Horace Chase Part 24

It was arranged that Walter Willoughby, who had returned with them from California, should also accompany them southward. For there were certain details of the Western enterprise which Patterson understood better than any one else did, as he had devoted his attention to them for six months; it now became important that these details should be explained to the younger man, in the (possible) case of Patterson's being laid up for some time longer. After one day in New York, therefore, Chase and his wife and young Willoughby started for the land of flowers. At Savannah a telegram met them: "Horace Chase, Pulaski House, Savannah.

Come alone. Patterson."

"When he's sick, he is always tremendously scared," commented Chase. "I suppose we shall have to humor him. But I'll soon stir him up, and make him feel better, Walter, and then I'll wire for you to come over at once. Probably within twenty-four hours." After taking his wife to St.

Augustine, he crossed to Palatka alone. Walter was to wait at St.

Augustine for further directions.

The young New-Yorker agreed to everything. He was in excellent spirits; throughout the whole Californian expedition he had, in truth, been living in a state of inward excitement, though his face showed nothing of it. For his uncle had consented, and he (Walter) had got his foot into the stirrup at last. The ride might be breakneck, and it might be hard; but at least it would not be long, and it would end at the wished-for goal. Between two such riders as Patterson and Horace Chase (Horace Chase especially; best of all, Horace Chase!), he could not fall behind; they would sweep him along between them; he should come in abreast. A closer acquaintance with Chase had only increased his admiration for the man's extraordinary mind. "If ever there was a genius for directing big combinations, here's one with a vengeance!" he said to himself.

On the second day after Chase's departure for Palatka, Ruth and her mother, in the late afternoon, drove across the Sebastian River by way of the red bridge, and thence to the barrens. These great tree-dotted Florida prairies possess a charm for far-sighted eyes; their broad, unfenced, unguarded expanses, stretching away on all sides, carpeted with flowers and ferns, and the fans of the dwarf-palmetto, have an air of freedom that is alluring. Walter Willoughby accompanied the two ladies, perched in the little seat behind. He had, in fact, nothing else to do, as Chase had as yet sent no telegram.

They drove first to the Ponce de Leon spring. And Ruth made them drink: "so that we shall always be young!"

Leaving the spring, they drove to another part of the barren. Here the violets grew so thickly that they made the ground blue. "I must have some," said Ruth, joyously. And leaving her mother comfortably leaning back in the phaeton under her white umbrella, she jumped out and began to gather the flowers with her usual haste and impetuosity. "Why don't you come and help?" she said to Walter. "You're terribly lazy. Tie the ponies to that tree, and set to work."

Walter obeyed. But he only gathered eight violets; then he stopped, and stood fanning himself with his straw hat. "It is very warm," he said.

"Won't you let me get pitcher-plants instead? There are ever so many over there. They are so large that eight of them will make a splendid show." Daily companionship for seven weeks had made him feel thoroughly at his ease with her. He had forgiven her for those old delays which she had unknowingly caused in his plans; he now a.s.sociated her with his good-fortune, with his high hopes. She had been in the gayest spirits throughout their stay in California, and this, too, had chimed in with his mood.

"Pitcher-plants!" said Ruth. "Horrid, murdering things! Let them alone."

But they strolled that way to look at them; and then they walked on towards a ridge, where she was sure that they should find calopogon.

Beyond the ridge there was a clear pool, whose amber-colored water rested on a bed of silver sand; along one side rose the tall, delicate plumes of the _Osmunda regalis_. "Isn't it lovely?" said Ruth. "I don't believe there is anything more beautiful in all Florida!"

"Yes, one thing," thought Walter, "and that is Ruth Chase." For Ruth's beauty had deepened richly during the past half-year. It was not Walter alone who had noticed the change, every one spoke of it. At present his eyes could not but note it once more, as she stood there in her white dress under the ferns.

Then suddenly his thoughts were diverted in another direction. "I'm sure that's for me!" he exclaimed. For he had discerned in the distance a little negro boy on horseback. "He is bringing me my telegram at last--I mean the one from your husband, Mrs. Chase, which I have been expecting for two days. The stupid is following the road. I wonder if I couldn't make him see me from here, so as to gain time?" And taking off his hat, he waved it high in the air. But the child kept on his course. "Perhaps I can make him hear," said Walter. He shouted, whistled, called. But all to no purpose. "We might as well go back towards the phaeton," he suggested. And they started.

"What will the telegram be?" said Ruth, arranging her violets as she walked on. "Have you any idea?"

"A very clear one; it will tell me to arrive at Palatka as soon as possible."

"And, from Palatka, do you go back to New York?"

"Yes; immediately."

"We shall be in New York, too, by the middle of April. You are to stay in New York, aren't you?"

"Yes. It is to be my post in the game which will end, we trust, in your husband's piling up still higher his great fortune, while _I_ shall have laid very solidly the foundation of mine. Good! that boy sees me at last." For the little negro, suddenly leaving the road, was galloping directly towards them over the barren, his bare feet flapping the flanks of his horse to increase its speed. Walter ran forward to meet him, took the telegram, tore open the envelope, and read the message within. Then, after rewarding the messenger (who went back to town in joyful opulence), he returned to Ruth.

"Palatka?" she said, as he came up.

"No. Something entirely different. And very unexpected. I am to go to California; I am to start to-morrow morning. And I am to stay there--live there. It will be for a year or two, I suppose; at any rate, until this new campaign of your husband's planning has been fought out and won--as won it surely will be. For Patterson, it seems, won't be able to go at present, and I am to take his place. Later, he hopes to be on the spot. But even then I am to remain, they tell me. My instructions will be here to-night by letter." He felt, inwardly, a great sense of triumph that he was considered competent--already considered competent--to take charge of the more important post. And as he put the telegram in his pocket, the antic.i.p.ation of success came to him like a breeze charged with perfume; his pulses had a firm, quick beat; the future--a future of his own choosing--unrolled itself brightly before him.

Ruth had made no reply. After a moment her silence struck him--struck him even in his preoccupation--and he turned to look at her.

Her face had a strange, stiffened aspect, as though her breathing had suddenly been arrested.

"Are you ill?" he asked, alarmed.

"Oh no; I am only tired. Where is the phaeton? I have lost sight of it."

"Over there; don't you see your mother's white parasol?"

"Let us go back to her. But no--not just yet. I'll wait a moment or two, as I'm so tired." And, turning her back to him, she sat down on a fallen pine-tree, and rested her head on her hand.

"I can bring the phaeton over here?" Walter suggested. "There is no road, but the ground is smooth."

She shook her head.

After a moment he began to talk; partly to fill the pause, partly to give expression to the thoughts that occupied his own mind--occupied it so fully that he did not give close heed to her. She was suddenly tired.

Well, that was nothing unusual; it was always something sudden; generally a sudden gayety. At any rate, she could rest there comfortably until she felt able to go on. "It's very odd to me to think that to-morrow I shall be on my way to California again," he began. "That's what I get by being the poor one of the company, Mrs. Chase! Your husband, and Patterson, and my uncle, they sit comfortably at home; but they send _me_ from pillar to post without the least scruple. I don't mind the going. But the staying--that's a change indeed. To live in California--I have had a good many ideas in my mind, but I confess I have never had that." He laughed. But it was easy to see that the idea pleased him greatly.

Ruth turned. Her eyes met his. And then, startled, amazed, the young man read in their depths something that was to him an intense surprise.

At the same moment she rose. "I can go now. Mother will be wondering where I am," she said.

He accompanied her in silence, his mind in a whirl. She said a few words on ordinary subjects. Every now and then her voice came near failing entirely, and she paused. But she always began again. Just before she reached the phaeton she took a gray gauze veil from her pocket, and tied it hastily across her face under her broad-brimmed hat. Mrs. Franklin was waiting for them in lazy tranquillity. While Walter untied the ponies, Ruth took the small seat behind. "Just for a change," she explained. Walter, therefore, in her vacant place, drove them back to town. Having taken Mrs. Franklin home, he left Ruth at her own door. "As I'm off early to-morrow morning, Mrs. Chase, I'll bid you good-by now,"

he said, as the waiting servant came forward to the ponies' heads. She gave him her hand. He could not see her face distinctly through that baffling gray veil.

That evening at eleven o'clock he pa.s.sed the house again; he was taking a farewell stroll on the sea-wall. As he went by, he saw that there was a light in the drawing-room. "She has not gone to bed," he thought. He jumped down from the wall, crossed the road, and, going up the steps, put his hand on the bell-k.n.o.b. But a sudden temptation took possession of him, and, instead of ringing, he opened the door. "If her mother is with her, I'll pretend that I found it ajar," he said to himself. But there were no voices, all was still. His step had made no sound on the thick rugs, and, advancing, he drew aside a curtain. On a couch in a corner of the drawing-room was Ruth Chase, alone, her face hidden in her hands.

She started to her feet as he came in. "After all, Mrs. Chase, I found that I wanted more of a good-by--" he began. And then, a second time, in her eyes he read the astonishing, bewildering story. "She is still unconscious of what it is," he thought. "If I go away at once--at once and forever--no harm is done. And that is what I shall do." This was his intention, and he knew that he should follow it. The very certainty, however, made him allow himself a moment or two of delay. For how beautiful she was, and how deeply she loved him! He could not help offering, as it were, a tribute to both; it seemed to him that he would be a boor not to do so. And then, before he knew it, he had gone further. "You see how it is with me," he began. "You see that I love you; I myself did not know it until now." (What was this he was telling her? And somehow, for the moment, it was true!) "Don't think that I do not understand," he went on. "I understand all--all--" While he was uttering these words he met her eyes again. And then he felt that he was losing his head. "What am I doing? I'm not an abject fool!" he managed to say to himself, mutely--mutely but violently. And he left the house.

It took all his strength to do it.

CHAPTER XIII

Horace Chase, meanwhile, had arrived at Palatka, and opened the discussion with David Patterson which ended in the decision to despatch young Willoughby to California without delay. Having sent these instructions, he remained at Palatka two days longer, his intention being to cross, on the third day, to St. Augustine, get his wife and go back to New York, stopping on the way at Raleigh in order to see Jared.

Always prompt, as soon as the question of the representative in California was settled, his thoughts had turned towards his brother-in-law; the proper moment had now arrived for fulfilling his promises concerning him. But in answer to this note to Ruth, mentioning this plan, there had come a long epistle from Mrs. Franklin. Ruth, she wrote, wanted to go north by sea; it was a sudden fancy that had come to her. Her wish was to go by the _Dictator_ to Charleston, and there change for the larger steamer. "As Dolly and I intend to start towards L'Hommedieu next week, Ruth's idea is that we could go together as far as Charleston; for the rest of the way, Felicite could look after her.

You need not therefore take the trouble to come to St. Augustine at all, she says; you can go directly from Palatka to Raleigh. All this sounds a little self-willed. But, my dear Mr. Chase, if we spoiled her more or less in the beginning, you must acknowledge that _you_ have carried on the process! In the eighteen months that have pa.s.sed since your marriage, have you ever refused compliance with even one of her whims? I think not. On the contrary, I fear you encourage them; you always seem to me to be waiting, with an inward laugh, to see what on earth she will suggest next!" Thus wrote the mother in a joking strain. Then, turning to the subject which was more important to her, she filled three sheets with her joyful antic.i.p.ations concerning her son. "Insist upon his resigning his present place on the spot," she urged; "take no denial.

Make him go _with_ you to New York. _Then_ you will be sure of him."

"The old lady seems to think he will be a great acquisition," said Chase to himself, humorously.

Her statement that he had, from the first, allowed his wife to follow her fancies unchecked was a true one. It amused him to do this, amused him to watch an idea dawn, and then, in a few minutes, take such entire possession of her that it shook her hard--only to leave her and vanish with equal suddenness. The element of the unexpected in her was a constant entertainment to him. Her heedlessness, her feminine indifference to logic, to the inevitable sequences of cause and effect--this, too, had given him many a moment of mirth. If her face had been less lovely, these characteristics would have worn, perhaps, another aspect. But in that case Horace Chase would not have been their judge; for it was this alluring beauty (unconsciously alluring) which had attracted him, which had made him fall in love with her. He was a man whose life, up to the time of his engagement to Ruth, had been irregular. But, though irregular, it had not been uncontrolled; he had always been able to say, "Thus far; no farther!" But though her beauty had been the first lure, he was now profoundly attached to his wife; his pride in her was profound, his greatest pleasure was to make her happy.

"By sea to New York, is it?" he said to himself, as his eyes hastily glanced through the remainder of Mrs. Franklin's long letter (that is, the three sheets about Jared). "Well, she is a capital sailor, that's one comfort. Let's see; which of our steamers will she hit at Charleston?"

He was not annoyed because Ruth had not written, herself; Ruth did not like to write letters. But it was a surprise to him that she should, of her own accord, relinquish an opportunity to see her brother. "I reckon she is counting upon my taking him up to New York with me, so that she'll see him on the dock waiting for her when her steamer comes in,"

he thought. "I guess she knows, too, that I'm likely to succeed better with Jared when _she's_ out of the business entirely. Franklin isn't going to be boosted by his sister--that's been his fixed notion all along. He doesn't suspect that his sister's nowhere in the matter compared with his wife; his whole position of being independent of _me_, and all that, has been so undermined and honeycombed by Gen, that, in reality, his sticking it out there at Raleigh is a farce! But he doesn't know it. It's lucky he don't!"

Ruth had her way, as usual. Chase went northward from Palatka to Savannah, where he had business; thence he was to go to Raleigh. His wife, meanwhile, remained in St. Augustine for one week longer, and her mother and sister, closing their own home, spent the time with her.

Their last day came; they were to leave St. Augustine on the morrow.

Early in the afternoon, Ruth disappeared. When they were beginning to wonder where she was, Felicite brought them a note. Mrs. Franklin read it, and laughed. "She has gone for a sail; by herself!"