Evelyn Raymond

“ Else I would have called that policeman yonder, just as Mr. Hale and my Cousin Margaret always bade me do if I was in trouble. We’ll just walk right straight along, with our heads high up as if we weren’t afraid and didn’t care at all, and after a while we’ll get somewhere!”
“O Jessica, you darling! You’re just the nicest ever. You give me lots of courage. Yes, we’ll do that. Stop crying, Natalie. Come on.” ”

“ We have not come together because we are, or ever will be, fond of one another; but because we are both Waldrons and the time is fitting.
“Ah! must you leave us, Mr. Hale? Beg pardon for not—not having attended more to you than to the child there; and thank you for your safe escort of her. I shall write my cousin Gabriella at once and inform her that Jessica has arrived. Good morning.”
Mr. Hale bowed himself out, feeling almost as if he were deserting his traveling companion to a most unhappy fate. For a girl like “Lady Jess” to be housed with Madam Dalrymple seemed a bitter thing. ”

“ Can you love me a little, tiny bit? That’s all I want in this world to be loved; or what’s better, be let to love other people just as much as I wish. You are so beautiful, so clever, I’ve just longed to love you, only—only—Say, Helen, that you can and will now.”
The senior’s answer was to clasp the convalescent in such a close embrace as satisfied forever Jessica’s longing in that question.
“Love you, ‘Little Captain’? Oh! with all my heart [201] and soul; and to try to be somewhat like you is now my dearest ambition. Kiss me, Jessie, kiss me once.” ”

“ Across the narrow roadway was, also, the railway station. Between the whistling of engines, the rumbling of trains, it proved a most confusing spot for plain-reared Buster, and while Ephraim entered the store to make his gardening purchases, the broncho did his utmost to stand on his head or his hind heels, and in either direction to cast his rider to the ground.
In vain. The girl had been saddle-bred from her very infancy and wholly understood the vagaries of this four-footed friend.
“Now, boy, behave yourself. I’ll neither slip over your nose nor your tail. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? ”

“ The hunchback was not injured, she didn’t need a carriage, but if these wild Westerners fancied that she did and were able to pay for it, that was their business.
When the summoned hack drew up to the curbstone, whither the two girls had retreated when the crowd dispersed, the flower-seller’s pale face really glowed almost as pink as Jessica’s own, and her ill-shod feet danced on the stones, as she cried:
“Oh! it’s true, it’s true! What’ll they say when they see me? Oh! my soul and body! Oh! my!” ”

“ Not quite so fine as Sobrante but far finer than any the sharpshooter could hire at the ordinary livery-stable; and when received his own delight was as great as Jessica’s had been. He had been sorely perplexed between his longing for the animal and his sense of right. He hated debt, as had all his old employer’s household. He must save to pay expenses during his life in New York, while his little lady was achieving that education she desired, and for his trip home again when that education was accomplished. ”

“ Then a silver bell struck the school hour and each girl filed to her place at her own individual desk in her own form class-room.
This was Jessica’s first glimpse of a time-regulated household, and she was so absorbed in watching the others that she scarcely realized she had been left behind, alone, till a pleasant-faced teacher addressed her:
“Miss Jessica, you are to be my ‘special’ for the present. I am Miss Montaigne. This way, please. We are to have a cosy little spot quite to ourselves, for a time.” ”

“ Then came Natalie with the message that:
“Madame wants Jessica in her own private room at once. She’s afraid to trust her with us, I suppose, and I think it’s real mean to snatch her away the very minute she gets home.”
“Ah; it does seem like home, really, to be among you all again. Only what’s been done to the rooms? They are so beautiful, and what a lovely, lovely world it is, to-day! Seems if there were so many places to be happy in, so many one can call a sort of home—This, the hospital, Ephy’s flat, and precious Sobrante. ”

“ Jessica was no longer abashed nor self-conscious. All her heart was in the scene that ensued, when Madame followed that eloquent appeal with her own subscription of five thousand. She was well-known as a fairly rich woman and, in proportion to her means, for an extremely liberal one. Therefore, nobody except the “heroine” herself was greatly surprised by her action: but there were others in that rose-adorned hall who loved Madame and had been trained by her. ”

“ By the end of the second day out Jessica and the baby, which she carried everywhere, had become the life of the train; “going visiting” in one car after another, making friends in each, and feeling almost as if they were always to journey thus amid these now familiar faces. ”

“ It so chanced that for the first time in her life the little Californian fell ill of a slight cold, which Madam instantly magnified into something dreadful; suggesting diphtheria, and other dire diseases, to the portly physician who came in his carriage and looked the small maid over.
“Nothing in the world but a mere cold, dear Madam. There’s not the least cause for anxiety. Keep her indoors for a time and she’ll be all right.” ”

“ Left at the Adelphi Jessica felt once more forsaken. As soon as they had reached her own private sitting-room, Madame Mearsom made each pupil tell her story, that by this triple repetition she might arrive at the exact truth. When they had finished, she said:
“Aubrey, you are the one most at fault. You will retire to your room where supper will be sent you. You will be put in ‘solitude’ for a week and you will not go out of doors, except to take your exercise in the garden, during the same length of time. ”

“ The child had lived in the sunshine, materially and spiritually, and the gloom of that old mansion in Washington Square had been oppressive even to him and during such a brief stay. And for the first time since he had discovered “Forty-niner” a runaway on the train he was thankful for his presence.
“There’s a trio of stubborn wills shut up in that dark house, this minute, for even Miss Jessie has a will of her own; as for those of the Madam and Ephraim, should they happen to clash, I wonder which would conquer! ”

“ She went even further. She sent Sophy to the Square with the twenty-five dollars in crisp new bills, carefully folded within that cheap scrap of letter paper, whereon she had inscribed her “duty” and her thanks, along with the statement that as no injury had been done no payment was necessary. The frock bestowed upon her grandchild she could not return. That had already been assumed and worn to bed—lest by some mischance it should disappear—a vision too beautiful to be real.
In vain Ephraim argued, scolded, entreated. ”

“ Do us credit,” whispers Miss Montaigne, as the fateful moment arrives and the girl steps forward to repeat the speech she has so carefully memorised. She is a “dream of beauty,” as Madam Dalrymple has declared. Her movements are graceful and easy. She wears her exquisite graduation gown as unconsciously as if it were her ordinary school frock, and that Madame has, also, said is to be a mark of gentlehood. “Such people are clothed—they never wear their clothes.”
Jessica bows, very prettily, very low. ”

“ Say, Jessica, if I should go back to that place some other day would you ride round and let your horse knock me down again, so’s I could come home in another carriage? Would you?”
“No, I would not! But—but if you care so much about it and will put on a whole frock and come to Washington Square I’ll ask my Cousin Margaret Dalrymple to take you with us in hers. But I guess I won’t get out. I—I’d rather not. She might not like it;” answered Jessie, more in answer to a warning nod from Ephraim who had now come up to them than from any reluctance of her own. ”

“ Barnes says nobody knows what ‘my lady’ endures, some of those ‘privacy’ times, when she’s shut up in her bedroom and never lets on. Then, when she gets a little better, on she puts her prettiest gown and down she comes smiling and sits at table as easy as if she had never ached at all. I think that’s fine, Ephy. I think that’s the best part of being a ‘Waldron,’ or any other high-up person, that one is too proud ever to ‘let on’ and make other folks unhappy. There’s so many ways of testing a gentleperson; like Cousin Margaret offering a stranger caller a rocking chair. ”

“ Fire the whole mess of trash into the garbage box, Sophia, and let the poor ash-man get the benefit of ’em. We don’t need no New York truck on our ranch, Sophia. We’re going home to Sobrante.’
“The dear old fellow is as happy as a child; but, mother darling, there’s a lump in my throat every time I hear him say that sweet word ‘home.’ He is going. He must hold out till he gets there and maybe, oh! maybe, the ‘superfine air of Californy, where folks live to be a hundred and fifteen years old, some of ’em,’ may put that new life into his veins that he anticipates. ”

“ Aubrey is a dear child; as warm-hearted and lovable as one could desire; and in time—in good time—she will develop into a charming woman. Only be on the watch while with her lest her ‘fun’ should lead you into mistakes. For Natalie, I may say the same, except that Natalie is a follower as naturally as Aubrey is a leader. One afternoon has made you close friends with two of your mates—a mutual ‘scrape’ seems to be a certain bond between girls—and before long you will know them all. The same sorts of persons you will meet, by and by, in the world at large. ”

“ The special or private car, also the “Sobrante,” is slowly approaching the terminal of the railway—the Sobrante mines. It is also an observation car and its open spaces are crowded with such eager people as never before journeyed over that route. Old faces, young faces, but never a sad nor lonely face among them; and happiest of all is Jessica Trent’s.
With trembling lips she questions Ninian Sharp as she has used to do in the days before she was a “young lady” ”

“ Jessica Trent, you may be going to be ‘one of the richest’ sometime, but at present you are a simpleton. You’ve got everything before you—not a thing behind, except—Well, except knowing how to ride a horse or an ostrich, or hit a bull’s-eye, or a few other things that Madame Mearsom would surely say were ‘unbefitting a gentlewoman.’ I used to love that word, hearing my mother use it. I begin—I begin to hate it! Humph! There goes, already! A gentlewoman doesn’t say ‘hate.’ But listen, you girl in the glass. ”

“ Another bit for your memory book: a single engine is run but a comparatively short part of our long journey. Coming to California, I learned that we had changed engines just fourteen times. Those, yonder, are the tourist-cars; less luxurious than the Pullman we travel in and cheaper. For the benefit of the many who cannot afford first-class. By the way, it would be a nice plan to enter the last end of the train and make our way forward, from car to car, till we reach our own seats in the ‘Arizona’—as our sleeper is called. ”

“ But you happen to be living in civilization now and must be clothed in accordance with its demands.”
Jessica laughed. It always amused her to hear dear Sobrante spoken of as “that wilderness,” when her own memory of it was so delightful. And it was a little strange, had either of these two thought about it, that so old a person as Madam should fall into the habit of consulting so young an one as “Little Captain.” But the lady had lived so long alone with servants only that it was a relief to discuss affairs with a real “gentlewoman” and a Waldron, even a girlish one. ”

“ So Ephy comes upstairs and sleeps on a cot outside the door. I was never afraid in all my life before, but I am here. Everything is so big and dark and heavy. I feel as if I were carrying mountains on my chest, and I’d give—Oh! what wouldn’t I give to jump on Buster’s bare back and scamper up the canyon as fast as he could go! Cousin Margaret was nice about Buster, too. She says it is quite a distinction to have a real Californian with her caballero and broncho to ride alongside her carriage when she goes out driving in the Park. ”

“ She is as happy as Sophy and as proud, but far more weighed down with the cares of life. ‘What will I do with this here painted plate, what Miss Montaigne first et Indian puddin’ off?’ ‘Them granite pots ’t Ephraim Marsh bought, and don’t need scourin’ all the time, I certain can’t leave them behind to be thrown into a rubbish heap!’ Ephraim sits and chuckles and says that he too, ‘at last, is on the road to freedom. Sophia Badger that was has badgered the life out of him ’cause he’s so forgetful and will eat stuff no man of his age ought to, though it’s never hurt him a mite. ”