The Twins of Table Mountain, and Other Stories Part 5

There was no mistaking Dr. d.u.c.h.esne' s voice and manner; and Rand was affected by it, as most people were throughout the valley of the Stanislaus. But he turned upon him his frank and boyish face, and said simply, "But I don't know any woman, or where to get one."

The doctor looked at him again. "Well, I'll find you some one," he said, softening.

"Thank you!" said Rand.

The doctor was disappearing. With an effort Rand recalled him. "One moment, doctor." He hesitated, and his cheeks were glowing. "You'll please say nothing about this down there"--he pointed to the valley--"for a time. And you'll say to the woman you send--"

Dr. d.u.c.h.esne, whose resolute lips were sealed upon the secrets of half Tuolumne County, interrupted him scornfully. "I cannot answer for the woman--you must talk to her yourself. As for me, generally I keep my professional visits to myself; but--" he laid his hand on Rand's arm--"if I find out you're putting on any airs to that poor creature, if, on my next visit, her lips or her pulse tell me you haven't been acting on the square to her, I'll drop a hint to drunken old Nixon where his daughter is hidden. I reckon she could stand his brutality better than yours. Good-night!"

In another moment he was gone. Rand, who had held back his quick tongue, feeling himself in the power of this man, once more alone, sank on a rock, and buried his face in his hands. Recalling himself in a moment, he rose, wiped his hot eyelids, and staggered toward the cabin. It was quite still now. He paused on the topmost step, and listened: there was no sound from the ledge, or the Eagle's Nest that clung to it. Half timidly he descended the winding steps, and paused before the door of the cabin. "Mornie," he said, in a dry, metallic voice, whose only indication of the presence of sickness was in the lowness of its pitch,--"Mornie!" There was no reply. "Mornie," he repeated impatiently, "it's me,--Rand. If you want anything, you're to call me. I am just outside." Still no answer came from the silent cabin. He pushed open the door gently, hesitated, and stepped over the threshold.

A change in the interior of the cabin within the last few hours showed a new presence. The guns, shovels, picks, and blankets had disappeared; the two chairs were drawn against the wall, the table placed by the bedside. The swinging-lantern was shaded towards the bed,--the object of Rand's attention. On that bed, his brother's bed, lay a helpless woman, pale from the long black hair that matted her damp forehead, and clung to her hollow cheeks. Her face was turned to the wall, so that the softened light fell upon her profile, which to Rand at that moment seemed even n.o.ble and strong. But the next moment his eye fell upon the shoulder and arm that lay nearest to him, and the little bundle, swathed in flannel, that it clasped to her breast. His brow grew dark as he gazed. The sleeping woman moved. Perhaps it was an instinctive consciousness of his presence; perhaps it was only the current of cold air from the opened door: but she shuddered slightly, and, still unconscious, drew the child as if away from HIM, and nearer to her breast. The shamed blood rushed to Rand's face; and saying half aloud, "I'm not going to take your precious babe away from you," he turned in half-boyish pettishness away. Nevertheless he came back again shortly to the bedside, and gazed upon them both. She certainly did look altogether more ladylike, and less aggressive, lying there so still: sickness, that cheap refining process of some natures, was not unbecoming to her. But this bundle! A boyish curiosity, stronger than even his strong objection to the whole episode, was steadily impelling him to lift the blanket from it. "I suppose she'd waken if I did," said Rand; "but I'd like to know what right the doctor had to wrap it up in my best flannel s.h.i.+rt."

This fresh grievance, the fruit of his curiosity, sent him away again to meditate on the ledge. After a few moments he returned again, opened the cupboard at the foot of the bed softly, took thence a piece of chalk, and scrawled in large letters upon the door of the cupboard, "If you want anything, sing out: I'm just outside.--RAND." This done, he took a blanket and bear-skin from the corner, and walked to the door. But here he paused, looked back at the inscription (evidently not satisfied with it), returned, took up the chalk, added a line, but rubbed it out again, repeated this operation a few times until he produced the polite postscript,--"Hope you'll be better soon." Then he retreated to the ledge, spread the bear-skin beside the door, and, rolling himself in a blanket, lit his pipe for his night-long vigil. But Rand, although a martyr, a philosopher, and a moralist, was young. In less than ten minutes the pipe dropped from his lips, and he was asleep.

He awoke with a strange sense of heat and suffocation, and with difficulty shook off his covering. Rubbing his eyes, he discovered that an extra blanket had in some mysterious way been added in the night; and beneath his head was a pillow he had no recollection of placing there when he went to sleep. By degrees the events of the past night forced themselves upon his benumbed faculties, and he sat up. The sun was riding high; the door of the cabin was open. Stretching himself, he staggered to his feet, and looked in through the yawning crack at the hinges. He rubbed his eyes again. Was he still asleep, and followed by a dream of yesterday? For there, even in the very att.i.tude he remembered to have seen her sitting at her luncheon on the previous day, with her knitting on her lap, sat Mrs. Sol Saunders! What did it mean? or had she really been sitting there ever since, and all the events that followed only a dream?

A hand was laid upon his arm; and, turning, he saw the murky black eyes and Indian-inked beard of Sol beside him. That gentleman put his finger on his lips with a theatrical gesture, and then, slowly retreating in the well-known manner of the buried Majesty of Denmark, waved him, like another Hamlet, to a remoter part of the ledge. This reached, he grasped Rand warmly by the hand, shook it heartily, and said, "It's all right, my boy; all right!"

"But--" began Rand. The hot blood flowed to his cheeks: he stammered, and stopped short.

"It's all right, I say! Don't you mind! We'll pull you through."

"But, Mrs. Sol! what does she--"

"Rosey has taken the matter in hand, sir; and when that woman takes a matter in hand, whether it's a baby or a rehearsal, sir, she makes it buzz."

"But how did she know?" stammered Rand.

"How? Well, sir, the scene opened something like this," said Sol professionally. "Curtain rises on me and Mrs. Sol. Domestic interior: practicable chairs, table, books, newspapers. Enter Dr.

d.u.c.h.esne,--eccentric character part, very popular with the boys,--tells off-hand affecting story of strange woman--one 'more unfortunate'--having baby in Eagle's Nest, lonely place on 'peaks of Snowdon,' midnight; eagles screaming, you know, and far down unfathomable depths; only attendant, cold-blooded ruffian, evidently father of child, with sinister designs on child and mother."

"He didn't say THAT!" said Rand, with an agonized smile.

"Order! Sit down in front!" continued Sol easily. "Mrs. Sol--highly interested, a mother herself--demands name of place. 'Table Mountain.'

No; it cannot be--it is! Excitement. Mystery! Rosey rises to occasion--comes to front: 'Some one must go; I--I--will go myself!'

Myself, coming to center: 'Not alone, dearest; I--I will accompany you!'

A shriek at right upper center. Enter the 'Marysville Pet.' 'I have heard all. 'Tis a base calumny. It cannot be HE--Randolph!

Never!'--'Dare you accompany us will!' Tableau.

"Is Miss Euphemia--here?" gasped Rand, practical even in his embarra.s.sment.

"Or-r-rder! Scene second. Summit of mountain--moonlight Peaks of Snowdon in distance. Right--lonely cabin. Enter slowly up defile, Sol, Mrs. Sol, the 'Pet.' Advance slowly to cabin. Suppressed shriek from the 'Pet,' who rushes to rec.u.mbent figure--Left--discovered lying beside cabin-door. ''Tis he! Hist! he sleeps!' Throws blanket over him, and retires up stage--so." Here Sol achieved a vile imitation of the "Pet's"

most enchanting stage-manner. "Mrs. Sol advances--Center--throws open door. Shriek! ''Tis Mornie, the lost found!' The 'Pet' advances: 'And the father is?'--'Not Rand!' The 'Pet' kneeling: 'Just Heaven, I thank thee!' No, it is--'"

"Hus.h.!.+" said Rand appealingly, looking toward the cabin.

"Hush it is!" said the actor good-naturedly. "But it's all right, Mr.

Rand: we'll pull you through."

Later in the morning, Rand learned that Mornie's ill-fated connection with the Star Variety Troupe had been a source of anxiety to Mrs. Sol, and she had reproached herself for the girl's infelicitous debut.

"But, Lord bless you, Mr. Rand!" said Sol, "it was all in the way of business. She came to us--was fresh and new. Her chance, looking at it professionally, was as good as any amateur's; but what with her relations here, and her bein' known, she didn't take. We lost money on her! It's natural she should feel a little ugly. We all do when we get sorter kicked back onto ourselves, and find we can't stand alone. Why, you wouldn't believe it," he continued, with a moist twinkle of his black eyes; "but the night I lost my little Rosey, of diphtheria in Gold Hill, the child was down on the bills for a comic song; and I had to drag Mrs. Sol on, cut up as she was, and filled up with that much of Old Bourbon to keep her nerves stiff, so she could do an old gag with me to gain time, and make up the 'variety.' Why, sir, when I came to the front, I was ugly! And when one of the boys in the front row sang out, 'Don't expose that poor child to the night air, Sol,'--meaning Mrs.

Sol,--I acted ugly. No, sir, it's human nature; and it was quite natural that Mornie, when she caught sight o' Mrs. Sol's face last night, should rise up and cuss us both. Lord, if she'd only acted like that! But the old lady got her quiet at last; and, as I said before, it's all right, and we'll pull her through. But don't YOU thank us: it's a little matter betwixt us and Mornie. We've got everything fixed, so that Mrs. Sol can stay right along. We'll pull Mornie through, and get her away from this, and her baby too, as soon as we can. You won't get mad if I tell you something?" said Sol, with a half-apologetic laugh. "Mrs. Sol was rather down on you the other day, hated you on sight, and preferred your brother to you; but when she found he'd run off and left YOU, you,--don't mind my sayin',--a 'mere boy,' to take what oughter be HIS place, why, she just wheeled round agin' him. I suppose he got fl.u.s.tered, and couldn't face the music. Never left a word of explanation? Well, it wasn't exactly square, though I tell the old woman it's human nature. He might have dropped a hint where he was goin'.

Well, there, I won't say a word more agin' him. I know how you feel.

Hush it is."

It was the firm conviction of the simple-minded Sol that no one knew the various natural indications of human pa.s.sion better than himself.

Perhaps it was one of the fallacies of his profession that the expression of all human pa.s.sion was limited to certain conventional signs and sounds. Consequently, when Rand colored violently, became confused, stammered, and at last turned hastily away, the good-hearted fellow instantly recognized the unfailing evidence of modesty and innocence embarra.s.sed by recognition. As for Rand, I fear his shame was only momentary. Confirmed in the belief of his ulterior wisdom and virtue, his first embarra.s.sment over, he was not displeased with this halfway tribute, and really believed that the time would come when Mr. Sol should eventually praise his sagacity and reservation, and acknowledge that he was something more than a mere boy. He, nevertheless, shrank from meeting Mornie that morning, and was glad that the presence of Mrs. Sol relieved him from that duty.

The day pa.s.sed uneventfully. Rand busied himself in his usual avocations, and constructed a temporary shelter for himself and Sol beside the shaft, besides rudely shaping a few necessary articles of furniture for Mrs. Sol.

"It will be a little spell yet afore Mornie's able to be moved,"

suggested Sol, "and you might as well be comfortable."

Rand sighed at this prospect, yet presently forgot himself in the good humor of his companion, whose admiration for himself he began to patronizingly admit. There was no sense of degradation in accepting the friends.h.i.+p of this man who had traveled so far, seen so much, and yet, as a practical man of the world, Rand felt was so inferior to himself.

The absence of Miss Euphemia, who had early left the mountain, was a source of odd, half-definite relief. Indeed, when he closed his eyes to rest that night, it was with a sense that the reality of his situation was not as bad as he had feared. Once only, the figure of his brother--haggard, weary, and footsore, on his hopeless quest, wandering in lonely trails and lonelier settlements--came across his fancy; but with it came the greater fear of his return, and the pathetic figure was banished. "And, besides, he's in Sacramento by this time, and like as not forgotten us all," he muttered; and, twining this poppy and mandragora around his pillow, he fell asleep.

His spirits had quite returned the next morning, and once or twice he found himself singing while at work in the shaft. The fear that Ruth might return to the mountain before he could get rid of Mornie, and the slight anxiety that had grown upon him to know something of his brother's movements, and to be able to govern them as he wished, caused him to hit upon the plan of constructing an ingenious advertis.e.m.e.nt to be published in the San Francisco journals, wherein the missing Ruth should be advised that news of his quest should be communicated to him by "a friend," through the same medium, after an interval of two weeks.

Full of this amiable intention, he returned to the surface to dinner.

Here, to his momentary confusion, he met Miss Euphemia, who, in absence of Sol, was a.s.sisting Mrs. Sol in the details of the household.

If the honest frankness with which that young lady greeted him was not enough to relieve his embarra.s.sment, he would have forgotten it in the utterly new and changed aspect she presented. Her extravagant walking-costume of the previous day was replaced by some bright calico, a little white ap.r.o.n, and a broad-brimmed straw-hat, which seemed to Rand, in some odd fas.h.i.+on, to restore her original girlish simplicity.

The change was certainly not unbecoming to her. If her waist was not as tightly pinched, a la mode, there still was an honest, youthful plumpness about it; her step was freer for the absence of her high-heel boots; and even the hand she extended to Rand, if not quite so small as in her tight gloves, and a little brown from exposure, was magnetic in its strong, kindly grasp. There was perhaps a slight suggestion of the practical Mr. Sol in her wholesome presence; and Rand could not help wondering if Mrs. Sol had ever been a Gold Hill "Pet" before her marriage with Mr. Sol. The young girl noticed his curious glance.

"You never saw me in my rehearsal dress before," she said, with a laugh.

"But I'm not 'company' to-day, and didn't put on my best harness to knock round in. I suppose I look dreadful."

"I don't think you look bad," said Rand simply.

"Thank you," said Euphemia, with a laugh and a courtesy. "But this isn't getting the dinner."

As part of that operation evidently was the taking-off of her hat, the putting-up of some thick blond locks that had escaped, and the rolling-up of her sleeves over a pair of strong, rounded arms, Rand lingered near her. All trace of the "Pet's" previous professional coquetry was gone,--perhaps it was only replaced by a more natural one; but as she looked up, and caught sight of Rand's interested face, she laughed again, and colored a little. Slight as was the blush, it was sufficient to kindle a sympathetic fire in Rand's own cheeks, which was so utterly unexpected to him that he turned on his heel in confusion. "I reckon she thinks I'm soft and silly, like Ruth," he soliloquized, and, determining not to look at her again, betook himself to a distant and contemplative pipe. In vain did Miss Euphemia address herself to the ostentatious getting of the dinner in full view of him; in vain did she bring the coffee-pot away from the fire, and nearer Rand, with the apparent intention of examining its contents in a better light; in vain, while wiping a plate, did she, absorbed in the distant prospect, walk to the verge of the mountain, and become statuesque and forgetful. The sulky young gentleman took no outward notice of her.

Mrs. Sol's attendance upon Mornie prevented her leaving the cabin, and Rand and Miss Euphemia dined in the open air alone. The ridiculousness of keeping up a formal att.i.tude to his solitary companion caused Rand to relax; but, to his astonishment, the "Pet" seemed to have become correspondingly distant and formal. After a few moments of discomfort, Rand, who had eaten little, arose, and "believed he would go back to work."

"Ah, yes!" said the "Pet," with an indifferent air, "I suppose you must.

Well, good-by, Mr. Pinkney."

Rand turned. "YOU are not going?" he asked, in some uneasiness.

"I'VE got some work to do too," returned Miss Euphemia a little curtly.

"But," said the practical Rand, "I thought you allowed that you were fixed to stay until to-morrow?"

But here Miss Euphemia, with rising color and slight acerbity of voice, was not aware that she was "fixed to stay" anywhere, least of all when she was in the way. More than that, she MUST say--although perhaps it made no difference, and she ought not to say it--that she was not in the habit of intruding upon gentlemen who plainly gave her to understand that her company was not desirable. She did not know why she said this--of course it could make no difference to anybody who didn't, of course, care--but she only wanted to say that she only came here because her dear friend, her adopted mother,--and a better woman never breathed,--had come, and had asked her to stay. Of course, Mrs. Sol was an intruder herself--Mr. Sol was an intruder--they were all intruders: she only wondered that Mr. Pinkney had borne with them so long. She knew it was an awful thing to be here, taking care of a poor--poor, helpless woman; but perhaps Mr. Rand's BROTHER might forgive them, if he couldn't. But no matter, she would go--Mr. Sol would go--ALL would go; and then, perhaps, Mr, Rand--

She stopped breathless; she stopped with the corner of her ap.r.o.n against her tearful hazel eyes; she stopped with--what was more remarkable than all--Rand's arm actually around her waist, and his astonished, alarmed face within a few inches of her own.