Campbell offered to take me to see it. He was in one of his placative
moods just then, and thought he would please me by this. But I declined
the invitation. I did that because I meant to run away and join that
circus, and I wanted him to think I cared nothing about a circus, so
that he shouldn’t look for me among the show people. I still had the
horse he had bought from the Indians and given to me, so that I could
take that without being accused of horse-stealing. The horse was a
tough, wiry fellow, who liked nothing so much as to run with all his
might. I think he could have travelled at half-speed for twenty or
thirty miles without growing tired.
One night, while the circus was in the town, I mounted my horse just
after dark and set off for a ride. As I often rode for half the night,
I knew Campbell would think nothing of my doing this. As soon as I was
well away from the house, I turned into the road that led to the town,
and put my horse—Little Chief—at a rapid gallop. Within less than two
hours, I reached the town. Just before getting there, I turned Little
Chief loose, set his head toward the ranch, and bade him “scamper.” I
had taught him always to go to his stable as quickly as possible when
I said that word “scamper” to him. This time I had removed the blanket
from his back and the bridle from his head. I knew, therefore, he would
be found in his stall next morning with nothing on him to show that he
had been ridden.
As soon as Little Chief had started on his scamper, I turned and walked
into the town. The circus performance was not quite over, so I went to
the door of the big tent and told the man there that I wanted to see
the proprietor of the show on important business. I hadn’t a cent of
money, so I didn’t expect to go in. But the man at the door politely
invited me to enter and see the end of the show. For a moment I thought
of accepting his invitation, but then I remembered that all the
ranch-men for twenty miles round would be there, and that they all knew
me by sight as “that wild gal of Campbell’s.” I didn’t want any of them
to see me at the circus, lest they should tell of it when the search
for me began. So I told the man that I would not go in, and asked him
where and how I could see the owner of the show after the performance.
He called a man and told him to take me to “the Lady Superior, in the
dressing-tent.” I found out presently that all the people in the circus
called the manager’s wife by that name, and the manager they called
“the Grand Panjandrum.” In fact, they had a nickname of some sort for
every one in authority.
The Lady Superior received me as a queen might. She had just been
riding around the ring in a red and gold chariot drawn by six white
horses, and playing Cleopatra in what they called “the magnificent
and gorgeous historical panorama of human splendour.” As Cleopatra,
Napoleon, Alexander the Great, George Washington, Genghis Khan, Julius
Cæsar, and a great many others took part in the spectacle, the people
in the audience must have got their notions of history considerably
mixed up, but at any rate the Lady Superior always seemed to enjoy her
part, and particularly her gorgeous raiment. I had a hard time trying
not to laugh in her face when I was first presented to her on that
night. She was still dressed in her robe of flaming, high-coloured
silk, trimmed with ermine and spangles, with her crown still on her
head, and she was almost greedily eating a dish of beef à la mode with
roast onions. But in spite of her gorgeous apparel and her defective
grammar, she proved to be a good-natured creature, and she received me
very kindly.
I told her what I could do as a bareback rider, and she took me to her
hotel in her carriage as soon as she had put on some plain clothes.
I told her that I didn’t want anybody in that town to see me, so she
drove up to a back door of the little tavern and smuggled me into
her room. I remember that the tavern was a little two-story, wooden
building, with the inside partition walls made of rough boards set on
end so loosely that one could see through the cracks into the next
room. But it was called the Transcontinental Hotel, and the painter had
found some difficulty in getting the big name into one line across the
narrow front of the building.
In her room the Lady Superior gave me some supper, she eating with me
as heartily as if she had not had a dish of beef à la mode with roast
onions less than half an hour before. She explained to me that the
circus people never take their supper till after the performance.
“It makes ’em lazy and not up to their work,” she said.
When her husband, the Grand Panjandrum, came in, she introduced me to
him and told him about my accomplishments.
He slapped his thigh with his palm and exclaimed:—
“That’s superb! We’ve just lost Mademoiselle Fifine, our ‘matchless
female equestrienne,’ and as we have advertised her everywhere, the
audiences are threatening to shoot me every time I go into the ring
as clown. You see, audiences don’t like to be disappointed. I’ll let
you show me your paces in the morning, and if you can do the stunts, I
shall engage you, and you shall appear as Mademoiselle Fifine to-morrow
afternoon and evening.”
I objected that I mustn’t be seen in that town, lest I be recognised,
whereupon he broke into a laugh and exclaimed:—
“Recognised! Why, your own mother won’t know you when the dresser gets
you into Mademoiselle Fifine’s finery, and daubs your face with grease
paint, and plasters it with powder. Bridget’s clothes will just fit
you.”
“Who is Bridget?” I asked, as I had not heard of that person before.
The manager laughed, and answered:—
“Bridget? Why, she was Mademoiselle Fifine, you know. She wasn’t well
up to the business, but she was plucky and took risks, so she got
a very bad fall that broke her up, and she had to quit and go to a
hospital. She was a good girl, and I am paying her expenses. If she
don’t die of her injuries, I’ll pay her board somewhere as long as she
lives. For she will never ride again.”
Then a sudden thought occurred to the Grand Panjandrum.
“Tell you what, Sis,” he said. “Why can’t we drive down to the tent,
and you let me see you ride a little to-night? You see, it will be a
sort of life insurance to me; for if we give the show again without
Fifine in it, some o’ them wild Texans will shoot me, like as not. If
you can do the trick, I’ll get a printer to work, and early in the
morning we’ll come out with a flaming announcement of ‘The Return of
Mademoiselle Fifine, the Matchless Equestrienne of the Universe,’ and
you can go into the ring at the afternoon performance.”
I didn’t like the lies he intended to tell, and I said so. I wanted
him to give me some other ring name, but he said that all his big,
coloured posters had Mademoiselle’s name on them, with coloured
pictures of her on horseback, and that he couldn’t afford to throw the
posters away, even if there had been any printers in Texas who could
make new ones, as there were not.
“Besides,” he added, “you’ll be Mademoiselle Fifine, just as much as
Bridget was. Everybody knows that the name is fictitious. All they want
is to see good riding, and if you can’t ride as well as poor Bridget
did, I couldn’t think of engaging you.”
I had to consent, and indeed I saw that there was really no deception
to be practised. So the Grand Panjandrum and the Lady Superior and I
sent for the carriage and drove back to the circus tent, which was dark
now, except for the dim light of a few watchmen’s lanterns. I went to
the dressing-room and put on some of Fifine’s riding-clothes—not those
she wore in the presence of the audience, but a plain practice gown of
black. Meanwhile the manager had made the men light up a little and
bring out some horses.
I mounted and rode a little, doing my very best, though I was
extremely nervous for fear that I should not prove to be acceptable.
I suppose I rode a good deal better than Bridget had done, for
the manager, his wife, and all the men in the ring seemed greatly
delighted. I ended by throwing some somersaults, and that set them
almost wild. The manager engaged me on the spot, making me sign the
contract in the dressing-room tent before I had changed my clothing.
Then he hurried me back to the tavern, registered me as Mademoiselle
Fifine, writing the name in a big hand all across the page, and ordered
me to bed.
“You mustn’t be nervous at your first performance,” he said; “so you
must get plenty of sleep.”
When it came time to go to the circus, I was surprised to find that a
special carriage, drawn by two large, white horses with long, flowing
tails, had been provided for me. I learned afterward that this was
one of the Grand Panjandrum’s devices for advertising his “matchless
equestrienne.” It gave the people the impression that Mademoiselle
Fifine was a person of so much consequence that she must be treated
like a queen, and it led to many wild, exaggerated stories of the
royal salary the manager had to pay in order to secure so distinguished
an “artiste.” It was popularly believed that “ten thousand a year
wouldn’t touch her”; that she had her own carriage and coachman and
footman and maid, and always the finest rooms in the hotel. My salary,
in fact, was fifty dollars a month, and the “coachman” was one of the
ring attendants. But I did have the best rooms in all the hotels. The
Grand Panjandrum insisted upon that, and he did it rather noisily, too,
complaining that the hotels really had no rooms fit for such a person
to live in. All this was advertising, of course, but at any rate I was
made as comfortable as could be.
I succeeded very well indeed in the bareback riding, and at my
suggestion the manager sent an agent to Campbell’s ranch and bought
the five or six horses there that I had trained. I soon drilled them
to perform little acts in the ring which seemed to please the public.
For this the manager added ten dollars a month to my salary. He and his
wife were always very good to me, but some of the actors in the circus
seemed jealous of the attention shown me and of the applause I got. I
was already miserable, because I hated the business and especially my
own part of it.
The whole thing seemed to me vulgar, and the people I had to associate
with were very coarse. But what could I do? Anything was better than
being Campbell’s daughter, and the circus gave me a living at the least.
Chapter the Fifteenth
I DID not remain long with the circus—not more than four or five
months, I think—before Campbell found out where I was and came after
me. If the manager had been a man of any courage, I should have refused
to go with Campbell. But when Campbell threatened him with all sorts
of lawsuits and prosecutions, he agreed to discharge me. Even then I
should not have gone with Campbell if I could have got the money due
me for my riding. But after the first month the manager had paid me
almost nothing, on the plea of bad business (though his tent was always
packed), and as he was paying all my expenses except for my plain
clothes, I hadn’t pressed him for the money. He owed me nearly two
hundred dollars when Campbell came, and I asked him for it, meaning to
run away and find some other employment. But Campbell told him he was
my father and my guardian, and that the money must be paid to him and
not to me. The manager weakly yielded, and so I hadn’t enough money
even to pay a railroad fare.
Under the circumstances, there was nothing for me to do but go with
Campbell. He had sold the ranch, and was now keeping a big wholesale
store in the city of Austin. He had built a very big house, and had a
great many negro servants in it. Soon after I got to Austin, Campbell’s
store was burned, and I thought at first that he was ruined. But he
seemed richer after that than ever. My mother told me it was the
insurance money, and a good many people used to think he had burned the
store himself. There was a lawsuit about it, but Campbell won.
One day I concluded to have a talk with him. I asked him why he wanted
to keep me with him, and why he wouldn’t give me the money I had earned
in the circus, and let me go away.
He laughed at me, and told me it was because he didn’t choose to have
his daughter riding in a circus. So I got no satisfaction out of him
then. But in the letter he sent me in the bundle of papers that
Colonel Kilgariff brought me, he explained the matter. It was because
he feared I would get somebody else to be my guardian, and any new
guardian would come upon him for the stocks and bonds my father had
given me. Campbell had sold all of them that he could, and was using
the money himself.
After a while, Campbell became interested in some kind of business—I
don’t know what—out in Arizona; and when he had to go out there to
stay for several months, he broke up his house in Austin, and took
my mother and me with him. We lived in tents on the journey, and
Campbell grew very uneasy after a time, because there were reports of
a threatened Indian war. Still, we travelled on, until at last we got
among the Indians themselves. They were very angry about something,
but Campbell seemed to know how to deal with them, in some measure at
least. But presently the war broke out in earnest, and Campbell told my
mother he was completely ruined, as he had put all his money into the
business, and this Indian war had destroyed it.
One day he had a parley with a big Indian chief, and that night he
took my mother and went away somewhere, leaving me in the tent alone.
About midnight a band of Indians came to the tent, howling like so many
demons. They took me and carried me away on one of their horses.
I was greatly frightened, but I pretended not to be, and the Indians
liked me for that. They always like people who are not afraid. They
treated me well—or at any rate they did me no harm—but they carried
me away to their camp, where all their squaws and children were; for
they were on the war-path now, and Indians always take their families
with them when they go to war.
When I found that they were not disposed to treat me badly I was almost
glad they had captured me; for at least they had taken me away from
Campbell, and I liked them much better than I did him.
In the letter Campbell sent me by Colonel Kilgariff, he told me that
he had himself planned my capture by the Indians. He had arranged it
with the chief when he had the parley with him; and when he went away
with my mother, leaving me in the tent alone, he knew the Indians
were to catch me that night. He wanted them to get me because then I
couldn’t get another guardian, and he thought I could never come back
to trouble him about my money when I grew up. I don’t know why he wrote
all these things to me, except that he was dying and wanted me to know
the whole story. He sent me back all my papers, so that I might some
day get what was left of the property my father had given me. Among
other things, he told me that my father was dead, and that he himself
had killed him in a fight.
Chapter the Sixteenth
I STAYED with the Indians for several months—as long as the war
lasted. It was then that I lived on buffalo meat alone, with no other
food. Finally the soldiers conquered the Indians and forced them to go
back on their reservation. Then Campbell came to see if I was still
alive, and, finding me, he took me with him to New York, where he was
practising law and doing something in a bank. That lasted a year or so.
Nothing ever lasted long with Campbell. But when he left New York and
went to Missouri to live, he seemed to have plenty of money again.
Soon afterward, this war came on, and Campbell raised a company, got
himself appointed its captain, and went into the Confederate service.
After a while, he came home on a leave of absence. He and my mother had
been on very bad terms for a long time, and things seemed worse than
ever.
One day, when he had been drinking a good deal, he insulted my mother
frightfully, and she turned upon him at last, saying she intended
to expose his rascalities and “bring him to book”—that was her
phrase—for embezzling my property.
Dorothy, I can’t tell you all about that scene. I was so shocked and
frightened that it gives me a nightmare even now to recall it. Campbell
_killed my mother by choking her to death in my presence_!
As I was the only person who saw him do it, I think he would have
killed me, too, if I had not run from him. As it was, he followed me
presently, and with a pistol in his hand told me I must go with him,
adding that if I ever told anybody what had happened he would kill me.
He took off his uniform and put on a suit of citizen’s clothing. Then
he made me mount a horse, he mounting another, and we rode all night.
In the morning we were in a Federal camp.
I don’t know what Campbell told the Federal officers, but he satisfied
them somehow, and, taking me with him, he went East. He put me in
charge of a very ugly old woman and her daughter, somewhere up in the
mountains of Pennsylvania, not near any town or even village. Then he
went away, and for three years I lived with those people, practically
a prisoner. They never for a moment let me out of their sight, and at
night I had to sleep in an upper room, a kind of loft, which had no
window and no door—nothing but a trap-door over the stairs. Every
night the younger woman closed the trap-door, fastening it below. The
two women slept in the room beneath.
If I could have got away, I should have gone, even if I had been
obliged to go into the woods and starve. For the women treated me
horribly, and I could not forget the scene when my mother was killed.
I thought of her always as she lay there on the floor, dead, with her
face purple and—I can’t write about that.
Once I tried to escape. By hard work I made a hole in the roof above
me, one night, and tried to climb up to it. But I missed my hold and
fell heavily to the floor. That brought the two women up the stairs,
and after that they took away every stitch of my clothing every night
before I went to bed, not leaving me even a nightgown. So I made no
further efforts to escape.
But I set to work in another way. I had learned that Campbell was now
an officer in the Federal army, and I managed to find out how to reach
him with a letter, so I wrote to him. I told him I intended to have him
hanged for killing my mother, and that it didn’t matter how long he
kept me in the mountains; that some time or other, sooner or later, I
should get free; and that whenever that time came, I meant to go to a
lawyer and tell him all about the crime.
I knew that this would make Campbell uneasy. I thought it not
improbable that he would come up into the mountains and kill me, though
I thought he might be afraid to do that. You see, when he killed my
mother there was nobody but me to tell about it, and he knew he could
go to the other side in the war and not be followed; while if he should
do anything to me up there in the Pennsylvania mountains, everybody
would know of it. For in that country everybody knew when a stranger
came into the neighbourhood, and when he went away again. So I thought
Campbell would be afraid to kill me there. I thought my letter would
frighten him, and that he would take me away from that place. That was
what I wanted. I thought that if I were taken to any other place, I
should have a better chance of escaping.
Chapter the Seventeenth
THAT was not long before you saw me, Dorothy, and it turned out as
I had expected. Campbell grew alarmed. He ordered the two women to
bring me to him in Washington. When I got there, he told me that I had
relatives in Virginia who wanted me to come to them, and that he had
arranged to send me through the lines under a flag of truce. I know now
that he was not telling me the truth, but I believed him then, and I
was ready to do anything and go anywhere if only I could get out of his
clutches.
He took me into another room, where an officer was writing, and there
they made me swear to a parole. Then Campbell took me down to the
Rapidan, and we went into that house from which Colonel Kilgariff
rescued me. Campbell said that the flag of truce would start from
there, but that we must wait there for the soldiers in charge of it to
come.
When the shells struck the house and set it on fire, Campbell took me
to the cellar and left me there, saying that he would be back in a few
minutes, and that there was no danger in the cellar. I know now what
his intention was. He expected me to be burned to death there in the
cellar, and it would have happened that way, but for Colonel Kilgariff.
There, Dorothy, dear: now you know all about me that I know about
myself.
_The End of Evelyn’s Book._
XXIX
EVELYN’S VIGIL
EVELYN BYRD’S exceeding truthfulness of mind and soul made her a
transparent person for loving eyes to look through, and Edmonia
Bannister’s eyes were very loving ones for her.
When she went to Branton for her ten days’ visit, Evelyn herself
scarcely knew why she wished thus to separate herself from Kilgariff;
but she went with a subconscious determination to avoid all mention of
his name. She could hardly have adopted a surer means of revealing her
state of mind to so wise and so experienced a woman as Edmonia.
After much thought upon the subject, Edmonia sent a little note to
Dorothy. In it she wrote:—
You have never said a word to me on the subject, Dorothy, but I
am certain that you know what the situation is between Evelyn and
Kilgariff. So do I, now, and I am not satisfied to have it so.
Unless you peremptorily forbid, I am going to bring on a crisis
between those two. I am going to tell Evelyn what Kilgariff has done
for her in the matter of this trust fund. When she knows that, there
will be a scene of some sort between them, and I think we may trust
love and human nature to bring it to a happy conclusion.
If you will recall what occurred when the trust papers were executed
and given to us three, you will remember that no promise of secrecy
was exacted of us. It is true we quite understood that we were to say
nothing to Evelyn about the matter until the proper time should come;
but we three are sole judges as to what is the proper time, and Agatha
and I are both of the opinion that the proper time is now. Unless you
interpose your veto, therefore, I shall act upon that opinion, making
myself spokeswoman for the trio.
Please send me a line in a hurry.
To this Dorothy replied by the messenger who had brought the note. She
wrote but a single sentence, and that was a Biblical quotation. She
wrote:—
Now is the accepted time: behold, now is the day of salvation.
On the evening before the day appointed for Evelyn’s return to
Wyanoke, Dorothy received a second note from Edmonia, saying:—
I don’t know whether we have done wisely or otherwise. For once Evelyn
is inscrutable. We have told her of Kilgariff’s splendid generosity,
and we can’t make out how she takes it. She has grown very silent and
somewhat nervous. She is under a severe emotional strain of some kind,
but of what kind we do not know. A storm of some sort is brewing, and
we must simply wait to learn what its character is to be.
Evelyn is proud and exceedingly sensitive, as we know. And there
is a touch of the savage in her—or rather the potentiality of the
savage—and in a case where she feels so strongly, it may result in an
outbreak of savage anger and resentment.
We needn’t worry, however, I think. Even such an outbreak would in all
probability turn out well. Every storm passes, you know; and when the
clouds clear away, the skies are all the bluer for it. When a man and
a woman love each other and don’t know it, or don’t let each other
know it, any sort of crisis, any sort of emotional collision, is apt
to bring about a favourable result.
Evelyn spent that evening in her room, writing incessantly, far into
the night.
She wrote a letter to Kilgariff. When she read it over, she tore it up.
“It reads as if I were angry,” she said to herself, “and anger is not
exactly what I feel. I wonder what I do feel.”
Then she wrote another letter to Kilgariff, and put it aside, meaning
to read it after a while. In the meantime she wrote long and lovingly
to Dorothy, telling her she had decided not to return to Wyanoke, but
to go to Petersburg instead, and help in nursing the soldiers.
When she had read that letter over, she was wholly unsatisfied with
it. Written words are apt to mean so much more or so much less than is
intended. She put it aside and took up the one to Kilgariff. As she
read it, it seemed even more unsatisfactory than the first.
“It is too humble in parts, and too proud in parts,” she thought.
Again she set to work and wrote both letters once more. The result was
worse than before. The letters seemed to ring with a false note, and
above all things she was determined to meet this crisis in her life
with absolute truth and candour. Besides, she not only wanted to utter
her thought to Kilgariff—she wanted to hear what he might have to say
in reply, and she wanted to see his face as he spoke, reading there far
more important things than any that he could put into a letter.