The Black Pearl Part 18

The crystalline, amber air was like wine; the mountains were a mosaic of color; the trees burned red and yellow, glowing torches of autumn, and accentuating all their ephemeral and regal splendor; among them, yet never of them, were the green austere pines marching in their serried ranks, on, on up the hillsides to timber line.

One day, as Pearl and Flick rode among the hills, a flood of sunlight falling about them, crimson and yellow leaves blowing on the wind, she expressed, for the first time, an interest in the desert and a desire to see it again.

"I'll have to go back sometime, Bob, I suppose," she said, "if it's only to see Lolita."

"I nearly brought her up with me," he said. "I thought maybe she'd stand it all right for a day or two; then I got afraid she'd sicken right away in this rare air, and I didn't dare."

"I guess so," sighed Pearl; "but, goodness! I'd sure like to see her again. I'd most give anything to hear her say, 'mi jasmin, Pearl, mi corazon.'"

"We understand each other, you and me and Lolita," returned Flick. "We all got the South in us, I reckon that's why."

"Maybe," she answered. "Yes, I'd like to see Lolita and mother. She won't leave her chickens and melons and sweet potatoes and all long enough to come up here, and, oh, there's times when I feel like I'd most give my eyes to see the desert again; but I couldn't stand it yet, Bob, not yet."

A shade had fallen over her face as she spoke and, to divert her, he began to speak of Jose. "Doesn't he make you laugh?" he asked. "He keeps everybody else on the broad grin."

"Men," she said scornfully. "I think he works a charm on you that you all put yourselves in danger for a thing like that. Sometimes he makes me laugh--a little; but if I had my way I would waste no time in putting him in prison where he belongs. What is it you see in him?"

"I don't believe women do like Jose much," reflected Flick.

"Except Nitschkan," replied Pearl. "She says she's trying to reform him and save his soul; but it mostly consists in getting him to do all the odd jobs she can think of, and Mrs. Thomas is trying to flirt with him."

"I guess you don't like him, because you don't see him as he is,"

ruminated Bob Flick. "He's not afraid of anything; he'll take chances, just without thinking of them, that I don't believe another man on earth would. He's always good-natured and amusing, and look how he can cook, Pearl," turning in his saddle, "just think of that! Why, he could take a piece of sole leather and make it taste like venison."

But even this list of perfections failed to arouse any enthusiasm for Jose in Pearl, or to convince her that the proper place for him was not within the sheltering walls of a prison.

"Well, if you don't care much for Jose, how about Seagreave?" There was a touch of anxiety in his glance as he asked this question. The jealousy which he could never succeed in overcoming, and yet of which he was continually ashamed, bit like acid into his heart as he thought of Seagreave's fair youthfulness; the charm of his long, clear, blue eyes; the winning sweetness of his nature.

Pearl drew her brows together a little, her eyes gloomed through her long, silky, black lashes. "I don't like queer people," she said petulantly. "He always seems to be mooning about something, and most of the time he acts like you weren't on the earth." An expression of surprise and resentment grew upon her face and darkened it. Then, with a gesture of annoyance, she threw up her head, dismissing the subject from her mind. A vision of Hanson rose before her and her heart turned to the memory of his ruddy good looks, his gay, bold eyes, his magnetic vitality.

"Say, Bob," she began, a little hesitatingly, "does that Mrs. Hanson still live around here?"

He nodded. "I got a letter from her the other day. She wanted me to attend to a little mining business down in the desert. She's pretty shrewd in business, too."

"Why couldn't she attend to her own business?" asked Pearl sharply.

"What's she bothering you, a stranger, for?"

"Because her father died not long ago and she inherited some property and she's got to go East to see about it. I shouldn't wonder if she's already started."

She repressed a sudden start and looked quickly at him, but he was gazing out over the ranges and did not see her, which, she reflected, was an excellent thing, considering the wild and daring idea which had flashed across her mind. If Hanson but knew that his wife had left Colina no power on earth could prevent him from immediately journeying thither. Should she mention the fact in a letter to her mother? She debated this for a day or two, the temptation to do so was almost overmastering, but her pride finally triumphed in the struggle, and she left the matter on the knees of the G.o.ds.

Yet, in the depths of her wild heart, she knew that he would come, that he must long have awaited just such an opportunity, and she had no doubt that he kept himself informed of the movements of the woman who bore his name. Her spirits rose in the contemplation of glorious moments when she should live to the full again, when she should feel herself to be as a quickened and soaring flame of pa.s.sion and intrigue. And what an opportunity! Her father was down at the Mont d'Or all day. Hughie, of course, was about most of the time, but she would not meet Hanson in the cabin, but out in the golden October weather among the pines. Bob Flick was returning to the desert the next day, so she had nothing to fear from him.

Several days, almost a week, pa.s.sed, and then a letter from Hanson, telling her of Mrs. Hanson's departure, and a.s.suring her that he meant to come to Colina, that he would not stop to consider any risks he might be taking, and that he was equally indifferent to her possible prohibition. He was coming, coming on the morning train the next Thursday, and this was Sat.u.r.day.

She drew a long breath and pressed the letter to her heart. She would never yield to him, never; not so long as that barrier to a marriage between himself and herself--Mrs. Hanson--remained a legal wall between them, but, oh! if she was to live, she must see him now and again, at long, long intervals; but nevertheless occasionally.

The listless melancholy of months fell from her, and those about her, noting the change, laid it to Bob Flick's influence and to the fact that she was almost continually in the saddle; also Hughie and Gallito congratulated themselves that she was speedily forgetting Hanson. Her whole demeanor had changed, she even condescended to banter Jose, and she took his jibes in good part; and in the evenings when Jose and Gallito, Mrs. Nitschkan and Mrs. Thomas, had sat down to the silence of their cards, and Hughie played softly on the piano in a dim corner, she talked to Seagreave; in fact, their conversations became more prolonged every evening.

One morning, a few days before Hanson arrived, she had chosen to stroll up the mountainside, instead of riding as usual. Absorbed in her glowing antic.i.p.ations, she had walked almost above timber line, then, presently, just as she realized that she was growing tired, the trail had led her to an ideal and natural resting place, a little chamber of ease. It was an open s.p.a.ce where the pine needles lay thick upon the ground, so thick that Pearl's feet sank deeply into them as she entered. All about it were gnarled and stunted pine trees, bent and twisted by the high mountain winds, until they appeared as strange, j.a.panese silhouettes against the deep, blue sky. It was delightfully warm here, where the sun fell so broadly, and Pearl threw herself down upon the pine needles. The wind sighed softly through the forest, barely penetrating her retreat, and finally, under the spell of the soft and dreamy atmosphere, she fell asleep. After a time she wakened, and slowly opening her eyes saw to her surprise that Seagreave was sitting a few feet away from her. He held a book in his hand, but he was not reading, neither was he looking at her, but out through a break in the trees at innumerable blue ranges, floating, unsubstantial as mist in a flood of suns.h.i.+ne.

She sat up, and he, hearing her move, turned quickly and met her eyes.

"I came here to read," he said, in smiling explanation. "I often come, and, seeing you here and asleep, I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind if I stayed and kept away the bears and mountain lions."

She was still a little dazed. "Why, why," rubbing her eyes, "I must have been asleep. It is so pleasant here."

He turned quickly. "You find it pleasant?" he said, "then the mountains must be beginning to exert their spell upon you."

"I don't know," she answered slowly; "I don't hate them like I used to; but I'll never really care for them. I love the desert."

"You must tell me what you find in the desert," he said. She looked out broodingly at the ranges, the strange sphynx look in her eyes, but she did not answer him. At last she withdrew her gaze from the hills and glanced rather contemptuously at the book in his hands. "Don't you ever work?" she asked abruptly. "You're a man."

"Sometimes I work down in the mines, if I want to," he replied carelessly; "but I rarely want to. Sometimes, too, I write a little."

"But don't you want to work all the time with your hands or your head, like other men do?" she persisted.

"No," he returned. "To what profit would it be?" There was just a trace of bitterness in his voice.

"But you are strong and a man," she spoke now with unveiled scorn. "You wouldn't be content always to sit up in a mountain cabin by the fire like an old woman."

"Wouldn't I?" he asked. "Why not?" The bitterness was more apparent now, and a shadow had fallen over his face. Pearl realized that, for the moment, at least, he had forgotten her presence, and in truth, his mind had traveled back over the years and he was living over again the experience which had made him a wanderer on the earth and finally a recluse in the lonely and isolated mountains.

It was a more or less conventional story. All events which penetrate deeply into human experience are. They are vital and living, because universal; therefore we call them conventional. Seagreave had been left an orphan at an early age, and as he inherited wealth and was born of a line of gentlemen and scholars who had given the world much of service in their day, his material environment offered him no obstacles to be overcome. There were no barriers between him and any normal desires and ambitions, nothing to excite his emulation with suggestions that there were forbidden and therefore infinitely desirable gardens in which he might wander a welcome guest. But life sets a premium on hard knocks. It is usually the bantling which is cast upon the rocks who wins most of the prizes, having acquired in a hard school powers of resistance and endurance.

Seagreave's pleasant experiences continued through youth into manhood.

When quite young he became engaged to a charming girl about his own age whom his guardians considered eminently suitable. Among many friends.h.i.+ps, he had one so congenial that he fancied no circ.u.mstance could arise which could strain or break this tie.

And then, on the very eve of his marriage, his sweetheart had eloped with this friend of his boyhood, and he had not only this wound of the heart to endure, but also the consciousness that he was pilloried as a blind fool by all of his acquaintances.

Consequently he had, in his first young bitterness and heartbreak, taken a sort of gloomy satisfaction in living remote from his fellow beings and burying himself in the wilds, ever strengthening his capacity to do without the ordered and cultivated life of which he had been a part, and which had seemed essential to his well-being; and he had no disillusionizing past experiences to teach him the philosophy that time a.s.suages all griefs, and that it is the part of common sense to take life as you find it.

Gradually his new manner of living, of wandering whither he would without ties or responsibilities, became a habit to him. He lost interest in the world of achievement as well as in the world of manners, but so insidious was this change, this s.h.i.+fting of the point of view, that he had never fully realized it until now when, in some way, some indefinite, goading and not altogether pleasant way, Pearl was bringing a faint realization of his acquired habit of mind home to him.

As Pearl watched him and wondered what remembrance it was that clouded his face, her interest in him increased. "I wonder--" she said, and hesitated.

Her words recalled him to himself immediately; with a little gesture of impatience as if annoyed at his own weakness, he put from him these morbid memories of the past. "You wonder--what?" he asked.

She flushed slightly at the thought that he might think her guilty of an intrusive curiosity, but she could not stop now. She must know more.

Her craving intelligence demanded some explanation. "Jose," she said doubtfully and almost involuntarily.

A smile of pure amus.e.m.e.nt rippled about his mouth. "Yes," he said, "Jose. What about him?"

Speech came readily enough to her now. "You know what Jose is,"

accusingly. "You know the big reward that is offered for him, and yet you keep him in your cabin and treat him almost like a brother."

"Quite like a brother," he said; "why not? Who would have the heart to put Pan in prison? Do you think shutting Jose up behind bars would make him any better? At any rate, he is safe to do no mischief here, and he is happy. Would you want us to give him up?"

"I!" She looked at him in surprise and shook her head. "But then we are different, my father and me. He likes bad company, and I guess I take after him. But you, they call you Saint Harry, you are respectable."