In thinking of the Yosemite, Angela had, half-unconsciously, pictured
herself and Nick Hilliard alone in the valley together, separated from
"mere tourists" by a kind of magic wall. But down it tumbled with her
first moment at El Portal; and behold, on the other side of the wall were
hundreds of eager young men and women who no doubt resented her existence
as much as she resented theirs.
The huge veranda of the log-built hotel, on the hill above the railway,
swarmed with brides and bridegrooms. It was extremely early in the
morning, and everybody was sleepy, even those who had passed their night
in the hotel, not in the train; nevertheless, though good-natured, one and
all wore an air of square-chinned, indomitable determination which puzzled
Angela.
Something was evidently about to happen, something of immense importance,
for which each man with all his feminine belongings intended to be ready
if possible before any one else. Angela watched the silent preparations
with impersonal interest while she waited for Hilliard to come from the
office and tell her about the special carriage for which he had
telegraphed.
By this time a hasty breakfast had been snatched, and in a crowded
dining-room full of laughter and chattering she had resigned herself to
the falling of the magic wall. Other people had a right to enjoy the
Yosemite and she must not grudge them their place. "I suppose," she said
to Kate, who stood beside her on the veranda, "that all these nice girls
and men are going off for different excursions. They seem a good deal
excited. I wonder why?"
Just then a stage drawn by four splendid horses drove up the veranda
steps. Something was shouted. Angela could not catch the announcement, for
she had all she could do not to be carried off her feet in the general
rush. A dozen of the firm-faced men and resolute girls made a dash for the
box seat. With no malice in their eyes, they fought and wrestled with each
other; and it was a case of the best man wins. Those worsted in the
struggle with the utmost good-nature contented themselves with the next
best places; and so on to the back seat, into which the weakest fell,
almost before the driver had brought his horses to a full stop. Away tore
the stage with its laughing load, and another vehicle whirled up to the
hotel steps, to be filled in a breathless instant.
As Angela stood watching, fascinated yet appalled, Nick came out to her,
with the air of a general who has lost a battle.
"How glad I am," she whispered, "that we haven't got to fight for our
lives like that. I simply couldn't do it."
"Mrs. May, we _have_ got to!" he groaned. "I've failed, after all my
boastings of what I could do for you in the Yosemite. A private carriage
can't be had, and they've made a rule that no one's allowed to book a seat
in advance. When the stage for the Sentinel Hotel comes along, I shall
swing you on to the box seat, if I kill ten men."
Angela rebelled. She pitied herself so intensely that she had no
compassion left for Nick. "What--dash people away, and push ahead of them?
I'd rather--yes, I'd rather turn back to San Francisco."
"I don't see myself letting you turn back," said Nick. And said it so
firmly that Angela, never opposed by him before, looked up in surprise. He
was not smiling. Evidently he was in earnest, deadly earnest. She knew
that what he told her she would have to do, and, oddly enough, she grew
quite calm.
"When our stage comes along," he said in a low voice, "I shall get in
before any one else, and keep a place for you. Don't hesitate a second,
but be ready for a jump. I'll have you up by my side before you know
what's happened. Kate must be close behind, and I'll try to swing her up
to the next seat."
"Why shouldn't _we_ have the back places, since somebody must?" Angela
questioned meekly.
"Because I want you to have the best there is, and I'm going to get it for
you, that's the only reason," Nick explained, leaving no room for further
argument. "It's the least I owe you, after failing to keep my other
promises."
She said no more; and round her the fight for places went on, desperate,
yet extraordinarily good-natured. People tried with all their might to
grab what they coveted, but if somebody else snatched it from under their
noses, why, blame Kismet! The rule of the game was to make no moan.
Always, as a new relay surged forward, Nick by some insidious manoeuvre
edged Angela and Kate nearer to the front. At last he got them wedged
behind the foremost row of travellers who were waiting to spring upon and
overwhelm an approaching stage. Those who had won the way to the front and
achieved safety, unless defeated by an unexpected rear attack, wore an
appearance of deceitful calm. Two extremely big young men, who had the air
of footballers in training, did what they could to form a hollow square
round a couple of fragile but determined girls. The party, while in
reality bent upon securing the two best seats at any cost to life or limb,
pretended to be looking at an illustrated newspaper. This feint was
intended to put others off their guard; and the four concealed their
emotions by discussing the pictures on the uppermost page.
A name spoken by one of the girls was an electric shock for Angela. In an
instant the veranda, the crowd on it, and the stage whose turn would come
next, vanished from before her eyes like a dissolving view.
"Prince di Sereno! What a romantic name. And say, _isn't_ he handsome? I
wonder if he's as good-looking as that, really?"
"She's handsome, too," the other girl added. "I do hope they won't be
killed."
"Come along, kids--look sharp!" said the two young men. And before others
who hoped to annex the box seat could breathe after an interlude of
footballing, the conquering four secured what they wanted. Those less
fortunate were tumbling up as best they could; and Angela had scarcely
time to realize that she had not dreamed the incident, when the stageload
had bounced away.
She was left dazed, and blushing deeply, so deeply that Nick, quick to
notice lights and shadows on her face, wondered what match had lit that
rosy fire.
Angela's first thought was that somehow she had been found out. Then she
remembered that the girls had seen the name in a newspaper. Also they had
been looking at Paolo's picture. And he _could_ be handsome--in a picture.
But of whom had they said, "She's handsome, too?" Could it be that her own
photograph had been published with Paolo's? If so, who had dared to
reproduce it, and why? What if Nick should come across the picture and
recognize the face as hers? She did not want him to know that she was the
Princess di Sereno until, for her own reasons and in her own time, she
should choose to tell him the story of her life. Once she had thought
there was no reason why he need ever know; that they would part, and she
would remain in his memory as Angela May. Now, however, she began to see
that the moment must come when she would not only need, but wish, to tell
him all, so that he might know why. But she never quite finished this
explanation in her mind. It was too fond of trying to finish itself
without waiting to be put into words.
She was a little frightened now, lest by chance there should be a
premature revelation, for in the rush to get away the girls dropped the
paper they had been reading. It lay on the veranda steps, and though the
cover was turned back, and only an advertisement page could be seen,
Angela discovered that it was the _Illustrated London News_.
Perhaps the page which lay face down was the page of the photograph. She
half longed, half dreaded that a flutter of wind or a passing foot might
turn the paper over. What could the girl have meant by saying, "I hope
they won't be killed?"
Could Angela have read Theo Dene's mind the day at Santa Barbara, this
picture and paragraph would have been less mysterious to her. "I wonder if
Mrs. May _knows about the Prince_?" Theo had asked herself.
"There's an English paper on the step," said Nick, following the direction
of her eyes. "Does it make you homesick? If it does, I'll put in a claim
to it. There may be time for you to glance it over before the right stage
turns up."
"No, no," said Angela, hastily. "I don't want the paper. And oh, look, it
says 'Sentinel' on this stage that's coming."
The next thing she knew, she was swaying between earth and heaven, over
heads that surged beneath her. Somehow, Nick had got that place on the box
seat, and he was beside her, resolutely helping Kate on to the high step.
Suddenly, however, Timmy's covered basket flew open. Kate had been playing
with the cat, and had forgotten to fasten Tim in. Resenting the confusion,
Timmy made a leap, Kate screamed and jumped down from the stage, carrying
not only the cat's basket, but a small dressing-bag of Angela's--all she
had brought, except a suit-case containing a dress or two for the journey.
Some one else had, of course, scrambled into the coveted seat so
miraculously vacated, and the stage, with its full complement of
passengers, went swinging down the road, with Kate and Timmy and the
dressing-bag left behind.
"Shall we try to stop?" Nick began; but Angela cut him short, her face now
as determined as those of the square-chinned girls who had passed
triumphantly on their way. "No!" she said. "I can't go through that again!
Kate will have to come on later."
"There'll be another 'Sentinel' stage in about an hour, I guess,"
announced the good-natured driver. "She'll be all right."
"She knows where we're going," said Angela. "She's a quick-witted girl,
and I shan't worry. I mean to be happy in spite of everything--and
_because_ of everything!"
So the stage rolled on into the gate of the Yosemite and Kate remained on
the veranda of the hotel at El Portal, consoling herself, when she had
retrieved Timmy, by looking at the pictures in the _Illustrated London
News_, an old number of a fortnight or three weeks ago. She found it so
interesting and absorbing, one page in particular, that when the next
coach bound for the Sentinel Hotel came along, she forgot to fight for a
place until it was too late to fight. There was not another stage bound
for that destination until to-morrow. And to-morrow Mrs. May and Hilliard
were going on somewhere else. Kate could not remember where.
Seeing her dismay, the manager of the hotel took pity on the pretty Irish
girl. "Never mind," said he. "You can 'phone from here to the Sentinel.
When your lady arrives there this afternoon, she'll find your message and
know what's happened. Then she can 'phone back what she wants you to do."
"But I won't get to her to-night, will I?" wailed Kate.
"No, you won't get to her to-night," he echoed. "But I guess she ain't so
helpless she can't do up her back hair without you, is she?"
"Her blouse buttons up behind," Kate murmured, as one murmurs in a painful
dream. "And, oh, by the powers, if I haven't got her nightgown in this
dressing-bag!"
Naturally the manager was not deeply interested in Mrs. May's nightgown.
As for Mrs. May herself, she was not yet conscious of the loss of it. She
was thinking, at first, about the pictures which she had not seen in the
_Illustrated London News_, and the girl's exclamation: "I hope they won't
be killed!" Then, later, of the valley through whose door she had just
entered with Nick Hilliard, the hidden valley which Indians knew and loved
long before a few cattle-seeking American soldiers ferreted out the
secret.
The voice of the Merced drowned the dull voice of the past which had
suddenly called to her. It was a gay laughing voice that sang among the
tumbled rocks sent down to the river for playthings, by her tall brothers
the mountains; and the voices of pines and cedars answered, all singing
the same high song in the same language--the language of Nature. Only,
they sang in different tones and different keys--soprano and contralto,
tenor and bass. The song was so sweet that no one could think of anything
else, unless it might be of love; for the song told of love, because
nature is love.
As the sun rose higher and warmed the air, the valley was like a great box
full of spices, such as the three Wise Men of the East carried for an
offering when they followed their Star; a secret, golden box was the
valley, high-sided, with a lid of turquoise and sapphire, which was the
sky itself.
The deep, still trout-pools of the Merced--bravest and strongest river of
the valley--were coloured like beds of purple pansies; or they were vivid
green, glinting with sparks of gold, like the wings of a Brazilian beetle.
Far down in the clear depths, Angela caught glimpses of darting fish,
swift as silver arrows shot from an unseen bow. And close to the sky, high
on the rocky sides of the Yosemite treasure-chest, were curiously traced
bas-reliefs, which might have been carved by a dead race of giants: heads
of elephants, profiles of Indians and Titanic tortoises, most of them
appropriately and whimsically named by ancient pioneers.
"The Yosemite!" Angela said, over and over to herself. "I'm in the
Yosemite Valley!"
Once, in the heart of a forest, a deer sprang out on to the road and stood
alert, quivering, as the stage lumbered heavily toward it through
sparkling red dust like powdered rubies. Then, suddenly, when the horses
were almost upon it, the delicate creature bounded away, vanishing among
the shadows which seemed to have given it birth, as a diving fish is
swallowed up by water and lost to sight. This vision lingered in Angela's
memory as one of the loveliest of the day; but the great cataracts did
their startling best, later, to paint out the earlier pictures.
Even the first slender forerunners of the mighty torrents were
unforgettable, and individual. Long, ethereal, floating white feathers
drooped from the heads of tremendous boulders that were gray with the
glossy grayness of old silver. Cascades were everywhere; and the weaving
of many diamond-skeins of water behind a dark foreground of motionless
trees was like the ceaseless play of human thought behind inscrutable
faces whose expression never changed.
Yet these silver tapestries, pearl-embroidered, were but the binding for
the Book of the Valley, the great poem of the waterfalls; and as the stage
brought them near the home of the mighty cataracts, Nick and Angela
noticed that the atmosphere became mysteriously different. The sky rolled
down a blue curtain, to trail on the floor of the valley, like a veil
suspended before an altar-piece. Through this curtain of exquisite
texture--bright as spun glass, transparent as star-sapphires, and faintly
shimmering--their gaze travelled toward soaring peaks and boulders, which
seemed to rise behind the sky instead of against it. Then, suddenly, out
gleamed the dome of the Bridal Veil, bright and high in the heavens as a
comet sweeping a glittering tail earthward.
Later, as the stage wound along the road and brought them under the wall
of the cataract, the rainbow diadem that pinned the topmost folds of the
veil glittered against the noonday sun; and in the lacy woof of moving
water, lovely kaleidoscopic patterns played with constant interchange of
flowery designs. Invisible fingers wove the bridal lace, beading with
diamonds the foliage of its design; or so Angela thought when first she
saw the falls. But presently she made a discovery--one which Nick had made
years ago, and kept the secret that Angela might have the joy of finding
it for herself.
"Why, it isn't a veil, after all!" she exclaimed.
"I know," said Nick. "That effect's only for the first few minutes, like a
stage curtain hiding the real thing."
"And the real thing is only for the elect, like us," said Angela,
conceitedly. "Outsiders can't get behind the curtain. Let me tell you what
I see."
"And if we see the same thing?"
"Why, it would be a sign that we'd been--friends in a former incarnation,
wouldn't it?" But this was a question to leave unanswered, and she went on
quickly to describe what she saw behind the "stage curtain" of the Bridal
Veil. "A white witch falling----"
"Yes, from the saddle of a black horse----"
"A winged horse, like those the Valkyries ride. Oh, now the witch has
turned her face to me, as she falls. She's putting me under a spell. I
feel I shall never escape."
"I hope you never will," said Nick. "So we _did_ see the same thing in the
Cascade! I found the falling witch when I was here before; but I came
under the spell with you."
He watched her face fearfully, as he ventured this, never having dared as
much before; and seeing that she turned away, he drew her attention to El
Capitan, grandest of the near mountains. Nick had been reading _The Cid_,
trying to "worry through it in the old Spanish," he explained; and the
idea had come into his head that the mountain might have been named by
some Spaniard for "El Gran Capitan." "You see, it's too big and important
for an everyday Captain. But it's just right for El Gran Capitan: don't
you think so?"
Angela did think so, as he suggested it, though she remembered next to
nothing about _The Cid_. But Nick's knowledge of history, which had
amazed her once, pleased without surprising her now. She began to take his
knowledge of most things for granted. Here in the Yosemite Valley he could
teach and show her much that she might have missed but for him, and his
similes showed habits of thought with which a few weeks ago she would not
have credited the ex-cowboy. He made the mountains take shape for her as
gods and heroes of Indian legends; he told her of the Three Graces, and
the Three Brothers, grim as gray monks, who threw glances over their round
shoulders at the Graces; and there was no drama or tragedy of the valley
that he did not know from its first act to the last.
In the afternoon the stage rushed them past a charming camp in the woods,
to the Sentinel Hotel, at the foot of the Yosemite Falls. Angela was given
a room opening on to a veranda, and waiting for Nick to bring her some
word from Kate, by telephone, she stood looking up at the immeasurable
height of the cataract, which loomed white across a brown sweep of
trout-haunted river. "It's like a perpendicular road of marble going up to
heaven," she thought; and as she gazed, down that precipice of snow came
tumbling a white shape as of a giant bear, striving desperately to save
itself, hanging for an instant on the brink of the vast gulf, then letting
go hopelessly and plunging over.
Angela stepped out on the veranda to talk with Hilliard when he came, and
though shocked to hear that Kate could not arrive that night, was glad to
know her safe. Nick had arranged that Kate should meet her mistress at
Glacier Point next day. "And so," he said, "there's nothing to bother
about, if you can do without her for this one night. I hope you don't
mind much, for I feel it was my fault. I ought to have managed better."
"I don't mind in the least," Angela was beginning to console him, when
suddenly she broke off with an "Oh!" of dismay, clasping her hands
together.
"What's the matter?" Nick questioned anxiously.
"Nothing. Nothing at all."
"But there is something, Mrs. May. You must tell me, and I'll try to make
it right."
"What shops are there here?" she asked by way of answer.
"Oh, you can buy photographs and souvenirs, and candy and drugs, I
expect."
Angela shook her head. "I don't want to buy them. Do you think--I could
find--a--a--nighty?"
"A 'nighty'?"
"A nightgown. You see, I've just remembered--the cascades and mountains
made me forget--my dressing-bag was left behind with Kate. I've a frock or
two, and the new khaki things for to-morrow, in my suit-case, but--nothing
else. Brushes and combs and so on, I can get here I'm sure. But--would the
shops--if any--run to nighties?"
"No," said Nick, gloomily. "I'm afraid they wouldn't, anyhow not the sort
that deserves a nice pet name like that. But--_I'll_ get you one."
"You can't," said Angela. "You can't create a 'nighty' or call it from the
vasty deep."
"That's what I mean to do: call one from the vasty deep; hook it up like a
rare fish."