by Bret Harte
CHAPTER IV
No further particulars of the invalid's second attack were known thanthose furnished by Don Caesar's brief statement, that he had found himlying insensible on the boulder. This seemed perfectly consistent withthe theory of Dr. Duchesne; and as the young Spaniard left Los Gatosthe next day, he escaped not only the active reporter of the "Record,"but the perusal of a grateful paragraph in the next day's paperrecording his prompt kindness and courtesy. Dr. Duchesne's prognosis,however, seemed at fault; the elder Slinn did not succumb to thissecond stroke, nor did he recover his reason. He apparently onlyrelapsed into his former physical weakness, losing the little ground hehad gained during the last month, and exhibiting no change in hismental condition, unless the fact that he remembered nothing of hisseizure and the presence of Don Caesar could be considered asfavorable. Dr. Duchesne's gravity seemed to give that significance tothis symptom, and his cross-questioning of the patient wascharacterized by more than his usual curtness.
"You are sure you don't remember walking in the garden before you wereill?" he said. "Come, think again. You must remember that." The oldman's eyes wandered restlessly around the room, but he answered by anegative shake of his head. "And you don't remember sitting down on astone by the road?"
The old man kept his eyes resolutely fixed on the bedclothes beforehim. "No!" he said, with a certain sharp decision that was new to him.
The doctor's eye brightened. "All right, old man; then don't."
On his way out he took the eldest Miss Slinn aside. "He'll do," hesaid, grimly: "he's beginning to lie."
"Why, he only said he didn't remember," responded Esther.
"That was because he didn't want to remember," said the doctor,authoritatively. "The brain is acting on some impression that iseither painful and unpleasant, or so vague that he can't formulate it;he is conscious of it, and won't attempt it yet. It's a heap betterthan his old self-satisfied incoherency."
A few days later, when the fact of Slinn's identification with theparalytic of three years ago by the stage-driver became generallyknown, the doctor came in quite jubilant.
"It's all plain now," he said, decidedly. "That second stroke wascaused by the nervous shock of his coming suddenly upon the very spotwhere he had the first one. It proved that his brain still retainedold impressions, but as this first act of his memory was a painful one,the strain was too great. It was mighty unlucky; but it was a goodsign."
"And you think, then--" hesitated Harry Slinn.
"I think," said Dr. Duchesne, "that this activity still exists, and theproof of it, as I said before, is that he is trying now to forget it,and avoid thinking of it. You will find that he will fight shy of anyallusion to it, and will be cunning enough to dodge it every time."
He certainly did. Whether the doctor's hypothesis was fairly based ornot, it was a fact that, when he was first taken out to drive with hiswatchful physician, he apparently took no notice of the boulder--whichstill remained on the roadside, thanks to the later practicalexplanation of the stage-driver's vision--and curtly refused to talkabout it. But, more significant to Duchesne, and perhaps moreperplexing, was a certain morose abstraction, which took the place ofhis former vacuity of contentment, and an intolerance of hisattendants, which supplanted his old habitual trustfulness to theircare, that had been varied only by the occasional querulousness of aninvalid. His daughters sometimes found him regarding them with anattention little short of suspicion, and even his son detected ahalf-suppressed aversion in his interviews with him.
Referring this among themselves to his unfortunate malady, hischildren, perhaps, justified this estrangement by paying very littleattention to it. They were more pleasantly occupied. The two girlssucceeded to the position held by Mamie Mulrady in the society of theneighborhood, and divided the attentions of Rough-and-Ready. The youngeditor of the "Record" had really achieved, through his supposedintimacy with the Mulradys, the good fortune he had jestinglyprophesied. The disappearance of Don Caesar was regarded as a virtualabandonment of the field to his rival: and the general opinion was thathe was engaged to the millionaire's daughter on a certain probation ofwork and influence in his prospective father-in-law's interests. Hebecame successful in one or two speculations, the magic of the luckyMulrady's name befriending him. In the superstition of the miningcommunity, much of this luck was due to his having secured the oldcabin.
"To think," remarked one of the augurs of Red Dog, French Pete, apolyglot jester, "that while every fool went to taking up claims wherethe gold had already been found no one thought of stepping into the oldman's old choux in the cabbage-garden!" Any doubt, however, of thealliance of the families was dissipated by the intimacy that sprang upbetween the elder Slinn and the millionaire, after the latter's returnfrom San Francisco.
It began in a strange kind of pity for the physical weakness of theman, which enlisted the sympathies of Mulrady, whose great strength hadnever been deteriorated by the luxuries of wealth, and who was stillable to set his workmen an example of hard labor; it was sustained by asingular and superstitious reverence for his mental condition, which,to the paternal Mulrady, seemed to possess that spiritual quality withwhich popular ignorance invests demented people.
"Then you mean to say that during these three years the vein o' yourmind, so to speak, was a lost lead, and sorter dropped out o' sight orfollerin'?" queried Mulrady, with infinite seriousness.
"Yes," returned Slinn, with less impatience than he usually showed toquestions.
"And durin' that time, when you was dried up and waitin' for rain, Ireckon you kinder had visions?"
A cloud passed over Slinn's face.
"Of course, of course!" said Mulrady, a little frightened at histenacity in questioning the oracle. "Nat'rally, this was private, andnot to be talked about. I meant, you had plenty of room for 'emwithout crowdin'; you kin tell me some day when you're better, and kinsorter select what's points and what ain't."
"Perhaps I may some day," said the invalid, gloomily, glancing in thedirection of his preoccupied daughters; "when we're alone."
When his physical strength had improved, and his left arm and side hadregained a feeble but slowly gathering vitality, Alvin Mulrady one daysurprised the family by bringing the convalescent a pile of letters andaccounts, and spreading them on a board before Slinn's invalid chair,with the suggestion that he should look over, arrange, and docket them.The idea seemed preposterous, until it was found that the old man wasactually able to perform this service, and exhibited a degree ofintellectual activity and capacity for this kind of work that wasunsuspected. Dr. Duchesne was delighted, and divided with admirationbetween his patient's progress and the millionaire's sagacity. "Andthere are envious people," said the enthusiastic doctor, "who believethat a man like him, who could conceive of such a plan for occupying aweak intellect without taxing its memory or judgment, is merely a luckyfool! Look here. May be it didn't require much brains to stumble on agold mine, and it is a gift of Providence. But, in my experience,Providence don't go round buyin' up d--d fools, or investin' in deadbeats."
When Mr. Slinn, finally, with the aid of crutches, was able to hobbleevery day to the imposing counting-house and the office of Mr. Mulrady,which now occupied the lower part of the new house, and contained someof its gorgeous furniture, he was installed at a rosewood desk behindMr. Mulrady's chair, as his confidential clerk and private secretary.The astonishment of Red Dog and Rough-and-Ready at this singularinnovation knew no bounds; but the boldness and novelty of the ideacarried everything before it. Judge Butts, the oracle ofRough-and-Ready, delivered its decision: "He's got a man who'sphysically incapable of running off with his money, and has no memoryto run off with his ideas. How could he do better?" Even his own son,Harry, coming upon his father thus installed, was for a moment struckwith a certain filial respect, and for a day or two patronized him.
In this capacity Slinn became the confidant not only of Mulrady'sbusiness secrets, but of his domestic affairs. He
knew that youngMulrady, from a freckle-faced slow country boy, had developed into afreckle-faced fast city man, with coarse habits of drink and gambling.It was through the old man's hands that extravagant bills and shamefulclaims passed on their way to be cashed by Mulrady; it was he that atlast laid before the father one day his signature perfectly forged bythe son.
"Your eyes are not ez good ez mine, you know, Slinn," said Mulrady,gravely. "It's all right. I sometimes make my Y's like that. I'dclean forgot to cash that check. You must not think you've got themonopoly of disremembering," he added, with a faint laugh.
Equally through Slinn's hands passed the record of the lavishexpenditure of Mrs. Mulrady and the fair Mamie, as well as thechronicle of their movements and fashionable triumphs. As Mulrady hadalready noticed that Slinn had no confidence with his own family, hedid not try to withhold from them these domestic details, possibly asan offset to the dreary catalogue of his son's misdeeds, but more oftenin the hope of gaining from the taciturn old man some comment thatmight satisfy his innocent vanity as father and husband, and perhapsdissipate some doubts that were haunting him.
"Twelve hundred dollars looks to be a good figger for a dress, ain'tit? But Malviny knows, I reckon, what ought to be worn at theTooilleries, and she don't want our Mamie to take a back seat beforethem furrin' princesses and gran' dukes. It's a slap-up affair, Ikalkilate. Let's see. I disremember whether it's an emperor or a kingthat's rulin' over thar now. It must be suthin' first class and A1,for Malviny ain't the woman to throw away twelve hundred dollars on anyof them small-potato despots! She says Mamie speaks French alreadylike them French Petes. I don't quite make out what she means here.She met Don Caesar in Paris, and she says, 'I think Mamie is nearly offwith Don Caesar, who has followed her here. I don't care about herdropping him TOO suddenly; the reason I'll tell you hereafter. I thinkthe man might be a dangerous enemy.' Now, what do you make of this? Iallus thought Mamie rather cottoned to him, and it was the old womanwho fought shy, thinkin' Mamie would do better. Now, I am agreeablethat my gal should marry any one she likes, whether it's a dook or apoor man, as long as he's on the square. I was ready to take DonCaesar; but now things seem to have shifted round. As to Don Caesar'sbeing a dangerous enemy if Mamie won't have him, that's a little toohigh and mighty for me, and I wonder the old woman don't make him climbdown. What do you think?"
"Who is Don Caesar?" asked Slinn.
"The man what picked you up that day. I mean," continued Mulrady,seeing the marks of evident ignorance on the old man's face,--"I mean asort of grave, genteel chap, suthin' between a parson and acircus-rider. You might have seen him round the house talkin' to yourgals."
But Slinn's entire forgetfulness of Don Caesar was evidently unfeigned.Whatever sudden accession of memory he had at the time of his attack,the incident that caused it had no part in his recollection. With theexception of these rare intervals of domestic confidences with hiscrippled private secretary, Mulrady gave himself up to money-getting.Without any especial faculty for it--an easy prey often to unscrupulousfinanciers--his unfailing luck, however, carried him safely through,until his very mistakes seemed to be simply insignificant means to alarge significant end and a part of his original plan. He sank anothershaft, at a great expense, with a view to following the lead he hadformerly found, against the opinions of the best mining engineers, andstruck the artesian spring he did NOT find at that time, with a volumeof water that enabled him not only to work his own mine, but to furnishsupplies to his less fortunate neighbors at a vast profit. A league oftangled forest and canyon behind Rough-and-Ready, for which he had paidDon Ramon's heirs an extravagant price in the presumption that it wasauriferous, furnished the most accessible timber to build the town, atprices which amply remunerated him. The practical schemes ofexperienced men, the wildest visions of daring dreams delayed orabortive for want of capital, eventually fell into his hands. Mensneered at his methods, but bought his shares. Some who affected toregard him simply as a man of money were content to get only his nameto any enterprise. Courted by his superiors, quoted by his equals, andadmired by his inferiors, he bore his elevation equally withoutostentation or dignity. Bidden to banquets, and forced by his positionas director or president into the usual gastronomic feats of thatcivilization and period, he partook of simple food, and continued hisold habit of taking a cup of coffee with milk and sugar at dinner.Without professing temperance, he drank sparingly in a community wherealcoholic stimulation was a custom. With neither refinement nor anextended vocabulary, he was seldom profane, and never indelicate. Withnothing of the Puritan in his manner or conversation, he seemed to beas strange to the vices of civilization as he was to its virtues. Thatsuch a man should offer little to and receive little from thecompanionship of women of any kind was a foregone conclusion. Withoutthe dignity of solitude, he was pathetically alone.
Meantime, the days passed; the first six months of his opulence weredrawing to a close, and in that interval he had more than doubled theamount of his discovered fortune. The rainy season set in early.Although it dissipated the clouds of dust under which Nature and Artseemed to be slowly disappearing, it brought little beauty to thelandscape at first, and only appeared to lay bare the crudenesses ofcivilization. The unpainted wooden buildings of Rough-and-Ready,soaked and dripping with rain, took upon themselves a sleek and shiningugliness, as of second-hand garments; the absence of cornices orprojections to break the monotony of the long straight lines ofdownpour made the town appear as if it had been recently submerged,every vestige of ornamentation swept away, and only the bare outlinesleft. Mud was everywhere; the outer soil seemed to have risen andinvaded the houses even to their most secret recesses, as if outragedNature was trying to revenge herself. Mud was brought into the saloonsand barrooms and express offices, on boots, on clothes, on baggage, andsometimes appeared mysteriously in splashes of red color on the walls,without visible conveyance. The dust of six months, closely packed incornice and carving, yielded under the steady rain a thin yellow paint,that dropped on wayfarers or unexpectedly oozed out of ceilings andwalls on the wretched inhabitants within. The outskirts ofRough-and-Ready and the dried hills round Los Gatos did not appear tofare much better; the new vegetation had not yet made much headwayagainst the dead grasses of the summer; the pines in the hollow weptlugubriously into a small rivulet that had sprung suddenly into lifenear the old trail; everywhere was the sound of dropping, splashing,gurgling, or rushing waters.
More hideous than ever, the new Mulrady house lifted itself against theleaden sky, and stared with all its large-framed, shutterless windowsblankly on the prospect, until they seemed to the wayfarer to becomemere mirrors set in the walls, reflecting only the watery landscape,and unable to give the least indication of light or heat within.Nevertheless, there was a fire in Mulrady's private office thatDecember afternoon, of a smoky, intermittent variety, that sufficedmore to record the defects of hasty architecture than to comfort themillionaire and his private secretary, who had lingered after the earlywithdrawal of the clerks. For the next day was Christmas, and, out ofdeference to the near approach of this festivity, a half-holiday hadbeen given to the employees. "They'll want, some of them, to spendtheir money before to-morrow; and others would like to be able to riseup comfortably drunk Christmas morning," the superintendent hadsuggested. Mr. Mulrady had just signed a number of checks indicatinghis largess to those devoted adherents with the same unostentatious,undemonstrative, matter-of-fact manner that distinguished his ordinarybusiness. The men had received it with something of the same manner. Ahalf-humorous "Thank you, sir"--as if to show that, with their patron,they tolerated this deference to a popular custom, but were a littleashamed of giving way to it--expressed their gratitude and theirindependence.
"I reckon that the old lady and Mamie are having a high old time insome of them gilded pallises in St. Petersburg or Berlin about thistime. Them diamonds that I ordered at Tiffany ought to have reached'em about now, so that Mamie could cut a swell at
Christmas with herwar-paint. I suppose it's the style to give presents in furrin'countries ez it is here, and I allowed to the old lady that whatevershe orders in that way she is to do in Californy style--nodollar-jewelry and galvanized-watches business. If she wants to make apresent to any of them nobles ez has been purlite to her, it's got tobe something that Rough-and-Ready ain't ashamed of. I showed you thatpin Mamie bought me in Paris, didn't I? It's just come for myChristmas present. No! I reckon I put it in the safe, for them kindo' things don't suit my style: but s'pose I orter sport it to-morrow.It was mighty thoughtful in Mamie, and it must cost a lump; it's got noslouch of a pearl in it. I wonder what Mamie gave for it?"
"You can easily tell; the bill is here. You paid it yesterday," saidSlinn. There was no satire in the man's voice, nor was there the leastperception of irony in Mulrady's manner, as he returned quietly,--
"That's so; it was suthin' like a thousand francs; but French money,when you pan it out as dollars and cents, don't make so much, afterall." There was a few moments' silence, when he continued, in the sametone of voice, "Talkin' o' them things, Slinn, I've got suthin' foryou." He stopped suddenly. Ever watchful of any undue excitement inthe invalid, he had noticed a slight flush of disturbance pass over hisface, and continued carelessly, "But we'll talk it over to-morrow; aday or two don't make much difference to you and me in such things, youknow. P'raps I'll drop in and see you. We'll be shut up here."
"Then you're going out somewhere?" asked Slinn, mechanically.
"No," said Mulrady, hesitatingly. It had suddenly occurred to him thathe had nowhere to go if he wanted to, and he continued, half inexplanation, "I ain't reckoned much on Christmas, myself. Abner's atthe Springs; it wouldn't pay him to come here for a day--even if therewas anybody here he cared to see. I reckon I'll hang round the shanty,and look after things generally. I haven't been over the houseupstairs to put things to rights since the folks left. But YOU needn'tcome here, you know."
He helped the old man to rise, assisted him in putting on his overcoat,and than handed him the cane which had lately replaced his crutches.
"Good-by, old man! You musn't trouble yourself to say 'MerryChristmas' now, but wait until you see me again. Take care ofyourself."
He slapped him lightly on the shoulder, and went back into his privateoffice. He worked for some time at his desk, and then laid his penaside, put away his papers methodically, placing a large envelope onhis private secretary's vacant table. He then opened the office doorand ascended the staircase. He stopped on the first landing to listento the sound of rain on the glass skylight, that seemed to echo throughthe empty hall like the gloomy roll of a drum. It was evident that thesearching water had found out the secret sins of the house'sconstruction, for there were great fissures of discoloration in thewhite and gold paper in the corners of the wall. There was a strangeodor of the dank forest in the mirrored drawing-room, as if the rainhad brought out the sap again from the unseasoned timbers; the blue andwhite satin furniture looked cold, and the marble mantels and centretables had taken upon themselves the clamminess of tombstones. Mr.Mulrady, who had always retained his old farmer-like habit of takingoff his coat with his hat on entering his own house, and appearing inhis shirt-sleeves, to indicate domestic ease and security, was obligedto replace it, on account of the chill. He had never felt at home inthis room. Its strangeness had lately been heightened by Mrs.Mulrady's purchase of a family portrait of some one she didn't know,but who, she had alleged, resembled her "Uncle Bob," which hung on thewall beside some paintings in massive frames. Mr. Mulrady cast ahurried glance at the portrait that, on the strength of a highcoat-collar and high top curl--both rolled with equal precision andsingular sameness of color--had always glared at Mulrady as if HE wasthe intruder; and, passing through his wife's gorgeous bedroom, enteredthe little dressing-room, where he still slept on the smallest of cots,with hastily improvised surroundings, as if he was a bailiff in"possession." He didn't linger here long, but, taking a key from adrawer, continued up the staircase, to the ominous funeral marches ofthe beating rain on the skylight, and paused on the landing to glanceinto his son's and daughter's bedrooms, duplicates of the bizarreextravagance below. If he were seeking some characteristic traces ofhis absent family, they certainly were not here in the painted andstill damp blazoning of their later successes. He ascended anotherstaircase, and, passing to the wing of the house, paused before a smalldoor, which was locked. Already the ostentatious decorations of walland passages were left behind, and the plain lath-and-plaster partitionof the attic lay before him. He unlocked the door, and threw it open.
