CHAPTER XXIII
LEE spent the following winter in New York and Washington, with friends of Mrs. Montgomery, who met and made much of her Del Monte. Her social success in both places was very great, and she carried off all the honours that an ambitious young beauty could desire. She met many men-of-the-world. The species rather alarmed her at first, but, after she had posed herself, they amused her more; in their way, they were as ingenuous as the callow youth of San Francisco. She returned to California wiser than when she had left it, and a trifle more subtle, but with an undiminished vitality of spirit, and with the romantic imp in the depths of her brain as active as ever. It had been Mrs. Montgomery’s intention to join Lee in the spring, take her to visit Tiny, then to the great show places of Europe—invented by a benign Providence for the American tourist; but an attack of rheumatism defeated the project, and Lee hastened home to her.
She was not sorry to return. The East quickly palls on the Californian of temperament and imagination, and before the winter was over Lee had begun to long for the mysterious Latin charm of her own country, and for its unvarying suggestion of unlimited space. Moreover, she feared to miss Cecil Maundrell if she went abroad at this time; his movementsseemed very erratic, and his letters were brief and unexplanatory. He might change his plans, and come to California at any moment. Above all, she wanted to meet him on her own ground, in the country which had gone largely into the making of her; not in Tiny’s drawing-room, surrounded by a conventional house-party.
Sometimes she wondered at the persistence of her desire for Cecil Maundrell, considering how little it had to feed upon, and preferred to conclude that they were held together by some mysterious bond compounded in the laboratory of Nature, whose practical manifestation only awaited the pleasure of Time. It is true that there were periods when she was rebellious and angry, and during one of Cecil’s long silences—he had not written for four months—she came very close to marrying Randolph. He was ever at her elbow, with a persistence generally quiet, occasionally impassioned. He made himself useful to her in a thousand ways, and studied her tastes; reading her favourite books, and keeping up with her fads. He was clever and companionable, and would, indubitably, make a good husband. He did not interest her; she knew him too well, and her power over him was too sure, but her second winter in San Francisco had bored her; she was out of tune with the world for the moment, and very human; she was in the mood, failing the best, to hang her ideals upon the man who pleased her most, and to love him by sheer exercise of imagination; a mood that has ruined the life of more women than one.
She was balancing the pros and cons more seriously than she was aware, when she received a letter from Cecil Maundrell.
It was early spring. The family had moved down to Menlo sooner than usual on account of Mrs. Montgomery’s health, which was still delicate; and Lee was starting for a ride to the hills, when the stable-boy returned from the village with the morning mail. She sent her other letters into the house, unopened, and rode off rapidly with Cecil’s. It was of unusual thickness; she had not received one so heavy since the Sturm und Drang of his Oxford days.
When she was half-way down the lane that led to the hills she read his letter. Its length was its one point of resemblance to his note-books of Oxford. Several of its pages were filled with half-tender, half-humorous reminiscences of “the happiest and most piquant weeks of his life”; the rest to the enthusiasm with which he was filled at the prospect of seeing her again, mingled with unsubtle masculine suggestions that he would take a friendly pleasure in learning that she had not committed her future to some man who was not half good enough for her. The letter was dated New York, where he had been visiting an American college friend for two weeks. He expected to start immediately for the ranch of some English friends in the “Far West,” and to reach California in five or six weeks. Would she write him at once to the enclosed address, and tell him news of herself?
Lee’s horse was walking slowly up the lane between hedges of wild roses and fragrant chaparral.She glanced about vaguely, hardly recognising the familiar beautiful scene: the green foothills crouched close against the great mountains that were dark and still with their majestic redwoods crowding like brush and piercing the sky on the long irregular crest; the dazzling blue sky, the soft blue haze on the mountains, the glory of colour in the fields, and on the lower slopes of the hills; for the poppies and baby-eyes, lupins, and California lilies, were swarming over the land.
What did the letter mean? Had Cecil Maundrell written it in a dream, in which she, perchance, had visited him? She read it again. It was remarkably wide-awake. And it was almost a love-letter.
She glanced about more appreciatively. The soft rich mysterious beauty of the day and of California symphonised with the flush on her cheeks, the rapt languor of her eyes, the quickening within her.
She spent the greater part of the day in the hills, buying a glass of milk and some bread at a farmhouse. When she reached the redwoods on the long slopes, she tethered her horse, and wandered far into the forest. The very mystery of life brooded in those dim cool aisles, whose silence was undisturbed by the low roar of spring waters, whose feathery green undergrowth was barely flecked by the brilliant sun above the dense arbours high on the grey columns of the forest.
She lay on the edge of the bluff above the creek and watched the salmon moving in lazy and unperturbed possession of their sparkling waters, the darting trout, the wilderness of ferns and lilac and lilydown on the water’s edge. A deer climbed down the opposite bank and drank; owls cried to each other in the night of the forest; two hundred feet above her head the squirrels exchanged drowsy remarks; in the warm green twilight of the afternoon the very birds went to sleep.
It was not the first time that Lee had dreamed of Cecil Maundrell in this forest; she doubted if he would seem as naturally encompassed by the beech woods and fells, the ruins and traditions of his English home. Certainly this was as old, and as surely it was a part of her.
They both had unnumbered generations behind them: his were thick with men and events; hers with redwoods, whose aisles were unpeopled, in whose impenetrable depths tradition itself was lost.
She returned home late in the afternoon. Randolph, who had just come from town, was standing on the steps, and ran forward to lift her down.
“My mother was beginning to worry,” he said; “you ought to take a boy with you. If you don’t want a servant, I will stay down and accompany you.”
Lee flicked him lightly with her whip. “Then I wouldn’t go,” she said. “I love to ride about for hours by myself. Fancy if one could never get away from men.”
She spoke airily, but Randolph looked hard at her.
“What has happened?” he demanded. “There is something quite unusual about you.”
Lee blushed, but Cecil’s letter was safe in her bosom.
“Don’t ask impertinent questions, and see that you don’t talk me to death to-night; I’m tired,” and she ran upstairs.
Her other mail lay on her dressing-table. She opened a letter from Coralie, who was visiting friends in New York.
“Well,” it began abruptly, “I have met your Cecil. It was last night, at a dinner-party at the Forbes’. Heistall, you will be pleased to learn, and I fancy he might look quite athletic and ‘masterful’ (your style) in evening clothes that fitted him. But I believe he has been sporting round the world with a couple of portmanteaux, and avoiding polite society. He wore a suit belonging to Schemmerhorn Smith, whom he is visiting, and it was just two sizes too small. He didn’t seem in the least embarrassed about it, and his manners are quite simple and natural. He doesn’t talk very much, but is a good deal easier to get on with than that awful Lord Arrowmount. At first I was frightfully afraid of him—of course, being the lord of the party, he took in Mrs. Forbes, but I sat on the other side of him, and Mrs. Forbes had a scientific thing on her other side, and had to give him most of her attention. Well, where was I? Scared to death in the memory ofthoseletters—of course I didn’t breathe that I’d read them—but he’s not in the least like them—at all events not at dinner-parties. He was very much interested when I told him I was your intimate friend, although not so much as later—but wait a minute. You may be sure I said everything under Heaven in your praise, but, curiously, I never mentioned your beauty, although I dilated upon your success, and all the scalps you wore at your belt, and that you had a room whose walls were simply covered with germanfavours. He warmed to the theme as time went on, and said you had always been his greatest chum, and that he was going to California for two things only—to kill a grizzly and see you. He put the grizzly first, but never mind—he’s English. Now comes the point. After dinner, as soon as the men came in, he made for me—I didn’t tell you that I’m sure he’s shy—and I took him straight to your photograph, which is enthroned on a table all by itself.“‘There she is,’ I said.“He took it up. ‘Who?’ he asked, staring at it with all his eyes—they are nice honest hazel eyes, by the way, that often laugh, although I’ll bet he has a temper.“‘Who?—Why, Lee, of course!’“He stared harder at the picture—it is the low-necked one you had taken here, in black gauze and coloured—then he turned and stared at me. ‘Lee?’ he said. ‘Thisis Lee?’ and if he were not burnt a beautiful mahogany, I do believe he would have turned pale. He’s got a mouth on him, my dear, that means things, and it trembled.“‘She’s grown up very pretty,’ he said in a moment, as carelessly as he could manage. ‘I never suspected that she would—that she had. Of course some of your enterprising Americans have snatched her up. I haven’t heard from her for a long time. Is she engaged?’“‘Not that I know of,’ I said, ‘although she has three or four admirers so persistent, you never know what you may hear any minute.’ I thought a little worry wouldn’t hurt him; he looks altogether too satisfied, as if he had been born to plums, and never had anything else. All he said was ‘Ah!’ He put the picture back, and we went off to the music-room, but he managed to pass that table twice before the evening was over—and I must say, I’ve seenAmerican men manage things more diplomatically. But there’s something rather magnificent about him, all the same. He’s not very entertaining—Randolph would fairly scintillate beside him—but his air of repose and remoteness from the hustling every-day world are really fine. If he had worn a potato sack instead of his almost equally grotesque get-up, he would have looked as unmistakably what he is. I hunted industriously for all his good points to please you, but give me an American every time. I never was intended for a miner, and you have to go into an Englishman’s brain with a pick and shovel. Your Cecil suggests that he’s got a solid mine of real intellect, developed with all the modern improvements, inside his skull; but what’s the good, when you can’t hear the nuggets rattle? He wouldn’t even tell me his adventures—shut up like a clam, and said they were just like any other fellow’s; and Schemmerhorn Smith told me that same evening that the men Lord Maundrell was with said he was one of the crack sportsmen of the day. Do you remember when Tom killed that panther that attacked him in the redwoods? We had it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a month. Of course a happy medium’s the thing; but for my part, I don’t like too much modesty. I’m suspicious of it....”
“Well,” it began abruptly, “I have met your Cecil. It was last night, at a dinner-party at the Forbes’. Heistall, you will be pleased to learn, and I fancy he might look quite athletic and ‘masterful’ (your style) in evening clothes that fitted him. But I believe he has been sporting round the world with a couple of portmanteaux, and avoiding polite society. He wore a suit belonging to Schemmerhorn Smith, whom he is visiting, and it was just two sizes too small. He didn’t seem in the least embarrassed about it, and his manners are quite simple and natural. He doesn’t talk very much, but is a good deal easier to get on with than that awful Lord Arrowmount. At first I was frightfully afraid of him—of course, being the lord of the party, he took in Mrs. Forbes, but I sat on the other side of him, and Mrs. Forbes had a scientific thing on her other side, and had to give him most of her attention. Well, where was I? Scared to death in the memory ofthoseletters—of course I didn’t breathe that I’d read them—but he’s not in the least like them—at all events not at dinner-parties. He was very much interested when I told him I was your intimate friend, although not so much as later—but wait a minute. You may be sure I said everything under Heaven in your praise, but, curiously, I never mentioned your beauty, although I dilated upon your success, and all the scalps you wore at your belt, and that you had a room whose walls were simply covered with germanfavours. He warmed to the theme as time went on, and said you had always been his greatest chum, and that he was going to California for two things only—to kill a grizzly and see you. He put the grizzly first, but never mind—he’s English. Now comes the point. After dinner, as soon as the men came in, he made for me—I didn’t tell you that I’m sure he’s shy—and I took him straight to your photograph, which is enthroned on a table all by itself.
“‘There she is,’ I said.
“He took it up. ‘Who?’ he asked, staring at it with all his eyes—they are nice honest hazel eyes, by the way, that often laugh, although I’ll bet he has a temper.
“‘Who?—Why, Lee, of course!’
“He stared harder at the picture—it is the low-necked one you had taken here, in black gauze and coloured—then he turned and stared at me. ‘Lee?’ he said. ‘Thisis Lee?’ and if he were not burnt a beautiful mahogany, I do believe he would have turned pale. He’s got a mouth on him, my dear, that means things, and it trembled.
“‘She’s grown up very pretty,’ he said in a moment, as carelessly as he could manage. ‘I never suspected that she would—that she had. Of course some of your enterprising Americans have snatched her up. I haven’t heard from her for a long time. Is she engaged?’
“‘Not that I know of,’ I said, ‘although she has three or four admirers so persistent, you never know what you may hear any minute.’ I thought a little worry wouldn’t hurt him; he looks altogether too satisfied, as if he had been born to plums, and never had anything else. All he said was ‘Ah!’ He put the picture back, and we went off to the music-room, but he managed to pass that table twice before the evening was over—and I must say, I’ve seenAmerican men manage things more diplomatically. But there’s something rather magnificent about him, all the same. He’s not very entertaining—Randolph would fairly scintillate beside him—but his air of repose and remoteness from the hustling every-day world are really fine. If he had worn a potato sack instead of his almost equally grotesque get-up, he would have looked as unmistakably what he is. I hunted industriously for all his good points to please you, but give me an American every time. I never was intended for a miner, and you have to go into an Englishman’s brain with a pick and shovel. Your Cecil suggests that he’s got a solid mine of real intellect, developed with all the modern improvements, inside his skull; but what’s the good, when you can’t hear the nuggets rattle? He wouldn’t even tell me his adventures—shut up like a clam, and said they were just like any other fellow’s; and Schemmerhorn Smith told me that same evening that the men Lord Maundrell was with said he was one of the crack sportsmen of the day. Do you remember when Tom killed that panther that attacked him in the redwoods? We had it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a month. Of course a happy medium’s the thing; but for my part, I don’t like too much modesty. I’m suspicious of it....”
So it was her beauty that had shifted the strata in Lord Maundrell’s solid mine of intellect? It must have caused something of a shock to have resulted in a letter which almost committed him. It was both a jar and a relief to discover that he was much like other men. She re-read his letter. Then she glanced into her mirror.
“So much the better,” she remarked.