Читать книгу Patience Sparhawk and Her Times - Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton - Страница 15

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That night Patience felt no inclination for either bed or tower. She wandered over the field, entered the pine forest, and walked to the coast. The tall straight trees grew close together; their aisles were very gloomy. From the ground arose the ominous voices of the night, and the wind in the treetops moaned heavily. But Patience was not afraid. She revelled in the vast dark silence, and felt that the world was all her own.

As she left the forest she saw great clouds of spray tossed high into the starry dark, heard the ocean rush at the outlying rocks, breaking into mist or leaping to the shore. The sea lions were talking loudly; the seagulls, huddled on the high points of the coast, scolded hoarsely.

On the edge of the forest was a cabin. Patience walked toward it. She knew the old man that lived there. He was evidently awake, for the open window was yellow with light. As she passed it on her way to the door she glanced within. Her skin turned cold; her hair stiffened. A sheeted corpse lay on the bed. Candles burned at head and foot. Patience, brave as she was, abjectly feared the corpse. She believed that she could survive a ghost, but she knew that if shut up with a dead body for ten minutes she should go mad. To-night she would have fled shrieking were it not that the room had a living occupant.

In a chair beside the bed sat a man gazing at the floor, his chin dropped to his chest. He wore rough clothes, but they were the affectations of the gentleman, not the garb of the dead man and his friends. Nor had Patience ever seen so noble a head. The profile was beautiful, the expression mild and intellectual, and most melancholy.

Patience forgot her terror as she wondered who the stranger could be; but in a moment it was renewed tenfold. Down the ocean road from Monterey came a wild hideous yell. The man by the corpse raised his head apprehensively, rose as if to flee, then sank wearily to his chair again. The clatter of hoofs on the hard road mounted above the thunder of the waves. Patience staring into the dark suddenly saw the leaping fire of torches, and a moment later tall figures riding recklessly. The yelling was incessant and demoniac.

“The man murdered Jim and they’re lynchers,” thought Patience. She glanced about wildly. A small tree stood near. She scampered up the trunk like a squirrel, and hid in the branches. None too soon. In another moment those terrible figures were screaming and gesticulating before the hut.

The smoky flames revealed an extraordinary sight to Patience’s distended eyes. These men were bearded like the men of modern civilisation, even their hair was properly cut; but they wore the garments of Greece and Japan, flowing robes of white and red; one dark sinister-looking being upheld a glittering helmet.

Patience rubbed her eyes. Did she dream over her Byron? But no mortal, none but the sheeted dead, could have slept and dreamed in that infernal clamour. Only the man by the bed sat immobile. He did not raise his head. Out of the pandemonium of sound Patience at last distinguished one word: “Charley! Charley!” If “Charley” were the man within the hut he gave no sign; nor when they threw back their heads and as from one throat gave forth a rattling volume of ribald laughter.

Suddenly Patience, who, seeing no rope, began to recover her courage, noticed that one of the men had ridden beneath her tree, taking no part in this singular drama. Once he turned his head, and an aquiline profile, fine and strong, with black hair falling above it, was sharply revealed against the red glare. Impulsively Patience leaned down and touched his shoulder. He looked up with a start, and saw a small white face among the leaves.

“What on earth is this?” he asked. “Is it a child?” His voice was rich and deep, with a gentle hint of brogue.

“What are they?” asked Patience. “Are they real devils, or only men? And are they going to kill him?”

The man laughed. “I certainly should ask the same question if I had not happened to come with them. Oh, they won’t do any murder, unless they happen to frighten some one to death. They’re members of the Bohemian Club of San Francisco—newspaper men and artists—who are down here on a lark.”

“Who’s the man in there by him, and why do they yell at him so?”

“Oh, he is a solitary spirit, a man of genius. He got tired of them and gave them the slip to-night. This is revenge.”

“They have the Estrada house on Alvarado Street,” said Patience. “I heard they were here.” Then she noticed that her companion wore the common garb of American civilisation. “Why aren’t you rigged up, too?” she asked.

“Oh, I’m hardly one of them. I’m only an Eastern man—a New Yorker—and am staying at Del Monte for a day or two. I rode over to see them this afternoon, and they insisted upon my staying for dinner. What on earth are you doing here by yourself at this time of night?”

Patience explained. Then she added wistfully, “I shall be frightened to death going home through those woods alone. I’ll imagine that that corpse and those dreadful-looking men are behind me at every step.”

“Just drop onto my horse and I’ll take you home. I’m pretty tired of all this.” He raised his arms and lifted her down, placing her in front of him. “Lucky I had an English saddle,” he said, and as he bent his head Patience could see that he was smiling. “Oh!” he added abruptly, “I have seen you before. Now—tell me where to go.”

Patience directed him, and they cantered away unobserved.

“Where did you see me?” she asked, “and how odd that you should remember me!”

“You have wonderful eyes. Although I’m an Irishman I won’t go so far as to say they are pretty, but they look as if they had been born to see so much. It would be difficult to forget them. Upon me soul you are actually trembling. Did you never have a compliment before?”

“Never! And I guess I’ll remember it longer than you remember my eyes. Where did you see me?”

“I was standing at the window of the house in Alvarado Street when you came along from school with a dozen or more of the girls. You all stopped to gaze at a passing circus troupe, and—I noticed you first because you stood a little apart from the others.”

“I usually do,” said Patience, drily.

He did not add that, attracted by the eagerness of her gaze and her rapid changes of expression, he had asked who she was, and that a Montereño present had related the family history and her own notable performances in no measured terms. “She’s got bad blood in her and the temper of Old Nick himself. She’ll come to no good, homely as she is,” the man had concluded. “Curious enough, the boys all like her and would spark her if they got a show; but she’s hell-set on gettin’ an education at present and doesn’t notice them much.”

Patience made him talk on for the pleasure of hearing his voice. “Are you a real Irishman?” she asked.

“Well, I’ve been an American for twenty years, but there’s a good deal of Irish left in me yet, especially in me tongue.”

“I’d keep it, if I were you. It’s nicer even than the Spanish. Do you think our voices are horrid?”

“I think that if you’d pitch yours a little lower it would be an improvement,” he said, smiling. And Patience registered a vow which she kept. In after years when great changes had come upon her, her voice was envied and emulated.

As they left the forest and entered Carmel Valley Patience pointed to her home, then suddenly took the reins from his hand and directed the horse toward the Mission. The waning moon hung over the ocean, and the Mission stood out boldly.

“Come up to my tower,” said Patience; “the view is something! That will be your reward. I never took any one there before.”

“All right,” he said, “I may as well make a night of it.” He tethered his horse and followed her up the spiral stair.

“Solomon is not here,” she said regretfully. “He’s out foraging. Now!”

The young man walked to the window and inspected the view. Patience regarded him with rapt admiration. He was tall and strong and well dressed. She had never dreamed that anything romantic could really happen to her; and as she was sure that it would be her last experience as well as her first, she suddenly felt depressed and miserable, her imagination leaping to the finish.

He turned and met her eyes. “What are you thinking of?” he asked.

But Patience was too shy to tell him, and asked him if he liked the view.

“It’s a jolly view and no mistake. You’re not a happy child, are you?” he added, abruptly. With the enthusiasm and spontaneous kindness of his Irish blood he had conceived the idea of dropping a seed in this plastic soil, and was feeling his way toward the right spot.

“I don’t know that I am,” said Patience, haughtily. “I suppose some of those people told you things.”

“Well, they did, that’s a fact. But you mustn’t get angry with me, please, for upon me word I like you better than any one I’ve met in California.”

“Don’t you live here?”

“My home is in New York, and I return to-morrow.”

“Oh! Well, I don’t see how I should interest you.”

“You do, though, and that’s all there is to it. I’m neither as cautious as an Englishman nor as practical as an American—though God rest the two of them; I mean nothing to their detriment. But there’s a force in you, and force doesn’t go to waste, although it’s more often than not misdirected. I can feel yours myself; and I’m told that you’re the cleverest girl in the town as well as the proudest and most ambitious. Now, what do you intend to do with yourself?”

“I suppose I’ll be a teacher; and if Mrs. Sparhawk has no objections I may go East soon and live with a religious old lady.”

“Well, that’s not so bad; only I doubt if that life will suit you any better than this.” He put his finger under her chin and turned her face to the light. “I am a lawyer, you know,” he added, “and features and lines and curves mean a good deal to me. You’ve got a good will, begad, and like all first-class American women, you’ll keep your head up until you drop. And you have all her faculty of beginning life over again several times, if necessary. You’ll never rust nor mould, nor write polemical novels if things don’t go your way. You’ve got a good strong brain behind those eyes, and although you’ll make mistakes of various sorts, you’ll kick them behind you when you’re done with them, begin over and be none the worse. Remember that no mistake is irrevocable; that there are as many to-morrows as yesterdays; that only the incapable has a past. It is all a matter of will as far as the world is concerned, and ideals as far as your own soul goes. No matter how often circumstances and your own weakness compel you to let go your own private ideals, deliberately put them back on their pedestal the moment you have recovered balance, and make for their attainment as if nothing had happened. Then you’ll never acquire an aged soul and never lose your grip. Can you remember all that?”

“You bet I can.”

He laughed. “I believe you. I might add: Don’t love the wrong man, but I’ll not throw away good advice. You’ll not be wholly guided by reason in those matters. I will merely say, Rub the first experience in hard and let a long while elapse before your second, or it will be the greater mistake of the two. Your reactions will be very violent, I should say. Well, I’ll be going now.”

“I’d rather you’d stay and talk.”

“Would you? Well, being a lawyer, I know where to stop. Besides, I’ll have all those fellows after me if I stay too long. We’ll doubtless meet again. The world is small these days.”

Patience followed him reluctantly down the stair, and he walked beside her across the valley, leading his horse. When they reached the farmhouse he shook hands with her warmly, wished her good luck, and rode away. She ran up to her room, and, lighting a candle, transcribed his words into an old copybook.