Leave Her to Heaven (23 page)

Their home, Ruth and Ellen agreed, should be sold. It was much too big for Ruth alone, and they quickly found a buyer. Ruth was to give possession on the first of July, and since this meant they must make some disposition of the furniture, Ellen, as soon as she was strong enough, came one day to go over everything with Ruth. Many things would go to the auction rooms. A few pieces Ruth wished to keep for the small apartment into which she planned to move; but Ellen claimed nothing. Only in that upper room where she and her father had worked together did she hesitate; but then she said:

‘You'll have to do this room, Ruth. I can't bear to — see these things go. But of course they must.' Yet she elected to stay in that upper room for a while alone. ‘I guess I'm sentimental,' she confessed. ‘I want to stay and say good-bye to Father, all by myself.' When she joined Ruth downstairs, a few minutes later, she suggested that the museum might like some of the specimens, and Professor Berent's notes and papers, and Ruth promised to have a man come and select what he chose. The auctioneer could take the rest.

A week later Ruth moved to the Hotel Tarleton, not far from Harland's Chestnut Street home, to stay while she chose an apartment. She thought Harland and Ellen might wish to go to Bar Harbor for the summer, and dining with them a day or two later, she proposed this. Harland looked doubtfully at Ellen.

‘Would you like that?' he asked. It was the first time since the baby's death that Ruth had seen them together, and she could not blind herself to the change in their relationship. Ellen was outwardly as she had always been, but Harland showed no trace of tenderness.

‘No, no!' Ellen told him sharply. ‘No, I don't want to stay in any one place.' And she said wistfully: ‘I'd like to go back to New Mexico, but we can never go back, can we, Richard? Never recapture what was so perfect once.'

‘No, we can't go back,' he assented. ‘When a thing's done, it's done.'

His tone was sombre, and Ruth saw Ellen look at him with something desperate in her eyes. ‘No, we must do something exciting!' she cried. ‘Something we'll both enjoy.' Then, as though on sudden inspiration: ‘I know! Ruth, when we went through the house, I saw Father's fishing rods and things. Did you let them go?'

‘No,' Ruth assured her. ‘They're in storage. I kept all his personal things, and Mother's.'

Ellen spoke quickly. ‘Well, listen, Richard. There's a salmon river up in Canada that Father and I used to plan to fish, sometime. The Miminegouche. Darling, let's go there. Father and I found out all about it. We can take our canoes to a town on a lake at the headwaters and go downstream, fish as we go, trout and grilse at first, and then salmon. Father and I met a man in Newfoundland who had done it. He said the upper river's beautiful.' She went on, giving details, speaking more and more rapidly, in a rising animation. ‘We can take a week, or two weeks, or a month,' Ellen urged. ‘Oh, Richard, it would be wonderful!'

Harland hesitated. ‘I'm not sure you're well enough,' he objected. ‘Not sure you can stand it.' He looked at Ruth. ‘What do you think?' he asked.

Ellen said angrily: ‘You two! Don't you suppose I know what I can stand, Richard?' Then, before Ruth could speak, she cried in an eager tone: ‘I know! We'll take Ruth along! Then if I play out, she can take care of me. Not that I'm likely to. I'll be fit as can be, once I get away from here. Ruth, you'll be lonesome without us, with Mother gone. I think that's the perfect idea. We'll all go.'

Ruth laughed. ‘I'm no fisherwoman, Ellen.'

‘You'll learn! I caught a salmon the first day I fished.' She persuaded them with many urgencies, and Ruth thought she was like a teasing child, her eyes flashing from one of them to the other, alert for any sign of yielding in either, pouncing on the first hint of surrender, driving hard through the least breach in their defenses, winning her way as she always had.

Ruth let Harland make the decision. She saw deep weariness
in him, and it seemed to her that his need was greater than Ellen's. Ellen, even in anticipation, was stimulated, full of eagerness; and Harland in the end agreed for Ellen's sake. Ruth agreed for his.

They alighted from the train, one early morning in July, at a well-kept little station labelled Hazelgrove; and Leick — he had come ahead to secure guides — was waiting to meet them. Of the guides, one was a fair-haired, lean youngster whom Ruth guessed to be still in his teens and whose name was Tom Pickett. The other, older than Leick, was Simon Verity; a cheerful, small man with shoulders so heavy they seemed almost deformed. Both dwelt here in this village in the wilderness, and Jem Verity, through whom their services had been engaged, assured Harland they were good men.

‘Sime has been poaching deer and salmon down the river all his life,' he said, ‘and lumbering in the winter, and if he can't find you a few salmon, there ain't nobody can. Tom ain't so way wise, but he can handle a canoe and an axe, and he's a good camp cook, and he learns quick. Anything you want done, you tell him. He'll pick up the know-how in no time.' He added, like a good merchant: ‘I been over your outfit with Leick. Might be a few more things you'll need. I've got anything you've a mind to ask for, at the store.'

From the station, only a scattering farm or two was visible; but Jem's car took them to the village. The houses seemed to Ruth neat and attractive, bright in white paint, each with its cropped lawn; and most of them had flower beds that gave a splash of color. The presiding genius of the store was Mrs. Verity, an enormously fat woman with a merry, understanding eye, and Ruth liked her at once. Harland and the guides and Jem discussed their needs; and watching Harland speak with these men, Ruth saw that there was already a change in him. It had begun when they stepped off the train and the sweet scent of the dew-wetted
forest met their nostrils. He seemed suddenly at home.

After their purchases were made, Leick took Harland to secure licenses and forest permits, Ruth and Ellen waiting with the other guides at the wharf; but when Harland returned, the boatman who would run them down the lake had not appeared, and Harland and Jem Verity had to fetch him. Before they came back, the gear was loaded, the canoes harnessed for towing, and at once they were away.

In the motorboat bound down the lake, Ellen stood in the bow and Ruth and Harland sat in the stern; and Ruth asked many questions. How did people live, in a town like this: by farming? Hunting? Trapping? How many people were there in the village? What did their futures hold?

‘You're as full of questions as Mrs. Barrell, our boatman's wife,' he said, amused. ‘When Jem and I went to get him, she kept up a rapid fire as long as we were within hearing.'

‘I know how she feels.' Ruth smiled. ‘It must be terrible to be filled with lively curiosity — and at the same time to know everything about all your neighbors, so that there's nothing about which to be curious. Probably seeing someone she didn't know went to her head!'

Tom Pickett and Sime sat on the load of gear and sucked foul pipes in relaxed silence. Ellen stood beside Wes Barrell at the wheel, her head bare, her dark hair flying; but after a while she turned to watch Ruth and Harland and saw them laughing together. Ruth became conscious of her steady scrutiny and was uneasy under it, for no reason except that Ellen's eyes never left them. She rose at last to pick her way forward, and she asked Ellen:

‘Glad we're on our way?'

‘Of course.'

‘Did the train tire you?'

‘Heavens, no! I'm never tired except in cities.' And Ellen said: ‘You and Richard were having such a good time back there. I enjoyed watching you.'

‘I'd never seen at close range a little town like that one,' Ruth explained. ‘And he was telling me about it.'

Wes Barrell beside them grinned and said there was darned little to tell. ‘Nothing ever happens there,' he declared. ‘Drives my old woman crazy!'

Ruth began to ask him about his family, but she found herself presently answering questions rather than asking them; and Ellen left them together, going back to join Leick and Harland, who now in the stern were talking quietly.

When they reached the foot of the lake, the dam tender, an asthmatic old man who continually panted, like a dog on a hot day, came from his cabin to greet them. It was the driest June he could remember, he said; and Ruth, going with Harland and Ellen to look at the dam while the men built a luncheon fire, saw the stream bed almost completely bare. Leick joined them.

‘He's going to give us enough water to get down the first piece,' he reported. ‘It'll save us the carry, and the drive's over long ago, so he can spare the water.' He grinned. ‘The old man just stays here out of habit anyway. He don't have anyplace else to go.'

‘What does he live on?' Ruth asked. ‘I saw a little garden up by his cabin, but it's not enough to raise anything.'

‘That's just to fetch the deer around,' Leick explained. ‘Then he can shoot one, whenever he's a mind, to keep it from eating up his peas or whatever. He lives mostly on venison and pork and soda biscuits and potatoes.' He looked toward the fire where young Tom Pickett was tending to the cookery. ‘Thought I'd give the boy a chance,' he told Harland. ‘See what he can do.' And he said: ‘I figured Sime Verity would handle Miss Ruth's canoe. I'll take Mrs. Harland, let Tom paddle you.'

Ruth saw Harland's surprise. ‘It won't seem natural, not to be with you.'

‘Tom's no fisherman,' Leick explained. ‘But you can tell him what to do. Sime'll see to 't Miss Ruth gets her share, and I'll help Mrs. Harland all I can.'

So Harland assented, but when lunch was done and they turned to the canoes and he told Ellen the plan she objected. ‘You're used to Leick,' she pointed out. ‘You'll be miserable with anyone else.'

Ruth supported her for Harland's sake. ‘Yes,' she agreed. ‘Don't worry about me, Dick.'

‘It's Leick's idea,' Harland told them. ‘Let him run the show. Besides, we'll all be together.'

‘Not while we're fishing,' Ellen argued. ‘You and Leick can go off exploring together.' Ruth had a puzzled certainty that for some reason Ellen did not welcome the thought of long days alone with Leick. But Harland said decisively:

‘We'll try it his way. Sime knows the river, and I want Ruth to have good fishing.' He saw the canoes below them loaded and ready. ‘Come along,' he said, and led the way down the bank.

They took their appointed places, and when they were ready Wes Barrell and the dam keeper opened the sluices to give them a start, and watched them out of sight. Ruth and Sime led the way, and the wilderness received them.

They planned to travel slowly, and they stayed several days at their first camping-place a few miles below the dam. Ruth, after a night when she slept ill, began to enjoy to the full this new experience, this complete release from contact with the world. She found Sime Verity, during the long hours when he and she were alone on the river, a good companion. She led him to talk about himself, and he said he was married but childless.

‘We had one but it died,' he explained. ‘Never made out to have another.' His farm was a mile or so from the village. ‘I got everything planted before I left,' he told her. ‘The old woman will keep the weeds down till I come home.' He said Jem Verity was the business man of the town. ‘It takes a greasy dollar to get away from him,' he declared. ‘Once't he gets his hands on it. But Jem's all right. He's a real good man.'

She came to feel that Sime too was a real good man. He had a profound knowledge of every aspect of the wilderness, and he showed her many secret beauties which without his guidance she would not have seen. One day he took her up a tributary brook
to a beaver dam and tore out the dam, and they hid and waited till the beaver came to repair it. On another day when toward dusk they fished a wide pool below camp, two bank beaver played together along the waterside, going ashore to nibble bark from poplar twigs; and after his supper one of them sat up on his haunches like a squatting old man and washed his face and ears and forearms and his fat belly with such vigor that Ruth laughed aloud, so that he slipped reproachfully back into the water again and disappeared.

Sime was forever pointing out tracks along the bank: an otter slide, a muskrat's traces, the skeleton of a fish which a mink had eaten; and when she asked him about sounds heard in the silent nights, he imitated for her the whistle of a coon, the whining bark of a fox, the squealing of a porcupine, the whistle of a deer — sounding ridiculously like the whir of a salmon reel — which had scented you and wondered what you were. She came to love the still nights broken by faint forest sounds, and she often lay long awake, acutely listening. Sometimes she thought she did not sleep at all, yet she always woke rested and fresh.

There were three tents, a large one which Ruth and Ellen shared, and two smaller. Leick and Harland slept in one, and Ruth sometimes heard their low voices as they talked together long after she had gone to bed. Tom and Sime had the other. Tom was the down of the party, full of a boyish pleasure in this expedition. Sime had a quiet humor and an easy smile, but when Tom laughed, the woods rang; and if Harland took a good fish the boy's shout of delight sent the news broadcast up and down the river. Sime said Tom was to be married upon his return. Going to marry Alice Morrow,' he explained. ‘That's why he's feeling so good.' Ruth one day led Tom to talk about Alice; but after painfully admitting that she was a nice girl, he lapsed into red and grinning confusion.

They caught at first only trout, small eager fish fit for the pan; but when later they moved downstream the river assumed more substantial proportions and they took many grilse, and then some salmon, keeping only the grilse to eat. Tom usually split them
and broiled them with wild onions for garnishing; but Leick one night seared three fish in hot grease and then baked them in the reflector oven with slices of onion and strips of salt pork for flavoring, and Ruth thought she had never tasted anything so delicious.

She found new reason every day to appreciate Leick's qualities. Till now she had seen him only when he came to Bar Harbor on some errand from Back of the Moon. She liked his obvious loyalty to Harland. In camp, these two forever drew together; and she thought Leick watched over Harland as a proud father watches over a child. He was equally scrupulous in serving Ellen, but there was a difference which Ruth tried to analyze. Sometimes she saw him watching the other girl with eyes she could not read, and she sensed a steady vigilance in him.

Ruth was disturbed by what she saw of the relationship between Harland and Ellen. The constraint between them was clearly Harland's doing. It was he who had insisted, on the train, that Ruth and Ellen should take the drawing room while he occupied a lower berth in the same car. Here on the river, if they finished dinner while the light still held, Ellen sometimes led him to the canoes and persuaded him to take her to try the near-by waters, leaving the guides behind. On such occasions Leick's eyes were apt to follow them, and if they went out of sight down river or up, he was ill at ease till they returned. If they fished near, Ruth could sometimes hear the murmur of Ellen's voice, and Harland's brief replies; but when they returned they came silently. Sometimes if Harland drew apart alone, Ellen went to him; but Ruth, watching from a distance these two whom she loved saw that Harland did not welcome her. In the morning when they met, and before parting for the night, Ellen might kiss him; but his response was half-hearted, lacking any warmth at all.

So though on the surface their days were pleasant ones, there was an undercurrent of tension. Ruth came to recognize, too, that the guides were uneasy, for reasons of their own. Sime every day commented on the low water, the continued dry weather; and he and the others took pains to extinguish every spark of fire.
Once, smoking a cigarette after she and Sime had lunched beside the river, she finished it and tossed the butt toward the water and it fell short. Sime went to stamp it out, and she said: ‘I'm sorry.'

‘It's all right,' he assured her. ‘We get in the habit, that's all. Specially a summer as dry as this. Fire ever get started in the woods the way they are, and there'd be no stopping it.'

Second-growth spruce as dry as tinder clothed the steep hillsides to the water's edge. ‘I'd hate to see these woods burn up,' she agreed.

‘You wouldn't want to,' he assured her. ‘It'd be bad.'