by Harte, Bret
His next visit was a day or two delayed, and in her anxiety she had ventured as far as the highway to earnestly watch for his coming. From her hiding-place in the underwood she could see the team and Jim Hoskins already waiting for him. Presently she saw him drive up to the trail in a carryall with a party of ladies and gentlemen. He alighted, bade "Good-by" to the party, and the team turned to retrace its course. But in that single moment she had been struck and bewildered by what seemed to her the dazzlingly beautiful apparel of the women, and their prettiness. She felt a sudden consciousness of her own coarse, shapeless calico gown, her straggling hair, and her felt hat, and a revulsion of feeling seized her. She crept like a wounded animal out of the underwood, and then ran swiftly and almost fiercely back towards the cabin. She ran so fast that for a time she almost kept pace with the doctor and Hoskins in the wagon on the distant trail. Then she dived into the underwood again, and making a short cut through the forest, came at the end of two hours within hailing distance of the cabin,—footsore and exhausted, in spite of the strange excitement that had driven her back. Here she thought she heard voices—his voice among the rest—calling her, but the same singular revulsion of feeling hurried her vaguely on again, even while she experienced a foolish savage delight in not answering the summons. In this erratic wandering she came upon the spring she had found on her first entrance in the forest a year ago, and drank feverishly a second time at its trickling source. She could see that since her first visit it had worn a great hollow below the tree roots and now formed a shining, placid pool. As she stooped to look at it, she suddenly observed that it reflected her whole figure as in a cruel mirror,—her slouched hat and loosened hair, her coarse and shapeless gown, her hollow cheeks and dry yellow skin,—in all their hopeless, uncompromising details. She uttered a quick, angry, half-reproachful cry, and turned again to fly. But she had not gone far before she came upon the hurrying figures and anxious faces of the doctor and Hoskins. She stopped, trembling and irresolute.
"Ah," said the doctor, in a tone of frank relief. "Here you are! I was getting worried about you. Waya said you had been gone since morning!" He stopped and looked at her attentively. "Is anything the matter?"
His evident concern sent a warm glow over her chilly frame, and yet the strange sensation remained. "No—no!" she stammered.
Doctor Ruysdael turned to Hoskins. "Go back and tell Waya I've found her."
Libby felt that the doctor only wanted to get rid of his companion, and became awed again.
"Has anybody been bothering you?"
"No."
"Have the diggers frightened you?"
"No"—with a gesture of contempt.
"Have you and Waya quarreled?"
"Nary"—with a faint, tremulous smile.
He still stared at her, and then dropped his blue eyes musingly. "Are you lonely here? Would you rather go to San Jose?"
Like a flash the figures of the two smartly dressed women started up before her again, with every detail of their fresh and wholesome finery as cruelly distinct as had been her own shapeless ugliness in the mirror of the spring. "No! NO!" she broke out vehemently and passionately. "Never!"
He smiled gently. "Look here! I'll send you up some books. You read—don't you?" She nodded quickly. "Some magazines and papers. Odd I never thought of it before," he added half musingly. "Come along to the cabin. And," he stopped again and said decisively, "the next time you want anything, don't wait for me to come, but write."
A few days after he left she received a package of books,—an odd collection of novels, magazines, and illustrated journals of the period. She received them eagerly as an evidence of his concern for her, but it is to be feared that her youthful nature found little satisfaction in the gratification of fancy. Many of the people she read of were strange to her; many of the incidents related seemed to her mere lies; some tales which treated of people in her own sphere she found profoundly uninteresting. In one of the cheaper magazines she chanced upon a fashion plate; she glanced eagerly through all the others for a like revelation until she got a dozen together, when she promptly relegated the remaining literature to a corner and oblivion. The text accompanying the plates was in a jargon not always clear, but her instinct supplied the rest. She dispatched by Hoskins a note to Doctor Ruysdael: "Please send me some brite kalikers and things for sewing. You told me to ask." A few days later brought the response in a good-sized parcel.
Yet this did not keep her from her care of the stock nor her rambles in the forest; she was quick to utilize her rediscovery of the spring for watering the cattle; it was not so far afield as the half-dried creek in the canyon, and was a quiet sylvan spot. She ate her frugal midday meal there and drank of its waters, and, secure in her seclusion, bathed there and made her rude toilet when the cows were driven home. But she did not again look into its mirrored surface when it was tranquil!
And so a month passed. But when Doctor Ruysdael was again due at the cabin, a letter was brought by Hoskins, with the news that he was called away on professional business down the coast, and could not come until two weeks later. In the disappointment that overcame her, she did not at first notice that Hoskins was gazing at her with a singular expression, which was really one of undisguised admiration. Never having seen this before in the eyes of any man who looked at her, she referred it to some vague "larking" or jocularity, for which she was in no mood.
"Say, Libby! you're gettin' to be a right smart-lookin' gal. Seems to agree with ye up here," said Hoskins with an awkward laugh. "Darned ef ye ain't lookin' awful purty!"
"G'long!" said Liberty Jones, more than ever convinced of his badinage.
"Fact," said Hoskins energetically. "Why, Doc would tell ye so, too. See ef he don't!"
At this Liberty Jones felt her face grow hot. "You jess get!" she said, turning away in as much embarrassment as anger. Yet he hovered near her with awkward attentions that pleased while it still angered her. He offered to go with her to look up the cows; she flatly declined, yet with a strange satisfaction in his evident embarrassment. This may have lent some animation to her face, for he drew a long breath and said:—
"Don't go pertendin' ye don't know yer purty. Say, let me and you walk a bit and have a talk together." But Libby had another idea in her mind and curtly dismissed him. Then she ran swiftly to the spring, for the words "The Doc will tell ye so, too" were ringing in her ears. The doctor who came with the two beautifully dressed women! HE—would tell her she was pretty! She had not dared to look at herself in that crystal mirror since that dreadful day two months ago. She would now.
It was a pretty place in the cool shade of the giant trees, and the hoof-marks of cattle drinking from the run beneath the pool had not disturbed the margin of that tranquil sylvan basin. For a moment she stood tremulous and uncertain, and then going up to the shining mirror, dropped on her knees before it with her thin red hands clasped on her lap. Unconsciously she had taken the attitude of prayer; perhaps there was something like it in her mind.
And then the light glanced full on the figure that she saw there!
It fell on a full oval face and throat guileless of fleck or stain, smooth as a child's and glowing with health; on large dark eyes, no longer sunk in their orbits, but filled with an eager, happy light; on bared arms now shapely in contour and cushioned with firm flesh; on a dazzling smile, the like of which had never been on the face of Liberty Jones before!
She rose to her feet, and yet lingered as if loath to part from this delightful vision. Then a fear overcame her that it was some trick of the water, and she sped swiftly back to the house to consult the little mirror which hung in her sleeping-room, but which she had never glanced at since the momentous day of the spring. She took it shyly into the sunshine, and found that it corroborated the reflection of the spring. That night she worked until late at the calico Doctor Ruysdael had sent her, and went to bed happy. The next day brought her Hoskins again with a feeble excuse of inquiring if she had a letter for the doctor,
and she was surprised to find that he was reinforced by a stranger from Hoskins's farm, who was equally awkward and vaguely admiring. But the appearance of the TWO men produced a singular phase in her impressions and experience. She was no longer indignant at Hoskins, but she found relief in accepting the compliments of the stranger in preference, and felt a delight in Hoskins's discomfiture. Waya, promoted to the burlesque of a chaperone, grinned with infinite delight and understanding.
When at last the day came for the doctor's arrival, he was duly met by Hoskins, and as duly informed by that impressible subordinate of the great change in Liberty's appearance. But the doctor was far from being equally impressed with his factor's story, and indeed showed much more interest in the appearance of the stock which they met along the road. Once the doctor got out of the wagon to inspect a cow, and particularly the coat of a rough draught horse that had been turned out and put under Liberty's care. "His skin is like velvet," said the doctor. "The girl evidently understands stock, and knows how to keep them in condition."
"I reckon she's beginning to understand herself, too," said Hoskins. "Golly! wait till ye see HER."
The doctor DID see her, but with what feelings he did not as frankly express. She was not at the cabin when they arrived, but presently appeared from the direction of the spring where, for reasons of her own, she had evidently made her toilet. Doctor Ruysdael was astounded; Hoskins's praise was not exaggerated; and there was an added charm that Hoskins was not prepared for. She had put on a gown of her own making,—the secret toil of many a long night,—amateurishly fashioned from some cheap yellow calico the doctor had sent her, yet fitting her wonderfully, and showing every curve of her graceful figure. Unaccented by a corset,—an article she had never known,—even the lines of the stiff, unyielding calico had a fashion that was nymph-like and suited her unfettered limbs. Doctor Ruysdael was profoundly moved. Though a philosopher, he was practical. He found himself suddenly confronted not only by a beautiful girl, but a problem! It was impossible to keep the existence of this woodland nymph from the knowledge of his distant neighbors; it was equally impossible for him to assume the responsibility of keeping a goddess like this in her present position. He had noticed her previous improvement, but had never dreamed that pure and wholesome living could in two months work such a miracle. And he was to a certain degree responsible, HE had created her,—a beautiful Frankenstein, whose lustrous, appealing eyes were even now menacing his security and position.
Perhaps she saw trouble and perplexity in the face where she had expected admiration and pleasure, for a slight chill went over her as he quickly praised the appearance of the stock and spoke of her own improvement. But when they were alone, he turned to her abruptly.
"You said you had no wish to go to San Jose?"
"No." Yet she was conscious that her greatest objection had been removed, and she colored faintly.
"Listen to me," he said dryly. "You deserve a better position than this,—a better home and surroundings than you have here. You are older, too,—a woman almost,—and you must look ahead."
A look of mingled fright, reproach, and appeal came into her eloquent face. "Yer wantin' to send me away?" she stammered.
"No," he said frankly. "It is you who are GROWING away. This is no longer the place for you."
"But I want to stay. I don't wanter go. I am—I WAS happy here."
"But I'm thinking of giving up this place. It takes up too much of my time. You must be provided"—
"YOU are going away?" she said passionately.
"Yes."
"Take me with you. I'll go anywhere!—to San Jose—-wherever you go. Don't turn me off as dad did, for I'll foller you as I never followed dad. I'll go with you—or I'll die!"
There was neither fear nor shame in her words; it was the outspoken instinct of the animal he had been rearing; he was convinced and appalled by it.
"I am returning to San Jose at once," he said gravely. "You shall go with me—FOR THE PRESENT! Get yourself ready!"
He took her to San Jose, and temporarily to the house of a patient,—a widow lady,—while he tried, alone, to grapple with the problem that now confronted him. But that problem became more complicated at the end of the third day, by Liberty Jones falling suddenly and alarmingly ill. The symptoms were so grave that the doctor, in his anxiety, called in a brother physician in consultation. When the examination was over, the two men withdrew and stared at each other.
"Of course there is no doubt that the symptoms all point to slow arsenical poisoning," said the consulting doctor.
"Yes," said Ruysdael quickly, "yet it is utterly inexplicable, both as to motive and opportunity."
"Humph!" said the other grimly, "young ladies take arsenic in minute doses to improve the complexion and promote tissue, forgetting that the effects are cumulative when they stop suddenly. Your young friend has 'sworn off' too quickly."
"But it is impossible," said Doctor Ruysdael impatiently. "She is a mere child—a country girl—ignorant of such habits."
"Humph! the peasants in the Tyrol try it on themselves after noticing the effect on the coats of cattle."
Doctor Ruysdael started. A recollection of the sleek draught horse flashed upon him. He rose and hastily re-entered the patient's room. In a few moments he returned. "Do you think I could remove her at once to the mountains?" he said gravely.
"Yes, with care and a return to graduated doses of the same poison; you know it's the only remedy just now," answered the other.
By noon the next day the doctor and his patient had returned to the cabin, but Ruysdael himself carried the helpless Liberty Jones to the spring and deposited her gently beside it. "You may drink now," he said gravely.
The girl did so eagerly, apparently imbibing new strength from the sparkling water. The doctor meanwhile coolly filled a phial from the same source, and made a hasty test of the contents by the aid of some other phials from his case. The result seemed to satisfy him. Then he said gravely:
"And THIS is the spring you had discovered?"
The girl nodded.
"And you and the cattle have daily used it?"
She nodded again wonderingly. Then she caught his hand appealingly.
"You won't send me away?"
He smiled oddly as he glanced from the waters of the hill to the brimming eyes. "No."
"No-r," tremulously, "go away—yourself?"
The doctor looked this time only into her eyes. There was a tremendous idea in his own, which seemed in some way to have solved that dreadful problem.
"No! We will stay here TOGETHER."
* * *
Six months later there was a paragraph in the San Francisco press: "The wonderful Arsenical Spring in the Santa Cruz Mountain, known as 'Liberty Spring,' discovered by Doctor Ruysdael, has proved such a remarkable success that we understand the temporary huts for patients are to be shortly replaced by a magnificent Spa Hotel worthy of the spot, and the eligible villa sites it has brought into the market. It will be a source of pleasure to all to know that the beautiful nymph—a worthy successor to the far-famed 'Elise' of the German 'Brunnen'—who has administered the waters to so many grateful patients will still be in attendance, although it is rumored that she is shortly to become the wife of the distinguished discoverer."
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