Читать книгу Mrs. Skagg's Husbands and Other Stories - Bret Harte - Страница 2

It was characteristic of Angel’s that the disappearance of Johnson, and the fact that he had left his entire property to Tommy, thrilled the community but slightly in comparison with the astounding discovery that he had anything to leave. The finding of a cinnabar lode at Angel’s absorbed all collateral facts or subsequent details. Prospectors from adjoining camps thronged the settlement; the hillside for a mile on either side of Johnson’s claim was staked out and pre-empted; trade received a sudden stimulus; and, in the excited rhetoric of the “Weekly Record,” “a new era had broken upon Angel’s.” “On Thursday last,” added that paper, “over five hundred dollars was taken in over the bar of the Mansion House.”

Of the fate of Johnson there was little doubt. He had been last seen lying on a boulder on the river-bank by outside passengers of the Wingdam night coach, and when Finn of Robinson’s Ferry admitted to have fired three shots from a revolver at a dark object struggling in the water near the ferry, which he “suspicioned” to be a bear, the question seemed to be settled. Whatever might have been the fallibility of his judgment, of the accuracy of his aim there could be no doubt. The general belief that Johnson, after possessing himself of the muleteer’s pistol, could have run amuck, gave a certain retributive justice to this story, which rendered it acceptable to the camp.

It was also characteristic of Angel’s that no feeling of envy or opposition to the good fortune of Tommy Islington prevailed there. That he was thoroughly cognizant, from the first, of Johnson’s discovery, that his attentions to him were interested, calculating, and speculative was, however, the general belief of the majority,—a belief that, singularly enough, awakened the first feelings of genuine respect for Tommy ever shown by the camp. “He ain’t no fool; Yuba Bill seed thet from the first,” said the barkeeper. It was Yuba Bill who applied for the guardianship of Tommy after his accession to Johnson’s claim, and on whose bonds the richest men of Calaveras were represented. It was Yuba Bill, also, when Tommy was sent East to finish his education, accompanied him to San Francisco, and, before parting with his charge on the steamer’s deck, drew him aside, and said, “Ef at enny time you want enny money, Tommy, over and ‘bove your ‘lowance, you kin write; but ef you’ll take my advice,” he added, with a sudden huskiness mitigating the severity of his voice, “you’ll forget every derned ole spavined, string-halted bummer as you ever met or knew at Angel’s,—ev’ry one, Tommy,—ev’ry one! And so—boy—take care of yourself—and—and God bless ye, and pertikerly d—n me for a first-class A 1 fool.” It was Yuba Bill, also, after this speech, glared savagely around, walked down the crowded gang-plank with a rigid and aggressive shoulder, picked a quarrel with his cabman, and, after bundling that functionary into his own vehicle, took the reins himself, and drove furiously to his hotel. “It cost me,” said Bill, recounting the occurrence somewhat later at Angel’s,—“it cost me a matter o’ twenty dollars afore the jedge the next mornin’; but you kin bet high thet I taught them ‘Frisco chaps suthin new about drivin’. I didn’t make it lively in Montgomery Street for about ten minutes,—O no!”

And so by degrees the two original locaters of the great Cinnabar lode faded from the memory of Angel’s, and Calaveras knew them no more. In five years their very names had been forgotten; in seven the name of the town was changed; in ten the town itself was transported bodily to the hillside, and the chimney of the Union Smelting Works by night flickered like a corpse-light over the site of Johnson’s cabin, and by day poisoned the pure spices of the pines. Even the Mansion House was dismantled, and the Wingdam stage deserted the highway for a shorter cut by Quicksilver City. Only the bared crest of Deadwood Hill, as of old, sharply cut the clear blue sky, and at its base, as of old, the Stanislaus River, unwearied and unresting, babbled, whispered, and hurried away to the sea.

A midsummer’s day was breaking lazily on the Atlantic. There was not wind enough to move the vapors in the foggy offing, but where the vague distance heaved against a violet sky there were dull red streaks that, growing brighter, presently painted out the stars. Soon the brown rocks of Greyport appeared faintly suffused, and then the whole ashen line of dead coast was kindled, and the lighthouse beacons went out one by one. And then a hundred sail, before invisible, started out of the vapory horizon, and pressed toward the shore. It was morning, indeed, and some of the best society in Greyport, having been up all night, were thinking it was time to go to bed.

For as the sky flashed brighter it fired the clustering red roofs of a picturesque house by the sands that had all that night, from open lattice and illuminated balcony, given light and music to the shore. It glittered on the broad crystal spaces of a great conservatory that looked upon an exquisite lawn, where all night long the blended odors of sea and shore had swooned under the summer moon. But it wrought confusion among the colored lamps on the long veranda, and startled a group of ladies and gentlemen who had stepped from the drawing-room window to gaze upon it. It was so searching and sincere in its way, that, as the carriage of the fairest Miss Gillyflower rolled away, that peerless young woman, catching sight of her face in the oval mirror, instantly pulled down the blinds, and, nestling the whitest shoulders in Greyport against the crimson cushions, went to sleep.

“How haggard everybody is! Rose, dear, you look almost intellectual,” said Blanche Masterman.

“I hope not,” said Rose, simply. “Sunrises are very trying. Look how that pink regularly puts out Mrs. Brown-Robinson, hair and all!”

“The angels,” said the Count de Nugat, with a polite gesture toward the sky, “must have find these celestial combinations very bad for the toilette.”

“They’re safe in white,—except when they sit for their pictures in Venice,” said Blanche. “How fresh Mr. Islington looks! It’s really uncomplimentary to us.”

“I suppose the sun recognizes in me no rival,” said the young man, demurely. “But,” he added, “I have lived much in the open air, and require very little sleep.”

“How delightful!” said Mrs. Brown-Robinson, in a low, enthusiastic voice and a manner that held the glowing sentiment of sixteen and the practical experiences of thirty-two in dangerous combination;—“how perfectly delightful! What sunrises you must have seen, and in such wild, romantic places! How I envy you! My nephew was a classmate of yours, and has often repeated to me those charming stories you tell of your adventures. Won’t you tell some now? Do! How you must tire of us and this artificial life here, so frightfully artificial, you know” (in a confidential whisper); “and then to think of the days when you roamed the great West with the Indians, and the bisons, and the grizzly bears! Of course, you have seen grizzly bears and bisons?”

“Of course he has, dear,” said Blanche, a little pettishly, throwing a cloak over her shoulders, and seizing her chaperon by the arm; “his earliest infancy was soothed by bisons, and he proudly points to the grizzly bear as the playmate of his youth. Come with me, and I’ll tell you all about it. How good it is of you,” she added, sotto voce, to Islington, as he stood by the carriage,—“how perfectly good it is of you to be like those animals you tell us of, and not know your full power. Think, with your experiences and our credulity, what stories you MIGHT tell! And you are going to walk? Good night, then.” A slim, gloved hand was frankly extended from the window, and the next moment the carriage rolled away.

“Isn’t Islington throwing away a chance there?” said Captain Merwin, on the veranda.

“Perhaps he couldn’t stand my lovely aunt’s superadded presence. But then, he’s the guest of Blanche’s father, and I dare say they see enough of each other as it is.”

“But isn’t it a rather dangerous situation?”

“For him, perhaps; although he’s awfully old, and very queer. For her, with an experience that takes in all the available men in both hemispheres, ending with Nugat over there, I should say a man more or less wouldn’t affect her much, anyway. Of course,” he laughed, “these are the accents of bitterness. But that was last year.”

Perhaps Islington did not overhear the speaker; perhaps, if he did, the criticism was not new. He turned carelessly away, and sauntered out on the road to the sea. Thence he strolled along the sands toward the cliffs, where, meeting an impediment in the shape of a garden wall, he leaped it with a certain agile, boyish ease and experience, and struck across an open lawn toward the rocks again. The best society of Greyport were not early risers, and the spectacle of a trespasser in an evening dress excited only the criticism of grooms hanging about the stables, or cleanly housemaids on the broad verandas that in Greyport architecture dutifully gave upon the sea. Only once, as he entered the boundaries of Cliffwood Lodge, the famous seat of Renwyck Masterman, was he aware of suspicious scrutiny; but a slouching figure that vanished quickly in the lodge offered no opposition to his progress. Avoiding the pathway to the lodge, Islington kept along the rocks until, reaching a little promontory and rustic pavilion, he sat down and gazed upon the sea.

And presently an infinite peace stole upon him. Except where the waves lapped lazily the crags below, the vast expanse beyond seemed unbroken by ripple, heaving only in broad ponderable sheets, and rhythmically, as if still in sleep. The air was filled with a luminous haze that caught and held the direct sunbeams. In the deep calm that lay upon the sea, it seemed to Islington that all the tenderness of culture, magic of wealth, and spell of refinement that for years had wrought upon that favored shore had extended its gracious influence even here. What a pampered and caressed old ocean it was; cajoled, flattered, and feted where it lay! An odd recollection of the turbid Stanislaus hurrying by the ascetic pines, of the grim outlines of Deadwood Hill, swam before his eyes, and made the yellow green of the velvet lawn and graceful foliage seem almost tropical by contrast. And, looking up, a few yards distant he beheld a tall slip of a girl gazing upon the sea,—Blanche Masterman.

She had plucked somewhere a large fan-shaped leaf, which she held parasol-wise, shading the blond masses of her hair, and hiding her gray eyes. She had changed her festal dress, with its amplitude of flounce and train, for a closely fitting half-antique habit whose scant outlines would have been trying to limbs less shapely, but which prettily accented the graceful curves and sweeping lines of this Greyport goddess. As Islington rose, she came toward him with a frankly outstretched hand and unconstrained manner. Had she observed him first? I don’t know.

They sat down together on a rustic seat, Miss Blanche facing the sea, and shading her eyes with the leaf.

“I don’t really know how long I have been sitting here,” said Islington, “or whether I have not been actually asleep and dreaming. It seemed too lovely a morning to go to bed. But you?”

From behind the leaf, it appeared that Miss Blanche, on retiring, had been pursued by a hideous winged bug which defied the efforts of herself and maid to dislodge. Odin, the Spitz dog, had insisted upon scratching at the door. And it made her eyes red to sleep in the morning. And she had an early call to make. And the sea looked lovely.

“I’m glad to find you here, whatever be the cause,” said Islington, with his old directness. “To-day, as you know, is my last day in Greyport, and it is much pleasanter to say good by under this blue sky than even beneath your father’s wonderful frescos yonder. I want to remember you, too, as part of this pleasant prospect which belongs to us all, rather than recall you in anybody’s particular setting.”

“I know,” said Blanche, with equal directness, “that houses are one of the defects of our civilization; but I don’t think I ever heard the idea as elegantly expressed before. Where do you go?”

“I don’t know yet. I have several plans. I may go to South America and become president of one of the republics,—I am not particular which. I am rich, but in that part of America which lies outside of Greyport it is necessary for every man to have some work. My friends think I should have some great aim in life, with a capital A. But I was born a vagabond, and a vagabond I shall probably die.”

“I don’t know anybody in South America,” said Blanche, languidly. “There were two girls here last season, but they didn’t wear stays in the house, and their white frocks never were properly done up. If you go to South America, you must write to me.”

“I will. Can you tell me the name of this flower which I found in your greenhouse. It looks much like a California blossom.”

“Perhaps it is. Father bought it of a half-crazy old man who came here one day. Do you know him?”

Islington laughed. “I am afraid not. But let me present this in a less business-like fashion.”

“Thank you. Remind me to give you one in return before you go,—or will you choose yourself?”

They had both risen as by a common instinct.

“Good by.”

The cool flower-like hand lay in his for an instant.

“Will you oblige me by putting aside that leaf a moment before I go?”

“But my eyes are red, and I look like a perfect fright.”

Yet, after a long pause, the leaf fluttered down, and a pair of very beautiful but withal very clear and critical eyes met his. Islington was constrained to look away. When he turned again, she was gone.

“Mister Hislington,—sir!”

It was Chalker, the English groom, out of breath with running.

“Seein’ you alone, sir,—beg your pardon, sir,—but there’s a person—”

“A person! what the devil do you mean? Speak English—no, damn it, I mean don’t,” said Islington, snappishly.

“I sed a person, sir. Beg pardon—no offence—but not a gent, sir. In the lib’ry.”

A little amused even through the utter dissatisfaction with himself and vague loneliness that had suddenly come upon him, Islington, as he walked toward the lodge, asked, “Why isn’t he a gent?

“No gent—beggin’ your pardin, sir—‘ud guy a man in sarvis, sir. Takes me ‘ands so, sir, as I sits in the rumble at the gate, and puts ‘em downd so, sir, and sez, ‘Put ‘em in your pocket, young man,—or is it a road agint you expects to see, that you ‘olds hup your ‘ands, hand crosses ‘em like to that,’ sez he. ‘’Old ‘ard,’ sez he, ‘on the short curves, or you’ll bust your precious crust,’ sez he. And hasks for you, sir. This way, sir.”

They entered the lodge. Islington hurried down the long Gothic hall, and opened the library door.

In an arm-chair, in the centre of the room, a man sat apparently contemplating a large, stiff, yellow hat with an enormous brim, that was placed on the floor before him. His hands rested lightly between his knees, but one foot was drawn up at the side of his chair in a peculiar manner. In the first glance that Islington gave, the attitude in some odd, irreconcilable way suggested a brake. In another moment he dashed across the room, and, holding out both hands, cried, “Yuba Bill!”

The man rose, caught Islington by the shoulders, wheeled him round, hugged him, felt of his ribs like a good-natured ogre, shook his hands violently, laughed, and then said, somewhat ruefully, “And how ever did you know me?”

Seeing that Yuba Bill evidently regarded himself as in some elaborate disguise, Islington laughed, and suggested that it must have been instinct.

“And you?” said Bill, holding him at arm’s length, and surveying him critically,—“you!—toe think—toe think—a little cuss no higher nor a trace, a boy as I’ve flicked outer the road with a whip time in agin, a boy ez never hed much clothes to speak of, turned into a sport!”

Islington remembered, with a thrill of ludicrous terror, that he still wore his evening dress.

“Turned,” continued Yuba Bill, severely,—“turned into a restyourant waiter,—a garsong! Eh, Alfonse, bring me a patty de foy grass and an omelette, demme!”

“Dear old chap!” said Islington, laughing, and trying to put his hand over Bill’s bearded mouth, “but you—YOU don’t look exactly like yourself! You’re not well, Bill.” And indeed, as he turned toward the light, Bill’s eyes appeared cavernous, and his hair and beard thickly streaked with gray.

“Maybe it’s this yer harness,” said Bill, a little anxiously. “When I hitches on this yer curb” (he indicated a massive gold watch-chain with enormous links), “and mounts this ‘morning star,’” (he pointed to a very large solitaire pin which had the appearance of blistering his whole shirt-front), “it kinder weighs heavy on me, Tommy. Otherwise I’m all right, my boy,—all right.” But he evaded Islington’s keen eye, and turned from the light.

“You have something to tell me, Bill,” said Islington, suddenly, and with almost brusque directness; “out with it.”

Bill did not speak, but moved uneasily toward his hat.

“You didn’t come three thousand miles, without a word of warning, to talk to me of old times,” said Islington, more kindly, “glad as I would have been to see you. It isn’t your way, Bill, and you know it. We shall not be disturbed here,” he added, in reply to an inquiring glance that Bill directed to the door, “and I am ready to hear you.”

“Firstly, then,” said Bill, drawing his chair nearer Islington, “answer me one question, Tommy, fair and square, and up and down.”

“Go on,” said Islington, with a slight smile.

“Ef I should say to you, Tommy,—say to you to-day, right here, you must come with me,—you must leave this place for a month, a year, two years maybe, perhaps forever,—is there anything that ‘ud keep you,—anything, my boy, ez you couldn’t leave?”

“No,” said Tommy, quietly; “I am only visiting here. I thought of leaving Greyport to-day.”

“But if I should say to you, Tommy, come with me on a pasear to Chiny, to Japan, to South Ameriky, p’r’aps, could you go?”

“Yes,” said Islington, after a slight pause.

“Thar isn’t ennything,” said Bill, drawing a little closer, and lowering his voice confidentially,—“ennything in the way of a young woman—you understand, Tommy—ez would keep you? They’re mighty sweet about here; and whether a man is young or old, Tommy, there’s always some woman as is brake or whip to him!”

In a certain excited bitterness that characterized the delivery of this abstract truth, Bill did not see that the young man’s face flushed slightly as he answered “No.”

“Then listen. It’s seven years ago, Tommy, thet I was working one o’ the Pioneer coaches over from Gold Hill. Ez I stood in front o’ the stage-office, the sheriff o’ the county comes to me, and he sez, ‘Bill,’ sez he, ‘I’ve got a looney chap, as I’m in charge of, taking ‘im down to the ‘sylum in Stockton. He’z quiet and peaceable, but the insides don’t like to ride with him. Hev you enny objection to give him a lift on the box beside you?’ I sez, ‘No; put him up.’ When I came to go and get up on that box beside him, that man, Tommy,—that man sittin’ there, quiet and peaceable, was—Johnson!

“He didn’t know me, my boy,” Yuba Bill continued, rising and putting his hands on Tommy’s shoulders,—“he didn’t know me. He didn’t know nothing about you, nor Angel’s, nor the quicksilver lode, nor even his own name. He said his name was Skaggs, but I knowd it was Johnson. Thar was times, Tommy, you might have knocked me off that box with a feather; thar was times when if the twenty-seven passengers o’ that stage hed found theirselves swimming in the American River five hundred feet below the road, I never could have explained it satisfactorily to the company,—never.

“The sheriff said,” Bill continued hastily, as if to preclude any interruption from the young man,—“the sheriff said he had been brought into Murphy’s Camp three years before, dripping with water, and sufferin’ from perkussion of the brain, and had been cared for generally by the boys ‘round. When I told the sheriff I knowed ‘im, I got him to leave him in my care; and I took him to ‘Frisco, Tommy, to ‘Frisco, and I put him in charge o’ the best doctors there, and paid his board myself. There was nothin’ he didn’t have ez he wanted. Don’t look that way, my dear boy, for God’s sake, don’t!”

“O Bill,” said Islington, rising and staggering to the window, “why did you keep this from me?”

“Why?” said Bill, turning on him savagely,—“why? because I warn’t a fool. Thar was you, winnin’ your way in college; thar was YOU, risin’ in the world, and of some account to it; yer was an old bummer, ez good ez dead to it,—a man ez oughter been dead afore! a man ez never denied it! But you allus liked him better nor me,” said Bill, bitterly.

“Forgive me, Bill,” said the young man, seizing both his hands. “I know you did it for the best; but go on.”

“Thar ain’t much more to tell, nor much use to tell it, as I can see,” said Bill, moodily. “He never could be cured, the doctors said, for he had what they called monomania,—was always talking about his wife and darter that somebody had stole away years ago, and plannin’ revenge on that somebody. And six months ago he was missed. I tracked him to Carson, to Salt Lake City, to Omaha, to Chicago, to New York,—and here!”