APPREHENDED
The pleasantest task which fell to Jessica's hands, during her hospital
life, was the distributing of flowers and fruits, almost daily sent by
the charitable for the comfort of the patients.
The nurses received and apportioned these gifts; and, carrying her big,
tray-like basket, Lady Jess visited each ward and room in turn, adding to
the pretty offering some bright word of her own. For she now had the
freedom of the house and knew the occupant of each white bed better,
even, than his or her attendant nurse. The quiet manner which she had
gained here, her ready help and loving sympathy, made her coming looked
for eagerly; but the happiness she thus bestowed was more than returned
upon her own heart. Could her "boys" have seen her they would have
been proud, but not surprised, for to the appreciative words his own
attendant gave his darling, Ephraim would instantly reply?
"'Course. What else could you expect? Didn't she have the finest man
in the world for her father? and isn't her mother a lady? Isn't she,
herself, the sweetest, lovingest, most unselfish child that ever lived?
But it'll be meat to feed the 'boys' with, all these stories you're
telling me. They most worship her now, and after they listen to such
talk a spell--h-m-m. The whole secret is just--love. That's what our
captain is made of; pure love. 'Twas a good thing for this old earth
when she was born."
"But you'll spoil her among you, I fear."
"Well, you needn't. Little Jessica Trent can't be spoiled. 'Cause
them same 'boys' would be the first ones to take any nonsense out of
her, at the first symptoms. She couldn't stand ridicule. It would break
her heart; but they'd give her ridicule and plenty of it if she put on
silly airs. You needn't be afraid for Lady Jess."
On that very day, after Antonio had left the hospital with his friends,
or captors, as the case might prove. Jessica went through the building
with her tray of roses, and in the wing adjoining the accident ward saw
a man lying in one of the hitherto empty rooms.
"A new patient. He must have been brought in to-day. I've never been
to the new ones till I was told, but I hate to pass him by. I wonder
if it would be wrong to ask him if he wished a flower! And how still
he stays. Yet his eyes are very wide open and so round! He looks like
somebody I've seen--why, little Luis Garcia! 'Tis Luis himself, grown
old and thin. For Luis' sake, then I'll try."
A nurse was sitting silent at the patient's bedside and toward her the
child turned an inquiring glance. The answer was a slight, affirmative
nod. The attendant's thought was that it would please Lady Jess to
give the rose and could do the patient no harm to receive it. Indeed,
nothing earthly could harm him any more.
So Jessica stepped softly in and paused beside the cot. Her face was full
of pity and of a growing astonishment, for the nearer she beheld it the
more startling was the sick man's likeness to a childish face hundreds
of miles away.
Her stare brought the patient's own vacant gaze back to a consciousness
of things about him. He saw a yellow-haired girl looking curiously upon
him and extending toward him a half-blown rose. A fair and unexpected
vision in that place of pain, and he asked, half querulously:
"Who are you? An angel come to upbraid me before my time?"
"I'm Jessica Trent, of Sobrante ranch, in Paraiso d'Oro valley."
"W-h-a-t!"
The nurse bent forward, but he motioned her aside.
"Say that again."
"I'm just little Jessica Trent. That's all."
"All! Trent--Trent. Ah!"
"And you? Are you Luis Garcia's missing father?"
"Luis--Luis Garcia. Was it Luis, Ysandra called him?"
"Yes, yes. That was the name on the paper my father found pinned to
the baby's dress. The letter told that the baby's father had gone away
promising to come back, but had never come. The mother had heard of my
dear father's goodness to all who needed help, and she was on her way to
him when her strength gave out. So she died there in the canyon, and she
said the baby's name was like the father's. I remember it all, because
to us the 'Maria' seems like a girl's name, too. Luis Maria Manuel
Alessandro Garcia."
The man's round eyes opened wider and wider. It seemed as if his glare
pierced the child's very heart, and she drew back frightened. The
nurse motioned her to go, but at her first movement toward the door
the patient extended his hands imploring:
"No. Not yet. My time is spent. Let me hear all--all. The child your
father found--ah! me! Your father of all men! Did--did it live?"
"Of course it lived. He is a darling little fellow and he looks--he
looks so like you that I knew you in a moment. He has the same wide brown
eyes, the same black curls, his eyebrows slant so, like yours, he is
your image. But he is the cutest little chap you ever saw. He is my own
brother's age and they have grown up together, like twins, I guess. It
would break Ned's heart to have you take him away from us. You won't
now, will you?"
A pitiful smile spread over the pain-racked features, and the man glanced
significantly toward the nurse. She smiled encouragingly upon him, but
he was not misled. After a moment of silence, during which Jessica
anxiously watched his drawn face, he spoke.
"Go, child. Your mission is done. Send a lawyer, quick. Quick. The man I
wronged--the savior of my son! A lawyer, quick. Bring the suit case--the
case! Let none open it but the child. Quick. Quick!"
Higher authority even than her own convinced the nurse that obedience
to his urgency was the only way now to allay the patient's rising
excitement. The accident which had crushed the lower part of his body,
so that his life was but a question of hours, had left his head clear for
the present; and here, indeed, seemed a case for more than surgical
treatment.
Fortunately, the needed "lawyer" was close at hand, waiting with the
reporter and the half-distraught Antonio whose shriek of recognition had
been Luis Garcia's welcome to the hospital. Unceasingly, the manager
had declared that this was the man all three of them were seeking; had
insisted upon returning to the ante-room of the hospital, and avowed that
he would never leave the spot until the "villain" had been apprehended.
"He has misled and cheated me. I, Antonio! He has all my money. He
has the savings of my life, yes. He has all that I did not yet pay,
of the crops so good, to the Senora Trent. More, more. That money--which,
ah, me! He told me, yes, a thousand million times, that I, and not that
New York company, to me alone was the inheritance of Paraiso d'Oro.
My money was to prove it, that inheritance, yes. To me was the power
of attorney, was it not? of Cassius Trent, who was the so good man and
the so poor fool at business."
"Look out, there, neighbor! Speaking of fools and business, you don't
appear to have been so brilliant yourself," corrected Ninian, promptly.
Antonio continued, heedless of the interruption:
"He was the great banker, Garcia, no? What then? Who would so safe keep
the money from that far New York? With the master's wish I gave it
to that bank. And the letters--_Caramba!_ So high, to one's knees,
to one's waist I pile them, the letters! All wrote of his own hand. All
say by-and-by, _manana_, he give me the perfect title and send back
that which belongs, after all expenses, no? To them in New York."
"A pretty scheme. You don't seem to have profited by it greatly, as
yet."
"I, profit? But I am now the beggar, I, poor Antonio. This day I come
from resting in the houses of my friends and I find--what do I find?
The bank is not. The banker is not, yes. His house where he lived more
plain than our adobes at Sobrante, that house is closed. His man tell
me this: 'He has gone away. One little, little trip, a journey. Across
the sea. He will come back. Have patience, Antonio.' But my money? my
papers? my inheritance so all but proved? Tush. He told me not that.
'When he comes back you can ask him, himself.' So. Good. He has come
back. Here. I see him, sure. I----"
A summons to Mr. Hale cut short this fierce harangue, which had been
repeated till their ears were tired.
The banker had come back, indeed, poor creature. By the very train on
which he was to depart with his plunder--all rendered into the solid
cash which would tell no tales, as he fancied--by this swift-moving
juggernaut he was overtaken and crushed down. A moment earlier he would
have been in time. But in haste and by a misstep he had ended all his
earthly journeyings.
When the lawyer was called the reporter followed his friend and Antonio
followed him, and when these three approached the little room in which
the dying man lay, the nurse would have sent them back; but Garcia
himself pleaded: "Let them be. What matters it how many hear or see?
The dress-suit case. Bring it, and bring the child."
They obeyed and he bade them place the key in Jessica's small hand.
"Open it, little one."
But her fingers shook so that the nurse, in pity, pushed them from the
lock and herself unfastened the heavily laden case. It contained no
clothing, such as might have been looked for within; but rolls and
packets neatly tied.
"Open them, child."
"Oh! please! I do not want to; I am afraid!"
"Afraid, Jessica Trent? Do you not yet understand? That is money,
money--of which your father stood accused before the world as having
stolen. Afraid to prove your father what you know him--an honest man!"
cried Ninian in anger.
She understood him then, and in frantic haste obeyed. Roll after roll,
till Mr. Hale said:
"Enough. His strength is failing. This scene is too much for him."
At that she pushed the gold away and, falling on her knees beside the
bed, caught Luis Garcia's hand and covered it with kisses.
"Oh! thank you, Luis' father! God bless you, God take care of you!"
"Oh! the divine pity of childhood," murmured Ninian, huskily. "She
forgets that it was he who wronged her in the fact that he has now set
her right."
The sick man's face brightened, nor did he withdraw his hand.
"_You forgive me?_"
"Yes, yes."
"The little Luis. The son I never saw. What shall you tell him of his
father?"
"That he was good to me, and that he suffered."
"More. Tell the boy this: I never knew he lived. I should have known, I
should have searched. I did not. Ask him, too, to forgive me. And because
of me, turn him not away."
The nurse motioned all the others to go out, and they went, Ninian
Sharp himself standing guard over the dress-suit case the attendant
had relocked until it was once more safely deposited in the strong box
of the hospital, where even Antonio's greedy eyes could see it no longer.
But Jessica knelt on, awed and silent, yet now quite unafraid. And Luis
Garcia still clasped her hand and fixed his fading gaze upon her pitying
face.
"The mother--Ysandra. Where lies she now? Little one, do you know that?"
"Do I not? In the consecrated ground of the old mission itself. With
all the good dead priests sleeping about her. Rose vines cover her grave
and my own mother tends them herself. Little Luis is made to water it,
sometimes, though, for that is a good way to keep her memory green, my
mother says. Near by is where my father rests. Would--would you wish to
sleep there, too, beside them both, and where Luis could bring flowers
to you as to her?"
"I may? You--are--willing? Would--your mother--so kind--little Luis----"
"My mother pities and helps all who suffer. You suffer, poor man, and
I wish that she were here to tell you 'yes' herself."
But he had closed his eyes and she could not know if he had heard her,
though she was glad to see that the look of pain had almost left his
features. She did not speak again but sat quite still until, at last,
her hand grew numb and she turned toward the nurse, whispering:
"Can I move it? Will it disturb him? He seems to be asleep."
The nurse bent over her patient, then gently answered:
"Yes, darling. Your task is over. Nothing will ever trouble him again.
He is at peace--_asleep_."