CHAPTER XXIII

BERTHA'S FLIGHT

Before she had fairly recovered her poise next day Lucius brought to her a letter from Humiston--a suave, impudent note wherein he expressed the hope that she was well, and went on to plead in veiled phrase: "I'm sorry you did not stay to see the rest of my pictures. I meant it all as a compliment to your innate good taste and purity of thought. I expected you to see them as I painted them--in pure artistic delight. You misunderstood me. I hope you will let me see you again. You must remember you promised to let me make a portrait sketch of you."

Although not skilled in polite duplicity, Bertha was able to read beneath the serene insolence of these lines something so diabolically relentless that she turned cold with fear and repulsion. She had no experience which fitted her to deal with such a pursuer, and she shuddered at the rustling of the paper in her hand as she had once quivered in breathless terror of a rattlesnake stirring in the leaves near the door of her tent. Her first impulse was to lay the whole affair before the Captain, but the knowledge of his deadly temper when roused decided her to slip out at the other side of this fearsome thicket and leave the serpent in possession. She longed to return to the West. The little group of people in the Springs allured her; they were to be trusted. Congdon and Crego and Ben--these men she knew and respected.

Her joy of the big outside Eastern world had begun to pa.s.s, and she dreaded to encounter again the bold eyes and coa.r.s.e compliments of the men who loaf about the hotels and clubs.

She turned to Haney as he came into her room, and said: "Mart, I want to go home--to-day."

"All right, Bertie, I'm ready--or will be, as soon as I pick up the old father. But don't you want to see that show we've got tickets for?"

"No, I've had enough of this old town. I'm crazy to go home."

"Home it is, then." He called sharply; "Lucius!" The man appeared, impa.s.sive, noiseless, unhurried. The Captain issued his orders: "Thrun me garbage into a thrunk, and call some one to help the missus; we're goin' to hit the sunset trail to-night. 'Phone me old dad besides, and have him come over at wanst. Here we emigrate westward by the next express."

The man quietly took control of the situation, and in a few moments the Captain's commands were being carried out with the precision of a military camp.

Bertha, alarmed by Humiston's letter, refused to go down to the public dining-room. A fear that she might encounter the painter possessed her, and the thought of him was at once a shame and torment; therefore, she had her luncheon sent up, and Lucius himself found time to wait upon them.

As they were in the midst of their meal, Haney remarked rather than asked: "Of course, you're going back with us, Lucius."

"I have thought of it, sir, but it isn't in our contract."

"We can put it in," said Bertha.

"We can't do without you now," added Mart.

Lucius seemed pleased. "Thank you for that, Captain. I don't particularly care for the West, but I find service with you agreeable."

Haney chuckled. "Service, do ye call it? Sure, man, 'tis you are in command. I'm but a high private in the rear rank."

Lucius's yellow face flushed and his eyes wavered. "I hope I haven't a.s.sumed--"

"a.s.sumed! No, 'tis we who are obligated. We need you as bad as a plainsman needs a guide in the green timber; and if you don't mind a steady job of looking after us social tenderfeet, I'm willing to make it right with you--and Mrs. Haney feels just the way I do."

"Sure, Mart--only trouble with Lucius is, he leaves so little for me to do. He's _too_ handy--if anything."

"That'll wear off," replied Haney. "Well, then, it's all settled but the price, and I reckon we can fix that. If I can't pay cash, I'll let you in on the mine."

Lucius smiled. "Thank you, Captain; it's not entirely a question of pay with me; my wants are few."

Bertha seized the moment to put a question she had been minded many times to ask. "Lucius, what's your plan? You can't intend to do this all your life? Tell us your ambition--maybe we can help you."

He looked away, and a deeper shadow fell over his face. "I had ambitions once, Mrs. Haney, but my color was against me. Yes, I think I'll stay as I am. There is a certain security in being valet. You white people know exactly where to find me, and I know just how to meet you. In my profession it was different--I was always being cursed for presumption."

"What was your profession?" asked Haney.

"I studied law--and practised for a year or two in Washington; but I didn't like my position; I was neither white nor colored, so when I got a good chance I went out to service with a senator as body-servant." He stopped abruptly as though that were all of his tale.

Haney said: "Well, if you can put up with an ignorant old hill-climber like meself, I'll be grateful, and I'll try not rub your fur the wrong way."

Lucius became very earnest for the first time. "There, sir, is one point upon which I must insist. If I go with you, you are to treat me just as you have been doing--as a trusted servant. I'm sorry I told you anything about myself. My service thus far has been very pleasant, very satisfactory, and unless we can go on in the same way, I must leave."

"Very well," replied Haney. "It's all settled--you're adjutant-general of the Haneys' forces."

After Lucius went away Bertha said, thoughtfully: "I wish he hadn't told us that; I can't order him around the way I've been doing."

Haney smiled. "Did ye order him around? I niver chanced to hear ye do anything but ask him questions. 'Lucius, will ye do this?' 'Lucius, won't ye do that?'"

Bertha was troubled, and found herself embarra.s.sed by the mulatto's services. She now perceived sadness beneath the quiet lines of his face and hard-won culture in the tones of his voice. The essential tragedy of his defeat grew more poignant to her as she watched him getting the trunks strapped, surrounded by maids and porters. How could she have misread his manner? He was performing his duties, not with quiet gusto, but in the spirit of the trained nurse.

This mountain girl had always regarded Illinois as "the East," but after a few weeks in New York City she now looked away to Chicago as a Western town. She was glad to face the sunset sky again, and yet as she wheeled away to the train she acknowledged a regret. Under the skilful guidance of Lucius she had seen a great deal of the splendid and furious Manhattan. She had gazed with unenvious admiration on the palaces of upper Fifth Avenue and the Park. Together with Haney she had spun up Riverside Drive, past Grant's Tomb, and on through Washington Heights, with joy of the far-spreading panorama. She had visited the Battery and sailed the shining way to Staten Island in silent awe of the ship-filled bay. She had heard the sunset-guns thunder at Fort Hamilton, and had threaded the mazes of the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, and each day the mast-hemmed island widened in grandeur and thickened with threads of human purpose, making the America she knew very simple, very quiet, and very remote.

Night by night she had gone to the music-halls and theatres, and her mind had been powerfully wrought upon by what she had seen and heard. In all these trips Haney had heroically accompanied his wife, though he frequently dropped asleep in his seat; and he, too, left the city with regret, though he said, "Thank G.o.d, I'm out of it," as they settled into their seats in the ferry. "'Tis not the night traffic that wears me down--I'm used to being on the night shift; 'tis the wild pace Lucius sets by day. Faith, 'twas the aquarium in the morning and the circus in the afternoon. Me dreams have been wan long procession of misbegotten fish, ballet-dancers, dirty monkeys, and big elephants the nights. 'Tis a great city, but I am ready to return to me peaceful perch above the faro-board; I think 'twould rest me soul to see a game of c.r.a.ps."

"Why didn't you order Lucius to let up on the sight-seeing business?"

Bertha said.

"And expose me weak knees to me n.i.g.g.e.r? No, no, Mike."

"I wanted you to let me rummage about alone."

"You did. But I could not allow that, neyther. So long as I can sit the road-cart or run me arms into a biled shirt I'll stay by, darlin'. 'Tis not safe for you to go about alone in the h.e.l.l-broth of these Eastern streets. Besides, while I'm losin' weight I'm lighter on me feet than when I came. I've enjoyed me trip, but it does seem sinful to think of our big house standing empty and the horses 'stockin'' in their stalls, and I'm glad we're edgin' along homeward."

"So am I," Bertha heartily agreed, even as she looked lovingly back upon the mighty walls and towers which filled the sky behind her. It was a gloriously exciting place to live in, after all. "Some day I may come back," she promised herself, but the thought of Humiston lurking like a wolf in the shadow came to make her going more and more like an escape.

The elder Haney amused her by his frank comment on everything that was strange to him. His new teeth, which did not fit him very securely, troubled him greatly, and he spoke with one hand held alertly, ready to catch them if they fell, but his smile was a radiant grin, and his shrewd old face was good to look at as he faced the splendors of the limited express.

"'Tis foine as a bar-room," said he. "To be whisked about over the world like this is no hairdship. Bedad, if I'd known how aisy it was I'd a visited McArdle befoore." He pretended to believe that everybody travelled this way, and that Mart was merely doing the ordinary in the matter of meals and state-room; and as he wandered from end to end of the train and found only luxurious coaches, and people taking their ease, he had all the best of the argument. Lucius he regarded as a man of his own level, and they held long confabulations together--the colored man accepting this comradeship in the spirit of democracy in which it was given. Mart, for his part, sat looking out of the window, dreaming of the past.

As she neared Chicago next day Bertha thought with pleasure of seeing the Mosses again. Now that Humiston was eliminated, she had only the pleasantest memories of the people she had met in the smoky city. It was as if in a dark forest of lofty trees she had found a pleasant mead on which the warm sunlight fell. The mellow charm of the studios was made all the more appealing by reason of the drab and desolate waste through which she was forced to pa.s.s to attain the light and laughter of those high places.

Chicago had grown more gloomily impressive, and at the same time--by reason of her knowledge of the larger plans and mightier enterprises of New York--it seemed simpler, and Bertha re-entered the hotel which had once dazzled her in confidence, finding it cheerful and familiar. She liked it all the better because it was less pretentious. It gave her a pleasant sense of getting back home to have the men in b.u.t.tons smile and say, "Glad to see you, Mrs. Haney." The head clerk was very cordial; he even found time to come out and shake hands. "I can't give you precisely your old quarters," he said, "but I can fix you out on the next floor.

I'm sure you'll be very comfortable." Thereupon she took up her quietly luxurious life at the point where she had dropped it some weeks before.

There lay in this Western girl a strongly marked tendency towards the culture and refinement of the East; and, though she had grown up far from anything aesthetic in home-life, she instinctively knew and loved the beautiful in nature, the right thing in art; and now that she was about to leave the East for the West--perhaps to abandon the town for the village--she found herself aching with a hunger which had hitherto been unconscious. She was torn with desire to go and a longing to stay.

New York, Paris, the world, was open before her if only she were content to take Marshall Haney's money and use it to these ends.

That night as she lay in her bed hearing the rumble and jar of the city's traffic, her mind recalled and dwelt upon the wonderful scenes, especially the beautiful pictures which her eyes had gleaned from the East. The magical, glittering spread of Manhattan harbor, the silver sweep of the Hudson at West Point, the mighty panorama from Grant's Tomb, the silken sheen of Fifth Avenue on a rainy night, the crash and glitter of upper Broadway, the splendid halls of art, literature, and especially of music and the drama--all these came back one by one to claim a place beside her peaks and canons, sharing the glory of the purple deeps and the snowy heights of the mountains she had hitherto loved so single-heartedly and so well.

She saw Sibley now for what it was--a village almost barren of beauty--a good, kindly, homey place, but so little and so dull! To go back there to live was quite impossible. "If I quit Mart I must find something to do here--in the East. I can't stand Sibley."

She longed for the Springs because of her home there and because of Ben--but she realized that it possessed, after all, but very limited opportunities for the purchase of culture. The great centres had begun to exercise dominion over her. She had ever been a lonely little soul, with no confidante of her own s.e.x. Speech had never been fluent with her, and she was still elliptical, curt, and in a sense inexpressive.

She had no chatter, and the ways of women were in many directions alien to her. Miss Franklin had been her teacher, and yet, while respecting her, she had never learned to love her. Next to Ben Fordyce she leaned upon the judgment and sympathy of the sculptor, whose fine eyes were aglow with a high purpose. She was certain that he was both good and wise.