Overland Tales

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 surreptitiously 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 assert 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 Fanny 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 Fanny 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.

Fanny 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 pass their days together should begin their new married life with the beginning of the year. Will you assist 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 assurance 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 Fanny'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 Fanny and Miss Lola."

There was no necessity for calling Miss Lola – she was close at hand, though becoming suddenly invisible; and as for Miss Fanny, 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. Wheaton not taken off his glasses when Charlie came in he might have noticed an unusual flush on the young man's face; as it was he shook hands with him so cordially that Charlie's color subsided somewhat, and his heart beat less loud for a minute.

I doubt that either the old gentleman or the young one remember just how the conversation was opened; but in less than fifteen minutes Mr. Wheaton, with motions something like those of an enraged turkey-gobbler, and a color darkening face and neck fully equal to the intensest shade that bird can boast of on its gills, flew to the door, and called on Lola to make her appearance, in no pleasant tones. Together with Lola, as though divining the trouble drawing near, came Mrs. Wheaton, though so noiselessly, through a side-door, that no one observed her at first.

"Lola," sputtered Mr. Wheaton, "I have spent more money on your education than both your other sisters together ever cost me; and now here comes this young fellow and tells me, as coolly as you please, that you are engaged to him, and the like nonsense. Engaged, indeed; you are not eighteen yet, and he hasn't got a cent to his name. I thought I had brought up my children to love me at least, if I cannot compel them to obedience; and if you, Lola, go off and leave me in my old age – go away from my house with a beggar – you who have been petted and spoiled; you on whom I had built the hopes of my declining years, you will never darken my doors again, but live a beggar and an outcast forever away from your parents' home."

Mrs. Wheaton had approached the group, and Charlie turned to her.

"It is not as a poor man that I claim your daughter for my bride; see, I am rich – worth a hundred thousand this moment," he drew a package of papers from his pocket; "and I have the ambition and the power to amass a fortune, and place your daughter where she will never miss the comforts and luxuries of her childhood's home."

He stepped over to where Mr. Wheaton stood listening in incredulous silence to what the young man said.

"And may I ask from where this fabulous wealth springs so suddenly?" he asked, breaking the silence.

"I own to having tried my luck, against the strict advice and wish of my employers, in mining speculations. The venture has proved successful. I say nothing in extenuation of the fault – if fault I have committed – save that I wanted to offer to Lola a home which should not be too great a contrast to her father's house. Old Bingham – "

"Old Bingham," interrupted Mr. Wheaton, purple in the face; "and the name of the mine?"

"The Golden Lamp," answered Charlie, proudly, holding up for Mr. Wheaton's inspection the papers he had drawn from his pocket.

"Lola!" shouted Mr. Wheaton in his shrillest tones, seizing the girl by the arm and dragging her away from Charlie's side, as if the young man had been afflicted with a sudden leprosy, "come to me, my child. He's a beggar, I tell you – a beggar and worse; for all his friends will turn from him for his indiscretion. The whole thing is a gull; there isn't gold enough in the mine to show the color. Here's the paper. Where did you have your eyes this morning?"

Charlie stood like one paralyzed; his fingers clutched tighter the roll of papers in his hand, and he gazed with a strange, bewildered stare into Lola's eyes, as though trying hard to understand what the dreadful things he heard meant. Lola seemed to comprehend quicker, and the look she bent on Charlie was full of tender pity, as she watched the lines that black, hopeless despair was writing on his face. Mrs. Wheaton had snatched the paper from her husband's hand and was reading:

"The chosen few who thought that for once they could fleece the golden lamb driven quietly into a little corner for their own benefit, have come out leaving their own wool behind. We are speaking of the Golden Lamb Mine, which was to have been paraded in the market about the first of January, to lead astray with its deceptive glitter all who were foolish enough to believe without seeing. The few shares that had already been disposed of 'to strictly confidential friends,' by the shrewd managers of the concern, have gone down from five hundred dollars to five dollars, at which figure they went begging late in the afternoon yesterday, no one having confidence in a swindle so promptly and completely exposed."

"Lola," it was Charles's voice, but so changed and broken that Mrs. Wheaton dropped the paper to look into his face.

Lola sprang to his side, and he groped for her hand as though its slender strength could uphold the man who but an hour before looked able to move mountains from their place. Blindness seemed to have fallen on his eyes, for he repeated the call when the girl stood close beside him.

"My darling," she murmured, seizing the hand that was still seeking hers, and, heedless of her mother's presence or her father's wild gestures, she pressed the icy fingers to her lips, breathing broken words of love and comfort into Charlie's ear.

"Lola!" the name again rang through the room; it was her mother's cry, and the sharp terror in it struck like a knife to the girl's heart, "your father – quick! Would you kill him? Do you not see – he is dying! Oh, my child, my child, cast off everything, but do not load your soul with his death! God help me to guide you." There was something in the woman's eye that spoke of more than alarm at the symptoms of an approaching attack, such as she had always feared for the father of her children.

She had never loved this man with the absorbing passion of which her heart was capable; but as she knelt by his side, giving him every aid in her power in a frenzied, hurried manner, so different from her usual placid ways, her wide-opened eyes seemed to look back through the shadows and mists of long, dreary years, and she spoke wildly and rapidly to her child.

"Oh, Lola! don't blacken your soul with this crime – I too loaded the curse on me; I have borne it for years – and all the useless remorse, the vain, bitter regrets. Give up all you hold dear in life, but do not, do not try to find your way to happiness over the stricken form of your father!"

Lola shook like a reed in the storm, and breaking away from Charlie she knelt by her mother's side.

"Father!" she pleaded, "father, speak to me – call me your pet again – your dearest child; see me – I will never, never leave you, father, only speak to me once again."

No one heeded Charlie, and he staggered from the house, muttering between his clinched teeth:

"So they will all turn from me – and she was the first."

Hours passed ere the old man found speech and consciousness again; and the physician who had been summoned shook his head warningly. "It was a narrow escape," he said; "careful, old man, careful. What is it the Bible, or some other good book says – 'let not your angry passions rise?' Who's been vexing you?"

Lola, his special favorite, whose eyes he had seen opening on the light of this world, was not present, or her ghastly face might have prevented him from asking the question.

Mrs. Wheaton was again the quiet, sad-faced woman, solicitous only for the comfort and well-doing of the man who had been to her the most indulgent of husbands. It was hard to say what was passing in her heart; perhaps the crater had long since burned out, and the silver threads running through her raven hair was the snow that had gathered on the cold ashes. For Lola there was neither rest nor sleep, and she insisted on watching through the night by her father's bedside, though assured that there was no necessity for keeping watch.

Early the next morning she went out, not clandestinely, but with a determined step and an expression in her eye than which nothing could be more sad and hopeless. She returned after many hours, and though her eyes had lost none of their dreary expression, there seemed to be some purpose written in them that could also be traced in the lines drawn since yesterday about the firmly closed mouth. Her mother, concealed by the heavy curtains drawn back from the window, watched her gloomily as she passed through the room gathering up some music that lay scattered on the piano, as though she meant never to touch its ivory keys again.

"Ah, me!" she sighed, "she is young to learn the bitter lesson: that those who have a heart must crush out its love before they can go through life in peace! Dolores – it seemed like an atonement to call her so; but would I had not given her the fatal name. God will help her to forget – as He has given me peace."

The darkening eyes, straying far out over the waters, seemed for a moment ready to belie the boast of her lips, so restless and uneasy was their light; but the discipline of half a lifetime asserted its power, and she went from the room, calm and self-possessed as ever.

Little did she dream of the cause of what she deemed Lola's uncomplaining resignation. The girl had seen her lover, and, unspeakably wretched as he was, she could say no word to comfort him, but held his hand in hers, with all the love her heart contained beaming from her glorious eyes. Only once did he clasp her to his heart in a passionate embrace: she had sealed the promise to be his, with a kiss. They would enter on their new life together at the beginning of the year. They would be wedded to each other on New-Year day – but the priest who received their vows should be Death, and their marriage-bed the bottom of the bay.

Charlie's name was never mentioned in the Wheaton mansion; the events of Christmas morning seemed banished from the memory of the three people who had participated in them. There was nothing to indicate that a change of any kind had taken place or was likely to take place. Once only in the course of the week Miss Fanny remarked laughingly, that she thought Lola was preparing to elope, because all her books, dresses, and trinkets were so neatly packed together. But as no one seemed to join in Miss Fanny's pleasantry, the young lady betook herself to her usual pastime – the novel and the lounge.

During the week the weather changed, and heavy storms swept over land and sea, stirring to the depths the waters on which Lola gazed for many a half hour with a kind of stony satisfaction. She had not seen Charlie since the first day of the week, and she often muttered to herself, "Far better death than a life without my love."

At last New-Year's morning dawned clear and bright, like a morning in early spring. At an early hour the Wheaton mansion became the scene of great rejoicing. There was a vigorous pull at the bell, and when the door was opened a robust young fellow made his way very unceremoniously into the breakfast-room, and a fresh Irish voice with its rich brogue burst out:

"Plaize, mam, and it's a splendid b'y; and nurse says I'm not to stay a minit, but you're to come right aff."

Mr. Wheaton threatened to go off with joy this time, his face turned so red.

"A boy, mother – think of that!" he shouted, forgetting for once in his life what he deemed his dignity, and for the first time calling his wife anything but Mrs. Wheaton in the presence of strangers or servants. "Pat, my boy, here's something to drink his health [Thank'ee, sur; – and it's a half aigle, shure], but not now; mind you, go right back and stay there till I come, or I'll skin you alive."

After this unprecedentedly familiar and jocular speech, he turned Pat out of doors, kissed his wife frantically and rushed up-stairs to dress, as though the boy's life and safety depended on his taking immediate charge of him. In the meantime the door-bell had been rung again, and Mr. Wheaton stopped when halfway up the stairs, there was something so frightened and excited in the manner of the lady who entered the hall-door.