Tales of Trail and Town - Bret Harte (best short novels of all time .TXT) 📗

the matter of reserve and all that sort of thing, you know. It’s odd,—isn’t it? Is your sister like you?”

“You shall judge for yourself,” said Peter with a gayety that was forced in proportion as his forebodings became more gloomy. Would his sister’s peculiarities—even her secret—be safe from the clear eyes of the young girl?

“I know I shall like her,” said Lady Elfrida, simply. “I mean to make friends with her before we leave, and I hope to see a great deal of her; and,” she said with a naive non sequitur, that, however, had its painful significance to Peter, “I do want you to show me some Indians—your Indians, you know YOUR friends. I’ve seen some of them, of course; I am afraid I am a little prejudiced, for I did not like them. You see my taste has to be educated, I suppose; but I thought them so foolishly vain and presuming.”

“That is their perfect childishness,” said Peter quickly. “It is not, I believe, considered a moral defect,” he added bitterly.

Lady Elfrida laughed, and yet at the same moment a look of appeal that was in itself quite as childlike shone in her blue eyes. “There, I have blundered again, I know; but I told you I have such ridiculous prejudices! And I really want to like them as you do. Only,” she laughed again, “it seems strange that YOU, of all men, should have interested yourself in people so totally different to you. But what will be the result if your efforts are successful? Will they remain a distinct race? Will you make citizens, soldiers, congressmen, governors of them? Will they intermarry with the whites? Is that a part of your plan? I hope not!”

It was a part of Peter’s sensitive excitement that even through the unconscious irony of this speech he was noticing the difference between the young English girl’s evident interest in a political problem and the utter indifference of his own countrywomen. Here was a girl scarcely out of her teens, with no pretension to being a blue stocking, with half the aplomb of an American girl of her own age, gravely considering a question of political economy. Oddly enough, it added to his other irritation, and he said almost abruptly, “Why not?”

She took the question literally and with a little youthful timidity. “But these mixed races never attain to anything, do they? I thought that was understood. But,” she added with feminine quickness, “and I suppose it’s again only a PERSONAL argument, YOU wouldn’t like your sister to have married an Indian, would you?”

The irony of the situation had reached its climax to Peter. It didn’t seem to be his voice that said, “I can answer by an argument still more personal. I have even thought myself of marrying an Indian woman.”

It seemed to him that what he said was irrevocable, but he was desperate. It seemed to him that in a moment more he would have told her his whole secret. But the young girl drew back from him with a slight start of surprise. There may have been something in the tone of his voice and in his manner that verged upon a seriousness she was never contemplating in her random talk; it may have been an uneasiness of some youthful imprudence in pressing the subject upon a man of his superiority, and that his abrupt climax was a rebuke. But it was only for a moment; her youthful buoyancy, and, above all, a certain common sense that was not incompatible to her high nature, came to her rescue. “But that,” she said with quick mischievousness, “would be a SACRIFICE taken in the interest of these people, don’t you see; and being a sacrifice, it’s no argument.”

Peter saw his mistake, but there was something so innocent and delightful in the youthful triumph of this red-lipped logician, that he was forced to smile. I have said that his smile was rare and fascinating, a concession wrung from his dark face and calm beardless lips that most people found irresistible, but it was odd, nevertheless, that Lady Elfrida now for the first time felt a sudden and not altogether unpleasant embarrassment over the very subject she had approached with such innocent fearlessness. There was a new light in her eyes, a fresher color in her cheeks as she turned her face—she knew not why—away from him. But it enabled her to see a figure approaching them from the fort. And I grieve to say that, perhaps for the first time in her life, Lady Elfrida was guilty of an affected start.

“Oh, here’s Reggy coming to look for me. I’d quite forgotten, but I’m so glad. I want you to know my brother Reggy. He was always so sorry he missed you at the Grange.”

The tall, young, good-looking brown Englishman who had sauntered up bestowed a far more critical glance upon Peter’s horse than upon Peter, but nevertheless grasped his hand heartily as his sister introduced him. Perhaps both men were equally undemonstrative, although the reserve of one was from temperament and the other from education. Nevertheless Lord Reginald remarked, with a laugh, that it was awfully jolly to be there, and that it had been a beastly shame that he was in Scotland when Atherly was at the Grange. That none of them had ever suspected till they came to the fort that he, Atherly, was one of those government chappies, and so awfully keen on Indian politics. “Friddy” had been the first to find it out, but they thought she was chaffing. At which “Friddy,” who had suddenly resolved herself into the youthfulest of schoolgirls in the presence of her brother, put her parasol like an Indian club behind her back, and still rosy, beamed admiringly upon Reggy. Then the three, Peter leading his horse, moved on towards the fort, presently meeting “Georgy,” the six-foot Guardsman cousin in extraordinary tweeds and flannel shirt; Lord Runnybroke, uncle of Friddy, middle-aged and flannel-shirted, a mighty hunter; Lady Runnybroke, in a brown duster, but with a stately head that suggested ostrich feathers; Moyler-Spence, M. P., with an eyeglass, and the Hon. Evelyn Kayne, closely attended by the always gallant Lieutenant Forsyth. Peter began to feel a nervous longing to be alone on the burning plain and the empty horizon beyond them, until he could readjust himself to these new conditions, and glanced half-wearily around him. But his eye met Friddy’s, who seemed to have evoked this gathering with a wave of her parasol, like the fairy of a pantomime, and he walked on in silence.

A day or two of unexpected pleasure passed for Peter. In these new surroundings he found he could separate Lady Elfrida from his miserable past, and the conventional restraint of Ashley Grange. Again, the revelation of her familiar name Friddy seemed to make her more accessible and human to him than her formal title, and suited the girlish simplicity that lay at the foundation of her character, of which he had seen so little before. At least so he fancied, and so excused himself; it was delightful to find her referring to him as an older friend; pleasant, indeed, to see that her family tacitly recognized it, and frequently appealed to him with the introduction, “Friddy says you can tell us,” or “You and Friddy had better arrange it between you.” Even the dreaded introduction of his sister was an agreeable surprise, owing to Lady Elfrida’s frank and sympathetic prepossession, which Jenny could not resist. In a few moments they were walking together in serious and apparently confidential conversation. For to Peter’s wonder it was the “Lady Elfrida” side of the English girl’s nature that seemed to have attracted Jenny, and not the playfulness of “Friddy,” and he was delighted to see that the young girl had assumed a grave chaperonship of the tall Mrs. Lascelles that would have done credit to Mrs. Carter or Lady Runnybroke. Had he been less serious he might have been amused, too, at the importance of his own position in the military outpost, through the arrival of the strangers. That this grave political enthusiast and civilian should be on familiar terms with a young Englishwoman of rank was at first inconceivable to the officers. And that he had never alluded to it before seemed to them still more remarkable.

Nevertheless, there was much liveliness and good fellowship at the fort. Captains and lieutenants down to the youngest “cub,” Forsyth, vied with each other to please the Englishmen, supplied them with that characteristic American humor and anecdote which it is an Englishman’s privilege to bring away with him, and were picturesquely and chivalrously devoted in their attentions to the ladies, who were pleased and amused by it, though it is to be doubted if it increased their respect for the giver, although they were more grateful for it than the average American woman. Lady Elfrida found the officers very entertaining and gallant. Accustomed to the English officer, and his somewhat bored way of treating his profession and his duties, she may have been amused at the zeal, earnestness, and enthusiasm of these youthful warriors, who aspired to appear as nothing but soldiers, when she contrasted them with her Guardsmen relatives who aspired to be everything else but that; but she kept it to herself. It was a recognized, respectable, and even superior occupation for gentlemen in England; what it might be in America,—who knows? She certainly found Peter, the civilian, more attractive, for there really was nothing English to compare him with, and she had something of the same feeling in her friendship for Jenny, except the patronage which Jenny seemed to solicit, and perhaps require, as a foreigner.

One afternoon the English guests, accompanied by a few of their hosts and a small escort, were making a shooting expedition to the vicinity of Green Spring, when Peter, plunged in his report, looked up to find his sister entering his office. Her face was pale, and there was something in her expression which reawakened his old anxiety. Nevertheless he smiled, and said gently:—

“Why are you not enjoying yourself with the others?”

“I have a headache,” she said, languidly, “but,” lifting her eyes suddenly to his, “why are YOU not? You are their good friend, you know,—even their relation.”

“No more than you are,” he returned, with affected gayety. “But look at the report—it is only half finished! I have already been shirking it for them.”

“You mustn’t let your devotion to the Indians keep you from your older friends,” said Mrs. Lascelles, with an odd laugh. “But you never told me about these people before, Peter; tell me now. They were very kind to you, weren’t they, on account of your relationship?”

“Entirely on account of that,” said Peter, with a sudden bitterness he could not repress. “But they are very pleasant,” he added quickly, “and very simple and unaffected, in spite of their rank; perhaps I ought to say, BECAUSE of it.”

“You mean they are kind to us because they feel themselves superior,—just as you are kind to the Indians, Peter.”

“I am afraid they have no such sense of political equality towards us, Jenny, as impels me to be just to the Indian,” he said with affected lightness. “But Lady Elfrida sympathizes with the Indians—very much.”

“She!” The emphasis which his sister put upon the personal pronoun was unmistakable, but Peter ignored it, and so apparently did she, as she said the next moment in a different voice, “She’s very pretty, don’t you think?”

“Very,” said Peter coldly.

There was a long pause. Peter slightly fingered one of the sheets of his delayed report on his desk. His sister looked up. “I’m afraid I’m as bad as Lady Elfrida in keeping you from your Indians; but I had something to say to you. No matter, another time will do when