Book: A Ward of the Golden Gate

B >> Bret Harte >> A Ward of the Golden Gate




"Oh, perfectly," chimed in the loyal but somewhat infelix Milly,
"and it was so kind and thoughtful of Mr. Hathaway to take them
away as he did."

"I felt the more embarrassed," continued Hathaway, smiling, but
still critically examining Yerba for an indication of something
characteristic, beyond this palpable conventionality, "as I
unfortunately must present my credentials from a gentleman as much
of a stranger as myself--Colonel Pendleton."

The trade-wind was evidently making itself felt even in this
pastoral retreat, for the two gentlemen appeared to shrink slightly
within themselves, and a chill seemed to have passed over the
group. The Mayor coughed. The avuncular Woods gazed abstractedly
at a large cactus. Even Paul, prepared by previous experience,
stopped short.

"Colonel Pendleton! Oh, do tell me all about him!" flashed out
Yerba, suddenly, with clasped hands and eager girlish breath.

Paul cast a quick grateful glance at the girl. Whether assumed or
not, her enthusiastic outburst was effective. The Mayor looked
uneasily at Woods, and turned to Paul.

"Ah, yes! You and he are original co-trustees. I believe
Pendleton is in reduced circumstances. Never quite got over that
bank trouble."

"That is only a question of legislative investigation and relief,"
said Paul lightly, yet with purposely vague official mystery of
manner. Then, turning quickly to Yerba, as if replying to the only
real question at issue, he continued pointedly, "I am sorry to say
the colonel's health is so poor that it keeps him quite a recluse.
I have a letter from him and a message for you." His bright eyes
added plainly--"as soon as we can get rid of those people."

"Then you think that a bill"--began the Mayor, eagerly.

"I think, my dear sir," said Paul plaintively, "that I and my
friends have already tried the patience of these two young ladies
quite enough yesterday with politics and law-making. I have to
catch the six-o'clock train to San Francisco this evening, and have
already lost the time I hoped to spend with Miss Yerba by missing
her at the convent. Let me stroll on here, if you like, and if I
venture to monopolize the attention of this young lady for half an
hour, you, my dear Mr. Mayor, who have more frequent access to her,
I know, will not begrudge it to me."

He placed himself beside Yerba and Milly, and began an
entertaining, although, I fear, slightly exaggerated, account of
his reception by the Lady Superior, and her evident doubts of his
identity with the trustee mentioned in Pendleton's letter of
introduction. "I confess she frightened me," he continued, "when
she remarked that, according to my statement, I could have been
only eighteen years old when I became your guardian, and as much in
want of one as you were. I think that only her belief that Mr.
Woods and the Mayor would detect me as an impostor provoked her at
last to tell me your whereabouts."

"But why DID they ever make you a trustee, for goodness' sake?"
said Milly, naively. "Was there no one grown up at that time that
they could have called upon?"

"Those were the EARLY days of California," responded Paul, with
great gravity, although he was conscious that Yerba was regarding
him narrowly, "and I probably looked older and more intelligent
than I really was. For, candidly," with the consciousness of
Yerba's eyes still upon him, "I remember very little about it. I
dare say I was selected, as you kindly suggest, 'for goodness'
sake.'"

"After all," said the volatile Milly, who seemed inclined, as
chaperone, to direct the conversation, "there was something pretty
and romantic about it. You two poor young things taking care of
each other, for of course there were no women here in those days."

"Of course there WERE women here" interrupted Yerba, quickly, with
a half-meaning, half-interrogative glance at Paul that made him
instinctively uneasy. "You later comers"--to Milly--"always seem
to think that there was nothing here before you!" She paused, and
then added, with a naive mixture of reproach and coquetry that was
as charming as it was unexpected, "As to taking care of each other,
Mr. Hathaway very quickly got rid of me, I believe."

"But I left you in better hands, Miss Yerba; and let me thank you
now," he added in a lower tone, "for recognizing it as you did a
moment ago. I'm glad that you instinctively liked Colonel
Pendleton. Had you known him better, you would have seen how
truthful that instinct was. His chief fault in the eyes of our
worthy friends is that he reminds them of a great deal they can't
perpetuate and much they would like to forget." He checked himself
abruptly. "But here is your letter," he resumed, drawing Colonel
Pendleton's missive from his pocket, "perhaps you would like to
read it now, in case you have any message to return by me. Miss
Woods and I will excuse you."

They had reached the end of the rose-alley, where a summer-house
that was in itself a rose-bower partly disclosed itself. The other
gentlemen had lagged behind. "I will amuse MYSELF, and console
your other guardian, dear," said the vivacious Milly, with a rapid
exchange of glances with Yerba, "until this horrid business is
over. Besides," she added with cheerful vagueness, "after so long
a separation you must have a great deal to say to each other."

Paul smiled as she rustled away, and Yerba, entering the summer-
house, sat down and opened the letter. The young man remained
leaning against the rustic archway, occasionally glancing at her
and at the moving figures in the gardens. He was conscious of an
odd excitement which he could trace to no particular cause. It was
true that he had been annoyed at not finding the young girl at the
convent, and at having to justify himself to the Lady Superior for
what he conceived to be an act of gratuitous kindness; nor was he
blind to the fact that his persistence in following her was more an
act of aggression against the enemies of Pendleton than of concern
for Yerba. She was certainly pretty, he could not remember her
mother sufficiently to trace any likeness, and he had never admired
the mother's pronounced beauty. She had flashed out for an instant
into what seemed originality and feeling. But it had passed, and
she had asked no further questions in regard to the colonel.

She had hurriedly skimmed through the letter, which seemed to be
composed of certain figures and accounts. "I suppose it's all
right," she said; "at least you can say so if he asks you. It's
only an explanation why he has transferred my money from the bank
to Rothschild's agent years ago. I don't see why it should
interest me NOW."

Paul made no doubt that it was the same transfer that had
shipwrecked the colonel's fortune and alienated his friends, and
could not help replying somewhat pointedly, "But I think it should,
Miss Yerba. I don't know what the colonel explained to you--
doubtless, not the whole truth, for he is not a man to praise
himself; but, the fact is, the bank was in difficulties at the time
of that transfer, and, to make it, he sacrificed his personal
fortune, and, I think, awakened some of that ill-feeling you have
just noticed." He checked himself too late: he had again lost not
only his tact and self-control, but had nearly betrayed himself.
He was surprised that the girl's justifiable ignorance should have
irritated him. Yet she had evidently not noticed, or misunderstood
it, for she said, with a certain precision that was almost
studied:--

"Yes, I suppose it would have been a terrible thing to him to have
been suspected of misappropriating a Trust confided to him by
parties who had already paid him the high compliment of confiding
to his care a secret and a fortune."

Paul glanced at her quickly with astonishment. Was this ignorance,
or suspicion? Her manner, however, suddenly changed, with the
charming capriciousness of youth and conscious beauty. "He speaks
of you in this letter," she said, letting her dark eyes rest on him
provokingly.

"That accounts for your lack of interest then," said Paul gayly,
relieved to turn a conversation fraught with so much danger.

"But he speaks very flatteringly," she went on. "He seems to be
another one of your admirers. I'm sure, Mr. Hathaway, after that
scene in the hotel parlor yesterday, YOU, at least, cannot complain
of having been misrepresented before ME. To tell you the truth, I
think I hated you a little for it."

"You were quite right," returned Paul. "I must have been
insufferable! And I admit that I was slightly piqued against YOU
for the idolatries showered upon you at the same moment by your
friends."

Usually, when two young people have reached the point of
confidingly exchanging their first impressions of each other, some
progress has been made in first acquaintance. But it did not
strike Paul in that way, and Yerba's next remark was discouraging.

"But I'm rather disappointed, for all that. Colonel Pendleton
tells me you know nothing of my family or of the secret."

Paul was this time quite prepared, and withstood the girl's
scrutiny calmly. "Do you think," he asked lightly, "that even HE
knows?"

"Of course he does," she returned quickly. "Do you suppose he
would have taken all that trouble you have just talked about if he
didn't know it? And feared the consequences, perhaps?" she added,
with a slight return of her previous expressive manner.

Again Paul was puzzled and irritated, he knew not why. But he only
said pleasantly, "I differ from you there. I am afraid that such a
thing as fear never entered into Colonel Pendleton's calculations
on any subject. I think he would act the same towards the highest
and the lowest, the powerful or the most weak." As she glanced at
him quickly and mischievously, he added, "I am quite willing to
believe that his knowledge of you made his duty pleasanter."

He was again quite sincere, and his slight sympathy had that
irresistible quality of tone and look which made him so dangerous.
For he was struck with the pretty, soothed self-complacency that
had shone in her face since he had spoken of Pendleton's equal
disinterestedness. It seemed, too, as if what he had taken for
passion or petulance in her manner had been only a resistance to
some continual aggression of condition. With that remainder held
in check, a certain latent nobility was apparent, as of her true
self. In this moment of pleased abstraction she had drawn through
the lattice-work of one of the windows a spray of roses clinging to
the vine, and with her graceful head a little on one side, was
softly caressing her cheek with it. She certainly was very pretty.
From the crown of her dark little head to the narrow rosetted
slippers that had been idly tapping the ground, but now seemed to
press it more proudly, with arched insteps and small ankles, she
was pleasant to look upon.

"But you surely have something else to think about, Miss Yerba?"
said the young man, with conviction. "In a few months you will be
of age, and rid of those dreadfully stupid guardians; with your"--

The loosened rose-spray flew from her hand out of the window as she
made a gesture, half real, half assumed, of imploring supplication.
"Oh, please, Mr. Hathaway, for Heaven's sake don't YOU begin too!
You are going to say that, with my wealth, my accomplishments, my
beauty, my friends, what more can I want? What do I care about a
secret that can neither add to them nor take them away? Yes, you
were! It's the regular thing to say--everybody says it. Why, I
should have thought 'the youngest senator' could afford to have
been more original."

"I plead guilty to ALL the weaknesses of humanity," said Paul,
warmly, again beginning to believe that he had been most unjust to
her independence.

"Well, I forgive you, because you have forgotten to say that, if I
don't like the name of Yerba Buena, I could SO easily change that
too."

"But you DO like it," said Paul, touched with this first hearing of
her name in her own musical accents, "or would like it if you heard
yourself pronounce it." It suddenly recurred to him, with a
strange thrill of pleasure, that he himself had given it to her.
It was as if he had created some musical instrument to which she
had just given voice. In his enthusiasm he had thrown himself on
the bench beside her in an attitude that, I fear, was not as
dignified as became his elderly office.

"But you don't think that is my NAME," said the girl, quickly.

"I beg your pardon?" said Paul, hesitatingly.

"You don't think that anybody would have been so utterly idiotic as
to call me after a ground-vine--a vegetable?" she continued
petulantly.

"Eh?" stammered Paul.

"A name that could be so easily translated," she went on, half
scornfully, "and when translated, was no possible title for
anybody? Think of it--Miss Good Herb! It is too ridiculous for
anything."

Paul was not usually wanting in self-possession in an emergency, or
in skill to meet attack. But he was so convinced of the truth of
the girl's accusation, and now recalled so vividly his own
consternation on hearing the result of his youthful and romantic
sponsorship for the first time from Pendleton, that he was struck
with confusion.

"But what do you suppose it was intended for?" he said at last,
vaguely. "It was certainly 'Yerba Buena' in the Trust. At least,
I suppose so," he corrected himself hurriedly.

"It is only a supposition," she said quietly, "for you know it
cannot be proved. The Trust was never recorded, and the only copy
could not be found among Mr. Hammersley's papers. It is only part
of the name, of which the first is lost."

"Part of the name?" repeated Paul, uneasily.

"Part of it. It is a corruption of de la Yerba Buena,--of the
Yerba Buena,--and refers to the island of Yerba Buena in the bay,
and not to the plant. That island was part of the property of my
family--the Arguellos--you will find it so recorded in the Spanish
grants. My name is Arguello de la Yerba Buena."

It is impossible to describe the timid yet triumphant, the half-
appealing yet complacent, conviction of the girl's utterance. A
moment before, Paul would have believed it impossible for him to
have kept his gravity and his respect for his companion under this
egregious illusion. But he kept both. For a sudden conviction
that she suspected the truth, and had taken this audacious and
original plan of crushing it, overpowered all other sense. The
Arguellos, it flashed upon him, were an old Spanish family, former
owners of Yerba Buena Island, who had in the last years become
extinct. There had been a story that one of them had eloped with
an American ship captain's wife at Monterey. The legendary history
of early Spanish California was filled with more remarkable
incidents, corroborated with little difficulty from Spanish
authorities, who, it was alleged, lent themselves readily to any
fabrication or forgery. There was no racial pride: on the
contrary, they had shown an eager alacrity to ally themselves with
their conquerors. The friends of the Arguellos would be proud to
recognize and remember in the American heiress the descendant of
their countrymen. All this passed rapidly through his mind after
the first moment of surprise; all this must have been the
deliberate reasoning of this girl of seventeen, whose dark eyes
were bent upon him. Whether she was seeking corroboration or
complicity he could not tell.

"Have you found this out yourself?" he asked, after a pause.

"Yes. One of my friends at the convent was Josita Castro; she knew
all the history of the Arguellos. She is perfectly satisfied."

For an instant Paul wondered if it was a joint conception of the
two schoolgirls. But, on reflection, he was persuaded that Yerba
would commit herself to no accomplice--of her own sex. She might
have dominated the girl, and would make her a firm partisan, while
the girl would be convinced of it herself, and believe herself a
free agent. He had had such experience with men himself.

"But why have you not spoken of it before--and to Colonel
Pendleton?"

"He did not choose to tell ME," said Yerba, with feminine
dexterity. "I have preferred to keep it myself a secret till I am
of age."

"When Colonel Pendleton and some of the other trustees have no
right to say anything," thought Paul quickly. She had evidently
trusted him. Yet, fascinated as he had been by her audacity, he
did not know whether to be pleased, or the reverse. He would have
preferred to be placed on an equal footing with Josita Castro. She
anticipated his thoughts by saying, with half-raised eyelids:--

"What do YOU think of it?"

"It seems to be so natural and obvious an explanation of the
mystery that I only wonder it was not thought of before," said
Paul, with that perfect sincerity that made his sympathy so
effective.

"You see,"--still under her pretty eyelids, and the tender promise
of a smile parting her little mouth,--"I'm believing that you tell
the truth when you say you don't know anything about it."

It was a desperate moment with Paul, but his sympathetic instincts,
and possibly his luck, triumphed. His momentary hesitation easily
simulated the caution of a conscientious man; his knit eyebrows and
bright eyes, lowered in an effort of memory, did the rest. "I
remember it all so indistinctly," he said, with literal
truthfulness; "there was a veiled lady present, tall and dark, to
whom Mayor Hammersley and the colonel showed a singular, and, it
struck me, as an almost superstitious, respect. I remember now,
distinctly, I was impressed with the reverential way they both
accompanied her to the door at the end of the interview." He
raised his eyes slightly; the young girl's red lips were parted;
that illumination of the skin, which was her nearest approach to
color, had quite transfigured her face. He felt, suddenly, that
she believed it, yet he had no sense of remorse. He half believed
it himself; at least, he remembered the nobility of the mother's
self-renunciation and its effect upon the two men. Why should not
the daughter preserve this truthful picture of her mother's
momentary exaltation? Which was the most truthful--that, or the
degrading facts? "You speak of a secret," he added. "I can
remember little more than that the Mayor asked me to forget from
that moment the whole occurrence. I did not know at the time how
completely I should fulfill his request. You must remember, Miss
Yerba, as your Lady Superior has, that I was absurdly young at the
time. I don't know but that I may have thought, in my youthful
inexperience, that this sort of thing was of common occurrence.
And then, I had my own future to make--and youth is brutally
selfish. I was quite friendless and unknown when I left San
Francisco for the mines, at the time you entered the convent as
Yerba Buena."

She smiled, and made a slight impulsive gesture, as if she would
have drawn nearer to him, but checked herself, still smiling, and
without embarrassment. It may have been a movement of youthful
camaraderie, and that occasional maternal rather than sisterly
instinct which sometimes influences a young girl's masculine
friendship, and elevates the favored friend to the plane of the
doll she has outgrown. As he turned towards her, however, she
rose, shook out her yellow dress, and said with pretty petulance:--

"Then you must go so soon--and this your first and last visit as my
guardian?"

"No one could regret that more than I," looking at her with
undefined meaning.

"Yes," she said, with a tantalizing coquetry that might have
suggested an underlying seriousness. "I think you HAVE lost a good
deal. Perhaps, so have I. We might have been good friends in all
these years. But that is past."

"Why? Surely, I hope, my shortcomings with Miss Yerba Buena will
not be remembered by Miss Arguello?" sail Paul, earnestly.

"Ah! SHE may be a very different person."

"I hope not," said the young man, warmly. "But HOW different?"

"Well, she may not put herself in the way of receiving such point-
blank compliments as that," said the young girl, demurely.

"Not from her guardian?"

"She will have no guardian then." She said this gravely, but
almost at the same moment turned and sat down again, throwing her
linked hands over her knee, and looked at him mischievously. "You
see what you have lost, sir."

"I see," said Paul, but with all the gravity that she had dropped.

"No; but you don't see all. I had no brother--no friend. You
might have been both. You might have made me what you liked. You
might have educated me far better than these teachers, or, at least
given me some pride in my studies. There were so many things I
wanted to know that they couldn't teach me; so many times I wanted
advice from some one that I could trust. Colonel Pendleton was
very good to me when he came; he always treated me like a princess
even when I wore short frocks. It was his manner that first made
me think he knew my family; but I never felt as if I could tell him
anything, and I don't think, with all his chivalrous respect, he
ever understood me. As to the others--the Mayors--well, you may
judge from Mr. Henderson. It is a wonder that I did not run away
or do something desperate. Now, are you not a LITTLE sorry?"

Her voice, which had as many capricious changes as her manner, had
been alternately coquettish, petulant, and serious, had now become
playful again. But, like the rest of her sex, she was evidently
more alert to her surroundings at such a moment than her companion,
for before he could make any reply, she said, without apparently
looking, "But there is a deputation coming for you, Mr. Hathaway.
You see, the case is hopeless. You never would be able to give to
one what is claimed by the many."

Paul glanced down the rose-alley, and saw that the deputation in
question was composed of the Mayor, Mr. Woods, a thin, delicate-
looking woman,--evidently Mrs. Woods,--and Milly. The latter
managed to reach the summer-house first, with apparently youthful
alacrity, but really to exchange, in a single glance, some
mysterious feminine signal with Yerba. Then she said with
breathless infelicity:--

"Before you two get bored with each other now, I must tell you
there's a chance of you having more time. Aunty has promised to
send off a note excusing you to the Reverend Mother, if she can
persuade Mr. Hathaway to stay over to-night. But here they are.
[To Yerba] Aunty is most anxious, and won't hear of his going."

Indeed, it seemed as if Mrs. Woods was, after a refined fashion,
most concerned that a distinguished visitor like Mr. Hathaway
should have to use her house as a mere accidental meeting-place
with his ward, without deigning to accept her hospitality. She was
reinforced by Mr. Woods, who enunciated the same idea with more
masculine vigor; and by the Mayor, who expressed his conviction
that a slight of this kind to Rosario would be felt in the Santa
Clara valley. "After dinner, my dear Hathaway," concluded Mr.
Woods, "a few of our neighbors may drop in, who would be glad to
shake you by the hand--no formal meeting, my boy--but, hang it!
THEY expect it."

Paul looked around for Yerba. There was really no reason why he
shouldn't accept, although an hour ago the idea had never entered
his mind. Yet, if he did, he would like the girl to know that it
was for HER sake. Unfortunately, far from exhibiting any concern
in the matter, she seemed to be preoccupied with Milly, and only
the charming back of her head was visible behind Mrs. Woods. He
accepted, however, with a hesitation that took some of the
graciousness from his yielding, and a sense that he was giving a
strange importance to a trivial circumstance.

The necessity of attaching himself to his hostess, and making a
more extended tour of the grounds, for a while diverted him from an
uneasy consideration of his past interview. Mrs. Woods had known
Yerba through the school friendship of Milly, and, as far as the
religious rules of the convent would allow, had always been
delighted to show her any hospitality. She was a beautiful girl--
did not Mr. Hathaway think so?--and a girl of great character. It
was a pity, of course, that she had never known a mother's care,
and that the present routine of a boarding-school had usurped the
tender influences of home. She believed, too, that the singular
rotation of guardianship had left the girl practically without a
counseling friend to rely upon, except, perhaps, Colonel Pendleton;
and while she, Mrs. Woods, did not for a moment doubt that the
colonel might be a good friend and a pleasant companion of MEN,
really he, Mr. Hathaway, must admit that, with his reputation and
habits, he was hardly a fit associate for a young lady. Indeed,
Mr. Woods would have never allowed Milly to invite Yerba here if
Colonel Pendleton was to have been her escort. Of course, the poor
girl could not choose her own guardian, but Mr. Woods said HE had a
right to choose who should be his niece's company. Perhaps Mr.
Woods was prejudiced,--most men were,--yet surely Mr. Hathaway,
although a loyal friend of Colonel Pendleton's, must admit that
when it was an open scandal that the colonel had fought a duel
about a notoriously common woman, and even blasphemously defended
her before a party of gentlemen, it was high time, as Mr. Woods
said, that he should be remanded to their company exclusively. No;
Mrs. Woods could not admit that this was owing to the injustice of
her own sex! Men are really the ones who make the fuss over those
things, just as they, as Mr. Hathaway well knew, made the laws!
No; it was a great pity, as she and her husband had just agreed,
that Mr. Hathaway, of all the guardians, could not have been always
the help and counselor--in fact, the elder brother--of poor Yerba!
Paul was conscious that he winced slightly, consistently and
conscientiously, at the recollection of certain passages of his
youth; inconsistently and meanly, at this suggestion of a joint
relationship with Yerba's mother.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.