by Bret Harte
CHAPTER I
She was barely twenty-three years old. It is probable that up to thatage, and the beginning of this episode, her life had been uneventful.Born to the easy mediocrity of such compensating extremes as a smallfarmhouse and large lands, a good position and no society, in that vastgrazing district of Kentucky known as the "Blue Grass" region, all thepossibilities of a Western American girl's existence lay before her.A piano in the bare-walled house, the latest patented mower in thelimitless meadows, and a silk dress sweeping the rough floor ofthe unpainted "meeting-house" were already the promise of thosepossibilities. Beautiful she was, but the power of that beauty waslimited by being equally shared with her few neighbors. There weresmall, narrow, arched feet besides her own that trod the uncarpetedfloors of outlying log-cabins with equal grace and dignity; bright,clearly opened eyes that were equally capable of looking unabashedupon princes and potentates, as a few later did, and the heiress of thecounty judge read her own beauty without envy in the frank glances andunlowered crest of the blacksmith's daughter. Eventually she had marriedthe male of her species, a young stranger, who, as schoolmaster inthe nearest town, had utilized to some local extent a scant capitalof education. In obedience to the unwritten law of the West, afterthe marriage was celebrated the doors of the ancestral home cheerfullyopened, and bride and bridegroom issued forth, without regret andwithout sentiment, to seek the further possibilities of a life beyondthese already too familiar voices. With their departure for Californiaas Mr. and Mrs. Spencer Tucker, the parental nest in the Blue Grassmeadows knew them no more.
They submitted with equal cheerfulness to the privations and excesses oftheir new conditions. Within three years the schoolmaster developed intoa lawyer and capitalist, the Blue Grass bride supplying a grace and easeto these transitions that were all her own. She softened the abruptnessof sudden wealth, mitigated the austerities of newly acquired power, andmade the most glaring incongruity picturesque. Only one thing seemedto limit their progress in the region of these possibilities. Theywere childless. It was as if they had exhausted the future in their ownyouth, leaving little or nothing for another generation to do.
A southwesterly storm was beating against the dressing-room windowsof their new house in one of the hilly suburbs of San Francisco, andthreatening the unseasonable frivolity of the stucco ornamentation ofcornice and balcony. Mrs. Tucker had been called from the contemplationof the dreary prospect without by the arrival of a visitor. Onentering the drawing-room she found him engaged in a half-admiring,half-resentful examination of its new furniture and hangings. Mrs.Tucker at once recognized Mr. Calhoun Weaver, a former Blue Grassneighbor; with swift feminine intuition she also felt that his slightantagonism was likely to be transferred from her furniture to herself.Waiving it with the lazy amiability of Southern indifference, shewelcomed him by the familiarity of a Christian name.
"I reckoned that mebbee you opined old Blue Grass friends wouldn'tnaturally hitch on to them fancy doins," he said, glancing around theapartment to avoid her clear eyes, as if resolutely setting himselfagainst the old charm of her manner as he had against the more recentglory of her surroundings, "but I thought I'd just drop in for the sakeof old times."
"Why shouldn't you, Cal?" said Mrs. Tucker with a frank smile.
"Especially as I'm going up to Sacramento to-night with some influentialfriends," he continued, with an ostentation calculated to resist theassumption of her charms and her furniture. "Senator Dyce of Kentucky,and his cousin Judge Briggs; perhaps you know 'em, or may be Spencer--Imean Mr. Tucker--does."
"I reckon," said Mrs. Tucker smiling; "but tell me something about theboys and girls at Vineville, and about yourself. YOU'RE looking well,and right smart too." She paused to give due emphasis to this latterrecognition of a huge gold chain with which her visitor was somewhatostentatiously trifling.
"I didn't know as you cared to hear anything about Blue Grass," hereturned, a little abashed. "I've been away from there some timemyself," he added, his uneasy vanity taking fresh alarm at the faintsuspicion of patronage on the part of his hostess. "They're doin' well,though; perhaps as well as some others."
"And you're not married yet," continued Mrs. Tucker, oblivious of theinnuendo. "Ah, Cal," she added archly, "I am afraid you are as fickle asever. What poor girl in Vineville have you left pining?"
The simple face of the man before her flushed with foolish gratificationat this old-fashioned, ambiguous flattery. "Now look yer, Belle," hesaid, chuckling, "if you're talking of old times and you think I bearmalice agin Spencer, why--"
But Mrs. Tucker interrupted what might have been an inopportunesentimental retrospect with a finger of arch but languid warning. "Thatwill do! I'm dying to know all about it, and you must stay to dinner andtell me. It's right mean you can't see Spencer too; but he isn't backfrom Sacramento yet."
Grateful as a tete-a-tete with his old neighbor in her more prosperoussurroundings would have been, if only for the sake of later gossipingabout it, he felt it would be inconsistent with his pride and hisassumption of present business. More than that, he was uneasilyconscious that in Mrs. Tucker's simple and unaffected manner there wasa greater superiority than he had ever noticed during their previousacquaintance. He would have felt kinder to her had she shown any"airs and graces," which he could have commented upon and forgiven. Hestammered some vague excuse of preoccupation, yet lingered in the hopeof saying something which, if not aggressively unpleasant, might atleast transfer to her indolent serenity some of his own irritation."I reckon," he said, as he moved hesitatingly towards the door, "thatSpencer has made himself easy and secure in them business risks he'staking. That 'ere Alameda ditch affair they're talking so much aboutis a mighty big thing, rather TOO big if it ever got to falling back onhim. But I suppose he's accustomed to take risks?"
"Of course he is," said Mrs. Tucker gayly. "He married ME."
The visitor smiled feebly, but was not equal to the opportunity offeredfor gallant repudiation. "But suppose you ain't accustomed to risks?"
"Why not? I married HIM," said Mrs. Tucker.
Mr. Calhoun Weaver was human, and succumbed to this last charmingaudacity. He broke into a noisy but genuine laugh, shook Mrs. Tucker'shand with effusion, said, "Now that's regular Blue Grass and nomistake!" and retreated under cover of his hilarity. In the hall hemade a rallying stand to repeat confidentially to the servant who hadoverheard them: "Blue Grass, all over, you bet your life," and, openingthe door, was apparently swallowed up in the tempest.
Mrs. Tucker's smile kept her lips until she had returned to her room,and even then languidly shone in her eyes for some minutes after, asshe gazed abstractedly from her window on the storm-tossed bay in thedistance. Perhaps some girlish vision of the peaceful Blue Glass plainmomentarily usurped the prospect; but it is to be doubted if there wasmuch romance in that retrospect, or that it was more interesting to herthan the positive and sharply cut outlines of the practical life she nowheld. Howbeit she soon forgot this fancy in lazily watching a boat that,in the teeth of the gale, was beating round Alcatraz Island. Althoughat times a mere blank speck on the gray waste of foam, a closer scrutinyshowed it to be one of those lateen-rigged Italian fishing boats that sooften flecked the distant bay. Lost in the sudden darkening of rain,or reappearing beneath the lifted curtain of the squall, she watchedit weather the island, and then turn its laboring but persistent coursetowards the open channel. A rent in the Indian-inky sky, that showed thenarrowing portals of the Golden Gate beyond, revealed, as unexpectedly,the destination of the little craft, a tall ship that hitherto layhidden in the mist of the Saucelito shore. As the distance lessenedbetween boat and ship, they were again lost in the downward swoop ofanother squall. When it lifted, the ship was creeping under the headlandtowards the open sea, but the boat was gone. Mrs. Tucker in vain rubbedthe pane with her handkerchief; it had vanished. Meanwhile the ship,as she neared the Gate, drew out from the protecting headland, stoodoutlined for a moment with spars and canvas hearsed in black aga
instthe lurid rent in the horizon, and then seemed to sink slowly into theheaving obscurity beyond. A sudden onset of rain against the windowsobliterated the remaining prospect; the entrance of a servant completedthe diversion.
"Captain Poindexter, ma'am!"
Mrs. Tucker lifted her pretty eyebrows interrogatively. CaptainPoindexter was a legal friend of her husband, and had dined therefrequently; nevertheless she asked: "Did you tell him Mr. Tucker was notat home?"
"Yes, 'm."
"Did he ask for ME?"
"Yes, 'm."
"Tell him I'll be down directly."
Mrs. Tucker's quiet face did not betray the fact that this secondvisitor was even less interesting than the first. In her heart she didnot like Captain Poindexter. With a clever woman's instinct she hadearly detected the fact that he had a superior, stronger nature thanher husband; as a loyal wife, she secretly resented the occasionalunconscious exhibition of this fact on the part of his intimate friendin their familiar intercourse. Added to this slight jealousy, there wasa certain moral antagonism between herself and the captain which nonebut themselves knew. They were both philosophers, but Mrs. Tucker'sserene and languid optimism would not tolerate the compassionate andkind-hearted pessimisms of the lawyer. "Knowing what Jack Poindexterdoes of human nature," her husband had once said, "it's mighty fine inhim to be so kind and forgiving. You ought to like him better, Belle.""And qualify myself to be forgiven," said the lady pertly. "I don't seewhat you're driving at, Belle; I give it up," had responded the puzzledhusband. Mrs. Tucker kissed his high but foolish forehead tenderly, andsaid: "I'm glad you don't, dear."
Meanwhile her second visitor had, like the first, employed the intervalin a critical survey of the glories of the new furniture, but withapparently more compassion than resentment in his manner. Once only hadhis expression changed. Over the fireplace hung a large photograph ofMr. Spencer Tucker. It was retouched, refined, and idealized in thehighest style of that polite and diplomatic art. As Captain Poindexterlooked upon the fringed hazel eyes, the drooping raven moustache, theclustering ringlets, and the Byronic full throat and turned-down collarof his friend, a smile of exhausted humorous tolerance and affectionateimpatience curved his lips. "Well, you ARE a fool, aren't you?" heapostrophized it half-audibly.
He was standing before the picture as she entered. Even in thetrying contiguity of that peerless work he would have been called afine-looking man. As he advanced to greet her, it was evident thathis military title was not one of the mere fanciful sobriquets of thelocality. In his erect figure and the disciplined composure of limb andattitude there were still traces of the refined academic rigors of WestPoint. The pliant adaptability of Western civilization which enabledhim, three years before, to leave the army and transfer his executiveability to the more profitable profession of the law, had loosed sashand shoulder-strap, but had not entirely removed the restraint of theone, or the bearing of the other.
"Spencer is in Sacramento," began Mrs. Tucker in languid explanation,after the first greetings were over.
"I knew he was not here," replied Captain Poindexter gently, as he drewthe proffered chair towards her, "but this is business that concernsyou both." He stopped and glanced upwards at the picture. "I supposeyou know nothing of his business? Of course not," he added reassuringly,"nothing, absolutely nothing, certainly." He said this so kindly, andyet so positively, as if to promptly dispose of that question beforegoing further, that she assented mechanically. "Well, then, he's takensome big risks in the way of business, and--well, things have gone badwith him, you know. Very bad! Really, they couldn't be worse! Of courseit was dreadfully rash and all that," he went on, as if commentingupon the amusing waywardness of a child; "but the result is the usualsmash-up of everything, money, credit, and all!" He laughed andadded: "Yes, he's got cut off--mules and baggage regularly routed anddispersed! I'm in earnest." He raised his eyebrows and frowned slightly,as if to deprecate any corresponding hilarity on the part of Mrs.Tucker, or any attempt to make TOO light of the subject, and thenrising, placed his hands behind his back, beamed half-humorously uponher from beneath her husband's picture, and repeated: "That's so."
Mrs. Tucker instinctively knew that he spoke the truth, and that it wasimpossible for him to convey it in any other than his natural manner;but between the shock and the singular influence of that manner shecould at first only say, "You don't mean it!" fully conscious ofthe utter inanity of the remark, and that it seemed scarcely lesscold-blooded than his own.
Poindexter, still smiling, nodded.
She arose with an effort. She had recovered from the first shock, andpride lent her a determined calmness that more than equaled Poindexter'seasy philosophy.
"Where is he?" she asked.
"At sea, and I hope by this time where he can not be found or followed."
Was her momentary glimpse of the outgoing ship a coincidence, or onlya vision? She was confused and giddy, but, mastering her weakness, shemanaged to continue in a lower voice:
"You have no message for me from him? He told you nothing to tell me?"
"Nothing, absolutely nothing," replied Poindexter. "It was as much as hecould do, I reckon, to get fairly away before the crash came."
"Then you did not see him go?"
"Well, no," said Poindexter. "I'd hardly have managed things in thisway." He checked himself and added, with a forgiving smile, "But he wasthe best judge of what he needed, of course."
"I suppose I will hear from him," she said quietly, "as soon as he issafe. He must have had enough else to think about, poor fellow."
She said this so naturally and quietly that Poindexter was deceived.He had no idea that the collected woman before him was thinking only ofsolitude and darkness, of her own room, and madly longing to be there.He said, "Yes, I dare say," in quite another voice, and glanced at thepicture. But as she remained standing, he continued more earnestly,"I didn't come here to tell you what you might read in the newspapersto-morrow morning, and what everybody might tell you. Before that timeI want you to do something to save a fragment of your property fromthe ruin; do you understand? I want you to make a rally, and bring offsomething in good order."
"For him?" said Mrs. Tucker, with brightening eyes.
"Well, yes, of course--if you like--but as if for yourself. Do you knowthe Rancho de los Cuervos?"
"I do."
"It's almost the only bit of real property your husband hasn't sold,mortgaged, or pledged. Why it was exempt, or whether only forgotten, Ican't say."
"I'll tell you why," said Mrs. Tucker, with a slight return of color."It was the first land we ever bought, and Spencer always said it shouldbe mine and he would build a new house on it."
Captain Poindexter smiled and nodded at the picture. "Oh, he did saythat, did he? Well, THAT'S evidence. But you see he never gave you thedeed, and by sunrise to-morrow his creditors will attach it--unless--"
"Unless--" repeated Mrs. Tucker, with kindling eyes.
"Unless," continued Captain Poindexter, "they happen to find YOU inpossession."
"I'll go," said Mrs. Tucker.
"Of course you will," returned Poindexter, pleasantly; "only, as it'sa big contract to take, suppose we see how you can fill it. It's fortymiles to Los Cuervos, and you can't trust yourself to steamboat orstage-coach. The steamboat left an hour ago."
"If I had only known this then!" ejaculated Mrs. Tucker.
"I knew it, but you had company then," said Poindexter, with ironicalgallantry, "and I wouldn't disturb you." Without saying how he knew it,he continued, "In the stage-coach you might be recognized. You must goin a private conveyance and alone; even I can not go with you, for Imust go on before and meet you there. Can you drive forty miles?"
Mrs. Tucker lifted up her abstracted pretty lids. "I once drovefifty--at home," she returned simply.
"Good! and I dare say you did it then for fun. Do it now for somethingreal and personal, as we lawyers say. You will have relays and a plan ofthe road. It's rough weather for a pasear,
but all the better for that.You'll have less company on the road."
"How soon can I go?" she asked.
"The sooner the better. I've arranged everything for you already," hecontinued with a laugh. "Come now, that's a compliment to you, isn'tit?" He smiled a moment in her steadfast, earnest face, and then said,more gravely, "You'll do. Now listen."
He then carefully detailed his plan. There was so little of excitementor mystery in their manner that the servant, who returned to light thegas, never knew that the ruin and bankruptcy of the house was being toldbefore her, or that its mistress was planning her secret flight.
"Good afternoon; I will see you to-morrow then," said Poindexter,raising his eyes to hers as the servant opened the door for him.
"Good afternoon," repeated Mrs. Tucker quietly answering his look. "Youneed not light the gas in my room, Mary," she continued in the sametone of voice as the door closed upon him; "I shall lie down for a fewmoments, and then I may run over to the Robinsons for the evening."
She regained her room composedly. The longing desire to bury her headin her pillow and "think out" her position had gone. She did notapostrophize her fate, she did not weep; few real women do in the accessof calamity, or when there is anything else to be done. She felt thatshe knew it all; she believed she had sounded the profoundest depthsof the disaster, and seemed already so old in her experience that shealmost fancied she had been prepared for it. Perhaps she did not fullyappreciate it; to a life like hers it was only an incident, the mereturning of a page of the illimitable book of youth; the breaking up ofwhat she now felt had become a monotony. In fact, she was not quite sureshe had ever been satisfied with their present success. Had it broughther all she expected? She wanted to say this to her husband, not onlyto comfort him, poor fellow, but that they might come to a betterunderstanding of life in the future. She was not perhaps differentfrom other loving women who, believing in this unattainable goalof matrimony, have sought it in the various episodes of fortune orreverses, in the bearing of children, or the loss of friends. In herchildless experience there was no other life that had taken root in hercircumstances and might suffer transplantation; only she and her husbandcould lose or profit by the change. The "perfect" understanding wouldcome under other conditions than these.
She would have gone superstitiously to the window to gaze in thedirection of the vanished ship, but another instinct restrained her.She would put aside all yearning for him until she had done something tohelp him, and earned the confidence he seemed to have withheld. Perhapsit was pride--perhaps she never really believed his exodus was distantor complete.
With a full knowledge that to-morrow the various ornaments and prettytrifles around her would be in the hands of the law, she gathered only afew necessaries for her flight and some familiar personal trinkets. Iam constrained to say that this self-abnegation was more fastidious thanmoral. She had no more idea of the ethics of bankruptcy than any othercharming woman; she simply did not like to take with her any contagiousmemory of the chapter of the life just closing. She glanced around thehome she was leaving without a lingering regret; there was no sentimentof tradition or custom that might be destroyed; her roots lay too nearthe surface to suffer from dislocation; the happiness of her childlessunion had depended upon no domestic centre, nor was its flame sacred toany local hearthstone. It was without a sigh that, when night had fullyfallen, she slipped unnoticed down the staircase. At the door of thedrawing-room she paused and then entered with the first guilty feelingof shame she had known that evening. Looking stealthily around shemounted a chair before her husband's picture, kissed the irreproachablemoustache hurriedly, said, "You foolish darling, you!" and slippedout again. With this touching indorsement of the views of a rivalphilosopher, she closed the door softly and left her home forever.