Paul Ralston

by Mary Jane Holmes

“I wish I had stayed away,” he said to himself, growing dizzy from the motion of the boat and the strong excitement under which he was laboring.

His brain whirled like a top, and everything grew dark around him. Brandy would stop that and steady his nerves, if taken moderately. Thanks to his Chicago friends, he had it in his side pocket, and when sure no one was looking he took out the bottle and drank a swallow or two of the clear fluid, which burned as it went down and spread itself over his system in a pleasant glow which quieted him in one sense and roused him in another. He didn’t care for his stepmother, nor Clarice, nor Paul, nor the whole world, except one. He gasped when he thought of that one, then put the thought aside and was only conscious of a hard, dogged feeling, which would make him dare and do almost anything,—shame Clarice, if he felt like it,—thrash Paul Ralston, if he felt like it,—and be a devil generally, if he felt like it.

In this state of mind he reached Oak City and passed unrecognized through the crowd of people, some of whom would have known him had they stopped to look at him. They were, however, too eager to push on either to their cottages, where they were expected, or to the hotels, where many of them were not expected. When Jack left Samona he had intended going directly to his stepmother’s as the natural place for him to go. Now nothing could tempt him to go there. Once he thought to take the next boat which left for New Bedford and go back to the Rockies. Then he thought, “I’ll stay till Monday, and maybe get a glimpse of her. It will be something to take away with me.”

So he insisted upon entering his name upon the register at the Harbor Hotel. Where he would sleep was another matter. He was not hungry. He never was after a spree, and the brandy kept him up. Going down at last upon the sands he sat a long time on a bench under a willow tree, watching the fishing boats as they went by, homeward bound to Still Harbor; watching the sun as it went down in the West; watching the groups of young people sauntering on the beach to his right and left, straining his eyes to see if perchance she was there with them; then cursing himself for a fool to care whether she were there or not, and taking a drink of brandy when he felt himself growing faint and dizzy. Finally he fell asleep and dreamed he was a boy again, playing with Paul in the smuggler’s room at the Ralston House, and worrying Miss Hansford. He stole the melon a second time, and a second time lay under the clump of scrub oaks and dreamed that he was dead. When he awoke the lights in the city were out. The water in front of him was black, except where the stars were reflected in it. His clothes were wet with the heavy dew; he was cold and hungry and sober. It was not very far to a small hotel he knew, and, taking his hand-bag, he made his way to it along the shore. The drowsy clerk whom he roused from sleep was not very cheerful in his greeting, and made some profane remarks about disturbing a feller that time of night, and gave him an inferior room on the third floor back. Jack didn’t care. It was all of a piece with the rest of his reception, and he accepted it as his due. The night was hot, his room close, and, taking off his coat and vest, he sat a while by the window, trying to catch a breath of fresh air and wishing so much for a sight of the cottage pictured so distinctly in his mind. It was the opposite side of the hotel,—away from his range of vision. He could not see it, and if he left in the morning, as he now meant to do, instead of waiting till Monday, he might not see it at all; but he could write. Strange he had not thought of that; he could write, and then good-bye forever to everybody he had ever seen or heard of. He had material in his satchel, and by the dim light of his kerosene lamp he began a letter which was to be read with blinding tears, and which made his own come occasionally as he pitied himself for what he was and where he was and what had brought him there.

The dawn was breaking when his letter was ended, and he could discern the outlines of many houses on the Heights. Conspicuous among them was the Ralston House. Jack looked at it awhile,—then shook his fist and swore at it as the home of Paul Ralston, his prospective brother-in-law, who did not want him at the wedding.

“Well, I shan’t be there,” he said, folding his letter, and placing it in an envelope, but forgetting to direct it.

His mind was confused with loss of sleep and his long fast.

“I must have something to eat, or drink, or both,” he thought, fortifying himself with brandy, and then, as he heard sounds from below, going down to the dining room to order his breakfast.

No one saw him but the waiter to whom he gave his order and the clerk to whom he paid his bill.

“Queer customer; been on a high old jinks, I reckon. I wonder who he is,” the clerk thought, looking after him as he left the house and went along the beach towards the Harbor Hotel.