CHAPTER V
THE next afternoon Lee made an elaborate toilette. She buttoned her boots properly, sewed a stiff, white ruffle in her best gingham frock, and combed every snarl out of her hair. Mrs. Tarleton, who was sitting up, regarded her with some surprise.
“It’s nowhere near dinner time, honey,” she said, finally. “Why are you dressing up?”
Lee blushed, but replied with an air: “I expect that little boy I told you about, to come to see me—the English one. He carried my bag to school yesterday, and gave me an apple and an orange. I’ve kept the orange for you when you’re well. His name’s Cecil Maundrell.”
“Ah! Well, I hope he is a nice boy, and that you will be great friends.”
“He’s nice enough in his way. But he’d just walk over me if I’d let him. I can see that.”
Mrs. Tarleton looked alarmed. “Don’t let him bully you, darling. Englishmen are dreadfully high and mighty.”
There was a faint and timid rap upon the door.
“That’s him,” whispered Lee. “He’s afraid of me all the same.”
She opened the door. Young Maundrell stood there, his cheeks burning, his hands working nervously in his pockets. He looked younger thanmost lads of his age, and had all that simplicity of boyhood so lacking in the precocious American youth.
“Won’t you come in?” asked Lee politely.
“Oh—ah—won’t you come out?”
“Come in—do,” said Mrs. Tarleton. She had a very sweet voice and a heavenly smile. The boy walked forward rapidly, and took her hand, regarding her with curious intensity. Mrs. Tarleton patted his hand.
“You miss the women of your family, do you not?” she said. “I thought so. You must come and see us often. You will be always welcome.”
His face was brilliant. He stammered out that he’d come every day. Then he went over to the window with Lee, and with their heads together they agreed that Mrs. Tarleton was a real angel.
But Cecil quickly tired of the subdued atmosphere, and of the crowd below. He stood up abruptly and said:
“Let’s go out if your mother doesn’t mind. We’ll take a walk.”
Mrs. Tarleton looked up from her book and nodded. Lee fetched her hat and jacket, and they went forth.
“My father took me to the Cliff House one day. We’ll go there,” announced the Englishman.
“I was going to take you to a candy store—”
“Nasty stuff! It’s a beautiful walk to the Cliff House, and there are big waves and live seals.”
“Oh, I’d love to go, but I’ve heard it’s a queer kind of a place, or something.”
“I’ll take care of you. Can you walk a lot?”
“Of course!”
But like all San Franciscans, she was a bad walker, and she felt very weary as they tramped along the Cliff House road. However, she was much interested in the many carriages flashing past, and too proud to confess herself unequal to the manly stride beside her. Cecil did not suit his pace to hers. He kept up a steady tramp—his back very erect, his head in the air. Lee forgot her theories, and thought him adorable. His shyness wore off by degrees, and he talked constantly, not of his family life, but of his beloved Eton, from which he appeared to have been ruthlessly torn, and of his feats at cricket. He was a champion “dry bob,” he assured her proudly. Lee was deeply interested, but would have liked to talk about herself a little. He did not ask her a question; he was charmed with her sympathy, and confided his school troubles, piling up the agony, as her eyes softened and flashed. When she capped an anecdote of martyrdom with one from her own experience, he listened politely, but when she finished, hastened on with his own reminiscences, not pausing to comment. Lee experienced a slight chill, and the spring day seemed less brilliant, the people in the carriages less fair. But she was a child, the impression quickly passed, and her interest surrendered once more.
“We’ll be there in two minutes,” said Cecil. “Then we’ll have a cup of tea.”
“My mother doesn’t let me drink tea or coffee. She hopes I’ll have a complexion some day and be pretty.”
She longed for the masculine assurance that her beauty was a foregone conclusion, but Cecil replied:
“Oh! the idea of bothering about complexion. I like you because you’re not silly like other girls. You’ve got a lot of sense—just like a boy. Of course you mustn’t disobey your mother, but you must have something after that walk. You’ve got a lot of pluck, but I can see you’re blown a bit. Would she mind if you had a glass of wine? I’ve got ten dollars. My stepmother sent them to me.”
“My!—I don’t think she’d mind about the wine, I’ve never tasted it. Oh, goodness!”
They had mounted one of the rocks, and faced the ocean. Lee had thought the bay, girt with its colourous hills very beautiful, as they had trudged along the cliffs, but she had had glimpses of it many times from the heights of San Francisco. She had never seen the ocean before. Its roar thrilled her nerves, and the great green waves, rolling in with magnificent precision from the grey plain beyond, to leap abruptly over the outlying rocks, their spray glittering in the sunlight like a crust of jewels, filled her brain with new and inexpressible sensations. She turned suddenly to Cecil. His eyes met hers with deep impersonal sympathy; their souls mingled on the common ground of nervous exaltation. He moved closer to her and took her hand.
“That’s the reason I wanted to come again,” he said. “I love it.”
The words shook his nerves down, and he added: “But let’s go and freshen up.”
She followed him up the rocks to the little shabby building set into the cliff and overhanging the waves. She knew nothing of its secrets; no suspicion crossed her innocent mind that if its walls could speak, San Francisco, highly seasoned as it was, would shake to its roots, and heap up its record of suicide and divorce; but she wondered why two women, who came out and passed her hurriedly, were so heavily veiled, and why others, sitting in the large restaurant, had such queer-looking cheeks and eyes. Some inherited instinct forbade her to comment to Cecil, who did not give the women a glance. He led her to a little table at the end of the piazza, and ordered claret and water, tea, and a heaping plate of bread and butter.
It was some time before they were served, and they gazed delightedly at a big ship going out, and wished they were on it; at the glory of colour on the hills opposite; and at the seals chattering on the rocks below.
“It’s heavenly, perfectly heavenly,” sighed Lee. “I never had such a good time in all my life.”
She forgot her complexion and took off her hat. The salt breeze stung the blood into her cheeks, and her eyes danced with joy.
The waiter brought the little repast. The children sipped and nibbled and chattered. Cecil scarcely took his eyes off the water. He and his father went off on sailing and fishing excursions every summer, he told Lee, and he was so keen on the water that it had taken him fully three months after he entered Eton to decide whether he would be a“wet bob,” or a “dry bob.” Cricket had triumphed, because he loved to feel his heels fly.
Lee gave him a divided attention: her brain was fairly dancing, and seemed ready to fly off in several different directions at once. “Oh!” she cried suddenly, “I’m not a bit tired any more. I feel as if I could walk miles and miles. Let’s have an adventure. Wouldn’t it be just glorious if we could have an adventure?”
The boy’s eyes flashed. “Oh,wouldyou. I’ve been thinking about it—but you’re a girl. But you’re such a jolly sort! We’ll get one of those fishing-boats to take us out to sea, and climb up and down those big waves. Oh, fancy! I say!—will you?”
“Oh, won’t I? Youbetcherlife I will.”
Cecil paid his reckoning, and the children scrambled along the rocks to a cove where a fishing smack was making ready for sea. Lee wondered why her feet glanced off the rocks in such a peculiar fashion, but she was filled with the joy of exhilaration, of a reckless delight in doing something of which the entire Hayne boarding-house would disapprove.
Cecil made a rapid bargain with the man, an ugly Italian, who gave him scant attention. A few moments later they were skimming up and down the big waves and making for the open sea. At first Lee clung in terror to Cecil, who assured her patronisingly that it was an old story with him, and there was no danger. In a few moments the exhilaration returned five-fold, and she waved her arms with delight as they shot down the billows into the emerald valleys. Outat sea the boat skimmed along an almost level surface, and the children became absorbed in the big fish nets, and very dirty. Lee thought the flopping fish nasty and drew up her feet, but Cecil’s very nostrils quivered with the delight of the sport, although his surly hosts had snubbed his offer to lend a hand.
Suddenly Lee rubbed her eyes. The sun had gone. He had been well above the horizon the last time she had glanced across the waters. Had he slipped his moorings? She pointed out the phenomenon to Cecil. He stared a moment, then appealed to the Italians.
“Da fogga, by damn!” exclaimed the Captain to his mate. “What for he coming so soon? Com abouta.”
The little craft turned and raced with the breeze for land. The children faced about and watched that soft stealthy curtain swing after. It was as white as cloud, as chill as dawn, as eerie as sound in the night. It took on varying outlines, breaking into crags and mountain peaks and turrets. It opened once and caught a wedge of scarlet from the irate sun. For a moment a ribbon of flame ran up and down its length, then broke into drops of blood, then hurried whence it came. Through the fog mountain came a long dismal moan, the fog-horn of the Farallones, warning the ships at sea.
The children crept close together. Lee locked her arm in Cecil’s. Neither spoke. Suddenly the boat jolted heavily and they scrambled about, thinking they were on the rocks. But the Italians were tying the boat to a little wharf, and unreefing her. Thedock was strangely unfamiliar. Cecil glanced hastily across the bay. San Francisco lay opposite.
“Oh, I say!” he exclaimed. “Aren’t you going across before that fog gets here?”
“Si you wanta crossa that bay you swimming,” remarked the Captain, stepping ashore.
Cecil jumped after him with blazing eyes and angry fists. “You know I thought you were going back there,” he cried. “Why, you’re a villain! And a girl too! I’ll have you arrested.”
The man laughed. Cecil, through tears of mortification, regarded that large bulk, and choked back his wrath.
“My father will pay you well if you take us back,” he managed to articulate.
“No crossa that bay to-night,” replied the man.
“But how are we to get back?”
“Si you walka three, four, five miles—no can remember—you finda one ferra-boat.” And he sauntered away.
Cecil returned to the boat and helped Lee to land. “I’m awfully sorry,” he said. “What a beastly mess I’ve got you into!”
“Oh, never mind,” said Lee cheerfully. “I reckon I can walk.”
“Youarea jolly sort. Come on then.” But his brow was set in gloom.
Lee took his hand. “You looked just splendid when you talked to that horrid man,” she said. “I am sure he was afraid of you!”
Cecil’s brow shot forth the nimbus of the conqueror.
“Lee,” he said in a tone of profound conviction,“you have more sense than all the rest of the girls in the world put together. Come on and I’ll help you along.”
They climbed the bluff. When they reached the top the world was white and impalpable about them.
Cecil drew Lee’s hand through his arm. “Never mind,” he said, “I think I have a good bump of locality, and one can see a little way ahead.”
Lee leaned heavily on his arm. “I can’t think why I feel so sleepy,” she murmured. “I never am at this time of day.”
“Oh, for mercy’s sake don’t go to sleep. Let’s run.”
They ran headlong until they were out of breath. Then they stopped and gazed into the fog ahead of them. Tall dark objects loomed there. They seemed to touch the unseen stars, and they were black even in that gracious mist.
“They’re trees. They’re redwoods,” said Cecil. “I know where we are now—at least I think I do. Father and I came over to this side one day and drove about. It’s a regular forest. I do hope——” He glanced uneasily about. “It’s too bad we can’t walk along the edge of the cliffs. But if we keep straight ahead I suppose it’ll be all right.”
They trudged on. The forest closed about them. Those dark rigid shafts that no storm ever bends, no earthquake ever sways, whom the fog feeds and the trade winds love, looked like the phantasm of themselves in the pale hereafter. The scented underbush and infant redwoods grew high above the headsof the children, and there were a hundred paths. The roar of the sea grew faint.
Lee gave a gasping yawn and staggered. “Oh, Cecil,” she whispered, “I’m asleep. I can’t go another step.”
Cecil was also weary, and very much discouraged. He sat down against a tree and took Lee in his arms. She was asleep in a moment, her head comfortably nestled into his shoulder.
He was a brave boy, but during the two hours that Lee slept his nerves were sorely tried. High up, in the unseen arbours of the redwoods, there was a faint incessant whisper: the sibilant tongues of moisture among the brittle leaves. From an immeasurable distance came the long, low, incessant moan of the Farallones’ “syren.” There was no other sound. If there were four-footed creatures in the forest they slept. Just as Cecil’s teeth began to chatter, whether from cold or fear he did not care to scan, Lee moved.
“Are you awake?” he asked eagerly.
Lee sprang to her feet. “I didn’t know where I was for a minute. Let’s hurry as fast as we can. Memmy will be wild—she might be dreadfully ill with fright——”
“And father’s got all the policemen in town out after me,” said Cecil gloomily. “We can’t hurry or we’ll run into trees; but we can go on.” In a few minutes he exclaimed: “I say! We’re going up hill, and it’s jolly steep too.”
“Well?”
“That Italian didn’t say anything about hills.”
“Then I suppose we’re lost again,” said Lee, with that resignation so exasperating to man.
“Well, if we are I don’t see who’s to help it in the fog at night in a forest. Perhaps the ferry is over the hill, and as this is the only path we’ll have to go on.”
“I wouldn’t mind the hill being perpendicular if memmy was at the top.”
Cecil softened at once. “Don’t you worry; we’ll get there soon. I’ll get behind and push you.”
They toiled and panted up the hill, which grew into a mountain. The forest dropped behind and a low dense shrubbery surrounded them. They were obliged to rest many times, and once they ate a half-dozen crackers Lee found in her pocket and were hungrier thereafter. But they forebore to discourse upon their various afflictions; in fact, they barely spoke at all. Their clothes were torn, their hats lost, their hands and faces scratched. When they paused to rest and the vague disturbances of night smote their ears, they clung together and were glad to hasten on. Lee longed to cry, but panted to be a heroine in Cecil’s eyes, and win the sweets of masculine approval; and Cecil, whose depression was even more profound, never forgot that the glory of the male is to be invincible in the eyes of the female. So did the vanity of sex mitigate the terrors of night and desolation and the things that devour.
The fog was far below them, an ocean of froth, pierced by the black tips of the redwoods. On either side the children could see nothing but thegreat shoulders of the mountain. They seemed climbing to the vast cold glitter above.
Gradually they left the brush, and their way fell among stones, rocks, and huge boulders. Not a shrub grew here, not a blade of grass. They climbed on for a time, they reached level ground, then the point of descent. They could see nothing but rocks, brush, and an ocean of fog. Their courage took note of its limitations.
“I’m not going to cry,” said Lee sharply. “But I think we’d better talk till the sun gets up and that fog melts. Besides, if we talk we won’t feel so hungry. Tell me that thing about yourself—your father—I suppose you can trust me now?”
“We’re friends for life, and I like you better than my chum. You’re a brick. Hold up your right hand and swear that you’ll never tell.”
Lee took the required oath, and the two battered travellers made themselves as comfortable as they could in the hollow of an upright rock.
“There ain’t so much to tell. My father and my stepmother don’t hit it off—quarrel all the time. But my stepmother has the money and is awfully keen on me, so they live together usually. Besides, until two years ago my stepmother thought she’d be a bigger somebody, and my father thought he’d have money of his own one day because his uncle was old and had never married. But Uncle Basil—I’m named for him—married two years ago and his wife got a little chap right off. So that knocked my father out, and my stepmother was just like a hornet. I love her, and she’s seldom been nasty tome, but Ihaveseen her so that when you spoke to her she’d scream at you; and when she’s in a real nasty temper I always go out. Once I got mad because she was abusing Uncle Basil—I always spent my vacations at Maundrell Abbey, and he was good to me and gave me a gun and lots of tips—and I told her she was nasty to abuse him and I shouldn’t like her unless she stopped. Then she cried and kissed me—she’s great on kissing—and said she loved me better than any one in the world, and would do anything I wanted. Did I tell you she is an American? My father says the Americans are very excitable, and my stepmother is, and no mistake. But she dotes on me—I suppose because she hasn’t any children of her own, and no one else to dote on, for that matter; so I like her, whatever she does.
“One day, she and my father got into a terrible rage. I was in the room, but they didn’t pay any attention to me. Father wanted a lot of money, and she wouldn’t give it to him. She said he could ask his mother to pay his gambling debts. (Granny has money and is going to leave me some of it.) He said he’d asked her and she wouldn’t. Granny and father don’t hit it off, either, only granny never quarrels with anybody. Then my stepmother—her first name’s Emily and I call her Emmy—called him dreadful names, and said she’d leave him that minute if it wasn’t for me. And my father said she was the greatest snob in London and had gone off her head because she’d lost her hopes of a title. Then he said he’d get even with her; he couldn’tstay in London any longer, so he’d go as far away from her as he could get and then she’d see what her position amounted to without him. ‘You’re an outsider—you’re on sufferance,’ he said, and he went out and banged the door. She went off into hysterics, but she didn’t think he’d do it. He did though. He bolted the next day, and took me with him to spite her and granny. He’s always been decent to me, so I wouldn’t mind, only I’d rather be at Eton. He came here because it wouldn’t cost him much to live, and he’s keen on sport and knows some Englishmen that have ranches. He hopes Emmy’ll repent, but she hasn’t written him a line. She wrote to me, and sent me two pounds, but she never mentioned his name.”
“Goodness, gracious!” exclaimed Lee. She was deeply disappointed at this unromantic chronicle. And it gave all her preconceived ideas of matrimony an ugly jar. “My papa and mamma were just devoted to each other,” she said. “It must be terrible not to be.”
“Oh, I expect people get used to it. And there are a lot of other things to think about. My stepmother has a very jolly time, and father doesn’t come home very much when we are in London; and in the autumn we have a lot of people in the house—Emmy rents a place in Hampshire.”
“Then your father isn’t a lord?”
“No; Uncle Basil is.”
The lord in the family was the only redeeming feature of this sordid story; he gave it one fiery touch of the picturesque. Suddenly she forgot herdisappointment, and patted Cecil’s scratched and grimy fingers.
“You haven’t been a bit happy, like other little boys, have you?” she said, “and you are so kind and good. I’m sorry, and I wish you could live with memmy and me.”
That Cecil loved sympathy there could be no manner of doubt. He expanded at once upon the painful subject, consigning the devotion of his granny, his seven aunts, his stepmother, the kindness of his uncle, and his unfettered summers, to oblivion. He could not see Lee’s face in the shadow of the rock, but he felt the tensity of her mind, concentrated on himself. They forgot their anxious parents, the dark clinging night, the awful silence, hunger and fatigue. Lee forgot all but Cecil; Cecil forgot all but himself. When he had exhausted his resources, Lee cried:
“I’ll always like you better than any one else in the whole world except memmy! I know I will! I swear I will!”
“Couldn’t you like me better than your mother?” he asked jealously.
Lee hesitated. Her youthful bosom was agitated by conflicting emotions. Feminine subtlety dictated her answer.
“I can’t tell yet. When I’m a big grown-up person I’ll decide.”
“What’s the use of doing anything by halves? I don’t. I like you better than anybody.”
“I’ll have to wait,” firmly.
“Oh, very well,” he said crossly. “Of course, ifI knew some boys here, it wouldn’t matter so much.”
“Then if you had boys to play with you wouldn’t love me? Oh, you unkindcruelboy!”
“No—you know what I mean; I’d like you just the same, but I shouldn’t need you so much. There’s nothing to get angry about— Now?— What?— Oh!”
For Lee was weeping bitterly.
Cecil suddenly remembered that he was cold, and hungry, and tired, and lost. And he was confronted with a scene. What Lee was crying about he had but a vague idea. For a moment he contemplated a hug,—on general principles,—but remembered in time that when his father attempted cajolement his stepmother always wept the louder. So he remarked with the nervous haste of man when he knows that he is not rising to the occasion:
“We’ll stay here till morning and then I’ll take your apron off and put it on the top of a long stick and somebody’ll be sure to see. It’s exactly like being shipwrecked.”
“I never was shipwrecked,” sobbed Lee; “I’m sure I shouldn’t like it.”
“We’ve had adventures, anyhow, and that’s what you wanted.”
“I don’t like adventures. They’re not very interesting, and I’m all scratched up, and hungry, and tired.”
“We’ve not been attacked by a bear. You ought to be thankful for that.”
Lee, who would have been comforted at once bythe hug, arose with dignity, found a soft spot and composed herself to sleep, forlorn and dejected. Cecil haughtily extended himself where he was. But he, too, was sensible of a weight on his spirits, which hunger, nor fatigue, nor cold, nor straits, had rolled there. In a few moments he took off his jacket and went over to Lee and slipped it under her head. She whisked about and caught his head in her arms, and they were fast asleep in an instant.