Tales of the Argonauts. Bret Harte
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Mr. McClosky rubbed his beard, and looked at his valise, as if for sympathy and suggestion.
“You don't reckon on having any trouble with any of them chaps as you cut out with Jinny?”
John Ashe, rather haughtily, had never thought of that. “I saw Rance hanging round your house the other night, when I took your daughter home; but he gave me a wide berth,” he added carelessly.
“Surely,” said Mr. McClosky, with a peculiar winking of the eye. After a pause, he took a fresh departure from his valise.
“A few words, John, ez between man and man, ez between my daughter's father and her husband who expects to be, is about the thing, I take it, as is fair and square. I kem here to say them. They're about Jinny, my gal.”
Ashe's grave face brightened, to Mr. McClosky's evident discomposure.
“Maybe I should have said about her mother; but, the same bein' a stranger to you, I says naterally, 'Jinny.'”
Ashe nodded courteously. Mr. McClosky, with his eyes on his valise, went on—
“It is sixteen year ago as I married Mrs. McClosky in the State of Missouri. She let on, at the time, to be a widder—a widder with one child. When I say let on, I mean to imply that I subsekently found out that she was not a widder, nor a wife; and the father of the child was, so to speak, onbeknowst. Thet child was Jinny—my gal.”
With his eyes on his valise, and quietly ignoring the wholly-crimsoned face and swiftly-darkening brow of his host, he continued—
“Many little things sorter tended to make our home in Missouri onpleasant. A disposition to smash furniture, and heave knives around; an inclination to howl when drunk, and that frequent; a habitooal use of vulgar language, and a tendency to cuss the casooal visitor—seemed to pint,” added Mr. McClosky with submissive hesitation “that—she—was—so to speak—quite onsuited to the marriage relation in its holiest aspeck.”
“Damnation! Why didn't”—burst out John Ashe, erect and furious.
“At the end of two year,” continued Mr. McClosky, still intent on the valise, “I allowed I'd get a diworce. Et about thet time, however, Providence sends a circus into thet town, and a feller ez rode three horses to onct. Hevin' allez a taste for athletic sports, she left town with this feller, leavin' me and Jinny behind. I sent word to her, thet, if she would give Jinny to me, we'd call it quits. And she did.”
“Tell me,” gasped Ashe, “did you ask your daughter to keep this from me? or did she do it of her own accord?”
“She doesn't know it,” said Mr. McClosky. “She thinks I'm her father, and that her mother's dead.”
“Then, sir, this is your”—
“I don't know,” said Mr. McClosky slowly, “ez I've asked any one to marry my Jinny. I don't know ez I've persood that ez a biziness, or even taken it up as a healthful recreation.”
John Ashe paced the room furiously. Mr. McClosky's eyes left the valise, and followed him curiously. “Where is this woman?” demanded Ashe suddenly. McClosky's eyes sought the valise again.
“She went to Kansas; from Kansas she went into Texas; from Texas she eventooally came to Californy. Being here, I've purvided her with money, when her business was slack, through a friend.”
John Ashe groaned. “She's gettin' rather old and shaky for hosses, and now does the tight-rope business and flying trapeze. Never hevin' seen her perform,” continued Mr. McClosky with conscientious caution, “I can't say how she gets on. On the bills she looks well. Thar is a poster,” said Mr. McClosky glancing at Ashe, and opening his valise—“thar is a poster givin' her performance at Marysville next month.” Mr. McClosky slowly unfolded a large yellow-and-blue printed poster, profusely illustrated. “She calls herself 'Mams'elle J. Miglawski, the great Russian Trapeziste.'”
John Ashe tore it from his hand. “Of course,” he said, suddenly facing Mr. McClosky, “you don't expect me to go on with this?”
Mr. McClosky took up the poster, carefully refolded it, and returned it to his valise. “When you break off with Jinny,” he said quietly, “I don't want any thing said 'bout this. She doesn't know it. She's a woman, and I reckon you're a white man.”
“But what am I to say? How am I to go back of my word?”
“Write her a note. Say something hez come to your knowledge (don't say what) that makes you break it off. You needn't be afeard Jinny'll ever ask you what.”
John Ashe hesitated. He felt he had been cruelly wronged. No gentleman, no Ashe, could go on further in this affair. It was preposterous to think of it. But somehow he felt at the moment very unlike a gentleman, or an Ashe, and was quite sure he should break down under Jenny's steady eyes. But then—he could write to her.
“So ores is about as light here as on the Ridge. Well, I reckon they'll come up before the rains. Good-night.” Mr. McClosky took the hand that his host mechanically extended, shook it gravely, and was gone.
When Mr. McClosky, a week later, stepped again upon his own veranda, he saw through the French window the figure of a man in his parlor. Under his hospitable roof, the sight was not unusual; but, for an instant, a subtle sense of disappointment thrilled him. When he saw it was not the face of Ashe turned toward him, he was relieved; but when he saw the tawny beard, and quick, passionate eyes of Henry Rance, he felt a new sense of apprehension, so that he fell to rubbing his beard almost upon his very threshold.
Jenny ran into the hall, and seized her father with a little cry of joy. “Father,” said Jenny in a hurried whisper, “don't mind HIM,” indicating Rance with a toss of her yellow braids: “he's going soon. And I think, father, I've done him wrong. But it's all over with John and me now. Read that note, and see how he's insulted me.” Her lip quivered; but she went on, “It's Ridgeway that he means, father; and I believe it was HIS hand struck Ridgeway down, or that he knows who did. But hush now! not a word.”
She gave him a feverish kiss, and glided back into the parlor, leaving Mr. McClosky, perplexed and irresolute, with the note in his hand. He glanced at it hurriedly, and saw that it was couched in almost the very words he had suggested. But a sudden, apprehensive recollection came over him. He listened; and, with an exclamation of dismay, he seized his hat, and ran out of the house, but too late. At the same moment a quick, nervous footstep was heard upon the veranda; the French window flew open, and, with a light laugh of greeting, Ridgeway stepped into the room.
Jenny's finer ear first caught the step. Jenny's swifter feelings had sounded the depths of hope, of joy, of despair, before he entered the room. Jenny's pale face was the only one that met his, self-possessed and self-reliant, when he stood before them. An angry flush suffused even the pink roots of Rance's beard as he rose to his feet. An ominous fire sprang into Ridgeway's eyes, and a spasm of hate and scorn passed over the lower part of his face, and left the mouth and jaw immobile and rigid.
Yet he was the first to speak. “I owe you an apology,” he said to Jenny, with a suave scorn that brought the indignant blood back to her cheek, “for this intrusion; but I ask no pardon for withdrawing from the only spot where that man dare confront me with safety.”
With an exclamation of rage, Rance sprang toward him. But as quickly Jenny stood between them, erect and menacing. “There must be no quarrel here,” she said to Rance. “While I protect your right as my guest, don't oblige me to remind you of mine as your hostess.” She turned with a half-deprecatory air to Ridgeway; but he was gone. So was her father. Only Rance remained with a look of ill-concealed triumph on his face.
Without looking at him, she passed toward the door. When she reached it, she turned. “You asked me a question an hour ago. Come to me in the garden, at nine o'clock tonight, and I will answer you. But promise me, first, to keep away from Mr. Dent. Give me your word not to seek him—to avoid him, if he seeks you. Do you promise? It is well.”
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