Chapter XI THE MYSTERIOUS 'DOLPHUS
For a few days after the fire at the summit house some of the mountain folk from far and near took occasion to ride up to the scene of the excitement, "to visit with" the ladies, and hear that the bruit of the matter had greatly magnified it. They were an idle, peaceful people; a little thing diverted them.
The road by the mine was thus unusually gay; yet Durgan kept a more or less jealous watch, and at last caught sight of the yellow negro who a month before had visited Eve. He was dressed like a valet, in an odd mixture of clothes from the wardrobes of a gentleman and a groom. His features were small and regular; his long side-whiskers had an air of fashion which did not conceal the symptoms of some chronic disease.
"Ho!" cried Durgan; "where are you going?"
The darkie stopped with a submissive air, almost cringing as one accustomed to danger.
"What is your name?"
"'Dolphus, sir—'Dolphus Courthope."
"Courthope?"
"Yes, sir—from New Orleans. Mr. Courthope was very rich and had a great many slaves." He spoke correctly, with a Northern accent.
"You never saw slavery," said Durgan in scorn. "You have no right to that name."
"No, sir; my father and mother gave me that name. They belonged to Mr. Courthope."
"You were here before."
"Yes, sir; I came last month, but I went back to Hilyard. I came looking for"—there was just a perceptible pause—"the Miss Smiths; but I thought I'd come to the wrong place."
Durgan felt at a loss. On Adam's account he could have ordered the man off, but he had no right to inquire into his errand to the Smiths.
"I'm a respectable boy, sir. I'm not going to do any harm. I've got business." The darkie made this answer to Durgan's look of suspicion, and spoke with apparent knowledge of the world and confidence in the importance of his errand.
"See that you don't get into mischief!" With this curt dismissal Durgan stepped back into his own place.
In some minutes, when he heard the watchdog barking above, he went up the short foot-trail, expecting to reach the house with the negro, but nearing it, saw no one without.
From the open windows he heard Bertha's voice raised in excitement. "I will not leave you alone with him, Hermie, you need not ask it. He can have nothing to say that I should not hear."
As Durgan drew nearer he heard Bertha again, this time with a sob of distress in her voice. "I don't care what he says or does; I will brave anything rather."
"Birdie, darling, you are very, very foolish!" Miss Smith's voice was raised above her natural tone, but was much calmer.
Durgan's step was on the wooden verandah.
Doors and windows were all open to the summer heat. The sisters were standing in the low sitting-room. The negro, hat in hand, stood in a properly respectful attitude near the door. As before, his manner suggested that he was a servant and had no aspiration beyond his sphere.
"I saw that fellow come up the road," said Durgan. "I do not know, of course, what his errand is here; but I thought I ought to tell you that Adam told me that he had got no regular job, and that he had found him idling around a month ago with no apparent reason."
"Yes, sir; I was trying to discover from Adam's wife who it was that lived up here; but she told me so many fixings out of her head about these ladies that I come to the conclusion they wasn't the ladies I was looking for. Miss Smith knows me, sir; and I've been very ill lately—the doctor tells me I'm not long to live."
"Oh, you folks always think you're dying if you've got a cold. You're begging, I see."
"Yes, sir; I was asking this lady to help me. I'm dying of consumption, sir."
The man's manner was quiet enough. Durgan saw that both the sisters were intensely excited. The elder had her emotion perfectly under control; the younger looked almost fierce in the strain of some distress. What surprised him was that his protection was equally unwelcome to both. He could see, spite of their thanks, that, in trouble as they were, their first desire now was that he should be gone.
"I do not trust this man," Durgan said. "I would rather stay within call till you dismiss him."
"I'm all right, sir," said the darkie, again respectfully.
"He won't do us any harm," cried Bertha eagerly.
"I know who he is," said Miss Smith; "I know him to be unfortunate, Mr. Durgan."
Yet Durgan saw dismay written on Bertha's face as surely as if they had been attacked by open violence.
"Birdie, go out with Mr. Durgan and wait. You cannot be afraid to leave me while he is near."
"I will not! I will not!" cried the younger, with more vehemence than seemed necessary. So excited was she that she stamped her foot as she spoke.
The tension was relieved by what seemed propriety on the stranger's part.
"I'll go away, then," he said. "I don't want to make the young lady cry. I sha'n't make you any trouble, ladies." He backed out to where Durgan stood on the verandah.
"Wait, I'll give you something," said Miss Smith. "You ought to have good food." She went to her desk, and came out giving him a folded bank-note.
"Thank you, ma'am. Good-day." He went on a few steps and looked back, as if expecting Durgan to conduct him off the premises.
"I'd be much obliged, sir, if you'd show me the short way—I'm weak, sir."
Durgan indicated the trail, and followed to make sure that the negro did not return through the bushes.
As they went, Durgan saw him unfold the bank-note and take from inside a slip of written paper.
The mulatto went steadily down the mountain, without so much as looking at the kitchen door, whence Eve was regarding him with eager interest.
Adam had been in the meadow at the time of this incident. When going down to the post-office on his regular evening errand, he stopped to ask Durgan if the "yaller boy" had any genuine errand. And on the way up he stopped again, with trouble in his eyes, to give the information that 'Dolphus was spending the night there, and had suggested staying in this salubrious spot for his health.
Durgan discovered that Adam and his own negro laborers regarded the sickly and tawdry New Yorker as a peculiarly handsome specimen of their race—quite the gentleman, and irresistibly attractive to any negress—and that they agreed in denouncing his looks and manners solely on account of the possibly vagrant affections of their own women.
Durgan believed the stranger's errand to be purely mercenary, and feared that he was levying some sort of blackmail on Miss Smith. He feared, too, that Eve was abetting.