Book: 54 40 or Fight

E >> Emerson Hough >> 54 40 or Fight




She dropped now into a chair near by a little table, where the light of
the tall candles, guttering in their enameled sconces, fell full upon
her face. She looked at me fixedly, her eyes dark and mournful in spite
of their eagerness.

"Ah, it is easy for you to speak, easy for you who have so rich and full
a life--who have all! But I--my hands are empty!" She spread out her
curved fingers, looking at them, dropping her hands, pathetically
drooping her shoulders.

"All, Madam? What do you mean? You see me almost in rags. Beyond the
rifle at my cabin, the pistol at my tent, I have scarce more in wealth
than what I wear, while you have what you like."

"All but everything!" she murmured; "all but home!"

"Nor have I a home."

"All, except that my couch is empty save for myself and my memories!"

"Not more than mine, nor with sadder memories, Madam."

"Why, what do you mean?" she asked me suddenly. "What do you _mean?_"
She repeated it again, as though half in horror.

"Only that we are equal and alike. That we are here on the same errand.
That our view of life should be the same."

"What do you mean about home? But tell me, _were you not then married?_"

"No, I am alone, Madam. I never shall be married."

There may have been some slight motion of a hand which beckoned me to a
seat at the opposite side of the table. As I sat, I saw her search my
face carefully, slowly, with eyes I could not read. At last she spoke,
after her frequent fashion, half to herself.

"It succeeded, then!" said she. "Yet I am not happy! Yet I have failed!"

"I pause, Madam," said I, smiling. "I await your pleasure."

"Ah, God! Ah, God!" she sighed. "What have I done?" She staggered to her
feet and stood beating her hands together, as was her way when
perturbed. "What have I _done_!"

"Threlka!" I heard her call, half chokingly. The old servant came
hurriedly.

"Wine, tea, anything, Threlka!" She dropped down again opposite me,
panting, and looking at me with wide eyes.

"Tell me, do you know what you have said?" she began.

"No, Madam. I grieve if I have caused you any pain."

"Well, then, you are noble; when look, what pain I have caused you! Yet
not more than myself. No, not so much. I hope not so much!"

Truly there is thought which passes from mind to mind. Suddenly the
thing in her mind sped across to mine. I looked at her suddenly, in my
eyes also, perhaps, the horror which I felt.

"It was you!" I exclaimed. "It was you! Ah, now I begin to understand!
How could you? You parted us! _You_ parted me from Elisabeth!"

"Yes," she said regretfully, "I did it It was my fault."

I rose and drew apart from her, unable to speak. She went on.

"But I was not then as I am now. See, I was embittered, reckless,
desperate. I was only beginning to think--I only wanted time. I did not
really mean to do all this. I only thought--Why, I had not yet known you
a day nor her an hour. 'Twas all no more than half a jest"

"How could you do it?" I demanded. "Yet that is no more strange. How
_did_ you do it?"

"At the door, that first night. I was mad then over the wrong done to
what little womanhood I could claim for my own. I hated Yturrio. I hated
Pakenham. They had both insulted me. I hated every man. I had seen
nothing but the bitter and desperate side of life--I was eager to take
revenge even upon the innocent ones of this world, seeing that I had
suffered so much. I had an old grudge against women, against women, I
say--against _women!_"

She buried her face in her hands. I saw her eyes no more till Threlka
came and lifted her head, offering her a cup of drink, and so standing
patiently until again she had dismissal.

"But still it is all a puzzle to me, Madam," I began. "I do not
understand."

"Well, when you stood at the door, my little shoe in your pocket, when
you kissed my hand that first night, when you told me what you would do
did you love a woman--when I saw something new in life I had not
seen--why, then, in the devil's resolution that no woman in the world
should be happy if I could help it, I slipped in the body of the slipper
a little line or so that I had written when you did not see, when I was
in the other room. 'Twas that took the place of Van Zandt's message,
after all! Monsieur, it was fate. Van Zandt's letter, without plan, fell
out on my table. Your note, sent by plan, remained in the shoe!"

"And what did it say? Tell me at once."

"Very little. Yet enough fora woman who loved and who expected. Only
this: '_In spite of that other woman, come to me still. Who can teach
yon love of woman as can I? Helena._' I think it was some such words as
those."

I looked at her in silence.

"You did not see that note?" she demanded. "After all, at first I meant
it only for _you_. I wanted to see you again. I did not want to lose
you. Ah, God! I was so lonely, so--so--I can not say. But you did not
find my message?"

I shook my head. "No," I said, "I did not look in the slipper. I do not
think my friend did."

"But she--that girl, did!"

"How could she have believed?"

"Ah, grand! I reverence your faith. But she is a woman! She loved you
and expected you that hour, I say. Thus comes the shock of finding you
untrue, of finding you at least a common man, after all. She is a woman.
'Tis the same fight, all the centuries, after all! Well, I did that."

"You ruined the lives of two, neither of whom had ever harmed you,
Madam."

"What is it to the tree which consumes another tree--the flower which
devours its neighbor? Was it not life?"

"You had never seen Elisabeth."

"Not until the next morning, no. Then I thought still on what you had
said. I envied her--I say, I coveted the happiness of you both. What had
the world ever given me? What had I done--what had I been--what could I
ever be? Your messenger came back with the slipper. The note was in the
shoe untouched. Your messenger had not found it, either. See, I _did_
mean it for you alone. But now seine sudden thought came to me. I tucked
it back and sent your drunken friend away with it for her--where I knew
it would be found! I did not know what would be the result. I was only
desperate over what life had done to me. I wanted to get _out_--out into
a wider and brighter world."

"Ah, Madam, and was so mean a key as this to open that world for you?
Now we all three wander, outside that world."

"No, it opened no new world for me," she said. "I was not meant for
that. But at least, I only acted as I have been treated all my life. I
knew no better then."

"I had not thought any one capable of that," said I.

"Ah, but I repented on the instant! I repented before night came. In the
twilight I got upon my knees and prayed that all my plan might go
wrong--if I could call it plan. 'Now,' I said, as the hour approached,
'they are before the priest; they stand there--she in white, perhaps; he
tall and grave. Their hands are clasped each in that of the other. They
are saying those tremendous words which may perhaps mean so much.' Thus
I ran on to myself. I say I followed you through the hour of that
ceremony. I swore with her vows, I pledged with her pledge, promised
with her promise. Yes, yes--yes, though I prayed that, after all, I
might lose, that I might pay back; that I might some time have
opportunity to atone for my own wickedness! Ah! I was only a woman. The
strongest of women are weak sometimes.

"Well, then, my friend, I have paid. I thank God that I failed then to
make another wretched as myself. It was only I who again was wretched.
Ah! is there no little pity in your heart for me, after all?--who
succeeded only to fail so miserably?"

But again I could only turn away to ponder.

"See," she went on; "for myself, this is irremediable, but it is not so
for you, nor for her. It is not too ill to be made right again. There in
Montreal, I thought that I had failed in my plan, that you indeed were
married. You held yourself well in hand; like a man, Monsieur. But as to
that, you _were_ married, for your love for her remained; your pledge
held. And did not I, repenting, marry you to her--did not I, on my
knees, marry you to her that night? Oh, do not blame me too much!"

"She should not have doubted," said I. "I shall not go back and ask her
again. The weakest of men are strong sometimes!"

"Ah, now you are but a man! Being such, you can not understand how
terribly much the faith of man means for a woman. It was her _need_ for
you that spoke, not her _doubt_ of you. Forgive her. She was not to
blame. Blame me! Do what you like to punish me! Now, I shall make
amends. Tell me what I best may do. Shall I go to her, shall I tell
her?"

"Not as my messenger. Not for me."

"No? Well, then, for myself? That is my right. I shall tell her how
priestly faithful a man you were."

I walked to her, took her arms in my hands and raised her to my level,
looking into her eyes.

"Madam," I said, "God knows, I am no priest. I deserve no credit. It was
chance that cast Elisabeth and me together before ever I saw you. I told
you one fire was lit in my heart and had left room for no other. I meet
youth and life with all that there is in youth and life. I am no priest,
and ask you not to confess with me. We both should confess to our own
souls."

"It is as I said," she went on; "you were married!"

"Well, then, call it so--married after my fashion of marriage; the
fashion of which I told you, of a cabin and a bed of husks. As to what
you have said, I forget it, I have not heard it. Your sort could have no
heart beat for one like me. 'Tis men like myself are slaves to women
such as you. You could never have cared for me, and never did. What you
loved, Madam, was only what you had _lost_, was only what you saw in
this country--was only what this country means! Your past life, of
course, I do not know."

"Sometime," she murmured, "I will tell you."

"Whatever it was, Madam, you have been a brilliant woman, a power in
affairs. Yes, and an enigma, and to none more than to yourself. You show
that now. You only loved what Elisabeth loved. As woman, then, you were
born for the first time, touched by that throb of her heart, not your
own. `Twas mere accident I was there to feel that throb, as sweet as it
was innocent. You were not woman yet, you were but a child. You had not
then chosen. You have yet to choose. It was Love that you loved!
Perhaps, after all, it was America you loved. You began to see, as you
say, a wider and a sweeter world than you had known."

She nodded now, endeavoring to smile.

"_Gentilhomme!_" I heard her murmur.

"So then I go on, Madam, and say we are the same. I am the agent of one
idea, you of another. I ask you once more to choose. I know how you will
choose."

She went on, musing to herself. "Yes, there is a gulf between male and
female, after all. As though what he said could be true! Listen!" She
spoke up more sharply. "If results came as you liked, what difference
would the motives make?"

"How do you mean?"

"Only this, Monsieur, that I am not so lofty as you think. I might do
something. If so, 'twould need to be through some motive wholly
sufficient to _myself_."

"Search, then, your own conscience."

"I have one, after all! It might say something to me, yes."

"Once you said to me that the noblest thing in life was to pass on the
torch of a great principle."

"I lied! I lied!" she cried, beating her hands together. "I am a woman!
Look at me!"

She threw back her shoulders, standing straight and fearless. God wot,
she was a woman. Curves and flame! Yes, she was a woman. White flesh and
slumbering hair! Yes, she was a woman. Round flesh and the red-flecked
purple scent arising! Yes, she was a woman. Torture of joy to hold in a
man's arms! Yes, she was a woman!

"How, then, could I believe"--she laid a hand upon her bosom--"how,
then, could I believe that principle was more than life? It is for you,
a _man_, to believe that. Yet even you will not. You leave it to me, and
I answer that I will not! What I did I did, and I bargain with none over
that now. I pay my wagers. I make my own reasons, too. If I do anything
for the sake of this country, it will not be through altruism, not
through love of principle! 'Twill be because I am a woman. Yes, once I
was a girl. Once I was born. Once, even, I had a mother, and was
loved!"

I could make no answer; but presently she changed again, swift as the
sky when some cloud is swept away in a strong gust of wind.

"Come," she said, "I will bargain with you, after all!"

"Any bargain you like, Madam."

"And I will keep my bargain. You know that I will."

"Yes, I know that."

"Very well, then. I am going back to Washington."

"How do you mean?"

"By land, across the country; the way you came."

"You do not know what you say, Madam. The journey you suggest is
incredible, impossible."

"That matters nothing. I am going. And I am going alone--No, you can not
come with me. Do you think I would risk more than I have risked? I go
alone. I am England's spy; yes, that is true. I am to report to England;
yes, that is true. Therefore, the more I see, the more I shall have to
report. Besides, I have something else to do."

"But would Mr. Pakenham listen to your report, after all?"

Now she hesitated for a moment. "I can induce him to listen," she said.
"That is part of my errand. First, before I see Mr. Pakenham I am going
to see Miss Elisabeth Churchill. I shall report also to her. Then I
shall have done my duty. Is it not so?"

"You could do no more," said I. "But what bargain--"

"Listen. If she uses me ill and will not believe either you or me--then,
being a woman, I shall hate her; and in that case I shall go to Sir
Richard for my own revenge. I shall tell him to bring on this war. In
that case, Oregon will be lost to you, or at least bought dear by blood
and treasure."

"We can attend to that, Madam," said I grimly, and I smiled at her,
although a sudden fear caught at my heart. I knew what damage she was in
position to accomplish if she liked. My heart stood still. I felt the
faint sweat again on my forehead.

"If I do not find her worthy of you, then she can not have you," went on
Helena von Ritz.

"But Madam, you forget one thing. She _is_ worthy of me, or of any other
man!"

"I shall be judge of that. If she is what you think, you shall have
her--and Oregon!"

"But as to myself, Madam? The bargain?"

"I arrive, Monsieur! If she fails you, then I ask only time. I have said
to you I am a woman!"

"Madam," I said to her once more, "who are you and what are you?"

In answer, she looked me once more straight in the face. "Some day,
back there, after I have made my journey, I shall tell you."

"Tell me now."

"I shall tell you nothing. I am not a little girl. There is a bargain
which I offer, and the only one I shall offer. It is a gamble. I have
gambled all my life. If you will not accord me so remote a chance as
this, why, then, I shall take it in any case."

"I begin to see, Madam," said I, "how large these stakes may run."

"In case I lose, be sure at least I shall pay. I shall make my
atonement," she said.

"I doubt not that, Madam, with all your heart and mind and soul."

"And _body_!" she whispered. The old horror came again upon her face.
She shuddered, I did not know why. She stood now as one in devotions for
a time, and I would no more have spoken than had she been at her
prayers, as, indeed, I think she was. At last she made some faint
movement of her hands. I do not know whether it was the sign of the
cross.

She rose now, tail, white-clad, shimmering, a vision of beauty such as
that part of the world certainly could not then offer. Her hair was
loosened now in its masses and drooped more widely over her temples,
above her brow. Her eyes were very large and dark, and I saw the faint
blue shadows coming again beneath them. Her hands were clasped, her
chin raised just a trifle, and her gaze was rapt as that of some longing
soul. I could not guess of these things, being but a man, and, I fear,
clumsy alike of body and wit.

[Illustration: "I want--" said she. "I wish--I wish--" Page 287]

"There is one thing, Madam, which we have omitted," said I at last.
"What are _my_ stakes? How may I pay?"

She swayed a little on her feet, as though she were weak. "I want," said
she, "I wish--I wish--"

The old childlike look of pathos came again. I have never seen so sad a
face. She was a lady, white and delicately clad; I, a rude frontiersman
in camp-grimed leather. But I stepped to her now and took her in my arms
and held her close, and pushed back the damp waves of her hair. And
because a man's tears were in my eyes, I have no doubt of absolution
when I say I had been a cad and a coward had I not kissed her own tears
away. I no longer made pretense of ignorance, but ah! how I wished that
I were ignorant of what it was not my right to know....

I led her to the edge of the little bed of husks and found her kerchief.
Ah, she was of breeding and courage! Presently, her voice rose steady
and clear as ever. "Threlka!" she called. "Please!"

When Threlka came, she looked closely at her lady's face, and what she
read seemed, after all, to content her.

"Threlka," said my lady in French, "I want the little one."

I turned to her with query in my eyes.

"_Tiens!_" she said. "Wait. I have a little surprise."

"You have nothing at any time save surprises, Madam."

"Two things I have," said she, sighing: "a little dog from China, Chow
by name. He sleeps now, and I must not disturb him, else I would show
you how lovely a dog is Chow. Also here I have found a little Indian
child running about the post. Doctor McLaughlin was rejoiced when I
adopted her."

"Well, then, Madam, what next!"

--"Yes, with the promise to him that I would care for that little child.
I want something for my own. See now. Come, Natoka!"

The old servant paused at the door. There slid across the floor with the
silent feet of the savage the tiny figure of a little child, perhaps
four years of age, with coal-black hair and beady eyes, clad in all the
bequilled finery that a trading-post could furnish--a little orphan
child, as I learned later, whose parents had both been lost in a canoe
accident at the Dalles. She was an infant, wild, untrained, unloved,
unable to speak a word of the language that she heard. She stood now
hesitating, but that was only by reason of her sight of me. As I stepped
aside, the little one walked steadily but with quickening steps to my
satin-clad lady on her couch of husks. She took up the child in her
arms.... Now, there must be some speech between woman and child. I do
not know, except that the Baroness von Ritz spoke and that the child put
out a hand to her cheek. Then, as I stood awkward as a clown myself and
not knowing what to do, I saw tears rain again from the eyes of Helena
von Ritz, so that I turned away, even as I saw her cheek laid to that of
the child while she clasped it tight.

"Monsieur!" I heard her say at last.

I did not answer. I was learning a bit of life myself this night. I was
years older than when I had come through that door.

"Monsieur!" I heard her call yet again.

"_Eh bien_, Madam?" I replied, lightly as I could, and so turned, giving
her all possible time. I saw her holding the Indian child out in front
of her in her strong young arms, lightly as though the weight were
nothing.

"See, then," she said; "here is my companion across the mountains."

Again I began to expostulate, but now she tapped her foot impatiently in
her old way. "You have heard me say it. Very well. Follow if you like.
Listen also if you like. In a day or so, Doctor McLaughlin plans a party
for us all far up the Columbia to the missions at Wailatpu. That is in
the valley of the Walla Walla, they tell me, just at this edge of the
Blue Mountains, where the wagon trains come down into this part of
Oregon."

"They may not see the wagon trains so soon," I ventured. "They would
scarcely arrive before October, and now it is but summer."

"At least, these British officers would see a part of this country, do
you not comprehend? We start within three days at least. I wish only to
say that perhaps--"

"Ah, I will be there surely, Madam!"

"If you come independently. I have heard, however, that one of the
missionary women wishes to go back to the States. I have thought that
perhaps it might be better did we go together. Also Natoka. Also Chow."

"Does Doctor McLaughlin know of your plans?"

"I am not under his orders, Monsieur. I only thought that, since you
were used to this western travel, you could, perhaps, be of aid in
getting me proper guides and vehicles. I should rely upon your judgment
very much, Monsieur."

"You are asking me to aid you in your own folly," said I discontentedly,
"but I will be there; and be sure also you can not prevent me from
following--if you persist in this absolute folly. A woman--to cross the
Rockies!"

I rose now, and she was gracious enough to follow me part way toward the
door. We hesitated there, awkwardly enough. But once more our hands met
in some sort of fellowship.

"Forget!" I heard her whisper. And I could think of no reply better than
that same word.

I turned as the door swung for me to pass out into the night. I saw her
outlined against the lights within, tall and white, in her arms the
Indian child, whose cheek was pressed to her own. I do not concern
myself with what others may say of conduct or of constancy. To me it
seemed that, had I not made my homage, my reverence, to one after all so
brave as she, I would not be worthy the cover of that flag which to-day
floats both on the Columbia and the Rio Grande.




CHAPTER XXVIII

WHEN A WOMAN WOULD

The two pleasantest days of a woman are her marriage day and the
day of her funeral.--_Hipponax_.


My garden at the Willamette might languish if it liked, and my little
cabin might stand in uncut wheat. For me, there were other matters of
more importance now. I took leave of hospitable Doctor McLaughlin at
Fort Vancouver with proper expressions of the obligation due for his
hospitality; but I said nothing to him, of course, of having met the
mysterious baroness, nor did I mention definitely that I intended to
meet them both again at no distant date. None the less, I prepared to
set out at once up the Columbia River trail.

From Fort Vancouver to the missions at Wailatpu was a distance by trail
of more than two hundred miles. This I covered horseback, rapidly, and
arrived two or three days in advance of the English. Nothing disturbed
the quiet until, before noon of one day, we heard the gun fire and the
shoutings which in that country customarily made announcement of the
arrival of a party of travelers. Being on the lookout for these, I soon
discovered them to be my late friends of the Hudson Bay Post.

One old brown woman, unhappily astride a native pony, I took to be
Threlka, my lady's servant, but she rode with her class, at the rear. I
looked again, until I found the baroness, clad in buckskins and blue
cloth, brave as any in finery of the frontier. Doctor McLaughlin saw fit
to present us formally, or rather carelessly, it not seeming to him that
two so different would meet often in the future; and of course there
being no dream even in his shrewd mind that we had ever met in the past.
This supposition fitted our plans, even though it kept us apart. I was
but a common emigrant farmer, camping like my kind. She, being of
distinction, dwelt with the Hudson Bay party in the mission buildings.

We lived on here for a week, visiting back and forth in amity, as I must
say. I grew to like well enough those blunt young fellows of the Navy.
With young Lieutenant Peel especially I struck up something of a
friendship. If he remained hopelessly British, at least I presume I
remained quite as hopelessly American; so that we came to set aside the
topic of conversation on which we could not agree.

"There is something about which you don't know," he said to me, one
evening. "I am wholly unacquainted with the interior of your country.
What would you say, for instance, regarding its safety for a lady
traveling across--a small party, you know, of her own? I presume of
course you know whom I mean?"

I nodded. "You must mean the Baroness von Ritz."

"Yes. She has been traveling abroad. Of course we took such care of her
on shipboard as we could, although a lady has no place on board a
warship. She had with her complete furnishings for a suite of
apartments, and these were delivered ashore at Fort Vancouver. Doctor
McLaughlin gave her quarters. Of course you do not know anything of
this?"

I allowed him to proceed.

"Well, she has told us calmly that she plans crossing this country from
here to the Eastern States!"

"That could not possibly be!" I declared.

"Quite so. The old trappers tell me that the mountains are impassable
even in the fall. They say that unless she met some west-bound train and
came back with it, the chance would be that she would never be heard of
again."

"You have personal interest in this?" I interrupted.

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