Jeff Briggs's Love Story

by Bret Harte

But he had never wavered; the convictions and resolutions ofsuddenly awakened character are seldom moved by expediency. He waseager to taste the bitter dregs of his cup at once. He began to pack histrunk, and make his preparations for departure. Without avoiding MissMayfield in this new excitement, he no longer felt the need of herpresence. He had satisfied his feverish anxieties by placing his trunkin the hall beside his open door, and was sitting on his bed, wrestlingwith a faded and overtasked carpet-bag that would not close and accepthis hard conditions, when a small voice from the staircase thrilledhim. He walked to the corridor, and, looking down, beheld Miss Mayfieldmidway on the steps of the staircase.

  She had never looked so beautiful before! Jeff had only seen her inthose soft enwrappings and half-deshabille that belong to invalidfemininity. Always refined and modest thus, in her presentwalking-costume there was added a slight touch of coquettish adornment.There was a brightness of color in her cheek and eye, partly the resultof climbing the staircase, partly the result of that audacious impulsethat had led her--a modest virgin--to seek a gentleman in this personalfashion. Modesty in a young girl has a comfortable satisfying charm,recognized easily by all humanity; but he must be a sorry knave ora worse prig who is not deliciously thrilled when Modesty puts hercharming little foot just over the threshold of Propriety.

  "The mountain would not come to Mohammed, so Mohammed must come to themountain," said Miss Mayfield. "Mother is asleep, Aunt Sally is at workin the kitchen, and here am I, already dressed for a ramble in thisbright afternoon sunshine, and no one to go with me. But, perhaps, you,too, are busy?"

  "No, miss. I will be with you in a moment."

  I wish I could say that he went back to calm his pulses, which thedangerous music of Miss Mayfield's voice had set to throbbing, by afew moments' calm and dispassionate reflection. But he only returned tobrush his curls out of his eyes and ears, and to button over his blueflannel shirt a white linen collar, which he thought might betterharmonize with Miss Mayfield's attire.

  She was sitting on the staircase, poking her parasol through thebalusters. "You need not have taken that trouble, Mr. Jeff," she saidpleasantly. "YOU are a part of this mountain picture at all times; but Iam obliged to think of dress."

  "It was no trouble, miss."

  Something in the tone of his voice made her look in his face as sherose. It was a trifle paler, and a little older. The result, doubtless,thought Miss Mayfield, of his yesterday's experience with thedeputy-sheriff.

  Such was her rapid deduction. Nevertheless, after the fashion of hersex, she immediately began to argue from quite another hypothesis.

  "You are angry with me, Mr. Jeff."

  "What, I--Miss Mayfield?"

  "Yes, you!"

  "Miss Mayfield!"

  "Oh yes, you are. Don't deny it?"

  "Upon my soul--"

  "Yes! You give me punishments and--penances!"

  Jeff opened his blue eyes on his tormentor. Could Aunt Sally have beensaying anything?

  "If anybody, Miss Mayfield--" he began.

  "Nobody but you. Look here!"

  She extended her little hand with a smile. In the centre of her palm layfour shining double B SHOT.

  "There! I found those in my slipper this morning!" Jeff was speechless.

  "Of course YOU did it! Of course it was YOU who found my slipper!" saidMiss Mayfield, laughing. "But why did you put shot in it, Mr. Jeff? Insome Catholic countries, when people have done wrong, the priests makethem do penance by walking with peas in their shoes! What have I everdone to you? And why SHOT? They're ever so much harder than peas."

  Seeing only the mischievous, laughing face before him, and the open palmcontaining the damning evidence of the broken Eley's cartridge, Jeffstammered out the truth.

  "I found the slipper in the bear-skin, Miss Mayfield. I put it in mytrunk to keep, thinking yer wouldn't miss it, and it's being a kindof remembrance after you're gone away--of--of the night you came here.Somebody moved the trunk in my room," and he hung his head here. "Thethings inside all got mixed up."

  "And that made you change your mind about keeping it?" said MissMayfield, still smiling.

  "No, miss."

  "What was it, then?"

  "I gave it back to you, Miss Mayfield, because I was going away."

  "Indeed! Where?"

  "I'm going to find another location. Maybe you've noticed," hecontinued, falling back into his old apologetic manner in spite of hispride of resolution--"maybe you've noticed that this place here has noadvantages for a hotel."

  "I had not, indeed. I have been very comfortable."

  "Thank you, miss."

  "When do you go?"

  "To-night."

  For all his pride and fixed purpose he could not help looking eagerly inher face. Miss Mayfield's eyes met his pleasantly and quietly.

  "I'm sorry to part with you so soon," she said, as she stepped back apace or two with folded hands. "Of course every moment of your time nowis occupied. You must not think of wasting it on me."

  But Jeff had recovered his sad composure. "I'd like to go with you, MissMayfield. It's the last time, you know," he added simply.

  Miss Mayfield did not reply. It was a tacit assent, however, althoughshe moved somewhat stiffly at his side as they walked towards the door.Quite convinced that Jeff's resolution came from his pecuniary troubles,Miss Mayfield was wondering if she had not better assure him of hissecurity from further annoyance from Dodd. Wonderful complexity offemale intellect! she was a little hurt at his ingratitude to her fora kindness he could not possibly have known. Miss Mayfield felt thatin some way she was unjustly treated. How many of our miserable sex,incapable of divination, have been crushed under that unreasonablefeminine reproof, "You ought to have known!"

  The afternoon sun was indeed shining brightly as they stepped out beforethe bleak angle of the "Half-way House"; but it failed to mitigate thehabitually practical austerity of the mountain breeze--a fact which MissMayfield had never before noticed. The house was certainly bleak andexposed; the site by no means a poetical one. She wondered if she hadnot put a romance into it, and perhaps even into the man beside her,which did not belong to either. It was a moment of dangerous doubt.

  "I don't know but that you're right, Mr. Jeff," she said finally, asthey faced the hill, and began the ascent together. "This place is alittle queer, and bleak, and--unattractive."

  "Yes, miss," said Jeff, with direct simplicity, "I've always wonderedwhat you saw in it to make you content to stay, when it would be so muchprettier, and more suitable for you at the 'Summit.'"

  Miss Mayfield bit her lip, and was silent. After a few moments' climbingshe said, almost pettishly, "Where is this famous 'Summit'?"

  Jeff stopped. They had reached the top of the hill. He pointed acrossan olive-green chasm to a higher level, where, basking in the decliningsun, clustered the long rambling outbuildings around the white blinkingfacade of the "Summit House." Framed in pines and hemlocks, tender withsoft gray shadows, and nestling beyond a foreground of cultivated slope,it was a charming rustic picture.

  Miss Mayfield's quick eye took in its details. Her quick intellecttook in something else. She had seated herself on the road-bank, and,clasping her knees between her locked fingers, she suddenly looked upat Jeff. "What possessed you to come half-way up a mountain, instead ofgoing on to the top?"

  "Poverty, miss!"

  Miss Mayfield flushed a little at this practical direct answer toher half-figurative question. However, she began to think that moralAlpine-climbing youth might have pecuniary restrictions in their highambitions, and that the hero of "Excelsior" might have succumbed tomore powerful opposition than the wisdom of Age or the blandishments ofBeauty.

  "You mean that poverty up there is more expensive?"

  "Yes, miss."

  "But you would like to live there?"

  "Yes."

  They were both silent. Miss Mayfield glanced at Jeff under the cornersof her lashes. He was leaning against a tree, absorbed in t
hought.Accustomed to look upon him as a pleasing picturesque object, quitefresh, original, and characteristic, she was somewhat disturbed to findthat to-day he presented certain other qualities which clearly did notagree with her preconceived ideas of his condition. He had abandonedhis usual large top-boots for low shoes, and she could not help noticingthat his feet were small and slender as were his hands, albeit brownedby exposure. His ruddy color was gone too, and his face, pale withsorrow and experience, had a new expression. His buttoned-up coat andwhite collar, so unlike his usual self, also had its suggestions--whichMiss Mayfield was at first inclined to