by Bret Harte
CHAPTER VI
The abrupt departure of George Kearney from Devil's Ford excitedbut little interest in the community, and was soon forgotten. It wasgenerally attributed to differences between himself and his partnerson the question of further outlay of their earnings on miningimprovements--he and Philip Carr alone representing a sanguine minoritywhose faith in the future of the mine accepted any risks. It was allegedby some that he had sold out to his brother; it was believed by othersthat he had simply gone to Sacramento to borrow money on his share,in order to continue the improvements on his own responsibility. Thepartners themselves were uncommunicative; even Whiskey Dick, who sincehis remarkable social elevation had become less oracular, much to hisown astonishment, contributed nothing to the gossip except a suggestionthat as the fiery temper of George Kearney brooked no opposition,even from his brother, it was better they should separate before theestrangement became serious.
Mr. Carr did not disguise his annoyance at the loss of his youngdisciple and firm ally. But an unlucky allusion to his previous remarkson Kearney's attentions to Jessie, and a querulous regret that he hadpermitted a disruption of their social intimacy, brought such an ominousand frigid opposition, not only from Christie, but even the frivolousJessie herself, that Carr sank back in a crushed and terrified silence."I only meant to say," he stammered after a pause, in which he, however,resumed his aggrieved manner, "that FAIRFAX seems to come here still,and HE is not such a particular friend of mine."
"But she is--and has your interest entirely at heart," said Jessie,stoutly, "and he only comes here to tell us how things are going on atthe works."
"And criticise your father, I suppose," said Mr. Carr, with anattempt at jocularity that did not, however, disguise an irritatedsuspiciousness. "He really seems to have supplanted ME as he has poorKearney in your estimation."
"Now, father," said Jessie, suddenly seizing him by the shoulders inaffected indignation, but really to conceal a certain embarrassmentthat sprang quite as much from her sister's quietly observant eye as herfather's speech, "you promised to let this ridiculous discussion drop.You will make me and Christie so nervous that we will not dare toopen the door to a visitor, until he declares his innocence of anymatrimonial intentions. You don't want to give color to the gossip thatagreement with your views about the improvements is necessary to gettingon with us."
"Who dares talk such rubbish?" said Carr, reddening; "is that the kindof gossip that Fairfax brings here?"
"Hardly, when it's known that he don't quite agree with you, and DOEScome here. That's the best denial of the gossip."
Christie, who had of late loftily ignored these discussions, waiteduntil her father had taken his departure.
"Then that is the reason why you still see Mr. Munroe, after what yousaid," she remarked quietly to Jessie.
Jessie, who would have liked to escape with her father, was obliged topause on the threshold of the door, with a pretty assumption of blankforgetfulness in her blue eyes and lifted eyebrows.
"Said what? when?" she asked vacantly.
"When--when Mr. Kearney that day--in the woods--went away," saidChristie, faintly coloring.
"Oh! THAT day," said Jessie briskly; "the day he just gloved yourhand with kisses, and then fled wildly into the forest to conceal hisemotion."
"The day he behaved very foolishly," said Christie, with reproachfulcalmness, that did not, however, prevent a suspicion of indignantmoisture in her eyes--"when you explained"--
"That it wasn't meant for ME," interrupted Jessie.
"That it was to you that MR. MUNROE'S attentions were directed. And thenwe agreed that it was better to prevent any further advances of thiskind by avoiding any familiar relations with either of them."
"Yes," said Jessie, "I remember; but you're not confounding my seeingFairfax occasionally now with that sort of thing. HE doesn't kiss myhand like anything," she added, as if in abstract reflection.
"Nor run away, either," suggested the trodden worm, turning.
There was an ominous silence.
"Do you know we are nearly out of coffee?" said Jessie choking, butmoving towards the door with Spartan-like calmness.
"Yes. And something must be done this very day about the washing," saidChristie, with suppressed emotion, going towards the opposite entrance.
Tears stood in each other's eyes with this terrible exchange of domesticconfidences. Nevertheless, after a moment's pause, they deliberatelyturned again, and, facing each other with frightful calmness, leftthe room by purposeless and deliberate exits other than those theyhad contemplated--a crushing abnegation of self, that, to some extent,relieved their surcharged feelings.
Meantime the material prosperity of Devil's Ford increased, if aprosperity based upon no visible foundation but the confidences andhopes of its inhabitants could be called material. Few, if any, stoppedto consider that the improvements, buildings, and business were simplythe outlay of capital brought from elsewhere, and as yet the settlementor town, as it was now called, had neither produced nor exported capitalof itself equal to half the amount expended. It was true that someland was cultivated on the further slope, some mills erected and lumberfurnished from the inexhaustible forest; but the consumers were theinhabitants themselves, who paid for their produce in borrowed capitalor unlimited credit. It was never discovered that while all roads led toDevil's Ford, Devil's Ford led to nowhere. The difficulties overcomein getting things into the settlement were never surmounted for gettingthings out of it. The lumber was practically valueless for export toother settlements across the mountain roads, which were equally rich intimber. The theory so enthusiastically held by the original locators,that Devil's Ford was a vast sink that had, through ages, exhausted andabsorbed the trickling wealth of the adjacent hills and valleys, wassuffering an ironical corroboration.
One morning it was known that work was stopped at the Devil's FordDitch--temporarily only, it was alleged, and many of the old workmensimply had their labor for the present transferred to excavating theriver banks, and the collection of vast heaps of "pay gravel." Specimensfrom these mounds, taken from different localities, and at differentlevels, were sent to San Francisco for more rigid assay and analysis.It was believed that this would establish the fact of the permanentrichness of the drifts, and not only justify past expenditure, but arenewed outlay of credit and capital. The suspension of engineering workgave Mr. Carr an opportunity to visit San Francisco on general businessof the mine, which could not, however, prevent him from arrangingfurther combinations with capital. His two daughters accompanied him. Itoffered an admirable opportunity for a shopping expedition, a change ofscene, and a peaceful solution of their perplexing and anomalous socialrelations with Devil's Ford. In the first flush of gratitude to theirfather for this opportune holiday, something of harmony had beenrestored to the family circle that had of late been shaken by discord.
But their sanguine hopes of enjoyment were not entirely fulfilled. BothJessie and Christie were obliged to confess to a certain disappointmentin the aspect of the civilization they were now reentering. They atfirst attributed it to the change in their own habits during the lastthree months, and their having become barbarous and countrified intheir seclusion. Certainly in the matter of dress they were behind thefashions as revealed in Montgomery Street. But when the brief solaceafforded them by the modiste and dressmaker was past, there seemedlittle else to be gained. They missed at first, I fear, the chivalrousand loyal devotion that had only amused them at Devil's Ford, and werethe more inclined, I think, to distrust the conscious and more civilizedgallantry of the better dressed and more carefully presented men theymet. For it must be admitted that, for obvious reasons, their criticismswere at first confined to the sex they had been most in contact with.They could not help noticing that the men were more eager, annoyinglyfeverish, and self-asserting in their superior elegance and externalshow than their old associates were in their frank, unrestrained habits.It seemed to them that the five millionaires of Devil's Ford, i
n theirradical simplicity and thoroughness, were perhaps nearer the type oftrue gentlemanhood than these citizens who imitated a civilization theywere unable yet to reach.
The women simply frightened them, as being, even more than the men,demonstrative and excessive in their fine looks, their fine dresses,their extravagant demand for excitement. In less than a week they foundthemselves regretting--not the new villa on the slope of Devil's Ford,which even in its own bizarre fashion was exceeded by the barbarousostentation of the villas and private houses around them--but the doublecabin under the trees, which now seemed to them almost aristocratic inits grave simplicity and abstention. In the mysterious forests of maststhat thronged the city's quays they recalled the straight shafts of thepines on Devil's slopes, only to miss the sedate repose and infinitecalm that used to environ them. In the feverish, pulsating life of theyoung metropolis they often stopped oppressed, giddy, and choking; theroar of the streets and thoroughfares was meaningless to them, except torevive strange memories of the deep, unvarying monotone of the eveningwind over their humbler roof on the Sierran hillside. Civic bred andnurtured as they were, the recurrence of these sensations perplexed andalarmed them.
"It seems so perfectly ridiculous," said Jessie, "for us to feel as outof place here as that Pike County servant girl in Sacramento who hadnever seen a steamboat before; do you know, I quite had a turn the otherday at seeing a man on the Stockton wharf in a red shirt, with a rifleon his shoulder."
"And you wanted to go and speak to him?" said Christie, with a sadsmile.
"No, that's just it; I felt awfully hurt and injured that he did notcome up and speak to ME! I wonder if we got any fever or that sort ofthing up there; it makes one quite superstitious."
Christie did not reply; more than once before she had felt thatinexplicable misgiving. It had sometimes seemed to her that she hadnever been quite herself since that memorable night when she hadslipped out of their sleeping-cabin, and stood alone in the gracious andcommanding presence of the woods and hills. In the solitude of night,with the hum of the great city rising below her--at times even intheatres or crowded assemblies of men and women--she forgot herself,and again stood in the weird brilliancy of that moonlight night inmute worship at the foot of that slowly-rising mystic altar of piledterraces, hanging forests, and lifted plateaus that climbed forever tothe lonely skies. Again she felt before her the expanding and openingarms of the protecting woods. Had they really closed upon her in somepantheistic embrace that made her a part of them? Had she been baptizedin that moonlight as a child of the great forest? It was easy to believein the myths of the poets of an idyllic life under those trees, where,free from conventional restrictions, one loved and was loved. If she,with her own worldly experience, could think of this now, why mightnot George Kearney have thought? . . . She stopped, and found herselfblushing even in the darkness. As the thought and blush were the usualsequel of her reflections, it is to be feared that they may have been attimes the impelling cause.
Mr. Carr, however, made up for his daughters' want of sympathy withmetropolitan life. To their astonishment, he not only plunged into thefashionable gayeties and amusements of the town, but in dress and mannerassumed the role of a leader of society. The invariable answer to theirhalf-humorous comment was the necessities of the mine, and the policyof frequenting the company of capitalists, to enlist their support andconfidence. There was something in this so unlike their father, thatwhat at any other time they would have hailed as a relief tohis habitual abstraction now half alarmed them. Yet he was notdissipated--he did not drink nor gamble. There certainly did not seemany harm in his frequenting the society of ladies, with a gallantry thatappeared to be forced and a pleasure that to their critical eyes wascertainly apocryphal. He did not drag his daughters into the mixedsociety of that period; he did not press upon them the company of thosehe most frequented, and whose accepted position in that little world offashion was considered equal to their own. When Jessie strongly objectedto the pronounced manners of a certain widow, whose actual presentwealth and pecuniary influence condoned for a more uncertain prehistoricpast, Mr. Carr did not urge a further acquaintance. "As long as you'renot thinking of marrying again, papa," Jessie had said finally, "I don'tsee the necessity of our knowing her." "But suppose I were," had repliedMr. Carr with affected humor. "Then you certainly wouldn't care for anyone like her," his daughter had responded triumphantly. Mr. Carr smiled,and dropped the subject, but it is probable that his daughters' want ofsympathy with his acquaintances did not in the least interfere withhis social prestige. A gentleman in all his relations and under allcircumstances, even his cold scientific abstraction was provocative;rich men envied his lofty ignorance of the smaller details ofmoney-making, even while they mistrusted his judgment. A man still wellpreserved, and free from weakening vices, he was a dangerous rival toyounger and faster San Francisco, in the eyes of the sex, who knew howto value a repose they did not themselves possess.
Suddenly Mr. Carr announced his intention of proceeding to Sacramento,on further business of the mine, leaving his two daughters in the familyof a wealthy friend until he should return for them. He opposed theirready suggestion to return to Devil's Ford with a new and unnecessaryinflexibility: he even met their compromise to accompany him toSacramento with equal decision.
"You will be only in my way," he said curtly. "Enjoy yourselves herewhile you can."
Thus left to themselves, they tried to accept his advice. Possibly someslight reaction to their previous disappointment may have already setin; perhaps they felt any distraction to be a relief to their anxietyabout their father. They went out more; they frequented concerts andparties; they accepted, with their host and his family, an invitation toone of those opulent and barbaric entertainments with which a noted SanFrancisco millionaire distracted his rare moments of reflection in hisgorgeous palace on the hills. Here they could at least be once more inthe country they loved, albeit of a milder and less heroic type, and alittle degraded by the overlapping tinsel and scattered spangles of thepalace.
It was a three days' fete; the style and choice of amusements left tothe guests, and an equal and active participation by no means necessaryor indispensable. Consequently, when Christie and Jessie Carr proposeda ride through the adjacent canyon on the second morning, they had nodifficulty in finding horses in the well-furnished stables of theiropulent entertainers, nor cavaliers among the other guests, who weretoo happy to find favor in the eyes of the two pretty girls who weresupposed to be abnormally fastidious and refined. Christie's escortwas a good-natured young banker, shrewd enough to avoid demonstrativeattentions, and lucky enough to interest her during the ride with hisclear and half-humorous reflections on some of the business speculationsof the day. If his ideas were occasionally too clever, and not alwaysconsistent with a high sense of honor, she was none the less interestedto know the ethics of that world of speculation into which her fatherhad plunged, and the more convinced, with mingled sense of pride andanxiety, that his still dominant gentlemanhood would prevent his copingwith it on equal terms. Nor could she help contrasting the conversationof the sharp-witted man at her side with what she still remembered ofthe vague, touching, boyish enthusiasm of the millionaires of Devil'sFord. Had her escort guessed the result of this contrast, he wouldhardly have been as gratified as he was with the grave attention of herbeautiful eyes.
The fascination of a gracious day and the leafy solitude of the canyonled them to prolong their ride beyond the proposed limit, and it becamenecessary towards sunset for them to seek some shorter cut home.
"There's a vaquero in yonder field," said Christie's escort, who wasriding with her a little in advance of the others, "and those fellowsknow every trail that a horse can follow. I'll ride on, intercept him,and try my Spanish on him. If I miss him, as he's galloping on, youmight try your hand on him yourself. He'll understand your eyes, MissCarr, in any language."
As he dashed away, to cover his first audacity of compliment, Christielifted the eyes thus apost
rophized to the opposite field. The vaquero,who was chasing some cattle, was evidently too preoccupied to heed theshouts of her companion, and wheeling round suddenly to intercept oneof the deviating fugitives, permitted Christie's escort to dash past himbefore that gentleman could rein in his excited steed. This brought thevaquero directly in her path. Perceiving her, he threw his horse back onits haunches, to prevent a collision. Christie rode up to him, suddenlyuttered a cry, and halted. For before her, sunburnt in cheek and throat,darker in the free growth of moustache and curling hair, clad in thecoarse, picturesque finery of his class, undisguised only in his boyishbeauty, sat George Kearney.
The blood, that had forsaken her astonished face, rushed as quicklyback. His eyes, which had suddenly sparkled with an electrical glow,sank before hers. His hand dropped, and his cheek flushed with a darkembarrassment.
"You here, Mr. Kearney? How strange!--but how glad I am to meet youagain!"
She tried to smile; her voice trembled, and her little hand shook as sheextended it to him.
He raised his dark eyes quickly, and impulsively urged his horse to herside. But, as if suddenly awakening to the reality of the situation,he glanced at her hurriedly, down at his barbaric finery, and threw asearching look towards her escort.
In an instant Christie saw the infelicity of her position, and itsdangers. The words of Whiskey Dick, "He wouldn't stand that," flashedacross her mind. There was no time to lose. The banker had alreadygained control over his horse, and was approaching them, all unconsciousof the fixed stare with which George was regarding him. Christie hastilyseized the hand which he had allowed to fall at his side, and saidquickly:--
"Will you ride with me a little way, Mr. Kearney?"
He turned the same searching look upon her. She met it clearly andsteadily; he even thought reproachfully.
"Do!" she said hurriedly. "I ask it as a favor. I want to speak to you.Jessie and I are here alone. Father is away. YOU are one of our oldestfriends."
He hesitated. She turned to the astonished young banker, who rode up.
"I have just met an old friend. Will you please ride back as quickly asyou can, and tell Jessie that Mr. Kearney is here, and ask her to joinus?"
She watched her dazed escort, still speechless from the spectacle of thefastidious Miss Carr tete-a-tete with a common Mexican vaquero, gallopoff in the direction of the canyon, and then turned to George.
"Now take me home, the shortest way, as quick as you can."
"Home?" echoed George.
"I mean to Mr. Prince's house. Quick! before they can come up to us."
He mechanically put spurs to his horse; she followed. They presentlystruck into a trail that soon diverged again into a disused loggingtrack through the woods.
"This is the short cut to Prince's, by two miles," he said, as theyentered the woods.
As they were still galloping, without exchanging a word, Christie beganto slacken her speed; George did the same. They were safe from intrusionat the present, even if the others had found the short cut. Christie,bold and self-reliant a moment ago, suddenly found herself growing weakand embarrassed. What had she done?
She checked her horse suddenly.
"Perhaps we had better wait for them," she said timidly.
George had not raised his eyes to hers.
"You said you wanted to hurry home," he replied gently, passing his handalong his mustang's velvety neck, "and--and you had something to say tome."
"Certainly," she answered, with a faint laugh. "I'm so astonished atmeeting you here. I'm quite bewildered. You are living here; you haveforsaken us to buy a ranche?" she continued, looking at him attentively.
His brow colored slightly.
"No, I'm living here, but I have bought no ranche. I'm only a hired manon somebody else's ranche, to look after the cattle."
He saw her beautiful eyes fill with astonishment and--something else.His brow cleared; he went on, with his old boyish laugh:
"No, Miss Carr. The fact is, I'm dead broke. I've lost everything sinceI saw you last. But as I know how to ride, and I'm not afraid of work, Imanage to keep along."
"You have lost money in--in the mines?" said Christie suddenly.
"No"--he replied quickly, evading her eyes. "My brother has my interest,you know. I've been foolish on my own account solely. You know I'mrather inclined to that sort of thing. But as long as my folly don'taffect others, I can stand it."
"But it may affect others--and THEY may not think of it as folly--" Shestopped short, confused by his brightening color and eyes. "I mean--Oh,Mr. Kearney, I want you to be frank with me. I know nothing of business,but I know there has been trouble about the mine at Devil's Ford. Tellme honestly, has my father anything to do with it? If I thought thatthrough any imprudence of his, you had suffered--if I believed thatyou could trace any misfortune of yours to him--to US--I should neverforgive myself"--she stopped and flashed a single look at him--"I shouldnever forgive YOU for abandoning us."
The look of pain which had at first shown itself in his face, whichnever concealed anything, passed, and a quick smile followed herfeminine anticlimax.
"Miss Carr," he said, with boyish eagerness, "if any man suggested to methat your father wasn't the brightest and best of his kind--too wise andclever for the fools about him to understand--I'd--I'd shoot him."
Confused by his ready and gracious disclaimer of what she had NOTintended to say, there was nothing left for her but to rush uponwhat she really intended to say, with what she felt was shamefulprecipitation.
"One word more, Mr. Kearney," she began, looking down, but feeling thecolor come to her face as she spoke. "When you spoke to me the day youleft, you must have thought me hard and cruel. When I tell you that Ithought you were alluding to Jessie and some feeling you had for her--"
"For Jessie!" echoed George.
"You will understand that--that--"
"That what?" said George, drawing nearer to her.
"That I was only speaking as she might have spoken had you talked to herof me," added Christie hurriedly, slightly backing her horse away fromhim.
But this was not so easy, as George was the better rider, and by animperceptible movement of his wrist and foot had glued his horse to herside. "He will go now," she had thought, but he didn't.
"We must ride on," she suggested faintly.
"No," he said with a sudden dropping of his boyish manner and a slightlifting of his head. "We must ride together no further, Miss Carr. Imust go back to the work I am hired to do, and you must go on withyour party, whom I hear coming. But when we part here you must bid megood-by--not as Jessie's sister--but as Christie--the one--the onlywoman that I love, or that I ever have loved."
He held out his hand. With the recollection of their previous parting,she tremblingly advanced her own. He took it, but did not raise it tohis lips. And it was she who found herself half confusedly retaining hishand in hers, until she dropped it with a blush.
"Then is this the reason you give for deserting us as you have desertedDevil's Ford?" she said coldly.
He lifted his eyes to her with a strange smile, and said, "Yes," wheeledhis horse, and disappeared in the forest.
He had left her thus abruptly once before, kissed, blushing, andindignant. He was leaving her now, unkissed, but white and indignant.Yet she was so self-possessed when the party joined her, that thesingular rencontre and her explanation of the stranger's suddendeparture excited no further comment. Only Jessie managed to whisper inher ear,--
"I hope you are satisfied now that it wasn't me he meant?"
"Not at all," said Christie coldly.