by Bret Harte
CHAPTER III.
It was a week later that Madison Wayne and Mr. McGee were seen, to theastonishment of the Bar, leisurely walking together in the direction ofthe promontory. Here they disappeared, entering a damp fringe of willowsand laurels that seemed to mark its limits, and gradually ascending somethickly-wooded trail, until they reached its crest, which, to Madison'ssurprise, was cleared and open, and showed an acre or two of rudecultivation. Here, too, stood the McGees' conjugal home--a small,four-roomed house, but so peculiar and foreign in aspect that it atonce challenged even Madison's abstracted attention. It was a tiny Swisschalet, built in sections, and originally packed in cases, one of theearly importations from Europe to California after the gold discovery,when the country was supposed to be a woodless wilderness. Mr. McGeeexplained, with his usual laborious care, how he had bought it atMarysville, not only for its picturesqueness, but because in itsunsuggestive packing-cases it offered no indication to the curiousminers, and could be put up by himself and a single uncommunicativeChinaman, without any one else being aware of its existence. There was,indeed, something quaint in this fragment of Old World handicraft, withits smooth-jointed paneling, in two colors, its little lozenge fretwork,its lapped roof, overhanging eaves, and miniature gallery. Inartisticas Madison was--like most men of rigidly rectangular mind andprinciple--and accustomed to the bleak and economic sufficiency of theCalifornian miner's cabin, he was touched strangely by its novel graceand freshness. It reminded him of HER; he had a new respect for thisrough, sinful man who had thus idealized his wife in her dwelling.Already a few Madeira vines and a Cherokee rose clambered up thegallery. And here Mrs. McGee was sitting.
In the face that she turned upon the two men Madison could see that shewas not expecting them, and even in the slight curiosity with whichshe glanced at her husband, that evidently he had said nothing of hisprevious visit or invitation. And this conviction became certainty atMr. McGee's first words.
"I've brought you an ole friend, Safie. He used to spark ye once atAngel's afore my time--he told me so; he picked ye outer the waterhere--he told me that, too. Ye mind that I said afore that he was theonly man I wanted ter know; I reckon now it seems the square thing thathe should be the one man YOU wanted ter know, too. You understand what Imean--you follow me, don't you?"
Whether or not Mrs. McGee DID follow him, she exhibited neither concern,solicitude, nor the least embarrassment. An experienced lover might haveaugured ill from this total absence of self-consciousness. But Madisonwas not an experienced lover. He accepted her amused smile as arecognition of his feelings, trembled at the touch of her cool hands,as if it had been a warm pressure, and scarcely dared to meet hermaliciously laughing eyes. When he had followed Mr. McGee to the littlegallery, the previous occupation of Mrs. McGee when they arrived wasexplained. From that slight elevation there was a perfect view over thewhole landscape and river below; the Bar stretched out as a map at herfeet; in that clear, transparent air she could see every movement andgesture of Wayne's brother, all unconscious of that surveillance, atwork on the Bar. For an instant Madison's sallow cheek reddened, he knewnot why; a remorseful feeling that he ought to be there with Arthur cameover him. Mrs. McGee's voice seemed to answer his thought. "You can seeeverything that's going on down there without being seen yourself. It'sgood fun for me sometimes. The other day I saw that young Carpenterhanging round Mrs. Rogers's cabin in the bush when old Rogers was away.And I saw her creep out and join him, never thinking any one could seeher!"
She laughed, seeking Madison's averted eyes, yet scarcely noticing hissuddenly contracted brows. Mr. McGee alone responded.
"That's why," he said, explanatorily, to Madison, "I don't allow to havemy Safie go round with those women. Not as I ever see anything o'that sort goin' on, or keer to look, but on gin'ral principles. Youunderstand what I mean."
"That's your brother over there, isn't it?" said Mrs. McGee, turning toMadison and calmly ignoring her husband's explanation, as she indicatedthe distant Arthur. "Why didn't you bring him along with you?"
Madison hesitated, and looked at McGee. "He wasn't asked," said thatgentleman cheerfully. "One's company, two's none! You don't know him,my dear; and this yer ain't a gin'ral invitation to the Bar. You followme?"
To this Mrs. McGee made no comment, but proceeded to show Madison overthe little cottage. Yet in a narrow passage she managed to touch hishand, lingered to let her husband precede them from one room to another,and once or twice looked meaningly into his eyes over McGee's shoulder.Disconcerted and embarrassed, he tried to utter a few commonplaces, butso constrainedly that even McGee presently noticed it. And the resultwas still more embarrassing.
"Look yer," he said, suddenly turning to them both. "I reckon as how youtwo wanter talk over old times, and I'll just meander over to the claim,and do a spell o' work. Don't mind ME. And if HE"--indicating Madisonwith his finger--"gets on ter religion, don't you mind him. It won'thurt you, Safie,--no more nor my revolver,--but it's pow'ful persuadin',and you understand me? You follow me? Well, so long!"
He turned away quickly, and was presently lost among the trees. For aninstant the embarrassed Madison thought of following him; but he wasconfronted by Mrs. McGee's wicked eyes and smiling face between himand the door. Composing herself, however, with a simulation of perfectgravity she pointed to a chair.
"Sit down, Brother Wayne. If you're going to convert me, it may takesome time, you know, and you might as well make yourself comfortable.As for me, I'll take the anxious bench." She laughed with a certaingirlishness, which he well remembered, and leaped to a sitting postureon the table with her hands on her knees, swinging her smart shoesbackwards and forwards below it.
Madison looked at her in hopeless silence, with a pale, disturbed faceand shining eyes.
"Or, if you want to talk as we used to talk, Mad, when we sat on thefront steps at Angel's and pa and ma went inside to give us a show, yecan hop up alongside o' me." She made a feint of gathering her skirtsbeside her.
"Safie!" broke out the unfortunate man, in a tone that seemed toincrease in formal solemnity with his manifest agitation, "this isimpossible. The laws of God that have joined you and this man"--
"Oh, it's the prayer-meeting, is it?" said Safie, settling her skirtsagain, with affected resignation. "Go on."
"Listen, Safie," said Madison, turning despairingly towards her. "Letus for His sake, let us for the sake of our dear blessed past, talktogether earnestly and prayerfully. Let us take this time to root out ofour feeble hearts all yearnings that are not prompted by Him--yearningsthat your union with this man makes impossible and sinful. Let us forthe sake of the past take counsel of each other, even as brother andsister."
"Sister McGee!" she interrupted mockingly. "It wasn't as brother andsister you made love to me at Angel's."
"No! I loved you then, and would have made you my wife."
"And you don't love me any more," she said, audaciously darting a wickedlook into his eyes, "only because I didn't marry you? And you think thatChristian?"
"You know I love you as I have loved you always," he said passionately.
"Hush!" she said mockingly; "suppose he should hear you."
"He knows it!" said Madison bitterly. "I told him all!"
She stared at him fixedly.
"You have--told--him--that--you STILL love me?" she repeated slowly.
"Yes, or I wouldn't be here now. It was due to him--to my ownconscience."
"And what did he say?"
"He insisted upon my coming, and, as God is my Judge and witness--heseemed satisfied and content."
She drew her pretty lips together with a long whistle, and then leapedfrom the table. Her face was hard and her eyes were bright as she wentto the window and looked out. He followed her timidly.
"Don't touch me," she said, sharply striking away his proffered hand.He turned with a flushed cheek and walked slowly towards the door. Herlaugh stopped him.
"Come! I reckon that squeezin' hands ain't no part of
your contract withSandy?" she said, glancing down at her own. "Well, so you're goin'?"
"I only wished to talk seriously and prayerfully with you for a fewmoments, Safie, and then--to see you no more."
"And how would that suit him," she said dryly, "if he wants your companyhere? Then, just because you can't convert me and bring me to your waysof thinkin' in one visit, I suppose you think it is Christian-like torun away like this! Or do you suppose that, if you turn tail now, hewon't believe that your Christian strength and Christian resignation isall humbug?"
Madison dropped into the chair, put his elbows on the table, and buriedhis face in his hands. She came a little nearer, and laid her handlightly on his arm. He made a movement as if to take it, but shewithdrew it impatiently.
"Come," she said brusquely; "now you're in for it you must play the gameout. He trusts you; if he sees you can't trust yourself, he'll shoot youon sight. That don't frighten you? Well, perhaps this will then! He'llSAY your religion is a sham and you a hypocrite--and everybody willbelieve him. How do you like that, Brother Wayne? How will that helpthe Church? Come! You're a pair of cranks together; but he's got thewhip-hand of you this time. All you can do is to keep up to his ideaof you. Put a bold face on it, and come here as often as you can--theoftener the better; the sooner you'll both get sick of each other--andof ME. That's what you're both after, ain't it? Well! I can tell younow, you needn't either of you be the least afraid of me."
She walked away to the window again, not angrily, but smoothing down thefolds of her bright print dress as if she were wiping her hands of herhusband and his guest. Something like a very material and man-like senseof shame struggled up through his crust of religion. He stammered, "Youdon't understand me, Safie."
"Then talk of something I do understand," she said pertly. "Tell mesome news of Angel's. Your brother was over there the other day. Hemade himself quite popular with the young ladies--so I hear from Mrs.Selvedge. You can tell me as we walk along the bank towards Sandy'sclaim. It's just as well that you should move on now, as it's your FIRSTcall, and next time you can stop longer." She went to the corner of theroom, removed her smart slippers, and put on a pair of walking-shoes,tying them, with her foot on a chair, in a quiet disregard of hervisitor's presence; took a brown holland sunbonnet from the wall,clapped it over her browner hair and hanging braids, and tied it underher chin with apparently no sense of coquetry in the act--becomingthough it was--and without glancing at him. Alas for Madison's ethics!The torment of her worldly speech and youthful contempt was nothing tothis tacit ignoring of the manhood of her lover--this silent acceptanceof him as something even lower than her husband. He followed her with aburning cheek and a curious revolting of his whole nature that it is tobe feared were scarcely Christian. The willows opened to let them passand closed behind them.
An hour later Mrs. McGee returned to her leafy bower alone. She took offher sunbonnet, hung it on its nail on the wall, shook down her braids,took off her shoes, stained with the mud of her husband's claim, and puton her slippers. Then she ascended to her eyrie in the little gallery,and gazed smilingly across the sunlit Bar. The two gaunt shadows ofher husband and lover, linked like twins, were slowly passing along theriver bank on their way to the eclipsing obscurity of the cottonwoods.Below her--almost at her very feet--the unconscious Arthur Wayne waspushing his work on the river bed, far out to the promontory. Thesunlight fell upon his vivid scarlet shirt, his bared throat, and headclustering with perspiring curls. The same sunlight fell upon Mrs.McGee's brown head too, and apparently put a wicked fancy inside it. Sheran to her bedroom, and returned with a mirror from its wall, and, aftersome trials in getting the right angle, sent a searching reflection uponthe spot where Arthur was at work.
For an instant a diamond flash played around him. Then he lifted hishead and turned it curiously towards the crest above him. But the nextmoment he clapped his hands over his dazzled but now smiling eyes, asMrs. McGee, secure in her leafy obscurity, fell back and laughed toherself, like a very schoolgirl.
It was three weeks later, and Madison Wayne was again sitting alone inhis cabin. This solitude had become of more frequent occurrence lately,since Arthur had revolted and openly absented himself from his religiousdevotions for lighter diversions of the Bar. Keenly as Madison felt hisdefection, he was too much preoccupied with other things to lay muchstress upon it, and the sting of Arthur's relapse to worldliness andfolly lay in his own consciousness that it was partly his fault. Hecould not chide his brother when he felt that his own heart was absorbedin his neighbor's wife, and although he had rigidly adhered to his owncrude ideas of self-effacement and loyalty to McGee, he had been againand again a visitor at his house. It was true that Mrs. McGee hadmade this easier by tacitly accepting his conditions of theiracquaintanceship, by seeming more natural, by exhibiting a gayety, andat times even a certain gentleness and thoughtfulness of conduct thatdelighted her husband and astonished her lover. Whether this wonderfulchange had really been effected by the latter's gloomy theology andstill more hopeless ethics, he could not say. She certainly showed nodisposition to imitate their formalities, nor seemed to be impressed bythem on the rare occasions when he now offered them. Yet she appeared tolink the two men together--even physically--as on these occasions when,taking an arm of each, she walked affectionately between them along theriver bank promenade, to the great marveling and admiration of the Bar.It was said, however, that Mr. Jack Hamlin, a gambler, at that momentprofessionally visiting Wayne's Bar, and a great connoisseur of femininecharms and weaknesses, had glanced at them under his handsome lashes,and asked a single question, evidently so amusing to the younger membersof the Bar that Madison Wayne knit his brow and Arthur Wayne blushed.Mr. Hamlin took no heed of the elder brother's frown, but paid someslight attention to the color of the younger brother, and even more toa slightly coquettish glance from the pretty Mrs. McGee. Whether ornot--as has been ingeniously alleged by some moralists--the lightand trifling of either sex are prone to recognize each other by somemysterious instinct, is not a necessary consideration of this chronicle;enough that the fact is recorded.
And yet Madison Wayne should have been satisfied with his work! Hissacrifice was accepted; his happy issue from a dangerous situation, andhis happy triumph over a more dangerous temptation, was complete andperfect, and even achieved according to his own gloomy theories ofredemption and regeneration. Yet he was not happy. The human heart isat times strangely unappeasable. And as he sat that evening in thegathering shadows, the Book which should have yielded him balm andcomfort lay unopened in his lap.
A step upon the gravel outside had become too familiar to startle him.It was Mr. McGee lounging into the cabin like a gaunt shadow. It must beadmitted that the friendship of these strangely contrasted men, howeversincere and sympathetic, was not cheerful. A belief in the thoroughwickedness of humanity, kept under only through fear of extreme penaltyand punishment, material and spiritual, was not conducive to light andamusing conversation. Their talk was mainly a gloomy chronicle of lifeat the Bar, which was in itself half an indictment. To-night, Mr. McGeespoke of the advent of Mr. Jack Hamlin, and together they deplored thediversion of the hard-earned gains and valuable time of the Bar throughthe efforts of that ingenious gentleman. "Not," added McGee cautiously,"but what he can shoot straight enough, and I've heard tell that hedon't LIE. That mout and it moutn't be good for your brother who goesaround with him considerable, there's different ways of lookin' atthat; you understand what I mean? You follow me?" For all that, theconversation seemed to languish this evening, partly through someabstraction on the part of Wayne and partly some hesitation in McGee,who appeared to have a greater fear than usual of not expressing himselfplainly. It was quite dark in the cabin when at last, detaching himselffrom his usual lounging place, the door-post, he walked to the windowand leaned, more shadowy than ever, over Wayne's chair. "I want totell you suthin'," he said slowly, "that I don't want you tomisunderstand--you follow me? and that ain't no ways carpin' orcriticisin' nor r
eflectin' on YOU--you understand what I mean? Ever sensyou and me had that talk here about you and Safie, and ever sens I gotthe hang of your ways and your style o' thinkin', I've been as sureof you and her as if I'd been myself trottin' round with you anda revolver. And I'm as sure of you now--you sabe what I mean? youunderstand? You've done me and her a heap o' good; she's almost anotherwoman sens you took hold of her, and ef you ever want me to stand upand 'testify,' as you call it, in church, Sandy McGee is ready. WhatI'm tryin' to say to ye is this. Tho' I understand you and your work andyour ways--there's other folks ez moutn't--you follow? You understandwhat I mean? And it's just that I'm coming to. Now las' night, when youand Safie was meanderin' along the lower path by the water, and I kemacross you"--
"But," interrupted Madison quickly, "you're mistaken. I wasn't"--
"Hol' on," said McGee, quietly; "I know you got out o' the way withoutyou seein' me or me you, because you didn't know it was me, don't yousee? don't you follow? and that's just it! It mout have bin some onefrom the Bar as seed you instead o' ME. See? That's why you lit outbefore I could recognize you, and that's why poor Safie was so mightyflustered at first and was for runnin' away until she kem to herselfagin. When, of course, she laughed, and agreed you must have mistookme."
"But," gasped Madison quickly, "I WASN'T THERE AT ALL LAST NIGHT."
"What?"
The two men had risen simultaneously and were facing each other. McGee,with a good-natured, half-critical expression, laid his hand on Wayne'sshoulder and slightly turned him towards the window, that he might seehis face. It seemed to him white and dazed.
"You--wasn't there--last night?" he repeated, with a slow tolerance.
Scarcely a moment elapsed, but the agony of an hour may have thrilledthrough Wayne's consciousness before he spoke. Then all the blood of hisbody rushed to his face with his first lie as he stammered, "No! Yes! Ofcourse. I have made a mistake--it WAS I."
"I see--you thought I was riled?" said McGee quietly.
"No; I was thinking it was NIGHT BEFORE LAST! Of course it was lastnight. I must be getting silly." He essayed a laugh--rare at anytime with him--and so forced now that it affected McGee more than hisembarrassment. He looked at Wayne thoughtfully, and then said slowly: "Ireckon I did come upon you a little too sudden last night, but, you see,I was thinkin' of suthin' else and disremembered you might be there. ButI wasn't mad--no! no! and I only spoke about it now that you might bemore keerful before folks. You follow me? You understand what I mean?"
He turned and walked to the door, when he halted. "You follow me, don'tyou? It ain't no cussedness o' mine, or want o' trustin', don't you see?Mebbe I oughtened have spoken. I oughter remembered that times thissort o' thing must be rather rough on you and her. You follow me? Youunderstand what I mean? Good-night."
He walked slowly down the path towards the river. Had Madison Wayne beenwatching him, he would have noticed that his head was bent and his stepless free. But Madison Wayne was at that moment sitting rigidly in hischair, nursing, with all the gloomy concentration of a monastic nature,a single terrible suspicion.