CHAPTER I
The last note of the Angelus had just rung out of the crumbling fissuresin the tower of the mission chapel of San Buena-ventura. The sun whichhad beamed that day and indeed every day for the whole dry season overthe red-tiled roofs of that old and happily ventured pueblo seemed tobroaden to a smile as it dipped below the horizon, as if in undiminishedenjoyment of its old practical joke of suddenly plunging the SouthernCalifornia coast in darkness without any preliminary twilight. The oliveand fig trees at once lost their characteristic outlines in formlessmasses of shadow; only the twisted trunks of the old pear trees in themission garden retained their grotesque shapes and became gruesome inthe gathering gloom. The encircling pines beyond closed up their serriedfiles; a cool breeze swept down from the coast range and, passingthrough them, sent their day-long heated spices through the town.
If there was any truth in the local belief that the pious incantation ofthe Angelus bell had the power of excluding all evil influence abroadat that perilous hour within its audible radius, and comfortably keepingall unbelieving wickedness at a distance, it was presumably ineffectiveas regarded the innovating stage-coach from Monterey that twice aweek at that hour brought its question-asking, revolver-persuading andfortune-seeking load of passengers through the sleepy Spanish town. Onthe night of the 3d of August, 1856, it had not only brought but setdown at the Posada one of those passengers. It was a Mr. EzekielCorwin, formerly known to these pages as "hired man" to the late SquireBlandford, of North Liberty, Connecticut, but now a shrewd, practical,self-sufficient, and self-asserting unit of the more cautious laterCalifornian immigration. As the stage rattled away again with more orless humorous and open disparagement of the town and the Posada from its"outsiders," he lounged with lazy but systematic deliberation towardsMateo Morez, the proprietor.
"I guess that some of your folks here couldn't direct me to DickDemorest's house, could ye?"
The Senor Mateo Morez was at once perplexed and pained. Pained at theignorance thus forced upon him by a caballero; perplexed as to itsintention. Between the two he smiled apologetically but gravely, andsaid: "No sabe, Senor. I 'ave not understood."
"No more hev I," returned Ezekiel, with patronizing recognition of hisobtuseness. "I guess ez heow you ain't much on American. You folks orterlearn the language if you kalkilate to keep a hotel."
But the momentary vision of a waistless woman with a shawl gathered overher head and shoulders at the back door attracted his attention. Shesaid something to Mateo in Spanish, and the yellowish-white of Mateo'seyes glistened with intelligent comprehension.
"Ah, posiblemente; it is Don Ricardo Demorest you wish?"
Mr. Ezekiel's face and manner expressed a mingling of grateful curiosityand some scorn at the discovery. "Wa'al," he said, looking around as ifto take the entire Posada into his confidence, "way up in North Liberty,where I kem from, he was allus known as Dick Demorest, and didn'ttack any forrin titles to his name. Et wouldn't hev gone down there, Ireckon, 'mongst free-born Merikin citizens, no mor'n aliases would incourt--and I kinder guess for the same reason. But folks get peartand sassy when they're way from hum, and put on ez many airs as a bucknigger. And so he calls hisself Don Ricardo here, does he?"
"The Senor knows Don Ricardo?" said Mateo politely.
"Ef you mean me--wa'al, yes--I should say so. He was a partiklar friendof a man I've known since he was knee-high to a grasshopper."
Ezekiel had actually never seen Demorest but once in his life. He wouldhave scorned to lie, but strict accuracy was not essential with anignorant foreign audience.
He took up his carpet-bag.
"I reckon I kin find his house, ef it's anyway handy."
But the Senor Mateo was again politely troubled. The house of DonRicardo was of a truth not more than a mile distant. It was evenpossible that the Senor had observed it above a wall and vineyard as hecame into the pueblo. But it was late--it was also dark, as the Senorwould himself perceive--and there was still to-morrow. To-morrow--ah, itwas always there! Meanwhile there were beds of a miraculous qualityat the Posada, and a supper such as a caballero might order in his ownhouse. Health, discretion, solicitude for oneself--all pointed clearlyto to-morrow.
What part of this speech Ezekiel understood affected him only as aninnkeeper's bid for custom, and as such to be steadily exposed anddisposed of. With the remark that he guessed Dick Demorest's was "a goodenough hotel for HIM," and that he'd better be "getting along there," hewalked down the steps, carpet-bag in hand, and coolly departed, leavingMateo pained, but smiling, on the doorstep.
"An animal with a pig's head--without doubt," said Mateo, sententiously.
"Clearly a brigand with the liver of a chicken," responded his wife.
The subject of this ambiguous criticism, happily oblivious, meantimewalked doggedly back along the road the stage-coach had just broughthim. It was badly paved and hollowed in the middle with the worn ruts ofa century of slow undeviating ox carts, and the passage of waterduring the rainy season. The low adobe houses on each side, with brightcinnamon-colored tiles relieving their dark-brown walls, had the regularoutlines of their doors and windows obliterated by the crumbling ofyears, until they looked as if they had been afterthoughts of thebuilder, rudely opened by pick and crowbar, and finished by the gentleauxiliary architecture of birds and squirrels. Yet these openings attimes permitted glimpses of a picturesque past in the occasional viewof a lace-edged pillow or silken counterpane, striped hangings, or dyedIndian rugs, the flitting of a flounced petticoat or flower-coveredhead, or the indolent leaning figure framed in a doorway of a man inwide velvet trousers and crimson-barred serape, whose brown facewas partly hidden in a yellow nimbus of cigarette smoke. Even in thesemi-darkness, Ezekiel's penetrating and impertinent eyes took eagernote of these facts with superior complacency, quite unmindful, afterthe fashion of most critical travellers, of the hideous contrast of hisown long shapeless nankeen duster, his stiff half-clerical brown strawhat, his wisp of gingham necktie, his dusty boots, his outrageouscarpet-bag, and his straggling goat-like beard. A few looked at him ingrave, discreet wonder. Whether they recognized in him the advent of acivilization that was destined to supplant their own ignorant, sensuous,colorful life with austere intelligence and rigid practical improvement,did not appear. He walked steadily on. As he passed the low arched doorof the mission church and saw a faint light glimmering from the sidewindows, he had indeed a weak human desire to go in and oppose in hisown person a debased and idolatrous superstition with some happilychosen question that would necessarily make the officiating priest andhis congregation exceedingly uncomfortable. But he resisted; partly inthe hope of meeting some idolater on his way to Benediction, and, inthe guise of a stranger seeking information, dropping a few unpalatabletruths; and partly because he could unbosom himself later to Demorest,who he was not unwilling to believe had embraced Popery with hisadoption of a Spanish surname and title.
It had become quite dark when he reached the long wall that enclosedDemorest's premises. The wall itself excited his resentment, not onlyas indicating an exclusiveness highly objectionable in a man whohad emigrated from a free State, but because he, Ezekiel Corwin, haddifficulty in discovering the entrance. When he succeeded, he foundhimself before an iron gate, happily open, but savoring offensively offeudalism and tyrannical proprietorship, and passed through and enteredan avenue of trees scarcely distinguishable in the darkness, whosemysterious shapes and feathery plumes were unknown to him. Numberlessodors equally vague and mysterious were heavy in the air, strange anddelicate plants rose dimly on either hand; enormous blossoms, likeghostly faces, seemed to peer at him from the shadows. For an instantEzekiel succumbed to an unprofitable sense of beauty, and acquiesced inthis reckless extravagance of Nature that was so unlike North Liberty.But the next moment he recovered himself, with the reflection that itwas probably unhealthy, and doggedly approached the house. It was along, one-storied, structure, apparently all roof, vine, and pillaredveranda. Every window and door wa
s open; the two or three grass hammocksswung emptily between the columns; the bamboo chairs and settees werevacant; his heavy footsteps on the floor had summoned no attendant; noteven a dog had barked as he approached the house. It was shiftless, itwas sinful--it boded no good to the future of Demorest.
He put down his carpet-bag on the veranda and entered the broad hall,where an old-fashioned lantern was burning on a stand. Here, too, thedoors of the various apartments were open, and the rooms themselvesempty of occupants. An opportunity not to be lost by Ezekiel's inquiringmind thus offered itself. He took the lantern and deliberately examinedthe several apartments, the furniture, the bedding, and even the smallarticles that were on the tables and mantels. When he had completed theround--including a corridor opening on a dark courtyard, which he didnot penetrate--he returned to the hall, and set down the lantern again.
"Well," said a voice in his own familiar vernacular, "I hope you likeit."
Ezekiel was surprised, but not disconcerted. What he had taken in theshadow for a bundle of serapes lying on the floor of the veranda,was the recumbent figure of a man who now raised himself to a sittingposture.
"Ez to that," drawled Ezekiel, with unshaken self-possession, "whetherI like it or not ez only a question betwixt kempany manners andtruth-telling. Beggars hadn't oughter be choosers, and transientvisitors like myself needn't allus speak their mind. But if you mean tosignify that with every door and window open and universal shiftlessnesslying round everywhere temptin' Providence, you ain't lucky in havin' afeller-citizen of yours drop in on ye instead of some Mexican thief, Idon't agree with ye--that's all."
The man laughed shortly and rose up. In spite of his careless yetpicturesque Mexican dress, Ezekiel instantly recognized Demorest. Withhis usual instincts he was naturally pleased to observe that he lookedolder and more careworn. The softer, sensuous climate had perhapsimparted a heaviness to his figure and a deliberation to his manner thatwas quite unlike his own potential energy.
"That don't tell me who you are, and what you want," he said, coldly.
"Wa'al then, I'm Ezekiel Corwin of North Liberty, ez used to live withmy friend and YOURS too, I guess--seein' how the friendship was swappedinto relationship--Squire Blandford."
A slight shade passed over Demorest's face. "Well," he said,impatiently, "I don't remember you; what then?"
"You don't remember me; that's likely," returned Ezekiel imperturbably,combing his straggling chin beard with three fingers, "but whether it'sNAT'RAL or not, considerin' the sukumstances when we last met, ez amatter of op-pinion. You got me to harness up the hoss and buggy thenight Squire Blandford left home, and never was heard of again. It'strue that it kem out on enquiry that the hoss and buggy ran away fromthe hotel, and that you had to go out to Warensboro in a sleigh, andthe theory is that poor Squire Blandford must have stopped the hossand buggy somewhere, got in and got run away agin, and pitched over thebridge. But seein' your relationship to both Squire and Mrs. Blandford,and all the sukumstances, I reckoned you'd remember it."
"I heard of it in Boston a month afterwards," said Demorest, dryly, "butI don't think I'd have recognized you. So you were the hired man whogave me the buggy. Well, I don't suppose they discharged you for it."
"No," said Ezekiel, with undisturbed equanimity. "I kalkilate Joan wouldhave stopped that. Considerin', too, that I knew her when she was DeaconSalisbury's darter, and our fam'lies waz thick az peas. She knew me wellenough when I met her in Frisco the other day."
"Have you seen Mrs. Demorest already?" said Demorest, with suddenvivacity. "Why didn't you say so before?" It was wonderful how quicklyhis face had lighted up with an earnestness that was not, however,without some undefinable uneasiness. The alert Ezekiel noticed it andobserved that it was as totally unlike the irresistible dominance of theman of five years ago as it was different from the heavy abstraction ofthe man of five minutes before.
"I reckon you didn't ax me," he returned coolly. "She told me where youwere, and as I had business down this way she guessed I might drop in."
"Yes, yes--it's all right, Mr. Corwin; glad you did," said Demorest,kindly but half nervously. "And you saw Mrs. Demorest? Where did you seeher, and how did you think she was looking? As pretty as ever, eh?"
But the coldly literal Ezekiel was not to be beguiled into polite orambiguous fiction. He even went to the extent of insulting deliberationbefore he replied. "I've seen Joan Salisbury lookin' healthier andez far ez I kin judge doin' more credit to her stock and raisin'gin'rally," he said, thoughtfully combing his beard, "and I've seen herwhen she was too poor to get the silks and satins, furbelows, fineriesand vanities she's flauntin' in now, and that was in Squire Blandford'stime, too, I reckon. Ez to her purtiness, that's a matter of taste. Youthink her purty, and I guess them fellows ez was escortin' and squirin'her round Frisco thought so too, or SHE thought they did to hev allowedit."
"You are not very merciful to your townsfolk, Mr. Corwin," saidDemorest, with a forced smile; "but what can I do for you?"
It was the turn for Ezekiel's face to brighten, or rather to break up,like a cold passionless mirror suddenly cracked, into various amusingbut distorted reflections on the person before him. "Townies ain't tobe fooled by other townies, Mr. Demorest; at least that ain't my ideao' marcy, he-he! But seen you're pressin', I don't mind tellen you MYbusiness. I'm the only agent of Seventeen Patent Medicine Proprietorsin Connecticut represented by the firm of Dilworth & Dusenberry, of SanFrancisco. Mebbe you heard of 'em afore--A1 druggists and importers.Wa'al, I'm openin' a field for 'em and spreadin' 'em gin'rally throughthese air benighted and onhealthy districts, havin' the contract forthe hull State--especially for Wozun's Universal Injin Panacea ez cureseverything--bein' had from a recipe given by a Sachem to Dr. Wozun'sgran'ther. That bag--leavin' out a dozen paper collars and socks--is allthe rest samples. That's me, Ezekiel Corwin--only agent for Californy,and that's my mission."
"Very well; but look here, Corwin," said Demorest, with a slight returnof his old off-hand manner,--"I'd advise you to adopt a little morecaution, and a little less criticism in your speech to the people abouthere, or I'm afraid you'll need the Universal Panacea for yourself.Better men than you have been shot in my presence for half yourfreedom."
"I guess you've just hit the bull's-eye there," replied Ezekiel, coolly,"for it's that HALF-freedom and HALF-truth that doesn't pay. I kalkilategin'rally to speak my hull mind--and I DO. Wot's the consequence? Why,when folks find I ain't afeard to speak my mind on their affairs, theykinder guess I'm tellin' the truth about my own. Folks don't like theman that truckles to 'em, whether it's in the sellin' of a box of pillsor a principle. When they re-cognize Ezekiel Corwin ain't goin' to lieabout 'em to curry favor with 'em, they're ready to believe he ain'tgoin' to lie about Jones' Bitters or Wozun's Panacea. And, wa'al, I'vebeen on the road just about a fortnit, and I haven't yet discovered thatthe original independent style introduced by Ezekiel Corwin ever brokeanybody's bones or didn't pay."
And he told the truth. That remarkably unfair and unpleasant spoken manhad actually frozen Hanley's Ford into icy astonishment at hisaudacity, and he had sold them an invoice of the Panacea before they hadrecovered; he had insulted Chipitas into giving an extensive order inbitters; he had left Hayward's Creek pledged to Burne's pills--withdrawn revolvers still in their hands.
At another time Demorest might have been amused at his guest's audacity,or have combated it with his old imperiousness, but he only remainedlooking at him in a dull sort of way as if yielding to his influence.It was part of the phenomenon that the two men seemed to have changedcharacter since they last met, and when Ezekiel said confidentially: "Ireckon you're goin' to show me what room I ken stow these duds o' minein," Demorest replied hurriedly, "Yes, certainly," and taking uphis guest's carpet-bag preceded him through the hall to one of theapartments.
"I'll send Manuel to you presently," he said, putting down the bagmechanically; "the servants are not back from church, it's some saint'sfestival to-day."
; "And so you keep a pack of lazy idolaters to leave your house to takecare of itself, whilst they worship graven images," said Ezekiel,delighted at this opportunity to improve the occasion.
"If my memory isn't bad, Mr. Corwin," said Demorest dryly, "when Iaccompanied Mr. Blandford home the night he returned from his journey,we found YOU at church, and he had to put up his horse himself."
"But that was the Sabbath--the seventh day of the command," retortedEzekiel.
"And here the Sabbath doesn't consist of only ONE day to serve God in,"said Demorest, sententiously.
Ezekiel glanced under his white lashes at Demorest's thoughtful face.His fondest fears appeared to be confirmed; Demorest had evidentlybecome a Papist. But that gentleman stopped any theological discussionby the abrupt inquiry:
"Did Mrs. Demorest say when she thought of returning?"
"She allowed she mout kem to-morrow--but--" added Ezekiel dubiously.
"But what?"
"Wa'al, wot with her enjyments of the vanities of this life andthe kempany she keeps, I reckon she's in no hurry," said Ezekiel,cheerfully.
The entrance of Manuel here cut short any response from Demorest,who after a few directions in Spanish to the peon, left his guest tohimself.
He walked to the veranda with the same dull preoccupation that Ezekielhad noticed as so different from his old decisive manner, and remainedfor a few moments abstractedly gazing into the dark garden. The strangeand mystic shapes which had impressed even the practical Ezekiel, hadbecome even more weird and ghost-like in the faint radiance of a risingmoon.
What memories evoked by his rude guest seemed to take form and outlinein that dreamy and unreal expanse!
He saw his wife again, standing as she had stood that night in hermother's house, with the white muffler around her head, and white face,imploring him to fly; he saw himself again hurrying through the drivingstorm to Warensboro, and reaching the train that bore him swiftly andsafely miles away--that same night when her husband was perishing in theswollen river. He remembered with what strangely mingled sensations hehad read the account of Blandford's death in the newspapers, and how theloss of his old friend was forgotten in the associations conjured up byhis singular meeting that very night with the mysterious woman he hadloved. He remembered that he had never dreamed how near and fatefulwere these associations; and how he had kept his promise not to seekher without her permission, until six months after, when she appointeda meeting, and revealed to him the whole truth. He could see her now,as he had seen her then, more beautiful and fascinating than ever in herblack dress, and the pensive grace of refined suffering and restrainedpassion in her delicate face. He remembered, too, how the shock ofher disclosure--the knowledge that she had been his old friend'swife--seemed only to accent her purity and suffering and his own wilfulrecklessness, and how it had stirred all the chivalry, generosity, andaffection of his easy nature to take the whole responsibility of thisinnocent but compromising intrigue on his own shoulders. He had had noself-accusing sense of disloyalty to Blandford in his practical nature;he had never suspected the shy, proper girl of being his wife; he waswilling to believe now, that had he known it, even that night, he wouldnever have seen her again; he had been very foolish; he had made thispoor woman participate in his folly; but he had never been dishonest ortreacherous in thought or action. If Blandford had lived, even hewould have admitted it. Yet he was guiltily conscious of a materialsatisfaction in Blandford's death, without his wife's religiousconviction of the saving graces of predestination.
They had been married quietly when the two years of her widowhoodhad expired; his former relations with her husband and the straitenedcircumstances in which Blandford's death had left her having been deemedsufficient excuse in the eyes of North Liberty for her more worldlyunion. They had come to California at her suggestion "to begin lifeanew," for she had not hesitated to make this dislocation of all herantecedent surroundings as a reason as well as a condition of thismarriage. She wished to see the world of which he had been a passingglimpse; to expand under his protection beyond the limits of herfettered youth. He had bought this old Spanish estate, with its nearvineyard and its outlying leagues covered with wild cattle, partly fromthat strange contradictory predilection for peaceful husbandry common tomen who have led a roving life, and partly as a check to her growing andfeverish desire for change and excitement. He had at first enjoyed withan almost parental affection her childish unsophisticated delight inthat world he had already wearied of, and which he had been preparedto gladly resign for her. But as the months and even years had passedwithout any apparent diminution in her zest for these pleasures, hetried uneasily to resume his old interest in them, and spent ten monthswith her in the chaotic freedom of San Francisco hotel life. But to hisdiscomfiture he found that they no longer diverted him; to his horror hediscovered that those easy gallantries in which he had spent his youth,and in which he had seen no harm, were intolerable when exhibited to hiswife, and he trembled between inquietude and indignation at the copiesof his former self, whom he met in hotel parlors, at theatres, andin public conveyances. The next time she visited some friends in SanFrancisco he did not accompany her. Though he fondly cherished hisexperience of her power to resist even stronger temptation, he was toopractical to subject himself to the annoyance of witnessing it. In herabsence he trusted her completely; his scant imagination conjured up nodisturbing picture of possibilities beyond what he actually knew. In hisrecent questions of Ezekiel he did not expect to learn anything more.Even his guest's uncomfortable comments added no sting that he had notalready felt.
With these thoughts called up by the unlooked-for advent of Ezekielunder his roof, he continued to gaze moodily into the garden. Near thehouse were scattered several uncouth varieties of cacti which seemed tohave lost all semblance of vegetable growth, and had taken rude likenessto beasts and human figures. One high-shouldered specimen, partly hiddenin the shadow, had the appearance of a man with a cloak or serape thrownover his left shoulder. As Demorest's wandering eyes at last becamefixed upon it, he fancied he could trace the faint outlines of a paleface, the lower part of which was hidden by the folds of the serape.There certainly was the forehead, the curve of the dark eyebrows, theshadow of a nose, and even as he looked more steadily, a glistening ofthe eyes upturned to the moonlight. A sudden chill seized him. It wasa horrible fancy, but it looked as might have looked the dead faceof Edward Blandford! He started and ran quickly down the steps of theveranda. A slight wind at the same moment moved the long leaves andtendrils of a vine nearest him and sent a faint wave through the garden.He reached the cactus; its fantastic bulk stood plainly before him, butnothing more.
"Whar are ye runnin' to?" said the inquiring voice of Ezekiel from theveranda.
"I thought I saw some one in the garden," returned Demorest, quietly,satisfied of the illusion of his senses, "but it was a mistake."
"It mout and it moutn't," said Ezekiel, dryly. "Thar's nothin' to keepany one out. It's only a wonder that you ain't overrun with thieves andsich like."
"There are usually servants about the place," said Demorest, carelessly.
"Ef they're the same breed ez that Manuel, I reckon I'd almost as leavetake my chances in the road. Ef it's all the same to you I kalkilate toput a paytent fastener to my door and winder to-night. I allus travelwith them." Seeing that Demorest only shrugged his shoulders withoutreplying, he continued, "Et ain't far from here that some folks allow isthe headquarters of that cattle-stealing gang. The driver of the coachwent ez far ez to say that some of these high and mighty Dons hereaboutsknows more of it than they keer to tell."
"That's simply a yarn for greenhorns," said Demorest, contemptuously."I know all the ranch proprietors for twenty leagues around, and they'velost as many cattle and horses as I have."
"I wanter know," said Ezekiel, with grim interest. "Then you've alreadyhad consid'ble losses, eh? I kalkilate them cattle are vally'ble--aboutwot figger do you reckon yer out and injured?"
"Three or fou
r thousand dollars, I suppose, altogether," repliedDemorest, shortly.
"Then you don't take any stock in them yer yarns about the gang beingrun and protected by some first-class men in Frisco?" said Ezekiel,regretfully.
"Not much," responded Demorest, dryly; "but if people choose to believethis bluff gotten up by the petty thieves themselves to increase theirimportance and secure their immunity--they can. But here's Manuel totell us supper is ready."
He led the way to the corridor and courtyard which Ezekiel had notpenetrated on account of its obscurity and solitude, but which nowseemed to be peopled with peons and household servants of both sexes. Atthe end of a long low-ceilinged room a table was spread with omelettes,chupa, cakes, chocolate, grapes, and melons, around which half a dozenattendants stood gravely in waiting. The size of the room, which toEzekiel's eyes looked as large as the church at North Liberty, theprofusion of the viands, the six attendants for the host and solitaryguest, deeply impressed him. Morally rebelling against this feudaldisplay and extravagance, he, who had disdained to even assist theBlandfords' servant-in-waiting at table and had always made hissolitary meal on the kitchen dresser, was not above feeling a materialsatisfaction in sitting on equal terms with his master's friend andbeing served by these menials he despised. He did full justice tothe victuals of which Demorest partook in sparing abstraction, andparticularly to the fruit, which Demorest did not touch at all.Observant of his servants' eyes fixed in wonder on the strange guest whohad just disposed of a second melon at supper, Demorest could not helpremarking that he would lose credit as a medico with the natives unlesshe restrained a public exhibition of his tastes.
"Ez ha'aw?" queried Ezekiel.
"They have a proverb here that fruit is gold in the morning, silver atnoon, and lead at night."
"That'll do for lazy stomicks," said the unabashed Ezekiel. "Whenthey're once fortified by Jones' bitters and hard work, they'll be ableto tackle the Lord's nat'ral gifts of the airth at any time."
Declining the cigarettes offered him by Demorest for a quid oftobacco, which he gravely took from a tin box in his pocket, and tothe astonished eyes of the servants apparently obliterated any furtherremembrance of the meal, he accompanied his host to the veranda again,where, tilting his chair back and putting his feet on the railing, hegave himself up to unwonted and silent rumination.
The silence was broken at last by Demorest, who, half-reclining on asettee, had once or twice glanced towards the misshapen cactus.
"Was there any trace discovered of Blandford, other than we knew beforewe left the States?"
"Wa'al, no," said Ezekiel, thoughtfully. "The last idea was that he'dgot control of the hoss after passin' the bridge, and had managed toturn him back, for there was marks of buggy wheels on the snow on thefar side, and that fearin' to trust the hoss or the bridge he tried tolead him over when the bridge gave way, and he was caught in the wreckand carried off down stream. That would account for his body not bein'found; they do tell that chunks of that bridge were picked up on theSound beach near the mouth o' the river, nigh unto sixty miles away.That's about the last idea they had of it at North Liberty." He pausedand then cleverly directing a stream of tobacco juice at an accuratecurve over the railing, wiped his lips with the back of his hand,and added, slowly: "Thar's another idea--but I reckon it's only mine.Leastways I ain't heard it argued by anybody."
"What is that?" asked Demorest.
"Wa'al, it ain't exakly complimentary to E. Blandford, Esq., and it moutbe orkard for YOU."
"I don't think you're in the habit of letting such trifles interferewith your opinion," said Demorest, with a slightly forced laugh; "butwhat is your idea?"
"That thar wasn't any accident."
"No accident?" replied Demorest, raising himself on his elbow.
"Nary accident," continued Ezekiel, deliberately, "and, if it comes tothat, not much of a dead body either."
"What the devil do you mean?" said Demorest, sitting up.
"I mean," said Ezekiel, with momentous deliberation, "that E. Blandford,of the Winnipeg Mills, was in March, '50, ez nigh bein' bust up ez anyman kin be without actually failin'; that he'd been down to Boston thatday to get some extensions; that old Deacon Salisbury knew it, and hadbeen pesterin' Mrs. Blandford to induce him to sell out and leave theplace; and that the night he left he took about two hundred and fiftydollars in bank bills that they allus kept in the house, and Mrs.Blandford was in the habit o' hidin' in the breast-pocket of one of hisold overcoats hangin' up in the closet. I mean that that air money andthat air overcoat went off with him, ez Mrs. Blandford knows, for Iheard her tell her ma about it. And when his affairs were wound up andhis debts paid, I reckon that the two hundred and fifty was all therewas left--and he scooted with it. It's orkard for you--ez I saidafore--but I don't see wot on earth you need get riled for. Ef he ranoff on account of only two hundred and fifty dollars he ain't goin'to run back again for the mere matter o' your marrying Joan. Ef hehad--he'd a done it afore this. It's orkard ez I said--but the onlyorkardness is your feelin's. I reckon Joan's got used to hers."
Demorest had risen angrily to his feet. But the next moment the utterimpossibility of reaching this man's hidebound moral perception by evenphysical force hopelessly overcame him. It would only impress him withthe effect of his own disturbing power, that to Ezekiel was equal toa proof of the truth of his opinions. It might even encourage him torepeat this absurd story elsewhere with his own construction upon hisreception of it. After all it was only Ezekiel's opinion--an opinion toopreposterous for even a moment's serious consideration. Blandfordalive, and a petty defaulter! Blandford above the earth and complacentlyabandoning his wife and home to another! Blandford--perhaps a sneaking,cowardly Nemesis--hiding in the shadow for future--impossible! It reallywas enough to make him laugh.
He did laugh, albeit with an uneasy sense that only a few years agohe would have struck down the man who had thus traduced his friend'smemory.
"You've been overtaxing your brain in patent-medicine circulars,Corwin," he said in a roughly rallying manner, "and you've got rathertoo much highfalutin and bitters mixed with your opinions. After thatyarn of yours you must be dry. What'll you take? I haven't got any NewEngland rum, but I can give you some ten-year-old aguardiente made onthe place."
As he spoke he lifted a decanter and glass from a small table whichManuel had placed in the veranda.
"I guess not," said Ezekiel dryly. "It's now goin' on five years sinceI've been a consistent temperance man."
"In everything but melons, and criticism of your neighbor, eh?" saidDemorest, pouring out a glass of the liquor.
"I hev my convictions," said Ezekiel with affected meekness.
"And I have mine," said Demorest, tossing off the fiery liquor at adraft, "and it's that this is devilish good stuff. Sorry you can't takesome. I'm afraid I'll have to get you to excuse me for a while. I haveto take a ride over the ranch before turning in, to see if everything'sright. The house is 'at your disposition,' as we say here. I'll see youlater."
He walked away with a slight exaggeration of unconcern. Ezekiel watchedhim narrowly with colorless eyes beneath his white lashes. When hehad gone he examined the thoroughly emptied glass of aguardiente,and, taking the decanter, sniffed critically at its sharp and potentcontents. A smile of gratified discernment followed. It was clear to himthat Demorest was a heavy drinker.
Contrary to his prognostication, however, Mrs. Demorest DID arrive thenext day. But although he was to depart from Buenaventura by the samecoach that had set her down at the gate of the casa, he had already leftthe house armed with some letters of introduction which Demorest hadgenerously given him, to certain small traders in the pueblo and alongthe route. Demorest was not displeased to part with him before thearrival of his wife, and thus spare her the awkwardness of a repetitionof Ezekiel's effrontery in her presence. Nor was he willing to have theimpediment of a guest in the house to any explanation he might have toseek from her, or to the confidences that hereafter must be
fullerand more mutual. For with all his deep affection for his wife, RichardDemorest unconsciously feared her. The strong man whose dominance overmen and women alike had been his salient characteristic, had begun tofeel an undefinable sense of some unrecognized quality in the woman heloved. He had once or twice detected it in a tone of her voice, in aremembered and perhaps even once idolized gesture, or in the accidentallapse of some bewildering word. With the generosity of a large nature hehad put the thought aside, referring it to some selfish weakness ofhis own, or--more fatuous than all--to a possible diminution of his ownaffection.
He was standing on the steps ready to receive her. Few of herappreciative sex could have remained indifferent to the tender andtouching significance of his silent and subdued welcome. He had thatpiteous wistfulness of eye seen in some dogs and the husbands of manycharming women--the affection that pardons beforehand the indifferenceit has learned to expect. She approached him smiling in her turn,meeting the sublime patience of being unloved with the equally resignedpatience of being loved, and feeling that comforting sense of virtuewhich might become a bore, but never a self-reproach. For the rest, shewas prettier than ever; her five years of expanded life had slightlyrounded the elongated oval of her face, filled up the ascetic hollowsof her temples, and freed the repression of her mouth and chin. A moregenial climate had quickened the circulation that North Liberty hadarrested, and suffused the transparent beauty of her skin with eloquentlife. It seemed as if the long, protracted northern spring of her youthhad suddenly burst into a summer of womanhood under those gentle skies;and yet enough of her puritan precision of manner, movement, and gestureremained to temper her fuller and more exuberant life and give itrepose. In a community of pretty women more or less given to the licenseand extravagance of the epoch, she always looked like a lady.
He took her in his arms and half-lifted her up the last step of theveranda. She resisted slightly with her characteristic action ofcatching his wrists in both her hands and holding him off with anawkward primness, and almost in the same tone that she had used toEdward Blandford five years before, said:
"There, Dick, that will do."