Harshaw brought me your sweet letter yesterday. It was stage-day, and he went up over the bluffs to the ferry mail-box at the cross-roads, where the road to Shoshone Falls branches from the road to Bliss.
I read to Kitty what you wrote me about the Garretts and their children, and the going to New York and then to Paris. (Thank you so much, dear, for your prompt interest in my little bride that isn't to be!) She had two letters of her own which she had read by herself, and afterward I thought she had been crying; but with her it is best not to press the note of sympathy. Neither does she like me to handle her affairs with gloves on, so to speak. So I plunged into the business in a matter-of-fact tone, and she replied in the same. Her objection is to going east to New York, and then to the other side. "I had rather stay in California," she said, "or anywhere in the West." Naturally; westward lies the way of escape from social complications.
She is afraid of the Percifers, and of meeting people she knows in Paris. But an offer like this was exceptional in this part of the world, I reminded her. A nurse for the boy, a maid, and only two little girls of eight and ten on her hands; and such nice people as the Garretts, who have been all over the world!
"Well," she said, "I should certainly like to get away from here as soon as possible. Fromhere, not fromyou!" she added, looking me in the face. Her eyes were full of tears. We clasped hands on that.
"What is it? Has anything else happened?" I asked; for I knew by her looks that something had.
"Oh, dear!" she sighed, "I should so like to take myself and my troubles seriously once in a while. No sooner do I try, but something perfectly farcical is sure to happen. If I tell you this, promise me you won't laugh. It's indecent for me to laugh; mamma would never forgive me. The old dear! I'm so fond of him!"
The "old dear," it seems, is Micky's father—a very superior sort of father for such a son to have, but accidents will happen in the best-regulated families. He is a gallant widower of fair estate, one of those splendid old club-men of London; a very expensive article of old gentleman, with fine old-fashioned manners and morals, and a few stray impulses left, it would seem by what follows. According to the father's code, the son has not conducted himself in his engagement to Kitty Comyn as a gentleman should. Thereupon the head of the house goes to Miss Kitty's mother and makes theamende honorableby offering his hand and heart and fortune to his son's insulted bride! The mother is touched and pleased not a little by this prompt espousal of her daughter's cause; and having wiped away all tears fromhereyes, this gallant old gentleman is coming over to America, for the first time in his life, to make his proposal to the bride herself! He is not so old, to get down to particulars; sixty-three doesn't look so old to some of us as it does to Miss Kitty. He is in fine health, I doubt not, and magnificently preserved. Kitty's mother is not at all averse, as I gather, to this way of settling her child's difficulties. She rather pleadingly assures Kitty that Mr. Harshaw senior has solemnly sworn that this is no unpleasant duty he feels called on to perform; not only his honor, but his affections are profoundly enlisted in this proposal. Kitty has had for years a sacred place in his regard; and from thinking of her as a daughter absolutely after his own heart, it is but a step to think of her in a still nearer—the nearest—relation. He begs her mother to prepare her for no perfunctory offer of marriage, but one that warms with every day's delay till he can take the dear child under his lifelong protection. Not to punish or to redress does he come, but to secure for himself and posterity a treasure which his son had trampled under foot. Somehow we did not feel like laughing, after all. Kitty, I think, is a little frightened. She cannot reach her mother, even with a cable dispatch, before this second champion will arrive.
"He's an awfully grand old fellow, you know. I could never talk to him as I do to the boys. If he thinks it his duty to marry me, I don't know if I can help myself. Poor Uncle George! I've always called him 'uncle' like his own nieces, who are all my friends. I never thought that I should be 'poor-ing' Uncle George! But he can't have heard yet of Micky's marriage. Fancy his going down to the ranch to stay with Micky and that woman! And then for a girl like me to toss him aside, after such a journey and such kindness! I don't know how I shall ever have courage to do it. There are fine women in London who would jump at the chance of being Mrs. Harshaw—not Mrs. Micky, nor Mrs. Stephen, nor Mrs. Sidney, butMrs. Harshaw, you understand?" I understood.
"And now," she said, producing the second letter, "youwilllaugh! And you may!"
The envelope contained a notification, in due form, of the arrival from New York, charges not paid, of some five hundred pounds of second-class freight consigned to Mrs. Harshaw, Harshaw's ranch, Glenn's Ferry (via Bisuka).
"These things belong to me," said Kitty. "They cost me the last bit of money I had that was my own. Mrs. Percifer, who is so clever at managing, persuaded me I should need them directly on the ranch—curtains and rugs and china, and heaven knows what! She nearly killed me, dragging me about those enormous New York shops. She said it would be far and away cheaper and better to buy them there. I didn't mind about anything, I was so scared and homesick; I did whatever she said. She saw to getting them off, I suppose. That must have been her idea, directing them to Mrs. Harshaw. She thought there would be no Kitty Comyn, nome, when these got here. And there isn't;thisis not the Kitty Comyn who left England—six weeks, is it?—or six years ago!"
"How did the letter reach you?" I asked. We examined the envelope. It bore the postmark, not of Bisuka, but of Glenn's Ferry, which is the nearest post-office to the Harshaw ranch. Micky's wife had doubtless opened the letter, and Micky, perceiving where the error lay, had reinclosed, but some one else had directed it—the postmaster, probably, at his request—to Kitty, at our camp. That was rather a nice little touch in Micky, that last about the direction.
"Come, he is honest, at the least," I said, "whether Mrs. Micky would have scrupled or not. She could claim the things if she chose."
"She is quite welcome," said Kitty. "I don't know what in the world I shall do with them. There'll be boxes and bales and barrels—enough to bury me and all my troubles. I might build me a funeral pyre!"
We fell into each other's arms and screamed with laughter.
"Kitty, we'll have an auction," I cried. "There's nothing succeeds like an auction out here. We'll sell the things at boom prices—we'll sell everything."
"But the bride," said Kitty; "you will have to keep the bride." And without a moment's warning, from laughing till she wept, she began to weep in earnest. I haven't seen her cry so since she came to us, not even that miserable first night. She struggled with herself, and seemed dreadfully ashamed, and angry with me that I should have seen her cry. Did she suppose I thought she was crying because she wasn't going to be a bride, after all?
* * * * *
"Oh, Mrs. Daly, I feel so ill!" were Kitty's first words to me when I woke this morning. I looked her over and questioned her, and concluded that a sleepless night, with not very pleasant thoughts for company, might be held responsible for a good share of her wretchedness.
"What were you lying awake about? Your new champion, Uncle George?" I asked her.
She owned that it was. "Don't you see, Mrs. Daly, mamma doesn't leave room for the possibility of my refusing him. And if I do refuse him, he'll simply take me back to England, and then, between him and mamma, and all of them, I don't know what may happen."
"Kitty," I said, "no girl who has just escaped from one unhappy engagement is going to walk straight into another with her eyes wide open. I won't believe you could be so foolish as that."
"You don't understand," she said, "what the pressure will be at home—in all love and kindness, of course. And you don't know Uncle George. He is so sure that I need him, he'll force me to take him. He'll take me back to England in any case."
"And would you not like to go, Kitty?"
"Ah, wouldn't I! But not in that way."
She sat up in her flannel camp-gown, and began to braid up her loosened hair.
"Kitty," I commanded, "lie down. You are not to get up till luncheon."
"I have a plan," she said, "and I must see Cecil Harshaw; he must help me carry it out. There is no one else who can."
"You have all day to see him in."
"Not all day, Mrs. Daly. He must be ready to start to-morrow. Uncle George will reach Bisuka on the fifteenth, not later. Cecil must meet him there; first, to prepare him for Micky's new arrangement, and second, to persuade him that he does not owe me an offer of marriage in consequence. Cecil will know how to manage it; he must know! I will not have any more of the Harshaws offering themselves as substitutes. It will be very strange if I cannot exist without them somehow."
It struck me that the poor child's boast was a little premature, as she seemed to be making rather free use of one of the substitutes still, as a shield against the others; but it was of a piece with the rest of the comedy. I kept her in bed till she had had a cup of tea; afterward she slept a little, and about noon she dressed herself and gave Cecil his audience. But first, at her request, I had possessed him with the main facts and given him an inkling of what was expected of him. His face changed; he looked as he did after his steeplechase the day I saw him first,—except that he was cleaner,—grave, excited, and resolved. He had taken the bit in his teeth. When substitute meets substitute in a cause like this! I would have left them to have their little talk by themselves, but Kitty signified peremptorily that she wished me to stay, with a flushed, appealing look that softened the nervous tension of her manner.
"I would do anything on earth for you, Kitty," Cecil said most gently and fervently; "but don't ask me to give advice—to Uncle George of all men—on a question of this kind—unless you will allow me to be perfectly frank."
"It's a family question," said Kitty, ignoring his proviso.
"I think it would get to be a personal question very soon between Uncle George and me. No; I meddled in one family question not very long ago."
"It's very strange," said Kitty restlessly, "if you can't help me out of this in some way. I cannot be so disrespectful to him, the dear old gentleman! He ought not to be put in such a position, or I either. How would you like it if it were your father?"
Cecil reddened handsomely at this home thrust. "I'd have a deuce of a time to stop him if he took the notion, you know; it's not exactly a son's or a nephew's business. There is only one way in which I can help you, Kitty. You must know that."
He had struck a different key, and his face was all one blush to correspond with the new note in his voice. I think I never saw a manlier, more generous warmth of ardor and humility, or listened to words so simply uttered in such telling tones.
"What way is that?" asked Kitty coldly.
"Forgive me! I could tell him that you are engaged to me."
"That would be a nice way—to tell him a falsehood! I should hope I had been humiliated enough"—
She snatched her handkerchief from her belt and pressed it to her burning face. I rose again to go. "Sit still, pray!" she murmured.
"It need not be a falsehood, Kitty. Let it be anything you like. You may trust me not to take advantage. A nominal engagement, if you choose, just to meet this exigency; or"—
"That would be cheating," cried Kitty.
"The cheat would bear a little harder on me than on any one else, I think."
"You are too good!" Kitty smiled disdainfully. "First you offer yourself to me as a cure, and now as a preventive."
"Kitty, I think you ought at least to take him seriously," I remonstrated.
"By all that's sacred, you'll find it's serious with me!" Cecil ejaculated.
"Since when?" retorted Kitty. "How many weeks ago is it that I came out here by your contrivance to marry your cousin? Is that the way a man shows his seriousness? You sacrificed more to marry me to Micky than some men would to win a girl themselves."
"I did, and for that very reason," said Cecil.
"I should like to see you prove it!"
"Kitty, excuse me," I interrupted. "Ishould like to ask Mr. Harshaw one question, if he does not mind. Do you happen to have that picture about you, Mr. Harshaw?"
I thought I was looking at him very kindly, not at all like an inquisitor, but his face was set and stern. I doubt if he perceived or looked for my intention.
"'That picture,' Mrs. Daly?" he repeated.
"The photograph of a young lady that you jumped into the river to save—don't you remember?"
Cecil smiled slightly, and glanced at Kitty. "Did I say it was a photograph of a lady?"
"No; you did not. But do you deny that it was?"
"Certainly not, Mrs. Daly. I have the picture with me; I always have it."
"And do you thinkthatlooks like seriousness? To be making such protestations to one girl with the portrait of another in your coat pocket? We have none of us forgotten, I think, that little conversation by the river."
He saw my meaning now, and thanked me with a radiant look. "Here is the picture, Mrs. Daly. Whose portrait did you think it was? Surelyyoumight have known, Kitty! This is the girl I wanted years ago and have wanted ever since; but she belonged to another man, and the man was my friend. I tried to save that man from insulting her and dishonoring himself, because I thought she loved him. Or, if he couldn't be saved, I wanted to expose him and save her. And I risked my own honor to do it, and a great fool I was for my pains. But this is the last time I shall make a fool of myself for your sake, Kitty."
I rose now in earnest, and I would not be stayed. In point of fact, nobody tried to stay me. Kitty was looking at her own face with eyes as dim as the little water-stained photograph she held. And Cecil was on his knees beside her, whispering, "I stole it from Micky's room at the ranch. That was no place for it, anyhow. May I not have one of my own, Kitty?"
I think he will get one—of his own Kitty.
* * * * *
Our rival schemer, Mr. Norman Fleet, has arrived, and electrical transmission has shaken hands with compressed air. The millennium must be on the way, for never did two men want so nearly the same thing, and yet agree to take each what the other does not need.
Mr. Fleet does not "want the earth," either, nor all the waters thereof; but the most astonishing thing is, he doesn't want the Snow Bank! He not only doesn't want it himself, but is perfectly willing that Tom should have it. In fact, do what we will, it seems to be impossible for us to tread on the tail of that young man's coat. But having heard a little bird whisper that he is in love, and successfully so, I am not so surprised at his amiability. Neither am I altogether unprepared, if the little bird's whisper be true, for the fact that Miss Malcolm is becoming reconciled to Tom's designs upon her beloved scenery. For the sake of consistency, and that pure devotion to the Beautiful, so rare in this sordid age, I could have wished that she had not weakened so suddenly; but for Tom's sake I am very glad. She is clay in the hands of the potter, now that she knows my husband does not want "all the water," and that his success does not mean the failure of Mr. Norman Fleet.
Harshaw will take the Snow Bank scheme when he takes Kitty back to London. If he promotes it, I tell Tom, after the fashion in which he "boomed" Kitty's marriage to his cousin, we're not likely to see either him or the Snow Bank again. But "Harshaw is all right," Tom says; and I believe that the luck is with him.