Trent's Trust, and Other Stories Part 13

The widow had put up her slim hand in half-smiling, half-pathetic interruption.

"Wait! I have not told you everything. When I took over the responsibility of being Allen MacGlowrie's widow, I had to take over HER relations and HER history as I gathered it from the frontiersmen. I never frightened any grizzly--I never jabbed anybody with the scissors; it was SHE who did it. I never was among the Injins--I never had any fighting relations; my paw was a plain farmer. I was only a peaceful Blue Gra.s.s girl--there! I never thought there was any harm in it; it seemed to keep the men off, and leave me free--until I knew you! And you know I didn't want you to believe it--don't you?"

She hid her flushed face and dimples in her handkerchief.

"But did you never think there might be another way to keep the men off, and sink the name of MacGlowrie forever?" said Blair in a lower voice.

"I think we must be going back now," said the widow timidly, withdrawing her hand, which Blair had again mysteriously got possession of in her confusion.

"But wait just a few minutes longer to keep me company," said Blair pleadingly. "I came here to see a patient, and as there must have been some mistake in the message--I must try to discover it."

"Oh! Is that all?" said the widow quickly. "Why?"--she flushed again and laughed faintly--"Well! I am that patient! I wanted to see you alone to explain everything, and I could think of no other way. I'm afraid I've got into the habit of thinking nothing of being somebody else."

"I wish you would let me select who you should be," said the doctor boldly.

"We really must go back--to the horses," said the widow.

"Agreed--if we will ride home together."

They did. And before the year was over, although they both remained, the name of MacGlowrie had pa.s.sed out of Laurel Spring.

A WARD OF COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S

"The kernel seems a little off color to-day," said the barkeeper as he replaced the whiskey decanter, and gazed reflectively after the departing figure of Colonel Starbottle.

"I didn't notice anything," said a bystander; "he pa.s.sed the time o' day civil enough to me."

"Oh, he's allus polite enough to strangers and wimmin folk even when he is that way; it's only his old chums, or them ez like to be thought so, that he's peppery with. Why, ez to that, after he'd had that quo'll with his old partner, Judge Pratt, in one o' them spells, I saw him the next minit go half a block out of his way to direct an entire stranger; and ez for wimmin!--well, I reckon if he'd just got a head drawn on a man, and a woman spoke to him, he'd drop his battery and take off his hat to her. No--ye can't judge by that!"

And perhaps in his larger experience the barkeeper was right. He might have added, too, that the colonel, in his general outward bearing and jauntiness, gave no indication of his internal irritation. Yet he was undoubtedly in one of his "spells," suffering from a moody cynicism which made him as susceptible of affront as he was dangerous in resentment.

Luckily, on this particular morning he reached his office and entered his private room without any serious rencontre. Here he opened his desk, and arranging his papers, he at once set to work with grim persistency.

He had not been occupied for many minutes before the door opened to Mr.

Pyecroft--one of a firm of attorneys who undertook the colonel's office work.

"I see you are early to work, Colonel," said Mr. Pyecroft cheerfully.

"You see, sir," said the colonel, correcting him with a slow deliberation that boded no good--"you see a Southern gentleman--blank it!--who has stood at the head of his profession for thirty-five years, obliged to work like a blank n.i.g.g.e.r, sir, in the dirty squabbles of psalm-singing Yankee traders, instead of--er--attending to the affairs of--er--legislation!"

"But you manage to get pretty good fees out of it--Colonel?" continued Pyecroft, with a laugh.

"Fees, sir! Filthy shekels! and barely enough to satisfy a debt of honor with one hand, and wipe out a tavern score for the entertainment of--er--a few lady friends with the other!"

This allusion to his losses at poker, as well as an oyster supper given to the two princ.i.p.al actresses of the "North Star Troupe," then performing in the town, convinced Mr. Pyecroft that the colonel was in one of his "moods," and he changed the subject.

"That reminds me of a little joke that happened in Sacramento last week.

You remember d.i.c.k Stannard, who died a year ago--one of your friends?"

"I have yet to learn," interrupted the colonel, with the same deadly deliberation, "what right HE--or ANYBODY--had to intimate that he held such a relationship with me. Am I to understand, sir, that he--er--publicly boasted of it?"

"Don't know!" resumed Pyecroft hastily; "but it don't matter, for if he wasn't a friend it only makes the joke bigger. Well, his widow didn't survive him long, but died in the States t'other day, leavin' the property in Sacramento--worth about three thousand dollars--to her little girl, who is at school at Santa Clara. The question of guardianship came up, and it appears that the widow--who only knew you through her husband--had, some time before her death, mentioned YOUR name in that connection! He! he!"

"What!" said Colonel Starbottle, starting up.

"Hold on!" said Pyecroft hilariously. "That isn't all! Neither the executors nor the probate judge knew you from Adam, and the Sacramento bar, scenting a good joke, lay low and said nothing. Then the old fool judge said that 'as you appeared to be a lawyer, a man of mature years, and a friend of the family, you were an eminently fit person, and ought to be communicated with'--you know his hifalutin' style. n.o.body says anything. So that the next thing you'll know you'll get a letter from that executor asking you to look after that kid. Ha! ha! The boys said they could fancy they saw you trotting around with a ten year old girl holding on to your hand, and the Senorita Dolores or Miss Bellamont looking on! Or your being called away from a poker deal some night by the infant, singing, 'Gardy, dear gardy, come home with me now, the clock in the steeple strikes one!' And think of that old fool judge not knowing you! Ha! ha!"

A study of Colonel Starbottle's face during this speech would have puzzled a better physiognomist than Mr. Pyecroft. His first look of astonishment gave way to an empurpled confusion, from which a single short Silenus-like chuckle escaped, but this quickly changed again into a dull coppery indignation, and, as Pyecroft's laugh continued, faded out into a sallow rigidity in which his murky eyes alone seemed to keep what was left of his previous high color. But what was more singular, in spite of his enforced calm, something of his habitual old-fashioned loftiness and oratorical exaltation appeared to be returning to him as he placed his hand on his inflated breast and faced Pyceroft.

"The ignorance of the executor of Mrs. Stannard and the--er--probate judge," he began slowly, "may be pardonable, Mr. Pyecroft, since his Honor would imply that, although unknown to HIM personally, I am at least amicus curiae in this question of--er--guardianship. But I am grieved--indeed I may say shocked--Mr. Pyecroft, that the--er--last sacred trust of a dying widow--perhaps the holiest trust that can be conceived by man--the care and welfare of her helpless orphaned girl--should be made the subject of mirth, sir, by yourself and the members of the Sacramento bar! I shall not allude, sir, to my own feelings in regard to d.i.c.k Stannard, one of my most cherished friends,"

continued the colonel, in a voice charged with emotion, "but I can conceive of no n.o.bler trust laid upon the altar of friendship than the care and guidance of his orphaned girl! And if, as you tell me, the utterly inadequate sum of three thousand dollars is all that is left for her maintenance through life, the selection of a guardian sufficiently devoted to the family to be willing to augment that pittance out of his own means from time to time would seem to be most important."

Before the astounded Pyecroft could recover himself, Colonel Starbottle leaned back in his chair, half closing his eyes, and abandoned himself, quite after his old manner, to one of his dreamy reminiscences.

"Poor d.i.c.k Stannard! I have a vivid recollection, sir, of driving out with him on the Sh.e.l.l Road at New Orleans in '54, and of his saying, 'Star'--the only man, sir, who ever abbreviated my name--'Star, if anything happens to me or her, look after our child! It was during that very drive, sir, that, through his incautious neglect to fortify himself against the swampy malaria by a gla.s.s of straight Bourbon with a pinch of bark in it, he caught that fever which undermined his const.i.tution.

Thank you, Mr. Pyecroft, for--er--recalling the circ.u.mstance. I shall,"

continued the colonel, suddenly abandoning reminiscence, sitting up, and arranging his papers, "look forward with great interest to--er--letter from the executor."

The next day it was universally understood that Colonel Starbottle had been appointed guardian of Pansy Stannard by the probate judge of Sacramento.

There are of record two distinct accounts of Colonel Starbottle's first meeting with his ward after his appointment as her guardian. One, given by himself, varying slightly at times, but always bearing unvarying compliment to the grace, beauty, and singular accomplishments of this apparently gifted child, was nevertheless characterized more by vague, dreamy reminiscences of the departed parents than by any personal experience of the daughter.

"I found the young lady, sir," he remarked to Mr. Pyecroft, "recalling my cherished friend Stannard in--er--form and features, and--although--er--personally unacquainted with her deceased mother--who belonged, sir, to one of the first families of Virginia--I am told that she is--er--remarkably like her. Miss Stannard is at present a pupil in one of the best educational establishments in Santa Clara, where she is receiving tuition in--er--the English cla.s.sics, foreign belles lettres, embroidery, the harp, and--er--the use of the--er--globes, and--er--blackboard--under the most fastidious care, and my own personal supervision. The princ.i.p.al of the school, Miss Eudoxia Tish--a.s.sociated with--er--er--Miss Prinkwell--is--er--remarkably gifted woman; and as I was present at one of the school exercises, I had the opportunity of testifying to her excellence in--er--short address I made to the young ladies." From such glittering but unsatisfying generalities as these I prefer to turn to the real interview, gathered from contemporary witnesses.

It was the usual cloudless, dazzling, Californian summer day, tempered with the asperity of the northwest trades that Miss Tish, looking through her window towards the rose-embowered gateway of the seminary, saw an extraordinary figure advancing up the avenue. It was that of a man slightly past middle age, yet erect and jaunty, whose costume recalled the early water-color portraits of her own youthful days. His tightly b.u.t.toned blue frock coat with gilt b.u.t.tons was opened far enough across the chest to allow the expanding of a frilled shirt, black stock, and nankeen waistcoat, and his immaculate white trousers were smartly strapped over his smart varnished boots. A white bell-crowned hat, carried in his hand to permit the wiping of his forehead with a silk handkerchief, and a gold-headed walking stick hooked over his arm, completed this singular equipment. He was followed, a few paces in the rear, by a negro carrying an enormous bouquet, and a number of small boxes and parcels tied up with ribbons. As the figure paused before the door, Miss Tish gasped, and cast a quick restraining glance around the cla.s.sroom. But it was too late; a dozen pairs of blue, black, round, inquiring, or mischievous eyes were already dancing and gloating over the bizarre stranger through the window.

"A cirkiss--or n.i.g.g.e.r minstrels--sure as you're born!" said Mary Frost, aged nine, in a fierce whisper.

"No!--a agent from 'The Emporium,' with samples," returned Miss Briggs, aged fourteen.

"Young ladies, attend to your studies," said Miss Tish, as the servant brought in a card. Miss Tish glanced at it with some nervousness, and read to herself, "Colonel Culpeper Starbottle," engraved in script, and below it in pencil, "To see Miss Pansy Stannard, under favor of Miss Tish." Rising with some perturbation, Miss Tish hurriedly intrusted the cla.s.s to an a.s.sistant, and descended to the reception room. She had never seen Pansy's guardian before (the executor had brought the child); and this extraordinary creature, whose visit she could not deny, might be ruinous to school discipline. It was therefore with an extra degree of frigidity of demeanor that she threw open the door of the reception room, and entered majestically. But to her utter astonishment, the colonel met her with a bow so stately, so ceremonious, and so commanding that she stopped, disarmed and speechless.

"I need not ask if I am addressing Miss Tish," said the colonel loftily, "for without having the pleasure of--er--previous acquaintance, I can at once recognize the--er--Lady Superior and--er--chatelaine of this--er--establishment." Miss Tish here gave way to a slight cough and an embarra.s.sed curtsy, as the colonel, with a wave of his white hand towards the burden carried by his follower, resumed more lightly: "I have brought--er--few trifles and gewgaws for my ward--subject, of course, to your rules and discretion. They include some--er--dainties, free from any deleterious substance, as I am informed--a sash--a ribbon or two for the hair, gloves, mittens, and a nosegay--from which, I trust, it will be HER pleasure, as it is my own, to invite you to cull such blossoms as may suit your taste. Boy, you may set them down and retire!"

"At the present moment," stammered Miss Tish, "Miss Stannard is engaged on her lessons. But"--She stopped again, hopelessly.

"I see," said the colonel, with an air of playful, poetical reminiscence--"her lessons! Certainly!

'We will--er--go to our places, With smiles on our faces, And say all our lessons distinctly and slow.'

Certainly! Not for worlds would I interrupt them; until they are done, we will--er--walk through the cla.s.srooms and inspect"--

"No! no!" interrupted the horrified, princ.i.p.al, with a dreadful presentiment of the appalling effect of the colonel's entry upon the cla.s.s. "No!--that is--I mean--our rules exclude--except on days of public examination"--