A First Family of Tasajara

by Harte, Bret

  Stupefaction, a vague terror, and rising anger, rapidly succeeded each other in the young man's mind as he stood mechanically holding the paper in his hand. It was the writing of his chief editor, whose easy brutality he had sometimes even boyishly admired. Without stopping to consider their relative positions he sought him indignantly and laid the proof before him. The editor laughed. "But what's that to YOU? YOU'RE not on terms with the old man."

  "Then it must go in?" said John Milton with a white face.

  But he could not bear to tell this to his wife when he climbed the hill that night, and he invented some excuse for bringing his work home. The invalid never noticed any change in his usual buoyancy, and indeed I fear, when he was fairly installed with his writing materials at the foot of her bed, he had quite forgotten the episode. He was recalled to it by a faint sigh.

  "I like to see you writing, Milty. You always look so happy."

  "May I ask how old you are, sonny?" said Jack with great gravity.

  "I'm almost twenty," said John Milton, coloring.

  The young husband had arranged to be absent from his home that night, and early morning found him, with Jack, grave, but courageous, in a little hollow behind the Mission Hills. To them presently approached his antagonist, jauntily accompanied by Colonel Starbottle, his second. They halted, but after the formal salutation were instantly joined by Jack Hamlin. For a few moments John Milton remained awkwardly alone-pending a conversation which even at that supreme moment he felt as being like the general attitude of his friends towards him, in its complete ignoring of himself. The next moment the three men stepped towards him. "We have come, sir," said Colonel Starbottle in his precisest speech but his jauntiest manner, "to offer you a full and ample apology-a personal apology-which only supplements that full public apology that my principal, sir, this gentleman," indicating the editor of the "Pioneer," "has this morning made in the columns of his paper, as you will observe," producing a newspaper. "We have, sir," continued the colonel loftily, "only within the last twelve hours become aware of the-er-REAL circumstances of the case. We would regret that the affair had gone so far already, if it had not given us, sir, the opportunity of testifying to your gallantry. We do so gladly; and if-er-er-a FEW YEARS LATER, Mr. Harcourt, you should ever need-a friend in any matter of this kind, I am, sir, at your service." John Milton gazed half inquiringly, half uneasily at Jack.

  "It's all right, Milt," he said sotto voce. "Shake hands all round and let's go to breakfast. And I rather think that editor wants to employ you HIMSELF."

  It was not for long. As each monotonous day brought the morning mist and evening fog regularly to the little hilltop where his whole being was now centred, she seemed to grow daily weaker, and the little circle of her life narrowed day by day. One morning when the usual mist appeared to have been withheld and the sun had risen with a strange and cruel brightness; when the waves danced and sparkled on the bay below and light glanced from dazzling sails, and even the white tombs on Lone Mountain glittered keenly; when cheery voices hailing each other on the hillside came to him clearly but without sense or meaning; when earth, sky, and sea seemed quivering with life and motion,-he opened the door of that one little house on which the only shadow seemed to have fallen, and went forth again into the world alone.

  It was well that the shadow hid from Grant the expression of Harcourt's face, or his reply might have been sharper. As it was, he answered a little stiffly:-

  It was, however, more than an impression; with Grant's scientific memory for characteristic details he had noticed that particular circumstance as part of the social phenomena.

  "I don't know what Phemie SAID," returned Harcourt, impatiently. "I KNOW there was no offer pending; the land had been sold to me before I ever saw you. Why-you must have thought me up to pretty sharp practice with Curtis-eh?" he added, with a forced laugh.

  "Yes," said Harcourt, without noticing Grant's half cynical superiority, but you'll oblige me if you won't tell it again IN THAT WAY. There are men here mean enough to make the worst of it. It's nothing to me, of course, but my family-the girls, you know- are rather sensitive."

  "I had no idea they even knew it,-much less cared for it," said Grant, with sudden seriousness. "I dare say if those fellows in the "Clarion" knew that they were annoying the ladies they'd drop it. Who's the editor? Look here-leave it to me; I'll look into it. Better that you shouldn't appear in the matter at all."

  "My dear fellow, there'll be nobody 'called out' and no 'shooting at sight,' whatever is the result of my interference," returned Grant, lightly. "It'll be all right." He was quite aware of the power of his own independent position and the fact that he had been often appealed to before in delicate arbitration.

  Harcourt was equally conscious of this, but by a strange inconsistency now felt relieved at the coolness with which Grant had accepted the misconception which had at first seemed so dangerous. If he were ready to condone what he thought was SHARP PRACTICE, he could not be less lenient with the real facts that might come out,-of course always excepting that interpolated consideration in the bill of sale, which, however, no one but the missing Curtis could ever discover. The fact that a man of Grant's secure position had interested himself in this matter would secure him from the working of that personal vulgar jealousy which his humbler antecedents had provoked. And if, as he fancied, Grant really cared for Clementina-

  There seemed to be small necessity, however, for this active co- operation, for when the cheerful cavalcade started from the house a few mornings later, Mr. Lawrence Grant's onerous duties seemed to be simply confined to those of an ordinary cavalier at the side of Miss Clementina, a few paces in the rear of the party. But this safe distance gave them the opportunity of conversing without being overheard,-an apparently discreet precaution.

  "Your father was so exceedingly affable to me the other day that if I hadn't given you my promise to say nothing, I think I would have fallen on my knees to him then and there, revealed my feelings, asked for your hand and his blessing-or whatever one does at such a time. But how long do you intend to keep me in this suspense?"

  "That is my name, and those people ahead of us know it already."

  "You are called CLEMENTINA,-but you are not merciful!"

  "You are very wrong, for you might see that Mr. Shipley has twice checked his horse that he might hear what you are saying, and Phemie is always showing Mrs. Ashwood something in the landscape behind us."

  All this was the more hopeless and exasperating to Grant since in the young girl's speech and manner there was not the slightest trace of coquetry or playfulness. He could not help saying a little bitterly: "I don't think that any one would imagine from your manner that you were receiving a declaration."

  "We cannot part otherwise without the risk of greater cruelty."

  "Thank you,-and I suppose it does not make any matter to Clem who quiets mine," she said, with provoking eyes and a toss of her head worthy of the spirited animal she was riding.

  "She thinks you quite capable of managing yourself and even others," he replied with a playful glance at Shipley, who was riding somewhat stiffly on the other side.

  They were approaching the first undulation of the russet plain they had emerged upon,-an umbrageous slope that seemed suddenly to diverge in two defiles among the shaded hills. Grant had given a few words of practical advice to Mrs. Ashwood, and shown her how to guide her mustang by the merest caressing touch of the rein upon its sensitive neck. He had not been sympathetically inclined towards the fair stranger, a rich and still youthful widow, although he could not deny her unquestioned good breeding, mental refinement, and a certain languorous thoughtfulness that was almost melancholy, which accented her blonde delicacy. But he had noticed that her manner was politely reserved and slightly constrained towards the Harcourts, and he had already resented it with a lover's instinctive loyalty. He had at first attributed it to a want of sympathy between Mrs. Ashwood's more intellectual sentimentalities and the Harcourts' u
ndeniable lack of any sentiment whatever. But there was evidently some other innate antagonism. He was very polite to Mrs. Ashwood; she responded with a gentlewoman's courtesy, and, he was forced to admit, even a broader comprehension of his own merits than the Harcourt girls had ever shown, but he could still detect that she was not in accord with the party.

  "As CONVENTIONAL, Mr. Grant; always excepting this lovely creature beneath me, whom I can't make out and who doesn't seem to care that I should. There! look! I told you so!"

  When she succeeded at last in urging her mustang forward again she determined to take the right-hand canyon and trust to being either met or overtaken. A more practical and less adventurous nature would have waited at the point of divergence for the return of some of the party, but Mrs. Ashwood was, in truth, not sorry to be left to herself and the novel scenery for a while, and she had no doubt but she would eventually find her way to the hotel at San Mateo, which could not be far away, in time for luncheon.

  "Yes, you took the road to Crystal Spring. It's just down there in the valley, not more than a mile. You'd have been there now if you hadn't turned off at the woods."

  "Wonderful!-and all along the ridge, looking down that defile!"

  "Yes, and that first glimpse of the valley through the Gothic gateway of rocks!"

  "Certainly,-and the perfect clearness of everything."

  They were both gravely nodding and shaking their heads with sparkling eyes and brightened color, looking not at each other but at the far landscape vignetted through a lozenge-shaped wind opening in the trees. Suddenly Mrs. Ashwood straightened herself in the saddle, looked grave, lifted the reins and apparently the ten years with them that had dropped from her. But she said in her easiest well-bred tones, and a half sigh, "Then I must take the road back again to where it forks?"

  "You would meet them sooner," he said thoughtfully.

  This was quite enough for Mrs. Ashwood. "I think I'll rest this poor horse, who is really tired," she, said with charming hypocrisy, "and stop at the hotel."

  She saw his face brighten. Perhaps he was the son of the hotel proprietor, or a youthful partner himself. "I suppose you live here?" she suggested gently. "You seem to know the place so well."

  His frank face, incapable of disguise, changed suddenly. "No," he said simply, but without any trace of awkwardness. Then after a slight pause he laid his hand-she noticed it was white and well kept-on her mustang's neck, and said, "If-if you care to trust yourself to me, I could lead you and your horse down a trail into the valley that is at least a third of the distance shorter. It would save you going back to the regular road, and there are one or two lovely views that I could show you. I should be so pleased, if it would not trouble you. There's a steep place or two-but I think there's no danger."

  She smiled so graciously, and, as she fully believed, maternally, that he looked at her the second time. To his first hurried impression of her as an elegant and delicately nurtured woman-one of the class of distinguished tourists that fashion was beginning to send thither-he had now to add that she had a quantity of fine silken-spun light hair gathered in a heavy braid beneath her gray hat; that her mouth was very delicately lipped and beautifully sensitive; that her soft skin, although just then touched with excitement, was a pale faded velvet, and seemed to be worn with ennui rather than experience; that her eyes were hidden behind a strip of gray veil whence only a faint glow was discernible. To this must still be added a poetic fancy all his own that, as she sat there, with the skirt of her gray habit falling from her long bodiced waist over the mustang's fawn-colored flanks, and with her slim gauntleted hands lightly swaying the reins, she looked like Queen Guinevere in the forest. Not that he particularly fancied Queen Guinevere, or that he at all imagined himself Launcelot, but it was quite in keeping with the suggestion-haunted brain of John Milton Harcourt, whom the astute reader has of course long since recognized.

  With his hand at times upon the bridle, at others merely caressing her mustang's neck, he led the way; there were a few breathless places where the crown of his straw hat appeared between her horse's reins, and again when she seemed almost slipping over on his shoulder, but they were passed with such frank fearlessness and invincible youthful confidence on the part of her escort that she felt no timidity. There were moments when a bit of the charmed landscape unfolding before them overpowered them both, and they halted to gaze,-sometimes without a word, or only a significant gesture of sympathy and attention. At one of those artistic manifestations Mrs. Ashwood laid her slim gloved fingers lightly but unwittingly on John Milton's arm, and withdrew them, however, with a quick girlish apology and a foolish color which annoyed her more than the appearance of familiarity. But they were now getting well down into the valley; the court of the little hotel was already opening before them; their unconventional relations in the idyllic world above had changed; the new one required some delicacy of handling, and she had an idea that even the simplicity of the young stranger might be confusing.

  "I must ask you to continue to act as my escort," she said, laughingly. "I am Mrs. Ashwood of Philadelphia, visiting San Francisco with my sister and brother, who are, I am afraid, even now hopelessly waiting luncheon for me at San Mateo. But as there seems to be no prospect of my joining them in time, I hope you will be able to give me the pleasure of your company, with whatever they may give us here in the way of refreshment."

  "I shall be very happy," returned John Milton with unmistakable candor; "but perhaps some of your friends will be arriving in quest of you, if they are not already here."

  "Then they will join us or wait," said Mrs. Ashwood incisively, with her first exhibition of the imperiousness of a rich and pretty woman. Perhaps she was a little annoyed that her elaborate introduction of herself had produced no reciprocal disclosure by her companion. "Will you please send the landlord to me?" she added.

  "You know he's the son of the millionaire," continued the landlord, not at all unwilling to display the importance of the habitues of Crystal Spring, "though they've quarreled and don't get on together."

  "Don't try to; they're not pretty, and the mere ability to draw them straight or curved doesn't make an artist. But you are a LOVER of nature, I know, and from what I have heard you say I believe you can do what lovers cannot do,-make others feel as they do,-and that is what I call being an artist. You write? You are a poet?"

  "I don't think so," said Mrs. Ashwood thoughtfully. "At the same time it doesn't strike me as a very abiding grief for that very reason. It's TOO sympathetic. It strikes me that it might be the first grief of some one too young to be inured to sorrow or experienced enough to accept it as the common lot. But like all youthful impressions it is very sincere and true while it lasts. I don't know whether one gets anything more real when one gets older."

  "You are laughing at me!" she said finally. "But inhuman and selfish as these stories may seem, and sometimes are, I believe that these curious estrangements and separations often come from some fatal weakness of temperament that might be strengthened, or some trivial misunderstanding that could be explained. It is separation that makes them seem irrevocable only because they are inexplicable, and a vague memory always seems more terrible than a definite one. Facts may be forgiven and forgotten, but mysteries haunt one always. I believe there are weak, sensitive people who dread to put their wrongs into shape; those are the kind who sulk, and when you add separation to sulking, reconciliation becomes impossible. I knew a very singular case of that kind once. If you like, I'll tell it to you. May be you will be able, some day, to weave it into one of your writings. And it's quite true."

  It is hardly necessary to say that John Milton had not been touched by any personal significance in his companion's speech, whatever she may have intended; and it is equally true that whether she had presently forgotten her purpose, or had become suddenly interested in her own conversation, her face grew more animated, her manner more confidential, and something of the youthful enthusiasm she had shown in the mountain se
emed to come back to her.

  It is to be feared that John Milton was following the animated lips and eyes of the fair speaker rather than her story. Perhaps that was the reason why he said, "May he not have been a disappointed man?"

  "I should hardly attempt to interest a chronicler of adventure like you in such a very commonplace, every-day style of romance," she said, with a little impatience, "even if my vanity compelled me to make such confidences to a stranger. No,-it was nothing quite as vulgar as that. And," she added quickly, with a playfully amused smile as she saw the young fellow's evident distress, "I should have probably heard from him again. Those stories always end in that way."

  "And you will not mind if I should take some liberties with the text?"

  "Harcourt," said John Milton, with a half-embarrassed laugh.

  On her way to San Mateo, where it appeared the disorganized party had prolonged their visit to accept an invitation to dine with a local magnate, she was pleasantly conversational with the slightly abstracted Grant. She was so sorry to have given them all this trouble and anxiety! Of course she ought to have waited at the fork of the road, but she had never doubted but she could rejoin them presently on the main road. She was glad that Miss Euphemia's runaway horse had been stopped without accident; it would have been dreadful if anything had happened to HER; Mr. Harcourt seemed so wrapped up in his girls. It was a pity they never had a son-Ah? Indeed! Then there was a son? So-and father and son had quarreled? That was so sad. And for some trifling cause, no doubt?