A First Family of Tasajara

“And YOU, Grant,—you have made yourself famous, and, I hear, have got pretty much your own prices for your opinions ever since it was known that you—you—er—were connected with the growth of Tasajara.”

Grant smiled; he was not quite prepared for this; but it was amusing and would pass the time. He murmured a sentence of half ironical deprecation, and Mr. Harcourt continued:—

“I haven’t got my San Francisco house here to receive you in, but I hope some day, sir, to see you there. We are only here for the day and night, but if you care to attend the opening ceremonies at the new hall, we can manage to give you dinner afterwards. You can escort my daughter Clementina,—she’s here with me.”

The smile of apologetic declination which had begun to form on Grant’s lips was suddenly arrested. “Then your daughter is here?” he asked, with unaffected interest.

“Yes,—she is in fact a patroness of the library and sewing-circle, and takes the greatest interest in it. The Reverend Doctor Pilsbury relies upon her for everything. She runs the society, even to the training of the young ladies, sir. You shall see their exercises.”

This was certainly a new phase of Clementina’s character. Yet why should she not assume the role of Lady Bountiful with the other functions of her new condition. “I should have thought Miss Harcourt would have found this rather difficult with her other social duties,” he said, “and would have left it to her married sister.” He thought it better not to appear as if avoiding reference to Euphemia, although quietly ignoring her late experiences. Mr. Harcourt was less easy in his response.

“Now that Euphemia is again with her own family,” he said ponderously, with an affectation of social discrimination that was in weak contrast to his usual direct business astuteness, “I suppose she may take her part in these things, but just now she requires rest. You may have heard some rumor that she is going abroad for a time? The fact is she hasn’t the least intention of doing so, nor do we consider there is the slightest reason for her going.” He paused as if to give great emphasis to a statement that seemed otherwise unimportant. “But here’s Clementina coming, and I must get you to excuse ME. I’ve to meet the trustees of the church in ten minutes, but I hope she’ll persuade you to stay, and I’ll see you later at the hall.”

As Clementina entered the room her father vanished and, I fear, as completely dropped out of Mr. Grant’s mind. For the daughter’s improvement was greater than her father’s, yet so much more refined as to be at first only delicately perceptible. Grant had been prepared for the vulgar enhancement of fine clothes and personal adornment, for the specious setting of luxurious circumstances and surroundings, for the aplomb that came from flattery and conscious power. But he found none of these; her calm individuality was intensified rather than subdued; she was dressed simply, with an economy of ornament, rich material, and jewelry, but an accuracy of taste that was always dominant. Her plain gray merino dress, beautifully fitting her figure, suggested, with its pale blue facings, some uniform, as of the charitable society she patronized. She came towards him with a graceful movement of greeting, yet her face showed no consciousness of the interval that had elapsed since they met; he almost fancied himself transported back to the sitting-room at Sidon with the monotonous patter of the leaves outside, and the cool moist breath of the bay and alder coming in at the window.

“Father says that you are only passing through Tasajara to-day, as you did through Sidon five years ago,” she said with a smiling earnestness that he fancied however was the one new phase of her character. “But I won’t believe it! At least we will not accept another visit quite as accidental as that, even though you brought us twice the good fortune you did then. You see, we have not forgotten it if you have, Mr. Grant. And unless you want us to believe that your fairy gifts will turn some day to leaves and ashes, you will promise to stay with us tonight, and let me show you some of the good we have done with them. Perhaps you don’t know, or don’t want to know, that it was I who got up this ‘Library and Home Circle of the Sisters of Tasajara’ which we are to open to-day. And can you imagine why? You remember—or have you forgotten—that you once affected to be concerned at the social condition of the young ladies on the plains of Sidon? Well, Mr. Grant, this is gotten up in order that the future Mr. Grants who wander may find future Miss Billingses who are worthy to converse with them and entertain them, and who no longer wear men’s hats and live on the public road.”

It was such a long speech for one so taciturn as he remembered Clementina to have been; so unexpected in tone considering her father’s attitude towards him, and so unlooked for in its reference to a slight incident of the past, that Grant’s critical contemplation of her gave way to a quiet and grateful glance of admiration. How could he have been so mistaken in her character? He had always preferred the outspoken Euphemia, and yet why should he not have been equally mistaken in her? Without having any personal knowledge of Rice’s matrimonial troubles—for their intimate companionship had not continued after the survey—he had been inclined to blame him; now he seemed to find excuses for him. He wondered if she really had liked him as Peters had hinted; he wondered if she knew that he, Grant, was no longer intimate with him and knew nothing of her affairs. All this while he was accepting her proffered hospitality and sending to the hotel for his luggage. Then he drifted into a conversation, which he had expected would be brief, pointless, and confined to a stupid resume of their mutual and social progress since they had left Sidon. But here he was again mistaken; she was talking familiarly of present social topics, of things that she knew clearly and well, without effort or attitude. She had been to New York and Boston for two winters; she had spent the previous summer at Newport; it might have been her whole youth for the fluency, accuracy, and familiarity of her detail, and the absence of provincial enthusiasm. She was going abroad, probably in the spring. She had thought of going to winter in Italy, but she would wait now until her sister was ready to go with her. Mr. Grant of course knew that Euphemia was separated from Mr. Rice—no—not until her father told him? Well—the marriage had been a wild and foolish thing for both. But Euphemia was back again with them in the San Francisco house; she had talked of coming to Tasajara to-day, perhaps she might be there tonight. And, good heavens! it was actually three o’clock already, and they must start at once for the Hall. She would go and get her hat and return instantly.

It was true; he had been talking with her an hour—pleasantly, intelligently, and yet with a consciousness of an indefinite satisfaction beyond all this. It must have been surprise at her transformation, or his previous misconception of her character. He had been watching her features and wondering why he had ever thought them expressionless. There was also the pleasant suggestion—common to humanity in such instances—that he himself was in some way responsible for the change; that it was some awakened sympathy to his own nature that had breathed into this cold and faultless statue the warmth of life. In an odd flash of recollection he remembered how, five years ago, when Rice had suggested to her that she was “hard to please,” she had replied that she “didn’t know, but that she was waiting to see.” It did not occur to him to wonder why she had not awakened then, or if this awakening had anything to do with her own volition. It was not probable that they would meet again after to-day, or if they did, that she would not relapse into her former self and fail to impress him as she had now. But—here she was—a paragon of feminine promptitude—already standing in the doorway, accurately gloved and booted, and wearing a demure gray hat that modestly crowned her decorously elegant figure.

They crossed the plaza side by side, in the still garish sunlight that seemed to mock the scant shade of the youthful eucalyptus trees, and presently fell in with the stream of people going in their direction. The former daughters of Sidon, the Billingses, the Peterses, and Wingates, were there bourgeoning and expanding in the glare of their new prosperity, with silk and gold; there were newer faces still, and pretty ones,—for Tasajara as a “Cow County” had attracted settlers with large families,—and there were already the contrasting types of East and West. Many turned to look after the tall figure of the daughter of the Founder of Tasajara,—a spectacle lately rare to the town; a few glanced at her companion, equally noticeable as a stranger. Thanks, however, to some judicious preliminary advertising from the hotel clerk, Peters, and Daniel Harcourt himself, by the time Grant and Miss Harcourt had reached the Hall his name and fame were already known, and speculation had already begun whether this new stroke of Harcourt’s shrewdness might not unite Clementina to a renowned and profitable partner.

The Hall was in one of the further and newly opened suburbs, and its side and rear windows gave immediately upon the outlying and illimitable plain of Tasajara. It was a tasteful and fair-seeming structure of wood, surprisingly and surpassingly new. In fact that was its one dominant feature; nowhere else had youth and freshness ever shown itself as unconquerable and all-conquering. The spice of virgin woods and trackless forests still rose from its pine floors, and breathed from its outer shell of cedar that still oozed its sap, and redwood that still dropped its life-blood. Nowhere else were the plastered walls and ceilings as white and dazzling in their unstained purity, or as redolent of the outlying quarry in their clear cool breath of lime and stone. Even the turpentine of fresh and spotless paint added to this sense of wholesome germination, and as the clear and brilliant Californian sunshine swept through the open windows west and east, suffusing the whole palpitating structure with its searching and resistless radiance, the very air seemed filled with the aroma of creation.

The fresh colors of the young Republic, the bright blazonry of the newest State, the coat-of-arms of the infant County of Tasajara—(a vignette of sunset-tules cloven by the steam of an advancing train)—hanging from the walls, were all a part of this invincible juvenescence. Even the newest silks, ribbons and prints of the latest holiday fashions made their first virgin appearance in the new building as if to consecrate it, until it was stirred by the rustle of youth, as with the sound and movement of budding spring.

A strain from the new organ—whose heart, however, had prematurely learned its own bitterness—and a thin, clear, but somewhat shrill chanting from a choir of young ladies were followed by a prayer from the Reverend Mr. Pilsbury. Then there was a pause of expectancy, and Grant’s fair companion, who up to that moment had been quietly acting as guide and cicerone to her father’s guest, excused herself with a little grimace of mock concern and was led away by one of the committee. Grant’s usually keen eyes were wandering somewhat abstractedly over the agitated and rustling field of ribbons, flowers and feathers before him, past the blazonry of banner on the walls, and through the open windows to the long sunlit levels beyond, when he noticed a stir upon the raised dais or platform at the end of the room, where the notables of Tasajara were formally assembled. The mass of black coats suddenly parted and drew back against the wall to allow the coming forward of a single graceful figure. A thrill of nervousness as unexpected as unaccountable passed over him as he recognized Clementina. In the midst of a sudden silence she read the report of the committee from a paper in her hand, in a clear, untroubled voice—the old voice of Sidon—and formally declared the building opened. The sunlight, nearly level, streamed through the western window across the front of the platform where she stood and transfigured her slight but noble figure. The hush that had fallen upon the Hall was as much the effect of that tranquil, ideal presence as of the message with which it was charged. And yet that apparition was as inconsistent with the clear, searching light which helped to set it off, as it was with the broad new blazonry of decoration, the yet unsullied record of the white walls, or even the frank, animated and pretty faces that looked upon it. Perhaps it was some such instinct that caused the applause which hesitatingly and tardily followed her from the platform to appear polite and half restrained rather than spontaneous.

Nevertheless Grant was honestly and sincerely profuse in his congratulations. “You were far cooler and far more self-contained than I should have been in your place,” he said, “than in fact I actually WAS, only as your auditor. But I suppose you have done it before?”

She turned her beautiful eyes on his wonderingly. “No,—this is the first time I ever appeared in public,—not even at school, for even there I was always a private pupil.”

“You astonish me,” said Grant; “you seemed like an old hand at it.”

“Perhaps I did, or rather as if I didn’t think anything of it myself,—and that no doubt is why the audience didn’t think anything of it either.”

So she HAD noticed her cold reception, and yet there was not the slightest trace of disappointment, regret, or wounded vanity in her tone or manner. “You must take me to the refreshment room now,” she said pleasantly, “and help me to look after the young ladies who are my guests. I’m afraid there are still more speeches to come, and father and Mr. Pilsbury are looking as if they confidently expected something more would be ‘expected’ of them.”

Grant at once threw himself into the task assigned to him, with his natural gallantry and a certain captivating playfulness which he still retained. Perhaps he was the more anxious to please in order that his companion might share some of his popularity, for it was undeniable that Miss Harcourt still seemed to excite only a constrained politeness among those with whom she courteously mingled. And this was still more distinctly marked by the contrast of a later incident.

For some moments the sound of laughter and greeting had risen near the door of the refreshment room that opened upon the central hall, and there was a perceptible movement of the crowd—particularly of youthful male Tasajara—in that direction. It was evident that it announced the unexpected arrival of some popular resident. Attracted like the others, Grant turned and saw the company making way for the smiling, easy, half-saucy, half-complacent entry of a handsomely dressed young girl. As she turned from time to time to recognize with rallying familiarity or charming impertinence some of her admirers, there was that in her tone and gesture which instantly recalled to him the past. It was unmistakably Euphemia! His eyes instinctively sought Clementina’s. She was gazing at him with such a grave, penetrating look,—half doubting, half wistful,—a look so unlike her usual unruffled calm that he felt strangely stirred. But the next moment, when she rejoined him, the look had entirely gone. “You have not seen my sister since you were at Sidon, I believe?” she said quietly. “She would be sorry to miss you.” But Euphemia and her train were already passing them on the opposite side of the long table. She had evidently recognized Grant, yet the two sisters were looking intently into each other’s eyes when he raised his own. Then Euphemia met his bow with a momentary accession of color, a coquettish wave of her hand across the table, a slight exaggeration of her usual fascinating recklessness, and smilingly moved away. He turned to Clementina, but here an ominous tapping at the farther end of the long table revealed the fact that Mr. Harcourt was standing on a chair with oratorical possibilities in his face and attitude. There was another forward movement in the crowd and—silence. In that solid, black-broadclothed, respectable figure, that massive watchchain, that white waistcoat, that diamond pin glistening in the satin cravat, Euphemia might have seen the realization of her prophetic vision at Sidon five years before.

He spoke for ten minutes with a fluency and comprehensive business-like directness that surprised Grant. He was not there, he said, to glorify what had been done by himself, his family, or his friends in Tasajara. Others who were to follow him might do that, or at least might be better able to explain and expatiate upon the advantages of the institution they had just opened, and its social, moral, and religious effect upon the community. He was there as a business man to demonstrate to them—as he had always done and always hoped to do—the money value of improvement; the profit—if they might choose to call it—of well-regulated and properly calculated speculation. The plot of land upon which they stood, of which the building occupied only one eighth, was bought two years before for ten thousand dollars. When the plans of the building were completed a month afterwards, the value of the remaining seven eighths had risen enough to defray the cost of the entire construction. He was in a position to tell them that only that morning the adjacent property, subdivided and laid out in streets and building-plots, had been admitted into the corporate limits of the city; and that on the next anniversary of the building they would approach it through an avenue of finished dwellings! An outburst of applause followed the speaker’s practical climax; the fresh young faces of his auditors glowed with invincible enthusiasm; the afternoon trade-winds, freshening over the limitless plain beyond, tossed the bright banners at the windows as with sympathetic rejoicing, and a few odorous pine shavings, overlooked in a corner in the hurry of preparation, touched by an eddying zephyr, crept out and rolled in yellow ringlets across the floor.

The Reverend Doctor Pilsbury arose in a more decorous silence. He had listened approvingly, admiringly, he might say even reverently, to the preceding speaker. But although his distinguished friend had, with his usual modesty, made light of his own services and those of his charming family, he, the speaker, had not risen to sing his praises. No; it was not in this Hall, projected by his foresight and raised by his liberality; in this town, called into existence by his energy and stamped by his attributes; in this county, developed by his genius and sustained by his capital; ay, in this very State whose grandeur was made possible by such giants as he,—it was not in any of these places that it was necessary to praise Daniel Harcourt, or that a panegyric of him would be more than idle repetition. Nor would he, as that distinguished man had suggested, enlarge upon the social, moral, and religious benefits of the improvement they were now celebrating. It was written on the happy, innocent faces, in the festive garb, in the decorous demeanor, in the intelligent eyes that sparkled around him, in the presence of those of his parishioners whom he could meet as freely here to-day as in his own church on Sunday. What then could he say? What then was there to say? Perhaps he should say nothing if it were not for the presence of the young before him.—He stopped and fixed his eyes paternally on the youthful Johnny Billings, who with a half dozen other Sunday-school scholars had been marshaled before the reverend speaker.—And what was to be the lesson THEY were to learn from it? They had heard what had been achieved by labor, enterprise, and diligence. Perhaps they would believe, and naturally too, that what labor, enterprise, and diligence had done could be done again. But was that all? Was there nothing behind these qualities—which, after all, were within the reach of every one here? Had they ever thought that back of every pioneer, every explorer, every pathfinder, every founder and creator, there was still another? There was no terra incognita so rare as to be unknown to one; no wilderness so remote as to be beyond a greater ken than theirs; no waste so trackless but that one had already passed that way! Did they ever reflect that when the dull sea ebbed and flowed in the tules over the very spot where they were now standing, who it was that also foresaw, conceived, and ordained the mighty change that would take place; who even guided and directed the feeble means employed to work it; whose spirit moved, as in still older days of which they had read, over the face of the stagnant waters? Perhaps they had. Who then was the real pioneer of Tasajara,—back of the Harcourts, the Peterses, the Billingses, and Wingates? The reverend gentleman gently paused for a reply. It was given in the clear but startled accents of the half frightened, half-fascinated Johnny Billings, in three words:—

“‘Lige Curtis, sir!”

CHAPER VI

The trade wind, that, blowing directly from the Golden Gate, seemed to concentrate its full force upon the western slope of Russian Hill, might have dismayed any climber less hopeful and sanguine than that most imaginative of newspaper reporters and most youthful of husbands, John Milton Harcourt. But for all that it was an honest wind, and its dry, practical energy and salt-pervading breath only seemed to sting him to greater and more enthusiastic exertions, until, quite at the summit of the hill and last of a straggling line of little cottages half submerged in drifting sand, he stood upon his own humble porch.

“I was thinking, coming up the hill, Loo,” he said, bursting into the sitting-room, pantingly, “of writing something about the future of the hill! How it will look fifty years from now, all terraced with houses and gardens!—and right up here a kind of Acropolis, don’t you know. I had quite a picture of it in my mind just now.”

A plainly-dressed young woman with a pretty face, that, however, looked as if it had been prematurely sapped of color and vitality, here laid aside some white sewing she had in her lap, and said:—

“But you did that once before, Milty, and you know the ‘Herald’ wouldn’t take it because they said it was a free notice of Mr. Boorem’s building lots, and he didn’t advertise in the ‘Herald.’ I always told you that you ought to have seen Boorem first.”

The young fellow blinked his eyes with a momentary arrest of that buoyant hopefulness which was their peculiar characteristic, but nevertheless replied with undaunted cheerfulness, “I forgot. Anyhow, it’s all the same, for I worked it into that ‘Sunday Walk.’ And it’s just as easy to write it the other way, you see,—looking back, DOWN THE HILL, you know. Something about the old Padres toiling through the sand just before the Angelus; or as far back as Sir Francis Drake’s time, and have a runaway boat’s crew, coming ashore to look for gold that the Mexicans had talked of. Lord! that’s easy enough! I tell you what, Loo, it’s worth living up here just for the inspiration.” Even while boyishly exhaling this enthusiasm he was also divesting himself of certain bundles whose contents seemed to imply that he had brought his dinner with him,—the youthful Mrs. Harcourt setting the table in a perfunctory, listless way that contrasted oddly with her husband’s cheerful energy.

“You haven’t heard of any regular situation yet?” she asked abstractedly.

“No,—not exactly,” he replied. “But [buoyantly] it’s a great deal better for me not to take anything in a hurry and tie myself to any particular line. Now, I’m quite free.”

“And I suppose you haven’t seen that Mr. Fletcher again?” she continued.

“No. He only wanted to know something about me. That’s the way with them all, Loo. Whenever I apply for work anywhere it’s always: ‘So you’re Dan’l Harcourt’s son, eh? Quarreled with the old man? Bad job; better make it up! You’ll make more stickin’ to him. He’s worth millions!’ Everybody seems to think everything of HIM, as if I had no individuality beyond that, I’ve a good mind to change my name.”

“And pray what would mine be then?”

There was so much irritation in her voice that he drew nearer her and gently put his arm around her waist. “Why, whatever mine was, darling,” he said with a tender smile. “You didn’t fall in love with any particular name, did you, Loo?”

“No, but I married a particular one,” she said quickly.

His eyelids quivered again, as if he was avoiding some unpleasantly staring suggestion, and she stopped.