The branching of wide-armed cypress-trees, and the incense of sweet flowers was all they knew in the young moonlight, as they drove from the depot—surely the most poetical railway-station in the world—through the pleasure-grounds of the wonderful hotel at Monterey. They alighted at the terrace of a huge, irregular building, and the next minute found themselves in a big hall, crowded with ladies, some in evening dress, some with hats and jackets ready to sally out into the moonlight, and men smoking, drinking coffee, reading telegrams, or gathered in knots round two or three of the most favored ladies in rocking-chairs. Some of these were pretty, some, according to British ideas, very much over-dressed for the occasion; all seemed to be enjoying themselves thoroughly, and not to be afraid of showing that they were. Small children were running in and out between elderly gentlemen's legs. Young men were strolling in the corridors, looking at the billiard-players through the open door, and stopping to chaff the knots of young girls, clinging to each other with the effusive affection born of twenty-four hours' acquaintance. Aged ladies had bezique-boards between them, but were interchanging remarks in high-pitched voices, none the less. Aged men were discussing Mr. Blaine's projects, the World's Fair, and canned fruits with equal vehemence. The babel of tongues, from the piercing falsetto of childhood downwards, was deafening to the travellers as they entered, but the scene was so gay, so pervaded with bonhomie, that even Mrs. Frampton declared later that it was amusing—"amusing to watch. It would be a delightful place for deaf persons to come to. So lively. And the drum of their ears would run no risk, you know."
In the morning, Grace looked out on the most lovely garden of its kind she had ever seen, with glimpses of a sapphire-colored sea between the red-lilac stems of pines and the gnarled boles of ilex. On the other side a little lake, surrounded by palms and bamboos; in the foreground beds of cineraria and sweet-smelling stock, with bunches of arums and lilies raising their white crests above the masses of rich color. The fresh morning air came up laden with the first breath of the flowers. As soon as she was dressed she went out and watched the Chinese gardeners at work on their borders of floral embroidery, and wandered through the winding groves, across the railway and over the sand-hills that slope to the beach, where she sat down awhile, and felt tranquilly happy. It was good that her happiness had come to her here, where there were no jarring elements; where no constant social effort was needed; where nature was so rich, so fragrant, so untroubled. She could not have nursed the peace at her heart so securely in those great cities; even the wild crags and snowy fastnesses of beautiful Colorado, much as she loved them, would have harmonized less with her present mood than did the white-lipped sea curling on the yellow sand, and the tranquil spaces of lofty shadow in the garden, upheld by the mighty columns of the Californian pines.
The only cloud in the sky that day—and she could not feel that it was one impenetrable to the sun—was her brother's gloom. He thought that he need make no exertion with his aunt and his sister to assume a cheerfulness he did not feel, and he looked as miserable as a man who has not lost his appetite can look. Mrs. Frampton was much concerned. She tried to talk of investments, but failed to rouse his interest. He was clearly in a bad way, in a worse way even than she had suspected. She was thankful to have got him from San Francisco. But now that they had brought him away, what were they to do with him, without companions, without purpose or occupation? As she watched him at breakfast, slowly consuming an egg, with the air of an early martyr, she felt at her wit's end what to do. However, they must not all three sit still; movement was better than inactivity. She wisely insisted on their going the famous "seventeen-mile drive," and taking luncheon with them. She gave him a French novel, and bade him supply himself with an unlimited amount of tobacco. She took for herself an eider-down cushion and a sketch-book. And thus armed against ennui, if the drive should prove disappointing, they started.
Though they drove along those shores repeatedly during the weeks they remained at Monterey, it never, perhaps, looked quite as beautiful as it did that morning. The sea was a wonderful color, more like the iris with which the pine wood they first drove through was carpeted than anything else in nature. Above the pine-needles and these purple-blue irises rose bushes of pink berberis, until the road opened out upon a wide down, fringed with rocks overhanging the sea. To-day there was a west wind, which lashed it into white foam, not only against the cliffs, but far as the eye could reach. Presently they gained a group of island-rocks, two of which were literally covered with seals, whose roaring and strange plaintive cries were heard more than a mile off. On the summit of their home they lay dark and inert, sun-dried, and probably asleep. Lower down they were sprawling and floundering about, of a pale dun color, ever and anon plunging into the foaming waves, such a picture of innocent enjoyment that it was pleasant to know they were never molested. They only frequent certain portions of the coast, and considering that they deprive the fishermen there of a large portion of their spoil, it is creditable that the law which forbids them to be destroyed or disturbed is so rigidly respected.
Soon after leaving this interesting colony, our friends came upon that unique feature of this coast, the great cypress forest, which affronts the winds and waves, stretching out into the very sea itself, a sentinel now and again thrust forward upon some prominent crag, its strong gray arms lifted defiantly against the foam that breaks impotently over it. The "cypresses," as they are here called, closely resemble the cedars of Lebanon, and have no apparent relation to the columns of solid foliage usually associated with the name. Here and there the bleached skeletons of these mighty trees, silver-lighted in the sun, some still erect in death, some prone upon the sweet, warm grass that crowns the pink-gray rock, tell with magic brilliancy against the broad sovereignty of impenetrable green that dominates the sea. As Grace beheld these gnarled trunks and twisted branches, bearing their solemn crowns aloft, and immovable above the assaults of lightning and of wind till death uncrowns and unrobes them, she felt that this was the realm of epic poetry, the ocean-forest of imagination, a kingdom unrivalled upon earth for its majesty of color and richness of suggestion.
And now they rounded point after point, and she cried aloud to her companions in her glee, and they responded after their kind. The same elements formed fresh combinations at each turn—the rocks standing out like castles in the sea, the cypresses, a beleaguering army, now advancing, now retreating, their dead lying round them unmourned, slain in the mighty battle with the winds of heaven, where, after centuries of strife, they had fallen, and others had stepped forward from the ranks to take their place.
In one of these little bays they stopped the carriage, and unpacked their basket. And when they had all eaten Mrs. Frampton sharpened her pencil, and attacked the scene with characteristic vigor. She was not going to be beaten by the convolutions of a few trees—and those American trees, too. Mordy smoked his pipe in silence, and fell asleep. Grace rose, and wandered down among the rocks.
Just after this another carriage drew up a little distance off, from which a man alighted. If not an Englishman, he was very like one. In age he appeared to be near forty; strong, somewhat broad, and not very tall. He could not be said to be handsome, his upper lip, from which the hair was ruthlessly cut, being too long and straight. But he had fine, fearless eyes, and his brow was broad and massive. His walk was full of decision, and in his Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers he had the look of a man who would never waver, never turn back, nor give in, under any ordinary strain, physical or mental. He stood still for a moment, taking in the scene—in the foreground Sir Mordaunt Ballinger, Bart. and M.P., asleep, with his head on an eider-down cushion; not far off Mrs. Frampton, spectacles on nose, her attention riveted on that group of hoary cypresses; the coachman beyond, devouring the remains of the luncheon. Was there no one else? No. His eye scoured the scene; then, making up his mind that the person he sought must be hidden from him by the underwood and rocks, he strode down, unobserved by Mrs. Frampton, to the edge of the cliff.
She was sitting on a rock, sheltered by the trees from the west wind, her eyes fixed on the purple sea, with its green stains and white lips curled in anger against the pebbles on the shore below her, when she heard a rustle in the grass, the crackling of a twig, and, looking up, saw Ivor Lawrence before her.
He had been present so vividly to her mind's eye the moment before that she was scarcely startled. She caught her breath, her cheek turned pale, before the blood rushed violently back there; that was all, as she stammered out,