JESSICA, THE HEIRESS
by
EVELYN RAYMOND
Author of "Jessica Trent," "Jessica Trent's Inheritance," etc.
Whitman Publishing Co.
Racine, Wisconsin
Copyright, 1904, by The Federal Book Company
Jessica, the Heiress
Printed by
Western Printing & Lithographing Co.
Racine, Wis.
Printed in U.S.A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Jessica Disappears 11
II The Hush of Anxiety 22
III Old Century Takes the Trail 31
IV Deliverance 41
V Jessica's Story 50
VI Behind Locked Doors 59
VII A Royal Gift 70
VIII The Face at the Window 79
IX The Prisoner Disappears 90
X On the Road Home 99
XI The Passing of Old Century 110
XII The Rebellion of the Lads. 121
XIII Ned's Story 131
XIV Taking the Doctor's Advice 140
XV Ninian's Greeting 150
XVI Jessica Gets Her Wish 161
XVII The Cactus Hedge 170
XVIII What the Sabbath Brought 180
XIX Antonio's Confession 189
XX The Verdict 201
XXI Conclusion 210
JESSICA, THE HEIRESS
CHAPTER I.
JESSICA DISAPPEARS
Mrs. Benton and Jessica were upon the south porch of the Sobrante
ranch house, the former busy as usual, the latter idly enjoying her
charming surroundings as she swung to and fro in her hammock.
Mighty vines of pale yellow roses, intermingled with climbing
fuchsias, cast shade and sweetness over them; the porch was bordered
by a wide swath of calla lilies, also in full flower, while just
beyond these a great shrub of poinsettia dazzled the sight with its
gleaming blossoms.
When a momentary silence of the other's nimble tongue allowed her to
speak, Jessica exclaimed:
"Aunt Sally, you're the only person I know who can do three things at
once. You sew as fast as you rock, and talk faster than either. You're
a very clever woman."
The old lady answered complacently, as she bit off a fresh needleful
of thread and looked at her companion over her spectacles:
"Yes, dearie, I expect I am. I can do more'n that, too. I can keep up
a powerful thinking."
"About what, pray?"
"How that life is a patchwork quilt. All the colors of the rainbow,
and some that any self-respectin' rainbow would scorn to own. Some
scraps so amazing homely you hate to put 'em in, but just have to,
else there wouldn't be blocks enough to square it out."
"What sort of a scrap am I, Aunt Sally?"
"Huh! Fair to middlin'. Neither very light, nor very dark. You'd be
prettier, to my notion, if you'd fetch a needle and thread and sew a
seam with me, 'stead of swinging yourself dizzy out of pure
laziness."
"Now, Aunt Sally! I call that unkind! I hate to sew."
"I believe you. You'll never put a stitch where a pin will do. But,
never mind. If everybody else sets out to spoil you, I don't know as
it's my call to interfere."
There was so much tenderness in the glance that accompanied these
words that nobody could resent them; least of all the girl, who now
sprang from the hammock and curled herself at the other's feet.
"Tell me those powerful thoughts, auntie, dear."
Mrs. Benton sighed, but responded nothing loath:
"There's your mother, Gabriella. Only child, left an orphan, raised by
a second cousin once removed, who'd more temper than sense, and when
your mother fell in love with your father, who'd more goodness than
cash, shut the door on them both forthwith. So off they come to
Californy and pitch their tent right here in the spot."
"They couldn't have chosen a lovelier place," their daughter answered,
with a sweeping glance over the fair land which formed her home.
"That's true enough. Then him getting that New York company to buy
Paraiso d'Oro Valley, so's a lot of folks that was down in the world
could come out here and live in it. Poor Cass'us dying, just as he'd
got things to his liking; the losing of the title deed and your
journeying to Los Angeles to get it back."
"Not 'lost,' Aunt Sally. Poor Antonio hid it at El Desierto, in the
cave of the Three Rocks. He--"
"Cat's foot! Don't you go to 'pooring' that snaky sneak, or you and
me'll fall out. I should hate that."
"So should I. But you've set me thinking, too. How wonderful that Mr.
Ninian Sharp was, the newspaper man. If it hadn't been for him, we'd
never have won that battle. What could I have done, with Ephraim Marsh
in the hospital, and I knowing nothing about the city? That Mr. Hale
was another splendid man. I can understand how he had to keep his word
and do his best for the company which thought father had wronged it;
and I can also understand that he was as glad as we to find their
money safe with the poor banker who was killed, Luis Garcia's
father."
"'Pooring' again are you? Another scamp, too."
"Oh, Aunt Sally! He's--dead!" remonstrated Jessica, in awestruck
tones.
"And a fine job he is. There's plenty of good-for-noughts still
living. A man that's been wicked all his life ain't apt to turn saint
at the end of it. I like folks that do their duty as they go along. If
the robber, Garcia, had got well he'd likely claimed our Luis and
reared him to be as bad as himself."
"Aunt Sally, you're uncharitable this morning. What's made you so?"
"The plumb meanness of human natur'."
"Your own?" asked the girl teasingly.
"No, saucebox. My boy, John's. His, and all the rest of 'em."
"Toward whom?"
"Oh! 'tisn't toward anybody, out and out. If it was I'd roll up my
sleeves and switch the lot of 'em, just as if they were the little
tackers they act like. It's them pesky hints and shrugged shoulders,
every time the Dutch Winklers or 'Forty-niner' is spoke of. I wish to
goodness that man'd come home and clear his name, or give me a chance
to do it. He no more stole that knitting-woman's money than I did."
"Aunt Sally! Stole? Stole! My Ephraim! Why, you must be crazy!"
"There, it's out. Needn't hop up like that, mad as a hornet, at me.
I'm not the one hints and shrugs. It's the whole lot of your precious
'boys'--boys; indeed! and needing spanking more'n they ever did in
their lives."
Jessica's swift pacing of the wide porch came to a sudden halt, and
she dropped down again at Mrs. Benton's feet, feeling as if the floor
had given way beneath her tread.
"This, then, was what my mother meant, that very day when I came back,
that Ephraim was happier where he was! The dear old fellow; thrown to
the street by his graceless Stiffleg; picked up with a leg full of
broken bones; a prisoner in a hospital all these weeks; giving all his
savings of years to us; and the 'boys' he's lived with since before I
was born accusing him of--theft! Aunt Sally, it's too monstrous to be
true!"
"'Tis, indeedy. Seem's if the Evil One had been let loose, here at
Sobrante, when the word of a half-wit--poor half, at that--is held
proof against the entire life of an honest old man."
Aunt Sally was so deeply moved that, for once, she allowed herself a
moment's respite from unceasing industry, unconsciously holding a
patchwork block to her moist eyes, and slowly swaying the great rocker
as she sorrowfully reflected that:
"I raised him the best I could, that boy John. I gave him a pill once
a week, regular, to keep his bile down. I washed him every Saturday
night and spanked him after I got through. I never let him eat butter
when he had gravy, and I made him say his prayers night and morning. I
had a notion that such wholesome rearin' would turn him out a decent
man; and now, just see!"
In spite of her own distress, Jessica laughed.
"Aunt Sally, if anybody but yourself hinted that John wasn't a
'decent' man you'd do something dreadful to punish the slanderer."
"Suppose I should? Wouldn't I have a right? Ain't he my own?"
Jessica smiled faintly, but sat for a long time silent. The talkative
woman in the rocker also kept silence, brooding over many things.
Finally she burst forth:
"I don't see why it is that just as soon as a body gets into smooth
sailing, along comes a storm and upsets things again. There was your
mother, beginning to feel she could go ahead and do what her husband
wanted to, and now here's this bad feeling among her trusted hired
men. Suspicion is the pisenest yarb that grows. The folks that could
suspect old 'Forty-niner' of wrong things'll be plumb ready to watch
out for one another. Somebody'll be caught nappin', sure. 'Tisn't in
human natur' to walk upright all the time, and it's foolish to expect
it. But--shouldn't wonder if I'd be the next one accused. And it
comin' Christmas time too. Land! I'm so bestead I've sewed that patch
in wrong side up. What? Hey? You laughin'? I don't see anything funny
in this business, myself," said the old lady, fretfully.
"You would if you could look in a glass! Your face is all streaked
purple and green, where you cried on your patch," explained Jessica,
whose grief had changed to amusement.
"You don't say! I knew them colors'd run. John fetched the piece from
Marion, last time he went for the mail. Of the two stores there, I
don't know which is the worst. Their 'Merrimac' won't wash, and their
flannel shrinks, and their thread breaks every needleful. But, to
'Boston'--dear me! Whatever did make me think of that place! Now I've
thought, it'll stick in my mind till it drives me wild--or back there,
and that's about the same thing. To go live with that slimsy cousin of
mine, after being in the same house with your mother, is like falling
off a roof into a squashy mud puddle. That's all the sense and
substance there is to Sarah, that was a Harrison before she was a
Ma'sh. I warrant she's clean out of medicine an money, for she's a
regular squanderer when it comes to makin' rag rugs. I wish you could
see 'em! I just wish't you could. Such dogs and cats as she weaves
into 'em would have druv' Noah plumb crazy if he had to take 'em into
the Ark. Their eyes are just round rings of white, with another round
ring of black in the middle----"
"Aren't rings always round, auntie, dear?"
"No, they ain't. Not after they've been trod on!" was the swift
retort, as the old lady pointed downwards toward the floor of the
porch.
Both stooped and rose again, astonishment deepening upon their faces
as Jessica held out her open palm with the injured trinket lying upon
it.
"Elsa Winkler's wedding ring! How came it here?"
"How indeed? I don't believe that woman's been on these premises since
I came."
"Even if she had, Aunt Sally, why should she bring the ring with her?
It was always too small for her, and she never had it on except during
the marriage ceremony. I've often heard her laugh about it; how
Wolfgang bought a ring as big as his money would pay for, and let it
go at that. She didn't see what difference it made whether it went
only on the tip of her finger or all the way down it. But she must
have been here, even if we didn't know it. I'll take it straight to
mother to keep. Then, too, I've idled enough. I promised my dear I'd
write all her Christmas invitations for her, because she says it will
save her the trouble, and be such a help to my education."
"Christmas! Well, well. Does seem as if I couldn't leave before then,
nohow. And hear me, Jessie, darlin', don't you let your poor ma worry
her head over your book learning. Being she was a schoolma'am herself
makes her feel as if she wasn't doing the square thing by you letting
you run wild, so to speak. If the Lord means you to get schoolin'
He'll put you in the right way of it, don't you doubt. Who all does
Gabriella set out to ask here to visit?"
"Mr. Hale, of course; and dear Mr. Sharp. I hope Ephraim will be well
enough to come, too. Then there are the Winklers, from the mine; the
McLeods, from their inn at Marion; and, maybe--we've never had a
Christmas without him--maybe poor Antonio."
"Well, all I say is--if you ask him you needn't ask me. There wouldn't
be room on this whole ranch for the pair of us."
"Then, of course, it's you first. Yet, it's all so puzzling to me. If
it's a time of 'peace and good will,' why do people keep on feeling
angry with one another?"
"Jessica Trent, dast you stand there and look me in the face and say
that you have forgive that sneaky snakey manager for cheating your
mother like he did?"
"He was sorry, Aunt Sally. Every letter he sends here tells that."
"Fiddlesticks!"
"And he's punished, isn't he, even if the New York folks let him go
free, by his disappointment? I can fancy how dreadful it would seem,
did seem to think this beautiful ranch was one's own, and then
suddenly to learn that it was not."
"Oh! Jessie! You try my soul with your forgivin' and forgivin'. Next
you know you'll be sorry for Ferd, the dwarf, though 'tis he himself
what's started all this bobery against 'Forty-niner,' and eggs them
silly Winklers on to be so--so hateful. I'm glad that witless woman
did lose her ring, and I hope it'll never be straightened out. I guess
I'm out of conceit with everybody living, not exceptin' old Sally
Benton, herself!"
With this home thrust at her own ill temper, the whimsical woman
betook herself and her dangling array of patchwork to Mrs. Trent's
sitting-room; there to discuss the prospects for holiday festivities
and to take account of stock, in the way of groceries on hand. Deep in
the subject of pies and puddings, they forgot other matters, till a
wild whoop outside the window disturbed them, and they beheld Ned and
Luis, painted in startling "Indian fashion," mounted upon a highly
decorated horse, which had never been seen in the Sobrante stables.
"Hi, there, mother! Your money or your life!"
"Money--life!" echoed Luis, clinging to his playmate's waist and
peeping over his shoulder.
The horse was rearing and plunging more dangerously each second, and
both women rushed to the rescue of the imperiled children, who
realized nothing of their danger, but shouted and screamed the louder
the more frantic their steed became. Mrs. Trent caught the bridle, and
Aunt Sally snatched first one, then the other, child from the
creature's back, who, as soon as he was relieved of his yelling
burden, started at a gallop across the garden, ruining its beds and
borders on his way.
"Oh, oh! Children, how could you? Whose horse is that? Where did you
get that paint? How shall I ever make you clean?"
"I'll tend to that part, Gabriella. You just call a boy to fix them
flower beds before the plants wither. Oh, you rascals! You won't
forget this morning's fun in a hurry, I warn you! You've been in John
Benton's paint pots again. Well, you like paint, you shall have it,
and all you want of it too. Red and yeller, green and pink, with a
streak of blue. H'm! You're a tasty lot, ain't you!"
The lads squirmed and twisted, but Aunt Sally's grip merely tightened
upon them so that finally, they ceased struggling and allowed her to
lead them whither she would, which was to the small laundry, that
stood at some slight distance from the house. Here she sternly
regarded each bedaubed, but otherwise nude, little figure, with so
fierce an expression upon her usually pleasant face that the young
miscreants winced, and Ned cried out:
"Quit a-talking eyes at me that way, Aunt Sally Benton! I don't like
it."
"Oh! you don't, eh? Well, what'd you disgrace yourselves this way for,
if 'twasn't to make folks stare? Where's your clothes?"
"I don't know."
"Very well, then I'll help you to remember."
"I won't be whipped! I'll tell my mother!" shrieked Ned, retreating
toward the closed door of the building.
"Won't be whipped, old Aunt Sally!" added Luis, clasping his leader;
whereupon the customary scuffle ensued; for, no matter what their
business in hand, personal contact always insured a slight passage at
arms. At present, this diverted their thoughts from what might be in
store at the will of their mutual enemy, and it came with appalling
suddenness. Each small boy was lifted, bidden to shut his eyes and
mouth, then plunged downward into a barrel of some cold slippery
stuff. Here he was soused vigorously up and down, until every portion
of his skin was smeared with the stick mess; after which he was placed
on his feet and once more commanded:
"Now, son, just you stand there and dreen a spell. Lucky I made that
barrel of soft soap last week. It's just the stuff to take this paint
off, and what drips from you to the old adobe floor won't hurt.
Pasqual's a master hand at scrubbin', and I'll give him the job of you
and the floor both. Reckon you'll wish you hadn't ever seen paint pots
time he gets through. Now--where's your clothes?"
Ned was silent, but Luis "guessed they's under a tree."
"Well, son, Garcia, knowing it better than guessing 'bout now. Me and
Santa Claus is sort of partners, and he's due here soon. 'Twon't take
me a jerk of a lamb's tail to write and tell him how things stand at
Sobrante, and whose stockings'd better have switches 'stead of goodies
in 'em. Hear me? Where's your clothes?"
A laugh caused Aunt Sally to glance through the window, where Jessica
was an amused spectator of the scene within. She now begged:
"Don't be hard on the little tackers, auntie, dear. That was Prince,
Mr. Hale's horse, that Pedro has tended on the mesa all these days.
I'll find out how they came by it, and their clothes at the same time.
Tell mother, please," and with a merry nod to the unhappy urchins, so
shamfacedly "dreening" at Mrs. Benton's pleasure, she disappeared.
Disappeared not only from the window, but, apparently, from life, as
suddenly and completely as if the earth had opened and engulfed her.