CHAPTER I.
That which is to be seen of any event, its causes and consequences, is never important compared with the supreme importance of those unseen workings of things physical and things spiritual which are the heart of our life. The iceberg of the northern seas is less than its unseen foundations; the lava stream is less than the molten sea whence it issues; the apple falling to the ground, and the moon circling in her orbit, are less than the great invisible force which controls their movements and the movements of all the things that do appear. The crime is not so great as its motive, nor yet as its results; the beneficent deed is not so great as the beneficence of which it is but a fruit; yet we cannot see beneficence, nor motives, nor far-reaching results. We cannot see the greatest forces, which in hidden places, act and counteract to bring great things without observation; we see some broken fragments of their turmoil which now and again are cast up within our sight.
Notwithstanding this, which we all know, the average man feels himself quite competent to observe and to pass judgment on all that occurs in his vicinity. In the matter of the curious experience which the sect of the Adventists passed through in Chellaston, the greater part of the community formed prompt judgment, and in this judgment the chief element was derision.
The very next day, in the peaceful Sunday sunshine, the good people of Chellaston (and many of them were truly good) spent their breath in expatiating upon the absurdity of those who had met with the madman upon the mountain to pray for the descent of heaven. It was counted a good thing that a preacher so dangerously mad was dead; and it was considered as certain that his followers would now see their folly in the same light in which others saw it. It was reported as a very good joke that when one white-clad woman had returned to her home, wan and weary, in the small hours of the night, her husband had refused to let her in, calling to her from an upper window that his wife had gone to have a fly with the angels, and he did not know who she might be. Another and coarser version of the same tale was, that he had taken no notice of her, but had called to his man that the white cow had got loose and ought to be taken back into the paddock. Both versions were considered excellent in the telling. Many a worthy Christian, coming out of his or her place of worship, chuckled over the wit of this amiable husband, and observed, in the midst of laughter, that his wife, poor thing, had only got her deserts.
In the earlier hours of that Sunday morning rumour had darted about, busily telling of the sudden freak the drunkard's violence had taken, and of Father Cameron's death. Many a version of the story was brought to the hotel, but through them the truth sifted, and the people there heard what had really occurred. Eliza heard, for one, and was a good deal shocked. Still, as the men about the place remarked that it was a happy release for Father Cameron, who had undoubtedly gone to heaven, and that it was an advantage, too, to Job's wife, who would now be saved from further torment at her husband's hands, her mind became acquiescent. For herself, she had no reason to be sorry the old man was dead. It was better for him; it was better for her, too. So, without inward or outward agitation, she directed the morning business of the house, setting all things in such order that she, the guiding hand of it all, might that afternoon take holiday.
Some days before she had been invited by Mrs. Rexford to spend this afternoon with them and take tea. Then, as it was said that Principal Trenholme, in spite of a sprained ankle, had insisted upon taking the Church services as usual, all the fine ladies at the hotel intended to go and hear him preach in the evening. Eliza would go too. This programme was highly agreeable to her, more so than exciting amusement which would have pleased other girls better. Although nothing would have drawn expression of the fact from her, in the bottom of her deeply ambitious heart she felt honoured by the invitations Miss Rexford obtained for her, and appreciated to the full their value. She also knew the worth of suitable attendance at church.
Sunday was always a peaceful day at Chellaston. Much that was truly godly, and much that was in truth worldly, combined together to present a very respectable show of sabbath-keeping. The hotel shared in the sabbath quiet, especially in the afternoon, when most people were resting in their rooms.
About three o'clock Eliza was ready to go to her room on the third story to dress for the afternoon. This process was that day important, for she put on a new black silk gown. It was beflounced and befrilled according to the fashion of the time. When she had arranged it to a nicety in her own room, she descended to one of the parlours to survey herself in the pier-glass. No one was there. The six red velvet chairs and the uniform sofa stood in perfect order round the room. The table, with figured cloth, had a large black Bible on it as usual. On either side of the long looking-glass was a window, in which the light of day was somewhat dulled by coarse lace curtains. Abundance of light there was, however, for Eliza's purpose. She shut the door, and pushed aside the table which held the Bible, the better to show herself to herself in the looking-glass.
Eliza faced herself. She turned and looked at herself over one shoulder; then she looked over the other shoulder. As she did so, the curving column of her white neck was a thing a painter might have desired to look at, had he been able to take his eyes from the changeful sheen on her glossy red hair. But there was no painter there, and Eliza was looking at the gown. She walked to the end of the room, looking backward over her shoulder. She walked up the room toward the mirror, observing the moving folds of the skirt as she walked. She went aside, out of the range of the glass, and came into it again to observe the effect of meeting herself as though by chance, or rather, of meeting a young woman habited in such a black silk gown, for it was not in herself precisely that Eliza was at the moment interested. She did not smile at herself, or meet her own eyes in the glass. She was gravely intent upon looking as well as she could, not upon estimating how well she looked.
The examination was satisfactory. Perhaps a woman more habituated to silk gowns and mantua-makers would have found small wrinkles in sleeve or shoulder; but Eliza was pleased. If the gown was not perfect, it was as good a one as she was in the habit of seeing, even upon gala occasions. And she had no intention of keeping her gown for occasions; her intention was that it should be associated with her in the ordinary mind of the place. Now that she was fortunate enough to possess silk (and she was determined this should only be the forerunner of a succession of such gowns) people should think of her as Miss White, who wore silk in the afternoons. She settled this as she saw how well the material became her. Then, with grave care, she arranged a veil round the black bonnet she wore, and stood putting on new gloves preparatory to leaving the room. Eliza was not very imaginative; but had she been disposed to foresee events, much as she might have harassed herself, she would not have been more likely to hit upon the form to be taken by the retributive fate she always vaguely feared than are the poor creatures enslaved by fearful imaginations.
The door opened, and Harkness thrust his handsome head into the room. He was evidently looking for her. When he saw her he came in hastily, shutting the door and standing with his back to it, as if he did not care to enter further.
Eliza had not seen him that day. After what had happened, she rather dreaded the next interview, as she did not know what he might find to say; but the instant she saw him, she perceived that it was something more decisive than he had ever shown sign of before. He looked tired, and at the same time as if his spirit was upwrought within him and his will set to some purpose.
"I'm real glad to see you," he said, but not pleasantly. "I've been looking for you; and it's just as well for you I found you without more ado."
"I'm just going out," said Eliza; "I can't stay now."
"You'll just stop a bit where you are, and hear what I'm going to say."
"I can't," said she, angrily; but he was at the door, and she made no movement towards it.
He talked right on. "I'm going away," he said. "I've packed up all that I possess here in this place, and I'm going to depart by this afternoon's train. No one much knows of this intention. I take it you won't interfere, so I don't mind confiding my design to your kind and sympathetic breast."
The emphasis he laid on the eulogy was evidently intended for bitter sarcasm. Anger gave her unwonted glibness.
"I'll ask you to be good enough to pay our bill, then. If you're making off because you can't pay your other debts it's no affair of mine."
He bowed mockingly. "You are real kind. Can't think how much obliged I am for your tactful reminder; but it don't happen to be my financial affairs that I came to introdooce to your notice." He stammered a moment, as if carried rather out of his bearings by his own loquacity. "It's—it's rather your finances that I wish to enlarge upon."
She opposed herself to him in cold silence that would not betray a gleam of curiosity.
"You're a mighty fine young lady, upon my word!" he observed, running his eye visibly over her apparel. "Able to work for yourself, and buy silk skirts, and owning half a bit of ground that people are beginning to think will be worth something considerable when they get to mining there. Oh, you're a fine one—what with your qualities and your fortune!"
A sudden unbecoming colour came with tell-tale vehemence over her cheek and brow.
"Your qualities of mind, as I've remarked, are fine; but the qualities of your heart, my dear, are finer still. I've been making love to you, with the choicest store of loving arts, for eight long months; and the first blush I've been enabled to raise on your lovely countenance is when I tell you you've more money than you looked for! You're a tender-hearted young lady!"
"The only train I ever heard of on Sunday afternoon goes pretty soon," she said; and yet there was now an eager look of curiosity in her eyes that belied her words.
He took no notice of her warning, but resumed now with mock apology. "But I'm afraid I'm mistaken in the identity. Sorry to disappoint you, but the estate I allude to belongs to Miss Cameron, who lived near a locality called Turrifs Station. Beg pardon, forgot for the moment your name was White, and that you know nothing about that interesting and historic spot."
Perhaps because she had played the part of indifference so long, it seemed easiest to her, even in her present confusion of mind; at any rate she remained silent.
"Pity you weren't her, isn't it?" He showed all his white teeth. He had been pale at first, but in talking the fine dark red took its wonted place in his cheeks. He had tossed back his loose smoke-coloured hair with a nervous hand. His dark beauty never showed to better advantage as he stood leaning back on the door. "Pity you aren't her, isn't it?" he repeated, smilingly.
She had no statuesque pose, but she had assumed a look of insensibility almost equal to that of stone.
"Come to think of it, even if you were her, you'd find it hard to say so now; so, either way, I reckon you'll have to do without the tin. 'Twould be real awkward to say to all your respectable friends that you'd been sailing under false colours; that 'White' isn't your bona fide cognomen; that you'd deserted a helpless old woman to come away; and as to how you left your home—the sort of carriage you took to, my dear, and how you got over the waggoner to do the work of a sexton—Oh, my, fine tale for Chellaston, that! No, my dear young lady, take a fatherly word of admonition; your best plan is to make yourself easy without the tin."
He looked at her, even now, with more curiosity than malice in his smiling face. A power of complete reserve was so foreign to his own nature that without absolute proof he could not entirely believe it in her. The words he was speaking might have been the utter nonsense to her that they would have been to any but the girl who was lost from the Bates and Cameron clearing for all hint she gave of understanding. He worked on his supposition, however. He had all the talking to himself.
"You're mighty secret! Now, look at me. I'm no saint, and I've come here to make a clean breast of that fact. When I was born, Uncle Sam said to me, 'Cyril P. Harkness, you're a son of mine, and it's your vocation to worship the God of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Almighty Dollar'; and I piped up, 'Right you are, uncle.' I was only a baby then." He added these last words reflectively, as if pondering on the reminiscence, and gained the object of his foolery—that she spoke.
"If you mean to tell me that you're fond of money, that's no news. I've had sense to see that. If you thought I'd a mine belonging to me somewhere that accounts for the affection you've been talking of so much. I begin to believe in it now."
She meant her words to be very cutting, but she had not much mobility of voice or glance; and moreover, her heart was like lead within her; her words fell heavily.
"Just so," said he, bowing as if to compliment her discrimination. "You may believe me, for I'm just explaining to you I'm not a saint, and that is a sentiment you may almost always take stock in when expressed by human lips. I was real sick last summer; and when I came to want a holiday I thought I'd do it cheap, so when I got wind of a walking party—a set of gentlemen who were surveying—I got them to let me go along. Camp follower I was, and 'twas first rate fun, especially as I was on the scent of what they were looking for. So then we came on asbestos in one part. Don't know what that is, my dear? Never mind as to its chemical proportions; there's dollars in it. Then we dropped down on the house of the gentleman that owned about half the hill. One of them was just dead, and he had a daughter, but she was lost, and as I was always mighty fond of young ladies, I looked for her. Oh, you may believe, I looked, till, when she was nowhere, I half thought the man who said she was lost had been fooling. Well, then, I—" (he stopped and drawled teasingly) "But possibly I intrude. Do you hanker after hearing the remainder of this history?"
She had sat down by the centre table with her back to him.
"You can go on," she muttered.
"Thanks for your kind permission. I haven't got much more to tell, for I don't know to this mortal minute whether I've ever found that young lady or not; but I have my suspicions. Any way, that day away we went across the lake, and when the snow drove us down from the hills the day after, the folks near the railroad were all in a stew about the remains of Bates's partner, the poppa of the young lady. His remains, having come there for burial, and not appearing to like the idea, had taken the liberty of stepping out on the edge of the evening, and hooking it. So said I, 'What if that young lady was real enterprising! what if she got the waggoner to put her poppa under the soil of the forest, and rode on herself, grand as you please, in his burial casket!' (That poor waggoner drank himself to death of remorse, but that was nothing to her.) The circumstances were confusing, and the accounts given by different folks were confusing, and, what's more, 'tisn't easy to believe in a sweet girl having her poppa buried quite secret; most young ladies is too delicate. Still, after a bit, the opinion I've mentioned did become my view of the situation; and I said to myself 'Cyril, good dog; here's your vocation quite handy. Find the young lady, find her, good fellow! Ingratiate yourself in her eyes, and you've got, not only an asbestos mine, but a wife of such smartness and enterprise as rarely falls to the lot of a rising young man.' I didn't blame her one bit for the part she had taken, for I'd seen the beast she'd have had to live with. No doubt her action was the properest she could take. And I thought if I came on her panting, flying, and offered her my protection, she'd fall down and adore me. So, to make a long tale short, I stopped a bit in that locality, hunting for her quite private after every one else had given up hunting. I heard of a daft old man who'd got about, the Lord only knows how, and I set the folks firmly believing that he was old Cameron. Well, if he was, then the girl was lost and dead; but if he wasn't—well, I twigged it she'd got on the railroad, and, by being real pleasant to all the car men, I found out, quite by the way and private, how she might have got on, and where any girl had got off, till by patience and perseverance I got on your track; and I've been eight months trying to fathom your deepness and win your affections. The more fool I! For to try to win what hasn't any more existence than the pot at the rainbow's tail is clear waste of time. Deep you are; but you haven't got any of the commodity of affection in your breast."
"Why didn't you tell me this before, like an honest man?" she asked; "and I'd have told you you didn't know as much as you thought you did." Her voice was a little thick; but it was expressionless.
"I'm not green. If you'd known you were possessed of money, d'you suppose you'd have stayed here to marry me? Oh no, I meant to get that little ceremony over first, and spring the mine on you for a wedding present after. The reason I've told you now is that I wouldn't marry you now, not if you'd ten millions of dollars in cash in your pocket."
"Why not? If I'm the person you take me for, I'm as rich and clever now." She still sat with her back to him; her voice so impassive that even interrogation was hardly expressed in words that had the form of a question.
"Yes, and you'd be richer and cleverer now with me, by a long chalk, than without me! If you'd me to say who you are, and that I'd known it all along, and how you'd got here, and to bring up the railroad fellows (I've got all their names) who noticed you to bear witness, your claim would look better in the eyes of the law. 'Twould look a deal better in the eyes of the world, too, to come as Mrs. Cyril P. Harkness, saying you had been Miss Cameron, than to come on the stage as Miss White, laying claim to another name; and it would be a long sight more comfortable to have me to support and cherish you at such a time than not to have a friend in the world except the folks whose eyes you've pulled the wool over, and who'll be mighty shocked. Oh, yes; by Jemima! you'd be richer and cleverer now with me than without me. But I'll tell you what I've come here to say"—his manner took a tone more serious; his mocking smile passed away; he seemed to pause to arrest his own lightness, and put on an unwonted dignity. "I tell you," he repeated slowly, "what I've come here to say—I do despise a young lady without a heart. Do you know what occurred last night? As good an old gentleman as ever lived was brutally felled to the earth and killed; a poor man who was never worse than a drunkard has become a murderer, and there's a many good pious ladies in this town who'll go about till death's day jeered at as fools. Would you like to be marked for a fool? No, you wouldn't and neither will they; and if you're the young lady I take you for, you could have hindered all this, and you didn't. I brought the old man to this place; I am to blame in that, my own self, I am; but I tell you, by the salvation of my soul, when I stood last night and heard him pray, and saw those poor ladies with their white garbs all bedraggled, around him praying, I said to myself, 'Cyril, you've reason to call on the rocks and hills to cover you,' and I had grace to be right down sorry. I'm right down ashamed, and so I'm going to pull up stakes and go back to where I came from; and I've come here now to tell you that after what I've seen of you in this matter I'd sooner die than be hitched with you. You've no more heart than my old shoe; as long as you get on it's all one to you who goes to the devil. You're not only as sharp as I took you for, but a good deal sharper. Go ahead; you'll get rich somehow; you'll get grand; but I want you to know that, though I'm pretty tricky myself, and 'cute enough to have thought of a good thing and followed it up pretty far, I've got a heart; and I do despise a person made of stone. I was real fond of you, for you far exceeded my expectations; but I'm not fond of you now one bit. If you was to go down on your bended knees and ask me to admire you now, I wouldn't."
She listened to all the sentence he pronounced upon her. When he had finished she asked a question. "What do you mean about going to law about the clearin'?"
"Your worthy friend, Mr. Bates, has arrived in this place this very day.
He's located with the Principal, he is."
"He isn't here," she replied in angry scorn.
"All right. Just as you please."
"He isn't here," she said more sulkily.
"But he is."
She ignored his replies. "What do you mean about going to law about the land?"
"Why, I haven't got much time left,"—he was standing now with his watch in his hand—"but for the sake of old times I'll tell you, if you don't see through that. D'you suppose Bates isn't long-headed! He's heard about Father Cameron being here, and knowing the old man couldn't give an account of himself, he's come to see him and pretend he's your father. Of course he's no notion of you being here. He swears right and left that you went over the hills and perished in the snow; and he's got up great mourning and lamenting, so I've heard, for your death. Oh, Jemima! Can't you see through that?"
"Tell me what you mean," she demanded, haughtily. She was standing again now.
"Why, my dear, if you knew a bit more of the world you'd know that it meant that he intends to pocket all the money himself. And, what's more, he's got the best of the situation; for you left him of your own accord, my dear, and changed your name, and if you should surprise him now by putting in an appearance and saying you're the lost young lady, what's to hinder him saying you're not you, and keeping the tin? I don't know who's to swear to you, myself. The men round Turrifs said you were growing so fast that between one time and another they wouldn't know you. Worst, that is, of living in out-of-the-way parts—no one sees you often enough to know if you're you or if you're not you."
"It is not true," she cried. He had at last brought the flash to her eyes. She stood before him palpitating with passion. "You are a liar!" she said, intensely. "Mr. Bates is as honest as"—words failed her—"as—as honest and as good as you don't even know how to think of."
He was like a necromancer who, although triumphant at having truly raised a spirit by his incantations, quails mystified before it.
"Oh well, since you feel so badly about it I'll not say that you mayn't outwit him if you put in your claim. You needn't give up all for lost if he does try to face it out."
"Give up what for lost? Do you think I care about this old mine so much? I tell you, sooner than hear a tricky sharper like you say that Mr. Bates is as cunning as you are, I'd—I'd—" She did not say more, but she trembled with passion. "Go!" she concluded. "If you say I'm unfeeling, you say a thing I suppose is true enough; but you've said things to me this afternoon that are not true; and if there's a good honest man in this world, it's Mr. Bates. Sooner than not believe that I'd—sooner die."
The tears had welled up and overflowed her eyes. Her face was red and burning.
"Say, Eliza," he said, gently enough. He was more astonished than he could realise or express, but he was really troubled to see her cry.
"Oh, don't 'Eliza' me!" she cried, angrily. "You said you were going to go—go—go—I tell you, go! What business is it of yours, I'd like to know, to mention Mr. Bates to me? You've no business with either him or me."
"Upon my word! I'll take my gospel oath I've said no more than I do believe."
"I dare say not. You don't know what an honest man is, so how could you believe in one?"
"I've a real soft heart; I hate to see you cry, Eliza."
"Well, Mr. Bates hasn't a soft heart at all; he's as unkind as can be; but he's as much above you, with all your softness, as light is above boot blacking."
She was not good-looking in her tears. She was not modest in her anger; all the crude rude elements of her nature broke forth. She wrenched the door open although with obstinate strength he tried to keep it shut, desiring stupidly to comfort her. She cast him aside as a rough man might push a boy. When she was making her way upstairs he heard smothered sounds of grief and rage escaping from her.