 | Tales of the Argonauts, and other sketches |  |
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN.
IN 1858 Fiddletown considered her a very
pretty woman. She had a quantity of light
chestnut hair, a good figure, a dazzling complexion,
and a certain languid grace which passed
easily for gentlewomanliness. She always dressed
becomingly, and in what Fiddletown accepted
as the latest fashion. She had only two blemishes:
one of her velvety eyes, when examined
closely, had a slight cast; and her left cheek
bore a small scar left by a single drop of vitriol
— happily the only drop of an entire phial —
thrown upon her by one of her own jealous sex,
that reached the pretty face it was intended to
mar. But, when the observer had studied the
eyes sufficiently to notice this defect, he was
generally incapacitated for criticism; and even
the scar on her cheek was thought by some to
add piquancy to her smile. The youthful editor
of “The Fiddletown Avalanche” had said
privately that it was “an exaggerated dimple.”
Col. Starbottle was instantly “reminded of the
beautifying patches of the days of Queen Anne,
women, that, blank you, you ever laid your
two blank eyes upon, — a Creole woman, sir, in
New Orleans. And this woman had a scar, — a
line extending, blank me, from her eye to her
blank chin. And this woman, sir, thrilled you,
sir; maddened you, sir; absolutely sent your
blank soul to perdition with her blank fascination!
And one day I said to her, `Celeste, how
in blank did you come by that beautiful scar,
blank you?' And she said to me, `Star, there
isn't another white man that I'd confide in but
you; but I made that scar myself, purposely, I
did, blank me.' These were her very words,
sir, and perhaps you think it a blank lie, sir;
but I'll put up any blank sum you can name
and prove it, blank me.”
Indeed, most of the male population of Fiddletown
were or had been in love with her. Of
this number, about one-half believed that their
love was returned, with the exception, possibly,
of her own husband. He alone had been known
to express scepticism.
The name of the gentleman who enjoyed this
infelicitous distinction was Tretherick. He had
been divorced from an excellent wife to marry
this Fiddletown enchantress. She, also, had been
divorced; but it was hinted that some previous
experiences of hers in that legal formality had
sacrificial. I would not have it inferred from
this that she was deficient in sentiment, or
devoid of its highest moral expression. Her
intimate friend had written (on the occasion of
her second divorce), “The cold world does not
understand Clara yet;” and Col. Starbottle had
remarked blankly, that with the exception of
a single woman in Opelousas Parish, La., she
had more soul than the whole caboodle of
them put together. Few indeed could read
those lines entitled “Infelissimus,” commencing,
“Why waves no cypress o'er this brow?” originally
published in “The Avalanche,” over the
signature of “The Lady Clare,” without feeling
the tear of sensibility tremble on his eyelids, or
the glow of virtuous indignation mantle his
cheek, at the low brutality and pitiable jocularity
of “The Dutch Flat Intelligencer,” which the
next week had suggested the exotic character
of the cypress, and its entire absence from Fiddletown,
as a reasonable answer to the query.
Indeed, it was this tendency to elaborate her
feelings in a metrical manner, and deliver them
to the cold world through the medium of the
newspapers, that first attracted the attention of
Tretherick. Several poems descriptive of the
effects of California scenery upon a too sensitive
soul, and of the vague yearnings for the infinite,
California society produced in the poetic breast,
impressed Mr. Tretherick, who was then driving
a six-mule freight-wagon between Knight's
Ferry and Stockton, to seek out the unknown
poetess. Mr. Tretherick was himself dimly
conscious of a certain hidden sentiment in his
own nature; and it is possible that some reflections
on the vanity of his pursuit, — he supplied
several mining-camps with whiskey and tobacco,
— in conjunction with the dreariness of the
dusty plain on which he habitually drove, may
have touched some chord in sympathy with this
sensitive woman. Howbeit, after a brief courtship,
— as brief as was consistent with some
previous legal formalities, — they were married;
and Mr. Tretherick brought his blushing bride
to Fiddletown, or “Fidéletown,” as Mrs. Tretherick
preferred to call it in her poems.
The union was not a felicitous one. It was
not long before Mr. Tretherick discovered that
the sentiment he had fostered while freighting
between Stockton and Knight's Ferry was different
from that which his wife had evolved from
the contemplation of California scenery and
her own soul. Being a man of imperfect logic,
this caused him to beat her; and she, being
equally faulty in deduction, was impelled to a
certain degree of unfaithfulness on the same
and Mrs. Tretherick to contribute regularly to
the columns of “The Avalanche.” It was at
this time that Col. Starbottle discovered a similarity
in Mrs. Tretherick's verse to the genius
of Sappho, and pointed it out to the citizens of
Fiddletown in a two-columned criticism, signed
“A. S.,” also published in “The Avalanche,”
and supported by extensive quotation. As
“The Avalanche” did not possess a font of
Greek type, the editor was obliged to reproduce
the Leucadian numbers in the ordinary Roman
letter, to the intense disgust of Col. Starbottle,
and the vast delight of Fiddletown, who saw fit
to accept the text as an excellent imitation of
Choctaw, — a language with which the colonel,
as a whilom resident of the Indian Territories,
was supposed to be familiar. Indeed, the next
week's “Intelligencer” contained some vile
doggerel, supposed to be an answer to Mrs.
Tretherick's poem, ostensibly written by the
wife of a Digger Indian chief, accompanied by
a glowing eulogium, signed “A. S. S.”
The result of this jocularity was briefly given
in a later copy of “The Avalanche.” “An unfortunate
rencounter took place on Monday last,
between the Hon. Jackson Flash of “The Dutch
Flat Intelligencer” and the well-known Col.
Starbottle of this place, in front of the Eureka
without injury to either, although it is said that
a passing Chinaman received fifteen buckshot in
the calves of his legs from the colonel's double-barrelled
shot-gun, which were not intended
for him. John will learn to keep out of the
way of Melican man's fire-arms hereafter. The
cause of the affray is not known, although it is
hinted that there is a lady in the case. The
rumor that points to a well-known and beautiful
poetess whose lucubrations have often graced
our columns seems to gain credence from those
that are posted.”
Meanwhile the passiveness displayed by Tretherick
under these trying circumstances was
fully appreciated in the gulches. “The old
man's head is level,” said one long-booted philosopher.
“Ef the colonel kills Flash, Mrs.
Tretherick is avenged: if Flash drops the colonel,
Tretherick is all right. Either way, he's
got a sure thing.” During this delicate condition
of affairs, Mrs. Tretherick one day left her
husband's home, and took refuge at the Fiddletown
Hotel, with only the clothes she had on
her back. Here she staid for several weeks,
during which period it is only justice to say
that she bore herself with the strictest propriety.
It was a clear morning in early spring that
walked down the narrow street toward the
fringe of dark pines which indicated the extreme
limits of Fiddletown. The few loungers at
that early hour were pre-occupied with the
departure of the Wingdown coach at the other
extremity of the street; and Mrs. Tretherick
reached the suburbs of the settlement without
discomposing observation. Here she took a
cross street or road, running at right angles with
the main thoroughfare of Fiddletown, and passing
through a belt of woodland. It was evidently
the exclusive and aristocratic avenue of
the town. The dwellings were few, ambitious,
and uninterrupted by shops. And here she was
joined by Col. Starbottle.
The gallant colonel, notwithstanding that he
bore the swelling port which usually distinguished
him, that his coat was tightly buttoned,
and his boots tightly fitting, and that his cane,
hooked over his arm, swung jauntily, was not
entirely at his ease. Mrs. Tretherick, however,
vouchasafed him a gracious smile and a glance
of her dangerous eyes; and the colonel, with an
embarrassed cough and a slight strut, took his
place at her side.
“The coast is clear,” said the colonel, “and
Tretherick is over at Dutch Flat on a spree.
There is no one in the house but a Chinaman;
continued, with a slight inflation of the chest
that imperilled the security of his button, “I
will see that you are protected in the removal
of your property.”
“I'm sure it's very kind of you, and so disinterested!”
simpered the lady as they walked
along. “It's so pleasant to meet some one who
has soul, — some one to sympathize with in a
community so hardened and heartless as this.”
And Mrs. Tretherick cast down her eyes, but
not until they wrought their perfect and accepted
work upon her companion.
“Yes, certainly, of course,” said the colonel,
glancing nervously up and down the street, —
“yes, certainly.” Perceiving, however, that
there was no one in sight or hearing, he proceeded
at once to inform Mrs. Tretherick that
the great trouble of his life, in fact, had been
the possession of too much soul. That many
women — as a gentleman she would excuse
him, of course, from mentioning names — but
many beautiful women had often sought his
society, but being deficient, madam, absolutely
deficient, in this quality, he could not reciprocate.
But when two natures thoroughly in
sympathy, despising alike the sordid trammels
of a low and vulgar community, and the conventional
restraints of a hypocritical society, —
mingled in poetical union, then — but here the
colonel's speech, which had been remarkable for a
certain whiskey-and-watery fluency, grew husky,
almost inaudible, and decidedly incoherent.
Possibly Mrs. Tretherick may have heard something
like it before, and was enabled to fill the
hiatus. Nevertheless, the cheek that was on
the side of the colonel was quite virginal and
bashfully conscious until they reached their
destination.
It was a pretty little cottage, quite fresh and
warm with paint, very pleasantly relieved
against a platoon of pines, some of whose foremost
files had been displaced to give freedom
to the fenced enclosure in which it sat. In the
vivid sunlight and perfect silence, it had a new,
uninhabited look, as if the carpenters and
painters had just left it. At the farther end of
the lot, a Chinaman was stolidly digging; but
there was no other sign of occupancy. “The
coast,” as the colonel had said, was indeed
“clear.” Mrs. Tretherick paused at the gate.
The colonel would have entered with her, but
was stopped by a gesture. “Come for me in a
couple of hours, and I shall have every thing
packed,” she said, as she smiled, and extended
her hand. The colonel seized and pressed it
with great fervor. Perhaps the pressure was
impelled to inflate his chest, and trip away as
smartly as his stubby-toed, high-heeled boots
would permit. When he had gone, Mrs. Tretherick
opened the door, listened a moment in
the deserted hall, and then ran quickly up stairs
to what had been her bedroom.
Every thing there was unchanged as on the
night she left it. On the dressing-table stood
her bandbox, as she remembered to have left it
when she took out her bonnet. On the mantle
lay the other glove she had forgotten in her
flight. The two lower drawers of the bureau
were half open (she had forgotten to shut them);
and on its marble top lay her shawl-pin and a
soiled cuff. What other recollections came upon
her I know not; but she suddenly grew quite
white, shivered, and listened with a beating
heart, and her hand upon the door. Then she
stepped to the mirror, and half fearfully, half
curiously, parted with her fingers the braids of
her blonde hair above her little pink ear, until
she came upon an ugly, half-healed scar. She
gazed at this, moving her pretty head up and
down to get a better light upon it, until the
slight cast in her velvety eyes became very
strongly marked indeed. Then she turned
away with a light, reckless, foolish laugh, and
ran to the closet where hung her precious
missing suddenly a favorite black silk from its
accustomed peg, for a moment, thought she
should have fainted. But discovering it the
next instant lying upon a trunk where she had
thrown it, a feeling of thankfulness to a superior
Being who protects the friendless, for the
first time sincerely thrilled her. Then, albeit
she was hurried for time, she could not resist
trying the effect of a certain lavender neck-ribbon
upon the dress she was then wearing,
before the mirror. And then suddenly she
became aware of a child's voice close beside her,
and she stopped. And then the child's voice
repeated, “Is it mamma?”
Mrs. Tretherick faced quickly about. Standing
in the doorway was a little girl of six or
seven. Her dress had been originally fine, but
was torn and dirty; and her hair, which was a
very violent red, was tumbled serio-comically
about her forehead. For all this, she was a
picturesque little thing, even through whose
childish timidity there was a certain self-sustained
air which is apt to come upon children
who are left much to themselves. She was
holding under her arm a rag doll, apparently of
her own workmanship, and nearly as large as
herself, — a doll with a cylindrical head, and
features roughly indicated with charcoal. A
person, dropped from her shoulders, and swept
the floor.
The spectacle did not excite Mrs. Tretherick's
delight. Perhaps she had a small
sense of humor. Certainly, when the child,
still standing in the doorway, again asked, “Is
it mamma?” she answered sharply, “No, it
isn't,” and turned a severe look upon the intruder.
The child retreated a step, and then, gaining
courage with the distance, said in deliciously
imperfect speech, —
“Dow'way then! why don't you dow away?”
But Mrs. Tretherick was eying the shawl.
Suddenly she whipped it off the child's shoulders,
and said angrily, —
“How dared you take my things, you bad
child?”
“Is it yours? Then you are my mamma;
ain't you? You are mamma!” she continued
gleefully; and, before Mrs. Tretherick could
avoid her, she had dropped her doll, and, catching
the woman's skirts with both hands, was
dancing up and down before her.
“What's your name, child?” said Mrs. Tretherick
coldly, removing the small and not very
white hands from her garments.
“Tarry.”
“Tarry?”
“Yeth. Tarry. Tarowline.”
“Caroline?”
“Yeth. Tarowline Tretherick.”
“Whose child are you?” demanded Mrs.
Tretherick still more coldly, to keep down a
rising fear.
“Why, yours,” said the little creature with a
laugh. “I'm your little durl. You're my
mamma, my new mamma. Don't you know my
ole mamma's dorn away, never to tum back
any more? I don't live wid my ol' mamma
now. I live wid you and papa.”
“How long have you been here?” asked Mrs.
Tretherick snappishly.
“I fink it's free days,” said Carry reflectively.
“You think! Don't you know?” sneered
Mrs. Tretherick. “Then, where did you come
from?”
Carry's lip began to work under this sharp
cross-examination. With a great effort and a
small gulp, she got the better of it, and answered,
—
“Papa, papa fetched me, — from Miss Simmons
— from Sacramento, last week.”
“Last week! You said three days just now,”
returned Mrs Tretherick with severe deliberation.
“I mean a monf,” said Carry, now utterly
adrift in sheer helplessness and confusion.
“Do you know what you are talking about?”
demanded Mrs. Tretherick shrilly, restraining
an impulse to shake the little figure before her,
and precipitate the truth by specific gravity.
But the flaming red head here suddenly
disappeared in the folds of Mrs. Tretherick's
dress, as if it were trying to extinguish itself
forever.
“There now — stop that sniffling,” said Mrs.
Tretherick, extricating her dress from the moist
embraces of the child, and feeling exceedingly
uncomfortable. “Wipe your face now, and run
away, and don't bother. Stop,” she continued,
as Carry moved away. “Where's your papa?”
“He's dorn away too. He's sick. He's been
dorn” — she hesitated — “two, free, days.”
“Who takes care of you, child?” said Mrs.
Tretherick, eying her curiously.
“John, the Chinaman. I tresses myselth.
John tooks and makes the beds.”
“Well, now, run away and behave yourself,
and don't bother me any more,” said Mrs.
Tretherick, remembering the object of her visit.
“Stop — where are you going?” she added, as
the child began to ascend the stairs, dragging
the long doll after her by one helpless leg.
“Doin up stairs to play and be dood, and not
bother mamma.”
“I ain't your mamma,” shouted Mrs. Tretherick,
and slammed the door.
Once inside, she drew forth a large trunk
from the closet, and set to work with querulous
and fretful haste to pack her wardrobe. She
tore her best dress in taking it from the hook
on which it hung: she scratched her soft hands
twice with an ambushed pin. All the while,
she kept up an indignant commentary on the
events of the past few moments. She said to
herself she saw it all. Tretherick had sent for
this child of his first wife — this child of whose
existence he had never seemed to care — just to
insult her, to fill her place. Doubtless the first
wife herself would follow soon, or perhaps
there would be a third. Red hair, not auburn,
but red, — of course the child, this Caroline,
looked like its mother, and, if so, she was any
thing but pretty. Or the whole thing had
been prepared: this red-haired child, the image
of its mother, had been kept at a convenient
distance at Sacramento, ready to be sent for
when needed. She remembered his occasional
visits there on — business, as he said. Perhaps
the mother already was there; but no, she had
gone East. Nevertheless, Mrs. Tretherick, in
her then state of mind, preferred to dwell upon
the fact that she might be there. She was
dimly conscious, also, of a certain satisfaction
had ever been so shamefully abused. In fancy,
she sketched a picture of herself sitting alone
and deserted, at sunset, among the fallen
columns of a ruined temple, in a melancholy
yet graceful attitude, while her husband drove
rapidly away in a luxurious coach-and-four,
with a red-haired woman at his side. Sitting
upon the trunk she had just packed, she partly
composed a lugubrious poem, describing her
sufferings, as, wandering alone, and poorly clad,
she came upon her husband and “another”
flaunting in silks and diamonds. She pictured
herself dying of consumption, brought on by
sorrow, — a beautiful wreck, yet still fascinating,
gazed upon adoringly by the editor of “The
Avalanche,” and Col. Starbottle. And where
was Col. Starbottle all this while? Why didn't
he come? He, at least, understood her. He
— she laughed the reckless, light laugh of a few
moments before; and then her face suddenly
grew grave, as it had not a few moments before.
What was that little red-haired imp doing all
this time? Why was she so quiet? She
opened the door noiselessly, and listened. She
fancied that she heard, above the multitudinous
small noises and creakings and warpings of
the vacant house, a smaller voice singing on the
floor above. This, as she remembered, was
With a half-guilty consciousness, she
crept softly up stairs, and, pushing the door
partly open, looked within.
Athwart the long, low-studded attic, a slant
sunbeam from a single small window lay, filled
with dancing motes, and only half illuminating
the barren, dreary apartment. In the ray of
this sunbeam she saw the child's glowing hair,
as if crowned by a red aureola, as she sat upon
the floor with her exaggerated doll between her
knees. She appeared to be talking to it; and it
was not long before Mrs. Tretherick observed
that she was rehearsing the interview of a half-hour
before. She catechised the doll severely,
cross-examining it in regard to the duration of
its stay there, and generally on the measure
of time. The imitation of Mrs. Tretherick's
manner was exceedingly successful, and the
conversation almost a literal reproduction,
with a single exception. After she had informed
the doll that she was not her mother,
at the close of the interview she added pathetically,
“that if she was dood, very dood, she
might be her mamma, and love her very much.”
I have already hinted that Mrs. Tretherick
was deficient in a sense of humor. Perhaps
it was for this reason that this whole scene
affected her most unpleasantly; and the conclusion
There was something, too, inconceivably lonely
in the situation. The unfrunished vacant
room, the half-lights, the monstrous doll, whose
very size seemed to give a pathetic significance
to its speechlessness, the smallness of the one
animate, self-centred figure, — all these touched
more or less deeply the half-poetic sensibilities
of the woman. She could not help utilizing
the impression as she stood there, and thought
what a fine poem might be constructed from
this material, if the room were a little darker,
the child lonelier, — say, sitting beside a dead
mother's bier, and the wind wailing in the
turrets. And then she suddenly heard footsteps
at the door below, and recognized the
tread of the colonel's cane.
She flew swiftly down the stairs, and encountered
the colonel in the hall. Here she poured
into his astonished ear a voluble and exaggerated
statement of her discovery, and indignant
recital of her wrongs. “Don't tell me the
whole thing wasn't arranged beforehand; for I
know it was!” she almost screamed. “And
think,” she added, “of the heartlessness of the
wretch, leaving his own child alone here in that
way.”
“It's a blank shame!” stammered the colonel
without the least idea of what he was talking
comprehend a reason for the woman's excitement
with his estimate of her character, I fear
he showed it more plainly than he intended.
He stammered, expanded his chest, looked
stern, gallant, tender, but all unintelligently.
Mrs. Tretherick, for an instant, experienced a
sickening doubt of the existence of natures in
perfect affinity.
“It's of no use,” said Mrs. Tretherick with
sudden vehemence, in answer to some inaudible
remark of the colonel's, and withdrawing her
hand from the fervent grasp of that ardent and
sympathetic man. “It's of no use: my mind
is made up. You can send for my trunk as soon
as you like; but I shall stay here, and confront
that man with the proof of his vileness. I will
put him face to face with his infamy.”
I do not know whether Col. Starbottle
thoroughly appreciated the convincing proof
of Tretherick's unfaithfulness and malignity
afforded by the damning evidence of the existence
of Tretherick's own child in his own
house. He was dimly aware, however, of some
unforeseen obstacle to the perfect expression
of the infinite longing of his own sentimental
nature. But, before he could say any thing,
Carry appeared on the landing above them,
looking timidly, and yet half-critically at the
pair.
“That's her,” said Mrs. Tretherick excitedly.
In her deepest emotions, either in verse or prose,
she rose above a consideration of grammatical
construction.
“Ah!” said the colonel, with a sudden
assumption of parental affection and jocularity
that was glaringly unreal and affected. “Ah!
pretty little girl, pretty little girl! How do you
do? How are you? You find yourself pretty
well, do you, pretty little girl?” The colonel's
impulse also was to expand his chest, and swing
his cane, until it occurred to him that this action
might be ineffective with a child of six or seven.
Carry, however, took no immediate notice of this
advance, but further discomposed the chivalrous
colonel by running quickly to Mrs. Tretherick,
and hiding herself, as if for protection, in the
folds of her gown. Nevertheless, the colonel
was not vanquished. Falling back into an attitude
of respectful admiration, he pointed out a
marvellous resemblance to the “Madonna and
Child.” Mrs. Tretherick simpered, but did not
dislodge Carry as before. There was an awkward
pause for a moment; and then Mrs. Tretherick,
motioning significantly to the child, said
in a whisper, “Go now. Don't come here
again, but meet me to-night at the hotel.” She
extended her hand: the colonel bent over it
gallantly, and, raising his hat, the next moment
was gone.
“Do you think,” said Mrs. Tretherick with
an embarrassed voice and a prodigious blush,
looking down, and addressing the fiery curls just
visible in the folds of her dress, — “do you
think you will be `dood,' if I let you stay in
here and sit with me?”
“And let me tall you mamma?” queried
Carry, looking up.
“And let you call me mamma!” assented
Mrs. Tretherick with an embarrassed laugh.
“Yeth,” said Carry promptly.
They entered the bedroom together. Carry's
eye instantly caught sight of the trunk.
“Are you dowin away adain, mamma?” she
said with a quick nervous look, and a clutch at
the woman's dress.
“No-o,” said Mrs. Tretherick, looking out
of the window.
“Only playing your dowin away,” suggested
Carry with a laugh. “Let me play too.”
Mrs. Tretherick assented. Carry flew into
the next room, and presently re-appeared, dragging
a small trunk, into which she gravely proceeded
to pack her clothes. Mrs. Tretherick
noticed that they were not many. A question
or two regarding them brought out some further
replies from the child; and, before many minutes
had elapsed, Mrs. Tretherick was in possession
of all her earlier history. But, to do this, Mrs.
upon her lap, pending the most confidential
disclosures. They sat thus a long time after
Mrs. Tretherick had apparently ceased to be
interested in Carry's disclosures; and, when lost
in thought, she allowed the child to rattle on
unheeded, and ran her fingers through the
scarlet curls.
“You don't hold me right, mamma,” said
Carry at last, after one or two uneasy shiftings
of position.
“How should I hold you?” asked Mrs. Tretherick
with a half-amused, half-embarrassed
laugh.
“Dis way,” said Carry, curling up into position,
with one arm around Mrs. Tretherick's
neck, and her cheek resting on her bosom, —
“dis way, — dere.” After a little preparatory
nestling, not unlike some small animal, she
closed her eyes, and went to sleep.
For a few moments the woman sat silent,
scarcely daring to breathe in that artificial attitude.
And then, whether from some occult
sympathy in the touch, or God best knows
what, a sudden fancy began to thrill her. She
began by remembering an old pain that she
had forgotten, an old horror that she had resolutely
put away all these years. She recalled
days of sickness and distrust, — days of an
something that was to be prevented, that was
prevented, with mortal agony and fear. She
thought of a life that might have been, — she
dared not say had been, — and wondered. It
was six years ago: if it had lived, it would have
been as old as Carry. The arms which were
folded loosely around the sleeping child began
to tremble, and tighten their clasp. And then
the deep potential impulse came, and with a
half-sob, half-sigh, she threw her arms out, and
drew the body of the sleeping child down,
down, into her breast, down again and again as
if she would hide it in the grave dug there
years before. And the gust that shook her
passed, and then, ah me! the rain.
A drop or two fell upon the curls of Carry,
and she moved uneasily in her sleep. But the
woman soothed her again, — it was so easy to do
it now, — and they sat there quiet and undisturbed,
so quiet that they might have seemed
incorporate of the lonely silent house, the
slowly-declining sunbeams, and the general air
of desertion and abandonment, yet a desertion
that had in it nothing of age, decay, or despair.
Col. Starbottle waited at the Fiddletown
Hotel all that night in vain. And the next morning,
when Mr. Tretherick returned to his husks,
except by motes and sunbeams.
When it was fairly known that Mrs. Tretherick
had run away, taking Mr. Tretherick's own
child with her, there was some excitement, and
much diversity of opinion, in Fiddletown. “The
Dutch Flat Intelligencer” openly alluded to
the “forcible abduction” of the child with the
same freedom, and it is to be feared the same
prejudice, with which it had criticised the
abductor's poetry. All of Mrs. Tretherick's
own sex, and perhaps a few of the opposite sex,
whose distinctive quality was not, however,
very strongly indicated, fully coincided in the
views of “The Intelligencer.” The majority,
however, evaded the moral issue: that Mrs.
Tretherick had shaken the red dust of Fiddletown
from her dainty slippers was enough for
them to know. They mourned the loss of the
fair abductor more than her offence. They
promptly rejected Tretherick as an injured husband
and disconsolate father, and even went
so far as to openly cast discredit on the sincerity
of his grief. They reserved an ironical condolence
for Col. Starbottle, overbearing that
excellent man with untimely and demonstrative
sympathy in bar-rooms, saloons, and other
localities not generally deemed favorable to
the display of sentiment. “She was alliz a
with a fine affectation of gloomy concern, and
great readiness of illustration; “and it's kinder
nat'ril thet she'd get away some day, and stampede
that theer colt: but thet she should shake
you, kernel, thet she should just shake you — is
what gits me. And they do say thet you jist
hung around thet hotel all night, and payrolled
them corriders, and histed yourself up and down
them stairs, and meandered in and out o' thet
piazzy, and all for nothing?” It was another
generous and tenderly commiserating spirit that
poured additional oil and wine on the colonel's
wounds. “The boys yer let on thet Mrs. Tretherick
prevailed on ye to pack her trunk and a
baby over from the house to the stage-offis, and
that the chap ez did go off with her thanked
you, and offered you two short bits, and sed ez
how he liked your looks, and ud employ you
agin — and now you say it ain't so? Well, I'll
tell the boys it aint so, and I'm glad I met you,
for stories do get round.”
Happily for Mrs. Tretherick's reputation,
however, the Chinaman in Tretherick's employment,
who was the only eye-witness of her
flight, stated that she was unaccompanied, except
by the child. He further deposed, that,
obeying her orders, he had stopped the Sacramento
coach, and secured a passage for herself
Ah Fe's testimony was of no legal value. But
nobody doubted it. Even those who were sceptical
of the Pagan's ability to recognize the
sacredness of the truth admitted his passionless,
unprejudiced unconcern. But it would
appear, from a hitherto unrecorded passage of
this veracious chronicle, that herein they were
mistaken.
It was about six months after the disappearance
of Mrs. Tretherick, that Ah Fe, while
working in Tretherick's lot, was hailed by two
passing Chinamen. They were the ordinary
mining coolies, equipped with long poles and
baskets for their usual pilgrimages. An animated
conversation at once ensued between Ah
Fe and his brother Mongolians, — a conversation
characterized by that usual shrill volubility
and apparent animosity which was at once the
delight and scorn of the intelligent Caucasian
who did not understand a word of it. Such,
at least, was the feeling with which Mr. Tretherick
on his veranda, and Col. Starbottle who
was passing, regarded their heathenish jargon.
The gallant colonel simply kicked them out
of his way: the irate Tretherick, with an oath,
threw a stone at the group, and dispersed them,
but not before one or two slips of yellow rice-paper,
marked with hieroglyphics, were exchanged,
hands. When Ah Fe opened this in the dim
solitude of his kitchen, he found a little girl's
apron, freshly washed, ironed, and folded. On
the corner of the hem were the initials “C. T.”
Ah Fe tucked it away in a corner of his blouse,
and proceeded to wash his dishes in the sink
with a smile of guileless satisfaction.
Two days after this, Ah Fe confronted his master.
“Me no likee Fiddletown. Me belly sick.
Me go now.” Mr. Tretherick violently suggested
a profane locality. Ah Fe gazed at him
placidly, and withdrew.
Before leaving Fiddletown, however, he accidentally
met Col. Starbottle, and dropped a few
incoherent phrases which apparently interested
that gentleman. When he concluded, the colonel
handed him a letter and a twenty-dollar
gold-piece. “If you bring me an answer, I'll
double that — Sabe, John?” Ah Fe nodded.
An interview equally accidental, with precisely
the same result, took place between Ah Fe and
another gentleman, whom I suspect to have
been the youthful editor of “The Avalanche.”
Yet I regret to state, that, after proceeding some
distance on his journey, Ah Fe calmly broke
the seals of both letters, and, after trying to
read them upside down and sideways, finally
divided them into accurate squares, and in this
whom he met on the road, for a trifling
gratuity. The agony of Col. Starbottle on
finding his wash-bill made out on the unwritten
side of one of these squares, and delivered to
him with his weekly clean clothes, and the subsequent
discovery that the remaining portions
of his letter were circulated by the same method
from the Chinese laundry of one Fung Ti of
Fiddletown, has been described to me as peculiarly
affecting. Yet I am satisfied that a higher
nature, rising above the levity induced by the
mere contemplation of the insignificant details
of this breach of trust, would find ample retributive
justice in the difficulties that subsequently
attended Ah Fe's pilgrimage.
On the road to Sacramento he was twice playfully
thrown from the top of the stage-coach by
an intelligent but deeply-intoxicated Caucasian,
whose moral nature was shocked at riding with
one addicted to opium-smoking. At Hangtown
he was beaten by a passing stranger, — purely
an act of Christian supererogation. At Dutch
Flat he was robbed by well-known hands from
unknown motives. At Sacramento he was arrested
on suspicion of being something or other,
and discharged with a severe reprimand — possibly
for not being it, and so delaying the course
of justice. At San Francisco he was freely
carefully avoiding these monuments of enlightened
progress, he at last reached, in comparative
safety, the Chinese quarters, where his abuse was
confined to the police, and limited by the strong
arm of the law.
The next day he entered the wash-house of
Chy Fook as an assistant, and on the following
Friday was sent with a basket of clean clothes
to Chy Fook's several clients.
It was the usual foggy afternoon as he
climbed the long wind-swept hill of California
Street, — one of those bleak, gray intervals that
made the summer a misnomer to any but the
liveliest San-Franciscan fancy. There was no
warmth or color in earth or sky, no light nor
shade within or without, only one monotonous,
universal neutral tint over every thing. There
was a fierce unrest in the wind-whipped streets:
there was a dreary vacant quiet in the gray
houses. When Ah Fe reached the top of the
hill, the Mission Ridge was already hidden;
and the chill sea-breeze made him shiver. As he
put down his basket to rest himself, it is possible,
that, to his defective intelligence and heathen
experience, this “God's own climate,” as it was
called, seemed to possess but scant tenderness,
softness, or mercy. But it is possible that Ah
Fe illogically confounded this season with his
released from studious confinement, at this hour
were generally most aggressive. So he hastened
on, and, turning a corner, at last stopped before
a small house.
It was the usual San-Franciscan urban cottage.
There was the little strip of cold green
shrubbery before it; the chilly, bare veranda,
and above this, again, the grim balcony, on which
no one sat. Ah Fe rang the bell. A servant
appeared, glanced at his basket, and reluctantly
admitted him, as if he were some necessary
domestic animal. Ah Fe silently mounted the
stairs, and, entering the open door of the front-chamber,
put down the basket, and stood passively
on the threshold.
A woman, who was sitting in the cold gray
light of the window, with a child in her lap,
rose listlessly, and came toward him. Ah Fe
instantly recognized Mrs. Tretherick; but not a
muscle of his immobile face changed, nor did
his slant eyes lighten as he met her own placidly.
She evidently did not recognize him as
she began to count the clothes. But the child,
curiously examining him, suddenly uttered a
short, glad cry.
“Why, it's John, mamma! It's our old
John what we had in Fiddletown.”
For an instant Ah Fe's eyes and teeth electrically
and caught at his blouse. Then he said shortly,
“Me John — Ah Fe — allee same. Me know
you. How do?”
Mrs. Tretherick dropped the clothes nervously,
and looked hard at Ah Fe. Wanting
the quick-witted instinct of affection that sharpened
Carry's perception, she even then could
not distinguish him above his fellows. With a
recollection of past pain, and an obscure suspicion
of impending danger, she asked him when
he had left Fiddletown.
“Longee time. No likee Fiddletown, no likee
Tlevelick. Likee San Flisco. Likee washee.
Likee Tally.”
Ah Fe's laconics pleased Mrs. Tretherick.
She did not stop to consider how much an
imperfect knowledge of English added to his
curt directness and sincerity. But she said,
“Don't tell anybody you have seen me,” and
took out her pocket-book.
Ah Fe, without looking at it, saw that it was
nearly empty. Ah Fe, without examining the
apartment, saw that it was scantily furnished.
Ah Fe, without removing his eyes from blank
vacancy, saw that both Mrs. Tretherick and
Carry were poorly dressed. Yet it is my duty
to state that Ah Fe's long fingers closed
promptly and firmly over the half-dollar which
Mrs. Tretherick extended to him.
Then he began to fumble in his blouse with a
series of extraordinary contortions. After a few
moments, he extracted from apparently no particular
place a child's apron, which he laid upon
the basket with the remark, —
“One piecee washman flagittee.”
Then he began anew his fumblings and contortions.
At last his efforts were rewarded by
his producing, apparently from his right ear, a
many-folded piece of tissue-paper. Unwrapping
this carefully, he at last disclosed two twenty-dollar
gold-pieces, which he handed to Mrs.
Tretherick.
“You leavee money top-side of blulow, Fiddletown.
Me findee money. Me fetchee money
to you. All lightee.”
“But I left no money on the top of the
bureau, John,” said Mrs. Tretherick earnestly.
“There must be some mistake. It belongs to
some other person. Take it back, John.”
Ah Fe's brow darkened. He drew away
from Mrs. Tretherick's extended hand, and began
hastily to gather up his basket.
“Me no takee it back. No, no! Bimeby
pleesman he catchee me. He say, `God damn
thief! — catchee flowty dollar: come to jailee.'
Me no takee back. You leavee money top-side
blulow, Fiddletown. Me fetchee money you.
Me no takee back.”
Mrs. Tretherick hesitated. In the confusion
of her flight, she might have left the money in
the manner he had said. In any event, she had
no right to jeopardize this honest Chinaman's
safety by refusing it. So she said, “Very well,
John, I will keep it. But you must come again
and see me” — here Mrs. Tretherick hesitated
with a new and sudden revelation of the fact
that any man could wish to see any other than
herself — “and, and — Carry.”
Ah Fe's face lightened. He even uttered a
short ventriloquistic laugh without moving his
mouth. Then shouldering his basket, he shut
the door carefully, and slid quietly down stairs.
In the lower hall he, however, found an unexpected
difficulty in opening the front-door, and,
after fumbling vainly at the lock for a moment,
looked around for some help or instruction.
But the Irish handmaid who had let him in was
contemptuously oblivious of his needs, and did
not appear.
There occurred a mysterious and painful incident,
which I shall simply record without
attempting to explain. On the hall-table a
scarf, evidently the property of the servant
before alluded to, was lying. As Ah Fe tried
the lock with one hand, the other rested lightly
on the table. Suddenly, and apparently of its
own volition, the scarf began to creep slowly
began to creep up his sleeve slowly, and with
an insinuating, snake-like motion; and then
disappeared somewhere in the recesses of his
blouse. Without betraying the least interest
or concern in this phenomenon, Ah Fe still
repeated his experiments upon the lock. A
moment later the tablecloth of red damask,
moved by apparently the same mysterious impulse,
slowly gathered itself under Ah Fe's
fingers, and sinuously disappeared by the same
hidden channel. What further mystery might
have followed, I cannot say; for at this moment
Ah Fe discovered the secret of the lock, and
was enabled to open the door coincident with the
sound of footsteps upon the kitchen-stairs. Ah
Fe did not hasten his movements, but, patiently
shouldering his basket, closed the door carefully
behind him again, and stepped forth into the
thick encompassing fog that now shrouded
earth and sky.
From her high casement-window, Mrs.
Tretherick watched Ah Fe's figure until it disappeared
in the gray cloud. In her present
loneliness, she felt a keen sense of gratitude
toward him, and may have ascribed to the
higher emotions and the consciousness of a
good deed, that certain expansiveness of the
chest, and swelling of the bosom, that was really
tablecloth under his blouse. For Mrs. Tretherick
was still poetically sensitive. As the gray
fog deepened into night, she drew Carry closer
towards her, and, above the prattle of the child,
pursued a vein of sentimental and egotistic
recollection at once bitter and dangerous. The
sudden apparition of Ah Fe linked her again
with her past life at Fiddletown. Over the
dreary interval between, she was now wandering,
— a journey so piteous, wilful, thorny, and
useless, that it was no wonder that at last
Carry stopped suddenly in the midst of her
voluble confidences to throw her small arms
around the woman's neck, and bid her not to
cry.
Heaven forefend that I should use a pen that
should be ever dedicated to an exposition of
unalterable moral principle to transcribe Mrs.
Tretherick's own theory of this interval and
episode, with its feeble palliations, its illogical
deductions, its fond excuses, and weak apologies.
It would seem, however, that her experience
had been hard. Her slender stock of money
was soon exhausted. At Sacramento she found
that the composition of verse, although appealing
to the highest emotions of the human heart,
and compelling the editorial breast to the noblest
commendation in the editorial pages, was singularly
and Carry. Then she tried the stage, but
failed signally. Possibly her conception of the
passions was different from that which obtained
with a Sacramento audience; but it was certain
that her charming presence, so effective at short
range, was not sufficiently pronounced for the
footlights. She had admirers enough in the
green-room, but awakened no abiding affection
among the audience. In this strait, it occurred
to her that she had a voice,— a contralto of no
very great compass or cultivation, but singularly
sweet and touching; and she finally obtained
position in a church-choir. She held it for
three months, greatly to her pecuniary advantage,
and, it is said, much to the satisfaction of
the gentlemen in the back-pews, who faced
toward her during the singing of the last
hymn.
I remember her quite distinctly at this time.
The light that slanted through the oriel of St.
Dives choir was wont to fall very tenderly on
her beautiful head with its stacked masses of
deerskin-colored hair, on the low black arches
of her brows, and to deepen the pretty fringes
that shaded her eyes of Genoa velvet. Very
pleasant it was to watch the opening and shutting
of that small straight mouth, with its quick
revelation of little white teeth, and to see the
you watched. For Mrs. Tretherick was very
sweetly conscious of admiration, and, like most
pretty women, gathered herself under your eye
like a racer under the spur.
And then, of course, there came trouble. I
have it from the soprano, — a little lady who
possessed even more than the usual unprejudiced
judgment of her sex, — that Mrs. Tretherick's
conduct was simply shameful; that her conceit
was unbearable; that, if she considered the rest
of the choir as slaves, she (the soprano) would
like to know it; that her conduct on Easter
Sunday with the basso had attracted the attention
of the whole congregation; and that she
herself had noticed Dr. Cope twice look up
during the service; that her (the soprano's)
friends had objected to her singing in the choir
with a person who had been on the stage, but
she had waived this. Yet she had it from the
best authority that Mrs. Tretherick had run
away from her husband, and that this red-haired
child who sometimes came in the choir was
not her own. The tenor confided to me behind
the organ, that Mrs. Tretherick had a way of
sustaining a note at the end of a line in order
that her voice might linger longer with the congregation,
— an act that could be attributed
only to a defective moral nature; that as a man
week-days, and sang a good deal from apparently
behind his eyebrows on the sabbath) — that
as a man, sir, he would put up with it no longer.
The basso alone — a short German with a heavy
voice, for which he seemed reluctantly responsible,
and rather grieved at its possession — stood
up for Mrs. Tretherick, and averred that they
were jealous of her because she was “bretty.”
The climax was at last reached in an open quarrel,
wherein Mrs. Tretherick used her tongue
with such precision of statement and epithet,
that the soprano burst into hysterical tears, and
had to be supported from the choir by her husband
and the tenor. This act was marked
intentionally to the congregation by the omission
of the usual soprano solo. Mrs. Tretherick
went home flushed with triumph, but on
reaching her room frantically told Carry that
they were beggars henceforward; that she — her
mother — had just taken the very bread out of
her darling's mouth, and ended by bursting into
a flood of penitent tears. They did not come
so quickly as in her old poetical days; but when
they came they stung deeply. She was roused
by a formal visit from a vestryman, — one of the
music committee. Mrs. Tretherick dried her
long lashes, put on a new neck-ribbon, and
went down to the parlor. She staid there two
remark, but that the vestryman was married, and
had a family of grown-up daughters. When
Mrs. Tretherick returned to her room, she sang
to herself in the glass and scolded Carry — but
she retained her place in the choir.
It was not long, however. In due course
of time, her enemies received a powerful addition
to their forces in the committee-man's wife.
That lady called upon several of the church-members
and on Dr. Cope's family. The result
was, that, at a later meeting of the music committee,
Mrs. Tretherick's voice was declared inadequate
to the size of the building and she was
invited to resign. She did so. She had been
out of a situation for two months, and her scant
means were almost exhausted, when Ah Fe's
unexpected treasure was tossed into her lap.
The gray fog deepened into night, and the
street-lamps started into shivering life, as, absorbed
in these unprofitable memories, Mrs.
Tretherick still sat drearily at her window.
Even Carry had slipped away unnoticed; and
her abrupt entrance with the damp evening
paper in her hand roused Mrs. Tretherick, and
brought her back to an active realization of the
present. For Mrs. Tretherick was wont to scan
the advertisements in the faint hope of finding
some avenue of employment — she knew not
this habit.
Mrs. Tretherick mechanically closed the shutters,
lit the lights, and opened the paper. Her
eye fell instinctively on the following paragraph
in the telegraphic column: —
“Fiddletown, 7th. — Mr. James Tretherick, an old resident
of this place, died last night of delirium tremens. Mr. Tretherick
was addicted to intemperate habits, said to have been
induced by domestic trouble.”
Mrs. Tretherick did not start. She quietly
turned over another page of the paper, and
glanced at Carry. The child was absorbed in a
book. Mrs. Tretherick uttered no word, but,
during the remainder of the evening, was unusually
silent and cold. When Carry was undressed
and in bed, Mrs. Tretherick suddenly
dropped on her knees beside the bed, and, taking
Carry's flaming head between her hands,
said, —
“Should you like to have another papa,
Carry darling?”
“No,” said Carry, after a moment's thought.
“But a papa to help mamma take care of
you, to love you, to give you nice clothes, to
make a lady of you when you grow up?”
Carry turned her sleepy eyes toward the
questioner. “Should you, mamma?”
Mrs. Tretherick suddenly flushed to the roots
of her hair. “Go to sleep,” she said sharply,
and turned away.
But at midnight the child felt two white
arms close tightly around her, and was drawn
down into a bosom that heaved, fluttered, and
at last was broken up by sobs.
“Don't ky, mamma,” whispered Carry, with
a vague retrospect of their recent conversation.
“Don't ky. I fink I should like a new papa, if
he loved you very much — very, very much!”
A month afterward, to everybody's astonishment,
Mrs. Tretherick was married. The happy
bridegroom was one Col. Starbottle, recently
elected to represent Calaveras County in the
legislative councils of the State. As I cannot
record the event in finer language than that
used by the correspondent of “The Sacramento
Globe,” I venture to quote some of his graceful
periods. “The relentless shafts of the sly god
have been lately busy among our gallant Solons.
We quote `one more unfortunate.' The latest
victim is the Hon. C. Starbottle of Calaveras.
The fair enchantress in the case is a beautiful
widow, a former votary of Thespis, and lately
a fascinating St. Cecilia of one of the most
fashionable churches of San Francisco, where
she commanded a high salary.”
“The Dutch Flat Intelligencer” saw fit,
humorous freedom characteristic of an unfettered
press. “The new Democratic war-horse
from Calaveras has lately advented in the legislature
with a little bill to change the name of
Tretherick to Starbottle. They call it a marriage-certificate
down there. Mr. Tretherick
has been dead just one month; but we presume
the gallant colonel is not afraid of ghosts.” It
is but just to Mrs. Tretherick to state that the
colonel's victory was by no means an easy one.
To a natural degree of coyness on the part of
the lady was added the impediment of a rival, —
a prosperous undertaker from Sacramento, who
had first seen and loved Mrs. Tretherick at the
theatre and church; his professional habits
debarring him from ordinary social intercourse,
and indeed any other than the most formal
public contact with the sex. As this gentleman
had made a snug fortune during the felicitous
prevalence of a severe epidemic, the colonel
regarded him as a dangerous rival. Fortunately,
however, the undertaker was called in
professionally to lay out a brother-senator, who
had unhappily fallen by the colonel's pistol in
an affair of honor; and either deterred by
physical consideration from rivalry, or wisely
concluding that the colonel was professionally
valuable, he withdrew from the field.
The honeymoon was brief, and brought to a
close by an untoward incident. During their
bridal-trip, Carry had been placed in the charge
of Col. Starbottle's sister. On their return to
the city, immediately on reaching their lodgings,
Mrs. Starbottle announced her intention
of at once proceeding to Mrs. Culpepper's to
bring the child home. Col. Starbottle, who
had been exhibiting for some time a certain
uneasiness which he had endeavored to overcome
by repeated stimulation, finally buttoned
his coat tightly across his breast, and, after
walking unsteadily once or twice up and down
the room, suddenly faced his wife with his most
imposing manner.
“I have deferred,” said the colonel with an
exaggeration of port that increased with his
inward fear, and a growing thickness of speech.
— “I have deferr — I may say poshponed statement
o' fack thash my duty ter dishclose ter
ye. I did no wish to mar sushine mushal
happ'ness, to bligh bud o' promise, to darken
conjuglar sky by unpleasht revelashun. Musht
be done — by G—d, m'm, musht do it now.
The chile is gone!”
“Gone!” echoed Mrs. Starbottle.
There was something in the tone of her voice,
in the sudden drawing-together of the pupils
of her eyes, that for a moment nearly sobered
the colonel, and partly collapsed his chest.
“I'll splain all in a minit,” he said with a
deprecating wave of the hand. “Every thing
shall be splained. The-the-the-melencholly event
wish preshipitate our happ'ness — the myster'us
prov'nice wish releash you — releash chile! hunerstan?
— releash chile. The mom't Tretherick
die — all claim you have in chile through him
— die too. Thash law. Whose chile b'long
to? Tretherick? Tretherick dead. Chile
can't b'long dead man. Damn nonshense b'long
dead man. I'sh your chile? no! who's chile
then? Chile b'long to 'ts mother. Unnerstan?”
“Where is she?” said Mrs. Starbottle with
a very white face and a very low voice.
“I'll splain all. Chile b'long to 'ts mother.
Thash law. I'm lawyer, leshlator, and American
sis'n. Ish my duty as lawyer, as leshlator,
and 'merikan sis'n to reshtore chile to suff'rin
mother at any coss — any coss.”
“Where is she?” repeated Mrs. Starbottle
with her eyes still fixed on the colonel's face.
“Gone to 'ts m'o'r. Gone East on shteamer,
yesserday. Waffed by fav'rin gales to suff'rin
p'rent. Thash so!”
Mrs. Starbottle did not move. The colonel
felt his chest slowly collapsing, but steadied
himself against a chair, and endeavored to beam
with chivalrous gallantry not unmixed with
magisterial firmness upon her as she sat.
“Your feelin's, m'm, do honor to yer sex, but
conshider situashun. Conshider m'or's feelings
— conshider my feelin's.” The colonel paused,
and, flourishing a white handkerchief, placed it
negligently in his breast, and then smiled tenderly
above it, as over laces and ruffles, on the
woman before him. “Why should dark shedder
cass bligh on two sholes with single beat?
Chile's fine chile, good chile, but summonelse
chile! Chile's gone, Clar'; but all ish'n't gone,
Clar'. Conshider dearesht, you all's have me!”
Mrs. Starbottle started to her feet. “You!”
she cried, bringing out a chest note that made
the chandeliers ring, — “YOU that I married to
give my darling food and clothes, — you! a dog
that I whistled to my side to keep the men off
me, — you!”
She choked up, and then dashed past him
into the inner room, which had been Carry's;
then she swept by him again into her own bedroom,
and then suddenly re-appeared before him,
erect, menacing, with a burning fire over her
cheek-bones, a quick straightening of her
arched brows and mouth, a squaring of jaw, and
ophidian flattening of the head.
“Listen!” she said in a hoarse, half-grown
boy's voice. “Hear me! If you ever expect
to set eyes on me again, you must find the child.
If you ever expect to speak to me again, to
where she goes, I go: you hear me! Where
she has gone, look for me.”
She struck out past him again with a quick
feminine throwing-out of her arms from the
elbows down, as if freeing herself from some
imaginary bonds, and, dashing into her chamber,
slammed and locked the door. Col. Starbottle,
although no coward, stood in superstitious
fear of an angry woman, and, recoiling as she
swept by, lost his unsteady foothold, and rolled
helplessly on the sofa. Here, after one or two
unsuccessful attempts to regain his foothold, he
remained, uttering from time to time profane
but not entirely coherent or intelligible protests,
until at last he succumbed to the exhausting
quality of his emotions, and the narcotic quantity
of his potations.
Meantime, within, Mrs. Starbottle was excitedly
gathering her valuables, and packing her
trunk, even as she had done once before in the
course of this remarkable history. Perhaps
some recollection of this was in her mind; for
she stopped to lean her burning cheeks upon
her hand, as if she saw again the figure of the
child standing in the doorway, and heard once
more a childish voice asking, “Is it mamma?”
But the epithet now stung her to the quick;
and with a quick, passionate gesture she dashed
eye. And then it chanced, that, in turning
over some clothes, she came upon the child's
slipper with a broken sandal-string. She uttered
a great cry here, — the first she had uttered, —
and caught it to her breast, kissing it passionately
again and again, and rocking from
side to side with a motion peculiar to her sex.
And then she took it to the window, the better
to see it through her now streaming eyes. Here
she was taken with a sudden fit of coughing
that she could not stifle with the handkerchief
she put to her feverish lips. And then she
suddenly grew very faint. The window seemed
to recede before her, the floor to sink beneath
her feet; and, staggering to the bed, she fell
prone upon it with the sandal and handkerchief
pressed to her breast. Her face was quite pale,
the orbit of her eyes dark; and there was a spot
upon her lip, another on her handkerchief,
and still another on the white counterpane of
the bed.
The wind had risen, rattling the window-sashes,
and swaying the white curtains in a
ghostly way. Later, a gray fog stole softly
over the roofs, soothing the wind-roughened
surfaces, and inwrapping all things in an uncertain
light and a measureless peace. She lay
there very quiet — for all her troubles, still a
the bolted door the gallant bridegroom, from
his temporary couch, snored peacefully.
A week before Christmas Day, 1870, the
little town of Genoa, in the State of New York,
exhibited, perhaps more strongly than at any
other time, the bitter irony of its founders and
sponsors. A driving snow-storm, that had whitened
every windward hedge, bush, wall, and
telegraph-pole, played around this soft Italian
Capitol, whirled in and out of the great staring
wooden Doric columns of its post-office and
hotel, beat upon the cold green shutters of its
best houses, and powdered the angular, stiff,
dark figures in its streets. From the level of
the street, the four principal churches of the
town stood out starkly, even while their misshapen
spires were kindly hidden in the low,
driving storm. Near the railroad-station, the
new Methodist chapel, whose resemblance to an
enormous locomotive was further heightened by
the addition of a pyramidal row of front-steps,
like a cowcatcher, stood as if waiting for a few
more houses to be hitched on to proceed to a
pleasanter location. But the pride of Genoa —
the great Crammer Institute for Young Ladies
— stretched its bare brick length, and reared its
cupola plainly from the bleak Parnassian hill
in the Crammer Institute of the fact that
it was a public institution. A visitor upon its
doorsteps, a pretty face at its window, were
clearly visible all over the township.
The shriek of the engine of the four-o'clock
Northern express brought but few of the usual
loungers to the depot. Only a single passenger
alighted, and was driven away in the solitary
waiting sleigh toward the Genoa Hotel. And
then the train sped away again, with that passionless
indifference to human sympathies or
curiosity peculiar to express-trains; the one
baggage-truck was wheeled into the station
again; the station-door was locked; and the station-master
went home.
The locomotive-whistle, however, awakened
the guilty consciousness of three young ladies
of the Crammer Institute, who were even
then surreptitiously regaling themselves in the
bake-shop and confectionery-saloon of Mistress
Phillips in a by-lane. For even the admirable
regulations of the Institute failed to entirely
develop the physical and moral natures of its
pupils. They conformed to the excellent dietary
rules in public, and in private drew upon the
luxurious rations of their village caterer. They
attended church with exemplary formality, and
flirted informally during service with the village
judicious instruction during school-hours, and
devoured the trashiest novels during recess.
The result of which was an aggregation of quite
healthy, quite human, and very charming young
creatures, that reflected infinite credit on the
Institute. Even Mistress Phillips, to whom
they owed vast sums, exhilarated by the exuberant
spirits and youthful freshness of her
guests, declared that the sight of “them young
things” did her good; and had even been known
to shield them by shameless equivocation.
“Four o'clock, girls! and, if we're not back to
prayers by five, we'll be missed,” said the tallest
of these foolish virgins, with an aquiline nose,
and certain quiet élan that bespoke the leader,
as she rose from her seat. “Have you got
the books, Addy?” Addy displayed three
dissipated-looking novels under her waterproof.
“And the provisions, Carry?” Carry showed
a suspicious parcel filling the pocket of her
sack. “All right, then. Come girls, trudge. —
Charge it,” she added, nodding to her host as
they passed toward the door. “I'll pay you
when my quarter's allowance comes.”
“No, Kate,” interposed Carry, producing her
purse, “let me pay: it's my turn.”
“Never!” said Kate, arching her black brows
loftily, “even if you do have rich relatives, and
Come, girls, forward, march!”
As they opened the door, a gust of wind
nearly took them off their feet. Kind-hearted
Mrs. Phillips was alarmed. “Sakes alive, galls!
ye mussn't go out in sich weather. Better let
me send word to the Institoot, and make ye up
a nice bed to-night in my parlor.” But the last
sentence was lost in a chorus of half-suppressed
shrieks, as the girls, hand in hand, ran down the
steps into the storm, and were at once whirled
away.
The short December day, unlit by any sunset
glow, was failing fast. It was quite dark
already; and the air was thick with driving
snow. For some distance their high spirits,
youth, and even inexperience, kept them bravely
up; but, in ambitiously attempting a short-cut
from the high-road across an open field, their
strength gave out, the laugh grew less frequent,
and tears began to stand in Carry's brown eyes.
When they reached the road again, they were
utterly exhausted. “Let us go back,” said
Carry.
“We'd never get across that field again,” said
Addy.
“Let's stop at the first house, then,” said
Carry.
“The first house,” said Addy, peering through
She darted a mischievous glance at Carry, that,
even in her discomfort and fear, brought the
quick blood to her cheek.
“Oh, yes!” said Kate with gloomy irony, “certainly;
stop at the squire's by all means, and be
invited to tea, and be driven home after tea by
your dear friend Mr. Harry, with a formal apology
from Mrs. Robinson, and hopes that the
young ladies may be excused this time. No!”
continued Kate with sudden energy. “That
may suit you; but I'm going back as I came, —
by the window, or not at all.” Then she
pounced suddenly, like a hawk, on Carry, who
was betraying a tendency to sit down on a
snowbank, and whimper, and shook her briskly.
“You'll be going to sleep next. Stay, hold your
tongues, all of you, — what's that?”
It was the sound of sleigh-bells. Coming
down toward them out of the darkness was a
sleigh with a single occupant. “Hold down
your heads, girls: if it's anybody that knows
us, we're lost.” But it was not; for a voice
strange to their ears, but withal very kindly
and pleasant, asked if its owner could be of any
help to them. As they turned toward him,
they saw it was a man wrapped in a handsome
sealskin cloak, wearing a sealskin cap; his face,
half concealed by a muffler of the same material,
two keen dark eyes. “It's a son of old Santa
Claus!” whispered Addy. The girls tittered
audibly as they tumbled into the sleigh: they
had regained their former spirits. “Where
shall I take you?” said the stranger quietly.
There was a hurried whispering; and then Kate
said boldly, “To the Institute.” They drove
silently up the hill, until the long, ascetic
building loomed up before them. The stranger
reined up suddenly. “You know the way better
than I,” he said. “Where do you go in?”
— “Through the back-window,” said Kate with
sudden and appalling frankness. “I see!”
responded their strange driver quietly, and,
alighting quickly, removed the bells from the
horses. “We can drive as near as you please
now,” he added by way of explanation. “He
certainly is a son of Santa Claus,” whispered
Addy. “Hadn't we better ask after his father?”
“Hush!” said Kate decidedly. “He is an
angel, I dare say.” She added with a delicious
irrelevance, which was, however, perfectly
understood by her feminine auditors, “We are
looking like three frights.”
Cautiously skirting the fences, they at last
pulled up a few feet from a dark wall. The
stranger proceeded to assist them to alight.
There was still some light from the reflected
the ground, each was conscious of undergoing
an intense though respectful scrutiny. He
assisted them gravely to open the window, and
then discreetly retired to the sleigh until the
difficult and somewhat discomposing ingress
was made. He then walked to the window.
“Thank you and good-night!” whispered three
voices. A single figure still lingered. The
stranger leaned over the window-sill. “Will
you permit me to light my cigar here? it might
attract attention if I struck a match outside.”
By the upspringing light he saw the figure of
Kate very charmingly framed in by the window.
The match burnt slowly out in his fingers. Kate
smiled mischievously. The astute young woman
had detected the pitiable subterfuge. For
what else did she stand at the head of her class,
and had doting parents paid three years' tuition?
The storm had passed, and the sun was shining
quite cheerily in the eastern recitation-room
the next morning, when Miss Kate, whose seat
was nearest the window, placing her hand pathetically
upon her heart, affected to fall in
bashful and extreme agitation upon the shoulder
of Carry her neighbor. “He has come,” she
gasped in a thrilling whisper. “Who?” asked
Carry sympathetically, who never clearly understood
when Kate was in earnest. “Who? —
him drive to the door this moment. Don't
speak: I shall be better in a moment — there!”
she said; and the shameless hypocrite passed
her hand pathetically across her forehead with
a tragic air.
“What can be want?” asked Carry, whose
curiosity was excited.
“I don't know,” said Kate, suddenly relapsing
into gloomy cynicism. “Possibly to put his
five daughters to school; perhaps to finish his
young wife, and warn her against US.”
“He didn't look old, and he didn't seem like
a married man,” rejoined Addy thoughtfully.
“That was his art, you poor creature!” returned
Kate scornfully. “You can never tell
any thing of these men, they are so deceitful.
Besides, it's just my fate!”
“Why, Kate,” began Carry, in serious concern.
“Hush! Miss Walker is saying something,”
said Kate, laughing.
“The young ladies will please give attention,”
said a slow, perfunctory voice. “Miss Carry
Tretherick is wanted in the parlor.”
Meantime Mr. Jack Prince, the name given
on the card, and various letters and credentials
submitted to the Rev. Mr. Crammer, paced the
somewhat severe apartment known publicly as
pupils as “purgatory.” His keen eyes had
taken in the various rigid details, from the flat
steam “radiator,” like an enormous japanned
soda-cracker, that heated one end of the room,
to the monumental bust of Dr. Crammer, that
hopelessly chilled the other; from the Lord's
Prayer, executed by a former writing-master in
such gratuitous variety of elegant calligraphic
trifling as to considerably abate the serious value
of the composition, to three views of Genoa
from the Institute, which nobody ever recognized,
taken on the spot by the drawing-teacher; from
two illuminated texts of Scripture in an English
letter, so gratuitously and hideously remote as
to chill all human interest, to a large photograph
of the senior class, in which the prettiest
girls were Ethiopian in complexion, and sat,
apparently, on each other's heads and shoulders.
His fingers had turned listlessly the leaves of
school-catalogues, the “Sermons” of Dr. Crammer,
the “Poems” of Henry Kirke White, the
“Lays of the Sanctuary” and “Lives of Celebrated
Women.” His fancy, and it was a nervously
active one, had gone over the partings and
greetings that must have taken place here, and
wondered why the apartment had yet caught so
little of the flavor of humanity; indeed, I am
afraid he had almost forgotten the object of his
stood before him.
It was one of those faces he had seen the night
before, prettier even than it had seemed then;
and yet I think he was conscious of some disappointment,
without knowing exactly why. Her
abundant waving hair was of a guinea-golden
tint, her complexion of a peculiar flower-like
delicacy, her brown eyes of the color of seaweed
in deep water. It certainly was not her beauty
that disappointed him.
Without possessing his sensitiveness to impression,
Carry was, on her part, quite as vaguely
ill at ease. She saw before her one of those
men whom the sex would vaguely generalize as
“nice,” that is to say, correct in all the superficial
appointments of style, dress, manners and
feature. Yet there was a decidedly unconventional
quality about him: he was totally unlike
any thing or anybody that she could remember;
and, as the attributes of originality are often as
apt to alarm as to attract people, she was not
entirely prepossessed in his favor.
“I can hardly hope,” he began pleasantly,
“that you remember me. It is eleven years
ago, and you were a very little girl. I am
afraid I cannot even claim to have enjoyed that
familiarity that might exist between a child of
six and a young man of twenty-one. I don't
mother very well. I was editor of `The Avalanche'
in Fiddletown, when she took you to
San Francisco.”
“You mean my stepmother: she wasn't my
mother, you know,” interposed Carry hastily.
Mr. Prince looked at her curiously. “I mean
your stepmother,” he said gravely. “I never
had the pleasure of meeting your mother.”
“No: mother hasn't been in California these
twelve years.”
There was an intentional emphasizing of the
title and of its distinction, that began to coldly
interest Prince after his first astonishment was
past.
“As I come from your stepmother now,” he
went on with a slight laugh, “I must ask you
to go back for a few moments to that point.
After your father's death, your mother — I
mean your stepmother — recognized the fact
that your mother, the first Mrs. Tretherick,
was legally and morally your guardian, and,
although much against her inclination and
affections, placed you again in her charge.”
“My stepmother married again within a month
after father died, and sent me home,” said Carry
with great directness, and the faintest toss of
her head.
Mr. Prince smiled so sweetly, and apparently
him. With no other notice of the interruption
he went on, “After your stepmother had performed
this act of simple justice, she entered
into an agreement with your mother to defray
the expenses of your education until your
eighteenth year, when you were to elect and
choose which of the two should thereafter be
your guardian, and with whom you would make
your home. This agreement, I think, you are
already aware of, and, I believe, knew at the
time.”
“I was a mere child then,” said Carry.
“Certainly,” said Mr. Prince, with the same
smile. “Still the conditions, I think, have never
been oppressive to you nor your mother; and
the only time they are likely to give you the
least uneasiness will be when you come to
make up your mind in the choice of your
guardian. That will be on your eighteenth
birthday, — the 20th, I think, of the present
month.”
Carry was silent.
“Pray do not think that I am here to receive
your decision, even if it be already made. I
only came to inform you that your stepmother,
Mrs. Starbottle, will be in town to-morrow, and
will pass a few days at the hotel. If it is your
wish to see her before you make up your mind,
however, wish to do any thing to influence your
judgment.”
“Does mother know she is coming?” said
Carry hastily.
“I do not know,” said Prince gravely. “I
only know, that, if you conclude to see Mrs.
Starbottle, it will be with your mother's permission.
Mrs. Starbottle will keep sacredly this
part of the agreement, made ten years ago.
But her health is very poor; and the change
and country quiet of a few days may benefit
her.” Mr. Prince bent his keen, bright eyes
upon the young girl, and almost held his breath
until she spoke again.
“Mother's coming up to-day or to-morrow,”
she said, looking up.
“Ah!” said Mr. Prince with a sweet and
languid smile.
“Is Col. Starbottle here too?” asked Carry,
after a pause.
“Col. Starbottle is dead. Your stepmother
is again a widow.”
“Dead!” repeated Carry.
“Yes,” replied Mr. Prince. “Your stepmother
has been singularly unfortunate in surviving
her affections.”
Carry did not know what he meant, and
looked so. Mr. Prince smiled re-assuringly.
Presently Carry began to whimper.
Mr. Prince softly stepped beside her chair.
“I am afraid,” he said with a very peculiar
light in his eye, and a singular dropping of the
corners of his mustache, — “I am afraid you are
taking this too deeply. It will be some days
before you are called upon to make a decision.
Let us talk of something else. I hope you
caught no cold last evening.”
Carry's face shone out again in dimples.
“You must have thought us so queer! It
was too bad to give you so much trouble.”
“None, whatever, I assure you. My sense of
propriety,” he added demurely, “which might
have been outraged, had I been called upon to
help three young ladies out of a schoolroom
window at night, was deeply gratified at being
able to assist them in again.” The door-bell
rang loudly, and Mr. Prince rose. “Take your
own time, and think well before you make your
decision.” But Carry's ear and attention were
given to the sound of voices in the hall. At
the same moment, the door was thrown open,
and a servant announced, “Mrs. Tretherick
and Mr. Robinson.”
The afternoon train had just shrieked out its
usual indignant protest at stopping at Genoa at
all, as Mr. Jack Prince entered the outskirts of
the town, and drove towards his hotel. He was
through unpicturesque outlying villages, past
small economic farmhouses, and hideous villas
that violated his fastidious taste, had, I fear,
left that gentleman in a captious state of mind.
He would have even avoided his taciturn landlord
as he drove up to the door; but that functionary
waylaid him on the steps. “There's a
lady in the sittin'-room, waitin' for ye.” Mr.
Prince hurried up stairs, and entered the room
as Mrs. Starbottle flew towards him.
She had changed sadly in the last ten years.
Her figure was wasted to half its size. The
beautiful curves of her bust and shoulders were
broken or inverted. The once full, rounded
arm was shrunken in its sleeve; and the golden
hoops that encircled her wan wrists almost
slipped from her hands as her long, scant
fingers closed convulsively around Jack's. Her
cheek-bones were painted that afternoon with
the hectic of fever: somewhere in the hollows
of those cheeks were buried the dimples of long
ago; but their graves were forgotten. Her
lustrous eyes were still beautiful, though the
orbits were deeper than before. Her mouth was
still sweet, although the lips parted more easily
over the little teeth, and even in breathing,
and showed more of them than she was wont
to do before. The glory of her blonde hair
ethereal, yet it failed even in its plenitude to
cover the hollows of the blue-veined temples.
“Clara!” said Jack reproachfully.
“Oh, forgive me, Jack!” she said, falling
into a chair, but still clinging to his hand, —
“forgive me, dear; but I could not wait longer.
I should have died, Jack, — died before another
night. Bear with me a little longer (it will
not be long), but let me stay. I may not see
her, I know; I shall not speak to her: but it's
so sweet to feel that I am at last near her, that
I breathe the same air with my darling. I am
better already, Jack, I am indeed. And you
have seen her to-day? How did she look?
What did she say? Tell me all, every thing,
Jack. Was she beautiful? They say she is.
Has she grown? Would you have known her
again? Will she come, Jack? Perhaps she
has been here already; perhaps,” she had risen
with tremulous excitement, and was glancing at
the door, — “perhaps she is here now. Why
don't you speak, Jack? Tell me all.”
The keen eyes that looked down into hers
were glistening with an infinite tenderness that
none, perhaps, but she would have deemed
them capable of. “Clara,” he said gently and
cheerily, “try and compose yourself. You are
trembling now with the fatigue and excitement
well and beautiful. Let that suffice you now.”
His gentle firmness composed and calmed her
now, as it had often done before. Stroking her
thin hand, he said, after a pause, “Did Carry
ever write to you?”
“Twice, thanking me for some presents.
They were only school-girl letters,” she added,
nervously answering the interrogation of his
eyes.
“Did she ever know of your own troubles?
of your poverty, of the sacrifices you made to
pay her bills, of your pawning your clothes
and jewels, of your” —
“No, no!” interrupted the woman quickly:
“no! How could she? I have no enemy cruel
enough to tell her that.”
“But if she — or if Mrs. Tretherick — had
heard of it? If Carry thought you were poor,
and unable to support her properly, it might
influence her decision. Young girls are fond of
the position that wealth can give. She may
have rich friends, maybe a lover.”
Mrs. Starbottle winced at the last sentence.
“But,” she said eagerly, grasping Jack's hand,
“when you found me sick and helpless at Sacramento,
when you — God bless you for it, Jack!
— offered to help me to the East, you said you
knew of something, you had some plan, that
would make me and Carry independent.”
“Yes,” said Jack hastily; “but I want you
to get strong and well first. And, now that
you are calmer, you shall listen to my visit to
the school.”
It was then that Mr. Jack Prince proceeded
to describe the interview already recorded, with
a singular felicity and discretion that shames
my own account of that proceeding. Without
suppressing a single fact, without omitting a
word or detail, he yet managed to throw a
poetic veil over that prosaic episode, to invest
the heroine with a romantic roseate atmosphere,
which, though not perhaps entirely imaginary,
still, I fear, exhibited that genius which ten
years ago had made the columns of “The
Fiddletown Avalanche” at once fascinating
and instructive. It was not until he saw the
heightening color, and heard the quick breathing,
of his eager listener, that he felt a pang of
self-reproach. “God help her and forgive me!”
he muttered between his clinched teeth; “but
how can I tell her all now!”
That night, when Mrs. Starbottle laid her
weary head upon her pillow, she tried to picture
to herself Carry at the same moment sleeping
peacefully in the great schoolhouse on the hill;
and it was a rare comfort to this yearning,
foolish woman to know that she was so near.
But at this moment Carry was sitting on the
pretty lips, and twisting her long, leonine locks
between her fingers, as Miss Kate Van Corlear
— dramatically wrapped in a long white counterpane,
her black eyes sparkling, and her thorough-bred
nose thrown high in air, — stood over
her like a wrathful and indignant ghost; for
Carry had that evening imparted her woes and
her history to Miss Kate, and that young lady
had “proved herself no friend” by falling into
a state of fiery indignation over Carry's “ingratitude,”
and openly and shamelessly espousing
the claims of Mrs. Starbottle. “Why, if the
half you tell me is true, your mother and those
Robinsons are making of you not only a little
coward, but a little snob, miss. Respectability,
forsooth! Look you, my family are centuries
before the Trethericks; but if my family had
ever treated me in this way, and then asked me
to turn my back on my best friend, I'd whistle
them down the wind;” and here Kate snapped
her fingers, bent her black brows, and glared
around the room as if in search of a recreant
Van Corlear.
“You just talk this way, because you have
taken a fancy to that Mr. Prince,” said Carry.
In the debasing slang of the period, that had
even found its way into the virgin cloisters of
the Crammer Institute, Miss Kate, as she afterwards
expressed it, instantly “went for her.”
First, with a shake of her head, she threw
her long black hair over one shoulder, then,
dropping one end of the counterpane from the
other like a vestal tunic, she stepped before
Carry with a purposely-exaggerated classic stride.
“And what if I have, miss! What if I happen
to know a gentleman when I see him! What
if I happen to know, that among a thousand
such traditional, conventional, feeble editions of
their grandfathers as Mr. Harry Robinson, you
cannot find one original, independent, individualized
gentleman like your Prince! Go to bed,
miss, and pray to Heaven that he may be
your Prince indeed. Ask to have a contrite
and grateful heart, and thank the Lord in particular
for having sent you such a friend as
Kate Van Corlear.” Yet, after an imposing
dramatic exit, she re-appeared the next moment
as a straight white flash, kissed Carry between
the brows, and was gone.
The next day was a weary one to Jack Prince.
He was convinced in his mind that Carry
would not come; yet to keep this consciousness
from Mrs. Starbottle, to meet her simple hopefulness
with an equal degree of apparent faith,
was a hard and difficult task. He would have
tried to divert her mind by taking her on a
long drive; but she was fearful that Carry
might come during her absence; and her
greatly. As he looked into her large and awe-inspiring
clear eyes, a something he tried to
keep from his mind — to put off day by day
from contemplation — kept asserting itself directly
to his inner consciousness. He began to
doubt the expediency and wisdom of his management.
He recalled every incident of his
interview with Carry, and half believed that its
failure was due to himself. Yet Mrs. Starbottle
was very patient and confident: her very confidence
shook his faith in his own judgment.
When her strength was equal to the exertion,
she was propped up in her chair by the window,
where she could see the school and the entrance
to the hotel. In the intervals she would elaborate
pleasant plans for the future, and would
sketch a country home. She had taken a
strange fancy, as it seemed to Prince, to the
present location; but it was notable that the
future, always thus outlined, was one of quiet
and repose. She believed she would get well
soon: in fact, she thought she was now much
better than she had been; but it might be long
before she should be quite strong again. She
would whisper on in this way until Jack would
dash madly down into the bar-room, order
liquors that he did not drink, light cigars that
he did not smoke, talk with men that he did not
sex is apt to do in periods of delicate trials and
perplexity.
The day closed with a clouded sky and a
bitter, searching wind. With the night fell a
few wandering flakes of snow. She was still
content and hopeful; and, as Jack wheeled her
from the window to the fire, she explained to
him, how, that, as the school-term was drawing
near its close, Carry was probably kept closely
at her lessons during the day, and could only
leave the school at night. So she sat up the
greater part of the evening, and combed her
silken hair, and, as far as her strength would
allow, made an undress toilet to receive her
guest. “We must not frighten the child, Jack,”
she said apologetically, and with something of
her old coquetry.
It was with a feeling of relief, that, at ten
o'clock, Jack received a message from the landlord,
saying that the doctor would like to see
him for a moment down stairs. As Jack entered
the grim, dimly-lighted parlor, he observed
the hooded figure of a woman near the fire. He
was about to withdraw again, when a voice that
he remembered very pleasantly said, —
“Oh, it's all right! I'm the doctor.”
The hood was thrown back; and Prince saw
the shining black hair, and black, audacious
eyes, of Kate Van Corlear.
“Don't ask any questions. I'm the doctor;
and there's my prescription,” and she pointed to
the half-frightened, half-sobbing Carry in the
corner — “to be taken at once.”
“Then Mrs. Tretherick has given her permission?”
“Not much, if I know the sentiments of that
lady,” replied Kate saucily.
“Then how did you get away?” asked
Prince gravely.
“By the window.”
When Mr. Prince had left Carry in the arms
of her stepmother, he returned to the parlor.
“Well?” demanded Kate.
“She will stay — you will, I hope, also — to-night.”
“As I shall not be eighteen, and my own
mistress on the 20th, and as I haven't a sick
stepmother, I won't.”
“Then you will give me the pleasure of seeing
you safely through the window again?”
When Mr. Prince returned an hour later, he
found Carry sitting on a low stool at Mrs. Starbottle's
feet. Her head was in her stepmother's
lap; and she had sobbed herself to sleep. Mrs.
Starbottle put her finger to her lip. “I told
you she would come. God bless you, Jack!
and good-night.”
The next morning Mrs. Tretherick, indignant,
and Mr. Joel Robinson, sen., complacently respectable,
called upon Mr. Prince. There was
a stormy meeting, ending in a demand for
Carry. “We certainly cannot admit of this
interference,” said Mrs. Tretherick, a fashionably
dressed, indistinctive looking woman. “It is
several days before the expiration of our agreement;
and we do not feel, under the circumstances,
justified in releasing Mrs. Starbottle
from its conditions.” “Until the expiration of
the school-term, we must consider Miss Tretherick
as complying entirely with its rules and
discipline,” imposed Dr. Crammer. “The
whole proceeding is calculated to injure the
prospects, and compromise the position, of Miss
Tretherick in society,” suggested Mr. Robinson.
In vain Mr. Prince urged the failing condition
of Mrs. Starbottle, her absolute freedom
from complicity with Carry's flight, the pardonable
and natural instincts of the girl, and his
own assurance that they were willing to abide
by her decision. And then with a rising color
in his cheek, a dangerous look in his eye, but a
singular calmness in his speech, he added, —
“One word more. It becomes my duty to
inform you of a circumstance which would certainly
justify me, as an executor of the late
A few months after Mr. Tretherick's death,
through the agency of a Chinaman in his employment,
it was discovered that he had made a
will, which was subsequently found among his
papers. The insignificant value of his bequest
— mostly land, then quite valueless — prevented
his executors from carrying out his wishes,
or from even proving the will, or making it
otherwise publicly known, until within the last
two or three years, when the property had
enormously increased in value. The provisions
of that bequest are simple, but unmistakable.
The property is divided between Carry and her
stepmother, with the explicit condition that
Mrs. Starbottle shall become her legal guardian,
provide for her education, and in all details
stand to her in loco parentis.”
“What is the value of this bequest?” asked
Mr. Robinson. “I cannot tell exactly, but not
far from half a million, I should say,” returned
Prince. “Certainly, with this knowledge, as a
friend of Miss Tretherick, I must say that her
conduct is as judicious as it is honorable to
her,” responded Mr. Robinson. “I shall not
presume to question the wishes, or throw any
obstacles in the way of carrying out the intentions,
of my dead husband,” added Mrs. Tretherick;
and the interview was closed.
When its result was made known to Mrs.
Starbottle, she raised Jack's hand to her feverish
lips. “It cannot add to my happiness now,
Jack; but tell me, why did you keep it from
her?” Jack smiled, but did not reply.
Within the next week the necessary legal
formalities were concluded; and Carry was
restored to her stepmother. At Mrs. Starbottle's
request, a small house in the outskirts
of the town was procured; and thither they
removed to wait the spring, and Mrs. Starbottle's
convalescence. Both came tardily that year.
Yet she was happy and patient. She was fond
of watching the budding of the trees beyond
her window, — a novel sight to her Californian
experience, — and of asking Carry their names
and seasons. Even at this time she projected
for that summer, which seemed to her so mysteriously
withheld, long walks with Carry
through the leafy woods, whose gray, misty
ranks she could see along the hilltop. She
even thought she could write poetry about
them, and recalled the fact as evidence of her
gaining strength; and there is, I believe, still
treasured by one of the members of this little
household a little carol so joyous, so simple, and
so innocent, that it might have been an echo
of the robin that called to her from the window,
as perhaps it was.
And then, without warning, there dropped
from Heaven a day so tender, so mystically soft,
so dreamily beautiful, so throbbing, and alive
with the fluttering of invisible wings, so replete
and bounteously overflowing with an awakening
and joyous resurrection not taught by man
or limited by creed, that they thought it fit
to bring her out, and lay her in that glorious
sunshine that sprinkled like the droppings of a
bridal torch the happy lintels and doors. And
there she lay beatified and calm.
Wearied by watching, Carry had fallen
asleep by her side; and Mrs. Starbottle's thin
fingers lay like a benediction on her head. Presently
she called Jack to her side.
“Who was that,” she whispered, “who just
came in?”
“Miss Van Corlear,” said Jack, answering
the look in her great hollow eyes.
“Jack,” she said, after a moment's silence,
“sit by me a moment, dear Jack: I've something
I must say. If I ever seemed hard, or
cold, or coquettish to you in the old days, it was
because I loved you, Jack, too well to mar your
future by linking it with my own. I always
loved you, dear Jack, even when I seemed
least worthy of you. That is gone now. But I
had a dream lately, Jack, a foolish woman's
dream, — that you might find what I lacked in
girl at her side; “that you might love her as
you have loved me. But even that is not to be.
Jack, is it?” and she glanced wistfully in his
face. Jack pressed her hand, but did not speak.
After a few moments' silence, she again said,
“Perhaps you are right in your choice. She is
a good-hearted girl, Jack — but a little bold.”
And with this last flicker of foolish, weak
humanity in her struggling spirit, she spoke no
more. When they came to her a moment later,
a tiny bird that had lit upon her breast flew
away; and the hand that they lifted from Carry's
head fell lifeless at her side.
| Tales of the Argonauts, and other sketches | |