Gabriel Conroy

"He ain't ignorant," interrupted Mrs. Markle, sacrificing argument to loyalty.

"Well, this grown-up child! He discovers the biggest lead in One Horse Gulch, manages to get the shrewdest financier in California to manage it for him, and that too after he has snatched up an heiress and a pretty woman before the rest of 'em got a sight of her. That may be simplicity; but my experience of guilelessness is that, ordinarily, it isn't so lucky."

"They won't do him the least good, depend upon it," said Mrs. Markle, with the air of triumphantly closing the argument.

It is very possible that Mrs. Markle's dislike was sustained and kept alive by Sal's more active animosity, and the strict espionage that young woman kept over the general movements and condition of the Conroys. Gabriel's loneliness, his favourite haunt on the hillside, the number and quality of Mrs. Conroy's visitors, even fragments of conversation held in the family circle, were all known to Sal, and redelivered to Mrs. Markle with Sal's own colouring. It is possible that most of the gossip concerning Mrs. Conroy already hinted at, had its origin in the views and observations of this admirable young woman, who did not confine her confidences entirely to her mistress. And when one day a stranger and guest, staying at the Grand Conroy House, sought to enliven the solemnity of breakfast by social converse with Sal regarding the Conroys, she told him nearly everything that she had already told Mrs. Markle.

I am aware that it is alleged that some fascinating quality in this stranger's manner and appearance worked upon the susceptible nature and loosened the tongue of this severe virgin, but beyond a certain disposition to minister personally to his wants, to hover around him archly with a greater quantity of dishes than that usually offered the transient guest, and to occasionally expatiate on the excellence of some extra viand, there was really no ground for the report. Certainly, the guest was no ordinary man; was quite unlike the regular habitués of the house, and perhaps to some extent justified this favouritism. He was young, sallow-faced, with very white teeth and skin, yellow hands, and a tropical, impulsive manner, which Miss Sarah Clark generally referred to as "Eyetalian." I venture to transcribe something of his outward oral expression.

"I care not greatly for the flapjack, nor yet for the dried apples," said Victor, whom the intelligent reader has at once recognised, "but a single cup of coffee sweetened by those glances and offered by those fair hands – which I kiss! – are to me enough. And you think that the Meestrees Conroy does not live happily with her husband. Ah! you are wise, you are wise, Mees Clark, I would not for much money find myself under these criticism, eh?"

"Well, eyes bein' given to us to see with by the Lord's holy will, and it ain't for weak creeturs like us to misplace our gifts or magnify 'em," said Sal, in shrill, bashful confusion, allowing an underdone fried egg to trickle from the plate on the coat-collar of the unconscious Judge Beeswinger, "I do say when a woman sez to her husband, ez she's sworn to honour and obey, 'This yer's my house, and this yer's my land, and yer kin git,' thar ain't much show o' happiness thar. Ef it warn't for hearin' this with my own ears, bein' thar accidental like, and in a sogial way, I wouldn't hev believed it. And she allowin' to be a lady, and afeared to be civil to certain folks ez is ez good ez she and far better, and don't find it necessary to git married to git a position – and could hev done it a thousand times over ef so inclined. But folks is various and self praise is open disgrace. Let me recommend them beans. The pork, ez we allus kills ourselves fur the benefit o' transient gests, bein' a speciality."

"It is of your kindness, Mees Clark, I am already full. And of the pork I touch not, it is an impossibility," said Victor, showing every tooth in his head. "It is much painful to hear of this sad, sad affair. It is bad – and yet you say he has riches – this man. Ah! the what is the world. See, the great manner it has treated those! No, I will not more. I am sufficient now. Ah! eh! what have we here?"

He lowered his voice and eyes as a stranger – the antique dandy Gabriel had met on Conroy's hill the evening before – rose from some unnoticed seat at a side table, and unconcernedly moved away. Victor instantly recognised the card player of San Antonio, his former chance acquaintance of Pacific Street, and was filled with a momentary feeling of suspicion and annoyance. But Sal's sotto voce reply that the stranger was a witness attending court seemed to be a reasonable explanation, and the fact that the translator did not seem to recognise him promptly relieved his mind. When he had gone Sal returned to her confidences: "Ez to his riches, them ez knows best hez their own say o' that. Thar was a party yer last week – gents ez was free with their money, and not above exchanging the time o' day with working folk, and though it ain't often ez me or Sue Markle dips into conversation with entire strangers, yet," continued Sal with parenthetical tact and courtesy, "Eyetalians, – furriners in a strange land bein' an exception – and and them gents let on thet thet vein o' silver on Conroy's hill hed been surveyed and it wazent over a foot wide, and would be played out afore a month longer, and thet old Peter Dumphy knowed it, and hed sold out, and thet thet's the reason Gabriel Conroy was goin' off – jest to be out o' the way when the killapse comes."

"Gabriel! going away, Mees Sal? this is not possible!" ejaculated the fascinating guest, breathing very hard, and turning all his teeth in a single broadside upon the susceptible handmaid. At any other moment, it is possible that Sal might have been suspicious of the stranger's excitement, but the fascination of his teeth held and possessed this fluttering virgin.

"Ef thar ever waz a man ez had an angelic smile," she intimated afterwards in confidence to Mrs. Markle, "it waz thet young Eyetalian." She handed him several dishes, some of them empty, in her embarrassment and rejoined with an affectation of arch indignation, "Thank ye fur sayin' 'I lie,' – and it's my pay fur bein' a gossip and ez good ez I send – but thar's Olympy Conroy packed away to school fur six months, and thar's the new superintendent ez is come up to take Gabriel's situation, and he a sittin' in a grey coat next to ye a minit ago! Eh? And ye won't take nothin' more? Appil or cranbear' pie? – our own make? I'm afeerd ye ain't made out a dinner!" But Victor had already risen hurriedly and departed, leaving Sal in tormenting doubt whether she had not in her coquettish indignation irritated the tropical nature of this sensitive Italian. "I orter allowed fur his bein' a furriner and not bin so free. Pore young man! I thought he did luk tuk back when I jest allowed that he said I lied." And with a fixed intention of indicating her forgiveness and goodwill the next morning by an extra dish, Sal retired somewhat dejectedly to the pantry. She made a point, somewhat later, of dusting the hall in the vicinity of Victor's room, but was possibly disappointed to find the door open, and the tenant absent. Still later, she imparted some of this interview to Mrs. Markle with a certain air of fatigued politeness and a suggestion that, in the interest of the house solely, she had not repressed perhaps as far as maidenly pride and strict propriety demanded, the somewhat extravagant advances of the stranger. "I'm sure," she added, briskly, "why he kept a lookin' and a talkin' at me in that way, mind can't consave, and transients did notiss. And if he did go off mad, why, he kin git over it." Having thus delicately conveyed the impression of an ardent Southern nature checked in its exuberance, she became mysteriously reticent and gloomy.

It is probable that Miss Clark's theory of Gabriel's departure was not original with her, or entirely limited to her own experience. A very decided disapprobation of Gabriel's intended trip was prevalent in the gulches and bar-room. He quickly lost his late and hard-earned popularity; not a few questioned his moral right to leave One Horse Gulch until its property was put beyond a financial doubt in the future. The men who had hitherto ignored the proposition that he was in any way responsible for the late improvement in business, now openly condemned him for abandoning the position they declared he never had. The Silveropolis Messenger talked vaguely of the danger of "changing superintendents" at such a moment, and hinted that the stock of the company would suffer. The rival paper – for it was found that the interests of the town required a separate and distinct expression – had an editorial on "absenteeism," and spoke, crushingly, of those men who, having enriched themselves out of the resources of One Horse Gulch, were now seeking to dissipate that wealth in the excesses of foreign travel.

Meanwhile, the humble object of this criticism, oblivious in his humility of any public interest in his movements or intentions, busied himself in preparations for his departure. He had refused the offer of a large rent for his house from the new superintendent, but had retained a trusty servant to keep it with a view to the possible return of Grace. "Ef thar mout ever come a young gal yet lookin' fur me," he said privately to his servant, "yer not to ax any questions, partiklaly ef she looks sorter shy and bashful, but ye'll gin her the best room in the house, and send to me by igspress, and ye needn't say anythin' to Mrs. Conroy about it." Observing the expression of virtuous alarm on the face of the domestic – she was a married woman of some comeliness who was not living with her husband on account of his absurdly jealous disposition – he added hastily, "She's a young woman o' proputty ez hez troubil about it, and wishes to be kep' secret," and, having in this way thoroughly convinced his handmaid of the vileness of his motives and the existence of a dark secret in the Conroy household, he said no more, but paid a flying visit to Olly, secretly, packed away all the remnants of his deceased mother's wardrobe, cut (God knows for what purpose) small patches from the few old dresses that Grace had worn that were still sacredly kept in his wardrobe, and put them in his pocket-book; wandered in his usual lonely way on the hillside, and spent solitary hours in his deserted cabin; avoided the sharp advances of Mrs. Markle, who once aggressively met him in his long post-prandial walks, as well as the shy propinquity of his wife, who would fain have delayed him in her bower, and so having after the fashion of his sex made the two women who loved him exceedingly uncomfortable, he looked hopefully forward to the time when he should be happy without either.

CHAPTER III.

IN WHICH MR. DUMPHY TAKES A HOLIDAY

It was a hot day on the California coast. In the memory of the oldest American inhabitant its like had not been experienced, and although the testimony of the Spanish Californian was deemed untrustworthy where the interests of the American people were concerned, the statement that for sixty years there had been no such weather was accepted without question. The additional fact, vouchsafed by Don Pedro Peralta, that the great earthquake which shook down the walls of the Mission of San Juan Bautista had been preceded by a week of such abnormal meteorology, was promptly suppressed as being of a quality calculated to check immigration. Howbeit it was hot. The usual afternoon trade-winds had pretermitted their rapid, panting breath, and the whole coast lay, as it were, in the hush of death. The evening fogs that always had lapped the wind-abraded surfaces of the bleak seaward hills were gone too; the vast Pacific lay still and glassy, glittering, but intolerable. The outlying sand dunes, unmitigated by any breath of air, blistered the feet and faces of chance pedestrians. For once the broad verandahs, piazzas, and balconies of San Francisco cottage architecture were consistent and serviceable. People lingered upon them in shirt-sleeves, with all the exaggeration of a novel experience. French windows, that had always been barred against the fierce afternoon winds, were suddenly thrown open; that brisk, energetic step, with which the average San Franciscan hurried to business or pleasure, was changed to an idle, purposeless lounge. The saloons were crowded with thirsty multitudes, the quays and wharves with a people who had never before appreciated the tonic of salt air; the avenues leading over the burning sand-hills to the ocean all day were thronged with vehicles. The numerous streets and by-ways, abandoned by their great scavenger, the wind, were foul and ill-smelling. For twenty-four hours business was partly forgotten; as the heat continued and the wind withheld its customary tribute, there were some changes in the opinions and beliefs of the people; doubts were even expressed of the efficacy of the climate; a few heresies were uttered regarding business and social creeds, and Mr. Dumphy and certain other financial magnates felt vaguely that if the thermometer continued to advance the rates of interest must fall correspondingly.

Equal to even this emergency, Mr. Dumphy had sat in his office all the morning, resisting with the full strength of his aggressive nature any disposition on the part of his his customers to succumb financially to the unusual weather. Mr. Dumphy's shirt-collar was off; with it seemed to have departed some of his respectability, and he was perhaps, on the whole, a trifle less imposing than he had been. Nevertheless, he was still dominant, in the suggestion of his short bull neck, and two visitors who entered, observing the déshabillé of this great man, felt that it was the proper thing for them to instantly unbutton their own waistcoats and loosen their cravats.

"It's hot," said Mr. Pilcher, an eminent contractor.

"You bet!" responded Mr. Dumphy. "Must be awful on the Atlantic coast! People dying by hundreds of sun-stroke; that's the style out there. Here there's nothing of the kind! A man stands things here that he couldn't there."

Having thus re-established the supremacy of the California climate, Mr. Dumphy came directly to business. "Bad news from One Horse Gulch!" he said, quickly.

As that was the subject his visitors came to speak about – a fact of which Mr. Dumphy was fully aware – he added, sharply, "What do you propose?"

Mr. Pilcher, who was a large stockholder in the Conroy mine, responded, hesitatingly, "We've heard that the lead opens badly."

"D – n bad!" interrupted Dumphy. "What do you propose?"

"I suppose," continued Mr. Pilcher, "the only thing to do is to get out of it before the news becomes known."

"No!" said Dumphy, promptly. The two men stared at each other. "No!" he continued, with a quick, short laugh, which was more like a logical expression than a mirthful emotion. "No, we must hold on, sir! Look yer! there's a dozen men as you and me know, that we could unload to to-morrow. Suppose we did? Well, what happens? They go in on four hundred thousand – that's about the figures we represent. Well. They begin to examine and look around; them men, Pilcher" – (in Mr. Dumphy's more inspired moods he rose above considerations of the English grammar) – "them men want to know what that four hundred thousand's invested in; they ain't goin' to take our word after we've got their money – that's human nature – and in twenty-four hours they find they're sold! That don't look well for me nor you – does it?"

There was not the least assumption of superior honour or integrity – indeed, scarcely any self-consciousness or sentiment of any kind, implied in this speech – yet it instantly affected both of these sharp business men, who might have been suspicious of sentiment, with an impression of being both honourable and manly. Mr. Pilcher's companion, Mr. Wyck, added a slight embarrassment to his reception of these great truths, which Mr. Dumphy noticed.

"No," he went on; "what we must do is this. Increase the capital stock just as much again. That will enable us to keep everything in our hands – news and all – and if it should leak out afterwards, we have half a dozen others with us to keep the secret. Six months hence will be time to talk of selling; just now buying is the thing! You don't believe it? – eh? Well, Wyck, I'll take yours at the figure you paid. What do you say? – quick!"

Mr. Wyck, more confused than appeared necessary, declared his intention of holding on; Mr. Pilcher laughed, Mr. Dumphy barked behind his hand.

"That offer's open for ninety days – will you take it? No! Well, then, that's all!" and Mr. Dumphy turned again to his desk. Mr. Pilcher took the hint, and drew Mr. Wyck away.

"Devilish smart chap, that Dumphy!" said Pilcher, as they passed out of the door.

"An honest man, by – !" responded Wyck.

When they had gone Mr. Dumphy rang his bell. "Ask Mr. Jaynes to come and see me at once. D – n it, go now! You must get there before Wyck does. Run!"

The clerk disappeared. In a few moments Mr. Jaynes, a sharp but very youthful looking broker, entered the office parlour. "Mr. Wyck will want to buy back that stock he put in your hands this morning, Jaynes. I thought I'd tell you, it's worth 50 advance now!"

The precocious youth grinned intelligently and departed. By noon of that day it was whispered that notwithstanding the rumours of unfavourable news from the Conroy mine, one of the heaviest stockholders had actually bought back, at an advance of $50 per share, some stock he had previously sold. More than that, it was believed that Mr. Dumphy had taken advantage of these reports, and was secretly buying. In spite of the weather, for some few hours there had been the greatest excitement.

Possibly from some complacency arising from this, possibly from some singular relaxing in the atmosphere, Mr. Dumphy at two o'clock shook off the cares of business and abandoned himself to recreation – refusing even to take cognisance of the card of one Colonel Starbottle, which was sent to him with a request for an audience. At half-past two he was behind a pair of fast horses, one of a carriage-load of ladies and gentlemen, rolling over the scorching sand-hills towards the Pacific, that lay calm and cool beyond. As the well-appointed equipage rattled up the Bush Street Hill, many an eye was turned with envy and admiration toward it. The spectacle of two pretty women among the passengers was perhaps one reason; the fact that everybody recognised in the showy and brilliant driver the celebrated Mr. Rollingstone, an able financier and rival of Mr. Dumphy's, was perhaps equally potent. For Mr. Rollingstone was noted for his "turnout," as well as for a certain impulsive South Sea extravagance and picturesque hospitality which Dumphy envied and at times badly imitated. Indeed, the present excursion was one of Mr. Rollingstone's famous fetes champetres, and the present company was composed of the élite of San Francisco, and made self-complacent and appreciative by an enthusiastic Eastern tourist.

Their way lay over shifting sand dunes, now motionless and glittering in the cruel, white glare of a California sky, only relieved here and there by glimpses of the blue bay beyond, and odd marine-looking buildings, like shells scattered along the beach, as if they had been cast up and forgotten by some heavy tide. Farther on, their road skirted the base of a huge solitary hill, broken in outline by an outcrop of gravestones, sacred to the memory of worthy pioneers who had sealed their devotion to the "healthiest climate in the world" with their lives. Occasionally these gravestones continued to the foot of the hill, where, struggling with the drifting sand, they suggested a half-exhumed Pompeii to the passing traveller. They were the skeletons at the feast of every San Francisco pleasure-seeker, the memento mori of every picnicing party, and were visible even from the broad verandahs of the suburban pavilions, where the gay and thoughtless citizen ate, drank, and was merry. Part of the way the busy avenue was parallel with another, up which, even at such times, occasionally crept the lugubrious procession of hearse and mourning coach to other pavilions, scarcely less crowded, where there were "funeral baked meats," and sorrow and tears. And beyond this again was the grey eternal sea, and at its edge, perched upon a rock, and rising out of the very jaws of the gushing breakers, a stately pleasure dome, decreed by some speculative and enterprising San Francisco landlord – the excuse and terminus of this popular excursion.

Here Rollingstone drew up, and, alighting, led his party into a bright, cheery room, whose windows gave upon the sea. A few other guests, evidently awaiting them, were mitigating their impatience by watching the uncouth gambols of the huge sea-lions, who, on the rocks beyond, offered a contrast to the engaging and comfortable interior that was at once pleasant and exciting. In the centre of the room a table overloaded with overgrown fruits and grossly large roses somewhat ostentatiously proclaimed the coming feast!

"Here we are!" said Mr. Dumphy, bustling into the room with that brisk, business-like manner which his friends fondly believed was frank cheerfulness, "and on time, too!" he added, drawing out his watch. "Inside of thirty minutes – how's that, eh?" He clapped his nearest neighbour on the back, who, pleased with this familiarity from a man worth five or six millions, did not stop to consider the value of this celerity of motion in a pleasure excursion on a hot day.

"Well!" said Rollingstone, looking around him, "you all know each other, I reckon, or will soon. Mr. Dumphy, Mr. Poinsett, Mr. Pilcher, Mr. Dyce, Mr. Wyck, Mrs. Sepulvida and Miss Rosey Ringround, gentlemen; Mr. and Mrs. Raynor, of Boston. There, now, that's through! Dinner's ready. Sit down anywhere and wade in. No formality, gentlemen – this is California."

There was, perhaps, some advantage in this absence of ceremony. The guests almost involuntarily seated themselves according to their preferences, and Arthur Poinsett found himself beside Mrs. Sepulvida, while Mr. Dumphy placed Miss Ringround – a pretty though boyish-looking blonde, slangy in speech and fashionable in attire – on his right hand.

The dinner was lavish and luxurious, lacking nothing but restraint and delicacy. There was game in profusion, fat but flavourless. The fruits were characteristic. The enormous peaches were blowsy in colour and robust in fibre; the pears were prodigious and dropsical, and looked as if they wanted to be tapped; the strawberries were overgrown and yet immature – rather as if they had been arrested on their way to become pine-apples; with the exception of the grapes, which were delicate in colour and texture, the fruit might have been an ironical honouring by nature of Mr. Dumphy's lavish drafts.

It is probable, however, that the irony was lost on the majority of the company, who were inclined to echo the extravagant praise of Mr. Raynor, the tourist. "Wonderful! wonderful!" said that gentleman; "if I had not seen this I wouldn't have believed it. Why, that pear would make four of ours."

"That's the way we do things here," returned Dumphy, with the suggestion of being personally responsible for these abnormal growths. He stopped suddenly, for he caught Arthur Poinsett's eye. Mr. Dumphy ate little in public, but he was at that moment tearing the wing of a grouse with his teeth, and there was something so peculiar and characteristic in the manner that Arthur looked up with a sudden recollection in his glance. Dumphy put down the wing, and Poinsett resume his conversation with Mrs. Sepulvida. It was not of a quality that interruption seriously impaired; Mrs. Sepulvida was a charming but not an intellectual woman, and Mr. Poinsett took up the lost thread of his discourse quite as readily from her eyes as her tongue.

"To have been consistent, Nature should have left a race of giants here," said Mr. Poinsett, meditatively. "I believe," he added, more pointedly, and in a lower voice, "the late Don José was not a large man."

"Whatever he was, he thought a great deal of me!" pouted Mrs. Sepulvida.

Mr. Poinsett was hastening to say that if "taking thought" like that could add a "cubit to one's stature," he himself was in a fair way to become a son of Anak, when he was interrupted by Miss Rosey —

"What's all that about big men? There are none here. They're like the big trees. They don't hang around the coast much! You must go to the mountains for your Goliahs."

Emboldened quite as much by the evident annoyance of her neighbour as the amused look of Arthur Poinsett, she went on —

"I have seen the pre-historic man! – the original athletic sharp! He is seven feet high, is as heavy as a sea-lion, and has shoulders like Tom Hyer. He slings an awful left. He's got blue eyes as tender as a seal's. He has hair like Samson before that woman went back on him. He's as brave as a lion and as gentle as a lamb. He blushes like a girl, or as girls used to; I wish I could start up such a colour on even double the provocation!"

Of course everybody laughed – it was the usual tribute of Miss Rosey's speech – the gentlemen frankly and fairly, the ladies perhaps a little doubtfully and fearfully. Mrs. Sepulvida, following the amused eyes of Arthur, asked Miss Rosey patronisingly where she had seen her phenomenon.