Part 42 (1/2)
He took no notice of her warning, but resumed now with mock apology.
”But I'm afraid I'm mistaken in the ident.i.ty. Sorry to disappoint you, but the estate I allude to belongs to Miss Cameron, who lived near a locality called Turrifs Station. Beg pardon, forgot for the moment your name was White, and that you know nothing about that interesting and historic spot.”
Perhaps because she had played the part of indifference so long, it seemed easiest to her, even in her present confusion of mind; at any rate she remained silent.
”Pity you weren't her, isn't it?” He showed all his white teeth. He had been pale at first, but in talking the fine dark red took its wonted place in his cheeks. He had tossed back his loose smoke-coloured hair with a nervous hand. His dark beauty never showed to better advantage as he stood leaning back on the door. ”Pity you aren't her, isn't it?” he repeated, smilingly.
She had no statuesque pose, but she had a.s.sumed a look of insensibility almost equal to that of stone.
”Come to think of it, even if you were her, you'd find it hard to say so now; so, either way, I reckon you'll have to do without the tin. 'Twould be real awkward to say to all your respectable friends that you'd been sailing under false colours; that 'White' isn't your _bona fide_ cognomen; that you'd deserted a helpless old woman to come away; and as to _how you left your home_--the sort of _carriage_ you took to, my dear, and how you got over the waggoner to do the work of a s.e.xton--Oh, my, fine tale for Ch.e.l.laston, that! No, my dear young lady, take a fatherly word of admonition; your best plan is to make yourself easy without the tin.”
He looked at her, even now, with more curiosity than malice in his smiling face. A power of complete reserve was so foreign to his own nature that without absolute proof he could not entirely believe it in her. The words he was speaking might have been the utter nonsense to her that they would have been to any but the girl who was lost from the Bates and Cameron clearing for all hint she gave of understanding. He worked on his supposition, however. He had all the talking to himself.
”You're mighty secret! Now, look at me. I'm no saint, and I've come here to make a clean breast of that fact. When I was born, Uncle Sam said to me, 'Cyril P. Harkness, you're a son of mine, and it's your vocation to wors.h.i.+p the G.o.d of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Almighty Dollar'; and I piped up, 'Right you are, uncle.' I was only a baby then.” He added these last words reflectively, as if pondering on the reminiscence, and gained the object of his foolery--that she spoke.
”If you mean to tell me that you're fond of money, that's no news. I've had sense to see _that_. If you thought I'd a mine belonging to me somewhere that accounts for the affection you've been talking of so much. I _begin_ to _believe_ in it now.”
She meant her words to be very cutting, but she had not much mobility of voice or glance; and moreover, her heart was like lead within her; her words fell heavily.
”Just so,” said he, bowing as if to compliment her discrimination. ”You may believe me, for I'm just explaining to you I'm not a saint, and that is a sentiment you may almost always take stock in when expressed by human lips. I was real sick last summer; and when I came to want a holiday I thought I'd do it cheap, so when I got wind of a walking party--a set of gentlemen who were surveying--I got them to let me go along. Camp follower I was, and 'twas first rate fun, especially as I was on the scent of what they were looking for. So then we came on asbestos in one part. Don't know what that is, my dear? Never mind as to its chemical proportions; there's dollars in it. Then we dropped down on the house of the gentleman that owned about half the hill. One of them was just dead, and he had a daughter, but she was lost, and as I was always mighty fond of young ladies, I looked for her. Oh, you may believe, I looked, till, when she was nowhere, I half thought the man who said she was lost had been fooling. Well, then, I--” (he stopped and drawled teasingly) ”But _possibly_ I intrude. Do you hanker after hearing the remainder of this history?”
She had sat down by the centre table with her back to him.
”You can go on,” she muttered.
”Thanks for your kind permission. I haven't got much more to tell, for I don't know to this mortal minute whether I've ever found that young lady or not; but I have my suspicions. Any way, that day away we went across the lake, and when the snow drove us down from the hills the day after, the folks near the railroad were all in a stew about the remains of Bates's partner, the poppa of the young lady. His remains, having come there for burial, and not appearing to like the idea, had taken the liberty of stepping out on the edge of the evening, and hooking it. So said I, 'What if that young lady was real enterprising! what if she got the waggoner to put her poppa under the soil of the forest, and rode on herself, grand as you please, in his burial casket!' (That poor waggoner drank himself to death of remorse, but that was nothing to her.) The circ.u.mstances were confusing, and the accounts given by different folks were confusing, and, what's more, 'tisn't easy to believe in a sweet girl having her poppa buried quite secret; most young ladies is too delicate. Still, after a bit, the opinion I've mentioned did become my view of the situation; and I said to myself 'Cyril, good dog; here's your vocation quite handy. Find the young lady, find her, good fellow!
Ingratiate yourself in her eyes, and you've got, not only an asbestos mine, but a wife of such smartness and enterprise as rarely falls to the lot of a rising young man.' I didn't blame her one bit for the part she had taken, for I'd seen the beast she'd have had to live with. No doubt her action was the properest she could take. And I thought if I came on her panting, flying, and offered her my protection, she'd fall down and adore me. So, to make a long tale short, I stopped a bit in that locality, hunting for her quite private after every one else had given up hunting. I heard of a daft old man who'd got about, the Lord only knows how, and I set the folks firmly believing that he was old Cameron.
Well, _if_ he was, then the girl was lost and dead; but if he _wasn't_--well, I twigged it she'd got on the railroad, and, by being real pleasant to all the car men, I found out, quite by the way and private, how she might have got on, and where any girl had got off, till by patience and perseverance I got on your track; and I've been eight months trying to fathom your deepness and win your affections. The more fool I! For to try to win what hasn't any more existence than the pot at the rainbow's tail is clear waste of time. Deep you are; but you haven't got any of the commodity of affection in your breast.”
”Why didn't you tell me this before, like an honest man?” she asked; ”and I'd have told you you didn't know as much as you thought you did.”
Her voice was a little thick; but it was expressionless.
”I'm not green. If you'd known you were possessed of money, d'you suppose you'd have stayed here to marry me? Oh no, I meant to get that little ceremony over first, and _spring the mine_ on you for a wedding present _after_. The reason I've told you now is that I wouldn't marry you now, not if you'd ten millions of dollars in cash in your pocket.”
”Why not? If I'm the person you take me for, I'm as rich and clever now.” She still sat with her back to him; her voice so impa.s.sive that even interrogation was hardly expressed in words that had the form of a question.
”Yes, and you'd be richer and cleverer now with me, by a long chalk, than without me! If you'd me to say who you are, and that I'd known it all along, and how you'd got here, and to bring up the railroad fellows (I've got all their names) who noticed you to bear witness, your claim would look better in the eyes of the law. 'Twould look a deal better in the eyes of the world, too, to come as Mrs. Cyril P. Harkness, saying you had been Miss Cameron, than to come on the stage as Miss White, laying claim to another name; and it would be a long sight more comfortable to have me to support and cherish you at such a time than not to have a friend in the world except the folks whose eyes you've pulled the wool over, and who'll be mighty shocked. Oh, yes; by Jemima!
you'd be richer and cleverer now with me than without me. But I'll tell you what I've come here to say”--his manner took a tone more serious; his mocking smile pa.s.sed away; he seemed to pause to arrest his own lightness, and put on an unwonted dignity. ”I tell you,” he repeated slowly, ”what I've come here to say--I do despise a young lady without a heart. Do you know what occurred last night? As good an old gentleman as ever lived was brutally felled to the earth and killed; a poor man who was never worse than a drunkard has become a murderer, and there's a many good pious ladies in this town who'll go about till death's day jeered at as fools. Would you like to be marked for a fool? No, you wouldn't and neither will they; and if you're the young lady I take you for, you could have hindered all this, _and_ you didn't. _I_ brought the old man to this place; I am to blame in that, my own self, I am; but I tell you, by the salvation of my soul, when I stood last night and heard him pray, and saw those poor ladies with their white garbs all bedraggled, around him praying, I said to myself, 'Cyril, you've reason to call on the rocks and hills to cover you,' and I had grace to be right down sorry. I'm right down ashamed, and so I'm going to pull up stakes and go back to where I came from; and I've come here now to tell you that after what I've seen of you in this matter I'd sooner die than be hitched with you. You've no more heart than my old shoe; as long as you get on it's all one to you who goes to the devil. You're not only as sharp as I took you for, but a good deal sharper. Go ahead; you'll get rich somehow; you'll get grand; but I want you to know that, though I'm pretty tricky myself, and 'cute enough to have thought of a good thing and followed it up pretty far, I've got a heart; and I do despise a person made of stone. I was _real_ fond of you, for you far exceeded my expectations; but I'm not fond of you now one bit. If you was to go down on your bended knees and ask me to admire you now, I wouldn't.”
She listened to all the sentence he p.r.o.nounced upon her. When he had finished she asked a question. ”What do you mean about going to law about the clearin'?”
”Your worthy friend, Mr. Bates, has arrived in this place this very day.
He's located with the Princ.i.p.al, he _is_.”
”He isn't here,” she replied in angry scorn.
”All right. Just _as you please_.”