went on, after a contented puff: "Don't tell on me, my dear. Not that I care a whoop – that's American, isn't it? I love your slang; it is so expressive and comfortable to the feelings. But, you see, rakishness has no attractions for the fool male of our species. He resents any infringement of his monopoly. Even such a degenerate ass as Charles Newton prefers school-girl simplicity. So one must needs simulate virgin innocence, however painful. That's more of your delightful slang. Now – when are you going?"

The question anticipated the conclusion of Helen's midnight tossings; but, if unchanged in substance, this had nevertheless been modified by cooler morning reflections. She stated the qualifications – Jenny was visiting in Lone Tree, and would not return till Saturday. Only two more days! Her visit would then come to a natural end, so why offend by abrupt departure?

Mrs. Jack laughed. "I don't think Elinor would be so very dreadfully offended. Why? Well, it is ungracious to criticise one's hostess, but – you have trapped her rabbit."

"Her – rabbit?"

"Yes – Sinclair Rhodes."

"Why, he paid me less attention than any of the others; was less – you'll pardon me – offensive. I even thought he tried to keep them away."

"As the lion drives the jackals. Avoid him, my dear. Well, I suppose that a couple more days won't hurt. We are to stay a week longer, and if Elinor asks you – which she won't – you must refuse. Now let us go out before they begin to suspect a conspiracy."

"But first let me thank you. I have been so miserable, and you have done me so much good."

Mrs. Jack gently patted the hand that caught her arm, an action totally at variance with her answer. "Self-interest, I assure you. Elinor is not the only sufferer. You have depleted the entire preserve. Not a man has looked at me the last three days. There, there! You needn't believe it if you don't want to."

Could Mrs. Jack's frank eyes have pierced the immediate future, she would have made her warning against Rhodes more specific. On Thursday of that week Leslie drove his heavy team and bobs into Lone Tree for supplies, and, what of the thawing trails, could not possibly be back till all hours Saturday night. Not knowing this, Mrs. Jack made no objection when, Saturday morning, Danvers drove over with Molyneux's double cutter and carried off herself and the Newtons to visit a friend west of the Assiniboin.

"You'll be here till after supper," she said to Helen, leaving. "So I won't say good-bye."

But she miscalculated both the warmth of the friend's welcome and the heavy sledding. When she returned, long after dark, she found Mrs. Leslie reading a novel by her bedroom stove. In a loose wrapper, crossed feet comfortably propped on the plated stove-rail, a plate of red apples at her elbow, and the light comfortably adjusted on the table behind her, she was the picture of comfort. "Having a jolly good time all by myself," she explained. "Fred's not home yet, and Captain Chapman went over to win a little from Ernest Poole at poker. Helen? Just gone. She waited and waited and waited, but you were so late that we both thought you had concluded to stay the night. Didn't you pass her at the Forks – or hear the bells? That double string of Fred's can be heard to heaven on a still night."

"Oh, was that she? Hired man came for her, I suppose?" Mrs. Jack indifferently inquired, as she laid off her furs.

"No. Sinclair drove her with our ponies. What's the matter?"

Eyes dark and dilated with fear, Mrs. Jack faced her. "Do you mean to tell me – " Breaking hastily off, she ran through bed and living rooms, almost upsetting Newton on her way to the outer door. "Mr. Danvers! Oh, Mr. Danvers! Mr. Danvers! Mr. – Danvers!" she called.

But the night returned only the clash of his bells.

Sweeping back in, she faced Mrs. Leslie, flushed with the one righteous emotion of her fast life. "You let her go out – alone – with that – " Choking, she ran into her own room and slammed the door, leaving the other two women staring.

Edith Newton answered the lift of the other's eyebrows. "Another of Maud's raves."