A Phyllis of the Sierras

by Harte, Bret

  "Odd I didn't hear of Bradley's wife before. She seems a spicy, pretty, comfortable creature. Regularly thrown away with him up here."

  Mainwaring replied coldly that she was "an admirable helpmeet of a very admirable man," not, however, without an uneasy recollection of her previous confidences respecting her husband. "They have been most thoroughly good and kind to me; my own brother and sister could not have done more. And certainly not with better taste or delicacy," he added, markedly.

  "Certainly, certainly," said Richardson, hurriedly. "I wrote to Lady Mainwaring that you were taken capital care of by some very honest people; and that--"

  "Lady Mainwaring already knows what I think of them, and what she owes to their kindness," said Mainwaring, dryly.

  "True, true," said Richardson, apologetically. "Of course you must have seen a good deal of them. I only know Bradley in a business way. He's been trying to get the Bank to help him to put up some new mills here;

  but we didn't see it. I dare say he is good company--rather amusing, eh?"

  Mainwaring had the gift of his class of snubbing by the polite and forgiving oblivion of silence. Richardson shifted uneasily in his chair, but continued with assumed carelessness:--

  "No; I only knew of this cousin, Miss Macy. I heard of her when she was visiting some friends in Menlo Park last year. Rather an attractive girl. They say Colonel Johnson, of Sacramento, took quite a fancy to her--it would have been a good match, I dare say, for he is very rich--but the thing fell through in some way. Then, they say, SHE wanted to marry that Spaniard, young Pico, of the Amador Ranche; but his family wouldn't hear of it. Somehow, she's deuced unlucky. I suppose she'll make a mess of it with Captain Greyson she was out riding with this morning."

  "Didn't the Bank think Bradley's mills a good investment?" asked Mainwaring quietly, when Richardson paused.

  "Not with him in it; he is not a business man, you know."

  "I thought he was. He seems to me an energetic man, who knows his work, and is not afraid to look after it himself."

  "That's just it. He has got absurd ideas of co-operating with his workmen, you know, and doing everything slowly and on a limited scale.

  The only thing to be done is to buy up all the land on this ridge, run off the settlers, freeze out all the other mills, and put it into a big San Francisco company on shares. That's the only way we would look at it."

  "But you don't consider the investment bad, even from HIS point of view?"

  "Perhaps not."

  "And you only decline it because it isn't big enough for the Bank?"

  "Exactly."

  "Richardson," said Mainwaring, slowly rising, putting his hands in his trousers pockets, and suddenly looking down upon the banker from the easy level of habitual superiority, "I wish you'd attend to this thing for me. I desire to make some return to Mr. Bradley for his kindness. I wish to give him what help he wants--in his own way--you understand. I wish it, and I believe my father wishes it, too. If you'd like him to write to you to that effect--"

  "By no means, it's not at all necessary," said Richardson, dropping with equal suddenness into his old-world obsequiousness. "I shall certainly do as you wish. It is not a bad investment, Mr. Mainwaring, and as you suggest, a very proper return for their kindness. And, being here, it will come quite naturally for me to take up the affair again."

  "And--I say, Richardson."

  "Yes, sir?"

  "As these ladies are rather short-handed in their domestic service, you know, perhaps you'd better not stay to luncheon or dinner, but go on to the Summit House--it's only a mile or two farther--and come back here this evening. I shan't want you until then."

  "Certainly!" stammered Richardson. "I'll just take leave of the ladies!"

  "It's not at all necessary," said Mainwaring, quietly; "you would only disturb them in their household duties. I'll tell them what I've done with you, if they ask. You'll find your stick and hat in the passage, and you can leave the veranda by these steps. By the way, you had better manage at the Summit to get some one to bring my traps from here to be forwarded to Sacramento to-morrow. I'll want a conveyance, or a horse of some kind, myself, for I've given up walking for a while; but we can settle about that to-night. Come early. Good morning?"

  He accompanied his thoroughly subjugated countryman--who, however, far from attempting to reassert himself, actually seemed easier and more cheerful in his submission--to the end of the veranda, and watched him depart. As he turned back, he saw the pretty figure of Louise Macy leaning against the doorway. How graceful and refined she looked in that simple morning dress! What wonder that she was admired by Greyson, by Johnson, and by that Spaniard!--no, by Jove, it was SHE that wanted to marry him!

  "What have you sent away Mr. Richardson for?" asked the young girl, with a half-reproachful, half-mischievous look in her bright eyes.

  "I packed him off because I thought it was a little too hard on you and Mrs. Bradley to entertain him without help."

  "But as he was OUR guest, you might have left that to us," said Miss Macy.

  "By Jove! I never thought of that," said Mainwaring, coloring in consternation. "Pray forgive me, Miss Macy--but you see I knew the man, and could say it, and you couldn't."

  "Well, I forgive you, for you look really so cut up," said Louise, laughing. "But I don't know what Jenny will say of your disposing of her conquest so summarily." She stopped and regarded him more attentively.

  "Has he brought you any bad news? if so, it's a pity you didn't send him away before. He's quite spoiling our cure."

  Mainwaring thought bitterly that he had. "But it's a cure for all that, Miss Macy," he said, with an attempt at cheerfulness, "and being a cure, you see, there's no longer an excuse for my staying here. I have been making arrangements for leaving here to-morrow."

  "So soon?"

  "Do you think it soon, Miss Macy?" asked Mainwaring, turning pale in spite of himself.

  "I quite forgot--that you were here as an invalid only, and that we owe our pleasure to the accident of your pain."

  She spoke a little artificially, he thought, yet her cheeks had not lost their pink bloom, nor her eyes their tranquillity. Had he heard Minty's criticism he might have believed that the organic omission noticed by her was a fact.

  "And now that your good work as Sister of Charity is completed, you'll be able to enter the world of gayety again with a clear conscience,"

  said Mainwaring, with a smile that he inwardly felt was a miserable failure. "You'll be able to resume your morning rides, you know, which the wretched invalid interrupted."

  Louise raised her clear eyes to his, without reproach, indignation, or even wonder. He felt as if he had attempted an insult and failed.

  "Does my cousin know you are going so soon?" she asked finally.

  "No, I did not know myself until to-day. You see," he added hastily, while his honest blood blazoned the lie in his cheek, "I've heard of some miserable business affairs that will bring me back to England sooner that I expected."

  "I think you should consider your health more important than any mere business," said Louise. "I don't mean that you should remain HERE," she added with a hasty laugh, "but it would be a pity, now that you have reaped the benefit of rest and taking care of yourself, that you should not make it your only business to seek it elsewhere."

  Mainwaring longed to say that within the last half hour, living or dying had become of little moment to him; but he doubted the truth or efficacy of this timeworn heroic of passion. He felt, too, that anything he said was a mere subterfuge for the real reason of his sudden departure. And how was he to question her as to that reason? In escaping from these subterfuges--he was compelled to lie again. With an assumption of changing the subject, he said calmly, "Richardson thought he had met you before--in Menlo Park, I think."

  Amazed at the evident irrelevance of the remark, Louise said coldly, that she did not remember having seen him before.

  "I think it was at a Mr. Johnson's--o
r WITH a Mr. Johnson--or perhaps at one of those Spanish ranches--I think he mentioned some name like Pico!"

  Louise looked at him wonderingly for an instant, and then gave way to a frank, irrepressible laugh, which lent her delicate but rather set little face all the color he had missed. Partially relieved by her unconcern, and yet mortified that he had only provoked her sense of the ludicrous, he tried to laugh also.

  "Then, to be quite plain," said Louise, wiping her now humid eyes, "you want me to understand that you really didn't pay sufficient attention to hear correctly! Thank you; that's a pretty English compliment, I suppose."

  "I dare say you wouldn't call it 'philandering'?"

  "I certainly shouldn't, for I don't know what 'philandering' means."

  Mainwaring could not reply, with Richelieu, "You ought to know"; nor did he dare explain what he thought it meant, and how he knew it. Louise, however, innocently solved the difficulty.

  "There's a country song I've heard Minty sing," she said. "It runs--

  Come, Philander, let us be a-marchin', Every one for his true love a-sarchin'

  Choose your true love now or never. . . .

  Have you been listening to her also?"

  "No," said Mainwaring, with a sudden incomprehensible, but utterly irrepressible, resolution; "but I'M 'a-marchin',' you know, and perhaps I must 'choose my true love now or never.' Will you help me, Miss Macy?"

  He drew gently near her. He had become quite white, but also very manly, and it struck her, more deeply, thoroughly, and conscientiously sincere than any man who had before addressed her. She moved slightly away, as if to rest herself by laying both hands upon the back of the chair.

  "Where do you expect to begin your 'sarchin''?" she said, leaning on the chair and tilting it before her; "or are you as vague as usual as to locality? Is it at some 'Mr. Johnson' or 'Mr. Pico,' or--"

  "Here," he interrupted boldly.

  "I really think you ought to first tell my cousin that you are going away to-morrow," she said, with a faint smile. "It's such short notice.

  She's just in there." She nodded her pretty head, without raising her eyes, towards the hall.

  "But it may not be so soon," said Mainwaring.

  "Oh, then the 'sarchin'' is not so important?" said Louise, raising her head, and looking towards the hall with some uneasy but indefinable feminine instinct.

  She was right; the sitting-room door opened, and Mrs. Bradley made her smiling appearance.

  "Mr. Mainwaring was just looking for you," said Louise, for the first time raising her eyes to him. "He's not only sent off Mr. Richardson, but he's going away himself to-morrow."

  Mrs. Bradley looked from the one to the other in mute wonder. Mainwaring cast an imploring glance at Louise, which had the desired effect. Much more seriously, and in a quaint, business-like way, the young girl took it upon herself to explain to Mrs. Bradley that Richardson had brought the invalid some important news that would, unfortunately, not only shorten his stay in America, but even compel him to leave The Lookout sooner than he expected, perhaps to-morrow. Mainwaring thanked her with his eyes, and then turned to Mrs. Bradley.

  "Whether I go to-morrow or next day," he said with simple and earnest directness, "I intend, you know, to see you soon again, either here or in my own home in England. I do not know," he added with marked gravity, "that I have succeeded in convincing you that I have made your family already well known to my people, and that"--he fixed his eyes with a meaning look on Louise--"no matter when, or in what way, you come to them, your place is made ready for you. You may not like them, you know:

  the governor is getting to be an old man--perhaps too old for young Americans--but THEY will like YOU, and you must put up with that. My mother and sisters know Miss Macy as well as I do, and will make her one of the family."

  The conscientious earnestness with which these apparent conventionalities were uttered, and some occult quality of quiet conviction in the young man's manner, brought a pleasant sparkle to the eyes of Mrs. Bradley and Louise.

  "But," said Mrs. Bradley, gayly, "our going to England is quite beyond our present wildest dreams; nothing but a windfall, an unexpected rise in timber, or even the tabooed hotel speculation, could make it possible."

  "But I shall take the liberty of trying to present it to Mr. Bradley tonight in some practical way that may convince even his critical judgment," said Mainwaring, still seriously. "It will be," he added more lightly, "the famous testimonial of my cure which I promised you."

  "And you will find Mr. Bradley so sceptical that you will be obliged to defer your going," said Mrs. Bradley, triumphantly. "Come, Louise, we must not forget that we have still Mr. Mainwaring's present comfort to look after; that Minty has basely deserted us, and that we ourselves must see that the last days of our guest beneath our roof are not remembered for their privation."

  She led Louise away with a half-mischievous suggestion of maternal propriety, and left Mainwaring once more alone on the veranda.

  He had done it! Certainly she must have understood his meaning, and there was nothing left for him to do but to acquaint Bradley with his intentions to-night, and press her for a final answer in the morning.

  There would be no indelicacy then in asking her for an interview more free from interruption than this public veranda. Without conceit, he did not doubt what the answer would be. His indecision, his sudden resolution to leave her, had been all based upon the uncertainty of HIS own feelings, the propriety of HIS declaration, the possibility of some previous experience of hers that might compromise HIM. Convinced by her unembarrassed manner of her innocence, or rather satisfied of her indifference to Richardson's gossip, he had been hurried by his feelings into an unexpected avowal. Brought up in the perfect security of his own social position, and familiarly conscious--without vanity--of its importance and power in such a situation, he believed, without undervaluing Louise's charms or independence, that he had no one else than himself to consult. Even the slight uneasiness that still pursued him was more due to his habitual conscientiousness of his own intention than to any fear that she would not fully respond to it. Indeed, with his conservative ideas of proper feminine self-restraint, Louise's calm passivity and undemonstrative attitude were a proof of her superiority;

  had she blushed overmuch, cried, or thrown herself into his arms, he would have doubted the wisdom of so easy a selection. It was true he had known her scarcely three weeks; if he chose to be content with that, his own accessible record of three centuries should be sufficient for her, and condone any irregularity.

  Nevertheless, as an hour slipped away and Louise did not make her appearance, either on the veranda or in the little sitting-room off the hall, Mainwaring became more uneasy as to the incompleteness of their interview. Perhaps a faint suspicion of the inadequacy of her response began to trouble him; but he still fatuously regarded it rather as owing to his own hurried and unfinished declaration. It was true that he hadn't said half what he intended to say; it was true that she might have misunderstood it as the conventional gallantry of the situation, as--terrible thought!--the light banter of the habitual love-making American, to which she had been accustomed; perhaps even now she relegated him to the level of Greyson, and this accounted for her singular impassiveness--an impassiveness that certainly was singular now he reflected upon it--that might have been even contempt. The last thought pricked his deep conscientiousness; he walked hurriedly up and down the veranda, and then, suddenly re-entering his room, took up a sheet of note-paper, and began to write to her:--

  "Can you grant me a few moments' interview alone? I cannot bear you should think that what I was trying to tell you when we were interrupted was prompted by anything but the deepest sincerity and conviction, or that I am willing it should be passed over lightly by you or be forgotten. Pray give me a chance of proving it, by saying you will see me. F. M."

  But how should he convey this to her? His delicacy revolted against handing it to her behind Mrs. Bradley's back
, or the prestidigitation of slipping it into her lap or under her plate before them at luncheon; he thought for an instant of the Chinaman, but gentlemen--except in that "mirror of nature" the stage--usually hesitate to suborn other people's servants, or entrust a woman's secret to her inferiors. He remembered that Louise's room was at the farther end of the house, and its low window gave upon the veranda, and was guarded at night by a film of white and blue curtains that were parted during the day, to allow a triangular revelation of a pale blue and white draped interior.

  Mainwaring reflected that the low inside window ledge was easily accessible from the veranda, would afford a capital lodgment for the note, and be quickly seen by the fair occupant of the room on entering.

  He sauntered slowly past the window; the room was empty, the moment propitious. A slight breeze was stirring the blue ribbons of the curtain; it would be necessary to secure the note with something; he returned along the veranda to the steps, where he had noticed a small irregular stone lying, which had evidently escaped from Richelieu's bag of treasure specimens, and had been overlooked by that ingenuous child.

  It was of a pretty peacock-blue color, and, besides securing a paper, would be sure to attract her attention. He placed his note on the inside ledge, and the blue stone atop, and went away with a sense of relief.