A First Family of Tasajara Part 16

"I have never seen him; I believe he lives at San Jose. He is a wealthy man and a large land owner there. You understand that after the first article appeared in his paper, and I knew that he had employed your brother--although Grant says that he had nothing to do with it and left Fletcher on account of it--I could have no intercourse with him. Even if I invited him he would not come."

"He MUST come. Leave it to ME." She stopped and resumed her former impa.s.sive manner. "I had something to say to you too, father. Mr.

Shipley proposed to me the day we went to San Mateo."

Her father's eyes lit with an eager sparkle. "Well," he said quickly.

"I reminded him that I had known him only a few weeks, and that I wanted time to consider."

"Consider! Why, Clemmy, he's one of the oldest Boston families, rich from his father and grandfather--rich when I was a shopkeeper and your mother"--

"I thought you liked Grant?" she said quietly.

"Yes, but if YOU have no choice nor feeling in the matter, why Shipley is far the better man. And if any of the scandal should come to his ears"--

"So much the better that the hesitation should come from me. But if you think it better, I can sit down here and write to him at once declining the offer." She moved towards the desk.

"No! No! I did not mean that," said Harcourt quickly. "I only thought that if he did hear anything it might be said that he had backed out."

"His sister knows of his offer, and though she don't like it nor me, she will not deny the fact. By the way, you remember when she was lost that day on the road to San Mateo?"

"Yes."

"Well, she was with your son, John Milton, all the time, and they lunched together at Crystal Spring. It came out quite accidentally through the hotel-keeper."

Harcourt's brow darkened. "Did she know him before?"

"I can't say; but she does now."

Harcourt's face was heavy with distrust. "Taking Shipley's offer and these scandals into consideration, I don't like the look of this, Clementina."

"I do," said the girl simply.

Harcourt gazed at her keenly and with the shadow of distrust still upon him. It seemed to be quite impossible, even with what he knew of her calmly cold nature, that she should be equally uninfluenced by Grant or Shipley. Had she some steadfast, lofty ideal, or perhaps some already absorbing pa.s.sion of which he knew nothing? She was not a girl to betray it--they would only know it when it was too late. Could it be possible that there was still something between her and 'Lige that he knew nothing of? The thought struck a chill to his breast. She was walking towards the door, when he recalled himself with an effort.

"If you think it advisable to see Fletcher, you might run down to San Jose for a day or two with your mother, and call on the Ramirez.

They may know him or somebody who does. Of course if YOU meet him and casually invite him it would be different."

"It's a good idea," she said quickly. "I'll do it, and speak to mother now."

He was struck by the change in her face and voice; they had both nervously lightened, as oddly and distinctly as they had before seemed to grow suddenly harsh and aggressive. She pa.s.sed out of the room with girlish brusqueness, leaving him alone with a new and vague fear in his consciousness.

A few hours later Clementina was standing before the window of the drawing-room that overlooked the outskirts of the town. The moonlight was flooding the vast bluish Tasajara levels with a faint l.u.s.tre, as if the waters of the creek had once more returned to them. In the shadow of the curtain beside her Grant was facing her with anxious eyes.

"Then I must take this as your final answer, Clementina?"

"You must. And had I known of these calumnies before, had you been frank with me even the day we went to San Mateo, my answer would have been as final then, and you might have been spared any further suspense. I am not blaming you, Mr. Grant; I am willing to believe that you thought it best to conceal this from me,--even at that time when you had just pledged yourself to find out its truth or falsehood,--yet my answer would have been the same. So long as this stain rests on my father's name I shall never allow that name to be coupled with yours in marriage or engagement; nor will my pride or yours allow us to carry on a simple friendship after this. I thank you for your offer of a.s.sistance, but I cannot even accept that which might to others seem to allow some contingent claim. I would rather believe that when you proposed this inquiry and my father permitted it, you both knew that it put an end to any other relations between us."

"But, Clementina, you are wrong, believe me! Say that I have been foolish, indiscreet, mad,--still the few who knew that I made these inquiries on your father's behalf know nothing of my hopes of YOU!"

"But I do, and that is enough for me."

Even in the hopeless preoccupation of his pa.s.sion he suddenly looked at her with something of his old critical scrutiny. But she stood there calm, concentrated, self-possessed and upright. Yes! it was possible that the pride of this Southwestern shopkeepers daughter was greater than his own.

"Then you banish me, Clementina?"

"It is we whom YOU have banished."

"Good-night."

"Good-by."

He bent for an instant over her cold hand, and then pa.s.sed out into the hall. She remained listening until the front door closed behind him.

Then she ran swiftly through the hall and up the staircase, with an alacrity that seemed impossible to the stately G.o.ddess of a moment before. When she had reached her bedroom and closed the door, so exuberant still and so uncontrollable was her levity and action, that without going round the bed which stood before her in the centre of the room, she placed her two hands upon it and lightly vaulted sideways across it to reach the window. There she watched the figure of Grant crossing the moonlit square. Then turning back into the half-lit room, she ran to the small dressing-gla.s.s placed at an angle on a toilet table against the wall. With her palms grasping her knees she stooped down suddenly and contemplated the mirror. It showed what no one but Clementina had ever seen,--and she herself only at rare intervals,--the laughing eyes and soul of a self-satisfied, material-minded, ordinary country-girl!

CHAPER X.

But Mr. Lawrence Grant's character in certain circ.u.mstances would seem to have as startling and inexplicable contradictions as Clementina Harcourt's, and three days later he halted his horse at the entrance of Los Gatos Rancho. The Home of the Cats--so called from the catamounts which infested the locality--which had for over a century lazily basked before one of the hottest canyons in the Coast Range, had lately been stirred into some activity by the American, Don Diego Fletcher, who had bought it, put up a saw-mill, and deforested the canyon. Still there remained enough suggestion of a feline haunt about it to make Grant feel as if he had tracked hither some stealthy enemy, in spite of the peaceful intimation conveyed by the sign on a rough boarded shed at the wayside, that the "Los Gatos Land and Lumber Company" held their office there.

A cigarette-smoking peon lounged before the door. Yes; Don Diego was there, but as he had arrived from Santa Clara only last night and was going to Colonel Ramirez that afternoon, he was engaged. Unless the business was important--but the cool, determined manner of Grant, even more than his words, signified that it WAS important, and the servant led the way to Don Diego's presence.

There certainly was nothing in the appearance of this sylvan proprietor and newspaper capitalist to justify Grant's suspicion of a surrept.i.tious foe. A handsome man scarcely older than himself, in spite of a wavy ma.s.s of perfectly white hair which contrasted singularly with his brown mustache and dark sunburned face. So disguising was the effect of these contradictions, that he not only looked unlike anybody else, but even his nationality seemed to be a matter of doubt. Only his eyes, light blue and intelligent, which had a singular expression of gentleness and worry, appeared individual to the man. His manner was cultivated and easy. He motioned his visitor courteously to a chair.

"I was referred to you," said Grant, almost abruptly, "as the person responsible for a series of slanderous attacks against Mr. Daniel Harcourt in the 'Clarion,' of which paper I believe you are the proprietor. I was told that you declined to give the authority for your action, unless you were forced to by legal proceedings."

Fletcher's sensitive blue eyes rested upon Grant's with an expression of constrained pain and pity. "I heard of your inquiries, Mr. Grant; you were making them on behalf of this Mr. Harcourt or Harkutt"--he made the distinction with intentional deliberation--"with a view, I believe, to some arbitration. The case was stated to you fairly, I think; I believe I have nothing to add to it."

"That was your answer to the amba.s.sador of Mr. Harcourt," said Grant, coldly, "and as such I delivered it to him; but I am here to-day to speak on my own account."

What could be seen of Mr. Fletcher's lips appeared to curl in an odd smile. "Indeed, I thought it was--or would be--all in the family."

Grant's face grew more stern, and his gray eyes glittered. "You'll find my status in this matter so far independent that I don't propose, like Mr. Harcourt, either to begin a suit or to rest quietly under the calumny. Briefly, Mr. Fletcher, as you or your informant knows, I was the surveyor who revealed to Mr. Harcourt the value of the land to which he claimed a t.i.tle from your man, this Elijah or 'Lige Curtis as you call him,"--he could not resist this imitation of his adversary's supercilious affectation of precise nomenclature,--"and it was upon my representation of its value as an investment that he began the improvements which have made him wealthy. If this t.i.tle was fraudulently obtained, all the facts pertaining to it are sufficiently related to connect me with the conspiracy."

"Are you not a little hasty in your presumption, Mr. Grant?" said Fletcher, with unfeigned surprise.

"That is for ME to judge, Mr. Fletcher," returned Grant, haughtily.

"But the name of Professor Grant is known to all California as beyond the breath of calumny or suspicion."

"It is because of that fact that I propose to keep it so."

"And may I ask in what way you wish me to a.s.sist you in so doing?"

"By promptly and publicly retracting in the 'Clarion' every word of this slander against Harcourt."