“Readers of the 'Clarion' will have noticed that allusion has been
frequently made in these columns to certain rumors concerning the early
history of Tasajara which were supposed to affect the pioneer record of
Daniel Harcourt. It was deemed by the conductors of this journal to be
only consistent with the fearless and independent duty undertaken by the
'Clarion' that these rumors should be fully chronicled as part of the
information required by the readers of a first-class newspaper, unbiased
by any consideration of the social position of the parties, but simply
as a matter of news. For this the 'Clarion' does not deem it necessary
to utter a word of apology. But for that editorial comment or attitude
which the proprietors felt was justified by the reliable sources of
their information they now consider it only due in honor to themselves,
their readers, and Mr. Harcourt to fully and freely apologize. A patient
and laborious investigation enables them to state that the alleged facts
published by the 'Clarion' and copied by other journals are utterly
unsupported by testimony, and the charges--although more or less
vague--which were based upon them are equally untenable. We are now
satisfied that one 'Elijah Curtis,' a former pioneer of Tasajara who
disappeared five years ago, and was supposed to be drowned, has not only
made no claim to the Tasajara property, as alleged, but has given no
sign of his equally alleged resuscitation and present existence, and
that on the minutest investigation there appears nothing either in his
disappearance, or the transfer of his property to Daniel Harcourt,
that could in any way disturb the uncontested title to Tasajara or the
unimpeachable character of its present owner. The whole story now seems
to have been the outcome of one of those stupid rural hoaxes too common
in California.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Ashwood, laying aside the 'Clarion' with a skeptical
shrug of her pretty shoulders, as she glanced up at her brother; “I
suppose this means that you are going to propose again to the young
lady?”
“I have,” said Jack Shipley, “that's the worst of it--and got my answer
before this came out.”
“Jack!” said Mrs. Ashwood, thoroughly surprised.
“Yes! You see, Conny, as I told you three weeks ago, she said she wanted
time to consider,--that she scarcely knew me, and all that! Well, I
thought it wasn't exactly a gentleman's business to seem to stand off
after that last attack on her father, and so, last week, I went down
to San Jose, where she was staying, and begged her not to keep me in
suspense. And, by Jove! she froze me with a look, and said that with
these aspersions on her father's character, she preferred not to be
under obligations to any one.”
“And you believed her?”
“Oh, hang it all! Look here, Conny,--I wish you'd just try for once to
find out some good in that family, besides what that sentimental
young widower John Milton may have. You seem to think because they've
quarreled with HIM there isn't a virtue left among them.”
Far from seeming to offer any suggestion of feminine retaliation, Mrs.
Ashwood smiled sweetly. “My dear Jack, I have no desire to keep you from
trying your luck again with Miss Clementina, if that's what you mean,
and indeed I shouldn't be surprised if a family who felt a mesalliance
as sensitively as the Harcourts felt that affair of their son's, would
be as keenly alive to the advantages of a good match for their daughter.
As to young Mr. Harcourt, he never talked to me of the vices of his
family, nor has he lately troubled me much with the presence of his own
virtues. I haven't heard from him since we came here.”
“I suppose he is satisfied with the government berth you got for him,”
returned her brother dryly.
“He was very grateful to Senator Flynn, who appreciates his talents,
but who offered it to him as a mere question of fitness,” replied Mrs.
Ashwood with great precision of statement. “But you don't seem to know
he declined it on account of his other work.”
“Preferred his old Bohemian ways, eh? You can't change those fellows,
Conny. They can't get over the fascinations of vagabondage. Sorry your
lady-patroness scheme didn't work. Pity you couldn't have promoted him
in the line of his profession, as the Grand Duchess of Girolstein did
Fritz.”
“For Heaven's sake, Jack, go to Clementina! You may not be successful,
but there at least the perfect gentlemanliness and good taste of your
illustrations will not be thrown away.”
“I think of going to San Francisco tomorrow, anyway,” returned Jack with
affected carelessness. “I'm getting rather bored with this wild seaside
watering place and its glitter of ocean and hopeless background of
mountain. It's nothing to me that 'there's no land nearer than Japan'
out there. It may be very healthful to the tissues, but it's weariness
to the spirit, and I don't see why we can't wait at San Francisco till
the rains send us further south, as well as here.”
He had walked to the balcony of their sitting-room in the little seaside
hotel where this conversation took place, and gazed discontentedly over
the curving bay and sandy shore before him. After a slight pause Mrs.
Ashwood stepped out beside him.
“Very likely I may go with you,” she said, with a perceptible tone of
weariness. “We will see after the post arrives.”
“By the way, there is a little package for you in my room, that came
this morning. I brought it up, but forgot to give it to you. You'll find
it on my table.”
Mrs. Ashwood abstractedly turned away and entered her brother's room
from the same balcony. The forgotten parcel, which looked like a roll
of manuscript, was lying on his dressing-table. She gazed attentively at
the handwriting on the wrapper and then gave a quick glance around her.
A sudden and subtle change came over her. She neither flushed nor paled,
nor did the delicate lines of expression in her face quiver or change.
But as she held the parcel in her hand her whole being seemed to undergo
some exquisite suffusion. As the medicines which the Arabian physician
had concealed in the hollow handle of the mallet permeated the languid
royal blood of Persia, so some volatile balm of youth seemed to flow
in upon her with the contact of that strange missive and transform her
weary spirit.
“Jack!” she called, in a high clear voice. But Jack had already gone
from the balcony when she reached it with an elastic step and a quick
youthful swirl and rustling of her skirt. He was lighting his cigar in
the garden.
“Jack,” she said, leaning half over the railing, “come back here in an
hour and we'll talk over that matter of yours again.”
Jack looked up eagerly and as if he might even come up then, but she
added quickly, “In about an hour--I must think it over,” and withdrew.
She re-entered the sitting-room, shut the door carefully and locked it,
half pulled down the blind, walking once or twice around the table on
which the parcel lay, with one eye on it like a graceful cat. Then she
suddenly sat down, took it up with a grave practical face, examined the
postmark curiously, and opened it with severe deliberation. It contained
a manuscript and a letter of four closely written pages. She glanced at
the manuscript with bright approving eyes, ran her fingers through its
leaves and then laid it carefully and somewhat ostentatiously on the
table beside her. Then, still holding the letter in her hand, she rose
and glanced out of the window at her bored brother lounging towards the
beach and at the heaving billows beyond, and returned to her seat. This
apparently important preliminary concluded, she began to read.
There were, as already stated, four blessed pages of it! All vital,
earnest, palpitating with youthful energy, preposterous in premises,
precipitate in conclusions,--yet irresistible and convincing to every
woman in their illogical sincerity. There was not a word of love in it,
yet every page breathed a wholesome adoration; there was not an epithet
or expression that a greater prude than Mrs. Ashwood would have objected
to, yet every sentence seemed to end in a caress. There was not a
line of poetry in it, and scarcely a figure or simile, and yet it was
poetical. Boyishly egotistic as it was in attitude, it seemed to be
written less OF himself than TO her; in its delicate because unconscious
flattery, it made her at once the provocation and excuse. And yet so
potent was its individuality that it required no signature. No one but
John Milton Harcourt could have written it. His personality stood out of
it so strongly that once or twice Mrs. Ashwood almost unconsciously
put up her little hand before her face with a half mischievous,
half-deprecating smile, as if the big honest eyes of its writer were
upon her.
It began by an elaborate apology for declining the appointment offered
him by one of her friends, which he was bold enough to think had been
prompted by her kind heart. That was like her, but yet what she might
do to any one; and he preferred to think of her as the sweet and gentle
lady who had recognized his merit without knowing him, rather than the
powerful and gracious benefactress who wanted to reward him when she did
know him. The crown that she had all unconsciously placed upon his head
that afternoon at the little hotel at Crystal Spring was more to him
than the Senator's appointment; perhaps he was selfish, but he could not
bear that she who had given so much should believe that he could accept
a lesser gift. All this and much more! Some of it he had wanted to say
to her in San Francisco at times when they had met, but he could not
find the words. But she had given him the courage to go on and do the
only thing he was fit for, and he had resolved to stick to that, and
perhaps do something once more that might make him hear again her voice
as he had heard it that day, and again see the light that had shone in
her eyes as she sat there and read. And this was why he was sending her
a manuscript. She might have forgotten that she had told him a strange
story of her cousin who had disappeared--which she thought he might
at some time work up. Here it was. Perhaps she might not recognize it
again, in the way he had written it here; perhaps she did not really
mean it when she had given him permission to use it, but he remembered
her truthful eyes and believed her--and in any event it was hers to do
with what she liked. It had been a great pleasure for him to write it
and think that she would see it; it was like seeing her himself--that
was in HIS BETTER SELF--more worthy the companionship of a beautiful and
noble woman than the poor young man she would have helped. This was why
he had not called the week before she went away. But for all that, she
had made his life less lonely, and he should be ever grateful to her. He
could never forget how she unconsciously sympathized with him that day
over the loss that had blighted his life forever,--yet even then he did
not know that she, herself, had passed through the same suffering. But
just here the stricken widow of thirty, after a vain attempt to keep up
the knitted gravity of her eyebrows, bowed her dimpling face over
the letter of the blighted widower of twenty, and laughed so long and
silently that the tears stood out like dew on her light-brown eyelashes.
But she became presently severe again, and finished her reading of the
letter gravely. Then she folded it carefully, deposited it in a box on
her table, which she locked. After a few minutes, however, she unlocked
the box again and transferred the letter to her pocket. The serenity
of her features did not relax again, although her previous pretty
prepossession of youthful spirit was still indicated in her movements.
Going into her bedroom, she reappeared in a few minutes with a light
cloak thrown over her shoulders and a white-trimmed broad-brimmed hat.
Then she rolled up the manuscript in a paper, and called her French
maid. As she stood there awaiting her with the roll in her hand, she
might have been some young girl on her way to her music lesson.
“If my brother returns before I do, tell him to wait.”
“Madame is going”--
“Out,” said Mrs. Ashwood blithely, and tripped downstairs.
She made her way directly to the shore where she remembered there was
a group of rocks affording a shelter from the northwest trade winds.
It was reached at low water by a narrow ridge of sand, and here she had
often basked in the sun with her book. It was here that she now unrolled
John Milton's manuscript and read.
It was the story she had told him, but interpreted by his poetry and
adorned by his fancy until the facts as she remembered them seemed to
be no longer hers, or indeed truths at all. She had always believed
her cousin's unhappy temperament to have been the result of a moral and
physical idiosyncrasy,--she found it here to be the effect of a lifelong
and hopeless passion for herself! The ingenious John Milton had given a
poet's precocity to the youth whom she had only known as a suspicious,
moody boy, had idealized him as a sensitive but songless Byron, had
given him the added infirmity of pulmonary weakness, and a handkerchief
that in moments of great excitement, after having been hurriedly pressed
to his pale lips, was withdrawn “with a crimson stain.” Opposed to this
interesting figure--the more striking to her as she had been hitherto
haunted by the impression that her cousin during his boyhood had been
subject to facial eruption and boils--was her own equally idealized
self. Cruelly kind to her cousin and gentle with his weaknesses while
calmly ignoring their cause, leading him unconsciously step by step in
his fatal passion, he only became aware by accident that she nourished
an ideal hero in the person of a hard, proud, middle-aged practical
man of the world,--her future husband! At this picture of the late Mr.
Ashwood, who had really been an indistinctive social bon vivant, his
amiable relict grew somewhat hysterical. The discovery of her real
feelings drove the consumptive cousin into a secret, self-imposed exile
on the shores of the Pacific, where he hoped to find a grave. But the
complete and sudden change of life and scene, the balm of the wild woods
and the wholesome barbarism of nature, wrought a magical change in his
physical health and a philosophical rest in his mind. He married the
daughter of an Indian chief. Years passed, the heroine--a rich and
still young and beautiful widow--unwittingly sought the same medicinal
solitude. Here in the depth of the forest she encountered her former
playmate; the passion which he had fondly supposed was dead revived in
her presence, and for the first time she learned from his bearded lips
the secret of his passion. Alas! not SHE alone! The contiguous forest
could not be bolted out, and the Indian wife heard all. Recognizing the
situation with aboriginal directness of purpose, she committed suicide
in the fond belief that it would reunite the survivors. But in vain; the
cousins parted on the spot to meet no more.
Even Mrs. Ashwood's predilection for the youthful writer could not
overlook the fact that the denouement was by no means novel nor the
situation human, but yet it was here that she was most interested and
fascinated. The description of the forest was a description of the wood
where she had first met Harcourt; the charm of it returned, until she
almost seemed to again inhale its balsamic freshness in the pages before
her. Now, as then, her youth came back with the same longing and regret.
But more bewildering than all, it was herself that moved there, painted
with the loving hand of the narrator. For the first time she experienced
the delicious flattery of seeing herself as only a lover could see her.
The smallest detail of her costume was suggested with an accuracy that
pleasantly thrilled her feminine sense. The grace of her figure slowly
moving through the shadow, the curves of her arm and the delicacy of her
hand that held the bridle rein, the gentle glow of her softly rounded
cheek, the sweet mystery of her veiled eyes and forehead, and the
escaping gold of her lovely hair beneath her hat were all in turn
masterfully touched or tenderly suggested. And when to this was added
the faint perfume of her nearer presence--the scent she always used--the
delicate revelations of her withdrawn gauntlet, the bracelet clasping
her white wrist, and at last the thrilling contact of her soft hand on
his arm,--she put down the manuscript and blushed like a very girl. Then
she started.
A shout!--HIS voice surely!--and the sound of oars in their rowlocks.
An instant revulsion of feeling overtook her. With a quick movement she
instantly hid the manuscript beneath her cloak and stood up erect and
indignant. Not twenty yards away, apparently advancing from the opposite
shore of the bay, was a boat. It contained only John Milton, resting on
his oars and scanning the group of rocks anxiously. His face, which was
quite strained with anxiety, suddenly flushed when he saw her, and then
recognizing the unmistakable significance of her look and attitude,
paled once more. He bent over his oars again; a few strokes brought him
close to the rock.
“I beg your pardon,” he said hesitatingly, as he turned towards her and
laid aside his oars, “but--I thought--you were--in danger.”
She glanced quickly round her. She had forgotten the tide! The ledge
between her and the shore was already a foot under brown sea-water. Yet
if she had not thought that it would look ridiculous, she would have
leaped down even then and waded ashore.
“It's nothing,” she said coldly, with the air of one to whom the
situation was an everyday occurrence; “it's only a few steps and a
slight wetting--and my brother would have been here in a moment more.”
John Milton's frank eyes made no secret of his mortification. “I ought
not to have disturbed you, I know,” he said quickly, “I had no right.
But I was on the other shore opposite and I saw you come down here--that
is”--he blushed prodigiously--“I thought it MIGHT BE you--and I
ventured--I mean--won't you let me row you ashore?”
There seemed to be no reasonable excuse for refusing. She slipped
quickly into the boat without waiting for his helping hand, avoiding
that contact which only a moment ago she was trying to recall.
A few strokes brought them ashore. He continued his explanation with the
hopeless frankness and persistency of youth and inexperience. “I only
came here the day before yesterday. I would not have come, but Mr.
Fletcher, who has a cottage on the other shore, sent for me to offer
me my old place on the 'Clarion.' I had no idea of intruding upon your
privacy by calling here without permission.”
Mrs. Ashwood had resumed her conventional courtesy without however
losing her feminine desire to make her companion pay for the agitation
he had caused her. “We would have been always pleased to see you,” she
said vaguely, “and I hope, as you are here now, you will come with me to
the hotel. My brother”--
But he still retained his hold of the boat-rope without moving, and
continued, “I saw you yesterday, through the telescope, sitting in your
balcony; and later at night I think it was your shadow I saw near the
blue shaded lamp in the sitting-room by the window,--I don't mean the
RED LAMP that you have in your own room. I watched you until you put out
the blue lamp and lit the red one. I tell you this--because--because--I
thought you might be reading a manuscript I sent you. At least,” he
smiled faintly, “I LIKED to think it so.”
In her present mood this struck her only as persistent and somewhat
egotistical. But she felt herself now on ground where she could deal
firmly with him.
“Oh, yes,” she said gravely. “I got it and thank you very much for it. I
intended to write to you.”
“Don't,” he said, looking at her fixedly. “I can see you don't like it.”
“On the contrary,” she said promptly, “I think it beautifully written,
and very ingenious in plot and situation. Of course it isn't the story I
told you--I didn't expect that, for I'm not a genius. The man is not at
all like my cousin, you know, and the woman--well really, to tell the
truth, SHE is simply inconceivable!”
“You think so?” he said gravely. He had been gazing abstractedly at some
shining brown seaweed in the water, and when he raised his eyes to hers
they seemed to have caught its color.
“Think so? I'm positive! There's no such a woman; she isn't HUMAN. But
let us walk to the hotel.”
“Thank you, but I must go back now.”
“But at least let my brother thank you for taking his place--in rescuing
me. It was so thoughtful in you to put off at once when you saw I was
surrounded. I might have been in great danger.”
“Please don't make fun of me, Mrs. Ashwood,” he said with a faint
return of his boyish smile. “You know there was no danger. I have
only interrupted you in a nap or a reverie--and I can see now that you
evidently came here to be alone.”
Holding the manuscript more closely hidden under the folds of her cloak,
she smiled enigmatically. “I think I DID, and it seems that the tide
thought so too, and acted upon it. But you will come up to the hotel
with me, surely?”
“No, I am going back now.” There was a sudden firmness about the young
fellow which she had never before noticed. This was evidently the
creature who had married in spite of his family.
“Won't you come back long enough to take your manuscript? I will point
out the part I refer to, and--we will talk it over.”
“There is no necessity. I wrote to you that you might keep it; it is
yours; it was written for you and none other. It is quite enough for me
to know that you were good enough to read it. But will you do one thing
more for me? Read it again! If you find anything in it the second time
to change your views--if you find”--
“I will let you know,” she said quickly. “I will write to you as I
intended.”
“No, I didn't mean that. I meant that if you found the woman less
inconceivable and more human, don't write to me, but put your red lamp
in your window instead of the blue one. I will watch for it and see it.”
“I think I will be able to explain myself much better with simple pen
and ink,” she said dryly, “and it will be much more useful to you.”
He lifted his hat gravely, shoved off the boat, leaped into it, and
before she could hold out her hand was twenty feet away. She turned and
ran quickly up the rocks. When she reached the hotel, she could see the
boat already half across the bay.
Entering her sitting-room she found that her brother, tired of waiting
for her, had driven out. Taking the hidden manuscript from her cloak
she tossed it with a slight gesture of impatience on the table. Then she
summoned the landlord.
“Is there a town across the bay?”
“No! the whole mountain-side belongs to Don Diego Fletcher. He lives
away back in the coast range at Los Gatos, but he has a cottage and mill
on the beach.”
“Don Diego Fletcher--Fletcher! Is he a Spaniard then?”
“Half and half, I reckon; he's from the lower country, I believe.”
“Is he here often?”
“Not much; he has mills at Los Gatos, wheat ranches at Santa Clara, and
owns a newspaper in 'Frisco! But he's here now. There were lights in his
house last night, and his cutter lies off the point.”
“Could you get a small package and note to him?”
“Certainly; it is only a row across the bay.”
“Thank you.”
Without removing her hat and cloak she sat down at the table and began a
letter to Don Diego Fletcher. She begged to inclose to him a manuscript
which she was satisfied, for the interests of its author, was better in
his hands than hers. It had been given to her by the author, Mr. J. M.
Harcourt, whom she understood was engaged on Mr. Fletcher's paper, the
“Clarion.” In fact, it had been written at HER suggestion, and from an
incident in real life of which she was cognizant. She was sorry to say
that on account of some very foolish criticism of her own as to the
FACTS, the talented young author had become so dissatisfied with it as
to make it possible that, if left to himself, this very charming and
beautifully written story would remain unpublished. As an admirer of
Mr. Harcourt's genius, and a friend of his family, she felt that such an
event would be deplorable, and she therefore begged to leave it to
Mr. Fletcher's delicacy and tact to arrange with the author for its
publication. She knew that Mr. Fletcher had only to read it to be
convinced of its remarkable literary merit, and she again would impress
upon him the fact that her playful and thoughtless criticism--which was
personal and confidential--was only based upon the circumstances that
the author had really made a more beautiful and touching story than the
poor facts which she had furnished seemed to warrant. She had only
just learned the fortunate circumstance that Mr. Fletcher was in the
neighborhood of the hotel where she was staying with her brother.
With the same practical, business-like directness, but perhaps a certain
unbusiness-like haste superadded, she rolled up the manuscript and
dispatched it with the letter.
This done, however, a slight reaction set in, and having taken off her
hat and shawl, she dropped listlessly on a chair by the window, but as
suddenly rose and took a seat in the darker part of the room. She felt
that she had done right, that highest but most depressing of human
convictions! It was entirely for his good. There was no reason why his
best interests should suffer for his folly. If anybody was to suffer
it was she. But what nonsense was she thinking! She would write to him
later when she was a little cooler,--as she had said. But then he had
distinctly told her, and very rudely too, that he didn't want her to
write. Wanted her to make SIGNALS to him,--the idiot! and probably was
even now watching her with a telescope. It was really too preposterous!
The result was that her brother found her on his return in a somewhat
uncertain mood, and, as a counselor, variable and conflicting in
judgment. If this Clementina, who seemed to have the family qualities of
obstinacy and audacity, really cared for him, she certainly wouldn't let
delicacy stand in the way of letting him know it--and he was therefore
safe to wait a little. A few moments later, she languidly declared that
she was afraid that she was no counselor in such matters; really she
was getting too old to take any interest in that sort of thing, and she
never had been a matchmaker! By the way now, wasn't it odd that
this neighbor, that rich capitalist across the bay, should be called
Fletcher, and “James Fletcher” too, for Diego meant “James” in Spanish.
Exactly the same name as poor “Cousin Jim” who disappeared. Did he
remember her old playmate Jim? But her brother thought something else
was a deuced sight more odd, namely, that this same Don Diego Fletcher
was said to be very sweet on Clementina now, and was always in her
company at the Ramirez. And that, with this “Clarion” apology on the top
of it, looked infernally queer.
Mrs. Ashwood felt a sudden consternation. Here had she--Jack's
sister--just been taking Jack's probable rival into confidential
correspondence! She turned upon Jack sharply:--
“Why didn't you say that before?”
“I did tell you,” he said gloomily, “but you didn't listen. But what
difference does it make to you now?”
“None whatever,” said Mrs. Ashwood calmly as she walked out of the room.
Nevertheless the afternoon passed wearily, and her usual ride into the
upland canyon did not reanimate her. For reasons known best to herself
she did not take her after-dinner stroll along the shore to watch the
outlying fog. At a comparatively early hour, while there was still a
roseate glow in the western sky, she appeared with grim deliberation,
and the blue lamp-shade in her hand, and placed it over the lamp which
she lit and stood on her table beside the window. This done she sat down
and began to write with bright-eyed but vicious complacency.
“But you don't want that light AND the window, Constance,” said Jack
wonderingly.
Mrs. Ashwood could not stand the dreadful twilight.
“But take away your lamp and you'll have light enough from the sunset,”
responded Jack.
That was just what she didn't want! The light from the window was that
horrid vulgar red glow which she hated. It might be very romantic and
suit lovers like Jack, but as SHE had some work to do, she wanted the
blue shade of the lamp to correct that dreadful glare.