What Necessity Knows Part 42

He took no notice of her warning, but resumed now with mock apology.

"But I'm afraid I'm mistaken in the ident.i.ty. 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 a.s.sumed 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 s.e.xton--Oh, my, fine tale for Ch.e.l.laston, 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 wors.h.i.+p the G.o.d 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 circ.u.mstances 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 impa.s.sive 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 pa.s.sed 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 Princ.i.p.al, 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 pa.s.sion. "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 pa.s.sion. "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.

CHAPTER II.

When Eliza had been in her own room for about half an hour, her pa.s.sion had subsided. She was not glad of this; in perverseness she would have recalled the tempest if she could, but she knew not what to call back or how to call. She knew no more what had disturbed her than in times of earthquake the sea water knows the cause of its unwonted surging. She sat angry and miserable; angry with Harkness, not because he had called her heartless--she did not care in the slightest for his praise or blame--but because he had been the bearer of ill tidings; and because he had in some way produced in her the physical and mental distress of angry pa.s.sion, a distress felt more when pa.s.sion is subsiding. She ranked it as ill tidings that her father's land had risen in value. She would rather that her worldly wisdom in leaving it had been proved by subsequent events than disproved, as now, by news which raised such a golden possibility before her ignorant eyes, that her heart was rent with pangs of envy and covetousness, while her pride warred at the very thought of stooping to take back what she had cast away, and all the disclosure that must ensue. Above all, she counted it ill tidings that Bates was reported to be in the place. She was as angry with him now as on the day she had left him--more angry--for now he could vaunt new prosperity as an additional reason why she had been wrong to go. Why had he come here to disturb and interrupt? What did the story about Father Cameron matter to him? She felt like a hunted stag at bay; she only desired strength and opportunity to trample the hunter.

Partly because she felt more able to deal with others than with the dull angry misery of her own heart, partly because she was a creature of custom, disliking to turn from what she had set out to do, she found herself, after about an hour of solitude, rearranging her street toilet to walk to Mrs. Rexford's house.

When she had made her way down to the lower flat of the hotel she found Harkness had spoken the truth in saying he intended to go, for he was gone. The men in the cool shaded bar-room were talking about it. Mr.

Hutchins mentioned it to her through the door. He sat in his big chair, his crutches leaning against him.