Paul could not imagine.
"Well, sir," said the colonel gravely, "they"ve changed it into a church missionary shop and young men"s Christian reading-room! But that"s "progress" and "improvement"!" He paused, and, slowly withdrawing his hand from Paul"s, added with grim apology, "You"re young, and belong to the new school, perhaps. Well, sir, I"ve read your speech; I don"t belong to your party--mine died ten years ago--but I congratulate you. George! Confound it where"s that boy gone?"
The negro indicated by this youthful t.i.tle, although he must have been ten years older than his master, after a hurried shuffling in the sitting-room eventually appeared at the door.
"George, champagne and materials for c.o.c.ktails for the gentleman. The BEST, you understand. No new-fangled notions from that new barkeeper."
Paul, who thought he observed a troubled blinking in George"s eyelid, and referred it to a fear of possible excitement for his patient, here begged his host not to trouble himself--that he seldom took anything in the morning.
"Possibly not, sir; possibly not," returned the colonel, hastily. "I know the new ideas are prohibitive, and some other blank thing, but you"re safe here from your const.i.tuents, and by gad, sir, I shan"t force you to take it! It"s MY custom, Hathaway--an old one--played out, perhaps, like all the others, but a custom nevertheless, and I"m only surprised that George, who knows it, should have forgotten it."
"Fack is, Ma.r.s.e Harry," said George, with feverish apology, "it bin gone "scaped my mind dis mo"nin" in de prerogation ob business, but I"m goin" now, shuah!" and he disappeared.
"A good boy, sir, but beginning to be contaminated. Brought him here from Nashville over ten years ago. Eight years ago they proved to him that he was no longer a slave, and made him d--d unhappy until I promised him it should make no difference to him and he could stay. I had to send for his wife and child--of course, a dead loss of eighteen hundred dollars when they set foot in the State--but I"m blanked if he isn"t just as miserable with them here, for he has to take two hours in the morning and three in the afternoon every day to be with "em. I tried to get him to take his family to the mines and make his fortune, like those fellows they call bankers and operators and stockbrokers nowadays; or to go to Oregon where they"ll make him some kind of a mayor or sheriff--but he won"t. He collects my rents on some little property I have left, and pays my bills, sir, and, if this blank civilization would only leave him alone, he"d be a good enough boy."
Paul couldn"t help thinking that the rents George collected were somewhat inconsistent with those he was evidently mending when he arrived, but at that moment the jingle of gla.s.ses was heard in the sitting-room, and the old negro reappeared at the door. Drawing himself up with ceremonious courtesy, he addressed Paul. "Wo"d yo"
mind, sah, taking a glance at de wine for yo" choice?" Paul rose, and followed him into the sitting-room, when George carefully closed the door. To his surprise Hathaway beheld a tray with two gla.s.ses of whiskey and bitters, but no wine. "Skuse me, sah," said the old man with dignified apology, "but de Kernel won"t have any but de best champagne for hono"ble gemmen like yo"self, and I"se despaired to say it can"t be got in de house or de subburbs. De best champagne dat we gives visitors is de Widder Glencoe. Wo"d yo" mind, sah, for de sake o" not "xcitin" de Kernel wid triflin" culinary matter, to say dat yo"
don" take but de one brand?"
"Certainly," said Paul, smiling. "I really don"t care for anything so early;" then, returning to the bedroom, he said carelessly, "You"ll excuse me taking the liberty, colonel, of sending away the champagne and contenting myself with whiskey. Even the best brand--the Widow Cliquot"--with a glance at the gratified George--"I find rather trying so early in the morning."
"As you please, Hathaway," said the colonel, somewhat stiffly. "I dare say there"s a new fashion in drinks now, and a gentleman"s stomach is a thing of the past. Then, I suppose, we can spare the boy, as this is his time for going home. Put that tin box with the Trust papers on the bed, George, and Mr. Hathaway will excuse your waiting." As the old servant made an exaggerated obeisance to each, Paul remarked, as the door closed upon him, "George certainly keeps his style, colonel, in the face of the progress you deplore."
"He was always a "dandy n.i.g.g.e.r,"" returned Pendleton, his face slightly relaxing as he glanced after his grizzled henchman, "but his exaggeration of courtesy is a blank sight more natural and manly than the exaggeration of discourtesy which your superior civilized "helps"
think is self-respect. The excuse of servitude of any kind is its spontaneity and affection. When you know a man hates you and serves you from interest, you know he"s a cur and you"re a tyrant. It"s your blank progress that"s made menial service degrading by teaching men to avoid it. Why, sir, when I first arrived here, Jack Hammersley and myself took turns as cook to the party. I didn"t consider myself any the worse master for it. But enough of this." He paused, and, raising himself on his elbow, gazed for some seconds half cautiously, half doubtfully, upon his companion. "I"ve got something to tell you, Hathaway," he said, slowly. "You"ve had an easy time with this Trust; your share of the work hasn"t worried you, kept you awake nights, or interfered with your career. I understand perfectly," he continued, in reply to Hathaway"s deprecating gesture. "I accepted to act as your proxy, and I HAVE. I"m not complaining. But it is time that you should know what I"ve done, and what you may still have to do. Here is the record. On the day after that interview in the Mayor"s office, the El Dorado Bank, of which I was, and still am, president, received seventy-five thousand dollars in trust from Mrs. Howard. Two years afterwards, on that same day, the bank had, by lucky speculations, increased that sum to the credit of the trust one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, or double the original capital. In the following year the bank suspended payment."
CHAPTER II.
In an instant the whole situation and his relations to it flashed upon Paul with a terrible, but almost grotesque, completeness. Here he was, at the outset of his career, responsible for the wasted fortune of the daughter of a social outcast, and saddled with her support! He now knew why Colonel Pendleton had wished to see him; for one shameful moment he believed he also knew why he had been content to take his proxy! The questionable character of the whole transaction, his own carelessness, which sprang from that very confidence and trust that Pendleton had lately extolled--what WOULD, what COULD not be made of it! He already heard himself abused by his opponents--perhaps, more terrible still, faintly excused by his friends. All this was visible in his pale face and flashing eyes as he turned them on the helpless invalid.
Colonel Pendleton received his look with the same critical, half-curious scrutiny that had accompanied his speech. At last his face changed slightly, a faint look of disappointment crossed his eyes, and a sardonic smile deepened the lines of his mouth.
"There, sir," he said hurriedly, as if dismissing an unpleasant revelation; "don"t alarm yourself! Take a drink of that whiskey. You look pale. Well; turn your eyes on those walls. You don"t see any of that money laid out here--do you? Look at me. I don"t look like a man enriched with other people"s money--do I? Well, let that content you.
Every dollar of that Trust fund, Hathaway, with all the interests and profits that have accrued to it, is SAFE! Every cent of it is locked up in government bonds with Rothschild"s agent. There are the receipts, dated a week before the bank suspended. But enough of THAT--THAT isn"t what I asked you to come and see me for."
The blood had rushed back to Paul"s cheeks uncomfortably. He saw now, as impulsively as he had previously suspected his co-trustee, that the man had probably ruined himself to save the Trust. He stammered that he had not questioned the management of the fund nor asked to withdraw his proxy.
"No matter, sir," said the colonel, impatiently; "you had the right, and I suppose," he added with half-concealed scorn, "it was your duty.
But let that pa.s.s. The money is safe enough; but, Mr. Hathaway,--and this is the point I want to discuss with you,--it begins to look as if the SECRET was safe no longer!" He had raised himself with some pain and difficulty to draw nearer to Paul, and had again fixed his eyes eagerly upon him. But Paul"s responsive glance was so vague that he added quickly, "You understand, sir; I believe that there are hounds--I say hounds!--who would be able to blurt out at any moment that that girl at Santa Clara is Kate Howard"s daughter."
At any other moment Paul might have questioned the gravity of any such contingency, but the terrible earnestness of the speaker, his dominant tone, and a certain respect which had lately sprung up in his breast for him, checked him, and he only asked with as much concern as he could master for the moment:--
"What makes you think so?"
"That"s what I want to tell you, Hathaway, and how I, and I alone, am responsible for it. When the bank was in difficulty and I made up my mind to guard the Trust with my own personal and private capital, I knew that there might be some comment on my action. It was a delicate matter to show any preference or exclusion at such a moment, and I took two or three of my brother directors whom I thought I could trust into my confidence. I told them the whole story, and how the Trust was sacred. I made a mistake, sir," continued Pendleton sardonically, "a grave mistake. I did not take into account that even in three years civilization and religion had gained ground here. There was a hound there--a blank Judas in the Trust. Well; he didn"t see it. I think he talked Scripture and morality. He said something about the wages of sin being infamous, and only worthy of confiscation. He talked about the sins of the father being visited upon the children, and justly. I stopped him. Well! Do you know what"s the matter with my ankle?
Look!" He stopped and, with some difficulty and invincible gravity, throwing aside his dressing-gown, turned down his stocking, and exposed to Paul"s gaze the healed cicatrix of an old bullet-wound. "Troubled me d.a.m.nably near a year. Where I hit HIM--hasn"t troubled him at all since!
"I think," continued the colonel, falling back upon the pillow with an air of relief, "that he told others--of his own kidney, sir,--though it was a secret among gentlemen. But they have preferred to be silent now--than AFTERWARDS. They know that I"m ready. But I can"t keep this up long; some time, you know, they"re bound to improve in practice and hit higher up! As far as I"m concerned," he added, with a grim glance around the faded walls and threadbare furniture, "it don"t mind; but mine isn"t the mouth to be stopped." He paused, and then abruptly, yet with a sudden and pathetic dropping of his dominant note, said: "Hathaway, you"re young, and Hammersley liked you--what"s to be done?
I thought of pa.s.sing over my tools to you. You can shoot, and I hear you HAVE. But the h--l of it is that if you dropped a man or two people would ask WHY, and want to know what it was about; while, when I do, n.o.body here thinks it anything but MY WAY! I don"t mean that it would hurt you with the crowd to wipe out one or two of these hounds during the canva.s.s, but the trouble is that they belong to YOUR PARTY, and," he added grimly, "that wouldn"t help your career."
"But," said Paul, ignoring the sarcasm, "are you not magnifying the effect of a disclosure? The girl is an heiress, excellently brought up. Who will bother about the antecedents of the mother, who has disappeared, whom she never knew, and who is legally dead to her?"
"In my day, sir, no one who knew the circ.u.mstances," returned the colonel, quickly. "But we are living in a blessed era of Christian retribution and civilized propriety, and I believe there are a lot of men and women about who have no other way of showing their own virtue than by showing up another"s vice. We"re in a reaction of reform.
It"s the old drunkards who are always more clamorous for total abstinence than the moderately temperate. I tell you, Hathaway, there couldn"t be an unluckier moment for our secret coming out."
"But she will be of age soon."
"In two months."
"And sure to marry."
"Marry!" repeated Pendleton, with grim irony. "Would YOU marry her?"
"That"s another question," said the young man, promptly, "and one of individual taste; but it does not affect my general belief that she could easily find a husband as good and better."
"Suppose she found one BEFORE the secret is out. Ought he be told?"
"Certainly."
"And that would imply telling HER?"
"Yes," said Paul, but not so promptly. "And you consider THAT fulfilling the promise of the Trust--the pledges exchanged with that woman?" continued Pendleton, with glittering eyes and a return to his own dominant tone.
"My dear colonel," said Paul, somewhat less positively, but still smiling, "you have made a romantic, almost impossible compact with Mrs.
Howard that, you yourself are now obliged to admit, circ.u.mstances may prevent your carrying out substantially. You forget, also, that you have just told me that you have already broken your pledge--under circ.u.mstances, it is true, that do you honor--and that now your desperate attempts to retrieve it have failed. Now, I really see nothing wrong in your telling to a presumptive well-wisher of the girl what you have told to her enemy."
There was a dead silence. The prostrate man uttered a slight groan, as if in pain, and drew up his leg to change his position. After a pause, he said, in a restrained voice, "I differ from you, Mr. Hathaway; but enough of this for the present. I have something else to say. It will be necessary for one of us to go at once to Santa Clara and see Miss Yerba Buena."
"Good heavens!" said Paul, quickly. "Do you call her THAT?"
"Certainly, sir. You gave her the name. Have you forgotten?"
"I only suggested it," returned Paul, hopelessly; "but no matter--go on."
"I cannot go there, as you see," continued Pendleton, with a weary gesture towards his crippled ankle; "and I should particularly like you to see her before we make the joint disposition of her affairs with the Mayor, two months hence. I have some papers you can show her, and I have already written a letter introducing you to the Lady Superior at the convent, and to her. You have never seen her?"
"No," said Paul. "But of course you have?"
"Not for three years."
Paul"s eyes evidently expressed some wonder, for a moment after the colonel added, "I believe, Hathaway, I am looked upon as a queer survival of a rather lawless and improper past. At least, I have thought it better not socially to compromise her by my presence. The Mayor goes there--at the examinations and exercises, I believe, sir; they make a sort of reception for him--with a--a--banquet--lemonade and speeches."
"I had intended to leave for Sacramento to-morrow night," said Paul, glancing curiously at the helpless man; "but I will go there if you wish."
"Thank you. It will be better."
There were a few words of further explanation of the papers, and Pendleton placed the packet in his visitor"s hands. Paul rose.