CHAPTER XIII
THE SEED OF BANQUO
“What says the married woman?”
—SHAKESPEARE.
As soon as Mrs. Shackleton was sufficiently recovered, the family had moved from Menlo Park to their town house.
The long work of settling up the great estate which had been left to the widow and her children, required their presence in the city, and the shock which Bessie had suffered in finding her husband dead, had rendered the country place unbearable to her.
The day after the funeral the women had moved to town. Win, however, remained at Menlo Park, to go over such documents of his father’s as had been left there. Shackleton had lived so much at his country place for the last two or three years that many of his papers and letters were kept in the library, which had been his especial sanctum.
Among these, the son had come upon a small package of letters, which, fastened together with an elastic, and bearing a note of their contents on one end, had roused his interest. They were the letters exchanged between his father and the chief of the detective bureau when the latter had been commissioned to locate the widow and daughter of Daniel Moreau.
Shackleton, a man of exceedingly methodical habits, had kept copies of his letters. There were only seven of them altogether—three from him; four in reply. The first ones were short, only a few lines, containing the request to find the ladies who, the writer understood, were in San Francisco, and ascertain their circumstances and position. Then came the acknowledgment of that, and then in a few days, the answer stating the whereabouts of Mrs. Moreau and her daughter, their means, and such small facts about them as that the mother was in delicate health and the daughter “a handsome, accomplished, and estimable young lady.”
Win looked over this correspondence, puzzled and wondering. He remembered the girl he had seen in The Trumpet office that dark afternoon, and how the office boy had told him it was a Miss Moreau, a friend of Mrs. Willers, and a singer. What motive could his father have had in seeking out this girl and her mother in this secret and effectual way? He read over the letters again. Moreau had died in Santa Barbara in the spring, the widow and her daughter had then come to San Francisco, and by the wording of the second letter he inferred that his father had been ignorant of their means, and of the girl’s appearance, style and character. It was evidently not the result of an interest in people he had once known and then lost sight of. It seemed to be an interest, for some outside reason, in two women of whom he knew absolutely nothing.
Win had heard that his father contemplated offering a musical education to some singing girl, of whom the young man knew nothing, and had seen only for a moment that day in The Trumpet office. This was undoubtedly the girl. But Shackleton evidently had not heard of her through Mrs. Willers, who was known to be an energetic boomer of obscure genius. He had hunted her out himself; had undoubtedly had some ulterior interest in, or knowledge of her some time before the day Win had seen her. It was odd, the boy thought, meditating over the correspondence. What could have led his father to search for, and then attempt to assist, a woman who seemed to be a complete stranger to him? It looked like the secret paying of an old debt.
Win put the letters in his pocket and went up to town. There was more work for him to do now than there had ever been before, and he rose to it with a spirit and energy that surprised himself. Neither he nor any one else had ever realized how paralyzing to him had been his father’s cold scorn. From boyhood, Win had felt himself to be an aggravating failure. The elder man had not scrupled to make him understand his inferiority. The mere presence of his father seemed to numb his brain and make his tongue stammer over the simplest phrases. Now, he felt himself free and full of energy, as though bands that had cramped his mind and confined his body were broken. His old attitude of posing as a fast young man of fashion lost its charm. Life grew suddenly to mean something, to be full of use and purpose.
He was left very much to himself, his mother being still too much broken to attend to business, and Maud being absorbed in her affair with Latimer, which had recently culminated in a secret engagement. This she had been afraid to tell to her domineering father and ambitious mother, and her opportunities of seeing her fiancé had been of the briefest until now. Latimer haunted the house of evenings, when Bessie was lying on the sofa in an upstairs boudoir and Win was locked in his father’s study going over the interminable documents.
The first darkness of her grief and horror past, Bessie, in her seclusion, thought of many things. One of these was the fate of Mariposa Moreau. The bonanza king’s widow, with all her faults, had that lavish and reckless generosity, where money was concerned, that marked the early Californians. This forceful woman, who had made the blighting journey across the plains without complaint, faced the fierce hardships of her early married life with a smile, borne her children amid the rude discomforts of remote mining camps, was an adept in the art of luxurious living. She knew by instinct how to be magnificent, and one of her magnificences was the careless munificence of her generosity.
Now, she felt for Mariposa. She knew Shackleton’s plans for her, and realized the girl’s disappointment. In her heart she had been bitterly jealous of the other wife’s child, who had the beauty and gifts her own lacked. It would be to everybody’s advantage to remove the girl to another country and sphere. And because her husband had died there was no reason why his plans should remain unfulfilled. Though Shackleton had assured her that the girl knew nothing, though every one connected with the shameful bargain but herself was dead, it was best to be prudent, especially when prudence was the course most agreeable to all concerned. She would rest easier; her children would seem more secure in their positions and possessions, if Mariposa Moreau, well provided for, were safe in Paris studying singing.
When she was fully decided as to the wisdom of her course, she wrote Mariposa a short but friendly letter, speaking of her knowledge of Mr. Shackleton’s plans for her advancement, of her desire to carry out her late husband’s wishes, and naming a day and hour at which she begged the young girl to call on her. It was a simple matter to ascertain Miss Moreau’s address from Mrs. Willers, and the letter was duly sent.
It roused wrath in its recipient. Mariposa was learning worldly wisdom at a rate of which her tardy development had not given promise. Great changes were taking place in her simple nature. She had been wakened to life with savage abruptness. Dormant characteristics, passions unsuspected, had risen to the surface. The powerful feelings of a rich, but undeveloped womanhood had suddenly been shaken from their sleep by a grip of the hand of destiny. The unfamiliarity of a bitter anger against the Shackletons struggled with the creeping disgust of Essex, that grew daily.
Morning after morning she woke when the first gray light was faintly defining the squares of the windows. The leaden sense of wretchedness that seemed to draw her out of sleep, gave place to the living hatred and shame that the upheaval of her life had left behind. She watched the golden wheat-ears dimly glimmering on the pale walls, while she lay and thought of all she had learned of life, her faith and happy ignorance destroyed forever.
Six weeks ago Mrs. Shackleton’s letter would have represented no more to her than what its words expressed. Now, she saw Bessie’s anxiety to be rid of her, to push her out of sight as a menace. How much more readily would the widow have gone to work, with what zest of alarm and energy, would she have contrived for her expulsion, had she guessed what Mariposa knew. The girl vacillated for a day, hating the thought of an interview with any member of the family whose wrongs to her beloved mother were seared scars in her brain; but finally concluding that it would be better to end her connection with them by an interview with Mrs. Shackleton, she answered the letter, stating that she would come at the appointed hour.
Two days later, at the time set in the afternoon, she stood in the small reception-room, to the left of the wide marble hall, waiting. The hushed splendor of the house would have impressed and awed her at any other time. But to-day her heart beat loud and her brain was preoccupied with its effort to keep her purpose clear, and yet not to be angered into revealing too much. The vast lower floor was loftier and more spacious than anything she had ever seen before. There were glimpses through many doors, and artificial elongations of perspective by means of mirrors. The long receding vista was touched with gleams of light on parquet flooring, reflections on the gray surfaces of mirrors, the curves of porcelain vases, the bosses of gilded frames. Over all hung the scent of flowers, that were massed here and there in Chinese bowls.
Bessie’s step, and the accompanying rustle of brushing silks, brought the girl to her feet, rigid and cold. The widow swept into the room with extended hand. She was richly and correctly garbed in lusterless black, that sent out the nervous whisperings of crushed silks and exhaled a faint perfume. It was impossible to ignore the hand, and Mariposa touched it with her own for a minute. She had seen Bessie only once before, on the evening of the opera. The change wrought in her by grief and illness was noticeable. Her fine, healthy color had faded; her eyes were darkened, and there were many deep lines on her forehead and about her mouth. Nevertheless, a casual eye would have still noticed her as a woman of vigor, mental and physical. It was easy to understand how she had stood shoulder to shoulder with her husband in his fight for fortune.
She motioned Mariposa to a chair facing the window, and studied her as she glibly accomplished the commonplaces of greeting. Her heart drew together with a renewed spasm of jealousy as she noted the girl’s superiority to her own daughter. What subtly finer qualities had Lucy had, that her child should be thus distinguished from the other children of Jake Shackleton? The indignation working against this woman gave a last touch of stateliness to poor Mariposa’s natural dignity of demeanor. She seemed to belong, by nature and birth, to these princely surroundings, which completely dwarfed Maud, and even made the adaptive Bessie look common.
“My husband,” said the elder woman, when the beginnings of the conversation were disposed of, “was very much interested in you. He knew your father, Dan Moreau, very well.”
Mariposa was becoming used to this phrase and could listen to it without the stare of surprise, or the blush of consciousness.
“So Mr. Shackleton told me,” she answered.
“Your father”—Bessie looked down at the deeply-bordered handkerchief in her hand—“was a man of great kindliness and generosity. Mr. Shackleton knew him in the Sierras, mining, a long time ago, when he”—she paused, not from embarrassment, but in order to choose her words carefully—“was very kind to my husband and others of our party. It was an obligation Mr. Shackleton never forgot.”
Mariposa could make no answer. Shackleton had never spoken to her with this daring. Bessie looked at her for a response, and saw her with her eyes on the ground, pale and slightly frowning. She wanted to sweep away any possible suspicion from the girl’s mind by making her understand that the attitude of the family toward her rose from gratitude for a past benefit.
“Mr. Shackleton,” she went on, “often talked to me about his plans for you. He wanted to have you study in Paris, under some teacher Lepine spoke to him about. I understand you’ve got a remarkable voice. I wanted, several times, to hear you, but it couldn’t seem to be managed, living in the country, and always so busy. In his sudden—passing away, all these plans came to an end. He hadn’t regularly arranged anything. There were such a lot of delays.”
Mariposa nodded, then feeling that she must say something, she murmured:
“My mother died. I was not well, and I couldn’t see him.”
“Exactly, I understand just how it was. And it wasn’t a bit fair, that simply because you didn’t happen to be able to go to the office at that time, you should lose your chance of a musical education and all that might have come out of it. Now, Miss Moreau, it’s my intention to carry out my husband’s wishes.”
She looked at Mariposa, not smiling, nor condescending, but with a hard earnestness. The girl raised her eyes and the two glances met.
“His wishes with regard to me?” said Mariposa, with a questioning inflection.
“That’s it. I want you to go to Paris, as he wanted you to go. I want you to study to be a singer. I’ll pay it all—education, masters, and a monthly sum for living besides. I don’t think, from what I hear, that it would be necessary for you to study more than two or three years. Then you would make your appearance as a grand opera prima donna, or concert singer, as your teachers thought fit. I don’t know much about it, but I believe they can’t always tell about a voice right off at the start. Anyway, I’d see to it that yours got every chance for the best development.”
She paused.
“I—I’m—afraid it will be impossible,” said Mariposa, in a low voice.
“Impossible!” exclaimed the elder woman, sitting upright in her surprise. “Why?”
Mariposa had come to the house of Mrs. Shackleton burning with a sense of the wrongs her mother had suffered at the hands of this woman and her dead husband. She had thought little of what the interview would be like, and now, with the keen, hard, and astonished eyes of Bessie upon her, she felt that something more than pride and indignation must help her through. The world’s diplomacy of tongue and brain was an unsuspected art to her.
“I—I—” she stammered irresolutely, “have changed my mind since I talked with Mr. Shackleton.”
“Changed your mind! But why? What’s made you change your mind in so short a time?”
“Many things,” said the girl, with her face flushing deeply under Bessie’s unflinching stare. “There have been changes—in—in—circumstances—and in me. My mother was anxious for my advancement. Now she is dead and—it doesn’t matter.”
It was certainly not a brilliant way out of the difficulty. A faint smile wrinkled the loose skin round Mrs. Shackleton’s eyes.
“Oh, my dear,” she said, with a slight touch of impatience in her voice. “If that’s all, I guess we needn’t worry about it. People die, and we lose our energies and ambition, so we just want to lie round and mourn. But at your age that don’t last long. You’ve got to make your future yourself, and now’s your chance. It just comes once or twice in a lifetime, and the people who get there are the people who know enough to snatch it as it comes by.”
Mariposa’s irresolution had passed. She realized that she had not merely to state her intentions, but to fight a will unused to defeat.
“I can’t go,” she said quietly; “I understand that all you say is perfectly true. You probably think I am silly and ungrateful. I don’t think I am either, but that’s because I know what I feel. I thank you very much, but I can’t accept it.”
She rose to her feet. Bessie saw that she was pale—evidently agitated.
“Sit down,” she said, indicating the chair again. “Now let me hear your reasons, my dear girl. People don’t throw up the chance of a lifetime for nothing. What’s behind all this?”
There was a pause. Mariposa said slowly:
“I don’t want to accept it. I don’t want to take the money or be under any obligation.”
“You were willing to be under the obligation, as you call it, a few weeks ago?”
Bessie’s voice was as cold as steel. From the moment she had entered the room she had felt an instinctive antagonism between herself and her husband’s eldest child. It would become a hatred in time. The girl’s slow and reluctant way of speaking seemed to indicate that she expressed herself with difficulty, like one who, under pressure, tells the truth.
“My mother wanted me to accept anything that was for my own benefit. Now she is dead. I am my own mistress. I grieve or hurt no one but myself if I refuse your offer. And, as things are now, it is better for me to refuse it.”
“What do you mean by ‘as things are now’? Has anything happened to change your ideas since my husband first made the suggestion to you?”
Mariposa told her lie as a woman does, with reservations. It was creditably done, for it was the first lie she had ever told in her life.
“Nothing has actually happened, but—I—I—have changed.”
“And are you going to let a girl’s whims stand in the way of your future success in life? I can’t believe that. My dear, you’re handsome and you’ve a fine voice, but do you think those two things, without a cent behind them, are going to put you on top of the heap? You’re not the woman to get there without a lot of boosting.”
“Why should I want to get on top of the heap?”
“Oh, if you want to stay at the bottom—”
Mrs. Shackleton gave a shrug and rose to her feet. The girl was incomprehensible. She was either very subtile and deep, or she was extraordinarily dull and shallow. Shackleton had said to her once that she seemed to him childish and undeveloped, for her age. The woman’s keen eye saw deeper. If Mariposa was not disingenuous, she would always, on the side of shrewdness and worldly wisdom, be undeveloped.
“Well, my dear,” she said coldly, “it all rests with yourself. But I can’t, conscientiously, let you throw your best chances away. We won’t speak of this any more to-day. But go home and think about it, and in a week or two let me know what conclusion you’ve come to. Don’t ever throw a chance away, even if you don’t happen to like the person who offers it.”
She gave Mariposa a shrewd and good-natured smile. The girl, her face crimsoning, was about to answer, when the hall door opened, and, with a sound of laughter and a whiff of violets, Maud and the Count de Lamolle entered the room.
In her heavy mourning, Maud looked more nearly pretty than she had ever done before. It was not the dress that beautified her, but the happiness of her engagement to Latimer, with whom she was deeply in love, which had lent her the fleeting grace and charm that only love, well bestowed, can give. She carried a large bunch of violets in her hand, and her face was slightly flushed.
The count, who had attentively read the will of Jake Shackleton in the papers, was staying on in San Francisco. His attentions to Maud were not more assiduous, but they were more “serious,” to use the technical phrase, than heretofore. She would make him an ideal wife, he thought. Even her lack of beauty was an advantage. When an American girl was both rich and pretty, she was more than even the most tactful and sophisticated Frenchman could manage. Maud, ugly, gentle, and not clever, would be a delightful wife, ready to love humbly, unexacting, easy to make happy.
The count, a handsome, polished Parisian, speaking excellent English, bowed over Mrs. Shackleton’s hand, and then, in answer to her words of introduction, shot an exploring look, warmed by a glimmer of discreet admiration, at Mariposa. He wondered who she was, for his practised eye took in at a glance that she was shabbily dressed and evidently not of the world of bonanza millions. He wished that he knew her, now that he had made up his mind to spend some months in San Francisco, paying court to the heiress who would make him such an admirable wife, and in whose society time hung so heavily on his hands.
Mariposa excused herself and hurried away. She was angry and confused. It seemed to her she had done nothing but be rude and obstinately stupid, while the cold and composed older woman had eyed her with wary attentiveness. What did Mrs. Shackleton think she had meant? She felt that the widow had not, for a moment, abandoned the scheme of sending her away. Descending the wide steps in the early dark, the girl realized that the woman she had just left was not going to be beaten from her purpose by what appeared a girl’s unreasonable caprice.
A man coming up the steps brushed by her, paused for a moment, and then mechanically raised his hat. In the gleam of the lamps, held aloft at the top of the flight, she recognized the thin face and eye-glasses of Win Shackleton. She did not return the salute, as it was completely unexpected, and from the foot of the stairs she heard the hall door bang behind him.
“Who was that girl I met on the steps just now, going out?” Win asked his mother, as they went upstairs together.
“That Miss Moreau your father was interested in. He was going to send her to Paris to learn singing.”
“What was she doing here?”
“I sent for her. I wanted to talk over things with her. I intended sending her.”
“And did you fix it?”
“No,” with a little laugh, “she’s a very changeable young woman. She says she doesn’t want to go now; that she’s come to the conclusion she doesn’t want to be under the obligation.”
“That’s funny,” said Win. “She must be sort of original. Mommer, why did the governor want to send her to Paris? What was it made him so interested in her?”
“He knew her father long ago, mining, in the Sierra, and Moreau did him a good turn up there. Your father had never forgotten it and was anxious to repay it by helping the daughter. She don’t seem to be easy to help.”
Win, as he dressed for dinner, meditated on his mother’s explanation. It sounded reasonable enough, only a thirst to repay past obligations was not—according to his experience and memories—a peculiarity that had troubled his father. Both he and Maud knew that all the generosities and charities of the household had been inspired by their mother. His childish memory was stocked by recollections of her urging the advantage of the bestowal of pecuniary aid to this and that person, association and charity. It was she who had saved Jake Shackleton from the accusation of meanness, which California society invariably makes against its rich men.