CHAPTER XX
The next day, when another slight fall of snow in the night had been frozen as hard as the surface of a wedding-cake over all the roads in the district, Mordaunt was driven by Pierce Caldwell in his sleigh up the beautiful drive his father had made along the mountain-side to the mouth of the mine. Here he passed some hours in examining all the processes of silver-milling, and the many improvements, due to Pierce's energy, which had been effected in the works since the day they were established. He descended the mine by a new shaft opened a few days previously, which had been sunk several hundred feet, and which had laid bare fresh veins of ore, richer, apparently, than any which had yet been worked. Mordaunt's enthusiasm rose to fever pitch. When he had returned to the earth's surface, he gasped,
"By Jove! Caldwell—this is the biggest thing out. You're a lucky chap—no! I suppose I oughtn't to say that. How few young chaps would have been able to do what you have done! It is splendid—it really is!"
"Oh! it's no merit of mine. I have done nothing except just stick to the business, and watch, and let nothing slip. It is desperately interesting, I can tell you. And then the boys—they're a rough lot, but such good fellows! I'm fond of them all, and they'd go to—well! anywhere for me, I believe. This is the reading-room I've built for them."
The "boys" were men, some well over fifty, begrimed with dirt, and many, it must be confessed, of forbidding aspect. The stories Mordaunt had been told of shots fired at random in saloons and drinking bars gained in probability as he looked at them. Indeed, Pierce confirmed them from his own experiences as a youth, when he remembered, in a saloon, having to throw himself flat on the ground "to prevent stopping the balls," and the floor was strewn subsequently with wounded men. He repeated an anecdote of lynch law in those not-far-distant days, as he heard it, in the words of the narrator, "which," he continued with a laugh, "I think are characteristically succinct. The fellow was telling me how their camp had suffered by the robbery of horses, and he added, 'But I tell you, sir, that we collared a man the other day,owninga horse that didn'tbelongto him. The next thing that man found was thathis legs were not touching the ground!'"
Mordaunt laughed heartily at this graphic euphemism, and then said,
"I suppose they are getting fast civilized now? All the Bret-Harteism will be swept away before long—eh?"
"Why, yes. We have schools now everywhere, and churches and institutes. They spring up like mushrooms."
"But who builds them? All along the track of the railway I saw big towns growing up. It seems little short of miraculous in so short a time."
"Well," said the young man, with an amused expression on his handsome face, "you see, it is like this. There is a contractor who undertakes to build for each municipality. If they order fifty houses, he throws in a school; if they order a hundred, he throws in a church. It is as well to do the thing handsomely, for he is 'cute enough to know it is a remunerative advertisement."
The ladies now drove up in achar-à-bancwith the other two men. Alan Brown, having had the field all to himself for some hours, looked reconciled to life, though he would have preferred life in Piccadilly with Doreen to life under the same conditions in the Rocky Mountains. But the young girl had pacified him, I presume, as to the English baronet, and, indeed, Ballinger showed himself to be so entirely engrossed in the ninety-stamp dry-crushing silver mill, that there was no pretext for a renewal of the young American's jealousy. Mordaunt found an opportunity of whispering to his aunt,
"This is the investment for me. I'm sure I can't do better than get all the shares I can in the new company that is being formed."
But Mrs. Frampton demurred.
"Don't be in a hurry. This climate is really too exciting to judge of anything dispassionately. Wait till we get damper, my dear. I am ready to jump out of my skin." Then, to Pierce, who came up at that moment, "Mr. Caldwell, how do you manage to exist, with your nerves in the constant state of tension they must be in here? When your butler handed me potatoes last night, and touched my shoulder, I nearly screamed, he gave me such a shock. And I find I send out blue sparks every time I turn the brass handle of the door! It is frightful! I am become one vast electric battery!"
"You would no doubt be able to light the gas with your fingers. Some people have more electricity than others. I haven't so much, and get along here very well. And this dry climate has its advantages. We are going to lunch on the mountain-side, if you are not afraid?"
"What! In the snow? To be sure, the sun is very hot, and there is no cold wind—"
"Oh, yes, and we will find a sheltered place under the rocks. My mother and sister always do this when they come up here to lunch with me, for the men's saloon and reading-room are not odoriferous. You won't find it cold,al fresco, such a still day as this."
Nor did they. Their luncheon spread upon the crisp snow, a cloudless sky above them, the sun pouring down on the little amphitheatre of rocks in which Pierce had ensconced the ladies, Mrs. Frampton declared it was an ideal midday dining-room—a combination of Davos-Platz and Cairo—which left nothing to be desired.
Bloxsome, in his coarse, loud way, was amusing; but the instinctive dislike of our English friends seemed to be shared by Alan Brown, between whom and the elder American there was a constant sparring. Grace confessed to herself that the youth's Anglomania must be trying to one of his countryman's boastful temper, but this did not excuse the bad taste of Bloxsome's rejoinders. When Alan described, with boyish enthusiasm, a driving tour he had taken through the north of England, the other said,
"Why do you squirm about English scenery so much? Say, can you find anything in all England to compare with this, I should like to know? Talk of their lakes—why, they're mere ponds; and their rivers—ditches beside ours."
"Size isn't everything," said Alan, scornfully. "The lovely roadside hedges—the beautiful roads themselves—then, the dear old-fashioned inns, the ruined abbeys, the historic castles—what have we got to compare withthem? Travelling here is beastly. No wonder Americans travel very little in their own country for pleasure."
Bloxsome gave a coarse laugh. "No, they transact their business at home, and go abroad for amusement. English people amuse themselves at home, and come here to invest their money or pick up heiresses."
Pierce Caldwell blushed, and cut in with some wholly irrelevant remark, talking fast and laughing, in the impotent endeavor to obliterate the effect of this speech. And when Mrs. Caldwell found herself alone with Mrs. Frampton afterwards, she took occasion to say,
"You must please forgive our unmannerly cousin. His education was very much neglected. He is a rough diamond."
Mrs. Frampton said, incisively, "He should be cut."
Mrs. Caldwell, not choosing to understand theéquivoque, remarked that the world was the best lapidary in such a case; and John Bloxsome had seen little of any other worlds than those of San Francisco and Pittsburgh.
"His father was one of my husband's greatest friends. He died many years ago, and since then John comes and goes as he likes in our house. I wish I could give him better manners, poor fellow!"
Mrs. Frampton pursed her lips, but made no rejoinder. She felt such doubt as to the intrinsic value of the diamond that silence was her only refuge.
Mordaunt, in the meantime, was impelled to say to Pierce,
"That's a queer fellow, that Bloxsome! Is he always like that, or has he some special grudge against us?"
"He is not always like that. I can't tell what has come to him. I'm afraid the truth is he doesn't like any one being more noticed than himself, especially an Englishman."
"What an ass! Where has the fellow lived all his life?"
"Oh! In a very narrow circle. Never was at a public school or at college. Now he lives chiefly between San Francisco and Pittsburgh."
Mordaunt whistled. "Ho! ho! I think I begin to understand. Is he well off?"
"Fairly so, I believe. But he never talks to me of his affairs. I've known him ever since I can remember, but, to say the truth, we have not much in common."
"So I should think. I like that young Brown much better, though he scowled at me awfully yesterday; but," he added, laughing, "I think to-day he has found out I am not such a bad chap after all."
No more was said, and as Bloxsome departed the next morning he was soon forgotten by our friends. Mordaunt set off the same day for his old brother-officer's ranch, not more than a hundred miles distant, whence he was to visit Pueblo, leaving his aunt and sister at "Falcon's Nest" for a week.
It was a pleasant, tranquil one to the small party, reinforced once or twice by visitors from Denver or Colorado Springs. But towards the end of that time, Grace watched eagerly for the arrival of each mail. She counted the days, the chances of delays and accidents; it was just possible, during the three weeks which had elapsed since she wrote to Ivor Lawrence, for an answer to have reached her. But none came. It was true she had given him no address, but he must have known that anything sent to her home would be forwarded. His name was never mentioned between her aunt and herself, and she had so schooled herself as not to betray the anxiety she felt. Mrs. Frampton was of course ignorant that her niece had written to Lawrence, and did not suspect the torture of "hope deferred" which Grace suffered.
She rambled alone up the cañon sometimes, when she could slip out of the house unperceived by Doreen, who was generally her companion; and sitting down there among the rocks, her face dropped its mask, and her heart called aloud to the one man on earth for whom she felt she would make any sacrifice. Yes, though "the world" should henceforward eject him from its portals and brand him with infamy, though her kindred should refuse to receive one stained with so deep a dye, she would not hesitate to go to him, to share his obloquy, if only he would come to her with open arms and say, "You have believed in me hitherto; will you continue to believe in me, till death us do part?"
It was strange he should not write. Common courtesy demanded that he should answer her letter. But perhaps he was waiting to do so till he could tell her the result of the trial. She rarely saw an English newspaper. Mordaunt had one sent him, but it arrived very irregularly; and, whether intentionally or not, he generally kept it to himself, or took it to his aunt's room to discuss the financial article. But now he was gone, and his papers were sent after him; and any chance of learning a decision in the law courts was at an end.
He wrote from his friend's ranch, fairly pleased with the life, "Charington is doing very well; and if a man sets himself, body and soul, to work here, on this gigantic farming scale, he may make a good thing of it. If I married, and gave up English politics, and was content to lead a purely pastoral life, I am sure I could make it answer. But Charington advises me strongly not to invest money in a ranch, unless I am prepared to devote myself to raising cattle, and so on. It is an awfully jolly life for a short time—I feel as fit as a four-year-old—but I fancy it would pall after a bit."
Then, from Pueblo, a few days later, he wrote, "'Real estate' in Pueblo! After all,thatI believe is the investment that is the most absolutely certain of bringing in very large returns ultimately; for mines are always uncertain, are they not? And railways fluctuate. But in a rising city like this, landmustincrease rapidly in value, year by year. What do you say?"
"I say," wrote his aunt in reply, "that I can't trust my own judgment here, far less yours, my dear Mordaunt. All these speculations look so lovely on the spot that one must get at a little distance from them to judge if they stand upright and are as solid as they seem. I trust Pierce Caldwell implicitly—he is a fine fellow and a clever fellow, and he has done splendidly so far. But he is young, and naturally sanguine. Leave his mine and your Pueblo building speculation alone for the present. There can be no harm in a few weeks' delay."
And this advice was enforced with strong verbal exhortation when her nephew, drifted hither and thither by the contrary winds of transient enthusiasm, returned to the bosom of his family and held counsel with his aunt. But such counsel was not possible on the night of his arrival, which was coincident with the unexpected appearance of an omnibusful of young folks from Colorado Springs. This "surprise party" brought a fiddler with them, and were greeted by Mrs. Caldwell with a cordiality which indicated unbounded confidence in the resources of her larder. Mrs. Frampton stood aghast. She thought with what consternation the head of an ordinary household in England would view the inroad of a dozen hungry young men and women, prepared to make a night of it, and, if heavy snow should prevent their departure, by no means indisposed to pass two or three under their friends' hospitable roof! Happily, in this case, the snow did not descend till they were gone, when it effectually blocked the mountain roads and the railways, delaying the Ballingers' departure two days. But this night, though dark and windy, was fine, and the heavily laden omnibus with its four horses performed the journey to and fro in safety, depositing its hilarious freight at their respective homes in the dawn of the winter morning.
To the elder Englishwoman, accustomed to the undemonstrative enjoyment of her own country-folk, the boisterous high spirits of these young people, under no conventional restraints but those of propriety, were a revelation. "Could they reallyallbe as much amused as that?" she asked. "And was it necessary to make such a noise about it?" Grace declared that a pleasuring in the days of Queen Bess might have been in this wise, but not later, in England; not when the corrupt manners of the Stuarts, and the buckram and whalebones of the House of Hanover had rendered impossible all frank demonstrations of joyousness among persons "of quality." With what shouts of laughter these young Americans arrived! With what security they claimed their welcome! Did ever the finest stroke of art arouse such tempests of hilarity as did this small and well-worn joke of the "surprise"? They danced with the vigor of Highlanders at a Northern meeting. Mordaunt, of course, led out all the girls in turn, and, Grace, though with no heart for capering, if the truth had been known, waltzed with most of the young men.
For this act of self-sacrifice, let us think, she had her reward, when, on the arrival of the mail, a few hours before the Ballingers were to leave the "Falcon's Nest," a thick packet was placed in her hand.
How she blessed that forty-eight hours' detention by the fall of snow! But for it she would not have received this letter, which had been already delayed, in transit, for many days. She hurried to her room and tore it open. It was a long document, extending over many pages, and this is what she read: