The Twins of Table Mountain, and Other Stories Part 12

"Yes, HE said she would," she answered simply.

"At present," continued Mr. Rightbody still awkwardly, "I see no objection to the proposed arrangement."

Miss Alice opened her round eyes at this.

"Why, papa, I thought it had been all settled long ago! Mamma knew it, you knew it. Last July, mamma and you talked it over."

"Yes, yes," returned her father, fumbling his papers; "that is--well, we will talk of it to-morrow." In fact, Mr. Rightbody HAD intended to give the affair a proper att.i.tude of seriousness and solemnity by due precision of speech, and some apposite reflections, when he should impart the news to his daughter, but felt himself unable to do it now.

"I am glad, Alice," he said at last, "that you have quite forgotten your previous whims and fancies. You see WE are right."

"Oh! I dare say, papa, if I'm to be married at all, that Mr. Marvin is in every way suitable."

Mr. Rightbody looked at his daughter narrowly. There was not the slightest impatience nor bitterness in her manner: it was as well regulated as the sentiment she expressed.

"Mr. Marvin is--" he began.

"I know what Mr. Marvin IS," interrupted Miss Alice; "and he has promised me that I shall be allowed to go on with my studies the same as before. I shall graduate with my cla.s.s; and, if I prefer to practise my profession, I can do so in two years after our marriage."

"In two years?" queried Mr. Rightbody curiously.

"Yes. You see, in case we should have a child, that would give me time enough to wean it."

Mr. Rightbody looked at this flesh of his flesh, pretty and palpable flesh as it was; but, being confronted as equally with the brain of his brain, all he could do was to say meekly,--

"Yes, certainly. We will see about all that to-morrow."

Miss Alice rose. Something in the free, unfettered swing of her arms as she rested them lightly, after a half yawn, on her lithe hips, suggested his next speech, although still distrait and impatient.

"You continue your exercise with the health-lift yet, I see."

"Yes, papa; but I had to give up the flannels. I don't see how mamma could wear them. But my dresses are high-necked, and by bathing I toughen my skin. See!" she added, as, with a child-like unconsciousness, she unfastened two or three b.u.t.tons of her gown, and exposed the white surface of her throat and neck to her father, "I can defy a chill."

Mr. Rightbody, with something akin to a genuine playful, paternal laugh, leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

"It's getting late, Ally," he said parentally, but not dictatorially.

"Go to bed."

"I took a nap of three hours this afternoon," said Miss Alice, with a dazzling smile, "to antic.i.p.ate this dissipation. Good-night, papa.

To-morrow, then."

"To-morrow," repeated Mr. Rightbody, with his eyes still fixed upon the girl vaguely. "Good-night."

Miss Alice tripped from the room, possibly a trifle the more light-heartedly that she had parted from her father in one of his rare moments of illogical human weakness. And perhaps it was well for the poor girl that she kept this single remembrance of him, when, I fear, in after-years, his methods, his reasoning, and indeed all he had tried to impress upon her childhood, had faded from her memory.

For, when she had left, Mr. Rightbody fell again to the examination of his old letters. This was quite absorbing; so much so, that he did not notice the footsteps of Mrs. Rightbody, on the staircase as she pa.s.sed to her chamber, nor that she had paused on the landing to look through the gla.s.s half-door on her husband, as he sat there with the letters beside him, and the telegram opened before him. Had she waited a moment later, she would have seen him rise, and walk to the sofa with a disturbed air and a slight confusion; so that, on reaching it, he seemed to hesitate to lie down, although pale and evidently faint. Had she still waited, she would have seen him rise again with an agonized effort, stagger to the table, fumblingly refold and replace the papers in the cabinet, and lock it, and, although now but half-conscious, hold the telegram over the gas-flame till it was consumed.

For, had she waited until this moment, she would have flown unhesitatingly to his aid, as, this act completed, he staggered again, reached his hand toward the bell, but vainly, and then fell p.r.o.ne upon the sofa.

But alas! no providential nor accidental hand was raised to save him, or antic.i.p.ate the progress of this story. And when, half an hour later, Mrs. Rightbody, a little alarmed, and more indignant at his violation of the doctor's rules, appeared upon the threshold, Mr. Rightbody lay upon the sofa, dead!

With bustle, with thronging feet, with the irruption of strangers, and a hurrying to and fro, but, more than all, with an impulse and emotion unknown to the mansion when its owner was in life, Mrs. Rightbody strove to call back the vanished life, but in vain. The highest medical intelligence, called from its bed at this strange hour, saw only the demonstration of its theories made a year before. Mr. Rightbody was dead--without doubt, without mystery, even as a correct man should die--logically, and indorsed by the highest medical authority.

But even in the confusion, Mrs. Rightbody managed to speed a messenger to the telegraph-office for a copy of the despatch received by Mr.

Rightbody, but now missing.

In the solitude of her own room, and without a confidant, she read these words:--

"[Copy.]

"To MR. ADAMS RIGHTBODY, BOSTON, Ma.s.s.

"Joshua Silsbie died suddenly this morning. His last request was that you should remember your sacred compact with him of thirty years ago.

(Signed) "SEVENTY-FOUR.

"SEVENTY-FIVE."

In the darkened home, and amid the formal condolements of their friends who had called to gaze upon the scarcely cold features of their late a.s.sociate, Mrs. Rightbody managed to send another despatch. It was addressed to "Seventy-Four and Seventy-Five," Cottonwood. In a few hours she received the following enigmatical response:--

"A horse-thief named Josh Silsbie was lynched yesterday morning by the Vigilantes at Deadwood."

PART II.

The spring of 1874 was r.e.t.a.r.ded in the California sierras; so much so, that certain Eastern tourists who had early ventured into the Yo Semite Valley found themselves, one May morning, snow-bound against the tempestuous shoulders of El Capitan. So furious was the onset of the wind at the Upper Merced Canyon, that even so respectable a lady as Mrs.

Rightbody was fain to cling to the neck of her guide to keep her seat in the saddle; while Miss Alice, scorning all masculine a.s.sistance, was hurled, a lovely chaos, against the snowy wall of the chasm. Mrs.

Rightbody screamed; Miss Alice raged under her breath, but scrambled to her feet again in silence.

"I told you so!" said Mrs. Rightbody, in an indignant whisper, as her daughter again ranged beside her. "I warned you especially, Alice--that--that--"

"What?" interrupted Miss Alice curtly.

"That you would need your chemiloons and high boots," said Mrs.

Rightbody, in a regretful undertone, slightly increasing her distance from the guides.

Miss Alice shrugged her pretty shoulders scornfully, but ignored her mother's implication.

"You were particularly warned against going into the valley at this season," she only replied grimly.

Mrs. Rightbody raised her eyes impatiently.

"You know how anxious I was to discover your poor father's strange correspondent, Alice. You have no consideration."

"But when YOU HAVE discovered him--what then?" queried Miss Alice.

"What then?"

"Yes. My belief is, that you will find the telegram only a mere business cipher, and all this quest mere nonsense."