AFTER EIGHTEEN MONTHS.
Mr. and Mrs. Paul Ralston, maid and valet, were staying at the Grand
Hotel in Paris and making occasional trips to Versailles, St. Germain,
Vincennes and Fontainebleau. They had just returned from the latter
place, where they had spent a few days. Mrs. Paul was in her room
dressing for dinner, while her husband went to Munroe’s for any letters
which might have come from home during his absence.
“I think I will wear my new dress to-night,” the lady said to her maid,
and by her voice we recognize Elithe, whom we saw last in the crowded
court room in Oak City testifying against Paul.
She was his wife now, and had been for two months of perfect happiness.
The marriage had followed in the natural sequence of events. Paul had
gained strength and vitality rapidly in California, but there was
something lacking to a perfect cure. He missed the girl who had stood by
him so bravely when his sky was blackest, and who, he knew now, had
always been more to him than he supposed. He had loved Clarice
devotedly, but that love was dead, and another and better had taken its
place. Every incident connected with his acquaintance with Elithe he
lived over and over again, seeing her as she was on the boat, forlorn
and crumpled and homesick,—seeing her in the little white room when she
came back to life and spoke to him,—seeing her in the water where she
went but once,—and in the tennis court and on the causeway, and on the
wild sea, when the lightning showed him her face and she lay in his arms
like a frightened child,—seeing her in the court house in an agony of
remorse because she had to swear against him,—but seeing her oftener in
the Smuggler’s room, where her presence was like sunshine and her voice
the sweetest he had ever heard.
Clarice was only a sad memory now, his love for her blotted out by the
black shadows which had come between them. He did not know where she
was, nor particularly care. Her movements were nothing to him. He wanted
to see Elithe, and when in the spring his parents spoke of returning
home he suggested that they go up the coast to Portland and Tacoma and
across the country by way of Spokane and Helena, stopping at Samona,
where Elithe now was. Miss Hansford, who wrote occasionally to his
mother, had said her niece was going home in April and she was going
with her. Both Mr. and Mrs. Ralston understood Paul’s wish to stop at
Samona, and as they would have gone to the ends of the earth to please
him, they readily assented to his suggestion, and a letter was forwarded
to Miss Hansford asking what accommodations could be found for them. The
whole of the second floor at The Samona, where Jack had once been a
guest, was engaged, and Miss Hansford took it upon herself to see that
it was in perfect order, insisting upon so much new furniture that the
landlord came to an open battle with her, telling her he should be
ruined with all he was paying out and the small price he charged for
board.
“Charge more then. They are able to pay. You never had real quality
before,” Miss Hansford said to him.
“I had Mr. Pennington,” the landlord replied, and with a snort Miss
Hansford rejoined: “Mr. Pennington! I hope you don’t class him with the
Ralstons. He can’t hold a candle to ’em. I know the Percy blood.”
Here she stopped, remembering that Jack was in his grave, and that his
memory was held sacred in Samona and among the miners, whose camp she
had visited several times with Elithe and Rob. But she carried her point
with regard to refurnishing. The room Jack had occupied was to be turned
into a salon, where the family were to have their meals served. Hair
mattresses were to be bought for the beds. There was to be drapery at
the windows in place of the paper curtains,—rugs for the floor, and four
towels a day each for Mr. and Mrs. Ralston, and Paul, Tom and the maid
could get along with two each. The landlord looked aghast. One towel a
day was as much as he ever furnished, except to Mr. Pennington, who
insisted upon two, and he thought the Ralstons must be a dirty lot.
Twelve towels for three people, and two apiece for their help, making
sixteen in all.
“There ain’t enough in the tavern to hold out. I’ll have to get more,”
he said.
“Get ’em, then,” Miss Hansford replied, and he got them.
The _saloon_, as he called it, was an innovation of which he had never
dreamed, and unmistakable airs for which the Ralstons would have to pay
“right smart.”
“They’ll do it,” Miss Hansford assured him, suggesting a price which
staggered the landlord more than the _saloon_ had done. “Good land,”
Miss Hansford said, “that’s nothing for folks who are used to paying
four, five and six dollars a day apiece, besides extra for a parlor.
Don’t you worry, but do your best.”
He did his best, and it was so very good that when the Ralstons arrived
they were more than delighted with their quarters and made no objection
to the price, which the landlord gave them with many misgivings,
fortifying himself by saying, “That Massachusetts woman told me you’d
pay it, and I’ve been to a great deal of expense and trouble.”
“Certainly, we’ll pay it, and more, if you say so,” Mr. Ralston replied,
complimenting everything and in a few days quite superceding Jack in the
estimation of his host and hostess.
Both Paul and Tom were objects of intense interest,—one because he
killed Jack, the other because he didn’t. The miners, came in a body to
see them, taking the most to Tom, who assimilated with them at once and
spent half his time in the camp. Paul did not need him. He was perfectly
well, and while enjoying the wild scenery and the life so different from
that he had known was never long away from Elithe. On her pony which the
miners had given her she rode with him through the woods and gorges and
over the hills, until one day, when they had explored the cañon farther
than usual and sat down to rest under the shadow of a huge boulder,
while their horses browsed near them, Paul asked her to be his wife. He
drew no comparison between his love for her and that he had felt for
Clarice. He said: “I love you, Elithe. I think my interest in you began
the first time I saw you on the boat. Of all that has happened since I
cannot speak. I have buried it, and do not wish to open the grave lest
the ghost of what I buried should haunt me again. I do not mean Clarice.
I am willing to talk of her. I loved her, but she is only a memory of
what might have been, and what I am very glad was not allowed to be. I
want _you_. Will you take me?”
There was no coquetry in Elithe’s nature, and when she lifted her face
to Paul and he looked into her eyes he knew his answer and hurried back
to town to present her to his parents as their future daughter. He
wanted to take her with him when they left Samona, as they thought of
doing soon, but this could not be. The mother, whom Miss Hansford had
denounced as weak and shiftless, was weaklier than ever and Elithe would
not leave her.
“If you stay I shall stay, too,” Paul said. “I am in no hurry to go back
where I suffered so much.”
His wish was a law to his father and mother. There was nothing to call
them East. The mountain air suited Mrs. Ralston, who was growing robust
every day and to whom the scenery and the people were constant sources
of enjoyment. An Englishman, who was going home for a year, offered his
house, the newest and best in Samona, to Mr. Ralston, who took it at
once.
“If you all stay, I shall,” Miss Hansford said, and it was a very merry
party the Ralstons and Hansfords made that summer, their only drawback
Mrs. Hansford’s failing health.
It was of no use for Miss Phebe to tell her to put on the mind cure and
brace up.
“I can’t brace up, and I haven’t much mind to put on,” she answered with
a smile.
“That’s so,” Miss Hansford thought. “The Potters never had any mind to
spare.”
But she was very kind to the invalid, and as she grew thinner and paler
and finally kept her bed altogether the Potter blood was forgotten, and
it was Roger’s wife whom she nursed so tenderly and to whom she gave her
promise to care for Roger and the boys. All through the summer and
autumn Lucy lingered, but when the winter’s snows were piled upon the
ground and the cold wind swept down the deep gorges she died, and they
buried her on a knoll behind the church where the light from the chancel
window erected for her husband could fall upon her grave. Then Miss
Hansford took matters into her own hand. The whole family should go East
with her in the spring. There was a vacancy in St. Luke’s parish. She
would apply for the place for Roger and give something herself towards
his salary. He could stay with her a while. She wasn’t overfond of boys,
but she could stand Roger’s a spell. She called them little bears to
herself, but had a genuine liking for them, especially for Rob, who knew
how to manage her. He was to go to college and be a minister,—Methodist,
she hoped. Thede, who was always drawing pictures and had made a very
fair one of her with her far-see-ers on the end of her nose, and her
shoulders squared as they usually were when she was giving him what he
called “Hail Columbia,” was to be an artist. George was to be a lawyer,
though she didn’t think much of that craft after her experience with
them, while Artie,—well, she didn’t know what he’d be. He only cared for
horses. Maybe he’d keep a livery stable, or be a circus rider. Artie
decided for the latter, which Miss Hansford took as an indication that
the Potter blood, as represented by the actress, predominated in Artie’s
veins. Elithe’s marriage must take place in Oak City, and if they wanted
a splurge such as Clarice was to have had, they should have it, and a
bigger one, too. She could afford it better than Mrs. Percy, and it
would give her a chance to wear her gray silk, the making of which had
cost so much and which was lying useless in her bureau drawer.
“Not for the world will we be married in Oak City,” both Paul and Elithe
said, when the proposition was made to them.
They would be married quietly in Samona, among Elithe’s people and the
miners, the latter of whom had lamented loudly when they heard they were
to lose their rector, who had shared their joys and sorrows and been to
them like a brother.
“But if we must, we must, and we won’t whimper like children, but give
him a good send-off,” they said.
They kept their word, and came to the wedding, a hundred or more, with a
lump of gold valued at $200, for the bride, and another of equal value
for Roger. At the station they screamed themselves hoarse with their
good-byes, and when the train was gone, sat down upon the platform and
wondered what they should do without the parson and what he would do
without them, and if that Massachusetts Temperance Society, as they
called Miss Hansford, who had several times lectured them for drinking,
wouldn’t make it lively for Roger and the kids.
This was in April, and early in May Paul and Elithe sailed for Europe,
going directly to Paris, where they staid week after week until it was
now the last of June, and they were still occupying their handsome suite
of rooms at the Grand Hotel, with Tom and a French maid in attendance.
Elithe was delighted with everything in Paris, and it seemed to Paul
that she grew lovelier every day. Possibly dress had something to do
with this. Her mother had made a request that she should not wear black,
and Elithe had respected the request, but avoided whatever was gay and
conspicuous. Paul would like to have heaped upon her everything he saw
in the show windows, but her good sense kept him in check, while her
good taste, aided by the best modistes in Paris, made her one of the
most becomingly dressed ladies at the table d’hôte, where so much
fashion was displayed. Doucet’s last effort, though plain, was a great
success, and never had Elithe been more beautiful than when she was
waiting for Paul’s return from Munroe’s and wondering if he would bring
any letters. He had found several, one of which made him for a time
forget all the rest.
It was from Clarice, mailed at Rome and directed to Boston, and covered
with postmarks, having crossed the ocean twice in quest of him and
finding him at last in Paris with his bride, of whose existence Clarice
had no knowledge. If she had ever thought to secure Ralph Fenner she had
failed. After supposing her married to Paul, he had heard with surprise
that the marriage was given up and why, and that Mrs. Percy and Clarice
were coming to London. Wishing to return some of their attentions to him
when he was in America, he had invited them to Elm Park, his brother’s
residence and for the time being his home. Everything which could be
done to make their stay agreeable was done. Clarice was so much pleased
with life, as she saw it in a first-class English home, and the people
she met there, that she would most likely have accepted Ralph had he
offered himself to her and taken the chance of his brother’s keeping
them at Elm Park. But Ralph was too wise to do that. He admired Clarice,
and was very attentive to her, but could not afford to marry her, and
she left England a disappointed woman. As she had but few correspondents
and was constantly moving from place to place, she did not hear of
Paul’s acquittal until she reached Florence, some time in February.
There she found a letter from a friend in Washington and a paper
containing full particulars of the second trial and acquittal and the
attention heaped upon Paul by way of atonement for the injustice done
him. He was in Southern California with his father and mother, the paper
said, adding that the family talked of going to Japan and from there
home through Europe the following summer. Now that she knew Paul was
innocent of killing her brother, the disgrace of his having been tried
for it did not seem an insurmountable obstacle to an alliance with him,
and as time went on she found herself longing for a reestablishment of
their old relations and wishing he would write to her. That he would do
so eventually she had no doubt. Men like him never love but once, she
reasoned, and he had loved her, and by and by he would write to her, or
she would meet him somewhere in Europe on his way from Japan. But he did
not write, nor did she meet him, nor see his name in the American
Register, or on the books of any hotel where she stopped, and she began
to long more and more for some news of him and to think she had never
loved him as much as she did now, when he might be lost to her. Their
stay abroad was prolonged into the second year, and she heard nothing of
him except that he was still in California, and that the Ralston House
in Oak City and the Boston house on Commonwealth Avenue were closed. At
last, when she could bear it no longer, she wrote him a letter, which,
had he loved her still, would have thrilled him with ecstasy. But
between the past and present there was a gulf in which he had buried all
she ever had been to him so deep that it could not be resurrected had
there been no Elithe.
“Poor Clarice. I hope she will never know I received this,” he said,
tearing the letter in strips and burning them with a lighted match over
the cuspidor.
Then he went back to Elithe and thought how glad he was that she was
there with him instead of Clarice. The salle-a-manger was nearly full
when he entered it, and, taking his usual seat at the table near the
centre of the room, noticed that two chairs opposite him were vacant.
Remembering that the parties who had been sitting there when he went to
Fontainebleau had told him they were to leave that day, he thought no
more about it, and paid no attention when the waiter seated two ladies
there until an exclamation from Elithe made him look up to meet the eyes
of Mrs. Percy and Clarice. They had come that afternoon on the same
train with Paul and Elithe, but in their second-class compartment had
known nothing of the first-class passengers. They had spent a great deal
of money and their funds were growing so alarmingly small that economy
had become a necessity. Mrs. Percy had suggested going at once to a
pension, but Clarice objected. They would be registered at the Grand and
then go where they liked, if necessary. Paul would certainly write soon.
There might be a letter from him now at Munroe’s, where she had told him
to direct, or possibly he was on his way to her, and then farewell to
second-class cars, cheap pensions and the poky little rooms _au
cinquiene_, in one of which she found herself at the Grand Hotel. She
was hot and tired and decided not to change her dress for table d’hôte.
“I don’t suppose there’s a soul here we know,” she said, as she bathed
her face and brushed her hair and then started for the dining salon.
At first she paid no attention to those around her and was studying the
menu when Elithe’s exclamation made her look up.
“Paul!” she exclaimed, half rising from her chair, “Paul, I am so glad.”
The sight of Elithe closed her lips and sent the blood to her face until
it was scarlet with surprise and pain. It did not need Paul’s words, “My
wife,—Mrs. Ralston,” to tell her the truth, and the smile with which she
greeted Mrs. Ralston was pitiful in the extreme. Elithe, whom she had
thought infinitely beneath her, was Paul’s wife and looking so
beautiful, while she sat there dowdy and soiled and so wretched that to
shriek aloud would have been a relief. But the proprieties must be
maintained, and she tried to seem natural, talking a great deal and
laughing a great deal, but never deceiving Paul. He knew her well, and
was sorry for her. When dinner was over he asked her and her mother to
go with him to their salon, but Clarice declined. She was very tired,
she said, and her head was aching badly. Throwing herself upon her bed
when she reached her room, she wished herself dead and wondered what
chance had sent her there and how Paul could have turned from her to
Elithe.
“If I had written earlier and he had received my letter in time he would
have come to me,” she thought.
There was some comfort in that and in the belief that she still had
power to move him. She had reason to change her mind within a few days.
Yielding to Paul’s and Elithe’s solicitations, she and her mother went
with them to the opera, the Bois, the Luxembourg,—to Bignon’s and St.
Germain,—Paul always insisting upon paying the bills and saying: “You
know you are my guests.”
Once, as they were standing alone on the Terrace at St. Germain Clarice
said to him, “Paul, I must tell you how sorry I am for the course I took
in your trouble. I ought to have known you were innocent. At first, I
did think so, but the testimony was so strong that I could not help
believing it was an accident and I wondered you did not say so. Still, I
might have done differently,—might have shown you what I really felt. I
was not as heartless as I seemed and I was so glad when I heard of your
acquittal, and how the people lionized you. We were in Florence when the
news reached us, and I was foolish enough to hope you would write to me,
although I didn’t deserve it. At last I wrote to you. I suppose you
never received my letter. I hope you never will, for I said some foolish
things in it. If you do get it, I am sure you will tear it up unread.”
He could not tell her he had received the letter. That would have been
too cruel, and he said, “I think you can trust me, Clarice. I shall
always be your friend. I have no hard feelings against you. How can I
have when I am so very, very happy?”
He was looking in the direction of Elithe, with an expression which told
Clarice that she no longer held a place in his affection, and the pallor
on her face deepened as she realized all she had lost. A few days later
the Ralstons left for Switzerland and the Percys crossed the channel to
England, where they were to spend a week and then sail for America.
Clarice was very tired of foreign travel and her mother was glad to go
home. Their house in Washington had been re-rented for a second year and
the question arose as to where they should live in the interim.
“There’s our cottage in Oak City. We can go there if you think you can
endure it,” Mrs. Percy suggested.
For a moment Clarice made no reply. The loss of Paul had hurt her
cruelly, but she was too proud to let any one know that she cared. She
would go there and show them she did not need their pity, she said, and,
towards the last of August, the Percy cottage was again opened and made
ready for Clarice and her mother.