Bindloss Harold
By Right of Purchase

She turned her head a bit. As it happened, Carrie Denham and Aylmer crossed the lawn again just then, and Leland, following the direction of Mrs. Annersly's glance, felt that she wished to call his attention to them.

"Yes," she said, "unless something unexpected turns up, I should not be astonished if they married her to that man."

Leland looked at her, a slight flush in his grim face. "It would be almost indecent for several reasons, to say nothing of his age; but Miss Denham has surely a will of her own."

Though he seldom manifested the tenderness and pity in his nature until an opportunity for helpful action came his way, his face grew softer as he watched the pair. His life had of necessity been hard and lonely. Perhaps, in some degree at least, from ignorance of them, he had grown up with an impersonal, chivalrous respect for all women. Love as between man and woman was a thing still remote from him. On the desolate prairie, a woman was scarcely ever even seen. It was a man's country. As his eyes followed the strolling couple, he was conscious of a longing to offer the girl the protection of his strength against Aylmer.

Then the lady, who had been watching him closely, spoke again. "She decidedly has a will, and, what is more, a tolerably large share of the family pride," she said. "Still, she will probably marry her companion. Branscombe Denham is usually at his wits' end for money, and Jimmy, I am very much afraid, has been getting into difficulties again. Carrie is in one sense an excellent daughter. She knows her duty, and is scarcely likely to flinch from doing it."

"But is there nobody else, no young man of good character and family, available?"

"What do you know against the character of the man yonder?"

"Nothing," said Leland tersely. "Nothing at all, except that he carries it about with him. You can see it in his face. If I had a sister, I should feel tempted to kick a man of that kind for looking at her."

Mrs. Annersly smiled as she answered his previous question. "Young men of the kind you mention, with any means, are not to be met with every day. What's more, they also naturally prefer a girl with money, and, at least, there would in their case be a tying up of property in the settlements. The happy man does not, as a rule, consider it necessary to contribute anything to the bride's family."

Leland turned sharply, and looked at her with a portentous sparkle in his eyes. "Isn't it a horribly unpleasant thing you are suggesting?"

"That is, after all, largely a matter of opinion."

Leland sat still a moment watching the two figures on the lawn with a curious blending of compassion and disgust. Then he rose and looked down on his companion.

"Madam," he said, "I wonder if I might ask you why you thought fit to tell me this?"

"One should never ask for a woman's reasons, and I think I have informed you already that my tongue is dipped in wormwood."

Leland made a little impatient gesture. "Is it Aylmer's money alone that counts with them, or his station, if he has any?"

"One would certainly imagine that it was his means."

Leland left her presently. As she watched him stride along the terrace, her shrewd, faded face grew gentle.

"If I have read that man aright, there may be results," she said. "In that case, I almost fancy Carrie will have much to thank me for."

Then she rose and, crossing the quadrangle, sought the card-room. It was an hour later when she came upon Carrie Denham sitting alone.

"I have been talking to Mr. Leland, and am rather pleased with him," she said to the girl. "He is a curious compound of simplicity and forcefulness. They must live like anchorites out there."

Carrie Denham laughed. "I thought that type was distinctly out of date now. It probably has its disadvantages."

"Still," said Mrs. Annersly with an air of reflection, "he would scarcely jar as much on one's self-respect as the people one would meet as the wife of the other sort of man."

CHAPTER III
PRESSURE OF CIRCUMSTANCES

The early breakfast over, Leland was walking up and down beneath the red beeches that grew close up to the old arched gateway of Barrock-holme, one of his fellow guests beside him, and a gun under his arm. Looking in through the quadrangle, they saw a young groom holding with some difficulty a restive, champing horse that pawed the gravel and shook his head impatiently.

"He doesn't like waiting either," said Leland's companion to the groom. "How long have you been holding him here?"

"About half an hour, Mr. Terry," said the groom.

Terry glanced at Leland with a little uplifting of his brows, and again addressed the groom.

"You can't pack all of us into that dog-cart, and it's four miles, anyway, to the edge of Garberry moor," he said. "Do you know how we are expected to get there?"

"Mr. Parsons of the Dell farm keeps a smart cart, and he promised to lend it Mr. James when he heard we had the tire loose on our other one. It should have been here."

"Then why isn't it?"

Leland fancied that a suspicion of a smile flickered in the man's eyes.

"I don't know, sir, unless Mr. James forgot to let him know when we wanted it."

"I should consider it very probable," said Terry drily. "Have you any objections to walking on as far as the Dell, Leland? It wouldn't astonish me greatly if Jimmy kept us waiting an hour yet."

Leland having no objections, they strode away together. Beech-mast crackled underfoot between the colonnades of lichened trunks, whose great branches stayed the high, vaulted roof of gold and crimson leaves. Looking out through the openings between, one could see the sweep of rolling champaign stretch away into the horizon through gradations of blueness, and the rigid line of the fells smeared with warm brown patches of withered bracken.

"It's rather a shame that Jimmy and his father should have a place of this kind in their hands at all," said Terry. "Still, for the credit of the country, I should like to explain that there are not very many English properties run on the same lines. In fact, the Denhams are an exception to everything, but I really think Jimmy might have got up in time for once in a way."

Leland laughed. "The loss of an hour's shooting seems to count with you."

"It does. You see, like a good many other people, I have to work rather hard for my living, and time is of a little more value to me than it apparently is to Jimmy Denham. Besides, my stay here has cost me a good deal more than I expected, and, being engaged in commerce, I can't help feeling that I ought to get something in return for my money."

"I don't quite understand that last remark."

"No?" said Terry. "Well, perhaps you don't. In fact, I have had a fancy that you were a bona-fide guest. You see, two or three of us aren't."

"Will you make that a little clearer?" And Leland looked astonished, though he remembered now several little incidents that had struck him as strange.

"With pleasure. Indeed, I feel I owe it to Jimmy for his losing us an hour or two every day. Our amusement costs two or three of us a good deal directly, as well as the other way. Branscombe Denham, naturally, doesn't advertise Barrock-holme as a shooting hotel, but, though affairs are arranged more tastefully, it amounts to much the same thing. You share expenses of watching and turning down hand-reared birds, and you get so many days' shooting with entertainment thrown in. The latter, however, is usually costly. One way or the other, Jimmy has taken one hundred pounds out of me."

"Ah," said Leland. "Is that sort of thing common in this country? I had a notion that you were rather proud of yourselves. It wouldn't strike us as quite nice in Western Canada."

"No," said the other man. "Still, it's done occasionally, and, as to family pride, you are not likely to come across anybody who has more of it than the Denhams. How they reconcile it with some of the things they do is a different matter; but you can take it as a rule that the less people have to congratulate themselves upon, the prouder they are. In fact, Jimmy Denham, who, though one can't help liking him, is a downright bad egg, was at first a little shy of me. I am a partner in a concern making a certain advertised specialty, you see."

"I wonder," said Leland reflectively, "if the girls quite understand the position."

"I don't think they do. Anyway, not exactly. Indeed, it's a little difficult to believe they're daughters of Branscombe Denham, or sisters of Jimmy. They show some trace of sense and temper, whilst you can't ruffle Jimmy. Still, I fancy, if it were necessary, they would stand by their delightful relatives through thick and thin."

Leland lapsed into thoughtful silence. He fancied that his companion was right, for he had seen a good deal of Carrie Denham during the month he had now spent at Barrock-holme. She had been, in her own reserved fashion, gracious to him, and Leland did not in the least resent the fact that there was in all she said a suggestion of condescension that he surmised was unconscious. Indeed, this struck him as being what it should be. Though quite aware of his own value where men were concerned, he had seen very few women, and regarded them in general with a vague, uncomprehending respect. Furthermore, the girl's physical beauty, her pride and almost stately coldness, made a strong appeal to him. She was, he was quite willing to admit, a being of a very different order from a plain Western farmer. Besides that, she was the one person who had quite come up to his expectations, for his visit to the old country had in most respects brought him disillusionment.

His father had often spoken of it with all the exile's appreciation of the home he had left, and he could remember his mother's daintiness and refinement; it was, perhaps, not astonishing that he had learned to idealise the old land and those who lived in it. It was also unfortunate that, whilst it might have happened differently, the few English men and women he had met on any terms of intimacy during his stay in London had resembled the Denhams more or less, and it had hurt him to discover what he considered was the reality. For Jimmy and his father he had a tolerant contempt, and it was, in fact, only the presence of Carrie Denham that had kept him at Barrock-holme so long. He was sorry for her, and had a vague fancy that she might need a friend. There was a vein of chivalry in him, and he was also a just man. His sense of justice led him to play billiards periodically for somewhat heavy stakes with Jimmy. It was one way of getting even, as he expressed it, for he did not care to be indebted to a man he looked down upon. Jimmy, who was skilful and almost suspiciously fortunate at both billiards and cards, had also no objections to emptying the pockets of his guests, though, as Leland was aware, the chance stranger very seldom leaves a ranch of Western Canada any poorer than when he came there.

In the meanwhile it happened that Branscombe Denham sat talking to his son in what he called his library. The few books in it for the most part related to the estate, for Denham had reasons for not trusting his affairs altogether to a steward or country lawyer. He was, in some respects, a handsome man, though his eyes were of too pale a blue, and his thin face, in spite of its unmistakable stamp of refinement, lacked character. The room was in the old tower, ceiled with dark wood and sombrely panelled, with one long, narrow leaded-glass window. The tall, sparely-framed man with his white hands and immaculate dress seemed out of place there. He was essentially modern, the room belonged to the more virile past. There was a pile of letters before him, and he took one up delicately.

"If I could have foreseen that it would lead to this kind of thing, I should never have consented to your grandfather's breaking the entail," he said, with a little whimsical smile. "Lancely has written me in his usual stand-and-deliver style again: – 'I am now directed to inform you that, unless the last instalment with arrears of interest is remitted me by next quarter-day, my clients will regretfully feel themselves compelled to foreclose.'"

He laid down the letter with a little lifting of his brows. "I really think they mean it at last, and their mortgage covers most of the Dell, and the leys on Stapleton's holding. I suppose it is no use asking if you could dispense with your next allowance."

Jimmy Denham laughed, though he was quite aware that the occasion was serious enough. "I'm afraid not, sir. In fact, as I had regretfully to admit, unless I can raise two hundred pounds in addition to it before my leave runs out, I shall probably have to send in my papers. Fortunately, I think I can manage it."

He spoke quite frankly, and there was nothing in the attitude of either to suggest that one was a father embarrassed by financial difficulties and the other a spendthrift son. Indeed, they faced each other as comrades, one could almost have said confederates, for in spite of their shortcomings, which were somewhat plentiful, the Denhams at least recognised the family bond, standing by one another in everything.

"In that case," said Branscombe Denham, "the allowance must stand, though I don't know at present where it is to come from. The other affair is more difficult. In fact, unless we face it resolutely it might become serious."

"So one would imagine," said Jimmy, reflectively. "The Dell is the best farm we have, and to let those fellows have it would make things a little too plain to everybody. Besides, it's splitting up the property. To a certain extent, of course, we are living upon our credit."

Branscombe Denham nodded, though there was a curious look in his pale blue eyes as he fixed them on his son.

"I'm rather afraid you don't quite grasp the point," he said. "You see, Lancely's man holds a mortgage on most of the Dell; but, as you, perhaps, remember, Lennox lent me a couple of thousand, with the plough-land in the bottom as security. He did it as a friend, and didn't worry much about his papers, while I'm not sure I remembered to mention Lancely's bond to him, so there is what one might call a certain overlapping of the mortgages. Then I found it necessary to realise a little on the oaks and beeches at Arkil bank."

Jimmy's face grew grave. "I rather fancy they brought you in a good deal. They were unusually good trees. You sold the timber after you raised the money on the mortgages?"

"I did. That is just the point of it. I needn't say that I had then a scheme of retrenchment in my mind which would provide a kind of sinking fund to meet the interest, and in due time extinguish the loan, in which case the question of the timber would, naturally, never have been raised. Unfortunately, the fall in rents and one or two other matters – rendered it unworkable."

Jimmy made a gesture of comprehending sympathy. "I'm afraid it would look rather bad, sir, if it came out. Lancely's man might make a good deal of trouble if he wants his timber and finds it isn't there, to say nothing of what Lennox, who, it seems, has a claim on it as well, might do. Still, no doubt, you did what you could, sir, and I'm rather afraid it was one or two of my little extravagances that put some of the pressure on you. I needn't say that if there is anything I can do, down to cutting the service – or bearing part of the responsibility – "

"Thanks," said Denham, as if he meant it. "You were not very extravagant, Jimmy, as young men go, and we have hitherto, at least, always stood by each other. Still, I'm not sure that it's my son I can count on now."

"Ah," and Jimmy's voice was a trifle sharper. "I'm afraid I never liked that notion, sir. I think I've mentioned it. There's a good deal of the beast in Aylmer. Has he said anything?"

A curious look crept into Denham's face, and it suggested repugnance as well as anxiety. "He came to me yesterday, and his ideas of a settlement were liberal. I pointed out a few of my difficulties to him, and he mentioned rather tastefully that he fancied they could be got over if he had my good will in the other matter. In fact, he left me with the impression that the mortgage bonds would be handed Carrie after the wedding."

Jimmy Denham's face appeared a trifle flushed, though he was considered a rather hard case by a certain officers' mess.

"I don't like it, sir," he said again. "I can't claim to be very particular, but that man is rather too much for me."

"Then have you any proposition to make?"

Jimmy sat still for at least a minute, apparently lost in thought, which was in his case a very unusual thing.

"The whole affair is a little unpleasant, and I think you won't mind my saying that much. Still, it's evident that we have to face the circumstances, and I scarcely think Carrie will flinch when she understands the necessity. There might, however, be a more suitable man than Aylmer. In fact, I almost think I know of one."

"The Canadian?"

"Exactly. Anyway, the man is wholesome, which is more than anybody could say of Aylmer, and I rather fancy he will be a person of considerable importance by-and-bye, in his own country. If, as I suppose, you haven't given Aylmer a definite answer yet, I might suggest that you tell him he must make his own running, and leave the rest to me. Though she's not fond of any of us but Carrie, I've no doubt that Eveline Annersly would stand by me."

There was silence again for almost a minute, and then Denham sighed.

"Well," he said, with a little gesture, "you will remember that there is not very much time left. In the meanwhile aren't you keeping the rest of them waiting?"

Jimmy went out, and none of the three men he drove to the Garberry moor could have suspected that he had a single care. They would certainly not have believed, had he told them, that he was, for once, sincerely disgusted with himself as well as his father, and troubled with a very unusual sense of shame. There was courage of a kind in the Denhams, and they could, at least, hide their feelings very well. He inspired the rest with good-humour and shot rather better than he generally did, but he had grown grave again when he had an interview with Mrs. Annersly shortly before dinner that evening. She listened to him with a little frown.

"Jimmy," she said, "you are almost as deficient in estimable qualities as your father is."

"Well," said Jimmy humbly, "I know I am, but you might leave the governor out. I think he is a little older than you are – and he is my father. Anyway, though you mightn't believe it, I feel a trifle sick when I think of Aylmer."

"What do you expect from me?"

Jimmy smiled. "Not a great deal. Only a persistence in your original policy. I have rather a fancy that you and I have had the same thing in our minds."

Mrs. Annersly looked thoughtful. "If it must be one or the other, I'll do what I can. In fact, I don't mind admitting that, seeing what it would probably come to, I have, as you surmise, had the affair in hand already. Still, it was not to make things easier for either you or your father."

CHAPTER IV
LELAND MAKES THE PLUNGE

There was for the first time a chill of frost in the air, so none of the guests at Barrock-holme thought of lounging on the terrace after dinner. Some were in Denham's gun-room, some were playing cards, and only a few were left in the big drawing-room where Carrie sat at the piano. Leland stood beside her to turn the music over, a duty which was new to him and indifferently fulfilled. He had no very clear notion then or afterwards what she was singing. Still, her voice, which was indubitably good, awakened a little thrill in him. Her proximity had also an exhilarating effect, and he was lost in a whir of sensations he could not analyse as he looked down on the cold face with its crown of dusky hair and saw the gleam of ivory shoulders. This was a man who had usually so much to do that it left him little time to dissect and classify his emotions.

He did not think he was in love with Carrie Denham, so far as his ideas on that subject went; but, until he had come to England, the society of a woman of her description was an unknown thing to him. Her physical beauty appealed to him, her cold, reposeful sincerity and pride of station had made an even stronger impression, and now he was sensible of a vague admiration and compassion for her. He felt, too, a feeling of awkwardness in her presence, realising at the same time that there was nothing to warrant it.

He did not look awkward in the least. His bronze face was quiet, his grave, brown eyes were steady, and, though he was quite unconscious of it, the pose he had fallen into effectively displayed the spare symmetry of his muscular figure. There was also upon him the stamp of the silent strength and vigour that comes of a clean life spent in wide spaces out in the wind and sun. He did not know that several pairs of eyes were watching him with approval, and that the owner of one of them smiled in a fashion which suggested satisfaction as she glanced towards Aylmer. The fleshy gentleman sat not very far away, and Leland fancied that his own presence at the piano was justified when he looked in that direction. There was that in his nature which prompted him to offer protection to any one who needed it, and he felt it was not fitting that such a man as Aylmer should stand at Carrie Denham's side. He had been sensible of this before, but the feeling was unusually strong that night. At last the music stopped, and she looked up at him with her curious little smile.

"Thank you," she said; and the man felt his blood stir, for he fancied she understood what had brought him there. Still, shrewd in his own way as he was, he was strangely deceived in supposing that nobody except the girl and himself had grasped his purpose, or that he would have been able to carry it out at all without the concurrence of one, at least, of those who watched him. Leland had grappled with adverse seasons, and held his own against hard and clever men, but he had not as yet had cultured Englishwomen for his enemies or partisans.

He turned away when Carrie Denham rose, and, moving about the room, found himself presently near Mrs. Annersly, who was sitting alone just then on a divan with a big, partly-folded screen on one hand of her. It cut that nook off from the observation of most of the rest, as she was probably aware when she settled herself there; but, when she indicated the vacant place at her side, it never occurred to Leland that she had been lying in wait for him.

"You did that very cleverly. I mean when you opened the piano first," she said. "I never suspected you of being a diplomatist. One could almost fancy that Carrie was grateful, too."

Leland was in no way flattered, since all he had done was to reach the piano in advance of Aylmer, who was a trifle heavy on his feet. In fact, he was slightly disconcerted, though he did not show it.

"Well," he said frankly, "it was either Aylmer or I."

His companion looked at him in a rather strange fashion. "Exactly!" she said. "It was either you or Aylmer, and, perhaps, it was natural that Carrie should prefer you."

Leland glanced across the big room, towards where Aylmer was sitting, and was once more sensible of dislike and repulsion. The man did not look well in evening dress. It made his flabby heaviness of flesh too apparent, and the sharply contrasted black and white emphasised the florid colouring of his broad, sensual face. He was just then regarding Carrie Denham out of narrow slits of eyes, priggish eyes, Leland called them to himself, and there was the easily recognisable stamp of grossness and indulgence upon him. The Westerner himself was hard and somewhat spare, a man whose body had been toughened by strenuous labour and held in due subjection by an unbending will. Mrs. Annersly noticed the clearness of his steady eyes and the clean transparency of his bronzed skin. As a man, he was, she decided, certainly to be preferred to Aylmer, and perhaps the more so because there was a side of his nature which as yet, it was evident, had scarcely been awakened. She was glad that the drawing-room was large and the place where they sat secluded, because there was a notion with which she desired to inspire him. She had already gone a certain distance in that direction, and now it was time to go a little further. She could see that her last speech had had some effect.

"Madam," he said, with his usual directness, "I wonder what you mean by that."

"It ought to be evident," said the lady, with a little smile. "If everybody's suppositions are correct, I really think Carrie will have enough of Aylmer by-and-bye. There is no reason why she should commence the surfeit now."

"Then if she feels as you suggest she does, why in the name of wonder should she marry him?"

"There are family reasons. Jimmy and his family are, I fear, in difficulties again, and it will be the privilege of Carrie's husband to extricate them. I believe I told you as much before, though you do not seem to have remembered it."

A slightly darker tinge of colour crept into Leland's cheek. "As a matter of fact, madam, the thing has been worrying me ever since you did. A marriage of that kind is rather more than any one with a sense of the fitness of things could quietly contemplate."

"Still" – and Mrs. Annersly looked at him steadily – "the difficulty is that I am afraid there is nothing you or I could do to prevent it."

Leland was a trifle startled. He could almost fancy that she expected a disclaimer from him, and meant to suggest that, if he wished it, he might find a way where she had failed. He did not know how she had conveyed this impression, and, as he could not be sure that she had desired to do so, he sat in silence until she abruptly changed the subject. With a man of this description there was no necessity for being unduly artistic; the one thing was to get the notion into his mind.

"When are you going back?" she said.

"I don't quite know. In a month or so. Of course, I ought to be there now; but it is the first time I have been away since I came home from Montreal, and it will probably be a long while before I take a rest again. As it is, my being away this harvest will probably cost me a good deal."

"It must be lonely on the prairie, especially in the winter."

Leland smiled. "It is. Once we haul the grain in, there is very little one can do, with a foot of snow upon the ground and the thermometer at forty below. There's just Prospect and its birch bluff in the midst of the big white circle with the sledge-trails running out from it straight to the horizon. Not a house, not a beast, or any sign of life about."

He stopped, and made a little gesture. "Of course, there are big hotels where one could meet pleasant people, as well as operas and theatres, at Winnipeg, and one could get there in two days on the cars. I dare say I could manage a trip to Montreal or New York occasionally too, and we have a few well-educated people from the East on the prairie not more than twenty miles away; but, since I have nobody to go with, going away from home doesn't appeal to me, so I spend the long night sitting beside the stove with the cedar shingles crackling over me in the cold. Now and then I read, and when I don't there is plenty to think about in planning out the next year's campaign."

"Has it never occurred to you that it would be a good deal more pleasant if you were married?"

"As a matter of fact it has, but I put the notion away from me. For one thing, I remember my mother, and, if ever I married, it would have to be somebody grave and sweet and dainty like her. She was a well brought-up Englishwoman, and, perhaps, she lived long enough to spoil me. She showed me what a wife could be, and it's scarcely likely there are many women of her kind who would ever care for a prairie farmer who knows very little about anything but wheat and cattle."

"You seem almost unreasonably sure of that," said Mrs. Annersly.

Leland laughed. "Madam," he said, "would you go out there to the prairie and trust yourself alone to such a man as I am?"

The little faded lady's eyes twinkled, and in the tones of her reply there was something which suggested confidence in her companion.

"I scarcely suppose you mean me to consider that seriously?" she said. "Still, if I were twenty years younger I almost think I would, and, what is more, I scarcely fancy I should be sorry. That is, at least, if you were willing to take me to Winnipeg or Montreal now and then, and bring out any friends I might make there to stay with me. We, however, needn't concern ourselves with that question, since you certainly don't want me. The point is that one could fancy there are English girls of the kind you mention who would be willing to venture as far as I would. Still, you would have to bestir yourself, and make it evident that you wanted one in particular to go out with you. You could hardly expect anybody to suggest it to you."

Leland was thoughtful, for Eveline Annersly had done her work successfully. She had first inspired him with a strong man's pity for Carrie Denham, and awakened in him an undefined, chivalrous desire to protect her, whilst now she had gone a little further, and suggested that there was, perhaps, a way in which he could do so. He sat quite still for a moment or two. The great bare room at Prospect, with its uncovered walls and floor, and the big stove in the midst of it, rose up before his fancy. Then he saw it changed and cosy, filled to suit a woman's artistic taste with the things he cared little for, but which his wealth could buy for the gracious presence sitting there beside him. Then there would be something to look forward to as he floundered home from the railroad down the beaten sledge-trail beside his jaded team, or swept up in his sleigh out of the white waste, stiff with frost. It was an alluring picture in its way, but, after all, material comforts had not appealed to him greatly, and while he sat silent by Eveline Annersly's side the visions carried him further.