Mrs. Skagg's Husbands and Other Stories. Bret Harte
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Blanche facing the sea, and shading her eyes with the leaf.
“I don’t really know how long I have been sitting here,” said Islington, “or whether I have not been actually asleep and dreaming. It seemed too lovely a morning to go to bed. But you?”
From behind the leaf, it appeared that Miss Blanche, on retiring, had been pursued by a hideous winged bug which defied the efforts of herself and maid to dislodge. Odin, the Spitz dog, had insisted upon scratching at the door. And it made her eyes red to sleep in the morning. And she had an early call to make. And the sea looked lovely.
“I’m glad to find you here, whatever be the cause,” said Islington, with his old directness. “To-day, as you know, is my last day in Greyport, and it is much pleasanter to say good by under this blue sky than even beneath your father’s wonderful frescos yonder. I want to remember you, too, as part of this pleasant prospect which belongs to us all, rather than recall you in anybody’s particular setting.”
“I know,” said Blanche, with equal directness, “that houses are one of the defects of our civilization; but I don’t think I ever heard the idea as elegantly expressed before. Where do you go?”
“I don’t know yet. I have several plans. I may go to South America and become president of one of the republics,—I am not particular which. I am rich, but in that part of America which lies outside of Greyport it is necessary for every man to have some work. My friends think I should have some great aim in life, with a capital A. But I was born a vagabond, and a vagabond I shall probably die.”
“I don’t know anybody in South America,” said Blanche, languidly. “There were two girls here last season, but they didn’t wear stays in the house, and their white frocks never were properly done up. If you go to South America, you must write to me.”
“I will. Can you tell me the name of this flower which I found in your greenhouse. It looks much like a California blossom.”
“Perhaps it is. Father bought it of a half-crazy old man who came here one day. Do you know him?”
Islington laughed. “I am afraid not. But let me present this in a less business-like fashion.”
“Thank you. Remind me to give you one in return before you go,—or will you choose yourself?”
They had both risen as by a common instinct.
“Good by.”
The cool flower-like hand lay in his for an instant.
“Will you oblige me by putting aside that leaf a moment before I go?”
“But my eyes are red, and I look like a perfect fright.”
Yet, after a long pause, the leaf fluttered down, and a pair of very beautiful but withal very clear and critical eyes met his. Islington was constrained to look away. When he turned again, she was gone.
“Mister Hislington,—sir!”
It was Chalker, the English groom, out of breath with running.
“Seein’ you alone, sir,—beg your pardon, sir,—but there’s a person—”
“A person! what the devil do you mean? Speak English—no, damn it, I mean don’t,” said Islington, snappishly.
“I sed a person, sir. Beg pardon—no offence—but not a gent, sir. In the lib’ry.”
A little amused even through the utter dissatisfaction with himself and vague loneliness that had suddenly come upon him, Islington, as he walked toward the lodge, asked, “Why isn’t he a gent?
“No gent—beggin’ your pardin, sir—‘ud guy a man in sarvis, sir. Takes me ‘ands so, sir, as I sits in the rumble at the gate, and puts ‘em downd so, sir, and sez, ‘Put ‘em in your pocket, young man,—or is it a road agint you expects to see, that you ‘olds hup your ‘ands, hand crosses ‘em like to that,’ sez he. ‘’Old ‘ard,’ sez he, ‘on the short curves, or you’ll bust your precious crust,’ sez he. And hasks for you, sir. This way, sir.”
They entered the lodge. Islington hurried down the long Gothic hall, and opened the library door.
In an arm-chair, in the centre of the room, a man sat apparently contemplating a large, stiff, yellow hat with an enormous brim, that was placed on the floor before him. His hands rested lightly between his knees, but one foot was drawn up at the side of his chair in a peculiar manner. In the first glance that Islington gave, the attitude in some odd, irreconcilable way suggested a brake. In another moment he dashed across the room, and, holding out both hands, cried, “Yuba Bill!”
The man rose, caught Islington by the shoulders, wheeled him round, hugged him, felt of his ribs like a good-natured ogre, shook his hands violently, laughed, and then said, somewhat ruefully, “And how ever did you know me?”
Seeing that Yuba Bill evidently regarded himself as in some elaborate disguise, Islington laughed, and suggested that it must have been instinct.
“And you?” said Bill, holding him at arm’s length, and surveying him critically,—“you!—toe think—toe think—a little cuss no higher nor a trace, a boy as I’ve flicked outer the road with a whip time in agin, a boy ez never hed much clothes to speak of, turned into a sport!”
Islington remembered, with a thrill of ludicrous terror, that he still wore his evening dress.
“Turned,” continued Yuba Bill, severely,—“turned into a restyourant waiter,—a garsong! Eh, Alfonse, bring me a patty de foy grass and an omelette, demme!”
“Dear old chap!” said Islington, laughing, and trying to put his hand over Bill’s bearded mouth, “but you—YOU don’t look exactly like yourself! You’re not well, Bill.” And indeed, as he turned toward the light, Bill’s eyes appeared cavernous, and his hair and beard thickly streaked with gray.
“Maybe it’s this yer harness,” said Bill, a little anxiously. “When I hitches on this yer curb” (he indicated a massive gold watch-chain with enormous links), “and mounts this ‘morning star,’” (he pointed to a very large solitaire pin which had the appearance of blistering his whole shirt-front), “it kinder weighs heavy on me, Tommy. Otherwise I’m all right, my boy,—all right.” But he evaded Islington’s keen eye, and turned from the light.
“You have something to tell me, Bill,” said Islington, suddenly, and with almost brusque directness; “out with it.”
Bill did not speak, but moved uneasily toward his hat.
“You didn’t come three thousand miles, without a word of warning, to talk to me of old times,” said Islington, more kindly, “glad as I would have been to see you. It isn’t your way, Bill, and you know it. We shall not be disturbed here,” he added, in reply to an inquiring glance that Bill directed to the door, “and I am ready to hear you.”
“Firstly, then,” said Bill, drawing his chair nearer Islington, “answer me one question, Tommy, fair and square, and up and down.”
“Go on,” said Islington, with a slight smile.
“Ef I should say to you, Tommy,—say to you to-day, right here, you must come with me,—you must leave this place for a month, a year, two years maybe, perhaps forever,—is there anything that ‘ud keep you,—anything, my boy, ez you couldn’t leave?”
“No,” said Tommy, quietly; “I am only visiting here. I thought of leaving Greyport to-day.”
“But if I should say to you, Tommy, come with me on a pasear to Chiny, to Japan, to South Ameriky, p’r’aps, could you go?”
“Yes,” said Islington, after a slight pause.
“Thar isn’t ennything,” said Bill, drawing a little closer, and lowering his voice confidentially,—“ennything in the way of a young woman—you understand, Tommy—ez would keep you? They’re mighty sweet about here; and whether a man is young or old, Tommy, there’s always some woman as is brake or whip to him!”
In a certain excited bitterness that characterized the delivery