The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce — Volume 2: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians

by Ambrose Bierce

  AN ADVENTURE AT BROWNVILLE[1]

  [1] This story was written in collaboration with Miss Ina LillianPeterson, to whom is rightly due the credit for whatever merit it mayhave.

  I taught a little country school near Brownville, which, as every oneknows who has had the good luck to live there, is the capital of aconsiderable expanse of the finest scenery in California. The town issomewhat frequented in summer by a class of persons whom it is the habitof the local journal to call "pleasure seekers," but who by a justerclassification would be known as "the sick and those in adversity."Brownville itself might rightly enough be described, indeed, as a summerplace of last resort. It is fairly well endowed with boarding-houses, atthe least pernicious of which I performed twice a day (lunching at theschoolhouse) the humble rite of cementing the alliance between soul andbody. From this "hostelry" (as the local journal preferred to call itwhen it did not call it a "caravanserai") to the schoolhouse thedistance by the wagon road was about a mile and a half; but there was atrail, very little used, which led over an intervening range of low,heavily wooded hills, considerably shortening the distance. By thistrail I was returning one evening later than usual. It was the last dayof the term and I had been detained at the schoolhouse until almostdark, preparing an account of my stewardship for the trustees--two ofwhom, I proudly reflected, would be able to read it, and the third (aninstance of the dominion of mind over matter) would be overruled in hiscustomary antagonism to the schoolmaster of his own creation.

  I had gone not more than a quarter of the way when, finding an interestin the antics of a family of lizards which dwelt thereabout and seemedfull of reptilian joy for their immunity from the ills incident to lifeat the Brownville House, I sat upon a fallen tree to observe them. As Ileaned wearily against a branch of the gnarled old trunk the twilightdeepened in the somber woods and the faint new moon began castingvisible shadows and gilding the leaves of the trees with a tender butghostly light.

  I heard the sound of voices--a woman's, angry, impetuous, rising againstdeep masculine tones, rich and musical. I strained my eyes, peeringthrough the dusky shadows of the wood, hoping to get a view of theintruders on my solitude, but could see no one. For some yards in eachdirection I had an uninterrupted view of the trail, and knowing of noother within a half mile thought the persons heard must be approachingfrom the wood at one side. There was no sound but that of the voices,which were now so distinct that I could catch the words. That of the mangave me an impression of anger, abundantly confirmed by the matterspoken.

  "I will have no threats; you are powerless, as you very well know. Letthings remain as they are or, by God! you shall both suffer for it."

  "What do you mean?"--this was the voice of the woman, a cultivatedvoice, the voice of a lady. "You would not--murder us."

  There was no reply, at least none that was audible to me. During thesilence I peered into the wood in hope to get a glimpse of the speakers,for I felt sure that this was an affair of gravity in which ordinaryscruples ought not to count. It seemed to me that the woman was inperil; at any rate the man had not disavowed a willingness to murder.When a man is enacting the role of potential assassin he has not theright to choose his audience.

  After some little time I saw them, indistinct in the moonlight among thetrees. The man, tall and slender, seemed clothed in black; the womanwore, as nearly as I could make out, a gown of gray stuff. Evidentlythey were still unaware of my presence in the shadow, though for somereason when they renewed their conversation they spoke in lower tonesand I could no longer understand. As I looked the woman seemed to sinkto the ground and raise her hands in supplication, as is frequently doneon the stage and never, so far as I knew, anywhere else, and I am nownot altogether sure that it was done in this instance. The man fixed hiseyes upon her; they seemed to glitter bleakly in the moonlight with anexpression that made me apprehensive that he would turn them upon me. Ido not know by what impulse I was moved, but I sprang to my feet out ofthe shadow. At that instant the figures vanished. I peered in vainthrough the spaces among the trees and clumps of undergrowth. The nightwind rustled the leaves; the lizards had retired early, reptiles ofexemplary habits. The little moon was already slipping behind a blackhill in the west.

  I went home, somewhat disturbed in mind, half doubting that I had heardor seen any living thing excepting the lizards. It all seemed a trifleodd and uncanny. It was as if among the several phenomena, objective andsubjective, that made the sum total of the incident there had been anuncertain element which had diffused its dubious character over all--hadleavened the whole mass with unreality. I did not like it.

  At the breakfast table the next morning there was a new face; oppositeme sat a young woman at whom I merely glanced as I took my seat. Inspeaking to the high and mighty female personage who condescended toseem to wait upon us, this girl soon invited my attention by the soundof her voice, which was like, yet not altogether like, the one stillmurmuring in my memory of the previous evening's adventure. A momentlater another girl, a few years older, entered the room and sat at theleft of the other, speaking to her a gentle "good morning." By _her_voice I was startled: it was without doubt the one of which the firstgirl's had reminded me. Here was the lady of the sylvan incident sittingbodily before me, "in her habit as she lived."

  Evidently enough the two were sisters.

  With a nebulous kind of apprehension that I might be recognized as themute inglorious hero of an adventure which had in my consciousness andconscience something of the character of eavesdropping, I allowed myselfonly a hasty cup of the lukewarm coffee thoughtfully provided by theprescient waitress for the emergency, and left the table. As I passedout of the house into the grounds I heard a rich, strong male voicesinging an aria from "Rigoletto." I am bound to say that it wasexquisitely sung, too, but there was something in the performance thatdispleased me, I could say neither what nor why, and I walked rapidlyaway.

  Returning later in the day I saw the elder of the two young womenstanding on the porch and near her a tall man in black clothing--the manwhom I had expected to see. All day the desire to know something ofthese persons had been uppermost in my mind and I now resolved to learnwhat I could of them in any way that was neither dishonorable nor low.

  The man was talking easily and affably to his companion, but at thesound of my footsteps on the gravel walk he ceased, and turning aboutlooked me full in the face. He was apparently of middle age, dark anduncommonly handsome. His attire was faultless, his bearing easy andgraceful, the look which he turned upon me open, free, and devoid of anysuggestion of rudeness. Nevertheless it affected me with a distinctemotion which on subsequent analysis in memory appeared to be compoundedof hatred and dread--I am unwilling to call it fear. A second later theman and woman had disappeared. They seemed to have a trick ofdisappearing. On entering the house, however, I saw them through theopen doorway of the parlor as I passed; they had merely stepped througha window which opened down to the floor.

  Cautiously "approached" on the subject of her new guests my landladyproved not ungracious. Restated with, I hope, some small reverence forEnglish grammar the facts were these: the two girls were Pauline and EvaMaynard of San Francisco; the elder was Pauline. The man was RichardBenning, their guardian, who had been the most intimate friend of theirfather, now deceased. Mr. Benning had brought them to Brownville in thehope that the mountain climate might benefit Eva, who was thought to bein danger of consumption.

  Upon these short and simple annals the landlady wrought an embroidery ofeulogium which abundantly attested her faith in Mr. Benning's will andability to pay for the best that her house afforded. That he had a goodheart was evident to her from his devotion to his two beautiful wardsand his really touching solicitude for their comfort. The evidenceimpressed me as insufficient and I silently found the Scotch verdict,"Not proven."

  Certainly Mr. Benning was most attentive to his wards. In my strollsabout the country I frequently encountered them--sometimes in companywith other guests of the hotel--explori
ng the gulches, fishing, rifleshooting, and otherwise wiling away the monotony of country life; andalthough I watched them as closely as good manners would permit I sawnothing that would in any way explain the strange words that I hadoverheard in the wood. I had grown tolerably well acquainted with theyoung ladies and could exchange looks and even greetings with theirguardian without actual repugnance.

  A month went by and I had almost ceased to interest myself in theiraffairs when one night our entire little community was thrown intoexcitement by an event which vividly recalled my experience in theforest.

  This was the death of the elder girl, Pauline.

  The sisters had occupied the same bedroom on the third floor of thehouse. Waking in the gray of the morning Eva had found Pauline deadbeside her. Later, when the poor girl was weeping beside the body amid athrong of sympathetic if not very considerate persons, Mr. Benningentered the room and appeared to be about to take her hand. She drewaway from the side of the dead and moved slowly toward the door.

  "It is you," she said--"you who have done this. You--you--you!"

  "She is raving," he said in a low voice. He followed her, step by step,as she retreated, his eyes fixed upon hers with a steady gaze in whichthere was nothing of tenderness nor of compassion. She stopped; the handthat she had raised in accusation fell to her side, her dilated eyescontracted visibly, the lids slowly dropped over them, veiling theirstrange wild beauty, and she stood motionless and almost as white as thedead girl lying near. The man took her hand and put his arm gently abouther shoulders, as if to support her. Suddenly she burst into a passionof tears and clung to him as a child to its mother. He smiled with asmile that affected me most disagreeably--perhaps any kind of smilewould have done so--and led her silently out of the room.

  There was an inquest--and the customary verdict: the deceased, itappeared, came to her death through "heart disease." It was before theinvention of heart _failure_, though the heart of poor Pauline hadindubitably failed. The body was embalmed and taken to San Francisco bysome one summoned thence for the purpose, neither Eva nor Benningaccompanying it. Some of the hotel gossips ventured to think that verystrange, and a few hardy spirits went so far as to think it very strangeindeed; but the good landlady generously threw herself into the breach,saying it was owing to the precarious nature of the girl's health. It isnot of record that either of the two persons most affected andapparently least concerned made any explanation.

  One evening about a week after the death I went out upon the veranda ofthe hotel to get a book that I had left there. Under some vines shuttingout the moonlight from a part of the space I saw Richard Benning, forwhose apparition I was prepared by having previously heard the low,sweet voice of Eva Maynard, whom also I now discerned, standing beforehim with one hand raised to his shoulder and her eyes, as nearly as Icould judge, gazing upward into his. He held her disengaged hand and hishead was bent with a singular dignity and grace. Their attitude was thatof lovers, and as I stood in deep shadow to observe I felt even guiltierthan on that memorable night in the wood. I was about to retire, whenthe girl spoke, and the contrast between her words and her attitude wasso surprising that I remained, because I had merely forgotten to goaway.

  "You will take my life," she said, "as you did Pauline's. I know yourintention as well as I know your power, and I ask nothing, only that youfinish your work without needless delay and let me be at peace."

  He made no reply--merely let go the hand that he was holding, removedthe other from his shoulder, and turning away descended the stepsleading to the garden and disappeared in the shrubbery. But a momentlater I heard, seemingly from a great distance, his fine clear voice ina barbaric chant, which as I listened brought before some innerspiritual sense a consciousness of some far, strange land peopled withbeings having forbidden powers. The song held me in a kind of spell, butwhen it had died away I recovered and instantly perceived what I thoughtan opportunity. I walked out of my shadow to where the girl stood. Sheturned and stared at me with something of the look, it seemed to me, ofa hunted hare. Possibly my intrusion had frightened her.

  "Miss Maynard," I said, "I beg you to tell me who that man is and thenature of his power over you. Perhaps this is rude in me, but it is nota matter for idle civilities. When a woman is in danger any man has aright to act."

  She listened without visible emotion--almost I thought without interest,and when I had finished she closed her big blue eyes as if unspeakablyweary.

  "You can do nothing," she said.

  I took hold of her arm, gently shaking her as one shakes a personfalling into a dangerous sleep.

  "You must rouse yourself," I said; "something must be done and you mustgive me leave to act. You have said that that man killed your sister,and I believe it--that he will kill you, and I believe that."

  She merely raised her eyes to mine.

  "Will you not tell me all?" I added.

  "There is nothing to be done, I tell you--nothing. And if I could doanything I would not. It does not matter in the least. We shall be hereonly two days more; we go away then, oh, so far! If you have observedanything, I beg you to be silent."

  "But this is madness, girl." I was trying by rough speech to break thedeadly repose of her manner. "You have accused him of murder. Unless youexplain these things to me I shall lay the matter before theauthorities."

  This roused her, but in a way that I did not like. She lifted her headproudly and said: "Do not meddle, sir, in what does not concern you.This is my affair, Mr. Moran, not yours."

  "It concerns every person in the country--in the world," I answered,with equal coldness. "If you had no love for your sister I, at least, amconcerned for you."

  "Listen," she interrupted, leaning toward me. "I loved her, yes, Godknows! But more than that--beyond all, beyond expression, I love _him_.You have overheard a secret, but you shall not make use of it to harmhim. I shall deny all. Your word against mine--it will be that. Do youthink your 'authorities' will believe you?"

  She was now smiling like an angel and, God help me! I was heels overhead in love with her! Did she, by some of the many methods ofdivination known to her sex, read my feelings? Her whole manner hadaltered.

  "Come," she said, almost coaxingly, "promise that you will not beimpolite again." She took my arm in the most friendly way. "Come, I willwalk with you. He will not know--he will remain away all night."

  Up and down the veranda we paced in the moonlight, she seeminglyforgetting her recent bereavement, cooing and murmuring girl-wise ofevery kind of nothing in all Brownville; I silent, consciously awkwardand with something of the feeling of being concerned in an intrigue. Itwas a revelation--this most charming and apparently blameless creaturecoolly and confessedly deceiving the man for whom a moment before shehad acknowledged and shown the supreme love which finds even death anacceptable endearment.

  "Truly," I thought in my inexperience, "here is something new under themoon."

  And the moon must have smiled.

  Before we parted I had exacted a promise that she would walk with me thenext afternoon--before going away forever--to the Old Mill, one ofBrownville's revered antiquities, erected in 1860.

  "If he is not about," she added gravely, as I let go the hand she hadgiven me at parting, and of which, may the good saints forgive me, Istrove vainly to repossess myself when she had said it--so charming, asthe wise Frenchman has pointed out, do we find woman's infidelity whenwe are its objects, not its victims. In apportioning his benefactionsthat night the Angel of Sleep overlooked me.

  The Brownville House dined early, and after dinner the next day MissMaynard, who had not been at table, came to me on the veranda, attiredin the demurest of walking costumes, saying not a word. "He" wasevidently "not about." We went slowly up the road that led to the OldMill. She was apparently not strong and at times took my arm,relinquishing it and taking it again rather capriciously, I thought. Hermood, or rather her succession of moods, was as mutable as skylight in arippling sea. She jested as if she had never heard of
such a thing asdeath, and laughed on the lightest incitement, and directly afterwardwould sing a few bars of some grave melody with such tenderness ofexpression that I had to turn away my eyes lest she should see theevidence of her success in art, if art it was, not artlessness, as thenI was compelled to think it. And she said the oddest things in the mostunconventional way, skirting sometimes unfathomable abysms of thought,where I had hardly the courage to set foot. In short, she wasfascinating in a thousand and fifty different ways, and at every step Iexecuted a new and profounder emotional folly, a hardier spiritualindiscretion, incurring fresh liability to arrest by the constabulary ofconscience for infractions of my own peace.

  Arriving at the mill, she made no pretense of stopping, but turned intoa trail leading through a field of stubble toward a creek. Crossing by arustic bridge we continued on the trail, which now led uphill to one ofthe most picturesque spots in the country. The Eagle's Nest, it wascalled--the summit of a cliff that rose sheer into the air to a heightof hundreds of feet above the forest at its base. From this elevatedpoint we had a noble view of another valley and of the opposite hillsflushed with the last rays of the setting sun.

  As we watched the light escaping to higher and higher planes from theencroaching flood of shadow filling the valley we heard footsteps, andin another moment were joined by Richard Benning.

  "I saw you from the road," he said carelessly; "so I came up."

  Being a fool, I neglected to take him by the throat and pitch him intothe treetops below, but muttered some polite lie instead. On the girlthe effect of his coming was immediate and unmistakable. Her face wassuffused with the glory of love's transfiguration: the red light of thesunset had not been more obvious in her eyes than was now the lovelightthat replaced it.

  "I am so glad you came!" she said, giving him both her hands; and, Godhelp me! it was manifestly true.

  Seating himself upon the ground he began a lively dissertation upon thewild flowers of the region, a number of which he had with him. In themiddle of a facetious sentence he suddenly ceased speaking and fixed hiseyes upon Eva, who leaned against the stump of a tree, absently plaitinggrasses. She lifted her eyes in a startled way to his, as if she had_felt_ his look. She then rose, cast away her grasses, and moved slowlyaway from him. He also rose, continuing to look at her. He had still inhis hand the bunch of flowers. The girl turned, as if to speak, but saidnothing. I recall clearly now something of which I was buthalf-conscious then--the dreadful contrast between the smile upon herlips and the terrified expression in her eyes as she met his steady andimperative gaze. I know nothing of how it happened, nor how it was thatI did not sooner understand; I only know that with the smile of an angelupon her lips and that look of terror in her beautiful eyes Eva Maynardsprang from the cliff and shot crashing into the tops of the pinesbelow!

  How and how long afterward I reached the place I cannot say, but RichardBenning was already there, kneeling beside the dreadful thing that hadbeen a woman.

  "She is dead--quite dead," he said coldly. "I will go to town forassistance. Please do me the favor to remain."

  He rose to his feet and moved away, but in a moment had stopped andturned about.

  "You have doubtless observed, my friend," he said, "that this wasentirely her own act. I did not rise in time to prevent it, and you, notknowing her mental condition--you could not, of course, have suspected."

  His manner maddened me.

  "You are as much her assassin," I said, "as if your damnable hands hadcut her throat." He shrugged his shoulders without reply and, turning,walked away. A moment later I heard, through the deepening shadows ofthe wood into which he had disappeared, a rich, strong, baritone voicesinging "_La donna e mobile_," from "Rigoletto."