Читать книгу Jessica Trent's Inheritance - Raymond Evelyn - Страница 5

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Mr. Hale never forgot that railway trip.

To rouse Jessica Trent from her sorrow at leaving home he had suggested her helping others; and so thoroughly did she follow his advice that he soon had a dozen people depending upon him for counsel and comfort. Quoth that young traveler, in the very presence of the ailing mother of the tourist car:

“We are so much better off in our ‘Arizona,’ dear Mr. Hale. Let’s take this poor little woman and this precious baby right back there with us. She can have my own soft seat with you and I can sit with Mrs. Moriarty, as she wanted me to do. Dear Mr. Marsh—Well, he must be with us in there, too. If he loved me so well he would hide away from the others and come all the way to the other ocean, just because he couldn’t live without me, course, I can’t live without him. Why he didn’t tell them was—was just because.”

“Probably a satisfactory reason to him and seems to be to you, Miss Jessica. Yet what’s to become of him in New York? Don’t for a moment imagine your future hostess, Mrs. Dalrymple, will have him at her house. From all I’ve heard of her she’s a woman of strong opinions and one of them is that it will be better for you to cut loose from your western companions for a time.”

Jessica regarded him with some surprise, but her confidence was not shaken.

“Oh! you see, she doesn’t know ‘Forty-niner.’ I suppose she’s read stories about cowboys and such things; and my father used to say that the stories were mostly exag—exaggerated, and written by people who’d never been west in their lives. Fancy! Writing a book about men one never saw! Anyway, Cousin Margaret is sure to like Ephraim Marsh. Nobody could help it.”

Meanwhile, the sharpshooter had settled himself most comfortably in the ‘Arizona,’ occupying any seat which happened to be vacant for the moment and quietly retiring to his rightful berth in the “tourist car” when bedtime came. The ailing mother had accepted Jessica’s place and berth in Mr. Hale’s section, and the little girl herself had joined forces with Mrs. Moriarty.

Jessica had had a reasonable sum of money given her, when she left Sobrante, her mother believing it would add to that womanly training she needed to have charge of it; and without consulting her present guardian the girl had given the sick woman enough of her fund to pay the different rate of fare.

It was too late for Mr. Hale to object, and he was too polite to do so. The utmost he could accomplish was to warn his charge to expend nothing more without his advice, and to pass as much of his time in the smoker as was possible. Fortunately, the baby was a happy child, when physically comfortable; and it was a good sleeper; so that the lawyer’s fear of being kept awake at night, by having it in the lower berth, proved groundless.

By the end of the second day out Jessica and the baby, which she carried everywhere, had become the life of the train; “going visiting” in one car after another, making friends in each, and feeling almost as if they were always to journey thus amid these now familiar faces. But all journeys end in time, and as they drew nearer and nearer to the eastern coast, one after another these fellow travelers departed at some stopping-place, nearest their homes.

“Why, it seems as if there was nothing in this world but just to say ‘Good-by!’” cried Jessica, tearfully, when the hour came for baby and its mother to leave the “Arizona.”

“Never mind, dearie, you’ve made it a pleasant trip for me, and it’s a little world. We may meet again; but if we don’t, just you keep on shedding sunshine and you’ll never be sad for long,” said the invalid, herself grieved to part with the little Californian yet grateful to have reached her own home alive.

Then almost before she knew it, the week-long trip had ended. The train steamed into the great station in Jersey City, those who had come “all the way across” gathered their belongings, submitted to be brushed and freshened from the stains of the long trip, hurriedly bade one another good-by and were gone. Even Mrs. Moriarty had time for but a single hug and the bestowal of a whole mint drop ere she was captured by a red-faced Irishwoman in a redder bonnet, who called her “Cousin Dalia,” and bore her away through the crowd toward that waiting steamer which should carry her onward to her beloved Ireland.

Jessica watched her go and caught her breath with a sob. It sent a sharp pain through her heart to find that she seemed the only one for whom a joyful welcome was not waiting; and she almost resented Mr. Hale’s blithe voice and manner as he laid his hand on her shoulder and demanded:

“What? Tears in your eyes, little maid? Are you so sorry to have done with those tiresome cars and to be on solid ground again? My! But it’s raining a deluge!”

“Raining? Why—how can it now, so late, in the very middle of April! But isn’t it good Grandma Moriarty did have the gum shoes, after all?”

“Humph! Good enough for her, but how about ourselves, eh? As for ‘raining in April,’ that’s just the orthodox state of the weather here in the east. Never mind. A carriage will take us safely enough to your cousin’s house. This way, please. Have you your satchel? Porter, take it and these. Now come. I’m as glad as a schoolboy to be at home again—or so near it that the first suburban train will carry me to it. Six months since I saw my wife and daughters! That’s a big slice out of a man’s life.”

He was so glad, indeed, that his usual thoughtfulness for others gave place to personal considerations; and he forgot that to his young companion this was not a joyful return but a dreaded beginning.

“This way, Jessica! Step in, please, out of the wet!”

The girl obeyed and entered the carriage, and though she had checked her tears she felt she had never seen anything so dismal as that great wharf, with its dripping vehicles, nor heard anything so dreadful as the cries of the angry drivers, jostling each other in the storm.

Then they drove on to the ferry-boat and there a thunder shower burst upon that region such as had not been known there for many a day. To the little Californian, fresh from that thunderless Paraiso d’Oro, it seemed as if the end of the world might be at hand; and she cowered against Mr. Hale who slipped his arm caressingly about her. At last he had begun to understand something of her loneliness and blamed himself that he had not done so earlier.

“Well, little girl, does this frighten you? To me it is delightful. At present so fierce, this electric storm will clear the air of all impurity, and by the time we reach Washington Square, where Mrs. Dalrymple lives, we shall have almost Californian sunshine. Just think! Though you have never seen her she is your very own ‘blood relation.’ She knew your mother when she, too, was a little maid like yourself. I confess I should have liked to know that lady then myself. She must have been a model of all girlish sweetness, as she is now of womanly graces. To grow up such a gentlewoman as Mrs. Trent—that’s why you are breasting a thunder-storm here in New York to-day. Hark! That peal wasn’t quite so loud as the others. The storm is rapidly passing eastward and the clouds are lightening. Now look out of the window and get your first glimpse of our biggest American city. Not the finest part, by any means, but every part is interesting to me.”

Thus advised Jessica peered through the rain-splashed glass into that crowded west-side avenue, where it seemed as if the never-ending line of drays and wagons, the clanging street-cars, the roar of the “elevated” trains above, and the shouts and screams of all the teamsters, was pandemonium indeed. She did not find the outlook at all “interesting,” as the loyal citizen had described it, but most confusing and terrifying. If this were New York, however should she be able to endure it?

With a down sinking of her heart, and a homesickness quite too deep for tears, the “little Captain” leaned back and closed her eyes, while her fancy pictured that far-away Sobrante, lying bathed in sunshine and in a peacefulness so wholly in contrast to this dreadful city. Memories of her home recalled the fact that Ephraim, a part of her old world, was not with her now and that in the confusion of leaving the train she had quite forgotten him. This sent her upright again, startled and eager, to say:

“Why, Mr. Hale! How terrible! We’ve forgotten ‘Forty-niner!’ we must go right back and get him!”

“Impossible. He should have been on the lookout for us and kept us in sight. Besides, if we did go back we couldn’t find him. New York crowds are always changing and he’d move on with the rest. Doubtless, he thinks it easy to overtake us anywhere here.”

Jessica was hurt. She could not realize how greatly tried the lawyer had been by many of her thoughtless actions during their long journey, nor how impatient he was now to be free from his care of her and away to his own household. His irritation was perfectly natural, and, secretly, he was extremely glad that they had thus easily lost the sharpshooter. It was a most satisfactory way out of the difficulty in appearing at Mrs. Dalrymple’s house with the veteran ranchman in train. That she would decline to receive Mr. Marsh, he was quite sure; in which case he would himself have been left with the old fellow upon his hands, to care for in some way till he could be expressed back to Sobrante. Yes, he was certainly relieved; but he did not enjoy the reproachful glance which his young charge bestowed upon him as he spoke. After a moment she asked:

“Will carriages take you anywhere you want to go, here in this big place? Can you hire one for money, just as in our dear Los Angeles, when Mr. Ninian got one to take us from one station to the other? Could a little girl hire one, herself?”

“Why, of course; but Jessica, dear child, get no silly notions into your head of running about this city alone—even in a public hack. Within a very few moments I shall hand you over to the care of your future guardian and you will have to be guided by her in everything. Nor need you worry about Ephraim. He’s an old campaigner, has a tongue to ask questions with, and this is a decent community. He’ll look out for himself well enough. There! A half-dozen more blocks and we shall have arrived!”

Jessica could not answer. She turned her head aside and carefully studied the street through which they were passing. It looked hopelessly like others they had left. The houses bordering it were so tall and close together that they seemed to take up all the air, leaving none for her to breathe. It was a great relief when they came to an open square and stopped before a big house fronting upon it.

“Ah! I fancied this was the place! One of our old landmarks—and very few are left. How fine for you to come to live here, child! I almost envy you the distinction,” cried the New Yorker, with enthusiasm, as he stepped from the carriage and turned to help Jessica out.

But she was already on the pavement, staring eagerly at her new home and seeing nothing so remarkable as Mr. Hale fancied about it. It was some larger than the other houses near, almost twice as wide, indeed; and it stood somewhat back from the street, guarded by a sharp-pointed iron fence and an imposing gate. Two rather rusty iron lions couched before the entrance, on the brown stone steps, but time had softened their once fierce expression to a sort of grin which could frighten nobody—not even a stranger from Paraiso d’Oro. On both sides of the mansion was a stretch of green grass, a rare feature in a city where every foot of ground was so precious, and that spoke much for the obstinacy of its possessor who must repeatedly have refused to part with it for building purposes.

So absorbed in looking at the mansion were both the lawyer and Jessica that they scarcely heard the murmur of voices behind them, where their jehu was quietly discussing and arranging a little matter of business with a man who had ridden beside himself on his coachman’s seat; nor, till they passed through the iron gateway and ascended the steps, did they realize that the man, also, had followed.

Then Mr. Hale turned his head and uttered a cry of regret. But Jessica, likewise turning, felt nothing but joy as she flung herself upon Ephraim Marsh, standing “at attention,” as composed and at ease as if he were waiting his mistress’s commands upon the porch at Sobrante.

“Why, Marsh! you—here?” cried the lawyer. “We—Miss Jessica feared she had lost you.”

“She needn’t have. She couldn’t. She’ll never lose me till the grave covers me,” answered the sharpshooter, solemnly.

“O Ephy! don’t speak of graves, right here at the beginning of things! And oh! how glad I am to have you, how glad, how glad! You’re a real bit of dear Sobrante and give me courage!”

The great key turned in the door-lock, a bolt or two shot back and the door swung on its mighty hinges; slowly and cautiously at first, then with more confidence as the attendant saw nothing formidable in these visitors. They seemed to be a gentleman, a soldier, and a little girl, where he had anticipated beggars or burglars, or worse.

“Is Mrs. Dalrymple at home? This is Miss Jessica Trent, of California, whom the lady expects; and I am—this is my card. Mr. Marsh, also, of California—and——”

Mr. Hale paused then motioning Jessica forward followed whither the old butler led the way; “Forty-niner” bringing up the rear with his stiffest military stride and most impassive expression.

They were ushered into a great room at the back of the house. Its long windows were opened upon an iron balcony, from which a flight of steps ran down into what once had been a charming garden but was now a neglected wilderness. The room itself was oppressive from its crowding furniture, dust-covered and dark in tone, and a faded carpet strewn with much litter added to the unpleasant effect. Till suddenly Jessica discovered that the carpet had once been a “picture.” An old-time hunting scene with horses and people and dogs galore; where some of the horses had lost their heads, the dogs their tails, and the red coats of the huntsmen had suffered much-through the tread of feet during years and years of time.

Nevertheless, she was down upon her knees examining it, calling attention to this detail or that, till the silence in which they had been left was broken by the sound of a tap-tap along the hall and the old butler reappeared, announcing:

“Madam Dalrymple.”

Mr. Hale rose and advanced, “Forty-niner” made his best “salute,” but Jessica neither moved nor spoke. She could only gaze with fascination at the figure standing between the portieres and wait what next. That an “old lady”? That!