Читать книгу Miss Dividends - Archibald Clavering Gunter - Страница 14

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"Mr. Kruger, how do you do?" says Miss Erma Travenion, some three days after; turning suddenly from the Cerberus who stands at the gate leading to the out-going trains of the Hudson River Railroad, in the Grand Central Depot, New York, waiting to punch her ticket. Then she calls again with the bright, fresh voice of youth: "Mr. Kruger! Mr. Kruger! Don't you recognize me?" and drawing up her dainty white skirts to give her pretty feet room for rapid movement, pursues a gentleman who, in the rush of the great station, apparently does not notice her.

The ticket puncher looks astonished for a moment, and then promptly and savagely cries, "Next!"

But the "Next!" is Mr. Oliver Ogden Livingston, who has also turned from the entrance, and is gazing after Miss Travenion, an occupation his eyes have become quite used to in the last few months, since her father had finished settling his million upon her.

Livingston, after a second's pause of consideration, says hurriedly to the lady who comes immediately behind him, "Mother, you and Louise had better go to our car. Ferdie will escort you. I will wait for Miss Travenion and see her on board before the train starts."

To this, Mrs. Livingston, who, though fair, plump and forty-five, is of a nervous tendency, cries out, "My Heaven! She's running out of the depot—she is so impulsive—if anything happens to Erma, what shall I say to her father?" And the chaperon casts anxious glances on her charge, who is still moving in pursuit of the abstracted Mr. Kruger, who is apparently looking for somebody himself.

"Next!" cries the ticket man savagely. "Don't block the way!"

"Ferdie, take us in," whispers Miss Livingston, who is immediately behind her mother, and is sixteen, pretty and snippy. "That gateman looks impatient."

"Quick, Louise, or the ticket puncher 'll mistake my head for a ticket," laughs the young man. Then he cries, "Come along, auntie. Don't be frightened. You don't suppose Oliver will ever lose sight of Miss Dividends?" And with a passing wink of inborn knowledge to Ollie, which is returned by a stare prim and savage, Ferdie rushes his aunt and Miss Louise past the portals, towards a private Pullman car, the last of an express train standing ready to move out to Chicago, on a bright September day, of the year of our Lord 1871.

Livingston, relieved of the care of the other ladies of his party, watches his valet, assisted by two maid-servants in caps, carrying the hand-satchels, shawls, and minor baggage of the party to the car, then turns his glance towards Miss Travenion. The savageness leaves his eyes, and a little soft passion takes its place. They follow the movements of the girl with prim rapture, as well they may.

Miss Travenion is just overtaking the man she is pursuing; her eyes, intent upon her chase, sparkle as blue diamonds. From her well-shaped head float, after the fashion of that day, two long curls of hair that would be golden, did not the sun seem to claim them as his own, and permeating them with his fire, make each hair as brilliant as his own bright rays. Above the curls, a summer hat, beneath this, waving locks that crown a marble forehead, perhaps too broad for ancient sculptors' taste, but ideal for modern artists, who love soul in woman; cheeks rosy with health, lips red and moist as coral washed by sea-spray, the upper one laughing, the under one eager; a chin that tells of resolution, a figure light as a fairy's, but with the contours of a Venus; clothed in a travelling gown that does not disguise the graces that it robes; one eager hand outstretched towards the flitting Kruger, the other grasping firmly, yet lightly, the skirt and draping it about her, plucking its laces and broideries from out the dust, and showing as she trips along a foot and ankle that a lover would rave about—a sculptor mould.

This is what makes Ollie Livingston's little heart beat one or two pats to the second more rapidly than normal, showing how small his soul, how puny his manhood, for no more charming girl has ever been looked upon than Erma Travenion, as she lays her well-gloved patrician hand upon Lot Kruger's big Western arm, even amid the crowds of this great railroad station of New York, where beauties—American beauties at that—have given forth to admiring humanity each glance and gesture, grace and tone, that allure and conquer mankind.

Mr. Kruger, also in pursuit of some one, has just found his man, and thus Erma is enabled to overtake him. As she comes up he is in such earnest conversation with a small, weazened-face, ferret-like individual that he does not note the approaching beauty.

Were Miss Travenion intent upon anything but speaking to the Westerner she could hardly avoid appreciating the peculiarity of the interview she is breaking in upon—Kruger all command, the other answering with a docility unusual among Americans, and at times saluting in almost a cringing manner the man addressing him. As Erma stands for a moment behind Kruger, she hears him say tersely and sharply to his companion: "Jenkins, there are four hundred more coming on the Scotia, due to-morrow, and three hundred here now. We have contracted with the Central for the U. P. to take them at forty dollars a head. The other crowd I will wait for."

Mr. Jenkins's reply Miss Travenion does not catch, as she places her hand on Lot Kruger's arm and he swings around suddenly and quickly to see who interrupts him. His face for a moment has a startled and annoyed, perhaps an angry, expression upon it, but as he turns and gazes upon Erma, smiles chase sternness away from his features, even as they did upon Livingston's flaccid face; the young lady's beauty seeming to have a similar effect upon both men, though Kruger's virile passion is ten times as strong as that of the prim New Yorker.

Miss Travenion says hurriedly: "Mr. Kruger, I saw you here. I couldn't help following you. You have just come from the West—you have seen my father lately? Tell me, is he well? I haven't had a letter from him for a fortnight."

He cries, "Miss Ermie, I am mighty glad your daddy hain't written, for if he had, I guess I shouldn't have heard your pretty voice, unless I hunted you up at your boarding-school."

"Oh, you wouldn't have found me there. I have not been at Miss Hines' for nearly ten months."

"Ah, I see: graduated in all the arts and sciences and music and etceteras," remarks Kruger, his eyes, piercing, though gray, looking over the exquisite girl before him, and growing red and inflamed with some potent emotion, as he concludes rather huskily: "I might have seen you have left school. You have developed as be-uti-fu-l-ly as one of the lambs of Zion," though, even as he says this, Lot Kruger seems to repress himself and from this time on to keep a tight rein upon some peculiarity that is strong within him.

"But papa, papa; you haven't told me of him," exclaims the young lady, who seems little interested in Mr. Kruger's remarks, and only intent upon information as to her absent loved one, for as she speaks of her father, the girl's voice grows soft, and tender tears come into her eyes.

"Oh, your dad's all right, Sissy," goes on Kruger, in his easy Western way. "You needn't water his grave yit. Reckon your pap has had too much railroad and mine on his hands to be able to even eat for the last month. I know, for I am interested in the mine a leetle." Then he tells her quite shortly that her father has so many big enterprises beyond the Rockies that he is an "uncommon busy man."

As he does so, Erma is gazing at him and thinking what an extraordinary individual her father has found for a partner, beyond the Rocky Mountains; for Lot Kruger, as he stands before her, would be a striking figure, even in Western America, which produces curious types and more curious individuals.

He stands six feet two in his stockings, and has proportionate shoulders and limbs, which are covered with ample black broadcloth, after the Sunday-best-clothes Southern and Western fashion of the year 1871; the coat of Prince Albert style, open and unbuttoned and falling below the knees of his trousers, that are cut in what was then called the "peg-top" pattern; his shirt front as ample as his coat is large, crumpled and protruding from out a low-cut vest and adorned by a splash or two of tobacco juice; his hat a stove-pipe, its plush rumpled and brushed against the grain,—all make him a man of mark. From off his broad shoulders rises a neck strong as that of a buffalo, and supporting a massive head covered with long red hair, and a face from the nose up that of a good-natured Newfoundland, but below the jaws and teeth of a bull-dog; the eyes gray as a grizzly's, and steely when in anger; while, thrown over all this is a kind of indescribable, semi-Puritanical, semi-theological air that makes one wonder, "Is this man a backwoods preacher turned mining speculator, or a reformed cowboy made into a missionary?"

At present, as he gazes at Miss Travenion, Lot Kruger's face is nearly all that of the Newfoundland dog; and Erma, though she thinks him a curious associate for her father, with his Eastern breeding and education and New York manners, still considers Mr. Kruger, though crude, very good-natured and rather meek.

Oh, these judgments of women, whose instinct never mistakes character,—where one out of ten women guesses the villain at sight and brags of it forever, the other nine mistaken sisters are swindled and perchance undone, and say nothing about woman's unfailing intuition, but still keep on guessing wrong until the crack of doom.

As Erma gazes on Kruger he continues: "Bound for a summer jaunt, I guess,—some watering place where the boys and gals will have a high time—Nar-regani-set or Newport or Sarietogy, Miss Ermie. Your dad is very liberal to you, I understand,—puts up the greenbacks in wads."

"My father is generosity itself to me," returns Miss Travenion rather haughtily, for she is by no means pleased with the freedom of Mr. Kruger's remarks. "But the Newport season is finished, and I have accepted Mrs. Ogden Livingston's invitation to be one of her party. Under her charge I am going to take a run across the continent, and en route for California I shall drop in upon papa, and astonish and enrapture him."

"Wh—e—w!" This would be a prolonged whistle, did not Kruger check it savagely, and cut it off in the middle. Then he goes on stammeringly, but eagerly:—"Your dad doesn't know of—of your intention?" an amazed expression lighting up his honest gray eyes, which is forced down by his set, calm, repressive lower face.

"No, he doesn't guess that I'm coming. Won't it be a surprise to dear papa when I step lightly into his office, and say: 'Behold your daughter!'" laughs Erma.

"Yes,—I—reckon it will be a—sockdolager!" mutters her father's friend contemplatively. Then says suddenly, "You haven't telegraphed him?"

"Certainly not; I wish to surprise him. Besides, I shall be with him almost as soon as a telegram, now that this wonderful Pacific Railway is finished," babbles the girl. "It will only take seven days to far-off California, and Ogden is two days this side of San Francisco, I understand."

"Yes, your time-table's all right," returns Mr. Kruger. Then he asks quietly, "Who's in your party?"

"Oh, Mrs. Livingston, of course; her daughter, Louise; Mr. Ferdinand Chauncey, her nephew, and her son, who is now just beside me. Mr. Livingston, Mr. Lot Kruger, my father's friend."

The two men acknowledge this introduction; then Livingston says hastily, "Miss Travenion, excuse me interrupting your conversation, but the train leaves in five minutes, and I presume my mother is even now anxious—perhaps already hysterical."

"Very well, then," returns Erma. "Good-bye, Mr. Kruger. I am so glad to hear that papa is all right. Shall we see you in the West? We shall be in California two months, and perhaps on our return—" And she extends a gracious hand to the Westerner.

But Lot laughs: "You'll see me before then. I'm going on the same train. You needn't have run after me, if you had known that I go out on the Chicago express also." With this, he gives the little gloved hand that is already in his a hearty squeeze, that makes the blood fly out of the girl's fingers into her face, and turns hurriedly to the man he had previously addressed, who has been waiting for him just out of ear-shot.

A moment after, Miss Travenion is conducted by her escort through the crowd of the great station, past the ticket man at the gate, and on board the train, where Mrs. Livingston is already in a state of animated nervous rhapsody, muttering, "The cars are moving! They are left behind! What'll I say to that girl's father?" and other exclamations indicative of approaching spasms.

"Forgive me, dear Mrs. Livingston," says Erma, apologetically. "I couldn't help asking about my father. I haven't seen him for so long, and have had no letter for two weeks."

"He's a rather curious creature, that friend of papa," remarks Ollie superciliously.

"Very," answers Erma. "But my father, in his railroad enterprises, must be thrown among men of all ranks, grades and conditions."

"Oh, certainly," assents Oliver. "You remember that individual with the free and easy manners who invited himself to mother's supper party the other night."

"If you mean Captain Lawrence," remarks Ferdie, tossing himself into the conversation, "I can tell you he didn't invite himself—I did that part of the business myself. And as to his manners being free and easy, I think, considering he hadn't spoken to a pretty woman for a year, he did very well—under the circumstances. If I'd been in his place I'd have probably kissed the ladies all round."

This assertion is greeted by a very horrified "Oh, Ferdinand!" from Mrs. Livingston, and screams of laughter from Louise.

Miss Travenion, who remembers Captain Lawrence's last glance and hand squeeze and words, grows slightly red about her cheeks and sinks upon a seat and gazes out of an open car window.

As for Mr. Kruger, the moment he has left Erma Travenion, he has dropped all the laziness of a Newfoundland dog, and assumes the activity of a terrier. He has said hurriedly but determinedly to his satellite, "Jenkins, you stay and wait for the four hundred coming on the Scotia. Forward the other three hundred by Davis, who came from Wales with them."

"But—" Jenkins is about to interrupt.

"No time to discuss this 'ere matter," says Kruger with a snap. "I must go West on this train. It's somethin' you can't understand, but more important than all the Welsh cows that we've brought over these ten years—you do as I tell ye."

"Yes, Bishop," answers the man humbly and goes away, as Mr. Kruger, whose plans the sudden meeting with Miss Travenion seems to have changed, produces a pass from the New York Central Railway, hurries to the sleeping-car office, buys a ticket to Chicago, and boards the train almost as it begins to move out for the West, and placing himself in a smoking compartment, goes to chewing tobacco in a meditative but seemingly contented manner, as after a little time he remarks to himself, "How things seem to be coming to Lot Kruger and Zion together."