Complete Works of Bram Stoker (59 page)

And so this night Dick went to his cabin shaking with laughter; and Esse put her head on her pillow filled with a secret but fearful exultation that Dick and she shared a secret between them.

CHAPTER 4

Esse’s first quarrel with Dick arose from wounded vanity. Remotely the feeling may have been on his side, but the immediate cause was on her own part. When the secret had been shared for some time, she began to take Dick to task in a purely feminine way. She wanted his hands to be always clean, and his nails to be properly regulated. Dick was something of a dandy in his way, but in the mountains vanity prefers more picturesque forms than the manifestations of soap and water. He was not by any means a dirty man; but more than the mere absence of dirt is demanded by the exigence of feminine propinquity, and Esse, greatly daring, took him to task. He received her monitions well enough at the time, but later on developed a certain huffiness which told her that his self-love had been wounded. Anxious to set matters right, she took an early opportunity of saying to him:

‘Dick, you know you and I should help one another. You are big and strong, and mother says that the care you have taken of me, and the sense of security which your presence gives has made a new girl of me. I want to see you like other men - no, no! I don’t mean like them, with all their meanness and selfishness, but in not being ridiculous or not seeming at your best. Down in the cities men have rules among themselves as to how they should dress and what they should do; and I wouldn’t like any of them to misjudge you, if you should be there, or they here. You’re not offended with me, are you, Dick?’ He had been sitting with his knees apart and his face downcast, but there was something in her voice which made him look up. His great blue eyes looked into her great brown ones, and the whole quarrel was made up in one word as he held out his great brown hand and said:

‘Shake!’ Esse took the pleasant punishment of his pump-handle shake without a wince, and when Dick had dropped her hand as suddenly as he had grasped it she felt in a less dictatorial mood towards him than she had ever experienced. With a certain new shyness she said:

‘And I want you, Dick, to tell me of anything you notice that isn’t quite right in me - not quite as you’d have it in a girl that you respected. You know, Dick, we all want help to do the best that we are capable of!’ she went on in a voice that somehow seemed to herself not to ring true, though Dick did not seem to notice it. He fidgeted his hands about awkwardly and blushed, actually blushed like a school-girl - that is, as a school-girl is supposed to blush according to the books. Then he coughed prefatorily: this sent a pang through Esse’s heart, or whatever portion of her anatomy vanity resides in. Did a woman ever yet not feel a pang when a man whom she liked discovered the smallest fault? She could have beaten herself for the falsity of her tone as she said, with seeming impulsiveness:

‘Go on, Dick! Don’t be afraid! I’ll tell you if you’re right.’ So Dick began:

‘Wall, Little Missy, as you wish me to tell you, there is a matter - I don’t know as how I oughter mention it; or I don’t quite know how to say it right. But it hasn’t been my own noticin’ entirely. Them Shoshonies are mighty cute in noticin’, an’ they have a name for you which tells it; or rather they had, till I promised to knock the stuffin’ out of any of them that would use it again.’

What was it?’ asked Esse in curiosity, though her face was suffused with an indignant blush. But Dick kept an artful silence on the point.

Well, Little Missy, I think I’d better explain to you first. Why do you keep that nose-rag of yours always over your face the way you do? Guess, it looks mighty odd to folks!’ Esse’s blush turned a bright scarlet; she had a habit which had adhered to her from childhood up, just as some children maintain the habit of sucking the thumb, and concerning which she had often been spoken to and remonstrated with. She would twirl her handkerchief round her forefinger and thumb, and then place these fingers, parted widely, across her nose and mouth and sit reading hour after hour in this attitude. Even when she was not reading she would unconsciously assume the same position. She could not but be conscious that the habit was an odd one even if her mother and Miss Gimp had not kept her eternally informed of it, and it was simply gall and wormwood to her to have Dick notice the matter and join in the ranks of her tormentors. For a few moments she remained silent in sheer bewilderment as to what she should say, and then the only thing that was possible under the circumstances was spoken:

Thank you! Dick, it is a bad habit I know, and mother and Gimp are always hammering me about it. I suppose I got into a habit as a child, and it has stuck to me. But I’ll try and get rid of it! indeed I will.’ There were tears of mortified vanity in her eyes, which recognising, Dick held out a red hand and gave his comfort in a homeopathic dose:

‘Shake!’ Then Esse grew coy and said:

“Not till you tell me what the Indians call me.’ Dick looked for a moment embarrassed, and then his laugh rang out.

‘Ha! ha! ha! Well, Little Missy, I’ll tell you - they call you Pahoo-mounon-he-ka.’

‘And what does that mean?’ As she spoke Esse tried to keep down her flaming indignation. The very fact of her not knowing what the word or phrase meant intensified her feeling. Omne ignotum pro magnifico. Dick answered:

‘It means, “Nose-ghost”; so you see that even the Shoshonies, that haven’t had a nose-rag among them since Adam, noticed that you don’t use yours correctly.’

‘I presume that you mean a pocket-handkerchief by - by that - that vulgar phrase,’ said Esse tartly.

That’s so. But look here, Little Missy, since we’re on the trail, and we mean to run down the game this time - and since you kick - oh, yes, you do! Don’t I see it in every corner of your face! A man don’t learn woodcraft without gettin’ to notice little things like that! Let us wash up clean right here. Why do you always carry the noserag - excuse me little Missy, the pocket-handkerchief - rolled up in a ball when you’re not making a tent of it over your nose?’

‘I don’t do anything of the kind!’ said Esse indignantly, and again the tears of mortified vanity rose in her eyes. Dick laughed in a way that seemed more insulting and aggressive than ever as he slapped his thigh in the way that aggravated Esse more than anything else.

Wall, bust me if that doesn’t take the cake! Here is you denyin’ that; an’ all the time you’re a-holdin’ your nose-rag screwed up just the same as ever!’ Esse looked at her hand, and, seeing the handkerchief just as he had said, flung it on the ground as though it had been something noxious. Then, turning her back, she ran out of the glade, and went home.

An hour later she went back to the glade to get the handkerchief, but she could not find it; it had gone. From this little fact she felt that Miss Gimp could have woven a romance; and somehow it did not seem to her that it would have been quite ridiculous on the part of Miss Gimp.

Two days afterwards, Dick, in the midst of a conversation, suddenly stopped and handed her the handkerchief, neatly washed out and folded:

This belongs to you, Little Missy. You dropped it in the wood the other night when you ran away.’ Esse took it with a simple ‘thank you,’ but when she got home, she put it in the locked drawer where she kept her valuables of all sorts.

The constant habit of trying to conquer her old trick when Dick was present seemed in some way to make a subde kind of barrier between them. But it was in truth only a subtle barrier, and one that thought could overleap at will. The very existence of such a restraint raised the rough man in the girl’s eyes to a more important position, and blinded her to a thousand little roughnesses and coarsenesses which would have hourly offended her more cultured susceptibilities. This very lack of refinement on Dick’s part caused Esse many unhappy moments, for he seemed to fail to see that she was trying her best to rid herself of the ridiculous habit, and would often notice failures to which a more delicately minded person would have been wilfully blind. Thus, Esse soon grew to abandon the habit of covering her mouth and nose, but she still instinctively and unconsciously clung to the habit of rolling her handkerchief, and keeping it hidden in the hollow of her hand. But habits, be they never so trivial or ridiculous, have a hideous vitality of their own, and Esse soon found to her cost, that this unutterably trivial habit, which both the Indians and the trapper had noticed, had a tenacity denied to worthier things. She was often wounded to the quick when Dick, in his boisterous way would notice her resumption of her failing; but all the time this little trial was forming her character and developing that consciousness of effort which marks the border line between girl and woman. Once she was goaded into a retort - but such a retort as she had never dreamed of - when Dick had slapped his thigh, and with a Titanic peal of laughter remarked:

‘Wall, Little Missy, the Ghost is kep’ to home in the shanty today, but she’s sent the wean on the trail!’ She answered, with a certain soft appealing in her voice:

‘You needn’t be too hard on me, Dick. I am doing my best; but I can’t be quite perfect all at once.’ She had never in all her life been so sweetly womanly as at the moment, and even whilst she spoke she could not but feel that some change had taken place in her own nature. Dick seemed to realise this too, for off came his cap in a moment in apology, and he said with, for him, gravity:

‘Your pardon, Little Missy. Why, I wouldn’t pain you for all the world!’ Esse smiled, and held out her hand, which was by this time nearly as brown as his own, and said, in exact imitation of his style, ‘Shake!’ And so that breeze passed on its way and left the air clearer behind it.

In these days Miss Gimp was nursing a gentle melancholy, which was daily fostered on game, honey, and raw meat, which took their usual course on their allotted circle from Dick’s larder to Miss Gimp’s window-sill, thence, via her wardrobe, to the place of burial, and so back to the larder again. Heap Hungry was more than ever assiduous in his attentions to the parrot, and was maturing schemes of his own. Esse had now taken up her sketching, and having exhausted all the picturesque possibilities of the plateau, had begun to go further afoot in search of material to suit her fancy. Tired of the endless expanse, she now sought inclosed dells amidst the woods. She used to go about alone now, for her health had been completely restored by the bracing air, and the chemical qualities of the water, as the doctors had foretold. She sometimes took the dog with her, but not always; for the freedom of the mountain had somewhat demoralised it, and it took to hunting in miniature on its own account, instead of devoting itself solely to the wishes of its mistress. At first Miss Gimp used to accompany her, but Esse got so unutterably tired of her perpetual chattering, that by-and-by she began to make excuses to leave her at home. When she found that these, being naturally limited, began to be exhausted, she kept her away by making her own sketching tours to distant places. Miss Gimp knew when she was beaten in this respect, and after a time made no effort to accompany her. Esse had by this time, under Dick’s guidance, learned to shoot with a heavy revolver, which he insisted that she should always carry with her when out of sight of the house.

“Tain’t, Little Missy, that I’m afeard of any special harm; because if I’m put to it I can’t point out any as is likely to come. But in the forest everythin’ or anythin’ may be harmful, and you can’t be wrong anyhow in bein’ heeled proper! Some day or other you’ll find that very derringer of yourn the best friend you ever set eyes on. But even if ye don’t, wall! then the exercise of carryin’ it won’t do your muscles no harm!’ Mrs Elstree did not at first like the idea of Esse carrying firearms, but when she saw that she soon acquired a certain dexterity in their use she solaced herself with the thought that at any rate they meant protection.

One day Esse, straying further than usual down the steep side of the mountain, came to a spot which excited all her artistic admiration. The hot sun beat into a dell so well watered that even in the great heat the grass was as green as emerald, and there was about everything a semi-tropical luxuriance. There was a fallen tree, which served for a seat, and here, having unstrapped and mounted her portable easel, she began to make her sketch. There was a drowsy hum about the place, for these were regions of honey bees, and in the delightful solitude her thoughts took their most pleasant way, their central point being none other than the picturesque figure of Grizzly Dick. For two days she had not seen him, for he had gone out on a hunting expedition and had not yet returned. By-and-by the sweet drowsiness of the place overcame her; her hands and eyes relaxed from the intentness of their work, and with a gentle little sigh she slid from the log, and, half reclining against it, slept among the soft grass.

After a while she started, broad awake with that conviction upon her of some new presence, which shows that some of the senses at least guard us even during sleep. She realised that there was some physical stir going on around her, for the log against which she leaned was being shaken, and the sounds, as it was touched, were like sawing and hammering together. Her senses, only half aroused, had still something of the imaginative power of sleep; and even whilst she felt and listened there grew over her some strange feeling of uncanniness. Of one thing she was certain, that her surroundings were not those she was accustomed to, and all awake in a moment her heart began to beat strangely.

‘As one who on a lonesome road doth walk with fear and dread, And having once turned round he turns no more his head, Because he knows some frightful fiend doth close behind him tread.’

Esse felt herself gasping out the lines as, with instinctive caution, she turned her head round to see what was causing the disturbance. The sight which met her eyes might well have appalled the bravest. A great grizzly she-bear was tearing a honeycomb from the end of the log, whilst two tiny cubs sat on their haunches by her side. Esse’s brain began to throb. She could not think all at once, but her instinct was to remain still, and she obeyed it. Then she began to remember that to feign death is an artifice of the hunter, and she feared lest the bear should turn round, and, seeing her eyes open, would discover her secret, so she shut them close and waited.