Trent's Trust, and Other Stories Part 3

"Yes," she returned, looking at him interestedly; "it was outside of the druggist's in Montgomery Street, about four months ago. You were wetter then even than you are now."

"I was hungry, friendless, and penniless, Miss Avondale." He had spoken thus abruptly in the faint hope that the revelation might equalize their present condition; but somehow his confession, now that it was uttered, seemed exceedingly weak and impotent. Then he blundered in a different direction. "Your eyes were the only kind ones I had seen since I landed." He flushed a little, feeling himself on insecure ground, and ended desperately: "Why, when I left you, I thought of committing suicide."

"Oh, dear, not so bad as that, I hope!" she said quickly, smiling kindly, yet with a certain air of mature toleration, as if she were addressing her little cousin. "You only fancied it. And it isn't very complimentary to my eyes if their kindness drove you to such horrid thoughts. And then what happened?" she pursued smilingly.

"I had a job to carry a man's bag, and it got me a night's lodging and a meal," said Randolph, almost brusquely, feeling the utter collapse of his story.

"And then?" she said encouragingly.

"I got a situation at the bank."

"When?"

"The next day," faltered Randolph, expecting to hear her laugh. But Miss Avondale heaved the faintest sigh.

"You are very lucky," she said.

"Not so very," returned Randolph quickly, "for the next time you saw me you cut me dead."

"I believe I did," she said smilingly.

"Would you mind telling me why?"

"Are you sure you won't be angry?"

"I may be pained," said Randolph prudently.

"I apologize for that beforehand. Well, that first night I saw a young man looking very anxious, very uncomfortable, and very weak. The second time--and not very long after--I saw him well dressed, lounging like any other young man on a Sunday afternoon, and I believed that he took the liberty of bowing to me then because I had once looked at him under a misapprehension."

"Oh, Miss Avondale!"

"Then I took a more charitable view, and came to the conclusion that the first night he had been drinking. But," she added, with a faint smile at Randolph's lugubrious face, "I apologize. And you have had your revenge; for if I cut you on account of your smart clothes, you have tried to do me a kindness on account of my plain ones."

"Oh, Miss Avondale," burst out Randolph, "if you only knew how sorry and indignant I was at the bank--when--you know--the other day"--he stammered. "I wanted to go with you to Mr. Revelstoke, you know, who had been so generous to me, and I know he would have been proud to befriend you until you heard from your friends."

"And I am very glad you did nothing so foolish," said the young lady seriously, "or"--with a smile--"I should have been still more aggravating to you when we met. The bank was quite right. Nor have I any pathetic story like yours. Some years ago my little half-cousin whom you saw lost his mother and was put in my charge by his father, with a certain sum to my credit, to be expended for myself and the child.

I lived with an uncle, with whom, for some family reasons, the child's father was not on good terms, and this money and the charge of the child were therefore intrusted entirely to me; perhaps, also, because Bobby and I were fond of each other and I was a friend of his mother. The father was a shipmaster, always away on long voyages, and has been home but once in the three years I have had charge of his son. I have not heard from him since. He is a good-hearted man, but of a restless, roving disposition, with no domestic tastes. Why he should suddenly cease to provide for my little cousin--if he has done so--or if his omission means only some temporary disaster to himself or his fortunes, I do not know. My anxiety was more for the poor boy's sake than for myself, for as long as I live I can provide for him." She said this without the least display of emotion, and with the same mature air of also repressing any emotion on the part of Randolph. But for her size and girlish figure, but for the dripping tangles of her hair and her soft eyes, he would have believed he was talking to a hard, middle-aged matron.

"Then you--he--has no friends here?" asked Randolph.

"No. We are all from Callao, where Bobby was born. My uncle was a merchant there, who came here lately to establish an agency. We lived with him in Sutter Street--where you remember I was so hateful to you,"

she interpolated, with a mischievous smile--"until his enterprise failed and he was obliged to return; but I stayed here with Bobby, that he might be educated in his father's own tongue. It was unfortunate, perhaps," she said, with a little knitting of her pretty brows, "that the remittances ceased and uncle left about the same time; but, like you, I was lucky, and I managed to get a place in the Emporium."

"The Emporium!" repeated Randolph in surprise. It was a popular "magasin of fashion" in Montgomery Street. To connect this refined girl with its garish display and vulgar attendants seemed impossible.

"The Emporium," reiterated Miss Avondale simply. "You see, we used to dress a good deal in Callao and had the Paris fashions, and that experience was of great service to me. I am now at the head of what they call the 'mantle department,' if you please, and am looked up to as an authority." She made him a mischievous bow, which had the effect of causing a trickle from the umbrella to fall across his budding mustache, and another down her own straight little nose--a diversion that made them laugh together, although Randolph secretly felt that the young girl's quiet heroism was making his own trials appear ridiculous. But her allusion to Callao and the boy's name had again excited his fancy and revived his romantic dream of their common benefactor. As soon as they could get a more perfect shelter and furl the umbrella, he plunged into the full story of the mysterious portmanteau and its missing owner, with the strange discovery that he had made of the similarity of the two handwritings. The young lady listened intently, eagerly, checking herself with what might have been a half smile at his enthusiasm.

"I remember the banker's letter, certainly," she said, "and Captain Dornton--that was the name of Bobby's father--asked me to sign my name in the body of it where HE had also written it with my address. But the likeness of the handwriting to your slip of paper may be only a fancied one. Have you shown it to any one," she said quickly--"I mean," she corrected herself as quickly, "any one who is an expert?"

"Not the two together," said Randolph, explaining how he had shown the paper to Mr. Revelstoke.

But Miss Avondale had recovered herself, and laughed. "That that bit of paper should have been the means of getting you a situation seems to me the more wonderful occurrence. Of course it is quite a coincidence that there should be a child's photograph and a letter signed 'Bobby' in the portmanteau. But"--she stopped suddenly and fixed her dark eyes on his--"you have seen Bobby. Surely you can say if it was his likeness?"

Randolph was embarra.s.sed. The fact was he had always been so absorbed in HER that he had hardly glanced at the child. He ventured to say this, and added a little awkwardly, and coloring, that he had seen Bobby only twice.

"And you still have this remarkable photograph and letter?" she said, perhaps a little too carelessly.

"Yes. Would you like to see them?"

"Very much," she returned quickly; and then added, with a laugh, "you are making me quite curious."

"If you would allow me to see you home," said Randolph, "we have to pa.s.s the street where my room is, and," he added timidly, "I could show them to you."

"Certainly," she replied, with sublime unconsciousness of the cause of his hesitation; "that will be very nice?"

Randolph was happy, albeit he could not help thinking that she was treating him like the absent Bobby.

"It's only on Commercial Street, just above Montgomery," he went on. "We go straight up from the wharf"--he stopped short here, for the bulk of a bystander, a roughly clad miner, was pressing him so closely that he was obliged to resist indignantly--partly from discomfort, and partly from a sense that the man was overhearing him. The stranger muttered a kind of apology, and moved away.

"He seems to be perpetually in your way," said Miss Avondale, smiling.

"He was right behind you, and you nearly trod on his toes, when you bolted out of the cabin this morning."

"Ah, then you DID see me!" said Randolph, forgetting all else in his delight at the admission.

But Miss Avondale was not disconcerted. "Thanks to your collision, I saw you both."

It was still raining when they disembarked at the wharf, a little behind the other Pa.s.sengers, who had crowded on the bow of the steamboat. It was only a block or two beyond the place where Randolph had landed that eventful night. He had to pa.s.s it now; but with Miss Avondale clinging to his arm, with what different feelings! The rain still fell, the day was fading, but he walked in an enchanted dream, of which the prosaic umbrella was the mystic tent and magic pavilion. He must needs even stop at the corner of the wharf, and show her the exact spot where his unknown benefactor appeared.

"Coming out of the shadow like that man there," she added brightly, pointing to a figure just emerging from the obscurity of an overhanging warehouse. "Why, it's your friend the miner!"

Randolph looked. It was indeed the same man, who had probably reached the wharf by a cross street.

"Let us go on, do!" said Miss Avondale, suddenly tightening her hold of Randolph's arm in some instinctive feminine alarm. "I don't like this place."

But Randolph, with the young girl's arm clinging to his, felt supremely daring. Indeed, I fear he was somewhat disappointed when the stranger peacefully turned into the junk shop at the corner and left them to pursue their way.

They at last stopped before some business offices on a central thoroughfare, where Randolph had a room on the third story. When they had climbed the flight of stairs he unlocked a door and disclosed a good-sized apartment which had been intended for an office, but which was now neatly furnished as a study and bedroom. Miss Avondale smiled at the singular combination.

"I should fancy," she said, "you would never feel as if you had quite left the bank behind you." Yet, with her air of protection and mature experience, she at once began to move one or two articles of furniture into a more tasteful position, while Randolph, nevertheless a little embarra.s.sed at his audacity in asking this G.o.ddess into his humble abode, hurriedly unlocked a closet, brought out the portmanteau, and handed her the letter and photograph.

Woman-like, Miss Avondale looked at the picture first. If she experienced any surprise, she repressed it. "It is LIKE Bobby," she said meditatively, "but he was stouter then; and he's changed sadly since he has been in this climate. I don't wonder you didn't recognize him. His father may have had it taken some day when they were alone together. I didn't know of it, though I know the photographer." She then looked at the letter, knit her pretty brows, and with an abstracted air sat down on the edge of Randolph's bed, crossed her little feet, and looked puzzled. But he was unable to detect the least emotion.

"You see," she said, "the handwriting of most children who are learning to write is very much alike, for this is the stage of development when they 'print.' And their composition is the same: they talk only of things that interest all children--pets, toys, and their games. This is only ANY child's letter to ANY father. I couldn't really say it WAS Bobby's. As to the photograph, they have an odd way in South America of selling photographs of anybody, princ.i.p.ally of pretty women, by the packet, to any one who wants them. So that it does not follow that the owner of this photograph had any personal interest in it. Now, as to your mysterious patron himself, can you describe him?" She looked at Randolph with a certain feline intensity.

He became embarra.s.sed. "You know I only saw him once, under a street lamp"--he began.

"And I have only seen Captain Dornton--if it were he--twice in three years," she said. "But go on."

Again Randolph was unpleasantly impressed with her cold, dryly practical manner. He had never seen his benefactor but once, but he could not speak of him in that way.