The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems Part 13

I was summering at our Oregon Newport, known to us by the aboriginal name of Clatsop. Had a balloonist, uninstructed in the geography and topography of this portion of the Pacific coast, dropped down among us, his impression would have been that he had alighted in a military encampment, very happily chosen, as military encampments usually are.

Given, one long, low, whitewashed house enclosed by whitewashed pickets; a group of tents outside the enclosure and on the bank of a beautiful graveled-bottom, tree-shadowed stream, and you have the brief summing up of accommodations for summer visitors at Clatsop. The plentiful sprinkling of army b.u.t.tons among the guests--for there are two forts within a three hours' ride of this beach--tend to confirm the impression of military possession. Besides, our host of the whitewashed hotel is a half-breed; and there is enough of the native element hanging about the place, picking berries and digging clams, to suggest an Indian family where a temporary station might be demanded. It would only be by peeping inside those tents where ladies and children are more numerous than bearded men, that one could be convinced of the gypsy nature of this encampment; though, to be sure, one need not press inside to find them, for the gay campers are sauntering about in all directions, ladies with their escorts, children with their nurses, parties returning from boating or fis.h.i.+ng, or riding or bathing: everybody living out in the open air the whole day through on one pretense or another, and only repairing to the hotel at meal times, when the exquisite dishes prepared by French half-breeds suffer the most instant demolition--such hunger does open air inspire.

I had come here just invalid enough to be benefited by our primitive style of living; not too delicate to endure it, nor too robust to enjoy the utter vagabondism of it. There had been no necessity upon us to ape fas.h.i.+onable manners; no obligation to dress three times a day; no b.a.l.l.s to weary ourselves with at night. Therefore this daily recurring picnic was just sufficient for our physical recreation, while our mental powers took absolute rest. For weeks I had arisen every morning to a breakfast of salmon-trout. French coffee (_au lait_), delicious bread, and fresh berries; and afterwards to wander about in the cool sea-fog, well wrapped up in a water-proof cloak. Sometimes we made a boating party up the lovely Neah-can-a-c.u.m, pulling our boat along under the overhanging alders and maples, frightening the trout into their hiding-places under the banks, instead of hooking them as was our ostensible design. The limpid clearness of the water seemed to reflect the trees from the very bottom, and truly made a medium almost as transparent as air, through which the pebbles at the greatest depth appeared within reach of our hands. A morning idled away in this manner, and an afternoon spent in seeing the bathers--I never trust my easily curdled blood to the chill of the sea--and in walking along the sands with a friend, or dreaming quietly by myself as I watched the surf rolling in all the way from Tilamook Head to Cape Disappointment,--these were my daily labors and recreations. The arrival of a bundle of letters, or, still better, of a new visitor, made what variety there was in our life.

I had both of these excitements in one day. One of my correspondents had written: "I hope to see you soon, and to have the opportunity, long sought, of telling you some of the experiences of my early life. When I promised you this I had not antic.i.p.ated the pleasure of talking over the recollections of my youth while listening with you to the monotone of the great Pacific, whose 'ever, forever' is more significant to me than to most lovers of its music. I never gaze upon its restless waves, nor hear the sound of their ripple on the sands, or their thunder on the rocks without being reminded of one episode in my life peculiarly agitating to remember; but perhaps when I have told it to you, you may have power to exercise the restless spirit which rises in me at the recollection."

So here was promise of the intellectual aliment I had begun to crave after all these weeks of physical, without mental, action. I folded my letter with a feeling of self-congratulation, and turned to watch the movements of a newly arrived party for whom our half-breed host was spreading a tent, and placing in it rather an extra amount of furniture; for, be it known to the uninitiated, we had platform floors under our tents, real bedsteads, dressing-bureaus, rugs, and other comforts to match. That our new arrival exceeded us in elegant conveniences was, of course, duly noted by such idlers as we.

The party consisted of a lady, a little girl of ten, and a Kanaka servant. The lady's name, we learned, was Mrs. Sancy, and she was from the Sandwich Islands. More than that no one was informed. We discussed her looks, her manners, her dress, and her probable circ.u.mstances, as we sat around the camp-fire that evening, after the way of idle people. It occurred to me, as I glanced toward her tent door, illuminated by our blazing fire, and saw her regarding the weird scene with evident admiration of its picturesqueness, to ask her to come and sit with us and help us eat roast potatoes--roasted as they cook pigs in the Islands, by covering up in the ground with hot stones. The fact that the potatoes, and the b.u.t.ter which went with them, were purloined from our host's larder, gave a special flavor to the feast--accompanied as it was, too, by instrumental and vocal music, and enlivened by sallies of wit.

Mrs. Sancy seemed to enjoy the novelty of her surroundings, contributing her quota to the general fund of mirth and sparkling talk, and I congratulated myself on having acquired an interesting acquaintance, whose cheerfulness, notwithstanding the partial mourning of her dress, promised well for its continuance. Had she been sad or reserved she certainly would not have been sought as she was by our pleasure-loving summer idlers, consequently my chances of becoming intimate with her would have been greatly abridged. As she was, she soon became, without question, one of the chief social attractions; easily falling into our vagabond ways, yet embellis.h.i.+ng them with so much grace and elegance that they became doubly precious to us on account of the new charm imparted to them. All the things any of us could do, Mrs. Sancy could do better; and one thing she could do that none of the rest of us could, which was to swim out and float herself in on a surf-board, like a native island woman; and seeing Mrs. Sancy do this became one of the daily sensations of Clatsop Beach.

I had known Mrs. Sancy about one week, and came to like her extremely, not only for her brilliant, social qualities, but on account of her native originality of thought, and somewhat peculiar culture. I say peculiar, because her thinking and reading seemed to be in the byways rather than the highways of ordinary culture. If she made a figure of speech, it was something noticeably original; if she quoted an author, it was one unfamiliar though forcible. And so she constantly supplied my mind with novelties which I craved, and became like a new education to me. One forenoon, a misty one, we were out on the beach alone, wrapped up in water-proofs, pacing up and down the sands, and watching the grey sullen sea, or admiring the way in which the ma.s.ses of fog roll in among the tops of the giant firs on Tilamook Head, and were torn into fragments, and tangled among them.

"You never saw the like of this in the islands?" I said, meaning the foggy sea, and the dark, fir-clad mountains.

"I have seen _this_ before;" she answered, waving her hand to indicate the scene as we then beheld it. "You look surprised, but I am familiar with every foot of this ground. I have lived years in this neighborhood--right over there, in fact, under the Head. This spot has, in truth, a strong fascination for me, and it was to see it once more that I made the voyage."

"You lived in this place, and liked it years ago! How strange! It is but a wilderness still, though a pleasant one, I admit."

She gave me a playfully superior smile: "We are apt to think ourselves the discoverers of every country where we chance to be set down; and so Adam thought he was the first man on the earth, though his sons went out and found cities where they learned the arts of civilization. So birth, and love, and death, never cease to be miracles to us, notwithstanding the millions who have been born, and loved, and died, before our experience began."

"But how did it happen," I urged, unable to repress my curiosity, "that you lived here, in this place, _years ago_? That seems so strange to me."

"My parents brought me here when a little child. It is a common enough history. My mother was an enthusiast with brain, who joined her fortunes to those of an enthusiast without brain, and emigrated to this coast, when it was an Indian country, in the vain hope of doing good to the savages. They only succeeded in doing harm to themselves, and indirectly, harm to the savages also. The spirit of the man became embittered, and the mean traits of his nature a.s.serted themselves, and wreaked their malice, as is customary with mean natures, on the nearest or most inoffensive object. My poor mother! Maternity was marred for you by fear and pain and contempt; and whatever errors your child has fallen into, were an evil inheritance that only years of suffering and discipline could eradicate."

As Mrs. Sancy p.r.o.nounced the last sentence, she seemed for the moment to have forgotten my presence, and stood, looking off over the calm grey sea, with absent unrecognizing gaze. After a brief silence she turned to me with a smile: "Pardon my mental desertion. It is not good to talk of our own lives. We all become Adams again, and imagine ourselves sole in the universe."

On this hint I changed the conversation, and we returned to the hotel to lunch, after which, I saw no more of Mrs. Sancy for that day.

That afternoon, my correspondent, Mr. Kittredge arrived; and as it was bright and sunny after the fog, we took a boat, and pulled along under the alders that shade the Neah-can-a-c.u.m. It was there that I listened to this story:

"While I was still a young man, nearly fifteen years ago, I floated on this stream, as we are doing to-day. My companion was a young girl whom I shall call Teresa. She was very young, I remember now with sorrow, and very beautiful; though _beautiful_ is not so much the word to describe her as _charming_--magnetic, graceful, intelligent. A lithe, rather tall figure, a high-bred, sensitive, fine face, and pleasing manners. She seemed older than she really was, on account of her commanding physique and distinguished manner.

"I will not go over the details of our acquaintance, which ripened rapidly into love;--so I thought. This was a new country then, even more emphatically that it is now; new with the charm of novelty--not new because it had ceased to progress, as is now the case. Scattered around here within a radius of a dozen miles were half-a-dozen other young men like myself, who had immigrated to the far west, in the spirit of romantic adventure; and once here, were forced to do whatever came to our hands to gain a subsistence. I lived on a farm which I improved, keeping house quite by myself, and spending my leisure hours in study.

Of course, the other young men, similarly situated, often visited me, and we usually talked over authors, or such questions of the day as we were familiar with or interested in.

"But one evening love was the theme of our conversation, and incidently, Teresa's name was mentioned among us. I don't know who first uttered it, but I observed at once, that the faces of all three of my companions betrayed an interest too strong and too peculiar to be attributed to an ordinary acquaintances.h.i.+p with the subject of our remarks. For myself, I felt my own face flus.h.i.+ng hotly, as a horrible suspicion seized my consciousness, becoming on the instant, conviction too painful to endure.

"You being a woman, cannot imagine the situation. I believed myself to be Teresa's accepted lover; and so I knew intuitively, did all my three companions; their faces revealing their thoughts to me, as did mine to them. Whatever you women do in the presence of your rivals, I know not.

Men rage. It is not often, either, that a man encounters more than one rival at a time. But three!--each of us poor rivals saw three rivals before him. Whatever of friends.h.i.+p had hitherto existed among us was forgotten in the extreme anguish of the moment, and we sat glaring at each other in silence, with heaving chests and burning brows.

"All but Charlie Darling--darling Charlie, we used to call him--his face was deathly white, and his eyes glowed like a panther's in the dark. Yet he was the first to recover himself. 'Boys,' said he, 'we ought not to have brought a lady's name into the discussion; but since Teresa's has been mentioned, we may as well have an understanding. I consider the young lady as engaged to me, and you will please remember that fact when you are talking of her.'

"He said it bravely, proudly, though his lip trembled a little, but he eyed us unflinchingly. No one replied for some moments. Then Tom Allen, a big clumsy, good-hearted, but conceited fellow, lifted his eyes slowly, and answered with a hysterical laugh: 'You may be her darling Charlie, but I'll be d----d if I am not to be her husband!'

"This was the match to the powder. Charlie, myself, and Harry King, each sprang simultaneously forward, as if we meant to choke poor Tom for his words. Again Charlie was the first to use reason:

"'Hold, boys;' cried he hoa.r.s.ely; 'let us take a little time to reflect.

Two of us have declared ourselves to be engaged to Teresa. Let us hear if she contemplates marrying King and Kittredge, also. What do you say, King?'

"'I say yes!' thundered King, bending his black brows, and bringing down his fist on the table by which he stood.

"'And _I_ say, I contemplate marrying _her_,' was my answer to Charlie's challenge.

"Charlie flung himself into a chair, and covered his face with his hands. The action touched some spring in our ruder natures which responded in sympathy for our favorite, and had the effect to calm us, in manner at least. I motioned the others to sit down, and addressed myself to Charlie Darling. 'See here, Charlie?' I said, 'it seems that Teresa has been playing us false. A girl who could be engaged to four young men at once cannot be worth the regards of any of us. Let us investigate the matter, and if she is truly guilty of such falsehood, let us one and all quit her forever without a word of explanation. What do you say? do you agree to that?'

"'How are you going to investigate?' asked Tom Allen, roughly. 'Have not we each declared that she was committed to us individually, and what more can be said?'

"'It appears incredible to me that any girl, much less a girl like Teresa, could so compromise her self-respect as to encourage four suitors, each in such a manner as that he expected to marry her. It is so strange that I cannot believe it, except each man swears to his statement. Can we all swear to it?'

"I laid my little pocket-bible on the table, and set the example of taking an oath to the effect that Teresa had encouraged me to believe that she meant to marry me. King and Allen followed with a similar oath.

Charlie Darling was the last to take the oath; but as he did so, a gleam of gladness broke over his pale, handsome face; for he could word his oath differently from ours. 'I swear before these witnesses and Almighty G.o.d,' said Charlie, 'that Teresa Bryant is my _promised wife_.'

"'That takes the wind out of our sails,' remarked Allen.

"'Do you allow other men to kiss your promised wife?' asked King, with a sneer.

"Charlie sprang at King, and had his hand on his throat in an instant; but Allen and I interfered to part them. It was no difficult matter, for Darling, excited as he was, felt the force of my observations on the quarrel. I said: 'Shall a trifling girl make us enemies, when she has so behaved that no one of us can trust her. You, Darling, do not, cannot have confidence in her promise, after all you have this night learned.

You had best accept my first suggestion, and join with the rest of us in renouncing her forever and at once.'

"'That _I_ will not,' broke out King, vehemently. 'Her word is no better than her acts, and I have as much right to her as Charlie Darling, or either of you, and I'll not give up the right to a man of you.'

"'We'll have to fight a four-cornered duel,' remarked Tom Allen, beginning to see the ludicrous side of the affair. 'Shall we choose up, two on a side?'

"'I will withdraw my pretensions,' I reiterated, 'if the others will do so, or even if King and Allen will quit the field to Charlie, who feels himself bound by Teresa's promise to him.'

"'I have said I would not withdraw,' replied King, sullenly. And thus we contended, hot-browed and angry-voiced, for more than an hour. Then rough but practical Tom proposed a scheme, which was no less than to compel Teresa to decide between us. After long deliberation, an agreement was entered into, and I hope I shall not shock you too much when I tell you what it was."

Kittredge paused, and looked at me doubtingly. I glanced aside at the over-hanging trees, the glints of suns.h.i.+ne on the bank, a brown bird among the leaves, at anything, rather than him, for he was living over again the excitement of that time, and his face was not pleasant to study. After a little waiting, I answered:

"I must know the remainder of the story, since I know so much; what did you agree upon?"

"A plan was laid by which Teresa should be confronted with her four lovers, and forced to explain her conduct. To carry out our design it was necessary to use artifice, and I was chosen as the one who should conduct the affair. I invited her to accompany me to a neighboring farm-house to meet the young folks of the settlement. There was nothing unusual in this, as in those primitive times great lat.i.tude was granted to young people in their social intercourse. To mount her horse and ride several miles to a neighbor's house with a single escort, not to return until far into the night, was the common privilege of any young lady, and therefore there was no difficulty about obtaining either her consent or that of her parents to my proposition.

"We set off just at sunset, riding along the beach some distance, admiring the gorgeous western sky, the peaceful sea, and watching the sand-pipers skating out on the wet sands after every receding wave. I had never seen Teresa more beautiful, more sparkling, or more fascinating in every way; and my heart grew 'very little' as the Indians say. It was impossible to accuse her even in my thoughts, while under that bewitching influence. She was so full of life and vivacity that she did not observe the forced demeanor I wore, or if she did, had too much tact to seem to do so. As for me, guarded both by my hidden suspicions and by my promise to my friends, I uttered no word of tenderness or admiration with my tongue, whatever my eyes may have betrayed.

"The road we were going led past my house. When we were almost abreast of it I informed Teresa that there were some of our friends waiting for us there, and invited her to alight. Without suspicion she did so.----Don't look at me that way, if you can help it. It was terribly mean of us fellows, as I see it now. It looked differently then; and we had none of us seen much of the world and were rude in our notions of propriety.

"When she came inside of the house and saw only three men in place of the girls of her acquaintance she expected to meet, she cast a rapid, surprised glance all round, blushed, asked, 'where are the girls?'--all in the most natural manner. There was positively nothing in her deportment to betray a guilty conscience. I recognized that, and so, I could see, did Darling. He made haste to hand her a chair, which she declined, still looking about her with a puzzled, questioning air. I was getting nervous already over my share in the business, and so plunged at once into explanation.

"'Teresa,' I said, 'we four fellows have made a singular discovery, recently, to the effect that we each believed himself to be your accepted lover. We have met together to hear your explanation. Is there a man in the house you are engaged to?"

"She gave one quick, scrutinizing glance at our faces, and read in them that we were in earnest. Indeed, the scene would have given scope to the genius of a Hogarth. Alternate red and white chased each other in quick succession over her brow, cheeks, neck. Her eyes scintillated, and her chest heaved.

"'Please answer us, Teresa,' said Darling, after a most painful silence of a minute, which seemed an hour.