by Bret Harte
property?" she saidsharply.
The group halted and turned towards her. The orderly, who was following,turned his face aside and smiled. The younger officer demurely liftedhis cap. The elder, gray, handsome, in a general's uniform, after amoment's half-astounded, half-amused scrutiny of the little figure,gravely raised his gauntleted fingers in a military salute.
"I beg your pardon, madam, but I am afraid we never even thought ofthat. We are making a preliminary survey for the Government with apossible view of fortifying the bluff. It is very doubtful if you willbe disturbed in any rights you may have, but if you are, the Governmentwill not fail to make it good to you." He turned carelessly to the aidebeside him. "I suppose the bluff is quite inaccessible from here?"
"I don't know about that, general. They say that Marion, after he killedHenderson, escaped down this way," said the young man.
"Indeed, what good was that? How did he get away from here?"
"They say that Mrs. Fairfax was hanging round in a boat, waiting forhim. The story of the escape is all out now."
They moved away with a slight perfunctory bow to Mrs. Bunker, only theyounger officer noting that the pert, pretty little Western woman wasn'tas sharp and snappy to his superior as she had at first promised to be.
She turned back to the cottage astounded, angry, and vaguely alarmed.Who was this Mrs. Fairfax who had usurped her fame and solitarydevotion? There was no woman in the boat that took him off; it wasequally well known that he went in the ship alone. If they had heardthat some woman was with him here--why should they have supposed it wasMrs. Fairfax? Zephas might know something--but he was away. The thoughthaunted her that day and the next. On the third came a more startlingincident.
She had been wandering along the edge of her domain in a state ofrestlessness which had driven her from the monotony of the house whenshe heard the barking of the big Newfoundland dog which Zephas hadlately bought for protection and company. She looked up and saw the boatand its solitary rower at the landing. She ran quickly to the house tobring the packet. As she entered she started back in amazement. For thesitting-room was already in possession of a woman who was seated calmlyby the table.
The stranger turned on Mrs. Bunker that frankly insolent glance anddeliberate examination which only one woman can give another. In thatglance Mrs. Bunker felt herself in the presence of a superior, even ifher own eyes had not told her that in beauty, attire, and bearing theintruder was of a type and condition far beyond her own, or even that ofany she had known. It was the more crushing that there also seemed to bein this haughty woman the same incongruousness and sharp contrast to theplain and homely surroundings of the cottage that she remembered in HIM.
"Yo' aw Mrs. Bunker, I believe," she said in languid Southern accents."How de doh?"
"I am Mrs. Bunker," said Mrs. Bunker shortly.
"And so this is where Cunnle Marion stopped when he waited fo' theboat to take him off," said the stranger, glancing lazily around, anddelaying with smiling insolence the explanation she knew Mrs. Bunker wasexpecting. "The cunnle said it was a pooh enough place, but I don't seeit. I reckon, however, he was too worried to judge and glad enough toget off. Yo' ought to have made him talk--he generally don't want muchprompting to talk to women, if they're pooty."
"He didn't seem in a hurry to go," said Mrs. Bunker indignantly. Thenext moment she saw her error, even before the cruel, handsome smile ofher unbidden guest revealed it.
"I thought so," she said lazily; "this IS the place and here's where thecunnle stayed. Only yo' oughtn't have given him and yo'self away to thefirst stranger quite so easy. The cunnle might have taught yo' THAT thetwo or three hours he was with yo'."
"What do you want with me?" demanded Mrs. Bunker angrily.
"I want a letter yo' have for me from Cunnle Marion."
"I have nothing for you," said Mrs. Bunker. "I don't know who you are."
"You ought to, considering you've been acting as messenger between thecunnle and me," said the lady coolly.
"That's not true," said Mrs. Bunker hotly, to combat an inward sinking.
The lady rose with a lazy, languid grace, walked to the door and calledstill lazily, "O Pedro!"
The solitary rower clambered up the rocks and appeared on the cottagethreshold.
"Is this the lady who gave you the letters for me and to whom you tookmine?"
"Si, senora."
"They were addressed to a Mr. Kirby," said Mrs. Bunker sullenly. "Howwas I to know they were for Mrs. Kirby?"
"Mr. Kirby, Mrs. Kirby, and myself are all the same. You don't supposethe cunnle would give my real name and address? Did you address yo'rpacket to HIS real name or to some one else. Did you let your husbandknow who they were for?"
Oddly, a sickening sense of the meanness of all these deceits andsubterfuges suddenly came over Mrs. Bunker. Without replying she wentto her bedroom and returned with Colonel Marion's last letter, which shetossed into her visitor's lap.
"Thank yo', Mrs. Bunker. I'll be sure to tell the cunnle how careful yo'were not to give up his correspondence to everybody. It'll please himmo' than to hear yo' are wearing his ring--which everybody knows--beforepeople."
"He gave it to me--he--he knew I wouldn't take money," said Mrs. Bunkerindignantly.
"He didn't have any to give," said the lady slowly, as she removed theenvelope from her letter and looked up with a dazzling but cruel smile."A So'th'n gentleman don't fill up his pockets when he goes out tofight. He don't tuck his maw's Bible in his breast-pocket, clap his dearauntie's locket big as a cheese plate over his heart, nor let his soleleather cigyar case that his gyrl gave him lie round him in spots whenhe goes out to take another gentleman's fire. He leaves that to Yanks!"
"Did you come here to insult my husband?" said Mrs. Bunker in the rageof desperation.
"To insult yo' husband! Well--I came here to get a letter that his wifereceived from his political and natural enemy and--perhaps I DID!" Witha side glance at Mrs. Bunker's crimson cheek she added carelessly, "Ihave nothing against Captain Bunker; he's a straightforward man andmust go with his kind. He helped those hounds of Vigilantes because hebelieves in them. We couldn't bribe him if we wanted to. And we don't."
If she only knew something of this woman's relations to Marion--whichshe only instinctively suspected--and could retaliate upon her, Mrs.Bunker felt she would have given up her life at that moment.
"Colonel Marion seems to find plenty that he can bribe," she saidroughly, "and I've yet to know who YOU are to sit in judgment on them.You've got your letter, take it and go! When he wants to send youanother through me, somebody else must come for it, not you. That'sall!"
She drew back as if to let the intruder pass, but the lady, withoutmoving a muscle, finished the reading of her letter, then stoodup quietly and began carefully to draw her handsome cloak over hershoulders. "Yo' want to know who I am, Mrs. Bunker," she said, arrangingthe velvet collar under her white oval chin. "Well, I'm a So'th'n womanfrom Figinya, and I'm Figinyan first, last, and all the time." She shookout her sleeves and the folds of her cloak. "I believe in State rightsand slavery--if you know what that means. I hate the North, I hate theEast, I hate the West. I hate this nigger Government, I'd kill that manLincoln quicker than lightning!" She began to draw down the fingers ofher gloves, holding her shapely hands upright before her. "I'm hard andfast to the Cause. I gave up house and niggers for it." She began tobutton her gloves at the wrist with some difficulty, tightly settingtogether her beautiful lips as she did so. "I gave up my husband forit, and I went to the man who loved it better and had risked more for itthan ever he had. Cunnle Marion's my friend. I'm Mrs. Fairfax,Josephine Hardee that was; HIS disciple and follower. Well, maybe thosepuritanical No'th'n folks might give it another name!"
She moved slowly towards the door, but on the threshold paused, asColonel Marion had, and came back to Mrs. Bunker with an outstretchedhand. "I don't see that yo' and me need quo'll. I didn't come here forthat. I came here to see yo'r husband, and seeing YO' I thought
it wasonly right to talk squarely to yo', as yo' understand I WOULDN'T talk toyo'r husband. Mrs. Bunker, I want yo'r husband to take me away--I wanthim to take me to the cunnle. If I tried to go in any other way I'dbe watched, spied upon and followed, and only lead those hounds on histrack. I don't expect yo' to ASK yo' husband for me, but only not tointerfere when I do."
There was a touch of unexpected weakness