A Secret Of Telegraph Hill
I.
As Mr. Herbert Bly glanced for the first time at the house which
was to be his future abode in San Francisco, he was somewhat
startled. In that early period of feverish civic improvement the
street before it had been repeatedly graded and lowered until the
dwelling--originally a pioneer suburban villa perched upon a slope
of Telegraph Hill--now stood sixty feet above the sidewalk,
superposed like some Swiss chalet on successive galleries built in
the sand-hill, and connected by a half-dozen distinct zigzag
flights of wooden staircase. Stimulated, however, by the thought
that the view from the top would be a fine one, and that existence
there would have all the quaint originality of Robinson Crusoe's
tree-dwelling, Mr. Bly began cheerfully to mount the steps. It
should be premised that, although a recently appointed clerk in a
large banking house, Mr. Bly was somewhat youthful and imaginative,
and regarded the ascent as part of that "Excelsior" climbing
pointed out by a great poet as a praiseworthy function of ambitious
youth.
Reaching at last the level of the veranda, he turned to the view.
The distant wooded shore of Contra Costa, the tossing white-caps
and dancing sails of the bay between, and the foreground at his
feet of wharves and piers, with their reed-like jungles of masts
and cordage, made up a bright, if somewhat material, picture. To
his right rose the crest of the hill, historic and memorable as the
site of the old semaphoric telegraph, the tossing of whose gaunt
arms formerly thrilled the citizens with tidings from the sea.
Turning to the house, he recognized the prevailing style of light
cottage architecture, although incongruously confined to narrow
building plots and the civic regularity of a precise street
frontage. Thus a dozen other villas, formerly scattered over the
slope, had been laboriously displaced and moved to the rigorous
parade line drawn by the street surveyor, no matter how irregular
and independent their design and structure. Happily, the few
scrub-oaks and low bushes which formed the scant vegetation of this
vast sand dune offered no obstacle and suggested no incongruity.
Beside the house before which Mr. Bly now stood, a prolific Madeira
vine, quickened by the six months' sunshine, had alone survived the
displacement of its foundations, and in its untrimmed luxuriance
half hid the upper veranda from his view.
Still glowing with his exertion, the young man rang the bell and
was admitted into a fair-sized drawing-room, whose tasteful and
well-arranged furniture at once prepossessed him. An open piano, a
sheet of music carelessly left on the stool, a novel lying face
downwards on the table beside a skein of silk, and the distant
rustle of a vanished skirt through an inner door, gave a suggestion
of refined domesticity to the room that touched the fancy of the
homeless and nomadic Bly. He was still enjoying, in half
embarrassment, that vague and indescribable atmosphere of a refined
woman's habitual presence, when the door opened and the mistress of
the house formally presented herself.
She was a faded but still handsome woman. Yet she wore that
peculiar long, limp, formless house-shawl which in certain phases
of Anglo-Saxon spinster and widowhood assumes the functions of the
recluse's veil and announces the renunciation of worldly vanities
and a resigned indifference to external feminine contour. The most
audacious masculine arm would shrink from clasping that shapeless
void in which the flatness of asceticism or the heavings of passion
might alike lie buried. She had also in some mysterious way
imported into the fresh and pleasant room a certain bombaziny
shadow of the past, and a suggestion of that appalling reminiscence
known as "better days." Though why it should be always represented
by ashen memories, or why better days in the past should be
supposed to fix their fitting symbol in depression in the present,
Mr. Bly was too young and too preoccupied at the moment to
determine. He only knew that he was a little frightened of her,
and fixed his gaze with a hopeless fascination on a letter which
she somewhat portentously carried under the shawl, and which seemed
already to have yellowed in its arctic shade.
"Mr. Carstone has written to me that you would call," said Mrs.
Brooks with languid formality. "Mr. Carstone was a valued friend
of my late husband, and I suppose has told you the circumstances--
the only circumstances--which admit of my entertaining his
proposition of taking anybody, even temporarily, under my roof.
The absence of my dear son for six months at Portland, Oregon,
enables me to place his room at the disposal of Mr. Carstone's
young protege, who, Mr. Carstone tells me, and I have every reason
to believe, is, if perhaps not so seriously inclined nor yet a
church communicant, still of a character and reputation not
unworthy to follow my dear Tappington in our little family circle
as he has at his desk in the bank."
The sensitive Bly, struggling painfully out of an abstraction as to
how he was ever to offer the weekly rent of his lodgings to such a
remote and respectable person, and also somewhat embarrassed at
being appealed to in the third person, here started and bowed.
"The name of Bly is not unfamiliar to me," continued Mrs. Brooks,
pointing to a chair and sinking resignedly into another, where her
baleful shawl at once assumed the appearance of a dust-cover; "some
of my dearest friends were intimate with the Blys of Philadelphia.
They were a branch of the Maryland Blys of the eastern shore, of
whom my Uncle James married. Perhaps you are distantly related?"
Mrs. Brooks was perfectly aware that her visitor was of unknown
Western origin, and a poor but clever protege of the rich banker;
but she was one of a certain class of American women who, in the
midst of a fierce democracy, are more or less cat-like conservators
of family pride and lineage, and more or less felinely inconsistent
and treacherous to republican principles. Bly, who had just
settled in his mind to send her the rent anonymously--as a weekly
valentine--recovered himself and his spirits in his usual boyish
fashion.
"I am afraid, Mrs. Brooks," he said gayly, "I cannot lay claim to
any distinguished relationship, even to that 'Nelly Bly' who, you
remember, 'winked her eye when she went to sleep.'" He stopped in
consternation. The terrible conviction flashed upon him that this
quotation from a popular negro-minstrel song could not possibly be
remembered by a lady as refined as his hostess, or even known to
her superior son. The conviction was intensified by Mrs. Brooks
rising with a smileless face, slightly shedding the possible
vulgarity with a shake of her shawl, and remarking that she would
show him her son's room, led the way upstairs to the apartment
recently vacated by the perfect Tappington.
Preceded by the same distant flutter of unseen skirts in the
passage which he had first noticed on entering the drawing-room,
and which evidently did not proceed from his companion, whose self-
composed cerements would have repressed any such indecorous
agitation, Mr. Bly stepped timidly into the room. It was a very
pretty apartment, suggesting the same touches of tasteful
refinement in its furniture and appointments, and withal so
feminine in its neatness and regularity, that, conscious of his
frontier habits and experience, he felt at once repulsively
incongruous. "I cannot expect, Mr. Bly," said Mrs. Brooks
resignedly, "that you can share my son's extreme sensitiveness to
disorder and irregularity; but I must beg you to avoid as much as
possible disturbing the arrangement of the book-shelves, which, you
observe, comprise his books of serious reference, the Biblical
commentaries, and the sermons which were his habitual study. I
must beg you to exercise the same care in reference to the valuable
offerings from his Sabbath-school scholars which are upon the
mantel. The embroidered book-marker, the gift of the young ladies
of his Bible-class in Dr. Stout's church, is also, you perceive,
kept for ornament and affectionate remembrance. The harmonium--
even if you are not yourself given to sacred song--I trust you will
not find in your way, nor object to my daughter continuing her
practice during your daily absence. Thank you. The door you are
looking at leads by a flight of steps to the side street."
"A very convenient arrangement," said Bly hopefully, who saw a
chance for an occasional unostentatious escape from a too
protracted contemplation of Tappington's perfections. "I mean," he
added hurriedly, "to avoid disturbing you at night."
"I believe my son had neither the necessity nor desire to use it
for that purpose," returned Mrs. Brooks severely; "although he
found it sometimes a convenient short cut to church on Sabbath when
he was late."
Bly, who in his boyish sensitiveness to external impressions had by
this time concluded that a life divided between the past
perfections of Tappington and the present renunciations of Mrs.
Brooks would be intolerable, and was again abstractedly inventing
some delicate excuse for withdrawing without committing himself
further, was here suddenly attracted by a repetition of the
rustling of the unseen skirt. This time it was nearer, and this
time it seemed to strike even Mrs. Brooks's remote preoccupation.
"My daughter, who is deeply devoted to her brother," she said,
slightly raising her voice, "will take upon herself the care of
looking after Tappington's precious mementoes, and spare you the
trouble. Cherry, dear! this way. This is the young gentleman
spoken of by Mr. Carstone, your papa's friend. My daughter
Cherubina, Mr. Bly."
The fair owner of the rustling skirt, which turned out to be a
pretty French print, had appeared at the doorway. She was a tall,
slim blonde, with a shy, startled manner, as of a penitent nun who
was suffering for some conventual transgression--a resemblance that
was heightened by her short-cut hair, that might have been cropped
as if for punishment. A certain likeness to her mother suggested
that she was qualifying for that saint's ascetic shawl--subject,
however, to rebellious intervals, indicated in the occasional
sidelong fires of her gray eyes. Yet the vague impression that she
knew more of the world than her mother, and that she did not look
at all as if her name was Cherubina, struck Bly in the same
momentary glance.
"Mr. Bly is naturally pleased with what he has seen of our dear
Tappington's appointments; and as I gather from Mr. Carstone's
letter that he is anxious to enter at once and make the most of the
dear boy's absence, you will see, my dear Cherry, that Ellen has
everything ready for him?"
Before the unfortunate Bly could explain or protest, the young girl
lifted her gray eyes to his. Whether she had perceived and
understood his perplexity he could not tell; but the swift shy
glance was at once appealing, assuring, and intelligent. She was
certainly unlike her mother and brother. Acting with his usual
impulsiveness, he forgot his previous resolution, and before he
left had engaged to begin his occupation of the room on the
following day.
The next afternoon found him installed. Yet, after he had unpacked
his modest possessions and put them away, after he had placed his
few books on the shelves, where they looked glaringly trivial and
frivolous beside the late tenant's severe studies; after he had set
out his scanty treasures in the way of photographs and some curious
mementoes of his wandering life, and then quickly put them back
again with a sudden angry pride at exposing them to the
unsympathetic incongruity of the other ornaments, he, nevertheless,
felt ill at ease. He glanced in vain around the pretty room. It
was not the delicately flowered wall-paper; it was not the white
and blue muslin window-curtains gracefully tied up with blue and
white ribbons; it was not the spotless bed, with its blue and white
festooned mosquito-net and flounced valances, and its medallion
portrait of an unknown bishop at the back; it was not the few
tastefully framed engravings of certain cardinal virtues, "The Rock
of Ages," and "The Guardian Angel"; it was not the casts in relief
of "Night" and "Morning"; it was certainly not the cosy dimity-
covered arm-chairs and sofa, nor yet the clean-swept polished grate
with its cheerful fire sparkling against the chill afternoon sea-
fogs without; neither was it the mere feminine suggestion, for that
touched a sympathetic chord in his impulsive nature; nor the
religious and ascetic influence, for he had occupied a monastic
cell in a school of the padres at an old mission, and slept
profoundly;--it was none of those, and yet a part of all. Most
habitations retain a cast or shell of their previous tenant that,
fitting tightly or loosely, is still able to adjust itself to the
newcomer; in most occupied apartments there is still a shadowy
suggestion of the owner's individuality; there was nothing here
that fitted Bly--nor was there either, strange to say, any evidence
of the past proprietor in this inhospitality of sensation. It did
not strike him at the time that it was this very LACK of
individuality which made it weird and unreal, that it was strange
only because it was ARTIFICIAL, and that a REAL Tappington had
never inhabited it.
He walked to the window--that never-failing resource of the unquiet
mind--and looked out. He was a little surprised to find, that,
owing to the grading of the house, the scrub-oaks and bushes of the
hill were nearly on the level of his window, as also was the
adjoining side street on which his second door actually gave.
Opening this, the sudden invasion of the sea-fog and the figure of
a pedestrian casually passing along the disused and abandoned
pavement not a dozen feet from where he had been comfortably
seated, presented such a striking contrast to the studious quiet
and cosiness of his secluded apartment that he hurriedly closed the
door again with a sense of indiscreet exposure. Returning to the
window, he glanced to the left, and found that he was overlooked by
the side veranda of another villa in the rear, evidently on its way
to take position on the line of the street. Although in actual and
deliberate transit on rollers across the backyard and still
occulting a part of the view, it remained, after the reckless
fashion of the period, inhabited. Certainly, with a door fronting
a thoroughfare, and a neighbor gradually approaching him, he would
not feel lonely or lack excitement.
He drew his arm-chair to the fire and tried to realize the all-
pervading yet evasive Tappington. There was no portrait of him in
the house, and although Mrs. Brooks had said that he "favored" his
sister, Bly had, without knowing why, instinctively resented it.
He had even timidly asked his employer, and had received the vague
reply that he was "good-looking enough," and the practical but
discomposing retort, "What do you want to know for?" As he really
did not know why, the inquiry had dropped. He stared at the
monumental crystal ink-stand half full of ink, yet spotless and
free from stains, that stood on the table, and tried to picture
Tappington daintily dipping into it to thank the fair donors--
"daughters of Rebecca." Who were they? and what sort of man would
they naturally feel grateful to?
What was that?
He turned to the window, which had just resounded to a slight tap
or blow, as if something soft had struck it. With an instinctive
suspicion of the propinquity of the adjoining street he rose, but a
single glance from the window satisfied him that no missile would
have reached it from thence. He scanned the low bushes on the
level before him; certainly no one could be hiding there. He
lifted his eyes toward the house on the left; the curtains of the
nearest window appeared to be drawn suddenly at the same moment.
Could it have come from there? Looking down upon the window-ledge,
there lay the mysterious missile--a little misshapen ball. He
opened the window and took it up. It was a small handkerchief tied
into a soft knot, and dampened with water to give it the necessary
weight as a projectile.
Was it apparently the trick of a mischievous child? or--
But here a faint knock on the door leading into the hall checked
his inquiry. He opened it sharply in his excitement, and was
embarrassed to find the daughter of his hostess standing there,
shy, startled, and evidently equally embarrassed by his abrupt
response.
"Mother only wanted me to ask you if Ellen had put everything to
rights," she said, making a step backwards.
"Oh, thank you. Perfectly," said Herbert with effusion. "Nothing
could be better done. In fact"--
"You're quite sure she hasn't forgotten anything? or that there
isn't anything you would like changed?" she continued, with her
eyes leveled on the floor.
"Nothing, I assure you," he said, looking at her downcast lashes.
As she still remained motionless, he continued cheerfully, "Would
you--would you--care to look round and see?"
"No; I thank you."
There was an awkward pause. He still continued to hold the door
open. Suddenly she moved forward with a school-girl stride,
entered the room, and going to the harmonium, sat down upon the
music-stool beside it, slightly bending forward, with one long,
slim, white hand on top of the other, resting over her crossed
knees.
Herbert was a little puzzled. It was the awkward and brusque act
of a very young person, and yet nothing now could be more gentle
and self-composed than her figure and attitude.
"Yes," he continued, smilingly; "I am only afraid that I may not be
able to live quite up to the neatness and regularity of the example
I find here everywhere. You know I am dreadfully careless and not
at all orderly. I shudder to think what may happen; but you and
your mother, Miss Brooks, I trust, will make up your minds to
overlook and forgive a good deal. I shall do my best to be worthy
of Mr. Tap--of my predecessor--but even then I am afraid you'll
find me a great bother."
She raised her shy eyelids. The faintest ghost of a long-buried
dimple came into her pale cheek as she said softly, to his utter
consternation:
"Rats!"
Had she uttered an oath he could not have been more startled than
he was by this choice gem of Western saloon-slang from the pure
lips of this Evangeline-like figure before him. He sat gazing at
her with a wild hysteric desire to laugh. She lifted her eyes
again, swept him with a slightly terrified glance, and said:
"Tap says you all say that when any one makes-believe politeness to
you."
"Oh, your BROTHER says that, does he?" said Herbert, laughing.
"Yes, and sometimes 'Old rats.' But," she continued hurriedly, "HE
doesn't say it; he says YOU all do. My brother is very particular,
and very good. Doctor Stout loves him. He is thought very much of
in all Christian circles. That book-mark was given to him by one
of his classes."
Every trace of her dimples had vanished. She looked so sweetly
grave, and withal so maidenly, sitting there slightly smoothing the
lengths of her pink fingers, that Herbert was somewhat embarrassed.
"But I assure you, Miss Brooks, I was not making-believe. I am
really very careless, and everything is so proper--I mean so neat
and pretty--here, that I"--he stopped, and, observing the same
backward wandering of her eye as of a filly about to shy, quickly
changed the subject. "You have, or are about to have, neighbors?"
he said, glancing towards the windows as he recalled the incident
of a moment before.
"Yes; and they're not at all nice people. They are from Pike
County, and very queer. They came across the plains in '50. They
say 'Stranger'; the men are vulgar, and the girls very forward.
Tap forbids my ever going to the window and looking at them.
They're quite what you would call 'off color.'"
Herbert, who did not dare to say that he never would have dreamed
of using such an expression in any young girl's presence, was
plunged in silent consternation.
"Then your brother doesn't approve of them?" he said, at last,
awkwardly.
"Oh, not at all. He even talked of having ground-glass put in all
these windows, only it would make the light bad."
Herbert felt very embarrassed. If the mysterious missile came from
these objectionable young persons, it was evidently because they
thought they had detected a more accessible and sympathizing
individual in the stranger who now occupied the room. He concluded
he had better not say anything about it.
Miss Brooks's golden eyelashes were bent towards the floor. "Do
you play sacred music, Mr. Bly?" she said, without raising them.
"I am afraid not."
"Perhaps you know only negro-minstrel songs?"
"I am afraid--yes."
"I know one." The dimples faintly came back again. "It's called
'The Ham-fat Man.' Some day when mother isn't in I'll play it for
you."
Then the dimples fled again, and she immediately looked so
distressed that Herbert came to her assistance.
"I suppose your brother taught you that too?"
"Oh dear, no!" she returned, with her frightened glance; "I only
heard him say some people preferred that kind of thing to sacred
music, and one day I saw a copy of it in a music-store window in
Clay Street, and bought it. Oh no! Tappington didn't teach it to
me."
In the pleasant discovery that she was at times independent of her
brother's perfections, Herbert smiled, and sympathetically drew a
step nearer to her. She rose at once, somewhat primly holding back
the sides of her skirt, school-girl fashion, with thumb and finger,
and her eyes cast down.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Bly."
"Must you go? Good afternoon."
She walked directly to the open door, looking very tall and stately
as she did so, but without turning towards him. When she reached
it she lifted her eyes; there was the slightest suggestion of a
return of her dimples in the relaxation of her grave little mouth.
Then she said, "good-bye, Mr. Bly," and departed.
The skirt of her dress rustled for an instant in the passage.
Herbert looked after her. "I wonder if she skipped then--she looks
like a girl that might skip at such a time," he said to himself.
"How very odd she is--and how simple! But I must pull her up in
that slang when I know her better. Fancy her brother telling her
THAT! What a pair they must be!" Nevertheless, when he turned
back into the room again he forbore going to the window to indulge
further curiosity in regard to his wicked neighbors. A certain new
feeling of respect to his late companion--and possibly to himself--
held him in check. Much as he resented Tappington's perfections,
he resented quite as warmly the presumption that he was not quite
as perfect, which was implied in that mysterious overture. He
glanced at the stool on which she had been sitting with a half-
brotherly smile, and put it reverently on one side with a very
vivid recollection of her shy maidenly figure. In some mysterious
way too the room seemed to have lost its formal strangeness;
perhaps it was the touch of individuality--HERS--that had been
wanting? He began thoughtfully to dress himself for his regular
dinner at the Poodle Dog Restaurant, and when he left the room he
turned back to look once more at the stool where she had sat. Even
on his way to that fast and famous cafe of the period he felt, for
the first time in his thoughtless but lonely life, the gentle
security of the home he had left behind him.
II.
It was three or four days before he became firmly adjusted to his
new quarters. During this time he had met Cherry casually on the
staircase, in going or coming, and received her shy greetings; but
she had not repeated her visit, nor again alluded to it. He had
spent part of a formal evening in the parlor in company with a
calling deacon, who, unappalled by the Indian shawl for which the
widow had exchanged her household cerements on such occasions,
appeared to Herbert to have remote matrimonial designs, as far at
least as a sympathetic deprecation of the vanities of the present,
an echoing of her sighs like a modest encore, a preternatural
gentility of manner, a vague allusion to the necessity of bearing
"one another's burdens," and an everlasting promise in store, would
seem to imply. To Herbert's vivid imagination, a discussion on the
doctrinal points of last Sabbath's sermon was fraught with delicate
suggestion and an acceptance by the widow of an appointment to
attend the Wednesday evening "Lectures" had all the shy reluctant
yielding of a granted rendezvous. Oddly enough, the more formal
attitude seemed to be reserved for the young people, who, in the
suggestive atmosphere of this spiritual flirtation, alone appeared
to preserve the proprieties and, to some extent, decorously
chaperon their elders. Herbert gravely turned the leaves of
Cherry's music while she played and sang one or two discreet but
depressing songs expressive of her unalterable but proper devotion
to her mother's clock, her father's arm-chair, and her aunt's
Bible; and Herbert joined somewhat boyishly in the soul-subduing
refrain. Only once he ventured to suggest in a whisper that he
would like to add HER music-stool to the adorable inventory; but he
was met by such a disturbed and terrified look that he desisted.
"Another night of this wild and reckless dissipation will finish
me," he said lugubriously to himself when he reached the solitude
of his room. "I wonder how many times a week I'd have to help the
girl play the spiritual gooseberry downstairs before we could have
any fun ourselves?"
Here the sound of distant laughter, interspersed with vivacious
feminine shrieks, came through the open window. He glanced between
the curtains. His neighbor's house was brilliantly lit, and the
shadows of a few romping figures were chasing each other across the
muslin shades of the windows. The objectionable young women were
evidently enjoying themselves. In some conditions of the mind
there is a certain exasperation in the spectacle of unmeaning
enjoyment, and he shut the window sharply. At the same moment some
one knocked at his door.
It was Miss Brooks, who had just come upstairs.
"Will you please let me have my music-stool?"
He stared at her a moment in surprise, then recovering himself,
said, "Yes, certainly," and brought the stool. For an instant he
was tempted to ask why she wanted it, but his pride forbade him.
"Thank you. Good-night."
"Good-night!"
"I hope it wasn't in your way?"
"Not at all."
"Good-night!"
"Good-night."
She vanished. Herbert was perplexed. Between young ladies whose
naive exuberance impelled them to throw handkerchiefs at his window
and young ladies whose equally naive modesty demanded the
withdrawal from his bedroom of a chair on which they had once sat,
his lot seemed to have fallen in a troubled locality. Yet a day or
two later he heard Cherry practising on the harmonium as he was
ascending the stairs on his return from business; she had departed
before he entered the room, but had left the music-stool behind
her. It was not again removed.
One Sunday, the second or third of his tenancy, when Cherry and her
mother were at church, and he had finished some work that he had
brought from the bank, his former restlessness and sense of
strangeness returned. The regular afternoon fog had thickened
early, and, driving him back from a cheerless, chilly ramble on the
hill, had left him still more depressed and solitary. In sheer
desperation he moved some of the furniture, and changed the
disposition of several smaller ornaments. Growing bolder, he even
attacked the sacred shelf devoted to Tappington's serious
literature and moral studies. At first glance the book of sermons
looked suspiciously fresh and new for a volume of habitual
reference, but its leaves were carefully cut, and contained one or
two book-marks. It was only another evidence of that perfect
youth's care and neatness. As he was replacing it he noticed a
small object folded in white paper at the back of the shelf. To
put the book back into its former position it was necessary to take
this out. He did so, but its contents slid from his fingers and
the paper to the floor. To his utter consternation, looking down
he saw a pack of playing-cards strewn at his feet!
He hurriedly picked them up. They were worn and slippery from use,
and exhaled a faint odor of tobacco. Had they been left there by
some temporary visitor unknown to Tappington and his family, or had
they been hastily hidden by a servant? Yet they were of a make and
texture superior to those that a servant would possess; looking at
them carefully, he recognized them to be of a quality used by the
better-class gamblers. Restoring them carefully to their former
position, he was tempted to take out the other volumes, and was
rewarded with the further discovery of a small box of ivory
counters, known as "poker-chips." It was really very
extraordinary! It was quite the cache of some habitual gambler.
Herbert smiled grimly at the irreverent incongruity of the hiding-
place selected by its unknown and mysterious owner, and amused
himself by fancying the horror of his sainted predecessor had he
made the discovery. He determined to replace them, and to put some
mark upon the volumes before them in order to detect any future
disturbance of them in his absence.
Ought he not to take Miss Brooks in his confidence? Or should he
say nothing about it at present, and trust to chance to discover
the sacrilegious hider? Could it possibly be Cherry herself,
guilty of the same innocent curiosity that had impelled her to buy
the "Ham-fat Man"? Preposterous! Besides, the cards had been
used, and she could not play poker alone!
He watched the rolling fog extinguish the line of Russian Hill, the
last bit of far perspective from his window. He glanced at his
neighbor's veranda, already dripping with moisture; the windows
were blank; he remembered to have heard the girls giggling in
passing down the side street on their way to church, and had
noticed from behind his own curtains that one was rather pretty.
This led him to think of Cherry again, and to recall the quaint yet
melancholy grace of her figure as she sat on the stool opposite.
Why had she withdrawn it so abruptly; did she consider his jesting
allusion to it indecorous and presuming? Had he really meant it
seriously; and was he beginning to think too much about her? Would
she ever come again? How nice it would be if she returned from
church alone early, and they could have a comfortable chat together
here! Would she sing the "Ham-fat Man" for him? Would the dimples
come back if she did? Should he ever know more of this quaint
repressed side of her nature? After all, what a dear, graceful,
tantalizing, lovable creature she was! Ought he not at all hazards
try to know her better? Might it not be here that he would find a
perfect realization of his boyish dreams, and in HER all that--what
nonsense he was thinking!
Suddenly Herbert was startled by the sound of a light but hurried
foot upon the wooden outer step of his second door, and the quick
but ineffective turning of the door-handle. He started to his
feet, his mind still filled with a vision of Cherry. Then he as
suddenly remembered that he had locked the door on going out,
putting the key in his overcoat pocket. He had returned by the
front door, and his overcoat was now hanging in the lower hall.
The door again rattled impetuously. Then it was supplemented by a
female voice in a hurried whisper: "Open quick, can't you? do
hurry!"
He was confounded. The voice was authoritative, not unmusical; but
it was NOT Cherry's. Nevertheless he called out quickly, "One
moment, please, and I'll get the key!" dashed downstairs and up
again, breathlessly unlocked the door and threw it open.
Nobody was there!
He ran out into the street. On one side it terminated abruptly on
the cliff on which his dwelling was perched; on the other, it
descended more gradually into the next thoroughfare; but up and
down the street, on either hand, no one was to be seen. A slightly
superstitious feeling for an instant crept over him. Then he
reflected that the mysterious visitor could in the interval of his
getting the key have easily slipped down the steps of the cliff or
entered the shrubbery of one of the adjacent houses. But why had
she not waited? And what did she want? As he reentered his door
he mechanically raised his eyes to the windows of his neighbor's.
This time he certainly was not mistaken. The two amused,
mischievous faces that suddenly disappeared behind the curtain as
he looked up showed that the incident had not been unwitnessed.
Yet it was impossible that it could have been either of THEM.
Their house was only accessible by a long detour. It might have
been the trick of a confederate; but the tone of half familiarity
and half entreaty in the unseen visitor's voice dispelled the idea
of any collusion. He entered the room and closed the door angrily.
A grim smile stole over his face as he glanced around at the dainty
saint-like appointments of the absent Tappington, and thought what
that irreproachable young man would have said to the indecorous
intrusion, even though it had been a mistake. Would those
shameless Pike County girls have dared to laugh at HIM?
But he was again puzzled to know why he himself should have been
selected for this singular experience. Why was HE considered fair
game for these girls? And, for the matter of that, now that he
reflected upon it, why had even this gentle, refined, and
melancholy Cherry thought it necessary to talk slang to HIM on
their first acquaintance, and offer to sing him the "Ham-fat Man"?
It was true he had been a little gay, but never dissipated. Of
course he was not a saint, like Tappington--oh, THAT was it! He
believed he understood it now. He was suffering from that
extravagant conception of what worldliness consists of, so common
to very good people with no knowledge of the world. Compared to
Tappington he was in their eyes, of course, a rake and a roue. The
explanation pleased him. He would not keep it to himself. He
would gain Cherry's confidence and enlist her sympathies. Her
gentle nature would revolt at this injustice to their lonely
lodger. She would see that there were degrees of goodness besides
her brother's. She would perhaps sit on that stool again and NOT
sing the "Ham-fat Man."
A day or two afterwards the opportunity seemed offered to him. As
he was coming home and ascending the long hilly street, his eye was
taken by a tall graceful figure just preceding him. It was she.
He had never before seen her in the street, and was now struck with
her ladylike bearing and the grave superiority of her perfectly
simple attire. In a thoroughfare haunted by handsome women and
striking toilettes, the refined grace of her mourning costume, and
a certain stateliness that gave her the look of a young widow, was
a contrast that evidently attracted others than himself. It was
with an odd mingling of pride and jealousy that he watched the
admiring yet respectful glances of the passers-by, some of whom
turned to look again, and one or two to retrace their steps and
follow her at a decorous distance. This caused him to quicken his
own pace, with a new anxiety and a remorseful sense of wasted
opportunity. What a booby he had been, not to have made more of
his contiguity to this charming girl--to have been frightened at
the naive decorum of her maidenly instincts! He reached her side,
and raised his hat with a trepidation at her new-found graces--with
a boldness that was defiant of her other admirers. She blushed
slightly.
"I thought you'd overtake me before," she said naively. "I saw YOU
ever so long ago."
He stammered, with an equal simplicity, that he had not dared to.
She looked a little frightened again, and then said hurriedly: "I
only thought that I would meet you on Montgomery Street, and we
would walk home together. I don't like to go out alone, and mother
cannot always go with me. Tappington never cared to take me out--I
don't know why. I think he didn't like the people staring and stop
ping us. But they stare more--don't you think?--when one is alone.
So I thought if you were coming straight home we might come
together--unless you have something else to do?"
Herbert impulsively reiterated his joy at meeting her, and averred
that no other engagement, either of business or pleasure, could or
would stand in his way. Looking up, however, it was with some
consternation that he saw they were already within a block of the
house.
"Suppose we take a turn around the hill and come back by the old
street down the steps?" he suggested earnestly.
The next moment he regretted it. The frightened look returned to
her eyes; her face became melancholy and formal again.
"No!" she said quickly. "That would be taking a walk with you like
these young girls and their young men on Saturdays. That's what
Ellen does with the butcher's boy on Sundays. Tappington often
used to meet them. Doing the 'Come, Philanders,' as he says you
call it."
It struck Herbert that the didactic Tappington's method of
inculcating a horror of slang in his sister's breast was open to
some objection; but they were already on the steps of their house,
and he was too much mortified at the reception of his last unhappy
suggestion to make the confidential disclosure he had intended,
even if there had still been time.
"There's mother waiting for me," she said, after an awkward pause,
pointing to the figure of Mrs. Brooks dimly outlined on the
veranda. "I suppose she was beginning to be worried about my being
out alone. She'll be so glad I met you." It didn't appear to
Herbert, however, that Mrs. Brooks exhibited any extravagant joy
over the occurrence, and she almost instantly retired with her
daughter into the sitting-room, linking her arm in Cherry's, and,
as it were, empanoplying her with her own invulnerable shawl.
Herbert went to his room more dissatisfied with himself than ever.
Two or three days elapsed without his seeing Cherry; even the well-
known rustle of her skirt in the passage was missing. On the third
evening he resolved to bear the formal terrors of the drawing-room
again, and stumbled upon a decorous party consisting of Mrs.
Brooks, the deacon, and the pastor's wife--but not Cherry. It
struck him on entering that the momentary awkwardness of the
company and the formal beginning of a new topic indicated that HE
had been the subject of their previous conversation. In this idea
he continued, through that vague spirit of opposition which attacks
impulsive people in such circumstances, to generally disagree with
them on all subjects, and to exaggerate what he chose to believe
they thought objectionable in him. He did not remain long; but
learned in that brief interval that Cherry had gone to visit a
friend in Contra Costa, and would be absent a fortnight; and he was
conscious that the information was conveyed to him with a peculiar
significance.
The result of which was only to intensify his interest in the
absent Cherry, and for a week to plunge him in a sea of conflicting
doubts and resolutions. At one time he thought seriously of
demanding an explanation from Mrs. Brooks, and of confiding to her--
as he had intended to do to Cherry--his fears that his character
had been misinterpreted, and his reasons for believing so. But
here he was met by the difficulty of formulating what he wished to
have explained, and some doubts as to whether his confidences were
prudent. At another time he contemplated a serious imitation of
Tappington's perfections, a renunciation of the world, and an
entire change in his habits. He would go regularly to church--HER
church, and take up Tappington's desolate Bible-class. But here
the torturing doubt arose whether a young lady who betrayed a
certain secular curiosity, and who had evidently depended upon her
brother for a knowledge of the world, would entirely like it. At
times he thought of giving up the room and abandoning for ever this
doubly dangerous proximity; but here again he was deterred by the
difficulty of giving a satisfactory reason to his employer, who had
procured it as a favor. His passion--for such he began to fear it
to be--led him once to the extravagance of asking a day's holiday
from the bank, which he vaguely spent in the streets of Oakland in
the hope of accidentally meeting the exiled Cherry.
III.
The fortnight slowly passed. She returned, but he did not see her.
She was always out or engaged in her room with some female friend
when Herbert was at home. This was singular, as she had never
appeared to him as a young girl who was fond of visiting or had
ever affected female friendships. In fact, there was little doubt
now that, wittingly or unwittingly, she was avoiding him.
He was moodily sitting by the fire one evening, having returned
early from dinner. In reply to his habitual but affectedly
careless inquiry, Ellen had told him that Mrs. Brooks was confined
to her room by a slight headache, and that Miss Brooks was out. He
was trying to read, and listening to the wind that occasionally
rattled the casement and caused the solitary gas-lamp that was
visible in the side street to flicker and leap wildly. Suddenly he
heard the same footfall upon his outer step and a light tap at the
door. Determined this time to solve the mystery, he sprang to his
feet and ran to the door; but to his anger and astonishment it was
locked and the key was gone. Yet he was positive that HE had not
taken it out.
The tap was timidly repeated. In desperation he called out,
"Please don't go away yet. The key is gone; but I'll find it in a
moment." Nevertheless he was at his wits' end.
There was a hesitating pause and then the sound of a key cautiously
thrust into the lock. It turned; the door opened, and a tall
figure, whose face and form were completely hidden in a veil and
long gray shawl, quickly glided into the room and closed the door
behind it. Then it suddenly raised its arms, the shawl was parted,
the veil fell aside, and Cherry stood before him!
Her face was quite pale. Her eyes, usually downcast, frightened,
or coldly clear, were bright and beautiful with excitement. The
dimples were faintly there, although the smile was sad and half
hysterical. She remained standing, erect and tall, her arms
dropped at her side, holding the veil and shawl that still depended
from her shoulders.
"So--I've caught you!" she said, with a strange little laugh. "Oh
yes. 'Please don't go away yet. I'll get the key in a moment,'"
she continued, mimicking his recent utterance.
He could only stammer, "Miss Brooks--then it was YOU?"
"Yes; and you thought it was SHE, didn't you? Well, and you're
caught! I didn't believe it; I wouldn't believe it when they said
it. I determined to find it out myself. And I have; and it's
true."
Unable to determine whether she was serious or jesting, and
conscious only of his delight at seeing her again, he advanced
impulsively. But her expression instantly changed: she became at
once stiff and school-girlishly formal, and stepped back towards
the door.
"Don't come near me, or I'll go," she said quickly, with her hand
upon the lock.
"But not before you tell me what you mean," he said half laughingly
half earnestly. "Who is SHE? and what wouldn't you have believed?
For upon my honor, Miss Brooks, I don't know what you are talking
about."
His evident frankness and truthful manner appeared to puzzle her.
"You mean to say you were expecting no one?" she said sharply.
"I assure you I was not."
"And--and no woman was ever here--at that door?"
He hesitated. "Not to-night--not for a long time; not since you
returned from Oakland."
"Then there WAS one?"
"I believe so."
"You BELIEVE--you don't KNOW?"
"I believed it was a woman from her voice; for the door was locked,
and the key was downstairs. When I fetched it and opened the door,
she--or whoever it was--was gone."
"And that's why you said so imploringly, just now, 'Please don't go
away yet'? You see I've caught you. Ah! I don't wonder you
blush!"
If he had, his cheeks had caught fire from her brilliant eyes and
the extravagantly affected sternness--as of a school-girl monitor--
in her animated face. Certainly he had never seen such a
transformation.
"Yes; but, you see, I wanted to know who the intruder was," he
said, smiling at his own embarrassment.
"You did--well, perhaps THAT will tell you? It was found under
your door before I went away." She suddenly produced from her
pocket a folded paper and handed it to him. It was a misspelt
scrawl, and ran as follows:--
"Why are you so cruel? Why do you keep me dansing on the stepps
before them gurls at the windows? Was it that stuckup Saint, Miss
Brooks, that you were afraid of, my deer? Oh, you faithless
trater! Wait till I ketch you! I'll tear your eyes out and hern!"
It did not require great penetration for Herbert to be instantly
convinced that the writer of this vulgar epistle and the owner of
the unknown voice were two very different individuals. The note
was evidently a trick. A suspicion of its perpetrators flashed
upon him.
"Whoever the woman was, it was not she who wrote the note," he said
positively. "Somebody must have seen her at the door. I remember
now that those girls--your neighbors--were watching me from their
window when I came out. Depend upon it, that letter comes from
them."
Cherry's eyes opened widely with a sudden childlike perception, and
then shyly dropped. "Yes," she said slowly; "they DID watch you.
They know it, for it was they who made it the talk of the
neighborhood, and that's how it came to mother's ears." She
stopped, and, with a frightened look, stepped back towards the door
again.
"Then THAT was why your mother"--
"Oh yes," interrupted Cherry quickly. "That was why I went over to
Oakland, and why mother forbade my walking with you again, and why
she had a talk with friends about your conduct, and why she came
near telling Mr. Carstone all about it until I stopped her." She
checked herself--he could hardly believe his eyes--the pale, nun-
like girl was absolutely blushing.
"I thank you, Miss Brooks," he said gravely, "for your
thoughtfulness, although I hope I could have still proven my
innocence to Mr. Carstone, even if some unknown woman tried my door
by mistake, and was seen doing it. But I am pained to think that
YOU could have believed me capable of so wanton and absurd an
impropriety--and such a gross disrespect to your mother's house."
"But," said Cherry with childlike naivete, "you know YOU don't
think anything of such things, and that's what I told mother."
"You told your mother THAT?"
"Oh yes--I told her Tappington says it's quite common with young
men. Please don't laugh--for it's very dreadful. Tappington
didn't laugh when he told it to me as a warning. He was shocked."
"But, my dear Miss Brooks"--
"There--now you're angry--and that's as bad. Are you sure you
didn't know that woman?"
"Positive!"
"Yet you seemed very anxious just now that she should wait till you
opened the door."
"That was perfectly natural."
"I don't think it was natural at all."
"But--according to Tappington"--
"Because my brother is very good you need not make fun of him."
"I assure you I have no such intention. But what more can I say?
I give you my word that I don't know who that unlucky woman was.
No doubt she may have been some nearsighted neighbor who had
mistaken the house, and I dare say was as thoroughly astonished at
my voice as I was at hers. Can I say more? Is it necessary for me
to swear that since I have been here no woman has ever entered that
door--but"--
"But who?"
"Yourself."
"I know what you mean," she said hurriedly, with her old frightened
look, gliding to the outer door. "It's shameful what I've done.
But I only did it because--because I had faith in you, and didn't
believe what they said was true." She had already turned the lock.
There were tears in her pretty eyes.
"Stop," said Herbert gently. He walked slowly towards her, and
within reach of her frightened figure stopped with the timid
respect of a mature and genuine passion. "You must not be seen
going out of that door," he said gravely. "You must let me go
first, and, when I am gone, lock the door again and go through the
hall to your own room. No one must know that I was in the house
when you came in at that door. Good-night."
Without offering his hand he lifted his eyes to her face. The
dimples were all there--and something else. He bowed and passed
out.
Ten minutes later he ostentatiously returned to the house by the
front door, and proceeded up the stairs to his own room. As he
cast a glance around he saw that the music-stool had been moved
before the fire, evidently with the view of attracting his
attention. Lying upon it, carefully folded, was the veil that she
had worn. There could be no doubt that it was left there
purposely. With a smile at this strange girl's last characteristic
act of timid but compromising recklessness, after all his
precautions, he raised it tenderly to his lips, and then hastened
to hide it from the reach of vulgar eyes. But had Cherry known
that its temporary resting-place that night was under his pillow
she might have doubted his superior caution.
When he returned from the bank the next afternoon, Cherry rapped
ostentatiously at his door. "Mother wishes me to ask you," she
began with a certain prim formality, which nevertheless did not
preclude dimples, "if you would give us the pleasure of your
company at our Church Festival to-night? There will be a concert
and a collation. You could accompany us there if you cared. Our
friends and Tappington's would be so glad to see you, and Dr. Stout
would be delighted to make your acquaintance."
"Certainly!" said Herbert, delighted and yet astounded. "Then," he
added in a lower voice, "your mother no longer believes me so
dreadfully culpable?"
"Oh no," said Cherry in a hurried whisper, glancing up and down the
passage; "I've been talking to her about it, and she is satisfied
that it is all a jealous trick and slander of these neighbors.
Why, I told her that they had even said that I was that mysterious
woman; that I came that way to you because she had forbidden my
seeing you openly."
"What! You dared say that?"
"Yes don't you see? Suppose they said they HAD seen me coming in
last night--THAT answers it," she said triumphantly.
"Oh, it does?" he said vacantly.
"Perfectly. So you see she's convinced that she ought to put you
on the same footing as Tappington, before everybody; and then there
won't be any trouble. You'll come, won't you? It won't be so VERY
good. And then, I've told mother that as there have been so many
street-fights, and so much talk about the Vigilance Committee
lately, I ought to have somebody for an escort when I am coming
home. And if you're known, you see, as one of US, there'll be no
harm in your meeting me."
"Thank you," he said, extending his hand gratefully.
Her fingers rested a moment in his. "Where did you put it?" she
said demurely.
"It? Oh! IT'S all safe," he said quickly, but somewhat vaguely.
"But I don't call the upper drawer of your bureau safe," she
returned poutingly, "where EVERYBODY can go. So you'll find it NOW
inside the harmonium, on the keyboard."
"Oh, thank you."
"It's quite natural to have left it there ACCIDENTALLY--isn't it?"
she said imploringly, assisted by all her dimples. Alas! she had
forgotten that he was still holding her hand. Consequently, she
had not time to snatch it away and vanish, with a stifled little
cry, before it had been pressed two or three times to his lips. A
little ashamed of his own boldness, Herbert remained for a few
moments in the doorway listening, and looking uneasily down the
dark passage. Presently a slight sound came over the fanlight of
Cherry's room. Could he believe his ears? The saint-like Cherry--
no doubt tutored, for example's sake, by the perfect Tappington--
was softly whistling.
In this simple fashion the first pages of this little idyl were
quietly turned. The book might have been closed or laid aside even
then. But it so chanced that Cherry was an unconscious prophet;
and presently it actually became a prudential necessity for her to
have a masculine escort when she walked out. For a growing state
of lawlessness and crime culminated one day the deep tocsin of the
Vigilance Committee, and at its stroke fifty thousand peaceful men,
reverting to the first principles of social safety, sprang to arms,
assembled at their quarters, or patrolled the streets. In another
hour the city of San Francisco was in the hands of a mob--the most
peaceful, orderly, well organized, and temperate the world had ever
known, and yet in conception as lawless, autocratic, and imperious
as the conditions it opposed.
IV.
Herbert, enrolled in the same section with his employer and one or
two fellow-clerks, had participated in the meetings of the
committee with the light-heartedness and irresponsibility of youth,
regretting only the loss of his usual walk with Cherry and the
hours that kept him from her house. He was returning from a
protracted meeting one night, when the number of arrests and
searching for proscribed and suspected characters had been so large
as to induce fears of organized resistance and rescue, and on
reaching the foot of the hill found it already so late, that to
avoid disturbing the family he resolved to enter his room directly
by the door in the side street. On inserting his key in the lock
it met with some resisting obstacle, which, however, yielded and
apparently dropped on the mat inside. Opening the door and
stepping into the perfectly dark apartment, he trod upon this
object, which proved to be another key. The family must have
procured it for their convenience during his absence, and after
locking the door had carelessly left it in the lock. It was lucky
that it had yielded so readily.
The fire had gone out. He closed the door and lit the gas, and
after taking off his overcoat moved to the door leading into the
passage to listen if anybody was still stirring. To his utter
astonishment he found it locked. What was more remarkable--the key
was also INSIDE! An inexplicable feeling took possession of him.
He glanced suddenly around the room, and then his eye fell upon the
bed. Lying there, stretched at full length, was the recumbent
figure of a man.
He was apparently in the profound sleep of utter exhaustion. The
attitude of his limbs and the order of his dress--of which only his
collar and cravat had been loosened--showed that sleep must have
overtaken him almost instantly. In fact, the bed was scarcely
disturbed beyond the actual impress of his figure. He seemed to be
a handsome, matured man of about forty; his dark straight hair was
a little thinned over the temples, although his long heavy
moustache was still youthful and virgin. His clothes, which were
elegantly cut and of finer material than that in ordinary use, the
delicacy and neatness of his linen, the whiteness of his hands,
and, more particularly, a certain dissipated pallor of complexion
and lines of recklessness on the brow and cheek, indicated to
Herbert that the man before him was one of that desperate and
suspected class--some of whose proscribed members he had been
hunting--the professional gambler!
Possibly the magnetism of Herbert's intent and astonished gaze
affected him. He moved slightly, half opened his eyes, said
"Halloo, Tap," rubbed them again, wholly opened them, fixed them
with a lazy stare on Herbert, and said:
"Now, who the devil are you?"
"I think I have the right to ask that question, considering that
this is my room," said Herbert sharply.
"YOUR room?"
"Yes!"
The stranger half raised himself on his elbow, glanced round the
room, settled himself slowly back on the pillows, with his hands
clasped lightly behind his head, dropped his eyelids, smiled, and
said:
"Rats!"
"What?" demanded Herbert, with a resentful sense of sacrilege to
Cherry's virgin slang.
"Well, old rats then! D'ye think I don't know this shebang? Look
here, Johnny, what are you putting on all this side for, eh?
What's your little game? Where's Tappington?"
"If you mean Mr. Brooks, the son of this house, who formerly lived
in this room," replied Herbert, with a formal precision intended to
show a doubt of the stranger's knowledge of Tappington, "you ought
to know that he has left town."
"Left town!" echoed the stranger, raising himself again. "Oh, I
see! getting rather too warm for him here? Humph! I ought to have
thought of that. Well, you know, he DID take mighty big risks,
anyway!" He was silent a moment, with his brows knit and a rather
dangerous expression in his handsome face. "So some d--d hound
gave him away--eh?"
"I hadn't the pleasure of knowing Mr. Brooks except by reputation,
as the respected son of the lady upon whose house you have just
intruded," said Herbert frigidly, yet with a creeping consciousness
of some unpleasant revelation.
The stranger stared at him for a moment, again looked carefully
round the room, and then suddenly dropped his head back on the
pillow, and with his white hands over his eyes and mouth tried to
restrain a spasm of silent laughter. After an effort he succeeded,
wiped his moist eyes, and sat up.
"So you didn't know Tappington, eh?" he said, lazily buttoning his
collar.
"No."
"No more do I."
He retied his cravat, yawned, rose, shook himself perfectly neat
again, and going to Herbert's dressing-table quietly took up a
brush and began to lightly brush himself, occasionally turning to
the window to glance out. Presently he turned to Herbert and said:
"Well, Johnny, what's your name?"
"I am Herbert Bly, of Carstone's Bank."
"So, and a member of this same Vigilance Committee, I reckon," he
continued.
"Yes."
"Well, Mr. Bly, I owe you an apology for coming here, and some
thanks for the only sleep I've had in forty-eight hours. I struck
this old shebang at about ten o'clock, and it's now two, so I
reckon I've put in about four hours' square sleep. Now, look
here." He beckoned Herbert towards the window. "Do you see those
three men standing under that gaslight? Well, they're part of a
gang of Vigilantes who've hunted me to the hill, and are waiting to
see me come out of the bushes, where they reckon I'm hiding. Go to
them and say that I'm here! Tell them you've got Gentleman George--
George Dornton, the man they've been hunting for a week--in this
room. I promise you I won't stir, nor kick up a row, when they've
come. Do it, and Carstone, if he's a square man, will raise your
salary for it, and promote you." He yawned slightly, and then
slowly looking around him, drew the easy-chair towards him and
dropped comfortably in it, gazing at the astounded and motionless
Herbert with a lazy smile.
"You're wondering what my little game is, Johnny, ain't you? Well,
I'll tell you. What with being hunted from pillar to post, putting
my old pards to no end of trouble, and then slipping up on it
whenever I think I've got a sure thing like this,"--he cast an
almost affectionate glance at the bed,--"I've come to the
conclusion that it's played out, and I might as well hand in my
checks. It's only a question of my being RUN OUT of 'Frisco, or
hiding until I can SLIP OUT myself; and I've reckoned I might as
well give them the trouble and expense of transportation. And if I
can put a good thing in your way in doing it--why, it will sort of
make things square with you for the fuss I've given you."
Even in the stupefaction and helplessness of knowing that the man
before him was the notorious duellist and gambler George Dornton,
one of the first marked for deportation by the Vigilance Committee,
Herbert recognized all he had heard of his invincible coolness,
courage, and almost philosophic fatalism. For an instant his
youthful imagination checked even his indignation. When he
recovered himself, he said, with rising color and boyish vehemence:
"Whoever YOU may be, I am neither a police officer nor a spy. You
have no right to insult me by supposing that I would profit by the
mistake that made you my guest, or that I would refuse you the
sanctuary of the roof that covers your insult as well as your
blunder."
The stranger gazed at him with an amused expression, and then rose
and stretched out his hand.
"Shake, Mr. Bly! You're the only man that ever kicked George
Dornton when he deserved it. Good-night!" He took his hat and
walked to the door.
"Stop!" said Herbert impulsively; "the night is already far gone;
go back and finish your sleep."
"You mean it?"
"I do."
The stranger turned, walked back to the bed, unfastening his coat
and collar as he did so, and laid himself down in the attitude of a
moment before.
"I will call you in the morning," continued Herbert. "By that
time,"--he hesitated,--"by that time your pursuers may have given
up their search. One word more. You will be frank with me?"
"Go on."
"Tappington and you are--friends?"
"Well--yes."
"His mother and sister know nothing of this?"
"I reckon he didn't boast of it. I didn't. Is that all?"
sleepily.
"Yes."
"Don't YOU worry about HIM. Good-night."
"Good-night."
But even at that moment George Dornton had dropped off in a quiet,
peaceful sleep.
Bly turned down the light, and, drawing his easy-chair to the
window, dropped into it in bewildering reflection. This then was
the secret--unknown to mother and daughter--unsuspected by all!
This was the double life of Tappington, half revealed in his
flirtation with the neighbors, in the hidden cards behind the
books, in the mysterious visitor--still unaccounted for--and now
wholly exploded by this sleeping confederate, for whom, somehow,
Herbert felt the greatest sympathy! What was to be done? What
should he say to Cherry--to her mother--to Mr. Carstone? Yet he
had felt he had done right. From time to time he turned to the
motionless recumbent shadow on the bed and listened to its slow and
peaceful respiration. Apart from that undefinable attraction which
all original natures have for each other, the thrice-blessed
mystery of protection of the helpless, for the first time in his
life, seemed to dawn upon him through that night.
Nevertheless, the actual dawn came slowly. Twice he nodded and
awoke quickly with a start. The third time it was day. The
street-lamps were extinguished, and with them the moving, restless
watchers seemed also to have vanished. Suddenly a formal
deliberate rapping at the door leading to the hall startled him to
his feet.
It must be Ellen. So much the better; he could quickly get rid of
her. He glanced at the bed; Dornton slept on undisturbed. He
unlocked the door cautiously, and instinctively fell back before
the erect, shawled, and decorous figure of Mrs. Brooks. But an
utterly new resolution and excitement had supplanted the habitual
resignation of her handsome features, and given them an angry
sparkle of expression.
Recollecting himself, he instantly stepped forward into the
passage, drawing to the door behind him, as she, with equal
celerity, opposed it with her hand.
"Mr. Bly," she said deliberately, "Ellen has just told me that your
voice has been heard in conversation with some one in this room
late last night. Up to this moment I have foolishly allowed my
daughter to persuade me that certain infamous scandals regarding
your conduct here were false. I must ask you as a gentleman to let
me pass now and satisfy myself."
"But, my dear madam, one moment. Let me first explain--I beg"--
stammered Herbert with a half-hysterical laugh. "I assure you a
gentleman friend"--
But she had pushed him aside and entered precipitately. With a
quick feminine glance round the room she turned to the bed, and
then halted in overwhelming confusion.
"It's a friend," said Herbert in a hasty whisper. "A friend of
mine who returned with me late, and whom, on account of the
disturbed state of the streets, I induced to stay here all night.
He was so tired that I have not had the heart to disturb him yet."
"Oh, pray don't!--I beg"--said Mrs. Brooks with a certain youthful
vivacity, but still gazing at the stranger's handsome features as
she slowly retreated. "Not for worlds!"
Herbert was relieved; she was actually blushing.
"You see, it was quite unpremeditated, I assure you. We came in
together," whispered Herbert, leading her to the door, "and I"--
"Don't believe a word of it, madam," said a lazy voice from the
bed, as the stranger leisurely raised himself upright, putting the
last finishing touch to his cravat as he shook himself neat again.
"I'm an utter stranger to him, and he knows it. He found me here,
biding from the Vigilantes, who were chasing me on the hill. I got
in at that door, which happened to be unlocked. He let me stay
because he was a gentleman--and--I wasn't. I beg your pardon,
madam, for having interrupted him before you; but it was a little
rough to have him lie on MY account when he wasn't the kind of man
to lie on his OWN. You'll forgive him--won't you, please?--and, as
I'm taking myself off now, perhaps you'll overlook MY intrusion
too."
It was impossible to convey the lazy frankness of this speech, the
charming smile with which it was accompanied, or the easy yet
deferential manner with which, taking up his hat, he bowed to Mrs.
Brooks as he advanced toward the door.
"But," said Mrs. Brooks, hurriedly glancing from Herbert to the
stranger, "it must be the Vigilantes who are now hanging about the
street. Ellen saw them from her window, and thought they were YOUR
friends, Mr. Bly. This gentleman--your friend"--she had become a
little confused in her novel excitement--"really ought not to go
out now. It would be madness."
"If you wouldn't mind his remaining a little longer, it certainly
would be safer," said Herbert, with wondering gratitude.
"I certainly shouldn't consent to his leaving my house now," said
Mrs. Brooks with dignity; "and if you wouldn't mind calling Cherry
here, Mr. Bly--she's in the dining-room--and then showing yourself
for a moment in the street and finding out what they wanted, it
would be the best thing to do."
Herbert flew downstairs; in a few hurried words he gave the same
explanation to the astounded Cherry that he had given to her
mother, with the mischievous addition that Mrs. Brooks's unjust
suspicions had precipitated her into becoming an amicable
accomplice, and then ran out into the street. Here he ascertained
from one of the Vigilantes, whom he knew, that they were really
seeking Dornton; but that, concluding that the fugitive had already
escaped to the wharves, they expected to withdraw their
surveillance at noon. Somewhat relieved, he hastened back, to find
the stranger calmly seated on the sofa in the parlor with the same
air of frank indifference, lazily relating the incidents of his
flight to the two women, who were listening with every expression
of sympathy and interest. "Poor fellow!" said Cherry, taking the
astonished Bly aside into the hall, "I don't believe he's half as
bad as THEY said he is--or as even HE makes himself out to be. But
DID you notice mother?"
Herbert, a little dazed, and, it must be confessed, a trifle uneasy
at this ready acceptance of the stranger, abstractedly said he had
not.
"Why, it's the most ridiculous thing. She's actually going round
WITHOUT HER SHAWL, and doesn't seem to know it."
V.
When Herbert finally reached the bank that morning he was still in
a state of doubt and perplexity. He had parted with his grateful
visitor, whose safety in a few hours seemed assured, but without
the least further revelation or actual allusion to anything
antecedent to his selecting Tappington's room as refuge. More than
that, Herbert was convinced from his manner that he had no
intention of making a confidant of Mrs. Brooks, and this convinced
him that Dornton's previous relations with Tappington were not only
utterly inconsistent with that young man's decorous reputation, but
were unsuspected by the family. The stranger's familiar knowledge
of the room, his mysterious allusions to the "risks" Tappington had
taken, and his sudden silence on the discovery of Bly's ignorance
of the whole affair all pointed to some secret that, innocent or
not, was more or less perilous, not only to the son but to the
mother and sister. Of the latter's ignorance he had no doubt--but
had he any right to enlighten them? Admitting that Tappington had
deceived them with the others, would they thank him for opening
their eyes to it? If they had already a suspicion, would they care
to know that it was shared by him? Halting between his frankness
and his delicacy, the final thought that in his budding relations
with the daughter it might seem a cruel bid for her confidence, or
a revenge for their distrust of him, inclined him to silence. But
an unforeseen occurrence took the matter from his hands. At noon
he was told that Mr. Carstone wished to see him in his private
room!
Satisfied that his complicity with Dornton's escape was discovered,
the unfortunate Herbert presented himself, pale but self-possessed,
before his employer. That brief man of business bade him be
seated, and standing himself before the fireplace, looked down
curiously, but not unkindly, upon his employee.
"Mr. Bly, the bank does not usually interfere with the private
affairs of its employees, but for certain reasons which I prefer to
explain to you later, I must ask you to give me a straightforward
answer to one or two questions. I may say that they have nothing
to do with your relations to the bank, which are to us perfectly
satisfactory."
More than ever convinced that Mr. Carstone was about to speak of
his visitor, Herbert signified his willingness to reply.
"You have been seen a great deal with Miss Brooks lately--on the
street and elsewhere--acting as her escort, and evidently on terms
of intimacy. To do you both justice, neither of you seemed to have
made it a secret or avoided observation; but I must ask you
directly if it is with her mother's permission?"
Considerably relieved, but wondering what was coming, Herbert
answered, with boyish frankness, that it was.
"Are you--engaged to the young lady?"
"No, sir."
"Are you--well, Mr. Bly--briefly, are you what is called 'in love'
with her?" asked the banker, with a certain brusque hurrying over
of a sentiment evidently incompatible with their present business
surroundings.
Herbert blushed. It was the first time he had heard the question
voiced, even by himself.
"I am," he said resolutely.
"And you wish to marry her?"
"If I dared ask her to accept a young man with no position as yet,"
stammered Herbert.
"People don't usually consider a young man in Carstone's Bank of no
position," said the banker dryly; "and I wish for your sake THAT
were the only impediment. For I am compelled to reveal to you a
secret." He paused, and folding his arms, looked fixedly down upon
his clerk. "Mr. Bly, Tappington Brooks, the brother of your
sweetheart, was a defaulter and embezzler from this bank!"
Herbert sat dumfounded and motionless.
"Understand two things," continued Mr. Carstone quickly. "First,
that no purer or better women exist than Miss Brooks and her
mother. Secondly, that they know nothing of this, and that only
myself and one other man are in possession of the secret."
He slightly changed his position, and went on more deliberately.
"Six weeks ago Tappington sat in that chair where you are sitting
now, a convicted hypocrite and thief. Luckily for him, although
his guilt was plain, and the whole secret of his double life
revealed to me, a sum of money advanced in pity by one of his
gambling confederates had made his accounts good and saved him from
suspicion in the eyes of his fellow-clerks and my partners. At
first he tried to fight me on that point; then he blustered and
said his mother could have refunded the money; and asked me what
was a paltry five thousand dollars! I told him, Mr. Bly, that it
might be five years of his youth in state prison; that it might be
five years of sorrow and shame for his mother and sister; that it
might be an everlasting stain on the name of his dead father--my
friend. He talked of killing himself: I told him he was a cowardly
fool. He asked me to give him up to the authorities: I told him I
intended to take the law in my own hands and give him another
chance; and then he broke down. I transferred him that very day,
without giving him time to communicate with anybody, to our branch
office at Portland, with a letter explaining his position to our
agent, and the injunction that for six months he should be under
strict surveillance. I myself undertook to explain his sudden
departure to Mrs. Brooks, and obliged him to write to her from time
to time." He paused, and then continued: "So far I believe my plan
has been successful: the secret has been kept; he has broken with
the evil associates that ruined him here--to the best of my
knowledge he has had no communication with them since; even a
certain woman here who shared his vicious hidden life has abandoned
him."
"Are you sure?" asked Herbert involuntarily, as he recalled his
mysterious visitor.
"I believe the Vigilance Committee has considered it a public duty
to deport her and her confederates beyond the State," returned
Carstone dryly.
Another idea flashed upon Herbert. "And the gambler who advanced
the money to save Tappington?" he said breathlessly.
"Wasn't such a hound as the rest of his kind, if report says true,"
answered Carstone. "He was well known here as George Dornton--
Gentleman George--a man capable of better things. But he was
before your time, Mr. Bly--YOU don't know him."
Herbert didn't deem it a felicitous moment to correct his employer,
and Mr. Carstone continued: "I have now told you what I thought it
was my duty to tell you. I must leave YOU to judge how far it
affects your relations with Miss Brooks."
Herbert did not hesitate. "I should be very sorry, sir, to seem to
undervalue your consideration or disregard your warning; but I am
afraid that even if you had been less merciful to Tappington, and
he were now a convicted felon, I should change neither my feelings
nor my intentions to his sister."
"And you would still marry her?" said Carstone sternly; "YOU, an
employee of the bank, would set the example of allying yourself
with one who had robbed it?"
"I--am afraid I would, sir," said Herbert slowly.
"Even if it were a question of your remaining here?" said Carstone
grimly.
Poor Herbert already saw himself dismissed and again taking up his
weary quest for employment; but, nevertheless, he answered stoutly:
"Yes, sir."
"And nothing will prevent you marrying Miss Brooks?"
"Nothing--save my inability to support her."
"Then," said Mr. Carstone, with a peculiar light in his eyes, "it
only remains for the bank to mark its opinion of your conduct by
INCREASING YOUR SALARY TO ENABLE YOU TO DO SO! Shake hands, Mr.
Bly," he said, laughing. "I think you'll do to tie to--and I
believe the young lady will be of the same opinion. But not a word
to either her or her mother in regard to what you have heard. And
now I may tell you something more. I am not without hope of
Tappington's future, nor--d--n it!--without some excuse for his
fault, sir. He was artificially brought up. When my old friend
died, Mrs. Brooks, still a handsome woman, like all her sex
wouldn't rest until she had another devotion, and wrapped herself
and her children up in the Church. Theology may be all right for
grown people, but it's apt to make children artificial; and
Tappington was pious before he was fairly good. He drew on a
religious credit before he had a moral capital behind it. He was
brought up with no knowledge of the world, and when he went into
it--it captured him. I don't say there are not saints born into
the world occasionally; but for every one you'll find a lot of
promiscuous human nature. My old friend Josh Brooks had a heap of
it, and it wouldn't be strange if some was left in his children,
and burst through their straight-lacing in a queer way. That's
all! Good-morning, Mr. Bly. Forget what I've told you for six
months, and then I shouldn't wonder if Tappington was on hand to
give his sister away.
. . . . . . .
Mr. Carstone's prophecy was but half realized. At the end of six
months Herbert Bly's discretion and devotion were duly rewarded by
Cherry's hand. But Tappington did NOT give her away. That saintly
prodigal passed his period of probation with exemplary rectitude,
but, either from a dread of old temptation, or some unexplained
reason, he preferred to remain in Portland, and his fastidious nest
on Telegraph Hill knew him no more. The key of the little door on
the side street passed, naturally, into the keeping of Mrs. Bly.
Whether the secret of Tappington's double life was ever revealed to
the two women is not known to the chronicler. Mrs. Bly is reported
to have said that the climate of Oregon was more suited to her
brother's delicate constitution than the damp fogs of San
Francisco, and that his tastes were always opposed to the mere
frivolity of metropolitan society. The only possible reason for
supposing that the mother may have become cognizant of her son's
youthful errors was in the occasional visits to the house of the
handsome George Dornton, who, in the social revolution that
followed the brief reign of the Vigilance Committee,
characteristically returned as a dashing stockbroker, and the fact
that Mrs. Brooks seemed to have discarded her ascetic shawl
forever. But as all this was contemporaneous with the absurd
rumor, that owing to the loneliness induced by the marriage of her
daughter she contemplated a similar change in her own condition, it
is deemed unworthy the serious consideration of this veracious
chronicle.
-THE END-
Bret Harte's short story: A Secret Of Telegraph Hill
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