Читать книгу The San Rosario Ranch - Maud Howe Elliott - Страница 7

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"Then, in the boyhood of the year,

Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere

Rode through the coverts of the deer

With blissful treble ringing clear;

She seemed a part of joyous Spring."

Though the greater part of his time was spent in the old tower, John Graham was well known in San Francisco. His studio, at the top of a tall apartment-house in one of the unfrequented thoroughfares of the city, was familiar to most of its aspirants to artistic fame. In this large bare room, with its strong north light, there assembled every morning a dozen young men who were busily engaged in cast drawing and model painting. To the instruction of these youths two days of the week were devoted by the artist, whose only recompense was in the gratitude of his scholars. One morning not long after his meeting with Miss Almsford, John Graham might have been seen carefully examining his pupils' work, giving a word of advice here, a criticism there, and a hearty encouragement to all. On his return from Paris he had opened his studio to all those who were desirous of studying art. The first year he had had but three students; at the end of the second year the number had quadrupled. On the morning in question Graham had arrived with a new model,--a rough-looking fellow whom he had met in the street, and induced to accompany him to the studio. On a platform at the end of the room stood the stalwart model; while the artist, standing beside him, gave an off-hand lecture on anatomy, the students sketched the man or took notes of what their master was saying. It was not Graham's habit to do any work at the studio; but this morning, after he had finished his discourse, he placed himself at a vacant easel, and with a strong, bold hand made a free drawing of the superbly modelled figure. As he worked he forgot his class, his lecture, everything but the canvas before him and the subject he was studying. As the sketch grew beneath his hand the scholars one by one forsook their work, and stood watching him silently. The perfect confidence with which he worked--never hesitating, never altering what was already done--was fascinating to the younger men; and even the sculptor, Arthur Northcote, who inhabited the adjoining studio, stopped on his way upstairs and joined the group behind his chair. When the model declared himself unable longer to maintain the pose in which he had been placed, Graham threw down his brush with a sigh, saying,--

"Well, Horton, you may go now if you must, but do not fail to come to-morrow. I have your name correctly,--Daniel Horton? Where do you live?"

The stranger declined to give his address, and promised to come the next day at the appointed hour. After he had left the room the artist had something to say about expression, characterizing the face of the model as one indicative of brutal cunning and impudent daring.

As Graham quitted the studio the young sculptor joined him, and they walked together toward the station. Northcote was a slender, delicately built man some years Graham's junior. His face was instinct with the poetry of art, but was lacking in force. By the side of Graham's strong, resolute countenance his delicate features appeared weak and effeminate. The younger man took his friend's arm, as if relying on him for physical as well as moral support, and said as they walked along,--

"Graham, where did you pick up that model this morning?"

"I found him lounging about the station. Why do you ask?"

"He has such a bad face. You should be more careful about the men you engage to pose for you."

"And why, Arthur?"

"Because you lead such an unprotected life in that terrible old ruin."

"What a fanciful creature you are, Northcote. As if there was anything to be gained in molesting a beggarly artist in an inaccessible fortress. You have never seen my tower, or you would not think that it would be an attractive spot to thieves."

"Did you not hear," continued Northcote, "of that case of abduction in Cathgate County last week? A man was carried off by a pair of brigands, and kept for a week until a large sum of money was paid for his ransom."

"What manner of man was he?"

"The president of the county bank."

"Well, my dear Arthur, when I become a bank president, or even a railroad treasurer, I will take better care of my worthless self. At present I am not a promising prize to the most sanguine kidnapper. I can fancy your feelings on receiving a notice that, unless five thousand dollars be left in the hollow of a blasted pine-tree on the high-road at San Rosario, a slice of my right ear would be forwarded by way of a reminder! When are you coming out to pass the night with me?"

"When I have sold my Diana, or when Patrick Shallop gives me an order for a life-size statue of himself."

"Come with me to-day. It will do you good to pass an afternoon in the woods."

"Do not ask me. I will take nothing more from you, Graham,--I cannot,--not even a piece of bread, until--"

"Well, if you are so obstinate, farewell to you. I must hurry or I shall miss my train."

The two men shook hands the sculptor turning into a dingy restaurant, the artist walking rapidly in the direction of the railroad station. Arthur Northcote made a light repast,--for he was poorer than usual that day,--and soon returned to his studio, whose rental was defrayed by his friend's slender purse.

Graham caught his train, and reached San Rosario at about three o'clock. He found his horse at the station, and rode toward the house. At a distant point he caught a glimpse of two figures on the piazza, which he recognized as those of Miss Almsford and Hal Deering, who were talking together, quite unconscious of his approach.

"So you like Graham?" Henry Deering was the speaker.

"Of course I like him. I told you I should, from the moment you described his queer tower and his solitary life to me. I always like people who have something to characterize them and set them apart from the mere dead-level rank and file of mediocrity," answered Millicent.

"But may not a hermit like Graham be mediocre like everybody else?"

"No, the fact of his living alone does not make him interesting; but he would not live alone if he were like everybody else. Ordinary people all herd together."

"You must find all of us very ordinary people, I should think, after the people you have lived among,--romantic Italians and that sort?"

"But Italians are by no means all interesting. The great charm about them is that they are usually a happy people, and that it does not take so much to make them contented as it does you more complex Americans."

"You Americans? How soon are you going to call yourself an American? But you do not answer my question. How can you manage to get on as well as you do with commonplace people like ourselves?"

"You are not commonplace. A man who knows how to milk cows and digs potatoes, who rubs down his own horse and feeds his stock, and can withal dance like a city beau, and keep a table full of people laughing from the soup to the coffee, cannot be called commonplace."

"Thank you, Princess, most heartily for the compliment. I see you will not be pinned down by my rather personal question. Let me pay you with some of your own coin. I think it quite remarkable that you have so quickly fitted into the life here, and have accepted so quietly things which must be very strange to you. The difference of the way of living, the surroundings, the very strangeness of being waited on by these Chinamen, must be very uncomfortable, I fear?"

"Do not suggest a word against Ah Lam; he is the most delightful servant I have ever seen. Our Italian domestics are like great children, who have to be humored and managed with the extreme of tact and care. Ah Lam is like nothing but one of the automata described by Bulwer in 'The Coming Race,' which stand motionless against the wall until roused to action by the vrill wand, when they promptly perform the duty in hand. Ah Lam is only mechanical as far as regularity goes, for he has feelings and deep sentiments beneath his calm exterior. Do you know that he brings me fresh roses every morning, and that when he returned from San Francisco yesterday he brought me a present?"

"They all do that; they are the most generous creatures in the world. What did Lam bring you?"

"The prettiest little China silk handkerchief, which he presented with these words: 'I solly got no more, I so poor.' Was it not touching?"

"How do your lessons get on?"

"Very well. Lam learns ten or twelve new words every day. I give him the English word for an article, and he gives me the Chinese; and the following day we catechise each other; but I have never remembered a Chinese name, and Lam has never forgotten an English one. Then I set him copies, which he writes out beautifully with his queer little camel's-hair brush dipped in India-ink. I fear the sentiments will not greatly benefit him, but I try to explain them to him."

"Give me an example of your copy-book maxims; I am sure they are something new, quite unlike those I was brought up on."

"I take my verses all from Mr. Lear's 'Nonsense Book;' they will help him geographically, if not otherwise."

"You have given him the 'Old Man of Moldavia'?"

"Assuredly."

"Truly, Princess, you are the most inexplicable person I have ever seen. I find you in the morning with a volume of Spinoza in your hand, trying to explain his particular dogma of philosophy to poor Barbara; and in the afternoon you are talking about this absurd child's book as if it were something serious. You snubbed that poor professor last night, because he presumed to give an opinion concerning Dante, never having read him in the original; and to-day I heard you ask my mother if Washington was in the State of New York. You are remarkably erudite and positively ignorant at the same time."

"Eh bene, cosa volete? I--"

"Now what is the use of talking Italian to me? You know I can't understand a word of it, and--"

A third voice interrupted Deering. It was that of a man who had joined the pair unnoticed by either of them, the sound of his footsteps being muffled by the deep grass.

"If Miss Almsford knew how pretty her manner of speaking English was, she would never have resort to the weaker language of her birthplace to express her thoughts."

"What, Graham, with a gallant speech upon his lips! Wonder of wonders! Princess, he has the sharpest tongue and the keenest wit I have ever known. Beware of him! When did you come?"

"Just now; I rode over to see if Miss Almsford was in the mood for a ride, and to offer my services as cavalier, knowing that your afternoons, my dear Deering, are too much occupied for you to play esquire to this fair dame."

"It is the thing of all others I should enjoy," said Millicent; "I will be ready in ten minutes."

Deering strolled off, rather disconsolately, in the direction of the dairy, Graham accompanying him as far as the stable, where he proceeded to put Barbara's saddle on the back of a sturdy cob, which from his immovable character had been named Sphinx.

The artist had visited the house several times since his first meeting with Millicent, and had promised to be her guide to the high hill-top, whence a view of the Sierra Nevadas was to be obtained. Up the narrow bridle path toiled the two horses, Graham's leading the way. The road was a difficult one, underbrush and rolling stones making it dangerous for any horse which was not sure-footed. Old Sphinx set his feet firmly on the solid ground, avoiding all pit-falls in a wary fashion. The air was sweet with the spicy breath of the madrone tree, whose dark red bark and brilliant glossy leaves gleamed out here and there through the darker foliage of the great redwoods. The young man turned his head over his shoulder, letting his mustang find out the path, and talked to his companion, who was not yet at home in the saddle. One of the new delights which the western country held for Millicent was that of riding. Most of her life had been spent in Venice; and she had had little opportunity for indulging in that most exhilarating exercise. Graham assured her that she would soon make a good rider, as she quickly learned to assume the graceful but uncomfortable position compelled by the side-saddle. She was without fear, having that sort of bravery which is found in some children, and which comes from an ignorance of danger.

From a point in the road whence a view of the happy valley was to be obtained, Graham reined in his horse. The wide, pleasant valley lay below them, the house, its central point of interest, standing surrounded by the orchard and garden. A brook wound like a silver ribbon through the wide fields and wooded groves, under rustic bridges, here and there breaking into foam over a mass of stone, or a sudden shelving of the land.

When they again started Graham dismounted, and, passing his arm through the bridle of his horse, took Sphinx by the rein and led him over the rough bit of country. Whether from an exaggerated idea of courtesy, or because the head covering was irksome, Graham doffed his hat and walked bareheaded, the little shafts of sunshine touching his dark hair with points of light. The tall girl noted the sun and shadow which made this and all else lovely on this fair afternoon. As the ascent became steeper, the trees were less dense and the path grew wider. Graham still walked beside her horse, though there was no longer need for him to do so. As they emerged upon a broad plateau Millicent drew her breath and touched Graham lightly with her whip, laying her finger on her lip and pointing to a little hillside spring, which ran dancing from the rich dark earth. Close to the spring stood a magnificent buck and a graceful doe. The stag had bent his head and was drinking from the basin which the water had worn for itself, and which was surrounded by a ring of green turf, jewelled with star blue and pale rose blossoms. Of this tender herbage, so different from the dried grass of the hillside and meadow, the dainty doe was nibbling little morsels. For a moment neither of the animals perceived the approach of the riders, and stood quite still in their unconscious beauty. Graham's hand instinctively sought the revolver in his pocket. As he was taking aim Millicent's velvet fingers closed about the steel barrel, and she cried aloud, "You could not be so cruel!"

At the sound of her voice the stag threw up his great head with a mighty shiver, tossing the crystal water drops from his nose. Before the last word was spoken the slender, dappled doe had flashed across the path and was out of sight, her mate with outstretched head following close upon her track. For an instant the flowing lines of the swift motion were seen on the sky background, and then the trembling leaves of the thicket into which they had penetrated were all that told of their flight.

"You are more tender-hearted than Miss Barbara."

"No, but I could not bear that those two glorious creatures should be put out of the warm sunlight which they love so well."

"Miss Barbara is an excellent shot; she could have killed the stag from this point."

"And yet Barbara is really much better-hearted than I, and feels other people's troubles as if they were her own. Everything is in habit and education; she has looked upon deer in the light of venison, as I have always considered oxen in the light of future beef. And yet, though Barbara is so kind and good, I do not find her simpatica--how shall I say?"

"You might say sympathetic or congenial, Miss Almsford, if you could content yourself with the English language."

"But it is not the same thing,--sympathetic and simpatica; indeed it is an untranslatable word. I cannot always express my thoughts in English."

"Would you allow me to suggest that it may not be entirely the fault of the language, which did not fail to express the thoughts of Chaucer and Shakspeare, that you find it difficult to make yourself understood?"

"Do I speak it so badly then? You are not complimentary."

"It is not that you speak it badly, but that your vocabulary is limited, and that your mind far outruns its limits. I fancy you have never read or thought much in a serious vein in the simplest and the strongest of tongues."

"No, I have read very little English, but I challenge your last statement. I do not find English the greatest language. It is coarse by the side of French; it is prosaic compared to Italian. Think of the fine distinctions, the delicate shades of meaning, of the Gallic tongue. Your English can only express the extremes."

"And yet to-day it is more a lender than a borrower of words. You cannot take up a German or a French newspaper without finding an Anglicism in every column."

"What does that prove? Merely that the Anglo-Saxon race is more restless than all others. They are the Goths of the nineteenth century, and invade every corner of Europe, Asia, and Africa, carrying with them their barbarous language. I have heard it intermingled with Arabic in the Syrian desert. It is small wonder they feel the need of travel; there is little enough to interest them at home."

"And yet I, who have lived half my life in Europe, elect to pass the remainder of it in this country of my own free choice. How do you account for that?"

"I cannot account for it save as an aberration of the brain. It is strange, too, for you Americans are not a patriotic people."

"You think not?"

"It does not strike me so."

"You are mistaken, Miss Almsford; but your mistake is a natural one. These ideas, believe me, are not worthy of you, and have been derived by you from some perverted mind. Your own is too clear to have formed such opinions. They have been engrafted or inherited. How should you really have any idea but the most chimerical one, of America or Americans? You have passed your life among a race of people most unlike them, and you have been taught to ignore the country and the race to which you belong. You consider the matter of your birth as a misfortune, and you have learned to look down on your country, from below. I have had some experience of life in the various American colonies in Europe, and I think it a great misfortune to be one of those expatriated Americans. They are people without a country. They feel no responsibility toward any larger society than their own small household circle. Unless he is called by the exigencies of his profession to Europe, the American European is very apt to deteriorate greatly. He is in antagonism with the country which he has abandoned, and his foothold in foreign society is too much on tolerance to be fortunate in its effects on his character."

By this time the strong horses had reached the summit of the foot-hill, and stood breathing heavily. The riders dropped their conversation, which was drawing near to a discussion, and Millicent looked with wide eyes out over the grand scene. Far off stretched the line of the Sierras, the mountain barrier which severs the land of gold from the surrounding country. The sky was faintly flushed with a forewarning of the sunset, and a soft breeze rustled the tree tops, and blew into their faces.

"Are you rewarded for the long ascent, maiden from afar?"

"Yes," answered Millicent softly.

As they made the steep descent together Graham talked, in his strong, sweet voice, of his life in the old tower, of his work, of the pictures he had painted, and those which he dreamed of making some day. The self-dependent and contained young man was much attracted by the girl with the strange ideas and exquisite manners. On the night when they had first met, he had been drawn towards her by an attraction which seemed irresistible. It was not her beauty nor her intelligence which so much affected him, as a nameless charm like the warmth of a bright fire on a cool day, which seemed to wrap him about with a sense of comfort. When he left her this glow was still about him, but as hours passed it seemed to fade away and leave him strangely cold. He felt for the first time how desolate was his life; and he remembered her in his lonely tower as a traveller in the African desert recalls the green oasis where his last draught of water has been drained. Yet sometimes, when they talked together, came a strange antagonism between them like an impalpable mist, chilling the warmth which at meeting always kindled in her eyes and in his own bosom. That the discordance came from himself he often felt, and yet he was helpless in the face of it. The conversation of that afternoon was a type of their interviews, which were often marred by discussions not far removed from disputes. Whose fault was it? Wherein lay the incompatibility? Did it arise from either of their characters, or from the circumstances and surroundings in which they met? He asked himself the question a score of times and left it always unanswered. Graham had not been without experience of women. In his early youth he had had the misfortune to fall deeply in love with a frivolous and heartless girl. His nature was of a complex character, passionate to an unusual degree, yet guided by an intelligence stronger than passion. He had been deceived and outraged in every feeling by the heartless coquette, whose worst characteristic was her entire incapacity for affection. After breaking her faith with him, she had tried to win him back again, and had sued for the love which she had so lightly won and refused. But though he still loved her with the full force of his being, he had repulsed the woman whom he could no longer respect. Then came the long death-agony of deceived love, leaving its unmistakable traces on heart and brain and body. It was graven on the white brow; it was painted in the deep eyes, with their unfathomable look of doubt; it strengthened the fibres of the strong brain with the greater power which great suffering brings to intelligence of a high order; and alas! saddest of all, it chilled the hot heart-blood and left it cooler and more sluggish in its flow. Sorrowful was the man for the sorrow in the world, but pity for the grief of those about him was not so strong in him as it had been before. The bitterness which follows the spoiling of the rose-sweetness of love was happily modified by the broad humanitarian character of the man. It failed to make him bitter towards the world for its treatment of himself. He accepted manfully the knockdown blow which fate had dealt him; and if he mourned it was in secret,--he burdened no other soul with his misery. But as it was a woman who had darkened his life and drawn the veil of grief about his young soul, the whole rage of grief and bitterness which wore his heart went out toward her sex. As he had loved all women for her sweet sake, so now did he distrust them all because she had proved false. Evil to him appeared abstractly as a feminine element in the world; and the great qualities of nobility, abnegation, and heroism in his eyes were masculine attributes only. Too chivalrous by nature to think of himself as in opposition to the gentler sex, his position was in point of fact antagonistic to them. He was courteous in their company, but he always avoided it. In deed, as in word, he treated them with reverence, speaking no lightlier of them behind their backs than to their faces. The bitterness never broke the barriers of his vexed heart in noxious word or jest, but it lay there always embittering his life. He had finally ceased to remember his crushed hopes and spoiled youth; and then had succeeded a long time wherein he seemed to feel not at all. There was left him always his pious devotion to his mother, touching in its pathetic constancy, as to the one creature given him to love. For the gentle Mrs. Deering, whose face recalled that of his only living parent, he felt a real sentiment of friendship. Barbara, with her sweet, wholesome nature, he esteemed more highly than other young women; but since his intimacy with the family he had always emphasized his regard for the son and mother of the house; and Barbara had felt the difference in his voice when he addressed her. It grew colder, and his manner became formal, if by chance they were thrown together alone.

The charm by which Millicent swayed him, he said to himself, was not love. He looked back into the black and stormy past, and compared his feelings for this girl with those which had once torn his breast. She charmed him, but he surely did not love her. He felt a sense of cold discomfort on leaving her, but it was very different from the passionate grief which he once had suffered. This was what he thought when he contemplated the subject at all, which was not very often. For the most part he let himself drift down the pleasant summer tide. Skies were blue and roses sweet. If Millicent made the sky seem bluer, if the roses took on a more perfect hue when she wore them in her bosom, it was because she was like the skies and roses, tender and full of warmth and color. Did not the buds blush into flowers for all the world as well as for him? Did not the white clouds dip and dance across the sky for other men's pleasure as well as his own? Was not the whole small world of the San Rosario Ranch made more blithe and happily alive by the advent of Millicent Almsford, the maiden from afar? Barbara had been stimulated by the new atmosphere to do more thinking, and had found less time for fancy-work and more leisure for reading. Mrs. Deering, gentlest of women, found a companionship in the stranger which she had at first thought impossible; and Hal, poor Hal, was vainly fighting against the witching spell which was fast making him the slave of the girl, who he had prophesied was too cold to interest him.

Had Graham known the change which his companionship had wrought upon Millicent, he would have felt that if there was no danger for him in those swift fleeting hours passed together, there might be for her. The boredom which she had experienced at first was now dissipated, and every phase of the novel life at the Ranch had a charm for her.

The loud summons of the supper-bell struck the ears of the young people as they drew near the house; and the family stood waiting on the piazza as they reined in their horses before the door.

"Are you tired, Millicent?" was the anxious question of Mrs. Deering.

"Did you get a clear view of the mountains?" asked Barbara.

"How did Sphinx go?" said Hal.

"I cannot answer you all at once," cried Millicent, breathless from the rapid gallop which had brought them to the house; "but it was perfectly delightful. Sphinx behaved beautifully, and Mr. Graham almost as well. The view is wonderful, and I think the country of California very fine. There is a compliment for you all; do not pretend I never say anything nice about it."

"My dear, we have an invitation to go down to San Real to visit the Shallops. Mamma thinks we had better start to-morrow. Mr. Graham, here is a note for you which came enclosed in my letter. I fancy it carries the same invitation to you. It will be so nice at the seashore. You will like it, Millicent, won't you?"

"I like it here," Millicent answered, as she walked slowly up the steps; "but if you all want to go, I am willing. Who are the Shallops? Where is San Real?"

Graham had torn open his letter, which he quickly perused. Millicent looked inquiringly at him, and he answered her unspoken query:

"Yes, Mrs. Shallop asks me to join your party for a week at her pleasant house. Very kind of her, I am sure; but I never do that sort of thing. I--"

"Now, Graham," interrupted Mrs. Deering, "say nothing about it till I have talked it over with you. I have a particular reason for advising you to go. We will telegraph the answer in the morning, and can make up our minds in the course of the evening."

"I am yours to command in this and all things, Madame," said Graham, offering his arm to his hostess; "and there stands Ah Lam ready to weep because the muffins are growing cold; and I am famously hungry after our ride."

Tea being ended, Mrs. Deering and Graham paced the gravel path around the house for half an hour. It was evident to the group on the piazza that a discussion was going on between them. They spoke in low, earnest voices, whose tones did not escape Millicent's sensitive hearing, though she failed to catch the import of the words.

"For my sake," she finally heard Mrs. Deering say in a pleading voice.

"Dear my lady, is it just to put it on that ground?"

"But if you will hear to it on no other," she argued.

"Think what it is you ask of me. To leave my tower and my man Friday for a luxurious household with plethoric master and servants; to stagnate for a week among those ridiculous people who fill San Real in the summer; and all this not because it will do me or any one else any good, but to the end that I may begin the portraits I have already refused to paint. You know that I am not suited to that sort of hack work. How can I make a picture of that over-fed Shallop or his pinched, good little wife?"

"But our work cannot all be that which is best suited to us--"

"It should be--"

"Remember, Graham, that in three weeks the payment for the studio is due--"

"Ah, kindest one! you never forget me; bless you for your sweetness and thoughtfulness. Yes, I will go and do my best to make Shallop look like something other than an ex-blacksmith, but it is indeed bitter."

"You will find that there will be compensations," said Mrs. Deering, her eyes resting on the pretty group on the piazza: Barbara sitting at Millicent's feet, and Hal reaching up to pluck a spray of honeysuckles for her hair.