Overland Tales Part 24

"Why?" asked Mrs. Wheaton, regarding her eldest daughter.

"She will have to sit up straight all day long with that bunch of hair on her head. She thinks old Toots is coming to-night, and she wouldn't for the world lose her elegant _coiffure_ and the chance of looking pretty in his eyes."

Before she had finished speaking her eyes were fastened on the book again, and whatever Tilly replied about not wishing to receive a solitaire as gift from her father fell unheeded, apparently, on the fair f.a.n.n.y's ears.

It was a mistake about Lola's having gone to the matinee. If we follow her we shall see her ascending one of the streets in the same quarter of the city in which the paternal mansion--as the novel-writers have it--stood, though in a far less fashionable part. Indeed, there was no fashion about; for a corner-grocery, or a retail fruit-shop occasionally made its appearance among the ranks of the generally neat houses, each of which was provided with a flower-covered veranda, or a trim front yard. One of them boasted of a garden and veranda both--the former set out with well-tended flowers, the latter almost hidden under creeping roses and trailing fuchsias. Everything about the place looked prim and neat; even the China boy, who opened the door for Lola, seemed to have been infected by the spirit prevailing, and his snowy ap.r.o.n fairly blinked in the rays of the sun falling through the curtain of the foliage, thinned by the cold nights of the winter season.

Miss Myrick was in, sewing by the window, seated in her own chair, so low that she could not see out into the garden, for fear of being tempted to waste her time. The parlor was comfortably furnished, homelike and tidy, though Miss Myrick occupied it most of the time with her work. She did not often sit in the little room at the back of the house, which really had a better light--the windows opening to the ground--because there was another garden there, and Miss Myrick was so pa.s.sionately fond of her bright-hued pets that it once happened that the sewing which had been entrusted to her by a cloaking establishment in the city was found unfinished and she in the garden when the porter came to take the garments home. Since that time she had been a great deal stricter with herself--she never had been strict with anybody else, not even with Charlie Somervale, when he had been left to her a romping, frolicking boy of thirteen by his dying mother.

She was an old maid even then, dreadfully set in her ways, as people said, and the twelve years which had pa.s.sed since then had made her no younger. Her ways, however set, must have been gentle and good, for they had won the boy back from the almost hopeless despondency into which his mother's death had thrown him, and she had made of him a man such as few are met with in our time. His mother had left him nothing, his father having died in the mines years before, poor and away from his friends.

Dying his mother had said to her friend, "Find my brother; he will provide for the boy for my sake." This, however, Miss Myrick had failed to do for two reasons: she knew of the whereabouts of the brother only that he was in the Indies; and had she known more she would not have prosecuted the search, because--well, Charlie "didn't know exactly, but he guessed that her mother had intended Miss Myrick for her brother's wife, but the brother had declined taking stock in that mine." Charlie was clerk in the bank, and we must forgive him some of his peculiar expressions on the ground that "he heard nothing but stocks talked from morning till night."

As we are aware that the banks close at twelve o'clock on Sat.u.r.days, we need not be surprised to see Charlie coming down the street, on the way to Aunt Myrick's house, his home. Lola seemed very much surprised, so much so that her face flushed when he came in at the door, just as she was about to leave the house. After a few moments' conversation about "the delightful weather--and this time of the year, too--nearly Christmas--" Charlie asked permission to escort Miss Wheaton down the street, which permission was graciously given.

Though we should like much to remain with Miss Myrick in her cozy little home, where nothing indicated that the mistress was compelled to earn her bread with her needle, we have more interest in going with the handsome young couple, moving along in front of us as if they were treading on air. Though there is no lack of deference or respect in the manner with which the young man leans over to whisper something into the ear of the younger Miss Wheaton, he has yet dropped the formal address and speech of which he made use at Miss Myrick's gate.

"Lola," and the little hand on his coat sleeve is surrept.i.tiously pressed as they turn the corner of a quiet street _not_ leading to the paternal mansion, "how can I thank my angel for the unspeakable happiness of this meeting? The bright sun would have been shrouded in darkness to me if you had broken my heart by disappointing me. A thousand, thousand thanks for your visit to--my Aunt Myrick's."

She caught the roguish twinkle in his merry blue eye, and the joyous laugh that rang out on the air could not have offended Miss Myrick herself, had she heard the conversation.

"What pretty speeches," Lola tossed her head mockingly; "did you learn them from Miss Angelina Stubbs?" and another laugh spoke of the lightness of heart which finds food for laughter and gladness in all harmless things.

"I told her the other day when she joked me about my advancing bachelorhood" (they were slowly ascending one of the hills overlooking the bay, and it is impossible to talk fast at such a time, even for a young man six feet tall, with black moustache and corresponding hair, and a beautiful young lady leaning on his arm) "that I should have to wait--till my uncle from the Indies came home; and what do you think she said?"

They had come to a little nook high up, where the great bustling city was almost hidden from sight, and the bay seemed stretching out at their very feet; the houses below them concealed by the brow of the hill. To the right, afar off, were peaceful homesteads and gardens filled with shrubs and trees; and whatever might have been harsh or unromantic in the view, was toned down by the distance and the softening lights of the mild winter's sun.

"Well," asked Lola, seating herself on a little ledge of rock where Charlie had spread his handkerchief.

"She intimated, with becomingly downcast eyes, that I might find a fortune within my grasp any time I chose it. 'Oh, yes,' said I, 'Miss Angelina, but then, you know, it's always a venture. And besides, I have made a vow never to dabble in stocks.' She gave me rather a blank look at first, but thought she wouldn't stop to explain."

Lola could only reach him with her parasol, and the blow she struck him could not have been very severe, for they both laughed heartily the next moment.

"But I have really heard from my uncle in India--it was a letter sent to my poor mother--only I did not want to tell Aunt Myrick; she never likes to hear the name mentioned."

"Tell me about that story," said Lola, her woman's interest in a woman's heart-story aroused; "you once said that she had been disappointed."

"Not she so much as this uncle whom my mother wanted to marry Miss Myrick. It seems that he was engaged to some other young lady--some lovely maid--but a hard-hearted wretch of a brother, or cruel, unfeeling parent interfered--"

"Don't speak so lightly, Charlie," pleaded Lola, her eyes filling with tears; "it _is_ bad to have brother or parent come between yourself and the one you love, is it not?"

"Why, Lola darling, what has happened? Does your heart fail? Do you already doubt your love for me, or the strength to a.s.sert it?"

"No, no, Charlie--never fear. It is you or death; you know what I have said," and her tiny fingers clasped his strong hand. "But you know as well as I that papa will interfere when he discovers--"

"That you intend to become a poor man's wife. Lola, you know the law I have made for you--the only command I would ever lay on you," and his voice, though tender, was firm, "when you marry me you will be a poor man's wife, not a rich man's daughter. Not a cent of your father's money, good and kind man though he be, will ever be brought across my threshold, even should he be willing to give you the fortune he holds in store for some wealthy son-in-law. There, my angel, let us have done with tragedy and care." It was easy to make an excuse for stooping, so as to touch her fingers with his lips. "Who knows but I shall be a rich man yet before I claim you? I have been sorely tempted to try my luck in something new they have just struck."

"What? After you told Miss Angelina about your vow?"

"But it is something truly wonderful; I have it from old Bingham himself. He cannot go into it--at least not under his own name--and there are only two or three others to be initiated." He was gazing meditatively at the roof of a house that peeped out from among a clump of trees below and far to the right of him. "There's the money I laid by for paying on the house, and Aunt Myrick, I know, has five hundred in the bank; if I knew I could only double it within the year--"

"Don't touch anything belonging to Aunt Myrick, or she will instantly conceive it to be her duty to work still harder, because you might be unfortunate--and then what would become of the old blind woman and the paralyzed man, and the sick family back of the grocery, and her old gouty cat, and the boy with fits--"

"Hush, hush--I'll not touch a cent belonging to her," vowed Charlie, with his hands to his ears.

The sun was sinking low, and after it had been agreed between them just how many dances Lola was to give to strange gentlemen at the coming ball, and how many Charlie was to claim, and how often Charlie in turn was to dance with Miss Angelina, and how often with f.a.n.n.y and Tilly, the lovers descended the hill more slowly, if possible, than they had climbed it, and finally parted within sight of Lola's home.

There was to be no New Year's party at the Wheaton mansion this year.

"No!" sneered Miss Angelina, "for they disposed of the oldest old maid at the last, and probably expect to get rid of the second at somebody else's ball this year."

I am sure Miss Angelina need not have sneered so, because she tried hard enough to get old Toots herself. But that is neither here nor there; Miss Tilly had received a proposal at that New Year's ball, and Miss f.a.n.n.y her solitaire--from her father, to be sure; but then that was better than not to receive any. Old Toots, proud husband of the peerless Tilly now for many months, was not old at all, and his name wasn't Toots either. His name was Jacob Udderstrome; and in early days he had been the proprietor of a milk ranch, and having used a tin trumpet for the purpose of making known his coming to the more tardy of his customers, he had been honored with the unromantic appellation without his particular wish or consent. When the country had become more settled Jacob sold out, and being possessed of a great deal of natural shrewdness and a native talent for keeping his mouth shut, he had doubled and trebled his money by simply buying up real estate and selling at the right time.

f.a.n.n.y was still languishing for the right one; she could never think of entertaining less than a hundred thousand, when Tilly had gotten at least three times that amount. Father and mother seldom interfered with any of their daughters' plans or pleasures, and only once in the course of the past year had Papa Wheaton been seriously displeased. On this occasion he had Lola called into the room, and demanded sternly of her why she had refused the hand and fortune of Hiram Watson? He looked quite fierce and kept brushing up the ridge of hair on his head stiffer and stiffer, till at last it stood alone. Then Lola ventured to ask, "Are you speaking of Mr. Watson the tobacconist?"

"Tobacconist? To be sure I am; a tobacconist isn't to be sneezed at when he's got a cool half million to back him."

"It was not that I spoke of; I have only to say that I could feel nothing more than respect for him; and I will never marry where I cannot give my heart with my hand."

"That's your notion of what's right, is it? What, do you tell me, when I've spent more money on your education than both your sisters together ever cost me, that you can't marry a worthy, solid man because he won't write sentimental love-letters? I tell you--"

He was talking himself into a rage and turning purple in the face, when his wife entered, and, like the good, quiet angel she always was, put an end to the interview and the father's anger with her favorite child.

Lola told Charlie of the interview, and he thanked her for her devotion, and strengthened her resolution by such words as only Charlie could utter--so full of the heart's deep love and the warmth of a rich chivalrous nature. "On Christmas day, my love," he said, "I shall be able to step boldly before your father and claim you for my wife. I am all but a rich man now, thanks to old Bingham's prompting and the secrecy observed, which has left this thing entirely in our own hands. I have the field almost to myself, and shall realize within the next three months such a fortune as I had never dreamed of possessing."

"Not even if that mythical uncle in the Indies had come home?"

"Hang the uncle--no--I mean, I believe he is dead, poor fellow. I answered his letter last year, but never heard from him again, though he expressed the greatest longing to hear from or see some one who had ever belonged to him. It was hard to tell him that even mother, his only sister, was dead."

"Poor fellow!"

"Yes, mother used to say that he was heart-broken. Having come into the world myself after he left it, for the Indies, I can't well remember him; but I can feel for him now, because I know what I should do if you could not be mine. I should break into your room at night, steal you, and take you to the bottom of the sea with me."

Like a romantic young lady, Lola expressed her entire willingness to visit such a place with him; and she said it so quietly that Charlie, at least, believed what she said.

"Let us talk of life now, not of death," Charles went on. "If I obtain your father's consent to our union at Christmas, will you become mine on New-Year's day? I have a queer notion of wanting to celebrate my marriage--to make it a feast or hold it on a feast day. I believe that people who have determined to pa.s.s their days together should begin their new married life with the beginning of the year. Will you a.s.sist me in carrying out this romantic idea?"

She called him an enthusiast, a philosopher, and a thousand other contradictory names, but the pressure of her hand gave him a.s.surance of her consent to his wish.

Christmas brought with it skies as blue and days as radiant as those for which we sing songs of glory to Italy. The rains of the season so far had fallen mostly at night, leaving the sun day by day to kiss the brown hills into fresher green, after he had freed himself from the heavy fogs of early morning.

The Wheatons were not a church-going people, though the costliest pew at one of the largest churches was theirs; and while Mr. Wheaton was never known to refuse heading a subscription list for any undertaking, the benevolence of which had been duly proclaimed in the newspapers, Mrs.

Wheaton had taught her daughters to delight in unostentatious charity.

Presuming on her father's fondness for a late dressing-gown and slippers, on days when the observance of a religious feast or popular holiday required that he should not be seen on California street, Lola had intimated to Charlie her opinion as to the time the old gentleman would probably be in the most "malleable" humor. It was with some trepidation, nevertheless, that Charlie ascended the steps leading up to the wide hall-door of the Wheaton mansion, after having spent the morning in his own room, shutting out Aunt Myrick, Orlando, the cat, the morning papers, in fact the whole world from his sight.

It was probably owing to the unusually good humor in which Mr. Wheaton found himself this morning, that Charlie was requested to walk into the breakfast-room, where the flying robes adorning Miss f.a.n.n.y's person were seen whisking out at the other door, as the young man entered the pleasant, sun-lighted room. The last glowing coals were falling to ashes, in a grate, which at this hour of the day seemed an unnecessary ornament for a California house.

"Come in, come in, young man. But where are the girls? Tom, go call Miss f.a.n.n.y and Miss Lola."

There was no necessity for calling Miss Lola--she was close at hand, though becoming suddenly invisible; and as for Miss f.a.n.n.y, she remained invisible. She had no notion of taking her hair out of crimps just for Charlie Somervale, when she expected to meet a far more interesting person--Crown Point, Gould & Curry, Eureka Con., report said five hundred thousand dollars--at the Wadsworth reception that night. Had Mr.