The Hidden Places Read online

  CHAPTER II

  When Hollister was eighteen years old he had been briefly troubled byan affliction of his eyes brought on from overstudy. His father, atthe time, was interested in certain timber operations on the coast ofBritish Columbia. In these rude camps, therefore, young Hollisterspent a year. During that twelve months books were prohibited. Helived in the woods, restored the strength of his eyes amid thatrestful greenness, hardened a naturally vigorous body by healthy,outdoor labor with the logging crews. He returned home to go on withhis University work in eastern Canada with unforgettable impressionsof the Pacific coast, a boyish longing to go back to that region wherethe mountains receded from the sea in wave after wave of enormousheight, where the sea lapped with green lips at the foot of the rangesand thrust winding arms back into the very heart of the land, andwhere the land itself, delta and slope and slide-engraved declivities,was clothed with great, silent forests, upon which man, with his axesand saws, his machinery, his destructiveness in the name of industry,had as yet made little more impression than the nibbling of a singlemouse on the rim of a large cheese.

  When he graduated he did return on a thirty-days' vacation, which thelure of the semi-wild country prolonged for six months,--a wholesummer in which he resisted the importunities of his father to takehis part in the business upon which rested the family fortune.Hollister never forgot that summer. He was young. He had no cares. Hewas free. All life spread before him in a vast illusion ofunquestionable joyousness. There was a rose-pink tinge over thesemonths in which he fished salmon and trout, climbed the frowningescarpments of the Coast Range, gave himself up to the spell of aregion which is still potent with the charm of the wilderness untamed.There had always lingered in his receptive mind a memory of profoundbeauty, a stark beauty of color and outline, an unhampered freedom,opportunity as vast as the mountains that looked from their coolheights down on the changeful sea and the hushed forests, brooding inthe sun and rain.

  So he had come back again, after seven years, scarcely knowing why hecame, except that the coast beckoned with a remote gesture, and thathe desired to get as far as possible from the charnel house of Europe,and that he shrank from presenting himself among the acquaintances ofhis boyhood and the few distant relatives left him upon the Atlanticseaboard.

  His father died shortly after Hollister married. He had left his sonproperty aggregating several thousand dollars and a complicatedtimber business disorganized by his sudden death. Hollister wasyoung, sanguine, clever in the accepted sense of cleverness. He hadmarried for love,--urged thereto by a headlong, unquestioning,uncritical passion. But there were no obstacles. His passion wasreturned. There was nothing to make him ponder upon what adevastating, tyrannical force this emotion which he knew as love mightbecome, this blind fever of the blood under cover of which natureworks her ends, blandly indifferent to the consequences.

  Hollister was happy. He was ambitious. He threw himself with energyinto a revival of his father's business when it came into his hands.His needs expanded with his matrimonial obligations. Consideredcasually--which was chiefly the manner of his consideration--hisfuture was the future of a great many young men who begin life underreasonably auspicious circumstances. That is to say, he would be asuccess financially and socially to as great an extent as he cared toaspire. He would acquire wealth and an expanding influence in hiscommunity. He would lead a tolerably pleasant domestic existence. Hewould be proud of his wife's beauty, her charm; he would derive asoothing contentment from her affection. He would take pleasure infriendships. In the end, of course, at some far-off, misty mile-post,he would begin to grow old. Then he would die in a dignified manner,full of years and honors, and his children would carry on after him.

  Hollister failed to reckon with the suavities of internationaldiplomacy, with the forces of commercialism in relation to the marketsof the world.

  The war burst upon and shattered the placidity of his existence verymuch as the bombs from the first Zeppelins shattered the peace andsecurity of London and Paris.

  He reacted to the impetus of the German assault as young men of hisclass uniformly reacted. There was in Hollister's mind no doubt orequivocation about what he must do. But he did not embark upon thisadventure joyously. He could not help weighing the chances. Heunderstood that in this day and age he was a fortunate man. He had agreat deal to lose. But he felt that he must go. He was not, however,filled with the witless idea that service with the Expeditionary Forcewas to be an adventure of some few months, a brief period involvingsome hardships and sharp fighting, but with an Allied Army hammeringat the gates of Berlin as a grand finale. The slaughter of the firstencounters filled him with the conviction that he should put his housein order before he entered that bloody arena out of which he might notemerge.

  So that when he crossed the Channel the first time he had disentangledhimself from his business at a great loss, in order to have all hisfunds available for his wife in case of the ultimate disaster.

  Myra accompanied him to England, deferred their separation to the lasthour. They could well afford that concession to their affection, theytold each other. It was so hard to part.

  It scarcely seemed possible that four years had gone winging by sincethen, yet in certain moods it seemed to Hollister as if an eternityhad passed. Things had been thus and so; they had become different byagonizing processes.

  He did not know where Myra was. He, himself, was here in Vancouver,alone, a stranger, a single speck of human wreckage cast on a farbeach by the receding tides of war. He had no funds worth considering,but money was not as yet an item of consideration. He was notdisabled. Physically he was more fit than he had ever been. Thedelicate mechanism of his brain was unimpaired. He had nobitterness--no illusions. His intellect was acute enough to suggestthat in the complete shucking off of illusions lay his greatest peril.Life, as it faced him, the individual, appeared to be almost too grima business to be endured without hopes and dreams. He had neither. Hehad nothing but moods.

  He walked slowly down Granville Street in the blackest mood which hadyet come upon him. It differed from that strange feeling of terrorwhich had taken him unaware the night before. He had fallen easy preythen to the black shadows of forlornness. He was still as acutelyaware of the barrier which his disfigurement raised between him andother men. But with that morbid awareness there rose also now, for thefirst time, resentment against the smug folk who glanced at him andhurriedly averted their eyes. Slowly, by imperceptible degrees, as thetide rises on a sloping shore, his anger rose.

  The day was cold and sunny, a January morning with a touch of frost inthe air. Men passed him, walking rapidly, clad in greatcoats. Womentripped by, wrapped in furs, eyes bright, cheeks glowing. And as theypassed, singly, in chattering pairs, in smiling groups, Hollisterobserved them with a growing fury. They were so thoroughly insulatedagainst everything disagreeable. All of them. A great war had justcome to a dramatic close, a war in which staggering numbers of men hadbeen sacrificed, body and soul, to enable these people to walk thestreets in comfortable security. They seemed so completely unaware ofthe significance of his disfigured face. It was simply a disagreeablespectacle from which they turned with brief annoyance.

  Most of these men and women honored the flag. In a theater, at anypublic gathering, a display of the national colors caused the men tobare reverently their heads, the women to clap their hands withdecorous enthusiasm. Without doubt they were all agreed that it was asacred duty to fight for one's country. How peculiar and illogicalthen, he reflected, to be horrified at the visible results of fightingfor one's country, of saving the world for democracy. The thing hadhad to be done. A great many men had been killed. A great number hadlost their legs, their arms, their sight. They had sufferedindescribable mutilations and disabilities in the national defense.These people were the nation. Those who passed him with a shockedglance at his face must be aware that fighting involves suffering andscars. It appeared as if they wished to ignore that. The inevitableconsequences of war annoyed them,
disturbed them, when they came faceto face with those consequences.

  Hollister imagined them privately thinking he should wear a mask.

  After all, he was a stranger to these folk, although he was theircountryman and a person of consequence until the war and Myra andcircumstances conspired against him.

  He stifled the resentment which arose from a realization that he mustexpect nothing else, that it was not injustice so much as stupidity.He reflected that this was natural. A cynical conclusion arose in hismind. There was no substance, after all, in this loose talk aboutsympathy and gratitude and the obligation of a proud country to thosewho had served overseas. Why should there be? He was an individualamong other individuals who were unconsciously actuated by rampantindividualism except in moments of peril, when stark necessitycompelled them to social action. Otherwise it was every man forhimself. Yes, it was natural enough. He _was_ a stranger to thesepeople. Except for the color of his skin, he was no more to them thana Hindoo or a Japanese. And doubtless the grotesque disarrangement ofhis features appalled them. How could they discern behind thatcaricature of a face the human desire for friendliness, the ache of abruised spirit?

  He deliberately clamped down the lid upon such reflections andbethought himself of the business which brought him along the street.Turning off the main thoroughfare, he passed half a block along across street and entered an office building. Ascending to the fourthfloor, he entered an elaborate suite of offices which bore upon theground glass of the entrance door this legend:

  LEWIS AND COMPANY

  SPECIALISTS IN B.C. TIMBER. INVESTMENTS

  He inquired for Mr. Lewis, gave his card to a young woman who glancedat him once and thereafter looked anywhere but at him while he spoke.After a minute of waiting he was ushered into a private office. As heneared this door, Hollister happened to catch a panoramic glimpse in awall mirror. The eyes of half a dozen clerks and other persons in thatroom, both male and female, were fixed on him with the shocked andeager curiosity he had once observed upon the faces of a crowdgathered about the mangled victim of a street accident.

  Mr. Lewis was a robust man, a few years older than Hollister. Thecares of a rapidly developing business and certain domestic ties hadprevented Mr. Lewis from offering himself upon the altar of hiscountry. The responsibility of eight per cent. investments entrustedto his care was not easily shaken off. Business, of course, was anational necessity. However, since the armistice, Mr. Lewis had ceasedto be either explanatory or inferentially apologetic--even in his ownthought--for his inability to free himself from the demands ofcommerce during a critical period.

  In any case he was there, sound in wind and limb, a tall,square-shouldered, ruddy man of thirty-five, seated behind an oakdesk, turning Hollister's card over in his fingers with ananticipatory smile. Blankness replaced the smile. A sort of horrifiedwonder gleamed in his eyes. Hollister perceived that his face shockedthe specialist in B.C. timber, filled Mr. Lewis with very mixedsensations indeed.

  "You have my card. It is several years since we met. I dare say youfind me unrecognizable," Hollister said bluntly. "Nevertheless I canidentify myself to your satisfaction."

  A peculiarity of Hollister's disfigurement was the immobility of hisface. The shell which had mutilated him, the scalpels of the Germanfield surgeons who had perfunctorily repaired the lacerations, hadleft the reddened, scar-distorted flesh in a rigid mold. He couldneither recognizably smile nor frown. His face, such as it was, wasset in unchangeable lines. Out of this rigid, expressionless mask hiseyes glowed, blue and bright, having escaped injury. They were theonly key to the mutations of his mind. If Hollister's eyes were thewindows of his soul, he did not keep the blinds drawn, knowing thatfew had the hardihood to peer into those windows now.

  Mr. Lewis looked at him, looked away, and then his gaze came slowlyback as if drawn by some fascination against which he struggled invain. He did not wish to look at Hollister. Yet he was compelled tolook. He seemed to find difficulty in speech, this suave man ofaffairs.

  "I'm afraid I shouldn't have recognized you, as you say," he uttered,at last. "Have you--ah----"

  "I've been overseas," Hollister answered the unspoken question. Thatstrange curiosity, tinctured with repulsion! "The result is obvious."

  "Most unfortunate," Mr. Lewis murmured. "But your scars are honorable.A brother of mine lost an arm at Loos."

  "The brothers of a good many people lost more than their arms atLoos," Hollister returned dryly. "But that is not why I called. Yourecollect, I suppose, that when I was out here last I bought a timberlimit in the Toba from your firm. When I went overseas I instructedyou to sell. What was done in that matter?"

  Mr. Lewis' countenance cleared at once. He was on his own groundagain, dealing with matters in which he was competent, in consultationwith a client whom he recalled as a person of consequence, the son ofa man who had likewise been of considerable consequence. Personalundesirability was always discounted in the investment field, theregion of percentum returns. Money talked, in arrogant tones thatcommanded respect.

  He pressed a button.

  "Bring me," he ordered the clerk who appeared, "all correspondencerelating to this matter," and he penciled a few sentences on a slip ofpaper.

  He delved into the papers that were presently set before him.

  "Ah, yes," he said. "Lot 2027 situated on the south slope of the TobaValley. Purchased for your account July, 1912. Sale ordered October,1914. We had some correspondence about that early in 1915, while youwere in London. Do you recall it, Mr. Hollister?"

  "Yes. You wrote that the timber market was dead, that any salepossible must be at a considerable sacrifice. Afterward, when I got tothe front, I had no time to think about things like that. But Iremember writing you to sell, even at a sacrifice."

  "Yes, yes. Quite so," Mr. Lewis agreed. "I recall the whole mattervery clearly. Conditions at that time were very bad, you know. It wasimpossible to find a purchaser on short notice. Early in 1917 therewas a chance to sell, at a considerably reduced figure. But I couldn'tget in touch with you. You didn't answer our cable. I couldn't takethe responsibility of a sacrifice sale."

  Hollister nodded. In 1917 he was a nameless convalescent in a Germanhospital; officially he was dead. Months before that such things asdistant property rights had ceased to be of any moment. He hadforgotten this holding of timber in British Columbia. He was too fullof bitter personal misery to trouble about money.

  "Failing to reach you we waited until we should hear from you--or fromyour estate." Mr. Lewis cleared his throat as if it embarrassed him tomention that contingency. "In war--there was that possibility, youunderstand. We did not feel justified; so much time had elapsed. Therewas risk to us in acting without verifying our instructions."

  "So this property is still to be marketed. The carrying charges, as Iremember, were small. I presume you carried them."

  "Oh, assuredly," Mr. Lewis asserted. "We protected your interests tothe very best of our ability."

  "Well, find me a buyer for that limit as soon as you can," Hollistersaid abruptly. "I want to turn it into cash."

  "We shall set about this at once," Mr. Lewis said. "It may take alittle time--conditions, as a result of the armistice, are againsomewhat unsettled in the logging industry. Airplane spruce productionis dead--dead as a salt mackerel--and fir and cedar slumped with it.However we shall do our best. Have you a price in mind, Mr.Hollister, for a quick sale?"

  "I paid ten thousand for it. On the strength of your advice as aspecialist in timber investments," he added with a touch of malice. Hehad taken a dislike to Mr. Lewis. He had not been so critical ofeither men or motives in the old days. He had remembered Lewis as agood sort. Now he disliked the man, distrusted him. He was too smooth,too sleek. "I'll discount that twenty percent, for a cash sale."

  Mr. Lewis made a memorandum.

  "Very good," said he, raising his head with an inquiring air, as if tosay "If that is all----"

  "If you will kindly identify me at
a bank,"--Hollister rose from hischair, "I shall cease to trouble you. I have a draft on the Bank ofB.N.A. I do not know any one in Vancouver."

  "No trouble, I assure you," Lewis hastened to assent, but his tonelacked heartiness, sincerity.

  It was only a little distance to the bank, but Lewis insisted onmaking the journey in a motorcar which stood at the curb. It was plainto Hollister that Mr. Lewis disliked the necessity of appearing inpublic with him, that he took this means of avoiding the crowdedsidewalks, of meeting people. He introduced Hollister, excused himselfon the plea of business pressure, and left Hollister standing beforethe teller's wicket.

  This was not a new attitude to Hollister. People did that,--as if hewere a plague. There came into his mind--as he stood counting thesheaf of notes slide through a grill by a teller who looked at himonce and thereafter kept his eyes averted--a paraphrase of a hoaryquotation, "I am a monster of such frightful mien, as to be hatedneeds but to be seen." The rest of it, Hollister thought grimly, couldnever apply to him.

  He put the money in his pocket and walked out on the street. It was abusy corner on a humming thoroughfare. Electric cars rumbled andcreaked one behind another on the double tracks. Waves of vehiculartraffic rolled by the curb. A current of humanity flowed past him onthe sidewalk.

  Standing there for a minute, Hollister felt again the slow rising ofhis resentment against these careless, fortunate ones. He could notsay what caused that feeling. A look, a glance,--the inevitableshrinking. He was morbidly sensitive. He knew that, knew it was astate of mind that was growing upon him. But from whatever cause, thatfeeling of intolerable isolation gave way to an inner fury.

  As he stood there, he felt a wild desire to shout at these people, tocurse them, to seize one of these dainty women by the arms, thrust hisdisfigured face close to hers and cry: "Look at me as if I were a man,not a monstrosity. I'm what I am so that you could be what you are.Look at me, damn you!"

  He pulled himself together and walked on. Certainly he would soon runamuck if he did not get over feeling like that, if he did not masterthese impulses which bordered on insanity. He wondered if that innerferment would drive him insane.

  He went back to the second-rate hotel where he had taken refuge,depressed beyond words, afraid of himself, afraid of the life whichlay in fragments behind him and spread away before him in terrifyingdrabness. Yet he must go on living. To live was the dominant instinct.A man did not put on or off the desire to live as he put on or off hiscoat. But life promised nothing. It was going to be a sorry affair. Itstruck Hollister with disheartening force that an individual isnothing--absolutely nothing--apart from some form of social grouping.And society, which had exacted so much from him, seemed peculiarlyindifferent to the consequences of those imperative exactions, seemedwholly indifferent to his vital need.

  And it was not reward or recognition of service performed thatHollister craved. He did not want to be pensioned or subsidized or tohave medals pinned on him. What he wanted was chiefly to forget thewar and what the war had visited upon him and others like him.Hollister suffered solely from that sense of being held outside thewarm circle of human activities, fellowships, friendliness. If hecould not overcome that barrier which people threw up aroundthemselves at contact with him, if he could not occasionally know thesound of a friendly voice, he felt that he would very soon go mad. Aman cannot go on forever enduring the pressure of the intolerable.Hollister felt that he must soon arrive at a crisis. What form itwould take he did not know, and in certain moods he did not care.

  On the landing at the end of the narrow corridor off which his roomopened he met a man in uniform whom he recognized,--a young man whohad served under him in the Forty-fourth, who had won a commission onthe field. He wore a captain's insignia now. Hollister greeted him byname.

  "Hello, Tommy."

  The captain looked at him. His face expressed nothing whatever.Hollister waited for that familiar shadow of distaste to appear. Thenhe remembered that, like himself, Rutherford must have seen thousandsupon thousands of horribly mutilated men.

  "Your voice," Rutherford remarked at length, "has a certain familiarsound. Still, I can't say I know you. What's the name?"

  "Bob Hollister. Do you remember the bottle of Scotch we pinched fromthe Black Major behind the brick wall on the Albert Road? Naturallyyou wouldn't know me--with this face."

  "Well," Rutherford said, as he held out his hand, "a fellow shouldn'tbe surprised at anything any more. I understood you'd gone west. Yourface _is_ mussed up a bit. Rotten luck, eh?"

  Hollister felt a lump in his throat. It was the first time for monthsthat any human being had met him on common ground. He experienced awarm feeling for Rutherford. And the curious thing about that was thatout of the realm of the subconscious rose instantly the remembrancethat he had never particularly liked Tommy Rutherford. He was one ofthe wild men of the battalion. When they went up the line Rutherfordwas damnably cool and efficient, a fatalist who went about his grimbusiness unmoved. Back in rest billets he was always pursuing somewoman, unearthing surplus stores of whisky or wine, intent upondubious pleasures,--a handsome, self-centered debonair animal.

  "My room's down here," Hollister said. "Come in and gas a bit--if youaren't bound somewhere."

  "Oh, all right. I came up here to see a chap, but he's out. I havehalf an hour or so to spare."

  Rutherford stretched himself on Hollister's bed. They lit cigarettesand talked. And as they talked, Rutherford kept looking at Hollister'sface, until Hollister at last said to him:

  "Doesn't it give you the willies to look at me?"

  Rutherford shook his head.

  "Oh, no. I've got used to seeing fellows all twisted out of shape. Youseem to be fit enough otherwise."

  "I am," Hollister said moodily. "But it's a devil of a handicap tohave a mug like this."

  "Makes people shy off, eh? Women particularly. I can imagine,"Rutherford drawled. "Tough luck, all right. People don't take verymuch stock in fellows that got smashed. Not much of a premium ondisfigured heroes these days."

  Hollister laughed harshly.

  "No. We're at a discount. We're duds."

  For half an hour they chatted more or less one-sidedly. Rutherford hada grievance which he took pains to air. He was on duty at HastingsPark, having been sent there a year earlier to instruct recruits,after recovering from a wound. He was the military man par excellence.War was his game. He had been anxious to go to Siberia with theCanadian contingent which had just departed. And the High Command hadretained him here to assist in the inglorious routine ofdemobilization. Rutherford was disgruntled. Siberia had promised newadventure, change, excitement.

  The man, Hollister soon perceived, was actually sorry the war wasover, sorry that his occupation was gone. He talked of resigning andgoing to Mexico, to offer his sword to whichever proved the strongerfaction. It would be a picnic after the Western Front. A man couldwhip a brigade of those greasers into shape and become a power. Thereought to be good chances for loot.

  Yet Hollister enjoyed his company. Rutherford was genial. He was thefirst man for long to accept Hollister as a human being. He promisedto look Hollister up again before he went away.

  The world actually seemed cheerful to Hollister, after Rutherford hadgone,--until in moving about the room he caught sight of his face inthe mirror.