Tales of the Argonauts by Bret Harte (digital ebook reader .txt) 📖

“Gone!” echoed Mrs. Starbottle.

There was something in the tone of her voice, in the sudden drawing-together of the pupils of her eyes, that for a moment nearly sobered the colonel, and partly collapsed his chest.

“I’ll splain all in a minit,” he said with a deprecating wave of the hand. “Every thing shall be splained. The-the-the-melencholly event wish preshipitate our happ’ness—the myster’us prov’nice wish releash you—releash chile! hunerstan?—releash chile. The mom’t Tretherick die—all claim you have in chile through him—die too. Thash law. Whose chile b’long to? Tretherick? Tretherick dead. Chile can’t b’long dead man. Damn nonshense b’long dead man. I’sh your chile? no! who’s chile then? Chile b’long to ‘ts mother. Unnerstan?”

“Where is she?” said Mrs. Starbottle with a very white face and a very low voice.

“I’ll splain all. Chile b’long to ‘ts mother. Thash law. I’m lawyer, leshlator, and American sis’n. Ish my duty as lawyer, as leshlator, and ‘merikan sis’n to reshtore chile to suff’rin mother at any coss—any coss.”

“Where is she?” repeated Mrs. Starbottle with her eyes still fixed on the colonel’s face.

“Gone to ‘ts m’o’r. Gone East on shteamer, yesserday. Waffed by fav’rin gales to suff’rin p’rent. Thash so!”

Mrs. Starbottle did not move. The colonel felt his chest slowly collapsing, but steadied himself against a chair, and endeavored to beam with chivalrous gallantry not unmixed with magisterial firmness upon her as she sat.

“Your feelin’s, m’m, do honor to yer sex, but conshider situashun. Conshider m’or’s feelings—conshider MY feelin’s.” The colonel paused, and, flourishing a white handkerchief, placed it negligently in his breast, and then smiled tenderly above it, as over laces and ruffles, on the woman before him. “Why should dark shedder cass bligh on two sholes with single beat? Chile’s fine chile, good chile, but summonelse chile! Chile’s gone, Clar’; but all ish’n’t gone, Clar’. Conshider dearesht, you all’s have me!”

Mrs. Starbottle started to her feet. “YOU!” she cried, bringing out a chest note that made the chandeliers ring,—“you that I married to give my darling food and clothes,—YOU! a dog that I whistled to my side to keep the men off me,—YOU!”

She choked up, and then dashed past him into the inner room, which had been Carry’s; then she swept by him again into her own bedroom, and then suddenly re-appeared before him, erect, menacing, with a burning fire over her cheek-bones, a quick straightening of her arched brows and mouth, a squaring of jaw, and ophidian flattening of the head.

“Listen!” she said in a hoarse, half-grown boy’s voice. “Hear me! If you ever expect to set eyes on me again, you must find the child. If you ever expect to speak to me again, to touch me, you must bring her back. For where she goes, I go: you hear me! Where she has gone, look for me.”

She struck out past him again with a quick feminine throwing-out of her arms from the elbows down, as if freeing herself from some imaginary bonds, and, dashing into her chamber, slammed and locked the door. Col. Starbottle, although no coward, stood in superstitious fear of an angry woman, and, recoiling as she swept by, lost his unsteady foothold, and rolled helplessly on the sofa. Here, after one or two unsuccessful attempts to regain his foothold, he remained, uttering from time to time profane but not entirely coherent or intelligible protests, until at last he succumbed to the exhausting quality of his emotions, and the narcotic quantity of his potations.

Meantime, within, Mrs. Starbottle was excitedly gathering her valuables, and packing her trunk, even as she had done once before in the course of this remarkable history. Perhaps some recollection of this was in her mind; for she stopped to lean her burning cheeks upon her hand, as if she saw again the figure of the child standing in the doorway, and heard once more a childish voice asking, “Is it mamma?” But the epithet now stung her to the quick and with a quick, passionate gesture she dashed it away with a tear that had gathered in her eye. And then it chanced, that, in turning over some clothes, she came upon the child’s slipper with a broken sandal-string. She uttered a great cry here,—the first she had uttered,—and caught it to her breast, kissing it passionately again and again, and rocking from side to side with a motion peculiar to her sex. And then she took it to the window, the better to see it through her now streaming eyes. Here she was taken with a sudden fit of coughing that she could not stifle with the handkerchief she put to her feverish lips. And then she suddenly grew very faint. The window seemed to recede before her, the floor to sink beneath her feet; and, staggering to the bed, she fell prone upon it with the sandal and handkerchief pressed to her breast. Her face was quite pale, the orbit of her eyes dark; and there was a spot upon her lip, another on her handkerchief, and still another on the white counterpane of the bed.

The wind had risen, rattling the window-sashes, and swaying the white curtains in a ghostly way. Later, a gray fog stole softly over the roofs, soothing the wind-roughened surfaces, and inwrapping all things in an uncertain light and a measureless peace. She lay there very quiet—for all her troubles, still a very pretty bride. And on the other side of the bolted door the gallant bridegroom, from his temporary couch, snored peacefully.

A week before Christmas Day, 1870, the little town of Genoa, in the State of New York, exhibited, perhaps more strongly than at any other time, the bitter irony of its founders and sponsors. A driving snow-storm, that had whitened every windward hedge, bush, wall, and telegraph-pole, played around this soft Italian Capitol, whirled in and out of the great staring wooden Doric columns of its post-office and hotel, beat upon the cold green shutters of its best houses, and powdered the angular, stiff, dark figures in its streets. From the level of the street, the four principal churches of the town stood out starkly, even while their misshapen spires were kindly hidden in the low, driving storm. Near the railroad-station, the new Methodist chapel, whose resemblance to an enormous locomotive was further heightened by the addition of a pyramidal row of front-steps, like a cowcatcher, stood as if waiting for a few more houses to be hitched on to proceed to a pleasanter location. But the pride of Genoa—the great Crammer Institute for Young Ladies—stretched its bare brick length, and reared its cupola plainly from the bleak Parnassian hill above the principal avenue. There was no evasion in the Crammer Institute of the fact that it was a public institution. A visitor upon its doorsteps, a pretty face at its window, were clearly visible all over the township.

The shriek of the engine of the four-o’clock Northern express brought but few of the usual loungers to the depot. Only a single passenger alighted, and was driven away in the solitary waiting sleigh toward the Genoa Hotel. And then the train sped away again, with that passionless indifference to human sympathies or curiosity peculiar to express-trains; the one baggage-truck was wheeled into the station again; the station-door was locked; and the station-master went home.

The locomotive-whistle, however, awakened the guilty consciousness of three young ladies of the Crammer Institute, who were even then surreptitiously regaling themselves in the bake-shop and confectionery-saloon of Mistress Phillips in a by-lane. For even the admirable regulations of the Institute failed to entirely develop the physical and moral natures of its pupils. They conformed to the excellent dietary rules in public, and in private drew upon the luxurious rations of their village caterer. They attended church with exemplary formality, and flirted informally during service with the village beaux. They received the best and most judicious instruction during school-hours, and devoured the trashiest novels during recess. The result of which was an aggregation of quite healthy, quite human, and very charming young creatures, that reflected infinite credit on the Institute. Even Mistress Phillips, to whom they owed vast sums, exhilarated by the exuberant spirits and youthful freshness of her guests, declared that the sight of “them young things” did her good; and had even been known to shield them by shameless equivocation.

“Four o’clock, girls! and, if we’re not back to prayers by five, we’ll be missed,” said the tallest of these foolish virgins, with an aquiline nose, and certain quiet elan that bespoke the leader, as she rose from her seat. “Have you got the books, Addy?” Addy displayed three dissipated-looking novels under her waterproof. “And the provisions, Carry?” Carry showed a suspicious parcel filling the pocket of her sack. “All right, then. Come girls, trudge.—Charge it,” she added, nodding to her host as they passed toward the door. “I’ll pay you when my quarter’s allowance comes.”

“No, Kate,” interposed Carry, producing her purse, “let me pay: it’s my turn.”

“Never!” said Kate, arching her black brows loftily, “even if you do have rich relatives, and regular remittances from California. Never!—Come, girls, forward, march!”

As they opened the door, a gust of wind nearly took them off their feet. Kind-hearted Mrs. Phillips was alarmed. “Sakes alive, galls! ye mussn’t go out in sich weather. Better let me send word to the Institoot, and make ye up a nice bed tonight in my parlor.” But the last sentence was lost in a chorus of half-suppressed shrieks, as the girls, hand in hand, ran down the steps into the storm, and were at once whirled away.

The short December day, unlit by any sunset glow, was failing fast. It was quite dark already; and the air was thick with driving snow. For some distance their high spirits, youth, and even inexperience, kept them bravely up; but, in ambitiously attempting a short-cut from the high-road across an open field, their strength gave out, the laugh grew less frequent, and tears began to stand in Carry’s brown eyes. When they reached the road again, they were utterly exhausted. “Let us go back,” said Carry.

“We’d never get across that field again,” said Addy.

“Let’s stop at the first house, then,” said Carry.

“The first house,” said Addy, peering through the gathering darkness, “is Squire Robinson’s.” She darted a mischievous glance at Carry, that, even in her discomfort and fear, brought the quick blood to her cheek.

“Oh, yes!” said Kate with gloomy irony, “certainly; stop at the squire’s by all means, and be invited to tea, and be driven home after tea by your dear friend Mr. Harry, with a formal apology from Mrs. Robinson, and hopes that the young ladies may be excused this time. No!” continued Kate with sudden energy. “That may suit YOU; but I’m going back as I came,—by the window, or not at all.” Then she pounced suddenly, like a hawk, on Carry, who was betraying a tendency to sit down on a snowbank, and whimper, and shook her briskly. “You’ll be going to sleep next. Stay, hold your tongues, all of you,—what’s that?”

It was the sound of sleigh-bells. Coming down toward them out of the darkness was a sleigh with a single occupant. “Hold down your heads, girls: if it’s anybody that knows us, we’re lost.” But it was not; for a voice strange to their ears, but withal very kindly and pleasant, asked if its owner could be of any help to them. As they turned toward him, they saw it was a man wrapped in a handsome sealskin cloak, wearing a sealskin cap; his face, half concealed by a muffler of the same material, disclosing only a pair of long mustaches, and two keen dark eyes. “It’s a son of old Santa Claus!” whispered Addy. The girls tittered audibly as they tumbled into the sleigh: they had regained their former spirits.