by Bret Harte
CHAPTER II.
MADAME DEVARGES.
Mr. Ramirez followed the porter upstairs, and along a narrow passage,until he reached a larger hall. Here the porter indicated that he shouldwait until he returned, and then disappeared down the darkened vista ofanother passage. Mr. Ramirez had ample time to observe the freshness ofthe boarded partitions and scant details of the interior of theInternational Hotel; he even had time to attempt to grapple the foreignmystery of the notice conspicuously on the wall, "Gentlemen arerequested not to sleep on the stairs," before his companion reappeared.Beckoning to Mr. Ramirez, with an air of surly suspicion, the porter ledhim along the darkened passage until he paused before a door at itsfarther extremity and knocked gently. Slight as was the knock, it hadthe mysterious effect of causing all the other doors along the passageto open, and a masculine head to appear at each opening. Mr. Ramirez'sbrow darkened quickly. He was sufficiently conversant with theconditions of that early civilization to know that, as a visitor to alady, he was the object of every man's curious envy and aggressivesuspicion. There was the sound of light footsteps within, and the dooropened. The porter lingered long enough to be able to decide upon thecharacter and propriety of the greeting, and then sullenly retired. Thedoor closed, and Mr. Ramirez found himself face to face with theoccupant of the room. She was a small, slight blonde, who, when thesmile that had lit her mouth and eyes as she opened the door fadedsuddenly as she closed it, might have passed for a plain, indistinctivewoman. But for a certain dangerous submissiveness of manner--which Ihere humbly submit is always to be feared in an all-powerful sex--and anaddress that was rather more deprecatory than occasion called for, shewould hardly have awakened the admiration of our sex or the fears of herown.
As Ramirez advanced, with both hands impulsively extended, she drew backshyly, and, pointing to the ceiling and walls, said quietly, "Cloth andpaper!"
Ramirez's dark face grew darker. There was a long pause. Suddenly thelady lightened the shadow that seemed to have fallen upon theirinterview with both her teeth and eyes, and, pointing to a chair, said--
"Sit down, Victor, and tell me why you have returned so soon."
Victor sat sullenly down. The lady looked all deprecation andsubmissiveness, but said nothing.
Ramirez would, in his sullenness, have imitated her, but his naturalimpulsiveness was too strong, and he broke out--
"Look! From the book of the hotel it is better you should erase the nameof Grace Conroy, and put down your own!"
"And why, Victor?"
"She asks why," said Victor, appealing to the ceiling. "My God! Becauseone hundred miles from here live the brother and sister of Grace Conroy.I have seen him!"
"Well."
"Well," echoed Victor. "Is it well? Listen. You shall hear if it iswell."
He drew his chair beside her, and went on in a low, earnest voice--
"I have at last located the mine. I followed the _deseno_--thedescription of the spot, and all its surroundings--which was in thepaper that I--I--found. Good! It is true!--ah, you begin to beinterested!--it is true, all true of the locality. See! Of the spot I donot know. Of the mine it has not yet been discovered!
"It is called 'One Horse Gulch;' why--who knows? It is a rich miningcamp. All around are valuable claims; but the mine on the top of thelittle hill is unknown, unclaimed! For why? You understand, it promisesnot as much as the other claims on the surface. It is the same--all asdescribed here."
He took from his pocket an envelope, and drew out a folded paper (thepapers given to Grace Conroy by Dr. Devarges), and pointed to the map.
"The description here leads me to the head waters of the American River.I followed the range of foot-hills, for I know every foot, every step,and I came one day last week to 'One Horse Gulch.' See, it is the gulchdescribed here--all the same."
He held the paper before her, and her thin, long fingers closed like abird's claw over its corners.
"It is necessary I should stay there four or five days to inquire. Andyet how? I am a stranger, a foreigner; the miners have suspicion of allsuch, and to me they do not talk easily. But I hear of one GabrielConroy, a good man, very kind with the sick. Good! I have sickness--verysudden, very strong! My rheumatism takes me here." He pointed to hisknee. "I am helpless as a child. I have to be taken care of at the houseof Mr. Briggs. Comes to me here Gabriel Conroy, sits by me, talks to me,tells me everything. He brings to me his little sister. I go to hiscabin on the hill. I see the picture of his sister. Good. Youunderstand? It is all over!"
"Why?"
"Eh? She asks why, this woman," said Victor, appealing to the ceiling."Is it more you ask? Then listen. The house of Gabriel Conroy is uponthe land, the very land, you understand? of the grant made by theGovernor to Dr. Devarges. He is this Gabriel, look! he is inpossession!"
"How? Does he know of the mine?"
"No! It is accident--what you call Fate!"
She walked to the window, and stood for a few moments looking out uponthe falling rain. The face that looked out was so old, so haggard, sohard and set in its outlines, that one of the loungers on the side-walk,glancing at the window to catch a glimpse of the pretty French stranger,did not recognise her. Possibly the incident recalled her to herself,for she presently turned with a smile of ineffable sweetness, andreturning to the side of Ramirez, said, in the gentlest of voices, "Thenyou abandon me?"
Victor did not dare to meet her eyes. He looked straight before him,shrugged his shoulders, and said--"It is Fate!"
She clasped her thin fingers lightly before her, and, standing in frontof her companion, so as to be level with his eyes, said--"You have agood memory, Victor."
He did not reply.
"Let me assist it. It is a year ago that I received a letter in Berlin,signed by a Mr. Peter Dumphy, of San Francisco, saying that he was inpossession of important papers regarding property of my late husband,Dr. Paul Devarges, and asking me to communicate with him. I did notanswer his letter; I came. It is not my way to deliberate orhesitate--perhaps a wise man would. I am only a poor, weak woman, so Icame. I know it was all wrong. You sharp, bold, cautious men would havewritten first. Well, I came!"
Victor winced slightly, but did not speak.
"I saw Mr. Dumphy in San Francisco. He showed me some papers that hesaid he had found in a place of deposit which Dr. Devarges had evidentlywished preserved. One was a record of a Spanish grant, others indicatedsome valuable discoveries. He referred me to the Mission and Presidio ofSan Ysabel that had sent out the relief party for further information.He was a trader--a mere man of business--it was a question of money withhim; he agreed to assist me for a _percentage_! Is it not so?"
Victor raised his dark eyes to hers, and nodded.
"I came to the Mission. I saw _you_--the Secretary of the formerComandante--the only one left who remembered the expedition, and thecustodian of the Presidio records. You showed me the only copy of thereport; _you_, too, would have been cold and business-like, until I toldyou my story. You seemed interested. You told me about the young girl,this mysterious Grace Conroy, whose name appeared among the dead, whoyou said you thought was an impostor! Did you not?"
Victor nodded.
"You told me of her agony on reading the report! Of her fainting, of thediscovery of her condition by the women, of the Comandante's pity, ofher mysterious disappearance, of the Comandante's reticence, of your ownsuspicions of the birth of a child! Did you not, Victor?"
He endeavoured to take her hand. Without altering her gentle manner, shewithdrew her hand quietly, and went on--
"And then you told me of your finding that paper on the floor where theyloosened her dress--the paper you now hold in your hand. You told me ofyour reasons for concealing and withholding it. And then, Victor, youproposed to me a plan to secure my own again--to personate this girl--toout-imposture this imposture. You did not ask me for a percentage! Youdid not seek to make money out of my needs; you asked only for my love!Well, well! perhaps I was a fool, a weak woman. It was
a tempting bribe;possibly I listened more to the promptings of my heart than my interest.I promised you my hand and my fortune when we succeeded. You come to menow, and ask to be relieved of that obligation. No! no! you have saidenough."
The now frightened man had seized her by the hand, and thrown himself onhis knees before her in passionate contrition; but, with a powerfuleffort, she had wrested herself free.
"No, no!" she continued, in the same deprecatory voice. "Go to thisbrother, whom the chief end of your labours seems to have been todiscover. Go to him now. Restore to him the paper you hold in your hand.Say that you stole it from his sister, whom you suspected to have beenan impostor, and that you knew to be the mother of an illegitimatechild! Say that in doing this, you took the last hope from the wrongedand cast-off wife who came thousands of miles to claim something fromthe man who should have supported her. Say this, and that brother, if heis the good and kind man you represent him to be, he will rise up andbless you! You have only to tell him further, that this paper cannot beof any use to him, as this property legally belongs to his sister'schild, if living. You have only to hand him the report which declaresboth of his sisters to be dead, and leaves his own identity in doubt, toshow him what a blessing has fallen upon him."
"Forgive me," gasped Victor, with a painful blending of shame andawesome admiration of the woman before him; "forgive me, Julie! I am acoward! a slave! an ingrate! I will do anything, Julie; anything yousay."
Madame Devarges was too sagacious to press her victory further; perhapsshe was too cautious to exasperate the already incautiouslydemonstrative man before her. She said "Hush," and permitted him at thesame time, as if unconsciously, to draw her beside him.
"Listen, Victor. What have you to fear from this man?" she asked, aftera pause. "What would his evidence weigh against me, when he is inunlawful possession of my property, my legally declared properly, if Ichoose to deny his relationship? Who will identity him as GabrielConroy, when his only surviving relative dare not come forward torecognise him; when, if she did, you could swear that she came to youunder another name? What would this brother's self-interested evidenceamount to opposed to yours, that I was the Grace Conroy who came to theMission, to the proof of my identity offered by one of the survivors,Peter Dumphy?"
"Dumphy!" echoed Ramirez, in amazement.
"Yes, Dumphy!" repeated Madame Devarges. "When he found that, as thedivorced wife of Dr. Devarges, I could make no legal claim, and I toldhim of your plan, he offered himself as witness of my identity. Ah,Victor! I have not been idle while you have found only obstacles."
"Forgive me!" He caught and kissed her hands passionately. "I fly now.Good-bye."
"Where are you going?" she asked, rising.
"To 'One Horse Gulch,'" he answered.
"No! Sit down. Listen. You must go to San Francisco, and inform Dumphyof your discovery. It will be necessary, perhaps, to have a lawyer; butwe must first see how strong we stand. You must find out the whereaboutsof this girl Grace, at once. Go to San Francisco, see Dumphy, and returnto me here!"
"But you are alone here, and unprotected. These men!"
The quick suspicions of a jealous nature flashed in his eyes.
"Believe me, they are less dangerous to our plans than women! Do you nottrust me, Victor?" she said, with a dazzling smile.
He would have thrown himself at her feet, but she restrained him with anarch look at the wall, and a precautionary uplifted finger.
"Good; go now. Stay. This Gabriel--is he married?"
"No."
"Good-bye."
The door closed upon his dark, eager face, and he was gone. A momentlater there was a sharp ringing of the bell of No. 92, the next room tothat occupied by Mme. Devarges.
The truculent porter knocked at the door, and entered this roomrespectfully. There was no suspicion attached to the character of _its_occupant. _He_ was well known as Mr. Jack Hamlin, a gambler.
"Why the devil did you keep me waiting?" said Jack, reaching from thebed, and wrathfully clutching his boot-jack.
The man murmured some apology.
"Bring me some hot water."
The porter was about to hurriedly withdraw, when Jack stopped him withan oath.
"You've been long enough coming without shooting off like that. Who wasthat man that just left the next room?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Find out, and let me know."
He flung a gold piece at the man, beat up his pillow, and turned hisface to the wall. The porter still lingered, and Jack faced sharplyround.
"Not gone yet? What the devil"----
"Beg your pardon, sir; do you know anything about her?"
"No," said Jack, raising himself on his elbow; "but if I catch youhanging round that door, as you were five minutes ago, I'll"----.
Here Mr. Hamlin dropped his voice, and intimated that he would forciblydislodge certain vital and necessary organs from the porter's body.
"Go."
After the door closed again, Mr. Hamlin lay silent for an hour. At theend of that time he got up and began to dress himself slowly, singingsoftly to himself the while, as was his invariable custom, in that sweettenor for which he was famous. When he had thus warbled through histoilet, replacing a small ivory-handled pistol in his waistcoat-pocketto one of his most heart-breaking notes, he put his hat on his handsomehead, perhaps a trifle more on one side than usual, and stepped into thehall. As he sharply shut his door and locked it, the slight concussionof the thin partitions caused the door of his fair neighbour's room tostart ajar, and Mr. Hamlin, looking up mechanically, saw the ladystanding by the bureau, with her handkerchief to her eyes. Mr. Hamlininstantly stopped his warbling, and walked gravely downstairs. At thefoot of the steps he met the porter. The man touched his hat.
"He doesn't belong here, sir."
"Who doesn't belong here?" asked Mr. Hamlin, coldly.
"That man."
"What man?"
"The man you asked about."
Mr. Hamlin quietly took out a cigar, lit it, and after one or two puffs,looked fixedly in the man's eyes, and said--
"I haven't asked you about any man."
"I thought, sir"----
"You shouldn't begin to drink so early in the day, Michael," said Mr.Hamlin, quietly, without withdrawing his black eyes from the man's face."You can't stand it on an empty stomach. Take my advice and wait tillafter dinner."