THE LONG JOURNEY ENDS.
Mr. Hale never forgot that railway trip.
To rouse Jessica Trent from her sorrow at leaving home he had suggested
her helping others; and so thoroughly did she follow his advice that
he soon had a dozen people depending upon him for counsel and comfort.
Quoth that young traveler, in the very presence of the ailing mother of
the tourist car:
“We are so much better off in our ‘Arizona,’ dear Mr. Hale. Let’s
take this poor little woman and this precious baby right back there
with us. She can have my own soft seat with you and I can sit with
Mrs. Moriarty, as she wanted me to do. Dear Mr. Marsh--Well, he must
be with us in there, too. If he loved me so well he would hide away
from the others and come all the way to the other ocean, just because
he couldn’t live without me, course, I can’t live without him. Why he
didn’t tell them was--was just because.”
“Probably a satisfactory reason to him and seems to be to you, Miss
Jessica. Yet what’s to become of him in New York? Don’t for a moment
imagine your future hostess, Mrs. Dalrymple, will have him at her
house. From all I’ve heard of her she’s a woman of strong opinions and
one of them is that it will be better for you to cut loose from your
western companions for a time.”
Jessica regarded him with some surprise, but her confidence was not
shaken.
“Oh! you see, she doesn’t know ‘Forty-niner.’ I suppose she’s read
stories about cowboys and such things; and my father used to say that
the stories were mostly exag--exaggerated, and written by people who’d
never been west in their lives. Fancy! Writing a book about men one
never saw! Anyway, Cousin Margaret is sure to like Ephraim Marsh.
Nobody could help it.”
Meanwhile, the sharpshooter had settled himself most comfortably in
the ‘Arizona,’ occupying any seat which happened to be vacant for the
moment and quietly retiring to his rightful berth in the “tourist car”
when bedtime came. The ailing mother had accepted Jessica’s place and
berth in Mr. Hale’s section, and the little girl herself had joined
forces with Mrs. Moriarty.
Jessica had had a reasonable sum of money given her, when she left
Sobrante, her mother believing it would add to that womanly training
she needed to have charge of it; and without consulting her present
guardian the girl had given the sick woman enough of her fund to pay
the different rate of fare.
It was too late for Mr. Hale to object, and he was too polite to do
so. The utmost he could accomplish was to warn his charge to expend
nothing more without his advice, and to pass as much of his time in
the smoker as was possible. Fortunately, the baby was a happy child,
when physically comfortable; and it was a good sleeper; so that the
lawyer’s fear of being kept awake at night, by having it in the lower
berth, proved groundless.
By the end of the second day out Jessica and the baby, which she
carried everywhere, had become the life of the train; “going visiting”
in one car after another, making friends in each, and feeling almost
as if they were always to journey thus amid these now familiar faces.
But all journeys end in time, and as they drew nearer and nearer to the
eastern coast, one after another these fellow travelers departed at
some stopping-place, nearest their homes.
“Why, it seems as if there was nothing in this world but just to say
‘Good-by!’” cried Jessica, tearfully, when the hour came for baby and
its mother to leave the “Arizona.”
“Never mind, dearie, you’ve made it a pleasant trip for me, and it’s
a little world. We may meet again; but if we don’t, just you keep on
shedding sunshine and you’ll never be sad for long,” said the invalid,
herself grieved to part with the little Californian yet grateful to
have reached her own home alive.
Then almost before she knew it, the week-long trip had ended. The train
steamed into the great station in Jersey City, those who had come “all
the way across” gathered their belongings, submitted to be brushed
and freshened from the stains of the long trip, hurriedly bade one
another good-by and were gone. Even Mrs. Moriarty had time for but a
single hug and the bestowal of a whole mint drop ere she was captured
by a red-faced Irishwoman in a redder bonnet, who called her “Cousin
Dalia,” and bore her away through the crowd toward that waiting steamer
which should carry her onward to her beloved Ireland.
Jessica watched her go and caught her breath with a sob. It sent a
sharp pain through her heart to find that she seemed the only one for
whom a joyful welcome was not waiting; and she almost resented Mr.
Hale’s blithe voice and manner as he laid his hand on her shoulder and
demanded:
“What? Tears in your eyes, little maid? Are you so sorry to have done
with those tiresome cars and to be on solid ground again? My! But it’s
raining a deluge!”
“Raining? Why--how can it now, so late, in the very middle of April!
But isn’t it good Grandma Moriarty did have the gum shoes, after all?”
“Humph! Good enough for her, but how about ourselves, eh? As for
‘raining in April,’ that’s just the orthodox state of the weather here
in the east. Never mind. A carriage will take us safely enough to
your cousin’s house. This way, please. Have you your satchel? Porter,
take it and these. Now come. I’m as glad as a schoolboy to be at home
again--or so near it that the first suburban train will carry me to it.
Six months since I saw my wife and daughters! That’s a big slice out of
a man’s life.”
He was so glad, indeed, that his usual thoughtfulness for others gave
place to personal considerations; and he forgot that to his young
companion this was not a joyful return but a dreaded beginning.
“This way, Jessica! Step in, please, out of the wet!”
The girl obeyed and entered the carriage, and though she had checked
her tears she felt she had never seen anything so dismal as that great
wharf, with its dripping vehicles, nor heard anything so dreadful as
the cries of the angry drivers, jostling each other in the storm.
Then they drove on to the ferry-boat and there a thunder shower burst
upon that region such as had not been known there for many a day. To
the little Californian, fresh from that thunderless Paraiso d’Oro, it
seemed as if the end of the world might be at hand; and she cowered
against Mr. Hale who slipped his arm caressingly about her. At last he
had begun to understand something of her loneliness and blamed himself
that he had not done so earlier.
“Well, little girl, does this frighten you? To me it is delightful.
At present so fierce, this electric storm will clear the air of all
impurity, and by the time we reach Washington Square, where Mrs.
Dalrymple lives, we shall have almost Californian sunshine. Just think!
Though you have never seen her she is your very own ‘blood relation.’
She knew your mother when she, too, was a little maid like yourself.
I confess I should have liked to know that lady then myself. She must
have been a model of all girlish sweetness, as she is now of womanly
graces. To grow up such a gentlewoman as Mrs. Trent--that’s why you
are breasting a thunder-storm here in New York to-day. Hark! That
peal wasn’t quite so loud as the others. The storm is rapidly passing
eastward and the clouds are lightening. Now look out of the window and
get your first glimpse of our biggest American city. Not the finest
part, by any means, but every part is interesting to me.”
Thus advised Jessica peered through the rain-splashed glass into that
crowded west-side avenue, where it seemed as if the never-ending
line of drays and wagons, the clanging street-cars, the roar of
the “elevated” trains above, and the shouts and screams of all the
teamsters, was pandemonium indeed. She did not find the outlook at
all “interesting,” as the loyal citizen had described it, but most
confusing and terrifying. If this were New York, however should she be
able to endure it?
With a down sinking of her heart, and a homesickness quite too deep for
tears, the “little Captain” leaned back and closed her eyes, while her
fancy pictured that far-away Sobrante, lying bathed in sunshine and in
a peacefulness so wholly in contrast to this dreadful city. Memories of
her home recalled the fact that Ephraim, a part of her old world, was
not with her now and that in the confusion of leaving the train she had
quite forgotten him. This sent her upright again, startled and eager,
to say:
“Why, Mr. Hale! How terrible! We’ve _forgotten_ ‘Forty-niner!’ we must
go right back and get him!”
“Impossible. He should have been on the lookout for us and kept us in
sight. Besides, if we did go back we couldn’t find him. New York crowds
are always changing and he’d move on with the rest. Doubtless, he
thinks it easy to overtake us anywhere here.”
Jessica was hurt. She could not realize how greatly tried the lawyer
had been by many of her thoughtless actions during their long journey,
nor how impatient he was now to be free from his care of her and away
to his own household. His irritation was perfectly natural, and,
secretly, he was extremely glad that they had thus easily lost the
sharpshooter. It was a most satisfactory way out of the difficulty
in appearing at Mrs. Dalrymple’s house with the veteran ranchman in
train. That she would decline to receive Mr. Marsh, he was quite sure;
in which case he would himself have been left with the old fellow upon
his hands, to care for in some way till he could be expressed back to
Sobrante. Yes, he was certainly relieved; but he did not enjoy the
reproachful glance which his young charge bestowed upon him as he
spoke. After a moment she asked:
“Will carriages take you anywhere you want to go, here in this big
place? Can you hire one for money, just as in our dear Los Angeles,
when Mr. Ninian got one to take us from one station to the other? Could
a little girl hire one, herself?”
“Why, of course; but Jessica, dear child, get no silly notions into
your head of running about this city alone--even in a public hack.
Within a very few moments I shall hand you over to the care of your
future guardian and you will have to be guided by her in everything.
Nor need you worry about Ephraim. He’s an old campaigner, has a tongue
to ask questions with, and this is a decent community. He’ll look out
for himself well enough. There! A half-dozen more blocks and we shall
have arrived!”
Jessica could not answer. She turned her head aside and carefully
studied the street through which they were passing. It looked
hopelessly like others they had left. The houses bordering it were
so tall and close together that they seemed to take up all the air,
leaving none for her to breathe. It was a great relief when they came
to an open square and stopped before a big house fronting upon it.
“Ah! I fancied this was the place! One of our old landmarks--and very
few are left. How fine for you to come to live here, child! I almost
envy you the distinction,” cried the New Yorker, with enthusiasm, as he
stepped from the carriage and turned to help Jessica out.
But she was already on the pavement, staring eagerly at her new home
and seeing nothing so remarkable as Mr. Hale fancied about it. It was
some larger than the other houses near, almost twice as wide, indeed;
and it stood somewhat back from the street, guarded by a sharp-pointed
iron fence and an imposing gate. Two rather rusty iron lions couched
before the entrance, on the brown stone steps, but time had softened
their once fierce expression to a sort of grin which could frighten
nobody--not even a stranger from Paraiso d’Oro. On both sides of the
mansion was a stretch of green grass, a rare feature in a city where
every foot of ground was so precious, and that spoke much for the
obstinacy of its possessor who must repeatedly have refused to part
with it for building purposes.
So absorbed in looking at the mansion were both the lawyer and Jessica
that they scarcely heard the murmur of voices behind them, where their
jehu was quietly discussing and arranging a little matter of business
with a man who had ridden beside himself on his coachman’s seat; nor,
till they passed through the iron gateway and ascended the steps, did
they realize that the man, also, had followed.
Then Mr. Hale turned his head and uttered a cry of regret. But Jessica,
likewise turning, felt nothing but joy as she flung herself upon
Ephraim Marsh, standing “at attention,” as composed and at ease as if
he were waiting his mistress’s commands upon the porch at Sobrante.
“Why, Marsh! _you_--here?” cried the lawyer. “We--Miss Jessica feared
she had lost you.”
“She needn’t have. She couldn’t. She’ll never lose me till the grave
covers me,” answered the sharpshooter, solemnly.
“O Ephy! don’t speak of graves, right here at the beginning of things!
And oh! how glad I am to have you, how glad, how glad! You’re a real
bit of dear Sobrante and give me courage!”
The great key turned in the door-lock, a bolt or two shot back and the
door swung on its mighty hinges; slowly and cautiously at first, then
with more confidence as the attendant saw nothing formidable in these
visitors. They seemed to be a gentleman, a soldier, and a little girl,
where he had anticipated beggars or burglars, or worse.
“Is Mrs. Dalrymple at home? This is Miss Jessica Trent, of California,
whom the lady expects; and I am--this is my card. Mr. Marsh, also, of
California--and----”
Mr. Hale paused then motioning Jessica forward followed whither the
old butler led the way; “Forty-niner” bringing up the rear with his
stiffest military stride and most impassive expression.
They were ushered into a great room at the back of the house. Its
long windows were opened upon an iron balcony, from which a flight of
steps ran down into what once had been a charming garden but was now a
neglected wilderness. The room itself was oppressive from its crowding
furniture, dust-covered and dark in tone, and a faded carpet strewn
with much litter added to the unpleasant effect. Till suddenly Jessica
discovered that the carpet had once been a “picture.” An old-time
hunting scene with horses and people and dogs galore; where some of the
horses had lost their heads, the dogs their tails, and the red coats of
the huntsmen had suffered much-through the tread of feet during years
and years of time.
Nevertheless, she was down upon her knees examining it, calling
attention to this detail or that, till the silence in which they had
been left was broken by the sound of a tap-tap along the hall and the
old butler reappeared, announcing:
“Madam Dalrymple.”
Mr. Hale rose and advanced, “Forty-niner” made his best “salute,” but
Jessica neither moved nor spoke. She could only gaze with fascination
at the figure standing between the portieres and wait what next. That
an “old lady”? _That!_