by Bret Harte
CHAPER X.
But Mr. Lawrence Grant's character in certain circumstances would seemto have as startling and inexplicable contradictions as ClementinaHarcourt's, and three days later he halted his horse at the entrance ofLos Gatos Rancho. The Home of the Cats--so called from the catamountswhich infested the locality--which had for over a century lazily baskedbefore one of the hottest canyons in the Coast Range, had lately beenstirred into some activity by the American, Don Diego Fletcher, who hadbought it, put up a saw-mill, and deforested the canyon. Still thereremained enough suggestion of a feline haunt about it to make Grantfeel as if he had tracked hither some stealthy enemy, in spite of thepeaceful intimation conveyed by the sign on a rough boarded shed at thewayside, that the "Los Gatos Land and Lumber Company" held their officethere.
A cigarette-smoking peon lounged before the door. Yes; Don Diego wasthere, but as he had arrived from Santa Clara only last night and wasgoing to Colonel Ramirez that afternoon, he was engaged. Unless thebusiness was important--but the cool, determined manner of Grant, evenmore than his words, signified that it WAS important, and the servantled the way to Don Diego's presence.
There certainly was nothing in the appearance of this sylvan proprietorand newspaper capitalist to justify Grant's suspicion of a surreptitiousfoe. A handsome man scarcely older than himself, in spite of a wavymass of perfectly white hair which contrasted singularly with his brownmustache and dark sunburned face. So disguising was the effect of thesecontradictions, that he not only looked unlike anybody else, but evenhis nationality seemed to be a matter of doubt. Only his eyes, lightblue and intelligent, which had a singular expression of gentleness andworry, appeared individual to the man. His manner was cultivated andeasy. He motioned his visitor courteously to a chair.
"I was referred to you," said Grant, almost abruptly, "as the personresponsible for a series of slanderous attacks against Mr. DanielHarcourt in the 'Clarion,' of which paper I believe you are theproprietor. I was told that you declined to give the authority for youraction, unless you were forced to by legal proceedings."
Fletcher's sensitive blue eyes rested upon Grant's with an expressionof constrained pain and pity. "I heard of your inquiries, Mr. Grant; youwere making them on behalf of this Mr. Harcourt or Harkutt"--he made thedistinction with intentional deliberation--"with a view, I believe, tosome arbitration. The case was stated to you fairly, I think; I believeI have nothing to add to it."
"That was your answer to the ambassador of Mr. Harcourt," said Grant,coldly, "and as such I delivered it to him; but I am here to-day tospeak on my own account."
What could be seen of Mr. Fletcher's lips appeared to curl in an oddsmile. "Indeed, I thought it was--or would be--all in the family."
Grant's face grew more stern, and his gray eyes glittered. "You'll findmy status in this matter so far independent that I don't propose,like Mr. Harcourt, either to begin a suit or to rest quietly under thecalumny. Briefly, Mr. Fletcher, as you or your informant knows, I wasthe surveyor who revealed to Mr. Harcourt the value of the land to whichhe claimed a title from your man, this Elijah or 'Lige Curtis as youcall him,"--he could not resist this imitation of his adversary'ssupercilious affectation of precise nomenclature,--"and it was uponmy representation of its value as an investment that he began theimprovements which have made him wealthy. If this title was fraudulentlyobtained, all the facts pertaining to it are sufficiently related toconnect me with the conspiracy."
"Are you not a little hasty in your presumption, Mr. Grant?" saidFletcher, with unfeigned surprise.
"That is for ME to judge, Mr. Fletcher," returned Grant, haughtily.
"But the name of Professor Grant is known to all California as beyondthe breath of calumny or suspicion."
"It is because of that fact that I propose to keep it so."
"And may I ask in what way you wish me to assist you in so doing?"
"By promptly and publicly retracting in the 'Clarion' every word of thisslander against Harcourt."
Fletcher looked steadfastly at the speaker. "And if I decline?"
"I think you have been long enough in California, Mr. Fletcher, to knowthe alternative expected of a gentleman," said Grant, coldly.
Mr. Fletcher kept his gentle blue eyes--in which surprise stilloverbalanced their expression of pained concern--on Grant's face.
"But is not this more in the style of Colonel Starbottle than ProfessorGrant?" he asked, with a faint smile.
Grant rose instantly with a white face. "You will have a betteropportunity of judging," he said, "when Colonel Starbottle has the honorof waiting upon you from me. Meantime, I thank you for reminding me ofthe indiscretion into which my folly, in still believing that this thingcould be settled amicably, has led me."
He bowed coldly and withdrew. Nevertheless, as he mounted his horseand rode away, he felt his cheeks burning. Yet he had acted upon calmconsideration; he knew that to the ordinary Californian experience therewas nothing quixotic nor exaggerated in the attitude he had taken. Menhad quarreled and fought on less grounds; he had even half convincedhimself that he HAD been insulted, and that his own professionalreputation demanded the withdrawal of the attack on Harcourt onpurely business grounds; but he was not satisfied of the personalresponsibility of Fletcher nor of his gratuitous malignity. Nor did theman look like a tool in the hands of some unscrupulous and hidden enemy.However, he had played his card. If he succeeded only in provoking aduel with Fletcher, he at least would divert the public attention fromHarcourt to himself. He knew that his superior position would throw thelesser victim in the background. He would make the sacrifice; that washis duty as a gentleman, even if SHE would not care to accept it as anearnest of his unselfish love!
He had reached the point where the mountain track entered the SantaClara turnpike when his attention was attracted by a handsome butold-fashioned carriage drawn by four white mules, which passed down theroad before him and turned suddenly off into a private road. But it wasnot this picturesque gala equipage of some local Spanish grandee thatbrought a thrill to his nerves and a flash to his eye; it was theunmistakable, tall, elegant figure and handsome profile of Clementina,reclining in light gauzy wraps against the back seat! It was no fancifulresemblance, the outcome of his reverie,--there never was any one likeher!--it WAS she herself! But what was she doing here?
A vaquero cantered from the cross road where the dust of the vehiclestill hung. Grant hailed him. Ah! it was a fine carroza de cuatro mulasthat he had just passed! Si, Senor, truly; it was of Don Jose Ramirez,who lived just under the hill. It was bringing company to the casa.
Ramirez! That was where Fletcher was going! Had Clementina known thathe was one of Fletcher's friends? Might she not be exposed tounpleasantness, marked coolness, or even insult in that unexpectedmeeting? Ought she not to be warned or prepared for it? She had banishedGrant from her presence until this stain was removed from her father'sname, but could she blame him for trying to save her from contact withher father's slanderer? No! He turned his horse abruptly into the crossroad and spurred forward in the direction of the casa.
It was quite visible now--a low-walled, quadrangular mass of whitewashedadobe lying like a drift on the green hillside. The carriage and fourhad far preceded him, and was already half up the winding road towardsthe house. Later he saw them reach the courtyard and disappear within.He would be quite in time to speak with her before she retired to changeher dress. He would simply say that while making a professional visitto Los Gatos Land Company office he had become aware of Fletcher'sconnection with it, and accidentally of his intended visit to Ramirez.His chance meeting with the carriage on the highway had determined hiscourse.
As he rode into the courtyard he observed that it was also approachedby another road, evidently nearer Los Gatos, and probably the olderand shorter communication between the two ranchos. The fact wassignificantly demonstrated a moment later. He had given his horse to aservant, sent in his card to Clementina, and had dropped listlessly onone of the benches of the gall
ery surrounding the patio, when a horsemanrode briskly into the opposite gateway, and dismounted with a familiarair. A waiting peon who recognized him informed him that the Dona wasengaged with a visitor, but that they were both returning to the galleryfor chocolate in a moment. The stranger was the man he had left only anhour before--Don Diego Fletcher!
In an instant the idiotic fatuity of his position struck him fully. Hisonly excuse for following Clementina had been to warn her of the comingof this man who had just entered, and who would now meet her as quicklyas himself. For a brief moment the idea of quietly slipping out to thecorral, mounting his horse again, and flying from the rancho, crossedhis mind; but the thought that he would be running away from the man hehad just challenged, and perhaps some new hostility that had sprung upin his heart against him, compelled him to remain. The eyes of both menmet; Fletcher's in half-wondering annoyance, Grant's in ill-concealedantagonism. What they would have said is not known, for at that momentthe voices of Clementina and Mrs. Ramirez were heard in the passage, andthey both entered the gallery. The two men were standing together; itwas impossible to see one without the other.
And yet Grant, whose eyes were instantly directed to Clementina, thoughtthat she had noted neither. She remained for an instant standing in thedoorway in the same self-possessed, coldly graceful pose he rememberedshe had taken on the platform at Tasajara. Her eyelids were slightlydowncast, as if she had been arrested by some sudden thought or some shymaiden sensitiveness; in her hesitation Mrs. Ramirez passed impatientlybefore her.
"Mother of God!" said that lively lady, regarding the two speechlessmen, "is it an indiscretion we are making here--or are you dumb? You,Don Diego, are loud enough when you and Don Jose are together; at leastintroduce your friend."
Grant quickly recovered himself. "I am afraid," he said, coming forward,"unless Miss Harcourt does, that I am a mere trespasser in your house,Senora. I saw her pass in your carriage a few moments ago, and having amessage for her I ventured to follow her here."
"It is Mr. Grant, a friend of my father's," said Clementina, smilingwith equanimity, as if just awakening from a momentary abstraction,yet apparently unconscious of Grant's imploring eyes; "but the othergentleman I have not the pleasure of knowing."
"Ah! Don Diego Fletcher, a countryman of yours; and yet I think he knowsyou not."
Clementina's face betrayed no indication of the presence of her father'sfoe, and yet Grant knew that she must have recognized his name, as shelooked towards Fletcher with perfect self-possession. He was too muchengaged in watching her to take note of Fletcher's manifest disturbance,or the evident effort with which he at last bowed to her. That thisunexpected double meeting with the daughter of the man he had wronged,and the man who had espoused the quarrel, should be confounding to himappeared only natural. But he was unprepared to understand the feverishalacrity with which he accepted Dona Maria's invitation to chocolate,or the equally animated way in which Clementina threw herself into herhostess's Spanish levity. He knew it was an awkward situation, that mustbe surmounted without a scene; he was quite prepared in the presence ofClementina to be civil to Fletcher; but it was odd that in this feverishexchange of courtesies and compliments HE, Grant, should feel thegreater awkwardness and be the most ill at ease. He sat down and tookhis part in the conversation; he let it transpire for Clementina'sbenefit that he had been to Los Gatos only on business, yet there wasno opportunity for even a significant glance, and he had the addedembarrassment of seeing that she exhibited no surprise nor seemed toattach the least importance to his inopportune visit. In a miserableindecision he allowed himself to be carried away by the high-flownhospitality of his Spanish hostess, and consented to stay to an earlydinner. It was part of the infelicity of circumstance that the volubleDona Maria--electing him as the distinguished stranger above theresident Fletcher--monopolized him and attached him to her side. Shewould do the honors of her house; she must show him the ruins of theold Mission beside the corral; Don Diego and Clementina would join thempresently in the garden. He cast a despairing glance at the placidlysmiling Clementina, who was apparently equally indifferent to theevident constraint and assumed ease of the man beside her, and turnedaway with Mrs. Ramirez.
A silence fell upon the gallery so deep that the receding voices andfootsteps of Grant and his hostess in the long passage were distinctlyheard until they reached the end. Then Fletcher arose with aninarticulate exclamation. Clementina instantly put her finger to herlips, glanced around the gallery, extended her hand to him, and saying"Come," half-led, half-dragged him into the passage. To the rightshe turned and pushed open the door of a small room that seemed acombination of boudoir and oratory, lit by a French window opening tothe garden, and flanked by a large black and white crucifix with a prieDieu beneath it. Closing the door behind them she turned and facedher companion. But it was no longer the face of the woman who had beensitting in the gallery; it was the face that had looked back at herfrom the mirror at Tasajara the night that Grant had left her--eager,flushed, material with commonplace excitement!
"'Lige Curtis," she said.
"Yes," he answered passionately, "Lige Curtis, whom you thought dead!'Lige Curtis, whom you once pitied, condoled with and despised! 'LigeCurtis, whose lands and property have enriched you! 'Lige Curtis, whowould have shared it with you freely at the time, but whom your fatherjuggled and defrauded of it! 'Lige Curtis, branded by him as a drunkenoutcast and suicide! 'Lige Curtis"--
"Hush!" She clapped her little hand over his mouth with a quick butawkward schoolgirl gesture, inconceivable to any who had known her usuallanguid elegance of motion, and held it there. He struggled angrily,impatiently, reproachfully, and then, with a sudden characteristicweakness that seemed as much of a revelation as her once hoydenishmanner, kissed it, when she let it drop. Then placing both her handsstill girlishly on her slim waist and curtseying grotesquely beforehim, she said: "'Lige Curtis! Oh, yes! 'Lige Curtis, who swore to doeverything for me! 'Lige Curtis, who promised to give up liquor forme,--who was to leave Tasajara for me! 'Lige Curtis, who was to reform,and keep his land as a nest-egg for us both in the future, and thenwho sold it--and himself--and me--to dad for a glass of whiskey! 'LigeCurtis, who disappeared, and then let us think he was dead, only that hemight attack us out of the ambush of his grave!"
"Yes, but think what I have suffered all these years; not for thecursed land--you know I never cared for that--but for YOU,--you,Clementina,--YOU rich, admired by every one; idolized, held far aboveme,--ME, the forgotten outcast, the wretched suicide--and yet the manto whom you had once plighted your troth. Which of those greedyfortune-hunters whom my money--my life-blood as you might have thoughtit was--attracted to you, did you care to tell that you had ever slippedout of the little garden gate at Sidon to meet that outcast! Do youwonder that as the years passed and YOU were happy, I did not choose tobe so forgotten? Do you wonder that when YOU shut the door on the pastI managed to open it again--if only a little way--that its light mightstartle you?"
Yet she did not seem startled or disturbed, and remained only looking athim critically.
"You say that you have suffered," she replied with a smile. "You don'tlook it! Your hair is white, but it is becoming to you, and you are ahandsomer man, 'Lige Curtis, than you were when I first met you; you arefiner," she went on, still regarding him, "stronger and healthierthan you were five years ago; you are rich and prosperous, you haveeverything to make you happy, but"--here she laughed a little, heldout both her hands, taking his and holding his arms apart in a rustic,homely fashion--"but you are still the same old 'Lige Curtis! It waslike you to go off and hide yourself in that idiotic way; it was likeyou to let the property slide in that stupid, unselfish fashion; it waslike you to get real mad, and say all those mean, silly things to dad,that didn't hurt him--in your regular looney style; for rich or poor,drunk or sober, ragged or elegant, plain or handsome,--you're always thesame 'Lige Curtis!"
In proportion as that material, practical, rustic self--which nobodybut 'Li
ge Curtis had ever seen--came back to her, so in proportion theirresolute, wavering, weak and emotional vagabond of Sidon came out tomeet it. He looked at her with a vague smile; his five years of childishresentment, albeit carried on the shoulders of a man mentally andmorally her superior, melted away. He drew her towards him, yet at thesame moment a quick suspicion returned.
"Well, and what are you doing here? Has this man who has followed youany right, any claim upon you?"
"None but what you in your folly have forced upon him! You have made himfather's ally. I don't know why he came here. I only know why I did--tofind YOU!"
"You suspected then?"
"I KNEW! Hush!"
The returning voices of Grant and of Mrs. Ramirez were heard in thecourtyard. Clementina made a warning yet girlishly mirthful gesture,again caught his hand, drew him quickly to the French window, andslipped through it with him into the garden, where they were quicklylost in the shadows of a ceanothus hedge.
"They have probably met Don Jose in the orchard, and as he and Don Diegohave business together, Dona Clementina has without doubt gone to herroom and left them. For you are not very entertaining to the ladiesto-day,--you two caballeros! You have much politics together, eh?--oryou have discussed and disagreed, eh? I will look for the Senorita, andlet you go, Don Distraido!"
It is to be feared that Grant's apologies and attempts to detain herwere equally feeble,--as it seemed to him that this was the only chancehe might have of seeing Clementina except in company with Fletcher. AsMrs. Ramirez left he lit a cigarette and listlessly walked up anddown the gallery. But Clementina did not come, neither did his hostessreturn. A subdued step in the passage raised his hopes,--it was onlythe grizzled major domo, to show him his room that he might prepare fordinner.
He followed mechanically down the long passage to a second corridor.There was a chance that he might meet Clementina, but he reached hisroom without encountering any one. It was a large vaulted apartment witha single window, a deep embrasure in the thick wall that seemed to focuslike a telescope some forgotten, sequestered part of the leafy garden.While washing his hands, gazing absently at the green vignette framed bythe dark opening, his attention was drawn to a movement of the foliage,stirred apparently by the rapid passage of two half-hidden figures. Thequick flash of a feminine skirt seemed to indicate the coy flight ofsome romping maid of the casa, and the pursuit and struggle of hervaquero swain. To a despairing lover even the spectacle of innocent,pastoral happiness in others is not apt to be soothing, and Grant wasturning impatiently away when he suddenly stopped with a rigid face andquickly approached the window. In her struggles with the unseen Corydon,the clustering leaves seemed to have yielded at the same moment with thecoy Chloris, and parting--disclosed a stolen kiss! Grant's hand lay likeice against the wall. For, disengaging Fletcher's arm from her waistand freeing her skirt from the foliage, it was the calm, passionlessClementina herself who stepped out, and moved pensively towards thecasa.