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Four Winds
by
As the thought crossed Alan’s mind the girl turned, with an air of indifference that might have seemed slightly overdone to a calmer observer than was the young minister at that moment and, with a gesture of command to her dogs, walked quickly away into the scrub spruces. She was so tall that her uncovered head was visible over them as she followed some winding footpath, and Alan stood like a man rooted to the ground until he saw her enter the grey house. Then he went homeward in a maze, all thought of sermons, doctrinal or otherwise, for the moment knocked out of his head.
She is the most beautiful woman I ever saw, he thought. How is it possible that I have lived in Rexton for six months and never heard of her or of that house? Well, I daresay there’s some simple explanation of it all. The place may have been unoccupied until lately–probably it is the summer residence of people who have only recently come to it. I’ll ask Mrs. Danby. She’ll know if anybody will. That good woman knows everything about everybody in Rexton for three generations back.
Alan found Isabel King with his housekeeper when he got home. His greeting was tinged with a slight constraint. He was not a vain man, but he could not help knowing that Isabel looked upon him with a favour that had in it much more than professional interest. Isabel herself showed it with sufficient distinctness. Moreover, he felt a certain personal dislike of her and of her hard, insistent beauty, which seemed harder and more insistent than ever contrasted with his recollection of the girl of the lake shore.
Isabel had a trick of coming to the manse on plausible errands to Mrs. Danby and lingering until it was so dark that Alan was in courtesy bound to see her home. The ruse was a little too patent and amused Alan, although he carefully hid his amusement and treated Isabel with the fine unvarying deference which his mother had engrained into him for womanhood–a deference that flattered Isabel even while it annoyed her with the sense of a barrier which she could not break down or pass. She was the daughter of the richest man in Rexton and inclined to give herself airs on that account, but Alan’s gentle indifference always brought home to her an unwelcome feeling of inferiority.
“You’ve been tiring yourself out again tramping that lake shore, I suppose,” said Mrs. Danby, who had kept house for three bachelor ministers and consequently felt entitled to hector them in a somewhat maternal fashion.
“Not tiring myself–resting and refreshing myself rather,” smiled Alan. “I was tired when I went out but now I feel like a strong man rejoicing to run a race. By the way, Mrs. Danby, who lives in that quaint old house away down at the very shore? I never knew of its existence before.”
Alan’s “by the way” was not quite so indifferent as he tried to make it. Isabel King, leaning back posingly among the cushions of the lounge, sat quickly up as he asked his question.
“Dear me, you don’t mean to say you’ve never heard of Captain Anthony–Captain Anthony Oliver?” said Mrs. Danby. “He lives down there at Four Winds, as they call it–he and his daughter and an old cousin.”
Isabel King bent forward, her brown eyes on Alan’s face.
“Did you see Lynde Oliver?” she asked with suppressed eagerness.
Alan ignored the question–perhaps he did not hear it.
“Have they lived there long?” he asked.
“For eighteen years,” said Mrs. Danby placidly. “It’s funny you haven’t heard them mentioned. But people don’t talk much about the Captain now–he’s an old story–and of course they never go anywhere, not even to church. The Captain is a rank infidel and they say his daughter is just as bad. To be sure, nobody knows much about her, but it stands to reason that a girl who’s had her bringing up must be odd, to say no worse of her. It’s not really her fault, I suppose–her wicked old scalawag of a father is to blame for it. She’s never darkened a church or school door in her life and they say she’s always been a regular tomboy–running wild outdoors with dogs, and fishing and shooting like a man. Nobody ever goes there–the Captain doesn’t want visitors. He must have done something dreadful in his time, if it was only known, when he’s so set on living like a hermit away down on that jumping-off place. Did you see any of them?”