Isobel (22 page)

His grief was deep. He knew that he could never forget, and that the
old memories of the wilderness and of the woman he had loved would
force themselves upon him, year after year, with their old pain. But
these new thoughts and plans for the child made his grief less
poignant.

It was late in the afternoon of a day that had been filled with
sunlight and the warmth of spring that he came to the Little Beaver, a
short distance above McTabb's cabin. He almost ran from there to the
clearing, and the sun was just sinking behind the forest in the west
when he paused on the edge of the break in the forest and saw the
cabin. It was from here that he had last seen little Isobel. The bush
behind which he had concealed himself was less than a dozen paces
away. He noticed this, and then he observed things which made his
heart sink in a strange, cold way. A path had led into the forest at
the point where he stood. Now it was almost obliterated by a tangle of
last year's weeds and plants. Rookie must have made a new path, he
thought. And then, fearfully, he looked about the clearing and at the
cabin. Everywhere there was the air of desolation. There was no smoke
rising from the chimney. The door was closed. There were no evidences
of life outside. Not the sound of a dog, of a laugh, or of a voice
broke the dead stillness.

Scarcely breathing, Billy advanced, his heart choked more and more by
the fear that gripped him. The door to the cabin was not barred. He
opened it. There was nothing inside. The old stove was broken. The
bare cots had not been used for months— perhaps for two years. As he
took another step an ermine scampered away ahead of him. He heard the
mouselike squeal of its young a moment later under the sapling floor.
He went back to the door and stood in the open.

"My God!" he moaned.

He looked in the direction of Couchée's cabin, where Isobel had died.
Was there a chance there, he wondered? There was little hope, but he
started quickly over the old trail. The gloom of evening fell swiftly
about him. It was almost dark when he reached the other clearing. And
again his voice broke in a groaning cry. There was no cabin here.
McTabb had burned it after the passing of the plague. Where it had
stood was now a black and charred mass, already partly covered by the
verdure of the wilderness. Billy gripped his hands hard and walked
back from it searchingly. A few steps away he found what McTabb had
told him that he would find, a mound and a sapling cross. And then, in
spite of all the fighting strength that was in him, he flung himself
down upon Isobel's grave, and a great, broken cry of grief burst from
his lips.

When he raised his head a long time afterward the stars were
shimmering in the sky. It was a wonderfully still night, and all that
he could hear was the ripple and song of the spring floods in the
Little Beaver. He rose silently to his feet and stood for a few
moments as motionless as a statue over the grave. Then he turned and
went back over the old trail, and from the edge of the clearing he
looked back and whispered to himself and to her:

"I'll come back for you, Isobel. I'll come back."

At McTabb's cabin he had left his pack. He put the straps over his
shoulder and started south again. There was but one move for him to
make now. McTabb was known at Le Pas. He got his supplies and sold his
furs there. Some one at Le Pas would know where he had gone with
little Isobel.

Not until he was several miles distant from the scene of death and his
own broken hopes did he spread out his blanket and lie down for the
night. He was up and had breakfast at dawn. On the fourth day he came
to the little wilderness outpost— the end of rail— on the
Saskatchewan. Within an hour he discovered that Rookie McTabb had not
been to Le Pas for nearly two years. No one had seen him with a child.
That same night a construction train was leaving for Etomami, down on
the main line, and Billy lost no time in making up his mind what he
would do. He would go to Montreal. If little Isobel was not there she
was still somewhere in the wilderness with McTabb. Then he would
return, and he would find her if it took him a lifetime.

Days and nights of travel followed, and during those days and nights
Billy prayed that he would not find her in Montreal. If by some chance
McTabb had discovered her relatives, if Isobel had revealed her secret
to him before she died, his last hope in life was gone. He did not
think of wasting time in the purchase of new clothes. That would have
meant the missing of a train. He still wore his wilderness outfit,
even to his fur cap. As he traveled farther eastward people began to
regard him curiously. He got the porter to shave off his beard. But
his hair was long. His moccasins and German socks were ragged and
torn, and there were rents in his caribou-skin coat and his heavy
Hudson's Bay sweater-shirt. The hardships he had gone through had left
their lines in his face. There was something about him, outside of his
strange attire, that made men look at him more than once. Women, more
keenly observant than the men, saw the deep-seated grief in his eyes.
As he approached Montreal he kept himself more and more aloof from the
others.

When at last the train came to a stop at the big station in the heart
of the city he walked through the gates and strode up the hill toward
Mount Royal. It was an hour or more past noon, and he had eaten
nothing since morning. But he had no thought of hunger. Twenty minutes
later he was at the foot of the street on which Isobel had told him
that she had lived. One by one he passed the old houses of brick and
stone, sheltered behind their solid walls. There had been no change in
the years since he had been there. Half-way up the hill to the base of
the mountain he saw an old gardener trimming ivy about an ancient
cannon near a driveway. He stopped and asked:

"Can you tell me where Geoffrey Renaud lives?"

The old gardener looked at him curiously for a moment without
speaking. Then he said:

"Renaud? Geoffrey Renaud? That is his house up there behind the
red-sandstone wall. Is it the house you want to see— or Renaud?"

"Both," said Billy.

"Geoffrey Renaud has been dead for three years," informed the
gardener. "Are you a— relative?"

"No, no," cried Billy, trying to keep his voice steady as he asked the
next question. "There are others there. Who are they?"

The old man shook his head.

"I don't know."

"There is a little girl there— four— five years old, with golden
hair—"

"She was playing in the garden when I came along a few moments ago,"
replied the gardener. "I heard her— with the dog—"

Billy waited to hear no more. Thanking his informant, he walked
swiftly up the hill to the red-sandstone wall. Before he came to the
rusted iron gate he, too, heard a child's laughter, and it set his
heart beating wildly. It was just over the wall. In his eagerness he
thrust the toe of his moccasined foot into a break in the stone and
drew himself up. He looked down into a great garden, and a dozen steps
away, close to a thick clump of shrubbery, he saw a child playing with
a little puppy. The sun gleamed in her golden hair. He heard her
joyous laughter; and then, for an instant, her face was turned toward
him.

In that moment he forgot everything, and with a great, glad cry he
drew himself up and sprang to the ground on the other side.

"Isobel— Isobel— my little Isobel!"

He was beside her, on his knees, with her in his hungry arms, and for
a brief space the child was so frightened that she held her breath and
stared at him without a sound.

"Don't you know me— don't you know me—" he almost sobbed. "Little
Mystery— Isobel—"

He heard a sound, a strange, stifled cry, and he looked up. From
behind the shrubbery there had come a woman, and she was staring at
Billy MacVeigh with a face as white as chalk. He staggered to his
feet, and he believed that at last he had gone mad. For it was the
vision of Isobel Deane that he saw there, and her blue eyes were
glowing at him as he had seen them for an instant that night a long
time ago on the edge of the Barren. He could not speak. And then, as
he staggered another step back toward the wall, he held out his ragged
arms, without knowing what he was doing, and called her name as he had
spoken it a hundred times at night beside his lonely campfires.
Starvation, his injury, weeks of illness, and his almost superhuman
struggle to reach McTabb's cabin, and after that civilization, had
consumed his last strength. For days he had lived on the reserve
forces of a nervous energy that slipped away from him now, leaving him
dizzy and swaying. He fought to overcome the weakness that seemed to
have taken the last ounce of strength from his exhausted body, but in
spite of his strongest efforts the sunlit garden suddenly darkened
before his eyes. In that moment the vision became real, and as he
turned toward the wall Isobel Deane called him by name; and in another
moment she was at his side, clutching him almost fiercely by the arms
and calling him by name over and over again. The weakness and
dizziness passed from him in a moment, but in that space he seemed
only to realize that he must get back— over the wall.

"I wouldn't have come— but— I— I— thought you were— dead," he
said. "They told me— you were dead. I'm glad— glad— but I wouldn't
have come—"

She felt the weight of him for an instant on her arm. She knew the
things that were in his face— starvation, pain, the signs of ravage
left behind by fever. In these moments Billy did not see the wonderful
look that had come into her own face or the wonderful glow in her
eyes.

"It was Indian Joe's mother who died," he heard her say. "And since
then we have been waiting— waiting— waiting— little Isobel and I. I
went away north, to David's grave, and I saw what you had done, and
what you had burned into the wood. Some day, I knew, you'd come back
to me. We've been waiting— for you—"

Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but Billy heard it; and all
at once his dizziness was gone, and he saw the sunlight shining in
Isobel's bright hair and the look in her face and eyes.

"I'm sorry— sorry— so sorry I said what I did— about you— killing
him," she went on. "You remember— I said that if I got well—"

"Yes—"

"And you thought I meant that if I got well you should go away— and
you promised— and kept your promise. But I couldn't finish. It didn't
seem right— then. I wanted to tell you— out there— that I was
sorry— and that if I got well you could come to me again— some day
somewhere— and then—"

"Isobel!"

"And now— you may tell me again what you told me out on the Barren—
a long time ago."

"Isobel— Isobel—"

"You understand"— she spoke softly— "you understand, it cannot
happen now— perhaps not for another year. But now"— she drew a
little nearer— "you may kiss me," she said. "And then you must kiss
little Isobel. And we don't want you to go very far away again. It's
lonely— terribly lonely all by ourselves in the city— and we're glad
you've come— so glad—"

Her voice broke to a sobbing whisper, and as Billy opened his great,
ragged arms and caught her to him he heard that whisper again, saying,
"We're glad— glad— glad you've come back to us."

"And I— may— stay?"

She raised her face, glorious in its welcome.

"If you want me— still."

At last he believed. But he could not speak. He bent his face to hers,
and for a moment they stood thus, while from behind the shrubbery came
the sound of little Isobel's joyous laughter.