by Bret Harte
CHAPTER VI
When Miss Nellie reached the first mining extension of Indian Spring,which surrounded it like a fosse, she descended for one instant into oneof its trenches, opened her parasol, removed her duster, hid it under abowlder, and with a few shivers and cat-like strokes of her softhands not only obliterated all material traces of the stolen cream ofCarquinez Woods, but assumed a feline demureness quite inconsistent withany moral dereliction. Unfortunately, she forgot to remove at the sametime a certain ring from her third finger, which she had put on with herduster and had worn at no other time. With this slight exception, thebenignant fate which always protected that young person brought herin contact with the Burnham girls at one end of the main street as thereturning coach to Excelsior entered the other, and enabled her to takeleave of them before the coach office with a certain ostentation ofparting which struck Mr. Jack Brace, who was lingering at the doorway,into a state of utter bewilderment.
Here was Miss Nellie Wynn, the belle of Excelsior, calm, quiet,self-possessed, her chaste cambric skirts and dainty shoes as fresh aswhen she had left her father's house; but where was the woman of thebrown duster, and where the yellow-dressed apparition of the woods? Hewas feebly repeating to himself his mental adjuration of a few hoursbefore when he caught her eye, and was taken with a blush and a fitof coughing. Could he have been such an egregious fool, and was it notplainly written on his embarrassed face for her to read?
"Are we going down together?" asked Miss Nellie with an exceptionallygracious smile.
There was neither affectation nor coquetry in this advance. The girlhad no idea of Brace's suspicion of her, nor did any uneasy desire toplacate or deceive a possible rival of Low's prompt her graciousness.She simply wished to shake off in this encounter the already staleexcitement of the past two hours, as she had shaken the dust of thewoods from her clothes. It was characteristic of her irresponsiblenature and transient susceptibilities that she actually enjoyedthe relief of change; more than that, I fear, she looked upon thisinfidelity to a past dubious pleasure as a moral principle. A mild, openflirtation with a recognized man like Brace, after her secret passionatetryst with a nameless nomad like Low, was an ethical equipoise thatseemed proper to one of her religious education.
Brace was only too happy to profit by Miss Nellie's condescension; he atonce secured the seat by her side, and spent the four hours and a halfof their return journey to Excelsior in blissful but timid communionwith her. If he did not dare to confess his past suspicions, he wasequally afraid to venture upon the boldness he had premeditated afew hours before. He was therefore obliged to take a middle course ofslightly egotistical narration of his own personal adventures, withwhich he beguiled the young girl's ear. This he only departed from once,to describe to her a valuable grizzly bearskin which he had seen thatday for sale at Indian Spring, with a view to divining her possibleacceptance of it for a "buggy robe;" and once to comment upon a ringwhich she had inadvertently disclosed in pulling off her glove.
"It's only an old family keepsake," she added, with easy mendacity; andaffecting to recognize in Mr. Brace's curiosity a not unnatural excusefor toying with her charming fingers, she hid them in chaste andvirginal seclusion in her lap, until she could recover the ring andresume her glove.
A week passed--a week of peculiar and desiccating heat for even thosedry Sierra table-lands. The long days were filled with impalpabledust and acrid haze suspended in the motionless air; the nights werebreathless and dewless; the cold wind which usually swept down from thesnow line was laid to sleep over a dark monotonous level, whose horizonwas pricked with the eating fires of burning forest crests. The laggingcoach of Indian Spring drove up at Excelsior, and precipitated itspassengers with an accompanying cloud of dust before the ExcelsiorHotel. As they emerged from the coach, Mr. Brace, standing in thedoorway, closely scanned their begrimed and almost unrecognizable faces.They were the usual type of travelers: a single professional man industy black, a few traders in tweeds and flannels, a sprinkling ofminers in red and gray shirts, a Chinaman, a negro, and a Mexican packeror muleteer. This latter for a moment mingled with the crowd in thebar-room, and even penetrated the corridor and dining-room of the hotel,as if impelled by a certain semi-civilized curiosity, and then strolledwith a lazy, dragging step--half impeded by the enormous leatherleggings, chains, and spurs, peculiar to his class--down the mainstreet. The darkness was gathering, but the muleteer indulged in thesame childish scrutiny of the dimly lighted shops, magazines, andsaloons, and even of the occasional groups of citizens at the streetcorners. Apparently young, as far as the outlines of his figure couldbe seen, he seemed to show even more than the usual concern of masculineExcelsior in the charms of womankind. The few female figures aboutat that hour, or visible at window or veranda, received his markedattention; he respectfully followed the two auburn-haired daughters ofDeacon Johnson on their way to choir meeting to the door of the church.Not content with that act of discreet gallantry, after they had enteredhe managed to slip unperceived behind them.
The memorial of the Excelsior gamblers' generosity was a modernbuilding, large and pretentious, for even Mr. Wynn's popularity, andhad been good-humoredly known, in the characteristic language of thegenerous donors, as one of the "biggest religious bluffs" on record. Itsgroined rafters, which were so new and spicy that they still suggestedtheir native forest aisles, seldom covered more than a hundred devotees,and in the rambling choir, with its bare space for the future organ,the few choristers, gathered round a small harmonium, were lost in thedeepening shadow of that summer evening. The muleteer remained hiddenin the obscurity of the vestibule. After a few moments' desultoryconversation, in which it appeared that the unexpected absence ofMiss Nellie Wynn, their leader, would prevent their practicing, thechoristers withdrew. The stranger, who had listened eagerly, drew backin the darkness as they passed out, and remained for a few moments avague and motionless figure in the silent church. Then coming cautiouslyto the window, the flapping broad-brimmed hat was put aside, and thefaint light of the dying day shone in the black eyes of Teresa! Despiteher face, darkened with dye and disfigured with dust, the matted hairpiled and twisted around her head, the strange dress and boyish figure,one swift glance from under her raised lashes betrayed her identity.
She turned aside mechanically into the first pew, picked up and opened ahymn-book. Her eyes became riveted on a name written on the title-page,"Nellie Wynn." HER name, and HER book. The instinct that had guided herhere was right; the slight gossip of her fellow-passengers was right;this was the clergyman's daughter, whose praise filled all mouths. Thiswas the unknown girl the stranger was seeking, but who in turn perhapshad been seeking Low--the girl who absorbed his fancy--the secret ofhis absences, his preoccupation, his coldness! This was the girl whom tosee, perhaps in his arms, she was now periling her liberty and her lifeunknown to him! A slight odor, some faint perfume of its owner, camefrom the book; it was the same she had noticed in the dress Low hadgiven her. She flung the volume to the ground, and, throwing her armsover the back of the pew before her, buried her face in her hands.
In that light and attitude she might have seemed some rapt acolyteabandoned to self-communion. But whatever yearning her soul might havehad for higher sympathy or deeper consolation, I fear that the spiritualTabernacle of Excelsior and the Reverend Mr. Wynn did not meet thatrequirement. She only felt the dry, oven-like heat of that vast shell,empty of sentiment and beauty, hollow in its pretense and dreary in itsdesolation. She only saw in it a chief altar for the glorification ofthis girl who had absorbed even the pure worship of her companion, andconverted and degraded his sublime paganism to her petty creed. With awoman's withering contempt for her own art displayed in another woman,she thought how she herself could have touched him with the peace thatthe majesty of their woodland aisles--so unlike this pillared sham--hadtaught her own passionate heart, had she but dared. Mingling with thisimperfect theology, she felt she could have proved to him also thata brunette and a woman of her experien
ce was better than an immatureblonde. She began to loathe herself for coming hither, and dreaded tomeet his face. Here a sudden thought struck her. What if he had not comehere? What if she had been mistaken? What if her rash interpretationof his absence from the wood that night was simple madness? What ifhe should return--if he had already returned? She rose to her feet,whitening yet joyful with the thought. She could return at once; whatwas the girl to her now? Yet there was time to satisfy herself if hewere at HER house. She had been told where it was; she could find it inthe dark; an open door or window would betray some sign or sound ofthe occupants. She rose, replaced her hat over her eyes, knotted herflaunting scarf around her throat, groped her way to the door, andglided into the outer darkness.