CHAPTER IVTHE VANISHING OF ARCHIE
“In my opinion,” said Aunt Rebecca, critically eying her new drawing-room on the train to San Francisco; “the object of our legal methods seems to be to defend the criminal. And a very efficient means to this end is to make it so uncomfortable and costly and inconvenient for any witness of a crime that he runs away rather than endure it. Here we have had to stay over so long in Salt Lake we nearly lost our drawing-room. But never mind, you got your man committed. Did you find out anything about his gang?”
The colonel shook his head. “No, he’s a tough country boy; he has the rural distrust of lawyers and of sweat-boxes. He does absolutely nothing but groan and swear, pretending his wound hurts him. But I’ve a notion there are bigger people back of him. It’s most awfully good of you, Aunt Rebecca, to stick to me this way.”
“Of course, I stick to you; I’m too old to befickle. Did you ever know a Winter who wouldn’t stand by his friends? I belong to the old régime, Bertie; we had our faults—glaring ones, I dare say—but if we condoned sin too readily, we never condoned meanness; such a trick as that upstart Keatcham is doing would have been impossible to my contemporaries. You saw the morning papers; you know he means to eat up the Midland?”
“Yes, I know,” mused the colonel; “and turn Tracy, the president, down—the one who gave him his start on his bucaneering career. Tracy declines to be his tool, being, I understand, a very decent sort of man, who has always run his road for his stock-holders and not for the stock-market. A capital crime, that, in these days. So Keatcham has, somehow, by one trick or another, got enough directors since Baneleigh died to give him the control; though he couldn’t get enough of the stock; and now he means to grab the road to use for himself. Poor Tracy, who loves the road as a child, they say, will have to stand by and see it turned into a Wall Street foot-ball; and the equipment run down as fast as its reputation. I think I’m sorry for Tracy. Besides, it’s a bad lookout, the power of such fellows; men who are not captains of industry, nota little bit; only inspired gamblers. Yet they are running the country. I wonder where is the class that will save us.”
“I don’t know. I don’t admire the present century, Bertie. We had people of quality in my day; we have only people of culture in this. I confess I prefer the quality. They had robuster nerves and really asked less of people, although they may have appeared to ask more.Weused to be contented with respect from our inferiors and courtesy from our equals—”
“And what from your betters, Aunt Rebecca?” drawled the colonel.
“We had no betters, Rupert; we were the best. I think partly it was our assurance of our position, which nobody else doubted any more than we, that kept us so mannerly. Nowadays, nobody has a real position. He may have wealth and a servile following, who expect to make something out of him, but he hasn’t position. The newspapers can make fun of him. The common people watch him drive by and never think of removing their caps. Nobody takes him seriously except his toadies and himself. And as for the sentiments of reverence and loyalty, very useful sentiments in running a world, they seem to haveclean disappeared, except”—she smiled a half-reluctant smile—“except with youngsters like Archie, who would find it agreeable to be chopped into bits foryou, and the women who have not lived in the world, like Janet, who makes a heroine out ofme—upon my word, Bertie,je t’ai fait rougir!”
“Not at all,” said the colonel; “an illusion of the sunset; but what do you mean when you say people of quality required less than people of culture?”
“Oh, simply this; allwedemanded was deference; but your cultivated gang wants admiration and submission, and will not let us possess our secret souls, even, in peace. And, then, the quality despised no one, but the cultivated despise every one. Ah, well—
‘Those good old times are past and gone,I sigh for them in vain,—’
‘Those good old times are past and gone,I sigh for them in vain,—’
‘Those good old times are past and gone,
I sigh for them in vain,—’
Janet, I wish Archie would fish his mandolin out and you would sing to me; I like to hear the songs of my youth. Not rag-time, or coon-songs, but dear old Foster’s melodies;Old Kentucky Home, andMassa’s in the Col’, Col’ Ground, andNellie Was a Lady—what makes that so sad, I wonder?—‘Nelliewas a lady, las’ night she died;’ it’s all in that single line; I think it is because it represents the pathetic idealization of love; Nellie was that black lover’s ideal of all that was lovely, and she was dead. Is the orchestra ready—and the choir? Yes, shut the door; we are for art’s sake only, not for the applause of the cold world in the car.”
Afterward, when he was angry over his own folly, his own blind, dogged, trustfulness against all the odds of evidence, Rupert Winter laid his weakness to that hour; to a woman’s sweet, untrained, tender voice singing the simple melodies of his youth. They sang one song after another while the sun sank lower and stained the western sky. Through the snow-sheds they could catch glimpses of a wild and strange nature; austere, yet not repelling; vistas of foot-hills bathed in the evening glow; rank on rank of firs, tall, straight, beautiful, not wind-tortured and maimed, like the woeful dwarfs of Colorado; and wonderful snow-capped mountain peaks, with violet shadows and glinting streaks of silver. Snow everywhere: on the hillsides; on the close thatch of the firs; on the ice-locked rivers; snow freshly fallen, softly tinted, infinitely, awesomely pure.
Presently they came out into a lumber country where the mills huddled in the hollows, over the streams. Huge fires were blazing on the river-banks. Their tawny red glare dyed the snow for a long distance, making entrancing tints of rose and yellow; and the dark green of the pines, against this background, looked strangely fresh. And then, without warning, they plunged into the dimness of another long wooden tunnel and emerged into lovely spring. The trees were in leaf, and not alone the trees; the undulating swells of pasture land and roadside by the mountains were covered with a tender verdure; and there were innumerable vines and low glossy shrubs with faintly colored flowers.
“This is like the South,” said Miss Smith.
Archie was devouring the scene. “Doesn’t it just somehow make you feel as if you couldn’t breathe, Miss Janet?” said he.
“Are you troubled with the high altitude?” asked Millicent anxiously; “I have prepared a little vial of spirits of ammonia; I’ll fetch it for you.”
The colonel had some ado to rescue Archie; but he was aided by the porter, who was now passing through the car proclaiming: “You all haveseen Dutch Flat Mr. Bret Hahte wrote ’bout; nex’ station is Shady Run; and eve’ybody look and see the greates’ scenic ’traction of dis or any odder railroad, Cape Hohn!”
Instantly, Mrs. Melville fished her guide-book and began to read:
“‘There are few mountain passes more famous than that known to the world as Cape Horn. The approach to it is picturesque, the north fork of the American River raging and foaming in its rocky bed, fifteen hundred feet below and parallel with the track—’”
“Do you mind, Millicent, if we look instead of listen?” Aunt Rebecca interrupted, and Mrs. Melville lapsed into an injured muteness.
Truly, Cape Horn has a poignant grandeur that strikes speech from the lips. One can not look down that sheer height to the luminous ghost of a river below, without a thrill. If to pass along the cliff is a shivering experience, what must the actual execution of that stupendous bit of engineering have been to the workmen who hewed the road out of the rock, suspended over the abyss! Their dangling black figures seem to sway still as one swings around the curve.
Our travelers sat in silence, until the “Cape”was passed and again they could see their road-bed on the side. Then Mrs. Melville made a polite excuse for departure; she had promised a “Daughter” whom she had met at various “biennials” that she would have a little talk with her. Thus she escaped. They did not miss her. Hardly speaking, the four sat in the dimly lighted, tiny room, while mountains and fields and star-sown skies drifted by. Unconsciously, Archie drew closer to his uncle, and the older man threw an arm about the young shoulders. He looked up to meet Janet’s eyes shining and sweet, in the flash of a passing station light. Mrs. Winter smiled, her wise old smile.
With the next morning came another shift of scene; they were in the fertile valleys of California. At every turn the landscape became more softly tinted, more gracious. Aunt Rebecca was in the best of humor and announced herself as having the journey of her life. The golden green of the grain fields, the towering palms, the pepper-trees with their fascinating grace, the round tops of the live-oaks, the gloss of the orange groves, the calla-lily hedges and the heliotrope and geranium trees which climbed to the second story of the stucco houses, filled her with the enthusiasmof a child. She drank in the cries of the enterprising young liar who cried “Fresh figs,” months out of season, and she ate fruit, withered in cold storage, with a trustful zest. No less than three books about the flora of California came out of her bag. A certain vine called the Bougainvillea, she was trying to find, if only the cars would not go so fast; as for poinsettias, she certainly should raise her own for Christmas. She was learned in gardens and she discoursed with Miss Smith on the different kinds of trumpet-vine, and whether the white jasmine trailing among the gaudy clusters was of the same family as that jasmine which they knew in the pine forests. But she disparaged the roses; they looked shop-worn. The colonel watched her in amazement.
“Bertie, I make you think of that little dwarf of Dickens’, don’t I?” she cried. “Miss Muffins, Muggins? whatwasher name? You are expecting me to exclaim, ‘Ain’t I volatile?’ Thank Heaven, I am. I could always take an interest in trifles. It has been my salvation to cultivate an interest in trifles, Bertie; there are a great many more trifles than crises in life. Where has Janet gone? Oh, to give the porter the collodion forhis cut thumb. People with troubles, big or little, are always making straight for Janet. Bertie, have you made your mind up about her?”
“Only that she is charming,” replied the colonel. He did not change color, but he was uneasily conscious that he winced, and that the shrewd old critic of life and manners perceived it. But she was mercifully blind to all appearance; she went on with the little frown of the solver of a psychological enigma. “Yes, Janet is charming; and why? She is the stillest creature. Have you noticed? Yet you never have the sense that she hasn’t answered you. She’s the best listener in the world; and there’s one thing about her unusual in most listeners—her eyes never grow vacant.”
Rupert had noticed; he called himself a doddering old donkey silently, because he had assumed that there was anything personal in the interest of those eyes when he had spoken. Of course not; it was her way with every one, even Millicent, no doubt. His aunt’s next words were lost, but a sentence caught his ear directly: “For all she’s so gentle, she has plenty of spirit. Bertie, did I ever tell you about the time our precious cousin threw our great-great-grandfather’s gold snuff-box at her? No? It was funny. She flewinto one of her towering rages, and shrieking, ‘Takethat!’ hurled the snuff-box at Janet. Janet wasn’t used to having things thrown at her. She caught the box, then she rang the bell. ‘Thank you very much,’ says Janet; and when old Aunt Phrosie came, she handed the snuff-box to her, saying it had just been given to her as a present. But she sent it that same day to one of the sisters. There was never anything else thrown at her, I can tell you.”
They found a wonderful sunset on the bay when San Francisco was reached. Still in her golden humor, as they rattled over the cobblestones of the picturesque streets to the Palace Hotel, Mrs. Winter told anecdotes of Robert Louis Stevenson, obtained from a friend who had known his mother. Mrs. Winter had chosen the Palace in preference to the St. Francis, to Mrs. Melville’s high disgust.
“She thinks it more typical,” sneered Millicent; “myself, I prefer cleanliness and comfort to types.”
Their rooms were waiting for them and two bell-boys ushered Mrs. Winter into her suite. Randall was lodged on the same floor, and Mrs. Melville, who was to spend a few days with heraunt on the latter’s invitation, was on a lower floor. The colonel had begged to have Archie next to him; and he examined the quarters with approbation. His own room was the last of the suite; to the right hand, between his room and Archie’s, was their bath; then the parlor of Mrs. Winter’s suite next her room and bath, and last, to the right, Miss Smith’s room.
Archie was sitting by the window looking out on the street; only the oval of his soft boyish cheek showed. The colonel went by him to the parlor beyond, where he encountered his aunt, her hands full of gay postal cards.
“Souvenirs de voyage,” she answered his glance; “I am going to post them.”
“Can’t I take them for you?”
“No, thanks, I want the exercise.”
“May I go with you?”
“Indeed, no. My dear Bertie, I’m only aged, I’m not infirm.”
“You willneverbe aged,” responded the colonel gallantly. He turned away and walked along the arcade which looked down into the great court of the hotel. Millicent was approaching him; Millicent in something of a temper. Her room was hideously draughty and she could not get any one,although she had rung and telephoned to the office and tried every device which was effectual in a well-conducted hotel; but this, she concluded bitterly, was not well-conducted; it was only typical.
“There’s a lovely fire in Aunt Rebecca’s parlor,” soothed the colonel; “come in there.”
Afterward it seemed to him that this whole interview with Millicent could not have occupied more than four minutes; that it was not more than seven minutes since he had seen Archie’s shapely curly head against the curtain fall of the window.
But when he opened the door, Miss Smith came toward them. “Is Archie with Aunt Rebecca?” said she.
The colonel answered that he had left him in the parlor; perhaps he had stepped into his own room.
But neither in Archie’s nor the colonel’s nor in any room of the party could they find the boy.