Northwest!. Harold Bindloss
Читать онлайн книгу.
had earned day wages at the spinning frame.
Jimmy felt dull and thought a day on the rocks would brace him up. Since his object for the Canadian excursion was to shoot a mountain-sheep and climb a peak in the Rockies, he ought to get into trim. Stannard could play cards all night and start fresh in the morning on an adventure that tried one's nerve and muscle, but Jimmy admitted he could not. When he loafed about hotel rotundas and consumed iced drinks he got soft.
After a time, Laura Stannard crossed the veranda and went along the terrace. Her white dress was fashionable and she wore a big white hat. Her hair and eyes were black, her figure was gracefully slender, and her carriage was good. Jimmy thought her strangely attractive, but did not altogether know if she was his friend, and admitted that he was not Laura's sort. It was not that she was proud. Something about her indicated that her proper background was an old-fashioned English country house; Jimmy felt his was a Lancashire cotton mill. Laura did not live with Stannard, but she joined him and Jimmy in Switzerland not long before they started for Canada. Stannard was jealous about his daughter and had indicated that his friends were not necessarily hers. Jimmy had grounds to think Stannard's caution justified.
For a minute or two Jimmy left the girl alone. He imagined if Laura were willing to talk to him she would let him know. She went to the end of the terrace, and then turning opposite a bench, looked up and smiled. Jimmy advanced and when he joined her leaned against the low wall. Laura studied him quietly and he got embarrassed. Somehow he felt she disapproved; he imagined he did not altogether look as if he had got up after a night's refreshing sleep.
"You got breakfast early," she remarked.
"That is so," Jimmy agreed. "A fellow at my table argues about our slowness in the Old Country and sometimes one would sooner be quiet. Then I thought I'd go off and see if I could reach the ice-fall on the glacier; after the sun gets hot the snow is treacherous. Anyhow, you have come down as soon as me."
"I mean to go on the lake and try to catch a trout."
"Then, I hope you'll let me come. You'll want somebody to row the boat and use the landing-net."
"The hotel guide will row and I doubt if we'll need the landing-net," Laura replied and gave him a level glance. "Besides, I shall return for lunch and I rather think you ought to go for a long climb. When I came out, you looked moody and slack."
Jimmy colored. Although he was embarrassed, to know Laura had bothered to remark his moodiness was flattering; the strange thing was, when she crossed the veranda he had not thought she saw him. Jimmy was raw, but not altogether a fool. He knew Laura did not mean him to go with her to the lake.
"Oh, well," he said. "When one loafs about, one does get slack."
"You are young and ought not to loaf."
"I imagine I'm a little older than you," Jimmy rejoined with a twinkle.
Laura let it go. As a rule, she did not take the obvious line, and although she knew much Jimmy did not, she said, "Are you old enough to play cards with Jackson and Deering?"
"One must pay for all one gets, and, in a sense, I get much from men like that," Jimmy replied. "There's something one likes about Jackson, and Deering's a very good sort."
"Are you ambitious to be Deering's sort?" Laura asked.
Jimmy pondered. It was obvious she knew the men were Stannard's friends, and she, no doubt, knew Stannard was a keen gambler. The ground was awkward and he must use some caution.
"Mr. Stannard's my model," he said.
Laura's glance was inscrutable. Since her mother died she had not lived with Stannard and he puzzled her. Sometimes she was disturbed about him, and sometimes she was jarred. When she joined him for a few weeks he was kind, but he did not ask for her confidence and did not give her his.
"It looks as if my father's attraction for you was strong," she said thoughtfully.
"That is so," Jimmy declared with a touch of enthusiasm Laura saw was sincere. "Mr. Stannard has all the qualities I'd like to cultivate. My habit, so to speak, is to shove along laboriously; he gets where he wants without an effort. On the trains and steamers he gets for nothing things another couldn't buy, and at the hotel the waiters serve him first. People trust him and are keen about his society. He's urbane and polished, but when you go with him on the rocks you note his steely pluck. When I'm stuck and daunted he smiles, and somehow I get up the awkward slab. Besides, he stands for much I wanted but couldn't get until he helped."
"What did you want?"
"Excitement, adventure, and the friendship of clever people; something like that," said Jimmy awkwardly. "To begin with, I'd better tell you about my life in Lancashire, but I expect you're bored——"
Laura was not bored; in fact, her curiosity was excited. Stannard's young friends were numerous, but when he opened his London flat to them she stopped with her aunts. Now she wondered whether it was important he had allowed her to join his Canadian excursion.
"I am not at all bored," she said.
"Very well. My father died long since and I went to my uncle's house. I'd like to draw Ardshaw for you, but I cannot. Inside, it's overcrowded by clumsy Victorian furniture; outside is a desolation of industrial ugliness. Smoky fields, fenced by old colliery ropes, a black canal, and coalpit winding towers. I went to school on board a steam tram, along a road bordered all the way by miners' cottages."
"The picture's not attractive," Laura remarked. "Was your uncle satisfied with his house?"
Jimmy smiled. "I think he was altogether satisfied. The Leylands are a utilitarian lot, and rather like ugliness. Our interests are business, and religion of a stern Puritanical sort. From my relations' point of view, grace and beauty are snares. Besides, Dick Leyland got Ardshaw cheap and I expect this accounts for much. When he went there the Leyland mills were small; my grandfather had not long started on his lucky speculation."
"But after a time you went away to school—a public school?"
"I did not. I imagined it was obvious," said Jimmy with a touch of dryness. "I went to the mill office and sat under a gas-lamp, writing entries in the stock-books, from nine o'clock until six. Dick Leyland had no use for university cultivation and my aunt was persuaded Oxford was a haunt of profligates. Well, because I was forced, I held out until I was twenty-one. Then I'd had enough and I went to London."
"Were your relations willing for you to go?"
"They were not at all willing, but I inherit a third-part of the Leyland mills. For all that, unless my trustees approve, I cannot, for another two or three years, use control, and the sum I may spend is fixed. Well, perhaps you can picture my launching out in town. I had no rules to go by; I wore the stamp of the cotton mill and a second-class school. For five years I'd earned a small clerk's pay, and now, by contrast, I was rich."
Laura could picture it. The boy's reaction from his uncle's firm and parsimonious guardianship was natural, and she studied him with fresh curiosity. He was tall but rather loosely built, and his look was apologetic, as if he had not yet got a man's strength and confidence. One noted the stamp of the cotton mill. As a rule Jimmy was generous and extravagant; but sometimes he was strangely business-like.
"Were you satisfied with your experiment?" she asked.
"I expect you're tired. If you were not kind, you'd have sent me off."
"Not at all," said Laura. "I like to study people, and your story has a human touch. In a way, it's the revolt of youth."
"Oh, well; I expect one does not often get all one thinks to get. I wanted the cultivation Oxford might have given me; I wanted to know people of your sort, who don't bother about business, but hunt and fish and shoot. Well, I can throw a dry-fly and hold a gun straight; but after all I'm Jimmy Leyland, from the mills in Lancashire."
Laura liked his honesty, but his voice was now not apologetic. She rather thought it proud.
"You met my father in Switzerland?" she