THE CONCEALMENT
It took a deal more running back and forth, and questioning and
explaining, before I could come at any understanding of what had
happened. And even when I had heard as much as any one knew it was
strangely little--simply that a body of Mexican horsemen had swept out
upon the guard from apparently all points of the compass, had
overpowered them, leaving one dead and one of their own number wounded,
and swept on. After they had gone it was discovered that the prisoner
had vanished too. The cry had been that the horsemen had taken him;
but some of the guard who had followed the riders a little way declared
that he had not been among them, and one man insisted that he had seen
Johnny Montgomery dart in at the door of one of the small houses on
Jackson Street. This was immediately surrounded by police and
searched, but nothing was discovered; and all the while I sat faint and
trembling in the carriage, with a conviction that I ought to be
horrified, and yet with an ungovernable feeling of relief. The only
thoughts in my mind were, "He is safe!" and "He is free!" If only for
a moment, at least it would be a moment!
Half an hour passed before the street could be cleared, and we could
get across. Meanwhile in the fast-gathering dark, I kept hearing
voices speaking with that stern ring they have when men are excited and
talking among themselves, and hoofs of horses clattering off in the
direction the Mexicans had taken.
Every moment my heart was in my mouth, lest suddenly should come the
cry that Johnny Montgomery was found; but he seemed to have vanished as
completely as if he had been made invisible; and presently a hateful
thought crept into my mind: "What if it is the Spanish Woman who has
played the enchantress?" The rumor was abroad that the sortie had been
planned by some of Johnny Montgomery's friends--they were such wild
fellows that their doing the thing would not seem extraordinary.
Yet the other explanation seemed so much more probable to me, so
burningly evident. It came upon me with the shock of conviction, as if
the Spanish Woman herself had whispered it in my ear, and I was afraid
to look at any one lest he should read my thought in my conscious face.
I kept my head bent and held my trembling lips tight, glad that the
dark covered my agitations.
But later, at home, sitting on the edge of my bed, I told mother all
about it. I did not form the words aloud, but when I sat there looking
up at her pictured face I knew she understood every idea that went
through my mind. My thoughts went back over the incidents of the
trial. Each little separate memory struck the same note--the attempt
to get him out of prison, the attempt to make way with witnesses, and
finally this successful snatching of him from the law--it was the
Spanish Woman who had been responsible each time, and now it was she.
Oh, I understood now why Johnny Montgomery had smiled at me as I was
giving my testimony! I had thought it had been to encourage me to go
on, but it must have been a mere mockery, since he knew that, no matter
what story I told, he was safe.
But, had he known it? When I recalled his white, set face I doubted.
Yet at any rate, even in spite of him, she had saved him. He was gone,
gone to her perhaps, and I was left with the mere comfort of having
done what I thought was right. It was cold comfort when every feeling
in me had been outraged by the doing, and now the forlorn doubt
continually stirred as to the certainty that what I had done was right,
if, as the Spanish Woman said, love was a woman's only virtue.
I was horrified to find myself, without apparent reason or any evident
leading up to it, with that word on my lips. Love? Why, what had that
to do with me? I looked in a fright at mother, as if I expected her to
answer the question; but that timid look of hers seemed to have only a
reflection of my own fear in it. With a sudden feeling of weakness and
helplessness I hid my face in my hands.
From that moment I began to understand what father had meant the day he
had said that I would need mother's picture now. It comforted me that
she was there watching me and seeming to understand, never looking
angrily at me no matter what foolish or frightening things I had to
tell her, and there were so many in those days that followed--dreadful
days for me! The very girls, my friends, even while with round, awed
eyes they admired me for my heroic performance on the witness-stand,
yet, for that very reason seemed to set me a little apart from
themselves. And then the talk about the search for Johnny Montgomery,
full of the cruel eagerness of men hunting a man!
The word had been that, of course, he would be retaken immediately.
But the hours slipped away, and the days, and still there was no trace
of him. The whole city was searched, and I discovered then that the
Spanish Woman was far from escaping public suspicion. Detectives went
in and out of her house, ransacking its remotest, most cunningly
concealed places. She herself was closely questioned, but nothing
could be elicited.
If I had needed any reassurance that she alone was responsible for
Johnny's disappearance, this effacement of the means by which she had
accomplished her object would have convinced me. Whatever creatures
they were who had effected her purpose for her, they were apt pupils in
her art of disappearance, and even those who had failed here, were
still completely hers. The Mexican who had been wounded by the guard
had closed his teeth and died without a word, not even a confession to
the priest. The horsemen, it was said, had swept straight through the
city in the direction of the Mission, and it was supposed they had
disbanded there and scattered through the ranches, where it was
impossible to trace them. But the belief was general that the prisoner
had not gone with them, that the sortie had only been a blind for his
escape in some less obvious direction, abetted by the half darkness.
That week the city was under strict surveillance and I went seldom upon
the street. For after my first relief at his escape was over, I was in
constant dread lest he be retaken or shot; and when I did have to be
out I went shrinkingly, dreading lest I see his face, haggard and
ghostly, gazing down at me from some window, or glimpse him retreating
up some evil alley.
"Oh, you are too good for this!" my heart accused him. "To think of
you slinking and hiding! I could forgive you anything, even killing
him--yes or even wanting to kill him--but not this running away! What
power is it that this woman has over you, when a little while before
you seemed so brave?"
The fear that it was because he loved her went through me, the
bitterest thought of all. Against it I treasured the one sentence he
had spoken to me, the only words I had ever heard him speak, and the
looks he had given--the gentleness which had consorted oddly with his
dark face and great strength, and that first shocked, reproachful gaze
which so haunted me; and then the way he had helped me, smilingly, over
the hard places in my testimony against him! How that had moved me!
Yet what were a few, frail glances beside the thing he had done for the
Spanish Woman? I saw her once driving upon the street. The glint of
her splendid hair made a crown around her head. She leaned back in the
carriage, smiling, looking happy and triumphant; and it was a strange
thought that these days so dreadful for me were good days for some one
else.
By the end of the week the theory that Johnny was hidden in the city
was abandoned, and search was directed toward the mining-camps, whence
from time to time came reports that he had been seen. But all of these
turned out to be false leads, and the idle talk about it swung into
just the channel that I had feared--how that of course he had been
guilty since he had tried to escape and had succeeded.
Whatever chance there had been for him before, chance of appeal or
chance of pardon, was gone now. It was as if he had sunk into a deep
pit, out of which he would never rise. I told myself that I must not
think about it, that surely he could not be anything to me any more;
and yet my mind turned to nothing else but the memory of him, and
seemed to fix and fasten upon the thought. I knew that father saw I
brooded. Whether he knew why, I did not like to think; but he used to
take me out upon long drives, among the hills across the bay, and out
to the Presidio to see the military maneuvers; so that he kept me with
him much of the time. And he would urge me to go about to see the
girls I knew; but Hallie was the only one I went to see at all.
She had been very tactful after the first outburst of enthusiasm over
me upon the witness-stand; and as soon as she understood how I hated
and couldn't endure any allusions to it, had never mentioned it to me
again, though I used sometimes to catch her looking at me in a way
which made me know she was sympathetic and curious; and that made a
bond between us.
I was fond of the Fergusons' house itself. It had a charming garden,
planted with roses, with big, blue Chinese jars at the elbows of the
paths and on the porch, and a dear little upper balcony--just such a
one as Leonore walks out upon in _Il Trovatore_--which overlooked the
convent and its gardens. Sitting here with Hallie one late afternoon,
while sunlight was still among the housetops, but with the convent
garden in shadow so deep it looked like a reflection in water, I saw
the procession of nuns, slim, black figures and bending heads, winding
slowly through it. The sight touched me with a very melancholy yet not
quite unhappy feeling.
"What would you think, Hallie," I asked, "if I should become a nun?"
"A nun!" Hallie almost shrieked. "Ellie Fenwick, what are you thinking
of? Why, you would have to cut off all your lovely hair!"
"Yes," I said, "one of the sisters there told me that she had hair as
long as mine when she was a girl, and yet she doesn't look unhappy now.
And then everything is so peaceful over there, the garden is so quiet,
and they are so calm! I think I should love to; and oh, dear, Hallie,
you don't know! I am very unhappy!"
Hallie put her arm around me and said firmly, "You will do no such
thing! You will come to Estrella's party to-night and forget all about
convents and such hateful things! Of course, I know what the matter
is; and it's very lovely and awfully romantic, but really I'm afraid
that he is quite gone, dear. Don't you think you could think of some
one else?"
I said I couldn't bear to, that I didn't want to go to Estrella's
party, that I hated the thought of the people I would have to meet.
But Hallie can be very persuading, and when I left her my resolution
had weakened considerably.
"Why not go?" I argued with myself on my way home. "I will have to
begin this sort of thing again sometime--that is, supposing I don't go
into the convent, and I am afraid father wouldn't like me to do that.
At least while I am making up my mind about it anything will be better
than brooding over this thing, which I can't help."
When I reached home I felt restless and the house seemed very small.
Rather diffidently I broached the subject of Estrella's ball to father;
but he was quite delighted.
"Excellent," he said, hurried off a boy to the Mendez house with word
that I was coming, sent out for flowers and made a lovely little fuss
about me. I tried to make myself look as pretty as possible in a pale
tulle, with little rosy wreaths upon it, and the high old
tortoise-shell comb, that had been mother's, in my hair. The
excitement gave me more color than I had had for weeks. I thought,
"Even if I am not happy, at least I can be excited."
[Illustration: I tried to make myself look as pretty as possible.]
Father looked so tired that when he left me at the Mendez house I asked
why need he come back for me, why not just send the carriage. He
wouldn't hear of that, and then Senora Mendez said why shouldn't I stay
at their house all night? So it was agreed, and Estrella, looking like
a little dancer, in a yellow gown sown [Transcriber's note: sewn?] with
twinkling spangles, came running and hurried me up-stairs to take off
my cloak.
The ball was a large one--one of those affairs that is so big it makes
you feel lost. I danced, danced madly; but a forlorn conviction kept
growing on me that I did not have that same joyful feeling that I could
dance on air which other parties had brought me. Every young man who
looked at me was not a possible sweetheart, yet more looked at me than
ever did before. I had a little crowd around me, and lots of pretty
things were said to me, and I was not so afraid to reply as I had been.
When Senor Mendez, Estrella's father, who is fat, but dances like
thistledown, took me for a turn around the room, "You are having quite
a success, eh, my child?" he said. "The young men are beginning to
wake up. You are coming out."
That was all very pleasing and my wits were never any too sharp at a
dance, being in a dreamy and delicious state of obedience to the music
and the swimming atmosphere, so that I did not keenly take note of why
Laura Burnet did not return my bow. Jack Tracy took me in to supper,
and fussed until he found seats for us in the big hall beyond the
supper-room. It appeared he was wanting to propose to me again; and,
as I was ready for anything as far as only making proposals went, I did
not try to stop him. Behind us a curtain hung, the only thing between
us and the ball-room, but the orchestra was still playing softly and
there was hardly any one in that room, so I thought no one could
overhear us.
In the midst of it, Aleppo Mendez put his head in the door and asked
what had Jack done with his partner's program? Jack, not discovering
it in his pocket, very much vexed at being interrupted, went to look
for it with Aleppo in the supper-room, and I was left alone.
For a few moments I sat listening to the music. Then this ended with a
soft chord, and on the other side of the curtain I heard the quick
rustling of a girl's frock, and a girl's voice, "Just wait, I must put
one more hair-pin in it or it never will stay up."
I recognized Estrella's tones. There was a little pause, and then,
evidently resuming the main thread of her discourse she went on, "Of
course, as I was saying, it was awfully brave of her to do it, but how
could she! Why, if I had been in such a position just thinking what it
would have meant to him, I know I couldn't have made a sound!"
"Well, if I could I wouldn't have!" It was Laura speaking with great
bitterness. "It wasn't as if she had to tell. She was the only one in
the city who saw it. No one would have known anything if only she had
held her tongue!"
"Oh, but," Estrella broke in, in a deprecating voice, "it was an awful
thing he did!"
"Oh, was it?" Laura retorted scornfully, "Lots of men do the same thing
and aren't so very bad; and lots more would do it if they dared. Just
because he is handsomer and braver and has a higher temper than most,
lots of people hate him. And because Ellie Fenwick is little and looks
young, and every one was saying how pale and pathetic she looked and
how convincing it was, the way she told her story, oh, I heard the talk
all around the court room!--she just worked on the sympathies of the
jury! It wasn't justice that convicted him! It was Ellie Fenwick!"
I sat perfectly still, grasping my cold little ice-cream plate in one
hand, not hearing anything more, not even seeming to think, until I
heard Jack Tracy's voice beside me.
"Good Heavens! what's the matter?" And then, calling out in absurd
alarm, "Don't faint, don't faint!"
"I am not going to faint," I said, though I had a very strange feeling
of floating, and his face looked a little misty to me. "I want to go
home. Get me a carriage!"
"But you're ill! Let me call Estrella."
I caught hold of his sleeve. "Don't say a word to her! Don't dare,
promise me!" I shook his sleeve fiercely. He looked quite scared.
"Get me a carriage," I said, "and mind you don't say anything to any
one until I have gone. Then you can tell Estrella that I was feeling
ill and decided to go home."